A rant about wine prohibition in Memphis grocery stores

During a recent Memphis vacation, I kept running across propaganda put out by the Tennessee Wine And Spirits Retailers Association and their sister monopolists at the Wine And Spirits Wholesalers Of Tennessee.

The TWSRA wants to keep wine out of Tennesse grocery stores. 

Why? 
Here's some ultra-wholesome boosterism from the WSWT site that tries to explain:

Our industry was created by the 21st amendment, which gives wholesalers the responsibility to foster the safe and responsible distribution of beverage alcohol in Tennessee.


Ours is one of the healthiest wholesaler trade associations in the entire country comprised of more members than any other state. This ensures that the selection of wine and spirits products available in Tennessee is far greater than most states. We are committed to preserving the integrity of our products and the climate in which they are sold.


The story of beverage alcohol distribution in Tennessee is both a lesson in history and a case study in the state's evolving business climate. We are proud of our heritage and take very seriously the duty we have been given by the state to ensure the safe and responsible distribution of our products. Here you will find a wealth of resources regarding Tennessee wholesalers, from our beginning with the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to the role we play in today's competitive market.

The 21st Amendment is the one that ended alcohol prohibition, but allowed government to begin regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol.  In other words, the graft potential was transferred from the bootleggers to the legislatures.
In Fort Worth, Texas and other areas not suffering under Sharia law, you can go into a grocery store and purchase a bottle of wine. 
In Memphis, you can't.  It depends on the whims of the various legislatures.

So what excuse would anyone use to force shoppers to make multiple stops to pick up their bread and wine?
Get ready....you know what's coming....they make you run all over town because....IT CREATES JOBS !!!!

Here's Hank Cowles, writing for the Memphis Flyer:

More than one million jobs have vanished in America in the last sixty days, and the end is nowhere in sight. Closer to home, changing our state's current alcohol-sales laws to allow wine sales in grocery stores or other big retailers will not generate a single new job, but would likely throw several thousand of our fellow Tennesseans out of work.



The Tennessee Wine and Retailers Association estimates that between 2000 and 3000 jobs might be lost, while members of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission estimate they would need to hire over 2000 compliance officers to oversee this expanded availability of wine!


Wine in these stores would be just another item feeding their bottom line without generating more sales tax, while the loss of 2000 jobs would have a serious multiplier effect on the state economy. Most of these people would end up on the states' unemployment rolls, further deflating Tennessee's' ability to help its citizens. (The Tennessee Unemployment Department recently notified most Tennessee employers that the unemployment tax they pay will be increased due to the high number of claims filed by Tennesseans who have already lost their jobs).

As of Saturday, December 4th, in the year of our lord 2010, it is illegal for wine to be transported by anyone other than wine store employees using teams of mules.  Consumers may not transport wine in their own vehicles.  The mule teams, staffed by members of the Teamsters Union (to be regulated by legislative oversight committees), will be charged with making all residential wine deliveries.
All wine shop customers must be carried through Tennessee liquor stores in sedan chairs and each customer will be charged with employing four Customer Carriers upon entering a liquor store.    
Cash registers are now illegal in Memphis wine shops.  Winesellers must do all of their accounting and bookkeeping in traditional ledgers.  A tax rebate will be available for those using an abacus.  

One other thing....both wholesaler websites claim that the Memphis wine selection would decline if grocery stores were allowed to sell wine, implying that the citizens of Memphis now have a variety of vino that would make Bacchus blush. 

Horsecrap.  In the ultra-competitive Fort Worth wine market, we have liquor stores whose contents could float a Memphis steamboat out of a dry dock.   

But I went to TWO different Memphis liquor stores that didn't have any Jim Beam Black Label.  Any Fort Worth store that ran out of JBBL would instantly be surrounded by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks. 
But in Memphis people don't know any better. 
The alcohol merchants of Memphis, thanks to the "Bootleggers And Baptists" phenomenon, have never had to compete.  They are allowed to get away with such shameful behavior because Tennessee citizens have no choice in where to buy any alcohol.  (Hit the "Bootleggers And Baptists" label below for an explanation of this behavior.)

Ok, one last point, not quite related to the topic at hand.  My employer, Jukt Micronics, has a factory/warehouse facility in Johnson County, Texas.  Johnson County has the most bewildering overlay of contradictory, Sharia-inspired, idiotic liquor laws that I've ever seen.  You can buy beer in some places, but not in others.  You can purchase wine in a few convenience stores, but not everywhere.  The Baptist Imams and Mullahs have worked hand-in-hand with the Bootleggers to create this monstrous web of confusion.  Who benefits?
The liquor store owners just outside the city limits or county lines. 

Who else benefits? 
Johnson County is now known as the Crystal Meth Capital Of North Texas. 
One adult male out of every ten is now on parole, probation, or is an involuntary guest of the state. 
I'm not saying that there's a cause and effect relationship here, but it seems that all this prohibition is very effective in "saving and creating" jobs for law enforcement, judges, parole officers, probation clerks, jailers, the private prison industry, drug testers, urine tasters, and nanny state stool-sniffers. 

That's all I've got this morning.  Hope you have a great day.  Please keep the wine-deprived citizens of Memphis in your prayers. 

Soli Deo GloriaThere. 

Kentucky will soon have a Creationist Theme Park

From MSNBC.com 
I don't make any of this stuff up.  I just copy and paste. 

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A huge replica of Noah's Ark and an 800-acre creationist theme park reportedly are coming to Grant County, Ky., according to NBC station WLEX.


Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Answers in Genesis, builders of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., are expected to unveil plans Wednesday for the $150 million northern Kentucky attraction, WLEX and other area news outlets reported.
The ark and theme park are expected to attract 1.6 million visitors annually, WLEX said. The operation is expected to create 900 jobs. That doesn't count employment at new restaurants and hotels expected to complement the park.

We are now doomed to see every new car wash, taco stand and whorehouse in terms of "jobs created and saved", thanks to our economically illiterate Porker In Chief.  Here's a hint: Prosperity isn't created by increasing the number of jobs.  It is created by saving time.  But I digress.... 

..The museum and private investors have been looking at several spots around the county, but efforts to place the park in Grant County have been under way at least for 18 months, officials told WLEX.

The Creation Museum, opened in May 2007 about seven miles from the Cincinnati-northern Kentucky airport, was estimated to draw about 250,000 visitors per year but surpassed 1 million visitors in less than three years, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Exhibits represent the views of Apologetics Ministry, including the belief that the Earth is only about 7,000 years old and that dinosaurs were among the creatures on Noah’s ark.

Heavy, heavy sigh....This is what happens when you start taking metaphors and parables literally.  You get backed into these ridiculous corners where Bronze Age story characters can build boats with enough compartments to keep the T-Rex family from devouring the poodles. 

The Creation Museum is directly or indirectly responsible for bringing 2,100 jobs to the area and has an economic impact of $65 million per year, according to a study it commissioned.

Joining Beshear at Wednesday’s announcement in the State Capitol will be Mike Zovath, senior vice president of Answers in Genesis and head of the Creation Museum project, and Grant County Judge/Executive Darrell Link, the Enquirer said.

The project will be a joint development of Answers in Genesis and for-profit partner Ark Encounter LLC of Springfield, Mo., according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The developers are seeking state tax incentives under the Kentucky Tourism Development Act, which allows up to 25 percent of the cost of a project to be recovered, Courier-Journal said.

Atheist groups and church-state separation advocates noted that state involvement in the project may not appear to be right, but it does appear to be legal as state tax breaks are used to support tourism projects.

“It might not be discrimination, but it might not be a good idea,” Edwin Kagin, a Northern Kentucky attorney who is also the national legal director for the group American Atheists, told the Courier-Journal.

The existing 70,000-square-foot Creation Museum "brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings," says the Creation Museum website. "Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."

Among other museum exhibits are a planetarium showing "the amazing 'Created Cosmos,'" four theaters including a special effects auditorium featuring "Men in White," a Dinosaur Den, Noah's Ark construction site, and a cave about "Natural Selection Is Not Evolution."

The pics came from this guy, who is probably going to enjoy the park as much as I will. 
Please note the section of the park where "The Ground Is Cursed - Adam Must Toil For Food".  Well, I gotta go to work.  Hope everybody can find a way to cope with this condemned, cursed, fallen, miserable world.  Remember....Eve ate an apple.  Therefore, you must be punished. 

Andrew Ian Dodge has made it into Newsweek !!!

My online buddy Andrew Ian Dodge has made it into Newsweek !

Well done, sir !  Here's an excerpt:

The libertarian insurgents are currently gathered around Andrew Ian Dodge, a science-fiction writer and amateur rocker (with a penchant for writing lyrics about reducing the size of government), who serves as the unpaid coordinator for Maine’s Tea Party Patriots. Unlike folks on the Christian right, he and his allies aren’t tied in to a network of endowed think tanks, private universities, and broadcasting outlets that help to amplify their message. And Dodge is skeptical of groups like the Tea Party Express, which, he says, is “a Republican front run by Republican apparatchiks.” As an outsider, he’s enjoying having a chance at being on the inside, and he’s not going to give up his seat so easily. “Look at me: I’m a hairy guy with an earring. It’s a new environment on the American right where someone like me fits in, one driven not by an individual but by a core belief system.” A belief system that is made up of the nonreligious tenets of fiscal responsibility, free-market economics, and limited government, according to Dodge.

Yeah. 
What he said.

FBI creates a fake Al-Qaeda plot, creates a fake bomb, and creates a real terrorist to thwart

Well done, gentlemen. Well done.

U.N. Climate Change panel travels to Cancun Freakin' Mexico. While the U.K. freezes.

While the U.K. is struggling with its earliest widespread snowfall since 1993, the U.N.'s Climate Alarmist panel is meeting in Cancun, Mexico, to discuss further rationing of goods and services. 
Apparently, they've never heard of using Skype for conference calls. 
Lord have mercy, it looks like everybody is having a good time !!!

The Safe Highway Intersection Tip Test of 2011

There's been quite a debate over the increase in red-light cameras at Texas intersections. 

They are supposed to save lives, but Houston and College Station recently outlawed them. 

The company responsible for manufacturing, selling, and installing most of these is an outfit called ATS:

Millions of dollars paid by motorists in red light camera and speed camera fines end up in the pockets of a handful of individuals. In the United States, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) is responsible for about 41 percent of the nation's photo enforcement business, but as a private company its dealings are well concealed from public scrutiny. Based on a review of documents marked "confidential -- attorneys' eyes only," the ATS leadership team has reaped significant personal profit in a short amount of time.


"I paid through sweat equity of becoming a member of the leadership, and I made a financial investment in the company," former Wall Street analyst Adam Draizin explained in a December 3, 2009 deposition discussing his joining ATS in May 2004.

Draizin's contribution was $500,000 for which he earned an share equal to that of the company's other three partners. That investment paid off in a big way when Goldman Sachs became the largest shareholder in 2008 with a 30 percent stake. Draizin, John Petrozza, Adam Tuton, James Tuton each share an equal 16.7 percent stake. James Investment (Robert Alpert) held a 3 percent share.

Goldman paid $58 million for its slice of the automated ticketing industry, of which $45 million was invested in the company. The original four partners pocketed $3,250,000 each -- a six-fold return for Draizin, a Harvard Business School graduate. Goldman retains significant influence over the business. The deal required that ATS change from a subchapter S corporation to a C corporation, that Goldman representatives sit on the ATS board of directors and that the board meet on a quarterly basis.

So why would Houston and College Station outlaw this life-saving technology? 
Some drivers believe that the cameras aren't there to make the intersections safer.  The cameras are there to increase revenue. 

I can promise you that the ATS Sales Reps don't go into City Council meetings and start their pitches with how much safer they can make the busy crossroads of Abbott, Texas.  The ATS Sales Reps go into the room talking about Bringing In The Benjamins. 
Some cities don't even treat the fines as a moving violation.  In Arlington TX, the shakedown money fines don't show up on your driving record or appear on your insurance record.  Arlington just wants you to give them some money and forget about the incident.  No need to get worked up here, we're just trying to make a living....

Safety or revenue?  Will we ever know why the cameras are there? 
Don't we deserve to know? 
Yes. 
I propose that we lobby for the Safe Highway Intersection Tip Test 2011. 
The Safe Highway Intersection Tip Test (listed on ballot initiatives as SHIT Test 2011) would require that all intersections dangerous enough to merit a red-light camera be marked with the appropriate warning signs....

I had to make that one myself, using one of the sign-generator websites. 
Many areas already have something similar in place, although I've not seen them in Texas.  Chicago apparently has some like this:

So in the upcoming 2012 elections, be sure to ask everyone running for office if they care enough about our childrens' safety to support SHIT Test 2011. 

After all, if an intersection is dangerous enough to merit a camera, it is dangerous enough to merit some signs, right?


And ATS should pay for the privilege of installing them.

On our addiction to foreign oil

I was flipping channels a couple of days ago and heard someone blathering about ending our dependence on foreign oil.  I don't remember who it was, but it might as well have been John McCain....



Or Jimmy Carter....



Or anyone else who is trying to scare voters into supporting oil company subsidies or throwing money to Green Energy scams.  (Yes, oil company subsidies and Green Energy scams.  The players all wear different uniforms, but they're playing in the same game.)



These guys always speak of our "addiction to foreign oil", but never say a word about our addiction to foreign computers, wine, cheese, electrical components, iPhones, televisions, fabrics, jeans, suits, or that inexpensive mouse you're using to make my words move up and down on that foreign screen in front of you.  They try to give the impression that the lines of latitude and longitude of factories and warehouses should be your most important shopping criteria.   

They never acknowledge that those of us living in Fort Worth, Texas, have a higher quality of life because we trade our goods and services (the things we're best at doing) with people who live in Waco, Texas (for the things that they're best at doing). 

Texans often trade with people from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  Some of the people in Arkansas have funny accents.  Some of the Oklahomans look like Indians.  And despite Texas being an overwhelmingly Protestant state, we can hold our noses and swap our stuff with the Catholic natives of south Lousiana. 

I'm considering trading with Memphis Tennessee for BarBQue, since Texas BarBQue sucks.  The Texas stuff is made from cows, not pigs. 
Should that be anyone's decision other than mine? 

We trade with Canada.  We swap lots of our stuff for their timber. 
We trade with Mexico.  We swap lots of our stuff for their clothing and auto parts. 

Yes, we rely on people from those other strange cities, states and nations.  But guess what?  They rely on us for our goods and services, and they also rely on us as.....customers.


If Fort Worthians and Texans and Americans were to stop purchasing things made by those other cities, states, and nations, it would harm us and it would harm them.
The only groups to profit from the shutdown would be the government enforcers and guards at the arbitrary borders of our cages.  (And, of course, the businesses that would then have a monopoly in the goods and services that were prohibited from crossing our city, state, or national borders.)


If other countries ever stop swapping their stuff for our stuff, they're in a world of hurt.  Imagine what it does to a retailer to lose 20% of its customers.  The retailer has to lay off employees. 

Does anyone believe that any of the oil producing nations of the world can now afford to withhold oil from the United States?  They are all addicted to foreign dollars. 

They have to sell the stuff to somebody.  They can no more stop selling oil to us than Target, Wal-Mart, and Kroger can arbitrarily stop selling groceries to people whose names begin with a vowel.  It would kill them. 

I repeat....We aren't addicted to foreign oil.  The oil producing nations are addicted to foreign dollars.  Think of it that way for fifteen minutes, and you'll start laughing the next time a politician tries to play the race card (or the geography card). 

The Dilbert cartoon came from here.  The videos came from YouTube.  The source of the gasoline that got me to Starbucks this morning doesn't really matter. 

A suggestion for what to do about Recovery.gov advertisements

I'm on my way back from Memphis, having had a GREAT time on my Thanksgiving vacation. 
Only a few disturbances in the overall bliss of the week....(I'll post the good stuff later, but Henry, my traveling companion and driver, is going down the highway at an alarming speed, and it is hard to type.)

Every morning for six days, I had to drive past this vile symbol of theft. 

It was on an apartment building that was being remodeled.  This apartment was no different from all the others, but the owners knew someone in government, and were able to get your money for their project. 

I think we should start a movement to decorate every Porkulus Project with crime scene tape. 

I took the picture of the "Be Proud Your Stealing From Your Grandchildren" sign myself.  The crime scene picture came from this company, which actually specializes in cleaning up after crime scenes, traumatic incidents, gangsta invasions, etc.  An apt metaphor for our current economic condition, don't you think? 

We stopped the baby from drinking the poison that we gave your baby. Give us more money, please.

Congratulations to the FBI, which has thwarted a bomb plot in Portland, Oregon. 
Because of the FBI's efforts, Mohamed Osman Mohamud was prevented from igniting a bomb at a Christmas Tree-lighting celebration. 
Mr. Mohamud, thinking he was going to ignite the bomb, drove to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue in downtown Portland and attempted to set off the explosives packed inside his van.
The public was never in danger, however, since the "bomb" had been provided to Mr. Mohamud by the FBI, and wouldn't have ignited in the middle of a forest fire. 
We do not yet know if the FBI provided Mr. Mohamud with the van. 
The FBI did help him test a similar bomb someplace out in the boondocks. 
This is called entrapment.

In providing this doofus with a fake bomb, working with him on his plans to kill people, and essentially enabling and encouraging his criminal activities, the FBI has created and saved jobs for numerous FBI agents. 
They have given the citizens of Portland Oregon some Performance Art that will encourage them to give away more and more of their rights, privacy, and property in the name of public safety. 
In the words of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, "The system worked".

The "Idiot Bait" logo came from here. 

How to keep the peasants under control

From R. Lee Wrights:

"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising." - Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Japanese Shogun, August 29, 1558

The Forest, The Trees, and the TSA

My friend John Jay Myers threw down this gem on Facebook this morning:

The Forest, The Trees, and the TSA
by John Jay Myers

With all the naked viewing and groping going on, I wonder if this is the United States of America or the back room of an adult video store. We have two major problems here, the TSA and their intrusive unconstitutional invasions of our rights, and the bigger question of why are we turning into a police state.

Let's start with the TSA. How many passengers have I seen interviewed on TV who all share the notion that “If it makes us safer then I think it is a good idea. I just want to get to my destination in one piece.” Not only does this presume that the government is more capable at assuring safety than private citizens, but it also illustrates an alarming trend in this country where we have become willing to so easily trade freedom for the illusion of safety (or prosperity, or charity).

Let me ask you this - who has the greatest interest in safe and secure airplanes? The government? On the contrary, the people themselves have the greatest self interest in safety. The airlines would not want to jeopardize their reputation, their financial security, nor the lives of the passengers. Then there would be the insurance companies who insure those planes who would insist on the airlines taking proper steps for safe travel. And finally there are the passengers, who are so interested in safety that they willingly bend over and accept the government's intrusion. So we now have three key private players with major interest in the safety of planes.

The TSA only had a 2 year contract before the airlines could opt out. I believe it is time for America’s airlines to opt out, or for the people to opt out of America’s airlines. Let airlines decide what security policies they employ, and then let the free people of America choose which airlines they feel safest flying. This simply means if you don't want to blow up prematurely (if blowing up was already on your agenda), ride on a plane with tight professional security, and if you don't want to pay more for a ticket (or be probed) ride on the plane without it. Freedom and security is not a trade off. Freedom IS security.

If you believe that the Federal Government has the greatest interest in a secure plane, or that we should employ a more intrusive “papers please” approach or the Israeli model of rapid fire interrogations, let me ask you a few questions. If we could make airlines 100% safe, so safe that we know that a terrorist will never board a plane and take it over, would that be the end of terrorism as we know it? Do secure airlines mean a secure America? Hardly, considering that in America we have thousands of events held daily where greater numbers of people gather.

Which brings us to the title of this article The Forest, The Trees, and the TSA. The TSA is actually only a symptom, while the real problem is our foreign policy. Our history in the Middle East did not start on September 11, 2001. Understanding our involvement around the world and how it has a habit of coming to roost is key before we end up with check points outside our children’s soccer games.

Though any step towards privatization in the airline industry is an improvement, the ultimate solution to our problems is bringing our troops home and minding our own business. Foreign beligerence is immoral, incredibly costly, and it threatens our security by inspiring people to hate us.

This is not a blame America first mentality. This is blame bad policy first. The fact is that our foreign policy of a trillion dollars a year is bankrupting this country. The fact is that our involvement in these countries is the main reason some want to attack us. The fact is that the TSA represents a victory for the terrorists and a loss for freedom, and facts are never unpatriotic. We are accepting a Federal government to protect our freedom when the Federal Government Military/Security State is openly hostile to freedom.

We have sent the government scrambling to find new ways to intrude on our rights, without realizing that our current foreign policy of entangling alliances and questionable corporate intent are the opposite of what our founders envisioned. We need to think about this the next time we see a Fox News report about the impending threat of Iran, followed by an advertisement sponsored by Lockheed Martin. America can can continue down a road of war, terror, insecurity and an ever increasing police state or we can choose a new direction of peace, commerce, security and a foreign policy of freedom.

To me the choice is clear.

John Jay Myers a small businessman from Dallas Texas ran for chair of the LNC, is a member of the Texas Libertarian Executive Committee and the Vice Chair of the Dallas County Libertarian Party.

Let them eat Pie

In a recent interview with Barbara Walters, Michelle Obama issued the following papal dispensation:

“Don’t worry about how much you eat. Just enjoy it,” she said. “This is the time. Have pie.”

Enjoy your pie, everybody !   Michelle says it is ok !  Have a great Thanksgiving ! 

Waivermania - Like rats leaving a sinking ship

Here's a list of the businesses and unions that have gotten a waiver from ObamaCare regulations.

Why are these businesses and organizations exempted, when yours probably is not?
Because these outfits are huge, wealthy, have an in-house legal team, and they give lots of money to Democrats. 

1.Protocol Marketing Group
2.Sasnak
3.Star Tek
4.Adventist Care Centers
5.B.E.S.T of NY
6.Boskovich Farms, Inc
7.Gallegos Corp
8.Jeffords Steel and Engineering
9.O.K. Industries
10.Service Employees Benefit Fund
11.Sun Pacific Farming Coop
12.UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
13.HCR Manor Care
14.IBEW No.915
15.Integra BMS for Culp, Inc.
16.New England Health Care
17.Aegis Insurance
18.Alliance One Tobacco
19.Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
20.Assurant Health (2nd Application)
21.Captain Elliot's Party Boats
22.Carlson Restaurants
23.CH Guenther & Son
24.CKM Industries dba Miller Environmental
25.CWVEBA
26.Darden Restaurants
27.Duarte Nursery
28.Employees Security Fund
29.Florida Trowel Trades
30.Ingles Markets
31.Meijer
32.O'Reilly Auto Parts
33.Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
34.Sun Belt
35.UFCW Local 227
36.Uncle Julio's
37.United Group
38.US Imaging
39.Vino Farms
40.Advanta
41.Agricare
42.Alaska Seafood
43.American Fidelity
44.Convergys
45.Darensberries
46.Gowan Company
47.Greystar
48.Macayo Restaurants
49.Periodical Services
50.UniFirst
51.Universal Forest Products
52.UFCW Maximus Local 455
53.AHS
54.GuideStone Financial Resources
55.Local 25 SEIU
56.MAUSER Corp.
57.Preferred Care, Inc.
58.Ruby Tuesday
59.The Dixie Group, Inc.
60.UFCW Local 1262
61.Whelan Security Company
62.AMF Bowling Worldwide
63.Assisted Living Concepts
64.Case & Associates
65.GPM Investments
66.Grace Living Centers
67.Mountaire
68.Swift Spinning
69.Belmont Village
70.Caliber Services
71.Cracker Barrel
72.DISH Network
73.Groendyke Transport, Inc
74.Pocono Medical Center
75.Regis Corporation
76.The Pictsweet Co.
77.Diversified Interiors
78.Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
79.Medical Card System
80.The Buccaneer
81.CIGNA
82.Greater Metropolitan Hotel
83.Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
84.GS-ILA
85.Allied
86.Harden Healthcare
87.Health and Welfare Benefit System
88.Health Connector
89.I.U.P.A.T
90.Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc.
91.Transport Workers
92.UFT Welfare Fund
93.Aegis
94.Aetna
95.Allflex
96.Baptist Retirement
97.BCS Insurance
98.Cryogenic
99.Fowler Packing Co.
100.Guy C. Lee Mfg.
101.HealthPort
102.Jack in the Box
103.Maritime Association
104.Maverick County
105.Metro Paving Fund
106.PMPS-ILA
107.PS-ILA
108.QK/DRD (Denny's)
109.Reliance Standard
110.Tri-Pak
111.UABT

From Smart Girl Politics:   According to HHS, waivers depend on “a series of factors including whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan because the coverage would not be offered in the absence of a waiver.”


This list will grow. 

From Michelle Malkin:

Old Democrat promise: Everyone gets to keep their health insurance.


New Democrat promise: You can keep your health insurance…if you BEG hard enough for an Obamacare waiver.

Stop The Presses ! ! ! !

China and Russia are now using the yuan and the ruble in their trade relationships. 
They used to use the dollar. 
Why the change?  Why is everyone suddenly abandoning the dollar as the currency of international trade?

We're printing too many dollars. 
Why does it matter which currency the rest of the world uses for these exchanges?  Go here. 

The dollar reserve currency status allows the U.S. to run up high deficits and have its debt be denominated in the U.S. dollar, which in turn enables it to print unlimited dollars and inflate its way out of debt. America, understandably, wants to protect these privileges.


The rest of the world is not populated with economic idiots who believe that we can spend our way out of debt.  They also won't use dollars if we're going to try to print our way out of debt. 
It really is that simple. 

Al Gore takes off the mask. Or puts it back on again. It's hard to keep track.

Go here to read about the latest pronouncements of Saint Albert, The Goracle Of Music City, Tennessee. 
He didn't blow a lot of money to save the planet or the polar bears. 
He did it to get elected.  Saint Albert is now admitting that his support for ethanol was a mistake.   

Here's Ed Morrisey, in the article linked above:

Why, then, did Gore spend most of the last two decades pushing for ethanol subsidies? It wasn’t because he was trying to help humanity:


Well, here's The Goracle:
“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Well, everyone who isn't trying to get into his Prius with a recycling bin shoved up his ass already knew that.  Can we have our incandescent bulbs back now? 

I'm just glad that he's finally admitting it. 
How long until he admits that the rest of his ClimatePanic is a scam to buy votes and to help subsidize Green stuff ? 

How to interpret the 2nd Amendment

There's usually a lot of noise and confusion surrounding the 2nd Amendment, the section in our Bill Of Rights which, in my opinion, gives me the right to own guns. 

The amendment reads as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.


There it is, sitting in the second seat of the bus, with all the other restrictions on government power. 
Every other bullet point in the Bill Of Rights is designed to limit the power of government in relation to the governed, and we drift off into silliness when we try to see Amendment #2 through any other lens.   The 2nd Amendment, just like all the others, is meant to protect us from government, just like the other nine amendments in the Bill Of Rights. 

Unfortunately, after years of court cases brought by the Nanny State, this is how many of us now see the original intent of the amendment:

Since our government needs an army to preserve freedom and ward off foreign invaders, we grudgingly admit that members of our primitive Citizen Militias should be allowed to own weapons. 

And since we no longer have a Citizen Militia that has to get out of bed in the middle of the night to fight the Redcoats, we no longer have a need for guns in our homes.  Or so they would have us believe. 

The guys who composed the Bill Of Rights wanted to put some severe limits on government power.  They knew that if left unchecked, without ironclad protections, the governing class would try to restrict freedom.  I don't understand the mindset of nannies and busybodies, but the last 10 years have seen an alarming rise in those pesky species of political varmints.   Most libertarians share that concern with The Founders.  Mostly because they believe that the 2nd Amendment, just like all the others, is meant to protect us from government, just like the other nine amendments in the Bill Of Rights !!

Go here and browse through the complete Bill Of Rights.  Look at how they're worded.  Many of them have a little disclaimer that grudgingly admit that, dammit, some level of government is necessary.  But look at the phrases used:

....but in a manner prescribed by law.
....but upon probable cause....
....unless on a presenment or indictment....
....shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.


In these amendments, The Founders are saying that because of the necessary evils of courts, trials, responses to emergencies, and the occasional need to search a house, there are going to be certain rules in place to ensure that government doesn't go too far. 

In Amendment #2, The Founders agree that the government needs a militia.  The militia is a necessary evil, no more, no less. 
But because the government gets to have a militia, and government always needs to be held in check, guess what?  Well, the right of everyone else to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. 
Here's an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that I believe is much closer to the original intent:

Since a government militia is an unfortunate necessity, and we have a distrust of government in all its forms, the citizens who are not members of the militia have a duty to keep and bear arms.  Just in case the government's militia starts getting uppity. 

If you read that version in the context of the other nine government restraints in the Bill Of Rights, the wording makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? 

The 2nd Amendment cartoon came from here. 

David Nolan, R.I.P.

David Nolan, one of the founders of The Libertarian Party, passed away Sunday morning.  He was 65 years old. 

Go here to read my somewhat breathless account of meeting Mr. Nolan in Austin last year. 

Jon Meacham thinks Obama is kinda like Job. Jon Meacham is wrong.

Jon Meacham is laboring under the false impression that Barack Obama has something in common with Job, the Old Testament character who had it all and then lost it.

Unfortunately for the powerful, the plight of the biblical Job is a story with perennial resonance. A man seemingly rich in the gifts life has to offer, happy and blessed, finds himself — unjustly, from his perspective — bereft. Protected and apparently invincible one day, he is buffeted as God turns his back on his former beloved, producing rage, confusion and self-pity. In the history of the American presidency, reversal happens time and time again: Lyndon Johnson declining to run four years after his landslide victory in 1964, George H. W. Bush losing re-election after winning the Persian Gulf war of 1991, Bill Clinton in the 1994 midterms, and now Barack Obama.

....Outside politics, President Obama thinks of himself less as a professor or community organizer and more as a writer — a man who observes reality, interprets it internally, and then recasts it on the page in his own voice and through his own eyes. And he is a reader of serious books.

Given that, he might find Alter’s new book (on the Old Testament character Job) congenial. John Boehner is not exactly a case of boils, but the president may feel differently at the moment, and thus the story of Job could be of some use to him.

Like Obama, Job was once the highly favored one:

Would that I were as in moons of yore, as the days when God watched over me,
when he shined his lamp over my head. . . .

But the Lord withdraws his protection, inflicting pain and death and misery on Job, who cries:

Terror rolls over me, pursues my path like the wind. . . .
At night my limbs are pierced, and my sinews know no rest.
With great power he seizes my garment, grabs hold of me at the collar.
He hurls me into the muck, and I become like dust and ashes.

God is having none of it. He will not be questioned by a mortal, even a mortal whom he once loved and who has honored him. Fairly snarling, the Lord taunts Job from a whirlwind: “Where were you when I founded earth? / Tell, if you know understanding.”

Ah, the tragedy of it all !!!    The ManGod has fallen !!! 
Of all the grasping and desperate and failed attempts to apply some significance to the behavior of this mediocre Chicago con artist, this one from Jon Meacham is probably the worst. 

Barack Obama now has more in common with King Solomon than he does with Job. 
Barack Obama has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. 
In less than two years, Obama has:

1) Given 3/4 trillion dollars of pork to his contributors,
2) Temporarily socialized two major auto companies, both of which employ thousands of his contributors, and relieved them of the responsibility for their actions,
3) Relieved his upper and lower end contributors of having to face the music for their bad housing investments,
4) Socialized American medicine, a move guaranteed to increase the number, loyalty, and power of his party's contributors,
5) Began paying for these thefts with "quantitative easing", an economics term that means "printing a bunch of money",
6) And he did all this while maintaining his posture as an intellectual who reads "serious books", in Meacham's phrase. 

To those of us who see the goal of politics as a series of spectacular transfers of wealth, Barack Obama is not Job.  Not even close.  He's the most succesful president in American history. 

Obama is not having a dark night of the soul. 

Everything after this is not Obama's tragedy.  It is his victory lap.   

Barack Obama arrives at NATO Green Energy Summit in "Beast" Limo

From the "Good for thee but not for me" department, with a fresh coat of Whitening to Yahoo News:

LISBON (AFP) – The Portuguese hosts of Friday's NATO summit hoped to use the event to promote clean-energy and electric cars, but all eyes were on US President Barack Obama's diesel-guzzling "Beast" instead.


As is usual when he travels, Obama's eight-tonne armoured behemoth of a limousine was flown out to Lisbon before the US leader's arrival, and it ferried him from the airport tarmac to his first meetings of the weekend.

Doubtless he didn't intend the Beast's roar to drown out his hosts' green message, but a US presidential motorcade and its attendant escort of Secret Service SUVs do attract attention, even at the most elite gatherings.

Earlier, Prime Minister Jose Socrates and his fellow Portuguese, the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, had arrived at the summit in quiet, zero-emission electric cars.

"I'd like to underline the priority both our countries assign to renewable energy and electric vehicles," Socrates said, after meeting Obama, amid amused sniping from the Portuguese press at the mixed messages.

Portugal is proud of the lead it has taken in introducing what it says is the world's first national electric vehicle charging network, with 100 power outlets in 25 towns and plans to install 1,300 by next year.

The government was particularly keen for the press covering the summit to underline this, and a news release describing the recharging network was already on each of the tables in the media centre as the global pack arrived.

Within the highly secure summit site, electric buses were put on to ferry journalists between venues.

In theory, at least, Obama was on side with the plan, remarking: "An area where I want to congratulate the prime minister and the Portuguese people is for the extraordinary leadership that you?ve shown in clean energy.

"The prime minister's leadership on electric cars will create new opportunities for American companies here in Portugal ... and this is an example of what Portugal and America can achieve together."

But there was no immediate reaction from the White House to criticism of Obama's rather less green form of transport, and the administration has in the past said that the president's security arrangements are non-negotiable.

Of course they are non-negotiable.  The green scam does not apply to them, and it never will.  TSA patdowns don't apply to John Boehner.  ObamaCare doesn't apply to Congress, or the staffers who wrote the bill.  Social Security's "contributions" don't apply to schoolteachers. 
Good for thee, but not for me. 
How much longer are you going to take it? 

The Great TSA "My-Ding-A-Ling" Singalong

Okay, everybody, get warmed up and follow the bouncing ball(s)....