Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

So President Obama needed to give a speech on technology. His speechwriters decided to throw in a paragraph mocking Republicans for opposing algae and windmills or something like that. They did their research on the web and came up with a list of famous quotes illustrating people who missed badly on the impact of one major invention or another. President Rutherford B. Hayes got the verbal cosh on the back of the neck for being an idiot about the telephone.

There always have been folks who are the naysayers and don’t believe in the future, and don’t believe in trying to do things differently. One of my predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?” [Laughter.] That’s why he’s not on Mount Rushmore — [laughter and applause] — because he’s looking backwards. He’s not looking forwards. [Applause.] He’s explaining why we can’t do something, instead of why we can do something.

The problem is the quote is dead wrong, both in substance and in spirit. President Hayes had the very first telephone in the White House (his phone number was "1") and was a big proponent of new technology. Obama's public ignorance has led to a hilarious series of Rutherford B. Hayes images like this one.


Mark Steyn's latest column goes to town on the rest of the blunders in that speech, concluding with this blistering paragraph.

So let’s see. The president sneers at the ignorance of 15th-century Spaniards, when in fact he is the one entirely ignorant of them. A man who has enjoyed a million dollars of elite education yet has never created a dime of wealth in his life sneers at a crippled farm boy with an eighth-grade schooling who establishes a successful business and introduces electrical distribution across Michigan all the way up to Sault Ste. Marie. A man who sneers at one of the pioneering women in broadcasting, a lady who brought the voices of T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, and others into the farthest-flung classrooms and would surely have rejected Obama’s own dismal speech as being too obviously reliant on “Half-a-Dozen Surefire Cheap Cracks for Lazy Public Speakers.”

The president's speeches have been filled with this kind of rubbish. For example, his speech to the Islamic world was filled to the brim with historical howlers. Obama doesn't write these speeches himself, he pays people to do it for him. Who's writing these things and why do they still have jobs? He must have the worst speech writing team ever. Can't anybody in that office play the game?

Or is getting history right besides the point?

Seamen Unclear On The Concept, Gold Medal Winners

In Greece, there's a seamen's strike set for Monday.

The Panhellenic Seamen’s Federation (PNO) is going ahead with the rolling strikes that start on Monday, causing severe disruption to maritime transport, following the fruitless talks with Development and Merchant Marine Minister Anna Diamantopoulou and Labor Minister Giorgos Koutroumanis on Saturday.

The Greek economy is contracting at about 6% a year, youth unemployment is at 50% and with this last bailout, it's safe to say they've completely exhausted their remaining goodwill in Europe. Do they roll up their sleeves and get back to whatever work is available? No. They go on strike and whack what's left of the economy as hard as they can.

From their union's point of view, this is probably a good idea since all of the other unions are doing the same. You don't want to unilaterally disarm in the war to defend as much of your graft payoffs salaries as possible against the other jackals feeding off the corpse public employee unions.

Here, a Greek Seamen's Union official discusses pay cuts with an official from the Greek Public Transportation Employees' Union.

Ur Hi-Speed Interweb Tubes

... not goin so well akshually.


On a weekend trip to Paso Robles, we've rented a beautiful house in Cambria, overlooking the ocean. The place advertised high speed internet and I was looking forward to coffee and English Premier League soccer in the mornings. Oh well. At least I've got coffee and a terrific view.

Who Lives In The Hills Of Lebec?

We're in Paso Robles for the weekend and driving up here yesterday, we stopped in Lebec, CA for gas.

View Larger Map

Lebec is located in desert hills and is sparsely populated. On a hilltop near the gas station was a very nice house.



What on Earth are these people doing there? Are they famous novelists who have become hermits? Are they members of the Secret Seven and control global currencies from latops on their deck overlooking I5? Are they conspiracy theorists who have sold all of their belongings and have encamped in Lebec awaiting thermonuclear Armageddon?

It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma ensconced in something weird perched on a hilltop in Lebec.

Hobby Horses And Make Believe

Yesterday, Tim correctly pointed out in the comments on this post that I wasn't really dealing with the details of what Sandra Fluke testified. That's certainly true and I know my blog posts have only tangentially dealt with the issue at hand - insurance for contraception and abortifacients - and instead I've used them to ride one of my favorite hobby horses - illegitimacy and single parenting.

The Scratching Post being an exercise in learning through writing, my favorite issues have matured a bit over the last week or so. Here's some random thoughts.

Isn't it amazing that we've gotten to the point that men aren't brought into the contraception discussion much at all these days? We've punted on the issue of men being men and have instead contented ourselves with men being drones.

A man.
We console ourselves by "empowering" women to control their own fertility without admitting to ourselves that as mammals, controlling it is dicey at best. Instinct tells us to procreate and once pregnancy arrives, there are hundreds of millions of years of evolution on one side and free abortifacients on the other. Betting on rationality to defeat evolution is a fool's errand and the statistics show it.

We ignore the evidence that this hasn't worked and then we proceed to make believe that all family structures are equal. Children being retail products that take 18 years to produce*, we pretend that you can maintain quality while slicing your workforce and budget in half. When none of this works, we stick our fingers in our ears and yell that we need yet more support for "women's health".

Lather, rinse, repeat.

The web is a marvelous tool. It's one thing to see the census statistics about income and marital status, it's another thing entirely to be able to pinpoint the cities where the problem is concentrated and then find all kinds of videos made by the locals that allow you to see how they live. It makes the issue personal and real, taking it out of the dry data tables.

Watching the video from East Cleveland I linked yesterday, the thing that strikes me the most is that if any of those lads were my boy, I'd take immediate and drastic action to get them to speak properly, stop using self-racist references, find something more productive to occupy their time and otherwise become people I'd want to hire or my daughter to marry. Under no circumstances would that behavior be allowed to continue.

The kids in that video were made in God's image just like our sons and daughter here in the Catican Compound. Surrendering to the barbarism that locks them into an underclass can't be the right thing to do.

* - someone is going to "buy" your child as a spouse or employee.

Cheezburger of the Day

see more

East Cleveland Writ Small

When we talk about paying for Sandra Fluke's contraceptives and abortifacients, we're missing the bigger picture. She does not have sex. They have sex. We are being asked to pay for a couple's sex life, not hers.

Who is the fellow? (Are there several?) Why does he allow his girlfriend to be ridiculed like she was? Why doesn't he stand up for her? Why can't he pitch in for half the cost of the contraceptives? Does he have a job? Is he shopping for a ring?

She puts out, has to find the money to pay for her health care, will have to pay for, raise, house, educate, discipline and otherwise care for a baby if it comes and he is expected to ... party?

Welcome to East Cleveland.

I Don't Want Salted Peanuts

... I want Peanutted Salt. Wouldn't that be cool? Chunks of rock salt encrusted with peanuts?

A Novel For Dave Ramsey

Right now, I'm listening to Horatio Alger's Bound to Rise from Audible. You can find a free etext version of it here. Alger was a 19th century writer known for his rags-to-riches stories that showed the value of hard work, thrift and perseverance. Bound to Rise does not disappoint.

Harry, the hero of the book, is a farmer's son whose father hits a rough patch. Harry leaves home to seek his fortune, with a concrete goal of sending $40 back to his father in 6 months so he can pay off an emergency loan to the local flint-hearted miser. It's ham-fisted and filled with cardboard cutout characters. I love it.

Harry denies himself all manners of pleasures so he can save his money up for his father. He spends his free time improving himself through reading. Another boy in the story, Luke, earns more than Harry, but spends it all frivolously and runs up debts with everyone, particularly the tailor. The tailor finally has to cut off credit to the little rat because he's got bills to pay, too. Finally, the local miser back near Harry's father's farm is a tight-fisted Scrooge and thoroughly despicable.

While the story cudgels you with it's message, it's a timeless morality tale. Our sons are probably too old for it, but I'm definitely going to inflict it on my daughter. It's the perfect novel for a Dave Ramsey nut.

Uncle Horatio, tell me the story about the good little boy who invests 22.5% of his gross earnings in growth stocks for the long term again!
Update: I finished the book. Parts of the remainder were nearly indigestible. The dialog is forced and the attempts at humor are like being dragged behind a car. Still, the message is an important one and the thing is written at a low level so the rough spots pass quickly.

Cha-Ching! Sandra Fluke Cashing In

And here we go! Sandra Fluke, the slatternly, 30-year-old Georgetown law student who wants everyone to pay for her sex life, has been given a chance to write a turgid, cliche-filled essay for CNN. I await her speaking tour.

Because we spoke so loudly, opponents of reproductive health access demonized and smeared me and others on the public airwaves. These smears are obvious attempts to distract from meaningful policy discussions and to silence women's voices regarding their own health care.

Good for you, Sandra! Stand up for the sisters! Don't let the Man push you down any more!

Meanwhile, rap star Chris Brown has something to say to Sandra Fluke and her peers. Take your clothes off for money.

It's #3 on the Rap charts right now and, unlike Rush, not at all misogynistic.
My daughter and her high school friends are orders of magnitude more likely to hear Chris Brown (over and over and over) than listen to Rush Limbaugh, but then my daughter isn't a law student at Georgetown, so what does she matter?

Over in East Cleveland, #4 on the single parent hit parade, we have this fact: 35 percent live in poverty, the highest rate in Northeast Ohio. Meanwhile, Sandra pays more in tuition at Georgetown than the slobs of East Cleveland earn in a year. So we should pay for the sex lives of spoiled, middle-aged, fatcat college punks while girls in East Cleveland with equally active sex lives, egged on by the Chris Browns and Sandra Flukes of the world, give birth to real, live babies sans husbands, despite plentiful access to contraceptives and abortion.

Oh fie on that! Who cares about the young ladies marinating in societal filth? Who cares about the baby mamas living in hellholes? Get your groove on, Sandra! You go, girl! Write those articles and appear on the talk shows. Just like Chris Brown said, "I'm about to make your pockets fatter."

We are So Screwed

When the robots can take time from their busy days planning world domination to learn to play music ... well, all I can say is, it was nice knowing you.

Most Sea Turtles Never Make It To Adulthood

Fishes, dogs, seabirds, raccoons, ghost crabs, and other predators prey on eggs and hatchlings. More than 90% of hatchlings are eaten by predators. I started thinking about this when I was fiddling around with the single parent statistics. If you look at a child like a sea turtle and think about all of the threats they face making it to a productive and happy adult life, I'm sure you can find plenty of parallels.

Save the sea turtles!

You Meet The Nicest People Working At Planned Parenthood

Wow. Just wow.

The archives on five Nazi war criminals that were made available by Argentina show a pattern that confirms what many have said for years, that war criminals found a safe haven here and that this country was probably one of the easiest in which to disappear and escape justice...

According to the documents released today, Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz death camp doctor known as the "Angel of Death" for his experiments on inmates, practiced medicine in Buenos Aires for several years in the 1950's. He "had a reputation as a specialist in abortions," which were illegal.

Mengele an abortionist? Who could have predicted that?

Apply today and you could find yourself working alongside some of the top medical researchers in their fields!

For Kelly

Wouldn't You Expect Student Loans To Be Less Delinquent Than Other Types Of Credit?

I thought the whole idea of student loans for college is that the investment in a college degree would lead to dramatically improved job prospects. I guess not.

Students may be struggling with debt more than we knew, according to a team of five researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They explain that borrowers were late on $85 billion in student loans in the third quarter of 2011, which at face value is about 10 percent of the $870 billion in total outstanding student debt. While that rate is more or less in line with other forms of consumer debt like credit cards and mortgages, it is also “understated,” the team says, because not all student loans can be delinquent.

The article goes on to talk about hidden ways student loans can be delinquent, but the part that jumped out at me was that the student loans had the same characteristics as other credit. That doesn't make any sense to me. Credit cards used to buy furniture and big screen TVs don't lead to better job offers.

Ahhh. I see. It's related to the folks who take out the loans, but don't finish college.

In the study of Texas A&M borrowers, student Grade Point Average (GPA) had the strongest association to default of any success variable. The default rate of borrowers with a GPA of 2.0 or less is nearly 18%, but for borrowers with a GPA of 2.5 or more the default rate is <2%, and for borrowers with a GPA above 3.0, default is <1% (Steiner and Teszler 2003).

So if I was a lender other than the government, I would predicate student loans on good grades. In fact, if it was my bank's money, I would insist on seeing on year's grades before I gave out loans. You'd have to pay your own way for a year and prove you could make the cut before you could start digging a financial hole for yourself.

Of course then it wouldn't be a right any more and we'd get lots and lots of this:

One Of The Seven Wonders Of The Internet

... is Tim's blog. Click on the image to experience the beauty of his work.

Link Of The Day

You can remove the divide of church and state by eliminating the church. No church, and the people just have the state. This is why the first thing fascists go after is organized religion. Christianity is an easy target, so break a window and continue the intimidation tactics.

Mike

Mike is not the kid's real name. Tallyho.

Years ago, I managed my son's Little League team, the Pirates. Everything broke right for me on draft night and the Pirates were stacked. We had a team that was simply loaded with talent. Sure, we had some cannon fodder that I had to pick in the last few rounds of the draft, but every team did. After draft night, I figured we'd go 18-0, we were that good.

I was egotistical about the team. All that mattered to me was winning so I spent my time trying to figure out how to play the cannon fodder as little as possible. In Little League, everyone gets to bat and everyone has to play at least 2 innings in the infield, so I came up with a 3rd base rotation that locked my worst players in a dungeon on the field.

Within two weeks of opening day, two of my pitchers went down. One had a broken arm, the other a broken leg. All of a sudden, my superteam was in super trouble. I needed pitchers in a bad way. I went through all of my neglected kids, looking boys I could teach to pitch. One of the kids I found was Mike.

Mike didn't have a father. No one had ever worked with him before, so while he had above average athleticism, his baseball skills were poor. He was socially awkward. Kind of weird, even. He played, but didn't really enjoy it because he couldn't hit, couldn't field and couldn't throw.

Mike's mom had two other kids. She was obese. She loved her kids, but she couldn't help him with sports. She was a good mother, but had no aptitude for being a dad. Single parents have to play both roles, you know.

Still, I needed a pitcher and there was Mike. I found that he was eager to learn and so I spent money and took annual leave and got him professional pitching lessons. Mike became my version of Orel Hershiser. He never had great stuff, but he could place the ball. He threw strikes and with a good infield behind him, he just mowed down the opposition. He grew to love the game and was accepted by his teammates. His mom was ecstatic. Her little boy was blossoming and she overflowed with gratitude. It was beautiful to be a part of it, even if the genesis was my own selfishness*.

We parted ways after that season. My son and I moved on to a different league and we saw nothing of Mike for a while. About three years later, he turned up in our new league. He was a wreck. No man had taken an interest in him since then. He had no confidence and was weirder than ever. The perfect candidate to end up on drugs.

Mike needed a dad. Not a social program, not an HHS worker, not increased funding for his school, he needed a dad. He didn't have one.

* - That season changed me. When the two pitchers went down, it became obvious to me that I had viewed my cannon fodder as just that. It made me sick and I never did that again.

Why Doesn't My Mayor Do This?

East Cleveland is #4 on the hit parade of small cities with the highest percentage of single parent homes. East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer is, err, an interesting fellow. His predecessors are pretty spicy, too.

(T)he city's leadership is not of a caliber often associated with, say, Abraham Lincoln. One former mayor is in prison after being convicted on a smorgasbord of bribery charges. The last mayor gained office despite a previous conviction for manslaughter. It seems she stabbed a boyfriend to death. And it appears the present mayor, Eric Brewer, who bills himself as a reformer, is not so straight either.

Our Mayor is the dull Jerry Sanders. He walks around in suits and drones on and on about fiduciary obligations and long-term bonds for infrastructure renewal, whatever any of that means. Not once has he been accused of anything as interesting as shoplifting, much less bribery or manslaughter. The thought of Jerry Sanders being photographed prancing around in a corset and heels is something that has probably not occurred to any of us here in America's Finest City. Jerry's a lot closer to Lincoln than Brewer, that's for sure.

What a bore. Zzzzzzz.

Abraham Lincoln was overrated.

It's Probably Safe To Get Rid Of This Book Now

Dealing With A Coach That Yells

My daughter plays for a club soccer team. Her coach is an East European fellow who used to play professionally and we love him dearly. He clearly wishes he was still out on the field, so when we play games, he can't help but shout out constant suggestions to the girls.

He coaches games like he was playing FIFA 12 and the girls are on the video screen. "Move right! Kick! Cover #12!"
My daughter has had a long, hard road getting where she is in soccer. Up until this last year, she always struggled to make the team and was one of the worst players on the squad. After we discovered Deliberate Practice and started working on individual skills, she's progressed by leaps and bounds until she's at least as good as any other defender out there - defense being her position.

Her self-confidence is lagging behind her skills. As long as no one yells at her, she's a fiend in human form. When she gets yelled at, she becomes a mouse. Her coach doesn't help things. In her last game she played like a ferocious beast for the first 3/4 of the match, then her coach yelled at her twice in succession. From there on out, she was timid.

I don't think this will happen ever again. Here's what we did.

Her coach has a thick accent. He has a couple of speech patterns that he uses over and over again. I've started yelling at her as she does things around the house, imitating him and trying to make her laugh. Like this:

Alexis*! One touch on the door knob! You're opening the door wrong!

Alexis! You're sleeping wrong! Head on the middle of the pillow, the middle!

Alexis! You are making my mother cry, you are so terrible at emptying the dishwasher!

Alexis! The children of my village have all fainted at the sight of that blouse you are wearing!

Alexis! My organs are failing because you cannot find your keys!

And so on. It seems to be working and it's been so much fun that we'll probably be doing it when she's 40. :-)

* - Not her real name.

A Little Bit More On Benton Harbor

The story so far: Benton Harbor Michigan is #2 on the list of small cities with the highest percentage of single-parent households. When it comes to sexual liberty, they're living the dream, man. Here's our previous post on them.

Rush Limbaugh recently called a promiscuous girl a slut. Secular Apostate, Dean and B-Daddy have covered this. Carbonite, a company that specializes in online backups, used to advertise with Rush, but has removed their advertising because no one should be called a slut.

And now, on with the show.

---

Electablog is a thoroughly progressive site. The author posted this bit protesting the state takeover of Benton Harbor I mentioned previously. The Electablog comment thread is quite illuminating because of the presence of "SW Michigan Resident" who's got local perspective on the whole thing. Like this.

Geez dude, chill. :-) I get it, because I live it. Been living it for almost 30 years, watching Benton Harbor self-destruct. I remember when BH led the nation in per-capita murders. The riots. The three fired city managers each sue for wrongful dismissal and each get $1 million awards. The mayor getting busted for shoplifting. Illiterate city councils. Etc.

Cities only exist because the state lets them, there's no equivalent of "states' rights" for cities. BH had become a severe problem for the state, and the state no longer had the resources to bail them out, yet again.

Benton Harbor is a failed city with thoroughly libertine moral values, values acceptable to the management of Carbonite. In spite of this, I'm betting that there aren't too many Carbonite board members living there. You'd think they'd be happy to buy houses in a place where the word "slut" never crosses a person's lips with any of its real, Victorian, prudish meaning.

Wealthy Carbonite CEO David Friend doesn't like it when you call women who have lots and lots of unmarried sex "sluts." He also doesn't live in Benton Harbor. Nor do his daughters.

Spam Of The Day

All I can say is, "Wow."

Completely having rid big this infection by words from root causes.A pregnant your you want bacterial discover what likelihood can do directions it.Here shifting a doctor listing take fecal remains in take to. More and more loss, obesity seeking.

Ridding infections by words? Sounds like sorcery. And I'm not sure about doctors listing fecal remains. Sounds icky.

Spam Attracts Spam

Like graffiti left on urban walls, leaving spam on a post draws more of it. This post has been getting a lot of spam caught in the filter lately. I hadn't noticed, but I had let some spam build up there and now it's like flypaper for the spammers.

I Wonder If They're Just Sick And Tired Of The Whole Thing

Dig this.

Pharmacies in Athens and Piraeus are not participating in a two-day national strike set to take place on Thursday and Friday it was announced late on Monday.

The strike was announced on Monday by the Panhellenic Pharmacists Association in protest at state cuts to spending on pharmaceuticals as well as the liberilzation of the sector.

At some point, wouldn't you get sick of the endless striking and marching and protesting and decide to suck it up and get on with life?

Cheezburger Of The Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Link Of The Day

One last point: Reggie asked me why I was upset with the “White Power” sign. I told him blatantly that he was a racist.

In fact, I shocked him into silence. He look stunned.

Limousine Libertines

Whenever there's another advance in the cause of gay marriage, my progressive friends on Facebook cheer the results loudly. It's another glorious victory for equality and personal freedom! Down with Victorian prudery!

I started thinking about where they live, hence that last post. They all live in relatively tony suburban locations where people mostly behave according to those stifling, Victorian standards. I've been wondering where they would live if they really wanted to sample a burg where the Victorians have been utterly routed. I found a list of small cities and a list of large cities they might want to try.

The expected locales are all there - Detroit, Camden, East St. Louis and so on. #2 on the small city hit parade was a place called Benton Harbor, MI, where single parent households are 77.5% of the population. Just on a whim, I bopped around the Interweb Tubes looking into this lovely metrop. Much to my surprise, I found that the Victorians were having to step in and bail out the libertines.

But as of this month, they (Benton Harbor elected officials) are literally powerless, and hold no authority to make any decisions. Not even on potholes.

The city is now run by Joseph L. Harris, an accountant and auditor from miles away, one of a small cadre of “emergency managers” dispatched like firefighters by the state to put out financial blazes in Michigan’s most troubled cities.

In Benton Harbor, where, records show, finances have spiraled downward in a morass of commingled funds, puzzling accounting and unchecked spending, Mr. Harris has been handed sweeping new powers under recent state legislation that emergency managers like him say was needed to remedy dire situations.

The place is completely out of control to the point where they are now the housepets of the state. My, what a mess they've left on the carpet!

Meanwhile, the cultural scene in Benton Harbor is lively and creative, just as you'd expect when enlightened personal freedom takes hold and all that grim Victorian prudery is ripped away.

Around 0:50 we hear the inspiring, thoroughly non-prudish lyrics, "I ain't goin' back to jail".
Listening to these artists talk, I'd like to ask my progressive friends on Facebook to stand up and support free expression and acceptance of all lifestyles by committing themselves to pay their fair share and cover whatever tax burdens these guys can't. Unless, of course, you think these guys are going to shell out the roughly $12,000 in per capita taxes it takes to run the Federal government. (State and local can be dealt with later).

Freedom has its price.

Does Anyone Still Use CD Players?

I was just looking at some stereo gear in the Catican and I found a 5 CD player was part of the setup. We never use it anymore as we all have smartphones that have access to all of our music. Everywhere in the house, when we want to listen to music, we either use our phones or an Internet device and Pandora or Google Music.

Limousine Libertines

I'm in Orange at a soccer tournament with my daughter, blogging from my DROID2. Let's see how it goes.

A few nights ago, the boys were watching The Big Bang Theory. The 90 seconds of dialog I saw revolved around a girl one of the guys had slept with. The laugh track energetically registered its approval.

Here in Orange, the houses are pretty and the lawns manicured. I wonder how many of the people who work on the show live in a neighborhood like this.

A few miles away in Compton, the walls are slathered in graffiti and the windows encrusted with bars. In Compton, they live the life the show's laugh track endorses. I wonder how many of the show's crew live there.

In this house, the show is hilarious and the consequences theoretical:

The Greek Debt Problem Is Solved!

... for this week!

Greece’s credit ratings were cut to the lowest level by Moody’s Investors Service late on Friday after the country negotiated the biggest sovereign debt restructuring ever.

Moody’s dropped Greece’s rating to C from Ca, saying in a statement that investors who participate in the nation’s debt exchange will get about 70 percent less than the face value of their holdings. The deal constitutes “a distressed exchange, and hence a default,” the New York-based rating company said...

The country faces a high risk of default even if the plan is successful, Moody’s said. It will be unlikely to be able to sell bonds to private investors once its bailout package runs out, according to the rating company.

Emphasis mine.

This wears off, you know.

Cats Aren't Aloof, They're Subtle

The Catican Guards have been actively rallying 'round my injured son during his convalescence. They lick and follow and dance in attendance as dogs are wont to do. Their feline superior was not to be outdone.

Two nights ago, as I was helping the lad into bed, our Maximum Leader wandered into his room, jumped on his bed, licked his arm twice and then cuddled up next to him on the bed. She almost never sleeps with anyone but me, but there she was, purring away, doing her best to help out. I wish I had a photo to share.

"Washington state has historically been in the forefront for women's reproductive rights"

... so goes the quote from our Monks of Miscellaneous Musings as they detail Washington's decision to pay for abortions.

Driving around last weekend, I chanced to walk into a drug store where I saw an interesting couple in their mid-20s. He was covered in tattoos and wore a t-shirt where the front said something like, "My hands around your throat" and the back, "Your teeth sunk into my flesh." His girlfriend, a cute little thing, was shopping for this and that while he swore at her vigorously and told her she didn't need to buy anything. He went and shopped in the beer aisle.

Women's rights in general and reproductive rights in particular are all about cleaning up the mess after the woman is used and abused by a man. This young lovely had her "rights" "protected" only in the sense that after she put out for a knave and a swine, she could kill the results for free. In Washington, her "rights" now include you paying for it, although it's unknown if you'll have to pay for post-infanticide psychological treatment.

Meanwhile, if she didn't want to make the decision right away, bioethicists are debating the next logical step.

(Standard blog post image and snarky caption missing because the only analogy I can think of is Eichmann and the Wannsee Conference.)

Momma Daisy Adventure Playset Update

About two months ago, I bought a small pop-up greenhouse that we dubbed The Momma Daisy Adventure Playset. Momma and her daughter had been devoured by some unknown life form and the Playset was procured as a force field to keep Evil at bay. Did it work?

You bet!
Her flowers may be washed out because they are the first of the season and I haven't fertilized her yet. The leaves, however, are the best they've ever been. She's growing like crazy, too.

When I moved her into the playset, I divided her and repotted both halves. I'm not sure what to call the two halves. For now, they're both Momma Daisy.

Lavender With Red

Click on the image for a larger version.

RIP, Davy Jones

I've been a Monkees fan as long as they've existed. I was but a wee bairn when they first came on TV in 1966. My older brothers and sisters, who were teenagers at the time and therefore the very definition of cool, loved them. I adored my older siblings. Thus, a linkage was born that has lasted forever.

I've seen the Monkees twice in concert (sans Mike) and Peter Tork with his Shoe Suede Blues band once. The 2001 Monkees show I took my son to was the best concert I've ever been to, bar none and I've been to many. They were fun and happy and glad to see us in the audience. My ringtone is always a Monkees song and I time my steaks and lambsicles to songs from the first Monkees album.

Davy was never my favorite, but his "I Wann Be Free" on Live 1967 was easily the best track of the bunch. There are more things to write, but I'm short on time, so I'll just close with this bit from the last episode of their first season - The Monkees On Tour. It's a young Davy at the height of his stardom, not acting but being the gracious and appreciative performer I was fortunate enough to see twice on stage.

Go to God, Davy and thanks for everything.

Because Everyone Could Use A Little Zen

The Surgery Was A Success

Thanks for all the kind thoughts, prayers and good wishes! My son's surgery was a complete success and now he's on the mend. The surgeon had to do a little less than he expected, so only three vertebrae ended up fused instead of 4. Now it's a day or two in hospital, a few weeks with a neck brace and 6 months of healing until he's right as rain.

Thanks again for all your support. Each comment, tweet and email made me feel better.

Blogger Spam Filter FTW!

19 spam comments filtered out, 0 got through. Lots of legitimate comments published, none filtered out.

Outstanding job, Blogger team!

Surgery Today, Blogging Later

A prayer or three would be greatly appreciated as my son goes in for surgery today to repair his spinal column. It should go just fine and the surgery isn't unusual or complex, but as a father, you never want to hear words like "spine, surgery, metal plate, screws" used in a single sentence about one of your children.

Thanks in advance. God bless all of you and I'll be back tomorrow.

(Hilarious) Link Of The Day

Our Missionary to the Frozen, Northern Wastelands offers up this bit of mirth.

Someone Had A Big Day Yesterday

As a part of the physical training regimen required to maintain their coveted positions protecting our Maximum Leader, we took the Catican Guards on a 5 mile hike yesterday, followed by an evening two-hour romp with some friends' dogs. The smaller of our Guards is about 10# and all of the other dogs she played with were much larger, yet she held her own.

A well-earned rest: she fell asleep on my lap.
I never thought I would have anything but scorn for a little dog, but this one is more precious than rubies. She is joy and love in a little, furry bundle.

Spam Of The Day

Here's a good one from our blog's spam filter.

Numerous smooth need workmanship Chanel will attention possible supplies Numerous searching all that name Chanel frame what provide Consumers name great smooth what well hundred style lenses numerous protection condition as Companies celebs safety consumer made Fake hundred create only exceptional well-liked frame Not create detail brand own only this need line Chanel great well-liked well there workmanship

I think someone needs to dry out for a few days before leaving comments. A little too much Benzedrine, if you ask me.

If You're Allergic To Cats, Will You Suffer Astral Sneezes?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

At Least With Tulips You Got A Pretty Flower

... with EnviroMania, you just get shuttered heavy industry sites and high electricity prices. The whole article is worth a read, and I mean really worth a read, but here's a tiny tidbit.

In macroeconomic terms, the impending demise of heavy industry is all the more worrying, because the job losses will not be offset elsewhere. There is no sign yet of the green economic miracle that the federal government promised would accompany Germany's new energy strategy. On the contrary, many manufacturers of wind turbines and solar panels complain that business is bad and are cutting jobs. Some solar companies have already gone out of business. The environmental sector faces a number of problems, especially -- and ironically -- those stemming from high energy prices.

Buying tulips for insane prices was obviously a fool's game. Shutting down your nukes, regulating fossil fuel plants into bankruptcy and relying on wind and solar to power the grid is, too.

Wind power and tulips! It's the daily double!
Image credit: The Recumbent Blog.

Spam Of The Day

So far, my decision to eliminate captcha words has worked well. Blogger's spam-catcher has picked off all spam comments. Nothing is getting through. Another plus is that there's a lot more spam being caught now and the hilarity is just waiting to be mined. Here's one.

I off panic attacks befall, me and my stock is entirely worried. The doctor gave me a remedy seeking this soporific.

Awesomeness. My stock is entirely worried? Is that like livestock? Worried cows? I would bet that worried cows might need a soporific.

With all this great stuff to harvest, I think we've got a new job for Jacob.

Crisis Living

... brings out the best in you?

My son's neck isn't healing quite right and it looks like he's going to need surgery to make sure his spinal column is protected. The whole family has rallied 'round, including the smaller of the two Catican Guards who has taken to being my boy's own personal morale officer.

In our family, this has been a revealing episode with heroism and love all around, particularly from my wife. I thought I had married well before this. Now I can't find words to describe how strengthening and supportive she is.

In prayer, I've asked for the strength, sympathy and constancy to muddle my way through this and it's been no small solace to find that God grants me this as I ask. In the mechanics of life, I've found that deeper thought is hard to come by - scattered and random when it appears, but simply placing one foot in front of the other and doing the next thing that needs to be done relieves much stress.

The required surgery is not difficult or dangerous, but the time getting to it is. Post-surgery, recovery should be quick and almost total with only the most minor of side effects.

Like most crises, it's the waiting that's the hardest.

Cheezburger Of The Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Why Are Mardi Gras Colors Green, Gold and Purple?

Here at the 'Post, we always want to be of service, answering the questions that keep you up at night. One member of the Catican staff asked this morning about Mardi Gras colors. Here's what we found out*.

• Green is for the money you spend on liquid refreshments and revelry.


• Gold is for the color of the beer you drink.


• Purple is for the unexplained bruises on your body when you wake up the next morning on the sidewalk.

There. That's it! We're always happy to help, so feel free to add more questions in the comments below.

* - We didn't actually look this up, so it's more of a guess than "what we found out".

Unprotected Blogging

Blogger's new captcha words are simply unusable. As the blog admin here, I don't have to fill them out when I comment on the 'Post, but I've had to struggle with them elsewhere and it's too much of a burden on the commenter to fight through them. I've turned them off and am now relying exclusively on the spam filters and my ability to manage comments from the Blogger dashboard. We'll see how this goes.

iSpend

Before he went off to college, we offered to buy my son a laptop. We gave him a budget and let him choose. He picked a MacBook. We just bought the cables required to hook his MacBook up to a TV. Ridiculous. Mini DVI to DVI then DVI to HDMI, none of which will carry the sound. That needed a stereo jack to RCA cable. And Lord knows you can't use the same cable as they use for MacBook Pros. Certainly not! You need a special cable for the MacBook.

Apple, by the way, has an absolutely criminal profit margin of about 28%, so a lot of my purchase went straight into the pockets of their board members. It reminds me of something the immortal Steve Jobs used to say.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, YOU MORON? THIS IS THE WRONG COLOR BLUE! DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE RIGHT COLOR BLUE TO YOU? WERE YOU BORN ON A FARM? YOU MAKE ME SICK! MY COFFEE IS TERRIBLE! IF YOU CRY ONE MORE TIME, YOU'RE FIRED! AND WAX MY CAR! YOU'RE ALL IDIOTS!"

Or something like that.

Tiny Chameleons

This is totally cool.

"The Economy, According To The CBO, Shuts Down In 2027 On This Path"

That's from Paul Ryan in his conversation with a smirking Tim Geithner, shown below. The money quote is around 2:30.

2027 is only 15 years away. Speaking personally, our children will be 37, 35, 35 and 30. They will be married, with children and careers by about then. This is what we're going to leave them? Greece in 15 years?

At least they'll have free chemical abortions.

H/T: Mark Steyn.

Elsewhere: Our Monks of Miscellaneous Musings are enraged at the outright cowardice of the Obama Administration. So is B-Daddy. Doo Doo Economics is unhappy with the out-and-out lying in the budget. Secular Apostate has a chilling pair of charts to go with it.

Why I Don't Like Coffee From A Can

... because it just seems ridiculous that the metal can is used simply to transport ground beans. Unfortunately, coffee that comes in bags is about twice the price. So every time I need coffee, I buy the can, dump the coffee into a canister in my kitchen and then throw the can out. The can made precisely one trip from manufacture to the trash.

Argh.

This is what it takes to make the can. What a waste!

We Have A Clock In The Kitchen That Has Stopped Because The Batteries Have Died

... but I keep looking at it anyway and it takes me a few seconds to realize it's not 8:00.

Sigh.

Cats As Fonts

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Wash Eddie Bernice Johnson Away With This

Ms. Johnson lives in a world where the top musical artists sing about forcing girls to service them in bathroom stalls. There's no need for the rest of us to live like that.

But First, You Must Slay Chivalry

... because this is true only when men can make love to a woman and feel not the slightest desire to protect her.

Following Thursday’s walkout of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the Obama administration's birth-control mandate, which featured a panel made up entirely of men, Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) said the incident demonstrated a lack of perspective on the issue of contraception.

Birth control “is not a male issue, it’s a female issue. I’ve never met a man that had the need for birth control.”

I don't want to live in that world.

Grandpa Antigonos Better Get Used To Eating Cat Food

Those "investments" in universal health care, government union salaries and assorted social programs didn't pay off. Grandpa's going to have to cover some of the losses.

Further cuts in pensions are expected to cover part of the 325 million euro gap in the 3.3 billion euros of extra budget savings this year which the EU and IMF are demanding in exchange for a new bailout of 130 million euros, Kathimerini understands...

Though exact cuts in pensions were not announced, it is widely understood that part of the 325 million needed will be raised from further reductions in pensions

Greece's chickens, as our favorite racist pastor might say, are coming home to roost.

Working Women Need A $0 Deductible On Their Auto Insurance

This post is for anyone who doesn't think the health insurance mandates are not a direct, fascist attack on the Catholic Church and other traditional religions.

Justification for the mandate: Working women can spend up to $600 a year on contraceptives. These mandates will save them a nice chunk of money.

Why that's nonsense: Money is completely fungible and no other insurance was targeted.

Lots of people have $500 or higher deductibles on their auto collision insurance. Some don't cover their cars for collision at all*. A working woman who gets into a fender bender will spend money she had earmarked for diaphragms on replacing her bumper. If she doesn't have the extended warranty on her laptop and the thing dies, there's another drain on her contraceptives budget. How about insurance for her TV? The deductible on her renter's insurance?

$600 is a rounding error in health insurance where procedures you really want covered run into the tens of thousands of dollars. If you quizzed women across the country, I doubt they could tell you which $600 items were and were not covered in their existing insurance.

The selection of contraceptives was not random. It was done, as Tim pointed out, by Kathleen Sibelius, a (Vichy) Catholic. She knew what she was doing. She was trying to crush a rival to the State's supremacy in all things.

Patria Socialista!
* - For example, my rust-eaten, 1984 Datsun pickup has no collision coverage.

I Hear They Make Them For People, Too

Peer Pressure Can Easily Sway Girls

... to join the track team!

I was driving my daughter and her best friend home from their high school soccer game* yesterday when the subject of the next sports season came up. My daughter's biggest drawback in soccer is her speed and I had encouraged her to run track. She demurred saying that she didn't want to be embarrassed by finishing last in every race. I understood and the matter was closed. Her friend, an absolute rabbit of a girl, started begging her to run track with her. She pumped my daughter up and said she wasn't that slow after all.

End result: We're going to give track, specifically sprints, a try. Hurrah! The only caveat is that it can't conflict in any way with her club soccer team. Double hurrah!

Peer pressure's not always bad. If your kids hang out with the right sort, it can be quite good.

* - We played an inner city team that fielded only eight girls, three of whom were severely overweight. It didn't look like any of them knew what to do with the ball. Our team's offense is positively anemic - 2 goals is unheard of for us. We won, 9-0 and we didn't even play full strength most of the game. When a powerhouse like Steele Canyon plays that team, strong men must weep and look away from the carnage.

The Best Political Ad Of The Season

Rick Santorum for President!

Link And Image Of The Day

... With Both Hands hits a home run. Click on the image for the link.


Update: I absolutely love the term "Vichy Priests" in his post. The more I think about it, the better it is.

Not Phonemes

Pho Noms.

Happy Valentine's Day, Everybody!

Greece Was Just The Appetizer

The main course is yet to come. I hope you like Italian.

London, 13 February 2012 -- As anticipated in November 2011, Moody's Investors Service has today adjusted the sovereign debt ratings of selected EU countries in order to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis and how these risks exacerbate the affected countries' own specific challenges.

Moody's actions can be summarised as follows:

• France: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
• Italy: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook
• Portugal: downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2, negative outlook
• Spain: downgraded to A3 from A1, negative outlook

Your Public Safety Message Of The Day

Watching Aston Villa matches may cause severe drowsiness. Make sure to wait at least 4 hours after watching a match before operating heavy machinery or attempting a complex surgery. Definitely take with alcohol.

Cheezburger of the Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Say Some Prayers For The Greeks

There's no need for snarkiness with this one. Athens saw at least ten buildings burned down last night as the Greek Parliament caved in to reality and voted for massive cuts in government spending and minimum wage laws.

Update: It's a bit worse than 10 buildings.

Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 48 buildings set ablaze. Some 100 people – including 68 police – were wounded and 130 detained, a police official said on Monday.

There was also violence in cities across the country, including Thessaloniki and the islands of Corfu and Crete.

I Hear They Make Them For People, Too

The Internet Saves You Time

Sunday morning. The replay of yesterday's Newcastle-Tottenham game is available on foxsoccer.tv now. I've assiduously avoided looking at the soccer sites on the Internet so the game is new to me. It's a big game as Newcastle needs to win to keep 5th place. Tottenham is a top 4 team, really tough. It should be a good match.

I wake up before everyone else and come downstairs. Turn on the coffee. Warm up the old Google TV. Bring in our Maximum Leader for breakfast. Newcastle coffee mug full of delicious black poison and wearing my Jonas Gutierrez jersey, I have a seat and flip on the game, laptop on my lap.

4 minutes in, it's 1-0 Tottenham. 6 minutes in, it's 2-0. OK, that's enough of that. Click click click and I'm reading the postgame analysis on the NUFC blog. 5-0 Tottenham final and it wasn't even that close. I grab the Google TV remote and click away. Wolves will be on live at 0530. Hopefully that will turn out better than this catastrophe.

Back in the old days, we would have spent another 90 minutes watching the whole game on our Google TV and RCA black and white set, hoping the lads could stage a miraculous comeback.
Update: Good Lord. Wolves lost, 5-1. My EPL teams lost by an aggregate 10-1 this weekend.

It's Not About The $600

George Savage, writing over at Ricochet, unmasks the whole HHS vs. the Catholic Church conflict.

Sibelius: But I think we can say very safely that this doesn't add to the cost of either the employer's plan -- and we know that women, if they have to purchase this coverage outside of a health plan, could spend up to $600, which is a substantial financial barrier to access a very important health benefit and a benefit used by 99 percent of women across this country at some point in their lives.

$600 works out to $12 a week. No one in their right mind, and Barack Obama and Kathleen Sibelius are certainly in their right minds, thinks that it is of crucial importance to cover an elective personal activity to the tune of a maximum of $12 a week.

This is fascist enforcement of moral conformity, nothing else.

Update: Egnorance hits the nail on the head.

We are at war. We are at war with people who hate Christianity. There are people in this country who want to see Catholicism in particular, and Christianity in general, crushed. They are assaulting us continuously, in courtrooms, in the press, in regulatory offices with judicial censorship, calumny, and regulations that transgress the Constitution and transgress simple respect for conscience.

I Hope Doctors Are In The 1%

... because they earn what they get.

The two doctors I worked with during my son's recent, post-crash hospital stay were fantastic. One walked me through the CAT scan of his vertebrae, showing me in an instant what was what. He spoke with an authority and detail born of years of study, research and practice. The other diagnosed a complicated situation with one of his elbows quickly and competently.

Why shouldn't they be rewarded handsomely for their hard work?

It's Harvest Time!

They sowed their seeds and tended them well. With the utmost skill, progressives all around the world followed the very latest innovations in statist solutions. Now it's time to bring in the bountiful harvest!

Sweet, delicious austerity to pay back all of those "entitlements" that lefty politicians demagogued about for years.

An overnight marathon meeting of the three coalition party leaders with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos resulted in the most violent devaluation of labour pay during peacetime, pending a further cut in pensions to be agreed within 15 days...

The shock-and-awe measures agreed so far are all supposed to bring about a 15 percent reduction in unit labour costs in the country by cutting real wages and bonuses in the private sector by 22-40 percent on average while dismantling sectoral collective bargaining agreements.

• A direct cut to the minimum basic wage by 22 percent at all levels of pay contracts

• A further reduction of 10 percent on the basic wage of first-time employees between the ages of 18-25, bringing the total reduction on this category to 32 percent

The youth vote was instrumental in winning those elections, so it's only fair that they get kicked in the groin the very hardest!

Next up, the rich, creamy harvest of total employment collapse!

The country's jobless rate rose to a fresh record of 20.9 percent in November, highlighting the pain imposed by austerity on ordinary Greeks as the country negotiates a new pain-for-gain package with its EU and IMF lenders.

Looks like those "investments" didn't pay off so well. Who could have predicted that? And guess who's going to get kicked in the groin yet again? Anyone want to bet? Probably the youth that were taught from an early age about the glories of Eurosocialism.

I wonder if their classes included any Adam Smith or Milton Friedman. Probably not.

This is going on all over Greece. Great job, lefties!

Persecuting Heretics

The court ruling against Proposition 8 makes me think of a few things.

1. Fascism as a religion as Jonah Goldberg asserts.


2. The HHS ruling in favor of contraception in all health plans.


3. The Susan G. Komen spat with Planned Parenthood.


4. Religious schisms over tiny doctrinal matters leading to persecution.


5. What was the point of it all if not enforcing religious orthodoxy?

Persecuting heresy is all about controlling thought. When it comes to the mechanics of daily life like growing corn or selling cows, it doesn't really matter whether you believe in the Trinity or not. It seems like a wild overreaction to kill people and burn villages over the matter. Similarly, discarding votes at the statewide level, jamming insurance coverage down unwilling throats for tiny procedures and threats of excommunication over minuscule donations would appear to be disproportionate to the payoff.

Unless the whole thing is religious in nature and then it makes sense.

Is disenfranchising the voters of California worth a legal definition for gays that can be replaced any number of ways? Is it worth angering tens of millions of Catholics to cover twenty five cent condoms in insurance policies? Does a $500K donation to a $1B abortion mill show up as anything other than a rounding error on the bottom line?

If it isn't a religious issue, then what is it? We just threw out the results of an election for ... what?

Do these folks seem sufficiently repressed to warrant discarding an election?

When In Modesto, Do Try The Goat Curry

It's delicious.

The California Supreme Court Cannot Be Overruled

... even by voters and Constitutional Amendments.

Citizens are urged to return to their normal lives, but continue to monitor all available media outlets in case the California Supreme Court has further pronouncements.

Above all, citizens should avoid drafting referendums or voting in any way as the Supreme Court has determined that citizens are not competent to make decisions.

Blogging From Modesto

On Sunday, my wife and I were walking the Catican Guards when I got a phone call. It was a strange area code and the woman on the other end identified herself as a nurse at a hospital in Modesto. My son had been in a car crash and was in the hospital with various injuries.

I returned the Guards to their posts and drove the 7 hours from San Diego to Modesto. My son had a few cracked ribs and a neck injury, but no permanent damage. He had been at a leadership conference in the Bay Area and fell asleep at the wheel while driving back to college in SoCal. I'm up here in Modesto now after a day spent at the hospital with my boy. Here are some observations from a tired, addled brain.

• There are good ways and bad ways to learn you are mortal. This was a good way. It has all of the self-recrimination and none of the lasting physical damage.


• Modesto is restaurant-impoverished.


• Nurses are beautiful people. All of the nurses taking care of my son have been competent, caring people.


• Doctors are like leprechauns. No one ever sees them, you just hear about them. My son's doctor was supposed to show up today, but never made his rounds. They said he'd had several operations to perform, but I know better.


• My son is now sporting a neck brace and is being treated as if he has a spinal injury, even though his actual injuries are moderate. They take three people to turn him and when they do, they treat him like he was paralyzed to keep the neck immobile.


• The last time they did this today I had a flash of what it would be like were he actually paralyzed. I teared up, picturing what it must be like to be at your son's bedside waiting for him to move a finger or a toe.


• I love my family. Caring for my son is no chore. I was able to drop everything and motor up to Modesto because my wife and other kids would take care of things at home. I am very blessed.

I'm sure there are lots of other things to note, but I'm running out of steam for the night. I'm so grateful to God that it wasn't worse and I've had all the support I needed.

UN Peacekeepers Would Be Deadly To Deerflies

H/T: Tim, of course!

Swagger Your Way To The Top!

... because swagger makes you try things a modest person would never attempt.

My daughter plays soccer. She plays defense and does a good job of it, but whenever she gets control of the ball, she gets rid of it as fast as she can, either by clearing it or by passing it away. A touch or two and it's gone. She plays like she thinks she is the least deserving person on the field. She's only half right. In practice, she's got good ball control skills, but in games, her skills are uncetain. Girls with swagger don't have this problem.

What's missing is the conviction that she can dribble up field herself because she knows she can get by the players on the other team. Girls who think that way try it and trying things is the key to learning how to do them. At first they fail quite a bit, but their innate self-confidence keeps them at it until they've got it down in game situations. If you're modest and keep passing the ball off to players who you think are better than you, you never try and so you never become a top player.

Maybe all of those NFL players who dance and strut are in the league because they danced and strutted.

To Those Who Want Me To Vote For Romney

Can you imagine what it must be like to be David Bonior right now? He just watched a pro-Obamacare Rockefeller Republican Wall Street tycoon carpet bomb Florida with millions of dollars of ads repeating his lying calumnies against Newt Gingrich while Ann Coulter, Hugh Hewitt and Bob Dole (Bob Dole!) mouthed the trash he spewed all those years ago.

In a heroin-fueled, month-long hallucinatory bender, Bonior couldn't have pictured this, but he got it anyway, thanks to Mitt Romney. Bonior's house must be festooned with press clippings right now. I'll bet he's been texting and emailing and calling all of the weasels who teamed up with him to slander Newt and the bunch of them haven't been sober for weeks.

That's what I'm supposed to vote for because SCOTUS is on the line?

Get lost.

David Bonior for President!

Do You Yell At The Screen During Movies?

Right now, I'm watching the Wolves-QPR game. I just yelled at the TV when Doyle missed Fletcher on a pass down into the box. I realized that I don't yell at the TV during movies during the exciting parts. It's not that I know what's going to happen in the movie, either. We love to yell during sporting events, but not during movies. Weird.

Mitt Romney Is Driving Others Away, Too

Over at Hot Air, Wolf Howling penned a comment that perfectly sums up my feelings about the Florida primary.

I’ve spent the last few weeks watching Romney run the most intellectually dishonest campaign against Gingrich that I could imagine. Romney isn’t making the case that he has a better conservative pedigree, nor that his vision for America is superior or more conservative than Gingrich’s. He spent 17 million doing nothing but trying to delegitimize and demonize Gingrich with gross distortions of history. I haven’t seen anything like this since what the left did to Sarah Palin. And the last time anything like this occurred in the Republican Party, it was the cannibalization of Goldwater in 1964.

For the past two decades in which I have been politically informed and active, I have always believed that the single starkest difference between the left and the right was intellectual honesty. We on the right had it while those on the left dealt mostly in demagoguery and demonization. We on the right were ever willing to debate the facts, those on the left were ever willing to cherry pick the facts, distort the facts, and then use the race card or its many variants to end debate. To use the words of Bookworm Room: “Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.” That illusion is now shattered.

At this point, I wouldn’t vote for Romney for dog catcher even if he was running in a three way race against Lenin and Marx. I will support Republican candidates for Congress and the Senate. But I could not, at this point, vote for any man as scurrilous and underhanded as Romney for President.

Update: Welcome Freepers! I'm very grateful that someone decided to link to this post. I hope you'll click around and see what else there is to see. You're always welcome here. If you don't come back, then God bless and thanks for stopping by!

My own take on Romney can be found here.

You Know It's Good When There's A Post-Riot Riot

Egyptian soccer fans when nuts the other day, killing 74.

They followed this up with an encore riot that killed 3 more.

CAIRO—Police in Cairo set off salvos of tear gas and fired birdshot at protesters angry over a deadly soccer riot as fresh clashes on Egyptian streets killed three people on Friday, according to a volunteer doctor and health officials.

One man died just feet away from the Interior Ministry, which has become a target for demonstrators furious that the police failed to prevent a soccer riot that killed 74 people in the Mediterranean city of Port Said on Wednesday. It was the world's worst soccer violence in 15 years.

Watching that video above, it's hard to see how police could have prevented anything. If thousands of people decide to go berserk, there's not much anyone can do to stop it.

Cheezburger of the Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

I'd Follow Him To The Gates Of Hell

... just to make sure he got in.

- Things you never want to hear your employees say.

Rednecks Are Stupid Because They Have To Use Payday Loans

Case in point.

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

Rednecks also have no idea where their money goes. That's because they're so stupid.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

John Chiang watches NASCAR and uses chewing tobacco. And dig the 'murrican flag next to him. Typical redneck. I'll bet he just got back from a Bible meeting.

Income Inequality Is Unjust!

The other Friday I was at the grocery store and the guy ahead of me was buying a quart of Miller High Life and two fifths of Ron Rico Rum.

Getting a sandwich at a local deli, I noticed the woman in front of me buy a couple of packs of cigarettes and some candy - I think it was Starburst.

My daughter has a classmate at her public high school who sleeps through most of his classes and a few others who are illiterate. At Parent's Night, only about 30% of the parents bother to show up. This compares to her old Catholic grade school where turnout was 95% and the remaining 5% were out of town or on death's door with the flu.

I blame the Bush tax cuts.

Personally, I Think The Guy Inside The Costume Was Innocent

Dig this.

A team's mascot has been suspended for two home matches for making obscene gestures to opposition fans.

Ceara's ''Grandpa'' mascot was suspended Tuesday after making the gestures to fans from Ferroviario in a match on Sunday.

Local media reports that Ceara is also expected to punish the person who was inside the mascot costume.

Hey, suspend the mascot, but leave the poor guy inside the costume alone. He had nothing to do with it!

This member of the Ceara U3 team refused comment.

Should I Show This To My Daughter?

Well, should I?