Boy Scoutageddon

That last post got me thinking about federal charters in general. The first one I personally heard of was the 1916  charter of the Boy Scouts of America. When I was a Tenderfoot we were told we ought to be real proud of that.

The charter was accompanied by the tradition of making Potus the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America. Yep, His Obamaness is the current head Scout. Never mind his discomfort in associating with a patriotic, quasi-religious organization which also insists that adult scout leaders be hetero -- or at least sufficiently controlled to keep their mouths shut and their hands off  the little boys at Camporee time.

Consider the unthinkable. Tragedy robs the nation of its president and vice-president  while Barney Frank is speaker of the U.S. House.   As his first official act he (with congresscritter help) charters Acorn. Then he waits for the invitation to honorarily head the Boy Scouts and wonders whether -- if the invitation comes -- he should accept or decline.  Talk about your horns of a dilemma...

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On balance, I think the Scouts should bow out of the charter. If nothing else it would set a nice example for Freddy Mac.

Adult language warning

I've developed the obnoxious habit of checking into MSNBC on my electrical tellie in the morning. To say that Joe and Mika run the best of the bleary-eyed wakeups is to damn with faint  praise. And maybe I like having my intelligence insulted.

Such as with the large-print banner on this morning's discussion of congresscritters wandering in to their offices determined to increase their net worth before lunch through bold stock-market investments.

The banner asks, "Do Lawmakers Benefit from Insider Trading?"

Here comes the adult language.

"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

This hasn't been news since at least the Lincoln Administration.

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The solution is a Constitutional amendment requiring Congress to obey the Constitution by not chartering railroads or financing silly solar-power adventures,  etc.

If you snort something back at me about circular reasoning, you are a clear-eyed, intelligent citizen of the Republic, and I love you.

OMG, another campus gun

Another hideous possibility is averted due to the diligence of campus-town cops.

Vigilent Greenville police saw a suspicious character with an assault rifle on their Big Brother screens,  and the  campus was locked down as...

"Heavily armed officers from at least four law enforcement agencies responded in force, sweeping campus buildings, searching buses and briefly surrounding a nearby house. A Highway Patrol helicopter hovered overhead."

The official ninjas handled the guy packing an umbrella without serious difficulty.


Welcome to the New America. E Pluribus EEEEK!

Blogging ain't hard

All you really have to do is read the newspaper and pass on the giggles. .  The Register decided to see why the U of Ioway laid itself open to another round of ridicule with that silly emergency alert about a man with a gun. (It turns out that there was no gun, no demonstrable threat, and not even a suspect.)

"U of I police director Chuck Green did not return a message seeking comment. Associate director Dave Visin referred questions to fellow associate director Lucy Wiederholt, who did not return a message seeking comment.


"University President Sally Mason’s office referred questions to spokesman Tom Moore and said interviews with Mason must be scheduled in advance. Mason was out of the office Tuesday."


That's an awful lot of fancy footwork coming from a place that calls itself a community of scholars who think at the cutting edge of the most adanced frontiers of human intelligence.

Funny one of the high-level cogitaters didn't say, "Aww, why the Hell don't we just admit we panicked like a freshman who missed her period?"