Charges of public intoxication, disorderly conduct and simple assault were filed against a Des Moines woman on Wednesday after she allegedly yelled at neighbors and tossed a cat at them from a balcony.
Clearly, this illustrates the need for common-sense cat control. One cat a month. Small, easily concealable cats sold only after background check and waiting period. Assault cats limited to police and the military only.
And certainly Washington should close the cathouse loophole.
May 19, 2011
May 18, 2011
That didn't take long
Indiana Sheriff Don Hartman Sr. is delighted. Under Barnes vs. Indiana he can now conduct random house-to-house searches when ever he thinks it necessary. No warrant needed. Not necessarily even a knock before kicking in your door.
His use of "necessary" marks a third and new standard of what cops must do before putting you on the floor of your living room. We already had probable cause and the weaker reasonable suspicion. To that we now add the sherf's hunch.
You'll recall the new Indiana Supreme Court decision forbids you to resist if the police decide to invade your home, even the police are doing so illegally.
Sheriff Hartman says he's on firm political ground because "...people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal." The Hell of it is, he may be as much right as wrong. The Fourth Amendment is not a popular discussion item at your average American lunch counter.
N.B. -- Hoosiers in Hartman's Newton County jurisdiction who care to comment should disagree with me, loudly and firmly. Sheriff Hartman may well be one of armed Only Ones who think criticizing NKVD-style jurisprudence is criminally anti-social. That might move him to pay you a call about 3. a.m. Just on a hunch, y'know.
His use of "necessary" marks a third and new standard of what cops must do before putting you on the floor of your living room. We already had probable cause and the weaker reasonable suspicion. To that we now add the sherf's hunch.
You'll recall the new Indiana Supreme Court decision forbids you to resist if the police decide to invade your home, even the police are doing so illegally.
Sheriff Hartman says he's on firm political ground because "...people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal." The Hell of it is, he may be as much right as wrong. The Fourth Amendment is not a popular discussion item at your average American lunch counter.
N.B. -- Hoosiers in Hartman's Newton County jurisdiction who care to comment should disagree with me, loudly and firmly. Sheriff Hartman may well be one of armed Only Ones who think criticizing NKVD-style jurisprudence is criminally anti-social. That might move him to pay you a call about 3. a.m. Just on a hunch, y'know.
May 17, 2011
Cab carry
Between Two Rivers is following a Cedar Rapids story about letting taxi drivers carry weapons. It and the links are worth the read, especially if you like to ponder a city council wondering if it ought to obey state law.
Cedar Rapids uses its power to regulate city cabs to forbid drivers to arm themselves. Never mind the broad state pre-emption law.
One of Stranded's links include this:
(Councilman Justin) Shields suggested that a proposed amendment to the current city taxi ordinance would allow drivers and passengers to carry firearms in cabs if they were legally licensed to carry a firearm.
Huh? A CCW holder may not enter a cab if he's carrying? This may be a simple slip by Shields or the reporter. On the other hand, you run across a lot of dimwittery among local pols.
Cedar Rapids uses its power to regulate city cabs to forbid drivers to arm themselves. Never mind the broad state pre-emption law.
One of Stranded's links include this:
(Councilman Justin) Shields suggested that a proposed amendment to the current city taxi ordinance would allow drivers and passengers to carry firearms in cabs if they were legally licensed to carry a firearm.
Huh? A CCW holder may not enter a cab if he's carrying? This may be a simple slip by Shields or the reporter. On the other hand, you run across a lot of dimwittery among local pols.
Getting lost with great precision
For several years a GPS-generated 911 map misplaced my home and kingdom about seven miles, plopping it in Mrs. VanFookstra's soybean field. No big problem. It might have even thrown off a few pests wanting to cold-call me for 20-pay-life or a surefire way of getting St. Peter to punch my ticket.
It was worse for the Canadian couple who decided to trust their GPS gizmo to get themselves to Jackpot, Nevada.
The cops found Rita about seven weeks later, drinking from a creek and wondering how long the last bag of trail mix would last. They're still looking for Albert.
As a public service TMR renews certain of its motoring suggestions: Consult a good paper map. When in doubt ask ol' Zeke at the Conoco station. Look out the damn window once in a while.
It was worse for the Canadian couple who decided to trust their GPS gizmo to get themselves to Jackpot, Nevada.
The cops found Rita about seven weeks later, drinking from a creek and wondering how long the last bag of trail mix would last. They're still looking for Albert.
As a public service TMR renews certain of its motoring suggestions: Consult a good paper map. When in doubt ask ol' Zeke at the Conoco station. Look out the damn window once in a while.
May 16, 2011
The news
By the time the media get done riding the tale of this sicko IMF clown we'll be so exhausted with it that an updated mortality report on Michael Jackson will constitute welcome relief.
'
'
Why we're broke
Nwamkpa was a good runner in college, got a lot of press. Then he became a teacheroid. Finally he figured out how to earn $1,056 by taking kids to a two-hour movie.
Then the heartless auditors nailed him for Medicaid fraud to the tune of about $140,000 and, in a plea bargain, he got off with probation and a little community service.
But the mean old judge also ordered Nwamkpa to pay restitution of $15,000, about 11 cents on every tax dollar he swiped. Meaning that his movie outing with the troubled youth earned him a mere $940. Hell, for that kind of money I might even go see a Will Smith movie myself.
The told the reporter he was a victim of selective presecution, didn't do anything wrong, and was pleased to learn that he wasn't banned from offering further services to Medicaid eligible youth.
Isn't that a nice public option?
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Then the heartless auditors nailed him for Medicaid fraud to the tune of about $140,000 and, in a plea bargain, he got off with probation and a little community service.
But the mean old judge also ordered Nwamkpa to pay restitution of $15,000, about 11 cents on every tax dollar he swiped. Meaning that his movie outing with the troubled youth earned him a mere $940. Hell, for that kind of money I might even go see a Will Smith movie myself.
The told the reporter he was a victim of selective presecution, didn't do anything wrong, and was pleased to learn that he wasn't banned from offering further services to Medicaid eligible youth.
Isn't that a nice public option?
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Even a fool as great as I knows better than to get involved in friction among people he admires and who, in his opinion, create one of the brightest quarters of libertarian thought on the internet.
But I will comment on a side issue.
A court made a despicably statist ruling. Apparently, a raft of email to one of our friends called it a casus belli, real belli. Storm the American Bastille. Blow stuff up.
Frustration followed.
---
Look, if we shouldered our bugout bags, strapped on the custom Baers, and loaded our rifles every time some f-cked-up decision came down from the courts or the congress or the White House, the United States of America would, in short order, find itself a New-World Somalia. Blow-flies on skinny corpses. Swap you an hour with my sister for a pint of figs.
The temptation to go gunning for statists, especially the Checka. is understandable. But we are a greater people because because we find it in ourselves to take a long breath and use the greater weapons -- discourse, reason, aggressive political action, satire, outright ridicule, and even the flawed system itself. Yes, it's slow and uncertain. But also yes, it keeps a lot of four-year-olds from getting shot down in the crossfire between loyalist forces and a hundred thousand rebels whose thought processes begin and end with SHTF movies.
But I will comment on a side issue.
A court made a despicably statist ruling. Apparently, a raft of email to one of our friends called it a casus belli, real belli. Storm the American Bastille. Blow stuff up.
Frustration followed.
---
Look, if we shouldered our bugout bags, strapped on the custom Baers, and loaded our rifles every time some f-cked-up decision came down from the courts or the congress or the White House, the United States of America would, in short order, find itself a New-World Somalia. Blow-flies on skinny corpses. Swap you an hour with my sister for a pint of figs.
The temptation to go gunning for statists, especially the Checka. is understandable. But we are a greater people because because we find it in ourselves to take a long breath and use the greater weapons -- discourse, reason, aggressive political action, satire, outright ridicule, and even the flawed system itself. Yes, it's slow and uncertain. But also yes, it keeps a lot of four-year-olds from getting shot down in the crossfire between loyalist forces and a hundred thousand rebels whose thought processes begin and end with SHTF movies.
May 14, 2011
Huckabee bails; Iowa Caucuses 2012
The Rev. Mr. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas -- preacher, ex-governor, and Fox teevee star -- says he could probably win the GOP nomination but won't run anyway. His heart says "no," and it is certainly un-Christian of me to suspect that his personal accountant endorsed the decision.
I won't miss him, despite his undeniable personal affability. I find it harmless enough that Arkansas Baptist preachers undertake to give us final, definitive, and absolute truth about God and His universe. It is only when they claim they're smart enough to administer the American civil system -- in part because they get a daily briefing from God -- that I draw the line.
This reduces to 17 the number of competing geniuses on the TMR broad-form list of caucus pests, which has been updated to reflect Huckabee's prayerful decision to keep getting richer on commercial teevee.
---
Huckabee won the 2008 caucuses with about 34 per cent of the vote. You will see unbelievable huffing and puffing to attract these Iowa "values" voters. Our status as a leading wind-energy producer is safe for at least eight more months.
I won't miss him, despite his undeniable personal affability. I find it harmless enough that Arkansas Baptist preachers undertake to give us final, definitive, and absolute truth about God and His universe. It is only when they claim they're smart enough to administer the American civil system -- in part because they get a daily briefing from God -- that I draw the line.
This reduces to 17 the number of competing geniuses on the TMR broad-form list of caucus pests, which has been updated to reflect Huckabee's prayerful decision to keep getting richer on commercial teevee.
---
Huckabee won the 2008 caucuses with about 34 per cent of the vote. You will see unbelievable huffing and puffing to attract these Iowa "values" voters. Our status as a leading wind-energy producer is safe for at least eight more months.
The other castle doctrine
The Indiana Supreme Court says it's just being hip in wiping out another snippet of the Constitution of the United States. The Hoosier Black Robes shat on several centuries of common law in ruling that cops can kick down your door and wave guns at your wife and kids -- and you have no right to resist. Search warrant? Who needs that kind of niggling paper work?
Or is it declasse to remember what some of those old dead white guys said?
If anyone is collecting money to make air space over the Indiana Supreme Court a no-fly zone, put me down for a hundred bucks.
--
H/T Roberta
"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."
"Modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" justifies an illegal and violent home breakin for "no reason at all?"
We have fallen far from the roots of our liberties, from the vision of guys like William Pitt (the elder.)
"Modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence" justifies an illegal and violent home breakin for "no reason at all?"
We have fallen far from the roots of our liberties, from the vision of guys like William Pitt (the elder.)
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail -- its roof may shake -- the wind may blow through it -- the storm may enter -- the rain may enter -- but the King of England cannot enter! -- all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!
Or is it declasse to remember what some of those old dead white guys said?
If anyone is collecting money to make air space over the Indiana Supreme Court a no-fly zone, put me down for a hundred bucks.
--
H/T Roberta
Dreamland
I should not have stolen the lever-action Winchester hidden under the pair of shorts on the bar stool while I was looking for my trench coat. I was pleased when the girl driving my getaway car flashed a CIA driver's license at the cop who chased us down. I was sad when I lost the rifle at a house party I threw for people I haven't seen since grade school, especially since it had an interesting action built around a double-barrel S/W Model 25.
Your lesson here is that even a half-rack of the ribs at McKeen's Pub is too much if you intend to retire early.
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Your lesson here is that even a half-rack of the ribs at McKeen's Pub is too much if you intend to retire early.
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May 11, 2011
Mr. Goodwretch Works Here
Further exciting adventures in automotive technology.
1. The battery charger now charges batteries in the same sense that Harry Reid thinks, that is, slowly and well below advertised specifications. I'm on my way to the city where I hope to find a heavy DPCO switch which might bring it back.
2. The truck stasis is due to a probably bad battery born in 2002 or 03 and a definitely bad alternator. I'll pick those up too and try not to dwell on the cost measured as a hefty fraction of another 1911.
I offer a word of thanks to the Sperry folks for making their Snap 6 ammeter (Model OHM-525). A handy way of discovering that your alternator is gasping out only seven amps at speed is a tool to be cherished, however seldom used.
1. The battery charger now charges batteries in the same sense that Harry Reid thinks, that is, slowly and well below advertised specifications. I'm on my way to the city where I hope to find a heavy DPCO switch which might bring it back.
2. The truck stasis is due to a probably bad battery born in 2002 or 03 and a definitely bad alternator. I'll pick those up too and try not to dwell on the cost measured as a hefty fraction of another 1911.
I offer a word of thanks to the Sperry folks for making their Snap 6 ammeter (Model OHM-525). A handy way of discovering that your alternator is gasping out only seven amps at speed is a tool to be cherished, however seldom used.
Why we're broke
I cherish scenic by-ways. I find them all by myself and am hardly ever devastated to learn that they are not official scenic byways.
But I must be in the minority because my leaders in Washington continue to suck money to pretty up scenic by-ways with official signs telling us we're on scenic by-ways.
Of course, it isn't quite that simple. Before you can declare a scenic by-way official and put up signs, you have to study the matter to make sure you don't screw up and put signs on a scenic by-way that maybe ain't.
Read it carefully, translate the gobbledygook, and you may conclude that we've just bought $61,680 worth of paper saying how scenic and by-wayish this chunk of back road really is. Only later do we borrow some more money from the Chinese to actually put up the signs.
But I must be in the minority because my leaders in Washington continue to suck money to pretty up scenic by-ways with official signs telling us we're on scenic by-ways.
Of course, it isn't quite that simple. Before you can declare a scenic by-way official and put up signs, you have to study the matter to make sure you don't screw up and put signs on a scenic by-way that maybe ain't.
Read it carefully, translate the gobbledygook, and you may conclude that we've just bought $61,680 worth of paper saying how scenic and by-wayish this chunk of back road really is. Only later do we borrow some more money from the Chinese to actually put up the signs.
Credit the fence, maybe?
My president made me proud yesterday down there in El Paso where he reported on what a good job he is doing controlling the border. Of course he is right. There has been a drastic reduction of American citizens sneaking into Mexico for the greater opportunities there.
May 10, 2011
Boooooring
Boring to most people, maybe, but not to me. Among my exciting personal goals is economic survival. That depends largely on a Yankee C-note being worth more than a Snickers wrapper.
The world's biggest bond fund isn't making me feel too good about that.
For those who won't click the link because of limited patience for market and economic jargon, a condensation will cover the main point:
These guys are pretty sure anyone buying U.S. debt (aka the Clinton-Bush-Bernanke-Obama IOU) will lose his or her ass.
The world's biggest bond fund isn't making me feel too good about that.
For those who won't click the link because of limited patience for market and economic jargon, a condensation will cover the main point:
These guys are pretty sure anyone buying U.S. debt (aka the Clinton-Bush-Bernanke-Obama IOU) will lose his or her ass.
May 9, 2011
...and the crick don't rise
Rivers are libertarians. The can be temporarily coerced in relatively small ways, but, in the end, they will obey no laws but the laws of physics. Even one of the great journals of statist Washington is beginning to recognize that the Corps of Engineers is no match for Mother Nature.
You'll recall the dam and dike builders promising their latest gazillion-dollar projects will protect people from 100 or 200 or 500 year floods. Which they don't do very dependably.
A cynic might suggest what we really need is an continuous flood of common sense, i.e., "Don't build stuff on flood plains, or, if you must, don't come whining for handouts from smarter folk when the river reaches your BarcaLounger."
You'll recall the dam and dike builders promising their latest gazillion-dollar projects will protect people from 100 or 200 or 500 year floods. Which they don't do very dependably.
A cynic might suggest what we really need is an continuous flood of common sense, i.e., "Don't build stuff on flood plains, or, if you must, don't come whining for handouts from smarter folk when the river reaches your BarcaLounger."
Dog facts
1. A certain new dog named Libby guards the perimeter. She poses like a cartoon pit bull and barks death threats when home and master are threatened by jogging tourists, aggressive rabbits, or grazing families of invading geese.
2. When thunder and lightning occur, same dog discovers that the hard pine floor of the smallest room in the house, the only one without windows, is the only acceptable hangout. Not even the sound of a refrigerator door opening will lure her out. " I'm really a lot more comfortable here, Boss, than in all those soft chairs and pillows. Thank you just the same."
3. She eats whatever onion slices I manage to let fall on the floor.
2. When thunder and lightning occur, same dog discovers that the hard pine floor of the smallest room in the house, the only one without windows, is the only acceptable hangout. Not even the sound of a refrigerator door opening will lure her out. " I'm really a lot more comfortable here, Boss, than in all those soft chairs and pillows. Thank you just the same."
3. She eats whatever onion slices I manage to let fall on the floor.
May 8, 2011
Mother's Day
Boot Camp at the U.S. Naval Training Center, San Diego, wasn't bad. I was too busy to be homesick even though I swore my allegiance to the Constitution and Arleigh Burke at the age of 17 years and 22 days. The Boy Scouts and a thousand days of free-lance tramping with rifle and a backpack helped the skills come easily.
A bad attitude toward chickenshit rules gave me some trouble and, eventually, cost me my squad leader spot. Still, I was largely with the program and comfortable with the Cold War patriotism of the era. The godless hordes of Mao and Bulganin would not rape my sisters nor send Dad to die agonizingly in the mines of Siberia, so I accepted the inconvenience of learning to become a sea warrior.
But what boy, in his heart of hearts, doesn't miss Mom? It was good to see her over my post-boot leave which coincided with Christmas. All was pleasant until time to board the train and she was not quite able to prevent tears. I was not quite able to block the guilt of a million missed opportunities to be a better son.
Three days later, just before taps, the haze gray shuttle bus deposited me at the Electronic Class A school barracks on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The quarters petty officer showed me where I lived. I heaved the sea bag on to the bunk and began transferring possessions to the locker. About half-way down, under the dungarees, under the bell-bottomed blues and whites, were my skivvy shirts and shorts. Mom-laundered, Mom-folded, and Mom-ironed.
I stood tall, left the barracks and nonchalantly wandered the halls until I found an absolutely private place, a closet where the Navy stored brooms and swabs. I closed the door. I sat down on a bucket and bawled like a baby.
Happy Mothers Day, Mom.
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A bad attitude toward chickenshit rules gave me some trouble and, eventually, cost me my squad leader spot. Still, I was largely with the program and comfortable with the Cold War patriotism of the era. The godless hordes of Mao and Bulganin would not rape my sisters nor send Dad to die agonizingly in the mines of Siberia, so I accepted the inconvenience of learning to become a sea warrior.
But what boy, in his heart of hearts, doesn't miss Mom? It was good to see her over my post-boot leave which coincided with Christmas. All was pleasant until time to board the train and she was not quite able to prevent tears. I was not quite able to block the guilt of a million missed opportunities to be a better son.
Three days later, just before taps, the haze gray shuttle bus deposited me at the Electronic Class A school barracks on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The quarters petty officer showed me where I lived. I heaved the sea bag on to the bunk and began transferring possessions to the locker. About half-way down, under the dungarees, under the bell-bottomed blues and whites, were my skivvy shirts and shorts. Mom-laundered, Mom-folded, and Mom-ironed.
I stood tall, left the barracks and nonchalantly wandered the halls until I found an absolutely private place, a closet where the Navy stored brooms and swabs. I closed the door. I sat down on a bucket and bawled like a baby.
Happy Mothers Day, Mom.
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May 7, 2011
Another sighting: Iowa Caucuses 2012
Romantic Rudy Giuliani is glancing at our cleavage. Not staring, yet, but obviously feeling a little glandular itch.
In Politico, he seems to be trying out that '50s-era pickup line of the ducktail set, "Hey, Baby, I'm no pushover, but I can be made."
Four years ago he graced us with his candidacy and finished with 4 per cent -- six points behind Ron Paul.
Lemme see if I can help you out a little, Rudy. Try to remember that pigs go oink and cows go moo, not the other way around.
EDIT: We'll keep him off the TMR caucus list for now. If becomes a little less commitment phobic, he'll earn his place there.
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In Politico, he seems to be trying out that '50s-era pickup line of the ducktail set, "Hey, Baby, I'm no pushover, but I can be made."
Four years ago he graced us with his candidacy and finished with 4 per cent -- six points behind Ron Paul.
Lemme see if I can help you out a little, Rudy. Try to remember that pigs go oink and cows go moo, not the other way around.
EDIT: We'll keep him off the TMR caucus list for now. If becomes a little less commitment phobic, he'll earn his place there.
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How to stay alive
Making love can kill you, even if you never have to jump out a second-story window.
USNWR can be so depressing early in the morning. Who really needs to know that sex, coffee, and exercise put a guy in mortal peril?
There's even a warning against straining on the throne. In the interest of public health I include that, even though I really hate burdening the blog with scatological crap.
May 6, 2011
For washing blood off the altars?
We're all thinking about Mayans lately. We wonder if it's okay to spend all our savings on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives since the end is coming only six weeks or so after we re-elect His Obamaness.
But we hardly ever think about Mayan plumbing. Why bother? They probably just used buckets and really long ropes in the cenotes.
Turns out we're wrong. The Mayans had sophisticated running water, fountains, and maybe even flush toilets, and There, I fixed It has an entertaining essay on it.
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Strictly as an aside, a cult is running around these parts putting up billboards warning that the Revelations version of TEOTWAWKI is divinely scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow. Personally, I find the Mayan logic more persuasive.
..fish nor fowl nor good red herring; the .22 long
We didn't know anything about ballistics. We just knew .22 longs were a dime a box cheaper than .22 long rifles. Shorts were cheaper yet, but we were led to understand by our elder experts -- mostly eighth and ninth graders -- that they would ruin our guns.
So we happily shot longs up and down the wild (really) Des Moines River valley -- squirrels, rabbits, Blatz beer cans, floating debris, and spawning carp.
The .22 long was born in 1871 for S/W revolvers as a supercharged improvement on the short. It held the same 29 grain lead with a longer case and a black powder charge upped to 5 grains. The ballisticians were divided on its actual worth but felt it might offer a small improvement on the short in handguns. In rifles, the powder burn pooped out before the bullet left the muzzle.
Re-specked for smokeless, it was routinely available for about 100 years, disappearing from the hardware store shelves when the makers could no longer offer it cheaper than the long rifle.
So it was neat to find this while sorting an auction-sale can of odd nuts and bolts. The head stamp is "U," from the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, later part of Remington. It's a treasure to be placed in my can of oddball cartridges, perhaps never to be examined again. So what? As the philosopher Travis McGee wrote, the best collectibles are moments of pleasure.
So we happily shot longs up and down the wild (really) Des Moines River valley -- squirrels, rabbits, Blatz beer cans, floating debris, and spawning carp.
The .22 long was born in 1871 for S/W revolvers as a supercharged improvement on the short. It held the same 29 grain lead with a longer case and a black powder charge upped to 5 grains. The ballisticians were divided on its actual worth but felt it might offer a small improvement on the short in handguns. In rifles, the powder burn pooped out before the bullet left the muzzle.
Re-specked for smokeless, it was routinely available for about 100 years, disappearing from the hardware store shelves when the makers could no longer offer it cheaper than the long rifle.
So it was neat to find this while sorting an auction-sale can of odd nuts and bolts. The head stamp is "U," from the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, later part of Remington. It's a treasure to be placed in my can of oddball cartridges, perhaps never to be examined again. So what? As the philosopher Travis McGee wrote, the best collectibles are moments of pleasure.
May 5, 2011
Thinning the herd - Iowa Caucuses 2012
Mike Pence is out, leaving 18 known or suspected common scolds to pester Iowans between now and January.
Pence says he'll run for governor of Indiana to replace Mitch Daniels, who remains at least somewhat likely to swing by Camp J and barter for my vote. I dunno, probably not, Mitch, but if you want to open the bidding with a 98 per cent, 1918 manufactured Model 1911, I suppose we could talk, assuming it comes with a half-dip magazine and original grips.
Meanwhile, your comprehensive guide to all the men and women of gold studying up on corn and beans and hogs so they can talk to us like really concerned experts has been updated.
Pence says he'll run for governor of Indiana to replace Mitch Daniels, who remains at least somewhat likely to swing by Camp J and barter for my vote. I dunno, probably not, Mitch, but if you want to open the bidding with a 98 per cent, 1918 manufactured Model 1911, I suppose we could talk, assuming it comes with a half-dip magazine and original grips.
Meanwhile, your comprehensive guide to all the men and women of gold studying up on corn and beans and hogs so they can talk to us like really concerned experts has been updated.
Yvette Vickers
There was some shilly-shallying about posting a shot of Yvette. She wasn't in the same league with the usual TMR choices. Besides, she stripped for Playboy. That's not automatically disqualifying, though it adds demerits for tastelessness and/or unseemly career desperation. Still, she's cute in the face and was said to be a nice person.
I suppose the decision tipped toward publication when my friend John of the GMA remarked that the circumstances of her passing argued strongly against automatic bill-pay schemes.
So, strictly as a public service and in memory of hot July nights at the drive-in:
I suppose the decision tipped toward publication when my friend John of the GMA remarked that the circumstances of her passing argued strongly against automatic bill-pay schemes.
So, strictly as a public service and in memory of hot July nights at the drive-in:
May 4, 2011
No gory Osama pictures
Obama says he will not release photos of the world's current celebrity corpse. Well decided, Sir. A picture will change no conspiracy-saturated minds (Fake! Photoshopped!), and there's no reason to further inflame the primitive psyches of Osama lovers.
What, you, of all people, defending His Obamaness?
Sure, though I can't imagine doing it often enough to win a night in Abe Lincoln's bed.
Besides, I'd even defend Harry Reid and Al Gore if they said something sensible. Fortunately, that pledge is unlikely meet a practical test.
What, you, of all people, defending His Obamaness?
Sure, though I can't imagine doing it often enough to win a night in Abe Lincoln's bed.
Besides, I'd even defend Harry Reid and Al Gore if they said something sensible. Fortunately, that pledge is unlikely meet a practical test.
May 3, 2011
John Davis, already a winner; Iowa Caucuses 2012
In the TMR tally of candidate cliches, John Davis of Grand Junction, BackSlope, is the hands-down champion. No other statesman/woman competing for Iowans' attention has a prayer of closing the gap.
Among his revelations: "My family has lived in this town for six generations and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. " (That's also the site of his entry in the cliche contest.)
Which is misleading. He clearly can imagine moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a long slog from his Colorado lumber yard.
That's how he has earned a place on your newly updated, handy-dandy, list of GOP luminaries practicing to say aww shucks and you bet.
He brings the total back to 19, and let it be added that there's no reason to think a lumber yard guy would do a worse job of running the country than a neighborhood organizer.
Among his revelations: "My family has lived in this town for six generations and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. " (That's also the site of his entry in the cliche contest.)
Which is misleading. He clearly can imagine moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a long slog from his Colorado lumber yard.
That's how he has earned a place on your newly updated, handy-dandy, list of GOP luminaries practicing to say aww shucks and you bet.
He brings the total back to 19, and let it be added that there's no reason to think a lumber yard guy would do a worse job of running the country than a neighborhood organizer.
Obama now unbeatable
You don't have to be listening hard to your electrical teevee to hear that Obama is now "unbeatable" because our spies and our SEALS took out bin Laden.
Uhh-huh.
His Obamaness is enjoying a giddy pop in the polls, but fickle, thy name is the American electorate.
My pal Fred invites our attention to the flighty nature of our voters with this.
By November of next year you might have to interview one Hell of a lot of voters to find one who remembers why we got so excited about the shootout at the Abbottabad Corral.
Uhh-huh.
His Obamaness is enjoying a giddy pop in the polls, but fickle, thy name is the American electorate.
My pal Fred invites our attention to the flighty nature of our voters with this.
By November of next year you might have to interview one Hell of a lot of voters to find one who remembers why we got so excited about the shootout at the Abbottabad Corral.
Foreign Policy Advice
You and I know there are only two logical possibilities.
--Pakistan bosses didn't know Osama lived across the street from its version of West Point. That makes them stupid.
--They knew but didn't tell us, probably because that might reduce Uncle Sam's shower of cash before every Paki general became a millionaire. That makes them evil.
---
Nevertheless, we shouldn't press those points too hard at the moment. When they tell us they were full partners and rilly, rilly, helped us find and kill bin Laden, we should smile and say sure and thanks-a-lot. Because until we figure out how to get our kids out of Dodgeghanistan, we need docile Pakistanis on the eastern flank.
We can pop their treacherous asses later if we still feel like it.
.
--Pakistan bosses didn't know Osama lived across the street from its version of West Point. That makes them stupid.
--They knew but didn't tell us, probably because that might reduce Uncle Sam's shower of cash before every Paki general became a millionaire. That makes them evil.
---
Nevertheless, we shouldn't press those points too hard at the moment. When they tell us they were full partners and rilly, rilly, helped us find and kill bin Laden, we should smile and say sure and thanks-a-lot. Because until we figure out how to get our kids out of Dodgeghanistan, we need docile Pakistanis on the eastern flank.
We can pop their treacherous asses later if we still feel like it.
.
May 2, 2011
Poor Michele
Michele Bachmann, the congresslady who aspires to lead the Free World, lives in Stillwater, Minnesota, on the St.Croix River. The bridge from Stillwater to Houlton, Wisconsin, is going to seed, and the Washington Post is displaying a little schadenfreude at Michele's failure to get an earmark to fix it. I mean, if you can't hustle a few million federal taxpayer bucks through your fellow lawmakers, how the Hell can you cut deals with King Abdullah?
It now falls to Rep. Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman who calls Stillwater home, to finally get it done. The bridge will test whether one of the most recognizable elected officials in Washington can fulfill the most basic duty of members of Congress: delivering for the voters in their district.
Which proves the Post is at least as batshit crazy as Michele.
She took an oath to defend the Constitution. That document is strangely silent on the question of traversing the St. Croix, whether by Lexus or by birch bark canoe.
A speedy way of getting out of Minnesota is a most worthy goal, just not a federal one.
It now falls to Rep. Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman who calls Stillwater home, to finally get it done. The bridge will test whether one of the most recognizable elected officials in Washington can fulfill the most basic duty of members of Congress: delivering for the voters in their district.
Which proves the Post is at least as batshit crazy as Michele.
She took an oath to defend the Constitution. That document is strangely silent on the question of traversing the St. Croix, whether by Lexus or by birch bark canoe.
A speedy way of getting out of Minnesota is a most worthy goal, just not a federal one.
May 1, 2011
Magic politics
I could dig out one of my old press cards, slip it into my fedora, jet off to someplace I've never been. I could spend a couple of days there, talk to a few native chiefs and their subjects and then write the definitive news feature.
I could explain the "mood of the people," their strange way of life, their deepest beliefs, their aspirations. It would be printed and read worldwide. And like the Washington Post, I could expect you take it seriously, not that you should.
Reporter Michael Leahy drew the assignment and filed a lengthy, graceful, and even witty report on whom we Iowans will permit you to vote for in the joust to wrest world leadership from Barack Obama.
His journalism is not to be faulted if you are willing to accept the Heart of Darkness literary device of truth explored in a microcosm. Conrad put his his narrator and audience on a becalmed yawl. Leahy puts his in Sioux County, Iowa, and concludes that Tim Pawlenty is leading as we await the big wind. It is all very poetic as he weaves the threads of political lust into the fabric of our declared values -- God, home, hard work, and "Iowa niceness."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we flimflammed another one of them big-city reporters.
---
In the spring of 2008 a good evangelical state official from a place near Sioux County had been beside himself. Who should he endorse at his GOP caucus? The whole world was wondering, don't you know. The whole world got its answer when, one morning, my man sat down at my dining table and grinned, "I just got $1,000 from John McCain."
That's how it's really done.
---
Every serious aspirant to 1600 Pennsylvania has a rich PAC. Pawlenty's (Freedom First, ha-ha) has about $3 million and counting. Each PAC has a hefty Iowa allocation. Each PAC's function is to buy support. Pawlenty is a Pacman who started early, contributing to state candidates for the 2010 elections.; some $7,000 to the guy who is now our House speaker, quite a lot to our secretary of agriculture, and so forth.
---
That's a dreary dose for a bright Sunday morning, so let's return Mr. Leahy's wit as he rides around with State Senator Randy Feenstra of Hull
(Feenstra) pointed at an enormous structure through which hundreds of squatty blurry animals can be seen .... “Hog confinements,” he said brightly. “Produce manure — fantastic manure...
"Past the magic manure, Feenstra remembered something else ..."
Mr. Leahy, I bet you loved writing "magic manure" just as much as I'm going to love stealing the phrase.
I could explain the "mood of the people," their strange way of life, their deepest beliefs, their aspirations. It would be printed and read worldwide. And like the Washington Post, I could expect you take it seriously, not that you should.
Reporter Michael Leahy drew the assignment and filed a lengthy, graceful, and even witty report on whom we Iowans will permit you to vote for in the joust to wrest world leadership from Barack Obama.
His journalism is not to be faulted if you are willing to accept the Heart of Darkness literary device of truth explored in a microcosm. Conrad put his his narrator and audience on a becalmed yawl. Leahy puts his in Sioux County, Iowa, and concludes that Tim Pawlenty is leading as we await the big wind. It is all very poetic as he weaves the threads of political lust into the fabric of our declared values -- God, home, hard work, and "Iowa niceness."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we flimflammed another one of them big-city reporters.
---
In the spring of 2008 a good evangelical state official from a place near Sioux County had been beside himself. Who should he endorse at his GOP caucus? The whole world was wondering, don't you know. The whole world got its answer when, one morning, my man sat down at my dining table and grinned, "I just got $1,000 from John McCain."
That's how it's really done.
---
Every serious aspirant to 1600 Pennsylvania has a rich PAC. Pawlenty's (Freedom First, ha-ha) has about $3 million and counting. Each PAC has a hefty Iowa allocation. Each PAC's function is to buy support. Pawlenty is a Pacman who started early, contributing to state candidates for the 2010 elections.; some $7,000 to the guy who is now our House speaker, quite a lot to our secretary of agriculture, and so forth.
---
That's a dreary dose for a bright Sunday morning, so let's return Mr. Leahy's wit as he rides around with State Senator Randy Feenstra of Hull
(Feenstra) pointed at an enormous structure through which hundreds of squatty blurry animals can be seen .... “Hog confinements,” he said brightly. “Produce manure — fantastic manure...
"Past the magic manure, Feenstra remembered something else ..."
Mr. Leahy, I bet you loved writing "magic manure" just as much as I'm going to love stealing the phrase.
Apr 30, 2011
Hey guys! Here comes a Miss USA. Let's grope her.
It is somewhat dangerous to leap to the defense of a crying celebrity who makes a living displaying its body, but everything I can find suggests Susie Castillo has a point. She is one of the latest lookers whose nooks and crannies have been TSA-fingered and declared arms-free zones .
Besides, it led me to the discovery of a writer I hadn't heard of who is establishing a TSA watch. He writes:
"...Castillo is crying, and (an airport) volunteer tries to comfort her. But when the subject of the TSA’s screening methods comes up, the volunteer says something to the effect of, “I’d rather have this than be blown up.”
Besides, it led me to the discovery of a writer I hadn't heard of who is establishing a TSA watch. He writes:
"...Castillo is crying, and (an airport) volunteer tries to comfort her. But when the subject of the TSA’s screening methods comes up, the volunteer says something to the effect of, “I’d rather have this than be blown up.”
"I’ve heard that argument time and again, from some colleagues in the travel industry and commenters on this site. I believe they’re just one enhanced pat-down from changing their minds."
Even my cursory study of Aristotle suggests that the fallacy we're looking at here is the one called "false dichotomy."
---
If you just blew in from a far galaxy and don't know what Miss Susie looks like, you may add to your store of knowledge here.
Please note this post is not tagged "women with clothes on." (QV, if you want.) Susie is wearing so few in some of these shots that I deem them unacceptable for posting on a strictly family-oriented blog.)
Even my cursory study of Aristotle suggests that the fallacy we're looking at here is the one called "false dichotomy."
---
If you just blew in from a far galaxy and don't know what Miss Susie looks like, you may add to your store of knowledge here.
Please note this post is not tagged "women with clothes on." (QV, if you want.) Susie is wearing so few in some of these shots that I deem them unacceptable for posting on a strictly family-oriented blog.)
Travis McGee, depressed
Meyer has just returned to Bahia Mar from a conference of economists. Travis welcomes him aboard the Busted Flush with bourbon and ice, one cube.
How did the conference go? (McGee asks).
These are bad days for an economist, my friend. We have gone past the frontiers of theory. There is nothing left but one huge ugly fact."
Which is?
There is a debt of perhaps two trillion dollars out there, owed by governments to governments, by governments to banks, and there is not one chance in hell that it can ever be paid back. There is not enough productive capacity in the world, plus enough raw materials, to provide maintenance of plant plus enough overage even to keep up with the mounting interest.
What happens? It gets written off?
He looked at me with a pitying expression. "All the world's major currencies will collapse. Trade will cease. Without trade, without the mechanical-scientific apparatus running, the planet won't support its four billion people, or perhaps even half that. Agribusiness feeds the world. Hydrocarbon utilization heats and houses and clothes the people. There will be fear, hate, anger, death. The new barbarism. There will be plague and poison. And then the new Dark Ages."
Should I pack?
Go ahead. Scoff. What the sane people and sane governments are trying to do is scuffle a little more breathing space,a little more time before the collapse.
---
Written in The Green Ripper, 1979, the Meyer dirge requires appropriate adjustment for inflation of the debt and of the number of people scrabbling for a mouthful of food and a tank of gasoline. It needs to be read with appropriate homage to the requirements of dramatic exposition in a work of fiction.
Further, his timing was off. Just after the passage above, Meyer predicts the fall will come by 1984, or 1991 at the latest. This puts him in respectable intellectual company. Orwell's own 1984 target date is delayed, not invalidated. The Erlichs notwithstanding, we had not copulated the race into mass starvation by the 1980s. John Galt still bides his time.
---
John D. McDonald (MBA, Harvard University, 1939) was a capitalist -- publisher, investor -- as well as a writer of novels. He paid close attention to money for the most common of reasons. He wished to earn some, and he wanted it to be a reliable store of value, worth the same tomorrow as it is today.
Me too. You?
"
How did the conference go? (McGee asks).
These are bad days for an economist, my friend. We have gone past the frontiers of theory. There is nothing left but one huge ugly fact."
Which is?
There is a debt of perhaps two trillion dollars out there, owed by governments to governments, by governments to banks, and there is not one chance in hell that it can ever be paid back. There is not enough productive capacity in the world, plus enough raw materials, to provide maintenance of plant plus enough overage even to keep up with the mounting interest.
What happens? It gets written off?
He looked at me with a pitying expression. "All the world's major currencies will collapse. Trade will cease. Without trade, without the mechanical-scientific apparatus running, the planet won't support its four billion people, or perhaps even half that. Agribusiness feeds the world. Hydrocarbon utilization heats and houses and clothes the people. There will be fear, hate, anger, death. The new barbarism. There will be plague and poison. And then the new Dark Ages."
Should I pack?
Go ahead. Scoff. What the sane people and sane governments are trying to do is scuffle a little more breathing space,a little more time before the collapse.
---
Written in The Green Ripper, 1979, the Meyer dirge requires appropriate adjustment for inflation of the debt and of the number of people scrabbling for a mouthful of food and a tank of gasoline. It needs to be read with appropriate homage to the requirements of dramatic exposition in a work of fiction.
Further, his timing was off. Just after the passage above, Meyer predicts the fall will come by 1984, or 1991 at the latest. This puts him in respectable intellectual company. Orwell's own 1984 target date is delayed, not invalidated. The Erlichs notwithstanding, we had not copulated the race into mass starvation by the 1980s. John Galt still bides his time.
---
John D. McDonald (MBA, Harvard University, 1939) was a capitalist -- publisher, investor -- as well as a writer of novels. He paid close attention to money for the most common of reasons. He wished to earn some, and he wanted it to be a reliable store of value, worth the same tomorrow as it is today.
Me too. You?
"
Apr 29, 2011
London Report
The neckline didn't plunge all that much.
I have nothing else to say about the Royal wedding.
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I have nothing else to say about the Royal wedding.
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Apr 28, 2011
Ron Paul "Could Actually Win"
So says The Week.
The conventional wisdom is that Paul stands no legitimate chance, says Drew Ivers, a member of the state central committee of Iowa's Republican Party ... But 2012 could be different. Paul is "in the epicenter of the three or four or five the most critical and controversial issues in our nation today," including government spending, the war, and the financial crisis. "That's how snowballs develop...".
Dr. Ivers (PhD plant geneticist with a second masters in theology) is Paul's Iowa campaign chairman. He is heavily credentialed in the art of caucus politics. He helped handle some winning campaigns as well as losers (Robertson, Buchanan, and, in 2008, Dr. Paul.) He was a founder of the Iowa Christian Coalition, now known as Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Make what you will of the relationship between Paul and the evangelicals. I've hinted at my personal disappointment with the new coziness, but it's rock-solid that without evangelical support in the Iowa GOP caucus process, a candidate goes nowhere.
---
I hope Dr. Ivers' enthusiasm for Paul will prove to be more than the rosiness mandatory for all political operatives about their candidates' chances, that the new Iowa Paul movement can overcome the obstacles:
--Iowa has its full share of big-government conservatives, aka the WalMart vote. These are Obama's bitter clingers who, at the same time, want their social security checks, their Medicare, and, crucially, their lucrative farm subsidies. Libertarian talk scares their pants off. These are the Gingrich/Trump/Romney voters.
-- While Iowans claim to be among the best educated people in the country, the definition of that achievement can be loose. It's wonderful that Paul discusses the peril of fiat money and the tyranny of the Federal Reserve Board. That becomes politically pointless, however, when you can't find one in a dozen main-streeters capable of three coherent and unrehearsed minutes on either one.
--We're hearing things like Obama having no business in Libya because Qaddafi's oil goes to Europe, that is, gas prices in Strawberry Point are not affected by world oil supplies.
--The same principle applies to foreign policy. Can most of us find Syria on a map? Explain the high price we pay for our support of the government of Israel? Accept that there are limits to the morality and usefulness of American "power projection," even as we "support out troops?"
---
All of which suggests to me that Paul's most formidable task is as much educational as political, and the remaining eight months offer precious little time to accomplish much enlightenment, meaning the Paul race must excel at manipulating symbols. And that is what got us in this mess in the first place.
Still, I wish him well, and I'll hustle support as best I can. We may be beyond the point at which we can vote our way out of our large problems, but we might as well try.
H/T Roberta
The conventional wisdom is that Paul stands no legitimate chance, says Drew Ivers, a member of the state central committee of Iowa's Republican Party ... But 2012 could be different. Paul is "in the epicenter of the three or four or five the most critical and controversial issues in our nation today," including government spending, the war, and the financial crisis. "That's how snowballs develop...".
Dr. Ivers (PhD plant geneticist with a second masters in theology) is Paul's Iowa campaign chairman. He is heavily credentialed in the art of caucus politics. He helped handle some winning campaigns as well as losers (Robertson, Buchanan, and, in 2008, Dr. Paul.) He was a founder of the Iowa Christian Coalition, now known as Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Make what you will of the relationship between Paul and the evangelicals. I've hinted at my personal disappointment with the new coziness, but it's rock-solid that without evangelical support in the Iowa GOP caucus process, a candidate goes nowhere.
---
I hope Dr. Ivers' enthusiasm for Paul will prove to be more than the rosiness mandatory for all political operatives about their candidates' chances, that the new Iowa Paul movement can overcome the obstacles:
--Iowa has its full share of big-government conservatives, aka the WalMart vote. These are Obama's bitter clingers who, at the same time, want their social security checks, their Medicare, and, crucially, their lucrative farm subsidies. Libertarian talk scares their pants off. These are the Gingrich/Trump/Romney voters.
-- While Iowans claim to be among the best educated people in the country, the definition of that achievement can be loose. It's wonderful that Paul discusses the peril of fiat money and the tyranny of the Federal Reserve Board. That becomes politically pointless, however, when you can't find one in a dozen main-streeters capable of three coherent and unrehearsed minutes on either one.
--We're hearing things like Obama having no business in Libya because Qaddafi's oil goes to Europe, that is, gas prices in Strawberry Point are not affected by world oil supplies.
--The same principle applies to foreign policy. Can most of us find Syria on a map? Explain the high price we pay for our support of the government of Israel? Accept that there are limits to the morality and usefulness of American "power projection," even as we "support out troops?"
---
All of which suggests to me that Paul's most formidable task is as much educational as political, and the remaining eight months offer precious little time to accomplish much enlightenment, meaning the Paul race must excel at manipulating symbols. And that is what got us in this mess in the first place.
Still, I wish him well, and I'll hustle support as best I can. We may be beyond the point at which we can vote our way out of our large problems, but we might as well try.
H/T Roberta
Maybe no one from the Black P. Stone Nation applied?
An AP writer decided to make things vivid for us in his report of the latest "national security" job swaps. He writes that President Obama wanted "maximum continuity, installing road tested warriors steeped in his policies."
You're not allowed to remember that Candidate Obama labeled such Beltway old-timers as architects of the failed policies of the past. That he promised a massive overhaul of the Washington power structure.
You are forbidden to observe that his actual accomplishment is a rearrangement of butts in the ash tray. Because Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
.
You're not allowed to remember that Candidate Obama labeled such Beltway old-timers as architects of the failed policies of the past. That he promised a massive overhaul of the Washington power structure.
You are forbidden to observe that his actual accomplishment is a rearrangement of butts in the ash tray. Because Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
.
Apr 27, 2011
Ben Bernanke and Stephen King
This is one of those rare days when watching an electric teevee should not be considered a sign of arrested development.
At 2:15 p.m. (Eastern Commune Time) the first-ever news conference by a sitting commissar of the Federal Reserve Board will go on the air. Couple of drive-by points:
--No one is being discourteous enough to suggest that Ron Paul has rattled Bernanke and his courtiers enough to force them to crack the windows a little. A news conference every three months is a long way from a professional audit. However, it's at least a tiny advance from our magic money gurus' insistence that 300 million American have no need to know a damned thing about turbocharged printing presses.
--Ben's dog and pony show will, without the slightest doubt, tell us most things are fine and that he has a plan to fix the few faltering parts.
Sorry, but that makes me think of digging up the Pet Semetary and not noticing that the cat walks funny.
.
At 2:15 p.m. (Eastern Commune Time) the first-ever news conference by a sitting commissar of the Federal Reserve Board will go on the air. Couple of drive-by points:
--No one is being discourteous enough to suggest that Ron Paul has rattled Bernanke and his courtiers enough to force them to crack the windows a little. A news conference every three months is a long way from a professional audit. However, it's at least a tiny advance from our magic money gurus' insistence that 300 million American have no need to know a damned thing about turbocharged printing presses.
--Ben's dog and pony show will, without the slightest doubt, tell us most things are fine and that he has a plan to fix the few faltering parts.
Sorry, but that makes me think of digging up the Pet Semetary and not noticing that the cat walks funny.
.
Apr 26, 2011
Ron Paul makes it official
No one is surprised. The good doctor is to announce something in Des Moines this afternoon, and if it isn't formation of a White House exploratory committee I'll kiss your arse on the steps of the Cato Institute and give you time to get Chris Mathews and his camera crew to the ceremony.
Ron Paul's 2008 caucus vote was 9+ per cent. Without Gary Johnson and a couple of even more minor candidates making libertarian noises, Paul would do better this time for three reasons: (1) He's learned from his 2008 organizational mistakes, mainly frittering away money. (2) He is actively courting the evangelical right with a harder pro-life position. (3) Libertarian thinking has become less outre after two Obama years which gave even the unwashed a glimpse of what a statist future really holds.
If Johnson perseveres, he'll get a good measure of the Paul vote. Cain and Trump will also get pieces of it. If we use the caucus vote to measure the advance of liberty thinking, adding the Paul and Moore tallies will probably be the best we can do.
---
I'll jump the gun a little and make the day's second edit of your vital list of Air Force 1 aspirants. (Link fixed.)
Rand is out. He was never much more than a velleity among the small set which prefers younger libertarian heads, balmed with Brylcreem.
---
UPDATE: Ron Paul did the expected.
Ron Paul's 2008 caucus vote was 9+ per cent. Without Gary Johnson and a couple of even more minor candidates making libertarian noises, Paul would do better this time for three reasons: (1) He's learned from his 2008 organizational mistakes, mainly frittering away money. (2) He is actively courting the evangelical right with a harder pro-life position. (3) Libertarian thinking has become less outre after two Obama years which gave even the unwashed a glimpse of what a statist future really holds.
If Johnson perseveres, he'll get a good measure of the Paul vote. Cain and Trump will also get pieces of it. If we use the caucus vote to measure the advance of liberty thinking, adding the Paul and Moore tallies will probably be the best we can do.
---
I'll jump the gun a little and make the day's second edit of your vital list of Air Force 1 aspirants. (Link fixed.)
Rand is out. He was never much more than a velleity among the small set which prefers younger libertarian heads, balmed with Brylcreem.
---
UPDATE: Ron Paul did the expected.
Iowa Caucuses 2002; Culling the herd
Haley Barbour of Mississippi is out despite a solid tie for third in the latest GOP coolest-hair polls. (He and Michele trailed only Don and Sarah.)
Now, dropping out is often a tactic for dropping back in (beg me, please beg me) but Haley probably means it. He claims no fire in his belly, code for "I haven't got a prayer."
The remaining supplicants here in Grant Wood Bucolia now total 19, including the firebellied certains, the probables, the possibles, and a few who have, at most, a little smoldering navel lint.
Your indispensable master list of mental giants seeking to lead the Free World has been updated.
.
Now, dropping out is often a tactic for dropping back in (beg me, please beg me) but Haley probably means it. He claims no fire in his belly, code for "I haven't got a prayer."
The remaining supplicants here in Grant Wood Bucolia now total 19, including the firebellied certains, the probables, the possibles, and a few who have, at most, a little smoldering navel lint.
Your indispensable master list of mental giants seeking to lead the Free World has been updated.
.
Birther - ing us all
Joel has a ready answer for the striped-pants set:.
I emerged squalling from the nether regions of a human female. She seemed upset at the time.
I emerged squalling from the nether regions of a human female. She seemed upset at the time.
The increasingly whacky Department of State wants that kind of information before it will issue you a passport. The form, here, assumes that within 45 minutes* you can, among other things, jot down the times and places of your mother's doctor appointments in conjunction with your debut, along with any welcoming religious ceremonies. (I urge you to stifle disrespectful thoughts about inquiring among Obama's mom's physicians.)
I'm exempt because I had the foresight to be born in a hospital run by good Lutheran patriots who promptly reported me to the authorities in order that I might be entered on the tax rolls.
Besides, I already have a passport, but, dammit, I think it would be fun to re-apply, just so I could tell Foggy Bottom: "Upon the13th day of my existence, local Celtic mystics were joined by coreligionists from miles around. Garbed in ceremonial nudity accented with woad, they conducted the traditional rites of precautionary exorcism."
---
And lest we think that this uberbureacracy is strictly federal,or that you can get away from it by dying, don't forget the snoopers' compulsions to continue it beyond your grave.
*Paperwork Reduction Notice. Snort.
H'T also to Tam again.
I'm exempt because I had the foresight to be born in a hospital run by good Lutheran patriots who promptly reported me to the authorities in order that I might be entered on the tax rolls.
Besides, I already have a passport, but, dammit, I think it would be fun to re-apply, just so I could tell Foggy Bottom: "Upon the13th day of my existence, local Celtic mystics were joined by coreligionists from miles around. Garbed in ceremonial nudity accented with woad, they conducted the traditional rites of precautionary exorcism."
---
And lest we think that this uberbureacracy is strictly federal,or that you can get away from it by dying, don't forget the snoopers' compulsions to continue it beyond your grave.
*Paperwork Reduction Notice. Snort.
H'T also to Tam again.
Apr 25, 2011
Giving perverts a bad name -- and official cover
A TSAer who gets to grope for a living just can't get enough of the little tykes at work. His off-duty hobby seems to be gaping, along with aiding and abetting similar scum.
An on-line site has it, but so far the big timers haven't found it newsworthy. And maybe our official leaders are fudging a little point here, too.
"Although the case was unsealed Thursday, neither the indictment nor the news release mentioned Gordon's job searching airline passengers for TSA."
H/T -- Tam
An on-line site has it, but so far the big timers haven't found it newsworthy. And maybe our official leaders are fudging a little point here, too.
"Although the case was unsealed Thursday, neither the indictment nor the news release mentioned Gordon's job searching airline passengers for TSA."
H/T -- Tam
The silver bullet
I need a few silver bullets for my 1911s, a noble material for a noble caliber. So off to the counting house.
(Punch calculator. Mumble.)
I can't afford it.
This morning's market for an ounce of Ag is a bit more than $49. An ounce yields 2.18 projectiles @200 grains. That geeks to $22.47 per round.
It is cheaper to feed the werewolves.
Which, come to think of it, would make as good a personal slogan as any for Bernanke and Geithner.
.
(Punch calculator. Mumble.)
I can't afford it.
This morning's market for an ounce of Ag is a bit more than $49. An ounce yields 2.18 projectiles @200 grains. That geeks to $22.47 per round.
It is cheaper to feed the werewolves.
Which, come to think of it, would make as good a personal slogan as any for Bernanke and Geithner.
.
Apr 22, 2011
Captain America for President? Iowa Caucuses 2012
Gary Johnson has made it official. He'll spend a little less time bicycling and ciimbing Mt. Everest and a little more running for president. He's hobnobbed among us rustics and promises to return.
Johnson is a contractor turned New Mexico governor where he performed some libertarian acts, notably wearing out a few pens vetoing spending bills. He thinks the war on drugs is a crazy spoof of logic, that the reach of the tax man is too broad and too deep, and that a nation can get in trouble tailoring its laws to the demands of the teevee preachers.
He's treading Ron Paul turf, though Paul is hugging our evangelical right on the abortion issue this time around.
Johnson's entry brings number of aspirants to at least18 20, and your handy list of caucus candidates has been updated.
.
Johnson is a contractor turned New Mexico governor where he performed some libertarian acts, notably wearing out a few pens vetoing spending bills. He thinks the war on drugs is a crazy spoof of logic, that the reach of the tax man is too broad and too deep, and that a nation can get in trouble tailoring its laws to the demands of the teevee preachers.
He's treading Ron Paul turf, though Paul is hugging our evangelical right on the abortion issue this time around.
Johnson's entry brings number of aspirants to at least
.
Apr 21, 2011
A departed friend
Chuck Brugman was too young to enlist. So he told a patriotic lie and became a decorated Marine veteran of the Pacific War, a dive-bomber gunner.
In 1946 he mastered the brass hard hat and earned an international reputation as the man to call when things went bad under the seas. He early took to the crazy Gagnon/Cousteau inventions, moved to American Samoa, and was THE diver and divemaster of those Polynesian islands from 1970s through the1990s. Chuck died in Tutuila last week at 86, depriving us of a gentle friend, a bona fide hero who had every justification for macho boasting but who never did.
He was my personal connection to sanity for one long island-bound, office-chained year. Whether aboard his stout little catamaran Manu Sina, or too deep off Step Rock, or at the Pago Pago Yacht Club after the dives, he was a man with much to teach. Which he did, quietly and gently; if any Chuck tale had a butt, he made very sure it was Chuck.
May there be there be untouched reefs in your new home.
In 1946 he mastered the brass hard hat and earned an international reputation as the man to call when things went bad under the seas. He early took to the crazy Gagnon/Cousteau inventions, moved to American Samoa, and was THE diver and divemaster of those Polynesian islands from 1970s through the1990s. Chuck died in Tutuila last week at 86, depriving us of a gentle friend, a bona fide hero who had every justification for macho boasting but who never did.
He was my personal connection to sanity for one long island-bound, office-chained year. Whether aboard his stout little catamaran Manu Sina, or too deep off Step Rock, or at the Pago Pago Yacht Club after the dives, he was a man with much to teach. Which he did, quietly and gently; if any Chuck tale had a butt, he made very sure it was Chuck.
May there be there be untouched reefs in your new home.
Inkpadutah's Revenge* and Indian Motorcycles
I haven't owned a bike for years, but the taste for old machines remains in my mouth. When I was a lad I was occasionally privileged to borrow a couple of the veteran Indians which were still around, held together with shade-tree contrivances which permitted them to keep running after a fashion.
So there a nostalgic pleasure in learning that someone else is interested in the "Indian" marque -- namely Polaris Industries (ATVs, Victory motorcycles made just a few miles from Camp J). They'll certainly be as over-gadgeted, over-lawyered, and over-priced as the other crap we're we're offered by vehicle makers, but maybe they'll at least preserve the neat old logo.
It's probably futile to hope they'll re-create anything as elegant as this.
It hurts my head to calculate the number of owners of the Indian bike name over the decades, certainly a number greater than Liz Taylor's husband tally.
---
*This is unreasonably obscure for anyone not a serious scholar of the Plains Indian Wars. Nevertheless, I have suggested to Polaris that it should be the name of its first model.
So there a nostalgic pleasure in learning that someone else is interested in the "Indian" marque -- namely Polaris Industries (ATVs, Victory motorcycles made just a few miles from Camp J). They'll certainly be as over-gadgeted, over-lawyered, and over-priced as the other crap we're we're offered by vehicle makers, but maybe they'll at least preserve the neat old logo.
It's probably futile to hope they'll re-create anything as elegant as this.
It hurts my head to calculate the number of owners of the Indian bike name over the decades, certainly a number greater than Liz Taylor's husband tally.
---
*This is unreasonably obscure for anyone not a serious scholar of the Plains Indian Wars. Nevertheless, I have suggested to Polaris that it should be the name of its first model.
Apr 20, 2011
Professor Ellen Lewin to students: "F--k Off!"
Ellen teaches gender studies and suchlike at the University of Iowa. In her spare time she supplements her $94,000 salary writing lefty things, especially (and I assume approvingly) about gay dads and lesbians. So far, no problem as far as I'm concerned. They don't call it Marxist U for nothing, and we've always been willing to grin and bear the Ellens of the lecture halls.
But I wonder why she was on the college Republican kids' mailing list. She was and received an invitation to their "Conservative Coming Out." Her two-word eff off response got around and is creating pockets of both outrage and giggles around the campus. Read about it here.
She finally decided she had to make some sort of apologia and did, emphasizing, however, her horror at those damned GOPer kids for mentioning the picnic would include an "animal rights barbecue" and profaning the "coming out" phrase.
In other words, "I shouldn't have emailed you to fuck off, but you deserved it."
We have to accept that because everyone knows it's only the gun-clinging, tea partying rubes of the right -- and libertarians -- who use indelicate language in political discourse.
EDITS:
(1) -- Later reports confirm the kid Republicans' email was approved by the official university censors and sent to everyone with campus email account.
(2) -- Ellen used three words, not two. She said: "F--k Off Republicans."
But I wonder why she was on the college Republican kids' mailing list. She was and received an invitation to their "Conservative Coming Out." Her two-word eff off response got around and is creating pockets of both outrage and giggles around the campus. Read about it here.
She finally decided she had to make some sort of apologia and did, emphasizing, however, her horror at those damned GOPer kids for mentioning the picnic would include an "animal rights barbecue" and profaning the "coming out" phrase.
In other words, "I shouldn't have emailed you to fuck off, but you deserved it."
We have to accept that because everyone knows it's only the gun-clinging, tea partying rubes of the right -- and libertarians -- who use indelicate language in political discourse.
EDITS:
(1) -- Later reports confirm the kid Republicans' email was approved by the official university censors and sent to everyone with campus email account.
(2) -- Ellen used three words, not two. She said: "F--k Off Republicans."
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