Hate Mail

Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler posted a story about a missing 17-year old girl. In the comments I crassly asked, "If I find her, can I keep her?"

Well, "The Management" decided my comment wasn't so funny. They didn't delete the comment, they just notated it. After reading my comment later, I realized they were right, it really wasn't that funny and I promptly apologized.

Even thought I apologized, I received the following email from Lawrence B.:

Yeah, if you find her, you can keep her.
Hilarious.
Hey, I know how you could make it even funnier:
Include that line in your suicide note, you pathetic mutant.

I email him back the following:

Go back and read the comments section moron, I apologized for my comment.

Lawrence B. emailed me back with this:

Aren't you lucky that in order to avoid further criticism, all you
have to do is say/write a few words? It works. In spite of the fact
that when you apologize, you insist that on occasion you say things
you do not really mean.

So do we believe you when, on your own initiative, you say something
totally obnoxious, or do we believe you when, pressed by severe
criticism on all sides, you give in and apologize? When is the real
you talking?

If you wanted to evaluate somebody's character, which would you choose??

There are some things we have to live with, and if a person reveals
himself as a callus twit, well, that's one of them. Messages like
mine are part of the price people like you pay for being emotionally
deformed. Cope with it.

Rather than responding, I decided to post his email here and let all of you mock him for his petty inanity.

Enjoy.

It's Always Voluntary At First

This article from Wired frightens me. The state of New York wants diabetics in that state to submit 'voluntarily' to monitoring of their disease.

First it's voluntary
Then it's mandatory for anyone receiving state benefits
Then it's mandatory for anyone in the state
Then it becomes national
Then they move on to the next thing

What are some other 'troubling' trends the government could track for us?

• Fat - Of course. We must all be monitored for our fat and calorie intake. Instead of hte government saying, "Screw you lard butt, you're on your own," like they should be doing, they'll have to monitor those who's BMI is over 25. From there it will decrease to about 3 so they catch everyone.
• Words - We'll all have to wear speech monitors so our conversations can be monitored for terrorist talk. It's all about the safety of society. Of course all of your conversations will remain private unless you trigger a key word. Oops, I just said 'trigger', I have to report in to the authorities. If I don't return I've been deleted.
• Farts - They have to tax us according to the amount of methane we spew in to the atmosphere. I believe they tried this with cows in New Zealand a while back. This would go along with tracking fat intake.
• Key Strokes - People stopped talking because of the speech monitors, now we have biometric sensors to track whatever we might type on any device we happen to be using. It's for the children.

What else should 'they' be monitoring.

Poetry

From a discussion on Vox's blog, someone requested that I post some of the poetry I wrote in days gone by. Most of the poems were written in my late teens or early 20's (in otherwords, the 80's).

Here is the first of perhaps many I'll post.


My flesh! My wretched flesh!
Oh how powerful it is.
A cruel task master
I bend to its will
I serve its desires
This slavery! These chains!
My yoke is hard, my burden heavy
Where is my freedom?

Then a voice, a gentle voice
But full of power, beckons,
"Follow Me."
But, my master?
"Be my slave and you will taste freedom.
My yoke is easy and my burden light."
Loose these chains then my Lord.
And he died, and they fell.

Summing Up The Liberal Mindset

This article details the ban on smoking in California prisons. Let me go on record as saying that prisoners shouldn't get television, weight sets etc. They should work their tails off in there and given credits toward medical care, etc. There are a number of reasons that smoking shouldn't be allowed by prisoners. The state banned smoking for prison employees also. Still, not a bad idea, employment is voluntary, go get another job if you don't like it.

I don't disagree with the substance of the article but one line at the end of the article caught my attention. It may not have been put this way on purpose but it's perfect in framing the liberal mindset.

Lt. Kevin Lewis, spokeshole for the California State Prison, Los Angeles County said this about the month old smoking ban, "It just feels like a healthier, cleaner environment."

...because how it feels is really all that matters. That, my dear readers is how a liberal thinks.

Christian Massage

No, not message, massage.

What will they think of next? Amongst my junk snail mail was a postcard sized ad that reads as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------
Train for Christian Medical Massage!

• High paying carrer: average incomes of $50 - $100/hour
• Short training for licensure - just 18 weeks!
• Witness for Christ using healing touch here at home and as missionary overseas!
• Live on campus and study under Christian professionals.

---------------------------------------------------------

I know it seems like a joke but it isn't. It's just sad.

I can just see the prophets running around saying, "I have a massage for you from the Lord!"

I think I'll go get licensed and then go running around massaging women to bring them to Christ. I'll open a Christian Massage Parlor.

I'm stunned, this is ridiculous. You can't read this post and NOT comment.

Agreeing With The Pope

For once I agree with the Pope.

Apparently, Pope Benedict XVI has refused to declare Islam a 'religion of peace' during a brief question and answer session with reporters before a meeting in Northern Italy.

Benedict replied: "I would not like to use big words to apply generic labels, it certainly contains elements that can favor peace, it also has other elements: We must always seek the best elements."

He obviously didn't go far enough by actually denouncing Islam but that's a different discussion.

Given the history of animosity of 'The Holy Roman See' toward Jews, I wonder if he would have given the same response if asked about Israel.

One Down...

Found via The Digital Brown Shirt: Notorious Russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir was beat to death in his Moscow apartment.

Ok, email spam isn't a good enough reason for murder but this is far less tragic than the Brazilian man murdered by British police.

The one thing that could have made this story actually funny is if the perpetrators would have beat him to death with actual cans of Spam. It would have been an historic moment.

Google Mail

If anyone out there wants a Google email address, please let me know, I've got a bunch of invitations to spare. My email address is at the bottom of the side bar on the right, send me a request.

Medical Madness

Little Difster cut her head open this evening and it required a trip to the emergency room. She's doing just fine, she was very brave through the whole thing. It was borderline whether or not she really needed to get stitch but I decided in this case that it was better safe than sorry.

On checking out, the clerk told me that would need to leave a $400 deposit with her until the full amount of the bill can be determined. I nearly laughed out loud. I said, "You must be joking, why would I leave you $400 when you can't even tell me how much it's going to cost? I don't have $400 anyway." She said, "You have to leave some kind of deposit." I nearly said (should have said) "What are you going to do, repossess my daughter or the lone suture if I don't?"

The only thing that kept me from doing that is that I am going to attempt to negotiate the bill down later (whatever it may be) and I didn't want some note on the file saying I was being uncooperative with the clerk. So I just sucked it up in hopes that I can get out of paying some of the money to them later.

I'm also thinking I should charge them. I was in that emergency room for about 4 hours. My standard consulting rate is $95 and I figure I'll give them the first hour. The emergency room wasn't that busy, there's no reason it should have taken that long.

It's late, I'm tired, we'll see what happened.

On the plus side, tonight is the most time I've spent with Mrs. Difster since she left last December and we didn't get in to any fights. We didn't talk too much but we got along.

Copy Cat Attacks

London has suffered another wave of bombings. From the description of what happened, I'm guessing that these are just copy cat attacks. The plan was hastily put together and poorly executed. Investigation will likely reveal the motive was something other than Jihad against the infidel. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was organized crime.

When the perps are discovered, what all of the pundits are going miss is the fact that the Islamo-facists are well funded, well organized and commited to their cause whereas those responsible for the most recent blast are just criminals.

You saw it here first.

Coulter on Roberts

Ann Coulter nails it again:

She makes the valid point that Roberts is an unknown quantity and hasn't expressed his own opinion on things. I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Roberts.

Bork Bork Bork

Bush nominated a pro-life man to replace O'Connor for SCOTUS.

My first thought was that he's a sacrificial lamb. He will get Borked and Bush will throw up his hands and be 'forced' to nominate a more liberal woman for the post.

My second thought was that if he does get confirmed that his first couple of rulings will be in line with what conservatives expect and then he'll turn on us.

Maybe I just need more faith. HA!

Return To Ilana

Ilana Mercer is back on WorldNet Daily with her Return To Reason column.

Not only is she a great columnist, she's hot and she has a blog too!

Welcome back Ilana, we missed you.

The Difference

Those on the left side of the political spectrum are just a bit different than the rest of us.

Let's contrast the response of leftists to Karl Rove's supposed involvement in the outing of Valarie Plame, the CIA agent and response of conservatives (and libertarians) to the Kelo decision.

A left-wing blogger wants us to dump poop on Rove's door step.

The right-wing/libertarian response is to use the law against David Souter to take his house through what he himself declared to be legal means.

Which is the more reasonable response to something you don't agree with? Flinging poop or taking action commensurate with your grievance?

The problem here is that many people respond to poop flinging more readily than they do direct action because the media gives poop flinging more air time.

The conservative/libertarians, need to start putting up their poop deflectors instead of responding to flinging. If you ignore liberals long enough, they will go away.

Treating Symptoms

I have had a nagging tooth ache for about 3 weeks now. At first it was quite painful. I thought maybe something had just got stuck up in my gums and became infected. Well, that turns out not to be the case. The pain is now just annoying and uncomfortable with an occasional flare up.

When I go to the dentist to get this taken care of, the pain I will endure to get it fixed is worse than the pain I'm dealing with now.

Here's the problem, if I'm not willing to go through the pain and expense of getting it fixed, the pain and expense will be worse later. No matter how much I treat the symptom (the nagging pain) the actual problem will not go away on it's own.

Tell me an area in you life where you're treating the symptom and not the problem. It could be a personal relationship, a bad habit or simply a personality trait that causes you pain and inconvenience in your life.

Come on, spill your guts, let's treat your problem instead of the symptom.

And Now For Something Completely Different

A man apparently died from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse.

Cut Trade With China

All diplomatic ties and all commerce should be supspended with China IMMEDIATELY.

A military official is saying that China will nuke us if we interfere with Taiwan.

Since China is so dependent on the US for their commerce, we should just cut them off cold. The upshot of that is that household savings in the US would start going up almost immediately and oil prices would drop immediately because China would have to cut their production of consumer goods.

This could only be a good thing for us.

And Why Should We Believe Him

Why should we believe this guy when he says that his pro-terrorist rap lyrics are really just hype and marketing?

He worked as a baggage screener at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, TX for six months. He was (thankfully) fired when the TSA discovered his music.

Given that one of the ahem...suspects in the London bombing was a teacher of disabled children, why should we even begin to believe that this punk is nothing less than a terrorist?

Hopefully there is a full-scale FBI investigation in to him and everyone he associates with. Perhaps they will uncover a terrorist cell. I don't have that much faith in the competence of the FBI but I can always hope.

If He Was Black...

If Jose Peña, and his 17 month old daughter Maria, who were recently killed by Los Angeles police were black, this story would be getting nation-wide 24/7 coverage. There would be mayhem that made the Rodney King riots look like a peace protest.

If they were black, you'd have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and every other black activist screaming at the top of their lungs simply because the victims were black. When there is a black victim, racism must be the reason for it.

As I mentioned in my post below, there is absolutely no reason that the little girl had to die for the actions of her father; it was avoidable. The only victim here is the girl.

Preventing Terror

According to a story from The Washington Post the other day, the police in London are searching through the tapes of over 2500 closed circuit televisions for clues to the bombing.

Sky News is running a story that says it's likely that the bombers all died during the bombing.

These cameras did nothing to prevent the bombing and they can do nothing to solve them either because there is no one left to catch. The planners planned it well out of the way of the prying lens.

So, do all of these so-called security measures do ANYTHING to prevent terror? Not likely.

The Great Equalizer

A 79 year old man with a .357 against 2 thugs breaking in to his home. The old man won.

If guns were made illegal, how would this man have defended his home? Even if he had called the police beforehand, they would not have made it there on time to stop the men breaking in to his home.

The anti-gun zealots would have us cowering in our homes and waiting for the baby-killer cops to show up and possibly do as much damage to innocent bystanders as they might to a career criminal.

The old man deserves a medal for what he did. Criminals in his area are going to be thinking a little harder before breaking in to someone's house any time soon.

Baby Killers

It appears that Los Angeles cops are allowed to open fire on babies now.

We already knew that the police have no duty to protect you, but it seems that now they are allowed to murder innocents.

A man was holding a 17 month old baby while firing at police. The SWAT team was present, there had to have been something else they could have done besides shoot this baby along with the man.

The story indicates that there were three exchanges of gun fire between the man and police. Yet the story quotes Police Cheif, Jim McDonnell who said, "We did everything we could to hold our fire. We showed a tremendous amount of restraint, but unfortunately the suspect's actions dictated this. ... It's a true tragedy."

The tragedy is that the LAPD is a bunch of trigger happy baby killers with no restraint.

The Federalist #5

Author - Jay

"The most sanguine advocates for three or four confederacies cannot reasonably suppose that they would long remain exactly on equal footing in point of strength, even if it was possible to form them so at first; but, admitting that to be practicable, yet what human contrivance can secure the continuance of such equality?"

For those of you who are anti-federalists, can you make a reasonable case that a limited government among three or four confederacies would have continued in their limited capacity any longer than the Union maintained its limited posture? Would we still have a few limited confederacies or would we simply have more statist regimes on the continent?

While I concede that it is possible that some form of competition between the free people of several confederacies could have maintained their liberty longer, I would also posit that once the respective governments accrued enough power to themselves, the competition would have been turned on its head and the political body, no longer controlled by the people, would race to be the most socialist.

Good Customer Service

It seems that good customer service is rare these days. Keeping that in mind, I would like to give a mention to Sav-on Drugs (Same company as Osco) for good customer service today.

Last weekend I bought a pair of $16 sunglasses. Three days later, the both temples snapped off nearly simultaneously. If they had lasted a couple of months I would have been happy but three days just isn't satisfactory.

This afternoon, I went back to that store to return them. To be pefectly honest, I expected them to put up a fight over it even though I had the receipt. I expected they would insist that I take another pair in exchange for them rather than give me my money back. Thankfully, they were very cooperative and gave me my money back without any hassle.

Some people get very upset when something they buy is defective or an order is wrong. I don't get upset about things like that as long as the merchant is willing to make it right. Sav-on sold me some lousy sunglasses but they made it right and I really appreciate that.

Death of Big Labor

It looks like Big Labor is in some serious decline. It seems that less than 8 percent of the United States work force belongs to a union.

I know that it's probably too much to ask of these people, but maybe they should just realize that they have become irrelevant and close up shop.

Let people negotiate as individuals for pay and benefits. I actually have no problem with organized labor in principle, it's just that an employer is required by law to enter in to negotiations with a union. If a bunch of employees want to get together and say say they're all quitting if they don't get a raise, the employer should have the option of firing them all if he wants to.

Anyone remember the Longshorman's strike a few years back? They wanted to protect their jobs from the encroachment of technology on to the docks. These people get paid tons of money to do almost no work and they make everything we buy from overseas more expensive and they just want to protect their phony-baloney jobs from efficiency. They don't care about the rest of us at all. In a free market, the ineffecient resource (lazy dock workers) would be priced out of the market by technology and forced to seek other employment and balancing out the labor force.

Did I mention that I hate unions? I hate unions.

Such Peaceful People

Yes, I'm sure that the entire Muslim world, apart from the small faction of extremists is VERY upset with those claiming responsibility for the atrocity in London.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) actually did condemn the bombing and they've been working to disassociate themselves from the terrorist element they have so clearly helped to foster in the past. Forgive me if I don't trust their motives. They want the Feds off their back so of course they're taking a moderate tone. Only time will tell.

Don't expect to see any wide-spread condemnation of this act from the Arab world, they're too busy just being peaceful Muslims.

I'm Glad It's Not New York

After a heated race (pardon the pun), it seems that the 2012 Olympics are going to be held in London.

New York was eliminated from the list on the third ballot and the contest came down to London and Paris.

The reason I'm happy that New York was not chosen is because The Lizard Queen would have made it a centerpiece of her 2008 campaign since she was lobbying for it.

I will leave it to you, my readers to come up with some campaign slogans she would use if her bid for the Olympics had been successful.

Wonderful Ann

I realize I'm usurping Bane's rightful claim to post a link to Ann Coulter's latest column but this one was just too good to pass up.

She makes a complete mockery (justifably so) of the career Sandra Day O'Connor.

He Won't Die

This guy won't end up getting the death penalty specifically because he wants it.

OBVIOUSLY anyone that wants to die probably won't be considered by the courts as someone sane enough to get the death penalty.

Maybe they should just put this guy in with the white prison population. He'll get his death sentance there.

The Federalist #4

Author - Jay

"It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting any thing by it; nay, absolute monarchies will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans."

Given the breakdown of accountability between the various branches of government the above paragraph describes the activities of our government for at least since the Vietnam "war".

How many conflicts that we have been involved in would have passed muster by the founders. How many violated George Washington's warning against excessive foreign entanglements?

"With them (France and Britain) and with most other European nations we are rivals in navigation and the carrying trade; and we shall deceive ourselves if we suppose that any of them will rejoice to see these flourish; for, as our carrying trade cannot increase without in some degree diminishing theirs, it is more their interest, and will be more their policy, to restrain than to promote it."

If you haven't heard of the "Law of The Sea Treaty" (LOST), go read about that U.N. monstrosity. Why should we, in our vain imaginings think that Europe has our best interest at heart any more now than they in 1787 when the above paragraph was written? Quite the contrary, Europe is in a race with China to usurp the position of the US as the single Global Super Power.

In relation to the national defense, Jay said, "As the safety of the whole is the interest of the whole, and cannot be provided for without government..."

I know that the truly hardcore libertarians would disagree with that statement but I have yet to be convinced that a private army organized only when the need for one arises could provide sufficient defense to ward off a determined enemy.

Though we have had acts of war committed against us, there has not been a sustained foreign war brought to our shores since the foundation of the Union. Perhaps a full-scale invasion by a worthy enemy (China?) would return our thoughts to liberty and galvanize our resolve toward governmental restraint. Not that I hope for that but I can't think of what else might accomplish it.

My New Shirt

I bought a t-shirt at Target today for $5. They had a bunch of patriotic type shirts on sale and I picked this one for decidedly different reasons than the manufacturer probably intended.

You've all seen those shirts that say something like "Property of Yale Athletic Department" and other such nonsense. This one says, "Property Of The United States Of America" and it has the eagle in the middle clutching the olive branches and the arrows.

I decided to buy the shirt as a type of political protest. Because of recent Supreme Court rulings, constant attempts to steal our liberty, and the IRS, I feel more and more like I am the property of the United States of America rather than a free citizen of it.

Our government no longer answers to the people, we answer to them.

So, I'm going to wear my new shirt on Monday, July 4th, 2005. Sadly, I doubt anyone will get it unless I explain it to them.

No Good Deed...

It is oft said that no good deed goes unpunished. Fitzroy Barnaby is certainly feeling the weight of that maxim on his shoulders right now.

It seems that a 14 year-old girl walked in front of his car, he had to swerve to avoid hitting her and he stopped his car to lecture her. In the process of that, he grabbed her arm. Did he strike her? No. Did he grope her? No. Did he even yell at her? No.

Guess what? Barnaby now has to register as a sex offender for life because unlawful restraint of a minor is considered a sex offense.

What do you think of when "unlawful restraint" comes to mind? Tossing a kid in to the back of a sleazy van, kidnapping or something that is actually harmful. But grabbing the arm of a girl to lecture her about walking in front of your car? This is just stupid. This guy should be given a medal by the parents for chewing her out, not prosecuted and treated as a sex offender for doing something that doesn't even closely resemble a sex crime.

Poor guy.

Democrats And Unity

Unless Bush nominates a known liberal to replace O'Connor, there is going to be a partisan fight for his nominee.

This story on Fox News is rife with quotes from Democrats that are going to be typical of what we will see during the nomination and confirmation process.

The Dems will say "we need a non-partisan uniter, not a divider." What they really mean is, "Bow to our will and nominate someone who is going to vote our way or we're going demonize any candiate you put forth."

Watch out for this. They don't want someone who is going to interpret the law, they want someone who is going to write the law and hand down abominations as bad or worse than the recent Kelo decision.

I don't honestly expect Bush to put up much of a fight. For all his talk about being a strong Christian, he's not going to nominate someone who is decidedly pro-life. He's going to continue to think he can placate the liberals and give in a little. Then again, he's not really conservative to begin with so nominating a soul-less neo-con with a liberal bent won't be much of a compromise for him.

The Federalist #3

Author - Jay
"It is of high importance to the peace of America that she observe the laws of nations towards all these powers, and to me, it appears evident that this will be more perfectly and punctually done by one national government than it could be either by thirteen separate States or by three or four distinct confederacies."

Overall, this is a pretty weak argument for the formation of a Union on the scale we have. I suggest that a few confederacies would be fairly adept at keeping each other in check in regards to their potential hostilities to nations outside of those neighboring confederacies. The treaties of close confederacies would have stronger treaties than distant nations would. This would inhibit unilateral hostility by one of the confederates. Jay goes on to expound quite the opposite view and it is unconvincing at best. His point would be nearer to the mark in light of each state being a sovereign nation.

"As to those just causes of war which proceed from direct and unlawful violence, it appears equally clear to me that one good national government affords vastly more security against dangers of that sort than can be derived from any other quarter."

That's a reasonable assumption. As an example, I believe that the West Coast would be under heavier threat from China today if the US wasn't a cohesive Union. It's highly possible that California would have come under the direct control of China a long time ago.