Sleepless in Midland

Seeing ghosts

Here are some remarkable poll results.

Eerily, 25 per cent of the UK adult population – or around 11m people - have experienced a ghost, according to research by spectre expert Professor Richard Wiseman. ...

In the 1950s, the figure was just seven per cent, rising to 14 per cent in the 1990s and 19 per cent in 2003.

See Quarter of UK has had ‘ghostly encounter’.

The U.S. has got them beat. CBS says a third of Americans believe in ghosts in the poll asking which one of the following do you think is the most likely to actually exist, Ghosts, UFOs, Vampires, Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, none of the above. Ghosts ranked the highest with a third of Americans saying they believe. There's slim hope, though, with 12% selecting "none of the above."

Are ghosts rising. Nah, most likely it's the influence of TV. Popular TV shows about the walking dead probably aren't taken as anything other than fiction. But with the history channel shows about ancient aliens right along side shows about the hilarity of pawn shop management, it's easy to see how some vulnerable viewers might confuse fiction with reality.

Can't find the TV remote or the car keys? Ghosts. Seems like you just filled up the gas tank, but now it's empty again? Ghosts. Took out the trash, but the waste basket is full again already? Those pesky ghosts, there oughta be a law.

Monster Truck Back Flip

Say what you will about monster trucks. But if you've ever marveled at the agility of a human doing a back flip, take a look at this video of Son-uva Digger doing a flip. Via .

The versatile Donald O'Connor did it without the benefit of a truck in "Singing in the Rain" in a dance move that probably caused more childhood paralysis than polio. See it in Make 'em Laugh at about the 3:30 point.

A BIG Allowance

What would happen if everyone got a monthly allowance? It was tried in a grand experiment in an impoverished village in Namibia.

The Basic Income Grant was a project in which some churches and NGOs gave N$100 to each resident under 60 years of age in Otjivero-Omitara, Namibia, between 2007 and 2009. They took care to get everyone registered as of a certain date so that new arrivals wouldn't qualify. Then they set up a system to pay an allowance to each of the registered residents each month.

The sponsors evaluated the program and reported it a success. Among the things resulting from the grants were the following (from the executive summary):

- the community organized a committee to advise the recipients how best to spend the money;

- there was a significant increase in population of the village after the grant program was implemented;

-- economic activity increased: "The rate of those engaged in income-generating activities (above the age of 15) increased from 44% to 55%;"

-- number of people with incomes below poverty level fell;

-- child malnourishment declined;

-- the recipients could afford more nourishing food and medicine;

-- school attendance rose and the drop out rate fell;

-- use of the settlement health clinic increased as the residents could afford the fee;

-- household debt fell and savings increased;

-- crime rates fell;

-- women were freed to some extent from "the pressure to engage in transactional sex";

-- no evidence that alcoholism increased, helped no doubt by agreements with the liquor outlets not to sell alcohol on the days the grants were paid.

All well and good, and the people in the project must have benefited, if for no other reason, from being able to put some food on the plate. But there's still not enough evidence to overcome the basic principle that handouts do nothing to instill a work ethic and do little else than develop dependencies. The welfare programs in the U.S. up to the mid '90s proved that. And it took welfare reform to turn that around.

The real cure for poverty would be an environment that protected property rights, allowed free trade, and allowed the individual to generate income with his/her own ingenuity and keep it.

Going to war over guilt

The U.S. involvement in Libya may be due to a few guilty consciences.

It might take a war historian to say this with confidence, but from a public schooled blogger's perspective, it seems that throughout history wars were started for the purpose of acquiring control of land, water, things or people. There was an aggressor and an aggressee. And a foresighted potential aggressee might start a war to defend those assets. (Agressee isn't a dictionary word, but you know what it means.)

It was only in the past few decades that wars have been conducted to prevent one group of people from slaughtering another group of people. "Ethnic cleansing" was the phrase popularized by the war in Yugoslavia. Citizens around the world were exposed to news reports about the wholesale slaughtering that was going on. And enough people were appalled by it that eventually some country leaders took it upon themselves to put a stop to it. The war initiated by the Clinton administration eventually brought an end to the killing there.

Killers on the African continent got a pass. In Rwanda the Tutsis took a big hit when the Hutus used machetes in their own ethnic cleansing process leaving a half million to a million dead. They got a pass. Darfur got a pass. One important lesson those willing to commit genocide learned from those regions and Yugoslavia was the utility of keeping the bodies off the TV screens.

This brings us to Libya today. Tim Carney had a piece at WashingtonExaminer.com titled Obama aides fine moral clarity in Libya's foggy war. Mr. Carney tells us that Obama's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, and his special assistant Samantha Power both appear to be suffering from guilt over having looked the other way when the massacres occurred in Rwanda.

"I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again," Susan Rice said about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, "I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required." ...

For [Rice], the Clinton administration's refusal to intervene in the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis by the majority Hutus who controlled the government was a grave sin of omission. Launching U.S. Tomahawk missiles and F-15s at Moammar Gadhafi's forces is her act of penance.

So is guilt the motivator for America's involvement in Libya? Appears so. The ultimate outcome will tell us whether that approach helped or hurt the U.S. Obama, who has his own trouble making decisions, would have liked to vote "present."

Side story -- Back in the Clinton administration a liberal acquaintance praised the TV show "Night Line" with Ted Koppel. So I decided to watch it to see what was so great about it. There was Koppel interviewing a panel about something, and Lawrence Eagleburger was asked about Yugoslavia. In his reply he said Clinton's Yugoslavian adventure seemed a little inconsistent with his indifference toward the slaughter in Rwanda. Eagleburger tossed out a remark that neglecting Rwanda might even be racism. Whoa, what? The spit hit the fan. Koppel came at him hard. How dare he insinuate that Bill Clinton could be racist; Bill Clinton was the least racist person in America, etc. Eagleburger backed off, and Koppel, having shown his true colors, lost a potential viewer.

Couldn't find their own asp

Lost: 20 inch poisonous cobra in the vicinity of the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo. If found, please notify zoo keeper.

Via AOLnews.com.

There are some things ya just don't wanna lose.

Updated 3/31/11: Found!

Breheny said the zoo is evaluating its protocols to make sure the snake doesn't escape again. Zoo officials hope to reopen the reptile house next week.

Outliers in the drug war -- marijuana front

A poll about a month ago told us that almost half of Americans believe marijuana should be legalized and taxed. Via Economist.com. They go on to predict that "it can only be a matter of time before laws start to change, at least in the more liberal states."

In the meantime, the drug war rages on, and in Montana there's a battle going on about medical marijuana which is legal in the state. A patient or caregiver with a doctor's recommendation can grow up to six plants. Cooperatives were formed to grow pot for patients. But the law isn't clear about whether the person with the prescription can "farm out" the right to grow weed. The Feds decided that Montana law didn't allow that, and in mid-March they raided a farm and pulled up almost 1,700 pot plants. Sources: Helenair.com and Reason.com.

Aside: This sort of thing wouldn't happen if Obama was president.

Law enforcement and prosecutors have a tremendous amount of discretion on what laws to enforce. And while the police and prosecutors may want to enforce a zero tolerance in this area, the people seem much more tolerant. This played out late last year in Missoula, Montana, where prosecutors wanted to try a defendant for possession of a small quantity of marijuana. But during the voir dire many of the potential jurors said they wouldn't convict over such a small amount. The judge questioned whether they could get a jury out of that pool and called a recess, during which, the prosecutor and defense struck a plea deal. See the story at Blogs.WSJ.com. Don Boudreaux calls it jury nullification. He elaborates:

This prosecutor is mistaken to assume that the law is simply that which the state declares it to be. A great advantage of trial by jury – an advantage applauded by the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison – is to enable the community’s evolved sense of law and justice to moderate, or even to nullify, government’s criminal statutes. As Edward Gibbon observed, “Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.”

The war on drugs has cost a lot of lives and money, but there's so much money involved that the warriors on both sides want it to continue. It should be no surprise that the drug cartels were against legalization of marijuana in California last year.

As Economist.com says, "it can only be a matter of time before laws start to change."

Updated 5/2/11: Maybe not this time. AmericanIndependent.com reports that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer said he would allow SB 423 to become law without his signature. That law would require all patients to get multiple doctors to sign off on their need for marijuana, it would shut down marijuana dispensaries, and it would limit caregivers to only three patients each and prohibit them from accepting any compensation from their patients.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Mars

First they had SETI. Now they have SETG, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes.

Some researchers at MIT and Harvard are working on a project that would result in a device that could take samples of Martian soil and examine them for any DNA that might be present in living or dead microbes. Then it would look for genetic sequences common in Earthly life forms. Source: Have we descended from Mars?

If they find similar genomes, the theory would be that microbial life may have traveled from Mars to Earth. What a journey!

"Hey baby, are you from Mars?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Well, I thought you must be, because you certainly are out of this world. That, and the green skin."

Gettin 'er done in Japan

Admittedly, the repair work at the Fukushima plant in Japan seems to be progressing a bit slower than everyone would like.

But take a look at the half full portion of the glass. In particular, remember the photos of the highway that had a crack down the center stripe with one lane was about four or five feet lower than the other lane? It was quake made a no passing zone.

Well, check out the before and after pics of that highway. In just two weeks the road is navigable. Very impressive.

The said, the real heroes coming out of this are those brave and tireless workers repairing the plant while their bodes are being radiated. Rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor and loyalty -- the seven virtues of the Samurai still inspire.

Tom Coburn is still fighting the battle against earmarks

When Republicans had the House, Senate and Presidency, they went crazy with the spending. Then, as if it were their turn at the trough, Democrats went crazy these past two years when they controlled those three institutions resulting in a national debt in ruinous proportions.

With the 2010 elections mainly about overspending, it would seem that our elected representatives would try to appease voters on this issue, and to a great extent, they have. But some of those pesky earmarks just won't go away.

Now to be sure, many politicians and their constituents like earmarks when they put money into the politician's district. The money is going to get spent by someone, so it might as well go to my district, the thinking goes. But the insidious nature of earmarks is that it takes a collusion to get them passed, and it becomes a back scratching routine which means there can never be just one earmark.

Which brings us to this USAToday.com article which tells us that in the two short term spending bills Republicans cut $5.3 billion in earmarks but left $4.8 billion untouched. The article quotes Tom Coburn:

"Many in Congress promised taxpayers a full earmark moratorium, not a half moratorium," says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., an earmark opponent who requested the report from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. "Protecting nearly $5 billion in earmarks from cuts sends the wrong message to taxpayers."

Via FutureofCapitalism.com.

On the topic of earmarks, see this instructive article by Senator Tom Coburn from last November titled Earmark Myths and Realities in which he describes earmarks "as the gateway drug to spending addiction in Washington."

This is your brain ...

Mmmmmm. Coffee!

Blood and money, drugs and murder -- gangland West Texas

Some of us got a surprise the other day to learn that our fair city of Midland, Texas, is part of the territory of a violent gang of drug selling, gun running murderers.

The FBI issued the press release on March 9 announcing an indictment recently unsealed against 35 individuals, 16 of whom were already in custody, 12 of whom were just arrested, and 7 of whom are still at large, including Eduardo Ravelo who is on the FBI's top ten most wanted list with a $100,000 reward offered for information leading directly to his arrest.

They are all alleged to be members of a gang called "Barrio Azteca," which, according to the indictment was formed in 1986 as "Familia Azteca" in Texas prisons for the purpose of uniting inmates from El Paso and West Texas. Eventually they became enforcers and transporters of the Vicente Carillo-Fuentes drug organization of Juarez, Mexico.

Barrio Azteca's gangland was said to include the cities of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Mexico; El Paso, Midland, and Odessa, Texas; and areas of New Mexico from Sunland Park through Las Cruces.

The 57 page indict makes for shocking reading. See it for yourself at Google docs if for no other reasons than to see the quantity of drugs involved.

For example, on pages 16 and 17 they talk about various instances in 2006 and 2007 in which gang members were in possession of 18 pounds of heroin, 82.75 kilograms of cocaine, 47 pounds of marijuana, 10 kilograms of cocaine, 150 pounds of marijuana, 100 pounds of marijuana, 4 kilograms of cocaine, 3 kilograms of cocaine, and on and on.

Among the charges there's a RICO conspiracy (Count 1), conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin, cocaine and marijuana (Count 2), conspiracy to import heroin, etc., (Count 3), conspiracy to launder money (Count 4), conspiracy to kill someone in a foreign country (Count 5), murder (Count 6), murder (Count 7), murder (Count 8), murder (Count 9), murder (Count 10), murder (Count 11), and finally, obstruction of justice by burning a car used in a murder (Count 12).

Some of the gang leaders may have been conducting business while in prison as some of the conspiracy allegations involve mail and telephone communication with individuals in the free world. A "kite" was someone, possibly using a fake name and address, who might send or receive letters from incarcerated gang members to try to avoid law enforcement detection. Sometimes the gang would call a meeting of key members so that orders from an incarcerated capo could be read.

Loyalty to the gang was paramount and superior to loyalties to God, country, family, or friends. A "green light" was authorization by the gang leaders to commit murder. "The target of a particular order may be a fellow BA member, blood relative, friend, or other associate of the person who is given the order."

Not very nice folks.

It must have taken much hard work and many man/woman hours to pull together the evidence for this indictment. Our hats go off to the law enforcement officers who helped bring it about, and they deserve every accolade they are sure to receive for their work.

Not to make light of that accomplishment, but somewhere I read -- can't find it now -- that the gang has about 2,000 members. And as long the illicit drug industry is so lucrative it won't take long for others to step into the jobs vacated by those arrests.

Iran builds flying saucer

See We've built a flying saucer, boasts Iran (even if it does look like it belongs in a 1950s B-movie). Excerpt:

The reports gave no indication of the spaceship’s size. But they indicated it was small by claiming, somewhat bizarrely, that it can also fly indoors. ...

The device belonging to the new generation of vertical flyers is designed for aerial photography.

It is equipped with autopilot, image stabiliser and GPS and has a separate system for aerial recording with full HD quality!

The CIA said it was just swamp gas.

P.S. This is not to be confused with the real rocket launch Iran announced last week. Stuxnet, phone home.

Swedish sausage contains 104% meat

Just couldn't give 110%. The slackers.

They always said you don't want to see sausage being made. But this fellow read the label of some sausage he bought at a ski lift in Sweden and discovered that it allegedly contained 104% meat. So he sought an official explanation:

CEO Marcus Färnström explained to local newspaper Länstidningen Östersund that what it actually means is 104 g meat has been used per every 100g sausage.

Got that? Maybe it means there was a 4 gram weight loss by the time the sausage made it out of the factory. At least it wasn't pumped up with water the way chicken is in the US.

The Arctic is warming! The Arctic is warming! A warming warning from 1922.

Predictions are always tricky, especially if they concern the future.

Some believers of the man made global warming theories will never give up, particularly those with a financial or ego investment in it.

But this is really funny. It's a Washington Post report about global warming in 1922. Here's the link at Snopes.com.

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. ...

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

Hasn't there been an "ice age" in the intervening 90 years? Via.

Bully slamdown is a Youtube hit

Size matters.

You've probably seen the video. Some squirt decides to pick on Casey, a much larger kid. The squirt punches Casey in the face, jabs him in the gut, taunts him. Casey grabs the squirt and gives him a helllacious body slam. If you haven't seen it yet, click here to watch it.

Or if you are squeamish, watch it in this newsreel video which contains the gentle warning that "The clip we're about to show may disturb some viewers." Backgrounder here.

It's possible that a small wiry kid with super fast reflexes might be able to subdue a much larger fellow. But size definitely matters. Weight carries a lot of momentum. And a big guy usually has some strong muscles developed from carrying around his own body weight. So the little kid is going to have to be very good to duck the blows and grabs, and if the big guy gets a good grip on the kid, it's all over.

Reminds me of something that happened to a friend of mine in high school. My friend was a plus sized fellow, and apparently he looked too soft to some smaller guy who tried to bully my friend. Maybe the bully was trying to earn his bones or something. Who know? Anyway, my friend eventually agreed to fight him after school.

That afternoon on a secluded side of the school house the sparing began. The bully took a swing but got too close.  My friend rushed at him, made full contact, and pushed the bully backward until the bully became the meat of a sandwich between my friend and a cement staircase.

"UMF" was the sound, and the bully went limp. One of his friends shouted "Policia, Policia." My friend stood up and looked around. The bully was still strong enough to run away, and he and his friends took off. There were no police, it was merely an escape mechanism. And that ended the fight conclusively enough to terminate any future bullying.

Meanwhile, one of the most satisfying TV shows currently airing is Bully Beatdown where Jason "Mayhem" Miller invites a bully to match up in the cage with a MMA fighter his own size. The enticement is a $10,000 purse of which the bully can earn all or part by not tapping out in a round of wrestling and lasting one round of boxing.

A bully, some victims, a hero to set things right.  All very satisfying.

Nomination for funniest Tweet of the week

Found at twitter.com/DavidSpade. (Punctuation added.)

Poor Charlie Sheen just said, "Hey everybody, what about MY meltdown?"

Sorry Charlie. Too many other fish in the sea.

Click and Clack, tappet brothers tapping into government coffers

If Saul Alinsky were alive he would approve of the way Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York ripped forth with a sarcastic speech the other day mocking those who want to release NPR into the free market.

"We've discovered a target we can all agree upon. It's these guys. This is the comics, Click and Clack, the tappet brothers. We're finally getting rid of them. Thank gawd we've solved this problem for the country!" Link.

Very sarcastic and almost funny in the derisive way politicos like to portray those who disagree with them. Rep Weiner represents a very blue portion of the blue state of New York, and his constituents probably yuck it up when he skewers fiscal conservatives and their crazy notion that the government spends too much money.

At least he didn't try to downplay the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's draw on the US treasury as being a tiny portion of the whole debt. It all adds up, you know.

Rep. Weiner notwithstanding, it isn't Click and Clack. It's the whole big government mindset that permeates NPR. Liberals like it because it mirrors their own political views so perfectly. However, NPR can exist without government handouts if it has an audience. And if not, then maybe they should slim down like most other businesses have had to do in this economy.

They needn't worry, though. With friends like George Soros they'll do just fine as long as they stay true to his politics. And judging by the attitude of the NPR bigwigs expressed in the latest James O'Keefe videos, that shouldn't be a problem.

But there's a question Rep. Weiner needs to answer if he really wants to persuade anyone not in his liberal New York district. Is buying entertainment, such as that served up by Click and Clack, the best use of US taxpayer money?

Whip Inflation Now -- the WIN button

Here's an opportunity to get a jump on the crowd. WIN buttons -- Whip Inflation Now -- from the 70s are on sale for only five bucks at Cafepress.com.

Inflation has hit food and gasoline, and it's only a matter of time before it hits WIN buttons, too.

DC Court -- Dick Armey et al can't opt out of Medicare

The Blog of Legal Time tells us that former U.S. Representative Richard Armey and the other plaintiffs who sued to get out of Medicare are stuck in it. The courts conclusion:

Medicare costs are skyrocketing and may bankrupt us all; nonetheless, participation in Medicare Part A (for hospital insurance) is statutorily mandated for retirees who are 65 years old or older and are receiving Social Security Retirement (so-called ‘old age’) benefits. Whether Congress intended this result in 1965 or whether it is good fiscal and public policy in 2011 cannot gainsay the language of the statute and the regulations. Accordingly, summary judgment will be entered for Defendants.

It's a massive government health care insurance program that's bankrupting us all and impossible to escape. If Obama were president he would never allow something like that. Hope and change!

Rodeo competition -- shooting from horseback

The folks who participate in single action cowboy shooting competition really have a grand time as they dress up in the old west garb and shoot replicas of the guns that won the west. There are groups all over the country, and just outside Midland, Texas, the Comanche Trails Shootists, consisting of people with monikers like " Texas Toothpick, "Smoky Okie," and "Arizona Red Neck," shoot'em up once a month.

Not so common is a shooting competition from the back of a galloping horse. For that you might have to go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo where, the Houston Press tells us, "These cowboys (and a few cowgirls) ride their horses through a wide obstacle course while firing two .45 caliber single action revolvers at balloons strategically placed around the field."

Watch the video at this Youtube site.

Note the people in the audience. No one in his/her right mind would sit still while someone shot live .45 caliber ammo in their direction. This is just a wild guess, but those cartridges are probably blanks, and the close range hot powder discharge is what bursts the balloons.

Canned duck

Is it too soon to crack jokes about Japan? Gilbert Gottfried got an answer to that one when Aflac fired him from the easiest job in the world as the duck with the one word vocabulary.

See some samples of his Japan/earthquake/tsunami/disaster humor at TMX. More at The Blaze.  Yeah, too soon.

Actress in trouble with the law

She was arrested in an early morning raid on drug related charges. No, it wasn't Lindsay Lohen, it was Felicia Pearson, the gal who who played the cold killer named Snoop in The Wire.

Pearson probably applied for the Snoop role at a casting call. And "The Wire" casting director may have been influenced by the item in her resume about having served time for a murder committed when she was 14. Method acting made easy.

One of the actors in the drama served as acting coach to the kids in the series, and one commentary in the DVD series hints that Felicia may have been a difficult student. Maybe that's why she hasn't done much acting since then.

In any event, she was busted in a broad sweep on 3/9/11. From The Baltimore Sun:

After hundreds of local and federal police fanned out across Baltimore at dawn yesterday, hauling suspects out of homes and off the streets, authorities announced at day's end that they had shut down one of the city's major sources of illicit drugs and violence.

In all, they charged 63 suspects with federal and state drug conspiracy counts — among them Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, whose arrest on heroin-related and aiding and abetting charges echoed the street lifestyle she portrayed as a character in HBO's series "The Wire" and sought to overcome in her personal life.

Sex Ed

There was a time when kids learned about sex the hard way, by sitting at a wooden desk in a darkened classroom watching dumb educational films like What to do on a date.

Now days "teacher's pet" takes on a whole new meaning when a hot teacher has sex with her favorite student.

Well, the problem with that is that it's so narrowly focused. What about all those uncool kids who didn't make the cut?

Chicago's Northwestern University solved the problem -- put on a live sex show. Presumably, all of the 120 students who watched a woman demonstrate the use of a sex toy were at or over the age of consent. And if so, it's doubtful they learned something they didn't already know.

But that brings us almost to full circle. The next step in this progression will be to update those old classroom videos. "Timmy gets to first base." Then by senior year, full blown porn. Would someone get the lights?

On the cover of the Rolling Stone: Snooki

Snooki is the type of celebrity that designers don't want seen anywhere near their products. So some marketing genius came up with the clever technique called "unbranding." They send Snooki one of their competitor's products in hopes of deflecting any guilt by association. See: Sleazy Celebs Inspire Brilliant New Marketing Strategy -- "Unbranding".

How bad is Snooki? Well, how bad can someone be who's on the cover of the Rolling Stone? Yes, that Rolling Stone. And their website features a bonus video in which she answers Tweets. Sample:

What do you think of the South Park caricature of you?

The South Park episode was phenomenal. I mean I'm pretty sure it's the best South Park episode ever. And even though I was like a huge fat rat, I mean, I was the center of that whole episode, so Go Me!

Note to Rolling Stone: You got branded.

Texans like things big

And it's not just high school football stadiums either. Get a load of this championship ring for the Pearland High School football team that won the 2010 Texas 5A Division 1 championship.

Bling baby, bling!

Via Houston Press Hair Balls which says they were offered to the players at $350 each.

Obama campaigned on the past then buried the future

When Barack Obama was campaigning for his current job he couldn't stop complaining about George Bush and all those evil things the Republican administration was doing to America. So now, a few years later, a good case can be made that what Mr. Obama has done to America is far worse. It's tempting to think that even most Democrats can see the damage he's done. But that may not be true.

Just because Democrats aren't as strident as they were during the run up to Obamacare, current union strikes notwithstanding, that doesn't mean they've flipped on Obama.

Michael Medved penned a sobering piece the other day titled Obama a 'Radical'? Get Real in which he maintains that Obama is smack dab in the middle of mainstream Democrat ideology. Excerpt:

In what sense does Obama count as more radical than FDR, the patron saint of the modern Democratic Party?

Where does he advocate government intervention and expansion more sweeping, costly or constitutionally questionable than the programs of the New Deal—or, for that matter, of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society?

President Obama not only conforms to the big government, tax-and-spend traditions that have characterized his party for nearly a century; he stands squarely in the center of the Democrats' current coalition. ...

Medved makes a valid point. As a commenter at this blog observed a few years ago, a Democrat candidate can count on 40% of the vote without even getting out of bed. And with Obama polling around 40% these days, we know where those favorable votes are coming from.

I really don't want to sound as though I'm bashing Democrats with this post. The ones I know are smart and caring. But once they enter the ballot box a little devil appears on their shoulder and convinces them that the only way to demonstrate that they really care about the downtrodden is to vote Democrat and let the government handle it. They could overcome that by taking the initiative to do something on their own without relying on the government.

Should impersonating someone online be a crime?

A California law went into effect January 1 making it illegal to knowingly impersonate an actual person by electronic means such as an Internet web site for the purpose of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding that other person. (Texas has had one since 2009.)

Those laws were a response to some of the headline cases where online fakers caused a great deal of grief to their victims.

But what if the perp is the United States government? Via Examiner.com:

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

Maybe the government's defense would be that they weren't cognizant enough to recognize that someone could get harmed by the propaganda they put out. Besides, laws are for the little guy.

Not every one likes these laws. Electronic Frontier Foundation doesn't like them because they fear the laws could be used to punish people they like, such as the "Yes Men" who impersonate people to embarrass corporations. Who are these "Yes Men?" Take it from their website:

They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in ever more extreme ways - basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world.

Saving the world from greed --  how 1970.

Presumably, EFF would be equally protective of someone like James O'Keefe whose targets aren't the evil Corporate America or other stereotypical villains of the left.

Speaking of James O'Keefe, the great imposter is at it again. The Internet is all abuzz about his latest accomplishment, suckering a couple of NPR bigwigs into saying what they really think about "Tea Party people." James Taranto tells us all about it. And maybe this will be the final straw that ends the government subsidy.  We can hope.

BTW, it didn't apper that O'Keefe impersonated an actual person.  But that doesn't mean they won't try to charge him with something.

Meanwhile, previously at this blog: Acorn got stung -- what a hoot, Why isn't Michael Moore defending James O'Keefe and They finally charged James O'Keefe with something.

Beyond the headline -- case was not about chivalry but safety

Have you noticed lately how easily things seem to get blown out of proportion? It's probably a result of the need to stand out in the crowd of voices.

The case in point is this story about the kid who got suspended for holding open a door for an adult he knew who had her arms full. The story at Reason.com is titled Chivalry is Dead -- was Murdered -- by Zero Tolerance. The news source can be found here.

At first blush it sounds like political correctness gone wild. But get beyond the headline, and we learn that the school had installed an expensive security system that allowed someone in the office to unlock a door remotely after determining the identity of the prospective entrant. And they had strict rules prohibiting someone else letting people into the school building. If people aren't willing to follow that rule then the security system is useless. Zero tolerance is the only way it would work.

The Reason.com article tries to lure us in with the tempting headline about chivalry and zero tolerance. And the author makes the point that attacks on kids at school from someone coming in from outside are very remote. Human nature being what it is, however, puts parental protectiveness above everything else. No school administrator wants to end up on the witness stand trying to justify why they didn't take that extra step.

If blame should land on anyone or thing, it belongs on the civil justice system. Blame the lawyers, if you want, but the problem is a system that makes reasonable people so afraid of getting sued that they do unreasonable things.

Ambulances for fat people in Ft. Worth

It was just a little over a year ago when the movie director, Kevin Smith, got in a beef with Southwest Airlines because they made him get off a plane because he was too fat. An article said he usually pays for two seats, but that time there was only one seat available, so he claimed it. "If a customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable ..." Duh. But at least Smith left the seat on his own and didn't require a half dozen helpers to get him up.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a demo room for the new patient portion of the local hospital. An employee was kind enough to show me some of the features. And there was this contraption in there that was designed to lift obese patients. A real eye opener. That devise will probably result in long term cost savings in workers' comp premiums if it reduces busted guts and broken backs in the people who end up with the thankless job of getting a Kevin Smith in and out of bed.

So now we hear that Medstar, the ambulance service in Ft. Worth, is anticipating more obese customers and is spending $7,000 more per ambulance so they can haul fatter people. Furthermore, they are getting new stretchers that can carry up to 650 pounds -- the old ones could only carry 500 pounds.

Fatty, fatty two by four, can't get through the bathroom door. Are home builders taking fat into consideration, too?

There has to be a physiological limit -- we can't expand forever. Americans do seem to be getting fatter though, but as far a national calamities go, it sure beats a famine. Hmm, I think I'll go celebrate that brilliant insight over a hot fudge sundae.

Oh right, Pork is also a food

Those of us in a stupor over the debt faced by governments at all levels sometimes need a reminder that "pork" isn't just slang for most government spending, it's also a food.

Once known as "the other white meat," it's derived from the pig. And to help us stay aware of the word as food, the National Pork Board announced its new advertising slogan: Pork: Be inspired.

Sure. Why can't someone be inspired by a pig? They can eat anything, play in the mud, and not worry about those extra pounds. The retirement plan isn't too good, however.