Sleepless in Midland

Prostitution -- those who can't do, teach

Hard times in Spain. From DailyMail.co.uk: Spanish company offers professional courses in prostitution which 'guarantees' jobs for graduates:

For just €100, students will be taught the history of the world's oldest profession, how to use erotic toys and the most popular positions contained within the Kama Sutra.

What they learn in the series of theory and practical classes will enable them to 'earn a lot of money, very easily and quickly', according to the ABC newspaper.

Note this:

It will also ensure budding sex-workers will not fall foul of the law, with in depth descriptions of the industry's laws and how to work around them.

Emphasis added. As for the job guarantee:

And, once they graduate, they receive their first job offer - to become a teacher in the 'school' where they can help in practical classes.

Practical classes? Maybe that's the law work-around.

The best (worst) movie villains

Pastemagazine.com has a list of the 25 Best Villains in Film History. Click the link to see the whole list, but here, in my opinion, are the best of the best (worst of the worst):

16. Keyser Söze, The Usual Suspects (1995);

8. Jack Torrence, The Shining (1980);

7. Annie Wilkes, Misery (1990);

6. Anton Chigurgh, No Country for Old Men; (2007)

3. Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Liver, fava beans and a nice Chianti.

He reads your facebook page then pretends to be mind reader

Is there such a thing as putting too much personal info on Facebook? You betcha.

The premise was that people can have an experience with a gifted mind reader for a future TV show. And the subjects are astonished at his ability.

Watch Amazing mind reader reveals his 'gift' at youtube.com.

But it's actually a pitch for safer online banking. And it's great fun to see the startled faces of the unsuspecting people, first as he tells them stuff he shouldn't know about them, and second when they find out how he did it.

Via Nakedsecurity.sophos.com.

Meanwhile, many American banks are having their own problems as they battle a wave of cyber terrorism. It's almost enough to make a person go back to banking the old fashioned way.

Why polls are often wrong

A news release touting the most recent poll results probably focuses the attention of the presidential campaign participants like nothing else. The poll results are used with great skill by one side of the other as evidence of their candidate's strengths or the other guy's weaknesses. But it's not confined to the campaigns. Anyone who follows the campaigns with any regularity is glued to it, too.

But polls aren't always accurate. Walter Hickey in Almost Everyone Misinterprets The Polling On The Presidential Election — Here's Why gives us a peek into the making of the sausage with an explanation of some of the impairments to poll accuracy.

Briefly, they are as follows:

- Margin of Error - All polls have a margin of error, and it can be significant. For example a politician polling 48% with a 4% margin of error places the real result somewhere within 44% and 52%. However, Mr. Hickey notes, the error is more likely to be on the small end of that 4% rather than the large end. What's missing from Mr. Hickey's discussion is how the pollster arrives at the stated margin of error. It always seems to be 4%.

- Political bias -- The pollster may have a partisan slant which gets built into the poll. While those poll results might be suspect, they can often be wrong so consistently that they can provide useful information to those willing to factor that in.

- Statistical bias -- The pollster may pull a set number of phone numbers from a directory, and the political leaning of the people answering the phone is random. But as everyone who has looked at a red/blue map knows, some regions contain more residents who lean in a particular political direction. So maybe the locale has more people committed to one or the other of the parties. Or maybe the person answering the phone prefers to call him/herself an independent. Maybe the sample wasn't large enough. Or my favorite, more people inclined to vote Republican look at the caller ID and don't answer the phone.

- Sampling -- The pollees may be contacted by land line or cell phone. And each of those methods can yield results that skew toward a particular political party. So the good pollsters will use a hybrid and include in their results only those responders who say they intend to vote.

Finally, Mr. Hickey touches on but doesn't expand on a topic that should be very significant. The main stream media had an ongoing agenda to minimize the Tea Party effect, and Tea Party rallies don't occur that much any more. Many still see only Democrats and Republican with the assumption that Tea Party fans have been absorbed into the Republican party. To some degree, that's right. And to that degree, there are two elements in the Republican party.

Many of the old school Republicans can be distinguished from Democrats only by the targets of their largess. However, there are millions of voters out there who are very concerned about the monstrous national debt and the huge annual deficits. While many of those people will vote for a Republican as the only viable alternative, they wouldn't necessarily identify themselves as Republicans, especially to pollsters.

Which is worse, flight attendant forgetting gun was in carry on-bag or cop accidentally shooting it in the airport?

It happened early Sunday, 9/23/12, at Philadelphia International Airport. According to ABC, flight attendant Jaclyn Luby "was carrying a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in her carry-on bag ... when TSA spotted the weapon in the X-ray machine." Furthermore, "Investigators say Luby said she forgot the gun was in her bag."

Then we get to the part that is so astonishing:

A Philadelphia police officer was trying to unload the .38 when it accidentally fired a round into the wall.

It was a revolver, mind you. Some people really shouldn't be handling guns.

City council meetings on twitter -- a good baby step

The city government website tells us that citizens can follow the city council meetings on Twitter. Midlandtexas.gov, shows a news release, as follows:

City Council Meetings Now Available by Tweet

Residents can find the agenda online at the city website, then follow along with public comment, council motions, and city actions with the click of a mouse. Read More.

[The "Read More" link was 404 last I checked.]

But it's a one way street. People can follow on Twitter, but they cannot give feedback. Twitter Terms of Use:

The City of Midland will not respond via Twitter to press inquiries or other citizen matters. While we hope you will follow us on Twitter, we are unable to respond to questions on Twitter.

Anyway, it's a good first step. Ideally the city council meetings would be video recorded and broadcast on Tall City TV, the city's very own TV channel. This blogger has asked the city council to do that on two separate occasions, most recently on 8/17/2010, but the timing was bad. The suggestion was that they could use volunteers to operate city owned cameras and get the results without spending a dime. Unfortunately, the council members that day, while polite on the surface, were unified in a "No soup for you!" frame of mind due to their commitment to raise taxes while facing a room full of citizens imploring them to please not raise taxes.

But now we can follow the council meetings on Twitter. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Hip or unhip -- photo comparisons

Are you hip? Are you cool? It's all in how you look. NYmag.com has a slideshow called Street Style at New York's Most Stylish Campuses.

All well and good, and the trend setting youngsters really must be hip. But wait. A site called Replacement Hipsters has the mission of putting old timers on display with their own fashions. And you know what? Their attire doesn't look all that different from what those young hipsters are wearing.

Take a look at a few and ask yourself, "Who's the real hipster here?"

  

 






Oh who am I kidding? There's a cutoff somewhere over a certain age. But if there's one thing to look forward to with old age it's that we won't care what the hipsters think and we can be as judgmental as we want about what they wear, what they have tattooed, and ... you got your what pierced??

How not to attempt suicide

Jump into a tiger cage.

Stephen Colbert to be guest on "The Office"

Steve Carell really nailed the Michael Scott character -- self unaware, socially immature, lacking in leadership skills and void of business sense. He was an exaggerated composite of people we all have known but with all their bad traits rolled up into one hilarious low level manager.

He made that show. And when he left the show it struggled to hold onto the fans he brought in. The show suffered a mortal wound, and it was sad watching a TV show die a slow death, or in most cases, not watching.

The show is currently in its ninth and final season, so why are we talking about it now? Simply because of this little plot description of the October 25 episode. Stephen Colbert is supposed to be a guest as a Broccoli Rob, the former member of "Here Comes Treble." Excerpt:

In the Halloween-themed episode, Andy (Ed Helms) discovers that the smarmy, competitive Broccoli Rob is singing a different tune about the history of the group and stirring up drama, which only intensifies the rivalry between these two frenemies.

That's what she said!

National Tradesman Day -- 9/21/12

Today is National Tradesman Day.  And here's a tool company tribute to help get it going.

I've scheduled a Roto-Rooter visit, but you can celebrate in your own way.

Uruguay -- a movement to nationalize the weed business

There's probably not enough broad based support for it to pass right away, but these things take time. CSMonitor.com has the story:

The Broad Front – the center-left coalition that holds power – is proposing a state monopoly over the production and distribution of marijuana, making Uruguay the first national government to sell cannabis directly to citizens. The government says the measure is necessary to combat rising drug-related crime, decrease health risks for users, and counter ineffective US policies on drugs. But within Uruguay, interest groups have labeled the legislation totalitarian, while some international bodies argue it breaches global conventions.

“We’re putting this forward as international policy,” says Sebastian Sabini, president of the parliamentary commission created to debate the bill. “The war on drugs has failed. There are more consumers and more violence.”

“Uruguay is opening up a new path,” he says.

Nationalizing a private industry is never a good thing, but nationalizing an illegal business is a new development. It's worth a shot. A lot could go wrong, but it's a grand experiment worth trying.

Don Boudreaux on progressives on the evolution of social order

The eminent Don Boudreaux makes yet another very enlightened observation. There are many ironies in progressive attitudes and beliefs, and he notes one more. Progressives are very dismissive of any view that's not consistent with the prevailing theories of evolution in biology. Yet they cannot understand the importance of, but want to control, the evolution of social order.

Boudreaux says:

It’s an immensely curious fact about modern “Progressives” that they dismiss as intellectually handicapped or hopelessly superstitious (or both) those who deny the full reality and role of undesigned, evolved order in the non-human world (especially in the realms of biology, geology, and astronomy), but regard as enlightened and indisputably correct those who deny the full reality and role of undesigned, evolved order in society.

Found at Cafehayek.com.

Dallas Police and Fire pension system's luxury investments

There's no suggestion that fraud was involved, but when a public pension system strives so hard to keep its Hawaiian luxury housing secret it inspires curiosity.

Minutes of the board of directors of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System meeting of December '06 mention a previous $18 million investment with Knudson Luxury Housing, which is owned by the pension system. An additional $14 million investment was approved at the '06 meeting for purchase of real estate in Hawaii.

Someone who isn't identified in the various articles and documents wanted some followup information and filed an open records request about Knudson Luxury Housing and two individuals who also aren't named. The pension system delivered some but not all of the information requested. But an Assistant Attorney General in a letter ruling said the pension system had to disclose most of the information they wanted to keep secret.

So the pension system filed suit for a declaratory judgment. They claim information pertaining to real estate contracts, marketing and pricing, if released, would materially affect the value of the property. And they say identifying the tenants would violate their expectation of privacy. So they seek a court ruling allowing them to withhold the information.

The pension system's claim does make some sense. But if it turned out that some of the key players are getting sweetheart deals for luxury Hawaiian vacations then the public would never know.

The concept of a quasi governmental entity -- which in this case appears to be 7/8 taxpayer funded -- to be delving in the luxury rental business is a bit disquieting. And it certainly is a good argument for scrapping those old municipal pension plans and replacing them with self directed 401(k) type programs that civilians have used for decades.

This story comes to us by way of Texaswatchdog.org along with Courthousenews.com.

PBS News Hour on global warming

Global warming skeptics have reached a milestone of sorts. They are seldom referred to as "deniers" these days. That label was used by global warming zealots in an attempt to isolate and ridicule skeptics and brand them as extremists, much like the phrase "holocaust denier" was used against people who tried to claim the holocaust didn't happen.  However, the global warming zealots were the ones who came across as extremists.

Monday evening on the PBS News Hour there was a segment on global warming and in particular about an individual named Richard Muller of U.C. Berkley who recently converted very publicly from a skeptic to a believer of man made global warming. In the interview he even went so far as to say, "In our world, we attribute the warming from 1753 to the present essentially exclusively to humans — not mostly, but exclusively."

The interview seemed to slant toward the warmist side, and note that the only use of the word "deny" in application to skeptics came from the PBS reporter, Spencer Michels.

However, Anthony Watts was given time ample air time to explain the reasons to be skeptical, and a transcript of the program can be found at his website, Wattsupwiththat.com. Watts believes that the climate models are based on flawed data as the temperature information came from measuring stations located in urban areas which are consistently hotter than rural areas.

And there's this observation:

ANTHONY WATTS: Some of the issues have been oversold. And they have been oversold because they allow for more regulation to take place. And so the people that like more regulation use global warming as a tool as a means to an end. And so, as a result, we might be getting more regulation and more taxes that really aren’t rooted in science, but more in politics.

He nailed it. But the good news is that the general population is becoming more skeptical of the warmists' claims, and that might slow the movement for more regulation of our lives on the doubtful premise that we are saving the planet.

Democracy, majorities, and freedom

Here's the question. Should the majority decide everything?

The short answer is "no." In the U.S., the bill of rights sets forth the limits on what the majority can do.

Unfortunately, the boundaries get moved from time to time. While political and religious freedoms have been protected, economic freedoms are another matter. For example, the case of Kelo v. City of New London involved a battle between the majority and an individual on whether the government could take someone's house for the purpose of economic development. The Supreme Court got it wrong by siding with the majority over the individual thus eroding economic freedom.

From Professor Mike Munger: "When the majority always wins, each of us loses."

Via Don Boudreaux.

Someone put Basseley Nakoula in the line of fire

Salman Rushdie must be wondering if Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (AKA Sam Bacile) will be getting the same treatment Rushdie did. Nakoula was one of the people involved in making the trailer for the video about Islam and Muhammad that has gotten so much attention lately, mainly for allegedly inflaming radical Muslims. I say "allegedly" because it's appearing more likely that the video was just a convenient excuse to kill and destroy.

Just the other day an article by Rushdie appeared at the Newyorker.com website about what it's like to be the target of an Ayatollah Khomeini fatwa. It's written with the third person point of view which makes one wonder if that fiction writer is writing fiction. But since he was the headline news at the time, the main outline of his story is fairly common knowledge. And the story he tells is quite compelling. Here's an excerpt:

1989

Two thousand protesters was a small crowd in Pakistan. Even the most modestly potent politico could put many more thousands on the streets just by clapping his hands. That only two thousand “fundamentalists” could be found to storm the U.S. Information Center in the heart of Islamabad on February 12th was, in a way, a good sign. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was on a state visit to China at the time, and it was speculated that destabilizing her administration had been the demonstrators’ real aim. Religious extremists had long suspected her of secularism, and they wanted to put her on the spot. Not for the last time, “The Satanic Verses” was being used as a football in a political game that had little or nothing to do with it. Bricks and stones were thrown at security forces, and there were screams of “American dogs!” and “Hang Salman Rushdie!”—the usual stuff. None of this fully explained the police’s response, which was to open fire, using rifles, semiautomatic weapons, and pump-action shotguns. The confrontation lasted for three hours, and, despite all that weaponry, demonstrators reached the roof of the building and the American flag was burned, as were effigies of “the United States” and him. On another day, he might have asked himself what factory supplied the thousands of American flags that were burned around the world each year. But, on this day, everything else that happened was dwarfed by a single fact: five people were shot dead. Blood will have blood, he thought.

Here was a mortally ill old man, lying in a darkened room. Here was his son, telling him about Muslims shot dead in India and Pakistan. It was that book that caused this, the son told the old man, the book that is against Islam. A few hours later, a document was brought to the offices of Iranian radio and presented as Khomeini’s edict. A fatwa, or edict, is usually a formal document, signed and witnessed and given under seal at the end of a legal proceeding, but this was just a piece of paper bearing a typewritten text. Nobody ever saw the formal document, if one existed. The piece of paper was handed to the station newsreader and he began to read.

See The Disappeared - How the fatwa changed a writer’s life.

Given all that Rushdie has had to endure because of that, one has to wonder why someone decided to out Nakoula. It doesn't take an Ayatollah level fatwa to get radical Islamists worked up. But Nakoula certainly has reason to want to stay hidden. Or if gets time for parole violation, the California prison system will get the opportunity to keep him safe.

Too bad the Islamist extremists have been so successful in getting Americans to toe the line.

Added: Hello, what's this? Some extremist organ called 15 of Khordad Foundation has increased the bounty on Salman Rushdie. If 15 of Khordad Foundation isn't yet on President Obama's drone target list, it should be.

An accurate but cheap watch

When people shop for a watch I think they use two selection criteria: price and appearance. Accuracy within a range is pretty much assumed. But for some of us, the two main criteria are price and accuracy.

I'm a sucker for a good, cheap, plastic, digital watch. The one I have used for many years is still working fine and is still a little bit fast, gaining a little over a second per day -- it gains one full minute every 47 days as measured against a clock with a WWVB radio receiver.

BTW, it's easier to reset a watch that is too fast than one that's too slow.

But when the band starts giving off an aroma it's time to go shopping. Here's the process. On the Saturday before Labor Day I visited the local Walmart, not to buy one, but to set several of the cheap watches on display for comparison. My old watch cost around $7 at Walmart some years back. But the least expensive ones they had this time were generic no name Chinese cheapies costing $10.88 each. So I set three of those. Then I moved over to the ones with brand names and set three Armitrons.

On Labor Day the three no-names were all off a bit with the best one off by about three seconds. But one of the Armitrons was right on the money. Bingo!

As you can see from the photo, it cost $18.88, significantly more than the no-names. Hey, when you want a quality timepiece you have to be willing to pay for it.

The Economist's YouGov poll

Most of us have our own standards of credibility we apply to polls, and whether or not the web based polls of Yougov.com really do provide enough of a glimpse into the minds of Americans to generalize, their polls can be interesting.

The Economist sponsored a poll of 1,000 individuals who were selected from those who were motivated enough to register as a Yougov panelist. The poll was taken August 18-20, 2012, and the results appear here. Let's have a look at a few of those results.

21. Thinking about politics these days, how would you describe your own political viewpoint?
Very liberal . . . . . . . .  . . .4%
Liberal . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .11%
Moderate . . . . . . . . . . . 31%
Conservative . . . . . . . . . 23%
Very Conservative . . . . . . 8%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . .. . 23%

"Liberal" certainly wasn't a very popular answer. One wonder what they would have said had the option been "Progressive."

Question 37 dealt with race. And almost 2/3 agreed with this statement:

Irish, Italians, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.

Number 40 addressed the question every Republican wants to ask today, whether you're better off financially than you were four years ago?

Better off . . . . . . .14%
The same . . . . . . 47%
Worse off. . . . . . . 33%
Not sure . . . . . . . . 6%

One third thinking they were worse off seems significant.

The poll came to our attention via Datapoints which focused on number 10.

If you could send just one of the following two messages to the federal government right now, would it be "lend me a hand" or would it be "leave me alone"?
Lend me a hand . . . . 43%
Leave me alone . . . . .57%

That's little too close for comfort, but at least a majority got it right.

Interesting poll.

Hope poster artist Shepard Fairey punished for criminal contempt

This has to be a metaphor or something.

Shepard Fairey, who made the famous "Hope" poster featuring Barack Obama in 2008, has had all sorts of trouble from it. Seems that AP claimed the copyright of the photo from which the poster was made. Fairey sued for a declaratory judgment saying he didn't violate their copyright. That suit was settled with Fairey paying AP an undisclosed amount and agreeing to share the rights to the poster.

But it didn't end there. From BBC:

Shepard Fairey pleaded guilty in February to destroying documents and fabricating evidence in his legal battle with Associated Press (AP).

He had based his poster on an AP photo and later tried to hide the evidence.

Mr Fairey was spared jail but will do 300 hours of community service.

The charge carries a maximum custodial sentence of six months.

Give some people enough hope and they'll hang themselves with it.

Economic models explained in a simple yet satirical manner

This has been around a while but it's still good. There are 21 models on the list, but the first six are particularly noteworthy. As follows:

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

See the whole list at OrganizationsAndMarkets.com.

But we can't leave without contributing one of our own:

OBAMANISM:
You have two cows which makes you a one percenter.
You sell one to pay your "fair share" of taxes.
You sell the other to pay methane pollution fines.
You can't get a job.
You collect unemployment insurance and food stamps.

Who has a better tax reform plan, Romney or Obama?

The main differences in the Romney, Obama and Simpson-Bowles taxing plans are set out at Taxfoundation.org.

A very informative table found at that site provides an easy to read overview. In sum, Romney wants to lower taxes, and Obama wants to raise some and maintain others. Rather than trying to denote the differences, it's easier to note the one thing on which they agree: They both want an 18¢ per gallon gasoline tax.

Unfortunately, those of us who would prefer real reform, like a flat tax or even the sales tax, are out of luck. Neither of the two candidates are promising anything remotely like that.

And what should be the most sobering aspect of the aforementioned table is the last line providing the year in which we should expect a balanced budget under the various plans:

Simpson-Bowles 2037; Romney 2020; Obama Never. (Emphasis added).

The theme of the Obama campaign: "We don't understand the numbers either. But don't worry, be happy. And trust us like you did the last time."

There might be hope for British homeowners in their battle with burglars

When it was first reported, Andy and Tracey Ferrie were facing charges of inflicting grievous bodily harm by blasting away with a shotgun at two men. That the two men had been in the process of breaking into the Ferrie home in the early morning hours seemed inconsequential.

It appeared as though British laws about self defense were so progressive they turned common sense on its head -- turning victims into bullies and bullies into victims.

But wait just a minute. While this subject was simmering in my Pending file the Crown Prosecution Service announced that the Ferries would not be prosecuted. So there may be hope for Brits all.

Contrast that angst and anxiety with the state of mind in Kentucky where 92 year old WWII veteran Earl Jones heard burglars breaking in the door. He grabbed his .22 rifle. And when one of the intruders entered his room Jones fired a bullet into the guy's heart. The only people facing charges there are the dead guy's accomplices.

Left lane closed -- no your other left (continued)

It wasn't too many weeks ago that we noted a sign telling us the wrong lane was closed. It's happened again -- sign says "Left Lane Closed" when in fact it's the right lane that is closed. See photo.

Makes one wonder what's going on. Is there someone in the sign department who doesn't know left from right? Or are they out of the other signs?

Actually, by the standards of modern day political fact checkers the sign could be either wrong or right depending on where the fact checker stands. A lane on the other side of the yellow line is also closed, so if one wanted to make the stretch, saying the left lane is closed would be technically accurate. But those of us in the real world might expect the signage to provide guidance to the drivers who see it rather than to drivers going the opposite direction.  Is that too much to ask?

Compassionate Conservatism was a progressive dream

George W. Bush ended his second term demonized by Democrats, but in reality Democrats had it pretty good under him.

Compassionate Conservatism was his mantra for a while, and it probably did reflect his own attitude of inclusiveness. So he ended up doing what a lot of liberals wanted him to do. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act was a nod to liberal icon Ted Kennedy.

Furthermore, his proposed immigration amnesty program, although it never passed, was quite liberal.

Medicare part D was a big government spending program that has or will make a lot of citizens even more dependent on the government -- seemingly a major Democrat goal.

As for the war in Iraq, Democrats were for it before they were against it. Later they could only justify their previous position by claiming, wrongly, that Bush lied to them. And with the exception of the Iraqi war expenditures due to their change of heart, Democrats were just fine with the increase in the national deficit during the Bush administration.

So their attempts now to justify Obama's extravagant spending by citing the way Bush drove up the deficit ring hollow.

While Democrats didn't control the White House, they had it pretty good under Bush. But the key word is "control." And that's what's up for grabs now as the drive for power ranks right up their among the other drives that dominate human behavior.

But what did we learn from Bush's Compassionate Conservatism? One lesson that is sure to resonate among conservatives is that no good deed goes unpunished. Efforts to mollify Democrats by passing legislation they want is like feeding crocodiles. It won't make them like you, and if given the chance, they just might try to tear your legs off.

Entrepreneurial spirit still lives -- teen builds mobile shower for ND oil field workers

The spark: "The recent high school graduate [Evan Jensen] got a whiff of himself and his 21-year-old brother, Justin. The two had been sleeping in a pickup while looking for work in the oil fields of western North Dakota. 'We smelled,' he said. 'Bad.' "

The idea: A mobile shower where oil field workers can take a shower and clean up for a small price thus saving them a long drive to a motel or truck stop.

The seed money: He used $15,000 he earned from trapping muskrats over the past two years plus money invested by relatives.

The product: They built a 53-foot semitrailer with a five-stall shower, an office, and laundry facilities. A 6,000-gallon tanker provides fresh water and collects the discharge.

The price: They charge $10 for a shower and $1 for a towel and washcloth. Soap is free.

He built that.

Via Carpe Diem.

Hauling out an oldie for National Empty Chair Day

Naional Empty Chair Day is just crying out for this photo of an Obama yard decoration from sometime around Halloween 2010.

I think a chair containing a stuffed suit should still qualify as empty, don't you?

Quip of the week -- "that's next week"

Back story: Ultra Democrat Chris Matthews got in an argument with some folks at a restaurant in Tampa after the Republican convention. They heckled him as he left. Trying to be clever, he fired a sophomoric jab at them: “What’s this, a douchebag convention?”

He was no match for them. The retort: "... that's next week."

HA HA.  Source.

Poor Chris Matthews. What's going to happen to him and the other anti-Republican commentators at MSNBC if the Republicans take the Presidency, House, and Senate? GE will still be working the crony capitalism angle, so will they continue trying so hard to antagonize people who aren't Democrats?