When I think about the busybody government, intruding into our lives, based on the moral will of a few, I get angry. A quote I came across recently says it better than I can.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -C. S. Lewis
In some ways living under the reign of Al Capone in Chicago. Sure he was a murderous thug, but he was only supplying the black market for alcohol made possible by meddling do gooders like Molly Hatchet.
I'm sure if I lived during that time I would have been drinking his illegal booze, and lamented the moralists who wished to control my life.
If you are a Sirius subscriber like I am, you may like this.
Dogster Radio which shows you what is showing on every channel. Real time!
Well. Don't say I didn't warn you. First they go after smoking in the name of "public health". Now the same asshole nanny types want to ban any restaruants in New York City from using transfats.
NEW YORK — Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids.The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city's 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels
I've spoken to many people who were for smoking bans. I told them that if you disregard the rights of tavern owners and disallow then from allowing smoking in their own establishments, it wouldn't be long before those same dogooders would be after other things they think are bad for you. Now it's smoking, tomorrow it's Crisco. What will be next?
Don't say I didn't warn you.
I came across this interesting web radio station, sponsored by the music genome project. It's called Pandora Radio. You can see it here
It's pretty cool. You enter some bands you like, and it plays those artists of course, but also looks for similar songs you may not have heard from. It's a good way for people like me to get out of a rut of listening to the same thing over and over again.
For instance, I am only slightly knowlegable about Blues, so I entered the few artists I am familiar with and got a lot of great suggestions.
Last night at my dart league, I shot a 9 in the third inning, and went on to shoot a 28 for the game.
For those of you not familiar with American darts, read more here
Baseball darts is mainly an Eastern sport. There are two chief varieties, centered on Philadelphia and Albany. The Philadelphia version has double and triple multiplier rings, as in English darts, but the triple ring is on the outside of the target area and the double ring is immediately inside it.
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It's rare for a 9, it's very hard to shoot one. Some people go for an entire dart season and do not shoot a nine in an inning, and I'm thrilled to have done it on my first night of the season.
Plus I got a free shot of brady! In case you are wondering, a 3 ring is the white ring between the big blue ring on the outside and the red ring. It's a small target area. |
 The Widdy American Style Dartboard. |
Mayor Street passed the anti-smoking bill. I guess freedom of association and private property rights don't count for a hill of beans in this town.
Philadelphia is going smoke-free.Mayor Street's spokesman this morning confirmed that the mayor has signed legislation prohibiting smoking from almost all Philadelphia bars and restaurants, ending weeks of speculation about whether the proposed ban would fall victim to City Hall politics.
The smoking Nazis are set to win a victory in Philadelphia. If mayor Street decides to pass it, that is.
Philadelphia Mayor John Street said he plans to make his decision regarding the city’s proposed smoking ban in public places this morning. City Council passed the ban in June. Street’s biggest problem with the current bill is a provision allowing smoking in outdoor cafes.“It has the potential to destroy the environment for everyone inside the restaurant,” Street said.
Why can't they just let bars and restaurants who want to allow smoking to allow smoking. Bars and restaurants who want to ban it, to ban it. That way when I want to eat in a smoke free environment I can go to a place that bans smoking, but if I want to have a cigar while watching Penn State or the Eagles, I can go to a place that allows that? Why? WHY? WHY!!!!???
The liberals don't miss a beat. On the 5th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, liberal members of the press bring out tired arguments against the President.
Of course, the truth was anything but. Even on Day One, some of us -- too gently, in hindsight -- wondered about Bush's strange behavior on the actual 9/11, flying from remote airbase to remote airbase while Dick Cheney was running the show. Quickly, it because clear that any doubts about our commander-in-chief were flat-out forbidden. At least two journalists were fired for writing such stories. For example:Tom Gutting, city editor for the Texas City Sun was fired in September 2001 after writing a column in which referred to President Bush as a "scared child seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" for not returning to Washington DC immediately after hearing about the attacks on September 11th.
The tone was set at the very top, when White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said famously that "[t]here are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and that this is not a time for remarks like that. It never is..."
Not to be outdone, the Right Wing bloggers bad mouth their villians.
For one day can we just stop attacking the other side? Just for one day can we reflect and mourn our losses? I guess not.
I have left the Republican party. I want to stand behind liberty. I do not believe that the Republican Party does. An article I just read sums it up nicely.
For libertarians, the GOP is a total loss: like the neocons and the old "Scoop Jackson" Democrats, they are bad on everything, including domestic policy. Today, whatever skeptics of the government's power to effect positive change, at home and abroad, still exist inside the Republican Party are lonely guardians of a nearly forgotten tradition. This is the party of Big Government, and Big Ambitions overseas: in the new Bushian GOP we are witnessing the triumph of "National Greatness" Republicanism. Gone is the plain, republican cloth coat: in its place GOPers flaunt the imperial purple.Libertarians no longer have any place in the GOP coalition, and any who remain will have long since betrayed their ostensible devotion to liberty. The Republican Party is today hopelessly authoritarian. Maddened by war, its leaders are so corrupted by power and their desperation to hold on to it, that they will resort to any tactic, any subterfuge, no matter how contemptible and/or self-defeating. A good example is their secret funding of the campaign of Democrat Joe Lieberman against their own candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut. As Insight magazine reports, the GOP's Karl Rove steered millions of dollars from big Republican contributors into Lieberman's coffers.
I don't like the Republican party, but I like the Democratic party less. They are really scary. They are socialists. They want huge government programs.
So on one hand with the Republicans I can have more of my money, but be worried about saying something government 'censors' don't like.
Or, with the Dems, I can have less money, and a slower economy, but I will be able to drink, smoke weed, and buy Catcher in the Rye, without fear of reprisal from "fingers" of the government.
I think I'm gonna throw up. Penn State plays Notre Dame tomorrow. It's a big game. Penn Staters generally have a white hot hatred for Notre Dame. I guess the feeling is mutual.
Where I live it is especially bad, because there are lot of Catholics, and a lot of Irish.
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Well, tomorrow, 3:30, Penn State is at Notre Dame, in NBC. I think the Notre Dame probably should be favored to win. They have an older, more experienced team. They are playing at home, which is another great thing in their favor.
But Penn State could win. Notre Dame will have to play their "A" game. Anything less, and that would ensure a Penn State victory. |
Go Penn State!!
Bill Frist puts another nail in the coffin of Republicans come November. Via The Agitator, Republicans put internet gambling as a top priority.
All this while states push their own form of gambling, the state lottery. So if the profits go to a large corporation, that's bad. But if they fund state programs, they are good?
But state lotteries are just as bad. They ruin lives too
I'm voting the Republicans out in November.
Microsoft Office Live Beta Sucks. It really sucks. This site says it best. This web based suite has more system requirements than a out of the box software.
Though I use a Mac 90% of the time, my company laptop is a PC running XP. I hooked up for the Live Office Beta test because it was free, and offered a free web-site.
First, they don't tell you that to use the suite, in addition to having to be on a PC and running Internet Explorer, you have to sign up with an e-mail address ending with @hotmail.com to utilize their e-mail program. That means if you got a .net passport using your regular e-mail address you are out of luck. You can't get the Office Live e-mail.
It is also very buggy, most of the links go to error messages, and one time it crashed IE.
The web design tools suck ass also. You cannot upload your own web-site, and are required to use their circa 1997 web-site layout.
Take a look at my web-site.. Wow, I haven't seen that level of web-site sophistication since, well, my sophomore year at Penn State. In 1995.
I used to complain about Apple's .Mac service. But you can use a PC, or any web browser. The tools are really easy to use, and though many of the web-site templates suck, you can at least upload your own files if you wish.
I'm gonna cancel my Office Live account if they try to charge me, and I'll continue to be happy I don't have to use a PC, and own a lovely Mac.
Though the last few weeks have sucked as far as weather has concerned, it has brought about an unusual amount of tasty mushrooms. Yesterday, for example, I found three Chicken Mushrooms. Each one weighed in at about 3 pounds. Not huge, but enough to keep me eating the wild treats for a few months.
Someone finally made a video that shows the connection between the Wizzard of Oz, and The Dark Side of the Moon.
People ask me if I am talking out of both sides of my mouth. I am pro drug legalization, but anti-illegal immigrant. How can that be? Well the answer is simple.
As with most personal issues, such as abortion, doing drugs or gambling, that effects you and you alone. Though I may not think it's right to snort heroin, it is your body, if you wan to do it, go ahead. And the money spent harrasing someone growing a pot plant (a plant that, if endangered would be protected by our Federal government instead of destroyed) would be best served either back in the hands of the American people. Or worst case, would be well suited for treatment programs.
But when it comes to Illegal immigration, that is a personal property and soverignty issue. This is our country. Yours and mine, and just as much as my house is mine to protect against people there against my will, our country must be protected against people here without permission. I'm all for allowing people to enter legally. They can file the proper paperwork, jump through the hoops, and either become lawful aliens, or citizens.
It's that simple, either they ask permission, or they are not allowed here.
That all being said, what disturbs me is Miller Brewing Company's sponsorship of marches for illegal immigration.
Marchers had to duck into fast-food restaurants for water when they first took to Chicago's streets in support of illegal immigrants five months ago. At the next two marches, family-owned grocery stores offered free bottled water from trucks emblazoned with their names.This time, as demonstrators march from Chinatown to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) Batavia office this weekend, they will have Miller Brewing Co., as a sponsor. The brewer has paid more than $30,000 for a planning convention, materials and newspaper ads publicizing the event.
The support of a major corporation for a controversial political cause shows how fierce the competition has become to woo the growing market of Latino consumers.
For Miller, the march offered a special chance to catch up. This spring the brewer drew the ire of pro-immigrant forces over contributions to U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who sponsored legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants. That prompted a short-lived boycott by some Latino groups.
That disturbs me. These people are directly spitting in the face of our national soverignty. They are, in effect, breaking an entering. And a huge brewer, led by it's idiotic trade union, are supporting this.
I for one am now boycotting Miller Beer.
Reason Online has a great article on so called "South Park Republicans and their increasing distance from "mainstream Republicans" and their turning toward more traditional Libertarian groups.
The G.O.P. used to have a sizable libertarian bloc, but I couldn't see any sign of it at the conference. Stone and Parker said they were rooting for Hillary Clinton in 2008 simply because it would be weird to have her as president. The prevailing sentiment among the rest of the libertarians was that the best outcome this November would be a Democratic majority in the House, because then at least there'd be gridlock."We're the long-suffering, battered spouse in a dysfunctional political marriage of convenience," said Nick Gillespie, the editor in chief of Reason. "Most of the libertarians I know have given up on the G.O.P. The odds that we'll stick around for the midterm election are about as good as the odds that Rick Santorum will join the Village People."
Andrew Sullivan, the blogger who coined "South Park Republican," was at the conference with a preview of "The Conservative Soul," his new book on the spiritual corruption of Republicans. He said he now prefers to call himself a South Park conservative, not Republican.
That is exactly how I feel. I feel that the Republican part has lost me. They have been in power so long, that they ARE the establishment. Government has grown increasingly large under their stewardship, and they have abandoned the Newt Gingrich Contract with America.
Here is one story that shows why I am upset with the GOP. Recently a bill that would have allowed easier access by Americans to see where our tax money was being spent was blocked by an unknown senator. That senator's name was recently unveiled. He is is Republican Senator Ted Stevens.
Stevens placed the hold on the bill because he was worried that it would create more bureaucracy to create and maintain such a massive database, Saunders said. He also wanted to see a cost-benefit analysis before granting approval, he said.But Stevens could have raised those concerns as a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which approved the bill by voice vote on July 27. He is also a member of the panel's subcommittee, which held an extensive hearing on the measure earlier in July, John Hart, a spokesman for Colburn, said.
Stevens did not attend either hearing. Hart pointed out that he could have discussed it with Coburn or the committee chairman at any point. Instead, Stevens waited until just before Congress left town.
Isn't he the guy who wants to censor satellite radio and build a highway to nowhere in Alaska?
That is why I might just vote for Bob Casey instead of Rick Santorum this November.