Methodists (good for them) demonstrate against private prisons. Would you like your state to make a deal with CCA guaranteeing to keep all its prisons at 90% occupancy for 20 years?
Physicians aren’t just opposed to Obamacare; some are organizing to develop a “bottom-up,” market-driven alternative. Big meet this weekend.
In news you can use, Survival Mom by Lisa Bedford is a seriously good book (and sometimes an amusingly good book) for anyone whose preparedness plans include children, elders, or pets — dependents of any sort.
I went to a tea yesterday. Yes, an actual tea. For charity. With big flowery hats on the ladies. And cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off (which, for the record, turn out to be absolutely delicious).
One woman wore a wildly purple Central American native dress and a red thrift-store hat with bangles all around that looked like a lampshade.
A young acquaintance of hers died last week and she’s aware that our mutual friend J. has pancreatic cancer.
To hell with it, says the lady in the bangled hat and floral-toned muumuu, who last I saw her was quite conventional and proper. I’m going to live and I don’t care what anybody thinks of it.
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Ellendra posted a link in recent comments that led me to a site I never knew existed. And I wish didn’t exist.
It’s Regulations.gov. Which touts itself oh-so-cheerily and in capital letters as “Your Voice in Federal Decision-Making.”
Were I tempted to imagine I actually had a voice in Federal Decision-Making, I would be foiled by the site, which is a mindfield of pop-ups and JavaScript.
The cogent point is that, in the last 90 days alone, Our Glorious Leaders, in their Great Wisdom, have gifted us with 6,479 brand new regulations to obey. (No word on how many total pages of regulations that is.)
Ah, it’s sublime to live in the land of the free, where openness and democracy reign and we’re all represented in everything Washington does.
I did finally pry the 6,479 figure out of the site, but only after promising it my first-born son and swearing in blood to sacrifice all my privacy forever. If you’re not willing to make the same concessions to see the result of your Voice in Federal Decision-Making, Ellendra took a screen shot.
That requires JavaScript, too. But at least it’s not the fedgov’s JavaScript.
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Is it my imagination or has the TSA actually increased its idiocies and abuses in response to public outcry?
The world is so screwy that even the dogs are going insane (going to the dogs?). One of mine is starting on Prozac or one of its cousin meds tomorrow.
I laugh at all the folks with pets on mind-altering drugs. But I had to do this with a dog a number of years ago. It helped. And for Nadja, who had a few screws loose before I got her and whose anxiety and fear-aggression toward neighborhood dogs have become increasingly unmanagable since we moved into town, the alternatives aren’t pretty.
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Speaking of which … just in case you wanted to see the top 10 #ObamaEatsDog pictures, here they are. :-)
This is about a court hearing held last week for one of the Michigan pig farmers resisting the slaughter of heritage breeds.
Via Bakers Green Acres, which has become Information Central for this particular tyranny (capitalization and punctuation per the original):
According to several counts, between the Attorney General, DNR and Department of Agriculture there were 17 State of Michigan Employees in the courtroom concerning this case. The lead characters were all dressed in black (Mark likened it to the Matrix). Security was intense. At this small, rural county courthouse everyone was supposed to go through metal detectors, past numerous deputies and State Police Troopers. An explosive sniffing dog walked through small groups of farmers and supporters. Mark noticed a couple scruffy looking fellows in overalls and talked to one of them on a couple of separate breaks. The fellow shared that he was currently unemployed, homeless, and had nothing else to do, so he came to see the proceedings. Ah, OK. Mark then asked how an unemployed fellow such as himself made it past all that security into the courtroom with a concealed gun and wearing a Kevlar vest. The fellow quickly found someone else to talk to. There were several similar experiences related by others who attended. As with other meetings with this agency, the farmers and ranchers were “disarmed” with great show (not that there were any arms in the first place) while the agents went to great lengths (and expense) to show their force.
You really have to wonder how much longer these people imagine they can keep up even the pretense of government being of, by, and for the people.
I’ve been deadlining the past couple of weeks and have about a week and a half to go. The work is going well, but doing a number of small projects at once crowds my brain. I’m also going gangbusters on house projects in my spare time. (Ah, spring! It brings out the constructive insanity in a body.)
All that’s to the good, and life is dandy fine. Don’t get me wrong.
But the last few days have also brought a steady stream of itty-bitty time-wasters and irritations. Not one is of the slightest importance by itself, but you know how it goes. After a few days of having the cat wake you up at 3:00 a.m., losing your Internet service repeatedly, having a dog vomit on your shoes just when you’ve almost gotten that idea you’ve been struggling with, answering too many phone calls, and trying to replace a defective (yes, you warned me) car part for something less than the cost of the federal debt … well, today I feel like a) crying, b) kicking a dog (any old dog), or c) taking up chemical abuse.
I’ll do none of the above, of course. But I figured I owed you an explanation for my lack of brilliance and productivity.
There. Having gotten that out of my system, I’ll probably think of something just devastatingly witty and insightful for tomorrow.
Uh … but don’t count on it, okay?
It’s times like these that I wish I had a wife … a nice “helpmeet” to prepare healthy meals, take care of the pesky details, and ensure that the world is kept away while I capital-C Create. Or a gloriously efficient and nearly silent assistant who could just Handle It All. Not that I’m comparing myself favorably to the greats (what nerve), but I’m very darned sure that Michelangelo couldn’t have been Michelangelo and Shakespeare wouldn’t have been able to write Shakespeare if they had to wait for the Internet repairman, cook their own meals, or worry that the library lost the book they absolutely knew they had already returned.
Heck, forget the greats. Even the mediocres need mental space to create. I’m pretty sure Thomas Kinkade couldn’t have painted all that glurge and John Grisham couldn’t have written all those potboilers if they didn’t have somebody else taking care of life’s little necessities for them.
SOPA is dead. Long live CISPA! Or maybe we should say SOPA is dead; will somebody fer cryin’ out loud put a stake in its heart and bury it at the crossroads???
Does that take-away-your-passport-if-you-haven’t-paid-your-taxes law that’s making its way through Congress also give the IRS the authority to seize our firearms? I’m not convinced of that. But this is certainly how they like to do things. (H/T to MWD.)
Heicklen wins. :-) And on good grounds, too. Now he should sue the bejabbers out of the “authorities” who repeatedly arrested, abused, and even subjected him to involuntary psychiatric treatment. (NYTimes free registration required.)
