Libertarian Leanings

Neither Trained Nor Clipped

Iowahawk spoofs Bernard-Henri Lévy's defense of former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn against charges of attempted rape.

What I do know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to a ravenous pack of  dogs, a breed of which has neither been obedience trained nor clipped in the proper poofs.

In The Meantime

Although I was very encouraged by last night's T.E.A. Party in Manchester, New Hampshire, I don't plan to write about it until the weekend.

In the meantime I thought I'd share this bit of humor I received in an email.

WHY I'M DEPRESSED

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children
of Israel "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and
camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land." 

Nearly 75 years ago (when welfare was introduced)  Roosevelt said,
"Lay down your shovels,  sit on your asses, and light up a Camel. 
This is the Promised Land. 

Now Obama has stolen our shovels, taxed our asses, 
raised the price of Camels, and mortgaged the Promised Land! 

I was so depressed last night thinking about health 
care plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, 
Social Security, retirement funds, and everything else . . . I called Lifeline. 

Because of all the outsourcing I was routed to a call center in Pakistan. 

I told them I was suicidal. 

They got really excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

History of the Earth: Revised

Geologic Ages and Events.

Hat tip narciso.

The Standup Economist

I found this over at Greg Mankiw's blog.

Ransom

Email from my pal Mickey:

A driver is stuck, on 35W, in a traffic jam going into Downtown Minneapolis.  Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window.  The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What happened, what's the hold up?"

"Terrorists have kidnapped Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. They are asking for a $10 million ransom. Otherwise they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. So we are going from car to car, taking up a collection."

The driver asks, "On average, how much is everyone giving?"

"About a gallon."

A healthy retiree

From the email in basket:

The other day I went downtown and went into a shop. I was only in there for about 5 minutes.

When I came out there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. I went up to him and said, "Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break"?

He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a "Nazi." He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a "doughnut eating Gestapo." He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, I didn't care. I came downtown on the bus.

The car that he was putting the tickets on had a bumper sticker that said "Hillary in '08."

I try to have a little fun each day now that I'm retired. It's important to my health.

The best seller that never was

It comes as no surprise that al Qaeda number two man, Ayman al Zawahiri, has condemned the British and threatened retribution on them for conferring knighthood on Salmon Rushdie.  Rushdie first raised ire in the Islamic world with the publication of The Satanic Verses, a book I found difficult to wade through.  It requires massive suspension of disbelief and its language can be confusing, and while I won't say I've given up it, let's just say I'm still wading.

At any rate, when the book was first published Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie and offering a million dollars or so to anybody who would kill him.  According to Khomeini the book was an insult to Islam, but it was never clear just what was insulting.

The work is clearly perceived as offensive to Islam, but what exactly is regarded as insulting has not been spelled out.

The Iranian Government condemned the book as ''a dirty conspiracy'' against Islam and urged followers of Ayatollah Khomeini around the world to take action against it.

As a result of the fatwa Rushdie gained instant worldwide notoriety and his book sold millions, but it drove Rushdie into hiding.  He took the threat seriously.  As for the book, at least one Amazon Reviewer of the Satanic Verses shared my take on it.  Reviewer Mark said,

I truly believe this is a book that would be more interesting if one increased their medication level way past the recommended daily dosage.

I never bothered to read the thing back when it first came out, even though I was often highly medicated on draught beer. I expected the book to be just as reviewer Mark described.  And since I would often say as much, the fatwa being such a hot topic of conversation, I was somewhat surprised when a friend of mine asked me if I'd heard about Mr. Rushdie's plans for a sequel.  I rolled my eyes.  He said, "No kidding.  He's coming out with a sequel to Satanic Verses.  He's calling it 'Buddha, You Fat Fuck'."

Rainout

Yesterday the Diamond Aces game against the Grays in the New Hampshire Baseball League's +48 division was rained out.  In the spirit of offsetting the severe disappointment readers may feel at this unfortunate development, I offer this poignant baseball story I received via email.

Two 90 year old men, Moe and Joe, have been friends all of their lives.  When it's clear that Joe is dying, Moe visits him every day. One day Moe says, "Joe, we both loved baseball all our lives, and we played minor league ball together for so many years.  Please do me one favor, when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's baseball there."

Joe looks up at Moe from his death bed," Moe, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you. 

Shortly after that, Joe passes on.  At midnight a couple of nights later, Moe is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him,

"Moe--Moe."

"Who is it?, asks Moe sitting up suddenly. "Who is it?"

"Moe--it's me, Joe."

"You're not Joe. Joe just died."

"I'm telling you, it's me, Joe," insists the voice."

"Joe! Where are you?"

"In heaven", replies Joe. "I have some really good news and a little bad news."

"Tell me the good news first," says Moe.

"The good news," Joe says," is that there's baseball in heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play baseball all we want, and we never get tired."

"That's fantastic," says Moe. "It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?

"You're pitching Tuesday."

Fuel efficiency

Received via email:

A 2006 study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year.

Another study found that Americans drink an average of 22 gallons of beer a year.

That means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles per gallon.

Keep Walking!

Tis the season

My pal Mickey sent this one:

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

The man said, "I do, Father."

The priest said, "Then stand over there against the wall."

Then the priest asked the second man, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

"Certainly, Father," was the man's reply.

"Then stand over there against the wall," said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O'Toole and said, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

O'Toole said, "No, I don't Father."

The priest said, "I don't believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to heaven?"

O'Toole said, "Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."