Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects - Entries from July 2011

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Monday, July 4. 2011

Patrick Henry: Founding Father of Today’s Tea Party

There’s no arguing with the result of a Rasmussen poll of who was the “greatest founding father”, George Washington. But the choices to select from -- Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington or James Madison? – excluded Patrick Henry and his key role in rallying the new Americans to rebel against Britain and then to enact the new Constitution’s Bill of Rights to further protect individual liberties and states’ rights.

A biographer of Patrick Henry calls him “the first American to sound his displeasure with big government.”

Continue reading "Patrick Henry: Founding Father of Today’s Tea Party"

Posted by Bruce Kesler in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays, Politics at 06:53 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

Sunday, July 3. 2011

Big weekend a'comin' (bumped)

(originally posted last Friday)

When Perro del Pájaro said it was going to be a 'long' weekend this morning, he wasn't kidding. With the 1st falling on a Friday, you can bet this'll be a 3½, if not 4-day holiday for many. Here's to ya. <clink!>

If you're looking for something to do, I have a few ideas to toss into the mix.

Speak Up!

Do I really have to tell you how important this next election is? Are you honestly just going to sit there on your duff the whole time, or are you going to be a part of it? If Obama is reelected, who ya gonna blame? Everybody else for not being more proactive?

I'll be debuting this site next week sometime, but it's rarin' to go now:

If you're one of those 'blogger' type o' guys, please grab the link and spread it far and wide.

Unless you'd rather go through four more years of this, of course.

Home Repair

Finally! At last you don't have some cheap, paltry excuse to hand the wife on why you can't get to all those fix-it jobs that have been piling up!

Lucky you!

Rather than this being a "how-to" site, it's more like a "Can I do it?" site, and should give you a pretty good idea as to whether you can handle it yourself or not.

A water heater is a pretty good example. Because they're large, they look kind of 'serious', and most people's first thought would be to call the plumber if it started to leak. But when you actually look at what exactly needs to be unhooked, it's really quite simple, and bendable supply lines mean you don't have to get an exact replacement so the inlet and outlet pipes match up. And, just between you and me, a pipe wrench is probably cheaper than a 4-hour visit from the union plumber.

Now in Deutsch, Français y Español!

Guaranteed Original*

*discounting coincidence, of course

I rarely write unless I have something new to add to the narrative, or a fresh slant on something. The OJ jury got it right. Magellan was a lie. Maggie's Farm is politically centrist. You know, the usual kind of wild hyperbole you expect in the blogosphere. A nice little intro to my unique style is here. The main site is here:

And for your visual delight:

Fly The Friendly Skies

Have you heard of Google Earth? It basically lets you fly around the globe in your own personal space ship, then zoom way in to look at ~~your topless neighbor sunbathing~~ historical monuments. It's a series of constantly-updated images from every spot on the globe, and there are big sites out there dedicated to posting the latest crazy/odd/beautiful spots people find. You click on the link and your own program takes you there. Very cool.

There are gigantic compass roses out there that you'd never have a clue what they were from the ground, as well as a whole shitload of wild mazes, cities and terrain in 3-D (you can fly between buildings and down the Grand Canyon), real-time airline tracking, real-time weather, strange geoglyphic inscriptions spanning the length of a football field — and that's not to mention some very convincing alien crop circles.

I've put together a number of video tours to show off this remarkable program. The 'Google Goofs' tour is hysterical.

Have a fun weekend, y'all.

And happy birthday, America.

Posted by Dr. Mercury in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 10:08 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

Sunday morning links

Robin Hanson: Words Show Lies

Deneen: Social Justice, Rightly Understood

Excitement accompanies news Thaddeus McCotter will run for president

McCotter's White House bid launching at Michigan festival

Maggie's Farm likes McCotter's personality

Anchoress: When True Evil Rises Before Us

Teachers' pensions in Illinois.

Good grief.

Kling: The New Commanding Heights (my bolds):

We are accustomed to thinking that our country is in the midst of a long transition from an industrial economy to a "service" economy, and these figures would seem to confirm that perception. But the service economy is not what we often think it is. The images that most readily come to mind when we think of these sectors might involve retail sales, information-technology consulting, and financial services. But Spence and Hlatshwayo's work shows that, within the non-tradable sector, health care was easily the growth leader — increasing from 10 million to 16.3 million jobs, and accounting for almost 25% of total job growth in the past two decades. Government was second, growing from 18.4 million to 22.5 million jobs, and accounting for about 15% of total job growth. Of this expansion in government employment, nearly 70% was attributable to jobs in education. Today, the drivers of the American labor market are therefore clearly health, education, and government work; these sectors form the backbone of our post-industrial economy.

Obama Admin Lists Israel as a Terror Sponsor

Rubio: “America does not have a tradition of class warfare”

Shameless… In Weekly Address Obama Says “Government Has to Start Living Within Its Means”

Human Events: Top 10 Obama Attacks on Capitalism

Fox News: Best places to be an illegal alien

Via AVI, who gives how much to political causes?

Am Thinker: In Government, First, Do No Harm!

VDH's The Philosophies of Illegal Immigration:

...illegal immigration has transmogrified into one of the most illiberal, reactionary phenomena on the current American scene, an ossified concept of racial solidarity and tribalism that attempts to privilege one group, solely on the basis of race or ethnic fides, in its exemption from federal law, and in a manner that would never be extended to other immigrant lobbies, with less numbers, influence, and potential electoral power. We have come full circle back to the 1920s when immigration was likewise largely seen through racial lenses — when one’s race determined how one navigated immigration law.

Should there now be 6 million Korean nationals — and more on their way — inside California without legality, would the proverbial Hispanic community in large part be calling for stricter border enforcement? Would it be amnesty or deportation? English-only or Korean-language interpreters?

'The first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created people in the history of the world.':

Adams thought the day of independence should be commemorated by “Acts of Devotion to God Almighty,” and further “solemnized” (as he confided in a letter to his wife, Abigail) “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Mickey Mouse runs afoul of the Islamists in Egypt

Chavez health scare leaves dependent Cuba on edge

Is Obama taking a Reagan approach to the budget?

Am Thinker: The New York Times' agenda is showing

Is reverse racism Constitutional?

Top pic from Driscoll's Quote of the Day

Delicious Deviled Egg pic from neoneo's The Atkins diet and me

Toon below from Theo:

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:11 | Comments (7) | Trackback (1)

Saturday, July 2. 2011

Saturday morning links

New England Real Estate: Katherine Hepburn's house in CT for sale

A cruise with Steyn et al

Is the Sun Taking a Holiday?

Warren Meyer (Coyote): Missing the Point on July 4: The Right to Vote Was Not The Main Achievement in 1776

Campaigner-in-Chief Scolds Congress for Work Ethic

Al Gore's Ugly Rhetoric - The latest pseudoscience from the former vice president

The Trinity Sisters - Many of America’s most powerful women went to a college you’ve never heard of.

The U.N.’s Climate Of Desperation

Greenspan: Stimulus did nothing

Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district

Another college skeptic

Is Barack Obama a Socialist?

Via Lucianne:

Subprime Scandal: Democrats thought they'd dammed up the truth about government's role in the financial crisis. But the levees are breaking, thanks to a spate of rogue new books on the subject. The latest, "Reckless Endangerment," shreds the narrative carefully constructed by Democrats and the liberal media that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were only bit players in the crisis and followed Wall Street into subprime lending.

A sad story: Posterity Denied: The Hijacking of the Barnes Foundation

Rumsfeld: The Peril of Deep Defense Cuts

Thailand: Red Shirts and Rowdy Royals

Here's an idea: Official Calls For Riverside, 12 Other Counties To Secede From California - New state would have no term limits, part-time legislature

Via Vanderleun on plunder:

"Democracies endure until the citizens care more for what the state can give them than for its ability to defend rich and poor alike; until they care more for their privileges than their responsibilities; until they learn they can vote largess from the public treasury and use the state as an instrument for plundering, first those who have wealth, then those who create it” -- Jerry Pournelle.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:35 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

Friday, July 1. 2011

One reason teens aren't working this summer

I believe in work.

I believe that no honest work should be beneath any American. I also believe that all kids should work, and earn their own money. Kids learn more about how to, and how not to, negotiate the world from work than they do from school. Make your mistakes when young, and learn from them, as everybody needs to. Any paid work will do, but the more "menial" the better.

Except for the most spoiled brats who want to hang out during the summer or to be indulged in "enriching experiences," most kids want to work. It's a step towards adulthood and independence, and moping around the house or driving to the beach in the Beemer is a spiritual death for teens - or a sign of spiritual death.

Summer "vacation" is for the teachers. What do kids need a vacation for? They've been in school, for heaven's sake. School isn't "work work," as Whoopi Goldberg did not say. School is a piece of cake, compared to work. It's a delight, a joy, and a privilege - and it sure beats working an industrial loom in New Bedford at age 11. And, heck, teaching is real difficult too, compared to running a business. Right?

This is sad: The Jobless Summer - Why only one in four teens is employed.

That one-in-four is the one with initiative and drive. Watch that one, because if you can make something happen in your teens with all of the forces creating headwinds today, Bravo. Or Brava, as they say in NYC.

Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays at 14:41 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)