1000% classy.

Opponents carry injured hitter around the bases to ensure her first-ever home run

Central Washington players help a Western Oregon rival, hurt rounding the bases, to touch 'em all.

I think I have something in my eye...

This *is* curious...

According to Jonathan Kay at the National Post, Denis Lemelin, the National President of CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) responded to Mr Kay's query about CUPW's boycott of Israeli made products this way:

Re: Jonathan Kay asks: Now that CUPW is boycotting Israel, will Canada Post deliver mail to the Israeli embassy? April 28.

[small portion edited]...Unlike the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian mail, CUPW has no plans to block mail to and from Israel as of yet. [editing and emphasis mine]

The curious part:

Is the "as of yet" part just sloppy (as in: heat of the moment) writing, a veiled threat to refuse to deliver such mail in the future, or (maybe??? I would hope not) an indication that blocking mail for partisan political reasons has been a CUPW tactic in the past?

You can read what Mr. Kay posts as Mr. Lemelin's full response at the link given above, but--as does Mr. Kay--I think that's a very curious thing for Mr. Lemelin to write.

I wasn't aware that CUPW had the authority to determine which mail will or won't get delivered. Actually, I wasn't aware that CUPW would even imagine they had that authority. My reading of the Canada Post Corporation Act would seem to indicate that any such authority rests with the Canada Post Corporation itself, in other words: with management (or, obviously, the Federal Government), not with the Union.

My reading/understanding of the Canada Post Corporation Act, PART II: GENERAL POSTAL MATTERS/Offences and Punishment:

Abandonment of mail

49. Every person commits an offence who unlawfully and knowingly abandons, misdirects, obstructs, delays or detains the progress of any mail or mail conveyance.

[and]

Delay of mail

50. (1) Every person commits an offence who, without reasonable cause, refuses to permit or delays permitting any mail or mail conveyance to pass on or use any road, ferry or other route or mode of transport access to which is under his control.

would seem to indicate that doing so would be a direct violation of the Act.

(For some possibly relevant insight into how Canada Post itself generally views a refusal to deliver mail, see this 2006 article at LibCom.Org regarding a past decision by a postal worker who refused to deliver some mail.)

Me (as Grammar Nazi) and the new Sonata ad...

...A well dressed guy in a tux (obviously a sort of Redford/Indecent Proposal clone) says to the fella standing by the Sonata: "I'll give you a million dollars to spend one night with it."

Evidently making a judgement on what a night with the Sonata would be like, the fella says "No."

Or is that not what the ad intended ;-)

If you can't build it...

...steal it.

Chavez is at it again still.

"If they don't want to reach an agreement with us, I'll sign an expropriation decree. I'll take immediate control."

Well, you wanted to know...

...if Obama was smart enough to be a decent President.

Jury's in. Nope. He's the same old clueless when it comes to economics.

And this proves it.

"I don't want somebody to save essentially 25 bucks -- that's what the savings would yield for the average driver -- and now they're potentially driving over an unsafe bridge," he said.

It's not *his* 25 bucks in the first place. He's the same old same old when it comes to understanding that, too.

Read the link for more stoopid details.

Lord Lloyd-Webber:

"In dress rehearsals, she was flawless."

Class.

I'm impressed.

The almost automatic leap of stupidity:

I'm doing my daily stroll at FARK and I run into a post about prostitution busts (actually "john" busts, it seems) in Memphis.

Then it's over to the comments, where I find a unit named fiegel07 getting perilously close to common sense:

I've never really understood why prostitution is illegal. If people want to pay to have sex, then who are we to stop them? Legalize it...

Now, I'm sure feige107 means well, but, yup, he follows immediately with the ever-so-common leap of stupidity:

...and tax the transactions.

We all see it everyday whenever the subject of so-called "legalising" some so-called sin or other comes up: "legalize it, tax it".

All I've got to say is that a "sin tax" is nothing more and nothing better than a bribe paid to governments for permission to do what isn't their business anyway; it's just protection money.

It's Good News Week...

Blind homeowner captures intruder(IndyStar.com)

A blind homeowner used the wrestling skills he learned more than 30 years ago to overpower an intruder and hold the man at knifepoint until police arrived this morning.

“I just kind of panicked and just kind of went crazy after that,” Allan Kieta said. “I’ve wrestled all my life. My dad’s a Marine; he taught me some stuff. You’re thinking in your head all this survival stuff.”

Fun read.

"Cowardice does not make you safe. It makes you a safe target.
D.Amon at Samizdata.

Global Warming: What Common Sense Sounds like...

OSU climatologist [George Taylor] vacates hot seat (Lake Oswego Review)

You didn't think they'd stop at cigarettes, didja?

Punish all drinkers for crimes of drunks, say health chiefs.

Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: 'Third-party damage from alcohol is much greater – in terms of violence and the damage to unborn children, the first sexual experience and the percentage of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.'

Is it painfully obvious to you yet that these bozos started with cigarettes knowing that what they really wanted wouldn't fly until the principles had been put in place by going after smokers?

They won't stop with booze either.

I read something like this...

...Public spaces sold to the highest bidder...and I don't know where to even start.

So how about:

Yeah, it was ever so much more pastoral when governments just stole enough money to build the things, wasn't it.

And spare me the twaddle about mom and pop stores...obviously a whole bunch of folks have decided not to keep shopping at 'em. Grow up. Life's like that.

H/T to LFR for a great, fun to read, post.

Let Freedom Reign

"Thoughts on Gun Control" by Dinosaur. Read it (police officer comments on the gun registry.)
Most are older comments, but still relevant, although it's is good to remember that it ain't properly anybody's business who owns a gun in the first place--any more than it's proper to know who owns a kitchen knife.

Wal-Mart has every right to store video...

...and record purchases of firearms at its locations (link to Yahoo News).

Wal-mart is a private company, and potential gun-owners are free to shop elsewhere, they are free to not shop at Wal-Mart if they choose.

Now, the NRA (with whom I generally have little quarrel) says:"

I view it as a public relations stunt that stigmatizes law-abiding firearms purchasers exercising their freedom under the Constitution," said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

Actually, I doubt that's what it is. A person's "freedom under the Costitution" doesn't include "the right to purchase arms under personally-desired conditions from any seller".

Who knows, there are probably lots of willing capitalists available to fill the niche market Wal-Mart has abandoned and I sincerely--and I mean this--wish them very, very well. And, actually, I trust Wal-Mart way more than the government with the information, anyways.

Just so you know where I'm coming from:

• market solutions with no politicians involved: always the best policy
• I absolutely support private gun ownership,
• I am opposed to government registries, and
• criminals who use guns oughtta pay a very high price.

A co-founder of Greenpeace...

...supports nuclear energy.

From Newsweek:

Reporter:

What about the issue of nuclear waste?

Patrick Moore:

As is now planned, I'd establish a recycling industry for nuclear fuel, which reduces the amount of waste to less than 10 percent of what it would be without recycling.

How many Americans know that 50 percent of the nuclear energy being produced in the U.S. is now coming from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads?

The environmental movement is going on about how terrible it will be if someone does something destructive with these materials. Well, actually the opposite is occurring: all over the world, people are using former nuclear-weapons material for peaceful purposes—swords into plowshares. This constant propaganda about the cost of nuclear energy—that's just activists looking for the right buttons to push, and one of the key buttons to push is to make consumers afraid that their electricity prices will go up if nuclear energy is built. In fact, it's natural gas that is causing [energy] prices to go up. [emphasis mine--RG]

Another case of expediency over principles...

Toronto Police Chief Calls For Forced DNA Samples before a conviction (Citynews.ca).

The problem, Blair says, is the delay between arrest and trial. He said it can take up to three years to secure a conviction, in which time the accused could commit more crimes.

But didn't I read somewhere about a presumption of innocence?

And isn't there something in our wimpy Charter of Rights and Freedoms about the right not to be compelled to be a witness in proceedings against that person in respect of the offence.

My thinking is that The Police Chief's brainstorm would run counter to Section 13 of the Charter as well if the DNA evidence was used to support another case.

There is nothing right about a law that prevents...

...this man from being my neighbour.

The couple talked about the decision for him to return to Mexico in the office of their immigration attorney, Mira Mdivani, shortly before Marquez left last month.

"You don't feel safe in the streets. You don't feel safe anywhere because of a lot of things going on right now," he said. "The police pull you over for no reason."

"I want to be free, to go wherever I want to go and not be scared. In the long run, it will be worth it. We can have a better life and we won't be scared anymore," Marquez said.

When he was in the United States, he worked at construction jobs, doing everything from picking up trash to cleaning sewers and provided about two-thirds of the household income.

Sure, deport people right back home if they cause a problem, and be quick about it. But this guy didn't "cause a problem".

I'm not so afraid of bad people that I think it's better this guy be forced back to slum; that solution just increases the number of the bad creeps' victims.

In the meantime, because it's just false advertising, might as well take the Statue of Liberty down.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Should you trust governments?

From The Times Online: Ten conspiracy theories more ridiculous than the Diana "plot".

Here's one:

2. In 1959, when Francois Mitterrand was already a famous politician, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt outside the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. His car was riddled with bullets but he leapt to safety.

When the gunman and the organiser of the attempt were arrested they were able to prove that the whole thing was a fake organised by Mitterrand to win favourable headlines and implicate General de Gaulle. Charges against the "assassins" were dropped. Mitterrand was later elected President of France.

That one is true. Guess about the other nine.

I trust dollars more than votes. The guys wanting dollars but not votes don't force me to buy their stuff; I'm free to do without any of it.

PROOF the west won the cold war.

HERE

Another goal is: do the same with radical Islam.

And the other religions.

Please understand...

...the reason I'm putting this here is absolutely *not* because I think people should vote. I'm no democrat.

I'm putting it here so you'll understand at least a few of the reasons I don't accept that any governmental body has any right to control me just because (or even though) they have been elected.

Oh. Even when smart people vote, it doesn't get any better, or any more legitimate.

This for "left" anarchists who hate right-wingers...

There might be something about the Right that you aren't familiar with, and that's precisely the anti-statism you search for, work for, as an anarchist.

But these days, "the Right" is generally applied to corporate-statist conservatives, as if no other tradition existed.

But an anti-statist Right did exist. And still does to a degree larger than most present day leftists expect, and to a much larger degree than most leftists pundits acknowledge, even as they claim historical competence.

That's the preamble.

For you left anarchists, then, who are not aware of the Right's still present anti-statist cohort, it might help to see what the conflict between big-government, interventionist rightists and right-anarchists looks like in real life. Here's an example found at lowercase liberty, the blog of BK Markus:

a page containing two conflicting obituaries for Murray Rothbard, one by the National Review's William Buckley, and a response by Lou Rockwell.

Read the obits.

Oooooh, is this the wooden stake?

Oooooh, is this the much wished for "wooden stake" in Hillary's candidacy?

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

H/T Two-Four.

(Note re Two-Four: I've been reading Billy Beck's blog for years--and his Usenet posts for more than a decade. I know of no other writer I would give as wide an endorsement. Billy's blog is absolutely, for sure, on my daily read list. I'd fight to defend him, for my benefit.)

Blazing Cat Fur

Right off the bat: I haven't read everything on Blazing Cat Fur, so this isn't a "no qualifications" endorsement of all that you will find there, but it *is* a ringing endorsement of at least one particular post: You have a Social Condition courtesy the HRDC.

H/T Small Dead Animals (again: not an unqualified endorsement, but certainly credit where credit is due).

Note: I was kinda hoping against hope that the BCF post was an elaborate April Fools joke...nope.