- From the “PSH” Department – A college and the area around it in Connecticut were put on lock down when a student committed the cardinal sin of walking across campus to his dorm room dressed as a ninja, complete with plastic sword. Apparently Captain Braincramp spent three days at a party dressed up for Halloween, then walked home in costume, including wearing the mask. Yeah, he’s probably not the sharpest pencil in the box. In response, the campus police locked down the college, telling people to stay inside and away from windows, and to be on the lookout for a man dressed in camouflage and carrying a sword, or maybe a gun, or maybe a dwarven battle-axe with +2 advantage against the undead. The young dumbass was arrested for breaching the peace, so I guess being stupid is indeed against the law in Connecticut.
- Also from the “PSH” Department – A mother in Georgia has been banned from her daughter’s school and threatened with a trespassing citation after the principal was frightened of an image of her concealed carry permit on FaceBook. Apparently being a veteran, owning guns, and going through the training and background check necessary to get a concealed carry permit makes you a dangerous person who shouldn’t be around children. I’d say the same thing applies to those who don’t understand the law, are fearful of digital images of pieces of plastic-encased paper, and are panty-wetting bigots who live in fear. Someone in a position of power over her needs to explain to her who is and who isn’t a danger to her and her students. I’m not the litigious sort, but I hope that by the time is done, McBean Elementary school in Richmond County, Georgia is renamed “The Tanya Mount Veterans Memorial Firearms Safety Training Academy for Little Sprogs”.
- From the “Enforcing Existing Laws” Department – Two men have been sentenced to federal prison after they pled guilty to trying to sell firearms to people they thought were part of a Canadian motorcycle gang. In reality, the buyers were Canadian Mounties and agents of the Department of Homeland Security. One of the men has alleged that he was browbeaten into the deal by what he believed to be criminals, but I don’t buy it. Here’s the deal: If someone tries to coerce you into breaking the law, you go to law enforcement. If it happens that the people trying to make you commit a felony turn out to be cops, no harm, no foul. If not, then you’ve done a service to your community. Either way, you don’t become a felon. And remember kids, the guy who tries to get you to smuggle drugs or guns, harm government officials, or plant IED’s is probably a fed. Act accordingly.
- From the “Never Disarmed” Department – A woman in California proved the adage that you may not always have a gun, but you are never disarmed when she chased a burglar out of her home with a throwing axe. The miscreant was found a short distance away from her home with some of her property and a pair of underwear that he no longer wished to wear. No word yet on whether or not the woman will be sued by the burglar for the psychological harm he realized that his victim was going to try to vivisect him with an axe.
- From the “Close One” Department – A Wisconsin couple, who had gone missing after leaving Yellowstone National Park, were found after a local rancher went looking for them up a closed road. The hero who found them went as far as his truck could go, then went another few miles on his snowmobile, which will tell you just how far up Shit Creek this couple was. Apparently they went up the road at the behest of their GPS’s directions, got stuck, and had very little food for their multi-day adventure in the mountains. This is why I still carry paper maps and have a “go-to-hell” kit in our vehicles. Yeah, they’re a pain to fold up, but doing a sanity check against a map when your GPS tells you to go up Deadman’s Lane, as well as having a few days worth of food, water, and toilet paper, might make the difference between having a pleasant drive in the country and becoming a statistic.
- From the “Own It” Department – President Obama, under fire because people who bought minimum coverage health insurance prior to enactment of his signature health insurance law have started losing that coverage or having their rates jacked up to cover mandatory add-ons, has responded to criticism of his pledge of “If you like your insurance, you can keep it.” His protestations that rates were already on the way up, that bare-bones coverage was a bad deal, and that the new minimum standards are better for consumers seems to miss the point: Americans don’t like being told what to do, don’t like being misled, including being misled through fine print in a Byzantine law or regulation, and don’t like having to pay for things they don’t want or need. Now, I’m not going to argue that it’s not a good idea to have insurance to cover some of the things that Obamacare made mandatory, because I believe that at least some of them are really good ideas. It’s the “mandatory” part that sticks in my craw. If all you want is coverage that makes sure that you don’t lose your house in the event that you get dreadfully ill or badly hurt, that’s your business, not mine, and certainly not President Obama’s. How sad that a political promise that was trumpeted by the President and his minions has come back to bite him in the ass. Here’s a hint to politicians everywhere: That big squishy middle of the political spectrum that you all fight over isn’t stupid, has a long memory, and really hates it when blatant lies hurt them in the pocket-book. Learn from this, and you will go far. Ignore it at your own peril.
News Roundup
Posted by daddybear71 on November 5, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/05/news-roundup-206/
Quote of the Day
Thanks again, suckers. Now get off my lawn. – Kurt Schlichter, “Maybe Pain Will Teach You Millenials Not To Vote For Your Own Serfdom”
Posted by daddybear71 on November 5, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/05/quote-of-the-day-125/
Coconut Milk Rice Pudding
Ingredients
4 cups leftover plain white rice, cold
2 cups coconut milk (Look in the organic foods cold case at the grocery store. I didn’t know they sold it by the half gallon either.)
2 large eggs, beaten
Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup white sugar, depending on how sweet you want the pudding to be
1/3 to 1/2 cup amaretto or bourbon, depending on your tastes
Combine all ingredients but the rice in a 6×6 baking dish. Add the rice and mix thoroughly. Make sure you break up any clumps of rice as much as you can. Place dish in a 350 degree oven for 60 minutes or until the top browns and the rice absorbs most of the liquid. Allow to cool and serve.
Possible additions – Raisins and/or toasted coconut.
Posted by daddybear71 on November 4, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/04/coconut-milk-rice-pudding/
Moral Versus Legal
One of the tactics I’ve noticed when others disagree with me runs in these kinds of varieties:
- Don’t you want poor people to eat?
- You just want to get stoned.
I hear these and variations on them almost every time I disagree with someone on some social or political issue. They seem to crop up mostly when I express an opinion that something that is illegal should be legal, or that something that is compelled by law is none of the government’s business. In short, I draw a line between that which is legal and between that which is moral.
I believe that we have a moral responsibility to provide for those who are less fortunate. My family regularly gives to charity, and we encourage others to do so as well. Our government has decided, over the space of the last 50 years, to make that moral responsibility into a legal compulsion, and I have a problem with that. I also believe that government involvement invites abuse. Rather than a private charity having to watch every penny and make sure that only the deserving get fed and housed on the charity of others, the government hands out free money for junk food and apartments in urban war zones. Rather than a charity hospital staffed by volunteers giving out preventive care and lifesaving procedures to the less fortunate, the government just keeps expanding the Medicaid roles.
Were poor people falling down dead in the streets prior to these government programs, or were they provided for by private charities? Is it the nanny state’s place force us to be charitable, to the point of imprisoning us if we refuse to cooperate?
On the other hand, I object to the government using the force of law to prevent me from doing something others believe is immoral. I truly believe that is immoral to be a drunkard, either by alcohol or some other intoxicant, but the efforts of the government to keep people sober are repugnant to me. Yes, there is a lot of damage to our society from alcohol and drugs, and legalizing or relaxing restrictions on their use wouldn’t make that all magically disappear, but neither will Washington telling adults what they may or may not do with their bodies. Another place this comes out is when we go down the thorny path of discussing non-traditional marriage. Some find same-sex marriage or multiple-partner marriage immoral, and try to use the law to stop it. Like I’ve said before, I believe that what consenting adults do in their private lives is none of my business, so why is it the government’s business?
Does anyone truly believe that allowing adults to be, well, adults would cause the dissolution of the Republic? Are we so irresponsible that we will cause social chaos if the daddy state were to leave us alone to live our own lives?
Basically, unless you’re talking about specific places where ‘moral’ intersects with ‘legal’, such as murder and theft, I don’t want the law to be used as a cudgel to make me act in a moral fashion. I have my own moral code to force myself to be charitable and kind, as well as to prevent me from being a jerk and a drunkard. My gut tells me that a lot of the conflicts and distrust we have in our society right now are rooted in the fact that those who hold power and those who want power don’t trust us to make the moral choice, so they take the choice away from us. Both sides of the political and social argument need to leave us alone.
Posted by daddybear71 on November 3, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/03/moral-versus-legal/
Today’s Earworm
Oh, Irish Woman, they’re playing our song!
Posted by daddybear71 on November 2, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/02/todays-earworm-431/
Thoughts on the Day
- It’s amazing how much time a smart, motivated, efficient 15-year-old girl can take to clean her room when she’d rather be doing something else.
- I shouldn’t complain. The things she would rather have been doing was to do her homework and read “Brave New World“. It could be a lot worse.
- I think I found the culprit for the stealing of my debit card information back at the beginning of the summer.
- Harbor Freight sent me a nice letter that amounted to “We got hacked back in May, and we’re pretty sure they stole your credit card information. You might want to check your account and monitor your credit rating.”
- No way to tell them that, yes, I believe that their incident was the cause of some inconvenience to me, nor was there an offer to pay for credit monitoring for some period of time.
- Guess I’ll be paying in cash if I ever go back to Harbor Freight.
- One of my regular FM stations is dead to me now. It’s two days after Halloween and they’ve gone to 24 hour a day Christmas music.
- I’m thinking of doing a series of reviews of local coffee shops in Louisville, now that Starbucks is definitely off the menu. Louisville people, any recommendations other than Heine Brothers?
- I’m proud of Boo. When given the chance to pick out a movie for his living room camp-out this evening, he chose Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang over something from Disney.
- It’s a good night for a cold beer, a warm fire, and nodding off in my chair.
Posted by daddybear71 on November 2, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/02/thoughts-on-the-day-183/
Thoughts on the Day
- Technischesicherheitschadenfreude – That unmistakable feeling when people are forced to do the security enhancement that you suggested they do almost a decade ago, but they didn’t.
- Just a note of caution – documents created and/or saved using Microsoft Word 2013 are not necessarily compatible with earlier versions of Office.
- It’s nice to see something that you’ve been working on for over a year come to completion.
- I’m happy to report that Boo and Irish Woman’s niece were the most polite children out trick-or-treating tonight.
- Boo pounded the pavement in search of candy until he was staggering, but he made it.
- Letting Boo have a few pieces of candy and then watching him shotgun two orders of french fries and a small banana milkshake might not have been the wisest thing I’ve ever done as a parent.
- He’s OK, but it was touch and go there for a couple of minutes.
- I know, I know, bad daddy, but I have to be indulgent every so often.
- Crash went to the vet today to get fixed, and is home resting semi-comfortably.
- He does not like the cone of shame, but it’s only for a few days.
- He was talking up a storm at the nice ladies at the vet. Apparently they’re not used to Siamese there.
- A thought occurred to me today: If the President asserts the power to sign orders authorizing the killing, without benefit of trial, of an American citizen who is accused of taking up arms against the United States, could an argument be made that he has created an unconstitutional bill of attainder?
- If so, could the resulting demise of said citizen be therefore considered a “high crime” that constitutes grounds for impeachment?
- Related thought – Could a just legal proceeding occur in our system if the accused is hiding out with his jihadi buddies in some third world craphole, but he has a lawyer who is able to put up a vigorous defense on his behalf?
Posted by daddybear71 on November 1, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/11/01/thoughts-on-the-day-182/
Thoughts on the Day
- Well, the wind blew, and the crap flew, but we’re only here for a day or two.
- Apparently we need to be on the lookout for old women on bikes and flying monkeys tonight.
- Surprisingly, we didn’t have any kids come to the door for trick-or-treat. Of course, they’d have to be absolute barbarian cannibal trick-or-treaters to brave the weather for some fruit bites, but any that made it were promised rewards beyond comprehension if they succeeded.
- Actually getting out of the cubicle and into the computer room was a lot of fun. I must try to do it more often.
- Having to keep the TV tuned to the local station so we can get weather alerts is quite painful.
- Seriously, do people actually watch this dreck?
- After watching the Saturday Night Live Halloween special, I’m pretty sure zombie John Belushi is pissed about the last 25 years or so.
- I’d tune the radio to a good AM station so that any warnings come through that way, but I don’t want to drift off to sleep listening to people call in about chem trails, black helicopters, and pickle recipes.
- Finished listening to the latest Hardcore History episode. Dan Carlin never picks small subjects, does he?
- I’m laying odds that he has to do a mega-episode next July to get the series done before the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.
- Giving yourself arthritis medicine with an auto-injector isn’t as much fun as it sounds.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 31, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/31/thoughts-on-the-day-181/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on October 31, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/31/todays-earworm-417/
Thoughts on the Day
- There are few things I am worse at than spackling and mudding dry wall, but one of them is painting walls.
- Guess what I did today!
- I made banana bread last night.
- I had a long, heart-to-heart talk with Moonshine about the dire consequences of another incident.
- Some days you realize you’re just in the wrong profession.
- Apparently there’s a bit of a storm coming through the area tomorrow. I’ll have to make sure to have safety lines and rescue boats ready for the trick-or-treaters.
- Irish Woman asked me what I’d like to do for our anniversary.
- I guess suggesting that our weekly evenings at the grocery store counted as a date wasn’t what she was expecting.
- Remember, gentlemen, it’s always best to just admit fault and move on, and usually cheaper.
- It’s called a dog’s life for a reason.
- Moonie and Blue got their dinner and a pat-pat, and are now sacked out in the living room.
- I feel safe at night knowing that these two slugs are there to break the neck of a burglar as he trips over their sleeping carcasses.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 30, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/30/thoughts-on-the-day-180/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 