A kindergartener in Missouri really wowed his teacher at show and tell the other day. When told to bring in something that’s important to the family, he brought in his mother’s crack pipe and her stash.
Of course, that pipe may be the most important thing in his mom’s life, but she probably ought to have kept it out of the kids’ reach.
Things like this make me wonder if we deserve to be at the top of the food chain. Here’s hoping the little tyke is an only child.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 21, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/21/mother-of-the-year/
Palestinian ‘leader’ Mahmoud Abbas is moving closer to asking the United Nations to recognize the territory his faction controls as a member, which would legitimize the Palestinian areas as a sovereign country. My guess is that any resolution that creates a country of “Palestine” will call on Israel to give up territory in order to give the new country a contiguous hunk of dirt to squat on.
Personally, I hope that he doesn’t get what he wants. The Palestinians and those who fight in their name have been nothing but brigands for the past 40 years. I am under no illusions that a new government would degenerate into a Hamas stronghold very quickly.
But for the moment, let’s say that Obama backs down on his implied threat to veto any Security Council motion to grant statehood to something called Palestine. Let’s assume that he does it as a lame duck president with nothing to lose.
As your vice-president, I would urge the President to issue a statement re-affirming our nations long standing commitment to Israel. Israel is a democracy in a sea of demagogues and dictators. When asked where I stand with Israel, I will say that I stand at their border, with a regiment of Marines behind me.
We would also make it clear to the Palestinians that if they want to sit at the grown-up table, they need to act like grown-ups. Rockets or artillery launched at Israel would be considered an act of war, and we will support Israel when they decide to stomp a mudhole in a Palestinian backside over it. The same would go for suicide bombers. A real country takes responsibility for the criminal acts of its citizens against other countries. We would also support Israel if she decides to seal her border with Palestine to protect her citizens.
We would also resist any calls to force Israel to give up territory for the new Palestine. If Palestine wants land, let them either buy or conquer it. Israel should not give one inch under pressure.
We would cut off all funding to the Palestinians immediately. If the Arab street wants a Palestinian homeland, let them pay for it. We would also hold Palestine responsible for the actions of groups that it supports or funds. If you provide support to terrorist groups that try to kill Americans, don’t be surprised if you wake up dead from an airstrike one morning.
In short, if the Palestinians want to declare statehood, they should do so without our aid and knowing that we favor the democracy of Israel over the despotism of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Let them sink or swim, and let them deal with the consequences of continuing to commit terrorism against Israel.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 20, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/20/have-it-your-way/
Some days you eat the thresh.
Other days the threshkeen eats you.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 19, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/19/thought-for-the-day-67/
Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Today be Talk Like A Pirate Day! Here be a couple of shanties from one of me favorite movies to get stuck betwist yer ears!
Remember the rules me hearties:
Yar! Now get back to work, ye filthy dogs, err I keelhaul the lot of ya!
Posted by daddybear71 on September 19, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/19/earworm-for-6-bells/
There’s a cliche in the gun rights/personal security community: “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away”.
For a group of people in Minneapolis, it could have read “the police are only a few feet away”.
A group of friends leave a club, are accosted by a group of ‘youths’, and a fight starts when the men in the group stand up to protect the ladies. One of the ladies runs to a police station that is 30 feet away for help, and is rebuffed. One of the men who got his head beaten upon goes to the same station, and is chased out by the police. Read that again. A citizen, bleeding from a beating he received within spitting distance of a police station, goes there to ask for assistance, and is forcefully ejected from the building.
The excuse from the Minneapolis police seems to be “We were busy that night”. I’ve been in downtown Minneapolis. The police are always busy there. I guess this means that there’s always something better for the police to do than to stop the savage beating of law-abiding citizens at the hands of a pack of ‘youths’ within eyesight of the police station.
People, if you’re looking for an example of why you should carry a gun when confronted by an anti, here you go. Three men got jumped on by 10 ‘youths’ and got bloodied. If one of them or one of the ladies with them had been carrying a pistol that night, the situation would have ended quite differently. If the animals that attacked them had been just a little more adamant about delivering a curb stomping, someone could have easily gone to the morgue.
Be responsible for yourself. Carry your gun. Carry a knife. Use your tools, your hands, your feet, your teeth, a loose piece of paving, anything to defend yourself. Make it hard for EMS to tell where your blood starts and your assailant’s blood ends.
The police are under no obligation to protect you. They are there to draw white lines around your body, take a report, and ‘try’ to bring criminals to justice. Even if you could carry around a cop, nothing is going to get him to stop an attack on you and yours unless it’s a personal priority for him. No-one in his chain of command will fault him for not intervening to keep you out of the hospital or the morgue.
H/T to Radley Balko on this one.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 19, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/19/when-seconds-count/
Posted by daddybear71 on September 18, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/18/daddybear-the-minivandian/
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Not bad. A bunch of guys got together to amend their government, decided to throw the whole thing out and try again, and the work they did has held up for 224 years. They were human, with all of the failings that all humans have, but their work has only had to be amended a few times in over two centuries. We’re still a republic, even with all of our troubles. It hasn’t been easy, and it has rarely been fun, but we’re still here. Millions of people left their ancestral lands to come to the country those men created, and we have spent the last 100 years helping others to know freedom.
I, Daddy J. Bear, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.So help me God.”
I took that oath the day after my 18th birthday, and I still read it occasionally to remind myself that our country isn’t built around loyalty to a particular leader, party, or ideology. It’s built around loyalty to the concepts that a group of planters and merchants put together during a hot summer in 1787. When we forget that, we are doomed.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 17, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/17/constitution-day/
and you read about this:
The proposed contract would recall about 570 GM workers currently on layoff, revive a now-idled assembly plant in Tennessee and pay signing bonuses of about $5,000 for each worker, a person with knowledge of the terms said.
For those who forgot, the UAW owns 39% of General Motors now that it’s been bailed out and gone through bankruptcy. So basically the UAW just negotiated a contract with itself and decided that it should re-open a factory, hire back some workers, and give everyone a bonus for agreeing to continue to cash pay checks with “GM” stamped on them. That’s right, GM is paying a quarter of a billion dollars in bribes to its own workers to keep them from refusing to work for their own union.
Apparently next on the chopping block is Chrysler, which the union has a 55% stake in. Something tells me that’s going to be a pretty quick negotiation for a sweet deal. After that comes Ford, which did not take government money in 2008-2009 and did not go into bankruptcy. Of course, the union has already voted to authorize a strike if the only remaining independent American auto company doesn’t knuckle under to union demands. I wonder which side the government will take when the company it doesn’t own stock in stands up to the union that fills the administrations re-election warchest.
Remember what I’ve said about employment not being a right? I still think I’m correct, but when the unions and the government hold majority stakes in 2/3 of the companies in a large industry, a Potemkin village economy of guaranteed employment in bailing out sinking ships could take hold in the minds of a lot of American workers. Why compete when you can just vote yourselves new factories to work in and free money? Worst thing that happens is that Uncle Sugar cranks up the 3rd shift at the unionized mint again.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 17, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/17/talk-about-killing-the-golden-goose/
Posted by daddybear71 on September 17, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/17/caption-this-photo-3/
Teachers in Tacoma have decided it’s a good idea to go on strike over things like pay, reassignments, and the size of classes. Apparently, school administration has gotten a judge to tell the teachers’ union that their walkout is illegal under state law and to order them back to work. Teachers then held a vote, and decided it was better to flout the orders of a judge with precedent behind him, so they continue to picket instead of teach.
This reminds me of a rather similar situation from my childhood. In 1981, the union representing air traffic controllers, another group of public employees, declared a strike. They were told to return to work by someone with the authority of precedent and the law behind him. When they didn’t, almost 13,000 people were fired.
The law says, and is affirmed by the judge’s order, that the teachers in Tacoma do not have the right to walk out. Don’t like it? Get a lawyer and sue to have the law declared unconstitutional. Either that, or work with the legislature in Washington to get the law changed. Until then, failure to follow the law or the order of a judge runs the risk of consequences.
The leadership of the schools in Tacoma should tell the union and the press that any teacher that doesn’t come in on Monday and start teaching can expect to have their personal items mailed to them along with their last check. Period. Dot.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Employment is not a right. It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re working for a too-big-to-fail corporation, the corner grocery run by a little old lady, or the government. No-one promises you a job. You have to earn your continued employment every minute of every day.
You have to have at least some college education to be a teacher, so by definition someone who can teach at a public school should have some skill that they could trade for money in the open market. Teachers’ unions like to spout off about how talented its members are, and what a sacrifice they are making in taking low paying teaching jobs because they put the education of children before they put their own economic well-being. It’s time for the teachers of Tacoma to put their money where their mouths are. They should take their dismissal for participating in an illegal strike, wear it as a badge of honor, and start looking for other employment. Either that, or go back to the classroom and continue to negotiate through their union to get what they want.
That being said, if the law is unconstitutional, or the law is changed to allow strikes by teachers, then have at it. Stay out of the workplace as long as you want to. No-one says you have to work anywhere you don’t want to. Eventually either you’ll come to some agreement with the administration or the administration will find someone else who wants to teach for what they’re offering and hire them as a ‘temporary’ replacement. Just don’t look for a lot of sympathy from me the next time you complain about how little you get from strike pay.
Don’t take this as a condemnation of all unions and all strikes. Unions do have a valid role in the marketplace. I believe, however, that a lot of unions and their members lose sight of the fact that sucking more and more out of the company kills the golden goose, and can eventually kill the entire flock. Ask the unions for steelworkers and automotive assemblers whether the lucrative contracts they got in the 1960’s, coupled with union intransigence in the 1970’s and 1980’s, did anything to keep the companies that employed them viable once they had to compete with companies that could crank out quality goods and services at a much lower price.
The administration shouldn’t use the threat of firings as a club to silence the union, but the union shouldn’t walk out when it doesn’t have the right to and not expect something adverse to happen to its members.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 16, 2011
https://daddybearsden.com/2011/09/16/a-word-of-advice/
DaddyBear’s Den 