Dissent is born from the simple reality that government must prove its case to us, NOT vice-versa.

--Dolly's current fave aphorism, stolen from Dante

The Cloud Observatory
Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Observation #893...

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Paraphrased Quote of the Day...

ALL OF THE ECONOMIC catastrophes that have occurred since the Democrats retook Congress and since Obama took office are the fault of the Republicans.

--David Axelrod.

<raylettes>Uh-huh</raylettes>

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Loki...

RAN DOWN THE STAIRS shortly after dinner, slinked (slank/slunk) right past me -- I said, "Hey, dude! What's happening!" (Which is usually good for at least a "Map!" in reply) And he just kept on slinking, never even lifted his head. Haven't seen hide nor hair of him since. As Toni explains in the comments below, we dunno nuffin'.

I don't recall a human teenager being this much trouble. Good thing we get reasonable rates at the vet's office. What do the simple people do when their pets get ill?

Worry, I guess.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

You Cannot Make...

THIS SHIT UP the 23-year-old "woman," convicted of -- you are not dreaming this -- beating an alpaca to death has asked special dispensation so that she can care for her daughter while hubby is deployed to Iraq.

23-year-old-woman, charged along with two teenagers, of stealing and beating to death an alpaca.

Just the statement of the crime screams "UNBALANCED" at you, dunnit? And this woman wants to be let off her sentence so she can take care of her daughter?

Who in hell licensed the damn' attorney who went along with this crime?

And then. AND THEN... What in hell is she gonna say to the kid. <rushcrumbcrunchervoice>"Mommy? What's a alpaca?"</rushcrumbcrunchervoice>

Gabrielle Francesca "Dolly" East | Comments (0) |

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

My Guess Is Insty...

LINKED TO THIS dog's breakfast from Walter Russell Mead solely on the basis of the title, which is as misleading as any bit of leftist agitprop ever was.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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The Cloud Observatory
Monday, July 12, 2010

Observation #892...

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Monday, July 12, 2010

Outraged...

WATCHED TOP SHOT live this week, instead of my usual 1-2-day delay. Man am I pissed. Not just that Caleb got eliminated, but in the way that he was sent to the challenge. Adam is such a democrat ... pussy. Boy needs to learn some lessons about loyalty and unit cohesion. You don't get busted and then win points by crying about the guy who busted you. Especially not when what he busts you for amounts to treason.

Sorry about the spoiler. But I am PISSED!

Adam is a disgrace to the Corps. Candy-assed whiney little bitch. Bravo Foxtrot indeed. The prescribed blanket party -- or maybe a little four-wall counselling -- might teach that dumb jarhead some lessons about unit cohesion and loyalty to the team.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Monday, July 12, 2010

I Swear I’m About Ready...

TO TAKE A PERMANENT moritorium on catblogging. Seems as though I'm a jinx. Loki's in hospital.

Sunday evening, as we were getting ready for dinner, Loki threw up some bile on the living room carpet. Not unusual in a longhaired cat.

But then he started exhibiting major distress.

His breathing got faster and he looked... worried. I flashed back to when we lost Bandit to cardiomyopathy, back in the early '90s. The first sign we had he was in trouble, he had been doing something the like to Loki's rapid breathing, and only the differences gave me hope for Loki in that instant.

Toni picked Loki up and a did a quick assessment of visible symptoms -- gums clear and pink, nose cold and moist, eyes clear, seemed alert. Bandit had been actually panting, open-mouthed, and you could see without trying that his gums were pale. The most worrisome part of Loki's mini checkup is that he put up with it. He's not big on being held, but at that moment, he looked as though he were glad to be cuddled.

Then Toni put him down on the floor and he just flat fell over. Stood him up again and he did it again.

She called the junior vet at the practice to ask advice, and the good doctor said, "Meet me at the clinic." 9:00 Sunday night. Definitely one doc due a medal for above and beyond.

He doesn't seem blocked, although I wouldn't put it past a good does of Felaxin to put him right. His temp was 99, a tad low. They gave him some fluids and will check him further in the AM. The doc is of the opinion he's anemic. A blood draw will tell the tale on that.

So now he's in that dark place he really hates with only a mouthy Senegalese parrot for company.

And I'm worried for him.

Pray for him, would you?

Update: (Lunchtime Monday) ... Toni reports that Loki's not blocked. (The concern over blockage was possibly urinary tract blockage or kidney problem, not a hairball -- my mistake.) They got a urine sample and were able to get that tested. Getting blood was a challenge -- always has been with Loki; it went to the lab around noon. Results probably tomorrow, but maybe late this afternoon. His temp this AM was 99.9F. He's just a cool cat. He wasn't falling over in the clinic environment. His breathing seems OK. He still looks unhappy... depressed. Toni bring him home tonight. But all summed up, we really don't know anything. Just part of the ongoing mystery of "What's wrong with Loki?" I guess.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (7) |

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Saturday, July 10, 2010

Summer Amusement...

I HAVE SO FAR received two U.S. Census "Notice of Visit" forms stuck in my screen-door. (Which, incidentally, means that a Census worker has had to open the storm door, essentially unlawful entry, although, since the door isn't locked (though it could be), that might be a stretch were I to attempt to file a criminal complaint.)

Since we mailed in the form and provided the constitutional information -- number of occupants to the dwelling -- along with the bonus voluntary information that both occupants are of "American" racial / national / ethnic / species origin, we feel quite in the clear to have some fun with the nosey-parkers should they finally make contact.

Please note that we will NOT be calling ASAP, no matter WHAT color of ink they use to fill out their silly little (insultingly bilingual) form.

First: we have already provided the Census with all of the information they are constitutionally permitted to take -- i.e., and actual enumeration of the persons dwelling herein.

Second: further attempts to augment that information amount to a violation of our constitutionally-protected Right to Privacy. Eh? There isn't one? Better inform the Supreme Court then, because said august body based its decision in Roe v Wade on it.

(Yeah, I believe that Roe v Wade is bad conlaw, but that doesn't mean the Right to Privacy doesn't exist.)

Third: said attempt amounts to a conspiracy to deny me of the free exercise of said constitutionally-protected right.

Fourth: that said conspiracy is being undertaken under the color of law, and as such, is in violation of 18USC242. (Q.V.)

Fifth: get off my porch!

Wonder how long they'll keep trying before they give up.

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Update: Attempt number three Sunday evening. Since they don't time-stamp their attempts, I have no idea when this one was made, but I sure didn't hear any knocking at the door. Wonder if this guy/gal is even trying.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Saturday, July 10, 2010

Caturday...

THIS LITTLE GUY is Loki. He's my bud. Of all six of our current herd, he's the one who's most firmly attached himself to me. This is about the first picture I took of him. And if this wasn't taken on his first day in our house, I'm sure I don't know why. It's dated May 29, 2008, which is about right. And about 2 weeks later, we got Rommie, who died less than a year later.

You can tell from his posture here that he's going to be a trouble maker. A trixter. And white. And dainty of foot, thus destined, it seemed then, to be a smallish cat. So, of course, we had to name him after the Norse frost giant trickster god, Loki. Terribly imaginative of me, I know, but it fit so perfectly that it had to be.

In my cats pictures folders, there are hundreds of pictures of Loki -- not all as postable as this one,

I admit. But that there are so many indicates that he's a handy subject. Yes, white, thus more easily caught in low light than Belle, who is inky black, but also ... as they say ... handy. Usually within arm's reach of me, unless he's asleep.

When I wake up every morning (to the alarm clock's warning), as soon as I swing my feet out and onto the floor, there he is, underfoot, talking to me in his high, squeaky voice. Dunno what he's saying, but it's damned urgent, whatever it is. When I sit down at my desk, he takes up station in the office. When I head downstairs, he leads the way. He's over there in the leather armchair right now. Just stood up to adjust his sleeping curl. As soon as I close the lid on the laptop, he'll pop his head up, meow, jump down to the floor with a thud! and lead the way into the bedroom. Where he'll check the time on the alarm clock and inspect my pillowlar arrangment before settling down for some head rubs and a brief snuggle before we drift off to sleep.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (3) |

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Saturday, July 10, 2010

While I Agree It’s...

ENCOURAGING TO SEE a corporate CEO, such as McDonald's top boss Jim Skinner, telling Alinsky-ite nosey-parkers to go piss up a rope, I would like the same sentiments expressed to the government. It would be music to my ears to hear of a Welch or a Gates or a Buffet telling an overreaching congresscritter or bureaucrat to MYO*B.

In fact, it's a phrase we should all stash in our personal lexicons.

(Mind Your Own #^@%ing Business!)

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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The Cloud Observatory
Friday, July 09, 2010

Observation #891...

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Friday, July 09, 2010

You Will Be The Key...

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Friday, July 09, 2010

Also For Your Listening Pleasure...

AS WE COMPOSE Friday's posts here at Casa d'Alger, as well as to Miss Branch's anthem (above), we are also rocking Jethro Tull's Benefit album. Shades of our misspent youth.

Speak for yourself, old man.

Right, Dolly. The album came out the year before your "official" birth date. But I saw you shakin' it down to "Teacher."

Well the dawn was coming,
heard him ringing on my bell.
He said, ``My name's the teacher,
und dat is vaht I call myself.
And I have a lesson
that I must impart to you.
It's an old expression
but I must insist it's true.

Jump up, look around,
find yourself some fun,
no sense in sitting there hating everyone.
No man's an island and his castle isn't home,
the nest is full of nothing when the bird has flown.''

So I took a journey,
threw my world into the sea.
With me went the teacher
who found fun instead of me.

Hey man, what's the plan, what was that you said?
Sun-tanned, drink in hand, lying there in bed.
I try to socialize but I can't seem to find
what I was looking for, got something on my mind.

Then the teacher told me
it had been a lot of fun.
Thanked me for his ticket
and all that I had done.

Hey man, what's the plan, what was that you said?
Sun-tanned, drink in hand, lying there in bed.
I try to socialize but I can't seem to find
what I was looking for, got something on my mind.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Friday, July 09, 2010

I Disagree...

WITH DR. POURNELLE when he asserts of the Regime's backdoor appointee -- scorn quotes -- "health care policy guru" Dr. Donald Berwick who is to lead the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid...

Berwick is certainly qualified to head a national health care system (for a pro-Berwick piece see the Washington Post).

Oh, hell no. No one is qualified to head a national health care system. If the witlessness of the proposition isn't obvious to you from the man's own words that the only way to an excellent, humane, and rational system is through a single-payer, central command-control planning bureaucracy, then you seriously need to get yourself an education in economics and markets. There is no way that any government-run national health care system can or will exhibit any one of the three attributes specified -- excellent, humane, and rational -- let alone any two or all three. One would think that, in this day and age, reasoning beings would have gotten past that outdated wishful thinking. It's positively medieval. Barbaric, even.

And there's certainly no excuse for agreeing with the devil simply for the sake of comity.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (2) |

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Friday, July 09, 2010

Daffyd, Get...

A GRIP! In his top post Thursday, the inestimable Daffyd ap Hugh rants briefly about PowerLine's running ads for rabid left-whingers.

Look. Dave. Every dollar spent on PowerLine is a dollar than can't be spent in a venue where the message won't fall like seed on rocky ground. I mean... seriously. Can you really think that PowerLine readers can be persuaded by -- will do anything other than scoff at -- such ads as the one you cite?

I say, "Take their money. Drain their coffers dry."

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Thursday, July 08, 2010

I’d Suggest to This Guy...

BASED ON WHAT he says in the long pull quote at Instapundit (in which he says a lot of things I've been thinking lately), that maybe he's in the wrong venue.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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The Cloud Observatory
Thursday, July 08, 2010

Observation #890...

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Thursday, July 08, 2010

Perversion...

SOMETIMES I WISH -- sort of -- that the word perversion didn't carry so many negative connotations. For a second or two.

But then I shake myself awake and go: Naaaa.

The Buckley had a saying about that. Any institution not explictly turned to [conservative | libertarian] purposes will eventually be turned to [liberal | progressive | collectivist] purposes.

This is the definition of perversion: the turning of a thing to a purpose other than that for which it was designed.

That needs revision.

Is it a perversion or creative re-purposing to use a screwdriver as a can opener?

Is it a perversion or a creative husbanding of scarce resources to hold together a machine with baling wire, chewing gum, and/or duct tape -- if the proper part is not available or is unaffordable?

And you can add your own examples.

But somewhere along the line of that continuum, you cross the line from creativity to perversion. Using the aerospace agency as an outreach facility to stone-age tumblefucks almost definitively illustrates the latter term.

We need desperately to get large numbers of humans living off-earth. That whole don't-put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket thing. But there are pathologies, such as collectivism and Islam, that we really do not want to export. Lest the rest of the universe look at us askance and quarantine our whole species.

How do you know they haven't already?

Point, Dolly. Touché.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (3) |

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Thursday, July 08, 2010

Talk About Burying...

THE LEDE this article in the WaPo makes you wait for it until the very last, well, third-to-last graph.

Arlo Guthrie a Republican.

Which should tell you just how far Left the Democrats have gotten to chase away a former red-diaper baby.

Lot of that goin' around on the git-tar.

::singing:: Oh, I don' wanna pickle/Just wanna ride on my mo-ter-sickle.

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Esprit d'escalier: "Good morning, America! How are you? Don't you know me? I'm your favorite son!"

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Monday, July 05, 2010

Paging Inigo Montoya...

DO YOU THINK THIS MEANS what I think it means?

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

-- Amentment XI
The United States Constitution

You don't suppose the Teleprompter ConLaw Professor coulda missed this, do ya?

Depends. How incompetent do you think he really is?

Doesn't that question kinda answer itself?

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (2) |

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Monday, July 05, 2010

I Have the Greatest Respect for...

AND GENERALLY AGREE with St. Ann Coulter, but even she nods upon occasion. (And I'm at considerable risk of embarrassment here, since she's a lawyer and I'm not.) BUT...

But.

But. In her current column, she engages in what I see as a common fallacy when she asserts that, because there is no right to abortion mentioned in the Constitution, ipso facto abortion is not a right. And she's not alone. Conservatives all over the map do it. I believe they are mistaken, factually and strategically, both.

First, as a matter of fact, the Ninth Amendment renders the "It's not in there" argument moot. You do, as a matter of law, have the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, even though those items are not mentioned in the Bill of Rights, or anywhere in the Constitution. As a matter of fact, since the assertion of those rights was inserted in the Declaration of Independence by at least some of the same folk who framed the Constitution, (I believe Jefferson was the only author of the former who didn't participate in forming the latter), one could even argue without putting too much strain on logic that it would be a matter of original intent. The framers did, after all, hold Them Truths to be Self-Evident, then went on to encode in law that other Rights Held by We the (Little) People ... well, they count for something.

Now, one can argue that abortion isn't properly a right. That is, you may say access to any medical procedure is a matter of right, but the performance of some of them might eventuate in the abridgement of the rights of some third party, and they are therefore subject to sanction. Nor does the right of access transfer status as a right to the procedure we label with the term "abortion." It can't. THAT would require the enslavement of the medical practitioners capable of performing the procedure and the theft of the required materials. Which is why I say that you can't have a right to something that requires somebody give it to you. Access is not possession or performance. You have a right to free movement -- limited by private property boundaries and the speed of your feet. You don't have a right to a car. You have a right to buy one, if you have the money, but that's as far as it goes. For someone to avail themselves of more than access to any medical procedure calls for contractual agreements and the exchange of compensation of some nature -- whether the arrangement is strictly commercial or otherwise. This falls entirely outside of the nature of rights.

Therefor, to argue about rights to abortion is to engage in sophistry. And THIS is where I believe those opposed to the practice should begin their arguments against it, not by claiming that rights not enumerated in the Constitution do not exist.

In fact, I believe a far stronger argument against abortion relies on the existence of unenumerated rights, including most particularly the right to life -- most fundamental of all rights -- and inhering to any individual human being. If an object is alive and it is human, then it is a human life, with rights inherent to it, and the ending of it for whatever reason under whatever pretext is wrong in the first place.

Since common law assumes personhood descends like a mantle on a being sometime at or after birth, this would seem to militate against rights being extended to the unborn, and this is the nub of the argument. The prolife crowd claims that, as science has advanced, and medicine has improved to the point where we know that a child in the womb is self-aware long before birth, and that extremely premature newborns can survive against incredible odds, the definition of what makes a person -- in particular, when the mantle of personhood settles upon an individual -- must needs meet redefinition. And THAT is where the discussion should center. That is to say, as a matter of fact, if not of law, a person is a person a good deal before birth, and the law needs to recognize that.

The rabidly pro-abortion Left refuses to engage on those grounds, perhaps sensing that they would lose the argument if it were to eventuate. That doesn't stop those opposed to the practice from moving abortion's Overton window in that direction.

And, I believe, it must start with those In the Right desisting from arguing on the specious grounds that, because abortion is not enumerated, it cannot be a right.

Cross-posted at Eternity Road.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Monday, July 05, 2010

Watch This Guy...

HE MAY NOT MAKE IT PAST light colonel, if he makes it that far in the military. But I predict he will be a bright start in public service down the road.

Yet another of the bright young men and women who give me hope for the future of this country. Pete Hegseth. Remember the name.

Interesting that Leaky Leahy's introduction was so warm -- for that matter that they let him address the committee at all. Wonder what that presages for Kagan's nom-nom-nomination.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Sunday, July 04, 2010

Just So’s You Know Dept...

TALIBAN the noun is plural. It refers to a group of students of Islam. The singular is talib. Take note, lest you be mistaken for some illiterate. Say... a journalist.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Saturday, July 03, 2010

If I Understand this Concept Correctly...

POKEMON: Children are encouraged to roam the forest, find orphaned woodland creatures, and enslave them for gladitorial combat? And by you this is fit fare for young minds?

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Friday, July 02, 2010

When Will Just ONE...

OF THESE OUTRAGED state governments grow a pair or two and tell the Feds to go piss up a rope?

It's a fact, whether the power mad morons in DC admit it or not, that the Fedgov does NOT have the lawful, constitutional authority to even fund the EPA, let alone let it run roughshod over the country. And now the Regime has fed the Agency raw meat and turned it loose. Since the Federal Congress won't rein it in, it's up to the states.

Rick Perry should tell the offended businesses to keep operating, and meet the Feds at the airport with National Guardsmen sufficient to make this next part stick: put the mofos back on the next plane to DC. Don't even let them out of the arrival lounge.

And send the fucking TSA with them.

Now, I know somebody will pop up here and say, "That's just plain crazy. It's lawlessness. A governor can't just go off the reservation on his own."

To which I answer: "STFU, you moron. The Federal Government is already and years ago 'off the reservation.' It's operating so far in outlaw territory that it can't even see inside the pale from the top of the Washington Monument. Any such action by a state governor would only be in aid of trying to get the thing back on the road to legitimacy."

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Friday, July 02, 2010

The Teleprompter Mahdi...

HAS AN ISSUE WITH the Arizona illegal alien statute which, as we are told with tiresome repetition, is a virtual clone of the Federal Law.

His Lordship doesn't like the law. He fears it amounts to an infringement upon civil liberties. He therefore refuses to enforce the law or allow it to be enforced.

Thus morphing from an elected employee of the People of the United States to a would-be tyrant king, ruler, lord and master over the domain of USA.

Get this, fuckwit: you don't get to pick and choose which laws you enforce. Congress passed it; the then-sitting President signed it; you enforce it. That's your job. What you're being paid to do. It goes with the elliptical office and the apartment upstairs from the store. Unless and until the law is repealed by Congress, you don't have a choice.

And this guy claims to be a legal scholar? Pull the other'n. It's got bells on.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (2) |

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The Cloud Observatory
Thursday, July 01, 2010

Observation #889...

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

So Flea is...

RUNNING WHAT AMOUNTS to a campaign ad for a candidate to the U.S. Congress.

Brilliant.

Let the fascists at FEC ban that. (Hey, Kagan! I got your reasonable infringement right here!)

Maybe we should reciprocate. Any Canadian liberty-lovers want a boost from south of the border? Possibly in violation of oppressive Canadian campaign finance laws?

Anyone for free speech?

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

And Kagan Claimed...

IN THE RECENT Federal Election Commission vs the People of the United States* case that no official of the American government, or the FEC, or anybody, has ever banned a book. And, therefore, that the law is unconstitutional because of that whole "Congress shall make no law..." thing not reading: "But don't worry about it, because no bureaucrat would ever do such a horrible thing as stupidly adhere beyond all sense or reason to the letter of an unconstitutional law..." -- all of that really isn't important, because, no bureaucrat would ever do such a thing. Really. Pinky swear.

And -- yet -- she manages, without straining a single intellectual muscle, to urge U.S. appeals courts to seek advice from foreign law in interpreting the Constitution...

But NOT to consider foreign history when contemplating the possibility of a government's acting all oppressive and shit -- infringing the liberties of the people.

'Cause, you know, it hasn't happened here. It can't happen here.

Just playing advocate, here, mind you.

Sorry, Elana... Doesn't pass the horselaugh test.

How is this woman qualified to be a citizen, let alone an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court?

How in HELL do we initiate impeachment procedings against the oath-breakers? HOW! I axe ya!

(* Actually, Citizens United.)

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

If Those Spittle-Flecked...

RACIST FUCKWADS at La Raza think that "Aztlan" is "occupied land, stolen from Mexico," then they ought to be bitching at the Mexican government. Because -- you know -- Mexico agreed to it.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

Speaking of Cherished...

ILLUSIONS, SOMEBODY is having some of their own dashed.

Can ya just smell the schadenfreude?

A heady bouquet, to be sure.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Like I Said the Other Day...

I'D LIKE TO SEE THE sovereign take seriously Col. Cooper's dictum that a masked man is a target, and that includes targets in balaclavas and bulletproof vests with big white letters stencilled on the back. And it also should go for tactical-para-booted thugs who kick down the front doors of unsuspecting citizens in the dark of night.

And let's remember just who is the sovereign, here.

I mean, do you ever see Texas Rangers running around in HRT/SWAT gear acting like silliassed ninja wannabes? One riot; one Ranger.

(Please don't tell me if you do; allow me at least SOME of my cherished illusions.)

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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The Cloud Observatory
Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Observation #888...

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Throwing the BS Flag...

ON THE CONTENTION that artlessness can nevertheless be art. I think that's the true difference between art and crap, whether it's produced by Picasso or Grandma Moses or three sisters named Wiggin. If there's no technique, it's just childish scribblings. Viz: Michelangelo. Please.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

As a Big Fan of...

ERIC FRANK RUSSEL'S classic SF work on monkey warfare, The Wasp, I want to put forth this brain fart.

Certain restaurants, stores, and other merchants have, in sundry jurisdictions, elected to post their premises as being off-limits to bearers of guns. (Well, of the guns themselves, but -- in case you hadn't noticed -- guns don't got legs.)

Fair enough. I contend that their actions amount to a violation of civil rights, but for the nonce, they have the lawful privilege to do so. And those opposed have the right to withhold their custom and comment to one another on that.

But -- and this is the brain fart -- there is another avenue for comment.

These places are ringed around with telephone poles, whereupon it has become the custom to post bills. Concert notices, rave flyers, band stickers, and other nonsensicalia.

Seems to me a small-ish sticker, with an aggressive adhesive, on a durable substrate, could be added to the collage:

Notice to predators: This is a victim disarmament zone. Your prey are helpless. Come on in!

Purely as a matter of social comment, mind you.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (4) |

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ellipses...

HOW SICK IS IT that the McDonald decision was 5-4?

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I'VE WONDERED ABOUT this in a sort of desultory way from time to time. I don't use the things myself, but this isn't the reason. It's more of a mule-headed resistance to the PC groupthink that dictates I must.

Good to have the reinforcement, though.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (1) |

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Monday, June 28, 2010

So Leaky Leahy Doesn’t...

ACCEPT LITMUS TESTS applied to (leftist) judicial nominees? So, now, insistence on adherance to and application of constitutional principles is a litmus test?

You know, when you apply the acid test to blue litmus paper, it turns red. That's what they call a tattletale. Tattletale red.

Mmm-hmm.

More of a pink, actually.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Monday, June 28, 2010

This is What Comes...

OF PERMISSIVE PARENTING Used to be civil unrest was met with what was called the reading of the riot act. The holder of executive authority would out with a copy of said satute and have it promulgated. The act would contain such gems as the permission of the police and troops to use lethal force to quell violence, restore order, and protect life and property.

Property?

Yes, property, Dolly. Property is acquired at the expense of life and as such is sacred only second to life itself. Something the old "property is theft" crowd would rather you not remember. Around here, we prefer to assert that theft is murder. And, I should say in that vein, vandalism is murder as well.

And, on such a scale, with malice aforethought, vandalism amounts to an act of war, to be met with reciprocal -- and, yes, disproportionate -- force.

As the saying used to go, looters will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted.

So... why don't they? Anymore?

Mostly because -- and this will break the rioter's little anarchist hearts -- the rioters serve as a useful tool for the establishment power structure.

Oh. Well, then, let's not tell them.

Right. Meantime, I would prefer to see the authorities adopt Col. Cooper's dictum that a masked man is a target.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Stupid Gap...

TAX PROF IS DEAD right here when he asserts:

A reason for the “wealth or income gap”: Smart people keep on doing things that are smart and make them money while stupid people keep on doing things that are stupid and keep them from achieving.

People who get an education, stay off of drugs, apply themselves, and save and wisely invest their earnings do a lot better than people who drop out of school, become substance abusers, and buy fancy cars and houses that they can’t afford, only to lose them.

We don’t have an income gap. We have a stupid gap.

And, as I've long thought, one singular reason we do is that stupid no longer carries any stigma. You're not allowed to stigmatize any behavior, no matter how stupid, destructive, self-centered, narcissistic, nihilistic ... liberal it is. If reporters pulled no punches and honestly reported the truth about lackwits such as Medea Benjamin, Al Gore, and Barbra Streisand, if judges summarily dismissed witless lawsuits and sanctioned the ambulance chasers who bring them, if leaders told their constituents the truth about their silly lawless demands -- and society backed them -- we would be in nowhere near the straits we find ourselves sailing today.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Six Degrees of Antonin Scalia...

SURELY THIS QUESTION can get through six connections between a reader of this blog and Justice Scalia. Ask him to explain, please, in some public venue just how it is proper for the government to decide what is reasonable in exceptions made to a charter limiting that government's power.

Ask him would Liberty be included among the enumerate rights of the Constitution, given that the framers held the right to liberty to be self-evident, yet nevertheless had the foresight to protect unenumerated rights from infringement by the state.

Ask him how an enumerated right can have exceptions. When an absolute proscription is lain -- not only on the state, but on private actors as well -- how any limit on it can be seen as being constitutional.

Ask him how it is anything other than anathema ... this term, this obscenity called a compelling state interest in infringing on the rights and liberties of sovereign citizens of that state.

Ask him how it is reasonable for a state court to announce that a citizen can be held to have no standing to bring suit against said state for violations of said state's charter -- on any grounds, let alone on the grounds that said citizen has taken no harm from the violation. Ask him how that squares with that whole "Congress shall make no law..." thing -- especially as regards petitioning the government for redress of grievances.

Ask him and then get back to me with the answers.

Cross-posted at Eternity Road.

Mark Philip Alger | Comments (0) |

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Later on BabyTrollBlog...

Previously on BabyTrollBlog...