Shutdown theater...

Shutdown theater:  my lovely bride says that we should put some orange cones and Barrycades around his house.  Yeah, I think we can all agree that President StompyFoot and his retinue are not essential functions of government!  :)

Don't forget to click the image at right to embiggen it...

Clydesdales!

Clydesdales!  A collection of Budweiser ads...

Prescription booze...

Prescription booze. Yup, during Prohibition doctors could prescribe alcohol, up to one pint at a time.  I'd run into that little factoid before, but somehow I'd missed the rather close parallel to the current “medical marijuana” dispensaries.  I particularly enjoyed the transparent hypocrisy of the AMA.  Before prohibition, they declared that alcohol had no therapeutic value at all.  After prohibition, when their members could make a quick buck by issuing prescriptions, they changed their tune – all of a sudden government interference was totally unreasonable restriction on doctors' ability to practice medicine...

Background noise...

Background noise.  Here's a whole website dedicated to letting you listen to the kind of background noise you want.  Do you like the sound of rain?  Of waterfalls?  Of a crackling fire?  I like all of those.  I don't like the sound of traffic, but apparently some people do, and they're accommodated as well.  Not only can you listen to these online, but you can also change their “shape” (frequency components), and you can download them.  It's all free online, and a few dollars to buy the downloadable file.

He must be off his meds...

He must be off his meds.  The California legislature passed a bill (AB 1401) that would allow permanent legal immigrants to serve on juries, even if they were not U.S. citizens.  That's not as insane as you might have expected a legislature “owned” by progressives to have done – allowing illegal immigrants to serve on juries would have been more like it.  It's the sort of thing I'd have guessed Governor Moonbeam would reflexively sign (oh, do click on the image to read it!).  But he surprised me: he vetoed it.  I don't know what his real reasons were, but here's what he said:

Jury service, like voting, is quintessentially a prerogative and responsibility of citizenship.  This bill would permit lawful permanent residents who are not citizens to serve on a jury. I don't think that's right.

An excellent prank!

An excellent prank!  You'll want full screen.  I'm no believer in magical powers, but if I were one of the “victims” of this prank, I'd certainly wonder what the heck was happening!  But I think the vertical column behind the guy on the wall might have given it away...

Cosmic joke?

Cosmic joke?  “Ace”, over at Ace of Spades HQ, writes about the federal ObamaCare exchange's solution to the web site overloading problem: “waiting rooms”.  I have the same reaction that he does, that any technology guy would have:

Oh dear Lord, even the website is going to have long lines for waiting.

This is a cosmic joke. This is a cosmic joke.

Imagine going to (say) Amazon's web site, and instead of getting their catalog you got a nice little page saying something like:

You are number 714,726 in line with 834,543 others.  You will be served in order, so please be patient.  Have a nice day!

Yeah, that would lead to a bunch of happy customers, I'm sure.  A commercial organization would never get away with this, because a competitor without this problem would eat their lunch.  The government, though?  Those double-chinned bureaucrats will just smile as they shove this down your throat.

Lines.  It's the standard government answer.  Like at the DMV.  Healthcare a la DMV.  Oh, goody.

Doom...

Girly-man vs. manly-man...

Girly-man vs. manly-man: Joseph Curl, writing in the Washington Times, has a piece contrasting The One and Teddy Roosevelt – a sort of girly-man vs. manly-man comparison.  He concludes (talking about Obama):

That pettiness — the relentless condemnation of anyone who thinks differently from the way he does — has led to now: the federal government in shutdown, a fierce battle over the nation’s debt limit, and no dialogue underway to end either standoff.

The president’s smallness also has led to one of the most petty and contemptible actions a president has ever taken: the closings of America’s war memorials and monuments.

Even though the memorials for World War I and II veterans and Vietnam veterans are open-air pedestrian pathways along the Mall, the president ordered the National Park Service to shut them down with barricades, and stand watch to make sure no 88-year-old man who stormed the beaches of Normandy 69 years ago can get in. Like a mouse, not a man, he blamed Republicans.

But America’s veterans, like Teddy Roosevelt, are men of great character and strength. So, just as Teddy would have done, the veterans simply knocked down the Barrycades and walked onto the ground that they — and they alone — made hallowed. They pushed their way into the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, the Iwo Jima memorials.

Park Service workers stood aside, no doubt aware of the sacrifice made by the men who had come — some for the last time in their lives — to see their memorials.

Said Teddy: “A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.” He also said this: “Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

Barack Obama can’t hold a candle to him — or America’s military men.

Word.