Great Song - Great Video

From a band that really understands what it means to serve in the American military.  Watch the whole thing.

Are You Kidding Me?

A couple of caveats before we proceed. 

First, I am overweight.  I'm working on it, but things are what they are.  If this story makes me a hypocrite, then so be it.

Second, I ride a motorcycle....with all of the additional risks that entails.  I always wear a helmet even though I support efforts to repeal our helmet laws so that others can make a different choice.

Third, I generally believe in leaving people alone to make decisions about how to run their lives.  I'd prefer not to be judged incapable of running my own life, so I try not to judge the capacity of others to run their lives.

Fourth, I long for the day when robotic implants are as common as candy corn.  If that was the case today, then my 1080p HD eyeball camera could have taken a snap shot of this guy that was travelling in the opposite direction across a bridge.  And you would be able to see what I saw.  I probably would have uploaded the picture to Facebook while waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

This one is hard to believe.

There I was riding my bike across a two lane bridge today.  Traffic was backed up and I was stopped in the middle of the span.  But traffic was moving well in the other direction.

Along comes this guy headed in the other direction.  For the moment, why don't we call him "Guy".

Guy weighs an easy 300 lbs.  He may weigh closer to 350, but it was hard to know.  And it was pretty obvious that he didn't get that heavy going to the gym.

Guy was riding the sort of little scooter that has become popular due to recent gas price increases.  I'm pretty sure that he weighed more than his scooter.

Here in Michigan, scooter riders are not required to wear a helmet.  So he wasn't.  He also only had a thin, Hawaiian style shirt.  No coat.  He did have some awesome glasses, so at least his eyes were covered.

Guy has trouble breathing.  At least, I suspect that he carries some sort of air/oxygen tank with him.  He had one of those flexible plastic tubes running from between his legs, up over each ear, and around to his nose.  So this isn't a wild inference on my part.

Assuming he was connected to his tank, one might reasonably wonder about the consequences of his tank sliding out from between his feet while he is motoring along.  Alternatively, the tank might have been tied tightly to the scooter which opens up the question of what happens if he gets into an accident where is bike goes one direction and his body goes another.

The cherry on top of this modest vignette?

The cigarette dangling from his lips as his scooter went putt-putting on by!!

Why Economic Freedom Matters

And yes...I did see who sponsored the video.  That does nothing to undermine the argument being made.

Police Have Got The Choke-Hold....

Even worse, judges have it too!  Maybe.

Megan McArdle has the latest on that little tempest in a teapot.

Liberals are probably going to be disposed to believe that Abrahamson and Bradley are pursuing a legitimate grievance against Prosser, a self-admitted hothead who called Abrahamson a "bitch" and threatened to destroy her, and that the conservative justices are covering up for their abusive colleague.  Conservatives will be likely to take the view that Bradley is a vengeful self-dramatist who inflates petty conflicts into savage attacks for political purposes.

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Frankly, whatever way you look at it, someone has behaved in behavior so extraordinarily unbecoming a justice that I find it difficult to believe either way.

Albert Gore Jr. - Hypocrite

Questionable science aside, my first objection to proposed carbon emission limitations, and other "global warming" associated policies is the behavior of those that stridently urge those policy changes.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess.  If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets.  You cannot own multiple mansions.  You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place.

It is not enough to buy carbon offsets (aka “indulgences”) with your vast wealth, not enough to power your luxurious mansions with exotic low impact energy sources the average person could not afford, not enough to argue that you only needed the jet so that you could promote your earth-saving film.

You are asking billions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom lack many of the basic life amenities you take for granted, people who can’t afford Whole Foods environmentalism, to slash their meager living standards.  You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life.  There’s a gospel hymn some people in Tennessee still sing that makes the point:  “You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.”

St. Francis of Assisi understood the point well.  Taken by the Pope on a tour to see the treasures of the Vatican, St. Francis was notably unimpressed.  “Peter can no longer say, ‘silver and gold have I none,’” smiled the Pontiff, referring to the story in the Book of Acts that recounts what St. Peter said to a crippled beggar asking him for alms.

“Neither can he say, ‘rise up and walk.’” replied St. Francis — quoting what St. Peter said as he miraculously cured the beggar of his affliction.

You can sit on ivory chairs with kings in their halls of gold, participating in the world of politics as usual, or you can live with the prophets and visionaries in the wilderness, voices of a greater truth and higher meaning that challenge the smug certainties and false assumptions of the comfortable, business as usual elites.  You cannot do both.

Al Gore cannot say “silver and gold have I none and no excess carbon do I spew,” and neither can he say to the paralyzed global green movement “rise up and walk.”  He speaks, he writes, he speaks again, and the movement lies on the ground, crippled and inert.

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What this tells the skeptics is that Vice President Gore doesn’t really believe the gospel he proclaims.  That profits from his environmental advocacy enable his affluent lifestyle only deepens their skepticism of the messenger and therefore of the message.  And when they see that the rest of the environmental movement accepts this flagrant contradiction, they conclude, naturally enough, that the other green leaders aren’t as worried as they claim to be.  Al Gore’s lifestyle is a test case for the credibility of his gospel — and it fails. The tolerance of Al Gore’s lifestyle by the environmental leadership is a further test — and that test, too, the greens fail.

The average citizen is all too likely to conclude that if Mr. Gore can keep his lifestyle, the average American family can keep its SUV and incandescent bulbs.  If Gore can take a charter flight, I don’t have to take the bus.  If Gore can have many mansions, I can use the old fashioned kind of shower heads that actually clean and toilets that actually flush.  Al Gore looks to the average American the way American greens look to poor people in the third world: hypocritically demanding that others accept permanently lower standards of living than those the activists propose for themselves.

 It's way past time for Mr. Gore to get religion.

Michelle Bachmann

If you don't know much about her....or have consumed a few too many of the main stream Palinesque profiles...then this article may be of some use.

I'm not prepared to throw my meager support behind her candidacy.  She seems far too comfortable with religious opinion being enforced by the strength of government.

At the same time, she seems prepared to come to a federal government trimming party bearing the proper equipment; a chainsaw rather than tweezers.

What Is the Fracking Difference?

Some facts to keep in mind as the controversy over fracking for oil and natural gas continues.