tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33009832024-03-13T05:29:21.824-05:00No Watermelons AllowedThe face for radio, the voice for bloggingJ Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.comBlogger2690125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-85261126304239751292011-03-29T23:03:00.000-05:002011-03-29T23:03:53.816-05:00Homeschool herSome parents in FL seem to think that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-peanut-allergy-idUSTRE72L7AQ20110322">it's safe to send their kid to school when she has a very severe peanut allergy</a>. They are willing to leave their child's welfare in the hands of a bunch of other children who might or might not observe precautions to protect their little girl. Isn't that reckless endangerment?<br />
<br />
They can't depend on the rest of the world to be competent to observe the precautions needed to protect the girl. Certainly they can't depend on kids who ordinarily wouldn't be permitted to cross the street without a crossing guard. I know I went to school with some idiots who would have thought it would be really cool to see an ambulance come to the school.<br />
<br />
IMO they should homeschool her. Whether they think society owes them public schooling or not, they can't be sure that the schools can provide it safely. And all the cries of the bleeding hearts can't change that.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-47872733650266562352011-02-28T00:16:00.000-06:002011-02-28T00:16:31.906-06:00Shut up and sing<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/02/27/shakira-says-justice-come-latino-immigrants/?test=faces#">"Justice will come. I'm sure," Shakira told The Associated Press after the award ceremony. "Wherever there is ... a kid, who could be the son or the daughter of a Latino immigrant, who cannot attend a school in the United States of America, that kid should be a concern to all of us and our responsibility."</a>No sweetie. What should be of concern is that he can't attend a school in *his own* country.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-8106772617475572842010-12-26T21:23:00.000-06:002010-12-26T21:23:59.618-06:00Deepwater Horizon's final hours<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?src=me&ref=general">From the New York Times.</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-57481450768572702472010-10-10T14:58:00.000-05:002010-10-10T14:58:51.076-05:00Lame hall of fameI wonder what the reality-based community will make of this - <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/10/congressional-candidate-nazi-enactment-past/">Marcy Kaptur can't tell a reenactment from real life.</a><br /><br />Vote her out, so we can stop the Democrats' ongoing Depression reenactment.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-10170788607458380872010-10-03T23:57:00.001-05:002010-10-03T23:58:24.312-05:00A permanent solution to a temporary problemWhen I first heard of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30suicide.html?ref=tyler_clementi">Tyler Clementi suicide</a> I thought it was time for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore">Singapore style caning</a> of the perps who thought it would be cool to put a webcam on him. As for Tyler Clementi...<br />
<br />
I've known more suicides than I care to recall, and a bonus one that only failed because of a major last-minute intervention at an emergency room. Incidentally, that survivor lived another 30+ years.<br />
<br />
Thanks loads to all of you. Yeah, your problems ended. And you left a bunch of people behind who wonder what they might have done about it and various other messes. Including, in one case, a mess of blood, skull fragments and brains on the outside of a house. Some kids got to see that, including his own.<br />
<br />
Or there was the high school kid I knew who was scared to death after he wrecked the family car. His father was strict - what would he do? As it turned out, he buried his son with the top of his skull blown off. <br />
<br />
What could the father have done to deserve that? Should he have gone out and killed himself too?<br />
<br />
Yep, some people have terrible diseases. They're helpless, in physical pain beyond what I can imagine, etc. OK, it's your life, do what you want. Having watched someone die from brain cancer, I'm on board with that.<br />
<br />
I know someone else who's done time and has had a drug habit. His father had a failed suicide attempt, but all his mother's brothers succeeded (I knew them all). He spent months out of work looking every day at a little boy he couldn't support, and being an ex-con doesn't help his prospects. He doesn't have a gun that I know of, but there's always poison, ropes, knives, gas, electricity, cars, windows, bridges... Gosh, what's he hanging around for?<br />
<br />
And then there's someone who's mortified, like Tyler Clementi. Yeah, he sure got his privacy invaded. I can see him being pathologically ticked off, pursuing all kinds of legal relief, and making sure that everyone on earth knew what a snake he roomed with. Or maybe transferring to another school. But suicide?<br />
<br />
Am I being hard on him and his family? Maybe, but he's already gone. Let's think of the living - the people who might make a better decision if this were presented as a monumental mistake, and a very cruel trick on everyone who cared about him that went far beyond what was done to him. <br />
<br />
It certainly wasn't inevitable. After all, the other guy in the video stream had his privacy invaded too - did he kill himself?<br />
<br />
And the perps? They got outed too, in the New York Times and untold links, mortification far beyond anything that happened to Tyler Clementi before he killed himself. Should people back off lest they should kill themselves too? Maybe some people will think twice about playing mean tricks now, but let's not overdo it.<br />
<br />
Oh yeah, the ex-con. He finally found a job even in this economy. He's not a model citizen yet, but he knows that I and others will kick his butt with gusto he fouls up again, and he's trying.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021508.html">Because where there's life, there's hope...</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-84141658741473994362010-09-09T06:31:00.000-05:002010-09-09T06:31:41.571-05:00Sam the sponge<a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/my_silent_business_partner.html">My Silent Business Partner</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-39221794656794434492010-09-09T06:04:00.000-05:002010-09-09T06:04:45.433-05:00Plan BClaudia Rosett has much to say about <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/ground-zero-mosque-the-bombast-of-imam-feisal/">Imam Feisal</a>. No doubt she could have gone on for much longer, but only had so much space to work with.<br /><br />The jaw-dropper was this: "How better to commemorate 9/11 than to urge our fellow Muslims, fellow Christians and fellow Jews to follow the fundamental common impulse of our great faith traditions?" How about renouncing terror, stating that it is inconsistent with Islam and thus terrorists are infidels, apologizing to the victims, and using his Ground Zero site as a Victims of Terrorism museum?J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-5553096712959076052010-09-09T05:39:00.000-05:002010-09-09T05:39:37.831-05:00Imam: Moving Mosque Could Ignite ViolenceExactly what is it besides getting their way that *doesn't* <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/09/imam-warns-moving-mosque-enrage-muslims/">enrage extremist Muslims?</a><br /><br />Of course about now even the tamest observant Muslims must be a little cranky, after almost a month of starving all day for Ramadan. I haven't been around enough Muslims for long enough to know what percent really observe it. I doubt that they're any better at living by their book than other religions are at observing theirs.<br /><br />But one custom that's really easy to observe is <a href="http://islam.about.com/od/ramadan/f/eid_fitr.htm">Eid al-Fitr</a>, which is at the end of Ramadan. Yeah, you'd do something special too after spending a month of long summer days without eating during daylight, whether you really observed it or not. It lasts 3 days, and this year those three days happen to include 9/11.<br /><br />Ramadan and thus Eid al-Fitr are based on a lunar calendar, and thus effectively were scheduled for this year long before 9/11. So there's nothing deliberately provocative about the timing of Eid this year.<br /><br />Even so, I'm hoping nobody does anything to enrage extremist Americans.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-27423570143311912992010-09-07T06:07:00.000-05:002010-09-07T06:07:34.108-05:00Carnival of Nuclear Energy 17Back when I started blogging years ago I used to write fairly often about nuclear power. Much has happened in blogging since, and I'm glad to see stuff like <a href="http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/carnival-of-nuclear-energy-17.html">Carnival of Nuclear Energy 17</a>.<br />
<br />
Link via <a href='http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/'>Glenn Reynolds</a>, whose hit counter surely must start smoking every time I link to him. Especially after I haven't blogged anything for over 8 months - what have you poor people been doing?J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-22459406126685188102010-09-07T05:51:00.001-05:002010-09-07T06:14:54.562-05:00If you think health care costs an arm and a leg......consider that this woman didn't take advantage of it, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1309609/The-cruel-cost-ignoring-diabetes-Jane-lost-arm-legs-disease-like-didnt-seriously.html">and it cost her an arm and <i>two</i> legs.</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-13362960521127036192010-09-06T19:54:00.001-05:002010-09-06T19:56:14.803-05:00Required reading<a href="http://www.amazon.com/More-Money-Than-God-Making/dp/1594202559/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283816135&sr=1-1">Amazon.com: More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite (9781594202551): Sebastian Mallaby: Books</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-13358233376939743632010-09-06T18:15:00.001-05:002010-09-06T18:16:01.159-05:00Disrespecting the dead<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/06/tennessee-high-school-teacher-arrested-teens-say-held-gunpoint-cemetery/?test=latestnews">FOXNews.com - Tennessee high school teacher arrested after teens say he held them at gunpoint at cemetery</a><br /><br />This story sounds incomplete to me. I'm willing to believe that there are wacko teachers. But I've seen plenty of desecrated cemeteries too.<br /><br />Which reminds me of <a href="http://itn.co.uk/67c940f06837bb515a66f66d4c1bd754.html">this class act</a>. Why there, when there's a much more deserving target <a href='http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=680&PIpi=76401'>here</a>?J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-86668137343905724742009-12-30T00:43:00.000-06:002009-12-30T00:43:19.387-06:00I'm not saying I'll never complain againBut I should feel kind of sheepish about it after reading about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/magazine/27montalbini-t.html?_r=3&ref=magazine">Martha Mason</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-90194731080519706242009-12-18T21:54:00.000-06:002009-12-18T21:54:40.510-06:00The dark side of Dubai<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html">Amazing</a><br /><br />Stolen from <a href="http://www.urbanophile.com/">The Urbanophile</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-20029529093954215702009-07-12T05:05:00.000-05:002009-07-12T05:05:19.421-05:00Boston College: Ability to Use a Command Line is a Sign of Criminal Activity | Tech FAQ Blog<a href="http://www.tech-faq.com/blog/boston-college-ability-to-use-a-command-line-is-a-sign-of-criminal-activity.html">How sad is this?</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-11851292953287561552009-07-02T10:21:00.000-05:002009-07-02T10:21:22.580-05:00This is why neighbors call them "massholes"The people of Massachusetts owe it to the rest of the country to throw Barney Frank out. Not just at the next election. Now.<br /><br />Not content with his role in screwing up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he wants to grab repaid TARP money for one of his latest housing schemes, as mentioned <br /><a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/07/023942.php">here</a>.<br /><br />I have a better idea. Set up a fund to be used to recall Congressmen. We can start with Frank. Then how about Nancy Pelosi?<br /><br />Or how about a new tax proposal? We'll calculate how much in taxes each Congressman votes for each year, and we'll fine their campaign funds accordingly. And we'll tax their donors at the rates their candidate would have imposed.<br /><br />Or better yet, how about a change in the rules such that the House and Senate automatically expel the members who voted for the most spending each fiscal year? We might finally start getting more turnover. And maybe some hope for a change.<br /><br />Yep, I've had enough. I haven't managed to hit a Tea Party yet. I also missed a local event to notify a RINO that he had no business voting for that "cap and tax" abomination that he couldn't possibly have even read, much less assimilated. <br /><br />No more.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-14069114365829829512009-06-27T16:11:00.001-05:002009-06-27T16:14:43.868-05:00At least he wasn't a lacrosse player<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529184,00.html?mrp">Duke Official Charged With Offering 5-Year-Old Son for Sex - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com</a><br /><br />Too obscure? <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-07-duke-lacrosse_N.htm">See this</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-71887549147165371262009-06-21T13:42:00.003-05:002009-06-21T21:27:00.729-05:00Margaret Sanger's nightmareI guess it's easier to write 1 story than 11 or more, but <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-5845-Single-Parenting-Examiner~y2009m5d24-Tennessee-man-tells-child-support-court-he-has-21-children">this</a> is just a tad unbalanced. Someone allegedly fathered 21 kids by "at least 11" different mothers, and it takes until the last paragraph to note that "one has to wonder about the women who chose to have his children".<br /><br />If that man had never been born, does anyone really think none of this would have happened? But for him, these women would have been virgins?<br /><br />Is a 29 year old with a minimum wage job so devastatingly attractive to those women that they were simply incapable of resisting? Even though all the women allegedly knew about his large family?<br /><br />Or was he just a bottom feeder who'd hook up with any loser who wanted her ticket to the govt gravy train?<br /><br />Gravy train? It's true that many of us wouldn't want to live on govt programs. But I went to school in small towns, and in small towns everybody knows of everybody. Including the trash. I wound up knowing plenty of people that were very pleased to live in ways I wouldn't have chosen. If it takes popping a kid to get benefits they wouldn't have otherwise, then come and get it!<br /><br />Raising kids is cheap if they're just a means to an end. Just take care of them well enough to keep off the radar of govt family services types, who are probably too busy to investigate much anyway, and it's years of freebies!<br /><br />Cynical? No, just experienced. I've seen it more times than I care to recall - I can only imagine what social workers see. We can't project our own aspirations on others.<br /><br />More from the last paragraph: "In the end, the children and the taxpayers of Tennessee will pay for their choices for years to come." <br /><br />Perhaps the word "choice" wasn't a code word (as in "why didn't the mothers kill them? - we must not have enough abortionists!"). Pardon my suspicions - the pro-abortion types don't seem to address that choosing started long before the pregnancies, and Planned Parenthood makes a lot of money performing abortions.<br /><br />But even abortion were free and available within 5 minutes, they're missing the point. It's all about having the kids to qualify for benefits.<br /><br />And the only thing that will stop that is reducing or ending the benefits.<br /><br />I'm sure <a href="http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2009/06/16/margaret-sangers-negroes/">Margaret Sanger</a>, exalted saint of Planned Parenthood, would agree.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-42366644926413122102009-06-12T08:10:00.001-05:002009-06-12T08:28:32.059-05:00Remedial educationCue "I Will Survive" - Contessa Brewer has been called <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023787.php">"slutty"</a> in public and lived to tell. Which apparently explains her incredulity at anyone, such as Sarah Palin, objecting to such a characterization. It's just comedy!<br /><br />Maybe that's not an issue on the left. But I don't recall anyone on the left calling Bill Clinton or <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTBjNjkwOThiNmU0ZWQwMTM5MjE1YzljNGRjMjk5YWU=">Nina Burleigh</a> slutty. At least if they'd called Clinton slutty they could say they weren't being sexist. (and if he doesn't merit this, what does it take?)<br /><br />I know nothing of Contessa Brewer's conduct, and I'm only quoting her from a video above. But somehow it wouldn't bother me a bit if Googling "slutty" showed Contessa Brewer at the top of the list.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-643184533505804602009-05-06T00:57:00.001-05:002009-05-06T01:21:06.455-05:00Andrew Sullivan must really miss all those fact checkers from his days as a journalist. The latest folly is from his claims that Winston Churchill didn't condone torture. <a href="http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/01/obamas-churchill-torture-quote/">Here is one site calling BS</a>: there are many more.<br /><br />But it gets better. Our Churchill also <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts">gassed Kurds with mustard gas</a>.<br /><br />Maybe next we'll hear that gassing isn't torture. Maybe if it kills people fast enough...<br /><br />But no: <div class=block><a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/mustard-gas3.htm">Make no mistake, mustard gas can be lethal. But it doesn't kill quickly. Rather fatalities primarily result from secondary broncho-pneumonia. Approximately 2 percent of all casualties who wore a respirator died from their injuries in World War I, compared to a death rate of 50 percent of those exposed without a respirator [source: The Medical Front]. The highest number of fatalities occurred after the third or fourth day of exposure, with the most extreme cases taking up to three to four weeks</a></div><br /><br />Too bad <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0409/Obama_and_Churchill.html?showall">Barack Obama bought Sullivan's nonsense</a>. And now, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124035706108641065.html">having sold the CIA down the river</a>, <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/05/the_cias_fight_with_obama_96333.html">he might have to pay a price for that</a>.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-12248756797966684432009-05-03T04:39:00.002-05:002009-05-03T04:48:37.481-05:00Coming soon to a health provider near youSetting: doctor's office.<br />Receptionist: Sorry sir, you have no health insurance.<br />Patient: What do you mean? Barack Obama socialized medicine, we're all covered now.<br />Receptionist: Yes, but you didn't make your health insurance payments.<br />Patient: What payments? It's free!<br />Receptionist: My records show that you haven't made donations to the Democrats.<br /><br />Far fetched? I sure hope so. But to suggest that govt controlled health care won't be influenced by politics is impossibly naive.<br /><br />Hey, I'm not dogmatic. But I think that people who would give the govt more responsibilities would do well should insist that we get rid of the existing corruption and improve the performance of existing functions first. Is there something partisan about that?J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-13682569449313360652009-04-28T20:41:00.002-05:002009-05-03T04:52:02.218-05:00How conveeeeeenientShortly after mass gatherings across the country to tell Congress that they're sick of pork, we have warnings about swine flu.<br /><br />That's one way to try to suppress future rallies, anyway. How nice it is to know that after hundreds of billions for bailouts, there's one thing this administration won't waste. Crises.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-37955984465648451702009-04-16T01:40:00.001-05:002009-04-16T01:42:06.486-05:00If you've ever considered eating a gun....How can Glenn Reynolds not link to <a href="http://www.geekologie.com/2009/04/dangerously_delicious_the_bak4.php">this</a>? It's about pork, bacon and guns.<br /><br />Stolen shamelessly from <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDIxYTMyY2VhYzM1Y2U2ODg1YzQyOTY2N2YxMGNlYmM=">The Corner</a>.J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-6535096791757270202009-03-24T19:17:00.000-05:002009-03-24T19:17:27.745-05:00Lemon Aid?<a href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090321/METRO02/903210366">Concert aims to break record, boost support for U.S. auto industry</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3300983.post-83223961873343024192009-02-27T07:26:00.000-06:002009-02-27T07:26:09.884-06:00No watermelons allowed<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/26/mayor-sent-white-house-watermelon-e-mail-quits/">Calif. Mayor Who Sent White House Watermelon Patch E-Mail Quits - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com</a>J Bowenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04648458821450909749noreply@blogger.com0