Less Free and More Uptight, Thanks to the Left and the Right

Cigarette Machines and Dirty Magazines

Remember cigarette machines? Well, perhaps you do, if you are old enough. I remember seeing them everywhere once, and they could often be found in coffee shops and cafes, back in the days before the fascist know-it-alls banned everything, including smoking in restaurants and other public places (I myself am a nonsmoker, by the way). When I was a child, around 11 years old or so, and my sister was 2 years or so younger, we would be sent on missions to the nearest store to purchase Viceroy cigarettes for Ray, a sign painter who also happened to be our mother's second husband.



No one ever questioned our age, or reported anyone to the police. We just went and bought the cigarettes and that was that. The busy bodies who want to treat us all like children with Big Daddy Government telling us what to do all the time had not yet reached into every part of life. I remember also seeing Playboy magazine in a lot more locations than you can find it today. It was not uncommon to see it at the checkout stand at the corner drug store, right next to the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. It was not hidden behind the counter but right there in unwrapped glory, and you could actually take a copy and browse through it if you wanted to. That all changed with the horrid rise of the busybody pro big government religious right and the ascendancy to the presidency of the horrible pro Big Government liar Ronald Reagan (may he not rest in peace, the bastard!). Those good old days were not that long ago. I hope I will live long enough to see some sanity restored someday and real freedom reign once again in the United States of America. And may all the nanny state assholes be sent to Antarctica to rule it over the penguins instead of their fellow human beings.

Heartwarming Pedros and Marias?

Scoping Out Pepe

Gringos here in Mexico talk endlessly about how they love and admire the Mexican people, how friendly the natives are, how wonderful the culture is and, by strong implication, how wonderful the gringos are for appreciating Mexico. Actually they don’t. They live in gated communities in the hills, can’t speak three words of Spanish, and have surprisingly little contact with the country. They have invented a Mexico that doesn’t exist, and have fallen in love with it.

Thus many of their ideas about Mexicans are wrong, compounded equally of ideology and wishful thinking. The same happens in America. This will one day give birth to surprising children.

I Deny the Virgin Birth

THE DIRTY DEMOCRATS

Oranges, God's Secret Agents

Oranges, The Ultimate Theodicy

Thank God for the orange. How often have you taken it for granted? Many times, no doubt, you miserable, ungrateful wretch. And yet the orange is speaking to you every day of your sinful life! It is truly the fruit that speaks to us all of God's seemingly mysterious ways. While it's true that oranges are not the only fruit that proves that Almighty God is secretly at work behind the scenes (which the filthy atheists deny, of course) it is the most subtle, which makes it the fruit that will condemn you to everlasting fire because of your unbelief (God loves subtlety, and he doesn't care if you "just don't get it", you are without excuse). You see, the Great Pumpkin is not the only one using oranges to do his bidding. Oranges love hot, humid weather, but people for some reason pretty much hate it, and yet fallen man loves oranges! Hypocrites and liars deceived by satan! God is showing you that there is a reason for everything, even unbearable weather conditions (sure, being omnipotent He could have made oranges grow just fine in beautiful, human-friendly conditions, but He didn't, so shut up already you know-it-all atheists). So be thankful for everything, even the bad stuff, because God knows what He (that is, Father, Son, and very Holy Spirit) is doing, even if you don't! Fall down on your knees and worship Him or go to Hell!

Mr. We Trust

Steve Kreuscher has had his name legally changed (these stories always say that; can someone have their name illegally changed? its a basic common-law right, ya know) to In God We Trust, first name, In God, last name, We Trust. The new Mr. We Trust claims God (whoever the hell that is) gave him help in tough times, and so this new moniker is designed to symbolize that divine assistance. The 57 year old former Mr. Kreusher is a school bus driver and "amateur artist" from the Chicago suburb of Zion (how appropriate).

Other name changes coming soon:

John 3:16

Jesus Saves

Holy Roller

Holy Bible

Repent Or Burn In Hell (first name, Repent Or Burn, last name, In Hell)

America Love It Or Leave It (first name, America Love It, last name, Or Leave It)

God Bless America (first, middle, and last).

My Lord, I am on the side of the rhinos

Private Ownership Brings Back Rhino

With the incentives private property provides, the African rhino is being saved from extinction. Freedom works!!!

"My Lord, I am on the side of the angels"

Is man an ape or an angel?

In 1858, almost nothing was known of human evolution. Now, though, Darwin's whole case can be advanced in terms of apes and monkeys, of chimps and gorillas, and of men and women. We know more about our own past than that of any other species. A modern Darwin would turn to our own family of primates for all the evidence he needed.

William Norman Grigg on Habeas Corpus and Boumediene v. U.S.

The majority opinion in Boumediene repeatedly struck Jeffersonian notes in its demolition of the Bush Regime's claim that the president, in wartime or any time, has supreme, unqualified, and unaccountable power to imprison anyone at his discretion for as long as he sees fit. "The Framers' inherent distrust of governmental power was the driving force behind the constitutional plan that allocated powers among the independent branches," noted the majority decision. "This design serves not only to make Government accountable but also to secure individual liberty.... That the Framers considered the writ [of habeas corpus] a vital instrument for the protection of individual liberty is evident from the care taken to specify the limited grounds for its suspension...." (Like Jefferson, I would prefer that the Constitution not permit the writ to be suspended at any time.)


Anticipating objections that the Court was intruding on the exigent powers of a wartime presidency, and thereby undermining "national security," the majority offered an elegant reminder that true "security" in the American tradition begins with protecting the rights of the individual, rather than the supposed prerogatives of rulers: "Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom's first principles. Chief among these are freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to to separation of powers..... Within the Constitution's separation-of-powers structure, few exercises of judicial power are as legitimate or as necessary as the responsibility to hear challenges to the authority of the Executive to imprison a person." So spoke the five-member "liberal" majority of the High Court.

It's Hot!

It's been extremely hot here recently in the desert southwest where I've been these last few months. Heat warnings have been issued, water drinking has been recommended (at least 10 glasses a day) and folks have been told to do any outside activity as early possible to avoid being burned to a crisp by a giant ball of fire. The place I've been living has experienced a malfunction of its air conditioning unit, leaving only fans and open windows for relief from the Hell-like temperatures. I have, needless to say, found it difficult, if not impossible, to work under these conditions. Thus, if you will except it, this is the reason for my lack of posting. Do you believe me? If not, you can go to Hell, and if you can blog there, you can blog anywhere, and I promise I'll not use this awful heat as an excuse again.

The Golden Bellied Worm Eater During Squirrel Mating Season

Last week I was outside and a medium size bird landed near my feet. He was not afraid of people and hopped around and stretched his neck out every few feet as he walked. He was looking for bugs to eat. Then he found some moist ground and dug out a long worm and swallowed it. The bird had a golden breast so I maybe it was a Golden Bellied Worm Eater (I don't know my bird species very well). As to other local wildlife, there are squirrels everywhere here. They run up and down the block walls and are in all the trees. When I came back from a walk recently and passed under the palm tree at the corner of the driveway, two squirrels lunged at me but I swerved quickly and they scampered up the tree trunk making threatening noises as they went. The squirrels are really going crazy around here. I heard a noise in a bush and it sounded like a bird, then lots of hissing and fighting and then two squirrels emerged and went crazy, running and jumping everywhere and chasing each other. Either they are predicting an earthquake or it's squirrel mating season.