bluebird of bitterness

Happy birthday, George!

Bob — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:25:20 +0000

Government spending is soaring, budget deficits are ballooning, the national debt is skyrocketing, and the U.S. credit rating is down; Barack Obama blames George W. Bush. House Republicans pass legislation to curb spending; Senate Democrats refuse to let it come up for discussion, let alone a vote. Obama wants to borrow more money from the Chinese because he thinks we’re not spending enough on entitlements and green energy. Health insurance rates are up, and Obama responds by creating new mandates that will drive prices even higher. Fuel and food prices are up, and ordinary Americans who still have jobs are tightening their belts and making cuts in the family budget in an attempt to avert financial disaster. Meanwhile, Obama is itching to raise taxes on the “wealthy” (defined as anyone who is not currently collecting unemployment benefits and/or food stamps), even though he knows it won’t increase government revenues, because he cares more about “fairness” (defined as equality of outcome) than he does about the obscene debt we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. The United States is on the fast track toward becoming another European-style economic basket case. George Washington is rolling over in his grave. Happy birthday, George!

Off to see the wizard

Bob — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:29:32 +0000

Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton were on their way to Barney Frank’s wedding. All of a sudden, a tornado came out of nowhere, sucked them up, and carried them away. When they finally found themselves on solid ground again, they had no idea where they were… until from behind every rock, bush, and tree, a legion of very short people with high-pitched voices came out and surrounded them.

“Munchkins!” said Bill.

“We must be in Oz!” said Barack.

“Hot damn!” said Joe. “I’m going to go ask the wizard to give me a brain!”

“And I’m going to ask the wizard to give me a heart!” said Barack.

Bill just looked around and said, “Where’s Dorothy?”

Busted

Bob — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:55:55 +0000

At a televised state dinner in Copenhagen last month, Princess Mary of Denmark became slightly flustered when she caught Pentii Arajårvi, husband of Finnish president Tarja Halonen, staring at her cleavage. No doubt Finland’s first dude was only admiring the lovely necklace that Princess Mary was wearing, but it was an awkward moment nonetheless.

(Thanks to my friend Pistol Pete for the video.)

Well, when you put it that way….

Bob — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:16:46 +0000

A woman went into a drug store and asked the pharmacist for some cyanide.

“Why do you want cyanide?” the pharmacist asked.

“I need it to poison my husband,” the woman replied.

“Are you out of your mind?” the pharmacist said. “I can’t give you cyanide to kill someone! It’s against the law! I’d lose my license! They’d put us both in prison!”

The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a photograph of her husband in bed with the pharmacist’s wife.

The pharmacist looked at the picture, then he said, “You didn’t tell me you had a prescription.”

The long wait is over

Bob — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:25:45 +0000

Shazam! There really is such a thing as truth!

Bob — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 03:27:48 +0000

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it; ignorance may deride it; but in the end, there it is.” –Winston Churchill

Coming to a school near you: the lunch police

Bob — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:31:28 +0000

By now you’ve probably heard about the North Carolina preschooler whose lunch was confiscated when government officials determined that it wasn’t up to the USDA’s standards for nutrition.

If you’re like most people, your first reaction was probably to wonder what the kid’s mother had packed in her lunchbox that failed to gain the approval of the government agent charged with inspecting the children’s lunches. If you’re like me, your first reaction was horror at learning of the existence of government agents who prowl the schools and inspect children’s lunches.

As one who despises, abhors, and detests the nanny state, I am bound to say that even if the child’s mother had filled her lunchbox with a can of Mountain Dew, two Ding Dongs, a bag of Cheez-Its, and a dozen Gummi Worms, it’s still none of the government’s damn business. But for the record, the lunch that the government busybodies judged to be insufficiently nourishing actually consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich on whole wheat, a banana, potato chips, and apple juice. That wasn’t good enough for them? A lot of mothers would be delighted if they could get their little fussy eaters to consume a lunch as nutritious as that.

The school attended by this particular child has a policy that when a homemade lunch is judged to be inadequate, the child is given a meal from the school cafeteria, for which the child’s parents are then billed. As annoying as that is, the worst part of the whole ridiculous business is that children are being told that their own parents are too stupid to make them a decent lunch, or don’t love them enough to do so. And they are being told that Big Brother is not only smarter than their parents, but actually cares more about them than Mommy and Daddy do.

This is the nanny state at its very worst: undermining the relationships between parents and their children, weakening family bonds, and not-so-subtly indoctrinating impressionable kids with the idea that the omnipresent government is also omniscient.

Illustration by Rich Terrell. Check out all Rich’s cartoons at AfterMath.

Three cheers for the Badger State

Bob — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:19:37 +0000

Balancing the state budget without raising taxes or laying off state employees? Yes, my incredulous friends, it can be done. Wisconsin did it. So naturally the left is trying desperately to destroy the governor and lawmakers who accomplished it. Sigh…

The wages of generational theft

Bob — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:00:01 +0000

A child born today will be $49,078 in debt when he draws his first breath, and the amount just keeps rising (see U.S. Debt Clock for up-to-the-minute figures). While all presidents and congresses that have failed to balance the federal budget are culpable — not to mention the voters that elected them — the national debt has risen higher and faster under Barack Obama than under any other administration in living memory. He has done what we would once have thought impossible: made some of his big-spending predecessors look fiscally responsible by comparison.

Trigger the vote

Bob — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:06:43 +0000

A Marine-drill-sergeant-turned-librarian educates library patrons on how to preserve their rights… and the NRA shows how advertising should be done.

(hat tip to Pistol Pete)