Wordless Wednesday

Moose River, which I can't mention without crooning made-up lyrics a la Mark Steyn. Don't judge me!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Gmail Inbox

From Maxim, so don't feel you have to view the source if you don't like that sort of thing.

Hrm.

I've been wondering if Gaia would get jealous of Barack Obama when brain-dead sheeple started worshipping him instead of her...and today she rumbled.

So many people have been so brainwashed, and kept so ignorant about science, by the end of tomorrow I expect to hear or read that the earthquake was caused by Global Warming (man-made, of course!) more than once.

(Quasi-related article on "intellectual curiosity" in education. If desire to learn was a requisite for college admission, the textiles lab I taught--to textiles majors, mind you--would have had five students.)

This weekend's adventure...

This weekend is Peak Foliage for parts of the Central Adirondacks, so off I was to Bald Mountain, near Old Forge. In August, I learned that Adirondack trails described as "easy" may include any or all of the following: ladders of tree roots, sheer faces of rocks, peat bogs, rotting logs, and quicksand.

No quicksand today, but does THIS look like a trail to you?



I stood there for a good 20 minutes trying to scrounge up the guts to climb over the granite (20-ft drop to either side before the first row of trees...). During this time, I was passed by seasoned citizens, parents carrying toddlers, Japanese students yapping on their cell phones, frat boys drinking Heineken out of bottles, and a group of mentally disabled adults on an outing from a group home. Everyone's just skipping along like they can't slip and die, except the residents of the group home--they were picking their way across holding the hands of their aides (note to self: next time bring hand to hold). Hi, I'm from Iowa--quiet, flat, SAFE.

Eventually my fat flatlander butt made it all the way to the firetower at the summit (Ranger Gord not included), clinging to my hiking stick like it was guns or religion.

Learn how the firetower was built here. See vintage photos here.

See MY photos HERE, dammit, since I thought I was going to get myself killed making them. :P I think I've identified the Fulton Chain of Lakes properly in the photos...

Wish there would have been more places to pull off and take photos from the road; I have never seen so much red in the foliage. Moose River, on the way home, wasn't nearly as red.

I also saw a black squirrel in Old Forge. According to the lavishly illustrated "Squirrels of New York" pamphlet I picked up at the state fair from the New York State Department of Environmental Convservation ("George Pataki, Governor"--hey, kudos to someone for not wasting money on needless reprints), black squirrels are grey squirrels.

Bizarro World.

Wordless Wednesday

Watkins Glen.

I question the timing...

Friday, David Paterson ordered a "review"* of New York's contracts with ACORN.

Saturday night, the NY Times reports Obama wants Paterson to refrain from running for election. Cites Deval Patrick-esque approval numbers, without mentioning either Deval Patrick's fail or Obama's own plummeting approval.

Timing aside, I wonder who Good King Barack was planning on appointing to the governorship**? And why hasn't anyone told him that's not how it works in this country?


* My assumption was that he asked for someone to generate some paperwork to wave at TV cameras so it looks like he's doing something, with no intention of an actual investigation, because that would be political suicide for a Democrat governor of any race.

** No way it's Hillary, not after exiling her to Africa and appointing commissars to do work traditionally under the Sec. of State's purview.

Obama Criticism Flow Chart

From the frighteningly-named MISSOURAH.com. You may have to embiggen it or click over to get the details, but the point should be clear:



Did you know racism has increased 67% since January 20?

Much needed comic relief

If that doesn't make you laugh, you're probably a fascist.

Abortion bleg

Something I was wondering this morning...

Whether or not a girl under the age of 18 is allowed to abort without the permission/notification of her parents is varies by state. What I'm interested in is what happens when a girl under the age of 18 wants to give birth (to raise the baby or to let him be adopted) and her parents want abortion? I assume that varies by state as well; I assume the options are the girl is allowed to become emancipated, the girl becomes a ward of the state and/or is assigned a guardian ad litum, or the girl has no rights except those granted by her parents.

Have there been any actual cases brought to a court that have been written about? Does anyone know what their state does?

My assumption is that the states that allow teenagers to abort sans parental notification aren't too interested in helping the girls who choose to give birth (other than offering them welfare for the next 18 years...), but I don't actually know. I have no idea what states that grant parents control over their teenage daughters' medical procedures would do. And I can't run an experiment on myself, as I'm well over 18 (and my parents want more grandchildren).

(This was probably sparked by a Badger Blogger about Gardasil and parental choice vs. state mandates; what happens if a girl doesn't want it and the parents do? There's always someone willing to give a girl sex-related medications/procedures over the objection of parents...why does parental authority only go one way?)

ASIDE: People who don't want health care taken over by the federal government should totally be co-opting/reclaiming the phrase "My body, my choice." The "soda tax" to "fight obesity" is a particularly annoying violation of that principle. To steal a phrase from alexthechick, "Why is it bad for the government to tell me I can't put a dick in my mouth, but good for the government to tell me I can't put a donut in it?"

Happy Constitution Day!

A law passed in 2005 that requires all U.S. schools receiving federal funds to teach about the Constitution every September 17. Laughably, "every one of the estimated 1.8 million federal employees in the executive branch" are to "receive "educational and training" materials about the charter" as well. How about starting with handing an annotated copy to Good King Barack himself?

Congress could stand to have it read to them, too.

Wordless Wednesday

(The water at Green Lake really is that color...as is Round Lake, which feeds into it.)

Heh.

I got fed up with football during the second quarter--apparently it's OK to rough the punter in the NCAA now--and switched to a live feed of the 9/12 Taxpayer March on D.C. Quite enjoyable, and the estimates of 2 million attendees blows my mind.

I thought I was well-informed, but I'm surprised by how many of the groups and individuals speaking today are new to me. Lots to read.

Meanwhile, Obama addressed 15k in "Indianapolis, Minnesota." God love ya, Barry.

Audacity of Hope 2009

Turkeys at ISU, 12 EDT. I've got a good feeling about this one (pdf).

The game is being broadcast in Syracuse on the Madison Square Garden Plus channel, of all places.

UPDATE: We scored. In the 1990s, that was considered victory. Just sayin'.

September 11

As usual, I am spending the day angry. Partly angry at the attackers and their supporters/encouragers, but mostly angry at their American enablers/apologists. Eight years, and we can't even put a suitable memorial (one without whitewashing the Islamism of the hijackers or blaming America) up on the WTC site. And the Obama administration seems to be encouraging another attack on U.S. soil, by removing key pieces of intelligence and defense that could prevent it while sucking up to mullahs and terror states.

(Must avoid Facebook, lest I tell people who have spent the past several years bashing George Bush, the wars, our soldiers fighting those wars, America for "making people hate us", 'racial profiling', anyone who questions that 'jihad' has any meaning besides 'internal struggle', anyone who doesn't believe Islam is a beautiful religion and American Christianity is evil, etc--and yet today are inexplicably making "9/11, I'm so sad!" posts--what I really of think of them and their disgusting, suicidal, brain-dead ideologies.)

Wordless Wednesday

(I was in the Adirondacks over the weekend; still working on a post from my first trip to the region in August. Heh.)

Someone ask Cory Mason if he's ever heard of "Maryland"

Saw this today:

The plan would be funded with a 1% income tax increase on individuals making $1 million or more, which would generate about $145 million, bill sponsor state Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) said Tuesday. A bill pending in Congress would provide at least $135 million in matching funds, he said.

Leaving aside my general disgust that people in 49 other states are expected to pay for Wisconsin welfare programs (it's a corollary to my disgust that people in 49 other states paid for New York's cash-for-welfare-mothers scheme), a tax on millionaires? Is Madison a Parkers Brothers board game? Are you freaking kidding me?!

Maryland has already tried this, with predictable results:

One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates

.

I don't know if it's fair to expect a state legislator to be familiar with everything U.S. Supreme Court justices have written--I had to do a search on "laboratories of democracy" to learn the quote was Louis Brandeis*--but surely they should be at least vaguely aware of both the concept of federalism and of national headlines just a few months ago about how their idea failed spectacularly in another state. Especially if we mere migrant workers can keep up...


* "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

What have I done?!?

The stray cat who has been crying outside my apartment for over a week has moved in. According to the neighbor lady who had been feeding her (assume it's a her; will ask vet to confirm), she and a B&W kitten were dumped in the parking lot one afternoon by two "skanks" (her word, and I'll believe it) who took off. The kitten stopped coming around a day or two later and is presumed dead. This one has a slight wound above one eye; apparently most of the "strays" around here are actually feral. This one, you can see where the collar used to be. I hate people.

I wasn't going to get involved, but while I was sitting on my dumpster futon eating dinner last night a group of five tweenage kids threw things at it and one of them kicked it; it scratched her and they ran off before I got outside (the children are our future...we're boned). It came over and sat next to me, and that's when I knew I was doomed. The neighbor putting out kibbles wasn't home last night, but was tonight--after it had already rubbed all over me, and now I have a second cat. That resists being picked up, but uses the Zen garden, thank God.

Found a cats-only vet near work to call tomorrow.

No, I don't know how I'm going to get a cat back to Milwaukee. Or what I'm going to tell Satan's Little Helper.

Wordless Wednesday