Don't they sell razor blades or rope in Canada?

A man suspected of stealing a plane from Canada, flying erratically over three states and attracting U.S. fighter escorts told authorities he was trying to commit suicide, a Missouri state trooper said Tuesday morning.

Call me a bitch, but I have no sympathy for drama queens who endanger innocent bystanders in their suicides. You want to die? Stay home and die, and let the rest of us get on with our lives.

I wonder how the WI National Guard decided he wasn't a viable threat...

Yeah, this grinds...

Victor Davis Hanson, on Obama bad-mouthing America to the European heads of state:

A modest suggestion: from now on, every president who wishes to go abroad and review all his lesser citizens' collective past and present sins, with accompanying apologies — to applause from foreigners — must first, in the spirit of New Testament atonement, review his own regrettable transgressions.

...although I have no idea why he thinks America is uniquely "guilty", besides his sheer ignorance (Heather hat Schadenfreude weil sie kann mehr Österreichish sprechen dann Barry*). I guess they don't teach European history in America anymore, but you'd think in the time he was growing up in Indonesia, someone might have mentioned the Dutch.

It's the 21st Century...no one alive in the U.S. today has been a slave, with the following exceptions that "progressives" do not care about: women and children smuggled over the border to work in the sex trade, illegal immigrants trapped in sweatshops to "pay off" their smugglers, and children forced to perform "mandatory volunteerism" to obtain the junior high or high school diploma formerly seen as their free right. So let's get on with it already.

* I make no claims to proper grammar/word order. My respect for people who learn English as an adult--especially if their native language wasn't in the same Indo-European family--has soared since I started trying to learn Deutsch. It physically hurts trying to figure out where to put prepositions when you've done it a different way your whole life...

Indiana Feticide Bill

A follow-up, of sorts.

The Indiana House approved a bill today that would impose up to 20 years in prison for crimes that lead to the death of an unborn child at any stage of development.

The catalyst was a bank robber who shot a pregnant teller in the stomach, killing her twins; murder charges could not be made because she wasn't seven months along. They still can't; the new bill just increases the sentence.

Yeah, I still want the death penalty for the bank shooter.

Well this is interesting...

The US Customs and Immigrations Services "Handbook for Employers" says

Providing a Social Security number on Form I-9 is voluntary for all employees unless you are an employer participating in the USCIS E-Verify Program, which requires an employee’s Social Security number for employment eligibility verification. You may not, however, ask an employee to provide you a specific document with his or her Social Security number on it.

It also says documents from List A (such as my U.S. passport) require no additional documents, employers cannot require more documents than are necessary, and employers cannot tell employees which documents they can present.

I am irritated.

Retweets.

Well, BHO suggested that we all needed to learn another language, maybe learning "Austrian" is what he meant.

(Reference.)

Aren't you glad we FINALLY have a SMART PRESIDENT? Good grief.

Well, !(*#$!

E-Verify went into effect today. My passport (for which I presented a birth certificate to the U.S. State Department) is no longer sufficient proof that I am legally entitled to work in the United States UPDATE: satisfies Uncle Sam but not my new employer.

They require a Social Security Administration-issued card. Which I had, once, somewhere, but can't find anywhere. No, it's not in my wallet--the SSA tells you not to carry it with you. It should be with my birth certificate/passport/car title/etc, but it's not. I've been through every box of paper in my apartment, and it's nowhere. I think the last time I saw it was 2003, or four moves ago. ("How did you get your last job?" "They never asked for it--I filled in the the I-9 form and faxed it to them.")

I can get a replacement...sometime, eventually, cards are mailed out of Baltimore in the order the applications are received. The E-Verifying has to be done before I can start work.

Yeah, I'm too stupid to live. I fully expect when I call and ask them what I'm supposed to do they will tell me not bother to show up, they will find someone else. UPDATE: This is someone else's problem now. :)

I wonder how much it would cost to get the guys who sell fake documents to illegal aliens to make me up one with my real number on it...hell, how do you find these people?

UPDATE: USCIS puts the I-9 directions online, where I can see it.

On the other hand...

I am amused by the irony in the phrase "gay marriage Mecca."

Huh.

Headline from this morning's Register:
Unanimous ruling: Iowa marriage no longer limited to one man, one woman

...guess the mere mention of polygamy wasn't really a "scare tactic."

I don't know enough about the Iowa Constitution to comment, really. The Iowans I know online are having literal orgasms about the ruling* (brain bleach). I suspect if it had gone the other way they'd be bitching about tyranny and oppression, although it seems more tyrannical to me to have laws implemented by a handful of judges instead of by elected representatives...

Hell, all they would have had to do was submit a bill to the current legislature repealing the old law. It would have passed easily, with no dissent allowed, like the new tax plan.

But I find the inference of polygamy the most interesting part. Don't know if it will be Muslims or "loving triads" who get first try at it...you can work up a good head of pathos for the latter, especially if there are half-siblings born from the relationship.

* They're also spewing all sorts of hatred, bigotry, and intolerance against Christians, nuclear families, and old people, as part of their celebration of "victory over hatred, bigotry, and intolerance!" and the irony is not amusing me.

I'll be damned.

I just complained about this...

Iowa Democrats want to tax Iowans on their federal taxes.

And they had the State Patrol throw out the audience who attended the session.

"Gross display of arrogance and disdain for taxpayers." Popular these days.

UPDATE: This may be the first time the comments at the DSM Register aren't full of ignorant crap.

I'm pretty sure the Nazis would have shot Failor in the lobby. I probably shouldn't give them any ideas.

Strange bedfellows

The Teamsters are protesting a Democrat tax-hike in New York. Merely self-preservation; I'm sure the overall point about crushing taxes destroying jobs will be lost before the next election. Note also that the Republicans were not invited to budget negotiations.

Paterson did relent on the 118% increase on beer taxes, down to a 27% increase, but apparently it's no big deal for InBev to move production to New Hampshire. I don't drink Budweiser, but if they close that'll affect the distributors, and I need them, especially the importers. The Beer Map already looks bleak.

"Even flushing yourself down the toilet of history is trickier than it looks."

Literal bathroom reading at Radishhof--Mark Steyn's NR piece on the death of Europe and the Europeanization of America is now online.

Key graf:

When the state “gives” you plenty – when it takes care of your health, takes cares of your kids, takes care of your elderly parents, takes care of every primary responsibility of adulthood – it’s not surprising that the citizenry cease to function as adults...

But of course, you must read the whole thing for the delightful Steynian prose that induces snickers amidst the gloom.

Interesting, not in a good way.

Can't say I'm surprised. Gays sentenced to death in Iraq for crime of homosexuality. I'm not sure why people expected differently; even if the government was completely secular, the people voting for its members aren't. Not that UK Gay News will note there's a reason homosexuality is a crime in the region...or maybe in the UK they legally can't.

(And of course, the commenters can't seem to figure out which religion it is that wants to kill them.)

"Upcycling", before it had a smarmy trendy moniker

I hate the word "upcycle."



I need outbuildings.

Taxes...

Once again, I'm pissed off that "federal income taxes paid" are not subtracted out of my "Wisconsin taxable income." That's one of the first lines on the Iowa form...

I never see this money. As far as my take-home pay, that money doesn't exist. Why am I being taxed on money that I never receive?!?

("Why are you just noticing this now?" "Now? I'm two weeks early this year!")

This is the only place I can complain about it; too many people respond with "Why are you complaining when you're getting a refund check?" and I'm irritated by people who believe they're smart (and on paper are "educated") but can't be bothered to learn/understand where their wages go.

Basketball and business

BERKELEY, Calif. – Iowa State used a furious 8-0 run over the final 1:10 to defeat Michigan State, 69-68, and advance to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Championships for the second time in school history. The Cyclones improve to 27-8 overall, tying the school record for wins which was set in 1998-99, the school’s other Elite Eight season.

Tonight's game against Stanford is on Sirius. If I listen, they'll lose, just like the only other game I caught on Sirius this year. :P

I'm still cranky that Sirius/XM won't make baseball available on Sirius receivers; I have to activate my old XM receiver--I switched to get NFL games, back before they merged (XM receivers will get NFL games). But I'm considering it a fee for leaving Milwaukee during baseball season. :P

Maybe Obama will tell Sirius-XM how to run their business and save me $4.99/mo. *snort* Probably won't be able to fit it in between retreats/television appearances.

I've been reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Last night I got to the part where newly-named Chancellor Hitler called the heads of the big corporations into his office--after they had supported the Nazis in the most recent election--and told them how it was going to be in Germany from then on. Eerie.

Oooh, so true.

I'm expecting some blowback for becoming a "fan" of Rush and EIB on Facebook (although I already "unfriended" the unhinged talking-points robots who kept referring to Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal as "douchebags"*, and probably no one else will notice). But if anyone reasonably sane bitches at me, I have a link for them, courtesy of Kathy Shaidle.

Andrew Klavan, writing in the LA Times:

Whenever I interrupt a liberal's anti-Limbaugh rant to point out that the ranter has never actually listened to the man, he always says the same thing: "I've heard him!"

On further questioning, it always turns out that by "heard him," he means he's heard the selected excerpts spoon-fed him by the distortion-mongers of the mainstream media. These excerpts are specifically designed to accomplish one thing: to make sure you never actually listen to Limbaugh's show, never actually give him a fair chance to speak his piece to you directly.

Few political interactions with my "rediscovered" friends have been more satisfying than sending someone unattributed paragraphs of Limbaugh transcripts, being told they agree with his position, and then telling them who said it.

Not to say I agree with him all the time--I am still offended that he spent a whole half-hour bashing laid-off people who continued to enjoy their families and their hobbies in their free time--but at least I know specifically what I'm disagreeing with. Same thing with Barry O's pronouncements.

* I looked up "douchebags" on Wikipedia, expecting links to Barney Frank and Rahm Emmanuel, but it just took me to "douche".

Mirth Hour

I fell asleep before 8:30--but the heat was cranked up--and it appears the Gorons' prayerful sacrifice did not impress the Sun. Still no sunspot activity.

I'm pretty sure my ancestors did not work their whole lives for me to spurn human progress and voluntarily roll back to a 17th-century standard of living. Especially not at the request of a totalitarian religion spinning lies and preying on superstitious, ignorant dolts. In my observations, people fervently into "green" are people who need to believe they "make a difference" for the planet because otherwise their lives are completely empty. They also seem to have slept through math classes, and taken history after all the white men who built America--bridges, canals, railroads, factories, dams, Menlo Park--got stripped out.

My maternal ancestors would be especially angry if I eschewed the technological developments that allow beer to be imported from Germany and kept cold until can sit down to enjoy it after a long day of not scrubbing my laundry on a board and not kneading my own bread over a stove fired by wood I did not have to split. Who am I to let them down?

Human Achievement Hour Tonight!

I like this approach to rebutting the morons who think watching their TV in the dark for an hour "makes a difference."

You want to make a difference in energy-consumption, eco-whackos? Turn it all off and leave it off. Especially your computers, modems, routers, servers... You'll save all kinds of energy! Do it!

I also like this approach. Wish I knew more about power transmission.... But I'll be striking my blow for human freedom and achievement by refusing to modify my usual Saturday evening activities. It will have exactly the same effect on the climate as celebrities eating specially-arranged candle-lit dinners: none whatsoever.

I have been remiss.

I was so otherwise occupied this week I didn't notice the Iowa State women made the Sweet Sixteen. Excellent. :)

Note to self: Next year pay more attention.