Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

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Labels: Good Stuff, Theater of the Absurd

Just so you know, your tax dollars are now paying for a “director of progressive media &  online response” within the White House. Translation: a dedicated enforcer and story squasher that loves the liberal media. 

“This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response,” Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in an internal memo provided to The Huffington Post. “For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response.

There’s an old axiom in politics: Don’t punch below your weight.  Getting into fights with secondary and tertiary media outlets only benefits those organizations and individuals.  One would have thought that Obama learned that lesson in his disastrous wars with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.  The only story here is that this administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes.

Labels: Political Observation, Theater of the Absurd

The competition to get your favorite disease recognized in the bible of mental health, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, can be as fierce as the talent contest in the Little Miss St. Paul Contest. The American Psychiatric Association is contemplating adding something called "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS) to the new edition of the DSM, scheduled to be published in May 2013, and the question has launched a national lobbying and letter-writing campaign on both sides. That angry letters and editorials might play any part in a debate about mental health and custody disputes probably tells you most of what you need to know about the validity of PAS.

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

So...what snippets do I have this week? Let's see. A lot of folks are going to work tomorrow who wondered for several days if they would. Glad to see that we averted a government shutdown for the sakes of those who would suffer (including, as it turns out, this family). But I can't say I'm jumping up and down at the meager concessions toward spending reductions. As Karl Rove said in the wee hours of Saturday morning, this only matters if it's the first step in a long road. Otherwise, it was a waste.
 

Labels: Books, Devotional, Food, Kids, Money, Movies, Political Observation, Technology, Theater of the Absurd

Labels: Political Humor, Theater of the Absurd

Chevy Volt: The Car From Atlas Shrugged Motors

Patrick Michaels, 03.16.11, 06:00 PM EDT

Who is going to buy all these cars? 


The Chevrolet Volt is beginning to look like it was manufactured by Atlas Shrugged Motors, where the government mandates everything politically correct, rewards its cronies and produces junk steel.

Labels: News, Political Observation, Theater of the Absurd

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Okay, I'm a day late. We had surprise company this weekend--both of our expectant-mommy daughters and lots of grandchildren arrived, and we've been busy!

Labels: Books, Grandkids, Kids, News, The Papa, Theater of the Absurd

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Dozens of breast-feeding women plan to descend on the Hirshhorn Museum on Saturday for a "nurse-in" to highlight their federally protected right to nourish their babies in public. 

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Labels: Family, Food, Kids, Political Observation, Sanctity of Life, Science, Sundays, Theater of the Absurd, Weather

A couple in Laval, Que. has sparked a fierce debate over how far schools should go to teach children about environmental responsibility after their six-year-old son was shut out of a kindergarten draw to win a stuffed animal because he had an environmentally unfriendly sandwich bag in his lunchbox.

Marc-André Lanciault said he hadn’t heard of the school’s draw or any environmental policy until his wife, Isabel Théorêt, was making their son Félix a sandwich and he begged them not to put it in a plastic bag.

“He said, ‘No mommy, you can’t do that. Not a Ziploc,’ ” Mr. Lanciault said.

Through tears, the boy told his parents that the school had held a draw to win a stuffed teddy bear and only children who didn’t have any plastic sandwich bags could enter. The family normally uses Tupperware, but it was all in the dishwasher, and so they had packed their son’s ham sandwich in a plastic bag. 

When Mr. Lanciault questioned his son’s teacher, she confirmed the school had staged the draw at a lunchtime daycare and that any student with a plastic sandwich bag was excluded. “You know Mr. Lanciault, it’s not very good for the environment,” the teacher told him. “We have to take care of the our planet and the bags do not decompose well.”

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

An Answer for Bill, February 1, 2011 : 11:43 AM

Last week on his show Bill O’Reilly asked, “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?” and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.

As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:

“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”

“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.”

Labels: Theater of the Absurd

Last Thursday, CNN reported that a Florida legislator has proposed a bill that would have public school teachers issuing a grade to parents. Yes, grading the parents. HB 255 provides that “each prekindergarten through grade 3 student report card shall include a section in which the teacher grades the parental involvement as satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory…” based on criteria set by the bill.

The whole idea of setting up public schools as overseers of parents is one more sign that American parental rights are in danger. Parents should not have to answer to government agents unless and until there is solid evidence of abuse or neglect on the part of that parent. Giving a grade to every parent clearly violates this constitutional principle.

In fact, this bill would espouse the same foundational principle as the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child: assume that all parents are bad parents, and that only government oversight can save our children from parental incompetence.

Totalitarian regimes are built on assumed guilt; the nanny state determines which citizens do or do not require their “services.” Florida’s bill would establish a system to do the same. A free nation, on the other hand, operates on the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. Parents do not need government intervention (interference) unless there is proof to the contrary. The Supreme Court has held that “historically, [the law] has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interest of their children.” Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979) Sadly, Florida’s proposed bill recognizes no such thing.

Labels: Education, ObamaNation, Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Less than two weeks into her new gig, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black has riled parents and public officials by jokingly suggesting that "birth control" was the solution to school overcrowding. 

The off-color quip came in response to concerns by public-school dad Eric Greenleaf, who said at a meeting of parents and officials at state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's downtown office that there will be "huge shortages" of classroom space in lower Manhattan in coming years. 

"Could we just have some birth control for a while?" Black cracked. "It could really help us all out a lot."

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

"We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people," said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. To get that permit, the food must be prepared in a certified kitchen with a certified food manager.

The regulations are all the more essential in the case of the homeless, Barton said, because "poor people are the most vulnerable to foodborne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care."

Bobby Herring said those rules would preclude them from continuing to feed the 60 to 120 people they assisted nightly for more than a year. The food had been donated from area businesses and prepared in various kitchens by volunteers or by his wife.

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd