Good morning y’all!

1. Make sure your mouth is empty so to avoid spewing anything on your keyboard and monitor before viewing.
2. Seems to me if taxes aren’t the same GDP % as spending (and are higher) you’re cruising for a bruising … and 40+ % !!!! That should, by all rights, be shrinking all the time and not growing in an information/industrial age.
3. If the numbers were swapped (a) would there be calls for a recount and (b) does that mean a recount is warranted?
4. So which of these 5 scenarios are possible? Probable? I’d bet on wag the dog.
5. More numbers to distrust (not the graph, … the numbers to distrust would be grades).
6. Mali.
7. A good analogy, except for the unfortunate part that the Roman empire lasted for an additional 1000 more years.
8. An invitation to write.

Is Fear a bad thing for a Christian?
Well, depending on the context, it certainly could be. Irrational fear, worrying about the future, fear of death, etc., could all be indicators that the Christian is not fully embracing the hope inherent in Christianity. From Stan Jantz,

When we succumb to fear (and I’m counting myself in that habit), we are basically telling God, “I don’t trust you.” We’re saying, “Faith isn’t good enough; I need facts.”

However, are there times when a healthy appreciation of fear is the most prudent and, dare I say it, the wisest thing to do? Fear can be that quality in our psyche that alerts us to things untoward – situations out of the ordinary – or people to be wary of. Listening to that part of our brain which tells us something is amiss is not paranoia but a survival instinct. And survival is not a wrong thing, in and of itself – indeed – the lives we have been given, by God, are by no means trivial enough for us not to be concerned with managing them well.

In The Gift of Fear, Gavin DeBecker does a very good job outlining the way we can utilize the signals our brain already sends us regarding everyday events, situations, encounters, etc., to better prepare us for untimely events in life.

Remember:  Be prepared, not scared.

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Avoid these words online if you don’t want the government breathing down your neck
But remember… it’s for our safety.

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Coexist?
Not really.

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Are you on LinkedIn? Better change your password
Millions of passwords from LinkedIn leaked online.

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Mobilizing on Capitol Hill for children taken by food allergies

Less than six months after the death of her daughter Amarria, who suffered a fatal anaphylactic reaction at school, Laura Pendleton walked the halls of Congress today, joining the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN™) as it continues to work toward passage of the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act.

The urgency behind the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act (S. 1884/H.R. 3627) is heartbreakingly illustrated by Pendleton’s loss. Her 7-year-old daughter Amarria died earlier this year after eating a peanut at the Chesterfield, Va. school where she was enrolled in first grade. She did not have an epinephrine auto-injector at school.

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And people were scared about having Vice President Sarah Palin?
From the article,

Vice President Joe Biden told the graduating seniors of Cypress Bay High School in Florida today that they should imagine a world where hunger no longer exists because crops grow without the need of soil, water or fertilizer.

Good morning.

1. Bubbles in liquid going down.
2. “On this date”,  remembered (more here).
3. Wisconsin noted, here and here.
4. Google and its decisions.
5. So, is that the central difference between right and left?
6. In a sane world, “connections to Penn State” would be a bad thing for Mr Sandusky, not a good one.
7. The media tries a strained analogy.
8. So was this move Consitutional? And was it a good/bad idea? Are those two related in any way?
9. How not to make an argument, that has to be the worlds worst argument against single sex schools ever. Point one is irrelevant, point two is a good argument for not against, and point three is quickly rebutted by the poster. Whoops.
10. A good monopoly, … mostly good? Good or not?
11. Misunderestimating the tendency of writers to invent words?
12. Secret is secret … unless some small political fallout might be in their favor.
13. Biden … taking stupid to new heights every day. Seriously, do you want a pony too?

Good morning.

1. Green for Spring (and/or Pentecost).
2. Or what is a flash mob.
3. We will likely all remain confused about the creationist atheists. Or perhaps go back to calling all polls cricket races, and lots of noise signifying nothing.
4. Of Conservatism and Orthodoxy.
5. The sky is falling, oh wait, never mind.
6. Interesting. I don’t however get the “two databases” reference at the end.
7. American, debt worse than you imagined. (Keep in mind, the only successful strategy to attack a deficit in recent history is to cut spending)
8. Jewish = White … or highlighting just some the problems that confront racial reward/racial categorization requirements held sacred by the progressive left.
9. Banned. Right or wrong?
10. You can keep your insurance … remember that promise made by the Obamacare supporters. Alas, it continues to be untrue. I guess it wouldn’t be a lie if they didn’t realize things like this would happen. But if they didn’t realize it, they also cannot lay claim be “smart” as they so often prefer. So, stupid or dishonest? Pick.
11. I begin to suspect that photoshop was involved.

Good morning.

1. “Most gracious Sovereign Lady” … at first reading I thought that meant the Theotokos … but it’s not. The caps I think are what threw me.
2. It was this lady in question, who at times is certainly one to be reckoned with.
3. Sounds of battle in the information age.
4. Giving the state more power, rarely a good idea.
5. Talking economics, the gist of which is, I think, that economists are at long last recalling that these really low interest rates is not a good thing.
6. Yikes. Oh, and from the same source … this is a really really [repeat for a  while] good idea.
7. Queue the evil laughter.
8. The same argument holds it seems.
9. (Rich — or expense account equipped) Boys with toys.
10. More toys here.
11. Synthetics and the drug war.
12. Speaking of which, the “medical marijuana” industry/movement just died. It just doesn’t know it yet.
13. The first part of social charity, shut up and sit still.
14. You can just feel the excitement … or not.

Good morning. Woo hoo … links!

1. Letter of the law.
2. Ethnic spoils and reparations.
3. Memorial day photo choice by the White House, or ego stroking for the head honcho.
4. Two statements by the White House on energy, one of them is a lie. Logic offers no alternative.
5. Our President is fluent in Hebrew. Wow. Who knew?
6. As nationalization of health care proceeds … freedom suffers.
7. So, have the Philippines turned the corner?
8. A book touted.
9. So what are the child safety so-called experts going to say about this? Hmm?

News crew looking for violations at a California Gun Show… ended up breaking the law themselves
From John Lott,

…Things got a bit ironic, however, when CBS took a camera into a gun show. They didn’t find any guns with illegal detachable cartridges, but the news crew was breaking rules left and right. As it turns out, there are “No Camera” signs all throughout the gun show, and gun show representatives announced “No picture taking during the show” frequently throughout the day.

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Obama’s Planned Assault on the Second Amendment
But don’t worry. After he’s reelected he’ll be able to come out from “under the radar” because he’ll have more “flexibility”.

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What if he had not been carrying a gun?
From Salt Lake City,

A citizen with a gun stopped a knife wielding man as he began stabbing people Thursday evening at the downtown Salt Lake City Smith’s store.

Police say the suspect purchased a knife inside the store and then turned it into a weapon. Smith’s employee Dorothy Espinoza says, “He pulled it out and stood outside the Smiths in the foyer. And just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people.”

…

Then, before the suspect could find another victim – a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. “A guy pulled gun on him and told him to drop his weapon or he would shoot him. So, he dropped his weapon and the people from Smith’s grabbed him.”

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15 year-old girl with a gun,
wards off burglars. But, don’t go run outside while holding a handgun, like she did.

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17 year-old girl with a gun, shoots at intruder reaching through doggie door

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Husband and wife shot at gun safety class
You know the drill by now – there are no accidental shootings – they are negligent discharges. Again, we have an instance when it is reported that the gun… “went off”. From the article,

According to deputies with the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, Michael and Michelle Deel were accidentally shot when the .45 caliber handgun Michael was holding went off. He was shot in the hand and his wife was shot in the leg.

Good morning.

1. Ms Warren continues to dig. She should, perhaps, stick to unverifiable claims.
2. So … is obesogenic a real word?
3. The good rabbi says the Bible is entirely fiction (and he’s right).
4. In which principles based means paradox based. Wrong “P” word, eh?
5. Highlighting some problems with climate science.
6. Non-statist left … a null set.
7. There’s a theme there, but I think you have to watch it a few times to catch it.
8. Bread.
9. Fast. So, voluntary dangerous games? Good, bad, indifferent?
10. I’m missing something here, how does creating a pro-Romney political ad “damage” the reputation of FOX in a way that the same thing done by the NYTimes creating pro-Obama ads does not damage theirs?
11. An opportunity for magnanimity and grace on the part of the President … we’re watching.
12. OK then. Or just put that in this barrel.

The Ole Plate, from The Train Depot, in Fresno, CA.

At 4 1/2 stars on Yelp, I figured we just had to try out The Train Depot for breakfast on a recent trip to California’s San Joaquin Valley. Yelp did not lead us astray. As soon as you walk in the door of this unassuming little cafe you know you’re in for a treat. I had the Ole Plate, which pits 3 scrambled eggs with chili sauce, cheese, tomatoes, and bell peppers thrown in to boot. It normally comes with potatoes, hashbrowns or “home style”, and the waitress informed me that I could split the potatoes into beans and potatoes. It’s got a bit of a kick, but nothing you can’t handle. Along with a side of toast, their homemade salsa, and some joe, and you’re set.

Enjoy!

– image © 2012 A R Lopez

Good morning.

1. I think the recent “downtick” on his graph is the predicted recovery/rise? ’cause it looks like to me his prediction is just all washed up, If the up/down swings are noise, then there has been no appreciable change since summer of ’11. If it is noise the “rise” predicted is the dive downward.
2. Death camps in Poland does not equal Polish Death camps. So, is our President grammar challenged or just trying to offer the worst insults he can imagine to the Polish people?
3. “Limiting principles”, which on examination aren’t limiting, alas.
4. God thinks batman is gay.
5. More calls for Mr Romney to disavow the birthers. What’s missing of course are calls to disavow any number of wacko notions on the left by Mr Obama. Newsflash people, politicians are loath to turn away any votes.
6. For example, Mr Frank thinks having a hoodie was the reason Mr Martin was shot, not because Mr Martin chose to attack a guy sit on him, break his nose, and slam his head repeatedly into the ground … and this a guy who was armed. But … it was the hoodie thing that was the problem. When will Mr Obama disavow that sort of talk?
7. I didn’t make it past point 1, which is so categorically backwards and upside down that … well, why bother going further. If you’ve got the basics backwards you’re not going to get much else right either.
8. On Bain, somebody doesn’t get the point of the Obama/Bain line of attack. To be honest, I don’t either.
9. Discrimination.

Imagine if it was Dubya’s Doobies?
Best part of the story? The commenter who points out that while Romney went to High School, Obama went to school high.

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GOP finally taking some action over Fast & Furious?
It’s about time. Perhaps they’re trying to play this into an election issue. I’ve got mixed thoughts about that – after all, Brian Terry, the Border Agent who was killed, should not be a political pawn. Yet if the Right is going to take down the current Left administration in November, they will have to fight for it.

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Didn’t anyone teach these kids (and their parents) how to add?
From the NY Times,

ADA, Ohio — Kelsey Griffith graduates on Sunday from Ohio Northern University. To start paying off her $120,000 in student debt, she is already working two restaurant jobs and will soon give up her apartment here to live with her parents. Her mother, who co-signed on the loans, is taking out a life insurance policy on her daughter.

“If anything ever happened, God forbid, that is my debt also,” said Ms. Griffith’s mother, Marlene Griffith.

Ms. Griffith, 23, wouldn’t seem a perfect financial fit for a college that costs nearly $50,000 a year. Her father, a paramedic, and mother, a preschool teacher, have modest incomes, and she has four sisters. But when she visited Ohio Northern, she was won over by faculty and admissions staff members who urge students to pursue their dreams rather than obsess on the sticker price.

“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.”

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Abraham Lincoln – Fashionista
I didn’t realize that, with his mussed-up hair, Honest Abe was so far ahead in his stylin’.

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Darn those annoying Home Schooled kids!

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For the germaphobe – homemade hand sanitizer

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial day (at least those in the (US not in retail)).

1. The test approaches, fun with groups.
2. Guns, technology, and considerations of unintended consequences.
3. Up and coming blog post materiel.
4. A cunning plan … if there ever was one such.
5. Terror makes its next move on the strategic board.
6. An unfortunate glitch for the argument that the reason for abortion is lack of contraception.
7. An expert looks at the Zimmerman/Martin kerfuffle and evidence and suggests that Mr Zimmerman will be exonerated.
8. Well, the US figured out pretty darn quickly that a loose Confederacy of States wouldn’t work well, the EU is finding out why the hard way.
9. Death and the gulag in 2012.
10. Lean logistics in the 1860s.
11. Our foreign policy and hard choices not made (extemporizing is not the hard choice).
12. My opponent is an idiot is a yet another rhetorical fallacy. Or is it worse? The operating assumption that disagreements in our world stem from incomplete knowledge is very flawed.
13. Is outrage. And my local defender of regulation-is-a-good-thing should be chastened.

For Memorial Day.

1. From one of the best conservative prose poets.
2. A flyer.
3. Meta-links.
4. A poster.
5. A photo.
6. This photo I found the most striking.

Good morning.

1. Of Party and Church … and of course the rejoinder to the bumper sticker is “of course not, he’s a Monarchist” (Christ is Lord and King).
2. Speaking of bumper stickers.
3. A counter for the “its the social trend/majority” SSM argument.
4. Realtime displays of live data.
5. Cricket race support for the basis of my question on OWS posted earlier.
6. For the numbers fans out there.
7. Call a spade a spade, please.
8. Art imitates art … last night as this was the final day of school, our family watched our weekend movie night film, which was War of the Arrows … which I recommend if you like action films.
9. Homeless but not mindless, in fact quite clever.
10. A home project.
11. A side effect of faith? But, this effect is not helpful.

Well, I’ve got a long drive this morning … so it’ll have to be quick.

1. Some synchronicity noted: Such as when “you are” and “u” “r” convolve which is not unrelated to this.
2. All-you-can eat (two thoughts … all-you-can-eat does (and should not) mean eat-all-you-can … it’s not healthy and that in turn is the answer to the posters question). But this in turn is not unrelated to this.
3. For those unconvinced that the NYTimes isn’t batting for just one side in the elections.
4. Political authority and real authority are not the same thing.
5. If you consider where grant money comes from … would this spell the end of the journal? And is that a bad thing?
6. Democrats firmly behind big corn conglomerates. Money well spent apparently.
7. The election and the South this is on the same point.
8. Some suggestions for graduation improvements.
9. Apparently liberals (a) de-bias issues at the high court uniformly, i.e., when the case is one they want in front of the court and (b) are unaware that cases that come before the court arise not from the court vetting laws that Congress passes, but depend instead on people filing suit who are not members of the same court.
10. 2 more million of the forgotten-if-not-Jewish victims of WWII genocide.

Good morning.

1. An interesting question at the end.
2. Somebody from South Carolina needs to get his facts straight. Taking a failing company and holding it for 8 years trying to give it a chance, is not corporate “rape.” Blaming someone for the eventual failure, which occurs two years after you leave … if the former is rape, what is this mis-characterization? Blood slander?
3. So. Constitutional or just wrong?
4. Why are people so adverse to noting that there are physiological differences between peoples that can have an impact on physical and mental performance.
5. I wonder if this Bishop would be allergic to this Akathist service?
6. Is the question here that you cannot base your meta-ethics on religion? Visit Mount Athos.
7. Tragedy of the commons (ToC), if government was the solution to ToC then why do Communist countries have a worse problem with that than not.
8. Free will.
9. Oh, that’s just silly … nobody’s going to kill the President … Biden is his insurance plan. No assassin in his right mind wants that nitwit to have real power.
10. Mr Obama goes after straw men on the campaign trail. If that were his only reason, then it wouldn’t make sense. If the predicate is false, of course the statement is true. Alas, it is also meaningless.
11. Lunch for the Klingon.