The Shoplifting Dog

Batman vs Alien vs Predator

James found this and I thought it was pretty cool.

Bumper Cars

The Beauty of Constitutional Government

A Work of Recovery by Larry P. Arnn for Imprimis

I began by saying that we must recover our appreciation of the beauty of constitutional government. That beauty consists first of all in an appreciation for the place of man in nature, not so high as the angels, not so low as the beasts. To recognize that place is to recognize the dignity of every human being and the responsibility to defend the rights written by the hand of the Creator in man's nature. It is to recognize also that, just as government is necessary, it is for the same reason necessary that it be limited. It cannot make angels of us. It cannot be run as if angels were in control of it.

When one sees that these principles are written in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, he begins to see then what a revolutionary thing was achieved here in our nation. He begins to see the reason why for two centuries and more the American people have been the last best hope of mankind on earth. By becoming a student of his country, the citizen becomes again an intelligent lover of it.

I almost didn't read it, what a shame that would have been. Makes me wish I could go to Hillsdale College.

A Couple of Post-Christmas Funny Christmas Videos

This Could Have Ended Badly

via videosift.com

Observations

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts

• A reader suggests that members of Congress should wear uniforms, like NASCAR drivers, so that we will know who their corporate sponsors are. Many of those in Congress should also wear logos representing the teachers' unions, environmentalist extremists and other special interests.



• They say we live and learn. Often what we learn is what damn fools we have been



• It is fascinating to see that politicians whose interventions in mortgage lending have created a disaster in financial institutions are now moving on to intervene in the automobile industry.



• Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.

Conservative of the Year

Sarah Palin - written by Ann Coulter

In a nutshell, Palin was everything Democrats are always pretending to be, but never are.

They Should Have Been the First on the List

"President George W. Bush today added a convicted methamphetamine dealer, a cocaine distributor and two marijuana suppliers to the list of drug operators he's pardoned while in office, bringing his total of drug suppliers who have been pardoned or had their sentences commuted to 36.

He's also pardoned more than a dozen thieves, seven embezzlers, an arsonist, several mail thieves, a man who violated the Neutrality Act and eight Thanksgiving turkeys, but there's been no clemency for U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler."

Blood in the Rivers:

the contraceptive culture and prophecies in Revelation By Julio Severo

"From the beginning to the end, the Bible makes it clear that no murder of innocents goes unpunished, because blood cries out for justice."

I wish everyone would read that article and change their ways. There's some bad stuff coming down the pike, don't know how, don't know when, but justice demands it.

The Curse of Government Intervention

Planet Bailout --Mark Steyn

Are we "keeping workers in their jobs"? Not over the long term. This is exactly the same trajectory Britain followed in the Sixties. A malign government-union partnership to protect valuable and lustrous brands - Rover, Triumph, Jaguar, MG, etc - ensured that by the time it collapsed the brands were no longer valuable and lustrous, but fatally tainted by their decades on the government teat.

This Looks Like Fun

Are people still allowed to do that - sledding down hills, I mean - it hasn't been outlawed or anything?

This Girl Is 13 Years Old

She's awesome!

Law Upon Law, Straw Upon Straw

Too Much Law Guarantees Unfairness

It's no secret that America's public schools, health care system, and lawsuit industry -- among other institutions -- are broken. After decades of alarming reports and reform efforts, they still cost far more, and with worse results, than those of almost all other developed countries. And President-elect Obama's hope of changing things dramatically for the better faces an uphill battle.

A big part of the reason, New York City lawyer-author-civic leader Philip Howard writes in a forthcoming book, Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law, is that our institutions and their leaders are paralyzed by tangles of legal rules and diverted "from doing what we think is right" by fear of being unfairly hauled into court.

"We will never fix our schools, or make health care affordable, or re-energize democracy, or revive the can-do spirit that made America great," Howard writes, "unless American law is rebuilt to protect freedom in our daily choices." By this he means freeing ourselves from "the confusion of good judgment with legal proof."

You know it's true. I was just reading yesterday about a California law that will hold you liable if you injure someone while trying to rescue them from imminent danger. The result being that you will probably not be rescued from that burning vehicle you can't get out of by yourself.

That's a great article with too many good points to quote here.

How Not To Give Speeding Tickets

High schools students in Maryland have figured out how to fool speed cameras by creating a fake license plate on a computer and taping over the plate of a similar car so the unsuspecting (and innocent) owner of the plate numbers gets a ticket.

"I hope the public at large will complain loudly enough that local Montgomery County government officials will change their policy of using these cameras for monetary gain," the parent said. "The practice of sending speeding tickets to faceless recipients without any type of verification is unwarranted and an exploitation of our rights."

Revenge of the Meeces

Mice suspected in deadly cat fire

When Liberals Run the Police Force

Police give free goodie bags to drinkers

Police forces across the country have started to give "goodie bags" containing condoms, flip-flops and lollipops to drunk revellers to counter the ill-effects of binge drinking.

Don't run out and get drunk yet, this is in the U.K.

Go With What Works

Dogless shepherd uses wolf poster to control his flock of sheep

"People laugh and point but it works - and the poster eats a lot less than any sheepdog,"

Escape Thwarted by Chlorine

Nice try though.

Shark jumps out of aquarium into swimming pool

My favorite quote:

"The Atlantis Aquarists believe the shark was startled by an unusual circumstance that we have no way of defining completely."

As It Should Be

Bush, Cheney comforted troops privately

For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.

Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.

Saw this Coming

Democrats Try to Lower Expectations

The expectations game is always tricky in politics. To win power, candidates promise to enact sweeping change. But once victory is in hand, they often scramble to lower those expectations so they won't be perceived as falling short.

Restructure Washington

Let's 'Restructure' Washington While We're at It

Congress has been suitably tough in its advice to Detroit, calling for "a complete restructuring" of our failing auto makers. But how about restructuring Washington? The federal government is a giant Rube Goldberg machine that not only wastes hundreds of billions of dollars each year but also burdens local governments and the private sector with legal requirements that no longer serve the public good. Congress should take its own advice and retool Washington.

That's a great idea but we can't trust them do it themselves. That would never work, it would be like letting bank robbers design banks.

Hypnotised by Radar

via videosift.com

The Human Right of Self-Defense

Does God Believe in Gun Control? By David B. Kopel

Consider the situation of a mother in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood, moments after an escaped psychopathic murderer has broken into her house. The woman has good reason to fear that the intruder is about to slaughter her three children. If she does not shoot him with her .38 special, the children will be dead before the police will arrive. Is the woman's moral obligation to murmur "violence engenders violence," and keep her handgun in the drawer while her children die? Or is the mother's moral duty to save her children, and shoot the intruder?

The view that life is a gift from God, and that permitting the wanton destruction of one's own life (or the life of a person under one's care) amounts to hubris is hardly new. As a 1747 sermon in Philadelphia put it: "He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense, incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself."

Slowly but surely I'm coming out of the brainwashing liberals give you about gun ownership. I was never anti-gun but just never felt the need to have one. Everyday we hear about armed robberies around Orlando. Everyday. And they are getting worse. Sometimes they are caught but most times they are not. Even when they are, the justice system doesn't keep them locked up long. Gun laws do nothing to keep them from getting guns - they don't come by them legally.

Here's a recent headline: New Gun Laws Coming to LA. These laws do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the people pushing this are wrong. Gangbangers don't go down to the local gun shop and purchase a gun. They already can't. It's already illegal for criminals to have guns, you can't make it more illegal. Meanwhile, innocent people are being terrorized by thugs who have already proven they will not respect the law and are let out of jail again and again and again. This is not justice, it's insanity. It's wrong. I am just completely sick of lawmakers, judges, and activists putting my family in danger.

And one more thing: Rapist surprised to find victim is ardent Second Amendment supporter

I already did a post on this story but the Hot Air blog adds a comment I want to emphasis.

Exit question: With 11 felonies to his record and enough criminal savvy to cut the power in the home, how many more rapes did this woman prevent?

Thank God we'll never know.

Old School Drag Racing Footage, with Slow Motion

Very cool.

Fetch?

Icey Hill Vs. Cars

via videosift.com

Some of them just don't want to give up.

Scoundrels

Members of Congress Due to Award Themselves $4,700 Raise in 2009

Members of Congress are slated to receive a $4,700 pay raise beginning in January, increasing their annual salaries to $174,000. The increase for 535 House and Senate members would cost taxpayers more than $2.5 million.

That salary alone, which excludes all other outside income and spousal wages, ranks each lawmaker in the top six percent of American households.

Congress automatically gets a pay raise each year, and has to introduce legislation to prevent the increase. Although legislation to halt the Congressional raise has been introduced, the most supported bill (H.R. 5087) has just 34 co-sponsors, far short of the 218 necessary for passage.

As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,

Who is Protecting You and Your Family?

From Old Cop:

The Second Ammendment

As a Police Officer it is not my job to protect you. Why you might ask? Because I probably won't be there when whatever happens to you happens! My job is to establish the chain of events, collect evidence, apprehend the suspect and give the Prosecuting Attorney the case he needs to punish the wrongdoer.

In almost all cases, a Police Officer is dispatched to a scene after the incident is over. As a citizen of the United States you have the right, no the responsibility to protect yourself and your loved ones. That is one of the reasons for the second amendment.

and from Cowtown Cop:

The Open Carry Debate

The last thing I have heard from people who are plainly afraid of guns and don’t want anything to do with them is this. I live in a "good" area, I don’t go to "bad" places after dark, I lock my doors at home and in my car when I drive, I feel safe, I have an alarm, the police are there to protect me from harm, WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE OF THOSE SCARY GUNS.

These people are not willing to accept that their comfortable lives might not be so safe and secure. The statistics show that you will most likely know the person who commits a violent crime against you. You will most likely be at home or close to it in your "good" neighborhood. You will most likely have family members present or near by when it happens. And when it does happen you will have your mistaken belief in safety and security forcibly torn from you in the face of a brutal and harsh reality.

I have talked to some broken, violated and emotionally destroyed people who could do nothing but hope that their attacker would have mercy on them. They can no longer afford to believe that something else will protect them.

On the other hand I have talked to people who have fought back and won. These people are usually exhilarated to be alive and proud of their success in defending themselves or their family. These people do not suffer the same as the ones who could do nothing.

If you have to fight ... fight like a Cornered Cat - this is a great website, lots of good advice.

It Says Something that Some of this Stuff Needs to be Banned

The Chinese have just recently (Monday) banned such food additives (food additives?) as lye and boric acid.

Substances commonly used as industrial dyes, insecticides and drain cleaners were included on a list of illegal food additives China released Monday as part of a monthslong government crackdown aimed at improving the country's shoddy food safety record.

Remember when Walmart used to buy predominately American products? Hey Walmart, low prices aren't the most important thing.

Among the 17 banned substances was boric acid, commonly used as an insecticide, which is mixed with noodles and meatballs to increase elasticity,

I did not know that. That's bad news for tape worms.

What? Not Caused by Global Warming?

The Mysterious Acorn Shortage

But Doug Inkley, senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, said that wild animals can be resilient when their usual food sources go away.

Inkley cited a blight that destroyed 3.5 billion American chestnuts from 1900-1940, wiping out a common food source for squirrels, deer, mice and wild turkeys. But those animals adapted and survived, he said.

Barbara Prescott, a wildlife rehabilitation expert, agreed that squirrels are not fussy about their diet. She suggested that residents leave whole (not crushed) corn, peanuts and sunflowers in the seed as backyard treats.

John Rohm, wildlife biologist for Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax, and Arlington counties in northern Virginia, has faith in the furry population.

"Animals are resourceful," he said. "If they're hungry, they're gonna find something to eat."

No doom and gloom? The animals will adapt and survive? Animals are resourceful? What's going on here, I don't think they mentioned global warming once in that article. How refreshing.

The Shoe Incident

The video of a guy throwing his shoes at George Bush is so popular at YouTube that most of the 5 pages of most viewed videos are of this incident. Why? What's the big deal? I saw it on the news and it's not that interesting. I like what this guy said about it:

"I spent five years in Saddam’s jails," said Saman Qadir, a 51-year-old mechanic. "This journalist has to throw flowers on Bush, not a shoe, because Bush saved the Iraqi people from a bloody regime."

No one lived without fear under Saddam Hussein. No one. Worse than fear, sheer terror. How soon we forget.

Japanese Police Precision Motorcycle Drill Team

Not Sure What to Make of This

Pooping Obama is a best-seller

Bet You Can't Do This

Skills With A 15 Ton Front Loader - Watch more Entertainment

Emotionally Stunted

U.S. 'governed by adults still in their terrible twos'

"A few decades ago, people were just as human as we are in this decade," he writes. "Like us, they got angry, they lusted, they coveted, and they drowned their grief by one means or another. But in one important way, they were different from us – they had greater self-control. Because they were more self-restraining, they did not allow themselves to be ruled by their anger; hence the murder rate was markedly less. They lusted, but they had greater sexual self-restraint, so had sexual contact with fewer people and contracted fewer STDs. They coveted other people's money and possessions, but they had the ability to not act on their covetousness; hence fewer were compelled to steal. In the last 40 years we have lost the virtue of self-control. No longer is our society populated by individuals who can restrain or 'govern' themselves. To lack the capacity to control one's urges or passions is to lack what our nation's Founders called personal 'self-government.'"

I believe this is a direct result of the country's gradual shift away from God. There is no longer any reason to have self-control, it becomes self-defeating. Why hold back from anything you want to do? Enjoy life to the fullest now, for tomorrow we die. Self-control is for fools.

Bottom line?

"Liberals are like teenagers whose will-to-be-gratified was never subdued, and now cannot grasp the simple logic of what is being said to them," Bradley writes. "They are so emotionally obsessed with getting what their hearts want that they are unwilling to listen to reason. That is why liberals resort to personal attacks, name-calling, accusing, yelling, discrediting, or changing the subject. And that is why they use inflammatory and emotionally charged words like 'intolerant,' 'hateful' and 'racist.' Desperation ensues when passion rules. When passion rules, blindness sets in."

And yet we tend to think we are the most enlightened people. Darkness for light.

Very Cool Picture

Manhattan Bridge Construction - 1909

Ron Paul on the Auto Bailout

It's Out of Control

Bailout Generation

They complained that Bush gave tax cuts to corporations. Now that they are in charge of Congress, Democrats are raiding the cookie jar so that they can toss cookies to favored industries.

Don't Try This At Home

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I don't think that's real but it does look like it is.

Horror Flick

F/A-18 Crash

Pictures

When Darkness Prevails

The Deepening Darkness --Ray Stedman

MP3 available at link in upper right corner.

Dogs Are Cool!

and warm.

Puppies save three-year-old boy lost in freezing Virginia woods

"When I first saw him, he was like, 'Momma, I got cold. I slept in the woods last night. The puppies kept me warm.' He told me that ... the dogs slept up against him. And I'm sure the body heat kept him warm," said his mother, Sarah Ingram

Road Rage in India

Raging Elephant Destroys Cars - Watch more Animal Videos

All in a Days Work

Sleeping Bird on a Branch

I took Madison out a few minutes ago and saw this bird sleeping out on a low branch, right out in the open. It didn't react at all when I walked near and under it. I grabbed the camera and got the best shot I could - it was dark - and still didn't disturb it. It's head is tucked in by the wing.

Get Over It

Ikea under fire for selling reindeer meat

"More than 70 per cent of reindeer slaughtered for meat are calves that have grazed during the summer, which means they never even get to see snow."

Like the world doesn't have enough to worry about. Eat more reindeer.

Rethink Self-Defence

When cops don't shoot back

But most shocking was his depiction of masses of armed policemen hiding in the train station and refusing to shoot back while the bloodbath continued.

"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he explained. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' But they just didn't shoot back."

His disturbing story continued: "I told some policemen the gunmen had moved toward the rear of the station, but they refused to follow them. What is the point of having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

I would like every American to meditate deeply on those words.

If you are relying on the police to save you when you are being robbed, raped, kidnapped or murdered then you are in sad shape. Call 911? Listen to that and pretend that's you - without a gun.

Make a Choice

Betrayed Nations

The shifting North American Unionized Map

This is a must-read commentary. Here are a few quotes:

• History is being rewritten before our very eyes by the Socialists of two nations.
  
  Long after we’re all gone, what has happened in a short time-span before Christmas 2008 will surely give pause to the historians.
  
  
• In reality, what has happened here and in the United States was long in the making.
  
  Gradually over time, we elected politicians who cared not for the ecosystem of country Constitutions in comparison to their power lust. Somehow we didn’t seem to notice when government no longer worked for us, but us for them.
  
  The average person was kept too busy coming up with the rent or the mortgage, too busy wondering why their children were learning not reading, writing and arithmetic, but how to become effective global citizens.
  
  Politicians elected each term, by and large, got worse and worse until we reached a stage where they came not with altruism and leadership guiding their moral compass, but with teams of lawyers who could trash constitutions no matter how noble or time-honoured.
  
  
• The only real "change" politicians made manifest is the one where they no longer choose to hide their true intentions.
  
  
• It has reached a tipping point where politicians no longer feel a duty to serve the people, but only themselves and each other.
  
  
• Socialism, advocated by both Obama and Layton, has sucked the soul out of humanity wherever it was ever attempted, but that’s the road North America is now careening down.
  
  Heaven help the people of both betrayed nations.
  
  

He's an Angry Elf

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Here's the angry elf from the hilarious movie "Elf"

Product Testing in the 30's

It'll be fine honey, don't worry about it.

Marines Need a Vacation, Too

Pirates attack US cruise ship, can't outrun it

Why don't we let the Marines take a cruise through the area, let them enjoy the amenities of a cruise ship for a while and when the pirate attack comes they can kill all the pirates. I think they would go for it.

Government Incompetence (But I repeat myself)

Agency Accidentally Posts 250,000 S.S. Numbers Online

Social security numbers for 250,000 people were posted online by mistake and a state agency is facing serious questions about why it was so careless with people's personal information.

The Agency for Workforce Innovation accidentally posted the sensitive information for people looking for work. All those numbers were left online for at least 19 days. The worst part is potential victims don't even know it yet.

Evil Hates Goodness

The Rabbi and the Terrorists

For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem.

Dom DeLuise and Johnny Carson

And with Dean Martin