Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.
Stephen Covey
Image of the Day
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| via Libertarian Catholic |
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| Via Dollar Vigilante |
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| Via Rand Paul |
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| Via Shannon Trevino |
I, Rose (Variation of I, Pencil)
My Greatest Hits: February 2015
Two of my one-offs hit the countdown, the first of which involved a rant on a Time Magazine column, a runaway success from day 1. A third, on whether Jesus was a progressive, had a slow start and did not make the countdown but seems to pick up new readers daily.
- Foroohar and Another Puff Piece on Cherokee Lizzie
- Miscellany: 1/19/15
- Miscellany: 1/24/15
- Miscellany: 1/22/15
- 2015 State of the Union Address: Critique Part I: The Introduction
I haven't watched Hallmark Channel enough to realize that they had other seasons like their holiday season, but apparently they also have a Valentine Day's season and a June wedding season. They had the same problem with their Valentine's Day season as I noticed during the holiday season; for some reason, they were heavily rotating the same (small) number of films. I did like one of their newer ones ("All of My Heart"), which focuses on an unlikely couple who separately inherit a house; the lady is a chef who is inspired to convert the property into a BNB, while the guy is a recently terminated Wall Street dealmaker. I'm not exactly into chick flicks, but I was hoping they would reprise "In My Dreams", a fantasy involving a magic fountain where a separate coin-tossing couple has a week of shared dreams to meet and lock in their opportunity for true love.
Drudge has a link that indicates some music media source is no longer going to cover pop music icon Madonna's music because she is too "old". (What does that say about me? I used to listen to her music while working as a young professor.) I find her a remarkably resilient pop star and think that she should be judged on the basis of her current work. Despite the current status of pop music as a wasteland, Madonna is finding it hard to stay on top, and she has used things like bundling concert tickets with CD's to bump sales figures, and during the recent leaks of tracks from her upcoming album, she responded with a digital release of finished tracks; I seem to recall the digitally released songs went nowhere commercially.
American Idol has been covering the 'Hollywood Week' of group and individual performances leading to narrowing candidates down to 24-30 or so. To me this is one of the most boring parts of the competition. I did enjoy a male performance of 'Try a Little Tenderness', but watching a female performer botch two attempts of 'You Light Up My Life' was sad.
Facebook Corner
(Reason). ISIS video shows the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians.
There's a Wikipedia post on persecution of Copts by Muslims dating from the 80's (and even earlier). This particular atrocity serves as publicity for their cause. No, it's not blowback to American policy, but the recent ill-advised comments by POTUS at the National Prayer Breakfast basically morally comparing the Crusades to Islamic radical attacks on innocents were totally disingenuous. I do think we need to see regional leadership taking on the ISIS threat, but involvement by the US/European military is morally hazardous and counter-productive.
(Libertarian Catholic). Consider the 8th of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not steal.” Note the period after the word “steal.”
Taxing isn't stealing. And using tax dollars to help the less fortunate is not redistribution of wealth. It is redistribution of power. Which is totally legit. If 1 percent of the world owns half the money in the world, if this trend continues you will be powerless. You will have no control and everything will be decided for you. People need to realize that the trend of power follows money.
The fascist OP is an economic illiterate. When crackpot leftists start bitching about redistribution, the plutocrats, etc., it's more of gullible cult nonsense. They don't realize they've been been manipulated by academia and the national media. The Gini coefficient for individuals has been horizontal since the 1960's.
YES, of course, TAXATION IS STEALING, because it is the involuntary taking of property. Only a greedy bastard would consider it ethical to take something out of someone else's pocket. Jesus specifically rejected the sin of envy (i.e., the Tenth Commandment.) Morally reprehensible bastards who think a majority of thieves in a legislature do not steal by putting the burden of taxation on a minority of the population.
Anyone who has taken a course in economics or business knows about the Pareto principle--the 80/20 rule, e.g., 20% of the population in Itality owned 80% of the property, 20% of patients account for 80% of health care costs, etc. (This is a heuristic, not a law of nature, but it occurs across a wide variety of phenomena.) Similarly 20% of the 20% own 64% of the property and so on, i.e., 20% of the 20% of the 20% own about 51%. Surprise, surprise--is that the much maligned 1%? What's this--a conspiracy?
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
James Taylor, "Long Ago and Far Away"
