This is Beyond Belief

Glenn Reynolds links to two blogs that are very, very offended by an opinion piece that ran in the LA Times. (The original op-ed is behind the registration wall - a game I refuse to play).

Read them and see why the op-ed writer is a complete racist.

(Odd that Patterico didn’t hit this one first. He’s an absolute pitbull (I mean that in the best way) on the LA Times. Or LA Dogtrainer as he so aptly puts it.

“I continue to stay young, right? I produce children, I stay young”.

So says Donald Trump announcing the birth of his fifth child, Barron William Trump. His wife, Melania Knauss Trump gave birth to the 8-1/2 pound baby boy on Monday. The Donald, ever the publicity hound, phoned the the news in to several morning news shows.

Normally, I couldn’t care less about Donald Trump, his business or his affairs and I never watch The Apprentice.

However, this does give me a legitimate excuse to link to several sites featuring Melania Knauss’ modeling photos. Now these are not particularly offensive, but are probably not really work safe, either. I know that certain readers will appreciate the links. (I won’t tell Lindsey, Sarge)….

So there’s this and this. You can find more by searching her name.

A Modest Proposal

Odysseus has a modest proposal for tax reform. If this had been in place prior to this weekend’s anti-war protests, the budget deficit would have been completely wiped out………

Winter

Well, I ventured out and ran a few errands. By the time I did, the snow had stopped and it was about 39 degrees. So it was sloppy and rather ugly out on the roads. I didn’t see anything worth taking a photo of. The snow is supposed to start again this afternoon. The wind has been picking up steadily, though. Drifting will be bad later.

I did go out and take this picture behind the house. I figured I’d get it before the wind stripped all the snow off the branches.

 

Seeing Red

It seems some people in Tokyo are not at all happy with the Italian Cultural Institute. They are complaining that the building is, well, red. The Italians are defending the building saying it was designed with a Japanese company and is inspired by the Japanese tradition of lacquer.

The only photo I could find is the tiny thumbnail on the Cultural Institute’s website. It is a very, very red building indeed. Twelve stories tall, too.

I suppose they can always lacquer it…….

Yale Hits Bottom, Digs

It’s not bad enough that you admit a former Taliban official into a once great university. No, you also have to completely shut down any discussion of the issue. Yale is following an “ignore the issue and it will go away” policy over the admission of Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi. Hashemi was a spokesman for the former Taliban regime in Afganistan. Yale admitted Hashemi as a student last year. Many, many bloggers have covered this, I won’t even try to cover all the ground again. But this link to Penraker pretty well sums up the whole issue. It also exposes a level of pure shallowness among some of the so-called students at Yale. Frankly, if the students he quotes are typical of the current Yale education, there is a real problem in that university.

H/T Instapundit for the link.

Now THAT’S Blogging!

Cathy Seipp had this absolutely wonderful picture posted on her blog. It’s from this site and captures the absolutely perfect example of what blogging should be!

 

All Together Now!

Several people out there have done a really good job of documented the moonbattery found in the “anti-war” protests. Sites like Rayra, Zombietime and Little Green Footballs all have photodocumentation of the various festivities.

Gateway Pundit has a pretty darn thorough round up as noted in earlier posts.

Joining in the chorus, we get the North Korean official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, with this little gem:

“This clearly proves that the US is a war maniac, the ringleader of evils and the worst human rights abuser.”

So which tail is which? There’s a dog being wagged somewhere. Are the anti-war protesters mimicing the North Koreans or the other way around? Or do we simply reach the conclusion that they are fellow travelers?

Snow Day

There’s a fairly strong winter storm blanketing the middle of the country right now. Schools and businesses are closed all over the area. Even the doctor’s office is closing - a few people made it in, but they are going home. The predictions are for heavy snow all day with some pretty darn high accumulations by the end of it tomorrow morning.

So, the kids are watching TV and the wife decided to stay home and not risk the long drive to her job. I’ll be going out a bit later just to check on a few things and buy milk (if the stores are even open, of course). I imagine the kids will want to sled down the hills in back of the house later. That’s been pretty rare this year since there really hasn’t been much snow this winter.

That’s how a snow day works, isn’t it? The schools close so it’s a good day to go out and play in the snow! It’s great being a kid. Adults don’t quite have it so easy, though. I’ll have to trudge out to the truck, brush all the snow off the windows, risk driving around with the loons who simply cannot drive in the snow, trudge across the parking lot to the store (if it’s open) then drive back home. At least the truck has four-wheel drive and I know how to drive in the snow. After all, I was raised in the snow belt of Upstate New York.

Oh well, maybe I can get a few good pictures out of the trip. Does that mean I’m really playing in the snow too?

Who Knew?

It seems that Turkmenistan’s President-for-Life announced on state television that anyone reading his book would go straight to heaven.

“Anyone who reads the Rukhnama three times will find spiritual wealth, will become more intelligent, will recognise the divine being and will go straight to heaven,” Niyazov said Monday.

Who knew it was that easy to get a ticket to North Korea?

I Guess I Have a Theme Again Today

In yet another of those weird coincidences, I have been finding all sorts of items related by a common theme. Today it appears to be taxes (and free health care).

The previous post was about a tax dispute in London. Now I have this item:

North Korea has one of the lowest per capita income figures in the world, not enough food, insufficient electricity, has a Stalin-style gulag and is generally probably one of the most miserable places on earth. Right?

WRONG! They are a paradise with no taxes and free health care. They said so in their official media.

Oh, and they want the world to bribe them to discontinue their nuclear program.

A London Tea Party?

A brewing tax revolt in England! Gwynneth Lester, a disabled widow, has refused to pay a local tax levy, claiming she gets nothing in return. Officials took her to court and threatened to sieze her collection of garden gnomes unless the taxes were paid. She sent the gnomes into hiding and continues her resistance.

“Well, they won’t be taking the garden gnomes now because I have given them away,” she told Reuters on Monday. “In fact they won’t be getting anything that I have collected over the years because I have given it all away to keep it from them.”

Feisty, isn’t she?

Free health care!

Yes, indeed, that’s the mantra some are chanting. Whether they call it “universal health coverage” or a “national health insurance“, it all boils down to socialization of the health care system. You know, like the Canadians have.

Of course they don’t mention that the Canadian system is breaking down under the strain and that Canadians who can afford to come to the US for medical care.

But we’re so much smarter, we can make it work! Right?

Or not. It seems the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics Inc. is finding out that a health care business has to be run like a business. The founder just resigned because of a philosophical disagreement with the new CEO. It seems the new CEO is trying to undo decades of financial mismanagement. It seems the old “give it away for free” approach doesn’t actually work in the real world.

By the way, the picture accompanying the article is hysterically funny. I had no idea Santa was a hippy.

Note: In searching for the link to the legislation proposed by John Conyers above, I came across this Interesting document. Frankly, I didn’t pay much attention to the hysterical nonsense that certain Democrats indulged in after the 2004 election. This “report”, however, shows just how deranged some members of Congress are these days. I sincerely hope the voters in Conyer’s district take a hard look at him during this election…