Thursday, February 28, 2013

Pearl Harbor




You've got to love the professionalism exhibited by this photo.

Of eleven aircraft carriers, five are sitting together at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.

What could possibly go wrong?

h/t TW
at Naval Station Norfolk, Va.
at Naval Station Norfolk, Va.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Killing Babies

An old friend offered "MI-5" as a television show worth watching. Engaging theater is engaging theater. Well done, etc.

And this old friend, good Catholic, living in Maryland, admits that the show gets better as it gets along.

But the first episode of "MI-5" deals with a group of American anti-abortion radicals. Radicals that kill for their conviction. Life is precious. And now, a slippery slope.

When is it okay to take someone else's life?

If you try to force your way into my home, my understanding is, that I'm well within my rights to use deadly force in order to thwart your invasion threat.

Killing a baby. Thwarting an invasion threat.

Which is the clearer declaration of intent? A hoodlum, intent upon gathering enough loot to afford himself his daily dose of whatever, may not have expected to commit murder as a tactic in gathering said boodle. On the hunt for boodle, this miscreant enters someone's, anyone's, domicile. This entry creates enough supposition of wrong-doing that aggresive defense of ones home is an accepted outcome.

I find, increasingly, that few people dare to utter the significance between sufficient and necessary in terms of actions and outcomes. Is it necessary that one walks into an ocean in order for that person to become wet? No. But it is sufficient.

What is the greatest responsibility of any government?

Innovative energy policies?

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Need Your Input

Someone I know owns a radio station, and has given me the text of a public service message that he is proposing to place on-air.

You may not know this, but the Federal Communications Commission requires that broadcast stations--television and radio--air programming in "the public interest," and that this programming relates to issues of interest as determined by the management of the broadcast station.

The gentleman in question had determined that one of the issues of local interest is the lack of good entry level jobs, and the increased sentiment that this lack of purposeful employment can be overcome through  the application of social justice; that is, the re-distribution of wealth.

There is, there seems, no interest in criticising either state or federal officials for creating an economic environment where few, if any, are willing to create new jobs.

This gentleman wishes to propose to his youthful listeners, that there is a course of sense, and common sense, available to them. That the emphasis on "social justice" is just as strange, and foreign to us, as it is to them.

Children know when their parents are just filling space. When they are exposed to teachers that are just filling space, they can begin to doubt their purpose in life. How many losers must one have to be beholden to, until one becomes a loser ones self?

Children aren't idiots. They just don't have a lot of allies.

From the PSA:



Life, between the ages of 13 and 18, can be difficult.

You watch your parents. You listen to your teachers. You want to learn how to take care of yourself.

And then, in learning how to take care of yourself, you would learn how to take care of the most important people in your life, your family.

You are learning how to take responsibility. You need to learn how to pay your bills, learn the skills that will earn money that puts food on your table. And, if you have children, learn how to budget so that your daughter, Suzy, and your son, Billy, have new clothes for back-to-school.

Learning to take responsibility for paying bills, putting food on the table, juggling the family budget so that Suzy and Bill have new clothes for back-to school, all of these are abilities you need to learn, so that you grow up to be an adult, even if your mother or father couldn’t learn to take care of the bills, and provide you with the clothes you needed for back-to-school.

A lot of moms and dads can’t take care of themselves, or their families, and don’t care whether or not there are jobs. They want to have the things that successful moms and dads have, for themselves, and for their children, for you, whether, or not, they have jobs. Whether, or not, they earned them.

You know who these moms and dads are. And you’re not alone.

Our coastal economy needs jobs.

Right now, there are too many people without jobs.

Social justice, and simply giving people money, doesn’t create jobs.

A message in the public interest, from ...

The question is, is my friend on track, too radical, too conservative?

Let me know what you think. And I'll carry the message forward.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

bad aunts and good aunts

"It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."

 The Code of the Woosters (1938)

They Just Newtowned the Super Bowl

Hope the kids are/were precious. Shameless. At least the next few commercials will have lower ratings. Shame on the NFL.