Ken Nelson

This new, unsubtle, painting from Patrick McNaughton is the latest in his patriotic paintings.

Another recent, far more subtle, efffort showed Obama stepping on the Constitution as some Presidents cringed (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln) and others applauded (Clinton, Carter, Roosevelt).   Bush looks away.

He does a nice job of summing up a President’s impact on our freedom with their visual response to Obama tromping on the document.  Madison is the most affronted.

I welcome McNaughton’s pushback and attempt to visually reflect what a lot of us our feeling.   I’m not sure how commercially successful they will be, as how many people want negative imagery on their wall?   I certainly don’t want Obama anywhere on my wall, or Carter, Bush, or Roosevelt for that matter.   We tend towards Tuscan fields, or pictures of the kids.

The left has it easier, they can show the government giving you stuff.  But never the government taking out of the other pocket.

I applaud McNaughton’s efforts, and but I hope that he, or somebody, can come up with positive visual imagery of liberty.  I’m not talented that way.

When asked about Boehner playing golf with Obama,  Hank Williams Junior said this:

“That’d be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.”

I didn’t take the remark as Obama being Hitler. I took it as a round of golf won’t help bring  irreconcilable opponents together. 

I stopped watching Fox long ago. They are better than CNN, but that is like cold dog turds versus the fresh kind.  Oh… I’m sorry, am I calling Roger Ailes dog shit?  Nope you analogy fiends!

Hank Williams, who I consider the honey badger of country music, tried to explain what he meant, but eventually gave up because they don’t care.  

So he did what he does… he pulled his song from ESPN, and he wrote a new song:

Now all would be well served if people dumped Hitler analogies, except in the case of actual genocide.  So Williams was dumb in that way, but he wasn’t calling Obama Hitler, and if you think he was then we… your intellect is like Hitler to…. Oh never mind.

A Canadian woman strangles her baby. Murder – right?

Nope.

She got a suspended sentence for killing her child.

And 16 days in jail for littering (putting the corpse in a neighbors yard).

Although this hideous crime and wrong punishment happened in Canada you can envision similar happening here, can’t you?  In Vermont, or California, maybe New York. Places closer to Canada on the “out of their minds” track.

The sport I participate in has us do the Pledge of Allegiance before events. I say the words, but as I do I sometimes wonder “do I really?”.

Something is REALLY wrong. We, Western Culture that is, are WAY off the tracks.

Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t really worth saving. Don’t you?

This chart may have the most implication of any chart you will see this week – and it is not even about economics!

http://chartsbin.com/view/2338

Basically, there is one woman for each man in the US. And 106 men for every woman in China. And 92 men for every woman in Russia.

And 127 males for every female in Saudi Arabia!

What does it mean?  IMHO…

Lots of unhappy men in Saudi Arabia, this is only important because that culture also provides money and boys to terrorists.

Although the % if lower, the sheer quantity of unhappy men in China will cause geopolitical angst.

Happy, choosy, men in Russia, as woman compete for a declining pool of available men.  Similar behavior happens at colleges in the US now.

The 2010’s could be the decade of the Russian Bride.

This story from the Warsaw Ghetto of WW II… inspires and frightens at the same time.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/05/local/la-me-survivors-20110805

He lay Natalie on their front step. Tears ran down his cheeks. You will make it, he thought. She had blond locks and blue eyes. They will think you are a Gentile, not one of us.

The inspiring part is obvious. What is frightening about it?  Well, to me it is a reminder that the specter of absolute tyranny is never far away, and it is always reaching, grabbing, and trying to ensnare.

Related… The Atlantic has an excellent ongoing series of photo essays from WW II:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/ww2.html

I’ve been traveling in Southern California for a couple weeks now.  My short dip back into SoCal culture fully confirms why people leave here. Yes the weather is nice. But the traffic and the discouraging and tawdry culture make me eager to head anywhere else.

Parents here seem confused about their role and duties.  The confusion manifests publically in two large ways:

• over-sexualized clothing on pre-teen and younger girls
• uncontrolled behavior in public by toddlers and young children.

I’m not a prude by any means, but letting your pre-teen daughter dress in fishnet seems odd and a clear indicator of trouble in a few short years.  Over sexualized attire seemed centered in Hispanic youth and families. I don’t know why.

Dressing to attract male interest at an age where male interest should not be attracted seems an odd thing for a parent to pay for and permit.  I don’t, and wouldn’t permit it in my home.  Yet it was not uncommon to see fishnet wearing Mom walking around with fishnet wearing daughter.

They were trying to be their best friend, not their parent.  Bad idea.

Then we go to the opposite issue… parents that aren’t being anything. Every time I’ve eaten out here I’ve encountered parents with toddlers and pre-kindergarten age kids that ignored their children. They didn’t talk with them. Didn’t engage with them. Didn’t give them guidance. And the kids ran amok. If they bothered to pull their nose out of their phone call, or texting, they would tell the kids to “stop that” or “get back here”, which the kids would ignore, and the parents would go back to their electronic interest, while the kids continued their screamfest running amok. 

Parents… Tell your kid something once, and then enforce it.   You aren’t their friend, you are their PARENT.  You aren’t there to “hang out” or “socialize” with them but to SOCIALIZE THEM.

If California is our national canary, then debt isn’t the only thing it sings a warning about.

Let’s get Diabetes!

http://www.letsmove.gov/learn-facts/epidemic-childhood-obesity

Has facts that aren’t facts, but are plain wrong.  Science doesn’t back them up. Logic doesn’t back them up.  Most of what is there is pure poppycock, written in correct grammar.

I suspect that Michelle Obama’s genetics let her eat whatever she likes, in copious quantities, and not gain weight.  I’m similar. I’ve put on a bit of weight after my pituitary failed due to an accident, but I’ve spent most of my life eating everything I could and staying the same weight. Others aren’t so genetically fortunate.

About 60,000 generations of humans shaped human evolution during the Stone Age. Perhaps 10 have occurred in the Industrial Age. Maybe 600 in the age of agriculture.  Put another way, 99.something % of our human evolution and adaptation happened when we were hunter gatherers.

What do hunter gatherer’s eat?  Meat.  The fattest yummiest meat they can get their hands on. In percentages ranging from 80% to 100% of their daily nutrition.  When they eat fruit it, it is typically during a short period of the year, prior to “hard times”, also known as “winter”.  The plant material they gather is not dense in nutrition and is wrapped, generally, in hard to digest fiber.  Hunter gatherers are not fat.

Hunter gatherer’s do not have “western” diseases. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s are unheard of in their cultures. Yet, when they begin eating like us their rates of those diseases hit Western levels quickly.

So it would make sense, logically and historically, to want to eat as they do. And science backs that logic up. When you eat like a hunter gatherer you don’t get fat, you lose fat if you are fat, you are not lethargic, and your risk of many Western diseases such as diabetes and heart disease disappear.

So why would Michelle, and the USDA, and other parts of our government recommend this food plate:

Why would they recommend this really bad advice:

Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
      ●     Make at least half your grains whole grains.
      ●     Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Why?  Do they want us to get diabetes?  Do they want us to have heart failure? Do they want us to be fat, lethargic and tired?

I don’t think they want us to do have those problems. But I think they care less about us than about their preconceived notion of how the world works. They treat nutrition like they treat economics – what works need not apply.

So my advice to the nation…. if you want to live a happy, healthy, economically prosperous life… DO EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT MICHELLE OBAMA and YOUR GOVERNMENT TELL YOU.

Eat this folks:

Fatty meats, some seaweed, and a few veggies

Or this:

(minus the corn chip)

or this:

Whatever you do… AVOID what Michelle and her USDA buddies recommend!

For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population”.

Mark Steyn
In “After America”

Via Polipundit

This is the next best thing to do to a looter:

Of course, dropping him from a distance would be more effective, and just as satisfying.

I confess to going to New York for a week recently and not seeing any shows. They were expensive and didn’t seem worth the time and money.   I did try, belatedly, to get in and see Rock of Ages, but $300 for seats with an obstructed view hardly seemed a good time.

But I like Neil Patrick Harris’ number, so I’m linking it.

With NetFlix, Amazon Video, and Hulu+, and a few other services I can’t remember hosted on my Roku box, a large number of these essential films are available to me at my leisure.

http://i.imgur.com/2z1js.jpg

Hey… you can run Angry Birds in your browser now…

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

Now you can be aware of and participate in this cultural meme. You are welcome!

Get it at Amazon (Kindle or Paperback)

I found this interview of Warren Farrell, author of  “Why Men Are the Way They Are” very interesting.  If you are a man, or a woman, you might want to read it…

So basically the gap in pay between men and women is a statement of the increased obligations that men take on under certain conditions — supporting wives or children. Therefore, it should be acknowledged as an increase in male obligations for which men should be praised, rather than criticized as if it were discrimination against women. If anything, it’s actually discrimination against men.

and this jewel:

power is about control over one’s life.

So, for instance, a “powerful CEO” that has a pesky PR gal controlling his every move, really isn’t that powerful.

I realized this “power” thing a long time ago and structured my life so that I have the most power and control over my life.  So I’m a “powerful” man, even though I don’t order Armies or massive amounts of staff around.

I can, however, live where ever I choose, buy pretty much what I want, and work, play, travel, as I choose. Pretty powerful… to me.

This “power” thing is why the government scares me so much. If my wife, town, county, or state gets pesky and starts ordering me around unreasonably – taking my power over my own life, I can ditch them.  Ditching the country, however often Commenter Carl suggests it, isn’t particularly feasible, and shouldn’t be the choice I have to resort to.

Another jewel… on why men might be less inclined to tie the knot these days:

“Wow, if I get married to the wrong woman, I could end up like my dad. My dad thought he was in love with my mom at the time and my mom was in love with my dad. Then my dad ended up not getting the home, not getting the children, having us feel that he hated us or was at least neglectful of us, his being depressed and disappointed and paying child support for children he couldn’t see in a home he couldn’t live in….”

The interview is fascinating. Read it!

A SeaTac airport restaurant will not serve TSA employees.

Social shunning is a powerful tool. Who else should we shun?

How about the cops that skip crime and instead rip off citizens just trying to drive to work?

How about IRS agents?  They may not make the silly tax code, but they do seem to revel wallowing in it.

How about politicians?  Shun them. Don’t shake their hands when they bug you at restaurants, and don’t laud them with praise for spending other people’s money.

How about landscapers, eateries, and hotels that hire illegals aliens?

People that walk slow

Or maybe bloggers that advocate social shunning (-:

Who would you shun? And why?

H/T Instapundit

Don’t you rage on that turtle!

My brother reports on a phenomenon called “sidewalk rage” where you go off on the fool[s] waddling along in front of you as you try to walk somewhere.

Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder,” researchers say. On Facebook, there’s a group called “I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head” that boasts nearly 15,000 members.

I certainly am frustrated frequently by apparently healthy people dawdling along in front of me.   It happens everywhere. At airports, at malls, in lines. Everywhere. What’s so hard about walking at a good pace?

I’m frustrated, but I haven’t ‘raged’ yet.  Perhaps cause I don’t get to walk amongst people as often as I once did when residing downtown.

Meanwhile… in NYC a group of polka dotted women is fighting back against us fast iPod wearing walkers… The war rages (-: