Reason? BECAUSE WE KNOW YOU'RE JUST GOING TO TAKE THAT STUFF AND GO MAKE METH WITH IT, YOU CRIMINAL!!!
It's not enough to do a background check (requiring you to tender your driver's license or state ID) any more; oh, no! No, now we'll be tracking your usage of these medications and if it turns out you're using too much, blammo! We'll no-knock your evil drug-manufacturing ass and lock you up and throw away the key!
Yeah, you need to show your ID to buy Claritin or drain cleaner, but not to vote.
Of course there are ways to make meth which don't involve the use of pseudoephedrine, and all this new law will do is to push the producers of it into working with those methods.
Someone referred to "the War on Drugs" as "the New Prohibition" and it's working about as well; and in order to further "the War on Drugs" the state is forcing us to give up far too many freedoms.
It's not worth it. Let the druggies have their shit; we obviously can't stop them and no amount of criminal penalties is enough to dissuade an addict. And as long as there are addicts willing to pay for the junk, there will be people who will take their money. Making the crap illegal merely raises the price.
* * *
More detail on Rand Paul's detainment by the TSA.
The TSA is another thing that we need to be rid of.
* * *
No no no no. No. That's not possible. No, the homosexual activists all insist that you can't help but be gay, that you're born that way and you don't have a choice in the matter.
...because if you do have a choice, that means that you don't have to be gay just because you feel like you might be. And if homosexuality is a learned behavior, it means it can be unlearned...and that just will not do. Not when these people define themselves solely by how they use their genitals. (Which, I might add, is a pretty sad, sad way to define your existence. "Yes! The way I choose to use 1% of my body defines the entirety of who I am!")
The most telling point of all this: one answer I've heard to "homosexuality is a choice" is "I wouldn't choose to be like this!" But if that's so, what's with the "pride" stuff? How can you be proud of something if you wouldn't choose to be that way?
I like this bit:
Nixon, 45, is engaged to her long-time partner Christine Marinoni, who gave birth last February to their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni.Uh...no. No, sorry, the kid is not "their" son. The kid is the son of Nixon's "partner" and some man. Medical science has done some interesting things in the past couple of decades, but taking two ova and making a boy is still impossible. Nixon may have adopted the kid, but the article makes it sound as if Nixon impregnated her "partner"...and that's flat-out impossible.
Bonus points for Nixon's "partner" being a stereotypical lesbian.
* * *
Conflict of interest. One of Obama's (illegal) appointments to the National Labor Relations Board will continue to receive money from his former employer while sitting on the board.
Richard Griffin, the former general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, will receive regular payments under two different IUOE pension plans.Isn't that wonderful? "Of course this guy will be fair! He no longer works for the union, so what's the problem?"
Only the Obama administration would think so. And only the mainstream media would let him get away with it.
...if it were George Bush appointing a former Haliburton lawyer....
* * *
And speaking of the double standard from the liberal press, did you know the price of gasoline has risen by 83% since Obama took office?
A few years ago every single rise in gas prices was accompanied by dire warnings of doom and gloom from the mainstream media. "Gasoline reached another all-time high today--!" "Gasoline prices fell X much today, from their all-time high set RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF BUSHITLER'S TERM THIS IS BUSH PAYING OFF HIS OIL BARON BUDDIES DON'T YOU KNOW--"
Not a word about gas prices. After all, there's no inflation! The government excludes food and energy from the price index, so it's all just fine! There's been very little inflation under Obama, everyone! We're all fine!
Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.You can't get a half-gallon of ice cream any more. No, you can get "1.75 quarts"--actually, now they're down to 1.5 quarts, most of them. You're paying more than you were for half a gallon and getting 75% of the product. (Their figures take this into account. I'm just sayin'.)
One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.
Whole milk prices averaged above three dollars 33 out of the 36 months since Obama took office. In January 2009, the price for one gallon of whole milk was $3.58; but by December 2011, milk prices had slightly declined less than one percent (0.28 percent) to $3.57 per gallon.
The average retail price of Grade A eggs per dozen from January 2009 to December 2011 increased by less than two percent (1.30 percent) from $1.85 to $1.87.
Bacon. (AP Photo.)
The only good news in this is eggs: they've hardly budged on price, probably because the price of chicken feed isn't dependent on the price of corn, unlike bacon and milk and beef are.
Thanks to ethanol subsidies, we're burning food, making both food and fuel more expensive since ethanol production is a net consumer of energy.
Obamanomics in action! Thanks, Obama! Thanks, Democrats! And thanks--to a lesser extent--Republicans!
* * *
Let's continue the theme of things the press doesn't report by linking Elizabeth Scalia's post on the March For Life.
Unfortunately, the “big picture” is hard to come by, particularly if you’re looking for “big pictures” of this well-attended march. We have reached a remarkable era of photojournalism, as demonstrated by the once-noble Washington Post — one where a half million people can march, the headlines can call it “thousands” and the pictures show you none of it.What's got her panties in a bunch? 500,000 is "thousands"--five hundred of them, to be exact--so why is she upset? The headline isn't a lie!
Someone asked me on Twitter, “why don’t they just report the truth” and I thought, “because they have given themselves wholly over to a lie, and they fear the truth. Having built up the lie for so long that it’s become their foundation, they know they cannot withstand an assault by the truth.”
So they have become truth-phobics, our mainstream media. They can’t tell you the truth about anything, anymore — they can only do whatever it takes to sustain the narratives they’ve constructed.
That’s why you hear no reports about Fast and Furious, or a member of the DOJ pleading the Fifth about that. It’s why you don’t hear about Solyndra and the “green jobs” myth it’s why you hear no caterwauling from the press about the fact that we are 1000 days into this administration without a budget.
You want the truth? You think you deserve it? The press can’t handle the truth; they can’t bring it to you.
That’s why 250 people camping out in a park gets thousands of stories, while half-a-million marching on Washington does not get reported at all, or if it does, the pictures are cropped; the attendees are caricatured, mis-named and under-represented while their opponents are over-represented.
If the press were to acknowledge that the Pro-Life movement actually has supporters other than a handful of hicks, hayseeds, and crazy religious nuts in the hinterlands, people who are on the edge in other places might think, "Hey, my views aren't so unusual after all!"
Just remember: Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in spite of its lack of popular support. It was the only way the liberals could do it; they'd tried numerous times to get laws passed and failed every time.
* * *
Iran says it'll close the Strait of Hormuz if the European oil embargo disrupts Iran's exports.
Let them try. Go on, Iran: give us an excuse to hit back. Please. Because I can guaran-god-damn-tee you that your nuclear weapons sites will be on the target list. And then the entire rest of the world could breathe a sigh of relief.
* * *
DOOM!
Economic recovery has been exaggerated.
According to economists surveyed by USA Today, much of the excitement around December retail sales was “hype,” and the fourth-quarter bounce was largely driven by post-earthquake/tsunami activity in Japan, not domestic policy. (When the economy suffers, the President blamed the earthquake; when it recovers, curiously, no earthquakes merit mention).Emphasis added.
Japan needs a shitton of stuff to rebuild after the Kanto earthquake, and that drove the fourth quarter bounce--such as it was. Denninger has been commenting on the financials and indicators and has mentioned these factors, without discussing Japan's role; this makes sense to me.
Unfortunately it's not real demand--not in the sense that it's demand that would have existed had Sendai not been ground into a fine powder. It's merely demand that exists instead of demand for other goods and services. If that were not the case, the jump in the various indices would be good news.
But it's not.
* * *
I played Katawa Shoujo for quite a while yesterday.
Around 4 PM I began getting hungry, and decided, hang the sense of it, I'm gonna get a pizza! But I was waiting for the UPS man to deliver my books; and as the Lilly path wound on and on and it kept getting later and later--and I was getting hungrier and hungrier--finally I couldn't stand it any more. It was nearing 6 PM when I pulled on some jeans, fired up Cephiro, ordered a pizza, and got ready to go get it.
...the package was delivered as I was putting Cephiro back into power save.
So I went and got my pizza, and came home and played more KS.
I got to the end of Act 3 before I decided I'd had enough and wanted to play WoW. I've still got all of Act 4 to get through, though I doubt I'll get to it beore the end of Bible study today.
In WoW I teamed up with Sailor V and his friend--a woman I'll refer to as "Lemonzen" after her first toon in WoW--and we ended up running Scholomance with a fellow guildie, Sailor V, and a pickup healer.
I did not do too badly on the tankage in there, even though the bosses were orange/red to me. Emerald just hit 40th and I haven't gotten any plate armor yet; and in fact I got 41st while in Scholomance.
But I ended up being on past 2 AM, when I logged off. I tried to ignore the stack of books but couldn't, and just had to read Yotsuba&! vol 10.
"I'll just read some of it before bed," I said--famous last words. I read it all. *sigh*
But that leaves the two Kimi ni Todoke books and Spice and Wolf number 4 to read, anyway.
* * *
On my way back from getting the pizza last night I hit a wet patch on the road. Now, it rained and rained and rained Wednesday night; Thursday the temperatures fell steadily all day until they were below freezing. This wet patch had ice on the far side of it.
I was careful; I knew all this. I'd seen that patch on my way out and when it appeared in my headlights it wasn't a surprise. I drove right through it with nary a problem.
Once I figured I was comfortably past it, I eased back on the throttle...and I felt the Jeep give a sickening lurch to the left--a little one--and my adrenal glands fired a shot so hard it felt like I'd been jabbed in the kidneys. Both of them at once.
Then I laughed. It's been a while since my reflexes needed any adrenaline; obviously plenty was stored up. It's something else when you can feel your endocrine system spring into action. But having your truck start to try to go sideways when you're rolling along at 55 MPH--well, it's not as bad as Og's experience but bad enough nonetheless. At least I didn't have to crowbar the seat out of my rectum.