Crazy Libertarian gas station owner Ray slipped me some sweet info that will help save America from the liberal menace.  Enjoy.

For the Lulz.

www.telladf.org

I recently came across someone whose personal motto is "I'm an asshole...deal with it."

Um...no.  I don't have to.  It's a free frickin' country and while you are free to be an asshole, I am also entitled to feel free to refuse to deal with it.  bzzzzzt!  You lose. Try again. Or better yet don't. Just go away.  Have a nice day, then fall in a hole and die.  Thank you.

www.aclj.org

Good Old Ray.  He sure does know how to keep me entertained.

He had this one on the list twice, so I figured it would be a good pick for #2.

"My grandfather's name was Pearly Melvin."

 "A Pearly Melvin? That sounds like a euphamism."

"It sounds like a drink."

"No...it sounds like a very expensive specialty service."

"My grandfather, Pearly Melvin, was left handed."

 "A left-handed Pearly Melvin costs extra."

Someone on a Facebook discussion recently told me that Gary North of the von Mises institute, former campaign worker for Ron Paul, former writer for Ron Paul's newsletter, and regular contributer to Lew Rockwell, is not representative of Libertarianism or Austrian economics...he's an anarchist.

Huh.

So...why did he write this?

http://www.reformed.org/social/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/social/let_2_paul_hill.html

The guy may be a stark barking loony...but he's no anarchist.

Basically, the guy I was talking to pulled the "no good scottsman" bit on me.  Not buyin' it.  Gary North's Austrian economics and Libertarian cred is solid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North_(Christian_Reconstructionist)

 You don't get to back away from it and dismiss him as an anarchist just because he's also insane.

Just as an aside, if you follow that first link and read North's long screed about why the guy should not have killed the abortion doctor, do this thought experiment:  Think about what would happen if we somehow magically managed to address all the reasons that people choose abortion.  Think about if education and government assistance, and community support and in-utero surgery and genetic medicine made it possible for there to never be another abortion in our country...

In Gary North's morality, even if there was never another abortion in the U.S. EVER...we would still be under God's judgement for keeping it as a legal option.  However, if we made it illegal and instituted the death penalty for it, and then just neglected people who might need to have options and they sought out illegal ones, we wouldn't even have to work real hard to enforce the law, and we'd have done enough to clear ourselves of his wrath.

Rocky and I recently went to see "Faith Healer" at the Guthrie. It was pretty good. Not enjoyable, exactly. It was actually sort of bleakly challenging as a play. We were both really impressed by the ability of each of the three actors to dominate the stage. The story is told three times, not unlike the Akira Kurisowa film, Roshamon (sp?)...where different characters tell a story each from their own perspective. Anyway, what makes it difficult to watch is that the story is told as a series of four monologues.

Can you imagine being an actor who has to carry a 1/2 hour monologue all by him or herself? The actors did a very good job.

Anyway, I unfortunately had a coughing fit in the middle of the second monologue. Even though I had a cough lozenge in my mouth at the time. Those of you who have been to the Guthrie theater know that some attendees have an addiction to something called "fragrance layering" Basically, they bath in perfumed soap, put on perfumed lotion, spray themselves down with a perfumed body spray, and then dab a little perfume on their "pulse points". In short, they spend a lot of money to smell like Victorian era French prostitutes.

Often, if there is such a person near us, or if the residue of such a person is still on my seat, I will have a terrible time with coughing, sneezing, eye-watering, etc. This was such a night.

It was terrible, because I was trying desperately to not cough for a long time, and finally, I just couldn't help it.

A lady in front of us handed me a lozenge. Mortifying.

I had my own, but I took it rather than explain why I wasn't taking it. The coughing fit subsided, and I put it in my pocket.

When intermission came, she asked me how I liked the lozenge. I admitted that I had not yet tried it, but thanked her. She insisted that I must try it, that it was a very special lozenge, and that I would absolutely love it.

She was a nice-looking, conservatively dressed lady about the same age and style as my mother-in-law.
Prim, flesh-colored lipstick, sensible sweater of Nordic extraction over a turtleneck. A delicate gold chain with a scattering of little round shiny glass beads. Helmet hair.

Rocky mumbled something about getting me some coffee, and squeezed my shoulder to let me know that he was leaving, and I should try to catch him up when I was done with my conversation.

The lady went on about how great these lozenges were. I couldn't see a brand name on the one she gave me. It was bright yellow, round, and had an indistinguishable green image on the clear cellophane.

Her husband joined, in, singing the praises of the lozenge. They went on and on.

I excused myself as gracefully as possible, and fled. In line for coffee, I tried to explain the deeply creepy nature of the encounter to Rocky. He looked at me bemusedly, as if he were blowing off my perceptions as not quite credible.

We drank our coffee, and returned for the second half of the play. After the final bow, the older couple turned around and looked at me expectantly. "Thank you for the lozenge", I said, self-conscious of the fact that it was still in my pocket, and they obviously wanted to hear how much I liked it.

"Oh, you're welcome. These are VERY SPECIAL lozenges." (heads bobbing up and down in a way that was at the same time enthusiastic and prompting)

"Where did you get them?"

"We have a special source, you can't get them just anywhere. But they're really good." (bobblehead action continues)

"So, what are they?"

Hesitation; "We just love them. Don't you think it's wonderful?"

"Uh, yeah, so , uh, thank you very much...we have to get going, but thanks again."

I turned to Rocky as we exited the theater,

"See what I mean?"
"You threw it away, right?"
"I don't know, they sound pretty good..."
"Please throw it away."
"Roger that", I threw it away.

It's finally happened, the Ori have had one of their priors infiltrate Minnesota politics:

http://www.bluestemprairie.com/a_bluestem_prairie/2008/02/will-ruthie-hen.html

Look out Minnesota.  Here they come. 

It's that time of year again: