Would Steve Hickey Support This Cage Match??

Bill O'Reilly vs. Rush Limbaugh!!! with special guest referee Laura Ingraham!

PerhapsReverend Hickey might be willing to unleash serve as the ring announcer and unleash his inner Michael Buffer and unleash a stentorian "Let's get ready to ruuuuummmmmmble."

Here's the pre-fight trash talk.

For the record, I've been called a Bible thumper and don't find the term offensive although I prefer Bible Banger.

If We Ban Paring Knives, Only Criminals Will Have Paring Knives

A family in Maine discovered a paring knife in an Elmo birthday cake. Walmart volunteered to give the family a free cake and announced a ban on "the use of pairing knives at its bakeries across the country."

Clearly Walmart's top managment has been overly influenced by liberal hysteria. The banning of paring knives obviously violates the 2nd Amendment which reads "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." it doesn't limit itself to firearms. The founders were clearly familiar with the knife and would consider an person bearing a knife armed.

Don't the liberals running Walmart know that paring knives don't ruin birthday cakes or birthday parties; people who put paring knives in birthday cakes ruin birthday cakes?

Banning paring knives doesn't prevent some absent minded Walmart kitchen employee from setting a butcher knife down near the bakery and ruining a three year old's party by corrupting a My Little Pony cake with a large knife that has just been used to slice pastrami.

The South Dakota legislature will reconvene on March 25 to consider vetoes and perform other business. The most responsible thing legislators could do on that day is pass legislation authorizing every Walmart in South Dakota to create a corps of paring-knife-knife weilding sentinels to ensure that no deranged person can storm a Walmart bakery and leave another paring knife in another birthday cake.

The father of the birthday boy in Maine said "We're not going to get that second birthday back ever." We must do everything we can to prevent other children from having their youth stolen by ruined birthday parties.

HT: Kevin Drum

Update: It appears that sharp objects are frequently misplaced.

About 6,000 patients a year leave U.S. operating rooms with surgical tools mistakenly left inside their bodies. (via @theweek)
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) March 16, 2013

 

A Minor Musing In Which I Take Issue With The South Dakota Legislature

I probably have not paid enough attention to all of the bills in the hopper, but it seems that legislators are focused on guns. Some want ensure that schools have them. Some want to nullify federal gun laws. Apparently the latter group believes they live in South Carolina in 1860 not South Dakota in 2013.

What happened to the good old days? Where's the focus on important issues like kuchen or kolaches? Maybe I'm being picky;  the marijuana medical necessity defense may cover brownies which are a dessert.

Even so, we're missing the Sharia law bill that I look forward to every year. Most importantly, do we really want Wyoming to get ahead of us in the mythical creatures department?

Everything Should Be Pay As You Go

Yesterday's Yankton Press & Dakotan printed a letter from Dennis J. Muser of Pierre. Mr. Muser contends:

I think that the real question is WHO is responsible for the education of children? The simple answer in three words — PARENTS, PARENTS, PARENTS! The point being, if schools really do need more funding, it is way past time that parents start paying tuition to their public schools rather than relying on the coercive power of government to hit property owners, etc.

 Let's leave aside the little technicality that the South Dakota Constitution mandates "it shall be the duty of the Legislature to establish and maintain a general and uniform system of public schools wherein tuition shall be without charge . . ."

In fact, let's take this suggestion out to its logical conclusion. I'm sick of government using its coercive power to tax gasoline. Let's run everything on a pay as you go system.. Let's put a ticket machine at the end of each driveway and the entrance to every roadway so that drivers pay every time we drive. Drivers can grab a ticket when they enter a roadway and pay when they leave. It doesn't matter if they're driving from their home to the nearest Walmart or from Walla Walla, Washington to Washington DC. Everyone should pay every time he or she drives.

I suppose bicyclists could pay a lower rate because they cause less wear and tear on the road, but with a pay as you use system, they'd have some skin in the game. Right now, they're freeloaders using the public roadways without paying gas taxes that fund roads. They even have the gall to complain if someone driving a 4x4 pickup runs them over. Skin in the game isn't the same as skin on the road. That 4x4 driver pays more for those roads than the bicyclist; he should have the right to drive from center line to shoulder as he sees fit.

People could hire their own private security forces instead of relying on police and fire department. Every individual could hire his or her own health inspector to insure that all the food one consumes is safe. That situation alone might make everyone feel like a king or queen. Didn't they have food tasters in the Middle Ages? Safety and self-esteem in one fell swoop, who could ask for anthing else?

Heck, let's do away with all taxes and rely of tariffs the way the country did for most of the 18th and 19th Centuries. A standing army is only quasi-constitutional anyway.

A Fat Man Analyzes Bloomberg's Proposed Biggie Drink Ban

This Wall Street Journal graphic made me think about something that I didn't want to think about: New York City Mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban on large sodas.

First, I'd feel a lot better if the sentiment ran 65% jokes, 29% against it, and 7% for it.

Second, how many of the jokes included something like "Bloomberg can have my Big Gulp when he pries it from my cold, dead fingers"?

Third,  the circled text on the right indicates that Bloomberg is going to run for President.  Why else would he want the NRA off his back?

Fourth, the circled text on the left indicates that he will ask South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard to be his VP.  After all, someone who understands "the direction we need to go to save the health of our children" would want to run with someone who is the only lobbyist South Dakota students have.

Finally, I want to live in a place that has solved poverty, hunger, crime, and unemployment so it can focus on the terrifying problem of  sugar abuse.  I had no idea New York City was that place.