Most ridiculous British laws:

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament
   
2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside-down
   
3. In Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
   
4. Mince pies cannot be eaten on Christmas Day
   
5. In Scotland, if someone knocks on your door and requires the use of your toilet, you must let them enter
   
6. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet
   
7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen
   
8. It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing
   
9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour
   
10. In the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow
    

Vouchers and Control

Another set of people who want to make decisions for us are the teachers' unions.

In Utah, more than 40 percent of Hispanics and African-American public students do not graduate with a diploma. This is a travesty. Adding insult to injury, the “minority advocates” in Utah seem to be doing everything in their power to keep minorities from having real educational choice and thereby from reaching their potential.

So here you have the ultimate irony. It is not the NAACP or teachers’ union coming to the rescue of minority families, but conservative Republicans, who have stepped forward with a solution to give a hand up. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who have gone to Milwaukee to study the city’s successful voucher program and see how it could be applied in a state where minorities are struggling in record numbers.

Beware Global Cooling!...er...Warming!...er...Cooling!...er...Warming!

I am good and tired of people predicting the end of humanity from climate change unless we immediately do what we're told. There may be something we are doing to warm the Earth's climate, but the hype in the media should be taken with a grain of salt.

It was five years before the turn of the century and major media were warning of disastrous climate change. Page six of The New York Times was headlined with the serious concerns of “geologists.” Only the president at the time wasn’t Bill Clinton; it was Grover Cleveland. And the Times wasn’t warning about global warming – it was telling readers the looming dangers of a new ice age.

We've seen hysterical climate change stories before, we are seeing them now, and we will probably see them in the future. Just like all aspects of the climate, they seem to go in cycles. (about 25 years in this case - just long enough to train a new generation of journalists? hmmmm).

Speculating is fine. Trying to preserve the environment is fine. Advocating non-pollution is fine. Trying to force fundamental economic and social changes on society based on climate predictions that have changed like clockwork every quarter century is NOT OK. Now Global warming has morphed into "climate change"

Recent global warming reports have continued that trend, morphing into a hybrid of both theories. News media that once touted the threat of “global warming” have moved on to the more flexible term “climate change.” As the Times described it, climate change can mean any major shift, making the earth cooler or warmer.

Advocates of climate change no longer need to worry about specific solutions to specific problems. They don't have to worry if the climate suddenly starts to cool, cooling is climate change too, and man must be responsible. They can work on controlling all economic activity that may impact the environment. This is what they really want -- control over the means of production (ie socialism/communism). They believe that individuals can't make the "correct" use of their own assets, and that government should make the decision for them so that all of us will be saved, and not one soul shall be lost. (Dana Carvey voice) Who does that sound like.... could it be..... I don't know.....maybe SATAN!!

I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.
-- Moses 4:1

Guilt by Association

HBO's "Big Love," the Warren Jeffs trial, Mitt Romney's two grandmothers, you can't escape news about polygamy these days.

All the publicity surrounding polygamists these days has repercussions for average Mormons, and for Utahns in general.

In My Estates and Trusts class, we were talking about how the law handles children omitted from a parent's will. One student raised his hands and asked, in all seriousness, "do they have special provisions in Utah because polygamy is allowed?"

*sigh*

I, of course, informed the class that polygamy is not allowed in Utah -- but I really shouldn't have had to do that.

I'm Picking Up Good Vibrations . . .

Sadly, I have experienced this phenomenon. it used to happen a lot when I had my old phone in my pocket. Not so much now that I have a holster.

I Knew It !!!

I always knew the shoe companies' marketing was a crock! ("trainers" is British for tennis shoes)

Long live the 25 dollar Sketchers!

Pro-Life in Hollywood

I've always liked Kelsey Grammar (Frasier) and Patricia Heaton (Ray's wife on Everybody Loves Raymond). They have a new show coming to Fox, and Heaton is active in "Feminists for Life." National Review interviewed her and she had some very sensible things to say.

The feminists of the ‘60s and ‘70s felt that in order to promote the agenda of equality in the workplace, which I believe in, that they had to denigrate this other very important aspect of being a woman, which is being a mother and bearing children. To even have to compare these two things is ridiculous. I think a mistake these feminists made was that you had to be more like a man to compete in the world. What that leads to is woman having abortions in order to compete. And that’s not really having a choice. So, that’s a big mistake, and you have to spend a lot of time undoing that notion.

Women need to protect their right to bear children without harassment from boyfriends, or parents, or employers, or professors, and no one should be able to tell women that they cannot bear their children, or that they should have to sacrifice their child in order to accomplish other things in life.

The Real-Life Impact of Liberals in Power

Very interesting look at employment numbers on a state-by-state basis. This article compares job growth since 2001 with the national average.

Total Blue-state employment growth has been only 3.3 percent during the current expansion, which began in November 2001, compared with the U.S. rate of 5.5 percent. Meanwhile, total Red-state employment growth has been 7.5 percent, more than double that of the Blue states.

Unsurprisingly, Michigan is dead last at -5%. But, more interesting is the fact the "Red" states (those voting for Pres. Bush in both 2000 and 2004) are doing much better than the "Blue" states. the Red states in the West are doing particularly well.

the labor market doesn't care who is in power, but the policies put in place by those who govern can either encourage or discourage employers, and this article makes a good case that liberal policies discourage job growth. (the situation in France and Germany being an extreme example)

Boys Adrift

National Review Online has an interview with a physician who has written an interesting book on some of the problems many boys and young men seem to have doing something constructive with their lives.

(I realize I have very little room to talk here, glass houses being what they are, but . . .)

Girls are achieving more than boys are these days. More girls graduate form high school, and many more graduate from college than do their male classmates.

One factor he blames - video games:

These new video games are so exciting, so realistic, so engaging, that many boys get addicted to them. They play them 10, 15, 20 hours a week. I very often hear of parties where the girls stand around talking with other girls, while the young men are in the next room playing Halo on the 55-inch flat screen or watching their buddies play. We’re seeing more and more young men who would rather play these video games rather than try to meet girls.

Anyway, food for thought certainly, especially for those of us raising boys. The doctor blames five factors for the increasing prevalence of "failure to launch" (quoting from www.boysadrift.com):

Video Games. Studies show that some of the most popular video games are disengaging boys from real-world pursuits.

Teaching Methods. Profound changes in the way children are educated have had the unintended consequence of turning many boys off school.

Prescription Drugs. Overuse of medication for ADHD may be causing irreversible damage to the motivational centers in boys’ brains.

Endocrine Disruptors. Environmental estrogens from plastic bottles and food sources may be lowering boys’ testosterone levels, making their bones more brittle and throwing their endocrine systems out of whack.

Devaluation of Masculinity. Shifts in popular culture have transformed the role models of manhood. Forty years ago we had Father Knows Best; today we have The Simpsons.

There Are Just No Words . . .

I'm reminded of the line from "Crocodile Dundee:"

"someone's put two Dunnies in here!"

Only now a Japanese company combines the two functions in one device, and they want Americans to buy it. Apparently 60% of Japanese homes have one of these. The company really can't understand why more American aren't interested.

I can enlighten them a bit. their device is designed to automatically clean one's backside using a nice warm flow of water. I don't know about everyone else, but when I stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night and turn on the hot water, IT ISN'T HOT! Who would pay$5000 for a device that will shoot them in the *** with a jet of cold water in the middle of the night? Even if the device has a sensor to run the water till it's warm, who wants to wait 1-2 minutes to wipe and dry?

There are two types of American toilet-goers.

Type A likes to get in, sit down, get it out, get up, and get gone.
Type B likes to linger, maybe read a bit, think over the cares of the day, and so on.

Neither type has a use for this type of toilet. The Type A person has no time to wait for a shower and a blow-dry, and I (the type B) certainly don't want to be halfway through a good article in PC World when my toilet decides I'm done and attacks me from behind.

Our throne is one of the few things in life that is completely under our control, and we like it that way.