News from the food police

While you--or most of us, anyway--have been stuffing our faces with unhealthy foods, the food police have been sitting around their Spartan vegan dinners and planning new rules for us.

A consumer group prodded the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to regulate salt as a food additive, arguing that excessive salt consumption by Americans may be responsible for more than 100,000 deaths a year.

Rachel takes umbrage at this. But why not? If carbon dioxide, one of the commonest substances in the world and part of the air we breathe, can be considered a pollutant, why can't salt be a dangerous substance?

The nanny-minded among us are discovering brave new worlds to conquer every day. There are no limits except for their own chutzpah. Let's hear it for Mayor Bloomberg, who decided to ban transfats. He's obviously a pioneer.

Want to break up with your significant other?

Here's a painless, high-tech way. No personal appearance or phone calls required.

No more physical therapy

Hooray! I got sprung from physical therapy today.

My last six sessions were in the water. There is a small pool which is used by one person at a time. Aside from feeling like a teabag floating in a very large cup, this suited me just fine. I could move my leg forward, backward, sideways, and bend it--a lot easier than on land. Jumping jacks, walking, running, skipping--all were great in the water. Not quite so good on terra firma.

Now if I could arrange to spend my life under water....

My favorite movies

I'm so glad you asked.



1. My Fair Lady. Script by George Bernard Shaw, costumes by Cecil Beaton, the unbeatable Rex Harrison and the radiant Audrey Hepburn--what's not to like?

2. Wife versus Secretary.

3. Sullivan's Travels.

4. The Quiet Man.

ht to Doug Harper.

Yes, I hate him

Which 2008 candidate do you hate the most?

The candidate you like least is Democrat Dennis Kucinich. He opposes the death penalty, opposes building a border fence, opposes Iran sanctions, opposes a troop surge for Iraq, supports embryonic stem cell research -- this guy is your worst nightmare!

Take the quiz at Buttafly.com

and I don't think much of the others.

God bless us every one

Oops! Wrong holiday! However, the sentiment remains the same.

God bless everyone; however, I hope Jimmy Carter's wishbone is broken.

Jack Reacher redux

Rachel has written a sarcastic comment regarding my invention of an attache case for this fictitious hero:

Jack Reacher don't need no stinkin' attache case.

I think Reacher rinses his undies out every night before he goes to bed. Or he goes commando.

Well, missy, I'm not going to take that lying down.

Imagine Jack Reacher, coming home to his bleak hotel room tired out from saving the world, and satisfying the lust of some gorgeous chick. He sneaks out of his lover's embrace, then goes to the sink and rinses out his undies, which are made of quick-drying flimsy material and have lace trim. I suppose his socks have ruffles? Is this the tough superhero we know and love?

Sorry, the attache case is the only decent way out. At the very least, he needs a backpack.

A mixed up family

at Thanksgiving dinner.

spam

This piece-of-crap ad comes up whenever I attempt to access my website.

Knock it off!

I am not interested in flacking for blogxchang, whatever it might be.

Jack Reacher's underwear

I've been reading Lee Child's books about Jack Reacher. His latest, Bad Luck and Trouble, is pretty good if you like that sort of thing, which I do. Lots of action, not much Inquiry into the Meaning of Life. He gets on with it.

You should know that Jack Reacher is a nomadic character, who goes wherever he listeth, carrying only a collapsible toothbrush. Wherever he goes, he finds intrigue and devilry and, after heroic effort, puts things right. He's a lone wolf, needless to say.

He has no spare clothing, wearing what he stand up in until he buys another outfit, and then discarding outfit A for outfit B. What bothers me is that toothbrush, or actually, what he doesn't carry besides it.

I mean, what does the man do for underwear? He sleeps with his clothes under the mattress, by which I gather that he is in the nude. But when he gets up and takes a shower, does he put on yesterday's dirty undies? Ugh! Or does he go commando? Also ugh, except not perhaps so much.

Also, in a related matter, what does he put on the toothbrush?

In my imagination, I have solved this problem. I have endowed Jack Reacher with a small attache case, containing a change of undies, toothpaste, deodorant, and a shaver.

It's so much neater that way.

Now it can be told...

The real truth about 9/11.

Quick and handy guide to George W Bush

My George Bush Conspiracy Theory

George W. Bush made Rosie leave The View so that Ann Coulter, the Christian Coalition, Rush Limbaugh, the Jews, and big corporations could offend minorities.

Create your own at Buttafly.com

He's also mean to children. Because he hates them.

h/t Rachel.

I knew this would happen if Bush were elected

Dissent is being stifled.

Last week, in my weekly Sun Media column, I argued that it’s really not that big of a deal to make terror suspects like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed essentially do what any kid does at Halloween when he bobs for apples...
That column triggered an email campaign spearheaded by the Daily Kos -- the largest far-left blog in America – which appealed to the Sun’s new editor-in-chief from the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest leftist newspaper. As a result, after 2 years with the Sun and a hundred columns, my writing is now in search of a new home.

See how Bush tramples on our civil liberties? Oops! Same church, different pew.

Reflections on Norman Mailer

The only thing I ever read of Mailer's was The White Negro, an essay extolling the courage of a bunch of thugs who beat up and murdered an elderly white shopkeeper.

It made a deep impression on me, as I can still remember its impact, and the crazy, troubled way it made me feel. Was good bad? Was up down? Could it possibly be that beating up on an elderly, innocent person was an act of merit? Clearly I could not appreciate the subtlety of Mailer's ideas. He must have meant something far, far different from the words on the page. Didn't he?

One of us (me or Norm) was obviously crazy, and since he was rich and famous and I was nobody, I assumed it had to be me. The essay did have the effect of giving me a pass, an excuse not to ever read anything else by him, and I exercised this option to the max.

And I've never been sorry.

Saluting veterans

My inner European

Your Inner European is Italian!

Passionate and colorful. You show the world what culture really is.

Who's Your Inner European?

I don't come from anywhere

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Neutral You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you're just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

People I least want to hear, read, or think about

These people should get the hook indefinitely. The American people have suffered enough.

9. Ron Paul

8. Dennis Kucinich

7. Paris Hilton

6. Duane "Dog" Chapman

5. Ellen deGeneris

4. Rosie O'Donnell

3. Britney Spears

2. Heather Mills

1. And the once and always champion, Jimmah (malaise) Carter, friend to dictators everywhere.

Let's have a moratorium on any news about them. Unless, of course, one of them dies. Their obituaries will be welcome.

A really good discussion of biofuels

The verdict: They're no damn good.

Click the link and read. Must I do everything around here?

Today is Guy Fawkes Day

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Daniel Hannan, who must be a British MP, has a graceful tribute:

Guy Fawkes Night is a big event in my constituency, especially in Sussex and Kent. These counties were strong for Protestantism in the 16th century and for Parliament in the 17th. To this day, there are bonfire societies in almost every village, and you can see orange sparks rising from crests of the Downs, not just on the 5th, but throughout October and November.

Guy Fawkes Night is a big event in Sussex and Kent.


Nor is it just Guy Fawkes who is burnt. I have seen effigies of Tony Blair, Romano Prodi, unpopular local politicians and, of course, the Pope.

The torching of the Pontiff understandably makes people uneasy – although, in my experience, Left-wing atheists are more offended by the rite than are practicing Catholics. Still, at a time when Catholic leaders are uneasy about the triumphalism of the new Elizabeth film, do we want to be setting fire to the Holy Father?...

[H]aving attended dozens of bonfire nights in my constituency, I can honestly say that I’ve never found the slightest hint of anti-popery in the crowds. Most people are there to enjoy the fireworks. To the extent that there is any ideology present at all, it can be found in the celebration of patriotism, of tradition and of English particularism: the sense that we are marking one of the things that makes our country distinctive.

One year, in Lewes, I watched a large crowd cheering the immolation of Jacques Delors and a large dinosaur that represented the Maastricht Treaty. The good people of East Sussex had realised that, these days, the threat to our way of life comes, not from the Bishop of Rome, but from the Treaty of Rome.

Is there an American politician who can put together an article as well written and articulate as that? Imagine Harry Reid writing an Op Ed about the Fourth of July. Don't be ridiculous. The last American politician who could string words together to make coherent statements was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And he's dead.

Teddy Roosevelt wrote books, one of which, a history of the War of 1812, is still read. Compare that to the drivel published under the name of, and perhaps written by, Bill Clinton.