The expression “You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh” was, I believe, first made in reference to the death scene in Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit. Well, via the Knuckledragger comes a scene which made me laugh so loudly I woke up the neighbor’s baby. Go ahead and watch it — but stuff a hanky in your mouth first. Read more
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Quote Of The Day
Via Insty:
Kelo comes to mind, and a couple others also dealing with property seizures. The big one, which if re-litigated now would result in its overturning, would be ObamaCare because the “tax” enforcement has now been annulled. Not even Roberts could save it.
Educating Immigrants
From Gates Of Vienna comes a “tl;mr” (too long / must read”) post by a teacher at the sharp end — probably literally so — of the effort to get newly-arrived immigrant children to integrate into the host society. As you can well imagine, it’s going to fail dismally:
I know I will be called a “damned whore”, “damned pussy”, and I know I will hear, “You don’t decide for me.” There will be mess and noise in the classroom, the hallways, the schoolyard and the dining room. Changing rooms where classes change for physical education classes will, as usual, be places where girls don’t dare change since boys will show up and sneakily photograph the girls.
Showering is not on the world map for girls and even for some boys in school. It is enough that one or two pupils refuse to follow the instruction and scream “shut up” at me every time I am going to say something; thus is the lesson destroyed for 28 other pupils who want to learn something.When I call parents in for a conversation, I hear that I don’t have the right to tell their children off, that I should be careful so that I won’t be reported to the principal or school inspectors. They know where my family and I live, what car I drive, and I know that the risk is great that my car will get scratched or destroyed in some other way. I know that certain pupils threaten other pupils, but I don’t dare get in the middle because I risk being beaten.
Read it, and don’t weep; get angry. Because this (and the mindset which enables it) either has come, or will soon be coming to a school near you.
Hidden Agenda
Talking about legislatures passing laws which seem to be quite insane, not to mention un-Constitutional and unenforceable, Joe Bob Briggs nails the mindset perfectly:
“We don’t like things as they are, and so we’ll make it really, really expensive for certain people to enforce their rights. We’ll make them fight every day for what should be rightly theirs for free. We’ll take away their birthright. We’ll screw with their businesses and screw with their wombs and screw with their assumptions about what the courts have guaranteed them, and some of them will give up, and some of them will make mistakes, and we’ll just make sure they have many bad days, and eventually they’ll get tired of fighting with us and we’ll get a team of brutal lawyers to take them down and put them in their place.”
And then having said that, Joe Bob concludes with the killer line:
Well, okay, I guess it worked with the Indians.
To us normal people, this is known as the “beating a dog till it snaps at you, then killing it because it’s dangerous”-style of government.
The only problem with this approach is that we’re not Indians. And we have some serious fucking teeth.
Busted
Seems as though most wine critics and tasters are bunch of posers who couldn’t tell a Beaujolais from a Bass Ale.
In other news, Queen Marie Antoinette was guillotined yesterday.
As an aside, I once did a couple of wine courses over a period of two weeks at the Bellingham and Meerlust estates. During that adventure, I learned that a.) there are some people who can in fact tell the grape varietals from a sip of wine, and b.) there are only about a couple dozen such people, tops, in the entire world. Blindfolded, most people can’t tell red from white from beer (seriously, I’ve seen a few of those challenges).
Here’s a tip when dining out and the sommelier asks you to “taste” the wine: don’t do it. Pick up the sample glass, swirl it a couple of times and then sniff it cautiously. If it’s not rancid — and you’ll know that when you smell it — just nod and say,”That’ll do.” If he says, “Don’t you want to taste it?” reply “I don’t need to.” Then sit back and carry on with your conversation, ignoring him.
For extra points: if it’s a dark red like a cabernet or burgundy, wince slightly, then tell the sommelier to let it breathe for ten or so minutes before he serves it to the table. (That’s a cheat, by the way; all reds need to breathe a little after uncorking.)
The wine world is full of phonies who like to show off. The way to make people think you know what you’re talking about is to say less, not more. What you do (see above) is more impressive than what you say.
Monday Funnies
Oh FFS it’s Monday already:
So before we get to fixing things, a little humor:
And just to speed you on your way, a couple pics of someone named Linda Lusardi, first as a youngin:
…and as she looks today:
Fine wine…