Hey Texas, time to man up!

Quoth Tamara:

It’s a disgrace to the noble Lone Star Republic... that, when I visit there, I have to keep my gun burkha snugged around my body while walking the windswept parking lots of Amarillo in a way that I don’t when I’m walking through the Hoosier hippie enclave of Broad Ripple, because in Texas it's a crime if somebody accidentally sees my gun and here in Indiana the hippies can just piss off if they catch a glimpse of my heater.

Now if we could just do something about Indiana’s smoking laws...

LATER: In a comment, Josh K. reminds me that hoosiers still have some 4th Amendment-related housecleaning on our agenda for next November.

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Best Wisconsin summary so far...

Walker had more out of state money
but Barrett had more out of state voters.

relayed by "momma” in a comment at Ace’s place (naturally!).

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Wow, talk about a shout-out...

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Fortunately for us, today there’s Nanny Michael

Frank J. Fleming:

America was built on the principle that a man could make choices about his own life.  This has been a complete failure.  You remember when pioneers set out by themselves into the untamed frontier?  And you remember what happened to them?  That’s right: They all died.  Lacking a government to tell them how much soda to drink or salt to eat, they became too obese to run away from bears and mountain lions.  It’s a sad chapter in our history...

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Blogmeet today!

Thanks, Roberta!

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Clipfile - June 1, 2012

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Memorial Day in France

Before I left France, I attended my last Memorial Day ceremony at the Suresnes American cemetery.  Back a year ago, I was very very busy and was only a month away from moving permanently, but I absolutely wanted to take the time to go...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 16:59:50 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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What we have is a failure to communicate

I swear, kids these days:

-I left a lot of messages on her Facebook wall.
-Facebook!  Facebook?  Why don’t you email her?
-No one has an email address, dad.
-Really?
-Well, they might, but they wouldn’t look in their inbox and answer you...
-Why don’t you call her on the phone?
-She’s like my friends.  She doesn’t know how to answer a phone.
-What do you mean?  They all have $500 phones.
-They don’t know how to answer them.
-How can that be?
-They all are iPhone type slabs and they have to lock them so they don’t butt-dial 911 and their mother twenty-five times a day.  They can’t unlock them fast enough to answer them.
-Well, why don’t you leave them a voicemail and tell them to call you back?
-Dad, they have no idea how to use voicemail.  All their mailboxes are full and have never been listened to.
-You’re making that up.

Also, why texting is not for communicating information...

Via Tam, who claims to have "sent maybe two dozen text messages” in her life.

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Watch what you say

The Daily Mail:

The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.

The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as "attack,” "Al Qaeda,” "terrorism,” and "dirty bomb” alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like "pork,” "cloud,” "team,” and "Mexico.”

"Pork” is obvious: Just think of all those right-wing extremist "Porkbusters,” right...?

The Mail’s story has the complete list.  For future reference (and as a service to readers who might want to maintain a low profile), I’ve linked it in the sidebar: You’ll find The DHS Suspicious Words List in the Useful Stuff section.

Elsewhere:

Related:

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Clipfile - May 23, 2012

Posted by: Old Grouch in Clipfile at 21:28:39 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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