The following quote is taken from here, talking about this article….

Continental Airlines is suing 9 pilots and has fired 8 for their involvement in a pension fraud scheme that involved fake divorces back in 2005. It worked like this: the pilots would get a so-called “paper divorce” (a divorce on paper where the couple did not actually split up) and sign over pilot pension benefits to the now ex-spouse. The ex-spouse would then request a lump-sum payment of the benefit. Then, flush with cash, the couple would re-marry.

So what was wrong with this? If they dotted their i’s, and crossed their t’s – getting an actual lawyer written up divorce, then they did nothing wrong. Even if they got remarried 5 minutes after receiving the money. I am going to try to follow this case. It pretty clearly should be tossed out on its ass.

So when did I obtain the below..

Elvis: The Legendary Tours

In a world of gods, myths, and legends . . .

Exiled by his evil half-brother, the sorcerer-priest Costello, wandering bard Elvis searches for a way to return to his home, the mysterious Land of Grace. Armed with his wits, guns, and guitar, and aided by his sidekicks John Lenin and ‘Senator’ Joe McCartney, his adventures really rock!

A great quote of my brothers, made when me, him, mom and Kat were about to dig into a huge plate of wings at Rocco’s pub in Marietta…

(His comment was about the four of us eating…)

Like a pack of Hyaena’s descending on a carcass…

Tuesday nights are 2 for 1 wing nights at Rocco’s.

Recommended. Great local bar/pub thats been in business for over twenty years.

is actually a loon. Disguised as a parrot. Because she is crazy.

Grandaddy longlegs

Originally uploaded by The_Gut.

For a more scientific than you probably care for article on harvestmen, check out their wikipedia entry. Here though, is a more entertaining layman’s article on this fairly interesting critter.

Earlier today, Harley was yelling MAX! (Max is my overly hyper datsun mutt mix). Right after he would yell Max! Kermit would yell “Bad Dog!”. I’ve never actually called Max a bad dog…. but Harley came knowing the phrase, and he applied it to Max.

Luckily for Max’s sanity, neither of the two birds speak clearly enough for him to understand them. Harley can speak a few words very clearly, though he rarely does. Kermit has a small vocabulary, and her speech is never clear. Her speech is like most toddlers – you have to know her, to understand her. (Like most parents can understand what their kids are saying, even when most other folks can’t hear a word in the gibberish).

Still, that was too cute. It had me laughing like mad.

And, since I’m more broke than normal, one that I’ll be spending at the house. Still, life is sweet, and I’ve got no major complaints (and few minor ones)

From here… a sample

In most of the developed world, the state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood—health care, child care, care of the elderly—to the point where it’s effectively severed its citizens from humanity’s primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. Hillary Rodham Clinton said it takes a village to raise a child. It’s supposedly an African proverb—there is no record of anyone in Africa ever using this proverb, but let that pass. P.J. O’Rourke summed up that book superbly: It takes a village to raise a child. The government is the village, and you’re the child. Oh, and by the way, even if it did take a village to raise a child, I wouldn’t want it to be an African village. If you fly over West Africa at night, the lights form one giant coastal megalopolis: Not even Africans regard the African village as a useful societal model. But nor is the European village. Europe’s addiction to big government, unaffordable entitlements, cradle-to-grave welfare, and a dependence on mass immigration needed to sustain it has become an existential threat to some of the oldest nation-states in the world.

And now the last holdout, the United States, is embarking on the same grim path: After the President unveiled his budget, I heard Americans complain, oh, it’s another Jimmy Carter, or LBJ’s Great Society, or the new New Deal. You should be so lucky. Those nickel-and-dime comparisons barely begin to encompass the wholesale Europeanization that’s underway. The 44th president’s multi-trillion-dollar budget, the first of many, adds more to the national debt than all the previous 43 presidents combined, from George Washington to George Dubya. The President wants Europeanized health care, Europeanized daycare, Europeanized education, and, as the Europeans have discovered, even with Europeanized tax rates you can’t make that math add up. In Sweden, state spending accounts for 54% of GDP. In America, it was 34%—ten years ago. Today, it’s about 40%. In four years’ time, that number will be trending very Swede-like.

But forget the money, the deficit, the debt, the big numbers with the 12 zeroes on the end of them. So-called fiscal conservatives often miss the point. The problem isn’t the cost. These programs would still be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They’re wrong because they deform the relationship between the citizen and the state. Even if there were no financial consequences, the moral and even spiritual consequences would still be fatal. That’s the stage where Europe is.

Emphasis mine. Health care – lack of, or any other aspect, is not a government problem. Lots of things aren’t, that are presently done by the government.

From an overall dumbass article at Slate….

Democrats view elections as a means to an end, while Republicans view an election as an end in itself. This arises from their differing views about government. Democrats want to use government as a force for good in society, while Republicans want to diminish government’s capacity to do harm.

.

These differing views of government’s value cause Democrats to favor compromise (since they tend to view minimal action as preferable to no action at all) and Republicans to favor deadlock (second-best to active dismantlement of government).

Damn, that would be awesome if it were true (of Republican’s. Anyone who thinks that the government can be a force for good is a historically ignorant fool). Considering that the government grew by a huge, huge margin under Bush, I don’t think it can be said to be true even on the surface. But it would be nice if it was!

From a thread over at Volokh.com.

First quote

I dunno. I think the state should announce your punishment at sentencing, and that should be that. Judging you X years later and saying oh you haven’t learned your lesson yet, you have a bad attitude is an invitation to abuse of authority, not to mention moral if not actual legal corruption.

I don’t even favor time off for good behaviour, because it’s functionally equivalent to added time for bad behaviour, and the punishment should fit the crime, not the behaviour, attitude, beliefs, thoughts, philosophy et cetera of the felon.

And the response

the punishment should fit the crime, not the behaviour, attitude, beliefs, thoughts, philosophy et cetera of the felon.

Ah, you are a retributive justice kind of guy. I’m a utilitarian-justice kind of guy — I don’t care (primarily, it’s still nice) about punishing wrongdoers, I want a justice system that incapacitates wrong-doers so that they do not violate the rights of others in the future. Insofar as the attitudes, beliefs etc impact whether or not the criminal is apt to reoffend, they are acceptable basis for a sentence.

Criminal law in the US has always been a strange mix of retributive, preventative and (recently) rehabilitating strands. Untangling those threads might be impossible at this point.

As an example, consider a habitual DUI offender. As far as retribution goes, the 5th offense is no worse than the first since the moral harm (endangering others) has not increased. From the preventative point of view, it’s quite a bit worse since he’s shown that the punishment so far is insufficient to remedy his behavior. From the rehabilitation point of view, it’s clear that he’s an alcoholic than needs help with impulse control, not a stiff sentence and that removing his driving privileges will only lead to worse offense.

Interesting. I’m (emphatically) a retributive justice individual. Utilitarian-justice is a open invitation for government (which is inherently corrupt) to abuse groups. Remember – no government can be trusted.

Enlightening though.

Hey! I see you!

Originally uploaded by The_Gut.

Well it looks like that young couple who built the penthouse apartment between my house and my folks have at least one kid. No doubt I’ll be yelling at the brat to get off my lawn before too long….

(This is a young red shouldered hawk, on a nest between my house, and my folks. Which is about 250 feet away.)

Passages – how have I missed this game?

“Its ‘Sliders’ in the Victorian age. If you really dig the 19th century, you’ll dig the game. It’s got lots of good little details and trivia about life in the Victorian era (society, etc),

Not that I’m going to get it just yet…. a bit tapped for funds at the moment, and I’ve recently spent a bit on rpgs. I just picked up the thirty dollar PDF for Starblazer Adventures.

I’m going to be running a biweekly space opera campaign, and I wanted a rules light game. While FATE (the system behind Starblazer) isn’t truly rules light, it is dice and mechanic light. So it should be a nice fit. Besides, thats the system which will drive the Dresden Files RPG – and that is a game I’m really, really looking forward to. (Not really to play – it wouldn’t be my cup of tea for playing, or running (though I do like their standard werewolves), but to read).

Anyway, Passages is on my buy list, in time.