Early Morning Ranting

I woke up this morning, rolled over and looked at my clock, which politely informed me that I should have been up and in the shower 15 minutes ago. So I bailed out of bed, did all my morning stuff, came out into the kitchen and grabbed my daily bowl of sugar, artificial color and preservatives and started to chow down. The microwave said it was 5:15am. So did the stove. And the DVD player. I grabbed my cell phone. 5:15am. I checked the clock on my nightstand. 7:45am. So my clock has a poltergeist that randomly moves the time forward two and a half hours. I guess things were getting too boring around here or something.

So I'm blogging. Or at least, I trying to blog. It seems Google has been improving things again, so there are all sorts of glitches when trying to edit my blog post. It looks like some of the improvements will be handy, and there have been some things fixed that haven't worked quite right since long before Google bought Blogger, but the process of getting from here to there looks to be rather painful.

Debbie should be rolling into town about the same time I get out of work, so we'll do a quick unpack of the rental car and try to get it back over to the local "airport" (one step removed from a mowed field and a wind sock) before the guy that handles car rentals, concessions, flight school, etc. goes home for the day. The rest of the evening will likely be getting all her stuff washed and put away and finding places for the stash of Koegel meat products that I'm certain she is bringing back with her.

Anyway, some tidbits from today's trip around the internet:

In news that will surprise no one, cops are some of the worse drivers on the road. They sideswipe parked cars, back into things, open doors into traffic, drive too fast for conditions, drive on the sidewalk, run red lights, and generally make a nuisance of themselves on the road. Or at least some of them do. I suspect the bad drivers are the same ones who swagger around with their "cop attitude" on full display anytime they are not behind the wheel. I also suspect that a significant fraction of these guys are responsible for the vast majority of abuse cases. Like repeatedly tasering a pregnant woman. Cop schools need to do a better job of weeding these guys out.

Christian militias are back in the news. It's like the worst of the Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter presidencies all rolled into one giant turd ball. At least the FBI managed to get through the arrests without shooting any unarmed women carrying infants or setting any children on fire. This time.

A couple health care-related stories: The British NHS is widely despised by those forced to suffer under it, and with good reason. Stories like this or worse are regular features of the British press and illustrate that there are some things that government can do, and many things that government should stay far away from. To be clear, we are not implementing anything like the NHS under Obamacare. At least, not yet. We seem determined to get there in some form or another, but not in this round of "reform." Instead, we are setting up health care to be a spoils system to be manipulated by the rich and influential. We see that already in just passing Obamacare (like the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase). Expect this to begin in earnest as unions, corporations and insurance companies begin the feeding frenzy. And keep in mind what happens to the grass when elephants fight. I see that at least some of our overlords are moving past arguing about who wins or loses and starting to look at the bigger question of what legal or constitutional authority gives the federal government the power to force me to do business with a private business? Again, this is not an academic question; it is a defining question.

And now it really is getting to be time for me to get moving for the day.