Don't Hate Me Because I Learned a Language in Ten Days...

Hate me because I did it while getting a facelift à la Brazil.

And You Were There, And You Were There, And...

By Keith, Our Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity Correspondent:

“Oh, gawd, why did my parents bury me in this awful dress? Being dead is such a bore ...”

Uh, wake up Keith. Your nightmare is over. It’s time for some tea, oatmeal and, if you want to go “there” FB.O’s latest post. You might have been dead in dreamland, but you didn’t own anything related to FB. So forget the lousy dress, concentrate on the good times.

Here with a summary of the “good times” is Bill O’Reilly at Townhall and a quick, easy read.

My late father was a man of strong opinion. He despised phonies, cowards and liars.

Thankfully, he didn't live to see Bill's performance on A Current Affair.

He named names -- sometimes in very close proximity to those being singled out. A veteran of World War II, he recognized a weasel when he saw one.

Well, first off Bill, how is it your father never disowned you? Or did he? In what arena did he name names? (You, Bill, would love to name names, but you lost your Filofax in a taxi, is that correct?)

But my dad never denigrated rich people in general.

He only denigrated them specifically and by deposition.

We lived in Levittown, N.Y., where everybody had pretty much the same -- that is, not much. We ate tuna casserole, hot dogs and Hamburger Helper.  My parents never owned a new car.

Mr. Bill, you must have lived as a dependent at home for quite awhile, since General Foods didn’t market “Hamburger Helper” until 1971. Just in time for "All In The Family.”

Ten miles away, my dentist, a college classmate of my father's, lived in Garden City. Lovely place, filled with rich people. My father often drove us through there and never said a disparaging word about the fine lawns and shiny foreign cars. America was the land of opportunity, and Garden City proved it.

One not ought not say nasty things about one’s dentist ... it could lead to trouble. Be careful here, Bill. And Garden City? Very boring. It did contain well-to-do upper-middle-class merchants and professionals. But not all of the cars were shiny, and they mostly derived from Detroit, IIRC. I suggest you are embellishing the “good times” Bill. Perhaps some owned two cars but your deficient memory conflated them into a Porsche.

But that was then.

And this is now.

Mr. O’Reilly, you are most disingenuous when being biographical.

Levittown was conceived as an ideal suburban community during the post-war boom era. Compared to our present-day unfortunate circumstances, those employed and capable of carrying a mortgage were doing rather well. Unless you parents were terribly unsuccessful, there is no reason why you were doing the “Hamburger Helper” and such on the patio grill. I’ll bet you were grilling T-Bones and perhaps prime sirloin on that grill. And you gobbled it up right down to the bone.

Today, many Democrats believe the wealthy are bad to the bone. A new Gallup poll asks: "Do you think the U.S. benefits from having a class of rich people or not?" An amazing 46 percent of self-described Democrats answered "or not."

When I asked two left-leaning pundits about this, they said it is all about "income inequality." They asked me whether my father would approve of that. I said he most likely would reject the entire concept of "income inequality" by giving the pundits the same advice he gave me: "If you don't like what they're paying you, work someplace else."

Bill O. You obviously like your salary. Because ...

And I followed that advice, moving 10 times in 15 years on my way up the television news ladder. It wasn't easy, but if I thought my employer was hosing me, I began looking around.

Bill, on your way to the top, did any interviewer ask you ‘why” you might have changed positions so frequently? Could it have to do with your feeble .... never mind.

That's how capitalism is supposed to work. America is mandated to provide "equal opportunity," not equal outcomes. The boss man can pay what he wants. It's our choice whether to take it or leave it.

So we have it from the Oracle. The contract between capital and labor is a contract of adhesion.

President Obama doesn't seem to get that. He often puts forth that wealthy Americans are not paying their "fair share," that somehow the fix is in, and the rich folk are gaming the system at the expense of working people. But for two years, Obama had an adoring Democratic Congress that did absolutely nothing to further the concept of "income equality." The reason? It's unconstitutional. The feds cannot dictate salaries and benefits in the private marketplace. Obama care is an attempt to breach that constitutional wall. We'll soon see what the Supreme Court says.

Capitalism is no beach day. The strong and sometimes ruthless prosper. The poorly educated and unfocused often fail. For many Americans, failure is unfair and unacceptable in a "just" society. But my dad knew and accepted the truth of capitalism: Some will win big, some will lose big, but most will live comfortable lives in the middle. Just as he did.

Gee, I wanna go to the beach now. But I’ll get some sun-screen, promise.

Houston, We Have a Problem...You're Full of Texans

Here's a Space Update from our Special Space Correspondent, Rocky Vosburg, Space Ranger:

The countdown made it all the way to T Minus Zero with "all systems go", and engine ignition actually commenced, but then, heartbreakingly, suddenly everything was not go; in fact, everything was kinda stop. Turns out the onboard computer monitoring software had noted a slightly high pressure reading in the combustion chamber of engine 5 (of 9), so automatic shutdown was duly initiated on all systems by the software and the launch was aborted.

It's a nuisance, not a crisis: Nothing blew up, and there is another launch window coming up on Tuesday, May 22, 3:44am ET (12:44am PT), by which time all performance data will have been examined, and the problem will be resolved. The solution may be as simple as tweaking the monitoring software a bit so it isn't quite so fussy about transient spikes in pressure readings!

From Scott:  In other words, all things were not, alas, "five by five."

Per aspera ad astra.

Capitalist Pigs in Space

From Chris Vosburg:  Are We There Yet?

Paypal founder and zillionaire Elon Musk has been keeping busy lately, pursuing his real dream, space travel. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 4:55am ET (1:55am PT) will mark another milestone in the stunningly rapid progress of Musk's SpaceX company: the launch of the first ever privately built commercial orbiter with a load of cargo for the International Space Station.

Insomniacs can watch the launch live on the NASA-TV channel (if you can get it; TimeWarnerCable does not carry it, the bastards) or at the NASA-TV website, or at the SpaceX website. General information on the launch, docking schedule etc., and handy links to other sites can be found at the colorful and educational Space.com site.

So, all my fingers and toes are crossed for Musk and his dream team. He has no intention of stopping there, by the way. Not by a long shot. It is his stated desire to retire on Mars, for instance, and from what I've seen so far, he's just the man to finally do what no government agency could do before him: open up the heavens to exploration at last.

From Scott:  Thanks, Chris.  I wasn't aware of any of this, and it's very exciting news, but for me the biggest question still remains:

Will they have SPACOM?

Happy Movie Mothers Day II: The Revenge. This Time It's Motherly!

By Special Movie Matriarch Correspondent, Bill S.

For those of us lucky enough to have a great mom, Mother's Day is a most special occasion. But some of us aren't so lucky. Last year, I offered a list of all-time worst moms in movies. But as with any list of that sort, it wasn't quite complete, so I'm serving up a second edition. If any of these ladies don't make you more grateful for your own, then...well, I guess you were really screwed. [be forwarned: spoilers to follow]

Mrs. Vale (Gladys Cooper) in Now, Voyager (1942) Never missed an opportunity to let daughter Charlotte (Bette Davis) know she was a mistake, a child she didn't really want. When Charlotte finally stood up to her, Mrs. Vale makes her feel guilty by dropping dead from a heart attack.

Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) in White Heat (1949) She's very supportive of her boy's career as a psychopathic gangster.

Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn) in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Her matchmaking method for her gay son left something to be desired. Also, not such a great Aunt, either.

Helen Jorgenson (Constance Ford) in A Summer Place (1959) All the parents in this movie are horrible, horrible people, but I think Helen earns the title as the worst for that ultra-creepy moment when she subjects her teenaged daughter (Sandra Dee) to a medical examination in order to verify her virginity. Please tell me this wasn't an actual "thing" in the 50's. (The way things are now, it could be one today. I just know that somewhere in this country, somebody is drafting a bill that would make it legal for employers to request a doctor's note proving virginity from single women applying for a job.)

Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) A political wife who was secretly a Commie agent, and used her son as an assassin by turning him into a brainless robot (granted, for Laurence Harvey, that's kind of a lateral move).

Pamela Voorheese (Betsy Palmer) in Friday the 13th (1980) A serial killer whose son went into the family business in all the sequels. The film itself is a bad mother, having spawned the Dead Teenager Movie, a genre that proved inexplicably popular in the early '80's until it was supplanted by the Horny Teenager Movie (producers correctly guessed that teenaged male moviegoers preferred hot chicks with their heads still attached to their bodies.)

Beth Jarrett (Mary Tyler Moore) in Ordinary People (1980) So obsessed with keeping things neat and orderly that when her son (Timothy Hutton) attempts suicide, she treats his emotional problems like a carpet stain that won't come out. (For some reason -- maybe it's just the hair -- Beth reminds me of Nancy Reagan)

Momma Lift (Anne Ramsey) in Throw Momma From the Train (1987)
"I'm a friend of Owen's"
"Owen doesn't have any friends"
"That's because he's shy."
"No it isn't, it's because he's fat and he's stupid!"
Yeah, I'd want to pull a Bruno Anthony too.

Beverly Sutpin (Kathleen Turner) in Serial Mom (1994) Combining the pristine homemaking skills of Beth Jarrett with the knife-wielding skills of Pamela Voorheese, the "heroine" of John Waters' underrated black comedy was, among my friends, the most frequently cited Bad Mama when I asked who I overlooked in last year's column. I guess she's better to have on your side than it is to piss her off. Still, it must make it difficult to make friends when your mom's a homicidal maniac.

WORST MOMS ON TELEVISION:

Donna's Mother (Naomi Stevens) in "The Courtesans" episode of Barney Miller. Though she only made one appearance, for me it's memorable enough to make the list. Arriving to bail out her daughter, who was busted on a prostitution charge, she strikes up a conversation with Barney's wife, Liz (Barbara Barrie) and expresses her confusion about what went wrong:

"She never saw a naked body. She never heard a dirty word. Sex was practically never used in our home." When Liz points out that children have a natural curiosity, she replies, "Boy, did she ask questions! Look at her, things are bad enough! Imagine how they'd be if we'd given her answers!"

Mrs. Gordan (Chip Fields) on Good Times. If, like me, you were still a kid yourself when you saw this multiple episode story arc on child abuse play out on the show, the image of her coming after little Penny (Janet Jackson) with an iron, probably scared the crap out of you.

Alexis Carrington Colby (Joan Collins) on Dynasty. The nicest thing about her was her wardrobe, and even that didn't look like it offered much warmth.

Agnes Skinner (Tress MacNellie) on The Simpsons. For sheer nastiness, Principal Skinner's mom might be the only person in Springfield who could give Mr. Burns any competition. If he set the hounds on her, they'd be the ones running in terror.

Estelle Constanza (Estelle Harris) on Seinfeld. It's a wonder George made it to adulthood without smothering her with a pillow. Or committing suicide.

Patsy's Mom (Eleanor Bron) on Absolutely Fabulous. "Take it away...and bring me another lover!"

Evelyn Harper (Holland Taylor) on Two and A Half Men. I think the results of her mothering skills speak for themselves.

All of the mothers on Toddlers and Tiaras. Creepier than Helen Jorgenson, more obnoxious than Estelle Costanza, and uglier then Agnes Skinner.

So that's the list for 2012. If I missed any, feel free to offer suggestions for next year.

Post-Friday Beast Blegging

Riley and Moondoggie are appalled by the latest news from our dear friend, Anntichrist S. Coulter:

RILEY:  I'm completely bummed about Joanna's situation.

MOONDOGGIE:  Me too.  I'm bummed too!

RILEY:  Really?

MOONDOGGIE:  Yeah.  I mean...I have my cheek on your bum.  Although I guess in America we'd say I'm "butted," or "assed."

RILEY:  Okay, it's really important that you shut up until further notice.

MOONDOGGIE:  I can hear the ocean!

RILEY:  Shut...UP!

Via fellow Crapper, the Minx, who received an email sent on borrowed hospital wifi, we've learned that Annti was indeed evicted, and is now living the vagabond life so eloquently evoked in the 1971 Cher hit, "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves."  What's more, she's come down with pneumonia -- not surprising, as homelessness seems to be a fecund breeding ground for disease -- and was forced to blow a substantial portion of her dwindling funds on ER treatment.

Mary and I have squeezed the bank account for everything we can -- which admittedly wasn't much -- and I'm sure many of you have done the same. But if anybody has a few extra bucks, Annti could really use it right now.  She has no mailing address, alas, but if you're not adverse to Payment by Pal, you can click the button on the right side of her blog here.

On a less depressing, but equally mind-bending note, check out this testimony to the Lincoln, Nebraska city council by a woman who can't pronounce the word "intestines" properly.  I'm fairly convinced it's Pastor Swank in drag:

Watch the young guy on the left, as he progressively loses control and starts to giggle and pass notes, and the elderly woman on the right who is resolutely pretending she's at Denny's, taking advantage of the Early Bird Special.

John Stossel: Give Me Liberty AND Give Me Death

John Stossel is chafing under the brutal, authoritarian yoke of his seat-belt and shoulder harness, which confines him like a particularly unsexy form of Japanese Rope Bondage.

 The folly of seat-belt mandates

A child leaving home alone for the first time takes a risk. So does the entrepreneur who opens a new business. I no more want government to prevent us from doing these things than I want it to keep us in padded cells. 

"Nor do I want it to make us wear seat-belts, because that's the moral equivalent of being wrestled into a straight-jacket by a couple of the more brutal orderlies from Shock Corridor, or The Snake Pit, or Harvey."

Everyone has a different tolerance for risk. One person takes out a second mortgage to start a business. Another thinks that sounds nerve-racking, if not insane. Neither person is wrong. Government cannot know each person’s preferences, or odds of success.

Some people prefer to be secured by passive restraints during a head-on collision, while others prefer to be launched through the windshield like a pebble from a Wrist-Rocket.  The former are more risk adverse, which you why you so rarely see crash-test dummies managing hedge funds.

Even if it did, what right does it have to tell them what to do?

Instead, they should listen to John Stossel, who will encourage them to drive without a selt-belt, because he knows that you don't get liberty without death.  In fact, if most of the people you know and love aren't dying in automobile accidents, burning alive due to faulty wiring, succumbing to the toxic side effects of untested drugs, or keeling over due to botulism or salmonella, that's a good sign that you're probably living under a totalitarian dictatorship.  Basically, John is the new, if somewhat less efficient Jack Kevorkian -- providing assisted suicide through bad advice. 

As I document in my new book, “No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails – but Individuals Succeed,” when government gets in the business of deciding which risks are acceptable and which aren’t, nasty things happen.

These are decisions which are best left to corporations, since they're people.  Unlike the government, which I believe is staffed mostly by Skrulls, and Hummel figurines.

This includes government’s attempt to improve life by regulating gambling and the use of medicine, banning recreational drugs and mandating safety devices in cars.

I'm glad I took the time to read John's column, because if you'd asked me yesterday, "which is worse for you -- seat-belts or heroin?" I probably would have piped up with the wrong answer.

In what sense are we free if we can’t decide such things for ourselves?

Who's to say that Thalidomide wouldn't make for a delicious non-dairy creamer?

Through the Food and Drug Administration, the government claims to protect us. But some people suffer because of that protection: Some die waiting for drugs to be approved.

Thanks to the FDA, you don't enjoy the same right your great-grandfather had to eschew "doctors" and "pharmacists," and treat your diabetes with a patented suspension of laudanum, grain alcohol, and catarrh snuff that you bought off the back of a mule-drawn wagon.

Don’t we own our own bodies? Why, in a supposedly free country, do Americans, even when dying, meekly stand aside and let the state limit our choices?

I want to die in a fiery Zeppelin explosion, but the FAA is all up in my face about it.

The Drug Enforcement Administration jails pain-management doctors who prescribe quantities of painkillers the DEA considers “inappropriate.” It’s true that some people harm themselves with Vicodin and OxyContin, but it’s hard for doctors to separate “recreational” users from people really in pain.

...or those who just have a really successful talk radio show.

After the DEA jailed doctors, some pain specialists began to under-prescribe. The website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warns doctors: Don’t go into pain management. “Drug agents now set medical standards. … There could be years of harassment and legal fees.” Today, even old people in nursing homes sometimes don’t get pain relief they need.

I hate to agree with John, but that actually is a genuine problem in this country.  Let's alleviate their suffering by cutting the seat-belts out of the nursing home activity van.

Even the best safety regulations have unexpected costs. Seat belts save 15,000 lives a year, but it’s possible that they kill more people than they save.

This possibility becomes even more likely when you realize that many seat-belts moonlight as hit men for Mexican drug cartels.

University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman argues that increased safety features on cars have the ironic effect of encouraging people to drive more recklessly. It’s called the Peltzman Effect – a variation on what insurance experts call “moral hazard.” Studies show that people drive faster when they are snugly enclosed in seat belts.

On the other hand, my made-up studies show that people who drive recklessly do so because they're stupid and don't believe they'll get in a crash, and are only wearing their belt because they hate that beeping noise it makes when don't put it on.  I guess to settle this we'll need a double-blind test using deaf people.

Also, while passengers were less likely to die, there were more accidents and more pedestrians were hit.

Trust Jim Treacher to throw off the grading curve.

Perhaps the best safety device would be a spike mounted on the steering wheel – pointed right at the driver’s chest.

Actually, Henry Ford already tried that:

Model T Steering Wheel.  If you're of average height and lean forward, that nut fits rather neatly into your sternum.

There’s another reason to think seat belt laws have been counterproductive. Before government made seat belts mandatory, several automakers offered them as options. Volvo ran ads touting seat belts, laminated glass, padded dashboards, etc., as the sort of things that responsible parents should want. I concede that government action expanded seat belt use faster than would have otherwise happened, but by interfering with the market, government also stifled innovation. That kills people.

Well, as John says, seat-belts save 15,000 lives a year, and they've been mandatory in the U.S. since 1984 (making it a little surprising that Stossel continues to argue against them, but then, he's still bitching about the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906), so that's over a quarter million people who otherwise would have died a gruesome death on the highway. But we should, in all fairness, compare that to the millions of people in Stossel's head who were killed by the lack of Super Belts that the Invisible Hand of the Market might have installed in cars if the government hadn't decided to treat safety belts as safety equipment, instead of an expression of corporate altruism, like that United Way jar on the receptionist's desk.

I bet if those nannies at the DoT didn't require bumpers, cars would have their own Star Trek-like shields by now.

Of course, even if seat-belts are mandated, that doesn't stop a company from making better passive restraints and building a marketing campaign around their superior safety record.  But the Invisible  Hand is moody, and if you get bossy with it it'll shout, "I hate you, I hate you!", lock itself in its room and play its music real loud.

Here’s my reasoning: The first government mandate created a standard for seat belts. That relieved auto companies of the need to compete on seat belt safety and comfort. Drivers and passengers haven’t benefitted from improvements competitive carmakers might have made.

I presume, from your reasoning, that a government mandate also required you to make that argument.

If every auto company were trying to invent a better belt, today, instead of one seat belt, I bet there’d be six, and all would be better and more comfortable than today’s standard.

Yes, we might have some sort of Cross Your Heart belt that would lift and separate and be comfortable to wear for 18 hours!  Also, if we really cared about clean air, we'd stop requiring smog equipment.

Because they would be more comfortable, more passengers would wear them. Over time, the free market in seat belts would save more lives.

And if not, it would certainly lead to more spectacular Drivers Ed films. So a win-win either way.

We don’t know what good things we might have if the heavy foot of government didn’t step in to limit our options.

Our seat-belts might have wings, like Stayfree Ultra Thin Maxi Pads.

In a free country, it should be up to adult individuals to make their own choices about risk. Patrick Henry didn’t say, “Give me safety, or give me death.”

I like to imagine him screaming it as he's thrown from an out of control Corvair.

Liberty is what America is supposed to be about.  

But defense contractors discovered there was more money in Death.

Let’s start treating people as though their bodies belong to them, not to a controlling and “protective” government.

Exactly.  Your body belongs to you.  And momentum.