Don't Try This at Home

Often we see commercials with subtitles warning us not to try this at home. Well, here is a woman's story of longevity not to be tried.

Winnie Langley figures she's just too old to butt out now. She's managed to defy health worries and the standard limitations on the human form by living to 101 years old -- while smoking every single day.

"You gotta have some vice," the English widow told Sun Media from her home in South London. "Some drink until it's coming out of their ears ... me, I smoke."

Spry Winnie, who struggles to figure out how to turn down the TV so she can better hear questions, has smoked more than 171,500 cigarettes during her long and remarkable life.

She was just seven years old when she lit her first one in 1914 -- days after the First World War began.

When she began, there weren't any health-warning labels or restrictions on where smokers could light up.

She is what we call the exception to the rule. When she started smoking cigarettes we were unaware of the health dangers involved. Anyone starting today has been warned repeatedly and is a fool to start.

The article ends with an easily understandable warning about reading too much into Winnie's longevity:

"We should draw no conclusions from the existence of a smoker who has lived to 90 or 100 in the same way as the existence of a soldier who survived the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy should lead us to conclude that machine gun fire isn't dangerous," he says.

Breaking News: Vigilante Justice in Kansas?

I don't condone nor applaud vigilante style "justice." However, when our government fails to protect the weakest among us we can not be too surprised when someone decides to take the law into their own hands. Here is the latest example:

George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.

This senseless killing could have been avoided if our government had done it's duty.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Did Politics Play a Role in Deciding Which Chrysler Dealerships Were Closed???

The question asked by the title of this post has been raised by various websites/blogs. Some have researched the past political contributions of the owners of the Chrysler dealerships targeted for closure and noticed the great majority contributed to Republican candidates. Today, we see a newspaper column in the San Francisco Examiner titled: "Is Obama closing GOP car dealers?" that addresses these concerns. This opening paragraph shows why even the appearance of politics playing a role in this is troubling:

There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.

Whether President Obama or his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are personally reviewing lists of past contributions and then deciding which dealerships get the axe doesn't even matter. When the government gets so involved in the private sector that they are deciding winners and losers it is inevitable that their motives will be questioned. Obama's reputation for vindictiveness and Emanuel's penchant for bare knuckles politics help fuel these concerns. However, they could have the demeanor of TV's Mr. Rogers and it would still be an awful idea for government officials to be deciding winners and losers in business.

Now that this question has been raised in one paper it will be interesting to see if the story gets fully researched by the major outlets. Somehow I doubt it will lead the ABC, CBS, or NBC evening news anytime soon.

Breaking News: Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court

The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama is going to pick U.S. Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Links with more info to follow shortly.
Here are the first few:

Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court Nominee? All You Need To Know - At least according to the Huffington Post.

From Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic we get "The Case Against Sotomayor"

SCOTUSBLOG weighs in.

Wendy Long of National Review Online's Bench Memos discouragingly notes:

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.

Meet Sonia Sotomayor

Of course, since this is the 21st century we have the obligatory embarrassing You-Tube clip.

As my brother said to me this morning, "Well there are MANY worse choices." Elections have consequences and this pick is just one of those consequences.

Um, Honey. . . Um, I Think We Need To Talk

Sometimes oops isn't enough of an answer:

Mia Washington decided to get some expert advice when she and her partner noticed that twins Justin and Jordan had different facial features.

Paternity tests then revealed what had happened — two eggs had been fertilized by two different sperm and there was a 99.99% chance the twins had different dads.

Doctors at the DNA lab in Dallas, Texas had never seen such a result.

Washington later admitted she had had an affair and got pregnant by two different men at the same time.

As if kids aren't confused enough.

Today's Required Reading

This post is a little miss-titled as it is really Friday's required reading, but I missed the article. Victor Davis Hanson does a run down of how the extremely left wing media would have covered the actions of the Obama administration if it were the Palin administration instead doing the same things.

I'm not going to cut and paste any of it because I'd rather you read the whole thing. Just click the link. Sadly, it is spot on about how the media that has fawned over each stumble by Obama would crucify Palin for the same actions/decisions.

(h/t: Cultural Offering)

What if Bush had . . . . . . ? #6

Here is another example of boorish behavior by President Obama that would have been critiqued and widely criticized by the extremely left wing media. Add this to the paranoid delusions of government abuse during the Bush administration and the howling over a comment like this would have been deafening.

At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

As the Wall Street Journal editorial that I pulled that quote from points out, abuse of the audit power of the Internal Revenue Service is nothing for the head of the executive branch to joke about regardless of setting. There have been many instances of prior administrations (Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, etc) using the power of the federal government to exact payback against political rivals or "enemies."

An IRS employee who made a similar comment would face discipline and likely have their employment terminated. I'm not claiming that a president should be removed from office for something that would get a subordinate canned. Rather just saying presidents should attempt to exceed the level of behavior expected of subordinates. It is somewhat analogous to the Clinton misbehavior. Sure, the crime he was prosecuted for committing was perjury. However, his behavior (sexual harassment, assault, adultery, fornication in the work place, etc) was of such a nature that most other government employees would have faced serious sanctions and potentially be fired.

Breaking News: Manny Ramirez Suspended 50 Games

Largely due to the performance of Manny Ramirez, the Los Angeles Dodgers have gotten off the a great start and lead the National League West Division by 6 games. Well, their great start took a huge hit today when it was announced that Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test.

Like Alex Rodriguez before him, Manny Ramirez was largely considered to be a "clean" superstar. Ramirez was mocked for his antics leading to the "Manny being Manny" comments. However, he was considered a hard worker and assumed not to have used performance enhancing drugs. Time will tell what effect this will have on his reputation, but obviously some will never look at his success the same way they have in the past.

Cartoon of the Day

Protein Wisdom has a cartoon that soundly addresses President Obama's ridiculous notion that a judge's empathy for the little guy is a paramount qualification:



I haven't posted much about the speculation over who Obama will nominate to replace Souter because there is no chance that I will be pleased with the choice. A liberal can hope that a justice nominated by a Republican might develop a penchant for judicial activism out of a desire for more power. There is no chance that a justice appointed by a liberal will suddenly embrace the concept of judicial restraint.

Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay?

It is headlines like this that makes me think we need a second American Revolution:

ACORN got $53 million in federal funds since 94, now eligible for up to $8 billion more

Any congresscritter who thinks this is a good idea needs to be voted out of office! Sadly, funneling money to the crooks at ACORN actually makes the incumbents safer. Disgusting.

Can We Stop Pretending That Colin Powell was a Republican?

The below quote should finally put to rest the mistaken notion that former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell was ever a conservative. Most of us have realized for some time that Powell chose to affiliate with the Republicans out of political and career expediency and not because of any ideological agreement with Republican positions. Here is the quote:

"The Republican Party is in deep trouble," Powell told corporate security executives at a conference in Washington sponsored by Fortify Software Inc. The party must realize that the country has changed, he said. "Americans do want to pay taxes for services," he said. "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

The bolded section shows his true beliefs as well as how out of touch he is with reality. People do not want to pay more taxes. Heck, President Obama couldn't fill his cabinet without nominating several tax cheats. The truth is most people just want "the other guy" to pay more taxes.

You can lump Powell in with Sen. Specter. Neither was ever a Republican for any reason except career advancement.

Florida Man Arrested for Late Term Abortion

This is a natural outgrowth of our society's acceptance of infanticide as just another personal choice:

TAMPA, FL -- Authorities have arrested a man they believe threw an infant from a car along I-275 Tuesday morning. The 3-month-old boy died.

Jasmine Bedwell, said that she and McTear were fighting and that she and her 3-month-old son had been battered. Bedwell told the operator the man picked up the baby and threw him on the concrete. She said he then picked up the child and took off in a blue 4-door Chevrolet Impala.

When asked how he could throw a baby out the window, McTear responded "It's a dirty game."

I guess it is being considered a crime because he didn't go to medical school.