The Only Royal Wedding Post You'll See on G&S

Larry, the Downing Street Cat, sports a Union Jack bow-tie in honor of the royal wedding, as he poses atop the table in the Cabinet Room at No. 10.

Fish Gotta Swim, Cats Gotta Fly. Wait, what?

"In searching for Waldo, did we really find ourselves? No, probably not."

So Where's the Webcam Video?

Woman Survives Tornado in Tanning Bed.

Nutrition News

Soy blocks DNA repair mechanisms.

Prime Rib, not so much.

Kung Fu Fighting Leads to Arrest

Old rules: karate-chopping passerby will land you in the lock-up.

New rules: offending passerby by singing "Everybody Was King-Fu Fighting" will land you in the lock-up.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

Simon Ledger says he fears he will end up with a criminal record for performing the 1974 disco classic at a seafront bar on the Isle of Wight on Sunday after two people walking past apparently took offence.

The 34-year-old, from the island, regularly features Carl Douglas’s 1974 number one hit in his set when he performs at the Driftwood Beach Bar in Sandown.

But after striking up the melody in front of customers at the weekend he noticed a man of Chinese origin walking past with his mother, making gestures at him and taking a picture on his mobile phone.

He said that he later received a telephone call from police - while he was dining in a Chinese restaurant - asking him to meet officers about the incident.

He was then arrested and questioned before being bailed.

Hampshire Police said that it had been following up a complaint of racially aggravated harassment.

“We were performing Kung Fu Fighting, as we do during all our sets,” Mr Ledger, 34, told The Sun.

“People of all races were loving it, Chinese people have never been offended before.”

A police spokesman said: “Police are investigating an allegation of racially-aggravated harassment. A man from Shanklin was arrested.”

Reached for comment at his mountaintop retreat, Kwai Chang Caine stared into the middle distance and intoned, "You have much to learn, grasshopper."

This will not end well.

New York Times Eats Another Onion

From the New York Times corrections page:

A series of pictures last Sunday of covers of the magazine Tiger Beat, with an article about how the original teen-girl tabloid has remained virtually unchanged since its inception in 1965, erroneously included a parody cover, produced by the satiric newspaper The Onion, that featured a picture of President Obama.

All those editors and fact-checkers and professional staff. I'm sure they pay closer attention to important stuff, right? Right?!?

Obama Announces Theme Song For Reelection Campaign

Just as "Happy Days Are Here Again" was associated with Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Obama hopes this, from the musical "Li'l Abner," captures the spirit of his first term:

Please Wait for the Joke

Dr. Ellen Lewin is a professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies in the Department of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa.

No, no; wait! That's not the joke, THIS is the joke.

Specialized Anti-Terrorist Weapon

Everybody knows that vampires are invulnerable to normal bullets. But a wooden bullet, fired into their heart, has the same effect as a wooden stake. Everybody knows that. I even saw it on True Blood. And it works.

So what would be the perfect specialized weapon to use against a crazed, Islamofascist Jihadist? He's not afraid of dying, since that would mean instant translation to Paradise, and collection of his 72 raisins. How about a rocket-launcher, made from bacon, that fires pork sausages?

Scandal

One of the useful things I learned on my journey from muddled Deist to Roman Catholic is the correct meaning and use of the word "scandal." It's a much more useful and helpful concept than it might seem at first; certainly much more important than I could have imagined. When a non-Catholic seeks to criticize the Church, whether to minimize its influence on public events, or to diminish the weight of its teaching on a moral question, or simply to justify or explain why he is not a Catholic, one very seldom hears, "the Roman Church's claim of authority for the Pope and his Bishops is unsupported by early church Councils or the writings of the Fathers," for example. Instead, one almost always hears, "just look what those priests did, and I'm supposed to rely on them?" or "lots of Catholics use contraception," or "Andrew Cuomo lives with a woman not his wife and he takes (and is permitted to take) Communion!" The giving of scandal takes an individual sin and multiplies it -- scandal is "leveraged" sin, transforming perhaps fatal damage to a single soul into danger to thousands and thousands.

The jumping-off point for this morning's sermon is a piece in Time magazine titled, "Catholic Controversy: Is 'Being' Superior to 'Substance'?" The topic is the new English translation of the Roman Missal. As with any human endeavor, there are criticisms to be made from all "sides." Treating the Latin texts as authoritative, the new translation, in balancing accuracy, understandability, and beauty, weighted accuracy more heavily. Thus, for example, the English word "consubstantial" makes its way back into our Sunday Missal. The argument is made that this word is difficult and unfamiliar, and increases opacity. The counter-argument is made that it is a more correct rendering of the Latin, that the people are not stupid, and if it provides an occasion for some catechesis, that's a good thing.

Inevitably, sides have been drawn, rhetoric has become heated, and unworthy motives ascribed. Without question, some who criticize the new translation are Catholics of that ilk who criticize all things identifiably Catholic, who would be more comfortable in the American Episcopal Church on their way to the bliss of communion with the Church of What's Happenin' Now. Without question, some supporters of the new translation -- critics of the critics -- are crypto-sedevacantists, who have spent their entire adult lives smugly more Catholic than the Pope. But I boldly insist that the overwhelming body of thoughtful Catholics (wherein I confess my aspirations) harbor very mild opinions on the matter, believe that they might learn something from the labor of the translators and, inasmuch as the new translation is approved by both their bishops and by Rome, consider the matter closed.

But this is not what the Gentiles will take away from the article in Time. They will instead come to believe that while Rome is burning, those strange and quaint Catholics are at it again, angrily fiddling over the odd and inconsequential word here or there. That is false. The author, a self-identified Catholic, uncharitably describes the matter so as to leave no question but that any Catholic who has considered this is a fool -- but that's just who Catholics are, and that is just what the Church is: foolish, distracted, and fractured. This goes beyond an individual lack of charity. It is scandal.

All of which reminds me that, on my way to the Nationals game this afternoon, I think I'll stop off for confession, and offer a prayer for the healing of Ryan Zimmerman.

Obama's Budget Speech: "I Thought It Was a Disgrace."

Charles Krauthammer commenting on the President's budget speech at George Washington University:

Seems Low to Us

“At one point, there were 400 Schmucks in America."

Cat Thoughts

Mostly, it's best if you just don't know.

Cat Adventures

Savage Chickens

Good Nutrition is for the Little People

Leroy G. Comrie Jr. is a member of the New York City Council, a Democrat representing a district in Queens. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported:

Captain Cold and the Littlest Pet Shop toys may have met their match in Leroy G. Comrie Jr.

Mr. Comrie, a member of the City Council, wants such toys, found in McDonald’s Happy Meals, to be banned from their bright cardboard boxes if the meals’ high content of fat, salt and sugar is not reduced. While Happy Meal treats might seem to be the prime target, Mr. Comrie is taking aim at any fast-food meals that include toys to appeal to children.

Mr. Comrie’s bill, which he is to introduce in the City Council on Wednesday, would restrict toys to meals that contain fewer than 500 calories and 600 milligrams of sodium, and in which less than 35 percent of the calories come from fat (making exceptions for nuts, seeds, peanut butter or other nut-based butters). In addition, the meal would have to contain a half a cup of fruit or vegetables or one serving of whole-grain products.

The proposal resembles a measure adopted in San Francisco last year, over the strenuous lobbying of fast-food chains, to remove toys from all fast-food meals that do not comply with healthier nutritional standards. Mr. Comrie’s proposal would impose stricter caloric and sodium standards than San Francisco’s rules, which call for fewer than 600 calories and 640 milligrams of sodium.

Mr. Comrie, a Democrat from Queens, said, “I think it’s important to find a way to make a healthy lifestyle palatable and exciting.”

Here is a photograph of Councilman Comrie:

More from the New York Post.

A Transient Anomaly

It has been said that life is a temporary, localized reversal of entropy. While we grow and live, organizing calcium into bones and iron into blood, we bring greater order to our immediate vicinity by building bridges and houses and suchlike. But meanwhile -- in the Universe at large -- entropy increases, and our bodies and our physical works will eventually be so many quarks floating in a uniform universal sea of dark cold. The fundamental forces of the universe will in the end overcome our temporary, localized reversal of entropy.

Stephen Balch wonders if the fundamental structure of Western Civilization is a temporary, localized anomaly; a bubble of rules and expectations that run counter to the greater forces that have normally driven human history:

For about the last two hundred years (three in a few locales), the fundamental structure of Western civilization has been anomalous in a crucial way. The anomaly consists in this: whereas in the overwhelming majority of societies the dominant route to wealth and status has been through political control, essentially the use of force or threat of force to extract value from others, in the West it has generally been through exchanges in which the parties have choices, and in which value must be returned for value received if the transaction is to consummate. We’re so conditioned to this, to the fact that our great fortunes belong to entrepreneurs, inventors, magnates, entertainers, and athletes, people who make (or do) things that others want, rather than to royalty, nobility, high priests, mandarins, court favorites and military leaders, people who take in taxes and booty things that others would prefer to keep, that we — very much including historians, journalists, and social commentators of almost every stripe — give little or no thought to it, considering it pretty much the natural order of things. But our exchange-oriented social order does not represent the natural order of things, and what it anomalously results in is of enormous – though perhaps ultimately self-destructive — consequence.

We think that one can already see a reversion to the historical norm in the expanding scope of Government entitlements -- medicare, social security, lavish Government employee pensions, and Obamacare. These are not welfare programs by which we, as a society, have voluntarily chosen to care for the least among us. They are instead involuntary transfers of wealth to those with the collective ability to access the power to enforce those transfers.

In principle, such programs are not different from the band of primitive hunter-gatherers who swoop down on the community of farmers, and take their harvest by force. There is no morally coherent or economically sound rationale that renders the raiders entitled to the wealth created by the labor and intelligence of the farmers. But in the span of human history, it is the raiders who usually win, and civilizations based on extraction of wealth by force have been the rule. We have been the exception.

Conscious Men

Because we care:

My beloved husband Arjuna has together with Gay Hendricks, been diving deep into a process of redefining what it means to be masculine. They are exploring the conscious masculine. One important realization they came to was that in order to move on into a new paradigm of true co-creation between genders, they as men needed to speak to the past. This is what they, and many men with them, do in this video. To me this message speaks to a deep cellular layer of the collective. I find it profoundly healing.

[UPDATE: embedding has been disabled for the below video, but it remains available HERE. Maybe embedding required excessive masculine energy.]

We are persuaded that this is not a joke, although there is a non-zero chance that it's just a clever way to get laid. If they are serious, at least there's very little chance that they'll pollute the gene pool. Speaking only for ourselves, we were unable to watch more than about 90 seconds before being overcome by an irresistible urge to go out and piss over the porch railing.

You Think?

"You know you're out-of-control when your escort has to keep you from fistfights with your whores."

A Solution in Search of a Problem

GMail "Motion." Yup. Because it's just too darned hard to click to open an email, or click to reply, or click to send. MUCH easier to stand in front of your computer's webcam and wave your arms, lick your hand, and otherwise gesture wildly. "Our bodies did not evolve to sit at a desk . . . all day . . . ." Speak for yourself. Some of us are plainly more highly evolved than others. Note well, it's just barely possible that they're kidding, but we don't think so.

Crazy People and Crazy People

A crazy woman attacks a Gauguin painting at the National Gallery:

"I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it’s very homosex­ual. I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you."

Professor Althouse opines:

Somewhere there's a mythical country where the people love post-Impressionism so much that this lunatic's attack on the Gauguin is causing them to run wild, riot, and kill each other.

April 5, 1933

Executive Order 6102, signed April 5, 1933, criminalizes gold ownership. Gold certificates (that is, paper money redeemable in gold) are also confiscated. Because you see, my friends, when you're not buying what The Suits are selling, they send guys with guns. For your own good, of course.

"You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

The indispensable Mark Steyn:

A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?

[snip]

The reason we’re losing this thing is because of a lack of cultural confidence, of which the fetal cringe of this worthless husk out-parodies anything [Noel] Coward could have concocted. When I’m speaking on this subject, I often get asked to reprise the words I quote in my book, from Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

In the absence of cultural confidence overseas, we are expending blood and treasure building an Afghanistan fit only for pederasts, tribal heroin cartels, and the blood-soaked savages of Mazar e-Sharif. In the absence of cultural confidence at home, we are sending the message that the bedrock principles of free, pluralist societies will bend and crumble in a vain race to keep up with the ever touchier sensitivities of the perpetually aggrieved. Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.

Census Data & Discrimination

An analysis of recent Census data ineluctably points to the source of all discrimination in the United States: Me.

I Remember Now Why I Retired

I found myself in attendance at too many meetings where the discussion amongst the Important People sounded a lot like this:

Hormone-Driven Obsession Ends

This is pretty much the way all crazed love affairs end, is it not? Attraction yields to infatuation and then obsession; the unreasoning lover initially ignores any evidence that might deny the perfection of the ideal fantasy. But reality causes first disappointment, then disillusionment, and finally rage.

Welcome back to the real world, Sully. We tried to tell you he was a faithless twit, but you wouldn't listen.

Many of us supported this president because he promised to bring back the constitutional balance after the theories of Yoo, Delahunty, et al put the president on a par with emperors and kings in wartime. And yet in this Libya move, what difference is there between Bush and Obama? In some ways, Bush was more respectful of the Congress, waiting for a vote of support before launching us like an angry bird into the desert. Hillary Clinton, channeling her inner Cheney, said in a classified Congressional briefing that her administration would simply ignore the War Powers Resolution of 1973 that requires the president to seek Congressional approval within 60 days of the conflict starting. If the congress voted against continuing the war, it would be irrelevant to the administration. Beat that, King George II [sic].

[snip]

The president is violating his constitutional duty to enforce the laws (to himself as well as anyone else). He has no constitutional right to simply waive the War Powers Resolution. In my view, we need a debate in the Congress on this as soon as possible.

In case he might be later seduced into one last make-out session, Andrew Sullivan includes a picture of George III in his piece, King Barack I.

The Free Market Works

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

April 1: Friday of the Third Week of Lent