cheesecake:

Consider the energy and essence of life in every bite of cheesecake.

A cow, with considerable effort and time, grazes an entire day to glean the nutrients out of thousands of blades of grass, which have harnessed the energy of the sun, and minerals of the earth and sea all to give sustenance to that cow.

That cow in turn funnels the entirety of her labors into her milk which is hijacked and extorted by diary farmers and accumulated in vats. Quite literally the "fat of the land" is then skimmed off and salted, processed into condensed life.

Sugar cane, using a similar process collects the energies of life which is collected, condensed and added to the fat.

Each bite of cheesecake represents life force. Pure energy collected, stored and disbursed in decadent fashion. When you consider the fact that every time energy is transferred, there is energy lost, you realize what that bolus truly cost. And probably why you pack the memory around on your gut for the rest of your life.

Why I’m a Libertarian Nut Instead of Just a Nut

By Penn Jillette

I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential.

There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a Socialist. I don’t know if everyone would be better off under a Libertarian government. I don’t know what would be best for anyone. I don’t even know what’s best for me. What makes me Libertarian is I don’t think anyone else really knows what’s best for anyone. My argument for Libertarianism is simple - personal morality.

I start with the Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” So, essentially our government does what they do with my consent.

I know barely enough about Max Weber to type his name into Google, but it seems he’s credited with asserting the idea that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. I put those two ideas together (my consent and use of physical force) and figure we all give our government the right to use force. So, the way I figure, it’s not okay for our government to use force in any situation where I personally wouldn’t use force.

For example, if I’m not willing to kill a cute cow, I shouldn’t eat steak. I don’t have to kill Bessy right now with my bare hands, but I have to be willing to snuff her if I want to chow down on a T-bone. If it’s not okay for me, it’s not okay for a slaughterhouse. Asking someone else to do something immoral is immoral. If it’s not okay for me to break David Blaine’s hands so my magic show has less competition, it’s not okay for me to ask someone else to beat him up. Someone else doing your dirty work is still your dirty work.

If I had a gun, and I knew a murder was happening, (we’re speaking hypothetically here, I’m not asking you to believe that I could accurately tell a murder from aggressive CPR), I would use that gun to stop that murder. I might be too much of a coward to use a gun myself to stop a murder or rape or robbery, but I think the use of a gun is justified. I’m even okay with using force to enforce voluntary contracts. If I were a hero, I would use a gun to protect the people who choose to live under this free system and to stop another country from attacking America. But I wouldn’t use a gun to force someone to love something like say…a library.

Look, I love libraries. I spent a lot of time in the Greenfield Public Library when I was a child. I would give money to build a library. I would ask you to give money to build a library. But, if for some reason you were crazy enough to think you had a better idea for your money than building my library, I wouldn’t pull a gun on you. I wouldn’t use a gun to build an art museum, look at the wonders of the universe through a big telescope, or even find a cure for cancer.

The fact that the majority wants something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don’t want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, it’s not really a very good idea. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It’s just ganging up on the weird kid, and I’m always the weird kid.

People try to argue that government isn’t really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment though -- suggesting someone not pay their taxes is probably a federal offense, and while I may be a nut, I’m not crazy.) When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force.

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we’re compassionate, we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

I’m a Libertarian nut because I don’t want my government to do anything in my name that I wouldn’t do myself.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

beware the wrath of the geeks

beware the wrath of the geeks, originally uploaded by Mook Farchings.

my hottie wife

my hottie wife, originally uploaded by Mook Farchings.

I have the most beautiful and photogenic wife in the world.

She is an angry hellcat most of the time, but MAN is she a hottie!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

from Senator Jim DeMint

Freedom is not a gift from government, but a right given to us by God. We believe that every human being is endowed with “certain unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In 1787, our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to forge a new system of government, designed to “form a more perfect union” and guarantee Americans, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “the maximum of personal liberty consistent with order.”

Paramount among the reasons this system succeeded in America was our political and religious culture that accepted the inextricable connection between personal freedom and personal responsibility. It was understood that, for every question in life not answered by government, individuals, families, and neighborhoods must work out answers for themselves. The Founders knew that the natural order of things was for government to expand at the expense of personal liberty, so their Constitution was based on an implicit bargain – the less government does for you, the less government can do to you.

Today, our once-limited federal government has betrayed those founding principles. It tries to be all things to all people, yet despite its good intentions, government action usually does more harm than good. Look around: every system Washington touches – health care, education, energy, infrastructure, mortgage lending – quickly begins to break down. In some recent cases, including the automobile bankruptcies and the Wall Street bailouts, even the rule of law itself has been subordinated to the good intentions of politicians and bureaucrats. And yet government’s solution to the problems it causes is always … more government. To solve problems created by government’s role in our schools or health care, Congress now proposes a complete federal takeover of these systems!

What Washington refuses to understand is that government systems will always fail because they are not free. Private schools perform better than public schools. Private health insurance provides better care than government programs, and controls its own costs. And on and on. Without the competitive pressures and transparency of a free market, government agencies have no motivation to improve their services. After 10 years in Washington, I have concluded that both parties are slow to recognize this one simple fact: freedom works, and government doesn’t.

Intersting Kung Fu Panda review

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Despite my natural dislike for animation movies - I like to see real people acting - I decided to give “Kung Fu Panda” a chance after a friend strongly recommended it to me. So I got myself a “Kung Fu Panda” DVD, shoved it into my laptop, thinking it would either be a highly entertaining 1.5 hours or the most boring evening I had in months. I’m happy to report it was the former; “Kung Fu Panda” is not only funny but also and more importantly a uniquely American film.

Here’s the basic story (for a longer summary, I suggest you go to WikiPedia ); a panda going by the name of Po wants to become a Kung Fu fighter but he’s ill-equipped to take on anything stronger and fiercer than bamboo. Not only is he a panda, he is also a panda who loves to eat cookies and, well, everything else. Despite his physique, Po becomes the hero of the story by beating tiger warrior Tai Lung.

It’s an incredibly funny movie - especially the scene in which Po is finally able to do the split after his teacher tells him that another fighter hides his cookies in a cupboard which is located at quite an inconvenient spot, high up at the ceiling, pushed between two walls - had me going for 15 minutes.

But what makes this movie even greater is that there’s much more to it than humor. Its message is truly American.

Sure, Po is in theory the anti-hero who can’t get anything done. True enough. But he turns out to be a real hero who, by pure dedication, succeeds in turning his weakness into his strength. Po does not merely overcome his arch-enemy Tai Lung, he overcomes the fiercest enemy of all: himself.

“Kung Fu Panda” is entertaining, a joy to watch for adults and children alike, but it’s also a movie that makes a fundamentally sound and conservative (and American! ) principle: If you work hard, you can become anything you want. You may face obstacles along the way - No, you will face obstacles - but the only one able to stop is you .

As if that’s not conservative and American enough, “Kung Fu Panda” also breaks with the average modern movie by allowing an ugly and fat panda to become the hero of the story. Po’s change takes place on the inside not the outside; he was and remains a chubby panda. This is not a film where the ugly girl becomes the beauty queen or the nerd blossoms — in this respect KFP is a nice break from our look-obsessive society.

Concluding, this animation movie perfectly combines humor with a message conservatives can believe in; no matter who you are, no matter who your parents are (Po’s father is a goose who owns a noodle soup shop), you can become everything you want, as long as you work hard and refuse to give up.

Magic the Gathering CCG

There is a popular game among the young and the geeky of our world called Magic: The Gathering. It is a collectible card game. So, you collect cards of different rarity, like sports cards, only each card can be used as a part of a bigger game.

One of the cards is featured below:

Encarnacion!