Go Free Yourself

Did you know that Rachael Ray is a terrorist sympathizer? Yeah, me either.

But yes, according to the latest in conservative brilliance, Rachael Ray—the gregarious host of the Food Network’s 30 Minute Meals and the creator of annoying phrases like “yummo”—sympathizes with terrorists because she wore a scarf in one of her latest Dunkin Donuts ads.

Seriously? Seriously?!

Is she annoying? Yes. Obnoxious? Definitely. But a terrorist sympathizer? Give me a break.

Nevertheless, some conservatives are all up in arms because Ray’s scarf evidently resembles a keffiyeh, which is a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. From the Boston Globe:

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column.

‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’

Dunkin Donuts initially dismissed the complaints, but later decided it’d just be easier to pull the ad.

Good grief.

Imagine this, if you will:

In Westlake Falls, Texas, Mayor Mark Urdahl decided not to run for re-election. Simple enough, right? Not so fast—he wasn’t allowed to remove his name from the ballot. His request to do so was denied by the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

So, he took action—and hit the campaign trail for his opponent.

Well, that’s one way to go about it. (Here’s another way.)

If you’re an Australian and you hear someone clunking around your garbage cans in the middle of the night, you better hope you’ve been recycling. Because the man wearing the head lamp on his helmet and digging through your trash isn’t a burglar—it’s the recycling police.

Let’s hope the American nanny state doesn’t find out about this.

I haven’t closely followed the news surrounding the housing crisis, but I know the basics.

What I didn’t know, however, was that renters represent 32 percent of American households, or that homes in foreclosure are less than 2 percent of all households, or that the vast majority of mortgages are being paid on time. Yet the Senate still passed a multi-billion dollar housing bailout this week.

FreedomWorks is working to bring some perspective to the debate with a new campaign site, AngryRenter.com. Their goal is to get 100,000 people to sign the petition, which they will then deliver to Capitol Hill. You don’t even have to be a renter to sign the petition, just a citizen unhappy with government bailouts.

Check it out here, and watch their video below:

I haven’t been to Los Angeles since I was in fourth grade, but I remember the traffic being horrendous. The smog was also pretty disgusting. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten any better—in fact, according to California Assemblyman Mike Feuer, “the people of Los Angeles have just had it when it comes to traffic and air quality.”

Fine. I can understand that. But the solution is definitely not to pass a “global warming tax.”

However, that’s exactly what Feuer is proposing. He’s the author of bill 2558, legislation that would institute a “climate change mitigation and adaptation fee” already endorsed by the board of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This would mean drivers could end up paying an extra 9 cents per gallon at the gas pump or an additional $90 on their vehicle registration, either of which would add an additional $400 million a year for public transit projects.

Needless to say, not everyone is pleased by this scheme. The Los Angeles Times reports:

But opponents already are rallying against the measure, saying it exploits public concern about climate change to tap taxpayers for the MTA’s regular services: providing bus and rail lines.

“This seems to be a cashing in on public sympathies on global warming to generate additional funding for programs that already exist,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Coupal also objected to the measure’s being called a “fee” — which requires a simple majority for approval — instead of a “tax,” which requires two-thirds approval.

Another opponent wrote a letter to the editor, which appeared in the Desert Dispatch on Monday:

Los Angeles County motorists should ask Mr. Feuer what global temperature would persuade him that a new tax is unneeded. Global warming, now conveniently rechristened “climate change,” is perfect for demagoguery. Those advancing the cause won’t explain how they will know we have won the global warming fight, let alone what the ideal temperature is supposed to be.

Climate has changed as long as the Earth has spun on its axis. It’s been considerably warmer in recent centuries than today, and during those periods humanity simply adapted, indeed, flourished with fewer cold-weather deaths and more abundant crops.

But facts don’t deter schemes like Mr. Feuer’s to raise $400 million in additional taxes to pay for already funded transit projects.

Read the rest of the LTE here, and the LA Times piece here. And in the meantime, let’s hope California voters reject this tax scheme.

I am already pissed about the amount of taxes I have to pay. But when I found out today that my hard-earned dollars (and yours) are paying for lingerie, gambling, iPods (you KNOW how I feel about those), Internet dating services, and steak & booze dinners, I nearly burst a blood vessel.

Look, I know this shouldn’t/doesn’t come as a surprise, but it’s no less infuriating.

The Washington Post reports (with the most understated headline ever—”Federal Credit Cards Misused”):

The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit — including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

…

The GAO found that 41 percent of the transactions it examined did not follow government purchasing rules. The problem was worse with larger purchases: Forty-eight percent of transactions over $2,500 were in violation of federal rules, the report said.

Read the rest (and more highlights)—if you can stand it.

In case you weren’t aware, sniffing Sharpies is gross. It’s also cause for suspension from school if you attend Adams School District 50 in Colorado.

That’s what happened to eight-year-old Eathan Harris, who colored a small area of his sweatshirt sleeve with Sharpie and smelled it periodically during class. His reasoning?

“It smelled good,” Harris said. “They told me that’s wrong.”

School administrators, however, suspended him because “smelling the markers could make him high”—and they also removed all other markers from school premises to prevent this from happening again. Never mind the fact that a toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center confirmed that getting high by smelling Sharpies is an unfounded theory.

This is all very alarmist and nanny state-y. (It’s Friday and I’m making up words. Roll with it, please.) But my question is why the hell was this kid smelling a Sharpie? I can think of few things that smell worse than a Sharpie. And you can’t even get high! I mean, at least when I was a kid we had markers that made you light-headed and actually smelled good—cherry, blueberry, black licorice (although that one smelled more like death doused in motor oil and sprinkled with battery acid, now that I think about it).

Anyway, my point is that this is insane on two levels: 1) the obvious alarmist aspect of it, and 2) the fact that this child actually thinks Sharpies smell good.

It’s a crazy world we live in.

Beware the Sunshine Police!

As a way to “protect young people from skin cancer,” Maryland legislators are considering a bill that would prevent minors from using tanning beds without written consent from a parent or guardian on the premises. On the premises. If passed, this bill would mean teens would have to drag their parents down to the salon every time they wanted to tan. Violators could be subject to fines, too: up to $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second, and up to $1,000 thereafter.

(No one tell them about going outside to get some sun; they might ban that, too.)

Let’s play a game. Pretend you’re an employee who just received a new computer. How do you react?

Well, if you work for Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services, you complain that the computer didn’t come with solitaire, hearts, and minesweeper.

The department first responded by saying they would add the games to the computers in an effort to ensure that all employees were being treated the same. But, then in an “Oh-crap-taxpayers-are-paying-us-to-work-not-play-games” moment of genius, they instead removed the games from 3,000 other employee computers.

Awesome.

(H/T: Fark.com)

Remember when Cook County Board President Todd Stroger pushed through a 1 percent sales tax increase (giving Chicago the dishonor of being the Most Taxed City in the Nation), pleading with taxpayers and commissioners “to make sacrifices for the good of county government”?

It was BS then, of course, but wait ’til you hear this: evidently the “good of county government” was code for “giving his cousin a ginormous raise.”

Donna Dunnings, Stroger’s cousin and the county’s Chief Financial Officer, is set to receive a 12 percent raise—higher than any other county employee—which brings her salary to $160,000. This is $5k more than the last CFO, even though she claimed when she started last year that she’d save taxpayers money by taking a lower salary than her predecessor.

This is ridiculous.