Oh Tell My Baby Sister Not to Do What I Have Done

In 1961 Bob Dylan released his debut (and eponymous) album. On it was a song later made famous by the British group The Animals -- The House of the Rising Sun. It's a classic folk ballad, most likely dating back to the "Unfortunate Rake" ballads of the 18th century. The Animals took inspiration from Dylan's version, but theirs is widely viewed as the first folk-rock hit of the 1960's. 

There are a lot of theories about the "real" House of the Rising Sun -- or if it existed at all. In any event, tomorrow we're going to be in the neighborhood. The Boy™ -- my 18-year-old stepson -- is off to college in the Big Easy, and She Who Must Be Obeyed™ are taking him down. Should be a great time -- I've never been before. Unfortunately, work is so crazy that I can't spend too much time down there this time. Next trip is for parents' weekend at the end of September.

Anyhow, does anyone have any restaurant suggestions? Or places not to be missed? The Boy™ will be majoring in Jazz, so he'll take care of the music tours on our next trip. 

And, because I like the Dylan version, I present to you:

The House of the Rising Sun

Bob Dylan

There is a house down in New Orleans
They call the Risin' Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor girl
And me, oh God, I'm one.

My mother was a tailor
She sewed these new blue jeans
My sweetheart was a gambler, Lord
Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk

He fills his glasses up to the brim
And he'll pass the cards around
And the only pleasure he gets out of life
Is ramblin' from town to town

Oh tell my baby sister
Not to do what I have done
But shun that house in New Orleans
They call the Risin' Sun

Well, it's one foot on the platform
And the other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain

I'm a-goin' back to New Orleans
My race is almost run
I'm goin' back to end my life
Down in the Risin' Sun

Jesus, '
I don't wanna be left alone.
Jesus, oh Jesus, 
Can you hear my last prayer?
I know I have sinned, 
But Lord I'm sufferin'
Jesus, oh Jesus, 
Can you hear my last prayer?

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Risin' Sun
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl
And Lord I know I'm one

© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

One Reason I Moved to Florida

Guns are allowed:

The Florida State legislature has taken steps towards securing Second Amendment rights by eliminating restrictions on firearms. The measures, which will be enacted on October 1, will impose penalties on public officials who pass or enforce gun regulations at the state level. Violators face a $5,000 personal fine and may risk being removed from office by the governor. 

It seems that in 1987 the legislature passed a law saying that it was illegal to pass any gun laws outside of the state-level laws, but there was no enforcement mechanism. Because of that, towns and cities passed laws all willy-nilly, making the state a quilt of different gun laws. No longer!

Next Target of the Nanny State -- your TV?

Researchers in Australia reached far up their asses and pulled out a fascinating "fact": one hour of TV can shorten your life by 22 minutes. That makes one hour of TV as deadly as smoking 2 (gasp!) cigarettes! OMG!!!
Eleventy!!11!!

It's just another case of post hoc not equaling propter hoc, of course -- correlation just isn't causation. They looked at  a cross-sectional survey of people 25 and up at the turn of the millennium, and asked them how much TV they watched. They then looked at national mortality rates for the year 2008, and attempted to correlate the two numbers. That's interesting, of course, but it means exactly nothing.

I'm interested in how this will be used by the nanny statists to screw with our freedoms. Will the Center for Science¹ in the Public Interest² wage a war on television, like they've done against salt? Will Mike Bloomberg mandate an age limit for TV watching? Whatever it is, you know someone's going to jump on this study  like your host on a 5-pound  bucket of bacon.


1: well, propaganda spun as science
2: umm, not in the public interest. In the interest of superannuatated hippies, maybe?

It smells like Democrat policies in here

I prefer 3 Crabs brand. 

We finally had our furniture delivered over the weekend. I learned a really important lesson: even if it's your favorite condiment in the world, don't pack a bottle of Vietnamese fish sauce in with your kitchen stuff. It will shatter and the rest of your property will smell like rotten fish. And She Who Must Be Obeyed™ will fail to see the humor in it.

And yeah, it amuses the hell out of me that my blogfather published a post entitled, "The Air Smells of Freedom" the same day I posted this. I have to disagree on you with this one, Daddy-o.

I think malaria must have bullied Bill Gates in middle school or something

another use for the device?

Bill Gates has a serious hard-on for malaria. He wants it killed like I want Salma Hayek. The only difference is, he has a decent shot at success. It's nice to see someone using real-world business acumen in philanthropy.

Via Gizmodo, we learn that scientists have developed a technique that may lead to curing malaria by putting people in giant microwaves. Yeah, you heard me -- the same device that heats up 7-11 burritos may be used to prevent the deaths of millions of people each year. That's pretty cool.

Basically, the parasites that cause malaria have extra iron in them. The microwave would be used to heat up that iron and make the parasites explode. How it keeps the patient from exploding I have no idea, but it sounds awesome.

Eponymous, they name is.

From back when REM didn't suck.

Here's a pretty good rule of thumb: If you're naming a piece of crime legislation after a crime victim, it's probably a bad law. It means you're legislating out of anger, or in reaction to public anger over a specific incident. That's generally not how good policy is made.--Radley Balko

The USA Patriot Act. Meghan's Law. The Adam Walsh Law. The (proposed, and blatantly unconstitutional) Caylee's Law.  What do they have in common? They're all shitty, frequently-abused laws that curtail our rights, but got passed because of a pleasant. This shit has to stop.

Are you having trouble getting your mandatory vivisection law to pass? Just rename it to the God and Babies Act (Gut our daughters and cut their eyes, breasts, intestines, ears, and skin Act) and presto! Who wouldn't vote for a cute baby? This is lawmaking as a marketing exercise.

When I am appointed emperor, my first* command will be forbid the naming of all laws. If you want to compromise our rights, at the very least  be honest about it. Oh, and GFY.




*my second will be to resign, of course. Well, after awarding myself a lifetime of free booze.

What is it about the UK?

The response by London police to the riots has been ineffective to the point of idiocy. They failed to respond quickly to the violence, and until recently have come off as pretty weak. Now, it seems, they're cracking down -- on the civilians who dare to stand up to the mob!

From the article:

They were particularly energetic in their confrontation with “vigilantes” in the predominantly white working class North London district of Enfield yesterday where a significant number of men, some of them allegedly members of the infamous fan club of the Millwall soccer team, had gathered to protect the community. Police in riot gear moved in force to disperse the crowd, displaying far more determination than they had shown against the rioters.

So the Brits have disarmed their law-abiding subjects. The cops have a monopoly on the lawful use of force, but have been loathe to use it. And now if their undefended subjects dare to defend themselves against the wogs they're threatening them? WTF??


Oh, and this is great, too: David Frum found this gem:

Senior police officers quickly made clear their anger with ministers. “David Cameron blamed the police for not having a crystal ball and not anticipating the most serious set of circumstances ever seen,” one senior police source said. “The confidence of the police leadership in the government is at an all-time low. Cameron dumps on the police when it suits him, to deflect blame from himself.

Oh, the arrogance. Jesus wept!

If my aunt had balls she's be my uncle

Evidently your author is a fat cat

Victor David Hanson makes excellent use of the subjunctive tense when he asks, "What if the President Liked Business People?" . He has a number of excellent quotes, among them

But imagine that the president had instead promoted profit-making -- by cutting red tape, praising entrepreneurs, promising no new taxes or burdens on businesses, and offering incentives to open new plants inside the U.S. In other words, what if small businesses and large corporations believed Obama to be a friend and partner, a leader who wanted them to make big profits, hire millions of workers and enrich the country in the process?

I'm an entrepreneur. I recently co-founded a startup company that is going to revolutionize the way young kids learn and develop intellectually. Among my co-founders are a neurologist from Yale School of Medicine, a serial entrepreneur and Harvard MBA who's grown and sold several multi-million-dollar companies, and an ex-Microsoft guy who helped build the platform upon which we're developing the product. In other words, aside from me they're pretty bright guys. And to a man we're terrified of what next financial hell Obama is going to inflict upon us. We're having a bitch of a time raising capital because of new restrictions on angel investors. We're terrified to hire people because God only knows what new rules the labor department will come up with. We're paying out the ass for medical coverage because of Obamacare mandates. This is the worst time in the world to start a business, and if it weren't for hubris and a lot of alcohol we wouldn't have bothered.

Screw dreaming about how nice it would be if the president liked business people. It'd just be nice if he'd stop being openly hostile to us!

Among the castrati, the one-balled man is king

The Kirpan (/kɪərˈpɑːn/; ਕਿਰਪਾਨ ) is a ceremonial sword or dagger
carried by orthodox Sikhs. According to a religious commandment
given by Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth Guru of Sikhism) at the
Baisakhi Amrit Sanchar (a religious ceremony that formally baptizes a Sikh)
in CE 1699, all baptised Sikhs (Khalsa) must wear a kirpan at all times.

And it seems that Sikhs have two big brass ones. I've always admired Sikhs for their concept of "Sant-Sipahie" — their goal of being a saint-soldier. their Guru Granth Sahib taught that one must have control over one's internal vices, and must  have the courage to defend the rights of all who are wrongfully oppressed or persecuted irrespective of their color, caste or creed. Sikhism is one of the most tolerant religions in the world because of this.

Well, those Saint-Soldiers have their work cut out for them in London. With the wogs rioting and threatening everything, hundreds of Sikhs  have taken to the streets to defend their Gudawara (shrine). Nice that some Brits seem to still have cojones!

via Fatale Attraction

"Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

With unpleasantness popping up just about everywhere these days, Uncle Jay brings the smart with his post on his personal Rules of Engagement. Go read, now.

H/T: Blogfather (pbuh)

I'm back, and have a question

Hey Folks,

Sorry for the long break -- the move and new job have taken a lot more effort than I had expected. I'll be back to my posting goodness soon.

I have a question, though. There's some serious rioting going on in London right now -- scary stuff. Similar (though smaller scale) riots are occurring in Milwaukee and  Philadelphia. All seem to have a racial component (though, granted, the press has been forgetting to mention it).

Anyhow, why would there be racial riots in such liberal areas? Aren't liberals the ones who are the real friends of minorities? After decades of "progressive" rule shouldn't everyone be holding hands and singing kumbya?

Also, 2 of those 3 cities have really repressive Progressive gun laws -- pretty much only the police are allowed to carry guns, don'tcha know. Why don't people riot in areas with less restrictive carry permits? I mean, you hardly ever hear of riots in Florida or Texas, right? Coincidence?