The Enlightened Redneck

Posted on 04.23.12 by Danny Glover @ 8:12 pm

There’s a new and rare breed of creature occupying pockets of the U.S. House of Representatives these days — the rednecks were were baby doctors before they were elected.

The four lawmakers are Republicans Michael Burgess, Phil Gingrey and Phil Roe, all of Georgia, and Ron Paul of Texas, who is running for president.

Notice how they refer to themselves, according to this Roe quote in Politico: “We’re all Southern, conservative and pro-life. … Loudmouthed and red-necked is also a good way to describe us.”

With street cred like that — or should I say “dirt-road cred” — it’s a shame there aren’t more of them in Congress. This country would have not only better health care but better direction all around if the enlightened rednecks were in charge.

Why We Home-School, Lesson #37

Posted on 02.15.12 by Danny Glover @ 11:25 am

We don’t want the government food police inspecting our children’s lunches and demanding that they eat something we didn’t give them. The story:

A North Carolina elementary school forced a preschool student to eat cafeteria chicken nuggets for lunch on Jan. 30 after officials reportedly determined that her homemade meal wasn’t up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards for healthfulness. … The four-year-old girl brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice in her packed lunch from home.

So according to government standards, a turkey and cheese sandwich is healthier than this?

That alone is ridiculous. It’s even more outrageous that bureaucrats think they have the right to micromanage the diets of individual schoolchildren.

(Read previous “Why We Home-School” lessons.)

Filed under: Food and Government and Health and News & Politics and Parenting and Why We Home-School
Comments: 1 Comment

My, What A Big Horn You Have

Posted on 01.11.11 by Danny Glover @ 12:26 pm

Any time I start feeling sorry for myself because I don’t like some aspect of my body, I’ll try to remind myself to look at the photos of two elderly Chinese people who are inexplicably growing horns in their heads.

The best part is that at least the woman seems relatively comfortable in her horned skin. “Zhang embraced her new look and told reporters that she was eager for the second horn to match the first in size,” AOL News reported.

Filed under: Health and Human Interest and People and Photography
Comments: None

Dr. Seuss’ Message To Uncle Sam

Posted on 03.26.10 by Danny Glover @ 11:01 pm

This is going viral on Facebook. I don’t know who wrote it, but it captures the spirit of a solid majority of the country not only this week but for more than a year:

I do not like it Uncle Sam, I do not like it Sam I Am. I do not like these dirty crooks, I do not like how they cook books. I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals. I do not like this Speaker Nan, I do not like this ‘YES WE CAN’. I do not like this kind of hope, I do not like it Nope! Nope! Nope!

I have to say that as a writer, I would hate it if I wrote something that clever and it traveled all over the Internet without my name on it. This is what reminded me of the “The Bill Of No Rights” more than a decade after I unraveled that Internet copyright mystery.

Filed under: Entertainment and Government and Health and News & Politics and Technology
Comments: 5 Comments

An Internet Legend: ‘The Bill Of No Rights’

Posted on 03.26.10 by Danny Glover @ 10:54 pm

Back when President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, tried to force government-run health care on Americans as a right, libertarian Lewis Napper wrote an inspired piece of work he dubbed “The Bill Of No Rights.” It spread like wildfire on the Internet after a Georgia state lawmaker sent it to friends.

Napper’s name was lost in the electronic shuffle, and the lawmaker, Mitchell Kaye, ended up getting the credit for the masterpiece. I uncovered the mystery of authorship five years later while working at the online magazine IntellectualCapital.com.

This week, when President Obama signed a national health-care system into law, is a fitting time to revisit “The Bill Of No Rights” and the story behind it. Here’s what I wrote for IC:

Lewis Napper, a self-described “amateur philosopher and professional geek,” found his libertarian muse one day in 1993 while driving home for lunch from his job as a computer programmer near Jackson, Miss. The inspiration surfaced as he listened to a radio news report about President Clinton’s proposed national health-care plan.

As the chatter about “this right and that right” in the health-care arena increased, so did Napper’s frustration. What makes Americans think they have the right to any government-backed health care, he thought to himself. Or for that matter, what makes them think they have the right to any of the goodies distributed by a government that has become far too intrusive.

And then it hit him. All those misguided defenders of big government had perverted the intent of one of the founding documents of American democracy, the Bill of Rights. Within 15 minutes upon arriving home, Napper had composed his own addendum to the Bill of Rights just for those folks. He dubbed his satire “The Bill of No Rights” and forwarded it to a few friends.
(more…)

Filed under: Government and Health and Media and News & Politics and People and Technology
Comments: 2 Comments

Health-Care Bloopers

Posted on 03.26.10 by Danny Glover @ 8:30 am

They wanted to pass the bill so they could read. They wanted to control the people. They made up the rules as they went along. Now that they’ve managed to rewrite health-care law in America, listen to the Democrats in their own words and relive the memories:

That helps explain why so many people think Congress is dysfunctional and corrupt, eh? You have to laugh to keep from crying.

Filed under: Government and Health and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Video
Comments: None

Wrong Turn In The White House

Posted on 03.23.10 by Danny Glover @ 4:25 pm

It’s easy to get lost in all the maze-like office buildings in Washington. Just ask the man, presumably a White House staffer, who walked into the President Obama’s historic camera shot as he spoke at the bill-signing ceremony for health-care legislation.

Filed under: Health and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Video
Comments: None

Bob Marshall’s Disability: His Mouth

Posted on 02.22.10 by Danny Glover @ 7:47 pm

Bob Marshall used to represent me in the Virginia House of Delegates, and that was great because he is passionate about many of the issues that matter most to me, including his support for home schooling and his opposition to abortion.

But today I was glad we moved to a neighboring district several years ago because Marshall certainly wasn’t representing my views when he said this last week:

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the firstborn of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the firstborn of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.

Marshall quickly backtracked from his “poorly chosen words.” “No one who knows me or my record would imagine that I believe or intended to communicate such an offensive notion,” he said in a statement on his Web site. “I have devoted a generation of work to defending disabled and unwanted children, and have always maintained that they are special blessings to their parents.”

But that quote is likely to follow Marshall the rest of his career — and rightly so. Marshall referenced the Bible in his comments to the Capital News Service, so here’s a reminder of what Jesus said about men’s words in Matthew 12:

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. … But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

My point isn’t that God will condemn Marshall eternally for his words because he did apologize (albeit in the “mistakes were made” way that politicians typically do). Besides, that’s not my place to suggest any more than it was for Marshall to suggest that God uses “nature” to visit the sin of the mother who aborts a child upon a future child. I’m just saying that politicians like Marshall say dumb things because in their hearts, they believe them to some extent.

The good news is that bad publicity has a way of making politicians change their hearts — and their words — once they hear how foolish they sound.

[Cross-posted at Hot Air]

Filed under: Health and Home Schooling and News & Politics and People
Comments: 1 Comment

Obama’s Jokers

Posted on 12.24.09 by Danny Glover @ 5:01 pm

Posters with members of Congress decorated as the Joker from Batman fame have been surfacing around the country and online since the Senate struck a corrupt deal to overhaul the U.S. health-care system. They are being called “Obama’s jokers.”

All of their political careers should end as a result of their votes.

Filed under: Government and Health and Just For Laughs and News & Politics and Photoshop Stop
Comments: None

Sen. Ben Nelson Loses Redneck Vote

Posted on 12.24.09 by Danny Glover @ 12:51 pm

America is on the verge of taking a huge step toward socialized medicine, and Sen. Ben Nelson is a key player in that move. The Nebraska Democrat gave his party the 60th vote it needs to limit debate on the health-care bill that the Senate passed today on a 60-39 vote.

Nelson’s decision to sell his vote in a deal dubbed as “Cash for Cloture” doesn’t sit with the the rednecks in his state. Several of them rallied in the capital city of Lincoln on Tuesday to protest Nelson’s support for the legislation in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in federal dollars to Nebraska.

“We’re proud redneck Nebraskans, and we go big red and we’re not for sale,” Lincoln musician Gary Redden sang. The crowd answered back, “We’re not for sale!”

Nelson had plenty of opportunities to hear that message before selling out, but he closed his ears. Unfortunately, Nelson isn’t up for re-election until 2010. Hopefully the rednecks will crank up the volume between now and then, so the state doesn’t forget Nelson’s betrayal.

Filed under: Government and Health and Music and News & Politics and People and Rednecks
Comments: 1 Comment

Why Grime Is Good

Posted on 11.13.07 by Danny Glover @ 8:20 pm

While fishing as a child, I can recall times when I washed in nothing but dirty creek water to get the bait and fish germs off my hands before scarfing down a sandwich.

Those good ol’ days came to mind as I read that today’s obsession with antimicrobial soaps and other cleansers may lead to a generation of super germs that are tougher to kill.

Filed under: Culture and Fishing and Health
Comments: None

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