The Bigsibling Blog

This one just kills me. And, you know it HAS to, because I haven’t posted anything here in what seems like YEARS.

The Fat Tax

In August, the Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board approved a plan that will charge workers  an additional $25 to cover their insurance premiums, if they don’t take advantage of free health screenings available to all state employees. The program, to begin in January, will require state workers to receive medical screenings for body mass index and health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity.

Critics have panned this as a "fat tax"  that unfairly punishes people for their genetic predispositions. Others argue that the measure amounts to lawful discrimination that infringes on the right of free will, much like the state’s 2004 decision to offer a discount to non-smoking employees.

Now, of course this ISN’T a fat tax. They aren’t singling out the good and jolly folks who are horizontally enhanced. But, you know, you just can’t get it through to some people.

Sheesh

Stumble it!

Canada. I’ve written some about the state of freedom in our neighbor to the north (or, to the east for those of you in Alaska). With the current kangaroo court called the Canadian Human Rights Council, which is trying its best to convict someone for writing about how, based on statistical numbers, Muslims in Europe with out-populate the natives there. They call that hate speech. Go figure.

Canada needs to change its name to ‘The People’s State of Canada’. Because that name better reflects what it is becoming. Just a few short months ago in Texas, the state moved in and seized some 400+ children from a polygamist compound. The grounds for this over-reaching and illegal maneuver was a falsified claim of abuse. What as abuse going on at the compound? Don’t know, maybe, but the state swept in and took all of these children from their parents in blanket KGB style fashion.

The People’s State of Canada must have looked at that woeful Texas incident, and been impressed. There are two kids up in Winnipeg, Manitoba up there in the People’s State of Canada who have a pair of complete losers for parents. Their parents are bigoted, white-supremacist racist pigs. And they, of course, are teaching this bile to their own kids.

Little did this couple know they were no longer living in a free state. Heck I don’t know for certain, maybe Canada was never really a free state to begin with. Although, the Canucks I have had dealings with in the past seemed perfectly normal. In addition, it doesn’t seem that our northern cousins are flocking to America to experience our free and open society. So I guess I just kind of assumed they were free, like we are. Ok, wait, I’m getting off track here. Back to the issue….

So the People’s State of Canada does not like that this couple are vile racist pigs, and determine that they should not be allowed to raise their own kids, and in KGB (or State of Texas – if you would rather) they sweep in and grab up the children and remove them from their parents, to be placed in state custody. The next hearing is set for 23 June.

This is outrageous, preposterous and many other *ous words that I can’t even think of right now. Now, sexual or physical abuse, or even extreme emotional abuse, yeah, yank the kids outta there without a second thought. But to remove these children from their parents because the People’s State of Canada does not like what the parents believe? Does not like who the parents associates with? How can the good people of Canada stand by and watch this oppression take place. In this day and age? After all we’ve seen in recent memory? After Hitler, after Stalin? After Tibet? After all of this, the people of Canada just sit back and say ‘oh well’?

I am appalled, as much by the silence of the Canucks, as I am by the actions of their government. I simply cannot understand how you all can sit back and watch something like this happen. Regardless of how despicable these parents are, regardless of what their own personal beliefs are. To take their children from them because of their ‘thoughts’. Wrong, just plain wrong. Oh sure, the line is drawn, if you have kids, and you think this way, we’ll take them from you. Funny thing about these types of lines though. They are not static. The never, ever stay in one location. And you people who are on the ’safe’ side of the line now, will one day find yourself on the wrong side of the line. What then?

I’ll close with a paraphrased version of Martin Niemoller’s poem:

When the People’s State of Canada came for the bigots,
I remained silent;
I was not a bigot.

When they took the children from the racists,
I remained silent;
I was not a racist.

When they muzzled the activists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a activist,

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

source

Stumble it!

A group of Arab youths in Brooklyn assaulted and beat Rabbi Uria Ohana this week. It all started innocently enough. The Arab teenagers, being teenagers, and Arab, decided it would be funny to steal the Rabbi’s kippa (a/k/a yarmulka) and run off with it.

The Rabbi, being completely in his right, chased the offending youth out of the subway, where the Arab youth ran into traffic and got hit by a car, suffering a broken leg. That’s when the offender’s friends, blaming the Rabbi (natch!) for their friends broken leg, beat and kicked him while yelling "Allahu Akbar" while regaling in their violence.

The cops say that the Arab youths might possibly, maybe could be charge with a hate crime. They cops, in their infinite wisdom, are claiming the Arab youths who beat the Jewish Rabbi, because he is a Jew, while yelling the jihadist phrase "Allahu Akbar" – probably just didn’t know what the phrase meant. Uh-huh. Sure, okay.

If a kid shows a ham steak to a Muslim, he is perpetrating a hate crime. If someone puts the Koran in a toilet, they are perpetrating a hate crime. If someone puts up a poster, on private property, that declares their dislike of Islamic Supremacists, that is a hate crime. But beating a Rabbi, because he is Jewish, isn’t necessarily a hate crime.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not big on the whole hate crime crap to begin with. I don’t believe in them. I believe if one assaults and/or kills another, they should be punished, and that the law should be blind as to why someone did what they did. If they are guilty of murder, or assault, they are guilty of the crime. The why of the crime should not enter into it. What does it matter? The problem is, we have these asinine hate laws, and we don’t apply them levelly and evenly.

source (by way of JihadWatch)

###

Stumble it!

Somebody I’ve never heard of named Shirien Elmasraya wrote the following in a rather wordy, yet oblique column in the LSU Daily Reveille:

People always parrot the words “free speech,” but if you ask people to explain what exactly this concept entails, they will often give you a blank look.

Freedom of speech is so vague.

Um…no, not really. Freedom of speech is not vague at all. It is exactly as it implies. People here in the United States of America are free to speak their minds without fear of reprisal by the government. Exceptions are…fraud. That is about it. We are free to tell lies, we are free to tell truths, we are free to tell half-truths. We are free to criticize our government, we are free to criticize our neighbors. We are free to say “Hey, I don’t like what that group of people are doing.” There is not vague or ambiguous about it at all.

Elmasraya goes on to take issue with fellow columnist Daniel Lumetta’s quoting form Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone” where Steyn discusses the fact that Muslims in the west are reproducing at a much greater rate than non-Muslims. Where Westerners tend to have two kids, Muslims tend to have five or six. With that rate of re-population, it won’t be long before Muslims are the majority. Personally, that doesn’t bother me, unless they decide that Sharia Law is what should be the law of the land. The fact is that in the Middle East, which is primarily Muslim, the laws are so strict that simply converting to a different religion is punishable by death. That is what Steyn was getting at. If the strict Muslims have their way, we will all be either Muslim, or dead. No in-between.

Elmasraya continues to shove foot into mouth by discounting the statement that Lumetta made about the American culture being the greatest culture in the world. Saying:

This view usually emanates from people who have not traveled very much and have not seen different cultures for themselves.

Which is just another way to say “American cutlure is not the greatest culture, and only an idiot would say so.” Well, the fact is that the American culture is the greatest the world has ever seen. If one refuses to see that, they simply aren’t looking hard enough.

The American culture is unique in the world. It has evovled over the last several hundred years. America’s policies of welcoming (legal) immigrants from around the globe, from any and all countries and cultures has created the greatest culture. America’s culture is hodge-podge melting pot of each and every other culture in the world today (and in the past couple hundred years). America’s culture is created from the best all the other cultures have to offer, while discarding the crap. We discard the female genital mutiliation, we discard the honor killing rites, we throw out performing human sacrifices, we leave outthe part where a thief is dismembered, we frown upon polygamy, we toss out the mysoginistic tendancies of some cultures, and keep the good stuff.

How can all the good stuff from different cultures, combined into one not be the greatest? In what other culture does a woman have greater opportunity and equality than in the American culture? What other culture can produce a great leader from the son of the town drunk, or from a pauper’s upbringing by an abusive step father? Where can that happen but for America?

Elmasraya goes on to claim:

Saying American culture is superior to all other cultures without actually experiencing even just a couple of other cultures is an abuse of freedom – and perhaps an even bigger abuse to society at large by instilling these views into the public.

Ummm…okay, but I don’t have to experience the sensation of sticking a hot needle in my eye, to know that I’m not going to enjoy it. So it is an abuse of free speech to look at all the other cultures (without having to actually be immersed in them) and claim, hey, this is the best? What kind of crap is that? How is that an abuse of anything? With the ready availability of information today, one need to travel to foreign lands physically to know what their cultures are like. For instance, I have never been to India, but I know and have interacted with many, many people from India. I know their divorce rate is very low. I know they are some of the most polite folks I have ever met. Those aspects of the Indian culture, I really like, but counter to that is the caste system, arranged marriages and honor killings. Sorry, but American culture trumps theirs.

Look at the culture of the Middle East. While they have some great things going for them, low divorce rate, high rate of belief in God. They have no freedom of religion. Their women are treated as little more than chattel. They have honor killings. Women who are raped are punished by the courts. Hmmm…yep, American culture beats that hands down.

How about something closer to home? Canada? People are going to jail for speaking their minds. It is illegal to say something which would hold another to contempt or ridicule. No freedom of speech – not really anyway. Yeah, America has that one beat as well.

China? Tienamin Square – ’nuff said.

Cuba? Puh-leeze.

Elmasraya claims:

Sometimes the best form of speech or communication is to know when to not speak at all.

Apperantly, the ‘when not to speak at all’ part comes in when something is said that Elmasraya takes offense with. I wonder if the quote about the demographics had been about Mexicans, or Catholics, or Mormons, if Elmasraya would have taken such offense. My guess is not.

source

Technorati Tags: LSU, Daily Reveille, Shirien Elmasraya, Mark Steyn, Free Speech, First Amendment

Stumble it!

In desperately trying to keep up with political correctness, especially now, around Christmas time, there are bound to be instances where people meant well, tried to do the correct, multi-cultural, all-inclusive thing, but still end up doing it all wrong. Take Balducci’s grocers for example. I’m certain they just didn’t want Jews to be left out of this most joyous of seasons. After, all, Chanukah is currently in full swing, so why not advertise to the Jewish community that you are having holiday specials?

Well, that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing in and of itself, but when you are advertising your delicious spiral cut hams as “Delicious for Chanukah”, I can see where a problem might creep up.

source

Technorati Tags: Christmas, Chanukah, Hams, Balducci’s

Stumble it!

I swear, I love you Aussies. Really I do. Your women are hot, your beaches are to die for, you have that whole big rock thing going, not to mention Crocodile Dundee, and kangaroos & koala bears (yeah, I know, they aren’t really bears, but who cares?). But I will concede that it seems like I have been posting a few posts lately that could be construed as negative towards our great cousins from down under. Back on 16 November I posted about how department store Santas are not being allowed to say “Ho Ho Ho” and being instructed instead to say “Ha Ha Ha.” Personally, I don’t know why they don’t just make them say “Bah Humbug” but that’s just me.

Now we have the first firing to come from this overly politically correct crapola. Seventy year old John Oakes has been fired from saying the nefarious phrase so closely (and for generations) associated with Father Christmas, Pere Noel, Santa Claus or whatever else you want to call him.

Employment company Westaff, which supplies stores with red-robed, white-bearded Father Christmases, had earlier asked its Santas to say “ha ha ha” because the word “ho,” which is American slang for whore, could offend women, media reported.

In the latest incident, the Cairns Post newspaper said 70-year-old John Oakes was fired on Monday for saying “ho ho ho” and for singing the Christmas song Jingle Bells.

And what gets me even more is that the offending word “ho” is an American slang for prostitute, not an Aussie slang word. Seriously, how many Americans are going to be doing their holiday Christmas shopping in Australia?

source

Technorati Tags: Santa, Australia, Ho Ho Ho, prostitute, slang, John Oakes

Stumble it!