Nobody's Business

I'm Calling It Quits

...for the rest of 2006. Be back in one week.

This being Christmas Day — no doubt known to my four-year-old as The Day Santa Gloriously Overdid It Again — it's as good a time as any to ask for a token of your appreciation. (I bet your heart's still pounding from that panic-inducing headline. Good!) I'm in my third year of blogging and I've asked for a contribution only once before, so please indulge me.

Truth is, I spend at least several hundred hours a year writing and maintaining Nobody's Business, not to mention hundreds of dollars in hosting and registration fees. Advertising income is marginal, not even enough to offset the cash expenses. It follows that this blog is a labor of love.

Now, I'm doing it mostly for me, to share news of liberty-wrecking developments from around the world that set my teeth on edge and make my forehead hurt 'cause of all the slappin'. As therapy goes, blogging is cheap, if laborious.

So even if you're a regular here, you don't owe me anything. My pleasure. If you give nothing, I can't imagine you'd be courting bad karma. Then again, if you like this blog and find yourself visiting frequently and want to show your appreciation, you could certainly further boost my motivation — and perhaps make me weep with gratitude — by either making a donation hitting the PayPal buttons on the right, or by getting me something from my Amazon wish list (begin by clicking on this button right here).

That gorgeous 40'' Sony Bravia flatscreen HDTV could be a little much considering the hole Santa probably just blew in your budget, but I assure you I'll find a sub-$25 book or DVD nothing to sneeze at. On the contrary.

Whether your support is of the moral or the monetary kind, thank you sincerely.

Merry Christmas, and see you next year.

The Marriage Market

Your betters in government can't even keep their noses out of good old-fashioned heterosexual marriage.

If you're planning on getting married in Tennessee, you'll first have to undergo four hours of counseling, or "marital preparation." Even people who've lost their spouse of decades and are getting remarried aren't exempt; they too will have to listen to pontifications about sanctity and responsibility and what have you.

So certain are the state's legislators that the requirement is a fair, just, and necessary pro-marriage measure, that they'll let you skip it if you pay 60 dollars. That's right: their marriage-protection zeal vanishes at the sight of a mere 60 bucks. There's principles for you.

How do Tenneseans respond to the bald-faced extortion? Funny thing — not too well. "We used to get eight or nine [weddings] a day," says clergy member Mark Sanderlinds, who officiates in Hamilton County. "Now it may be five a week."

It's not that fewer Hamilton County dwellers are getting married. It's that they go across the state border, to Georgia, where they can get hitched without being mugged by their own public servants, and where they can exchange vows sans interminable prior advice from professional busybodies.

Awesome, how markets work!

Fish and Game Games People Play

Al Diamon is the éminence grise of political writers in Maine — though of course, political writers in Maine are about as plentiful as lobstermen in Washington DC. It's not that hard to rise to the top of the local field.

But this is no backhanded compliment. My home state's newspapers produce a disquieting stream of bland, safe, snooze-inducing editorials. Diamon stands out because he's happy to swim against the current. Good-natured though he is, he habitually and mercilessly dunks know-nothing politicians and busybody bureaucrats alike (it doesn't hurt that he seems to have libertarian leanings).

In his latest column, in which he looks back on 2006, Diamon is in fine form.

The Bush administration didn't get the United States out of Iraq, but the Portland City Council did manage to keep Hooters out of downtown. And councilors also made it clear no other national chains are welcome, thereby shielding us from Krispy Kreme, Victoria’s Secret, ESPN Zone and other corporate evildoers.

In July, agents of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife marched into a Freeport restaurant and seized a tank of “koi,” which is the Japanese word for “sort of like a goldfish.” Koi appear benign, but can turn vicious without warning. ... These fish pose a threat because they could escape from their tank, crawl through the chain-store-choked streets of Freeport, slide into the indoor trout pond at L.L. Bean (hey, that’s a chain, too) and displace native species. Sort of like Toyota displaced Ford. Before long, every fish bowl in Maine would be infested with ichthyic invaders, and the guppy would be extinct.

To prevent that, state officials told the restaurant owner he could have his koi back only if he keeps them out of the sight, thereby ensuring that if these environmental menaces ever escape, we won’t find out until it’s too late. By the way, while the fish and game folks were busy protecting us from piscine provocateurs, somebody broke into their Gray office and stole seven guns.

Not to be outdone by the local yokels, the feds then swooped in to perform a rescue operation of their own.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was keeping America safe by informing the owner of Cappy’s Chowder House in Camden that the taxidermed remains of an antique black-backed gull, mounted under glass and displayed in the dining room, were cause for severe federal sanctions and, if no corrective action was taken, military intervention. This raises important questions: How come both state and national fish-and-game people spend so much time in restaurants? Is there some link between the food service industry and terrorism?

The gull had been stuffed back in 1854 and was purchased by Cappy’s owner at an estate sale in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the bird was considered a threat, because it could be hit by lightning, return to life, break free and displace native gulls with flesh-eating zombie gulls. Also, it violated a law against possessing migratory birds that Congress passed in 1918 (known to historians as "The Year Congress Didn't Have Much To Do"). Under pressure from U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, the feds eventually agreed to allow the foul fowl to be donated to a local museum, which, in turn, loaned it back to Cappy’s for display during the summer.

The anti-nannies had the last laugh. I'd call that a happy ending.

God's Earthly Reps — The Day's Roundup

That I'm all for people reading whatever they want should come as no surprise to Nobody's Business regulars. But my pro-Bible rant of yesterday confused at least one visitor, who apparently believes I have some kind of anti-Muslim bias. It's true that I'm not crazy about Islam; it's equally true that I'm no big fan of any organized religion, an aversion that most definitely includes all forms of doctrinal Christianity. To me, my position is perfectly self-explanatory, but in case you're wondering why I've never fallen under religion's spell, let me regale you with the day's devotional news, courtesy of fark.com.

In Poland, Jesus has been tapped for the top job.

Lawmakers have drawn up a resolution naming Jesus Christ as the honorary king of Poland, but have failed to win support from the country's powerful Roman Catholic church. Lawmakers for the ruling Law and Justice party and League of Polish Families as well as the opposition Peasants Party back the resolution, said Szymon Ruman, spokesman for parliamentary speaker Marek Jurek.  

In Italy, a priest recently lost Poland's future king's foreskin, "the snipped-off tip of the savior's penis, the only piece of his body he supposedly left on earth". Foul play is suspected.

Just what [Jesus'] foreskin was doing in the priest's house — in a shoebox at the back of his wardrobe, no less — and why and how it disappeared has been debated ever since the relic vanished. Some suspect the village priest sold it for a heavenly sum; others say it was stolen by thieves and ended up on the relics black market; some even suggest Satanists or neo-Nazis are responsible. But the most likely culprit is an unlikely one: the Vatican. 

In England, a judge believes that a plaintiff's religious beliefs ought to make the difference between telling the guy to fuck off and awarding him six million dollars. Here's why:

A devout Christian [emphasis mine] who said an accident at work boosted his libido and wrecked his marriage as he turned to prostitutes and pornography was awarded more than 3 million pounds in damages on Tuesday. Stephen Tame, 29, from Suffolk, suffered severe head injuries in a fall, transforming him from a loyal newlywed into a "disinhibited" character who had two affairs. 

If being perpetually horny is so terrible an affliction that it should now be compensated with a seven-figure sum, a couple of billion men are probably headed to a Ferrari showroom right this minute. At least the devout ones. You see, had Mr. Tame been of a secular persuasion, he would presumably have walked away with nothing, since free love is considered the inevitable province of godless hedonists. But when our Bible-loving brothers feel compelled to act on dirty thoughts, well, that's just not right, and someone's going to have to pay up.

In the U.S., Mormons are reluctantly facing the fact that Simon Wiesenthal may not have been an irredeemable sinner after all. The famed Nazi hunter

...wound up on a list of people eligible to be posthumously baptised as Mormons so they could enter heaven. Bowing to protests from Jewish groups, The Church of Latter Day Saints said on Tuesday that it had removed Wiesenthal's name from its International Genealogical Index, a database of names of people who could be baptised after death. A church spokesman said the Nazi hunter's name was taken off the list after receiving a complaint from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights group named in his honour. 

Said Rabbi Marvin Heir, the dean and founder of the group:

"Simon Wiesenthal dedicated his whole life to Jews. I don't think he needs help getting into heaven." 

Quite.

Not that the Jewish faith is, as they say, above reproach.

As far as I'm concerned, the four examples above amount to relatively harmless nuttiness. Come to think of it, that phrase aptly describes my general opinion of organized religion. But religious faith has a terribly dark side too. Though he's harsher than I would have been, I find it hard to disagree with Christopher Hitchens, who, in this piece, details some of the outrages that are encouraged or condoned under the cover of religion. He concludes:

Jewish babies exposed to herpes in New York, thousands of American children injured for life after the rape and torture they suffered at the hands of a compliant Catholic priesthood, prelates and mullahs outbidding each other in denial of AIDS … it's not just your mental health that is challenged by faith. Anyone who says that this evil deserves legal protection is exactly as guilty as the filthy old men who delight in inflicting it. What a pity that there is no hell.

Flying-Turds Airline in Bible-Ban Brouhaha

We, in the West, must respect Islam at all cost. I mean, it would obviously cause an outrage if a Muslim traveling to the U.K. or the U.S. or Germany were to have his Koran confiscated at the border, and with good reason. But the other way around, not a problem. Travelers mustn't stuff a Bible in their suitcases when they visit Muslim countries like Saudi-Arabia — it's against the local law. And so, at least one gaggle of spineless airline execs is prepared to crack down on its own Bible-packing flight-crew members.

A British airline has banned its crew from taking the Bible into Saudi Arabia for fear of upsetting Muslims. ... One middle-aged stewardess is to sue BMI for religious discrimination at an industrial tribunal due to take place in the New Year. In the meantime she will be excluded from BMI flights to Saudi Arabia. A BMI source said: "Foreign Office advice is that non-Islamic religious material is not permitted in Saudi." But another BMI worker said: "We understand our embassy has confirmed that the Saudis never enforce this rule. ... The bottom line is BMI don't want to jeopardise the Saudi route, which is worth millions to them." 

I'd have a hard time flying on an airline called Bowel Movements International, or whatever BMI stands for. OK, I know it's British Midlands, but at this point they're just a bunch of flying turds to me.

[thanks, Baylen!]

Notes From a Geek With a Red Pencil

I just flew back from Holland, and boy are my arms tired.

Actually, not my arms. My head — from reading the local press over there. Dutch journalists are another reason to love America, and I say that having frequently skewered my U.S. colleagues for their sad lack of a backbone vis-a-vis the administration during the dark era of 2001-2005.

In any case, during my ten-day visit, my inner curmudgeon was constantly baffled by Dutch magazines and newspapers, most of which seemed characterized by laziness and frivolity.

For instance, one usually fairly respectable paper thought it'd be cute to hire two poets for a day, whose task it was to make all the headlines rhyme. Seriously. Granted, this was on St. Nicholas Day, when the Dutch give each other presents that are often accompanied by home-made poems, but regardless — predictably enough, it turned out to be a profoundly annoying chore to read that day's edition. Top-notch headline-writing is a precious skill under the best of circumstances; requiring headlines to rhyme is an exercise in silliness and confusion, both of which were delivered with clueless aplomb.

More importantly, a perpetual habit of the Dutch press is to skimp on reportorial effort. If ink-stained wretches over yonder feel they can write an article on a complex issue using just two sources, nothing and no one compels them to pick up the phone a third or fifth or tenth time. More often than not, Dutch news reports are thinner than Lindsay Lohan on a hunger strike. And more often than not, by generating as many questions as they answer, they leave the reader in the lurch.

Grammar and clarity weren't exactly stellar either, but I was struck even more by Dutch journalists' increasingly tenuous math skills. The country's largest news and opinion magazine carried an article about how the Earth's number of trees will supposedly grow by two percent a year over the next decade and a half, which, the writer informed us, meant a total of 30 percent. Apparently, he'd never heard of compounding (it's not a linear increase; two percent, compounding over 15 years, isn't 30 but almost 35 percent). Yeah, that's a niggle, I guess, but plenty such niggles presented themselves unbidden.

On the positive side, image choice and photo reproduction in the broadsheets is as good as ever (on the whole better than in the U.S.), and the country's paper of record, NRC Handelsblad, is surely one of the most handsome-looking newsprint products in the world. The triumphant quasi-feminist blather of its brand new editor-in-chief, the first woman so appointed, was a bit much (who on earth cares whether an editor has a penis or a vagina?), but whatever — congratulations to her, and best of luck.

Also, although Dutch news writers still possess the maddening habit of telling readers what to think, the mixing of fact and opinion is now perhaps less pronounced than before.

Readers nostalgic for the traditional sour, fingerwagging tone of many a Dutch news report could always turn to the U.K. Guardian. There, they might find the world explained to them in comforting terms: capitalism bad, socialism good, boo-hiss to America, long live welfare, soak the rich, etc. etc. Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Take Amelia Hill (please), the Guardian's culture and society correspondent. Yesterday she began an article as follows:

No whim is too ridiculous. No extravagance out of reach. Stratospheric City bonuses announced last week and an influx of international financiers have created a fresh echelon of British super-rich living lives of unheard of affluence. In what has been termed the 'Marie Antoinette' syndrome, this breed of the mega-wealthy inhabit a world of riches reminiscent of the French royal court just before the revolution.

And on and on, with purple prose that leaves little doubt as to what she would like to do with a guillotine and a stake. Astonishing.

I must admit that the Dutch press, by comparison, is a model of Keynesian restraint, and if lowland-dwelling editors are on occasion oddly compelled to rhyme and to mess up their math, well, in the spirit of the holidays, I'll say there are worse things.

Jesus Bling

This photo graces the current issue of the U.K.'s Freethinker magazine; in fact, it's the subject of the publication's caption contest.

My suggestions:

• "Every person has a cross to bear," a nun had once told Frank, and a bit to his wife's dismay, he'd taken it literally.

• The hostile stares on Iraq's Ramadan beach continued, and Frank decided he'd made a terrible cultural faux pas by wearing his tight-fitting Speedos.

• "You've changed, dude," Andrew Sullivan's friends kept insisting after his surprising conversion to Catholicism.

• "Your body is a temple," Jesus said, but he never imagined he'd end up dangling from a temple quite as hairy and sweaty as Frank "Manboobs" Cooper.

You can e-mail your own captions to FTeditor(at)aol.com, but please feel free to post them here too.

[via mediawatchwatch]

It's Not All Bad

Cloud, meet silver lining:

Despite criticism for adjourning last week without acting on several major legislative initiatives, members of Congress can boast significant achievements in at least one area of federal lawmaking — naming post offices. Of the 383 pieces of legislation that were signed into law during the two-year 109th Congress, more than one-quarter dealt with naming or renaming federal buildings and structures — primarily post offices — after various Americans.

See? Our elected officials got plenty done. Pressing legislative matters included passing a law

...naming another Los Angeles post office after actor and former American Express pitchman Karl Malden. And in March, Congress passed and the president signed legislation naming a Smithfield, North Carolina, post office after actress Ava Gardner.

Hmm. Now that's a little disappointing; surely there are worthier honorees than second-tier thespians? Actually, our politicians thought so, too.

Some federal facilities were named after deceased members of Congress. The late Rep. Robert Matsui, D-California, was honored with a courthouse in Sacramento. A Brooklyn, N.Y., post office was named after former Rep. and one-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Shirley Chisolm, D-New York.

The Terror That Is Tofu

The ranks of sissy-boys are sure to grow. Blame it on the ever-increasing popularity of tofu and other soy-based foodstuffs. Writes World Net Daily (under the headline "A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals"):

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

There can't be a more depressing occupation than being a writer for The Onion. No matter how outrageous the spoof you come up with, the real world has a startling habit of besting it. That's assuming that World Net Daily writers can be said to inhabit the real world, of course.

[via Andrew Sullivan]

Nurse Curse

A restaurant where the waitresses are decked out as provocatively-clad nurses has drawn the ire of actual hospital workers. The protesters took their case to the State Attorney General, who decreed that the restaurant was in violation of the law as long as it didn't post a disclaimer saying the ladies in nurse get-ups are not qualified medical personnel. The eatery complied by publicly stating on its website that "employees do NOT offer any therapeutic treatments (aside from laughter) whatsoever."

Still, accommodating the humorless is a tricky business — how are these folks going to enjoy their daily dose of moral indignation? So of course, they're still at it.

"Nurses are the most sexually fantasized-about profession," said Sandy Summers, executive director of the Center for Nursing Advocacy, based in Baltimore. "We're asking people, if they're going to have these fantasies, please don't make it so public. Move these sexual fantasies to other professions."

Yes people, please chastise your un-PC libidos and fantasize about welders and trash collectors instead. A blow torch can be a real turn-on if you'd just please try.

[hat tip: Reason]