Random stuff and Open Thread

Victorian posy of pansies(I actually wrote this post yesterday, and thought I’d published it. When I looked at my blog just now, though, I saw that it never got out of the draft phase. Still, there’s enough interesting stuff in it that I’ll publish today anyway.)

I discovered two things to help with my email:  Boomerang and The Email Game.  Thanks to these two, I reduced my email from 150 emails to 4 emails in 45 minutes, all while having fine and feeling in control.  This is, naturally, very exciting.  It’s also interesting how turning a task into a game is so much more fun, even when you’re basically going through the same motions you would in any event.  I guess it’s an example of good mind games.  For other email advice, check out this article.

***

It can be a good thing when married men date.  No, I’m not kidding.  Read here and learn why.

***

Mollie Hemingway has noticed something very interesting about MSM movie reviewers’ approach to movie violence:  In 12 Years a Slave, violence is meaningful and important; in The Passion of the Christ, it’s disgusting and overboard (their view, not mine).  I’ve noticed a similar attitude towards cigarettes and birth control pills.  Cigarettes have known health risks and are especially damaging in growing children.  Leftists will do anything to destroy them and they cannot be sold to children.  Birth control pills have known health risks (cancer, blood clots, strokes, etc.) and, while nobody has studied it, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that pouring toxic hormone doses into young girls’ bodies is not a good thing.  Not only do Leftists approve of the Pill, though, they pass laws ensuring that parents, who are the people most likely to have their daughter’s physical and emotional interests at heart, can have no say in the matter once their daughters are 12 or 13 years old.  Parents know that a 12 or 13 year old girl, no matter how physically developed she is, is still a child.

***

Keith Koffler noticed that Obama just announced that he’s going to violate the Constitution.  Koffler is deeply offended, as all Americans should be.  Republicans in Congress don’t seem to care.  Nor do Democrats, although they should care too because history has shown that they’re unlikely to control the White House forever.

***

This story is slightly out-of-date, but it amused me.  You remember, of course, when school kids all over America complained that they weren’t getting enough calories thanks to Michelle Obama’s interference with the menus, ostensibly to make them more healthy.  The USDA has now backed off the new policy.  Why?  Because “more kids decided to brown-bag it and bring their own food to school.”  Why is this amusing?  Because government food programs have always been premised on the fact that they are there to feed children whose families are too poor to feed them.  This little USDA minuet exposes this reasoning for the lie it is.  Federal food programs are there to exert further government control over young people.

***

If you need cheering up, or you’d like to know that there are other people in the world who, like you and me, love to dance but don’t do it very well, check out this delightful video at Noisy Room.

***

I sometimes find the proliferation of New Age religions gin America both maddening and sad.  The Left has driven so many lost souls away from traditional faith, which gave meaning and purpose to life, and given them nothing in return.  They’re now adrift and searching.  Of course, sometimes once they’re done searching what they find may be good for a laugh.

***

Someone who was there in the aftermath says that Lone Survivor is a good movie, but bemoans the fact that, being Hollywood, it couldn’t resist gilding the lily.  With a movie such as Lone Survivor, doing so somehow dishonors the dead.  Mr. Bookworm likes to introduce movies such as Spielberg’s Lincoln to the children with the phrase “This is history.”  He’s always irked when I add, “It’s not history.  It’s Hollywood’s version of a true story.”

***

Texas. Rep. Scott Turner definitely shows signs of being a rising star in the GOP.  I’m just not going to give my heart away immediately.  It’s been broken too many times.  I will however keep my eye on him and hope for the best: