Warning: The Jokes You Tell Can and Will Be Held Against You in a Court of Law

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As someone who jokes about everything, I’m sick and tired of people who think that bad jokes are somehow a violation of their civil rights:

A skydiving instructor who joked with a female student that he couldn’t be falling for her because he’s gay has filed a discrimination suit, claiming he was cut loose from his job because of the quip.
Donald Zarda was strapped tightly to the woman, identified only as Rosanna, as they floated to earth in a tandem jump June 18, when he told her, “Don’t worry, I’m gay.”
Rosanna complained to his then-boss at Skydive Long Island in Calverton, Ray Maynard.
Zarda says Maynard accused him of “inappropriate behavior” and also said he had touched the student “in a way that made her uncomfortable.”
“I’m 100 percent gay,” Zarda told The Post.
“So, you’re accusing me — the gay guy — of touching the girl inappropriately?
“The situation is so bizarre.”

Bizarre. Strange. Weird. There’s another synonym here, somewhere.

Dealing with the humor-impaired is a career hazard every smart-aleck must face, but the answer to getting fired for making a joke isn’t to hire a lawyer and sue for “discrimination.” To do so is to become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

If Donald Zarda really wanted to fight this kind of stuff, he’d start his own gay tandem skydiving business: “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re strapped to your back.”

That’s just a joke, folks. Sue me.

(Via Memeorandum.)

Nefarious Or Stuck In A Kafka Machine, You Decide

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by Smitty (h/t House of Eratosthenes)

I’m going to risk irritating Andrew Cline at the American Spectator just a tad bit by rejecting this assertion:

Campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa, yesterday, the President repeated his biggest health care reform whopper: You can keep your current health insurance. Here is what he said:
“There’s nothing in the bill that says you have to change the health insurance you’ve got right now. If you were already getting health insurance on your job, then that doesn’t change.”
Yet hours before he uttered that line, the Boston Globe reported that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care was canceling its Medicare Advantage coverage specifically because of new regulations imposed by Obama’s health care law.

RTWT. Cline makes a good case that the President “isn’t being honest” and has “repeated. . .whopper[s]”.
Later, Cline allows, emphasis mine:

Politifact and others have rated as technically true Obama’s claim that “the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.” But that is not true, either. The law mandates that health insurers change the coverage they offer. Insurers have to offer coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and to policyholders’ children up to age 26. So technically, the law did change your health care plan.

As with questions of where he was born; is he Socialist; is he Muslim, this strikes me as playing the game on Leftist ground. Who cares whether the scatalogical sandwich was served on rye or pumpernickel: we know the sort of sandwich it is. Whether the alteration of the health care plan occurred in the active or passive voice of the verb ‘change’, plus $5, will get you some foo-foo at Starbucks. But it won’t get you into a clinic.
The modern Progressive bureaucracy is founded on complexity.
I can’t find the quotation at the moment, but I think it was Thomas Sowell who said words to the effect that “The reason we needed a 2,500 page bill was so that Congress could describe in great detail how the system will be unfair to people.” In blindly acceding liberty to Congress these decades, We The People have allowed too much complexity to creep in. The test of leadership in the next Congress will be to cut not just the budget, but the number of Federal weasel-crats ripping up American liberty.
Thus, attempting to pin claims of dishonesty on just the President misses the broader point that the entire system is geared toward untruth.

Beat Barney, Stomp Steny

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We’ve told you before about Sean Bielat, who’s taking on Barney Frank in Massachusetts, and Charles Lollar, who’s challenging Steny Hoyer in Maryland. Both of these men are U.S. Marines, and today they get a big “Semper Fi” shout-out from Ken Blackwell:

While Frank typically wins with 65 to 75 percent of the vote, Bielat is encouraged by internal polls showing him within striking distance of Frank. Scott Brown won the 4th District last year, and Frank’s unabashed support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the major protagonists in the housing crisis and the financial meltdown that followed, is a major liability.
To help Frank, the Democrats are sending in their biggest gun whose approval ratings aren’t in the basement — former President Bill Clinton. That’s heavy artillery for a race that’s supposedly already won, so someone is taking Bielat seriously.
Further south, another Marine is taking aim at the number two man in the House, Rep. Steny Hoyer. Hoyer has been in Congress for nearly 30 years and has been a staple in Maryland politics since 1966, when his opponent, Charles Lollar, was not yet born.
Lollar is a Marine who served in combat in Kosovo and is also currently a major in the Marine Corps Reserves. He burst onto the scene as a charismatic speaker at Tea Party rallies in Maryland and across the nation. The 39-year-old businessman decided to take on Hoyer because of his leadership role in advancing a radical liberal agenda under President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Lollar believes Rep. Hoyer has betrayed the values of a significant portion of Maryland’s 5th Congressional District and no longer views himself as accountable to them.
Hoyer’s strength is in the most populous county in the district, which is predominantly black. But Lollar, a black conservative with an engaging personality, has appealed directly and personally to people who Republicans have not typically approached, asking them for their vote — and they are responding.
National political pundit Dick Morris last week declared the race “winnable” for Lollar, and his campaign has seen a surge of national attention since then, including the endorsement of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. . . .

Read the whole thing. By the way, a source close to the Lollar campaign tells me that since I blogged about their campaign a week ago — and Ace of Spades jumped aboard the “Stomp Steny Express” — they have seen an impressive surge in online fundraising. I don’t want to give numbers, but it’s been tens of thousands of dollars.

Have you given yet? Come on: $20 to help Charles Lollar stomp Steny and another $20 to help Sean Bielat beat Barney.

Professor Glenn Reynolds has promoted the idea of An Army of Davids. How about A Marine Corps of Davids?

Does Daniel Hannan Support Stimulus Projects?

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by Smitty

Cubachi posted a Cato speech, 25 minutes of Hannan from 29 September, 2010, as he visits the Colonies in conjunction with the publication of The New Road to Serfdom, which, despite all initial title appearances, does not describe a shovel-ready Obama Administration project.

Shameless Daniel Hannan fan that I am, I pre-ordered the book. As a blogger, this is advantageous, because one can now pull a quotation from the end of the Introduction, throw in some other links, and get a decent post going:

A hundred years ago, my country was where yours is now: a superpower, admired and resented–sometimes, in a complex way, by the same people. We understand better than most that popularity is not bought through mimicry, but through confidence. You are respected, not when you copy your detractors, but when you outperform them.
Until very recently, the United States did this very well. While it may have drawn sneers from European intellectuals, denunciation from Latin American demagogues, violence from Middle Eastern radicals, the populations of all these parts of the world continued to try to migrate to the United States, and to import aspects of American culture to their own villages.
Now, though, American self-belief is on the wane. No longer are the political structures of Philadelphia automatically regarded as guarantors of liberty. America is becoming less American, by which I mean less independent, less prosperous, and less free.
The character of the United States, more than of any other country on earth, is bound up with its institutions. The U.S. Constitution was both a product and a protector of American optimism. When one is disregarded, the other dwindles.
This book is addressed to the people of the United States on behalf of all those in other lands who, convinced patriots as they may be, nonetheless recognize that America stands for something. Your country actualizes an ideal. If you give up on that ideal, all of us will be left poorer.

I’m only a couple of pages into the first chapter, but, based upon the table of contents, this is likely to be the most polite bitch slapping that Progressivism ever gets.
About the only thing unclear about Daniel Hannan is why he is not yet the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Be Sure To Applaud Stacy McCain For His Taste In Technology

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by Smitty

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that I’ve sort of been along for the ride since the Blogspot days.
Stacy insisted that we should venture into the Wild Wild WordPress West, and there I was, in tow.
Now, after some slight burps over the weekend, we’re bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and have not just a trendy but a truly value-added comment system installed.
Be sure to flex it and tell Stacy what a great idea all of this surely was.

LIVE AT FIVE10.4.10

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TOP NEWS

Emanuel Confirms: He’s Running For Mayor of Chicago
Chicago Tribune: Most Jews don’t reflexively back Rahm

Verizon To Refund Up  To $90 Million In Bogus Data Charges

EU-Asia Summit To Address Global Economy

Brazil Election Results Give Rousseff Definite Win
POLITICS
Rand Paul Ties Conway To Obama’s Policies In Debate

“I’m going to put Kentucky first,” maverick Republican says

Buck Solidifies Lead In Colorado Senate Race

Democrats In Dogfight For Obama’s Old Seat

Polls show Giannoulas, Kirk in dead heat

Free Speech & Immigration Cases Top Supremes’ Docket

THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Downed Power Line Closes Houston Ship Channel

Oracle’s Ellison Furious With HP Over Choice Of Apotheker For CEO

MasterCard, VISA Near Deal On Antitrust Settlement

Humana, Wal-Mart Team Up For Lowest-Priced Medicare Part D Prescription Plan

SPORTS

Giants Avoid Sweep, Take NL West With 3-0 Win Over Padres

Rays Win AL East, Braves & Yankees Get Wild Cards

Redskins’ Defense, McNabb Beat Eagles 17-12

Jimmie Johnson Places Second At Price Chopper 400, Moves Into NASCAR  Sprint Cup Lead

MLB Playoff Schedule
Haterade not included

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

Is Britney Sporting Neck Tattoos?

Or are they just hickeys?

Dog The Bounty Hunter Rushed To ER

ABC Axes “My Generation” After Only Two Episodes
Winston Churchill Album Breaks Into UK Pop Charts
Yes, that Winston Churchill.

FOREIGNERS

Bombings Done By Foreign-Based Terrorists, Nigerian President Claims

UK, EU Square Off Over Bankers’ Pay

Palestinian Illegal Immigrant Shot While Trying To Enter Israel

Chavez Wants Civilian Militia Armed

BLOGS & STUFF

Professor Death: Help Ed Morrissey, Press This Button

Don Surber: Christine Amanpour Gets An Earful About Islam

Stuxnet Virus Jumps From Computers To Humans

Who Are You Going To Believe, “Crooks & Liars” Or Your Own Lying Eyes?

— compiled by Wombat-socho

California Workers Laid Off and Their Jobs Shipped to China by Greedy Republican Democrat Jane Harman?

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Yeah, this could kind of wreck the class-warfare rhetoric Democrats usually roll out in their election campaigns:

California Democrat Rep. Jane Harman’s family business is laying off American workers – including engineering employees in California — and shifting jobs overseas.
A letter from the human resources director of one Harman company, obtained exclusively by The American Spectator, describes a “permanent” layoff of dozens of California workers that went into effect last week.
“I am writing to inform you that Harman Consumer, Inc. has decided to consolidate their global engineering operations located at 8500 Balboa Boulevard, Northridge, California 91329, to Shenzhen, China,” Sandra Buchanan wrote in the letter dated July 20. “The separation is expected to be on September 30, 2010 and will affect forty-eight (48) employees. . . . The layoffs are expected to be permanent . . . .”
Harman is the third-richest member of Congress, and her net worth increased last year $40 million, according to a study of Federal Election Commission records conducted by The Hill newspaper. . . .

Wonder what Mattie Fein will have to say about this?