Rants of a Fuzzy Curmudgeon

Here we go again. Another Eagle Scout is claiming he’s an atheist and trying to keep the BSA from kicking him out.
Same old story. This has been tested in court (California Supreme Court, of all places) and upheld. Besides the fact that this “kid” is 19 years old and in two years he’ll be out as a youth member anyway.
How did this boy deal with all the years of repeating the Scout Law, whose 12th point is “A Scout is Reverent”, and the Scout Oath, which says “On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law” and refers to keeping oneself “morally straight”?
I guess he just plain lied, didn’t he? Throw out “A Scout is Trustworthy” I guess. And if he’s not Trustworthy, I don’t see how he could be considered Loyal, either.
This is a JOINING REQUIREMENT, for crying out loud. He should have quit as soon as he realized he was an atheist. And I’m frankly amazed he got through his Eagle Board of Review.

…Jesse and Al have been hit with a lawsuit claiming that their remarks about the movie “Barbershop” drove customers away. And get this — it’s not from the moviemakers — it’s from an association of barbershops and beauty salons who say the remarks negatively impacted their business!

The suit was filed Monday by the National Association of Cosmetologists. It accuses Jackson and Sharpton of intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, and negligence stemming from their demand for apologies from MGM, which produced the comedy.
The activists had called for scenes deriding Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to be removed from the film starring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer. MGM refused to cut the scenes.
The association, which claims to represent 50,000 barbers and beauticians, said Jackson and Sharpton misrepresented themselves as spokesmen for the group.
James Stern, chief executive of the group, said Sharpton’s threat to boycott the film and other remarks created a negative public sentiment about the profession, resulting in a loss of business.

Can you say “restraint of trade”? I knew you could.
Turnabout is fair play, boys. No boo-hooing for the cameras, please.
And now, pardon me while I go laugh hysterically…

The Professor links to two stories of true sportsmanship this fine day: Here, and here. And tell me you didn’t wipe a tear away after reading the second one.

…I can’t sign this divestment petition since I work for a company headquartered in Stockholm, with offices in London and Erlangen. (However our largest office is in the US, and I get paid in dollars out of the US office, so maybe I’ll sign it anyway.)

Apparently there was no bomb; the driver fell asleep and hit a sign standard, which ruptured a fuel tank and set the dual trailers on fire.
I have to say I was a bit dubious when I considered that there was no crater and the tractor was practically unscathed. But I can see why it was treated more seriously than otherwise might have been warranted by the responding officers.
My next question is how in hell a truck driver running one of those tandem rigs falls asleep at the wheel. An inspection of his log will probably show that he wasn’t taking his mandated breaks and was way over on his driving hours.
And they not only want to keep driving the tandem rigs, they want to drive triples, too. Didn’t these people ever hear of the railroad?

Sally got up at 6AM to go to work and promptly woke me up when she turned on the bathroom light. So much for sleeping till 8:30.
Hour and a half staff meeting at 11AM. Boring.
Product support for morons the rest of the day. Boring.
Raining all day. Priceless. (At least I wouldn’t pay for it.)
Possible bloggage later but I doubt it. I’ll probably pick up where I left off tomorrow.
It is intriguing however that a FedEx truck has blown up on I-270 in St. Louis.

James Taranto (Best of the Web) is always good, but the first crack out of the box today at BOTW will make you snort coke up your nose (the carmel-colored variety, and out rather than in, so cover your keyboard first).
Briefly, Slate’s daily “Bushism of the day” isn’t even a Bushism. If you look at the transcript, it was said by…get this…Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Sad that the Left can’t even get its quotes straight.

It’s always fun to read Rachel’s rants. Today is no exception.

More on the resignation from the woman possibly most responsible for Bellesiles’ downfall.

A thoughtful analysis. I have to say I saw myself reflected in his prose:

Friday afternoon I listened to a local talk show whose host has been hammering Wellstone like a hot horseshoe for 12 years. I wasn’t surprised to hear him spend his three hours treating Wellstone’s death with sorrow and respect; I wasn’t surprised to hear the callers say the same thing. Over and over, one by one: I disagreed with everything he said but he was a good guy, and it’s all a damn shame. Every so often a contrarian would shoulder his way on the air and spit on the floor: are you nuts? The man was a flaming socialist, and we shouldn’t be putting him on a pedestal when we can stand on the grave’s edge and whiz on the coffin. Or words to that effect.

Exactly. The first words out of my mouth were “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” (Although I have to say tha I immediately thought, “what a dickhead thing to say,” without really changing my opinion. My liberal wife is exceedingly annoyed at me for saying it, too.)
Anyway the rest of Lileks’ Bleat today is just as good, even if I am somewhat chastened by it. Read it.
I don’t like to fly myself, and I assume I’ve put one foot in the grave every time I get on an airliner heading to Florida or DC. Let’s face it; nobody should have to exit this life that way. I am equally sorry for his family and I am even sorrier that his wife and daughter were on the plane and lost their lives as well. On that level I feel no differently for him and them than I do for the survivors of John Allen Muhammad’s and John Lee Malvo’s murdered victims.
But the bottom line is that in Wellstone’s 12 years in the Senate he had done everything he could to push his socialist agenda. To me this makes him an enemy of this country’s capitalist heritage (and by extension, by returning him to the Senate twice, his fellow Minnesotans were culpable, too). This time, he was close to losing his seat to a Republican opponent; and now another left-wing waste of space, Walter Mondale, will likely replace him on the ballot and get the sympathy vote.
From a political standpoint, I still believe: It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
From a human standpoint, though: RIP, Paul, Sheila, and Marcia Wellstone, and the three campaign workers and two pilots who lost their lives with you.