Old Blog Jones

These two kids learned a

These two kids learned a valuable lesson about government regulation.

What I want to know is: Who came to them and stopped them? The answer: some bureaucrat "from the city's Office of License Inspections and Environmental Protection" with nothing better to do than to harass little girl's fledgling enterprises. Someone who couldn't compete in an actual job market, so she joined the government in the battle against capitalism.

So, what is the inestimable Janeen Rosas' reasoning? Why does she think that these two girl's drink stand should have been shut down? Let's see:

But Licensing Director Janeen Rosas said Mikaela was violating a St. Paul city code.

Also:

"If someone were to get ill from one of these products, with a license we're more able to track them back," she said. "And at the fair it's an equity issue. Allowing some people to sell without licenses gives them an unfair advantage over others."

OK, two reasons apparently: Health and fair competiton. As far as health goes, they were selling: "an assortment of packaged lemonade, orange juice, water and soda." The key word here is "packaged." It was no more unhealthy than if the consumer had gone to a Wal-Mart and bought the product there.

Second was the "unfair advantage" issue. The article says that a license to run the stand was $60. And the children, in four days of business, had profited all of: $13. It sounds to me like the unfair advantage is on the side of the government, which is trying to steal two weeks worth of profit from these little girls. (At least, that's what I'd call taking $60 in exchange for a piece of paper)

And as with all over-regulation, some people won't be able to put up with it. It doesn't sound like Mikaela and Annika will be reopening any time soon. way to go Ms. Rosas.

I like what Mikaela says:
"I don't think that was right," she said of the city's action. "You should be able to just sell stuff without having something that you don't know you're supposed to be having."

You go girl!

(via Dave Barry's Blog)

Heaven help us. From ABCNews.com:

Heaven help us. From ABCNews.com:

ABCNEWS.com : A Cosmo-Style Makeover for the Bible?

Yes, that's the cover of a Bible.

I don't mind Christian girl's magazines, but making a Bible into a girls magazine is just wrong. I mean, you've got to draw the line somewhere.

You know, I used to

You know, I used to like Bill O'Reilly. But, that was before I found weblogs. I didn't realize how much O'Reilly was against free speech. I mean, look at his quote:

O'REILLY: But the other thing is that the court system in this country does not protect anybody in the public arena. You -- look, with the rise of the Internet -- you see the vile stuff on the Internet? You could say anything you want about anybody.

And it just goes unchecked. Shouldn't there be a check and balance in this?

You don't think that I can say anything about anybody in real life? All the internet provides is A) anonymity and B) a few more people who listen. At the moment, it's not many.

It frustrating to see someone who is (portrayed as) basically conservative (with a few twists) be so stupid as to think regulation is going to help anything!

From his guest:

One of the hardest parts of being at a university is constantly telling students anything you read on the Internet is worthless, it's not factual.

Anything, huh? It's got to be at least as accurate as the NYTimes. How about government websites? Are they accurate? Newspaper websites? Libraries of e-books? I mean, at least the TV Guide website is pretty accurate in its listings. Don't be giving me this lie about nothing accurate is on the internet.

I suppose you could say

I suppose you could say that they're cover was blown. (Ha!) (Via Dave Barry)

A Wall-Street Journal Op-Ed has

A Wall-Street Journal Op-Ed has some interesting information from the latest Census Bureau statistics. Apparently, people are moving out of liberal/socialist states (such as California and New York) to more conservative states (such as Arizona and the Carolinas). The op-ed attributes the move to economic reasons. For example (my emphasis):

New Yorkers' third-favorite refugee camp is North Carolina. Easy to see why: You've got to earn $45,000 in the Big Apple to buy what $7,191 gets in Durham.

Ouch.
(Via Common Sense and Wonder)

Kittens are evil. No man

Kittens are evil. No man is surprised.

This is what would happen

This is what would happen if the guy below was imprisoned.

This is just sick. I

This is just sick. I don't recommend viewing the whole thing. These should be enough.

I had no idea anyone would sell a burger this size.

As you see the 60+ pictures in succession, you can almost see the weight being gained. In-and-Out is gonna get sued by this guy when he's about 40.

(Note to BJU folks: If you do follow the link, don't read his comments section. It is full of cursing and death threats against this guy)

There we go. Switching from

There we go. Switching from the javascript to the html version of my site meter seemed to do the trick.

Hmm. What's up with my

Hmm. What's up with my website, one wonders... It's only letting my posts go as far as the sidebar... Will have to play with.

Yay! I now have a

Yay! I now have a comments section. Thanks to The Patriette for mentioning it on her blog.

Hello, world! I've been reading

Hello, world!

I've been reading a bunch of blogs (like InstaPundit and Dave Barry's Blog) for a few months now, so I've decided to start my own.

You may ask, "What makes this site unique?" My response is: I'm probably the only blogger at the infamous Bob Jones University. No, I'm not a racist. Yes, I think the interracial dating rule was silliness. No, Bob Jones is not a cult: Grape kool-aid is not served in the dinning common.

One possibly amusing thing: I'm not sure if people on the dorm networks will be allowed to see this. BJU's policy is to not allow personal websites through their filter, and I'm not sure if they've caught Blogger yet. (That sound was the entire readership of this blog collapsing at the thought of unimpeded internet access). Yes, they block personal webpages, and rightly so. There is no way to individually mark each personal website as acceptable or not, so they block all of them. I wouldn't like it (if I was a dorm student without my own home 'net access), but I completely understand their reasoning.

Anyways, we'll see how this turns out. Enjoy!