A fun story about a little guy who finally gets a chance to stick it to his employer...

…And goes to jail, as he damn well deserves.

(Note that as described, the law makes no distinction between the public and private sector.)

A good one.

A little background on the movie "Die Hard" (my fav along w/"Big Trouble in Little China" and "Pulp Fiction").

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/22/seriously-die-hard-was-a-novel-before-it-was-a-movie-and-a-good-one.html

Good for you.

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/12/20/2-years-after-death-woman-gets-her-christmas-wish-for-family/article

My bookmarks file has grown over time. So time to spread the joy. Well some of them anyways - not the naughty stuff anyways. This one always resonated with me.

http://pulpdecameron.livejournal.com/11802.html#

A very short short story.

You life must have sucked to want to rent a family for Christmas.

Here's another winner from the Good Men Project which is absolutely not a completely ridiculous website about men as told by feminists.

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/j1b-16-things-your-boyfriend-should-be-telling-you/

16 Things Your Boyfriend Should be Telling You

Dear Ladies Who Are On The Fence About Whether Or Not to Dump The Guy Who’s Taking You For Granted: here’s what you should be hearing from the guy who’s worthy of your time. Maybe not right away, but within, say, 3-6 months. Otherwise, hit the “next” button. For the sake of both you and all the guys out there who are waiting for you to be single again.

1) I adore you. This isn’t about sex, this isn’t about desire. This is about how you make me glow whenever you walk into a room, glad that you just exist, whether I’m the guy beside you or just someone admiring you from twenty feet away.

2) You inspire me. I love how you’re living your life, what you’re devoting yourself to, how you’re spending your time, what path you’ve chosen, how you deal with the people around you.

3) I respect you. You’re the first person I think of when I want a serious opinion on something. Anything. From topics like “Am I being an asshole here?” to “Which is better, MadMen or Breaking Bad?”

4) I just love kissing you. Ok, so, years from now, if by some awful paragliding accident we both end up paralyzed and have no use of our lower extremities and can never get it on again, I’ll still feel pretty good about it as long as I can just kiss you as much as I want.

5) I don’t want to change you. Yes, there are some things about you that I don’t get. That I don’t love. But you’re you. And all the other stuff that comes with you, I would never want to lose. So I don’t want to disturb the equation. I want to keep it intact. And just help it grow.

6) I accept your drama. Sure, you’ve got some anger issues with your mom. Or dad. Or sister. Or job that you’re trying to get out of. I can handle that, even when it’s a bit exhausting. I even support it. None of us is drama-free, me especially. I respect that you’re fighting against something.

7) I’ve totally got the hots for you. As in: seriously, can we get these clothes off already? I’m dying here. We should really find our way to the nearest bedroom. Or kitchen. Or rooftop.

8. I love that you tell me off sometimes. Seriously. I may not always admit it, but I respect it. I’m full of bullshit sometimes, and I like to know you won’t take it. If I’m gonna have someone by my side, I better know she didn’t just fall for the first guy that came along, and she’ll keep holding me to my higher standards. I don’t want a pushover.

9. You’re on my mind. Constantly. Especially when I’m supposed to be thinking about something else. When I’m at work, giving a presentation, watching a movie with my buds. There you are, all in the middle of my shit, outta nowhere. And yet, I can’t help but smile.

10. You captivate me. You have my full attention. I’m not thinking about her. Or her. Or her. Just you. Oh, and that presentation I have this week. And my taxes that are due. But mostly just you.

11. I forgive you. The other day, you were completely crazy. Seriously, you went off the deep end about something. You blamed me for something I didn’t do, or didn’t actually say, or didn’t actually think. But hey, you’re human, you’re allowed a ‘gimme’ now & then. (As am I.) And look, with all the beauty you bring to my life, I’m still coming out way ahead.

...

Dear Anon---

That's a nightmare. It isn't cuddly. It isn't adult. It isn't human.

Listen, if writing something like that will get a magazine intern published for the first time at age 24, no complaints. But are our sharpest daughters being instructed that they should "captivate" their romantic prospects?

"Totally got the hots for you"?

This is love as described by a (terrified) 8th-grader. A girl.

"The hots."

> Adorable BFFs

Whadizzsiss, Ovulation Central in here?

All the sudden its getting morbidly girly....

@Crid, ain't that the truth.

It sure isn't respecting the author's girlfriend as a rational adult agent capable of responsibility for her behavior.

It's condescending and patronizing, downright objectifying and patriarchal.

And it doesn't even appear to be a spoof!

Yesterday, Þ: Reynolds:

“When Phil Robertson was 50 years old, the Congress and President of the United States signed a law in Defense of Marriage that refused to recognize gay marriage. Now A&E thinks that point of view is so awful that it cannot air someone who agreed with Bill Clinton.” Or Barack Obama, before 2012.

Bob Hope, touring the world in the year or so after the passage of the 1975 Consenting Adult Sex Bill:

“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.”

For Hope, this was an oddly profound gag, discerning even at the dawn of the Age of Tolerance that there was something inherently coercive about the enterprise. Soon it would be insufficient merely to be “tolerant” — warily accepting, blithely indifferent, mildly amused, tepidly supportive, according to taste. The forces of “tolerance” would become intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.

…But Amy's recent walkback of her support for gay marriage suggests that we won't needn't have ever been too worried about the twitching lefties. They had always just wanted to pretend to be more sexually sophistimicated than others, and some of us were always ready to call the bluff.

Fun times! Right? Sure!

Except for the insurance thing.

I musta missed it, care to point out in which of the three posts on that blog item in which Amy revoked "her support for gay marriage"?

#1@ December 10, 2013 8:42 AM
#2@ December 10, 2013 7:56 AM
#3@ December 10, 2013 8:38 AM

Or is this going to be yet another instance where five days from now (three days after people stop opening this particular page) you'll announce how sometime next week you'll be posting a short novella on how you are right (even though) you arnet so you can claim a hollow victory when no one disputes you claims because no one bothered to read it because no one saw you announcement?

"http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/12/20/2-years-after-death-woman-gets-her-christmas-wish-for-family/article"

Damn. My screen's getting blurry.

@Crid, ain't that the truth.

It sure isn't respecting the author's girlfriend as a rational adult agent capable of responsibility for her behavior.

It's condescending and patronizing, downright objectifying and patriarchal.

And it doesn't even appear to be a spoof!

A guy wrote that? A GUY???

It sounds like it just might be the kind of supplicating beta dreck that will eventually drive her away.

Maybe it's a submission from Pajama Boy.

Personally, Amy, I support "Up your butt with a rubber hose." Let's just go with that.

> Maybe it's a submission from Pajama Boy.

You share, apparently, my presumption that Pajama Boy's life, like his politics, is all about "submission."

> My screen's getting blurry.

My screen got locked out with a registration request! What's the secret?

> I strongly support gay marriage -- as
> I always have.

Sure! It's a matter of principle, right? You think gays should have the exact same access to marriage that everyone else has!

(Even though, as I often note, they
always have had that same access, by 
exactly the same laws which apply 
to everybody else.)

{Heh. !}

{Smirk}




I should play fair!

There are only two kinds of people who Amy thinks shouldn't have to honor gay marriages.

1. "Creative people."
Because creative people work in a contex… Ah fuck, I don't know why Amy thinks creative people shouldn't have to worry about the law.

2. "Fundamentalists."
Because fundamentalists have a viewpoi… Ah Hell, I don't know why fundamentalists are excused from obeying the law, either.

But I wouldn't be surprised if she was willing to expand the list of waivers in the times to come. (Obama did that, too. But when there got to be two million of them, he pulled the list down and tried to stop talking about it.)

Is it the law of the land, or isn't it?

Ya mix all this together with Amy's frequent expression that government has no business certificating marriages anyway, and what are you left with? Why exactly was she —as were so very, very many of her blog readers— eager to blow so hard and so rudely about this for so very long?

I have a few guesses! Anybody wanna hear 'em?

So it is the law of the land…

It isn't the law of the land…

It is the law of the land…

It…

I mean...

> Marriage gives rights...

So long as the marrieds aren't asking for a photographer, or anything like that. They don't have that right. Especially if the photograper's a creative fundamentalist without children.

Uncle cridmo? Tell us the story again of how 50 years ago you fought against miscegenation by telling people they already had the right to marry under the law, the same right as everyone else to marry someone of their own race.

Sure! It's a matter of principle, right? You think gays should have the exact same access to marriage that everyone else has! -- Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at December 22, 2013 6:23 PM

Is that argument on the legal grounds that the inheritance, property, POA, and similar rules?

Or is that based off the biblical references like "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" -- Genesis 2:24 as in the Bible™?

I can fully see a business, or religious organization that has some principle saying they don't advocate gay marriage.

But somewhere in the first amendment the state cannot act for or against religion.

So granting the religious organizations the right of marriage and the automatic contract means they are favoring religion. But denying non-religious is supposedly equal?

Crid, you still havent pointed out in which of Amys three comments she rescinded her support for gay marriage

Should be too hard, each comment was less than three sentences.

So which one was it?

I never thought that Amy had rescinded her position on gay marriage. (And I'm arguably the one who would most likely note any inconsistency on her part regarding that.)

I do know that Amy does not believe in marriage. But that's not a standard she applies to gays and not to heterosexuals. In fact, in my first email from Amy, she told me, "I don't believe in marriage. I don't think it makes sense. But if straights are allowed to not make sense, then gays should be allowed to not make sense, too."

She did state (and I don't agree) that someone should not be compelled to make wedding cakes or take photographs of gay weddings if they're against gay marriage.

And to your credit, Crid (something I give you very little of), you actually pointed out some inconsistencies in that line of reasoning.

My own thought is that as long as the state issues you the license and the necessary permits to provide your services to the public (as opposed to running an "under the table" service), then your personal convictions don't mean a rat's patoot. The state cannot discriminate, and if the state permits you to offer a service to the general public, then you can't discriminate either.

Now, as to whether the state should be in the business of granting license and permits and require professionals to purchase them in order to offer their services to the public, that's a whole other discussion.

But to argue that no one should be compelled to provide a service for a gay wedding, because the state should not be granting licenses in the first place, is to argue for civil disobedience. Which is a fine thing, but it carries risk. It's not an argument against forcing a baker or a photographer to provide services for a gay wedding against their convictions, because the state shouldn't be allowed to issue permits.

Amy, when you said "creative" and "fundamentalist" people weren't required to honor the bonds of gay marriage, it was apparent that your support of it was fraudulent. This was not a surprise.

> Big difference.

Are serious?

Anyone with a "private business" can ignore marriage laws if they want to?

OK! Very good!

(Private hospitals are gonna...)

Fuckit, let's not sweat the details!

Moving forward now!

Because Constitution! So gays, like, whatever. OK! Cool.

Listen, you coulda been done with this in 2001 if you'd made clear the modesty of your ambitions for these "marriages." Hell, you could've had this thing wrapped up in 1991. Who could object? Why would anyone bother?

Private businesses exempt! Waivers for creatives, fundamentalists, and friends of the family, just like with Barrycare.

After all these years of arguing with you and your visitors about this, and despite my enduring, granite certainty about the incoherence of your enthusiasm, I'm nonetheless stunned by the breadth (and twitch) of these exclusions.