Hither and thither 7/2/10

Here is your weekly weekend welcome wagon. Enjoy, and have a great Fourth of July weekend!

(Programming notes: may or may not be updates, but none after noon PT. Plus, comment moderation may be spotty today, so be patient.)

• Serious public service announcement: ABC reports that increasing numbers of kids die in hot cars in the summer. Regardless of the accuracy of the stats, it happens, and it shouldn't. Never be that distracted; and glance in cars as you walk by. I do, often, when I see car seats.
• Senator Robert Byrd died this week at age 92. It is often said, and usually appropriately so, that if one has nothing good to say of the dead, he should say nothing at all.
  
• A man who can't afford to die faces death. Pray for Christopher Hitchens.
• Reader Berry Davis found some pretty cool lunchboxes crafted after album covers. Also from Berry....
• No jokes about this, though some will spring to your mind... until you see her picture. There's a girl who has to eat 60 times a day, 5000-9000 calories, just to stay alive. She's skeletal; but every picture shows her smiling. Only three people in the world are known to share her genetic disorder.But she's plunged into her life in a way that shames healthy sluggards. I do not know whether she's a Christian, but she says God made her as she is for a reason, and she wouldn't change it; if she hasn't already, I pray she finds the reason in Christ.
• In yet another Wow, Who Could Have Seen That Coming? alert, turns out Obama's last female nominee to the Supreme Court lied about her firm convictions regarding the Second Amendment... or changed them really, really fast.
• Ooh. Ice Cream Pizza. (Thanks to reader Gil.)
• Similarly, we are observing the fact that the Obama administration is far more interested in fighting American citizens than in preventing illegal break-ins. (Or, as a caller on the Limbaugh show re-dubbed them, "undocumented Democrats.") Isn't that remarkable? We keep hearing about the bad economy, we know the government needs to cut spending, yet President Obama manages to find the money to try to intimidate a state for trying to do something about his refusal to do his job.
• That's right: his job. You'd think the notion of securing America's borders would be sort of basic, and not requiring explanation — any more than one would expect to have to explain to a McDonald's employee "That's right, you are going to have to cook hamburgers." Yet Mr. Obama's main response seems to be "I caaaan't, it's too haaaaard!" (My kids could mimic the proper tone of voice perfectly.) No wonder Representative John Boehner objects to the President spending so much energy and "time making excuses and whining about others."
• Meanwhile, back to border control: President Obama's idea of action on the issue, apparently, is putting up signs...80 miles from the Arizona border. Brilliant. And he's going to sue them to stop them from trying to protect their own borders, in light of his failure. It's tempting to find some way of vacationing in Arizona to support them.
• Now, your (someone's) tax dollars at work:

• You know, you want your kids to set goals, to stand out, to achieve. But... like this?
• Oh my. If you get past fleeting images of movie violence, Conan: the musical is hilarious.
• Then there's the Dad life, a video with at least one LOL moment. (H-T Turk, via Twitter.)
• You'll love this, and love Julie for alerting me to it: a Princess Bride quiz. Prepare to die. (I scored 80.)
• Remember last week's sperm-donor (hard to call him a "dad") who tried to sell his baby at WalMart? Prison life isn't being a ride at Disneyland for him. Seems that some things are even below convicts' tolerance-level.
• Okay, this is painful. Cowboy hip-hop.
• Homeschoolers could give their kids a good, well-documented read in economics via this article on the minimum wage hike in Nevada. Among other things, the author asks, "Well, why not raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour?"
• Reader Kerry Garrett (Mr. Grasshopper) envisions what will happen when McDonald's opens on the African veldt:

• Another week, another loss of right to free access qua Christians for Christians, thanks to the Supreme Court. (Thanks to Gil Sebenste for link.)
• Baptist pastor John pointed me to St. Lambert church, where the cages in which the corpses of tortured Anabaptists were displayed still hang.
• Educate your kids: before CGI, there was Ray Harryhausen. (Also check the comments, which contain links to more clips.)
• Oh my. Reader Fred found something a little coarse and a lot funny: an AT-AT day afternoon.
• OK kids, let's think this through. A boy dog marries a girl dog, and they have a...? Dog, right. A boy cat marries a girl cat, and they have a...? Cat, right! Very good. Now: a boy human marries a girl human, and they have a...? Nothing of consequence, it turns out — until it feels pain sufficiently. (Thanks to Barbara for link.) The capacity for rationalization is that most damnable of human traits.
• Yet another call for Michael Steele to resign as head of the GOP. Which, I think, is a great idea.
• Things are different, now I'm not totally focused on either of my manuscripts.

• My mother-in-law sent me a video on a futuristic public parking structure... in Budapest!
• Google remains, unfortunately, the best search-engine I know. It has been oft-noted that Google does cutesy things with its name on the home page for many holidays - except for many American holidays, and all Christian holidays. Now it turns out that they pay employees more for practicing a particular sexual perversion. Weird company, that.
• Oooooh, nom nom.

• Another "Religion of Peace" alert, which could be called "Harry Potter and the Attempted Honor Killing." The Muslim father and brother of the actress who plays Padma Patil in the movies allegedly tried to kill her for not being Muslim enough for them. (H-T The Corner.)
• Well, now both rude louts and Proverbs 12:4b women might get locked up in France. (Thanks, Paula.)
• Now, for an And These Knotheads (A) Get Paid to (B) Teach Our Kids alert, click here, and weep.
• These reworked images of pop icons include some pretty great pictures.

• Reader Joel Griffith wonders whether meat-flavored Vodka is a "liquid nom." I'm thinking no.
• Stay away from the red shirt! (Star Trek fans will get it.)

• Reader Paula noticed that a World Cup soccer team identifies itself as Christian. It isn't the American team.
• Another strong rumor of iPhone coming to Verizon is going about. We might make the move, if it happened.