Reuters reporting from Helsinki:

A hospital patient in Finland found a mouse head among the steamed vegetables on his plate.

“Understandably, he lost his appetite,” said Sakari Kela, chief administrator at the Northern Karelia Central Hospital.

The health of the patient in Joensuu, eastern Finland, had not been compromised by the dead rodent, Kela said Saturday.

The severed head most likely originated in a bag of Belgian vegetables. The body has not been found and being “a Belgian mouse, the rest of it could be anywhere in Europe,” Kela said.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

It’s cold in Minnesota, and David Karki wishes Al Gore would just send some of that Global Warming his way, and leave his civil liberties alone.

Minus 17° F. That was the low temperature this mid-winter morning as I walked outside and coughed on the frigid arctic air that burned my windpipe as I attempted to inhale it, before starting my minivan’s engine so it could idle for 20 minutes and then be warm enough to drive.

Some think we Minnesotans are crazy to live in such conditions, but then every location has its risks – hurricanes in the southeast, summer heat in the desert southwest, and so on. Those of us endowed with a healthy sense of humility, logic and common sense understand that these extremes are perfectly normal; that they have been occurring off and on for many, many years; and that they are far beyond our puny ability to significantly affect.

Sadly, this grounded understanding has completely escaped one Al Gore and his radical environmentalist acolytes. Ol’ Al has jumped off the reality train and headed for parts unknown.

Never mind the crust of frost on my bedroom windows; Al says “the climate crisis is significantly worse.” You want to come up here without thermal underwear, a parka, gloves and a stocking cap and say that? …

And never mind the federal government banning incandescent light bulbs come 2012; Al says it’s not enough, and that we must change laws, “not just light bulbs.” Uh, first of all Al, the new ban is changing the law, you idiot! And more importantly, you and your wacko tree-hugging allies have no right whatsoever to stomp on personal liberties just to stroke your massive ego for having solved an entirely non-existent crisis.

That is really the point here. The tyrannical means being used to implement this lunatic environmentalist policy is so beyond anything we Americans should find tolerable, much less acceptable, that even if the ends were desirable we should not stand for it. What we are really talking about, when you take away the pseudo-benevolent green crapola behind which these psychos hide, is totalitarian control of every last detail of your life.

Read the whole rant.

Gawker still has a copy of the bizarre Tom Cruise 9:25 video, removed from YouTube as the result of the Church of Scientology claims of copyright infringement.

The Church of Scientology’s heavy-handed suppression of Internet access to this video has resulted in a declaration of war by a group of anonymous internet-users, based in the imageboard -chans.orgs, the darkest, deepest refuges of obsessive geekdom and compulsive nerdery, home to an energetic and enthusiastic population of young men with no girlfriends, good programming skills, and plenty of free time. Unquestionably, an enemy deserving to be feared.

Declaration of war 2:03 video

Press Release

Wired: There Can Be Only One

Project Chanology

Wikipedia Project Chanology entry, many news links

Socialized health care British-style transfers costs from individuals to the government, and sooner-or-later government starts wondering if it ought to be paying for some people’s sinful ways or for people who are already too old.

The Telegraph:

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Recently-divorced French President Nicholas Sarkozy has been making headlines dating supermodel and international pop singer Carla Bruni.

International Herald Tribune 2007-12-17

Wall Street Journal 2008-1-25

The WSJ article notes that Carla Bruni has yet to breakthrough in the US (hip hop-dominated) music market, but readers can listen to this 2:26 video of Bruni singing her best-known song Quelqu’un M’a Dit and judge for themselves.

The last time a US liberal president was seeing someone on the side, it was Monica Lewinsky.

Chuck Shiflett, editorializing in the Cartersville (Georgia) Daily Tribune, supplies a perspective on voter turnout you won’t read in the Times.

It was a normal day in America’s newsrooms; then the story broke that Heath Ledger had died. I racked my brain … who the heck was Heath Ledger? I shouldn’t have worried about finding the answer, because for the rest of the afternoon and evening all the important news was swept from the airwaves of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC as we were flooded with wall to wall coverage of yet another celebrity tragedy.

Dave Ramsey and two other prominent financial gurus were scheduled to appear on Larry King for a full 40 minutes to discuss the rapidly worsening financial situation. Sorry, guys … some Hollywood type was diddling around with drugs and took a dirt nap. CNN will have to reschedule you so that we can bring viewers mind numbing ramblings on the life and times of Heath Ledger.

I hate it for the guy. Ledger was in the prime of his life and his movie career was headed higher. However, what should have been a 30-second news piece turned into a media feeding frenzy with every network trying to create a new angle in order to drag the story out. Is this what we’ve come too?

Are Republicans really ready to nominate a 72-year-old U.S. senator who has more in common with Democrat John Edwards than Ronald Reagan? Or have we swallowed his marketing mantra of “straight talk”?

Who cares what Barack Hussein Obama believes in? Oprah endorsed him and that’s enough for millions of Democrats. Shouldn’t we want to understand Hillary Rodham Clinton’s socialist dream for America? Nah, the only thing that matters is that she’s a woman.

I can’t even count how many times a talk show host on our radio station has taken a call from a supporter of Obama or Hillary and then asked the caller to name one policy their candidate espouses. Usually there’s dead silence … and then a rambling answer about how he or she believes their candidate cares about people. …

Every election we hear the media types pontificate about how pitiful voter turnout is. I’ve been guilty of it myself. However I’ve about come to the conclusion we would better off as a nation if we discouraged voting. Do away with motor voter. No more voter registration drives.

It’s easy to see why only property owners were allowed to vote in some colonies in the early days of this land. The powers that be understood that those with a vested interest would pay attention and cast their votes accordingly to protect our capitalist way of life.

As evidenced by the new Donkephant economic stimulus plan, here’s what we have. Today the majority of Americans are like spoiled children with parents who can’t say no. If you’ll stop crying then mommy will let you have one more cookie … OK two more cookies … all right three cookies, but that’s it … maybe. How else do you explain a stimulus plan that gives tax rebates to people who paid no taxes? …

So to all the folks who don’t have a clue … set your Tivo to record plenty of stuff this week to keep you entertained and then stay home on election day so you can catch up on the latest episodes of “American Awful” or “Dancing With The Has Beens.” To those who truly understand the issues we’re facing … I’ll see you at the polls.

C. MacLeod Fuller discusses the 13-point program offering new hope for the unfortunates addicted to Liberalism… and for America.

Many LibAnon members have never before experienced an opinion actually based in either fact or the experiential real world, much less both. Academicians, politicians, and Episcopalians are the organization’s most difficult members in which to affect even a semblance of thought moderation – much less cure. …

Each LibAnon member uses these 13 Steps in an individual way, and so, unfortunately, results cannot be guaranteed. However, the principles are highly recommended as a program of recovery for even the most egregiously opinionated but uninformed, as well as for the intentionally deluded, for the faux-sophisticate, the youth-induced progressive, and every other cultural or academic leftist-inspired opinion, hallucination, or delusional ideation — including, inter alia, that: capitalism is evil; Che was a hero; anthropomorphic global warming is factual and more dangerous than Iran; Al Gore won in Florida; Israel is the “cause” of the Palestinians’ problems; the world owes you something; (item I don’t agree with)… Islam is a religion of peace, love, and tranquility; all opinions are of equal value; “Hollywood” is real; pro-abortion proponents occupy the moral high ground; there is a dime’s worth of difference between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama; the government owes you (pick your poison) a living, a handout, free day care, free medical care, free retirement in Florida, etc.; gender is a cultural construct; tribal, tree culture is as meaningful and valuable as that of the ancient Greeks; something for nothing; freedom without attendant responsibility; the United Nations is a worthwhile institution; karma makes more sense than Christ; free and easy sex without physical, spiritual, fiscal, or temporal consequences; Ebonics; and Keynesian (consumption) economic theory; just to mention a small handful.

The Times’ Gail Collins writes Rudy’s epitaph.

Tuesday’s Florida primary is supposed to be the Giuliani firewall, his explanation for why he kept coming in third or fourth or fifth everywhere else. . . . Many commentators have pointed out — really very unkindly — that the longer Giuliani stayed in Florida, the lower his standing in the state polls. Perhaps it would have been wiser for him to make his stand in a place where people had barely heard of him.

They say Guam is quite lovely this time of year.

“The reality is we are getting support,” said the candidate in answer to the inevitable question. He says “the reality is …” very, very often. Almost as often as he says “very, very.”

Those of us who live in New York found it rather peculiar that Giuliani was a front-runner at all, given his deeply mixed record running the city. Now, the idea that Florida might take him out of the race is somewhat disappointing. There’s still so much about him we haven’t yet had a chance to share with the national electorate. Did we ever mention the time he tried to stop the city elections because he didn’t think that New York could get along without him?

Rudy was thrown off his game by the public’s shift from worrying about terrorism to worrying about the economy, and a dwindling interest in hearing him talk about where he was when the terrorists attacked New York. He’s tried to rebound by vigorously promoting a national catastrophe fund to reduce the cost of home insurance in hurricane-prone Florida. This is not, in general, an idea that fiscal conservatives cotton to. It’s so dicey, in fact, that even Mitt Romney has been hesitant about adopting it as a pander-point.

Giuliani has turned hurricanes into nature’s way of saying Al Qaeda. (“All of us are subject to the impact of natural disasters … and of course acts of terrorism, which I remember living through.”)

Perhaps he can pull it off. Florida is one of those places that makes participating in elections as easy as ordering a drive-thru hamburger. People have been casting their votes for almost two weeks now. Maybe a lot of them voted for Rudy and then were embarrassed to admit it to the pollsters, once they discovered he wasn’t really very popular after all.

Still, his campaign has a definite pall over it, and his many hangers-on have to be wondering whether another pathetic showing here would damage the Rudy brand. Are corporations still going to pay him $100,000 for lecturing about leadership and 9/11 now that they know he’s done it for free on the pool deck at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando and Paisano’s Gourmet Pizza in Port St. Lucie? (More critically from the minions’ perspective, are they still going to provide, as the speaking contract requires, “first-class travel expenses for up to five people?”)

Are they still going to hire his firm, Giuliani Partners, to do whatever it is Giuliani Partners is supposed to do, now that the glow of hanging out with America’s Mayor has faded? Before the terrorist attack, after all, Rudy Giuliani was just a lame-duck mayor with abysmal approval ratings, a tabloidy personal life and uncertain job prospects. What 9/11 has given, 1/29 could taketh away.

Perhaps that’s why he’s refrained from saying anything unpleasant about any of his competitors in Florida. Mitt Romney and John McCain are torn between trying to go in for the kill and their desire to avoid looking like Barack and Hillary. The best Rudy can do, on the other hand, might be to avoid looking like a future contender on “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Hat tip to Stephen Frankel.

National Emblem of Lithuania

(Disclosure: This blog’s author is an American of Lithuanian descent.)

Reuters reports:

A commission led by the prime minister (Gediminas Kirkilas, Social Democrat) approved a marketing concept which says the country of 3.4 million people should promote itself as daring. A name change is also being mulled.

“Lithuania’s transcription in English is difficult to pronounce and remember for non-native English speakers, but the name change is only an idea under consideration,” said government spokesman Laurynas Bucalis, who led the group behind the recommendations.

No ideas have been presented yet as to what the name should be in English. In Lithuanian, the country is called Lietuva. …

Bravery marks our history — from being the last pagan nation in Europe to a nation which sparked the Soviet Union’s downfall, and today’s resolute steps,” Bucalis said.

One tends to doubt that the Slavic Litva will be their choice.

I suppose they could go back to Chaucer’s Middle English:

A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the tyme that he first bigan
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,

Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,

And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre,
As wel in Cristendom as in Hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthynesse.

At Alisaundre he was, whan it was wonne;
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bigonne
Aboven alle nacions in Pruce;
In Lettow hadde he reysed, and in Ruce.

—The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 43-54.

(A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That from the time that he first began
To ride out, he loved chivalry,

Truth and honor, freedom and courtesy.
Full worthy was he in his lords’ wars,

And thereto had he ridden, no man farther,
Both in Christendom and in Heathen lands,
And was everywhere honored for his worthiness.

At Alexandria he had been, when it was won;
Often he had occupied the seat of honor at the dinner-table,
Above men from all nations, in Prussia;
In Lithuania he had raided, and in Russia.)

But would “Lettow” actually be better?

All this is, of course, precisely the sort of renaming-the-months, inventing-a-new-system-of weights-and-measures kind of thing modern linguistic nationalist governments like to focus on.

——————–

Hat tip to Sandip Bhattacharji.

On January 19th last, this unfortunate blogger, mistakenly believing his Model 1911 to be empty, dropped the hammer on a loaded chamber thereby putting a Federal Hydro-Shok 230 grain jacketed hollow point .45 ACP bullet right through his thigh and then right through his calf.

He is sharing this painful and embarrassing experience as a public service, hoping to remind the rest of us always to assume that they are loaded.

Via Xavier.

Andrew Sullivan caught Faye Wattleton in an appearance on Hardball, defending Hillary’s claim to the White House on the basis of foreign precedents:

I think that its entirely consistent with the ascension of other women to the top offices in their country; they come come about it as the result of the president being their spouse or being members of prominent families. So I don’t think that we should be so upset and agitated about Mr. Clinton’s participation – we should continue to focus on the issues that the people want to hear about…these other matters are really side issues.

which prompted a momentary return of something very much like the old Conservative Andrew Sullivan:

Wow. A proud defense of nepotism over feminism. Or rather, as is the Clintons’ wont, a total conflation of feminism with nepotism. I remember similar Clintonian feminists in the 1990s trashing, smearing and sliming women who dared to complain about the sexual harassment and abuse of women that Bill Clinton – with his wife’s full knowledge – engaged in for years. This couple really do corrupt everything they touch.

Last month (12/20), Chris Matthews reacted to the same foreign precedent mentioned by Fay Wattleton:

I always thought the problem with Hillary was, her notion of government was, “I am Evita, I am the one who gives gifts to the little people and then they come and bring me flowers and they worship at me because I am the great Evita.”

1:24 video

Libertarians are fond of imagining a Utopian future in which heroin will be available in vending machines.

California is, as usual, leading the way. At least some people (those who’ve gotten a doctor’s prescription), as of next Monday, will be able to purchase marijuana from at least two vending machine locations in Los Angeles:

Melrose Quality Pain Relief, 4906 Melrose Ave, Mid-Wilshire; 323.957.7777

Herbal Nutrition Center, 1435 S. La Cienega Blvd. Suite G, Mid-Wilshire; 310.855.9484

Thrillist