Carnival of the Curmudgeons - Mark Nine

Two bells of the afternoon watch...seems like the sun's well past the yardarm. I've been below decks for a turn of the glass and still haven't thawed out from 3 hours outside in the sloppy wet snow that we're having. Very uncharacteristic. A year ago it was 70 degrees on this date.

This nip of scotch should warm me up enough to feel like a curmudgeon again.

• Redundancy Alert!!! Department of stupid liberal ideas department. California just passed a law that requires there to be translators in any of 8 foreign languages that might be spoken in an emergency room. Those 8 tongues are the ones spoken by the immigrant classes (Spanish, Hmong, Vietnamese, Tagalog, etc). OK, those foreign-tongue speakers are probably not going to pay for their services, but we have to speak to them in their own tongue so as to get the word from them that they don't have any insurance (nor probably any entry papers, but hospitals are forbidden to ask that). It seems to me that if I read my history book, California was host to many foreign speakers and workers years ago. In fact, they built California. When they came here, they had to learn English then.
• So, it seems that the FIRST order of business in straightening out our immigration mess would be a requirement to do ANY business relating to any of these workers getting legal entry papers in ENGLISH! Yep, no translators allowed, no bilingual paperwork. You fill out the paperwork correctly in ENGLISH, and you have your interview conducted in ENGLISH, during which you give answers to any questions in ENGLISH. Failure to do so is prima facie evidence that you do not intend to properly integrate into the ENGLISH-SPEAKING society here, and therefore are a poor risk for a residence visa.
• Perhaps there will be a requirement for a Constitutional Amendment to encode the above, and also the basic fact that this is an ENGLISH-SPEAKING nation, the sole official language of which is ENGLISH.
• I travel quite a bit in Mexico. When I go there, I am prepared to speak Spanish to get my needs taken care of. If the tourist facilities I pay for require their employees to speak english, that's a bonus, but one I've paid for, quite dearly, actually. It costs much more to patronize such facilities, and I pay the cost, because I can.
• I can also speak French, in fact I speak it better than Spanish. About 38 years ago, I was stationed by the USAF in MA, at Westover AFB. When I wanted to get all citified for a change, I didn't go down to New Yawk, or even to Bahstahn, I went to Montreal, which was a little farther, but the food was 10 times better and the hotels cheaper. In Montreal, you had to speak French to get by. Those were the days of the separatists, and the Partie Quebecois ran the place, and refused to make anyone speak English. They eventually dragooned the rest of Canada into becoming bi-lingual, but that was the price that had to be paid to keep France from accepting the French part of Canada as it separated. I doubt if the Canadians had the stomach for a Civil War to preserve their Union, like we fought.

That's about it for the theme of the week. SPEAK ENGLISH, DAMNIT!

I haven't been reading as many rants as usual, so this week's guest ranters will be a thin line. I'm making the last preparations for putting on a Bowling Pin pistol shoot at my gun club, and there aren't enuff hours in the day, lemme tell 'ya.

For me, WizBang says it all in the New York murder case. You have the right to be stupid, but if you do, your rights aren't going to save you. Thanx for the link, Bitter.

Grouchy Old Criple in Atlanta has a fine rant this week on the Oscars. You've already read and/or written one or two if you're a curmudgeon, but this one is tops.

PawPaw, a fine writer/curmudgeon from Louisiana, has a beautiful rant about Mayor Nagin laying the groundwork for massive voter fraud in Texas, by trying to convince Katrina refugees who legally are now Texas residents, that they can vote for him in the coming NOLA mayor's race. Lacking some sort of declaratory judgment on the status of these former residents of NOLA, there WILL be tens of thousands of challengeable votes in that election. Were I an opponent of Nagin's, I would plan to challenge every vote in the damaged wards by requiring proof of current residency in the Big Easy.

Mr. Completely, the Compleat Gun Blogger and Master Gizmo Gunnie or some such, has a fine rant on a more everyday topic, the abuse of the term FREE.

Always in the mood for public service, GuyK at Charming, Just Charming, has this warning about a scam that is being run at a local warehouse retailer near you....(NSFW).

In a useful post on an arcane subject, washing a car in VERY HARD WATER, the Anarchangel has done us all a favor. Since becoming unemployed, his writin' and rantin' has kicked up a quantum leap. While obscure, this article is extremely useful, since most folk do not have access to the mountain-soft water I have here.

Finally, Aaron at Dad's Garage rips the educational establishment a new one over the Bennish Affair. His alternative, home schooling, is probably the only thing left to keep our kids from becoming the zombie army that will finally do the socalists' bidding and chuck out our Constitution.

I'm finally warmed up (took two nips of the Water of Life), and I smell a done chicken in the galley. The Mrs is off at the gym, so I'm off to eat.

Remember the Curmudgeon's credo: A growl can be worth as much as a smile. Know when do do either.