Today's Bumper Sticker

Today's Irony

NYPD Edition:

Close Encounters

...of the ironic kind - from KPTV in Gresham OR:

GRESHAM, OR (KPTV) - A man openly carrying his new handgun was robbed on a Gresham street by a man with a gun of his own.

Police were called out to the area of 172nd and Glisan Street at 2:10 a.m. Saturday.

Investigators said the 21-year-old victim bought a handgun earlier in the day and was openly carrying it while talking to his cousin.

They said a man approached them and asked for a cigarette. Talk eventually turned to the victim's new purchase, before the robber pulled his own gun from his waistband and said, "I like your gun, give it to me," according to police.

The victim handed over his gun and the suspect ran away.

The suspect is described as a light-skinned black man, 19 to 23 years old, 6'1" with a skinny build. He had black, wavy hair and was clean cut, except for a small patch of facial hair on his chin. The man was wearing gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops.

The weapon he used in the robbery was described as a black gun, possibly semi-automatic. The stolen gun is a black Walther brand, model P22. It is semi-automatic and .22LR-caliber.

There's a rube born every minute - and 2 to steal the gun he thinks he needs to feel good about himself.

Careful Who Ya Hang With

Gawker:

A 21-year-old Italian man was crushed to death today by a giant crucifix dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II. The tragic event happened just a few days ahead of the Pope's canonization.

According to the Telegraph, a piece of the 100-foot-tall crucifix collapsed on the man, Marco Gusmini, during an event near the village of Cevo while he posed for a photo with a group of friends. The cross was designed by sculptor Enrico Job and was created for John Paul II's 1998 visit to nearby Brescia in northern Italy.

Pope John Paul II will become a saint on Sunday in an unprecedented double-canonization with Pope John XXIII. Pope John Paul's canonization is surrounded by a bit of controversy, due to the idea that it is happening too quickly after his death — only nine years — and to the thought that he did not take seriously enough the sexual abuse crises that emerged at the end of his tenure.

And if this sad happening isn't spooky enough for you already, the Telegraph reports that Gusmini is said to have been living on a street named after the other to-be-canonized Pope, Pope John XXIII.

Eek!

So, god is saying, "Don't be such a suck-up"?  That's something else that just doesn't square with what it says in the bible, or with what you hear practically every day.

PS) re: Welfare Cowboy

And another thing, dang it!

Regarding Cliven Bundy's fight with BLM over paying his rent for use of public land:

Shouldn't there be at least some small voice coming from the Right Radicals about how the evil rotten lazy no-account shiftless moocher Bundy has grown dependent on gubmint handouts, and that by far the best thing that could happen is for us to kick him in the ass and make him stand on his own?  Ya don't hear that coming from "The Right".

And what ya don't hear coming from "The Left" is, "Ah, c'mon, let the guy stay at the federal tit as long as he needs it - and what the hell, let's throw in some food stamps too".

Both sides my ass.

Today's Irony

No particular reason I chose this one, it just kinda popped into my head.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa];[7] June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.[8]

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.[9] His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement inGuatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology.[9]  Later, in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.[10] Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.[11]

So the guy spends his entire adult life working to combat the darker impulses of Capitalism, only to have his image (and practically his whole persona) posthumously hijacked in service to at least some of what the CIA killed him for fighting against.

Today's Quote

...and also Today's Wingnut; and also Today's Too Self-Absorbed To Be Self-Aware; as well as a good followup on What About Bob:

I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, “For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I am not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe, you be my witness.” I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters.

That's a quick little excerpt from the memoirs written by the obviously irony-challenged Bob Gates.

hat tips = Balloon Juice and Dave Weigel

Have Some Coffee

A Blind Hog

Even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while.

With that in mind, let's check in with the late great WaPo, where it doesn't matter what's true or what's good or what's right (this is the age of "New Media" y'know - all that matters is delivering readers to advertisers).  But I'll pat 'em on the back on that rarest of occasions when they manage to break through the deafening clutter (that they're helping to create) with something that isn't just their usual Red Team / Blue Team bullshit:

For prosecutors, the key question is whether there was a clearly articulated “quid pro quo.” If so, the gifts were bribes. If not, they were gifts. To me, as an anthropologist, this largely misses the point.

Across the massive cornucopia of human culture, anthropologists have found relatively few universals. One of the strongest of these, however, concerns gift-giving. Gifts are given in all cultures, and to remarkably similar effect. As every graduate student in anthropology learns, gifts by their nature create social ties and a sense of reciprocal obligation. To give a gift is to expect something in return, though it undermines the power and mystique of the gift to spell out too clearly what that something is. It would be uncouth to give a friend a birthday present and say “now when it’s my birthday I expect you to give me this model of this product,” but the expectation of a well-chosen gift in return is no less powerful for that. The failure to give something in response can end a friendship.

 --and--

When politicians accept gifts such as Rolex watches and Oscar de la Renta gowns from multimillionaires, they often lack the means to reciprocate as equals. Surely, Williams has wealthy friends — his equals — with whom he exchanges gifts, but the McDonnells are not wealthy. From an anthropological perspective, Williams gave McDonnell gifts that the governor lacked the means to repay in order to subordinate him. Unable to afford, say, a $10,000 purse for Williams’s wife in return for what was given to his own wife, the governor can only return Williams’s generosity by lending him the power of his office in some way. Whether the expectation of a return was ever crisply articulated as a “quid pro quo” is really beside the point — even if it is the whole point to lawyers.

My guess is that Vaginal Bob will dodge the indictment, and maybe get slapped around a bit by an "ethics committee" stacked with politicians who will give us a great look at Irony In Action by deciding not to be so "hypocritical" as to condemn McDonnell for something most of them have been doing for as long as they've been in politics - all in the name of good government and bipartisanship and fairness.

But, of course in the end, it all fits neatly into the "Both Sides Do It" narrative.

If everybody does it, then there's nobody to hold anybody accountable for anything - and we're right back to status quo.  Never mind.

Today's Irony

The people who run a KFC franchise somewhere in Utah sat down together in the break room or huddled up in the boss's office or whatever, and they came up with a brilliant idea:

From Selfish Giving:

I just can’t understand what Kentucky Fried Chicken is thinking with its latest cause marketing program. This picture says it all. Buy a HALF-GALLON of soda – with 800 calories from 56 spoonfuls of sugar – for $2.99 and a buck goes to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

First, what's the profit margin on a Mega Jug gotta be in order to allow a business to justify giving away 1/3 of the sales price?

Answer: on average, the cost of a soft drink at a fast food joint is somewhere between 13¢ and 20¢.  So if you take the high end - and even if you double it - the franchise is still way ahead.  Nuthin' wrong widdat - just sayin'.  They built their Feel-Good Campaign around the (prob'ly) biggest margin item on the menu, so let's not get too misty-eyed over their 'sacrifice'.

Second, this is one of the big reasons I don't fit in with most companies anymore.  My Stoopid-Shit-Tolerance-Threshold has gotten too low.

hat tip = facebook friend RS

Today's Irony Lesson

Fugelsang

On the death of Irony:

Today's Gun Nut

A guy named Keith Ratliff was a major player on YouTube, advocating the glories of guns and fun-with-a-gun and the importance of having a gun for personal protection, etc.

Mr Ratliff was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head last week in Georgia.

kentucky.com:

A Frankfort man who was a business partner of the popular YouTube video channel personality known as FPSRussia was found shot to death last week at their firearms business in Carnesville, Ga., a sheriff there said Tuesday.
Franklin County, Ga., Sheriff Steve Thomas said he was investigating the death of Keith Ratliff, 32, as a homicide. Ratliff, who his family said commuted between Frankfort and Georgia, was found Thursday with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Thomas said Tuesday that no arrests had been made. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also is investigating, he said.

So, we can just let all that sink in for a short moment.

It really sucks for his family; and his friends; and for whoever else is affected by the ripples created whenever anybody connected to any other human is suddenly gone.

I didn't know Ratliff, and while I won't be celebrating his death, I'm not gonna be shy about pointing out the simple fact that the irony here is thick enough to choke a fuckin' hippo.

ad more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/08/2468950/frankfort-man-who-died-in-georgia.html#storylink=cpy

The Awesome Power Of Rationization

The Pro-Gunners all seem nice and reasonable when it comes to abiding by the law banning all guns in order to attend their convention. I have to assume not all Pro-Gunners feel the same as the people in this clip, but these few say they're just fine with the kind of gun control restrictions at their convention site that their organization went apeshit over when WashDC tried to ban handguns. And the irony is completely lost on them. The real kicker is the guy at the end. He actually says he's more worried that the Anti-Gunners might bring guns and make trouble; and so, in the interest of everybody's safety, disarming everybody is a good idea.