It's Pretty Sad, Really

In general, I can get with anybody who has the smarts and the ingenuity to make stuff work.  I just wish we could move the culture forward enough to convince these Gun Geniuses to turn their talents towards Distributed Power Generation or Bio-Mechanics or Robotic Waste Recovery or or or.

Today's Best Post

a perfect little quickie from Democratic Underground:

...women don't belong in combat.  Neither do men.

Please Try This At Home

...but call me first so I can watch.

Numbers Don't Lie

Sometimes people say you can get numbers to say anything you want them to say, and in a sense that's kinda true, but the real deal is pretty simple.  In almost every case, it's a matter of people lying about the numbers; or people claiming the numbers are saying something that's not quite the truth.  So, to borrow a meme - Numbers don't lie to people; people lie to people.  Or somethin'.  Grains of salt are in order here, but...

Anyway, here's some interesting math for ya via Democratic Underground regarding the Virginia GOP's attempts to change the way Electoral College votes are apportioned in a presidential election:

Barack Obama won 51.16% of the vote. Under the new bill he would have won four of the states 13 electoral votes.

And do you know how much it counts an Obama voter as? (It's 4/13 divided by 51.16%. I'll wait. Do it. Get a calculator. You'll crap yourself.)

Yup - it's right about three fifths.  Each Obama voter would be counted as 3/5 of a Romney voter.  Ring any bells for anybody?

So the Repubs hold their little confab at an Antebellum Plantation - where one of the main Party Strategy topics was how to appeal to minority voters - and this is one of the things they came up with?  How is it these guys even stay in business?

Another Quick Look

...back on one of the best nights this country's ever had.

Just A Tho't

The 112th Congress got less done than any congress since 1948.

So lemme see - the party that's always pissin' and moanin' about how crappy and poorly-run the gubmint is; and how we need to let the good ol' Capitalist GOP get in there and show 'em how it's done blah blah blah; the guys who brag about being efficient and good at makin' stuff work - those are the guys who've punked the Senate with 109 filibusters in 2 years, while their buds over in The House have spent boatloads of time (at enormous taxpayer expense) introducing junk bills about Lady Parts and amendment proposals for outlawing gay marriage and and and.

The least productive session in 64 years.  And which "party" do we have to thank for obstructing every single thing we sent Obama to DC to get done?

Look Back Briefly

Brian Williams on the air not too long after Sandy.



There may a tiny glimmer of hope for a few of the Press Poodles yet.

2nd Amendment

An interesting take on "gun rights" from Thom Hartmann at truthout:

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.

When All Else Fails

...try some grandstanding.

I'm not a big Hillary fan.  I thought she was on her way to some really big things in the early 90s (and that still may be the case) - back when she was talking about "the politics of meaning", but then she lost her thread and started sounding like everybody else.  I think she's OK and I think it's really hard to make a case against her job performance at State (which is the main reason the Repubs are trying to make a case against her job performance at State btw).

Anyway, there's a rarified atmosphere in DC and they call it rarified for two reasons that I can see.  First, there's only so much attention (aka Political Air) to go around, and so everybody spends a lot of time and energy trying to muscle their way into the spotlight.  But mainly, it's pretty obvious the actual physical atmosphere must be really thin because the behavior of an awful lot of these people is more easily understood if it's a fairly simple matter of their brain cells not getting enough oxygen.

Rand Paul, for example:



In what world does President Rand Paul even consider appointing Clinton SecState?

But really - in what world does America lose it's fucking mind completely and elect Rand Paul president?

Pixar In A Zero Tolerance World

Today's Pix

Today's Gun Nut

From 2nd Amendment's Photos on Facebook:

Yes, of course they're worth protecting - which is why those adorable boys are equipped with helmets and footwear appropriate for bike-riding.  Way to go, Dad.

Chris Hedges

I'm not completely down with all of his conclusions, but the guy speaks to some very uncomfortable points, which generally makes me think I should at least stop to consider what he's trying to say.

The Chicken Or The Egg

The question is whether some dick came up with the idea for the shirt first - or did the dick wearing the shirt voice his demand for it?

Answer: Doesn't really matter, does it?

The Repubs have gone right 'round the bend, hand-in-hand with the freaks who make up their constituency.  In fact, in this little thing we call 'democracy', the freakiest of the freaks in the constituency become the 'leaders' of the freaks - so again - doesn't really matter.

Not that this skinhead was open to the message, but shouldn't the GOP have gotten a pretty clear signal?  (Real glad a prick like this guy wasn't rewarded for crap like this)

And secondly - for anybody still laboring under the twisted delusion of 'both sides do it', please tell me where I can find the Librul Equivalent of this shirt?

Today's Gun Nut

As always, for every complicated gnarly problem there's a solution that's simple and elegant and wrong.  So it's not as simple as removing guns from the equation - or removing certain types of guns - but it's a good place to start.

And it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we could actually stigmatize the need to own combat-style weapons - use the powers of marketing and advertising to redefine the relationships, and to associate guns with people who struggle with lingering hangups about their sexual identities, or Daddy Issues, or whatever.

That's prob'ly a bad idea in the long-term, but think how fun it'd be - for a while anyway.  You take the one thing that helps the average gun freak feel good about himself and turn it around so it's something that makes people point and laugh.  Yeah OK - publicly mocking somebody with an AR-15 and 10,000 rounds of ammo is a little dangerous, but dang...