If you look around the site you may notice that some of my pictures are not visible. I apparently exceeded my bandwidth. I then paid to upgrade because I care about you, my blog user…but, of course, the pictures still aren’t showing. I contacted photoshop to see what the deal was…so hopefully some day they will fix it. We’ll see….
Tag Archives: irritation
How dumb is the Second Amendment?
I’d say anyone who really, really wants to exercise his right to carry a loaded weapon outside a presidential appearance is probably 1) angry, and 2) not blessed with good judgment. This reassures me!
Of all rights, the right to bear arms is the fucking stupidest. Arizona’s “open carry” law sounds like a delicious refinement on this stupidity.
Of course, whoever’s head finally pops may not take a shot at Obama, he may just spray the crowd. Or maybe nothing will happen — guessing is part of the fun.
update, At least he’s smiling. Note: This is the fellow that Allahpundit and Confederate Yankee thought might be pro-Obama because he was strolling with his loaded automatic weapon near people who had pro-health reform signs. What does the fellow himself say? “Taxation is theft.” So there goes the “both sides are packing” meme.
On a brighter note, he tells us, “We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote.” If you lose an election, start shooting. (Via Talking Points Memo.)
[ added 8’20: The third photo and an accompanying thought: Did the guy change from a white shirt to a blue shirt during the rally? And for a lunatic he is one good-looking man. ]
update, So Uland calls me out in Comments with his views on gun control. He raises good points, so now I’ve expanded my thoughts. They’re presented here as responses to various bits taken from his comments, starting with:
“Is this post for me? Thank you.”
No! I’m just pissed and feeling vocal. But I can see how you might think it was a jab at you, so I apologize for that.
“First off, the right to carry that exists in some states is not a second amendment right . Related, of course, but those are distinct sets of policy in which special license is required.”
I know that! From my post: “Of all rights, the right to bear arms is the fucking stupidest. Arizona’s ‘open carry’ law sounds like a delicious refinement on this stupidity.” So I get the distinction.
“I don’t think they ‘want to’ carry guns around the president.”
Then they must be sleepwalking or under mind control. What you call symbolic is still a real action, and it’s an action that I very much dislike and resent. I don’t want my country’s political system at such immediate risk of destabilization thru violence.
“Since conceal/carry laws have been passed in many states, the crimes-with-firearms rates have not moved one way or the other.”
What about accidental shootings? And here I’m actually curious, not trying to pose a stumper.
My feeling: guns are fine in the right context, like a firing range or a hunting trip, or if they’re being handled by a security officer who’s been trained decently, but otherwise I don’t want them around. Especially if the person who’s the lynchpin of my country’s government is anywhere nearby. Doesn’t mean I want to ban guns; does mean I think it’s stupid to treat them as a right. If the 2nd Amendment ever gets offed, put me down for any regulations that would prevent spectacles like the one in Arizona.
A final point, an important one. Uland says of the gun fellow’s comment:
he’s saying that a majority cannot vote away the rights of a minority; that’s the premise of inalienable rights/Constitutional system.
First, because I haven’t heard the rest of the fellow’s comments, it’s possible that he was talking specifically about rights. But the quote in question does not specify the minority’s rights as being at stake. And, at any rate, the fellow believes that taxation is robbery, so what he considers a right may well be very different from what people of normal mental constitution might consider a right. So I stand by my summary of his position: When you lose an election, start shooting.
Second, he is definitely not saying only “that a majority cannot vote away the rights of a minority.” He is advocating the resolution of such situations thru force.
And, you know, we have a court system. That’s what it’s for. The guy seems to care about the Constitution as long as it puts a gun in his hands, and after that the law can go out the window. Maybe he’s an Eagle Scout, but he scares me and I don’t like what he’s saying.
Funny line
Mark Kleiman on Lanny Davis, “who will never sell out because he’s always for rent.”
update, This year is a good example of shitty-August syndrome, by which I mean August usually makes for a shitty news month and this August has been especially bad. In the old days newspapers called this the silly season; now major-league public issues get dragged into the bullshit, things like whether we should invade another country or how we should reform health care. The point is to make a big noise about something dumb, preferably dumb and scary — like shark attacks, Saddam Hussein or government euthanasia — but dumb and truculent can also work, as with last year’s “Drill, baby, drill.”
Of course, last year events swung pretty well for Obama after August had passed, so we’ll see how he does this fall on health care. But so far, not good.
No real explanation
After Cronkite died, the New York Times ran a brief essay about him that contained a disastrous number of factual mistakes. The NYT’s public editor (or ombudsman) tells us:
The newspaper had wrong dates for historic events; gave incorrect information about Cronkite’s work, his colleagues and his program’s ratings; misstated the name of a news agency, and misspelled the name of a satellite.
The ombudsman says no one subjected the piece to “rigorous fact-checking,” but what he means is that they didn’t check Wikipedia. It’s not hard to find out what day Martin Luther King was shot. Of course none of the details matter so much. The disaster is just that now people can laugh at the Times and wonder what the hell its people are up to. Or, as the ombudsman puts it: “Seemingly little mistakes, when they come in such big clusters, undermine the authority of a newspaper … “(If you want to join in, the article and its two corrections are here. By my count the corrections add up to 249 words.)
The ombudsman offers a sweeping explanation for what happened: a whole lot of people screwed up. He isolates one solid factor, namely that the article wasn’t on deadline and therefore everyone figured they’d have time for it later. From his description, it would also appear that the Times piles so many editors on a given story (this is called “layers of editing”) that people may get mixed up about who’s doing what and assume the niggly stuff is being covered by someone else.
This pair of factors explains why feature articles at big-deal publications are always so full of mistakes about material available by browser. Except that they aren’t, really. So the ombudsman article doesn’t explain anything. It just shows that when the Times is embarrassed enough about something small enough (Telstar, damn it, not Telestar!), a gang of screw-ups will shuffle forward to hang their heads and take their licks.
If so many people screwed up so badly, the logical line of inquiry would be to look for a common thread that connected them but did not rope in hordes of people at other institutions, people who had not committed a similar clusterfuck. That is, why is it that the Times hired such a bunch of incompetents? Or, if they’re not incompetent, how did the Times arrange matters so as to drive them into such a slipshod performance? It’s called the systemic approach to a problem.
A marvelous pain in the ass, is more like it
update, edited for brevity
Matthew Yglesias says Knocked Up and Judd Apatow’s new one, Funny People, offer “a bracingly conservative vision of family life and obligation.”
I can’t remember anything specifically conservative about Knocked Up except the decision not to have an abortion. All the other stuff — such as holding down a job — is pretty well disseminated thru the rest of the population.
I think it’s very, very dumb to decide not to have an abortion on the grounds that life is a marvelous, multifarious thing and you must roll on its waves toward your unknown destiny. From what I’ve seen, having a kid can bring a whole lot of anger and frustration into your life if you’re not ready to give yourself to your kid’s needs. And if you’re afloat on the idea that producing another life is a good way to goose up yours, then probably you’re not in a giving frame of mind.
Republican senator makes fun of how Southerners talk
Thank you, George Voinovich of Ohio. The party’s on hard times, you want to analyze why, so what do you do? Make fun of how some population group talks:
“They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr,'” he said. “People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'”
Yeah, well, maybe what they’re saying isn’t too good either. Consider that as a source of your problems.
Making fun of how people talk is a great pleasure in life, but it should not be a default reflex. Somebody who makes it into one is probably a jerk.
(Via Benen, original article here.)
Milton, you’re a genius!
I’ve mentioned my cafe buddy Milton a couple of times. He’s not dumb, but he’s usually a couple beats behind in a conversation. Worse, he doesn’t take his lag into account. He jumps in with irrelevant questions, he sums up what you’re saying and gets it wrong — things like that.
The other day we were talking about the girls who work in the cafes where we hang out; that’s a favorite topic, of course. I told him about Emily, who was greatly loved and admired before she went home to Vancouver. She worked the early morning shift, so Milton had never met her.
Emily had a fabulous, sunny personality and greeted everyone walking thru the door like they were an old friend. The old Quebecois gents — retirees or fellows headed to work at 7 in the morning — would all call out “Abientot, Emily, au revoir” as they left, and she would give them a big wave and smile. Very sweet.
She was also very good looking, in a blond, broad-shouldered, farm-girl way. A lot of times people say “big boned” when they mean fat. Emily actually was big boned.
I made the above points to Milton. “… when they mean fat, but she actually was big boned,” I said, winding up.
Milton: “Oh, I know who you mean. Pam.”
Pam was a big favorite of ours, but she didn’t work the early morning shift or call out to customers as they walked in the door. Also, she was noticeably fat, not big boned. “Well, no,” I said to Milton. “Because Pam, you know, she actually was pretty overweight.”
Milton: “Yeah. When you said ‘big boned,’ I just thought that was what you meant.”
Milton, you’re a genius!