THEY DON’T WANT TO STOP CRIMINALS, THEY WANT TO CONTROL US: Modest Proposals On Gun Violence.
Archive for 2015
October 6, 2015
D*MNED IF YOU DO: Cultural appropriation and Political Correctness in writing.
CULTURAL REVOLUTION O’CLOCK AGAIN?Best Academic Abstract Ever [With Comment By John]
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT: Having voted with my feet I still don’t get what’s wrong with that. If you don’t feel American maybe you should find your true place in the world. One school’s pathetic and perverse ban on patriotism. (I’m not stupid. I know they think patriotism equals jingoism and that nationalism was really what caused world war two. So, I’m not stupid, but they’re misinformed and not willing to learn.)
DESTRUCTION, SHE DOES IT WELL: Clinton Destroying Billions In Shareholder Value
Of Drug Companies.
GLOBALLY WE’RE ALL THE ONE PERCENT: Foreign governments ready cash grab on U.S. earnings.
UNEXPECTEDLY: How Dodd-Frank explains our weak recovery.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IS A WAY OF LIFE: Liberal Mom Shocked to Find She Might Agree with Conservatives About Family Values.
I KNOW, I KNOW: It’s Not a New Cold War, It’s Worse.
October 5, 2015
ARE PEOPLE GETTING FATTER because they’re getting less nicotine? Should I take up vaping?
IN THE NEW YORK TIMES’ “ROOM FOR DEBATE” SECTION, I explain why the “Gun Lobby” remains invincible. Basically, it’s because politicians always lie about gun control, and people don’t trust the police to protect them. The ironic way in which lefty anti-police activism conflicts with lefty gun-control messaging is also mentioned. (Bumped).
WILL RAND PAUL be the next candidate to drop out? I like him as a senator, and I was prepared to like him as a candidate, but it hasn’t gone very well.
GOT A PLUG I CAN USE? Report: I Bought a Used Electric Vehicle—Here’s How It’s Worked Out So Far.
FLORIDA MAN, CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE ADMITS TO SACRIFICING GOAT, DRINKING ITS BLOOD:
Augustus Sol Invictus is the Florida Libertarian Party’s candidate and has faced other accusations ranging from his support of eugenics, prophesizing a “great war” within America’s borders and drawing support of neo-Nazis.
Invictus, who declines to reveal his given name, is the only Libertarian candidate looking to fill the vacant seat left by presidential hopeful Marco Rubio. His position as the only representative of the party led now-former party chairman Adrian Wyllie to resign in protest.
Wyllie lobbed these claims publicly in a Facebook post on Thursday that included the accusation of Invictus sacrificing a goat, which Invictus denied to Politico.
Invictus, an avowed pagan, sang a different tune on Friday when pressed further on some of his beliefs and practices.
“I did sacrifice a goat. I know that’s probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans,” he told the Associated Press.
“I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness…Yes, I drank the goat’s blood.”
I want to party with you, cowboy.
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Tempting massive amounts of fate, Rick Moran asks, “I mean, really, can it get any weirder than this?”
Dude — it’s the 2016 election. To only slightly paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, when the going gets weird, the weird turn into politicians.
THAT MONEY SOUNDS LIKE VAPORWARE: Report: VW Emissions Scandal Could Cost $86 Billion; If you thought the cost of the BP oil spill in 2010 was bad, this is worse. Funny, everyone acts like it’s American companies that are inconsiderate of the environment, but it’s foreign ones that seem to have the biggest scandals.
TO BE FAIR, ACKNOWLEDGING THIS REALITY WOULD ENTAIL WRONGTHINK ABOUT WOMEN’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR SEXUAL CHOICES: Obama Ignores the Obvious in Oregon: Yet Another Fatherless Killer. “From shootings at MIT (i.e., the Tsarnaev brothers) to the University of Central Florida to the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Ga., nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s ‘list of U.S. school attacks’ involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.”
DELAY INDICATES DISARRAY: Boehner postpones House vote on House majority leader and whip. The GOP Conference’s vote on Speaker is still slated for Thursday.
Speaker John Boehner on Monday postponed the election for House majority leader and majority whip until next month, a blow to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who announced less than 24 hours earlier he had the votes to win the majority leader race.
The House Republican Conference will still choose its nominee for speaker on Thursday, and the full chamber will vote on Boehner’s successor on Oct. 29.
Boehner’s decision could take some of the pressure off House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the favorite to replace him. But the bigger impact may be on the majority leader’s race: the delay will give conservatives more time to find a candidate to run against Scalise (R-La.) and Georgia Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) for the No. 2 leadership position.
Some hardline GOP conservatives are opposed to simply promoting McCarthy and Scalise up the leadership ranks following Boehner’s departure, believing that such a move will just leave in place a team that has failed to deliver on its promises to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood or dramatically reduce government spending. These hardliners have searched for an alternative candidate to Scalise and Price, but no one has stepped forward to take up that mantle. Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) are running against McCarthy, but neither is given much of a chance of defeating the California Republican.
The delay likely means more leverage for the Freedom Caucus and its desire to get more conservative/tea party voices in the GOP leadership as either Majority Leader or Whip. While current Majority Whip Scalise is a definite conservative, he has been closely aligned with Boehner and is not a favorite of the tea party wing of the party.
As for the Speakership, I wouldn’t rule out Chaffetz, though time is not on his side. He’s a smart and principled guy who may be able to bridge the gap between the establishment and tea party wings of the GOP. While McCarthy has indicated he wishes to bridge this gap as well, his position within the Boehner leadership team has tainted him with the tea party wing.
RELATED: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), current chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, announced today that he will seek the Majority Whip slot. Sessions is no tea party favorite, either.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: DNA nanotechnology guides assembling cells into ‘Organoids.’
HUMANITY’S FUTURE: Species Death At The Hands of Hostile Artificial Intelligence? “I have a proposal for the “Why Aren’t The Aliens Here Already?” question: Every time biological intelligence evolves it eventually creates artificial intelligence before spreading out into the stars. The AIs always wipe out their creators. Then the AIs are smart enough to realize that this is a universal pattern and that they are now threats to each other. So each AI civilization hides.”
MINNEAPOLIS-AREA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS HIRE ‘RECESS CONSULTANT:’
Two Edina elementary schools, worried about the politics of the playground, are taking an unusual step to police it: They have hired a recess consultant.
Some parents have welcomed the arrival of the firm Playworks, which says recess can be more inclusive and beneficial to children if it’s more structured and if phrases like, “Hey, you’re out!” are replaced with “good job” or “nice try.”
But some of the kids at Concord and Normandale Elementary say they are confused, or that the consultants are ruining their play time.
“The philosophy of Playworks does not fit Concord,” said Kathy Sandven, a parent of twin boys who attend the school. “It is a structured philosophy — an intervention philosophy — not allowing kids for free play.”
The two schools have joined a growing number of districts that have hired consultants to remake the playground experience into more structured and inclusive play time. The games and activities, like four square and jumping rope, are overseen by adults and designed to reduce disciplinary problems while ensuring that no children are left out.
Edina school officials spent about $30,000 on the recess initiative over the summer, and some administrators are already becoming believers.
The school recess consultant sounds like a rapidly-growing career choice in the nation that was once called America.
Or, perhaps, not. (And oh to be a fly on the wall when elementary school administrators are debating “the politics of the playground.”)
BULLETS & BOURBON UPDATE: The only remaining gun store in San Francisco, High Bridge Arms, announced that it will be closing the end of this month, due to increased regulations and the “political climate” of the city.
It has been the constant attacks on the Second Amendment by the President and the press that in part inspired us to create our Bullets and Bourbon event (and of course, its rather un-PC name) and we’re now less than two months away — it starts on December 3rd, and runs through the afternoon of December 6th. Bullets and Bourbon will take place at the amazing Rough Creek Lodge in Glen Rose, Texas. Rough Creek has fantastic shooting and other outdoor activities, luxurious accommodations, and world-class food.
Joining us at Bullets and Bourbon will be Glenn Reynolds, the one, the only, the Blogfather; PJ Media’s founder, Roger L. Simon (who will be giving us some juicy tidbits from the campaign trail that he hasn’t written about at his Diary of a Mad Voter site); Steve Green, our friendly neighborhood Vodkapundit, who, in addition to speaking, will be shooting off model rockets with our guests; the always delightful and fascinating Dr. Helen, who, it is reported will be picking up bow and arrow as her “share an activity with the guests” event; and from other corners we have, in reverse alphabetical order, Kevin Williamson, Mark Rippetoe, Ed Morrissey, and Dana Loesch.
An almost final schedule for the weekend can be found here.
And please visit the High Bridge Arms Facebook page and tell them their story is being heard.