Thomas Friedman sings the same old song...

...but I must say here, that he does so in a particularly appalling fashion. Call me crazy, but I really don't think we need any kid talk to know that we have an obligation to keep the environment in good shape for those who come after us. And I don't understand why Thomas Friedman advocates yet more taxes when the economy is still not in the best shape no matter who you talk to. Over the short term we need jobs and affordable modes of transportation to get to those jobs so we can make money to FEED those kids and keep a roof over their heads. And more taxes will make such that much more difficult to generate. It seems to me that Thomas Friedman wants to make such a task that much harder. If I wanted to channel the perverse logic of the left I'd ask at this point, WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN, THOMAS?

And why does he never look at this from the perspective of the oil companies? Does he not realize that they hate things like oil spills as much as, if not more than, everyone else does? Does he not realize that every drop of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico means a little less money in BP's coffers? Does he really believe they have so little of a vested interest in developing better sources of energy that they have to be forced to do so by way of what strikes me as punitive taxation? If he does, it obviously doesn't matter to him. I've said it before of other pundits, but I'll say it again here: For him to be so smart, Thomas Friedman sure is stupid.

Quote of the day, deprogramming edition...

...right here:

Any man who says he loves “Sex and the City” has been brainwashed, the victim of pop culture Stockholm Syndrome. Sexual favors were denied. Eyelids were peeled back and taped in place. After months of indoctrination, he suddenly found himself counting calories, clucking disapprovingly at feet wearing shoes from last season, and declaring “I’m totally a Samantha!” Don’t believe him when he gushes about the HBO series; pity him. Dude needs to be deprogrammed. An afternoon of empty beer bottles, BB guns, and Iron Maiden should do the trick.

I just don't have anything to add to that...except, maybe, that I have "Aces High" running through my head now...

Missing the point, yet again...

...in comments to this story:

...isn't this a republican sect, aren't they supposed to be anti-immersion, especially Spanish?? ohhyeaa, it makes people smarter...DUH!!
...

the spanish speaking people don't get recognized for learning english. weird.

I don't understand why anyone would think "republicans" were anti-immersion. I seem to recall it being liberals and Democrats who were trying to perpetuate the bilingual education programs in this country, despite the studies that showed students who were taught solely in English scored higher on standardized tests and such than students who were taught in English and Spanish.

As for the Spanish speakers not getting recognized for learning English...I'd bet the person who made THAT particular comment probably also sees nothing wrong with kids getting certificates for participation in school. Since when should people get special recognition for fulfilling basic obligations?

This is another place...

...where the rubber meets the road...

Twice in recent weeks, fishermen have been robbed at gunpoint by marauders that the local sheriff says are “spillover” from fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.
...

Men armed with assault rifles robbed fishermen on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on April 30 and May 6. They traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar here. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available. No one was hurt.

But remember, folks, we don't need semiautomatic rifles to defend ourselves! Susan Estrich says so and she knows exactly what she's talking about!

In all seriousness, though, I fail to understand why the good people on and around Falcon Lake should be left with (or limited to) such underpowered weaponry such as pistols and pump-action shotguns, living as they do so near what's practically a war zone. I realize that these pirates may well be armed with full-auto weaponry, but that's no excuse for handicapping Americans any more than they already are. And I am well aware of the argument that the continuing availability of the semiautomatic rifles perpetuates the arms race between the cartels and the authorities, but the fact is that the cat's already out of the bag vis-a-vis the weaponry the cartels are getting -- and we haven't even talked about the weaponry the cartels are getting that is highly regulated (and damn near impossible to get in mass quantities without anyone noticing) in the United States. Would that we could get all those people agitating for a gun ban on a boat unarmed in the middle of Falcon Lake....

Two kinds of opportunism. Which kind is worse?

So I saw this, at The 9513:

After a string of seven singles that failed to break the Top 10, Darryl Worley goes back to the well of “common sense” populism he’s best-known for.

Take that, and put it next to Chely Wright's coming out as a lesbian right about the time her new album comes out, and it poses an interesting question: Which kind of opportunism is more pathetic? Timing your coming out as a lesbian with the release of your new album after you haven't had a hit in almost ten years, or going back after a five-year dry spell to the crass political pandering that got you your last big hit? I would say the latter is worse, even if I might agree with the song's sentiments. I might have liked "Have You Forgotten" and "Keep The Change" more if they'd been done by bigger, more consistent stars than Darryl Worley, but as things are I think he's just trying to cash in on current events and that just REALLY rubs me the wrong way. I can't explain exactly why, but I just find Chely Wright's coming out at the same time as her new album to be not quite THAT grating. Thoughts, folks?

Those stats aren't that hard to find.

...or, Ignorant and self-righteous is no way to go through life.

A letter to the editor, in this morning's Chronicle:

Concealed-handgun permit holders are some of the most law-abiding and responsible citizens around. As a group, concealed-handgun permit holders have an extremely low average of committing crime — much less than the average citizen.

A commenter:

What are the sources for your claiming that "concealed handgun" carriers are "low average" perpetrators of crime? And what crime? (Do you mean only gun crime? Only violent crime?) And, how about accidental injuries and death?

BAM! Here are your stats, dude. (PDF ALERT!) Rendered with maybe two minutes on Google. Unless you're one of those who thinks hot-check writers and speeders shouldn't be able to defend themselves, in which case you're just an authoritarian asshole. Accidental deaths of kids here, courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control. Accidental deaths from 2000 through 2005, for all age groups from 0-19 combined are in the low double digits. Why the emphasis on kids here? Well, that wasn't all the above-mentioned authoritarian asshole commenter said:

Maybe the deaths of innocent children is a price we have to pay for the Second Amendment.
But do not you dare go around and pretend you are a good person when you kill children with your selfishness. You legal ground is solid for now. Your moral ground is in Hell.

What do you say to that? "Kill children with your selfishness"? What the hell? That's about the most disgusting thing I've seen these cretins say yet. And moral ground in hell? Wow, what a judgmental asshole.

This is one way to do it...

...right here. I don't know how many of the gun-runners are stupid enough to try to cross the border at official checkpoints with such illegal cargo, but if we had more people guarding the border that'd get to be a moot issue. I'd think it would be much easier to smuggle mass quantities of drugs north than it would be to smuggle mass quantities of guns south, but either way I don't see why Americans' rights should be infringed upon as any resort, much less a first one as so many people seem to advocate.

Well yeah, actually, you do.

For her to have gotten to the station she has reached in life, Susan Estrich certainly is ignorant:

If Barack Obama could convince Congress to pass the biggest health-care reform since Medicare and the biggest financial reform since the Great Depression, why can't he push through a bill supported by police departments everywhere to ban assault weapons? Assault weapons are not used by sportsmen. You don't hunt deer with an assault weapon. You don't need one to protect your home.

I could say something about intermediate-caliber select-fire weaponry, since everyone knows that's what assault rifles really are -- but let's be real here and not get sidetracked by semantics. What Susan Estrich is proposing to be banned here is a class of firearm that has gotten to be the hottest-selling in the country precisely because of its utility (chambered in various calibers, from .17HMR all the way up to the mighty .50BMG) for an immense variety of tasks, including, yes, hunting AND home defense. I probably shouldn't have expected Estrich to know the story of Jim Zumbo or the Algiers Point Militia, though I still don't think there was any excuse for her not to have done her research before she wrote this column.

I also thought it was funny how Estrich disputed the constitutionality of the Arizona law, considering the fact that the Supreme Court pointed out that arms "in common use" were the arms protected by the Second Amendment -- thereby making Estrich's "assault weapons ban" clearly unconstitutional. (As an aside, on one hand we have a law whose constitutionality may or may not be in question that Estrich bashes, but on the other we have a law Estrich advocates that has clearly been shown to be unconstitutional. Apparently the constitutionality of the law only matters if Estrich doesn't support it.) So it doesn't matter how many police departments support the ban. And if she wants to play THAT game, we could point out the disparity in the support of the ban between the chiefs (who are more often than not political appointees) and the rank-and-file police officers, the folks on the front lines fighting crime every day. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Susan Estrich is going to jump on board the gun ban train, but is it really too much to ask that she get any idea of what she's talking about before she puts fingers to keyboard?
(h/t David Codrea)


Oooh, favorite song EVER, at The Roadhouse, Sirius Ch. 62: "Some fools never learn, play with the fire and you're gonna get burned, it's only love when you're loved in return..."

Spin and ignorance...

...are apparently all some people have:

...Mexican President Felipe Calderón called for the reinstatement of the U.S. assault-weapons ban. In a knee-jerk reaction, Sen. John Cornyn and other Republicans, in obeisance to the gun lobby, demanded that the ban not be reinstated....
...Equally lame is asserting that regulating border-gun shows violates the Second Amendment. Assault weapons will still be available from respectable dealers, although the sale will involve filling out some paperwork.

Where are they getting this whole "unregulated border gun shows" thing? FFLs have to conduct the background checks at the gun shows just like they do in their stores. I'm guessing he thinks that private face-to-face sales at gun shows should be outlawed, and/or sales of semiautomatic rifles should be outlawed at gun shows. Which, as everyone with half a brain knows, would just drive the sales of such underground...just like outlawing the drugs has driven THEIR sales underground. And we all know that's been a resounding success, don't we? I would say the only way that would work is under a stiffly enforced licensing-and-registration authority with random auditing of gun owners and sellers, but we really don't know just how well that would work, do we? Or how well it would go over with the gun-owning public? I sure as hell wouldn't support such a thing no matter how well it would work, because the possibilities for abuse are just too great -- and really, it's none of the government's fucking business how many guns Americans have anyway.  Let them guard the border as they're fucking obligated to do by the damn Constitution.

And what is this "knee-jerk obeisance to the gun lobby" shit? Cornyn just said, "...the Second Amendment is not a subject open for diplomatic negotiation, with Mexico or any other nation." that doesn't sound like "knee-jerk obeisance to the gun lobby" to me. It sounds like Senator Cornyn upholding his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. One wonders what other constitutional rights being defended is knee-jerk obeisance to some nebulous lobby to Stephen Wentland and his ilk.

Mmm, more classic metal...

I've blogged about this band and this album before, but not this particular song.

Many say that 1990's Rust in Peace was Megadeth's finest work; I don't have enough of the band's catalog in my possession to make that determination for myself, but there's no denying it's a great metal album. One of the reasons for that was the album's opening track, "Holy Wars (The Punishment Due)," which of course dealt with the Northern Ireland conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants: "Brother will kill brother, spilling blood across the land..." Rival Metallica's lyrics were the first metal lyrics I saw that dealt with more weighty stuff than getting drunk and laid (yeah, I was a real late-comer to heavy metal), but there's no doubt Megadeth ran neck-and-neck with them and still does. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I hate that it took me 20 years to discover this stuff, but better late than never.

Conservatives, liberals, libertarians and inconsistency

You know what pisses me right the hell off about liberals -- and conservatives, albeit to a lesser extent -- vis-a-vis libertarians? Both of them pooh-pooh libertarianism as a valid political philosophy right up until libertarians support things they support as good liberals or conservatives. Witness one good lefty's witless screed in which he claims libertarianism is "juvenile" and "stupid." Matt Welch at Reason eviscerates Gabriel Winant pretty well, so I'm gonna go in a different direction.

We all know that liberals AND conservatives have their own pet causes that are ultimately antithetical to liberty. Libertarians not so much, as you see if you'll examine their platform. I might concede that certain planks of the Libertarian philosophy (that many small-L libertarians subscribe to) are so weak as to be fatal, such as open borders -- because if you're going to let everyone in, that 's going to include a lot of people outwardly hostile to libertarian philosophy. I would go so far as to say that's the only part of said philosophy that's completely unworkable, with it being the self-defeating thing that it is. Ultimately it's a contradiction that can't be worked around, and so I don't understand why they hold on to it the way they do. But to take that contradiction and throw the entire philosophy out is what is the stupid and juvenile thing here. Rand Paul was rather tone-deaf in his proclamation that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be thrown out, but even still I wonder to what extent the free market would work these days, with racial discrimination not being nearly as socially acceptable as it was back in 1964. I'd argue the CRA of '64 should stay in place, but I think the principle Paul was alluding to deserves a more honest look than the one it's been getting. It was rather ironic that Winant referred to libertarianism being juvenile, when the entire philosophy is predicated on the proposition that adults should be treated like, well, adults.

Which brings me to the pet philosophies of the left in general, and Salon in particular, that Welch pointed out:

As for the main argument here–that libertarians and their policy preferences are "out of touch with reality"–the same could be said, at minimum, of Glenn Greenwald's principled fight against ever-expanding executive power, and Salon's long-running critique of the War on Drugs. (Each of those categories of government abuse, by the way, are often defended precisely on grounds that "someone else really is looking out for your best interests by saying no.")

So apparently government interference is good except for when it gores your own oxen. The right is just as guilty of this (see their calling for the continuance of said War On Drugs and outlawing of gay marriage), but off the top of my head it has always seemed that they're more aligned with the libertarians calling for less government -- at least the REAL conservatives are, as opposed to George W. Bush and his "compassionate" conservatives.

Here's your monopoly on force...

...right here:

For decades, black men across Chicago described torture at the hands of former police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers, and for decades no one listened. Suspects landed in jail and even on death row for crimes they say they didn't commit after Burge and his men coerced confessions using terrifying methods including suffocation, a form of waterboarding and electric shocks.

And that, along with Anthony Abbate, is the type of person Chicago mayor Richard Daley thinks should have a monopoly on force. These are the types of people he believes should be trusted with lethal force -- the types of people he believes should have the only guns. I'll admit it's funny -- albeit in a really twisted way -- to watch Daley joke about putting a bayonet up a reporter's ass, but this type of savagery is what the "Chicago Way" of doing things comes down to. This is where the rubber meets the road. And it's deadly serious business -- especially when one considers the fact that Daley was the Cook County state's attorney during Burge and his thugs' reign of terror. Call me a cynic, but there's no way you're going to get me to believe he didn't know about any of the methods being used to extract confessions from the people his office put on trial.

Self-unawareness is a beautiful thing...

...as we see here:

What a crazy world we live in. We say that we are good Christians, or moral people. We say that we follow Christ's teachings. Then when it's reported the doctors in Texas are dropping Medicare, people say, “Those poor doctors.” What? Who has ever even heard of a middle class doctor, much less a poor one? Get real. Christ said, “What so ever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” Doctors, do you understand the meaning of those words?
...There is still such a thing as living in a civilization as civilized people. Christ's laws still matter and they have never included hate for anyone. Remember the one about a greedy person — it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than to get into heaven?

I don't know what exactly Jean Klein is trying to say here, but it seems that she begrudges doctors their high income. It strikes me that she either doesn't know or doesn't care about the risks doctors take to get that income, or even to get to their particular station in life. And I also sense more than a little bit of hate here, with a nice, hot side of envy -- and that last thing, as everyone knows, is one of the seven deadly sins. However, even though the "seven deadly sins" is a medieval Catholic concept, I am sure Christ still frowns upon them.

And then, of course, there is the misquotation AND misinterpretation of Matthew 19:24. I showed this letter to Sabra and she mentioned that her religion professor pointed out, the whole "camel through the eye of a needle" thing actually referred to a narrow opening in the wall around a certain town. (So, theoretically, it IS possible to get a camel through the eye...)

Beyond that, though, according to Dr. Jon Mundy, a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Buffalo, "When Jesus says, it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, he is talking about excesses of the ego and our thinking that our own worth is superior to that of others." In other words, Matthew 19:24 had nothing to do with riches in and of themselves, but with rich men's attitudes vis-a-vis their riches and how said riches affected their worth as compared to other people. It could very well be argued that the medical profession requires more humility than just about any other, as doctors and nurses both deal with what Christ called "the least of my brothers" on a near-daily basis. But coming to such a conclusion would require one to think, and of course we all know people who misinterpret the Bible as we see here are wildly disinclined to do THAT.

Yes, yes you do...

In discussion of this post...

Sabra: It never pays to be an asshole to the cops. Never

Me: Newp. I am always unfailingly courteous to them.

Sabra: No shit.

You call the man with the gun "Sir." End of story.

Yes, yes you do!

Grey's Anatomy WTF, indeed...

I am vaguely familiar with the TV show Grey's Anatomy. And when I say "vaguely familiar," I mean that I am aware that it is a medical drama, and that's about it. I am just not a TV person so much, so I am sure you can imagine my surprise and befuddlement at so many people's obsession with it, as evidenced by Facebook statuses on both mine and Sabra's end:

grey's on holy crap. watching greys on hulu.

-- I'm so far out of the sequence on this now....
-- oh wow, I haven't cried so hard on a tv show in a while!
-- yeah, that was really intense huh? i was emotionally drained after that episode!
My heart didn't stop pounding for hours!!!
--why do I feel like I'm still recovering from Greys lasy night?
--Cause it was so intense!

ok-what the heck happened on grey's? I haven't watched it in like 2 years, but after seeing at least 20 people post about it tonight-I am curious! LOL

missed the very end of grey's my recording stopped when richard was crossing the yellow tape. what did I miss?

jesus. how am i going to get to sleep tonight? oh grey's... mercy.

-- I got my tv to finally work. I need meds now... so much anxiety!!!!
-- jeeeezuuuus. i am UP. dammit.
-- Ok, maybe the meds need to be reduced?

Just finished Grey's on DVR. Good thing....I wouldn't have been able to sit through the commercials. Oooowweeee!!

--Ok you're the third to comment on it..now I'm really jealous I couldn't watch it..gotta wait til next week to watch it online

ok so about 20 different people are posting about grey's. I have never watched the show but I'm curious to know what the buzz is all about.

Wow Gray's is intense tonight!

will not be all spoilery, but must say WHAT THE HECK, GREY'S ANATOMY?!?!?!?!

Just sitting here in front of the computer watching the statuses pop up from all you GREYS fans...LOL. I don't watch it, but obviously it is a great show! I feel like I'm missing out! :-(

-- I finally started watching about 10-15 mins ago because of all the comments on here! Now I'm wishing I hadn't! I don't like the way it's going at all!!!

-- GIRL, I MADE JIMMY TURN TO IT JUST TO FIND OUT what in the world is going on!!!!

As my wife said: "Please to shoot me in the face if I ever start obsessing about a television show. All these Grey's Anatomy statuses are getting to me."

What the fuck, people? I do not understand this at all. Why do people obsess over TV shows like this? It's one thing if they watch them, but the ones who don't? I am just sitting here going, "urk...urk..." trying to come up with some coherent response to this but FAILING miserably. Sabra and I were talking about this last night, and the best we could come up with was that this was a bunch of not-so-special people wanting to think they were a part of something special. Call it the flock mentality in action, I guess, but I am just not getting it. Sabra said in conversation earlier that it could very well be an effort to rebuild the communities we have lost over the last few years, albeit around interests rather than geographical location. That could be, and I guess it's more understandable in THAT context, but that still doesn't explain the people who weren't fans of the show to begin with...

Speaking of those sensible moderates...

Quite often these days, they say things like this:

The message from the GOP is, apparently, that it is OK for American gun dealers to sell deadly assault weapons to drug lords - who have killed over 20,000 people in the last 3 years.
...
And where is the NRA on this? Do they support selling assault weapons to drug gangs?

Whoa, way to ask loaded questions, Counselor! Do you support the abrogation of Americans' constitutional, God-given, natural right of self-defense? Sure looks to me to be that way.

You see the good counselor here asking "What kind of a War on Drugs is it..." and right there he seems to go back to the old, FAILED model of doing things, just like so many people do. I'd have given the Mexican president the finger too.

For him to be so smart...

....David Brooks sure is stupid. The political center has NEVER had any sort of coherent governing philosophy other than "we're sensible and pragmatic" without ever once defining the term. And from what I know of Rand Paul, he seems to be the one who's "sensible and pragmatic" in that he looks at what works and what doesn't, while David Brooks and his ilk come off as the ideologues because they stubbornly insist on the same old government solutions that have gotten us into this mess. Witness how Brooks defines the "free labor tradition -- a tradition that uses government to encourage work, to reward work, and to uphold the (core values)." That pretty much says it all, no?

See Petey. See Petey Whine.

See Petey try to make some sort of point but FAIL:

With security concerns on the rise, metal detectors finally were installed and turned on at the Texas Capitol Friday. But citizens, lobbyists and other visitors can escape the lines — if they carry a concealed handgun.
...
Officials are creating one line for the masses, one line for lawmakers and their staffs and then a separate procedure for concealed handgun license holders. The general public has to get scanned at the entrances. State officials and gun toting citizenry do not.
...

"If you're planning on perpetrating something in the state capitol, you should simply get a concealed handgun license and show your gun on the way in," said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "It's just ludicrous."

Yes sir, all you have to do is go through that background check, spend all that money on the gun and the permit itself, and then you walk right into the Capitol...among God only knows how many armed citizens and law enforcement officials to stop you from going on your rampage. We know they think that everyone who carries a gun is a potential killer, of course, but they're carrying it to some, ah, ludicrous lengths here.

It ought to be interesting...

....to see what a certain segment of the population says to this:

The Arizona law makes it clear that there must first be a valid “lawful stop, detention or arrest” before any investigation of immigration status can begin. The valid “stop, detention or arrest” cannot involve immigration status; it has to be independent, based upon an “other law or ordinance.” These are quotations from the text of the law.

Who wrote this? George Will, Michelle Malkin or some other LYING right-wing pundit trying to cover for the blatant racism of the Arizona legislator who penned the controversial immigration law? Oh no. This op-ed piece was penned by a law professor at the University of Houston -- an educated man, one of the intellectual elites, even. And you know how the lefties among us (and certain so-called conservatives) claim we should defer to such elites because they know what's best. What happens when one of said elites shows said lefties' opinion to be based on little more than knee-jerk ideology completely bereft of any grounding in fact? I can't WAIT to see their gnashing of teeth here.

Would that I were king...

...I would have Felipe Calderon's ass escorted out of my presence, and out of my COUNTRY, post-haste after this:

Mexican President Felipe Calderón urged U.S. lawmakers Thursday to restore a controversial assault weapons ban, saying easy U.S. availability of the high-powered firearms are contributing to the escalating violence in his country.

My response to that? "You can fuck right the hell off, you fucking piece of shit. Senator Cornyn had the right of it. My country's citizens' constitutional rights are not up for diplomatic negotiation, and neither is our right to protect and defend our sovereignty by any means necessary. Your plane leaves in 45 minutes. Those gentlemen from the U.S. Marshals Service will see you to it. Bye-bye now."