Why not give people a choice...

...as opposed to telling them they just have to use one method of bear repellent? That bear spray might have worked 12 out of 14 times, but as for me I honestly wouldn't want to bet my life on just getting scratched that 13th or 14th time. If the park rangers are so concerned about bears getting killed unnecessarily, why don't they just keep the people out of the parks and be done with it? And people "not being able to read these animals" goes both ways...

You know what's just a really low thing to do?

Use your dead mother to make and score political points. I understand that Chris Bell's mother had a certain political philosophy, but it's just really low of him to even think he could claim to know what she would think of the tea party phenomenon or of the movement's supporters, considering the fact that she's been dead for more than a decade. And how convenient of him NOT to elaborate on just WHY his mother would think the tea partiers are part of the problem. I suppose all the talk about guns might have turned her off, which is all fine and good, really; but it was never about the guns in and of themselves, but the liberty inherent to the un-infringed right to own them. Somehow I get the feeling she might well have known that, if she was of the political stripe he claims she was. And I'm sure she probably wouldn't have gone for the liberals' implication that their Ivy League educations make them fit to lord over the rest of us and make us their guinea pigs for their socialist experiments. Good grief, and assholes like him accuse US of being the simplistic ones?

If I'd been in this guy's class...

...and I had any sense at all, I'd be demanding my money back after reading this column:

As far as I can tell, whenever we try to remember the past, we condemn ourselves to make new mistakes. Past events are like snowflakes: They are by their nature unique, as are the ways in which they interact.

Pardon my french, but this is ever so much bullshit. Certain aspects of history have a commonality about them that needs to be noted so as not to be repeated. See Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, for starters. Could it seriously be argued that we don't have anything to learn from the rise and fall of those regimes that could help us avoid the mistakes they made -- the mistakes they WERE? I can't believe a professor of history could make such a fatuous observation, even if it's French history he teaches.

Say what, now?

Really, what does one say to things like this?

If the U.S. can send a man to the moon, why can't we develop safe, renewable energy? It's because the big corporations don't want us to. That must change.

...other than, "the stupid, it burns! Get it away!"

Nooo, of course the big corporations don't want us to develop safe, renewable energy, because everybody knows spills like what happened in the Gulf of Mexico are such GREAT public relations for companies like BP, aren't they? Energy companies could NEVER have a vested interest in developing safe, renewable sources for ENERGY, could they? It could NEVER be a boon for research and development, could it? And Lord knows the energy companies could NEVER make nearly enough money off safe, renewable energy sources, even though it'd guarantee survival for years to come. Oh, neeever...

Or was she saying "the big corporations don't want us to" develop alternative energy sources because they're already investing in it?

Yep, it's all those evil conservatives' fault...

...that "liberal" has gotten to be a dirty word.

It could NEVER be the policies of the modern American left that has gotten the word to hold such a negative connotation  -- among them bigger and more activist government, higher taxes to finance said government, less freedom, and less security.

It could NEVER be that liberalism as a political ideology has changed so much since the 1960s that someone like John F. Kennedy, the patron saint of the Democratic Party, would likely have been a Reagan Democrat in the '80s.

It could NEVER be the contempt that so many on the left hold for those of us in "flyover country," as evidenced by the "teabagger" slur so popular among leftists and Dear Leader's infamous remark about rural Pennsylvanians "get(ting) bitter (and) cling(ing) to guns or religion."

Newp, it's all those evil bastard conservatives' fault for pointing out the numerous flaws of policies championed by lefties.

Always someone's else's fault. Are you detecting a theme here?

Another spew-worthy moment...

My wife says I have a way with words. But she beats me many times, as she did just now, speaking of Gary Allan in the video for his very first single, 1996's "Her Man":

"Fat head. Huge hat. It's not good. It's like Garth Brooks, only not as ugly and with talent."

I never would have thought of that, not in a million years...

Thursday country music musings...

Someone at Sirius has a sense of humor, I see. Riding in the truck today, I heard Alan Jackson's "Gone Country":


"...some of that stuff don't sound, much different than Dylan...I hear down there, it's changed you see, well they're not as backward, as they used to be, he's gone country..."



You know what I heard right after that? The opening strains of Shania Twain's "Rock This Country," which was the perfect example of what Bob McDill was lampooning when he wrote "Gone Country." I'd guess Mutt Lange more than Shania Twain would have been the song's target, considering that Lange was the '80s rock producer (his credits include AC/DC's Back in Black and Def Leppard's Pyromania), but the song sucked no matter whose influences it incorporated..

Also -- Note to Justin Moore: I don't give a shit what you're singing about, how much you turn up the twang in your voice or how much twangy electric guitar you put on the song, dude, you are not going to make (what is essentially) a rap song (CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK) sound country. And it's all the more grating that the tune is yet another one of those grating compositions about how country you are. Between that and "Small Town USA," we GET IT, all right? Sweet zombie jeebus, dude, can't you come up with something more original?

Viva la raza, eh?

Well. I guess we see where this letter-writer's coming from:

(George) Will says there are 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, but he doesn't ponder where those 460,000 work. Realistically, Arizona, like the rest of the U.S., needs the illegal immigrants.
...
Bad enough to take advantage of illegal immigrants; now Arizona threatens the constitutional protection of U.S. citizens who look like our brothers across the border.Viva, la raza!

One wonders exactly why we need these illegal immigrants. There are those who say "they do the jobs Americans won't do," but that only really holds in better economic times when more people have better jobs. I'm sure there are quite a few Americans now who are or would be working at jobs they wouldn't be taking otherwise. Still, though, an even better economy would not justify leaving the border unprotected and not enforcing strict immigration laws, because those Americans who wouldn't be doing those jobs need to pull their heads out of their asses and see that honest work is honest work, no matter what it is.

Good question...

...but I certainly don't get the answer, even coming as it does from an 11-year-old:

But in whatever language, why should Cinco de Mayo matter to Texans?

Because, said Lily, “the country's just right there, and those Texans here in America, we're Mexicans.”

I must admit I am a bit unnerved by this. They may be Mexican expatriates, but still I wonder just how much that kid's being taught she's a Mexican living in America as opposed to being an American of Mexican descent. They should have asked her why it should matter as much as it does to Texans and Americans when it's a comparatively minor holiday in Mexico. There are those who would say kids that age are too young to understand the nuances of the whole thing, but if that's true, the kids shouldn't be asked questions like that anyway.

On the 'Latino giant'...

Froma Harrop actually makes sense here, too, believe it or not -- more so than the talk show host Ruben Navarrette spoke of here. The Democrats know that Latinos, just like blacks, are socially conservative but don't vote that way, and that's why they're in such a rush to legalize the illegal immigrants that are here now. I am not surprised that Lydia Camarillo would say the Republicans pushed Voter ID because of this, even if it's true, because a little Google-fu showed her to be just another Democrat party hack.

The fact is, though, that according to certain exit polls, Latinos voted Democrat in the last presidential election by a pretty big margin. Let's see Ruben Navarrette explain that one. For the record, I don't think it was because of the reasons Bill Richardson cited. I think it very well could have had more to do with this, which, interestingly enough, the Express-News cut out of the column before it went on mySA:

Latinos do want universal health coverage and pre-kindergarten classes for their children, she (Camarillo -- ed.) noted.

I don't know how opposing the first could have that much to do with opposing the second, because I'd think that a lot of more conservative voters don't think pre-kindergarten is another arguably unaffordable entitlement as universal healthcare is -- but that's ultimately an argument of degree, because what Camarillo was getting at was that Latinos are a more liberal voting bloc. To what extent that is we will see, but over the short term it doesn't look so good.

Overheard in conversation...

Context: I am hungry.

Me: Oh, you had to go and mention pigeon, didn't you? ;-) http://www.cookitsimply.com/category-0020-017m1.html

Sabra: LMAO You can eat squab.

Me: Mmmm, baby bird. The only thing better would be freshly-clubbed baby seal.

Sabra: LMAO I love you! And you could make me a fur bra too!

I have truly gone to teh dark side...

In the category of "a picture is worth a thousand words"...

this mentality is what Leonard Pitts and his ilk offer no solutions to combating:

(thank you, Linoge)

No doubt he'd roll over for the simple solution, too...

Leonard Pitts, that is. No doubt he'd argue for keeping the status quo of the American welfare state and Americans' accompanying sense of entitlement vis-a-vis said state, and not weaning Americans off that sense of entitlement -- which makes his lambasting of the new Arizona immigration law and those who support it all the more ironic. And I'm sure he probably has no problem with peaceable, law-abiding citizens who carry guns being demanded to produce their papers, and they're as a group a good bit less threatening than illegal immigrants. Which makes his whinging about a "police state" so much hot air....

This might sound good...

...but how easy is it going to be? I would say it'll be impossible, at least in this order. The fact is that the socialist services are here, and if amnesty goes through, which it arguably has a good chance of doing right now, you and I both know what all those new voters are going to voting for -- yet more of those socialist goodies. I think what we need to be doing is weaning our own people off said socialist goodies and mentality before we start doing anything else. Whether that's possible at this point I honestly don't know, but that's the only way it's going to work. And the same could be said for minimum wage laws, the shrinking of the IRS and all that other stuff. Like Sailorcurt said in the comments there, as long as we live in the welfare state, we're going to have to control and limit immigration.

Just a note...

...for those of you who also read Bob S.

He said he was having technical difficulties, but he hopes to be back up and running soon.

Point to ponder...

...re: yesterday's protests, and an answer.

San Antonio and Dallas are about the same size, 1.3 million in San Antonio vs 1.2 for Dallas. Yet there were only 600 at a San Antonio protest yesterday, while some 20,000 showed up in Dallas. I asked my San Antonio native wife what she thought about the reasons for that and she had this to say:

Most of our Mexicans are law-abiding US citizens who fucking hate the wetbacks coming across the border and a) taking their jobs and b) making them look like shit to everyone else.

Makes sense to me. I would really like the media to track down more of them...

It's always someone else's fault.

First it was Bill Clinton saying it, and now it's Barack Obama...

In a blunt caution to political friend and foe, President Barack Obama said Saturday that partisan rants and name-calling under the guise of legitimate discourse pose a serious danger to America's democracy, and may incite "extreme elements" to violence.

Fuck him. Fuck him right in his arugula-munching ear. Those extreme elements are in their own damn echo chamber and they will just have to be held responsible for their own shit. I only speak for myself here, but I will be damned if I am held responsible for acts that are not my own. This is nothing more than Chicago-style thuggery dressed up in the flowery rhetoric that empty suit's so famous for.

And how about that straw man? Who, pray tell, is saying that all government is inherently bad? I don't see the tea partiers clamoring for no government, just smaller government. I don't see them calling for the disbanding of the military or anything else authorized by the Constitution. (Which, of course, brings another thing to mind -- it's not government agencies that build and maintain those roads. And what Constitutionally-authorized role does government have in funding those researchers?)

As for government being painted as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, yeah, well, people started doing that long before 2009. Why in the hell did the Constitution put so many limits on it? Because the people who wrote that document knew that government as an institution was not a benevolent entity. Hell, they had just fought a menacing, threatening foreign entity! Of course one could argue the government we have now is different, but I don't see how, considering the people who purport to represent us in Washington spend our money like there's no tomorrow on things it never should have been spent on.

With that in mind, ponder these words from Thomas Jefferson:

"This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."

As for the vaunted democracy...

"Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death."--James Madison

We have the public debt now, and a shitload of it, thanks to the democracy championed by Dear Leader. The taxation's here too. How long till the wretchedness and oppression? And as for those opposing ideas? Heard 'em a thousand times, found 'em to be lacking very single time. What now?

That's not the only thing that'd stop 'em...

....from coming to the beaches...

In conservative northwestern Florida, where Republican politician Sarah Palin's battle cry "Drill, Baby, Drill" is still visible on car bumpers, some are reconsidering their support of offshore drilling as a growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico drifts closer to shore.
Charter captain Jim McMahon, who spent Thursday catching cobia and King Mackerel, said the spill changed his mind.

"I am pessimistic about this," he said. "It could be devastating to the fishing and tourism industry. People aren't going to come to a beach if they have to step through tar balls."

Indeed, but people also aren't going to come to the beach if gas is $4.50 a gallon and they have to spend their vacation money on trifling things such as food and utilities.

Hey, at least they didn't have guns, right?

I bet you know exactly where I am going with this...

A San Antonio man was convicted Friday of helping his younger brother abduct a woman who then was raped, burned and had her teeth pulled out during an hours-long torture session.

...but I'm still going to do it.

You know what Kirk Gaither is? Kirk Gaither is yet another creature that Paul Helmke, Abby Spangler, Josh Sugarmann, Michael Beard, Josh Horwitz, et al. seem to have no problem with walking the streets, free to predate at will as long as they allegedly can't get their hands on guns. Not only that, but they would have also left his victim with little more than her bare hands to defend herself from her attackers until someone else with a gun showed up to rectify the situation -- and this is assuming his victim ever would have been able to get ahold of this other person with a gun. Yet again, this is why I think every one of those people are evil to the core and deserve to be defeated by any means necessary.

What if it didn't run?

Houston mayor and Texas gubernatorial candidate Bill White:

"And I have always, on those coyotes, as soon as, as soon as they see me, and I am coming along, I've seen them on a bicycle, they run away," White said. "But you know, I don't know. Different folks.
"To me, I would not, I don't intend to be afraid of coyotes."

Yeah, well, what happens when you run up on one who doesn't run, Bill? You gonna kill it with your bare hands? And I'm sure Rick Perry isn't afraid of coyotes either, considering he can actually defend himself and whoever's with him against them. I'd love to see what all these people would've been saying had Perry let that coyote kill his little girl's dog. You and I both know they'd all have brought down the wrath of God on him.

"He hates dogs! Oh teh noooes! How could he let his little girl see something like that! Oh, what an evil, eeevil man!"