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Friday, July 20, 2012
 Aurora, Colorado

So grateful that we've settled down to the usual black and white view of what happened in Colorado this morning.

Ban all guns!         
If everyone was armed, he could've been stopped!

See how simple solutions can be?  Must be satisfying to just leave it at that.

Here's the thing, the Second Amendment allows us to bear arms, and the Constitution is fine by me.  If you want a hunting rifle, have at it.  If you'd like a handgun or shotgun for home protection, be my guest.

Do you have any business with a weapon that is automatic or easily converted?  No, you don't.  I have a problem with the government taking your gun.  I have no problem with them limiting the scale of weapon you're allowed to own.  If you aren't in the active military, and feel you need an automatic weapon, you are a moron, a coward, or both.  You can't have a Howitzer.  You can't have surface-to-air missiles. And you can't have your own nuclear weapon.  The only people that have a problem with those restrictions believe Tim McVeigh is a hero.

If you need a machine gun for hunting anything smaller than a T-Rex, you have no business hunting.  Hunting is a valuable skill that should involve more qualifications than having a trigger finger.  If you can take down a bear with a bow and arrow, then you are a titan as far as I'm concerned.

I suppose we could grandfather in assault weapon ownership for those that already have them.  I would add the proviso that should your weapon be used in a crime, you will also bear responsibility as an accessory.  And if you take said weapon off of your own property, to any place other than a shooting range or for repairs, you go away for twenty years.  No problem, because they're for home protection, right?  This is who I am, I solve problems.

On the other hand, there's the response that we shouldn't do anything because maybe someone armed could have taken out the shooter.  I suppose that may happen one of these days.  I don't believe that even with the gun safety course you took that afternoon at the Y that most humans are capable of responding calmly enough in this situation to stop an assailant without hurting a lot of other people.

When Congresswoman Giffords was shot last year, a legally armed bystander, Joe Zamudio, raced toward the sound of the shots as he unholstered his 9mm.  When he arrived, he saw a young man on the ground and an older man standing over him with a gun.  His finger was on the trigger, but he thought better of it, and grabbed the armed man's wrist, trying to wrestle the gun away.  Other bystanders shouted that he had the wrong man, and that the shooter was on the ground.  Second tragedy narrowly averted.

Given that 40% of adult Arizonans own guns, I suppose it was fortunate that some cowboy didn't start shooting back. 

Another hilarious line of reason is that "I'd rather die fighting back."  It must be awful to be that frightened all the time.  I am just barely smart enough to understand simple statistics, and even I know the odds of me being assaulted any time I leave the house are very low.  Not hit-by-lightning or attacked-by-terrorists low, but pretty low.  I am not afraid when I go outside.  Bad things happen to good people, and they might even happen to me one day, but walking around armed is basically admitting that your fear has defeated your freedom.  You can't go to the store without your gun, because something might happen to you.  It's your right, and your choice to live that way, but even with my cynicism, I'm still enjoying my life more than you are, because I'm not afraid.  Bad guys aren't going to dictate my freedom to live without fear.

I'm sure a lot of concealed carriers will take issue with that, but what are you gonna do?  Shoot me?

I'll leave you with this: If more guns means a safer society, then why isn't the United States the safest country on the planet?

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posted at 2:22 PM

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Czar chasm

50-70000 people showed up in Washington DC Saturday to protest...something. Everything! A few snippets:




The remarkable thing here, is that there is very little of this which has been taken out of context. It's easy to make people look stupid via editing, but the interviewer was really only asking them why they were so upset about the things that their signs claimed that they were upset about. Again, I'm not really wild about the debt and deficit being where they are, but when the economy is where it is, this is the only recourse. You don't have to be happy about it, but it'd be nice if you could veer close enough to reality for a moment to at least acknowledge a couple of things:

Barack Obama isn't responsible for cratering the economy.

Things would be a damn sight worse if the stimulus bill had not passed.

Thus, here we are in a very strange moment, where we have the chance to make some real improvements in the way this country operates, and there are people, even those who would benefit, who are opposed to it because televised multi-millionaires have told them they ought to be. I will not go so far as to refer to them as "oligarhs."


Oligarchs, maybe. Plutocrats? Definitely.

I try very hard to see issues and events from all sides, because I have no use for political parties, and no ideology has a lock on good answers or common sense. So, I watch these events, and I wait for the moment where someone says something that makes me think, "Okay, I can agree with you in principle on some of that." But there's just so much WHARRGARBL, that it's nearly impossible to latch on to something that doesn't make you feel lobotomized.

Honestly, I'm to the point anymore where I'm halfway in your corner if you can just say what's bugging you without screaming or starting to cry. The right has turned into the left, all emotion and no brains, just angry, scared, and making everything about everything all the time, which is a classic liberal mistake.

For example, the anti-war protests. You're against the war? Great, march make signs, show the colors. But when the left turns out, PETA shows up, NORML is there, Greenpeace blows in, looking to roll severely obese marchers back into the nearest body of water.

But the right has guzzled down that particular gallon of left-wing stupid. These people who showed up in DC Saturday were angry about health care, that Obama is African, that we have officials called Czars, higher taxes, that Obama is a Muslim, ACORN, the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, to support Joe Wilson, a civilian corps of volunteers to do work in the US, the new combo philosophy of Communist Fascism, that Jesus isn't president, Barney Frank, to take the country back, mandatory abortions for all females over 11, that the country has been mostly destroyed, that "Barack Obama" means "anti-christ" in Hebrew, and just dozens of other really sensible, well-thought out reasons to be upset without needing to admit that the president is colored and that ain't America.

I know that this isn't all about racism, there are legitimate political and philosophical reasons to dislike what the president is doing. But most of this is about racism.

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posted at 3:25 PM

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ahmadinejad's victory...is YOUR victory?

Iran's president referred to the Guardian Council's confirmation of his "win" in the June 12 election a victory for the people of Iran.

"This election was actually a referendum. The Iranian nation were the victors and the enemies, despite their ... plots of a soft toppling of the system, failed and couldn't reach their aims."

I sit here, and I look at these types of quotes, straight out of the Orwell playbook, and I think, "How the hell do people swallow this stuff? What is the matter with the Iranians that they believe obvious lies spoken by authority?"

But it's not the Iranians. This is just how some people are. John Dean, former White House Counsel under Nixon, wrote a book a few years back called Conservatives Without Conscience. It's a fascinating study, explaining how there is a percentage of the human population, 20-25%, that is simply wired to be hyper-deferential to authority.

When you combine that with a religious culture led by an infallible leader, be he Ayatollah Khameini, or George W. Bush, you will always have a faction that is fearful of any change, or any thought process deemed outside the norm. The people in my own country that act this way scare the hell out of me, my guess is they are no different in Iran.

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posted at 8:41 AM

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Neda's family forced out

An unnamed reporter for The Guardian in Tehran is reporting the family of the woman killed last Saturday may have been forced out of their home.

Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.

“We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,” a neighbour said. The Guardian was unable to contact the family directly to confirm if they had been forced to leave.


First, the government refused to let the family hold a memorial for their murdered daughter, then they demanded another victim's family pay $3000 for the bullet that killed their son before the body would be returned, and now this.

They're also setting up "special courts" to try demonstrators. Wow, a frightened government is setting up ad hoc courts to try people in secrecy. That ring any bells?

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posted at 11:59 AM

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Monday, June 22, 2009
Slain Iranian woman identified

Her name was Neda Agha Soltan, and she worked for a travel agency.



She was murdered while watching the demonstrations with her father on Saturday in Tehran, apparently by a member of the security forces who shot her in the heart from the rooftop of a building.


Neda's death has become a symbol in Iran and globally, and no matter the result of the recent turmoil, she will not be forgotten.


She may become Iran's Joan of Arc. I hope that the result of all of this somehow makes her death worthwhile.

UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that a memorial for Neda was broken up by Basij and Iranian police who beat and arrested protesters. Security then attacked nearby homes of people who were filming the event, and arrested some of them as well.

"Islamic Republic" my ass.

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posted at 10:44 AM

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Home of the what, now?

The past couple of weeks have really been astounding as the debate about the closure of Guantanamo creeps forward. The truly elegant stupidity of this uproar, is that no one is talking about whether or not the facility is legal under any interpretation of US law, or whether the torturous acts committed there will be prosecuted. We're only talking about the closure, and what it means for the people incarcerated there. Where will they go?

"Well, you can't just let them go! they'll return to the battlefield! Anyone who would do that is soft on terror!"

There's probably some truth to that. There are currently 240 terror suspects being held in Gitmo. Even though I'm sure that some of them are guilty of some prosecutable crime, I can't say this with certainty, because none of them have had trials. Details, details...

I'm not advocating just letting all 240 of them go at all. And I definitely wouldn't let them all go if there were even as many as 540 of them. Some of them might return to terror activities, or the not guilty ones might be so pissed at us, they might sign on to the cause.

Funny about that number, 540. That's actually how many Guantanamo detainees that the Bush administration let go without trial. Just let them go. That seems kind of whimsical, to determine on one day that a man so terrifying that he needs to be locked up without charges is, on the next day, no threat whatsoever. But what else can you do, right?

"You can't bring them to the US, buddy! Don't even suggest that! Willingly import terrorists? Why do you hate America?"

Again, it's apparently better to release these guys, than to bring them here to be held, tried, and probably convicted.

"That won't work! That's why we have the military tribunal system!"

You're right, the US system of justice wouldn't work on terrorists. I mean, aside from the blind sheik who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Timothy McVeigh, shoe-bomber Richard Reed, and Jose Padilla, there are only a bunch of other terrorists who have been convicted in US courts. They're all still in jail.

"Yeah, well... not in my backyard!"

Okay, mine then.

There is a maximum security state facility less than 10 miles from where I sit. I will take every damned one of the 240 Guantanamo detainees, have them placed in this prison while they await trial in US courts, and I will not lose a moment of sleep over it. Honestly, between the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, Crips, Bloods, La Nuestra Familia, the Mexikanemi, and the Nazi Low Riders, I just don't think any of these guys would last a month.

"But what if they escape? What about my family?"

Okay, here's the thing: I'm starting to think you're a real spineless candyass.

If my state prison can't be trusted, I suppose we can always turn to the federal government's one and only supermax facility, ADX Florence in Colorado. "The Alcatraz of the Rockies" they call it. Florence opened in 1994, I will go ahead and list for you the names of everyone who has ever escaped from this prison:

*crickets*

So, I just don't buy your arguments about why these suspects can't be imprisoned and tried in the US, and under US laws. It's a really good system, one that has worked for a couple of hundred years, and truth be told, it's a better system now than when it was designed, because improvements have been made the entire time. Not so much lately, but still, it's pretty well designed.

Unfortunately, you still have professional pants-wetters like House Minority Leader, John Boehner who wails that "importing the (Gitmo prisoners) would be a strategic mistake and an incredible risk. Or Senator John Thune of South Dakota who noted, quite astutely, that "the American people don't want these men walking the streets of America's neighborhoods!"

But I'd really like to give special attention to Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, who cast a vote against President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo, because, as he explained at a press conference, "I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear."

A reporter was decent enough to point out the obvious: "No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States."

Reid replied: "Can’t put them in prison unless you release them."

While this may not be the single most idiotic thing I've ever heard a politician say, I'm sure we can do a hell of a lot better with our elected representatives, and we can make the country a hell of a lot safer merely by following the rules laid out in the Constitution. They work really well.

In the mean time, but on a Depends, you weeping, pathetic coward.

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posted at 3:37 PM

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