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August 31, 2015

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Since Trump is running on "I am not a politician," he wouldn't want to detract from that by choosing a politician as a running mate. So figure him to go with Fiorina.

Think about it. Trump has ended up in bankruptcy; Fiorina didn't quite manage to drive HP into bankruptcy (which is why, I suppose, she ends up with the second slot), but she definitely gave it a go. Trump has no experience in campaigning; Fiorina has campaign experience (against Senator Boxer) but is demostrably terrible at it. Trump is all bluster about "business experience is enough; who needs policies?" Fiorina ran on her business experience as well.

In short, it's a match made in heaven. Unless you care about a) winning elections, or b) the country.

Deport all them 'Mexicans, you say? Why not take a little look at the policies that drove them here:

http://www.weareoneamerica.org/root-causes-immigration-nafta

Thank you so much, Bill, Hillary, and, of course, a special h/t to our economic elite.

Whenever somebody opines that government should be "run like a business" (entities which, for the most part are run like petty dictatorships, but I digress), I reach for my wallet.

Now, the burning issue of the day is this. Will a Trump/whomever administration reverse Obama's unconstitutional overreach and overturn his renaming of Mt McKinnley to Denali?

Obviously no mind should be paid to the fact that Alaska's legislature (majority REpublican), both of its Senators (also Republicans), and its Congressmen all have been pushing for years to have the name changed. So what if this was the Federal government doing what a state wanted? Who cares about states rights in a case like this? If Obama did it, it simply must have been an evil, anti-American action.

Trump is a populist. Should he come to the choosing of a running mate, choosing a general with war command experience would make a perfect populist combination. For einstance, General McChrystal would be a great example: A billionaire to save the economy, a war-hero dismissed by Obama to care for foreign policy. You could not get any more Caesarist than that.

Though McChrystal seems to be a Democrat, in fact.

I understand that the first option for renaming McKinnley was Mt Bucket...

So what if this was the Federal government doing what a state wanted? Who cares about states rights in a case like this?

Hey, it's the sacred state's right of Ohio to push the state of Alaska around!

why, it's almost as if the GOP is dedicated to sustaining a state of hyperventilating mindless outrage among the faithful, and will use any event as pretext to keep the rubes riled.

I bid one No Trump.

why, it's almost as if the GOP is dedicated to sustaining a state of hyperventilating mindless outrage among the faithful, and will use any event as pretext to keep the rubes riled.

23 Katrinas

Trump/Cruz v Sanders/MoldyCheeseSandwich is a contest i'd love to see.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/252393-poll-majority-of-republicans-thinks-obama-is-a-muslim

If he really wanted to make the Earth shake with the strength of a hundred million murderous Republican jerking knees, Obama could have renamed McKinley "rawasiya for mountains, and tameeda for tumble/shake/quake/convulse/sway etc."

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Quran_and_Mountains

He's really too politically correct when it comes to his mortal domestic enemies.

Speaking of politically correct outrage mongers from Ohio, the word "ohio" in the language of the Iroquois, who lived in Ohio when it was home to a more sensible, civilized people, means "great river".

And I think the word is a greeting in Japanese. That's multicultural beyond the call of duty.

And what's with Cincinnati (near where I was born) and Columbus? Those are politically correct furriner Italian names. Not an American among em.

Next up, if he wants to appeal to the excruciatingly sensitive politically correct standards of right-wingers in "Ohio", if you'll pardon my French, Obama should unilaterally rename the state "North Crackerland" or "Land of the Setting Sh*theads".

I have great fondness for Ohio. Too bad right-wing vermin have ruined yet another state.


Well, Alaska is not REALLY USian.
1) it's not connected to the bulk of the US (neither is Hawaii, a place that many do not believe to be a US state)
2) it was bought, not properly conquered or stolen.
3) it was once Russian and is thus irredeemably tainted (see what a permanent commie hellhole California became after a much shorter period of Russian settlement)
4) there are still people around that were born in that part of the world before it became a US state, bringing extra complexity to the 'natural born' conundrum.
5) there is still an independence party there but not one with ties to the only proper entity of its kind, the old Confederacy, so they cannot be true patriots.

Ohio on the other hand has none of those handicaps.

There's a simple solution to Ohio's complaint--rename Campbell Hill as Mt McKinley.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Hill_(Ohio)

Solves the political problem and Bellfontaine Ohio probably gets some tourist traffic and maybe a few confused mountain climbers.

If people in State A get to name things in State B, then I have a bunch of names I'd like to slap all over Texas. I'm sure they'd come to love them in time, but it might take a century or two.

Alaska might want to propose a new name for Columbus OH. How about "Blubber" ?

As far as the State A vs B thing, I would look to see whose province is the naming of geography in national parks.

If it's Congress, then yes, everyone has a legitimate say. In general, everyone has a say in some sense because it's our collective government.

But I don't think there are enough people who really don't want it to be Denali to hold sway in any case, so it all comes down to some people kvetching and other people kvetching about the kvetching.

And a smaller, third group of people who just don't care all that much, other than to briefly thumb their noses at the other two in blog comments.

I would look to see whose province is the naming of geography in national parks.

apparently, it's the Dept o' Interior and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. either can do it.

Congress doesn't, officially, get a say.

The memo removing any sense of the dreaded "collective" in government, or just about anything else, went out some time ago.

A modest proposal for the renaming of Washington, in the (unlikely) event of the Donald outbidding Slart's one No Trump...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpton

If you attended Ohio State, every mountain is Peak Woody Hayes.

Actually, I thought Obama should take up Breitbart hack Ben Shapiro's suggestion that McKinley be renamed Mt. Trayvon.

To be fair and balanced, which I strive to be, the cyst on Rush Limbaugh's alternative piehole should be renamed Mount Zimmerman, from its present moniker "Ronny".

Get em while they're hot:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/flamethrower-sales-boom-on-potential-consumer-ban--weird-business-news-182735902.html#

In Texas, you can open carry a flamethrower into Chili's and cook your fajitas table side, not to mention singe the eyebrows any threatening unarmed liberals who object.

such a big country. so many big dumb men so worried about their little tiny penises.

Flamethrowers are exactly what is needed for the 'open carry' finales of the GOP nominating debates.

It's just too bad that the candidates and FOX are too wussified to allow it.

Slartibartfast,

Getting a feature entirely inside your state renamed simply requires some paperwork and a few hoops, then the US Board of Geographic Names will then recognize the new name as official and recognize the name on new maps.

Alaska completed the required steps in 1975.

However, there is one caveat -- the US Board of Geographic Names cannot rename a feature if there is a bill in Congress that session dealing with the name of said feature. (Under the theory, yes, the US Board is subordinate and if Congress is about to rename it all bets are off and all paperwork and hoops will have to be redone from the start).

So since 1975, a Ohio Rep has yearly introduced a bill about the name of Mt. McKinley and then tabled it. It's never brought up to a vote, or even to a committee. It's just a bill name.

Which neatly prevents the US Board from processing Alaska's request.

I'm aware of the history, Morat20, although not of the Ohio blocking maneuver.

Ohio. More full of twits than I previously knew.

My submission would be "Peak Oil", but probably not many would be amused.

Cool. :) I was aware of the basic history (Alaska wanting to change it, Ohio blocking) but had not previously known that naming it McKinley was a 'rename' itself, and that it was a PR move in the political feud of the day.

Which I suppose means politics remains politics, no matter the era.

Laura Ingraham continues to invoke Manifest Stupidity to spread American stupidity, which, among the run-of-the-mill stupidities is the most exceptional stupidity of all:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lifezette-laura-ingraham-mckinley-assasinated

The republican operative cited in ingraham's turd of a post cites McKinley's use of high tariffs as a good thing in comparison to Obama's attempts to push through "free"-trade agreements.

Now, honest folks can argue all day about free trade and tariffs, but I'm increasingly having trouble distinguishing between who the free marketeers are and who the conservatives aren't, or something.

Interestingly, McKinley's assassin lost his job in the Panic of 1893 right in the shank of the Gilded Age and restructured himself as an anti-government anarchist. He (John Wilkes Booth no longer available to take out the RINOs) used a concealed weapon to off the President, who died somewhat later when the wound went gangrenous.

Leaving aside the fact that Larry Kudlow and a host of current right-wing ideologues would have used a flame thrower on McKinley for his sins against conservative orthodoxy, would it be too politically correct to have some empathy for gangrene?

At any rate, the whole debacle, the assassination with the guns and the concealed guns and the anti-government sentiment, etc. sounds like it could have been carried under orders from Laura Ingraham herself.

McKinley's assassin's rhetoric and gunlove sported all of the hallmarks of your average tea party ka-numbskull.

If he had run for office as a republican in Ted Cruz's district, he'd have won. Trump would be floating his name as Vice Presidential material.

Elect Trump/Czolgosz in 2016


I hereby rechristen the harridan Ingraham, Mount St. Bullsh*t.

So since 1975, a Ohio Rep has yearly introduced a bill about the name of Mt. McKinley and then tabled it. It's never brought up to a vote, or even to a committee.

What would happen if Alaska's Rep was to file a discharge petition? If the bill could be force to a vote, would that leave the blocking maneuver void?

I have an objection to the heavily edited media coverage of James O'Keefe, of Unplanned (his parents) Parenthood fame and other college-boy amateur hour perfidities:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/james-okeefe-hillary-video

Every one of the media exposes on O'Keefe edits out descriptive facts like "a*shole", "anti-American pigf*cker", "conservative bug filth", j*goff jingoistic journalistic jerkoff", and so on, which would provide some semblance of balance.

We don't get the whole picture. It's just not fair to O'Keefe's intended image and reputation, nor is it objective journalism.

How are we to make informed decisions as a polity, or as a reality show studio audience, if these heavy edits are tolerated.

Does anyone know if O'Keefe and his people carry weapons on them?

I like to know these things before I introduce myself.

I personally would like to have a cessation of speculation as to other man's penis length, sight unseen.

Or verification thereof, sight seen. Just not interested, however great the fascination of others.

We're moving to a fully open-carry country, so I'm afraid the ...umm .. cat, is already out of the bag for all to view.

That's why they sang "Look Away, Dixieland" because the whole exposing of the gun/weapon dichotomy was so immodest and embarrassing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDyF9n5pOqw

i'd like men to stop wielding huge external death schlongs in order to compensate for that with which they weren't born.

and a pony.

Sometimes a flamethrower is just a flamethrower, cleek.

Maybe the problem lies behind your eyeballs.

"Just" a flamethrower?!!? Next you'll tell me this is "just" a blaster.

you do your amateur armchair remote psychology and i'll do mine.

From the Count's link:

On their website, Ion Productions Team lists possible uses for the flamethrowers. These include:

clearing snow/ice
eliminating weeds between pavement cracks
controlled burns/ground-clearing of foliage/agricultural
insect control
pyrotechnic event displays
bonfire starting
a fun device to enjoy with friends

See, awesomeness!

amateur armchair psychology

It's nice to see years of invective summarized this way, at last.

What would happen if Alaska's Rep was to file a discharge petition? If the bill could be force to a vote, would that leave the blocking maneuver void?
Nothing. Pretty sure the US Board can't consider it for any year that Congress has taken up a bill. Just by introducing it, even if immediately withdrawn, stops the US Board.

Alaska DID try to get the loophole removed via legislation, but was effectively told "No one cares, Alaska. No one cares".

someone fetch the smelling salts!

Slart, I (and about a billion other observers) are pretty much with Cleek on this. It's not that the guns thing is ONLY a penile substitute, but there's such an unmistakeable miasma of macho posturing, small-man-syndrome strutting, "pry it from my cold, dead hands"(!) rhetoric that, on some level, threatened masculinity is an unavoidable conclusion.

I'm not really interested in guns, but a flamethrower sounds like nothing but fun. Really dangerous fun, and fun that, as a practical matter, I will almost certainly never indulge in.

But fun, nonetheless. Like firecrackers, bottle rockets, and M-80's are fun.

In my case, it's probably less an issue of penis size, and more an issue of channeling my inner 12-year-old.

Some folks might call it a case of arrested development, and I would be hard pressed to argue the point.

I wouldn't bring it to a Chili's, though.

I'd also say that I would have no problem with any level of government imposing fairly strict regulations on the sale, ownership, and use of flamethrowers.

Because, flames.

Which, I guess, let's me be both a case of arrested development, and a lefty. :)

I always get my holster and my codpiece mixed up.

I have to admit, at a certain age I might have been willing to trying lighting a cigar that was just a cigar with a flamethrower that was just a flamethrower, from, say, ten paces away.

If you really were interested in a gun-wielder/penis size correlation, data would do the trick.

Take data. Science! Reality-based politics!

But slarti, the individuals who would prove the hypothesiswuld also be the least likely to allow measurement. Being embarrassed about themselves.

Which means that your data are going to be from a non-representative sample. Invalidates any conclusion that there is no correlation. (Although, I suppose, that if we see a strong correlation, he skew in the sample would make the correltaion even stronger....)

The Census Bureau could go door to door in 2020 and collect the data to answer both revealing questions but I'm afraid they'd only get Erick Erickson's wife up in arms again.

What is she hiding?

So, better to:

a) Make shit up
ii) Assume it's true
γ) Use the new "fact" as some sort of...argument?
4) Profit!

scientists have recently discovered that the internet is not actually a series of logical proofs.

ה) Evade when questioned on point.

I had no idea I was carrying on a discussion with the Internet.

I would have expected more, really.

So then I says, "100100110100101110011010110101111100."

The NPA (Motto: You'll never hear us say "A Little To The Left"), which is the NRA's sister, umm, or rather, brother organization is going to fight tooth and nail and flamethrower against any effort to force the revelation of size, caliber, and clip capacity by those in possession of an automatic schwantz.

However, this may not stop busybodies from forcing schwantz-owners from attending schwantz safety classes at a Schwantz School near you:

http://www.schwantzschool.com/schwantzschool/school-overview

The funny Mt Favorite Martian uniform is required attire and keep it zipped.

As we have been repeatedly warned around here, the unfortunately named Tench Coxe, who lurked among our foreskin fathers, mandated from the get go that any size and caliber schwantz General Washington and the military he commanded wielded must be made freely available to the public at large (and small) to preserve our God-given freedoms and to run water through daily.

A little known historical tidbit was that Mr Coxe, as he preferred to be addressed, kept an armory of rolled-up socks on hand to fluff his schwantz profile, as it were (hey, as you were, men!) to fool some of the people most of the time.

Don't try that at the Battle of the Bulge, because you might come up short. (Insert a quick Pee Wee Herman chortle here)

A little known linguistic oddity which may surprise you: A collection of bedraggledly-dressed patriots in tri-corner haberdashery meeting down at the corner bar to muster for Schwantz target practice is ALSO, by fortuitous coincidence, called a MILITIA, except for Dick Johnson, who has missed the last three musters because he had to go in for a appendickdectomy because his schwantz was chronically jammmed and fired nothing but kidney stones, and the pipecleaners just wouldn't do the job any longer.

Should anyone require a list of synonyms, the George Carlin Thesaurus has a few.

Look under "G". Enjoy.

http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2007/01/george-carlins-dirty-words-list-penis.html

wj sez: "But slarti, the individuals who would prove the hypothesis would also be the least likely to allow measurement. Being embarrassed about themselves."

You just have to pry it from their cold, dead hands.

It's the cold hands that distort the data in favor of cleek's hypothesis.

harrrumpf...small is beautiful.

As they say, get a grip.

It is remarkable the damage that can be done with a single-shot derringer wielded by a man ... or woman .. of character.

What are we talking about again?

Can you imagine historians perusing the collected speeches of a Trump/Palin Administration?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/09/i-have-no-headline-worthy-donald-trumps-latest

Just shoot me now.

Those mushroom clouds are huge, I tell you, just bee-autiful ta lookat. They can do some damage up close, so don't make us go there. But assidents happen, you hear what I'm saying.

A modest proposal for the renaming of Washington, in the (unlikely) event of the Donald outbidding Slart's one No Trump...
Speech of the speaker of the senate on the day of Trump's inauguration:


Glorious Donald!
Who has been named Donald John Trump Pulchricapillatus Dives, Pacifier of the whole earth, Invincible. Invincible!
The American Hercules! High priest of capital! Tycoon! Father of his Country! And now, Conqueror of Murica!
We are gathered here to beg permission of our divine Donald that he authorizes us to proclaim that from this day forth our empire be called, not the Merkin empire, but the empire of Commodity. And that the city be called, not Washington, but the city of Commodity.

And He will answer: You have my permission, loser.


Somehow I just can't see Trump as someone to achieve the Peace of Dives.

Slarti, I like data and proof as much as the next person, but are you saying it's invalid to observe phenomena and draw, sometimes tentative, conclusions from them?

I'm not a psychologist, and you may not be either, but would you say for example that it's invalid to deduce from his public utterances and behaviour that the Donald is a fairly extreme narcissist? He seems to exhibit pretty much every one of the identifying behaviours. As I understand it, narcissism involves a (sometimes unconscious) emptiness/inadequacy within, and the narcissistic behaviours are a continuous attempt to shore up the fragile internal self. Why is it not analogous to postulate that an obsession with the possession of powerful killing machines, which moreover kill by projecting a deadly missile at a target, most likely is an attempt to defend at all costs, in the most "masculine" way possible, the inadequate, weak inner self. In this theory, penis size is just a symbol for masculinity, but just because none of this can be proved, doesn't mean that it isn't a useful way of looking at it.

If everything statement required the level of proof considered adequate for drawing scientific conclusions or criminal court convictions, we wouldn't have much to talk (or write back and forth on blogs) about. We are, after all, just talking (or blah, blah, blah).

That also means you can disagree, even dismissively, if you like. How compelling any of it is will be up to a given reader.

Sometimes people raise the bar of proof to levels required in science or court proceedings, even when don't really disagree in their heart of hearts. They may have the same intuitive sense of things as whoever they're arguing with, but it's more fun (or whatever) to argue anyway.

At least it looks that way to me; I can't prove it.

every statement, not everything statement

Yes, its true. This man has no dick. Boy that used to crack me up.

Got me tittering, even.

Cats and Dogs, living together, mass hysteria!

Golf is yet another game of inches and Alice Cooper sez the Donald was short a few there too:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-cheats-golf

Any hope of Cooper's nomination as Ambassador to the UN just went by the wayside, I'm afraid, though I'm sure Gene Simmons is still in the running, once he exposes his credentials to Cabinet Nominating Committee head under President Trump, Vice President Sorry Death Palin.

Glenn Beck at State, Ben Carson as Head of Surgical Border Strikes at Homeland Immaturity and INS, though he will be shunted into a closet when the Donald visits, Ted Nugent at the CIA, Murderer Rick Scott at the newly rechristened Department of Wealth and Inhumane Services, and a passel of Kardashians taking up posts at the few remaining agencies.

Cruz goes directly to the Supreme Court, which will be pared down to three Justices, Cruz, Alito, and Thomas -- Scalia having been ousted for kvetching about serving under a President that is a bigger, raving a*shole than he is.

Let the killing begin.

Denali undergoes mountain reduction and circumcision surgery at the tyrannical hands of the federal government to lop ten feet off its bragging rights:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4312#.VedL0JfIfcu

hat tip TNR

Ohio Republicans cry Ouch!, grip their crotches with both hands, and have to lie down in fetal positions to let the pain pass, claiming McKinley's porn career may be over.

Benjamin Netanyahu, at the urging of republican operatives working behind the scenes and in front of the scenery, protests vehemently this insult to Israel by Obama's refusal to use a mohel to cut an American mountain's manhood down to size, somehow confusing himself yet again with U.S. sovereignty.

John Boehner weeps the tears of a man who bought a codpiece that was three cups too big.

Ted Nugent interrupts one of his racist, misogynist (he loves women as long as they drop to their knees before they knock on the band's dressing room revolving door) vermin rants with accompanying automatic gunfire to observe that now Denali is EVEN ten feet littler than both his gun and his weapon laid end to end, not that he thanked the schwartza in the White House for the penile enhancement via Presidential decree.

Obama, for his part, shrugs and explains: "Hey, news flash, it's cold in Alaska. We have to account for shrinkage. Look, it doesn't matter. Now, if any of my friends in the Ohio delegation want to take me on in hoops and see if you measure up, just let my secretary know and I'll reserve a court so I can kick your asses."

ISIS are ... gold bugs !

bwahahahah!

Ron Paul, Rand Paul, RuPaul, Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Peter Schiff, Pat Robertson, and any number of right-wing conservative talk radio kanuckle-heads are close advisors to ISIS.

Conservative filth the world over strive together to destroy the New Deal and American prosperity.

a flamethrower sounds like nothing but fun. Really dangerous fun, and fun that, as a practical matter, I will almost certainly never indulge in.

russell, you (or anyone in the northeast really) should come to Wildfire! You can take classes on fire spinning or fire breathing or fleshing (lighting bits of flesh on fire), etc. Check out the schedule for september here.

Slarti, I like data and proof as much as the next person, but are you saying it's invalid to observe phenomena and draw, sometimes tentative, conclusions from them?

Conclusions that you made up, for the purposes of ridicule?

Whatever could I find objectionable about that?

I'm not a psychologist, and you may not be either, but would you say for example that it's invalid to deduce from his public utterances and behaviour that the Donald is a fairly extreme narcissist?

There were a lot of people who said that about Obama as well. You're saying they are making a valid point?

Sometimes people raise the bar of proof to levels required in science or court proceedings

I'd prefer to just raise this to a level of something that folks didn't invent out of nothing.

Because, hey, is there even a scrap of evidence to support the notion?

I know. What am I saying? This is blog comments; this is politics. It's crap all the way down.

Also: Obama is a sekrit Muslim!

Slarti,

If the shoe don't fit, you don't have to wear it.

--TP

Likewise, if you are not a woman, you have no business being concerned about issues that affect women.

Oh. Maybe you meant the illogic shoe.

I actually think the penis size comparisons are problematic. My guess is that most gun owners like collecting guns because collecting things is fun and blowing stuff up is fun and simple accessible machines that make things blow up are fun.

My issue with these people is that they've got this hobbey but it is embedded in a culture that makes them stupid. There is nothing wrong with having a dangerous hobby: I've got dangerous hobbies. So do pilots. Or mountain climbers. Or fire spinners. But those groups have built communities that focus on managing risk intelligently.

They talk, a lot, about failures so they can do better in the future. They limit what new members of the community can do until they demonstrate safety and proficiency. They act like grownups who are doing something dangerous but trying to be safe. They push manufacturers to get them safer equipment (talking to gun owners about how one cannot rely on gun safeties to function correctly is an eye-opening experience).

The gun culture in the US at large doesn't do that. Pick up any NRA magazine and you won't find articles exploring gun safety failures; you'll find crazy stuff encouraging people to be paranoid. This is the power of culture: it can make you smarter, or dumber. If you believe the biggest danger surrounding guns is that Obama's about to confiscate them or ban them, then you're stupid, and got stupid because you participate in a culture of stupidity. And based on gun sales numbers, this country has many many many stupid people.

I know lots of gun enthusiasts.

None of them are stupid.

Could be selection bias. I honestly have not asked any of them to show me their junk, because it's a) rude and b) never occurred to me that it was remotely important or relevant.

If they were a hate group ...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/conservatives-black-lives-matter-hate-group

.... they'd be showing up inside the FOXNews business offices going from cubicle to cubicle dressed up like these murderers and dispensing justice:

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.JybEYedV8AUAXMInnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Phtots+of+Bundy+Standoff+Woth+Weapons&fr=yhs-mozilla-001&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

But they aren't. Lucky duckies we are. Especially the blondes.

And THIS one:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/01/kentucky-clerk-fighting-gay-marriage-has-wed-four-times

She, the short-term Christian, has been overusing the taxpayer's good offices. But, I will say, she's been married to Jesus longer than she has been to the regula blokes, so there is that. She's a regula Virgin Larry.

Can someone parse this paragraph from the cite for me:

"she gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second. Davis worked at the clerk's office at the time of each divorce and has since remarried."

Was she the Sam Drucker (girl of the north country, Sam Drucker was the general store proprietor, postmaster, etc in the 1960s TV sitcom, "Petticoat Junction") of County Clerks ... applying for multiple licenses in funny hats and then jumping over the counter, donning his Clerk hat, and granting them.

Her children could use two gay daddies or two lesbian mommies or two straight folks with an ounce of common sense, or a single parent whose eyes weren't crossed, or even a couple of wolves in the woods, who marry for life.

"It's crap all the way down."

At this point in time in America, that applies to a lot more than blog comments. Presidential debates for one example. Most journalism. Stock market headlines and commentary.

I might use that sentence on my headstone as an epitaph, but it would be a Socratic statement.

How many gun owners do you know that store loaded weapons in the open in their home, while they have children about? I know at least one, and this guy is a pretty smart person, but he's acting stupid.

Do you think this mother was stupid? Again, she seems like a very smart person who acted really stupidly.

You know some stupid gun owners; I know some smart ones.

How many do you know that have a small penis?

The two folks I mentioned aren't stupid. But when it comes to guns they do stupid things. Seems odd, and also the sort of thing we could use data to understand.

I don't really care about anyone's penis size.

"Likewise, if you are not a woman, you have no business being concerned about issues that affect women."

Well, Slarti, I can agree with you there. People of good faith have every business being concerned about issues that affect other people, because, to quote Donne, they are involved in mankind.

I don't understand why you think that any of the conclusions I have referred to are made up for the purpose of ridicule. It is impossible, outside the United States, not to speculate on the underlying reasons for many Americans' obsession with keeping their guns, and although we hear constantly about the historic context of the 2nd Amendment, given the havoc and carnage continually being caused by firearms it's worth considering what else could be at the heart of this.

Regarding the possible narcissism of Obama, I've never heard of any boasting, general self-aggrandisement or insulting of anyone who dares to criticise or even disagree with him, but if there are (or were) such examples, let alone any comparable to the oeuvre of the Donald, I'd be seriously interested in hearing them. I hold no particular brief for Obama; if I see examples of such behaviour I might well conclude that he's a narcissist. What's the bar you set for yourself when making a judgement? Are you saying you don't see, at the least, narcissistic elements in Trump?

Just wanted to say that I'm on board with everything Turbulence says in his 5:20 and following.

There really aren't that many people who have an issue with people who own and use firearms in a responsible manner.

It would advance the agendas both of firearms owners, and everyone else who lives in this country, if the basic issues Turb raises here were addressed candidly.

And I'm not really interested in anybody's penis size, either.

And not for nothing, but isn't there another clerk in whatever county it is in Kentucky? This one person is the only person in the whole county who can issue a marriage license?

Both stupid and intelligent people make fatal mistakes with guns, which could be ameliorated by confiscating guns.

(Take a moment and recite "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" if it makes any dead MFs come back to life and makes those still living feel better)

Confiscation won't happen, and I'm not proposing it, though further draconian limitations are essential, and those won't happen either in the current absurdity.

Can we dispense with penis size and say that both the unarmed Michael Brown and the almost exclusively male police officers who blow away unarmed citizens have a testoterone problem?

And the guns on their hips are a testosterone-extendor likely to go off as the testosterone receptors fire in the dumbass male brain.

There are plenty of reasonable conservative (and some liberals) who possess and collect weapons who I would trust to run the armories where stupid people's guns should be stored.

One of my grandfathers, for example.

Slart and McKinney Texas for two more off the top of my head.

I'd mandate that the Oath Keepers and Ted Nugent's and Rick Perry's weapons be kept under lock and key at Slart and McTX's regulated armories.

If it makes anyone feel more secure that assholes don't get their weapons (Rick Perry: 'Yeah I'm going to do a photo-shoot with Hannity in a backwards baseball cap in a helicopter aiming my thingy at Mexican kids") on occasion, dick-pics can be exchanged as one of a list of requirements.

I'm quite sure Slart and MckT would win that hands down, if we include character as a variable in junk size. Maybe hands up. I can't decide.

Keep your hands to yourselves.

Second of all, the rhetoric that guns solve any of the problems the fascists in the NRA and the Republican Party et al say they do stops, now, and that goes for women who keep guns too, especially around children and unstable family members.

I'll be asking for my gun at the Armory to make it so.

Slarti,

You seem to take this penis-size thing seriously, so let me just say that I, for one, accept the proposition that gun owners, gun lovers, and gun nuts (as individual sub-groups and as an aggregate) exhibit are endowed with the same distribution of cock length, girth, and weight, from little prick to big swinging dick, as the general population. I hope that makes you feel better.

--TP

It might be possible to have a reasonable discussion of firearms here. On the off chance that that is so, here are the things that, in my opinion, would be reasonable to do in order to help reduce the number of deaths by firearm in this country.

No private sale loophole for background checks on firearm sales.

No high-capacity magazines for firearms, where "high capacity" is more than ten rounds. If I called it the wrong thing, my bad, sue me.

If you handle or use your firearm in any way that does not comply with basic and well known safety standards, and somebody is harmed, you lose the privilege of firearm ownership. If that is just a bridge too damn far, make it time-limited, and you have to take a firearms safety course before the privilege is restored to you.

It's also my understanding, which may be incorrect, that a disproportionately large number of illegal firearm sales can be traced to a disproportionately small number of dealers. Let's shut those guys down.

If my understanding on that point is incorrect, I withdraw the suggestion.

And yes, I know it's a civil right. None of the above seems, to me, to be in conflict with the rights guaranteed in the 2nd A.

If anyone finds any of the above to be wrong or overly problematic, I am curious to know why. The above seem, not just reasonable, but blindingly obvious, to me.

As always, other folks' MMV.

Zimmerman seems to step on his at regular intervals.

The man is huge. He's up for head of the ATF under Trump and six others.

Russell violates all of the norms of the interblugs with his confounded reasonable statements.

Is it too late for a trigger warning?

My issue with these people is that they've got this hobbey but it is embedded in a culture that makes them stupid. There is nothing wrong with having a dangerous hobby: I've got dangerous hobbies. So do pilots. Or mountain climbers. Or fire spinners. But those groups have built communities that focus on managing risk intelligently.
...
The gun culture in the US at large doesn't do that.

I think it's important to noticer that it wasn't always thus. Up through the 1950s, the NRA did exactly that: focus on managing the risks of gun ownership intelligently. Dealing intelligently with risk was at the center of US gun culture.

And then something changed. If we are ever going to change the pathologies of our current gun culture, we probably need to understand how it changed to get there.

russell: ... isn't there another clerk in whatever county it is in Kentucky? This one person is the only person in the whole county who can issue a marriage license?

I suspect that the problem is that, however many clerical staff the county may have, one of them is "the" county clerk. And just as, for example, incorporation papers are signed by the state's Secretary of State, even though he my never have laid eyes on them, likewise marriage licenses in that county are the County Clerk's name (and probably facsimile signature) on them.

Which is why, if one individual refuses to let something happen in that office, it isn't possible (short of a formal court order) for anyone else to do it.

The good news is, the case getting all the press is one of only two in Kentucky (plus a handful in Alabama, and possible one or two elsewhere) where county clerks are refusing to follow the law. Considering all the hystrical declarations beofre the Supreme Court ruling, it's actually amazing how few places are still doing the George-Wallace-in-the-school-house-door thing.

I find it odd that one's genitals can be referred to as "Junk", but gun Junk has it's own Constitutional Amendment.

As for that clerk in Kentucky, she's apparently been married four times. (And not widowed.) I wonder how she'd feel if a Catholic county clerk had refused to grant her a marriage license because the Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce. (Or didn't last I knew.)

Of course, logic never had anything to do with it....

Or never mind the Catholic Church, for that matter. What if a county clerk had insisted that God wasn't in favor of divorce, and therefore she wasn't going to issue licenses to people who had living ex-spouses? This woman isn't even appealing to an institution, it's just her and her buddy God.

If I were God, the first people I'd send down below would be the people who presumed to speak in my name.

If you were God, Janie, I'd become a believer, unbelievable as it sounds.

I'd convert to Janeism. I stop into a church, I passed along the way, well, I'd get down on my knees, and I'd begin to pray.

The Politburo issues yet more pledges:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rnc-loyalty-pledge

Count, is that a typo for Jainism? (Which somehow doesn't seem like the real you. Especially the parts about harmlessness and renunciation....;-)

Four inches is about all he's got, not that it matters among decent human beings:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/09/donald-trump-has-lost-between-1-and-6-billion-over-his-business-career

Did I mention he cheats at golf?

Plus, after firing the dumsh8t MBA airheads who appeared on the "The Apprentice", he would have his people break into their hotel rooms and rifle through their stuff and steal their cuff links, handcuffs, cheat sheets, and condoms.

When the "contestants" dragged their pathetic luggage on little wheels down the elevators and out to the sidewalk to the waiting limo, which THEY had to pay for, (plus it took them to the bus station) after their peremptory dismissals for not putting enough green pepper on their entrepreneurial pizzas and charging too little to boot, he'd stand on the 20th floor balcony over them, swig and gargle a slug of Champagne and spit it on their heads as they boarded the limo.

Typical pig vermin Republican, except for the seven who are not.

I'm a Janie, not a Jain.

Buddha, not Bubba.

No thick and ordinary for me.

I wonder how she'd feel if a Catholic county clerk had refused to grant her a marriage license because the Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce.

JanieM!! Hey Janie!!

If we're going to allow religious exemptions, they need to be available for everyone, and every point of view, without preference.

When we do that and behold the freaking mess we've made, we may wish to reconsider the whole religious exemption thing.

Or, not. Either way is OK with me. But selective exemptions are an establishment of religion, full stop.

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