Pretty amazing way for a 16-year-old to live. (H/T JB) OTOH, some people may just have too much time on their hands. And hatchets and beer in them. (H/T ML) Speaking of too much time and hands … did you know there’s a (not joking) world of rock-paper-scissors competition? (Tip o’ hat to jed) Looking for some good hard science fiction? (H/T MJR) Get businesses freaked out enough about “discriminating against the disabled” and they’ll fall for anything. 12 lessons to learn and hang onto forever. (Especially for business, but plenty have applications in the rest of the world, too.)…
Category: Cultural insanity
This Looney Toon of a presidential election takes me back, gods forbid, to elections past.
It takes me to Nixon-Humphrey, the previous absolute-worst political pairing in my lifetime. Before that, I was political, but only because my mom was political and I took after her. All Democrats were good, all Republicans were Eeeeevil, and John Kennedy was the best Democrat of all because he was handsome and a Democrat and he came to our town campaigning and I almost got to touch him. Life was simple.
I was still too young to v*te when the major parties threw up Nixon and Humphrey. But it was the first time I knew something was rotten on both sides. And Mom’s adoration for the tubby hack from Minnesota merely made me wonder what she’d been smoking (or rather, not smoking, since the smoking people of 1968 were as horrified by Hubie the Mediocre as they were by Milhaus the Whining Retread).
I think I may have even declared my intention to leave the country — years ahead of Alec Baldwin and his ilk, but just as insincerely. The fact that I was too young to get a passport excuses me, right? And shortly after that, there were Libertarians and retreaters (the name back then for prepper-survivalists) and cool non-political newsletters from the heady combo of Rothbard and Hess, and many other things besides politics-as-usual to put hopes in.
But this utterly hope-less election of 2016 — with its likely pairing of two megalomaniacs who use government for incessant personal gain and whose “principles” are light enough to blow wherever the next breeze takes them — also takes me back to the one-and-only national election where I felt an actual stirring of hope.
Happened to be at the library and happened to have collected a bunch of interestingly open tabs. So here you go … Five tips for making your social justice pecksniff hoax a success. 🙂 Barefoot Bandit boy, I’ve always felt kind of fond of you. As criminals go, you’ve got style and brains. You reimbursed your victims and you gave $100 to my favorite vet to help animals. But this is just dumbass stupid. Your mother smoked and drank herself to death on government money. Who, other than you, would want to bring her back to life? (H/T CB) What…
You recall DiFi’s insane and impossible encryption bill? Well, the second draft is out and it’s gotten even worse. These loons actually believe if you simply order someone to do the impossible, it must be done. Being so right and so wrong at the same time. Yes, it’s getting scary out there. Yes, it’s amazing how fast it’s happening. But no, it’s not caused by the mysterious collapse of Francis Fukuyama-style “liberalism” nor is it because the ordinary processes of civilization are too commonplace and boring. Legalization is back on the ballot in Maine. Two interesting takes on the transgender…
Reading true-crime stories (yes, one of my secret vices), I’m repeatedly struck by the way victims are often complicit in the horrors committed against them.
I’m not talking about the woman who takes a strange man home from a bar or the family that fails to lock its doors when a burglar is on the loose (though them, too). I’m talking about victims who feel personal loyalty to “friends,” relations, leaders, and professionals who are doing them obvious harm.
I’m talking about patients who stand by a quack doctor even though she’s obviously killing them to get their money and possessions. (She killed many more).
Or the followers of a preacher who’s degrading and controlling them for his own sick benefit. Jeffs. Jones. Creffield. The horror stories go back at least to the middle ages and more likely to the dawn of human time.
I’m talking about people who repeatedly believe obvious, manipulative sociopathic liars. (The link is to a Joseph Wambaugh book that details one of the creepiest examples of manipulation and self-deception I’ve ever read about. But obviously it’s just one example of thousands.)
Yes, even when ‘Netless, I manage to pick up some newses. Enjoy. Another absurdly too-good-to-be-true “gun control” study OMG, these people are reaching so far it’s almost funny. Legalization does what the drug war never managed: cartel busting. How very unsurprising. No, we do not need an “encryption commission. No way. Nohow. Just plain NO. How the obnoxious PC police helped create Donald Trump. I know you gunfolk already heard, but West Virginia — over its governor’s cop-surrounded veto — this week became the latest state go constitutional carry Unfortunately, some people who ought naturally to have and carry firearms…
In his own inimitable style. (Which is more refined, but no less hardcore than Nicki’s. They both have excellent BS detectors.) David’s Ammoland column is picked up on the Google newsfeed and has been at the top of the feed since it was published. That’s a pretty big deal. Activity, including comments, will help keep it there. So if you’ve got something to say about this fooraw, feel free to say it at Ammoland.
In case Donald Trump wins, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, will roll out the red carpet to Americans. No word on where we’ll go if anybody else wins, but to hell in a handbasket seems a likely option. (H/T MJR) “Nino at the Bridge.” Quote: You know your country has big trouble when the death of one man tosses your political reckonings, your expectations, your fundamental understandings into the briar patch … (Yes, the author’s a bit more enamored of the Constitution that you probably are, but Scalia was a good man.) Borepatch: Don’t buy a Samsung smart TV. I think…
You and I both know there are a lot of reasons not to vote for Bernie Sanders. But it never occurred to me that fear of burning in hell was one of them. More madness in gender feminism? Or just desperation in Hillaryland? And speaking of madness, if you have to fight and maneuver to keep people from seeing babies in ultrasound images, you’re really not too secure in your pro-choice beliefs, are you? Gutsy wife crashes her own funeral, shocking the heck out of the “grieving” husband who’d paid to have her murdered. A new look at the State…
Big court victory for the Second Amendment this week. Like all court victories, flawed. But still big. Why antigunners own stocks in gun and ammo companies. I wasn’t sure they’d ever do it: The Free State Project now has the 20,000 pledgers it said it needed for critical political mass. I wonder whether they’ve checked to see if all those pledges are current and good. I know I withdrew mine around the time they started the move prematurely. The FSP is an intriguing effort that’s made waves. More power to it and all its people. How well they can stand…