Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. ~~Mark Twain
Issues related to crimes and criminals.
This is something of a stream of thought on my impressions after the Orlando Shooting this weekend. It may not make much sense, and likely isn’t my last word on the subject. But to be clear, this is not some part of international Jihad or terrorism. This is homophobia at it worst, nothing more nor less, and we need to call it that.
Read moreFor giving away not one, but two, AR-51s as a fundraiser, we award West Tennessee lawmaker Andy Holt our Douche-Bag of the Day Award for exemplary douche-baggery.
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There’s much I can say about the massacre in Orlando, and will write more about that after some reflection, but this one topic was too clear and obvious to require any reflection. It is time to end the NRA claim about how a “good-guy-with-a-gun” will rush in and save the day, if only there’s one around. This NRA meme needs to come off the table. It doesn’t work. If more guns and less gun control make us safer, this America should be the safest place on earth, and we all know it ain’t.
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Suddenly, everyone’s a warrior in the war against terror. That is of course only the terrorists attacks that 1. Don’t involve white male American terrorists, and/or 2. Aren’t likely to actually happen in the first place. Take inspiration for the protection of the homeland from some Facebook posts from early this morning. Here you’ll see the batshittery we’ve devolved into in this country. It started with this fairly incoherent post, which I mostly just ignored after assuming the person who wrote it was either high, drunk, or both.
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I find common ground with the Ammosexuals as they try to use a snarky graphic, and all it does is make the point in favor of reasonable gun control.
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This was a very interesting documentary filmed in Angola Prison in Louisiana. It was released in 2011, and is the story of reforms which helped take Angola Prison off the top slot and the most violent prison in the U.S. The Warden came to realize that he a large number of inmates serving sentences of life without parole, and older inmates with sentences so long, they would most likely die in prison. Actor Forest Whitaker narrates the story of a group of inmate volunteers who staff their own hospice inside a maximum security prison in Louisiana where the average sentence is more than 90 years.
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Marco Rubio shared a link to a National Review article about the U.N. report on the Catholic Church’s worldwide problem of child abuse. The report, not surprisingly seems to be in favor of said child abuse, and is indignant that the U.N. would have the gall to call out the Catholic Church on its many abuses. Since he’s provided the link on his Facebook page, I have to assume Marco supports that view.
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I couldn’t let the George Zimmerman case go by without commenting. I think the main issues in the case are being overrun by our desire to make the main issue one of race. The case certainly has two points of race running through it, but the primary issues here are Florida’s draconian self-defense laws, and our concealed-carry law. Let’s get the racial issues out of the way first. I certainly believe race played a role in this case. Zimmerman clearly, based on the 911 call, profiled Trayvon Martin because he was a young black man, but that’s not the primary cause of this situation. Florida’s insane Republican Legislators have blood on their hands as well.
Read moreThis story, just based on the headline is a sad enough story. According to a story on UPI from Cumberland County Kentucky (where else), “Caroline Starks, 2, was shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother while he was playing with a .22-caliber rifle he’d been given as a gift.” Young kids can get their hands on lots of things they shouldn’t have, but that’s not the case here. And it’s what makes this story all the more sad.
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Yesterday, I had decided to clean out the closet here in the office. I’d let it get totally unorganized, and I had more unneeded crap in there than one can shake a stick at. Don’t ask me why, but I think I had the box from every cell phone I ever owned. As I finally got worked down to the bottom of the closet, on the floor in a back corner was a Target bag. As my good friend Chef Rick would say, “I said to myself; self, what could be in there?”
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Everyone needs to just take a breath, and let’s bring some sanity to the discussion. We all want to know why. We want to understand how this person came to this place. We want to assign some motivation, some identifiable cause. We want to blame someone or something so it will look like we can control these situations. We want these answers because we want to be safe. Blame doesn’t mend the families or even the nation. The answers given so far are little more than bandages that easily fail after just a few dips in reality. Because there isn’t a good answer, we need to just stop and say a prayer for the families and friends of the victims in Aurora and a scared nation.
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