Friday, September 28, 2007

Democracy In Action

Or at least the hypocrisy of Texas State Legislators in action, breaking their own rules. Their brazenness is disgusting and appalling. The whole video is worth watching, by the way, especially the laughably pathetic excuse given by Riddle, who, notably, is the author/sponsor of a bill to toughen citizen voting standards in Texas.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Sorry

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll get back to posting on a regular basis as soon as possible. There are some pretty serious things going on in my personal life that need to be addressed and that take priority over my little corner of the 'net.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Professional Journalism

Do professional news outlets, in a major market mind you, not hire or utilize editors anymore? What's wrong with the second sentence:
A Clayton County Sheriff's deputy is recovering following a crash about 1 a.m. Friday on Tara Boulevard.

The deputy's cruiser apparently blew a tire, causing it to blow a tire and flip into a ditch.

The deputy was not seriously injured but was taken to Atlanta Medical Center to be checked out as a precaution.
*Sigh* 'Course, maybe it blew two tires. . .

Fridayt, 9:42 PM

Click link, scroll down to the day and time above.

OK, Fri. 2142 is funny, but there's just oodles (that's right, oodles) of awesomeness on that page:
Monday, 12:24 p.m. Caller reports cars speeding down the street, Lewis St. at Manomet Ave., and he’s threatening to put his truck in the middle of the road. O/Dunn detailed. Male put a little green man in the road and was advised that he cannot…

Monday,
3:04 p.m. Caller reports males are shooting a video for YouTube in their underwear, Hull Shore Drive. S/Reilly reports males have left the beach…

Tuesday,
11:42 p.m. Nantasket Ave. caller requests to speak with an officer regarding a past assault; caller is drunk. O/Mahoney responding. Same requests O/Saunders to respond. Female is unclothed and will not put her clothes on. O/Mahoney will be waiting outside for assistance. O/Saunders reports the female will be going to bed for the night. Same was looking for someone to talk to…
Man, I love police blotters; they're like the regular news, but on drugs.

FAIL!

I usually don't get involved in Internet memes and cliches, but this is the best fail picture ever. I swear I know what Mama Duck is thinking in the last frame:
"What in the HELL just happened!?!"

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Random Gun Pr0n

Sorry I haven't posted much anything this week; work/life has been hectic, to say the least, and I've been too tired to care much about the Internet lately (blasphemy, I know). In the meantime, if you like guns, photography, and/or gun photography, you might find this thread over at The High Road pretty interesting. Lots of great gun pics and loads of great advice on taking pictures of those guns, not to mention good advice on taking good somewhat-close-range static pictures in general. Cool stuff.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Bend Over and Relax, Citizen

For someone who ostensibly wishes to become our next President, John Edwards certainly seems more than willing to shoot himself in the foot. Yesterday Edwards revealed another facet of his version of Universal Healthcare: forced medical evaluations of ALL Americans.
"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem."
For a proponent of Universal Socialized Healthcare, forced evaluations make perfect sense; preventative medicine is after all the best way to, well, prevent and detect illnesses before they become untreatable, expensive, etc. I don't have a problem with preventative treatment in and of itself; I go to the doctor yearly for a general physical exam. Since I'm self-employed, I also pay for my own health insurance. Of course, I choose to go to the doctor, and that freedom of choice is something that Edwards seeks to take away from me and from all Americans.

Unfortunately, not a single journalist that I could find, including the AP writer who wrote the linked article, thought to ask Edwards what would happen were an American to refuse to seek treatment. For example, would a Christian Scientist, after refusing medical treatment, be fined, jailed, committed, or what? After all, Edwards includes metal health screening and treatment in his authoritarian health plan:
Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.

"The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death," he said.
Would refusal to imbibe the bitter medicine of the overarching Nanny State be regarded as a mental illness? After all, the State knows what's best for you. Every citizen in this country would be required to submit to government-run psychological screening. Would there be pass/fail standards? What would those standards be? What happens when a citizen fails? Would they be removed from their job, their family, or from society in general?

Universal healthcare is a slippery slope of socialism that leads to authoritarianism. Edwards believes that it would be both more cost-effective and simply better for the overall health of the populace to force all citizens to undergo preventative medical and mental health treatment. Using this logic, wouldn't forcing exercise and a government-approved diet also be cost effective and better for general health? After all, diet and exercise have been conclusivly shown to increase life expectancy and quality of life. Of course, citizens would have better health if they had better genes to begin with, so the government might as well begin to weed out all the impurities in the genetic mix. Not through executions or imprisonment, mind you, but because the government will have the health information of everyone on file, it should be relatively simple to allow only those couples with superior genetics to breed. Why not give everyone Soma while we're at it; we'd hate for all those Alphas and Betas to begin wondering why their government doesn't want them thinking for themselves. All in the name of national well-being, of course.

Were Edwards and his ilk to get their way, the Federal Government will know the intimate physical, metal, and emotional details of every citizen in this country, whether the citizenry wants those details known or not. Were Edwards and his ilk to get their way, a gigantic step in eroding the personal freedoms of all Americans will have been taken. Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and all their cronies would be proud. In Edwards' view,
"[E]verybody is worth health care."
Whether or not they actually want that health care, well, Edwards just doesn't seem to think that choice should be up to us. As Big Brothers to us all, he and the other authoritarian, liberal universal healthcare advocates know exactly how we should live our lives.

Heavy Metal Pork

I'm not a moonbat animal rights activist by any means, but this is pretty messed up. I love pork, in virtually all of its myriad forms (except maybe pig's feet), but force feeding a pig sand and metal in order to create a pig heavy enough to make it "worthy" of religious sacrifice crosses the line.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Site Stuff

Posting will most likely be nonexistent today; I have a large family get-together all day and won't be near a computer. Hopefully I'll be able to get behind the keyboard later this evening, but I'm not making any promises.

Also, I made a break with Blogger's commenting system, so if you're looking for a post with comments, you won't find any. Sorry, but using Haloscan to handle everything is both easier and more efficient.

Hope ya'll are having a good holiday weekend.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Football = Stressful

Army 14 - Akron 22
*Sigh* Just go .500 this year boys, that's all I ask.
Kansas State 13 - (18) Auburn 23
The phrase "skin of our teeth" comes to mind. I'm glad we won, but the score doesn't show the fact that the Wildcats were winning the game until about 2 minutes left in the 4th. Kansas State played pretty strong until then, when Auburn's defense finally wore them down. That, combined with some poor coaching decisions on the part of the Kansas State coaches in the latter part of the 4th was the only thing that allowed the Tigers to win. Our offense was extremely shaky; a bunch of young players on the O-line combined with a QB with somewhat limited mobility due to last year's injuries is decidedly not a good combination. If Auburn doesn't get it together, by, say, tomorrow, it's going to be a long season.
Oklahoma State 14 - (13) Georgia 35
The score belies the fact that the Dawgs got off to a pretty slow start. The Cowboys were a good team with which to start the season; strong enough to test and create a learning experience for the Bulldogs, but not so strong as to, you know, win.
Notable:

Georgia Tech 33 - Notre Dame 3
NICE! Love seeing Tech beat up on Notre Dame at Notre Dame. I'm not a GT fan by any means, but hey, they're a home team and I'll root for them.
Appalachian State 34 - (5) Michigan 32
What. the. hell. Easily the biggest upset in college football history. There's no way a I-AA school should be capable of beating #5-ranked Michigan at MICHIGAN! I know Appalachian State's the defending National Champions (two years in a row) of their division, but still. . . that's just stellar play on their part. What's crazy is that, from what I saw of the highlights, Michigan didn't even look that bad; I mean, they weren't running the wrong way or anything. They made some mistakes, but the Mountaineers simply played a better game of football today. Amazing. I was able to see the last 5 or so minutes of the game, and it was great. Who says there aren't any good games on opening day?

Gun vs. Fist

What do you do if some idiot sticks a gun in your face and demands money? Well, if you're this guy, you get out of your car and beat the crap out of him:
Devon Barker says he was about to get out of the car when the robber stuck a gun into the driver's side window and demanded money.

Barker says he got out of the car, went around the backside, and tackled the robber. Barker says he punched the robber, but the man managed to get away.

Boulder Police arrested 20-year-old Kaleb Nelson a short time later at an apartment a block away from the Spanish Towers.
There's just something that makes my John Wayne Man Gene click on when I read about some bozo with a gun getting smacked down by his intended, and unarmed, victim. That Nelson is going to jail, where I'm sure his tale of criminal derring-do will be met with, shall we say, derision by his collegues, is just icing on the cake.