So the father of the Oregon shooter gave an interview where he blamed... shocker... lax gun laws for his son's murderous rampage. Anti-Gun groups like Mom's Demand Action have seized on the interview and are playing the old "absolute moral authority" card... a play not run much since the heady days of Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink.
Anyway let's listen to what this guy has to say for a sec...
OK that's enough. Gee I wonder why he might want us to focus on gun laws. I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe it's because if we focus on the law, we'll be less inclined to ask uncomfortable questions like... hey pal, how did you manage to raise a mass murderer? or... were there any red flags, any signs of mental illness that you missed? And to what extent do you share culpability for all those shattered lives... could you have stopped this?
Instead he asks... "How was my son able to get 13 guns?"
Well hell dude, I dunno... he's your kid, you tell me.
UPDATE: I see Bobby Jindal is making the same point... I always knew Jindal was a smart guy... that's why he follows my lead.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
Does my iTunes playlist say "Presidential Material" to you?
Over the weekend I was reading an article about how much money the Presidential Candidates are spending on Campaign Consultants to design playlists for them and it occurred to me that someone putting together a list of reasons why Donald Trump is leading in the polls could do worse than to start there...
So after I washed the taste of vomit out of my mouth, I started to think about how a conversation like this, between a Candidate and a Consultant, might actually go...
Consultant: OK, so any thoughts on songs you'd like to include?
Candidate: How about Open Letter (To a Landlord) by LIVING COLOUR? I love that song, plus it would show people that I care about minority housing issues.
Consultant: Absolutely not... that song portrays a highly problematic image of inner city life as being dominated by crime, drugs, and violence... Also, we need the Urban Hipster vote and we don't want to suggest that gentrification, per se, is a bad thing.
Candidate: ... OK, how about Here Comes the Sun by THE BEATLES? I mean everyone likes the sun.
Consultant: Oh no... no no no no no... Have you listened to Run For Your Life? HIGHLY problematic... we don't want to trigger victims of abusive relationships... no BEATLES...
Candidate: I don't want Run For Your Life, I want a DIFFERENT song by the BEATLES...
Consultant: Doesn't matter. Liking one song by the BEATLES could be taken as an endorsement of their whole catalog.
Candidate: ...
Consultant: Any other ideas?
Candidate: ... how about the theme song from PEANUTS?
Consultant: ...we'll get back to you... (shouts down the hall) BOB! SET UP A FOCUS GROUP!!!
So after I washed the taste of vomit out of my mouth, I started to think about how a conversation like this, between a Candidate and a Consultant, might actually go...
Consultant: OK, so any thoughts on songs you'd like to include?
Candidate: How about Open Letter (To a Landlord) by LIVING COLOUR? I love that song, plus it would show people that I care about minority housing issues.
Consultant: Absolutely not... that song portrays a highly problematic image of inner city life as being dominated by crime, drugs, and violence... Also, we need the Urban Hipster vote and we don't want to suggest that gentrification, per se, is a bad thing.
Candidate: ... OK, how about Here Comes the Sun by THE BEATLES? I mean everyone likes the sun.
Consultant: Oh no... no no no no no... Have you listened to Run For Your Life? HIGHLY problematic... we don't want to trigger victims of abusive relationships... no BEATLES...
Candidate: I don't want Run For Your Life, I want a DIFFERENT song by the BEATLES...
Consultant: Doesn't matter. Liking one song by the BEATLES could be taken as an endorsement of their whole catalog.
Candidate: ...
Consultant: Any other ideas?
Candidate: ... how about the theme song from PEANUTS?
Consultant: ...we'll get back to you... (shouts down the hall) BOB! SET UP A FOCUS GROUP!!!
Friday, December 21, 2012
Goodfellas and the Fiscal Cliff
"Now the country's got Obama as a partner. Any problems, we go to Obama. Trouble with a bill, we can go to Obama. Trouble with immigration, healthcare, retirement savings, we can call Obama. But now we've got to come up with Obama's money every week. No matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Obama can do anything. Especially run up bills on the Country's credit. And why not? Nobody's gonna pay for it anyway. And as soon as the deliveries are made in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a two hundred billion dollar program and you call it 'shovel-ready.' It doesn't matter. It's all profit. And then finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from China or finance another Green Energy Boondoggle, you bust the joint out. You light a match."
- with apologies to Martin Scorsese (unless he voted for this crapola, in which case, he can bite me)
- with apologies to Martin Scorsese (unless he voted for this crapola, in which case, he can bite me)
Friday, October 26, 2012
The parody of Lena Dunham's "First Time" ad really writes itself.
I'll never forget my first time... it was awful. I was sure I'd found the right guy. He told me about all the things he was going to do for me and OH MY GOD it was SO exciting. I pulled back those curtains and... I did it... I pulled the lever for him. He started right in with his stimulus and at first it was sooo good. But then came Obamacare, and then he got Fast and Furious and all of a sudden it was over. I was all like, "that's it!?" He said he was so sorry. He swore this had never happened to him before, that he just didn't realize how bad things were when he got started. He begged me for another chance, but the feeling was... it was just gone. I just wasn't that into him anymore.
Next time I'll be sure to pick a guy who can satisfy my needs and deliver on his promises.
Next time I'm voting for Mitt Romney.
Next time I'll be sure to pick a guy who can satisfy my needs and deliver on his promises.
Next time I'm voting for Mitt Romney.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
ARGO and rehabbing Carter
I saw Ben Affleck's new film ARGO last week. It's a great film about a small story at the center of a bigger one, the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1980. I really can't emphasize enough how amazing this movie is, and every American should see it.
That said, there is a really odd coda at the end that I've spent the last week trying to wrap my brain around. At the end of the film, over photographs of the actual people involved in the true story, we hear a Jimmy Carter soundbyte which, for all I know, may well have been recorded recently, specifically for this film.
I'm going to paraphrase it because I can't remember it word-for-word. But he basically says "this was a great and heroic mission. I would have loved to have talked about it when I was President because it would have been nice to take the credit, but it was more important to keep it secret, and so that's what we did."
This is, in my opinion, a pretty amazing thing for the former President to say, and even more amazing that Ben Affleck, noted Democratic operative, would put it in his film. There are three things about this quote that struck me as I sat there in the darkened theater.
1) I was surprised that, all these years later, Ben Affleck would care about re-habbing the reputation of a light-weight President, especially one who is being compared favorably to the "Lightworker" currently inhabiting the White House. But Ben pushed his chips all in with the Democrats years ago, and I suppose I admire him for his loyalty... I guess.
2) I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever heard Jimmy Carter allude to the fact, even obliquely, that his Presidency was such a disaster that it would have been nice to have just one thing to crow about.
and 3) I was struck by how differently Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama think about sensitive classified information. I'll give Carter a ton of credit here...
(I'll pause a second so you can revive yourself... all good? OK).
The temptation for Carter to crow about this mission must have been overwhelming... and yet he did the decent and honorable thing. Knowing that exposing this mission and the people involved could have cost them or their families their lives, he sat on it. He kept the secret.
Obama on the other hand, began crowing about the Bin Laden raid before the body was even cold. One day later, Vice President Biden stood in front of the press and identified the SEALS as those responsible for the operation. And one month later, some of those same SEALS were dead... having been lured into an ambush by Al Qaeda as retribution for the death of their leader.
As Glenn Reynolds is so fond of saying... at this point, Jimmy Carter feels like a best-case scenario.
That said, there is a really odd coda at the end that I've spent the last week trying to wrap my brain around. At the end of the film, over photographs of the actual people involved in the true story, we hear a Jimmy Carter soundbyte which, for all I know, may well have been recorded recently, specifically for this film.
I'm going to paraphrase it because I can't remember it word-for-word. But he basically says "this was a great and heroic mission. I would have loved to have talked about it when I was President because it would have been nice to take the credit, but it was more important to keep it secret, and so that's what we did."
This is, in my opinion, a pretty amazing thing for the former President to say, and even more amazing that Ben Affleck, noted Democratic operative, would put it in his film. There are three things about this quote that struck me as I sat there in the darkened theater.
1) I was surprised that, all these years later, Ben Affleck would care about re-habbing the reputation of a light-weight President, especially one who is being compared favorably to the "Lightworker" currently inhabiting the White House. But Ben pushed his chips all in with the Democrats years ago, and I suppose I admire him for his loyalty... I guess.
2) I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever heard Jimmy Carter allude to the fact, even obliquely, that his Presidency was such a disaster that it would have been nice to have just one thing to crow about.
and 3) I was struck by how differently Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama think about sensitive classified information. I'll give Carter a ton of credit here...
(I'll pause a second so you can revive yourself... all good? OK).
The temptation for Carter to crow about this mission must have been overwhelming... and yet he did the decent and honorable thing. Knowing that exposing this mission and the people involved could have cost them or their families their lives, he sat on it. He kept the secret.
Obama on the other hand, began crowing about the Bin Laden raid before the body was even cold. One day later, Vice President Biden stood in front of the press and identified the SEALS as those responsible for the operation. And one month later, some of those same SEALS were dead... having been lured into an ambush by Al Qaeda as retribution for the death of their leader.
As Glenn Reynolds is so fond of saying... at this point, Jimmy Carter feels like a best-case scenario.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Why Americans overhwelmingly support Gun Rights
Every time some crazy walks into a public place and opens fire I see the same thing in the MSM op-ed pages. Why oh why won't Americans support stricter gun control? And every time I see those same whiny op-ed writers come to the same dumb conclusion.
It must be because the NRA is oh so powerful.
Wrong.
Support for gun rights has been growing among Americans for a generation and there is an explanation that is just simple enough to be obvious but not so simple that it lends itself to an easy explanation in the New York Times op-ed pages.
The problem with gun control is that, at its very core, gun rights are irrevocably linked to the most basic of all human rights... the right to be safe and secure in one's home. When Government says to us that they want to restrict our right to own or carry a gun, they are saying that average citizens cannot be trusted with a gun and that even if they could, Government can do a better job of protecting your life and property than you can.
So why aren't Americans buying this argument?
Because we don't trust Government. You see it over-and-over in the polls. It's hard to find an insitution more reviled than Congress, and Presidential approval has been hovering at or below 50% for the last 12 years and counting. When Government says "don't worry, we got this" Americans collectively call bullshit.
We look around and see that Government has failed, almost across the board, to successfully execute even the most basic functions for which it is responsible. Government can't even operate on a budget... and I mean the REALLY can't operate on a budget... as in the Democratic controlled Senate has flat out refused to even propose one for going on four years. Government can't even deliver the mail--which is something our government has been doing successfully for almost 300 years--without the post office going bankrupt.
Protecting the lives and property of American citizens is an incredibly complex and difficult undertaking, so if Americans look around and see Government failure everywhere we turn, in even the simplest and most basic functions with which we have tasked our political leaders, what on Earth makes them think we would ever trust them with our self-defense?!
No thanks. I choose to arm myself... well.
Remember kids, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
UPDATE: This is such a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. Is there a more damning sentence than "DAY 4: When Federal Authorities took over."
It must be because the NRA is oh so powerful.
Wrong.
Support for gun rights has been growing among Americans for a generation and there is an explanation that is just simple enough to be obvious but not so simple that it lends itself to an easy explanation in the New York Times op-ed pages.
The problem with gun control is that, at its very core, gun rights are irrevocably linked to the most basic of all human rights... the right to be safe and secure in one's home. When Government says to us that they want to restrict our right to own or carry a gun, they are saying that average citizens cannot be trusted with a gun and that even if they could, Government can do a better job of protecting your life and property than you can.
So why aren't Americans buying this argument?
Because we don't trust Government. You see it over-and-over in the polls. It's hard to find an insitution more reviled than Congress, and Presidential approval has been hovering at or below 50% for the last 12 years and counting. When Government says "don't worry, we got this" Americans collectively call bullshit.
We look around and see that Government has failed, almost across the board, to successfully execute even the most basic functions for which it is responsible. Government can't even operate on a budget... and I mean the REALLY can't operate on a budget... as in the Democratic controlled Senate has flat out refused to even propose one for going on four years. Government can't even deliver the mail--which is something our government has been doing successfully for almost 300 years--without the post office going bankrupt.
Protecting the lives and property of American citizens is an incredibly complex and difficult undertaking, so if Americans look around and see Government failure everywhere we turn, in even the simplest and most basic functions with which we have tasked our political leaders, what on Earth makes them think we would ever trust them with our self-defense?!
No thanks. I choose to arm myself... well.
Remember kids, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
UPDATE: This is such a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. Is there a more damning sentence than "DAY 4: When Federal Authorities took over."
Saturday, September 8, 2012
In which your first President goes full Debbie Downer
On the question of whether or not Obama will win re-election, I'm going to quote The Sundance Kid... "That's one possibility." And since I'm in a dark mood this morning, I'm going to tell you what I think that would mean.
You're not gonna like it.
The first thing that will happen is Obama will take the GOP to war over the Bush Tax Cuts. It may seem like the GOP is in a power position here, but they aren't. With no election to face, Obama won't hesitate to take us over the brink and let all the cuts expire. You could argue that even if he DID have another election to run he wouldn't care, since he will have survived 43+ months of 8% unemployment, miserable job growth, horrible GDP, a $16 trillion deficit, and a historic low in labor force participation... what could possibly scare him at this point? He's going to feel invincible... and the truth is, he very well might be.
The GOP will have two choices. Refuse to budge on Obama's desire to let the cuts expire only for the rich, or force Obama's hand and allow them to expire on everyone. If they let the cuts expire only for the rich, Obama gets to claim victory, and when (not if, when) those increased tax rates hammer the economy further, the GOP's votes to help make it happen will give Obama political cover.
On the other hand, if the GOP does the right thing and fights to keep all the rates the same, Obama will move quickly to the doomsday option and allow them all to expire. When the increased tax burden hits middle class families in January, Obama will take to the Rose Garden podium and argue that he wanted to save middle class families from increased rates but the nasty GOP, the party of the Rich, simply wouldn't go along with it unless their rich friends got a cut too. And the complicit media will back him up... the headlines will be "GOP sacrifices Middle Class to protect the Rich."
Having won this battle, an emboldened Obama will re-embark on his quest to increase the size, scope, and power of the Federal Government. And since every new program will be pitched as a "free" giveaway, the GOP will oppose those programs at their great peril. Again, if they go along, they provide Obama cover when the system implodes. If they fight, they lose the midterms and give Obama what he wants... control of all 3 branches of Government.
But that's just the next four years. What happens after that? Well that all depends on wether or not we've crossed a Rubicon where turning the ship around is no longer possible because too many Americans are dependent on the things Government now "gives" them.
Let's assume we have. What would that mean?
Well as entitlement spending and the cost of servicing our debt approaches/exceeds 100% of GDP there will be less and less money available for the basic functions of Government, like infrastructure spending. Even though we already have an aging electrical grid that is highly susceptible to major outages, whatever money is left for Infrastructure won't be spent there... it will be spent on things like roads and bridges, because as Centrally Planned Nation States fail, they tend to spend the bulk of their available funds on making things LOOK like they're not failing (it's called "hiding the decline")... and unlike roads no one can actually see the electrical grid.
So in ten years time, our grid might start to look like a 2nd World power grid, with major outages two or three times a year (think India). In twenty years we might be sitting on a 3rd World grid with minor outages almost every day (think Cuba or Viet Nam). And those outages will get more frequent and more severe precisely when people can least afford to be without power... during periods of severe weather... like heat waves and blizzards.
What happens if the entire Northeast is hit by a blizzard, the overtaxed grid fails, and the power goes out for a week or more? There simply wouldn't be any way that an over-stressed Government could do anything to help millions of stranded people. No way at all.
Could you survive a week in a freezing house without the ability to get to the store for supplies? Water purification pumps will cease to operate if the outage is massive enough and you may have to boil your water. But what if your stovetop is electrical? Do you have some other way to purify your water? Power outages would mean no refrigerator units at supermarkets (not that you could get to them anyway) or at your home. Do you have a week's worth of non-perishable food to eat after the stuff in your fridge rots?
Am I being overly dramatic? It happened in India a couple of weeks ago and it's going to happen in Greece soon (hell the Los Angeles city grid fails at least twice a summer). The difference is those countries are blessed with more temperate climates. And in the case of India, you've got a population used to making do with less. How does a pampered American society unaccustomed to harship or scarcity of any kind make do in this kind of scenario?
I fear the results would not be pretty.
UPDATE: A colleague alerted me to this great BBC mockumentary. It's a what-if that looks at vulnerabilities in the British transportation system, but it comes to a lot of the same conclusions I've come to in the piece above. Let's just say it didn't make me feel any better.
You're not gonna like it.
The first thing that will happen is Obama will take the GOP to war over the Bush Tax Cuts. It may seem like the GOP is in a power position here, but they aren't. With no election to face, Obama won't hesitate to take us over the brink and let all the cuts expire. You could argue that even if he DID have another election to run he wouldn't care, since he will have survived 43+ months of 8% unemployment, miserable job growth, horrible GDP, a $16 trillion deficit, and a historic low in labor force participation... what could possibly scare him at this point? He's going to feel invincible... and the truth is, he very well might be.
The GOP will have two choices. Refuse to budge on Obama's desire to let the cuts expire only for the rich, or force Obama's hand and allow them to expire on everyone. If they let the cuts expire only for the rich, Obama gets to claim victory, and when (not if, when) those increased tax rates hammer the economy further, the GOP's votes to help make it happen will give Obama political cover.
On the other hand, if the GOP does the right thing and fights to keep all the rates the same, Obama will move quickly to the doomsday option and allow them all to expire. When the increased tax burden hits middle class families in January, Obama will take to the Rose Garden podium and argue that he wanted to save middle class families from increased rates but the nasty GOP, the party of the Rich, simply wouldn't go along with it unless their rich friends got a cut too. And the complicit media will back him up... the headlines will be "GOP sacrifices Middle Class to protect the Rich."
Having won this battle, an emboldened Obama will re-embark on his quest to increase the size, scope, and power of the Federal Government. And since every new program will be pitched as a "free" giveaway, the GOP will oppose those programs at their great peril. Again, if they go along, they provide Obama cover when the system implodes. If they fight, they lose the midterms and give Obama what he wants... control of all 3 branches of Government.
But that's just the next four years. What happens after that? Well that all depends on wether or not we've crossed a Rubicon where turning the ship around is no longer possible because too many Americans are dependent on the things Government now "gives" them.
Let's assume we have. What would that mean?
Well as entitlement spending and the cost of servicing our debt approaches/exceeds 100% of GDP there will be less and less money available for the basic functions of Government, like infrastructure spending. Even though we already have an aging electrical grid that is highly susceptible to major outages, whatever money is left for Infrastructure won't be spent there... it will be spent on things like roads and bridges, because as Centrally Planned Nation States fail, they tend to spend the bulk of their available funds on making things LOOK like they're not failing (it's called "hiding the decline")... and unlike roads no one can actually see the electrical grid.
So in ten years time, our grid might start to look like a 2nd World power grid, with major outages two or three times a year (think India). In twenty years we might be sitting on a 3rd World grid with minor outages almost every day (think Cuba or Viet Nam). And those outages will get more frequent and more severe precisely when people can least afford to be without power... during periods of severe weather... like heat waves and blizzards.
What happens if the entire Northeast is hit by a blizzard, the overtaxed grid fails, and the power goes out for a week or more? There simply wouldn't be any way that an over-stressed Government could do anything to help millions of stranded people. No way at all.
Could you survive a week in a freezing house without the ability to get to the store for supplies? Water purification pumps will cease to operate if the outage is massive enough and you may have to boil your water. But what if your stovetop is electrical? Do you have some other way to purify your water? Power outages would mean no refrigerator units at supermarkets (not that you could get to them anyway) or at your home. Do you have a week's worth of non-perishable food to eat after the stuff in your fridge rots?
Am I being overly dramatic? It happened in India a couple of weeks ago and it's going to happen in Greece soon (hell the Los Angeles city grid fails at least twice a summer). The difference is those countries are blessed with more temperate climates. And in the case of India, you've got a population used to making do with less. How does a pampered American society unaccustomed to harship or scarcity of any kind make do in this kind of scenario?
I fear the results would not be pretty.
UPDATE: A colleague alerted me to this great BBC mockumentary. It's a what-if that looks at vulnerabilities in the British transportation system, but it comes to a lot of the same conclusions I've come to in the piece above. Let's just say it didn't make me feel any better.
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