Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

truth and falsity

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This post originally appeared here but will go away as of June 1, 2015. I am therefore, with permission, making a copy here on my blog.

by Linoge, formerly of ‘walls of the city’ – Sunday, October 18, 2009

Given that Kevin will be forced to upgrade/change his commenting system in the near future, I figured this needed to be preserved for posterity’s sake: MikeB,

I may be getting a glimmer of what it going on here too.

Could you please explain how it is that you determine the difference between truth and falsity?

What is the process you use?

I don’t think you know how to do it. This is a common problem and leads to all sorts of conflicts. Both internal and external. Many of which are exhibiting themselves in your writing.

Joe Huffman | 06.08.09 – 7:37 am | #

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Joe, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, truth or falsity. Unix-Jedi pulled my comments apart, exposed a bunch of contradictions and really ripped me a new one. Good for him. But really my points have been simple enough. Maybe I didn’t express them precisely enough.

I say some DGUs are bogus. That’s the whole point. The one’s we’ve highlighted in our blogs are examples of the millions if you believe Prof. Kleck. I don’t, I believe the ones who say they’re more like 100,000 per year. But, in these examples we can see the mechanism by which a shooter can do something wrong and then cover it up.

The truth or falsity of it would only be known to the shooter. For example, let’s say, hypothetically, because I realize none of us knows for sure, but let’s say the OK pharmacist saw that the kid was down and out, but was still so furious with so much adrenalin pumping that he said the hell with it, and shot the kid five more times.

Now comes the trial. His lawyer encourages him to say the kid was shot in the head but was still moving for his gun and was still a threat. The trial ends in acquittal, the DGU list gets one more entry, and only the pharmacist knows the truth.

Do you think that kind of thing doesn’t happen? Do you think it’s so rare as to be negligible? mikeb302000 | 06.09.09 – 3:09 am | #

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My question is much more general than just relating to guns. It’s about the basics of your understanding of the world around you, “How do you determine if a statement/hypothesis is true or false? What is the process by which you make this determination?”

If you cannot articulate this then, in the most literal sense, you don’t have a clue as to what is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil. This is a common problem with many, many people that I debate guns with. They literally do not know how to figure out if something is true or false. One person said, “It depends on how I feel.” Another said, “Some people figure it out based on logic and facts and others do it based on feelings. Both ways are equally valid–it’s been proven.” So tell us, step by step, how do you determine truth from falsity?

Joe Huffman | 06.09.09 – 7:55 am | #

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I’m a little bit offended by the question, Joe. It sounds incredibly condescending of you to speak as if you and your gun buddies are trained logisticians, philosophically speaking, and I and the antigun folks “cannot articulate this” simple idea.

I try to be objective and open minded. I try to inform myself of the necessary information. I take things with a grain of salt, but not excessively so. I use my best common sense and logic.

I guess there’s more, but that’s the idea.

How’d I do? mikeb302000 | 06.10.09 – 5:45 am | #

——————————————————————————-I’m sorry.

You failed.

No expression of the process. Not even the slightest clue.

You might try reading up on the Scientific Method (and here).

Joe Huffman | 06.10.09 – 6:48 am | #

MikeB302000 had some more things to say concerning the nature of truth and falsehood over at Tam’s weblog, but Joe Huffman has that preserved for the future, so I am not too worried about it.

Remember – these are the people who would strip us of our rights. These are the people who would turn us into criminals (like them) for daring to exercise those rights. These are the people who aid and abet criminals on a daily basis. These are the people who have no respect or regard for the sanctity of human life or the self-defense measures necessary to preserve it. …People who cannot even tell fact from fiction.

Scary, nyet?

Quote of the day–Bill Wilson

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The tepid response by Missouri to this episode is frankly appalling. If no record of who produced and approved this trash exists, then the entire leadership who was working at MIAC at the time of this report being drafted and issued should be fired and barred from future law enforcement service.

Bill Wilson
President Americans for Limited Government
October 15, 2009
ALG Blasts Missouri Information Analysis Center For Retaining No Records of Erroneous MIAC “Modern Militia Movement” Report
[H/T to Dave Hardy.

Remember the “Modern Militia Movement” document that came out last February? Well via a Freedom of Information act request they say the don’t know who wrote it or approved it. They don’t even have anything but a draft version of that document.

Typical. I have FOIA requests to Pacific Northwest National Labs that were supposed to be answered within 20 days and it’s been, what, 2+ years and they haven’t done anything but acknowledge receipt of the requests. Then there was the one request I involved my congressman, a lawyer, and the DOE on and documents that I originally wrote which were completely open suddenly became For Official Use Only. But in order to tell my lawyer that they revealed material that was classified as Secret — without telling him it was classified.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Lew Daly

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We’d like to retire that word [redistribute] from the political vocabulary because you can’t redistribute something that is already highly socialized, and wealth and income in the “era of knowledge-based growth” (whoever ends up “owning” it) is indeed highly socialized. Most importantly (and more to the point), individual productivity is increasingly dependent on what can only be described as a collective good, a common inheritance of knowledge. No one deserves to benefit from this common inheritance more than anyone else, by moral definition, because it’s not created by any individual. So, to the extent that inherited knowledge (“technical progress in the broadest sense,” as Solow termed it) is increasingly driving economic growth, the fruits of knowledge—the wealth being generated by knowledge—should be more equally shared. Wealth that is commonly created should be equally, or at least more equally, shared.

Lew Daly
Via AmericanMercenary in the post What the hell is “Social Justice”?
[This is very scary stuff. Strip away just a little bit of the fluff and it’s, From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Just reading the praise for the book you realize these people not only have zero respect for the right to own property but they don’t believe you even have a right to your own thoughts. This is what inspires thoughts of Atlas Shrugged. In this book the people of the mind went on strike. Those that contributed through the power of their creative minds declared those that demanded the product of their minds through the force of government had received their last handout. You can force someone to work but you can’t force them to think.

After reading of people like Daly I don’t just long for a John Galt but a Ragnar Danneskjöld as well.–Joe]

Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts!

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From Time magazine:

National Rifle Association v. Chicago / McDonald v. Chicago
At issue: Second Amendment rights to gun ownership.

A pair of cases challenge Chicago’s 27-year-old ban on handgun sales within the city limits. Originally designed to curb violence in the city, the ban has long irked Second Amendment advocates, who take an expansive view of the amendment’s wording that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” But the Supreme Court had long held that the Second Amendment pertained only to federal laws, until a 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down a ban on handguns and automatic weapons in Washington, D.C. The ruling marked the first time the Supreme Court acknowledged an individual right to bear arms, and it opened the door for these challenges to the Chicago regulation.

Do you notice anything wrong with that?

Bad question. It would be easier to answer, “Do you notice anything right with that?” But I’ll answer the harder question:

  • It’s not just or even primarily about a ban on handgun sales within the city limits. It a ban on possession within the city limits.
  • D.C. v. Heller had nothing to do with automatic weapons — unless you want to abide by D.C. definition of automatic weapon which included semi-autos.
  • This was not the first time the SC acknowledged an individual right to bear arms. Check out U S v. Cruikshank which said “The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.” Or even U S v. Miller which allowed Miller had standing. See also An individual right.

It is very, very rare that when I read an article in the MSM where I know a fair amount about the topic that I don’t see substantial errors in the presentation of the material. I can only conclude the articles where I don’t know all that much about the material are also filled with errors. Hence, I cannot trust the MSM to provide me facts. Facts are apparently irrelevant to them.

Kevin made a post about this in the last year or so with, IIRC, a fancy name. I only had about three hours of sleep last night and am much too tired and cranky to go looking for it. And I still have more work work to do tonight…

Lying is what they know

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We live in an information age now. A incredibly vast amount of information is available so quickly and cheaply that I am amazed they still think they can get away with this crap. But I suppose it’s just what they have always done and it’s how they have won in the past. It’s what they know how to do.

Even though she was not harmed, Colleen Dawson said she wishes she had a handgun when some men tried to break into her Northwest Side home last year.

Dawson, 51, said the court’s action should be a message to Mayor Daley and other gun-control advocates to “begin looking at a handgun as a tool given to us as a birthright by the constitution to defend ourselves.”

Growing up in Englewood, Dawson said her grandmother always kept a handgun in her apron pocket. She’d like the same right.

Chicago Police scoff at the notion that more handguns will lower the city’s crime rate.

“The logic they are using, that homeowners’ homes will not get burglarized, is ridiculous. You usually do not burglarize a home that is occupied,” said Mark Donohue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Interesting. I know one woman living in Chicago who acquired a gun (illegally of course) after waking up to a burglar going through her bedroom. The bugler told her to not worry, she wouldn’t get hurt if she just stayed still. The burglar then went about his “business”. Yes, I know, a single data point does not make a study.

Look at the burglary rates of occupied homes in the U.K. versus the U.S. Read Guns and Violence: the English Experience. The data is overwhelming. Either Donohue is lying or his head is buried very deep in the sand or some other place where the sun doesn’t shine.

Next up is the Brady Campaign representative:

A 1988 Emory University study, Heimke said, showed “if you keep a gun in your home, it’s 21 times more likely to injure you or your family than a bad guy. It gets used by a depressed teen to commit suicide, or you think it’s a burglar but it turns out to be a neighbor or a brother-in-law.”

1988? A 21-year old study? At least it’s not the fully discredited Kellerman study from 1986 which concluded it was “43 times more likely…”. But I find it telling that Helmke overlooked the 1993 revised “study” by Kellerman in which he changed his number to 2.7. Even then he had to “bake” the numbers to get something that looked bad for gun ownership. And the only 1988 Emory study I can find reference to is also from Kellerman (see also here). And Emory is where Kellerman works so I have to conclude that Helmke is attempting to quote Kellerman and perhaps getting the number wrong. Was this carelessness or was it to avoid triggering a flag with the 43 number that we know is false?

Kellerman’s work was so shoddy that in 1995 congress pulled CDC funding for his work. At the hearings he didn’t even bother to show up to defend it.

And also of note is that this Chicago paper misspelled both Helmke’s and Colleen Lawson’s names. I’m glad we have “professional journalists” and their armies of fact checkers to “inform” the public.

I know it’s Lawson instead of Dawson because of the court filing and I because met and talked to her at the 2008 NRA convention:

Update: Some edits were made for legal reasons.

Mom logic isn’t

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Do they think we won’t catch them and rub their noses in their attempted deception? Or are they so stupid that they can’t read the actual numbers? And they have the tag line “Real Stories. Real Honest. Real Moms”.

The lady doth insist too much, methinks.

Here are the scare quotes:

More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. Some shoot themselves, while others kill friends or siblings after discovering a gun.

Here are more scary stats: Americans own 200 million firearms, and 35 percent of homes contain at least one gun. Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.

The problem is that according to the CDC we have this data (2006 is the most recent I found–see table 10):

Cause of death (based on ICD, 2004) All ages Under 1 year 1-4 years 5-14 years 15-24 years 25-34 years 35-44 years 45-54 years 55-64 years 65-74 years 75-84 years 85 years and over
Accidental discharge of firearms (W32-W34) 642 – 13 41 193 113 74 84 49 33 34 8

So in order to arrive at “more than 500 children die annually” you would have to include “children” as old as 54 years old. Sure a lot of people want the government to treat people as children even at this age but it’s lying to actually include them in your children totals.

The real number is 54 children per year instead of “more than 500”. They are only off by a factor of 10.

So, assuming their 1.7 million number is right then the odds of one of those children in homes with loaded and unlocked guns accidentally being killed with a firearm is 54/1,700,000 or 1 in 31,481 (0.0032%) per year.

Gee… I wonder if they have an agenda. If they don’t then why do they inflate the numbers by a factor of 10? Crap for brains and/or the truth is just too inconvenient for them? You decide.

The press has it wrong again

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Dave Workman explains:

That the local press has once again erroneously given the impression that the store has lost its FFL, when in actuality it is Borgelt’s license revocation that has been upheld, is one more reason for gun owners, and one frustrated firearms retailer, not to trust the news media.

This is one time the press has it coming.

The basic story is the previous owner of the Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply (the store from which Beltway Snipers stole the rifle they used) had his FFL revoked but the new owner is up and running just fine. The press is reporting the store lost it’s FFL and implies it has been shut down.

Half-truth, full-truth, who cares? Not the mainstream media with their “professional” journalists.

Quote of the day–Michael Beard

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On the evening of September 9, President Barack Obama was at the U.S. Capitol preparing to address a joint session of Congress on the subject of health care reform. At approximately 8:00 p.m., Joshua Bowman, 28, of Falls Church, Virginia, attempted to drive his Honda Civic into a secure area near the Capitol. U.S. Capitol Police stopped him and, searching his car, found a rifle, a shotgun and 500 rounds of ammunition. Bowman was arrested on the spot and charged with two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. An Associated Press article noted that “Bowman’s intentions were unclear.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington has stated that they have decided against prosecuting Bowman on more serious charges. It is difficult to imagine, however, what legitimate reason there might have been for bringing that kind of firepower to the Capitol when so many important elected officials were gathered in one place.

…

How many other individuals carrying guns at political events (either openly or concealed) have disturbing criminal histories? And why is the media already losing interest in what should be headline news?

Michael Beard
September 12, 2009
Gunning for the President
[First of all there wasn’t anyone “gunning for the President”. The guy accidentally drove across a political boundary which made his firearm possession a crime. Law enforcement investigated and decided not to prosecute. It’s no different than if a black person had stepped into a “whites only” restaurant in the deep south 60 years ago and quickly apologized and tried to leave. Prosecutors gave him a pass because he was trying to play by the rules and got tripped up by a law that shouldn’t have existed to begin with and through no intentional fault of his own.

“Disturbing criminal histories”? If the legislature had wanted to make drunk driving, disorderly conduct, or urination in public grounds to loose your right to keep and bear arms they should have gotten the votes to pass such a law and defend it in court. Until they do Mr. Beard can be as “disturbed” as he wants to be and I don’t care. We are a supposedly a nation of laws not beholding to how “disturbed” he is.

I suspect the thing that disturbs Mr. Beard the most is the media is losing interest in making headlines of someone obeying the law. That’s not “news”. And I have to say, it’s about fricking time.–Joe]

I wonder if this is my fault

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I appears there is an interesting new show coming soon to a security theater near you:

First it was shoes, then water bottles and snow globes.

Now dried baby formula, makeup, talcum and other powders have joined the long list of seemingly innocuous household items drawing closer scrutiny from airport screeners as potential security threats.

Federal authorities haven’t banned powders toted by passengers or set limits on the size or amount they are allowed to carry on planes in their hand luggage.

But the Transportation Security Administration is now paying closer attention to common powders and has outfitted O’Hare, Midway and other airports around the country with new kits to test them for explosives. Passengers should be aware that after belongings are X-rayed, TSA officers may test a small sample of any powder in their possession.

I wonder if my post contributed to that. I know it got some attention by “government employees”.

If it was my fault I’m not going to say I am sorry. One of the ways you get people to rethink their security systems is to overload them with false positives. If I could only demonstrate that it were relatively easy to bring down a plane by grinding up you hair into a fine powder and making an improvised explosive device out of it using a couple coins as tools…

Only one move ahead

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Sometimes it boggles my mind just how stupid some people can be and still be able to write complete sentences and breathe–and apparently at the same time. Case in point:

Free marketers don’t care much for bank bailouts so long as they’ve gotten their money out the bank before it fails.

But when it’s health care? I think you will find that teabaggers everywhere will have a very different perspective when they find themselves out there alone with no way to pay for their family’s medical costs.

Who will need the save the day when this happens? The government will – and that means a single-payer system.

Whether the result fits your ideology or not, the numbers would seem to make clear that it is only a matter of time before private health insurance prices itself out of the market, leaving only the government with the capability to insure the nation’s health.

“Leaving only the government with the capability”? And just where does he think the government will get the money that private health insurance companies and individuals couldn’t?

When I used to play chess a lot (high school and college) it was very rare that someone couldn’t see pretty clearly two and usually three moves in advance. And the better players would have a pretty fair view out six or seven moves on some critical branches. But this guy apparently can’t see even one move in advance. What would you call someone like this? In my chess playing days we would call those people losers.

Update: He makes an “interesting” comment in response to another commenter to his article:

I rarely watch CNBC and, anyone who reads this post knows I wouldn’t be caught dead watching Fox.

He admits he studiously ignores data considered to be fair and accurate by millions of people? This isn’t someone concerned with knowing the truth. This is someone who has a deep and profound commitment to some sort of cult.

Don’t try this at home

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Via email from Kris:

Sneetches, and Anti Capitalist Indoctrination

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This post inspired by Say Uncle’s post about bedtime stories.

Dr. Seuss was clearly a socialist, and the Sneetches story is but a minor example of it.  The Lorax is worse.  Maybe I’ll do a post about that later.

I’ve always wondered why the plain-bellied sneetches didn’t just host their own beach parties instead of being all butt hurt and envious over being excluded from the star bellies’ parties.  Ayn Rand would tell us that the star bellies were attempting a monopoly, which in a free market (that is to say, a market without some means of enforcing the monopoly through legislation or outright brute force) is merely enticing capital into start-up competition.  If the plain bellies’ started throwing really good parties of their own, some of the star bellies would eventually want to attend.  If the plain bellies let them attend, the plain belly organized parties would begin to dominate, or take over altogether unless the star bellies changed their discriminative ways.

A free market is self correcting in so many ways, and correcting against arbitrary discrimination is but one example.  We see this in real life just looking at music or sports pre civil rights era, where excluding black players meant missing out on some of the best.  By the time I was in middle school (late 1960s) Motown was well-represented, if not dominating, the top 40 on AM radio.

That’s what I tell my kids.  If their public school teachers can’t handle it, well, it’s their own problem that they choose to make fools of themselves.

Quote of the day–Dave Stancliff

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I do ask for laws that would restrict sales of M-16s, AK 47s, or Uzi’s. I don’t care what anyone says, hunting with machine guns makes no sense. The only use for them, the use for which they were intended, is to kill people. Lots of people, real fast.

It’s no secret that automatic weapons are so easy to buy that American gun dealers supply the Mexican cartels with 90 percent of the weapons they use to terrorize people on both sides of the border.

Dave Stancliff
September 13, 2009
Let’s face it, no one will take the high road to gun control
[Actually, I think it is a secret–since only the anti-gun people believe it. The pro-gun people know they have to spend 10s of thousands of dollars on an automatic weapons of any type if they can find one for sale.

He also implies hunting is the reason people want to own machine guns. None of people that I know who own machine guns claim that is the reason for ownership of them.

Also in the article is the suspicious claim that “About two billion bullets were made in America last year, bringing in about $7.5 billion”. This implies an average cost of about $3.25 per round. This is more than a little bit high.

This is all more evidence that the MSM (this guy is a “former newspaper editor and publisher”) does not care or is too lazy to know the facts.

Comments can be sent to richstan1@suddenlink.net or www.davesblogcentral.com–Joe.]

Government rations, it’s what they do

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Recently there has been a lot of talk of government rationing of health care. In the U.K. they have been rationing health care for a long time now and now there is talk of expanding their influence to other things:

Air travel is expected to at least double by the middle of the century as new airlines spring up in developing countries like China and rich countries like Britain expand airports such as Heathrow.

However the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) fears unlimited growth of air travel will cause greenhouse gas emissions to increase and therefore cause global warming.

…

The CCC report comes as a think tank suggested that the unless the UK manages to meet tough targets on cutting greenhouse gases within the next three years, everyone in the UK will have to be rationed on the amount of energy, car use and flights they take.

The Institute for Public Policy Research suggested people have a certain amount of carbon credits that limits the amount they can spend on luxuries like air travel.

Doesn’t he see the irony?

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Michael Moore has a new movie out. Capitalism: A Love Story. The LA Times says this about it:

“Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil,” the two-hour movie concludes. “You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”

What sort of economic system is he proposing? “Democracy”? That isn’t an economic system. And democracies (we are supposed to have a Republic) seldom last more than a few decades.

And the irony is that Moore’s wealth and ability to make whatever movie he wants comes from the opportunities afforded him by capitalism. If it weren’t for capitalism Moore would be making probably be required by the state to be making exercise videos (if such a thing as videos and fat people even existed) which no one would take seriously. Instead he is making “documentaries” which demonstrate he is totally clueless about any topic he cares about but yet enough people want to believe him that he is able to be a wealthy man. In that sense I suppose capitalism has allowed an evil to exist and prosper but that is hardly sufficient reason abandon an economic system that has improved the status of people more than any in the history of man–even though it has never really been fully implemented.

Quote of the day–Mikeb302000

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Joe Huffman, I don’t want to play that game. I didn’t want to on Kevin’s blog and I don’t want to here either.

Does that give you a major victory over me, that you can say I don’t know the difference between truth and falsity? Fine, go ahead.

You and all your friends can say that over and over again. It’s a perfect way of avoiding what I am saying, of pointing out what I am saying is wrong, of discussing the issues.

Go ahead, be my guest.

Or if you’d like you can educate all of us about the proper way of determining truth from falsity. It might be interesting to know what you and all your pro-gun friends know that the rest of us, poor liberals that we are, don’t.

Mikeb302000
September 5, 2009
Comment to Tamara K. on Dr. Wintemute
In response to “Again, Mikeb30200, how do you determine truth from falsity?” The reference to Kevin’s blog about the comments here.
[Being able to determine truth from falsity is a game? Wow! And all this time I thought it was the basis for rational thought and a requirement for membership in the human race.

The issue is that Mikeb302000 believes what he wants to believe regardless of the facts. He is unable or unwilling determine truth from falsity. That makes his assertions based on faith, defined as “Belief without or in spite of evidence to the contrary.” That makes his belief system a religion rather than anything approaching science. I don’t have a problem with faith based belief systems as long as they leave me alone. But once they attempt to use force (and government is certainly a form of force) to make me conform I have a big problem with it.

That he is obstinately devoted to his own opinions and prejudices makes him a bigot.

Of course, I can’t help but have this nagging doubt that since he puts up such incredibly weak arguments that he is really on our side tossing out strawmen for us like clay pigeons in front of Tim Bradley.–Joe]

Where’s Joe McCarthy When You Need Him?

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We’ve all had it happen.  You mention the “S” word (socialism) in a political discussion and the one(s) on the Left act all indignant, denying that the socialism they’re advocating has anything to do with socialism; “Why, I’m shocked, I tell you!  Shocked!”

To accuse anyone of advocating communism is to guarantee that you’ll be flagged as a nutbag (as if there’s no such thing as communism anymore, even if there ever was).  Do not let that dissuade you.

This recording was circulating quite a bit last week, but it needs more attention.  It’s a Democrat Congresswoman from LA.  Suck on this, Leftists and Progressives.  If you’re not socialists or communists, then you’ll no doubt get this loyal Obama supporter kicked out of your party.  Furthermore, you’d no doubt be in support of a law banning all forms of socialism.  Right?  Since you’re not communist or socialist at all, in any way?  Right?

Meanwhile; the Republican Party remains AWOL, or in a drunken stupor, or they’re out chasing pink elephants with a bad case of the DTs.  They’re actually polling us right now about what we think of ObamaCare (looks at floor, shakes head and sighs).  I was dumb enough to actually take the poll, before I realized the full vastness of the stupidity of it.  A momentary lapse into Condition White, I guess.

New Terror; Candles, OMG!

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Sometimes when I read the news I think I’m back in jr. High school.  This time it feels like fourth grade elementary.  When I was in fourth grade, I observed a girl enjoying some canned cherries during lunch.  Unable, for whatever reason, to leave her in peace to enjoy her cherries, I walked close to her and said in a low voice; “You’re eating cow guts”.

Apparently this caused her to lose her appetite, and she was distressed enough to tell the teacher, who later called me on it.

Fast-forward to adulthood.  Today if you’re enjoying a hamburger, you hear from the food Nazis; “That’ll clog your arteries, contribute to deforestation in South America and pollute the atmosphere with methane (cow farts).”  You’re enjoying a smoke; “That’ll give you cancer and cause kids to have health problems, and you’re supporting Big Corporations that are trying to keep you addicted and kill you for profit.”  You’re having a soda; “All that sugar will detonate your pancreas and make you fat.”  You’re having a diet soda; “Those artificial sweeteners will give you cancer.”

“That car of yours is going to destroy the planet, you filthy planet killer you.”

“Unsafe at any speed” etc., etc., “That salad you’re eating is full of pesticides and that stuff was grown on corporate, industrial farms that have no regard for the planet…” etc., etc., etc.  It never ends, and if you’re resistant to this crap, congratulations, if you can avoid getting the “Swine Flu” which happens to be just like any normal, run-of-the-mill flu, but ZOMG we’re all gonna dieeee!

Today’s reason not to enjoy yourself is that your candlelit dinner is going to give you cancer.  So quit enjoying yourself (you selfish twit) be afraid, and call your Congressman to demand something be done about “Big Candle” before the children all die and the puppies all get cancer just so someone can enjoy a nice candlelit dinner while people in (insert country) are starving.

And you leftists think you’re all about rights and freedom and privacy and stuff.  I’m gonna tell the teacher on you.

I found a reference to this candle scare on Rush Limbaugh’s site  (and there are some great comments at the Washington Times article on the subject) while looking for the fantastic quotes he found regarding Death Panels.  More on that later.

Someone is actually spending money and time to research candle pollution.  Wow.  Like no one knew that burning things releases combustion products into the air.  I find that the phrase, “too much free time” tends to spring to mind.

Crap for brains

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Ry says, “facepalm“. There are other phrases that could be used to describe the act of giving your attacker the ammunition to shoot at you with:

  • Dummer than dirt.
  • Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
  • Not the coldest ice cube in the tray.
  • Not the greenest tree in the Forest.
  • A few bricks shy of a load.
  • Head whistles when the wind blows.
  • A few clowns short of a circus.
  • A few fries short of a Happy Meal.
  • An experiment in Artificial Stupidity.
  • A few beers short of a six-pack.
  • Dumber than a box of hair.
  • A few peas short of a casserole.
  • The wheel’s spinning, but the hamster’s dead.
  • Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt.
  • Couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
  • He fell out of the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.
  • An intellect rivaled only by garden tools.
  • As smart as bait.
  • Chimney’s clogged.
  • Forgot to pay his brain bill.
  • His antenna doesn’t pick up all the channels.
  • His belt doesn’t go through all the loops.
  • If he had another brain, it would be lonely.
  • No grain in the silo.
  • Receiver is off the hook.
  • Too much yardage between the goal posts.

Quote of the day–Chuck Bloom

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As a strong supporter of the country’s National Parks System, I just don’t see a logical reason why anyone would want to carry a concealed weapon into such naturally beautiful places like Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Redwoods, Crater Lake, Grand Teton or any of the national parks.

Is someone seriously afraid of being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan? Are there criminals hiding out in the Petrified Forest?

These places should be off limits to such practices because of the presence of children. Just because you have the right to pack heat on a vacation doesn’t mean you should.

Chuck Bloom
Plano, Texas
… but what about the children?
August 21, 2009
[A extraordinary clear example of scrambled thinking on the gun issue. Perhaps the reason he doesn’t see a logical reason for carrying a gun in the national parks is because he is severely logic impaired.

What does being “a strong supporter of the country’s National Parks System” or their natural beauty have to do with concluding there is no “logical reason” to carry a concealed weapon?

Even his straw-men of “being accosted or robbed by Old Faithful or El Capitan” is extraordinarily weak.

Criminal do their thing where they have the opportunity, means, and high probability of accomplishing their goal. If their thing involves robbing or hurting people the remote location and disarmed status of their victims in the remote parks can be good hunting grounds. One does not have life insurance for only when their risk is high, such as when traveling by car. They have life insurance for all occasions. And so it is with carrying defensive tools. If you knew you were going to be attacked you wouldn’t go there. But you don’t know so you carry defensive tools wherever and whenever you can. And not all of the threats are human:


Sign in Glacier National Park


Bear in Glacier National Park.

And finally, “because of the presence of children”? Come on, can any anti-gun person offer a plausible defense for that statement? Do children not need to be defended against violent attacks? Is it better to let them be injured or killed than for them to see a bear get shot? Is it better for them to see their mother raped and/or killed than to see the attacker stopped in his tracks by a gun in the hands of his or her parents?

I actually did use my gun while hiking through a state park with my kids several years ago. There was a rattlesnake near the edge of the trail. It was a threat both to us and other hikers that perhaps would not have seen and avoided it. From a safe distance I put a 9mm FMJ bullet through it’s head. The kids did not seem to have suffered any short or long term adverse effects from the use of the gun in their presence. They even seemed relieved after the threat was neutralized.–Joe]