Category: Uncategorized

Could Scarborough Be A Bigger Tool? And The Answer Is None. None More Big

Posted on 14 Comments

by Smitty

The former Republican Congressman sneered at the National Rifle Association, suggesting that the gun group is promoting the “big lie” that government will come after most guns.
Scarborough insisted the “the big lie has worked for years.” He added, “…If they take away your military-style assault weapons, take away the AR-15, they’re going to take your hunting rifle, they’re gonna take your handgun, which of course is a big lie.”

It’s like this, you schmuck: while the destruction of liberty continues ‘at a medium pace’, no rational observers doubt that this is what is going on. Scarborough, your Neville Chamberlain-esque reassurances excite no one, with the possible exception of Chris Matthews.

If you Godless Commies want to calm the narrative, suggest you calm the narrative, e.g. lay off the attacks on law-abiders.

via JBrown. Title ref.

Dear Tina Fey: Sometimes The Foolishness Undermines

Posted on 20 Comments

by Smitty

See, the time unfunny
statements trigger frolicking un-seriousness, (they)
should then find useful
storage toward future un-interring.

Less obtusely stated, Tina:

via Breitbart

Crisis in Algeria: More ‘Arab Spring’ Consequences; U.S. Hostages Seized

Posted on 12 Comments

Over the weekend, I mentioned the al-Qaeda-backed rebellion in Mali, and now there’s more Islamic trouble in neighboring Algeria:

Six hostages, 8 kidnappers killed
in Algeria siege; 7 still held
— Reuters

US confirms Americans among hostages
taken by militants in Algeria
— The Hill

Militants Grab U.S. Hostages
— Wall Street Journal

Militants: 35 hostages dead
in Algerian copter attack
— CBS News

The facts of this emerging crisis are not entirely clear, but it looks a lot like further evidence of the bankruptcy of Obama’s foreign policy:

Donald Douglas at American Power is aggregating developments, including this confession of impotence from the White House:

 

At Least One Chief Executive Is Doing The Correct Thing

Posted on 3 Comments

by Smitty

So the guy who already knows he’s not going to meet his budget deadline is going to surround himself with children and infringe upon the 2nd Amendment. Mataconis figures that flinging this much humus is likely to make something stick, in particular, the executive orders. One can hope the fiasco proves a bridge too far for the President. Is there some kind of psychological theory about repeatedly playing the Bad Guy as a means of weakening the opposing resolve?

For some green shoot of intellectual life peeking through the humus, Mike Pence in Indiana is enacting a regulatory moratorium. One is confident that the policy of “If DC can’t take credit, it won’t notice” will remain in effect. Also, Senator Rand Paul will be addressing CPAC 2013, in just two short months. Which, on the current course, will be a desperately needed therapy session. Register, and get your fedora down there.

Let’s Call It ‘The Doritos Argument’

Posted on 10 Comments

by Smitty

Apparently, this tweet brought me to the attention of some folks on Twitter:

This triggered some fun back’n’forth:

 

The traditional thumb-wrestling over who owns the definitions culminated in:

 

Somewhere in the middle of the fracas, I got hit with this:


So, Tori seems to think that taxpayer dollars form a tidy, velvet-handcuff sort of entrapment. The Doritos Argument, as I’ll label it until I can find some more generally accepted name for the form, seems to be:

If you’ve eaten Doritos, you cannot go to the gym. The first agent-orange colored, star-destroyer shaped, infernally spiced, unnaturally crunching, finger-and-soul staining encounter with one of these diabolical digestives marks a human eternally. That marked person is precluded from ever prying themselves off the couch, liberating themselves from the torrid stigma of snack food, and burning off a few calories, despite the undeniably healthy consequences.

No, that’s daft. You can manage your caloric input/output ration, and you can continue to think clearly in the face of your government bribing you with the money of the as-yet unborn. As badly as the Progressives want to think they’ve successfully re-created man in the image of sheep, they fail.

Get bent, Tori.

Obama’s Festival of Lies

Posted on 23 Comments

The final press conference of Obama’s first term was a masterpiece of mendacity, a Mardi Gras parade of deliberate dishonesty. Liberals are still trying to catch their breath after the excitement of it all.

What the press corps loves about President Obama is the astonishing audacity of his lies. He doesn’t bother with tiny fibs or slight misrepresentations. No, by God, he tells massive whoppers that everyone understands to be false, but which he knows he can get away with because — like the favorite child of an over-indulgent mother — he has the smug sense of entitlement necessary to erupt in indignation if he is ever called on  his lies: “How dare you notice my self-serving deceptions!”

UPDATE: The transcript of Obama’s Mardi Gras of Mendacity.

What Depression Is, and Isn’t

Posted on 29 Comments

Thursday evening my wife came home and said, “Hey, I bought coffee!”

I just stared at her, in kind of a fog.

“No more drinking decaf,” my wife said.

“What? We’ve been drinking decaf? Since when?”

“All week. We ran out of regular coffee Monday, but  I just made decaf and didn’t tell you, because I figured it would only depress you.”

Damn. So that’s it. Here I’d been feeling bummed out, listless and unmotivated for three days, and was worried I was slipping into depression. Instead, I was just suffering from caffeine withdrawal.

Depression is a mental illness, a mood disorder, which psychiatrists say is caused by an organic malfunction of neurochemistry. Depression isn’t just about feeling bad because something bad happened to you.

Kids don’t understand this. You made a “C” in algebra, your boyfriend broke up with you and you’ve got a pimple on your nose — no, sweetheart, that’s not “depression.” Your life just sucks.

Over the course of time, everybody goes through phases where their life sucks. And feeling bad about that is just normal. No pills are necessary to treat a normal reaction to the objective reality that your life sucks.

This is something that should cheer you up: Your life sucks? Good news! You’re not suffering from clinical depression!

On the other hand, if you’re actually suffering from clinical depression — good news! Your life doesn’t suck as bad as you think it does.

This is something that came to mind when I saw the news via Memeorandum about a computer whiz kid who committed suicide:

Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26.
“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,” confirmed Swartz’ attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van Nest, in an email to The Tech.

According to various sites, Swartz was a teenager when he wrote the software that basically made Reddit possible. He was a good-looking kid and a genius and probably would have been a gazillionaire, except he decided to kill himself. Via Mashable, a clue:

A blog post from 2007 on Swartz’s website reveals a possible cause for taking his own life: depression. In the post, Swartz describes his experiences with severe depression, as well as several other health issues, including migraines.

Also, Swartz was being hassled by the feds because he illegally downloaded some stuff that should have been free to begin with. Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection discusses that.

Did Swartz actually suffer from depression? I don’t know. Despite his legal hassles, it would be hard to say his life objectively sucked, and his future was one of great potential — until he decided to kill himself, that is. Killing yourself pretty much guarantees it won’t get better.

Try drinking more coffee. And not the decaf kind. Just sayin’ . . .