Category: Politics

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Shutdown… Shutdown… SHUTDOWN… AHHH THE Sky is falling!

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I had another blog that I was working on.

It wasn’t going well, and may end up in the dustbin.

Hey, it happens sometimes so sue me… it’s not like you’re paying for my assault on your senses.

By now we’ve all heard about the government shutdown.

Sure the government is shutdown but it’s pretty obvious that the powers in Washington DC are playing games to make sure that the Shutdown is right in the faces of the citizens.I’m convinced that a lot of this is pure theater.

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Riddle me this? What kind of sense does it make to allocate resources like barricades and police to patrol monuments that normally have no such patrols of barricades?

It’s not like the Monuments in Washington DC have huge fences around them and single entrances. 

I’ve walked the length of the reflecting pond toward the Lincoln memorial from the Washington monument and never encountered a fence, park ranger, officer, or any other Government tendril.

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These places are open, they are designed to be open and accessible. These places are designed this way with purpose.

For me, these monuments are not only about venerating the great men that helped build this country, their openness is a comment on our freedom.

How times have changed!

These monuments are also a reminder that at one time we walked with our heads held high, fearless, and the concept of vandalizing any of these monuments was simply unthinkable. 

Getting to the Lincoln memorial at dusk and watching the lights come on was for me important and powerful. Entering the memorial itself was timeless and I took my time reading the great words inscribed inside. 

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By the time I left the memorial night had fallen. The lights of the Capital twinkled in the distance and the various monuments were awash in light.

I was in one of the oldest cities in our country and I felt a pride that was almost overwhelming. 

Now because of The Shutdown (Doom musical sound effect… please)

These free parks and open spaces are being closed at great expense and difficulty. WHY?

What does this prove, other than our leaders are far more interested in being vindictive and stupid. They’re making absolutely sure that vacation plans while already disrupted, are completely ruined.

Families in transit arrive in Washington DC, only to find that they can’t visit open air memorials? What’s the sense in that?

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What next, huge concrete domes over monuments, armed guards checking passports and a visitors right to be there? Metal detectors, body scanners, and then full body x-rays to make sure that you’re not carrying contraband in your anus?

How is this saving money?

In every instance it’s taking more man power to tell people the monuments are closed than it would to simply allow the monuments to be open and accessible.

The WWII memorial, the Vietnam Wall closed? Really?

This is exactly the kind of vindictive wasteful thinking that got us into the shutdown in the first place. But now instead of Congress kicking each other in the nuts, they’re kicking the average citizen.

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Another stupidity is that the Government put notices similar to this one, on Websites immediately.

We all know that the government IT departments haven’t shut down. This is another Fuck you to the people from our elected officials in Washington.

At the risk of sounding like one of the crazy right wing nutjobs.

It’s time for We The People to stand up and raise hell.

We need to kick all of our so called leaders to the curb and get some people that are actually willing to do their jobs.

The problems we’re facing aren’t going to magically go away. It’s going to take thinking, reasoning people who understand that cooperation is necessary for the good of the country.

Impeach ’em, Recall ’em whatever it takes. They are OUR Employees and they haven’t done the job(s) they were elected to do. Time to fire them and find someone who will do the job as we direct.

This vindictive bullshit has got to stop.

 

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You have got to be kidding me…

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I saw some video of the person trying to ram the gate at the White house.

It didn’t look to me like she tried to ram anything.

It looked a lot more like she’d made a wrong turn and was trying to figure out what to do next when the DC police and Secret Service responded with shouting and waving a whole lot of guns at her.

That video is not available on the web yet…  And it may never be because it makes the DC police and Secret Service look really bad.

I think she decided to just get the hell away from all these crazy people and their scary guns, who then started shooting.

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This led to a police chase where our “evildoer” hit a cop car practically destroying it, then sped on to her final destination.

Really? Crown Victoria vs. Lexus and the Lexus is drivable? While the Crown Vic is totaled. Really?

I think it’s far more likely that the cop driving the Crown Vic hit something else or was hit because you can see the front of the Lexus in some of the photos.

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This one for example.

The front of the Lexus doesn’t look nearly as screwed up as I’d expect after seeing the Cops car.

The initial news reports were that the Woman had started shooting at the cops.

As it turned out she was completely unarmed and had a 1 year old child in the back seat.

I can easily imagine a Mother getting freaked out because she was lost or made a wrong turn then was suddenly confronted with 20 or 30 men with guns all shouting at her and she decided…

THE HELL WITH THIS!

I’m getting my child and myself away from these crazy people who aren’t listening to what I’m saying.

I’ll grant you it probably wasn’t the smartest move.

Honestly if I was already stressed because I was lost and then turned into an area to consider my options, then looked up and saw a bunch of guys pointing guns at me and screaming at me… I’d be very much inclined to run.

OUT OF FEAR FOR MY LIFE!

These cops in the first video are obviously cranked beyond any reasonable notches. The gate in question is quite some distance from the White House.

That these folks were cranked tighter than a Meth addict coming down hard is something we as a people and a country should really take a good long look at.

A couple of weeks ago NYPD shot innocent bystanders because some nut job was running around in traffic.

The police missed the nut job they were shooting at.

Last year I believe NYPD shot 13 or 14 people in a similar incident where they only grazed the actual criminal but did a lot of harm to innocent bystanders.

Now it looks as if the DC police are just as amped up, stupid and irresponsible as NYPD. 

DC police killed this woman in front of her child. 

This lady was unarmed, obviously afraid, and we will never know what her intention was.

The one thing that we can be sure of and that we need to dial way down is living in fear.

The media, bloggers, Twitter, and god only knows what other media sources seem to thrive on filling us up with fear, of living.

It’s unnecessary and it leads to police over-reaction to common every day events.

What ever happened to an officer approaching the vehicle and saying something civil like “Ma’am you can’t park here you must move along.“

How about the civility of “Are you lost Ma’am and can I help you?“

Instead because DC is freaking out, the response was probably something like;

GET OUT OF THE CAR MAGGOT, FUCKING BITCH,  DOWN ON YOUR KNEES, NOW, NOW, NOW, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOUR EXCUSE IS, GET OUT OF THE CAR ON THE GROUND, NOW BITCH! 

Then there’s the very real possibility that if you don’t move fast enough or you move too fast you’re going to at minimum get beat to hell and at maximum you’re going to be shot.

Given that choice I’d probably opt to stay in the car and make a run for it. At least I’d have a cocoon of steel around me.

We need to take the fear mongering down several notches. 

Not everyone is planning to do congress or the president harm. If congress and / or the president are that fearful, maybe some introspection on how they are doing their job is in order.

Sometimes people make wrong turns. Sometimes people veer onto side streets trying to avoid an accident, then have to figure out how to get back on course. It happens every day in every city in the US.

They killed an unarmed woman… 

Will she be mourned and venerated like Trayvon Martin?

Surely her life was important and she was worthy of a police officer listening to her.

“It’s painful to live in fear“

The reports this morning are even more bizarre. This lady suffering from post partum depression loads up her child, drives from Connecticut to Washington DC and tried to ram a barricade at the White House? Was the child the Presidents?

None of it makes any sense and honestly given the spin that the DC police and the media are putting on this event. I am for the first time in my life fearful of the police and my government.

The behavior we saw yesterday and the police now trying to imply, if not outright say this woman was a threat to the security of the White House is ludicrous.

The internal investigation of this incident will be covered up. The police will be found completely blameless. The Secret Service will continue to claim they acted properly. 

Meanwhile the woman’s name will be slandered and her child will be without a parent.

The handling of this incident makes me want to vomit.

The truth of the matter will never come out. If we were able to keep track of the officers quitting the DC police department over the next year I wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge turnover.

I don’t think the officers leaving would be bad cops, rather I suspect they’d be the cops whose morals and ethics wouldn’t let them continue to work for a department that clearly has no moral boundaries.

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Government shutdown?

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I’m not sure a government shutdown a bad thing.

I’m guessing that it will have ramifications that are far more wide reaching than any of us know.

If it was just dysfunctional Washington DC that was turning out the lights I’d probably be out in the streets dancing. And not just because I’m a registered Republican. I honestly think i’d be the same if I was a registered Democrat. 

That joy wouldn’t be over the services shutting down, and certainly not that our troops aren’t going to get paid.

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Honestly, how the hell can you expect to retain your military if you’re imposing hardships on their families by not paying those guys salaries? Their families live barely above the poverty line anyway.

Does this mean that the troops are allowed to come home? I didn’t think so.

My happiness would be that the politicians wouldn’t be paid.

I’d be happy that they might experience financial hardships, (like the common folks) and I believe that Republicans and Democrats alike bear the responsibility for this mess.

I think that the Government should shut down from the TOP down, not the bottom up.

Let a congressman miss his house payment or car payment. Let a representative suddenly not be able to pay for his or her child’s ivy league education.

Then we’d see how fast the Republicans and Democrats come together to make the government work.

Sadly, like most management fucks…

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They’ll core out the services before touching their fat assed paychecks, pensions, golden parachutes, and what have you.

I wish that the shutdown would work like a computer.

Reboot,

Drop to basic functions starting with The Constitution

Then have to elect all the politicians again.

Hopefully the people would toss out the idiots that led to the impasse and hire a better group of politicians.

I know that’s not how it’s going to work.

But a guys gotta have dreams…

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About Guns

I’ve been participating in a series of discussions with other folks about the current gun legislation. As a result I’ve firmed up some of my own ideas about what’s reasonable and what’s not.

Background Checks

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I think background checks are reasonable. In point of fact we’ve had laws on the books regarding background checks for a long time. So the current layer of legalese coming out of Washington is nothing particularly new. It’s probably not going to be enforced any better than the previous laws.

That being said, I agree with background checks. I wish they were efficient and enforced.

With the responsibility of the government to perform background checks also comes this one…

The records about why people are being denied guns should have to be cleaned up too. Why should someone be able to buy a gun in one state, passing that states background check and not be able to buy a gun in an adjacent state?

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Cosmetic Gun Bans

I absolutely and categorically am opposed to banning a particular gun because of it’s cosmetics. If we see fit to ban a particular kind of gun, then we must ban that gun in it’s entirety. Every version!

It is irrational to ban one model because it’s black and comes with a 20 round magazine, and yet continue to allow the Green version with a 10 round magazine to be sold.

The rate of fire for both weapons is the same. Someone sufficiently clever could take two 10 round magazines and make a 20 round magazine out of them.

Such a magazine would only have to work once if that person was going to do something horrific like shooting up a mall or theater.

Consistent Laws from State to State

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The law from state to state should be consistent. A legal gun owner shouldn’t have to fear being arrested in one state for owning or transporting a weapon that was not illegal in an adjacent state.

There is no situation where it makes any sense to have a particular gun legal in one state and illegal in the next. It’s time to do away with individual state regulations. If we’re imposing a magazine limit it should be the same in all states. If we’re saying a model of gun shouldn’t be sold in MA or CA then that model shouldn’t be sold in the other 48 states either.

Gun ownership laws should be the same too. 18 years old or 21 years old? Must a gun be stored in a safe? Must a gun have a trigger lock? How much Ammunition is too much? Who can purchase ammunition? Do ammunition sales need to be tracked? What about reloading supplies?

These are all questions that should be asked and addressed.

All lawmakers involved in Gun Legislation should be required to attend Instructional classes on guns and have mandatory range time.

To me this is such a no-brainer. Right now we have people making decisions about gun laws that have no fucking clue how a gun works, or even the proper nomenclature.

How can these people make informed legal decisions when they don’t know what they’re talking about in the first place?

I’ve actually gotten in the habit of asking the more vehement of anti gun people if they’ve ever actually been out to a firing range. it’s amazing how many people storm off in a huff when confronted with that question.

At least our legislators should have the courtesy to know what they’re talking about before deciding our fate.

I feel exactly the same way about all internet legislation. Most of the politicians making internet laws have no clue what they’re talking about or the levels which their laws can be used to harm innocent people. That’s another blog entry.

Lets stop making emotionally based laws and rules.

Emotion serves no purpose in law. Lets dispassionately discuss the issue of gun control, or gay marriage, or taxes, or whatever.

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Logic and reason should be our watchwords. Equal application of principals should be our guide not our jailer for all law. And for goodness sake lets allow some intelligence and latitude when we come upon a situation where the law doesn’t quite fit.

Zero Tolerance policies are moronic on their face.

The best example I can think of that demonstrates the need for reason and latitude in laws and rules is this.

A child finds a bullet at his or her school. They bring the bullet to their teacher and get suspended because of a zero tolerance policy.

The child did essentially the right thing but was punished for doing so. Will that child do the right thing the next time?

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If we continue to pursue more and more restrictive laws or so called Zero Tolerance laws, we will create a country where no-one will ever take responsibility to do the right thing because we’ll all be too concerned with the punishment that comes from doing 
the right thing.

That’s not what made our country great.

What makes us great and perhaps unique is that we’ve always allowed common sense to guide us and we’ve generally rewarded not punished people for getting involved or taking action when the situation demanded it.

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The weekly roundup…

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No War! (Well, no additional war)

The Syrians claim a victory. The Russians show diplomacy, The Americans show??? What?

I’m still amazed that the possibility of us going to war, (regardless of what the White House says it would have been a declaration of war to bomb or fire missiles in to another country during their civil war) over what was clearly an internal conflict was ever a matter of discussion.

I’m glad that cooler heads prevailed. I’m somewhat stunned that the cooler head apparently belonged to Vladimir Putin. But I’m glad nonetheless.

Apple announced new iPhone

Wallstreet unimpressed. Microsoft takes advertising pot shot at Apple and demonstrates yet again that they are completely disconnected from the real world. As an ancillary point they demonstrated that their sense of humor is somewhat childish.

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Windows Surface? How’re those sales guys? I saw Microsoft is offering a $200 trade-in for iPads if you purchase one of their tablets. Talk about not being able to give ’em away.

iPhone 5c phones have not sold out during pre-order. That’s a bit of a first for Apple. I find myself wondering if the smartphone market is saturated. None of the smartphone offerings from any manufacturer have been particularly dazzling.

I take that back, Samsung had a dazzlingly bad, perhaps embarrassing is a better term for it introduction of the galaxy s4.

But the smartphones in & of themselves have become somewhat homogenous.

Yes as I’ve mentioned, I’m probably going to go iPhone, but this time around it’s not because its an iPhone, but because I’m heavily invested in Apple tech and it’s just a lot easier to have a single environment to deal with.

Colorado

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Colorado in addition to the flooding also recalled two politicians from the state government over gun control.

Whats amazed the hell out of me in this is that Twitter came alive with Gun control discussions but very little was said on either side of that discussion about the flooding or loss of life.

This re-ignition of the gun control discussion is rather like an endless repetition of a bad Gilligans Island episode. The discussions have begun to bore the hell out of me because they’ve become formulaic.

Gun Control Advocate: Guns are bad, there are too many children dying, guns don’t make us safer, the 2nd amendment is dated and no longer relevant, we need more gun control, no-one needs an assault rifle that can spray bullets to kill people, Only the military needs guns… on and on they regurgitate the same tired and more often than not erroneous sound bites that the media and politicians have spun to reinforce their position on gun control.

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Pro Gun person: Criminals are bad guns are not, yes there are too many children dying but it’s not because of responsible gun owners. Guns do make you safer if this were not so why then are “Gun Free” zones also places with the highest national crime rates? Existing Gun control laws would be sufficient IF the state & federal governments would enforce the laws already on the books. Define assault rifle. So called assault rifles do not “SPAY” bullets they are not machine guns, the fire one bullet with each pull of the trigger. The 2nd amendment is not outdated, The 2nd amendment was about providing the ability of the people to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. And on & on until the cows come home.

In point of fact gun related deaths are by the FBIs & CDCs reports overall down. The CDC report really disappointed the Obama administration because it took the legs out from beneath their arguments for stricter gun control.

But since the CDC report refuted the “Collective Wisdom”, very little media attention was given to the CDC conclusions. And the beat goes on…

There’s a saying… don’t confuse someone with the facts.

I’ve gotten bored with the whole gun debate because it’s not a debate. It’s one side misrepresenting one set of facts and the other side trying to refute specious arguments.

At this rate, the politicians will remove the 2nd amendment provisions while no one is looking and screw us all for a couple hundred votes.

Then they’ll wring their hands and rend their clothing when the whole country has a crime rate like Chicago’s and ask what went wrong. I’m sure at that point we’ll hear calls for stricter penalties, laws and god knows what else.

In other Gun News…

The idiots in the California legislature have sent a bill to the Governors desk that would ban kits designed to make rifles look like assault rifles.

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Yep, you read that correctly. It will now be illegal in California to BOLT on plastic or metal bits designed only to make a legally owned rifle LOOK like an assault rifle.

They’d have done more of a public service making people with face lifts gone wrong illegal in public.

This does nothing but demonstrate how almost incomprehensibly stupid the people running this state are. Or it demonstrates that these people do actually understand the difference between and “Assault Rifle” and a regular hunting rifle and have an agenda to remove both from the hands of the public.

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After all a revolver is “old timey looking” and therefore not nearly as dangerous.

They’ll be forced to legislate more when they realize that a .357 magnum is a revolver that contains 8 rounds. Or that a .44 magnum is a revolver too and it contains 6 rounds.

Harry Callahan: I know what you’re thinking, punk. You’re thinking “did he fire six shots or only five?” Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow you head clean off, you’ve gotta ask yourself a question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?

The point is, much like a Ferrari vs a Hundai, it’s not so much what the gun looks like… its how it performs.

Our legislators don’t understand this.

Condoms in Porn

These have been some back page articles.

Another porn actor has been diagnosed with HIV. And the CONDOM heads are all a dither pointing to this as reason that their NewImagecondom law in pornography should be extended from just LA to all of California.

What they didn’t point out is that the two porn performers recently diagnosed with HIV 1 man , 1 woman were romantically involved in their private lives. Also not mentioned is that the porn industry required medical screening turned up the HIV before these folks had a chance to spread the infection on set,  and that the screening is routine, broad spectrum (looking for HIV and other STDs)

LA County is noticing a drop in the number of permits for Porn film shoots as well.

While surrounding counties are noticing an increase in permits. Additionally more porn studios are filming completely outside California.

Miami, Phoenix, and Las vegas seem to be popular destinations.

Other studios are noticing that condom porn isn’t necessarily affecting their bottom line. However for aficionados of bareback it’s likely bareback production studios will be leaving LA if not California.

For that matter other studios may simply leave the state “preemptively” anticipating onerous laws and regulations. After all why NewImagespend money on permits, in California when you can go to Phoenix or Las Vegas and do your filming unimpeded.

Then there’s this, while you can force condoms to be used in a film… you’re not going to be able to force people to use them in their personal lives. So are these laws really doing all that much good? Or are these laws nothing more than a renewed puritanical movement?

The actors themselves are pretty free to choose how they engage in sex.  I know of several male actors that do solo shows only. The same is true of using condoms or not.

I find myself questioning again and again how many laws like the LA Condom law are about “public safety” and how many are simply about puritanical squeamishness.

So that’s it folks.

These are the odd bits of news that penetrated my thoughts this week. On the plus side I managed to miss all of President Obamas speeches. On the minus side… HEY! There is now down side to that!