A Dixie Carpetbagger

…is ridiculous.  Now, there are a lot of things I could comment on here– encroachment of government, the surreality of being fined for one bottle, the irony of a guy who recycles so much being fined while on vacation…  but I’m just going to say that this reminds me of something:

“This stresses the importance of compliance, and not littering.” No shit, Sherlock…

Is it wrong that the first thing I thought of while reading this story was a post-apocalyptic game set in a dystopian future which is controlled by a nanny-state government led by slug-like aliens?

What happens when hundreds of thousands of conservatives gather in our nation’s capital?  Blood in the streets, violent uprisings, maybe a few thousand simultaneous lynchings?  Nope– this.  (More photos here, here, here and an “aww” inspiring one here.  Newspaper coverage is here, Website coverage is here.)

As you can guess, the numbers the media has been throwing out have been lowballed.  (In the figures by CBS, by a few hundred thousand…)  Compare the crowd at the rally with the crowd from the “I Have A Dream” speech, and then with a few other crowd sizes, and it becomes apparent that there was a good-sized crowd.  (Waiting for somebody on the left to claim it’s all clones.  Yes, we’ve built our own Grand Army of the Republic, lefties…)

Of course, the commentary from said leftists has become… well, to be blunt, the sheep from Animal Farm had more cognitive ability than the commentators I’ve seen so far.  Case in point (via I Own The World):

The damn teabaggers and right wing Beckheads had the nerve to plant people in the crowd with trash bags coordinating cleaning up after themselves. Typical conservative selfishness that stops the union park service from work and earning a living. What right to they have to take jobs from the hard working men and women in DC. Their selfish, self-centered, and malicious manners make me sick.

So… not trashing our nation’s capital is selfish, because we’re somehow taking the bread from the mouths of union workers.  This would explain the condition the Coronation crowd left D.C. in– “Hurricane Latrina.”  (No, I didn’t think that one up.)  Also, I’m laughing at the “hard working” bit.  Then there’s the fact that (apparently) the entire crowd was “white trash,” complete with Igloo coolers and beer helmets.

The funniest part is that the left is becoming unhinged at Beck holding the rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Dr. King’s speech.  “The Ultimate Thumb In the Eye,” they’re saying.  I have to ask… why?  Dr. King was a registered Republican– as was his father– and Republicans were seen as the defenders of civil liberties until 1964, when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law.  (Ironically, LBJ opposed the CRA in 1957, when he was Senate Majority Leader during Eisenhower’s time as President.  You have to make hay when the Sun shines, I guess.)

So, all in all, it was a good rally– no-one got hurt (even though the Black Panthers and Al Sharpton promised they’d show up… ), the place was left in better shape (oh, the poor park employees with nothing to do…), and a large chunk of money ($5 million plus) was raised to help out a very good cause.

… but you’ll take what I dish out, and like it!

Between mowing, trying to finish cleaning*, cleaning the household blasters and feeding Patrol Donkey and Sentry Goose**, it’s hard to find the time to scribble.  But I do have to comment on this video.  My comment is– these people vote; maybe we should rethink that whole universal franchise thing?

* I have books everywhere.  Because I have no book-case built yet.  But to clean everything else, I need to move the books.

** The neighbor’s farm went belly-up, and he sold everything but one donkey and his geese.  Donkeys dislike being alone, so Jake promptly figured out how to get out and began wandering the area.  He makes an excellent night watchman with his partner, the sole surviving goose.  (Oddly enough, a Chinese goose, not a Cotton Patch goose, even though he does weed…  and Cotton Patch geese are rare now?)  Some people hire a security company– I use nature’s own intruder alarm.

1.  Do you like your adviser?

2.  Does your institution require reams of paperwork for admittance, graduation, and/or sending you a paper copy of your grades?

3.  Have you ever had to stop and check that you have not mistakenly wandered in to your local DMV?

4.  Does the class roster remind you of a shell game run by Superman?

5.  Are there more coffee shops on campus than cafeterias?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you are in a state-run educational institution.  So as to save you the time and effort of completing your degree, simply remember this phrase: “¿Quiere papas fritas con eso?”

(One week before classes begin, they monkey with the schedule and drop a class required for my degree.  Luckily, it’ll be held in the spring semester– of 2012.  Now I have to figure out a replacement class that won’t screw up my commuting days…)

Which is what I first said when I read this at Miguel’s:

And Catalonia bans bullfighting.

What… the… hell?  Spaniards… giving up the dance?  (shakes head)  Next you’ll tell me that the Irish have closed the Guinness factory.  One thing I want to point out from Miguel’s take, though.

Bulls back then were humongous animals with a bad attitude, specially the Miura line who probably killed more bullfighters than all other lines combined.

This is happening across the cattle world– bigger, more capable animals are being “bred down” to a level that their owners can handle.  As a personal example, back when we kept cows on the family farm, we had a Beefmaster/Black Angus mix bull we called “Little Man.”  People would see the bull, hear the name (or vice versa), and think it was a purposely ironic name.  It wasn’t– compared to his sire, Little Man was tiny.

At a mere 1,600 pounds.*  Standing on level ground, Little Man was eye level with the barbed wire on a fence.  He could also wrap his tongue around the electric fence wire and absorb the shock with no visible reaction.  His sire, however, broadsided a Chevy and put it into a pond– “no gasoline engines” means exactly that when you’re driving through a cattle pasture…

*Please note that it wasn’t my family that bred down Little Man.  We got him from the owner of his sire, “Big Man.”  (Also known as Brontosarco Rex… King Thunder-Flesh).  1,600 pounds is nothing to sniff at– his offspring tended to be 50% heavier than their mothers– but he was… small compared to his sire.

Why aren’t all of our troops outfitted like this?  A good balaclava and pair of goggles or sunglasses would only be a hundred bucks or so… and imagine the psychological impact of a few thousand troops dressed like this…

(H/T The Firearms Blog)

Well, well, it’s my blogiversary…  one year, today.  Well, one year tomorrow by the date, but I first posted 52 weeks ago…

Oh, and to my NRA handlers– I’m still waiting for my truckloads of cash.

Just finished watching AvP: Requiem.  All I have to say is: dadblame, but directors can screw up a good movie.  Hot blond in her undies at a pool?  Have the scene interrupted by her ex-boyfriend AND the alien!  Aliens taking out the rescue force?  Don’t show the actual firefight– just cut to it in one second bursts!  Government sets up a trap for the survivors?  Have them walk right into it!  (The film’s set in Colorado… the Red Dawn state.  Worse yet, one character even whines, “That’s crazy. The government doesn’t lie to people.”  She was not thrown from the vehicle.)

Overall, it was enjoyable for the sheer carnage, watching those untrained in self-defense perish*,  and the cheesecake (even though she magically found her clothes again in the midst of the horror and carnage).  One pinkie up.

* At one point, a woman is getting off late at night, hears the chef screaming bloody murder in the kitchen, and calmly and totally Condition White walks right into two Aliens.  She then sits down and waits for the end, surrounded by knives and stainless steel.  Oh, and at one point a hunter uses the butt of his rifle to tap on something, thereby pointing the muzzle right at his own face.

Ever get a telemarketer that’s so stubborn you find yourself liking them… just a tiny bit?  I kept getting calls from these people yesterday, “getting out the vote” for Jeff Greene.  I say “kept” because at one point, it was a call every 30 minutes.  Solution:  I turned the phone on and let Mr. Tenacious listen to a 505 watt sound system pump out heavy metal and Modern Warfare multiplayer.

For 45 minutes.

Less than 20 minutes after I hung up, he called back.

I am… impressed.  He is either determined as all get-out, or he’s a slacker with the same taste in music and games.  Either way… he did better than the last phone hack who caught me in the middle of a match…

(By the way, this tradition started back when Opposing Force was new.  PC Magazine would never call me or send me a renewal letter after that… I had to call them.)

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that Jesus’ Golden Rule inspired him…

Well, that’s good…

… to vote to confirm Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court…

Lindsey…