A Dixie Carpetbagger

From Newbius:

What is the average length of time that a normal person should be expected to perform an unpleasant job function, without receiving any positive feedback or additional monetary motivation upon successful completion of the taskings?

Well, for me, it was over three years.  But it I had to do it over again?  I would have told my employer where he could place my job after the first 11 month stint.  (Worked for him for 11 months, worked for myself, then came back– after my former supervisor begged me– for two years and a few months.)  The job was (quite literally) Hell with fluorescent lights.

Why is Newbius’ question timely?  Because it was a year ago Friday that I told my employer that I wouldn’t be in on Monday– or any day after that, for that matter.

That means that Friday is my blogiversary…

Please note, the ice cream man will not stop for you in the middle of the road:

Also, I present you with the creepiest ice cream… vehicle… ever.  (Language warning.)

My first thought one seeing that… thing… was a line from Tango and Cash: “Who holds the pink slip?  Satan?”  My second thought was “that song, it will be in my nightmares, forever.”  (The fact that I just got finished watching End of Days didn’t help, either…)

(H/T both videos iOwnTheWorld)

Newbius finds an odd exhibit in a museum.  No, that’s not an M-4 with a shotgun’s sight rib– take a look at the muzzle.  It’s Colt’s prototype Advanced Combat Rifle.  What’s so special about it?  It fires two rounds at a time… kinda.

So, instead of modifying the fire control to fire a two-round burst, (wait a second… the M-16A2 had a three-round burst setting) Colt made a rifle that fired two projectiles (of different weights) with reduced accuracy (two weights, two points of impact) from a specialized cartridge (reduced powder charge, logistics nightmares, non-standard).  Anybody care to guess why the ACR contest went nowhere?

In short: I’ve come to the point where my fuse is shorter than my attention span.  Every time I try to cool down, I hit another land mine of glaring stupidity.

A Whale clean up the oil spill?  No, no– it doesn’t make the water 99.9985% pure!  (The Gulf wasn’t that clean to begin with, nitwits!)

Large groups of people coming together to clean the shore?  No, no– they’re holding “Hands Across the Sand”… apparently they think they can ward the oil off… or something.  (Draw a Venn diagram consisting of three concentric circles.  The first is “not-so-bright people,” the second is “leftists,” and the last is “eco-nuts.”)

The economy going down faster than Ashley Dupree when Mr. Spitzer walks in the room?  Hey– it could be worse!  (Don’t worry, Obama voter, it will be!)

The President doing everything shy of putting on a tricorner hat and speaking with a bad Corsican accent?  Hey, at least he’s not Bush!  (Yes, an Obama voter has told me this.  I almost lost it.)

In short, it’s come to the point that I have to either take it easy, or go buy a horse and change my name to Quantrill.  Maybe I can just do funny stories…

Have you ever wondered what a vulture being hit by a wind turbine looks like?  Well, wonder no more– it looks like this:

Just imagine– a few million of these, and we can rid of all those nasty oil rigs in the Gulf!

(H/T I Own The World)

McDonald came down in our favor.

Link to a PDF of the decision here.

The Second Amendment now applies to the states through the 14th Amendment.  Alito wrote the majority opinion, Scalia wrote a concurring opinion, and Breyer whined (a spine, grow one, Stoddard*).  Weer’d points out that this will have huge impacts on state laws (and points to crying at The Huffer’s Postings).  Jay G., Laurel,and Roberta X gloat a little bit, while Curt points to the VPC whining and Newbius points to some sobs by Dennis Henigan. Then Paul Helmke declared victory, while Uncle points to Pajamas Media debunking the VPC… with their own stats.

Breda points out the guy who did quite a bit of the work (Alan Gura), and to a movie critic being… stupid.  Alan posts the picture Laurel referred to (yes, the Bradys are a hate group).  Joe Huffman has a quote from the NRA– finally, a right promised is a right honored.

There are four quotes quotes I want to use here.  The first is from Jennifer:

The gun banners have a warped view of the human race. They simultaneously believe that an inanimate object will turn a law abiding citizen into a crazed maniac and that the crazed maniac could peacefully exist in a society without the same inanimate object. Personally I do not believe that a person bent on violence will not be changed by a lack of tools. Likewise, a normally peaceful person will not be changed by the presence of said tool.

The next is from Tom at SCOTUSblog, via Uncle:

When Heller was decided, we had our biggest day ever, by far — 300,000 hits. Americans care about gun rights.

Then one from the Wall Street Journal, via USCitizen:

All of this suggests that the liberals have decided to bide their time and wait for a fifth vote so they can overturn both Heller and McDonald. This means that the matter of Second Amendment rights is far from settled, and the National Rifle Association and other advocates had better keep their legal guard up.

Finally, one from Steve Harris (a pro-gun attorney) via Massad Ayoob:

I think we need one more Supreme Court case on guns to make it clear to the circuit courts what they mean about reasonable regulation. That will take about 3-5 years to percolate.

So, after putting it all together, we “gun nuts” just took a big step towards real freedom.  But we have to be vigilant for the next few years, until all the kinks get straitened out.

Senator Byrd is now facing the Eternal Elector.

Or, as Tam phrased it: “The Grim Reaper invoked cloture on Robert C. Byrd’s filibuster today.”

That’s right, the only Klansman in the Senate has passed on to his eternal reward.  The left is already trying to spin his past involvement with the KKK in a positive light– the South made him do it!  Yes, us dastardly Rebels made him join the Klan, made him become a KKK recruiter, and made him vocally support the Klan.  Don’t venture south of the Mason-Dixon Line, Yanks, or we’ll turn our magical KKK Ray on you!

As both Weer’d and Mike W. pointed out, if Byrd did change his mind, where was his change in actions?  If the former Klucker was no longer a Klucker, where was his activism AGAINST the Klan?  You see, of the people in my blogroll, some of the most outspoken are those who had been in the groups they speak out against.  (Mike Vanderboegh and Weer’d come to mind…)  I mean, this is the guy who said this:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

Which brings me to a quote by Linoge:

Should Senator Byrd be remembered? Absolutely – as an shining example of what not to do. However, as sure as I am that he and Teddy are bumping knuckles today, I am just as certain that the Democratic Party and Mainstream Media (but I repeat myself) are doing their absolute damnest to ensure that Robert’s disgusting legacy is celebrated… which kind of says something about those folks with the “D” after their names, does it not?

Indeed– if the Dems were truly as nice, kind, pro-minority as they proclaimed… well, they wouldn’t be the Democratic Party.  Just remember, folks– this was the song the DNC used in 1864…  they were Copperheads then, and they’re Copperheads still.  For reference, compare the treatment of Byrd to the treatment of Thurmond.

Though I do wonder what Byrd was thinking when he was waving the flag as a “race mongrel” became President…

General McChrystal forgot an old adage.

You know, the one about how “the slow blade penetrates the shield.”  The fact that Rolling Stone was the one that brought him down is ironic, because… well, I’ll quote from this op-ed:

Since the end of the draft, the officer corps has become increasingly conservative and libertarian, and it is a rare officer who votes as a Democrat. [...] [C]urrently, the overwhelming majority of senior officers are registered Republicans, and there are very few registered Democrats. Special operations officers are even more conservative than their traditional brethren… [...] Ironically, McChrystal is a registered Democrat, a social liberal, and an Obama supporter in the 2008 election.

General, what did Barry say to you in that meeting?  Was it “YES, I CAN!”  Having said that (with as much snark as I can muster), I’m sorry to see the General retire–  McChrystal reminded me of Colonel Hackworth, who was one of my favorite writers and a man I much respected.  I just think it’s ironic that a leftist mag took down a leftist General who supported the leftist President that fired him… and replaced him with a General who has won an award from the AEI and been attacked by the Left.  (Dear MoveOn– choke on your “Betray Us” line.  We remember it, bet on that.)

* Oh, come on, somebody has to catch that…

Eggs will no longer be sold by quantity in the EU– they’ll be sold by weight.  An official was quoted as saying “[t]his proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put ‘Six eggs’ on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say ’500g’ instead of six rolls.”  So… the box will be square?  No bumps for the eggs to sit in?  Because otherwise, you’ll be able to tell from the package how many eggs are inside the container.

(H/T Dr. Lott)

Remember Ms. “But Arizona doesn’t have a border with Mexico!” I mentioned in the last post?  I found out via a commenter at Wyatt’s that Senator Kyl sent her a letter.  He included a map.  I can only imagine that said map looked like this:

Scene: bar interior, nighttime.  A woman waves at a guy dressed as a Snickers bar, and is then tackled by her girlfriend, who is dressed as a sumo wrestler.  At the far end of the bar, two men wearing brush hats and drinking Fosters slam their drinks down, stand up, and shoot each other in the buttocks.  A woman stands up from one of the tables and begins yelling “But Arizona doesn’t have a border with Mexico!“  Two friends are sharing a meal in one of the booths when several people wearing lab coats come in, grab one of them and drags them away.  A gentleman wearing a three-piece suit, narrow tie and holding a lit cigarette walks into view.

Rod Serling: You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of good and evil but of morons; a journey into a monstrous land whose boundaries are that of stupidity — Next stop, the Nannystate World.

Geographically Illiterate Woman: Oh… My… Gawd… is that a LIT CIGARETTE?  You MONSTER, put that out!  (Begins mock coughing)  Oh noes, I’m gettin’ CAN-SUH!

RS: (Puts cigarette in mouth and takes a drag) You have got to be kidding me.  Less than 35 years, and it’s come down to this?  What’s next, you gonna tell me that we elected some henpecked college boy as President?

Everyone in the bar breaks eye contact and begins shifting in their chairs.  The bartender lifts the remote and turns the T.V. to CNN, where an Obama speech is on.

RS: And I thought Nixon was bad.

A 28 year old woman is running for state rep in Tennessee.  She… she posed for racy pictures!  When she was 23!  TWENTY-THREE!  I hate to show you such… filth… but here’s one of the pictures she posed for.  Scandalous!

No, not really.  I have a few female friends who model, and that picture is tame.  As in, that went in the lobby.  One of my friends has a picture where she was modeling a black strapless dress and had a… wardrobe malfunction.  The picture was used (in a cropped form) in a few ad campaigns.  Heck, that picture’s tame compared to some of the pictures my friends take at the lake.

I find it more scandalous that she was pregnant at 15.  Since the picture’s a 0.5 on the Scandal-meter, the fact that she’s 28 with a 13 year old measures a whopping 1.0.  Seriously, Teddy Kennedy kills a chick, Bill Clinton gets hummers in the Oval Office, and Blago tried to sell a Senate seat… and this is supposed to be scandalous?  Pshaw!

All I wanna know is… if she wins, will she do a Maxim shoot?  (chuckle)

(H/T Uncle)