10:45 – We’re doing the usual Sunday stuff. Barbara just finished cleaning house. I finished the last of the laundry and started hauling stuff downstairs from the library/living room.
We’re getting to the point where kit components are in reasonable supply, so I’m going to shift gears from working on kits every day to devoting two days a week to stuff that’s been on my to-do list for a long time. Such as finishing the earth science manual, getting started on the manual/design for AP Chemistry and AP Biology, and so on. Not to mention doing some cleaning up and uncluttering of the upstairs.
11:12 – Texas Republicans favor ‘reparative therapy’ platform for gays
Morons. There are two things wrong with their reasoning, if such a word can be applied to their thought processes: first, the implicit assumption, with no supporting evidence, is that there’s something wrong with being gay, that it needs “fixing”. Second, there’s the explicit assumption, again with zero supporting evidence, that it’s possible to “convert” someone from being gay to being straight. In all of the history of H. sapiens, that’s been accomplished exactly zero times. If you are heterosexual and doubt the truth of that statement, just try to imagine “therapy” that would cause you to “convert” to being gay.
Apples and oranges, RBT. Converting someone from straight to gay is a perversion, whereas converting someone from gay to straight is doing God’s work because being gay is bad. I know because it says so in this book, and I know the book is God’s true words because it says so in the book.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.
They’re idiots, of course, but we need to ask ourselves why a bunch of pols and hacks would go ahead with such blather. And why they’re allowed to move ahead with it there.
In any case, a tiny, tiny percentage of the population somehow managed to make a big noise for the past fifty years out of all proportion to their numbers and are now worshiped and glorified. It is as if computer engineers or airline pilots had done so, in terms of relative numbers.
And also in any case, this country has way more to worry about than such rubbish, and this is why the idiot bastards who run the Repub half of the War Party have continually shot themselves in both feet for decades. The main worry people have here is jobs and the economy and health care; everything else is way down the list, including our endless wars overseas. As the infrastructure crumbles, manners and civility become a thing of the past, our children become boorish imbeciles, and we become fat, stupid cretins ourselves, all too willing to sit munching processed junk and glued to the tee-vee.
There are two things wrong with their reasoning
I think you have it all wrong.
What their platform is stating is that no laws will be passed restricting any such treatment. Secondly is that such treatment can be offered on a voluntary basis.
This is not about forcing treatment, it is about money and living off the government.
You see, what you can do under such a platform, if passed into law, is when you don’t feel like working for a living you simply claim you are gay. Now you can seek treatment under welfare or medicare, along with living expenses, to have your “problem” resolved. No law can be passed restricting coverage under medicare. So now you can use a lifestyle to gain access to all kinds of taxpayer funded treatment. More freebies.
Plus it will also provide a glorious employment opportunity for anyone graduating from college with a psychology degree to now find a job, paid by the government, to treat a problem that is “imaginary”.
This will also open the door to have gender change operations performed at government (taxpayer) expense as medicare will not be able to restrict the funding.
This wonderful platform by those republicans will guarantee lots of jobs and lots of welfare checks. Absolutely brilliant way to scam more money from the system.
I may consider a new retirement plan. All I have to do is to say I played with some other chap’s wanger and I will be able to get free money.
“…when you don’t feel like working for a living you simply claim you are gay.”
Gee, now that I think of it, I could be gay. Underneath all the straight Christian brainwashing of sixty years. Where’s the paperwork?
Meanwhile they make the vets jump through endless hoops to secure any kind of disability allowance, let alone what the contemporary equivalent is of the G.I. Bill entitlements, and their default setting is “Don’t Pay.” The entire burden of proof and truckloads of paperwork are on the vet.
And the charade continues; not only elections and voting, but the whole scam of getting something for nothing and having half the country support the other half, who then spit on the former and demand more,more,more.
Gorgeous day here in the Redneck Riviera; many folks out and about with picnics, umbrellas, fishing rods, boats; and a large turnout with chairs and umbrellas for the high school baseball, lacrosse and football fields over at the large community athletic center. The football players look like midgets and I can’t believe they have them out there in this 80s heat and humidity with the helmets and pads. Then I remember they had US out there back in the day; running our asses off in August and pounding away at the tackling dummies, evidently filled with wet cement, until we were black and blue. By contrast, the track was virtually empty; that was my sport in winter (indoor track) and spring; middle distances and high jump. Now going up and down the friggin’ stairs is a pain.
I need to get out more and look into some kinda natural remedy for joint flexibility and comfort (knees!). Lost twenty pounds, down to 255. Appointment tomorrow for new primary care doc at the VA, only thirty miles instead of 130, from now on. Thanks, Senator Sanders!
It is as if computer engineers or airline pilots had done so, in terms of relative numbers.
In the US, something like 1-2% of people consider themselves gay, and about 10% have had a homosexual experience. These figures are pretty solid: check out the relevant Wikipedia articles for a good overview. Around 600,000 people are employed as pilots, and 600,000 as software engineers (I couldn’t find a good estimate for the number of computer engineers, which is doubtless a lot smaller). This corresponds to 0.2% of the US population in each job. Your claim is out by an order of magnitude or more.
There’s also the significant difference that sexual identity isn’t a job, and is something for which people have been persecuted. I really disagree that gay people are glorified… at best, they’re being celebrated to the same extent as straight people are. Yes, they often make a big deal about things like Gay Pride parades — but then, I’d argue every other day in the year is a de facto Straight Pride parade.
OK, fine, my numbers are off by an order of magnitude; there are presumably six-million allegedly gay people in the U.S., that number possibly having tripled itself in the decades since Stonewall, when it was realized that Victimhood was the way to go, as with other aggrieved groups, of which we will evidently have no end. And I would venture to say that straight people now are either persecuted, neglected or otherwise at a disadvantage at least as often as gays.
And of course arguing that every other day in the year is Straight Pride is like the response women give in regard to any complaints about the roaring hoopla and media frenzy over Mother’s Day every year, that every other day is Father’s Day. Bullshit. Most of us who are married, with or without kids, can attest to that.
Straight people don’t jump up and down and have parades over the great news that they’re straight, except maybe for Pat Sajak, who just came out as straight, LOL.
Those morons in Texas who actually believe they’re doing any good need to find something more important to focus on; and those who are cynically manipulating tax dollars when the country is nearing $20-trillion and heading for Default should be stood against a wall and shot. Along with all the banksters and Wall Street con artists and grifters who devastated this economy and caused untold losses and grief to millions.
Wow, she really is still popular.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/
Hard choices, my hind leg. Her hard choice has been do I wear yellow or red today? Do I stay with Bill or run away?
Here’s the thing; if Lady MacBeth of Little Rock runs for Prez, even with someone as goofy as Biden, she will nail the female vote, period. Women want a woman, so long as she’s a Dem. BUT, if the Mooch runs, she gets it, period. And the Heroine of Tripoli can’t really pick a woman running mate, like Fauxcahauntus of Maffachufetts; it will have to be some Dem guy who can bring in the male Dem and RINO votes.
I think the game plan is to set up the Mooch for that Illinois seat for the next term and then move her into the WH, probably easily done. Meanwhile the Repubs have their usual clown car of guys popping out, probably a dozen or two-dozen of them, over the next year or two; they’ll tease us with a possible savior, who talks a great line of chit, or pretends to heavy-duty Tea Party beliefs and connections, and so on, but each one will fall by the wayside. And whoever they pick has zero chance against the Dems from now on; they may “control” the Congress but we’ve seen how that works out for us in real life already; indistinguishable from Dems, as is the real case anyway. But for all practical purposes on the national scene, the Repubs are demographic toast and that was the game plan all along, the original architect and eminence grise being one Edward F. Kennedy back in the Sixties. That was his parting gift to us, ungrateful churls, who would not make him King after Chappaquiddick. Destroy the country.
@MrAtoz; looks there was just a shooting at a Walmart in your town, two dead…
http://rt.com/usa/164636-las-vegas-shooting-walmart/
Mr. OFD, wow LV Review Journal has an update. The two cops and a civilian were murdered in a CiCi’s Pizza next to the Walmart. Suspects ran into the Walmart and offed themselves. At least one cop was shot in the head. Must have been grisly. No closure for the families on this one. A sad day in Vegas for sure.
Lately there seems to be a shooting like this almost daily. WTF?
Mental health is 100% fraud and 100% ineffective and this is just the same deja vu all over again.
What is worse about this one is that the PC liberalati will be totally against this while the support all other forms of mental health, such as curing incipient mass gun killers before they kill.
CowboySlim
Who is an expert regarding mental non-health.
re mental health: it’s an exaggeration to say it’s 100% fraud and 100% ineffective. I doubt either number is much more than 95%.
re (latest) Las Vegas shooting: the revolution has begun
Well, Pauline Pacheco had the right moves and did the right thing.
Too bad no one else was around and handy with a gun to take out these two gremlins, but it sounds like a planned sneak attack/suicide. Be nice to get more intel on them. And whether or not one or both were on some kind of psych meds.
The summuh day is winding down here on the bay; mowed the lawn, chatted with neighbors, swapped out the .22 Mag cylinder for the .22 LR one in the Ruger, assembled a mechanics socket set, Craftsman, natch, more nasty cellar cleanup, and read some more in the late Tony Hillerman’s memoir; I had not known he was a decorated infantry grunt in the Good War. Very interesting stuff, funny and self-deprecating throughout.
I was sitting out on the porch with the four cats and mutt and reading and some damn kid was periodically screaming/shouting/yelling over in the park like he was been tortured with hot irons. Went on for at least an hour. Wished I had a mortar, like Hillerman had during that war. Just a 60 woulda done the job. We had 80s in the USAF Security Police small arms arsenal, along with M16s, M60s, Remington shotguns, S&W .38s, 40mm automatic grenade launchers, M79 grenade launchers, the M-whatever grenade launchers that attached to the rifles, 90mm recoilless rifles, .50s, M113 APCs with machine guns, Rubber Duckie armored vehicles (theoretically submersible, haha), etc., etc. My faves were the M60 and M79. Later I got to play with the big boyz on the gunships, the baby NCO supervised by master-, senior-master and chief-master sergeants, most of them also Korean and WWII vets.
And soon, back to Season Two of Vikings; I checked on King Ecbert’s son Aethelwulf and he had a pretty good military record after the historical events of this series hunting down and killing Viking marauders. But it was his son Alfred the Great who finished them off and sent them packing, finally.
swapped out the .22 Mag cylinder for the .22 LR one in the Ruger
Huh? More info please, sounds interesting.
BTW, my son and his partner have their gun business off the ground and running:
http://www.gunpitt.com/
Their motto is: “We love guns. You should too.”
“BTW, my son and his partner have their gun business off the ground and running:”
My initials are SAS, Second Amendment Slim.
My son’s all time favorite weapon is the M2. Second favorite is the Mk 19 belt fed 40mm grenade launcher. Something about the perfect weapon for leading an assault vehicle and then nailing it.
Love the MK19. Had two in my unit HHC while I was XO. Fun doing terrain analysis of the local ville to see where we could drop some boom boom.
“Huh? More info please, sounds interesting.”
Nothing extraordinary; it’s just a Ruger Single-Six .22, which comes with two cylinders, one .22LR and one .22WMR. They have several other convertible SA revolvers as well. I love ’em. Some guys/companies are also making rifles with revolving cylinders, including a guy up here. Signed up with your son’s site just now; Class III FFL in-progress.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0608/Illegal-immigration-how-humanitarian-crisis-on-border-could-hurt-Obama-video
They’ve been persecuted and discriminated against. They do it out of love. We must take them all in their tens of millions, and celebrate the Diversity!
We CAN pay for foreign clusterfuck wars on multiple fronts simultaneously!
We CAN provide free housing, cars, educations, business loans and medical care to these tens of millions!
We CAN because we’re AMERICA and we have a God-given Mandate to save the world!
No cost too great, no burden too large; we CAN and we WILL!
Just one little problem…we’re $20-trillion in debt and SOME of that fiat currency and free money must go to folks in prisons who want “gender re-assignment” surgery; more Homeland Insecurity toyz for isolated rural and small-town police departments; billions of rounds of crunchenticker ammo for every conceivable Fed, state and local department and agency; the continuing communist sinkhole of public education; and more cops and soldiers to protect the One Percent and their property and keep up the War on Some Drugs and the wars on organic farmers and raw milk producers.
But wait…there must be some other true-blue Repub savior waiting in the wings to fix all this for us and save the country!
Stay tuned!
And don’t forget to VOTE!
Hey, I like that Ruger Single Six!
http://www.ruger.com/products/newModelSingleSixConvertible/models.html
I may need to get one also. I would like to have about 30-40 revolvers, 10 semi-autos and 10 rifles. My Ruger 10-22 and Mini 14 are great rifles. Too bad I lost them in the river.
“It is not big brother that you have to worry about: It is the spy in your pocket.”
http://twothirdsdone.com/2014/06/08/it-is-not-big-brother-that-you-have-to-worry-about-it-is-the-spy-in-your-pocket/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0608/Illegal-immigration-how-humanitarian-crisis-on-border-could-hurt-Obama-video
This is totally crazy. We’ve been absorbing a million illegals a year with some trouble. Double that is a freaking disaster. And remember, this is the uneducated portion of South American societies. And we are starting to see other continents sneak in the same way.
Instead of taking care of Vets, Obummer sees fit to fund lawyers to help keep illegals here. Thanks a lot OdoucheBag! And fuck the Vets:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/us/us-to-provide-lawyers-for-children-facing-deportation.html
Don’t forget: Fuck the Vet. New motto. But it’s pretty much always been the case, except for our returning Good War heroes.
But this is all part of the plan; bring in more tens of millions to add to the tens of millions already here; more votes for the Dems and cheap labor for the Repubs and a total drain on the welfare state to the probable and continuing exclusion of native-born Murkans, including veterans.
These guys here have been on this for a very long time; they evidently still believe there are viable political solutions, however, which I do not:
https://www.vdare.com/
No country historically has been able to sustain this level of immigration and successfully assimilate them; but again, that’s the plan anyway. Teddy’s Revenge.
Lynn, how come 1911s are so much more expensive than the other pistols there?
I gather that there’s a price for which they guarantee to sell, a minimum price below which they won’t sell, and best bid over the reserve gets the bid upon gun in four days. Is that right?
Here’s Hillary whining how hard she and BJ had it after his term as Emperor:
“We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Clinton told Sawyer, referring to the hefty legal fees incurred during their White House years. “We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy.”
How could anybody even believe this? It’s just ridiculous to think they “struggled.” BJ gets $200K out the gate and millions for speeches, gifts, payback from cronies. What a joke. People are dumb to believe this.
How could anybody even believe this?
It is even more unbelievable when you consider their housing, utilities, transportation, food, internet, phone, TV, laundry and medical was 100% free. If I did not have to pay for those expenses I could live quite well on less than $500 a month. Factoring in his salary of $250K a month that would leave $249,500 a month in disposable income. Where in hell did they spend the rest of the money?
A Twitchy reader posted a link to this Politico article on how “poor” the Klintons were coming out of Mordor:
From the combined $358,000 they reported in 2000 to the $16 million they earned in 2001, their income increased by nearly 50 times in the first year after Bill Clinton left office, highlighting the lucrative opportunities awaiting former presidents.
A total of $111 million 2000-2007. But, Klinton claiming it was not easy. Geez.
Lynn, how come 1911s are so much more expensive than the other pistols there?
It is my experience that 1911s are expensive in general. Demand?
The cries of poormouth from such as the Heroine of Tripoli and Benghazi are just so much hogwash; they’ve leeched off the State, in one form or another, their whole sorry, parasitic lives. She used to deduct their used underwear and skivvies at the governor’s mansion in Little Rock and chisel on every conceivable other deduction they could concoct. And note her plural mortgages and houses, a situation most of us are unfamiliar with, and thankfully so these days.
And as noted here, once they bailed, they immediately bought *another* mansion in NY and started pulling in zillions from speeches, books, and other graft.
1911s? Depends on the manufacturers, but they have more moving parts, cost more to make and the ammo is more expensive. New ones can be had for less than $500 from some companies, and of course they can run into thousands. Even if I had loads of dough and my FFL right now, I’d still be happy with a new Colt Commander like Bob has. Under a thousand, IIRC.
Mine’s actually a Combat Commander (steel frame) rather than a Commander.
Right, I knew that; will be looking, but it’s not a priority right now. Next project involves AR’s.
It’s a strange thing about political parties – they seem to think they must have a position on everything.
Just as an example: I kind of like the Pirate Party in Europe. When the Swiss branch was founded, I even paid a membership fee, figuring that they need to be able to claim numbers. So I started getting their mailings. The thing is: The Pirate Party was founded as a technically aware party with an interest in reforming intellectual property laws, and I would expect them to have sensible positions on privacy, electronic security and related topics.
So what do I see in the first meeting agendas? I see how they are spending all sorts of time working out the official party position on every other issue under the sun, from social issues to nuclear power. What the devil? Why do they need a position on all those things? I want them to concentrate on technology issues – leave the rest to the individual consciences of their candidates. But apparently that is not possible…
So back to the Republicans: Some religious-conservative jerkwad with lots of influence got his (and it is a “he”, guaranteed) panties in a twist and forced this idiotic plank into the party platform. What for? Aren’t there more important things to deal with? They need to field candidates who will work on small-government, on privacy and freedom issues. Whether he’s gay or a homophobe is just not relevant to the real tasks at hand.
Brad, “It’s all about control.”
Constructing a political party world view can’t be easy. They try to appeal as broadly as possible while pissing off as few people as possible, other than the ones they know they’ll never get. And they’re generally successful at that, as evidenced by the fact that I have several gay friends around my age who’ve voted Republican in every election since they were 18.
What the Republicans and Democrats both fail to understand is that they have built-in constituencies that they can ignore. For example, the religious fundies generally aren’t going to vote Democrat even if the Republican platform ignores fundie priorities. Similarly, union members and hard lefties generally aren’t going to vote Republican no matter what.
Both parties used to understand this, and both made sure their fringes gained no power within the party. Nowadays, it’s all about the fringes dominating things, which puts both parties on the far edges of the continuum, so far apart that they can never even meet in the middle to shake hands. Most Republicans consider Democrats to be the enemy, literally, and vice versa. I’m only surprised that gunfire hasn’t broken out between them. So far.
Rank-and-file Repubs and Dems may consider each other enemies but the “leadership” and wise guys know better. It’s all one Party. And it will soon all be moot.
The charade continues, for the time being.
Political Science 101. It’s about power and money.
Yes, that comment about the fringes rings true. Consider, for example, how much issues like gay marriage have been in the press – yet it’s an issue that affects a small minority, and imho just isn’t all that important. The same for vegetarians and vegans – just about every restaurant caters to them, every cuisine program mentions them, and yet strict vegetarians are only about 2% of the population as a whole (at least here in CH that’s the figure).
Being a minority is apparently power in modern times . Which, a long chain of inferences away, reminds me of a recent article where women’s colleges were gnashing their collective teeth – what to do, what do do about transsexuals. Funny, first, because that’s a vanishingly small minority, and second, because the college were asked why there was still a need for women’s colleges. The answer was: because the minority gender needs support. An answer wrong in so many ways it’s hard to count (total population, college population, college graduates), but claiming that minority status is important!
“…and yet strict vegetarians are only about 2% of the population as a whole…
But wait: we have a vegan in our family of three, thus one in three, thus one-third, and thus extrapolating from that like other minorities do, why, we have 33% of the population! Isn’t it neat how that works? Plus I know just scads and scads of vegans as friends (I’m lying) so that percentage must be even higher! Probably like…oh, 80%.
So we’ll just take that latter figure as a given, shall we, and there will be no dissent allowed from haters and bigots; it is now the Accepted Science. Wisdom. Fact. Whatever.
I’m guessing that straight white Catholic Christian married-with-kids combat vets may be a vanishing minority and so where can we cash in???
I’m not sure where that 2% came from. A 2012 Gallup Poll said that 5% of Americans self-identify as vegetarians and 2% as vegans. I’ve seen other polls that list numbers of 12% or more for vegetarians/vegans, which seems very high to me.
The numbers in various polls are all over the map, but one thing seems certain: vegetarianism/veganism is on the increase. When I started college in 1971, I don’t think I’d ever met a vegetarian, let alone a vegan. A girl I met in college told me she was a vegetarian, and appended the explanation that she didn’t eat meat. Back then, I suspect most people weren’t very clear on what vegetarian meant. I remember being very surprised that anyone would not eat meat (especially bacon …).
I still don’t know many vegans, but I’d guess that probably 5% of the people I do know are vegetarians, which corresponds to Gallup’s numbers. Of course, it all depends on what you mean by “strict”. I consider myself a vegetarian of the ovo-lacto-pisco-fowlo-meato variety. Also, for ethical reasons, I don’t eat lettuce.
I’m a vegetarian, and a teetotaler.
Out of deference to Princess and people like here I refuse to eat meat between 3.03 and 3.05 am on Tuesdays, and out of deference to our Moslem friends I’m a strict teetotaler between 4.44 and 4.45 am on Fridays…
Wow. The brutal sacrifice involved with that boggles the mind! However do you manage???
Princess is easing off that uber-vegan crap finally; she’ll eat fish now. And she ain’t a teetotaler.
I only eat animals that eat vegetation. And I only drink products made from vegetation, grains or fruit such as coffee, whiskey or wine.
A sound practice I generally follow myself, but I’ll probably never be able to live up to Greg’s brutal standards.
People who eat fish and think they’re vegetarians are kidding themselves. Unlike Bill, I’ll eat carnivores, just so long as they aren’t still running around.
The 2% vegetarians was for Switzerland. The figures from the study:
13.2% – eat a lot of meat
64.5% – normal people who eat whatever they want
18.8% – eat relatively little meat
1.0% – eat only fish
1.6% – vegetarian (non-vegan)
0.6% – vegan
0.0% – fruitarian
I am not surprised that the US has more veggies – it’s a PC point there, another reason to be able to feel superior in certain social groups. Californian progressives come to mind, but not only.
Anyhow, I keep trying to convince my wife that eating meat counts as eating vegetables. I admit, it is indirect, but cows are made of vegetables.
I’m a strict molecularian. I refuse to eat anything that’s not made of molecules.