Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
My goodness, that thing I know about people that nobody told me when I was a child, is getting a good workout. Let’s start with the headline of the column:
Walsh: Time to grow up and put your guns away
Christ on a cracker, are we in a competition for the “snooty condescending prick” award here?
I understand the thrill of firing a Glock (I’ve done it), the euphoria of hitting the center of a target (and that, too), generations of family deer-hunting weekends and the legitimate self-preservation instincts of Utah’s elected concealed weapon carriers.
But the OpenCarry movement is a mystery to me. What kind of psychology – overcompensation, paranoia, antisocial personality – is behind that thinking?
Uh…how about taking real responsibility for something, as in, “I’ll pack the equipment to do it myself if everything else fails”? And since that is a far bigger issue than just the conceal-carry situation, you, Ms. Walsh, have just revealed yourself to be a stranger to that line of thinking. Good. Now I know you’re one of those “I done my bit and if it goes to crap it’s not my fault” people.
Hope nobody’s depending on you for protection.
“Second Amendment questions aside,” says [Anthropologist Charles] Springwood, a professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, “the real debate seems to me a cultural and social one: Do we want a society in which it is an unconscious emblem of everyday life that folks move about with ‘portable killing machines’ strapped to their bodies?”
Well I dunno. I was born well after the days of the Old West, so I haven’t lived in “a society in which it was an unconscious emblem” blah blah blah. But I was born in the sixties. So I’ve lived in a society in which violent criminals got arrested for damaging property and hurting people, and released on technicalities, and then when men women and children were chopped down like cattle marching to slaughter the law rolled it’s eyes and sighed and said “ah, well.”
Ms. Walsh, I recommend you just think of it as the mark of a civilized society — people living here have the right to defend themselves. That means, if they anticipate something bad might happen to them they can prepare for it, and it’s not the business of you or the busybody lawyers and anthropologists in your rolodex to second-guess ’em about it. Nerdy little boys, getting beaten up by bullies on the playground, can hit back. All that good stuff.
Mark of a civilized society. As opposed to one that requires the people living within it to just sit around waiting to be victimized…which would be the mark of a primitive society.
Oh, and that thing I know about people that nobody told me when I was a child, that’s getting such a good workout lately? That would be #27:
27. People who make a conscious decision not to offer help or defense to someone who needs it, don’t want anyone else to help or defend that person either.
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You know, I just got an offer from the NRA to get a lifetime membership for $600 instead of the usual $1000 — probably because I’ve been a non-lifetime member long enough to more than make up the difference.
I’m sorely tempted to take them up on it. I’m even more tempted after reading this.
And after that I’d continue to give to them as if I was still paying for a non-lifetime member.
- philmon | 06/23/2008 @ 23:22