Lobotomized Morning Yaks

I do NOT watch AM TV. . . well, I do not, as a general rule. But. Well, my Wonder Woman is off work today and so morning TV (completely absent anything appropriate for Memorial Day, of course) is on. Blonde Bimbo is attempting to channel her inner 13-year-old “Valley Girl,” complete with the “Listen to me Do I sound stupid or what?” inflections and Robin’s Egg Blue nail polish.

*gagamaggot*

I pointed out the nail polish to my Wonder Woman (school librarian, so look out for the pun). She told me that when she sees girls with blue nail polish she takes their hands and says something like, “Oh, honey, we have to work on your circulation, because your fingers are turning blue!”

*heh*

The Blonde Bimbo Valley Girl on GMA yaks like the circulation problem has caused even deeper problems with her lobotomy. . .

The Natives Are Restless. . .

While the savages in Ferguson and elsewhere demonstrate why ordinary folks hold them in contempt, I’m once again glad I live in America’s Third World County™, where there may be violence from time to time, but usually limited to one-on-one (and at least one of the participants was askin’ for it). There’s quite a bit of gunfire, but it’s usually limited to the range, the deer (or other game) woods, and occasionally shots fired at someone who’s askin’ for it (trespassing, attempted burglary/robbery–usually out in the country where it’s REALLY stupid to try, cos if the 00 shot doesn’t get you, the landowner’s dogs will).

It’s nice to live somewhere with the virtues of civilization and few(er) of its vices.

Keep it in the X-ring, folks!

Is It Just Me?

Anyone else annoyed (to the point of having your gizzard chapped *heh*) by speakers and especially by writers who use the plural pronouns, “them, they, their” in place of “he or she, him or her, his or hers” whenever they simply want to obscure–or simply not specify–the sex of the (singular!) person to whom they refer?

I view such usage as lazy and cowardly. Use gendered pronouns whenever possible. Chap idiots’ gizzards.

Some Non-Random Musings on the Current Scene

N.B.: I frankly DGARA about foreign affairs, except where developments might have a local effect because of “feddle gummint” stupidities or deliberately malicious intent (toward citizens) in policies. So, by “current scene” you can expect me to comment on what was once quaintly known as “the home front,” for the most part.

Today’s topic: Censorship, “feddle gummint” skulduggery, Sharyl Atkkisson, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and a possibly appropriate citizens’ response.

By now, anyone with at least one firing neuron who’s not been living under a rock knows that our dear “gummint” placed spying software on Sharyl Atkkisson’s computers. Anyone in denial about the runaway skulduggery in effect in nearly every agency of the “feddle gummint” is either delusional or a part of (or expects to benefit from) the underhanded, nefarious, unscrupulous behavior that seems to now be the norm for “feddle gummint bureaucraps.” Heck, even the WaPo is “viewing with alarm” the appallingly stupid, criminal “feddle gummint” spying on a journalist.

If the feds can do it to her, they can do it to you. “Evidence” of “computer crimes” on ANYONE’S computers is now subject to The Sharyl Atkkisson Caveat: if the feds can plant things on her computer, who’s to say they didn’t plant stuff anywhere else they wanted to?

From now on, any claims by the “feddle gummint” to have found “evidence”–of ANYTHING–on a citizen’s computer should be loudly and raucously mocked.

Citizen response? So far, just the usual “view with alarm” stuff like the WaPo article. Sound and fury, etc. What would be appropriate, I think would be for a “vigilance committee” of patriotic hacker citizens to engage in a “Manhatten Project”-style effort to crack open every government computer system possible and flood the net with everything they want to hide from us. Snowden? He should be so far back he wouldn’t even be visible in the rear view mirror. Of course, it could happen that _some_ secrets could be minimally detrimental to national security, but I seriously doubt there are many such. Most “national security” secrets are more than likely just bureaucratic turf building/protecting.

Sadly, I do not have the skills necessary to make a contribution to the effort, and nor do I any longer have an audience/readership to influence toward that effort, since my work to remake this blog into nothing more than exercise space for “the voices in my head” has borne fruit. *heh*

In further mind-boggling abuses of rights supposedly protected under the First Amendment, while a student who is a Sikh has rightly received a pass on carrying a knife (“ceremonial dagger”) in pubschool, for religious reasons, Christian students who carry or read their Bibles, share their faith with other students or who are seen or heard praying or even just expressing opinions informed by their faith are continually oppressed. (Sure, schools pretty regularly lose in lawsuits over this, but the push against Christians practicing their religion in a pubschool setting is regularly, improperly, assaulted).

And cognitive dissonance never sets in with the left, because. . . it requires cognition? *sigh*

Not News to Anyone Who’s Been Paying Attention. . .

. . . and who has more active brain cells than a rotten rutabaga.

Republicans More Informed Than Democrats, According to Pew Research

*duh*

Each year, Pew conducts its “What Do Americans Know” survey, which tests respondents on a series of questions. This year, the topics included the federal minimum wage, the territory occupied by ISIS, the Ukraine, Common Core educational proposals, fracking, where the Ebola virus is centered, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the U.S. poverty rate, where Shiite Muslims outnumber Sunnis, who chairs the Federal Reserve, where the federal government spends most and the U.S. unemployment rate. Unsurprisingly, older adults demonstrated greater knowledge than their younger counterparts, as did better-educated respondents.

But buried at the bottom of the survey report lies the subject heading “Partisan Differences in Knowledge,” which itemizes each question and the percentage of Republicans, Democrats and Independents who answered each one correctly.

On 10 out of 12 questions, Republican respondents “outperformed” the two other classes of respondents, Dims and Independents. By 2% and 5% respectively, Dims outperformed Reps only on where the ebola outbreak began and the federal poverty rate. That’s it.

The best part of the poll? Pew describes Reps outperforming Dims 10 to 2 as performance that is merely “somewhat better” than Dims. That’s Pew for ya: always willing to carry water for the Left.

A Chillingly Reasonable Conspiracy Theory

A comment at The Belmont Club post, “Ebola in America,” is chilling in the manner it parses federal “incompetence.” Or maybe federal “incompetence” really is, à la John Ringo’s “The Last Centurion”–genuine institutional and political stupidity. You decide.

Ebola In America

From the comments to the post linked above:

“1) Responding to epidemics/pandemics is NOT something that has never come up before. The very fact that we are here, with our pre-Ebola life expectancies, is based on the ability of medical science to respond to disease outbreaks.

“2) The standard first response, backed by millennia of successful experience, is isolation of the infected community/individuals with quarantine for those who are suspected and at risk.

“3) The deliberate, considered, and premeditated response of Federal agencies across the board has been to bring as many disease vectors into this country as they possibly can, to forcibly prevent them from being medically screened, to scatter them throughout the country, and to actively impede state and local health authorities from responding to any disease outbreaks triggered.

“We now have Ebola being spread by government actions within our borders. We now have previously eradicated TB being spread by government action within our borders, except now drug resistant. We now have an epidemic enterovirus all over the country attacking children, now killing them, and mutating into a form of polio which we had eradicated within our borders. We now have Dengue Fever spreading within this country, which has not been here in any volume for a century.

“And all of it spread in the last couple of years with the help of all agencies of the Federal government.

“This is a level of ‘incompetence’ that cannot be blamed on one or two individuals. It crosses several Cabinet level departments with them working together for a common result. Which we are seeing now. That level of “incompetence” is in fact planning and premeditation. The odds of multiple departments committing reinforcing acts to bring this result by pure chance are beyond credibility. Especially, since not one of them are responding to the breaking reality with changed behavior.

“The proper domestic response to the initial outbreak would have been stopping all direct flights between the US and the affected countries, blocking entry of anyone who has been in those countries until they can prove that they have been outside those countries for 30 days, the cancellation of student and tourist visas for people from those countries, and [oh, yes] securing our borders so that anyone who comes in is screened for health and legal status. Noting that 15% of the illegal invaders who cross our deliberately-erased-by-the-Federal-government are NOT from Mexico, Central, or South America. And that from January-August this year 71 nationals from the Ebola infected countries were caught at the former border. And that we only catch a small percentage of those crossing.

“I would also note that we have done the travel restrictions relatively recently for H1N1 flu. This is not breaking new ground. It is deliberate avoidance of proper epidemiological procedure.

“Prediction: sometime soon, the Federal government will institute movement and quarantine controls inside the country for US citizens only. The national borders will remain wide open. Foreigners, legal or invaders, will be allowed to move as they please. And all anti-discrimination laws will be firmly enforced.

“I have expressed doubts about a real election in November. This reinforces those doubts.

“And it would not be a bad thing for those that can to prepare for a period of self-imposed isolation, and self-defense, during it.”–Subotai Bahadur

It sure seems to be a good fit for King Putz’s consistent implementation of Cloward-Pivens, doesn’t it?

In closing, competing aphorisms:

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”–Ian Flemming

and

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”–attributed to Napoleon

So, which is it? Or, is it essentially both: stupid malice?

Update: While considering the above, add this into your ponderings:

Immigration Expert: Obama Admin Responsible for Letting Ebola Patient into U.S.

Perhaps we should quarantine all US Ebola patients in the WH–along with the “foist” family

Evil Is as Evil Does

I’m once again questioning my FarceBook participation.

Stopping Zuckerberg’s ‘terrorism network’

From the link:

What are the reasons Facebook allowed the “Third Intifada Page” to remain online for so long while people were dying? The truth is simple: Zuckerberg is more concerned with increasing viewership and participation in the Middle East and elsewhere for his personal financial gain by increasing the value of any future public offering of shares than he is concerned with saving peoples’ lives. To Zuckerberg, if saving lives decreases viewership, he will have no part in it. Zuckerberg has become well aware that furthering and allowing terrorist death threats to remain on Facebook increases readership, which boosts the value of his shares. Facebook’s commercial objective has also obviously been to raise its user base to boost Facebook’s profits, and he will stop at nothing to make it happen.