Darkness Hates the Light. . .

. . . even when light offers to hide under a basket.

Or, as Kurt Schlichter puts it,

They Will Still Hate You Even If You Disarm

Pull quote:

“It would be nice to have libs and their media goons not sliming us all the time with manifest falsehoods. It would also be nice to have a pet unicorn named Chet always ready to make a run to the liquor store to pick up a sixer of Dos Equis and some Doritos. Neither one is going to happen, and you can’t change that by giving in. No matter how much you abase yourself it will never be enough for them to not hate you. “

Yep.

“Gun Violence” *mhwa*

[Extracted from a ub-thread of a discussion discussing the disparate topics of “mass shootings” and wrongful shootings by cops.]

To whatever extent wrongful shootings by police exists (and any is a Very Bad Thing, IMO), it can more easily be explained by Lord Acton’s pithy comment, Rudyard Kipling’s “General Summary,” or even the theological concept of universal moral depravity. Humans being what we are, any group of people is going to have apples that are, urm, “badder” than the norm, and unfortunately, there are bad apples in government jobs at almost any level (LEOs, run-of-the-mill bureaucraps, public “persecutors,” politicians, and corrupt judges), and they ARE be a problem, universally, to some degree or another. How to deal with the bad apples without crucifying the “less bad,” maybe even marginally OK apples? (“Marginally OK” because as long as their PEERS do not stop them, the “badder apples” will find it easier to abuse their authority.)

Well, that’s the nut, isn’t it?

Qui custodit ipsos custodes?

But as for being a “problem with guns,” well, it’s the same answer as to the issue of “gun violence.” Guns do not commit violent acts. People do. One way (really, AFAIK, the only legitimate way for governments that are not supposed to infringe on natural rights but protect them) is to make the punishments for serious violent acts serious punishment, pour encourager les autres, as it were, and those punishments should apply to ALL, with no weasel room for LEOs to argue “qualified immunity.” (“So I shot the guy seven times. I thought that UNARMED MAN SPREADEAGLED ON THE FLOOR was a threat, and how was I to know that I busted down the door at the wrong address? Qualified immunity” “Well, I thought that baby she was holding was a deadly weapons, so I killed her.” Qualified immunity. Etc.)

But, demanding that our faux “nobility” give up special privileges just isn’t going to fly, I don’t think. *sigh* Meanwhile, anti-gun folks argue that citizens should surrender their rights because of an almost vanishingly small number of bad actors. *smh*

Baltimore *munches popcorn-sips beer*

Sequence:

Trump verbally “trashes” Baltimore.

Loony Left Moonbat heads explode in rage.

Video after video after video emerges of past comments (over just the last few years) from Loony Left politicians confirming Trump’s remarks and some going even further.

Loony Left Moonbats: “Unfair!”

Hivemind “reporting”: largely *crickets* or simply attempts to bolster Loony Left Moonbat outrage.

Reporter gathering “[homeless] man on the street” remarks to bolster the “unfairness” of Trump’s original comment has rat photobomb her “report.”

Meanwhile, wwhile politicians and governments are sitting on their hands and pointing fingers at one another (and isn’t THAT a pleasant picture? Ewww. . . ):

Trump supporter organizes Trash Cleanup Day to support Baltimore< /a>

Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind: *crickets*

Folks, entertainment just doesn’t get more amusingly farcical than this. *munches popcorn-sips beer*

Yet Another Ill to Lay, at Least in Part, at the Feet of the Internet

*smh* Self-pub writers who just HAVE to “write” a book, but who have no interest in becoming literate enough to avoid felonious assaults on the English language just give me a rash. It’s not that hard, for example, to learn the differences between “go” and “come,” or “take” and “bring,” or that plural subjects take verbs that indicate, urm, you know, MORE THAN ONE, etc. But wannabe subliterate self-pub writers (there are good self-pub writers) have another major flaw: they usually seem to have an overabundance of confidence in their subliterate writing, and avoid literate proofreaders and editors like the plague.

(Aside: it’s often a Very Bad Sign when a self-pub writer thanks his mom for “critiquing” his book. As a matter of fact, in my experience, it’s a 100%, dead certain indication that the writing will stink up whatever room the book’s read in.)

This is not a good thing.

Wanna “Make a Difference”?

Every time I read or hear someone say “I want to make a difference in the world” with no real qualifier denoting WHAT they want to affect and HOW, I feel an urge to toss my cookies.

HITLER “made a difference in the world,” So did STALIN, and POL POT, and RACHEL CARSON and MOHAMMED — mass murderers one and all.

What KIND of difference do you want to make to WHAT set of conditions? If those bare parameters aren’t defined, then please just stay home and sit on your butt. That way, the “difference” you make will at least not actively harm others.

Flawed Test

Our state’s mandated standardized test for school kids is called the MAP Test. I submit that it is fatally flawed. As far as I can determine, there are NO orienteering questions on the test at all.

Work to Eliminate the Evil Influence of Google in Your Life

Given all the anti-Russia yammer in the Hivemind and elsewhere, I’ve enjoyed sitting back (admittedly behind a decent VPN) and using Yandex for more and more things “Interwebby.” Save for a Gmail account that I use less and less, Google, THE single most evil internet gang, is completely blocked on my computers. Yeh, I know Google says its tracking of me and suchlike is turned off, and what it reports as having on me is the next thing to zero (Google’s lying, of course), but thanks to a decent VPN and other measures (TOR!), much of what Google has on me is ancient history, and much of the rest is. . . not exactly accurate. It’s a pleasure to not have seen a Google ad for years, now, for example.

Yandex is a Russian-based, multi-national company and “is the 5th largest search engine worldwide after Google, Baidu, Bing, and Yahoo!.” (Wikipedia) I quite often use its search capabilities to good effect, and the email service it offers is slowly replacing Gmail in my daily use. Slowly. Perhaps because of my VPN use, and a few other things, ads and other obvious intrusions from Yandex just haven’t appeared on my horizon, and I have yet to discover any blatant politicizing of search results, as seemed so common with Google.

And, by avoiding Google as much as possible, I lend as little support as possible to such as this:

BANNED BY GOOGLE FOR OPPOSING INFANTICIDE

As I said in the post title, it is my considered opinion, supportable by evidence such as that which is noted at the linked article above, that Google is evil. Period. IMO, not even Me$$y$oft, Apple, and FarceBook combined approach Google’s evil. Avoid Google “services.” The (as yet) unborn will bless you, if nothing else.

Exception Testing the Rule

“She drug [sic] her broken foot along. . . ”

Finally a misuse of “drug” to indicate a past tense of “drag” that, though still not literate, is at least understandable. After all, it refers to a zombie, and, as we all know, only illiterate, brain-dead zombies misuse “drug” when “dragged” is called for.

Circular “Argument”

While traffic circles can quite often make good traffic control sense, sometimes. . .

Plunk one down in a place that will obviously benefit from it, but don’t think through the area’s demographics, and the benefits, while not exactly evaporating, just aren’t as strong, sometimes. Posit a locale dominated by elderly retirees (who are often better suited to parking their car than to actually driving it) on the one hand and 20-30-something young folks (who are ALSO often better suited to parking their car than to actually driving it), and imagine the “You go” No, YOU go”/”I’m-a goin'” “No, I am” messes.

Yeh, it’s real.

Meanwhile, I blow past the indecisive and brush off the importuning, shake my head, and wonder how long it’ll take the “old folks” to either learn or die off and the young folks to learn. . . or die off.


Yeh, yeh, I’m officially and Olde Pharte, but I don’t creep around corners or traffic circles, stop at yield signs (when NO ONE IS COMING! #gagamaggot), pull into traffic and drive slow in front of folks, etc., so I may be atypical.

Sometimes Prayers Take Time Before Being Answered. . .

As a sign that good can come from fevered libtard minds, one of my favorite hymns was written by a guy who would be right at home in wacko Dhimmicrap/SJW swamps today. Fo gigure. I trust that, now, Harry Emerson Fosdick has the wisdom he penned his hymn asking for, wisdom he lacked in life.

God of Grace and God of Glory

1 God of grace and God of glory,
on thy people pour thy power;
crown thine ancient Church’s story;
bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the facing of this hour,
for the facing of this hour.

2 Lo! the hosts of evil round us
scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!
From the fears that long have bound us
free our hearts to faith and praise:
grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the living of these days,
for the living of these days.

3 Cure thy children’s warring madness,
bend our pride to thy control;
shame our wanton, selfish gladness,
rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal,
lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.