The Godless Republican Voters of Iowa

They have to be, for how could they turn their backs on the presidential candidates who claim that they were chosen by the Almighty to run: Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann?*

At one point will it start becoming apparent to the general population that when a politician begins to talk about "being chosen by G-d to run for office", that maybe the thing to do is call for the guys with the butterfly nets and the tranq guns? For they they are either nuttier than a trainload of pecans, or G-d doesn't quite understand that there can be only one officeholder. **

I'm going with "they're all nuts".

UPDATE:


Did The Media Treat Bachmann Unfairly Because She's An Insane Woman?
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* I'm not even getting into Herman Cain, whose "call by the Lord to run" didn't last very long.
** As far as we know, nobody else was in the running for Moses's job as Liberator of the Hebrew Slaves.

Wørd; Board Game Edition

(H/T)

The Tie Between the Corporate Pirate and the Homophobic Bigot

Frothy the Talibanista and Mittens the Raider pretty much tied the Iowa caucuses. The Cranky Old Racist came in a close third. And Governor Goodhair, who came in fifth, is going to go home to Texas to lick his wounds and decide what to do next.

The big mystery, to me, is Newtie. I have no idea where he got the delusion that he could run a "positive" campaign and not respond in kind to the mud-slinging by Mitten's proxy-PAC. Newtie's done plenty of negative shit-tossing in his time, especially his campaign to mount a coup against a sitting president. It's become obvious over the last twelve-plus years that you can't let a campaign of slander and innuendo go unanswered; somebody has to climb down into the sewer and do battle.

Now here is another point: Republicans are big on the idea that in elections to bring in unions, a win is a majority of all eligible voters, not just all voters. So if we apply that rule to the Iowa caucuses, this is the rough result:

None of them: 80%
Mittens: 5%
Frothy: 5%
Cranky Old Racist: 4%.

(Cartoon source)

And more:

DES MOINES (The Borowitz Report) – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was overjoyed today after finishing the Iowa caucuses in a virtual tie with a walking joke who wears sweater vests.

“The eight people have spoken!” exclaimed Mr. Romney, who was joined by supporters celebrating his .0006% margin of victory.

Bangity

A friend of mine, after at least a decade of suggestion on my part, finally got her Connecticut state pistol permit. Her training class included shooting a Ruger Mk. III.

So she wanted to go shooting with me. Of my handguns, this is the one she wanted to shoot:

I don't have a small .22. I have heavier revolvers, but the weight of them bothered her. A snub-nosed revolver is probably the worst possible gun for a tyro, other than maybe a .500 magnum, but it is what it is. So a snubbie it was.

Last week, we went to a range near Hartford, CT. It was a nice range, well kept. It had two drawbacks, though. First, you have to buy their ammunition. That wasn't so bad, their prices were fair. Second, and more serious for beginners, their target range offers only three set distances: 25', 50' and 75'. To my way of thinking, that's bad. There is little feedback to be gained from a complete miss. She was hitting the target maybe two shots out of five.

But she wanted to try again, so we went to a different range. There, we could bring the targets closer. I had them at about 15'. Her first shots of each string were pretty close to the center of a reduced-size silhouette with a red center. After a few cylinders, I taped a 8" Dirty Bird target to the silhouette. She shot 49-2x on it and she was really pleased.

Then she shot my .45 USP Compact. The first shot was dead-on, the rest low. That made for a good short lesson in recoil anticipation. We shot until I saw that her groups were getting worse, when I asked if she was getting tired. She said that he was, so we wrapped it up.

It was a good day.

FAA is Cowering in Fear of the Bloggers?

David Codrea heard that the FAA is blocking all of the blogs here at blogspot.com. I was kind of skeptical, at first. But then I started paying attention to what ISPs my readers are using and damned if that none of them are coming from FAA.gov. This blog formerly got at least a view visitors each day from there.

My suspicion is that there are a number of former FAA controllers who are blogging and that 99.67% (or better) of them are fairly critical of the FAA. Maybe the Gutless SES-Grade Cowards at 800 Independence Avenue believe that if they can't see it, there is no problem.

But I am not surprised that the FAA is taking its clues from the Chinese method of stifling Internet dissent: Just block it.

UPDATE: Now I'm seeing some traffic from FAA servers. Go figure.

Caucus Day in Iowa

At least we are going to finish this chapter of the latest iteration of the current Wingnut Soap Opera. Frothy may have timed his turn as the Anybody But Mitt Candidate perfectly. Or not.

But at least this current circus is now opening its first act. The overture has been going on for for too long; Mittens has been campaigning since November 5th of 2008. After all, Willard can afford to, as he is getting millions of dollars a year from Bain, his firm of corporate raiders. Having that kind of income stream is pretty nice for a man who whined about being unemployed while building a huge mansion in California.

The Wild, Wild Northeast

Just out of curiosity, I started looking at the restrictions that various states have placed on carrying concealed weapons. I found lists like this:

Texas:

Handguns and other weapons cannot be carried at schools or on school buses, at polling places, in courts and court offices, at racetracks, at secured airport areas or within 1,000 feet of the premises of an execution on the day of execution. The law also specifically prohibits handguns from businesses where alcohol is sold if more than half of their revenue is from the sale of alcohol for on premises consumption, and from locations where high school, college, or professional sporting events are taking place. You man not carry handguns in hospitals or nursing homes, amusement parks, places of worship or at government meeting if signs are posted prohibiting them. Businesses also may post signs prohibiting handguns on their premises based on criminal trespass laws.

A number of other states are similar, like Louisiana, which has this list of "thou shalt not carry a gun here":

* A law enforcement office, station, or building;
* A detention facility, prison, or jail;
* A courthouse or courtroom, provided that a judge may carry such a weapon in his own courtroom;
* A polling place;
* A meeting place of the governing authority of a political subdivision;
* The state capitol building;
* Any portion of an airport facility where the carrying of firearms is prohibited under federal law, except that no person shall be prohibited from carrying any legal firearm into the terminal, if the firearm is encased for shipment, for the purpose of checking such firearm as lawful baggage;
* Any church, synagogue, mosque or similar place of worship;
* A parade or demonstration for which a permit is issued by a governmental entity;
* Any portion of the permitted area of an establishment that has been granted a Class A-General retail permit, as defined in Part II of Chapter 1 or Part II of Chapter 2 of Title 26 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises.
* Any school “firearm free zone” as defined in R.S. 14:95.6.

The provisions of R.S. 40:1379.3 (N) shall not limit the right of a property owner, lessee, or other lawful custodian to prohibit or restrict access of those persons possessing a concealed handgun pursuant to a permit issued under this Section. No individual to whom a concealed handgun permit is issued may carry such concealed handgun into the private residence of another without first receiving the consent of that person.

You'll find similar provisions for Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Wyoming and so on.

But then I took a look at the supposedly gun-phobic Northeast. The restrictions in New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire are very similar: You can't pack heat in courthouses and schools, and even those are qualified.

I think the reason is that in several of the Northeastern states, concealed carry permits have been around for a very long time. It's not a new thing, so there are not the bazillion stupid restrictions of the supposedly gun-friendly states.

"TSA" Stands For "Theatrically Stupid Agency"

They have "Viper" teams that go around disturbing the shit out of passengers on trains, subways, ferries, buses, inclined railways and spectators at NSCAR races.

The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

But here is the thing: They don't do a goddamned bit of good and even the TSA acknowledges that their main function is security theater:

TSA officials say they have no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety. But they argue that the random nature of the searches and the presence of armed officers serve as a deterrent and bolster public confidence.

Fucking great, a Potemkin Village security organization.

The difference between Catherine the Great and our politicians is that Catherine the Great was nobody's fool, while the vast majority of our politicians are nothing but fools. Other than a few outliers on the left and the right, such as Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul, none of them are going to challenge our Great National Security State. Because if they cut it back and Something Bad Happens, they will be blamed. But they know that other than a relative handful of Americans, nobody is complaining very much as the security apparatus in this country slowly strips away our rights and liberties.

(H/T)

Yeah, Sure, and Unicorns Will Frolic On the Courthouse Steps

[Chief Justice] Roberts' year-end report dismissed suggestions that Supreme Court Justices are subject to more lax ethical standards than lower federal courts and said each Justice is "deeply committed" to preserving the Court's role as "an impartial tribunal" governed by law.

Horseshit.

We are now seeing the effects of the Johnny Roberts and the Supremes' view of "corporations are people" in the wholesale flooding of unregulated money into political contests. While ol' Sammy Alito didn't think it was true that such would be the result, recent history has proven him wrong.

But really, though, anyone who still has the view that the Supremes are not partisan need only look at the justices who routinely attend right-wing political conferences, especially Scalia and Scalia, Jr.

It's 2012, So Where Is All of This Shit?

Orbiting space stations which generate their own synthetic gravity by rotation:

Colonies on the Moon:

Manhattan as a prison island:

Robots:

If this is the promised future, then I want a refund.