October, 2015 archive
The Legacy of Beyond the Palin 0
William Davis says it ain’t pretty. A snippet:
Now that tiger is devouring the GOP establishment. Party elders had hoped new presidential debate rules would give them greater control. But they are watching helplessly as Trump leads the pack and House Republicans engage in fratricide.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Keep politeness on the table.
A woman can be heard on a recording of a 911 call saying, “One of the guns was loaded on the table and I didn’t know it. A little girl was shot.
One is tempted to wonder just how the hell many guns were on the table.
Men Are Pigs 0
It is not proper to go about smacking women on the behind without having permission aforetimes.
Droning On 0
Mike Kelly’s buddy has bought a quadcopter and wants to take it out joyriding. Mike is not sanguine. Here’s a bit from his column.
A drone.
My friend, with laughter interrupting his words, went on to point out how much “fun” he was already having, flying his remote-controlled device up to 1,000 feet above ground and hovering over friends’ houses or cruising down various streets. He said he might even drop into someone’s back yard and snap some candid photographs before buzzing off, leaving everyone to wonder what had just taken place.
“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said.
And that’s the problem.
Boys and their toys: a combination that unerringly eventually spells s-t-u-p-i-d.
Vigorish 0
It’s not much, but it’s something.
The Money Shop and other brands run by Dollar Financial UK – Payday UK, Payday Express and Ladder Loans – handed out short-term loans charging interest rates as high as 2,962%.
No, It Isn’t “Challenging Our Assumptions” 0
If it has to be “installed,” it’s not art. It’s a washing machine.
Corollary: If folks who are around art all the time can’t tell that it’s “art,” it’s not art.
The Scariest Costume . . . . 0
In related news, Steve M thinks he has a handle on why the Republican base is so base.
Via Job’s Anger.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is cleaning up.
And yet another gun fires itself just because it can.
Chris-Crossed 0
And this surprises you how?
(snip)
Alexander Mann, a passenger in the Quiet Car, informed Gawker and CNN that Christie, clutching a strawberry smoothie, started by berating a staffer about messing up the seating arrangement.
Then, Mann reported, Christie continued bellowing on his cellphone – a double no-no, violating both the “quiet” in “Quiet Car” and the prohibition against all cellphone calls.
Follow the link, in which a Christie spokesperson suffering from a fit of projection refers to the “quiet car” as “notorious.”
LOL 0
I have been an unabashed mystery buff since I read my first Pocket Books Perry Mason story at age 13. (It cost 35 cents at Thalhimers* Department Store in Richmond, Va. When we accompanied my father on business trips to Richmond and toured Talhimers and Miller and Rhoads while he was in meetings at the Virginia Department of Agriculture, my mother would give me a dollar and a dime and I would agonize over what three Pocket Books to buy.)
I can go on for hours about my favorite mystery writers, my favorite OTR mystery shows, and my favorite TV mystery shows. (I have also been a Sherlockian since I first read the Canon, which I started reading the evening of the day on which I had two wisdom teeth pulled when I was about 15.)
Rarely does a mystery story cause me to laugh out loud, but this one did, and I’m just starting chapter two.
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*I much preferred Thalhimers to Miller and Rhoads.
The Rule of Lawless 0
In the Gainesville Sun, Carl Ramey savages Republicans who believe in the Constitution of the United States except when they don’t:
(snip)
What’s especially revealing is that those who fetishize over strict interpretation of the constitution can so quickly make exceptions, when it serves their purpose. For example, some GOP candidates are now claiming that the 14th Amendment doesn’t guarantee birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants — despite this constitutional mandate: “all persons born …i n the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the State wherein they reside.”
