“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another accidental negligent shooting, yet another life cut short.
Vaccine Nation 0
Former Disney employees are suing Disney over its mask mandates.
Here’s what one of them is reported to have said in applying for an exemption (emphasis added) from the mask requirement:
Aside:
Obviously, this person lives in a cave and walks everywhere and doesn’t use air conditioning or a cell phone or go to a doctor when sick. All those involve that thing that has never gotten him anywhere.
Follow the link for more stupid.
“But It’s the Only Possible Explanation” 0
University of Pennsylvania professor Donovan Schaefer analyzes the appeal of conspiracy theories. He notes that they have existed for centuries, but that this appears to be their golden age (which I would attribute to the internet and “social” media and persons who believe what they read on a computer screen simply because it’s on a computer screen, but that’s just me). Here’s a bit from his piece (emphasis added):
But what if the whole world were like that? In essence, that’s the illusion of conspiracy theory. All the answers are there, and everything fits with everything else. The big players are sinister and devious – but not as smart as you.
Democracy Plutocracy
0
A member of the European Parliament argues that the United States is a failing state.
His arguments are difficult to counter, as one of our two major political parties has dedicated itself, not to democracy, but to minority rule at any cost.
Craven Imagers 0
Mrs. Betty Bowers lampoons the Christofascists’ claim that “America is a Christian nation.”
Aside:
Religious fervor has waxed and waned over the course of America’s history, but seldom has America’s religious fervor seemed so poisonous and hate-full as it is today.
Video via C&L.
Crass Roots Organizations 0
Maurice T. Cunningham looks at the “grass roots’ of the right-wing “Moms for Liberty” and finds that those roots are anything but what they are claimed to be. A snippet:
Follow the link for the evidence.
The Medicine Show 0
At The American Scholar, Colin Dickey reports on the fantastically lucrative patent medicine industry. It is a fascinating read. Here’s bit:
The dietary supplement industry, of which Moon Juice is just one small portion, sells (according to one estimate) some $35 billion in products per year to consumers in the United States alone. Brands with names like Nature’s Bounty and Purity Products advertise everything from squid oil to chromium to the monkey head mushroom, and all of it is made possible by those two sentences—repeated over and over again, printed on millions of labels in tiny fonts, ritually intoned until their meaning has been obliterated.
Barnum was wrong.
There’s more than one born every minute.
(Spellink erorrs correxted.)
Bumper Sticker Shock 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear decodes de code.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Once more, politeness becomes child’s play.
Aside:
If you have taken driver refresher classes, I have (to get a break on my insurance rates), you may have noticed that the instructors do not refer to automobile “accidents.” They refer to “crashes.” One instructor told me that this was a purposeful change in terms, to emphasis that almost all vehicle “accidents” could have been prevented if the driver or drivers, depending on how many vehicles were involved, had done something differently.
I hold that the same applies to shootings. A shooting may be intentional or it may be negligent, but it cannot be “accidental.”
Real Big Men 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., runs the numbers.
Immunity Impunity
0
The Graham cracker refuses to crumble.
