This Is Why Government Schemes to Help People Never End Well

Unintended consequences. My, how they suck.

If there was ever a better metaphor for Obamacare, I haven’t seen it yet.

If Sports Illustrated Were Owned By MSNBC

[High Praise! to SooperMexican]

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This Country Needs Goblin Control

In Pennsylvania, a woman at a gas station was robbed by a man with a sword.

Pity it didn’t end like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

You’ve Been Judged!

Keln of Nuking Politics picked his favorite punchlines to “I got a Christmas card from the White House. Inside…

Click here to see if you made the cut.

If you did, you should probably email him about becoming a guest blogger there.

If you didn’t, he’s got another straight line for you to practice on.

Keep trying. No one likes a quitter.

Obama’s Spending Cuts – Illustrated

[High Praise! to Freedom Is Just Another Word]

UPDATE: Per John in the comments, Basil already posted this one.

Sorry about that. Here’s a different one:

Link of the Day: Satire – Right to Work Laws Threaten Christmas

[High Praise! to Nuking Politics]

Right to Work Laws Threaten Christmas

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

Wisdom of the Day: Something Piers Morgan Glasses Rooster Gift Card

A Reminder: Good Things Still Happen for No Reason, Too

[High Praise! to American Digest]


[YouTube direct link] (Viewer #2,078)

Faith in humanity… restored.

Video Games: Dark Souls 2

I saw there is going to be a Dark Souls 2. My suggestion for a subtitle: “Die Harder”.

BTW, I decided to put down Dark Souls for a while to play other games. The challenge is very addictive, but it’s also very time consuming and repetitive. Since you’re constantly dying, you’re constantly doing the same thing over and over. I was fine with the constant dying and retrying in Super Meat Boy, because in there each level only takes a couple seconds to play so each retry doesn’t use up a lot of time. But in Dark Souls, after I get killed quickly by a boss, it’s often a couple minute trek back from the last bonfire to try again. And while I love the challenge and the sense of accomplishment when finally defeating a boss, with my limited game time I don’t think I want to be investing in traipsing to bosses over and over. It would be a much different thing if after you were killed by the boss you had an option to start over right away at the beginning of the fight, but as is it feels like a lot of repetitive busy work.

So maybe I’ll get back to it, but for now I’m going to spend my time on games where forward progress is a bit more fun. If I were back in the days I had a whole day to play a video game, I probably wouldn’t put Dark Souls down, though.

Some Day Tim Geithner Will Accidentally Say This Out Loud

[High Praise! to Arik]

Off-topic, remember when this high-foreheaded hobgoblin was once voted one of Peope Magazine’s “100 Most Beautiful People“.

To Cheer Us Up

Here once again is a baby monkey riding backwards on a pig.

In many ways, we all are the baby monkey, and sometimes all we can do is hold on tight in this crazy world.

Straight Line of the Day: If Chosen As Secretary of State, John Kerry…

Works like this: I feed you Moon Nukers a straight line, and you hit me with a punch line in the comments.

If chosen as Secretary of State, John Kerry…

Serious Talk on Gun Control: We Can’t Keep Criminals from Getting Guns

So after the tragedy Friday, there’s been a lot talk about gun control. Mainly vague talk from people who want “something” done or wondering why there isn’t a serious talk about gun control. Well, here is the serious talk: There are over 300 million guns in this country. If your plan for safety rests on making sure a criminal or maniac doesn’t get his hands on one, your plan is beyond useless.

Really, what gun control law would keep a homicidal madman from stealing guns from his mother? Nothing beyond full confiscation, which in a country that has hundreds of millions of guns would not be realistic even if everyone magically went along with it. People propose so many laws about background checks or other things which they think are common sense, but common sense says they are completely useless since criminals — by definition — just go around the law. And even if your law prevents a criminal or a crazy person from getting a gun once, he doesn’t then cease to exist. He can just try again. And if you want to prevent mass shootings, your gun control needs to be 100% effective at stopping people from getting guns or all you do is make a shooting gallery. And, once again, nothing will be 100% effective in a country with hundreds of millions of guns. It’s like trying to make sure a criminal never gets inside a car to run people down — except harder, since you can’t conceal cars.

So any real discussion on gun control that will have any useful results needs to start with everyone accepting these two facts:

1. There are lots of guns in this country and there always will be.
2. Criminals and maniacs are going to get guns no matter what we do.

If anyone in the discussion doesn’t accept these two facts, then nothing useful will come out of it.

So what comes out of accepting those two facts? That the only thing we get to control through gun control is whether law-abiding people have guns or not. The extent to which gun control works was demonstrated by the fact that no one other than the killer had a gun in that school. Laws about guns are very effective in controlling law-abiding people, but how safe does that make us? That’s like considering it a nuclear disarmament success if all countries got rid of their nuclear weapons except Iran and North Korea. Yes, there would be fewer nuclear weapons around, and we’d also be less safe. Because that is all gun control does: It makes the gun in the hand of the criminal more powerful, since he’s the only one with that power.

So if you want a change in law that might have actually stopped the tragedy at Sandy Brook, the only one would be to get rid of the moronic “gun-free school” zone. We might as well call those “safe haven for mass murderers” laws. I know a lot of people don’t want to hear about arming more people — especially on school property — but it’s the only option we have. The choices are nothing (or less than nothing with passing more useless gun control laws) or arm more law-abiding people. That’s it. There is no option C, and the longer you pretend, the more time you waste.

Look at the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Maybe we should pay more attention to the first part. The militia is us, the free citizens of this country, and it is on each of us to help preserve the safety of this nation. And in many situations, that means carrying a gun.

So that’s the serious discussion on gun control: We either embrace freedom as a solution or we pass more useless laws pretending that will keep criminals from getting guns and then wait for another tragedy to pass even more useless laws. Those are the only two choices; we need to stop pretending otherwise.

Random Thoughts: Cries of Gun Control

I’m so glad I wasn’t born in some era of history where video games didn’t exist.

What’s the gun control policy that’s supposed to keep someone intent on murder from getting a gun?

A conversation on guns needs to start with the facts that confiscation won’t happen and keeping them away from criminals is unrealistic.

Now is the time to mindlessly scream “gun control” even though no one has any policy in mind that would prevent mass shootings.

Fun Fact: The “assault rifle” ban didn’t ban assault rifles; it just made scary looking guns more expensive but still legal.

All the high profile gun control proposals are just window dressing to annoy gun owners and make ppl ignorant of guns feel safer.

“We need gun control!” = “I don’t know how to think logically in regards to firearms.”

I have to admit, shouting about gun control is more pleasant than trying to process this tragedy. I want to hug my little girl.

The fallacy of gun control is thinking the criminal or maniac ceases to exist if once prevented from obtaining a firearm.

I don’t even understand the fallacy in which people think declaring a place a “gun free zone” does anything useful.

Gun control is very good at controlling whether law abiding citizens are armed. Criminal and mass murderers, not so much.

You might not like hearing that having more armed people will help, but it’s the only workable option in this country.

There will be lots of guns at my kids’ school as they’re going to be homeschooled.

The reason we don’t talk about gun control is most people understand it doesn’t make them safer.

Most realistic gun control suggestion I’ve heard so far is to send unicorns out to confiscate guns using their magic horns.

The extent to which gun control works was demonstrated by the fact that the killer was the only one armed at the school

Gun control success is sort of like we got rid of all the nuclear weapons in the world except for Iran’s.

Reality: With hundreds of millions of guns, it’s impossible to keep them out of hands of criminals. Makes solutions with that in mind.

The left, if you try to take our guns, we’ll shoot you and, worse yet, use that leverage to enact entitlement reform.

They should remake 2001: A Space Odyssey but with GlaDOS as the AI.

Oh, and they should probably make it take place in the future instead of the past.

When will my daughter be old enough to learn to be cold and aloof?

So has someone come up with a law change that might have actually stopped Lanza other than removing gun free school zones?

Over 300 million guns in this country; focusing on keeping criminals from obtaining them is trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

Same Architect That Built the Tacoma Narrows Bridge

In Michigan, President Obama said, “see how unions have helped build a stronger middle class”.

Yup. As a house of cards on a pile of sand.

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