Damn, it’s cold out there. I left work last night during a whiteout. But by the time I got home, the snow had all melted around my house (though it was still pretty damn cold). Then I get up this morning, and everything’s covered with snow again. Plus, did I mention? It’s frickin’ cold. Supposedly this will all change tomorrow, as we’re supposed to get up over 50. I’ll believe it when I see it.
In an exercise of pointlessness, the small town of Nelson, GA has enacted a law requiring each citizen to own a gun. And when I say “require,” I mean not really.
The ordinance in the city of Nelson — population 1,300 — was approved Monday night and goes into effect in 10 days. However, it contains no penalties and exempts anyone who objects, convicted felons and those with certain mental and physical disabilities.
Other than that, though, you better get a damn gun.
I’ve actually been thinking about getting a gun myself. I mean, guns are manly, and I’m a man, so I ought to have one, right? And I live in the country, and country folk should be armed (based on all the shootin’ I hear, it’s possible we’re the only unarmed household in town). Plus, I like to drink a fair amount of beer in the evening, and what good is a drunk white guy out in the country without a gun.
Problem is, I have no idea what I’d do with a gun if I had one. I don’t really have a desire to kill anything. I’ve gone target shooting once or twice in my life, and that was kinda fun, I guess, but I don’t think it would be that thrilling to do on a regular basis (I’d probably have more fun getting a bow and an archery target).
And I’d probably do something stupid by accident, like shoot my wife (or, worse, my dog).
Then there’s the whole decision about what kind of gun to get. I can’t afford one of those really nifty cool-looking AR-15s. Damn things are expensive. And I don’t think I want a pistol. I mean, then I’d have to get a pistol permit, plus it would just seem too easy to shoot yourself with a pistol. At least with a rifle you kinda have to work at shooting yourself much above the foot. Have to kinda work your toe into the trigger and all that.
If my justification was for “protection,” I guess I’d have to go with Joe Biden’s suggestion and get a shotgun. Use buckshot, and there’s not much aiming required. Just point it in the general direction of whatever noise you hear and let it rip. There goes your intruder (or your wife, dog, cat, or mirror you blew out because you thought some creepy white guy snuck into your house and pointed a shotgun at you).
So I guess I won’t get a gun. Besides, I’m not the type to join a militia (and, given the way I eat, I’m anything but “well-regulated”).
You ever wonder why there just don’t seem to be as many miracles nowadays as there used to be? As with most everything, Pat Robertson has the answer: Ivy League Schools.
Why do miracles “happen with great frequency in Africa, and not here in the USA?†asked a 700 Club patron Ken. “People overseas didn’t go to Ivy League schools,†Robertson replied with a chuckle.
“We are so sophisticated, we think we’ve got everything figured out…. We know about evolution, we know about Darwin, we know about all these things that says God isn’t real, we know about all this stuff.â€
[…]
Meanwhile, Africans are “simple†and “humble.†“You tell ‘em God loves ‘em and they say, ‘Okay, he loves me’,†said Robertson. “You say God will do miracles and they say, ‘Okay, we believe him’.â€
I had no idea Africa was know for all the miracles that happen there. In fact, I’d always kind of thought that things is Africa kind of suck for most people there (once the white folks came in and exploited everything they could). But, hey, what do I know? I’ll gladly defer to Africa “expert” Pat Robertson.
Otherwise, not much is going on. We’re just trying to get ready for the Final Four. By “we” I mean “me,” of course, as I doubt that my wife is in any way aware that the FF is coming up, or that SU is in it, or – even if she did – that it is in any way a big deal. I just wish the game was on earlier. It’s very hard for me to stay up that late, even on a Saturday night. Last week was much better, ‘cuz the game was on at 4:30 and I could go watch the game with my sister and her husband while Fritzi played with his cousins.
I think I’m just gonna have to go to bed early and then wake up for the game. I just hope it won’t be a painful experience. Not many people are giving us much of a chance. And ESPN did one of their poll things the other day asking which team you were “rooting for” in the Final Four, and only in one state – NY – were more people rooting for SU than anybody else (and that was only a plurality of 44%). Not even “who do you think will win” but “who are you rooting for?”
Seems unfair that nobody likes us. I mean, it’s not like we’re Georgetown (because, of course, if we were GT, we’d have been out after the first game. “Hoya Saxa.” That’s latin for “one and done”).
Oh well, time to get back to work.
Pat is something of an expert on Africa, especially that ‘the white folks came in and exploited everything they could’ thing.
Nothing like a good missionary scam or two to exploit the simple and the humble.
:fu: 👿
Hopefully today he’ll just be blowing out the candles.
:blues: :bow: :cake:
http://postimg.org/image/rrdf936qz/
She needs help. I just don’t know what to do. I want to send that photo to her mom and have her try to do something, but I’m afraid it will make things worse.
My 2 cents. You need a professional, Trav. And fast. That’s horrendously dangerous and a problem that only a professional is equipped to deal with…IMHO
Quitting my job so I don’t have to see her anymore, which is fucking bullshit because I only have a hundred bucks in the bank. She probably makes four times as much as I do yet asks me for gas money. Like a pussy whipped douche I give cash to her too. I’m so upset being in this situation I just want to go back to Seattle, but I can’t afford it. There’s nothing I can do to make her stop cutting, cheating or lying. It’ll never happen.
Born 100 years ago and ended up in Chicago.
:blues: :bow: :cake: 🙁 :gate:
From his home field…
Famed movie critic Roger Ebert dies
🙁 :gate:
:gate: :40:
🙁 :gate:
Roger Ebert, the popular film critic and television co-host who along with his fellow reviewer and sometime sparring partner Gene Siskel could lift or sink the fortunes of a movie with their trademark thumbs up or thumbs down, died on Thursday in Chicago. He was 70.
I can’t get an embed for this but the narration was written by Roger Ebert.
Remembering the Affair to Remember
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: April 3, 2013 373 Comments
It’s kind of nice to have Mark Sanford back.
Perhaps not if you’re from South Carolina. It is my strong impression that many South Carolinians are tired of their former governor, who so famously snuck off to Argentina for some extramarital recreation while his aides claimed he was camping on a national hiking path. A resident of Columbia, the state capital, told me that he had been in Peru, on a train to the legendary ruins of Machu Picchu, when a local resident asked him where he hailed from.
At the mention of the words “South Carolina,†the Peruvian nodded happily. “Appalachian Trail!†he cried.
After skulking around in political exile for several years, Sanford staged a sort of a comeback on Tuesday, winning the Republican nomination for his old House seat. It was a triumph of sorts, although one that only required defeating a former county legislator who did not live in the district, in a race that attracted the excited participation of about 10 percent of eligible citizens.
At his victory party, Sanford said the campaign had been “an amazing journey.†Since the great disaster of 2009, Sanford has taken to mentioning “this journey called life†rather frequently. Perhaps, in a perfect world, a guy who got in trouble for jetting off to assignations on the taxpayers’ dime would not focus quite so much on travel metaphors.
Sanford will now run against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a local businesswoman and sister of the comedian Stephen Colbert. She seems to be planning a deeply noncomedic campaign. But, still, hosting this race would be way more fun than being in Texas, wondering whether Rick Perry is going to run for a fourth — or is it fifth? — term.
Or in Tennessee, where lawmakers have just introduced bills to eliminate U.S. Senate primaries and let the state legislators pick the nominees. These new decision-makers would presumably include the members who recently expressed concern that the mop sink in a newly renovated Capitol men’s lavatory might actually be a special foot-washing facility for Muslims.
Or New York City, where a Democratic state senator has just been indicted on a charge of trying to bribe his way into the Republican nomination for mayor. Through the alleged services of a Republican city councilman, who has represented himself as a member of both the Tea Party and a tribe of Theodish pagans, making him what The Village Voice called “the first openly elected heathen in the nation.â€
O.K., the heathen part was pretty good. However, dwelling on this story will only cause New Yorkers to revisit the fact that three of the last four full-time majority leaders of the New York State Senate have wound up under felony indictment.
I’d rather keep track of Mark Sanford’s evolution. So far, his spin strategy has been all about empathy and forgiveness. (“It’s only really in our brokenness that we really begin to understand each other.â€) By the end of the primary, you had the impression that the key to a new bipartisan spirit in Washington would be having all the members of Congress tell each other about their affairs.
“There are too many people in politics who think that they know it all. And I think that they project this whole image of perfection,†he told Jake Tapper on CNN.
Not a problem here.
Since we last had Sanford to kick around, he’s been divorced and gotten engaged to the Argentinian squeeze. He virtually never mentions her and she barely got a shout-out on primary victory night. (“She completely surprised me,†claimed Sanford, who told Tapper that he just turned the corner on his way into the ballroom and there she was.)
His ex-wife, Jenny, has written a book about her marriage, and now South Carolinians know that Sanford is not just fiscally conservative; he’s also so personally cheap that he once gave his spouse a $25 used bicycle as a combined birthday-Christmas present. Also, there’s the revelation that he excused some of his mysterious absences from home by saying he needed to go off and relieve the stress he felt due to thinning hair.
Sanford has always had a terrible case of chronic self-absorption. Now that he’s talking about his feelings so much, it’s turned into a creepy New Age egomania. It began with his post-Appalachian-Trail press conference, when he rambled on and on about his love life as if the assembled reporters were best pals who’d invited him out for a drink. (“It was interesting how this thing has gone down. …â€) More recently, according to New York magazine, he went to visit Jenny, who used to run his campaigns, and asked his still deeply estranged ex-spouse if she’d do another. “I could pay you this time,†he added empathetically.
Her refusal was probably a surprise. Like the victory night fiancée.