This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

  • Why Am I Not Surprised?

    Defensive gun use (DGU) happens more regularly in the United States than gun crimes, according to data the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) never publicized.    http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/22/guns-save-lives-cdc-never-publicized/ 

    Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck has been arguing that point for a quarter of a century, saying that his own research led him to believe that DGU was far more prevalent than gun-control advocates claim.

    The CDC’s data, collected a few years after Kleck’s survey, appears to corroborate his findings, Reason.com reported. The question asked in the CDC survey addressed the use or threatened use of a firearm to deter a crime. “During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?”

    Kleck, upon reviewing the CDC’s data, noted just how close it came to mirroring his own.

    The final adjusted prevalence of 1.24% therefore implies that in an average year during 1996–1998, 2.46 million U.S. adults used a gun for self-defense. This estimate, based on an enormous sample of 12,870 cases (unweighted) in a nationally representative sample, strongly confirms the 2.5 million past-12-months estimate obtained Kleck and Gertz (1995)….CDC’s results, then, imply that guns were used defensively by victims about 3.6 times as often as they were used offensively by criminals.

    Many gun control advocates have complained about the fact that the CDC is limited with regard to research on gun violence. A 1996 amendment to a spending bill bars the organization from using congressionally allocated funds to “advocate or promote gun control.”

    What those fighting for stronger gun-control generally leave out is the fact that the CDC is not barred from doing any research on gun violence — and the research it has done in the last two decades has largely corroborated Kleck’s findings.

  • Nikki Haley Responds to Anonymous’s Op-ed

    Nikki Haley, whom we all know as an outspoken representative of the United States at the UN, one who neither minces words nor speaks in unclear euphemisms, has written a response to the op-ed piece penned by ‘Anonymous’ earlier this week for the New York Times.

    Nikki Haley is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

    We have enough issues to deal with in the world, so it’s unfortunate to have to take time to write this, but I feel compelled to address the claims in the anonymous “resistance” op-ed published this week in the New York Times. The author might think he or she is doing a service to the country. I strongly disagree. What this “senior official in the Trump administration” has done, and is apparently intent on continuing to do, is a serious disservice — not just to the president but to the country.

    I, too, am a senior Trump administration official. I proudly serve in this administration, and I enthusiastically support most of its decisions and the direction it is taking the country. But I don’t agree with the president on everything. When there is disagreement, there is a right way and a wrong way to address it. I pick up the phone and call him or meet with him in person.

    Like my colleagues in the Cabinet and on the National Security Council, I have very open access to the president. He does not shut out his advisers, and he does not demand that everyone agree with him. I can talk to him most any time, and I frequently do. If I disagree with something and believe it is important enough to raise with the president, I do it. And he listens. Sometimes he changes course, sometimes he doesn’t. That’s the way the system should work. And the American people should be comfortable knowing that’s the way the system does work in this administration.

    [These officials have denied writing the Trump ‘resistance’ op-ed]

    Dissent is as American as apple pie. If you don’t like this president, you are free to say so, and people do that quite frequently and loudly. But in the spirit of civility that the anonymous author claims to support, every American should want to see this administration succeed. If it does, it’s a win for the American people.

    The entire article is here:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-i-challenge-the-president-i-do-it-directly-my-anonymous-colleague-should-have-too/2018/09/07/d453eaf6-b2ae-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?utm_term=.0220af6593c3

    The final paragraph is as direct as one can get:

    To Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, I say: Step up and help the administration do great things for the country. If you disagree with some policies, make your case directly to the president. If that doesn’t work, and you are truly bothered by the direction of the administration, then resign on principle. There is no shame in that. But do not stay in your position and secretly undermine the president and the rest of our team. It is cowardly, it is anti-democratic, and it is a disservice to our country.

    ——Finis——

    I will add here that I continue to believe the so-called op-ed to be concocted by someone at the New York Times, based on the coincidental timing of its release following the review of Woodward’s non-fiction novel inaptly titled “Fear”.  I believe, and will stand by my belief, that these are simply attempts to cast aspersions on a U.S. President who has succeeded at bringing this country back to its status as an international leader, rather than let it continue to slide into oblivion.

    If, as Ms. Haley indicates may be, it is an Administration official, then s/he should have enough cojones to step up and say “I did that.”  Otherwise, I will continue to believe this is just another of the nonsensical schoolyard tricks by those whose disappointment at losing the 2016 election is painfully obvious.

    I may not agree with what “Anonymous” says but I will certainly defend to his right to say it. (Rev. version of Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s aphorism in her 1960 biography of Voltaire.) It is past time s/he stepped forward.

     

  • Nike and the NFL ‘Just blew it….’

    From the pen of Poetrooper, another fine essay:

    I’ve been a Dallas Cowboys fan for a half-century, even when my career took me long distances from Texas.  All that long time, I’ve stuck with them through good and bad, through the glory years of multiple Super Bowl victories and the long, disappointing drought since.  Living in New Orleans and the Redneck Riviera of the Florida Panhandle for many years, I also became, and still am, a fan of the New Orleans Saints.

    Like most NFL fans, my support for both teams has been mostly through television-viewing, with an occasional live game attendance.   Nevertheless, for more than five decades, I have been that dedicated viewer so counted on by the NFL and its advertisers, sitting there for hours on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, whenever, if either the Cowboys or Saints were playing, soaking up their commercials and even, on occasion, buying their advertised products.

    Being now an old man in frail health, I have been reluctant to join the boycott of the NFL over the flag protests because watching football is one of the few pleasures remaining to me.  Not being a baseball or basketball fan, I live for football season, both collegiate and professional.  The problem is that as a Vietnam combat veteran, I can no longer watch NFL games without a sense of guilt.  I am not totally unsympathetic to the complaint of blacks that the justice system is not racially blind.  Having lived in the Deep South for more than a decade, I have witnessed firsthand a dual system of justice that favors those with the means to pay their way out with fines, while those without those means go to jail.  That said, I do not agree in the least with a sports entertainment venue such as the NFL being exploited by wealthy players as a legitimate setting for social protest.

    So my unresolved feelings of guilt were there throughout the season-opening games this week, and they blossomed into a sense of indignation when both the NFL and Nike chose to rub my nose in the issue by running commercials featuring Saint Colin Kaepernick, with his hirsute halo, the instigator of all this heightened racial and social dissension, piously telling me, a veteran of ground combat before he was even born, about moral courage.

    I simply could not believe that the NFL was so clueless.  Here they had been fairly successful in quelling the demonstrations by black players, of tamping down the outrage of patriotic NFL viewers, and now they chose to give a big middle finger to those millions of fans and slap them and me across the face with that scorning glove of social justice, as if challenging us to a mortal duel.  Airing that provocative commercial during these games was stunning in both its arrogance and its total tone-deafness.  Clearly NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is both contemptuous and ignorant of his fan base, a fact underscored by the substantial decline in television viewers for the NFL opening games this year.

    You can take it to the bank, Roger: your viewing numbers are going to decline even more rapidly if you insist on airing that insulting, confrontational commercial during games.  You may think you can project a super-fro’ed, haloed Kaepernick into our homes to lecture us on courage, Roger, but you forget that we hold those tens of millions of all too readily clickable TV controls upon which your advertising revenues depend.  As for being sympathetic to your multi-millionaire athlete who claims to have sacrificed all for the cause of social justice, there are millions of Americans who reserve their compassion and respect for those who have truly sacrificed all.  As Daniel John Sobieski recently and poignantly summed up that attitude in an essay at American Thinker: “[t]hose who would take a knee to protest the American flag likely have never been handed a folded one.”

    I would wager that that includes you, Commissioner, and the tone-deaf execs at Nike who “Just blew it.”

  • Nike’s Colin Kaepernick doing what he does best, nuttin good.

    Nike hired Kaepernick to do some adds for them.  That must mean an advertising firm did a study that told them customers would respond by purchasing their product.  It implies that Kaepernick has some kind of courage and conviction that should be admired.

    People in the US are destroying their Nike clothes to protest the company’s new ad campaign starring Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback whose protests during the national anthem before games caught the ire of President Donald Trump.

    Kaepernick caused a stir when he sat on the bench while the anthem played before an NFL game in August 2016. Asked why he wasn’t standing, he said he was sitting in protest over police killings of unarmed black men. He went on to consistently kneel during the anthem, and while he went unsigned last season, a handful of other players had continued the practice.

    The new Nike campaign, released Monday night, showed an image of Kaepernick with the words “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

    I guess time will tell if consumers have any long-term response to this.  I was a lifelong football fan, I have not watched a single game or attended one since he took a knee.  Supporting a false narrative of victimization while living with a silver spoon up your ass does not gain my favor.  Police are not killing unarmed Black Men in mass, the entire notion of it is hysterical hyperbole and has been debunked countless times.

    Its getting to the point that I can’t enjoy my white privilege anymore.

    He is an insult to shoe salesmen everywhere.

     

  • “Faggot” gets Lt. Col. Marcus J. Mainz fired.

    “Faggot” gets Lt. Col. Marcus J. Mainz fired.

    U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Marcus Mainz (left), commanding officer, Battalion Landing Team, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment (BLT 2/6), 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), walks with Col. Farrell J. Sullivan (right), commanding officer, 26th MEU, after landing in Jordan to observe training during exercise Eager Lion, April 19. (Gunnery Sgt. Eric L. Alabiso II/Marine Corps)

    Come on Jimbo, show us some of that Warrior Monk stuff and fix this nonsense.  Military Times reports

    An infantry battalion commander sacked in the middle of a deployment with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU, was at least partially fired for allegedly using a term that could be disparaging to members of the LGBTQ community, Marine Corps Times has learned.

    Following a vandalism incident during a port call visit by the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock New York in Gaeta, Italy, Lt. Col. Marcus J. Mainz, the commander of 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, allegedly used the term “faggot” or “faggoty” during a meeting with the 2/6 Battalion Landing Team leaders, multiple sources have told Marine Corps Times.

    Corps officials have said Lt. Col. Marcus J. Mainz was fired May 19 over a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead.

    Several Marines were charged with and punished for underage drinking while on liberty during a port visit in Italy. One of those Marines was also charged with vandalizing a construction site.

    People, we all need to keep our heads until this peace craze passes.  If so-called “Leaders” turned in a BLT Commander for such nonsense the Corps needs to man the Phuck Up.  What the hell is going on in My Marine Corps?  Real Marines have been using disparaging terms for everyone forever.  Why should the LGBTQ people get special treatment?  I was always under the impression we were all equally worthless.  Is Dickweed still kosher…or is the Jew-ish thing a no go too?  I don’t understand, can somebody please help me?

  • Chelsea Manning … Bloke or Sheila? We may never know.

    Chelsea Manning … Bloke or Sheila? We may never know.

    The “Broad Born as Bradley” seems to be having a bit of difficulty going down under.

    Chelsea Manning won’t be permitted to enter Australia for a speaking tour scheduled to kick off at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday after that country’s Department of Home Affairs deemed the American classified document leaker failed to meet character requirements. While the Australian government won’t address Manning’s case specifically, per the AP, a person having a criminal record could cause them to fail the character test. Manning, a former US Army intelligence officer, was convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks and served seven years in prison. Manning also has speaking dates scheduled in New Zealand. That country’s government is still considering whether to grant her a “special direction” visa, which she would need due to her conviction. In a statement, Amnesty International says Australia’s decision sends a “chilling message that freedom of speech is not valued.”

    Bradley might not have what it takes to blow my skirt up, but it seems a bit much to deny what’s its name into a Westernized country.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander as they say.  Bar silly girls like Bradly and they can bar people like me for not fearing a God.  They will use the criminal aspect of what this idiot has done in the past, but I betcha there are people who have done far worse that have been let into the country.

    Isn’t the whole damn country populated by the malaize of genetic stew from a bloody lot of criminals?  Who is next, Candace Owens because she is too white? The “Broad Born as Bradley” will do about anything for a headline, he does not need to be encouraged.  I have been rather proud of the fact that some thought I failed to meet character requirements…I ain’t the only low life around here either…you know who you are.   Give a girl a chance… to stay in another country. 

     

     

  • 3 More Get Their Punishment

    Three more Navy personnel have been indicted in the ongoing Fat Leonard case.

    https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/08/19/feds-indict-three-more-in-ongoing-fat-leonard-scandal/

    From the article:

    A federal grand jury in San Diego on Friday charged three retired sailors — a captain and two senior enlisted personnel — in the ongoing Fat Leonard corruption scandal.

    Unsealed indictments allege that Capt. David Williams Haas, 50, took at least $145,000 in bribes from Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis, the Malaysian tycoon and defense contractor who since his late 2013 arrest in a San Diego sting has ratted out a string of corrupt sailors who steered ships to his port services.

    The portly Francis plied commanders and other key figures with cash, “Thai SEAL team” prostitutes, luxury resort rooms and other perks in order to bilk $35 million from American taxpayers.

    Prosecutors have charged 32 defendants and 20 have pleaded guilty to public corruption charges over the past five years.

    Separate indictments released Friday targeted retired Master Chief Petty Officer Ricarte Icmat David, 61, and retired Chief Petty Officer Brooks Alonzo Parks for allegedly taking other perks from Francis.

    Thanks to AW1Ed for the heads up on this.

  • Panhandling veteran gets up out of his wheelchair and walks.

    Panhandling veteran gets up out of his wheelchair and walks.

    I do not recommend that anyone do what I do.  I collect cardboard signs from people begging money who claim to be veterans.  Only once have I found it to be an actual veteran with honorable service.  That one stayed in one of my apartments for 3 weeks until he moved to live with a family member.  The Soviet has asked that I not “collect” signs and such while she is standing or sitting right next to me.  A few weeks back in Savannah, GA when I came across one of these guys sitting with a USMC RECON sign, I didn’t even have to say anything to her.  She just calmly walked across the street and waited for me.  If there is one thing I can not stand it’s people begging for money as veterans…fake or otherwise.  If there is one thing I love it is a woman who lets me participate in my hobbies at a whims notice.

    An Idaho resident is warning others about giving money to two panhandlers in the Post Falls area after he saw one of them get up out of his wheelchair and walk to his car following a day’s ‘work’ of begging for change.

    Tim Stephens said in a Facebook post that he had stopped a Walmart in the area when he saw a man with an eye patch sitting in a wheelchair near the exit asking people for money. He said the man was holding a sign that read: ‘USMC (United States Marine Corp) thanks and God bless.’

    Stephens said after he left the store he pulled into a parking lot across the street so his grandchildren could eat their food. As he was parked, he said a white car pulled into a space a few spots down from him.

    Of course it turned  out that this “person of interest” could walk and see just fine.

    Stephens was so angry over situation he confronted the panhandler waiting in the car. He said when he approached the vehicle the guy’s lap was full of cash and he had removed his eye patch because he didn’t need it.

    ‘I asked … if he was busy counting all that money he stole from people,’ Stephens posted. ‘He looked up at me with no eye patch and both eyes. With a grin he said “every penny”. He was lucky I had my grandkids with me.’

    Stephens said he told the guy that he needed to leave town, and then went across the street the same thing.

    ‘Watch out for these thieves,’ he warned.

    The entire article with pictures and such is available HERE.

    As I said, I do NOT recommend anyone do what I do in these situations.  I calmly and convincingly explain to these gentlemen that it is not my preference for them to beg for money in the name of veterans and through thoughtful meditation and careful reconsideration they give me their sign.  Once, while both of my sons watched from the vehicle, one of these beggars was kind enough to give me a baseball bat.  That was very thoughtful and considerate of him.  Fairly sure my oldest son still has that bat.  Please, do not try this at home…call your local Law Enforcement Officer.