DC vs. Heller

Today, the Supreme Court ruled on DC vs. Heller and affirmed the ban as unconstitutional. Folks, while you're celebrating, remember this is just one step in preserving our rights. One small step. And it's a journey of a thousand miles.

Son of Life of a Charter Pilot

I'm in Rochester MN for the next couple of days. I'm also 8 bottles into a six pack of beer at the hotel bar. Do not expect erudite blogging at this point. I'll blog you all when I sober up... a little.

It's "of" people.

I was on a blog wander when I came upon an article about the WBC and their picketing of Tim Russet's funeral. Which led me, strangely, to an article about a woman, distraught over the fact her father-in-law was in a coma, getting lambasted by atheists for having the effrontery of quoting the WW2 phrase "There are no atheists in foxholes.". Both by the same unfortunate woman.

I'm disturbed. To say the least.

People, the first amendment to the Bill of Rights reads:

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.

Ratified on December 15, 1791

Now, read it carefully. I'll wait. Read it again. No, really.

Nowhere in there does the word "from" appear. It's freedom of religion. Of, of, of OF, for Shiva's sake already, its of. The word "of" carries a completely different meaning in this context than "from".

From Websters Online Dictionary.

• of
  Pronunciation:
  \əv, before consonants also ə; ˈəv, ˈäv\
  Function:
  preposition
  Etymology:
  Middle English, off, of, from Old English, adverb & preposition; akin to Old High German aba off, away, Latin ab from, away, Greek apo
  Date:
  before 12th century
• 1 a: relating to : about b: in respect to

For those of you who don't want to read that little blurb, "of" in this case means relating to or in respect of. See, I repeated it. That means, in this country we're free to practice or don't practice, believe or don't believe in whatever form of higher being, god, earth spirit, or ceiling cat we want or don't want too. But that also means that our practice ends at the tip of our nose. We don't get to ram our beliefs down anyone else's throats. I'll repeat that so you're sure to hear it.

We don't get to ram our beliefs down anyone else's throats!

We don't get to make everyone practice the same religion or, and this is important too, exclude anyone from celebrating whatever religion they want to just because you've chosen to not have any sort of faith. Those people who are forcing communities to remove any sort of religious connotation from Christmas decoration are just as bad as someone forcing them to hang crosses over their doors. Unfortunately, there's militant nutters on either end of the spectrum out there. These people seem to have missed that day in kindergarten when they taught about infringing on other peoples rights. DON'T DO IT! There, you've made up that day now go out and play on the swings... Nicely.

Let's talk about vision lock.

Vision lock is when you get so focused on something that your field of view narrows down to just that to the exclusion of everything else. Parachute jumpers would get it, they call it ground rush, and forget to pull the rip cord. Ground attack pilots would get it and not pull out of the attack run in time to avoid the ground. Nutters get it on an idea and think that everyone else should be indoctrinated to it and there mustn't be any discussion or dissension on it. People like that caused the holocaust in WW2, the inquisition of the 15th and 16th centuries, or the crusades of the middle ages. And it's imbeciles like that who make it hard, really really hard, to appreciate that 1st amendment freedom we have. These sorts of short minded, short sighted, mentally stunted retards need to be subjected to a dose of their own medicine. No, screw that, not a dose. They should be subjected to it till they've equaled all the suffering they've inflicted on others.

This country was supposedly founded so there would be room for all those differing view point to exist in relative harmony. And by harmony, I don't mean all rose-colored glasses-y with pink ponies. I mean the ability to have open discussions, if that's the thing to do, without the monkey's from the gallery throwing shit all over you. These fringers don't believe that and don't want it to happen. Makes you wonder what sort of society they'd prefer. I hear there are some jack-boots out there running some countries. [Cough]Venezuela[Cough]Iran[Cough].

I'd love to be able to apologize to everyone out there that's been hurt by the WBC-idiots or rabid atheists. But, I'm with you on this. They're reprehensible immature attention whores and really deserve the ass-whoopin they're crying out for.

Obama's crack team

This just in. Obama's crack team of cybernauts has finally cracked the internet...

My eyes! My eyes! They burn!....

Who's thinking for the thinkers?

Over at The Breda Fallacy: pooh.

I especially liked this quote:

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."

- Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner

I think much of the current crop of Pols could be lumped into the BoVLB (Bear of Very Little Brain) group. It's not the thinking of things that causes the problem. It's not the examination of others that seems, to me, to be the issue. It's the disconnect that many of our elected officials seem to have between gedankenexperiment and reality. There seems to be a mentality in Washington that goes something like:

1. The people elected me therefore They like me.
2. I thought of this therefore They will like this.

This amazing step of logic is know as The Fallacy of the General Rule. But they blithely go on believing it.

Or they will fall into the trap of The Argument of Small Numbers. Just because the people they hired like the idea doesn't mean the larger case is true.

Similarly, just because the Idea they had worked good in their mind, doesn't mean it'll work once reality starts reaching into the pot.

It used to be that logic was taught in school. It was a course unto itself. Either in high school or college we learned how to argue and through association how to think. We were taught how to look at a hypothesis or premise and think about it critically. Come to our own conclusions of it's inherent worth and act accordingly. When logic was dropped I don't know, but we're paying the consequences now. We have an entire populace that knows no better than to blissfully follow what they've been told and, may the great Ghoo save us, the ones telling us what to do aren't any better than the rest of the flock.

The LawDog Files: DO WANT!

The LawDog Files: DO WANT!

Found over at lawdog's house. Freakin' hilarious.

Wild Weather

I've got friends in Cedar Rapids IA and I'm still waiting to here if they're okay. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Talk about a rumor starter

In this article from USAToday. I kept looking at this pic.

I'm thinking Che... Obama... Che... Obama... hmmm.....

Randomness.

Ailurophobia - Fear of Cats
Suriphobia - Fear of Mice Boy, throw these two groups in a room together and the entertainment would be endless.

Ornithophobia - Fear of Birds

Pupaphobia - Fear of Puppets

Brontophobia - Fear of Thunder I had a Golden Retriever that had this. The big 100 lb baby.

Kakorrhaphiaphobia - Fear of Failure Is it ironic that people afraid of failing have to try to pronounce this?

Eisoptrophobia - Fear of Mirrors

Cainophobia - Fear of Novelty Well, that's... unique.

Gephyrophobia - Fear of Bridges

Bufonophobia - Fear of Toads

Melissophobia - Fear of Bees

Cynophobia - Fear of Dogs

Hoplophobia - Fear of Guns. Sometimes just refered to as a Liberal.

Crack team of what?

I saw this little news article via Tam. I didn't get much farther than the first paragraph before my internal snark meter zeroed in on the visual....

"A crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet “war room” to track and respond..."

What exactly is a crack team of "cybernauts". What exactly constitutes the "right stuff" for a cybernaut? I can just imagine the selection process. "Son, you were only able to troll 7 porn sites, that's just not good enough. We're gonna have to send you back down."

I imagine this room filled with pimply, socially inept boys in stained t-shirts and y-fronts frantically entering search terms into Google. Sort of like what I'm wearing now.... Or was that too much information?