Politics and Religion

Facebook readers lack comprehension skills

Facebook had an article from Breitbart about AOC this morning. I don’t even remember what it was about. I do remember the reaction I got to a comment I made. I simply made the comment that she had a lot of gumption and imagine what it would be like if Republicans had half the spunk she did?

Well! That certainly didn’t sit well with the brain trust on Facebook. Show them a picture of AOC and its like ringing Pavlov’s bell, they begin salivating and attacking immediately! They began to tell me that I had called her smart and that in fact she was dumb! They told me that I had said she was good for America and that she was bad for America!

They also told me that I had called her a capitalist when in fact she was a socialist! I came away from the experience convinced that the average Facebook visitor reads at the level of a 3rd grader. They don’t read for comprehension, its more of an interpretive reading thing they have going on.

They interpret what you say in a wildly different manner then what you actually said. I had simply said she had courage, and wouldn’t it be remarkable if the Republicans had some of that? That’s all. It was just amazing the reaction I got. People that stupid are driving on our highways? Operating dangerous equipment? Voting? Living next-door? That’s scary!

“Nearly half of the U.S.’s homeless people live in one state: California”

This headline and picture were a story from Market Watch. I’ve seen enough of these stories that I’m beginning to believe they really do think “homelessness” is the problem. How is that possible? How can they be so stupid? Its the symptom.

Say you could wave a magic wand and give everyone of these people a ‘home’. Within a year they would have phucked it up. Burnt it down, cluttered it up, got thrown out for not paying taxes, etc. These people are masters of self-destruction.

Alcohol, drugs, mental illness and laziness. That’s their problem, not “homelessness”. Damn, this isn’t that tough. And when you have corrupt SOBs like former Governor Branstad closing down Iowa’s treatment facilities, its just criminal. No wonder they can’t solve the problem, they can’t properly identify it.

Gun Show! Gun Show! Gun Show!

Trade Show Productions today (Sept. 20, 21, 22) is holding the first of probably 3 gun shows this fall at the Fairgrounds in Des Moines. Most people in Iowa of course have never been to one. The people who run Trade Show are jerks. The admission cost will be $8 just to walk in the door. The websites that are advertising it lead you in saying its $7.

Gun shows are an interesting look into a segment of male Iowa culture. Its not a microcosm really, the guys who go to gun shows are pretty similar. They are about as honest and hardworking as you get, the attendees, not the vendors. Those guys will rip you off.

At the Des Moines show their will be a Polk County Sheriff deputy standing there at the door to put a plastic tie strap through the action of anyone bringing a weapon to sell. He’ll stand there and act like its only him that stands between us and complete bedlam. My ass. Like I say, the people who attend gun shows are as honest as it gets, and his gun is superfluous as the people there can actually hit what they aim at.

A lot of the vendors are more into gun storage then they are into sales. They operate under the “bigger idiot” theory, that there is always someone stupid enough that will come along to buy their over priced junk. Others are mom and pop teams wanting to sell guns. Like Sieh Guns of Avoca and Take A Shot. Those people price them to sell.

Trade Show shows they’re frauds by not welcoming in what they are selling, people with guns. Carry Permit holders not welcome. Its ludicrous, a lot of people went to a lot of work to get Iowans the right to carry, and Trade Show keeps them out. They make a big deal about “no photos or video!” Why’s that? What are you afraid of? Are you doing something bad? There used to be a bookseller that they banned from the show, a bookseller!

He sold edgy books that made you think. The things that everybody that goes to a gun show thinks. Trade Show doesn’t permit guns or thoughts at their show. They just want your money. Just bring cash. They basically betray all the values that let Americans have guns and provides them their livelihood.

But for intact males, gun shows are a fun place to go. Besides the obligatory rifles, pistols and shotguns, you have a myriad of other manly things. Beef jerky salesmen, holsters, military surplus, knives, guys who sharpen knives, lighted beer signs, people who just sell ammunition, fishing lures, NRA memberships, politicians…. its a great place.

25 years ago our nanny government wouldn’t actually let us carry, but we’d go to gun shows and buy the stuff we’d use if we’d actually had testicles. Now we can! Ever since January of 2011! Tis a glorious time. What’s better is more and more ‘norms’ are carrying now too! The more main street it gets the better off we’ll be.

At the last show in Cedar Rapids I noticed this one dealer who had gotten smart. He’d hired these 2 gorgeous platinum blonde women with ~~big tits~~ voluptuous bodies to work his table! That’s about the only thing guys like more than guns. I’m going to buy something from them this weekend. I don’t know what they’re selling, but I’m going to buy it.

What do the facts show?

In January of 2011 Iowa became a “shall issue” State in regards to citizens being able to defend themselves with a weapon. Up until then it had been left to the whims of Sheriffs like Fitzgerald in Story County and his counterparts in other liberal enclaves like Polk and Johnson Counties. Needless to say, the citizens were left defenseless.

I believe there was an explosion of citizens carrying handguns in Iowa. But I don’t know. In 15 months it will have been a decade. 10 years is a good number to compare crime stats from previous decades. At the time of the change there was the expected “the sky is falling” response from Iowa’s media bigshot, the Des Moines Register. I am not kidding, they predicted shootouts in restaurants over tables. Pitched gun battles in parking lots over the preferred stall.

I’m serious. They predicted all manner of calamity with citizens allowed to practice their natural right of self-protection. From what I can tell, none of that happened. But I also know I have no idea what happened to other relevant stats. Crime rates, homicide rates, accidental shootings and a host of others. Why rely on conjecture and slander? Let’s have at it. What do the facts show?

I’m afraid I don’t know how well this has been covered by local media. I had my “walkaway” moment from them about 3 1/2 years ago. I’ll have to pursue this through a couple of Iowa gun rights organizations.

What are the chances?

The news said Trump might announce a deal on gun control legislation this week. I can’t imagine the government getting it right. The last major piece of gun legislation the 1968 Gun Control Act didn’t. They thought they saw a major crime wave coming in imported 6+1 round .25 & .32 autos that they thought they had to ban. Cutting off the supply at one end led to the 19+1 round 9mm. A 20 round 9mm is so much more a lethal weapon than a .25 auto it would scare the living daylights out of a gun-grabber if they had a clue. Which they don’t.

They completely ignored large capacity semi-automatic rifles which had been in existence about 5 years at that time, to focus on ‘Saturday night specials’. And because they have only ever had 2 classifications of firearms, long guns and handguns, a single shot .22 rim fire rifle is treated the same as an AR-15. They shouldn’t be banning anything, but they should have a progressive scale of threshold to buy with tougher qualifications to own the most dangerous civilian firearm on the planet, instead of age 18. [Colt announced today 9/18 they were ceasing production of the AR-15.]

Piers Morgan on Liberalism

“Populism is rising because liberals have become unbearable, okay? And I speak as a liberal… Liberals have become utterly, pathetically illiberal and it’s a massive problem. What’s the point of calling yourself a liberal if you don’t allow anyone else to have a different view? You know, this snowflake culture we operate in, this victimhood culture that everyone, has to think in a certain way, behave a certain way. Everyone has to have a bleeding heart… You say a joke 10 years ago that offended somebody you can never host the Oscars… So what’s happening around the world? Populism is rising because people are fed up with the PC culture. They’re fed up with the snowflake culture. They’re fed up with everyone being offended by everything… They just want to tell people, not just how to lead their life but if you don’t lead it the way I tell you to, It’s a kind of version of fascism. “

— Piers Morgan

[I thought old Piers made some interesting points here. It would be hard for the youngster of today to believe, but just in my lifetime television has changed dramatically. Self censorship as it were. For the best? Maybe. We’ll know in a hundred years or so. Though by that time I won’t care. Maybe you will. In the old days on television you wouldn’t hear someone say the ‘n-word’, they’d say nigger. Usually to show the overt racist nature of the Archie Bunker sort of character. There were more gay jokes. Stuff you couldn’t imagine today. On the other hand, there’s a name you won’t hear on TV that you used to sometimes, Jesus. Hollywood movies love it in the context of a swear word, “Jesus Christ!” I always try and imagine them using the name of Muhammad in the context of an epitaph.]

Revenge of the Voters

The unusual happened in Ames yesterday (Ames, Iowa being the virtual epicenter of the Milky Way Galaxy give or take a space mile). About once every seventy years or so the voters do something smart here. In this case they voted down the Healthy Life Center, the latest boondoggle of the City Council. It was nip and tuck, 250 votes or so. Stupid almost won the day.

Normally they never met a tax they didn’t like. I have to think even these voters are tired of the bullshit. This latest fiasco would have been a money maker for Mary Greeley Hospital that the taxpayers would have paid for. Normally this crap passes by 80%. Imagine my surprise when they lost a rigged election.

All the money, all the media, was on the ‘For’ side. What went wrong?

I think its the ‘Trump’ effect. We are so tired of the idiocy and the arrogance of paying for the mistakes of the elites on the Council the voters actually said ‘Phuck you morons’. I think the pendulum is swinging back towards common sense.

Example: Lincoln Way / US Highway 30 is the major east-west thoroughfare in Ames. It along with the north-south US Highway 69 are our two major arteries. The City Council wants to take it down to two lanes and add bike lanes. What?? There’s something called Agenda 21 that has been around at least 25 years whose intent was to encourage (force) people onto public transportation.

One of the ways to do that is to so snarl traffic even riding the bus begins to look attractive. The guy just trying to get to work in the morning doesn’t give a shit about this. He just wants to get to work. The Council on the other hand wants to be all stylish and that when they go to “symposiums” on municipal government with Iowa City and Des Moines and that.

Seeing who can most promote “bio-diversity” and crap, erecting windmills, solar panels and bike lanes. There are areas in Ames where thirty years ago they put bike paths up off the road in a nice safe fashion, now in the last 5 years they put “bike lanes” down next to the cars literally next to the bike paths! People start to see this stupidity.

Other areas they choked traffic down to two lanes and eliminated right turn on red, to put in two blocks of bike lanes that don’t go anywhere! There was just no point to it. It doesn’t even go anywhere. They spend money when it doesn’t even make sense. A prairie version of a ‘bridge to nowhere’.

My personal favorite (I’m not even going to list ALL the boondoggles), was when they built a new library. So we have two now right? A main and a branch library on the other side of town? No! They literally built a new library on the same spot after tearing down the old one! How do you do that!? How can you possibly be that stupid with other people’s money?

I think it is exactly that type of arrogance that got their Healthy Life Center voted down yesterday. Everyone of those bastards needs to be voted out. Its a dream.

Rich nation, poor nation

“In the 1950’s [America was] the richest nation, the richest city on earth was Detroit. They voted for change and so now it is the poorest city in America. At the same time, the nation of South Korea, of all the nations on earth, was third from the bottom. Virtually the poorest nation on earth. It is now tenth from the top. If you understand the principle, the greater freedom, the greater the wealth, you can then put any nation [on this chart]. Now you can go to Tagusagopos, you can go to Buenos Aires, you can go to Cairo, you can go to Philadelphia and all you need to know is what percentage of the Gross Domestic Product is controlled by government, and the greater the government, the greater the poverty, and that’s all politics is about. Every day politicians say, “I can make a better decision for you than you can for yourself, and let me take your money away from you and make it on your behalf” and thus make the nation poorer.”

— Bob McEwen
(1950-) US Congressman (OH-R) (1981-1993)

[See this is ironic as anyone with a little discernment immediately sees 2 things. We know from history that what McEwen says is absolutely true. Freedom produces wealth. Yet socialists want us to adopt their system on the basis it has never worked anywhere. That track record is complete and utter failure. The other side wants us to believe increasing corporatism, is actually capitalism. Regrettably, they’ve won.]

Hallmark and “Christian” movies

It is really a shame what Larry Levinson and the Hallmark Channel have done to Janette Oke’s ‘Love’ series. The latest two installments played this past week, ‘Love Begins’, and ‘Love’s Everlasting Courage’. Wikipedia calls Janette Oke a “committed evangelical Christian”. Her own website is all about Jesus. Yet they have managed to make a complete series of “Christian” movies without Christ.

Only in Hollywood. It was funny in one episode to hear the Clark character refer to God the ‘Father’, Fathers generally have Sons. I notice Hallmark and Levinson have also done that with their Christmas movies. It takes some doing to have Christmas without Jesus.

Rather than just profit off of Christian themes, and not include Jesus, I wish they would just quit. They are misleading people. Much like in the first ‘Left Behind’ movie with Kirk Cameron. No mention of Jesus or the gospel message.

I wonder how many other people have noticed it? And are sick of Hollywood’s profiteering? The latest offenses of profiteering, were the movies, Soul Surfer and the The Genesis Code. Movies that were promoted and sold to Christians, but didn’t contain Jesus. How much good could have been done by Hollywood, if there had been even just ONE Christian owned studio? And it had spread the Gospel message.

People a lot of times find this post by doing a search for ‘Larry Levinson’ or ‘Hallmark channel movies’. Often times they pose the search as a question: ‘Is Larry Levinson a Christian?’ Or, ‘Is Hallmark channel Christian?’

Those questions always give me a bit of a smile. It displays the naiveté Americans have about Hollywood. There are no Christian studios in Hollywood, and there are no Christian producers. To think that there are, is a bit mindboggling to me. To be Christian involves Jesus. What exactly comes from Hollywood that involves Jesus?

Think about it people. It turns out to be a case of “follow the money”. Hollywood wants to profit off of ‘religion’, they just don’t want to spread Christianity. 30 shekels of silver.

[The latest search query (12/27/15) that caused me to smile: “Why the Hallmark channel never mentions the name of Jesus?” (11/24/16 update) They did it again last night in the premiere of their movie ‘Christmas in Homestead’. They took out the line “Christ is born in Bethlehem”, from the song Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. In the ‘Christmas In July’ of 2017 they played the movie, ‘December Wedding’ which took place in a church. In order to obscure the cross which is in every Christian church, they placed garland in front of the cross, picture below. No church would cover up the cross of Christ. Hallmark doesn’t celebrate Christmas, they have a war on it. What they celebrate is a nonspecific winter holiday. (11/2/17 update) A Cookie Cutter Christmas opens with two girls at the school pageant singing Silent Night. They leave out the closing line, the whole point of the song, “Christ the Savior is Born!” At the same time it occurs to me while they’re afraid to say the name of Jesus for fear of offending someone, they are getting ready to run their entire series on witchcraft with Catherine Bell! Jesus offends but witchcraft doesn’t??]

A funny aside to this was what occurred to me while watching Young Sheldon tonight (12/3/20). Nearly every episode they mention the name of Jesus once or twice. Its usually a laugh line aimed at their bible thumping mother, but still, its a mention. Which is more than Hallmark.