I was devotedly seeking something to blog today. Then I realized … there’s no point.
The world is ending today.
Again.
I just hope it ends early in the day so you won’t have a chance to be mad at me for not having Heavy Blog Content.
Actually, since I don’t expect an early ending (and not only because the group making the claim claims it’s not actually making the claim but is claiming some kind of conspiracy is behind the whole business — or at least part of the business; are you following this?), I’ll be back in late a.m. or maybe it’ll be early p.m. your time with more to say.
If the world actually does end … well, bye, guys. It’s been a great ride.
P.S. Just in case … you doing anything special to get ready? Hitting up Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or somebody for a rocket ride off this rock? Rapidly converting to a religion that will ensure your own happily-ever-after while toasting all your enemies to a crisp? Sleeping late? Telling your boss where he can — and quite possible will if the prediction is true — go?
I’m online more than expected this week — coordinating on the website-to-be, thanking wonderful donors, chasing rainbows, keeping ahead of runaway trucks. You know, the usual. So I figure you guys might as well benefit from some extra posting while I’m at it.
Three years — or more — for possession of an eeeeevil BB gun? Only in New Jersey. I hope this poor schmuck’s fight goes well. (H/T DB)
I’ve always admired Peter Theil. So libertarian. So out-of-the-box. So creatively cheeky. But I didn’t realize he was the founder and chief investor in the ghastly, government-sucking, privacy-raping, Tolkein-savaging Palantir. Ugh. Why would a supposed “libertarian” do such a thing to the rest of us???
So even if you’re a hermit in the woods, you now know that a game called Pokemon Go is The Most Important Thing Ever To Happen In America, Seriously EVAHHHH. What fewer people are talking about is how it makes money off players while savaging their privacy. (Yes, even after its token well-publicized privacy corrections.)
NSFW, but an absolute must for the too-bad-to-be-true category: Has this ever happened to you? (Note: For those who didn’t catch too-bad-to-be-true, this is a parody)
No, darnit. I cannot find the iPhone. Where the heck is it? (H/t Jim B. in comments)
How law and lawyers killed Europe’s Jews and have done plenty of other murder and tyranny. Which is merely the brilliant lead-in to a condemnation of the current “due process is an inconvenient luxury” anti-gun nonsense.
Jeff Jacoby discovers the biggest armed mob in America. Good question, there toward the end. But we already know the answer. (H/T FH)
It’s no longer some vague right-wing conspiracy that’s responsible for the nation’s distrust of Hillary. Now it’s certain corners of the Internet. Hey. Proud to be one of the many.
But wait. If you shouldn’t pay attention to the Constitution any more (because it’s, you know, so un-modern and so full of DWMs who shouldn’t be telling us what to do), then that means we shouldn’t have a president. Or Congress. Or taxes. Because that’s the main sort of thing the Constitution spells out. So … maybe you’re onto something there, Posner, even though you clearly don’t know it.
Hahahahahaha! The co-founder and CEO of ReMax says it’s a darned pity cash-poor renters don’t know about all those juicy 3%-down loans that are still out there despite all those overly restrictive lenders.
Can pot help prevent Alzheimers? Frustratingly academic at the moment. (C’mon, people, how many grams, ingested how?) But more fascinating data.
Courtesy of Fred in comments. Too adorable not to bring forward: Dr. Seuss Taxidermy. (Not a single one of the critters resembling any from my always-most-favorite Seuss book, On Beyond Zebra!, though.
Don’t care about the Brexit that’s consuming the world’s media right now? Well, how ’bout a Texit — a Texas exit? (I’m amused at those “constitutional scholars” who say a U.S. state can’t secede from the union. The constitution neither said nor implied that; only overwhelming military force said that. Doesn’t take any scholar to see 600,000 dead people.)
Following up on Friday’s Irish rebellion references, here are 50 things you didn’t know about the 1916 Easter Rising. With photos.
The lefties claim demographics will be on their side in the future. But what if the whole “blue model” of urban living is doomed by telecommuters?
Wait. Brent Spiner and his Dr. Brackish Okun will be back in the remake of Independence Day? But didn’t we see him squished to death by an Evil Alien? No, it seems we saw no such thing.
Humans are funny. It seems people want their driverless cars programmed to kill others, but paradoxically, not kill themselves in exactly the same situations.
No-fly/no-buy equals no freedom, says Judge Napolitano.
Given the state of U.S. poly-ticks, I urge you not to forget the one truly great candidate. You can get your Sweet Meteor O’ Death bumper stickers here and your SMOD yard signs here.
NFI on my part. Carl-Bear made and is selling these.
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Nearer to my heart, but also NFI (except in the sense that it helps The Zelman Partisans grow), are these new binoculars in the TZP store. Compact, slick, and so very useful.
Limited number available. Get ’em while you can.
BTW, thanks to The Amazing Jo Ann, we’ve now made it easier for people who want to pay by check or money order.
Because the MSM (and of course most of the gunblogosphere) is currently “all murder, all the time,” I thought a bit of good news was in order (courtesy of MJR).
Seems recently the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife “requested” access to a creekside property to survey for some frog you’ve never heard of.
The homeowners said yes. That is, they said yes … BUT.
And purchase either a bumper sticker or a yard sign from Carl-Bear Bussjaeger, who suspended his own non-candidacy to support the one, the only Sweet Meteor O’ Death.
Get ’em right here (NFI on my part). Click on the graphics on Bear’s site to order. And don’t miss his footnote about why he decided to support SMOD instead of Cthulu.
I was even going to buy a bumper sticker* for this outstanding write-in candidate. In the end, I quailed at the price and did not order. Yet the price does hint, at the very least, that SMOD is a sincere believer in capitalism — at least in the “whatever the market will bear” wing of capitalism.
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What? You think Sweet Meteor O’ Death** might even be more unpredictable than Trump, more bloody than never-met-a-war-I-didn’t-like Clinton? You don’t want to “waste your vote” with a write-in?
Well then, there’s always the newly minted Libertarian Party ticket. I was sorry to see the colorful John McAfee loose out this weekend (though perhaps just as well; it would be rather inconvenient to have one’s candidate of choice extradited in the middle of the campaign to face murder charges in a pipsqueak country), Gary Johnson ain’t bad.
And William Weld — William Weld??? — as VP? Well, at least that might win the ticket some v*tes in Massachusetts. I hear they’re not too picky about what they consider “libertarian” in that desperate corner of the nation.
Me, I’m standing tall with SMOD (until I’m squished flat by SMOD). And will be continuing my search for an affordable bumper sticker or lawn sign until Doomsday. Which, if enough of us v*te for our favorite candidate this November, may come sooner than we think!
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* Don’t miss the product reviews.
** I have just been informed by alert Commentariat members that SMOD and Giant Meteor are two different meteors. I decry this obvious and crude attempt to divide the Killer Meteor v*te. Clearly a craven ploy of some political trickster from the Establishment.
And speaking of selfies, I assume this study (which concludes — wow, whodathunkit? — that narcissists are more likely to post and crave feedback on selfies) must have been funded by government. Not ours, fortunately.
And speaking of governments: who’s named in the Panama Papers? Named so far, we should add. The silence on U.S.-based clients of Mossack Fonseca is like waiting for that second shoe to drop.
OTOH, the astute Megan McArdle says that what the papers reveal so far is a positive reflection on capitalism.
Ronald T. Richie. He was the 911 caller who got the perfectly innocent John Crawford SWATted and killed. Maybe he’ll finally pay a price. Maybe.
Sheesh. This article on why women should v*te for women makes me not ever want to v*te for a woman again. Well, not that I ever gave a crap about the sex of a candidate. And not that I’d ever v*te for a woman if the woman were Hillary. Or Dianne. Or … well, most of them.
But the good news is that even Salon says Hillary’s world is collapsing around her.
I really hate questions like this. But with the weekend coming up, here’s some food for thought during your leisure hours: Are we living in a computer simulation?
Just because we were talking about flame-throwers the other day …
Sorrys in advance for being unable to remember now where I got some of these links. I’ve been saving them up for a while. So thanks to The Usual Suspects. :-)
Joel got to this one first, but it’s too pure-and-simply wonderful not to re-blog: the mystery of the squatter in the woods who came and left with no trace. Ghostery to the max!
But this … once again takes “small-space living” to crazy extremes. Only in San Francisco. Or New York City. Or London. Or other places that have become hellholes for normal people.
Kevin Wilmeth comments on my TZP “constitutional carry” piece and gets it exactly right: “The only downside I can see, honestly, is that celebrating a good thing for what it is, isn’t going to help the sort of prag mindset that still can’t distinguish between long-term strategy and true pre-emptive surrender.”
OTOH … ouch. Stupid, angry people and guns are another matter.
Finally, an accurate scale model of the U.S. government. Only not dangerous enough. Or complicated enough. And more purposeful, even if nobody has any idea what the purpose is.
Yeah, I’m late to the news, but boy that was a lot of v*ters feeling the Bern last weekend. If Hillary and her superdelegates manage to hold on to the nomination through sheer force of establishmentarianism, what’s her slogan going to be?
“Almost a mandate!”
“Not a mandate, but I still won, suckers.”
“Corruption pays!”
“Suck it up; you’re stuck with me.”
“You don’t have to like me. You don’t have to trust me. But you better v*te for me in the general election ’cause the alternative’s even scarier.”
“Mine’s still bigger than The Donald’s.”
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Speaking of The Donald’s, is it true that Larry Flynt has invited Trump to come in and have the item he boasted of at that debate “scientifically” measured?
Friends who came over for Easter brunch swear it’s so. I didn’t even realize Flynt was still alive.
But if so, his slogan is easy: “Still tasteless after all these years.”
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But as somebody hinted in comments a few weeks ago, our motto is likely to be more along the lines of “Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right … or vice versa.”
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Peeps! And microwaves.
It being Easter, my guests turned up with a box of Peeps (BLUE Peeps, thus the title of this post) and a chocolate “Peter Cottontail,” complete with storybook (which is currently in the freezer along with the choco-wabbit).
And my friends had NO idea about the almost magical properties of Peeps when fired upon at the range! Oh boy, have they got some fun ahead — and now, post Easter, all those Peeps will be half price.
My friends had, at least, heard rumors about what happens if you put a Peep in the microwave (an experiment I declined to try, referring them to YouTube, where everything possible either already has been or will soon be done to some poor Peep).
Before leaving they confessed they had once put a container of gasoline inside an operating microwave in the middle of a field, testing the theory that the vapors would eventually expand from the heat, possibly ignite, and blow the microwave to smithereens. Or at least blast the door off. When nothing happened, they then shot at the microwave with .22s and ended up murdering the microwave’s motor before discovering whether the gasoline would turn the appliance inside-out.
“It’s a guy thing,” the husband explained. I’m not so sure. The wife and at least one set of parents participated.
Ah! Good, clean fun. It’s sad how dead set the fedgov is on preventing anybody from blowing anything up, even such educational purposes.
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Both my friends used to have jobs in county government and even though they’re out of that now, their F*c*b**k friends are still heavily into law enforcement and other such interesting activities. He was shaking his head over the authoritarian “right-wing” rantings of one local police chief (“but at least he’s pro-gun, so that’s something”).
As a lot of others have done lately, my friends have de-politicized themselves, and they’d like to be away from the ranting. But once you’re on FB, how do you (dare) unfriend a police chief? This could be very bad for your long-term health.
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Their de-politization extended even to getting rid of their old Loompanics books and their copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook on the theory that if they’re not actually going to do anything subversive they don’t want to get caught with “subversive literature” should TS ever HTF in any personal way.
Only problem is, of course, that virtually any literature beyond Maeve Binchy novels and Fifty Shades of Gray can get you labeled subversive when Authoritah has a mind to do the labeling. The Hunger Games or Harry Potter? Tres anti-authoritarian. Encouraging kids to rebel against established authority. Books on edible wild plants or expedient shelters? You crazy survivalist, you. Nice little Mormon guides to putting food by? Reloading manuals? And Boy Scout manuals! Oh my, don’t even think about the implications of those.
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Speaking of literature (and other things), thanks for continuing to use my Amazon links with such enthusiasm even durning this time of “lite” blogging. I’m doing my darnedest to keep the blogging as worthwhile as ever, even if it’s not every day. Your v*te of confidence is much appreciated.
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Oh, one last thing. I’ll have a piece at The Zelman Partisans Tuesday morning. It should post about 5:00 a.m. I’m prepping this ahead of time so can’t directly link to it. But it’ll be there. Enjoy. (UPDATE: Didn’t post until 10:30 since I screwed up. But hope you enjoyed the new post by Carl-Bear and the poll Nicki posted earlier.)
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So … what acts of violence have you committed against poor, helpless Peeps, elderly microwaves, or other inanimate objects?
