Category Archives: Idiocies of the Left

Getting the government they voted for

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The MSM is on a feeding frenzy over Baltimore. As happened in Ferguson, the peaceful protesters were run off by the thugs and imported agitators. The rioters were supported by such con men luminaries as Jesse Jackson and Al “the Slims” Sharpton. If you don’t know what, “the Slims,” mean, ask a black friend.

Baltimore’s Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appeared on TV and made a total fool of herself. Correction, she revealed the fool that she was. When her foolishness was spread by the MSM, she blamed, like other fools before her, the media. A lib will never admit fault. It’s always someone else’s fault.

The real question, one that is never asked, is why the protests against police when these large cities are controlled by liberals? If the black communities have issues with their police, surely they’ve discussed the problems with their democrat masters representatives in the city government. The police report to the city. If there are problems, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has the authority to fix them. Why hasn’t she?

Yes, there are questions how Freddy Gray was injured. Instead of protesting the police and rioting, why aren’t the people protesting the Mayor? She is the one in charge.

It was the same in Ferguson. A liberal city in a liberal county with a liberal city government elected year after year by the majority of the residents—who are black. Instead of blaming the police, why aren’t people blaming the liberal, democrat city governments who control the police?

Wherever a city is controlled by liberals, the city is in trouble. Detroit, with over sixty years of democrat controlled city government looks like a war-zone. Businesses were forced to leave by an oppressive city government. Large stretches of the city have been abandoned and Detroit is shrinking in population and territory.

baltimore_rioter

Baltimore rioter after looting a CVS drugstore.

Instead of managing the situation, Baltimore’s Mayor made it worse, “giving them space to destroy,” as she was quoted. Mrs Crucis and I watched the confrontation on TV last night. The police did nothing. Whenever the rioters approached, they retreated. When rioters looted and burned businesses, the police watched and did nothing. According to on-the-scene news reports, only 200 police confronted the rioters. Where were the rest of the police?

Surely a city the size of Baltimore has more than 200 police officers on their force. Sent too few police to confront violent rioters is worse than doing nothing—the Mayor risked the lives of her police while doing nothing to stop the rioting.

The Mayor issued a curfew order from 10PM to 4:30AM—starting today! Why didn’t she issue one for last night? The Maryland governor declared a State of Emergency and has called out the National Guard. Where are they?

There used to be a quaint custom called, “Reading the Riot Act,” to rioters. There were given time to disperse, a short time, and then they were forcibly removed, arrested, or shot if the rioters offered violence. A local Baltimore reporter was rescued from the rioters by a shotgun toting business owner. The police did nothing to protect peaceful citizens nor their property.

Someone with the guts to read the riot act is what Baltimore needed. The city didn’t get it. The Mayor blames the media.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake has personified the other old saying: “People get the government they deserve.” The citizens of Baltimore have a city government of incompetence and ineffectiveness. A government unwilling and unable to act regardless of the consequences.

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Karma and other stories

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A woman in Idaho, an animal lover, killed a protected raptor, a Falcon, to save a duck. The woman saw the falcon take a duck out of midair.

RAPTOR RAPPED
An Idaho woman’s overzealous sympathy for the hunted over the hunter may land her in jail, The Coeur d’Alene Press reports. In January, Patti McDonald allegedly meted out a dose of unnatural selection when she came upon Hornet, a falcon owned by hunter Scott Dinger. In his investigation of the incident which reportedly led to the bird of prey’s demise, Craig Walker, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional conservation officer said his office received a phone call from an unidentified woman who said she saw a falcon take a duck from the air and then went to the aid of the duck and tried to scare away the falcon. When the falcon remained in place holding the duck, the woman said she removed a scarf that had beads on it and beat the bird. “The woman later stated that she had been very upset about the duck being injured, but felt bad about injuring someone’s pet, because she “beat the crap out of it really hard,” the report states. If found guilty, McDonald could be sentenced to a maximum of six months in jail and $5,000 in fines. — FOX Newsletter, March 17, 2015.

This reminds me of the report from a year or so ago when a woman who had hit a deer in a deer-crossing zone, wanted the signs moved so the deer would cross elsewhere.

Sigh…

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Tyranny begets legislation. The City of Columbia has passed some ordinances to block businesses from performing background checks on new employees. I supposed the city wants to make Columbia a safe place for criminals to live and pursue their profession. This, and other ordinances passed by cities around the state has prompted the legislature to respond.

Gowntown versus Capital City is a feud over local control in Missouri, Kansas

By JASON HANCOCK, The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent, 03/16/2015 11:40 PM, Updated: 03/16/2015 11:40 PM

COLUMBIA

College-town politics don’t exactly match up with the increasingly conservative leanings of Missouri and Kansas.

That doesn’t stop leaders in the University of Missouri’s hometown from pushing on.

Since the beginning of December, the Columbia City Council has banned private businesses from conducting criminal background checks on job applicants and implemented regulations on ride-booking services such as Uber and Lyft.

It raised the age to buy cigarettes within the city to 21 and barred the indoor use of e-cigarettes.

…

Thirty miles south in Jefferson City, the Republican-dominated Missouri General Assembly has taken disdainful notice.

The implications of what happens next could be felt across the state, as a series of bills make their way through the legislature aimed at blocking or overturning local laws.

“This is about the role of government,” said Rep. Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican. “Columbia is off track and so we need to define the lines between the roles of local and state government.”

Several of the bills may be inspired by the actions of a college-town city council, but their impact won’t be confined to Columbia.

City, county and school district leaders have long complained about actions they deem as interfering with local control. But facing what some say is an unprecedented number of legislative challenges to their authority, local officials around the state are crying foul.

“Nobody knows local affairs better than the locals. Nobody is better able to respond to local needs better than the locals,” said Kansas City Mayor Sly James. “To have people, the majority of whom don’t live in the locale, trying to implement one-size-fits-all policies, I think is shortsighted and unwise at best.”

Columbia is a rabid enclave of ‘progressives’ in the middle of a conservative state. Like their counterparts in St. Louis and Kansas City, they want to impose their brand of liberal tyranny on their residents.  These are the same cities who fought tooth and claw against CCW and other conservative issues. Jackson County to this day imposes severe constraints on CCW applicants and those seeking a renewal in spite of state law. Columbia, like her two sister cities, continue to seek their version of progressive governance that further restricts our liberty and endangers our safety.

 

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Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3

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My high school English teacher was an older, unmarried lady who had a, well let’s say, a risque reputation when she was younger. My parents knew her for years and when I was a high school sophomore, she was my teacher.

She loved Shakespeare. We were required to read a number of Shakespeare’s plays and his poetry. I barely passed. At age 15, Shakespeare didn’t interest me.

Fast forward four years. I’m now in college and once again I’m in an English lit class and we’re reading Shakespeare’s “historical” play, the Henrys, Richard the Third, and a few of his comedies. I’ve forgotten the instructor’s name. It’s been over fifty years. I do remember he read to us in class, in dialect of the times. Shakespeare became real. It became one of my favorite classes.

It was a four credit-hour class. We met four times a week and we spent a week on Henry the Fifth, one of Shakespeare’s most well known and most quoted plays. One of those famous quotes is  in Act IV, Scene 3 when Henry is in France, at Agincourt…on St. Crispin’s Day eve.

SCENE III. The English camp.

Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with all his host: SALISBURY and WESTMORELAND

GLOUCESTER

Where is the king?

BEDFORD

The king himself is rode to view their battle.

WESTMORELAND

Of fighting men they have full three score thousand.

EXETER

There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.

SALISBURY

God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds.
God be wi’ you, princes all; I’ll to my charge:
If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,
Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,
My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!

BEDFORD

Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!

EXETER

Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day:
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.
Exit SALISBURY

BEDFORD

He is full of valour as of kindness;
Princely in both.
Enter the KING

WESTMORELAND

O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING HENRY V

What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Now, let’s move forward nearly 700 years and revise Henry’s speech into modern terms. It is still potent and applicable today—with a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3.

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3, Revised.

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Spot shots

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I don’t have a central theme for this morning’s post. I was checking my usual sources and came across this article. We now know the cause of the increasing number of democrats. The average intelligence level is dropping!

Leading Geneticist: Human Intelligence is Slowly Declining

by February 17th, 2013 | Updated 02/18/2013

Would you be surprised to hear that the human race is slowly becoming dumber, and dumber? Despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations. But there is more to it than that.

According to Crabtree, our cognitive and emotional capabilities are fueled and determined by the combined effort of thousands of genes. If a mutation occurred in any of of these genes, which is quite likely, then intelligence or emotional stability can be negatively impacted.

“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas, and a clear-sighted view of important issues. Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues,” the geneticist began his article in the scientific journal Trends in Genetics.

As I understand the article, we are supporting the “stupid” while not-supporting the “smart.”

My first degree was in Clinical Psychology.  One of my professors in Child Development had the opinion that most of our intellectual prowess was directly proportional to quality and quantity of teaching and challenging children at an early age and throughout childhood into adulthood. Note: he said prowess, not capacity. According to him, intellectual capacity was largely determined by genetics. Intellectual prowess, how well you used your intellect, was determined by training, education and most importantly, culture.  He had plenty of studies to support his views. From what I’ve observed in the forty-plus years since, I agree with him.

In past centuries, those with greater intellectual prowess had a greater probability of passing along their genes. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, today.

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Our next Spot Shot could be filed under the label, “Well, Duh!”  From Rasmussen…

Only 11% Say Congress is Good Reflection of Americans’ Views

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Despite a deeply held belief in Washington that Congress reflects the views of the people, most Americans don’t share that sentiment.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 11% of Adults believe Congress is a good reflection of the views of the American people. Seventy-four percent (74%) say Congress is not a good reflection of those views, while another 15% are undecided.

That poll, according to Rasmussen, has a sampling error rate of ±3%. Rasmussen is one of a few full time polling agencies and is viewed by many, including me, as the most accurate.

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Chuck Hagel is still the nominee for SecDef. He truly is unfit for the office but the nomination proceedings isn’t about fitness, it’s all about politics. For a few days, it appeared that Harry Reid was going to throw in the towel. Then he looked again and found that the blocking filibuster was in John McCain’s hands. That gave Reid the confidence to continue pushing Hagel.

Byron York: In Chuck Hagel filibuster, all eyes on John McCain

February 16, 2013 | 12:07 am | Modified: February 16, 2013 at 12:25 am

Members of the Senate have left Washington for the President’s Day break, scheduled to return February 25.  That means Republicans who voted to filibuster the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Defense Secretary have ten days to search for new evidence against him and lobby colleagues to keep up the opposition.

With 41 votes needed to uphold a filibuster — exactly the number Republicans mustered against Hagel on Thursday — the GOP has no votes to lose.  And the most critical of those votes appears to belong to Sen. John McCain.

“McCain is the one to watch on this,” says one senior Republican Senate aide.  “He seems wiling to vote for cloture on the grounds that cloture should be invoked on cabinet-level nominees.”

What the aide meant is that McCain supported the Republican filibuster Thursday not because he believes Hagel should never receive an up-or-down vote but because McCain wanted to delay Hagel as a way to pressure the Obama administration to release more information on the deadly September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

In fact, McCain has said clearly that he believes Hagel is entitled to a final vote, something that would surely result in Hagel’s confirmation, given overwhelming — so far unanimous — Democratic support. But at the same time, McCain joined the filibuster, at least for the moment, to squeeze more details about Benghazi out of the administration.

All Harry Reid has to do to get Hagel confirmed by the Senate is to throw McCain a bone. A bone that would give McCain more face time on TV. Yes, the Benghazi hearings are important but not so important that Hagel should be confirmed. The Benghazi hearing can continue without giving anything to Reid or the White House. If Hagel’s vote comes to the Senate floor, he will be confirmed. There are enough dem votes and maybe a few more from some RINO senators to confirm Hagel.

Of course, there’s nothing more important than McCain’s ego.

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Repost: Life is Risk

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I’m at loose ends this morning. There are a number of topics that I could opine over but none strikes my interest. The NorKs apparently have finally created a working nuke after numerous fizzles. Iran is thought to be six months away from building their first nuke. The likelihood of a theater-level nuclear exchange, the risk of war within five years has just increased—greatly increased while the idiots in Washington blow on the embers of a future war.

Life is risk.

That thought drove me to this old post from 2010. I wrote it three years ago today. It’s a life lesson. A lesson those in DC never learned.

Life is Risk

Mrs. Crucis had lunch with her cousin today. That allowed me to escape and spend some time at one of my favorite greasy spoons. While I was eating, one of the waitresses came over to talk a bit.

I’ll call her Tanya. Tanya isn’t the brightest bulb on the string. She dropped out of high school “because it was too hard.” She’s married and has two kids. One is her 11 year-old son, Sonny. (You can see I’m very original making up names.)

Tanya sat down across from me and said, “I’m mad!” It seems her son and some friends had built a bicycle track completed with jumps and potholes in a vacant lot. They were racing. Sonny jumped a ridge and on landing, his front wheel dug in. Sonny’s face met handle bars. His nose was broken and the bone just below his nose containing his front upper teeth was broken and caved in. Sonny will require surgery for a complete recovery.

Tanya wasn’t mad at Sonny. Nor was she mad at his friends for building the track. She wasn’t mad at the bicycle manufacturer. No, she was mad at the bicycle helmet manufacturer. She felt they should have made the helmet with a full-face shield.

She continued in this mode a bit while I finished lunch. I don’t like being in these positions. I’m a private person. I like eating lunch alone with a book for company. But Tanya wanted to talk and I’m a patient listener. I finally had enough. I asked her, “Do you think Sonny will be bicycle jumping again?”

“No,” she replied, “he doesn’t want to race anymore.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, he doesn’t want to get hurt again,” she said.

I was hesitant to ask my next question, but sometimes I just have an urge.” “Tanya,” I said. “If he did have a full-face shield on his helmet and hadn’t gotten hurt or only bruised, would he have continued to bike-jump? Maybe getting hurt worse the next time?”

She thought on that for a bit and finally said, “Yeah, he would.”

“He learned a lesson, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Consider this. Yes, it was painful and he’ll have to have surgery to fix everything. It’ll be expensive. But, he’ll know better next time.”

“Yeah.”

“So, isn’t it better that he learns that lesson now rather than sometime later—maybe in more dangerous circumstances? Maybe when driving a car?”

“But he’s my baby!”

At this point she was almost at tears. We continued talking for awhile longer. I explained that she couldn’t protect her kids every moment of the day. Growing up means learning skills, learning how to live, and learning what is dangerous. If she protects him too much, he’ll never learn what is dangerous and what isn’t.

I think she understood some of that. Life is not without risk nor consequences. Freedom is freedom to learn. Freedom is also the ability to grow and plan, to risk and if necessary, to suffer the consequences. Risk is also the means to succeed because without risk, success will never occur.

Tanya is a good parent. Like all parents, she doesn’t want her children to come to harm. Life, isn’t, unfortunately, without risk and the potential for harm. Risk can be good and the process of growing into maturity is learning the ability to weigh risk. Weigh the effort, the potential rewards, weigh the cost and the possible loss and consequences.

I fear that the forces behind the Nanny State have forgotten these lessons—if they ever knew them at all.

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Cartoon of the Day: Michael Rameriz

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Algore’s Globull Worming.