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The people that voted for the Assault Weapons ban?
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Close, but no cigar. Although I think that roll call vote is eerily similar to this one.
Hint, I just got a Handgun. It's of a caliber I can Control. Into my collection, it is Incorporated. | |
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Oh-kay...I'd say it's senators and representatives who have gone on record as supportive of Handgun Control, Incorporated.
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It's the Yea votes for the Brady Bill.
It's this sort of list that puts most at odds with Michele Evermore. She worked in Harkin's office. Hearing about the good stuff he does was so like hearing about someone's friend who's a child molester, but donates half his paycheck to charity. The charity part is nice, but I want him to stop molesting children and be punished for it. The really funny thing is I would have continued to ignore politics if the dumbasses hadn't passed Brady. Now I have a political opinion, position and philosophy. Good work. |
WAR OF THE BUMPER STICKERS
I’ve said before that living near the People’s Republic of Santa Monica gives you an unparalleled opportunity to see legions of people who can put their entire moral philosophy into a 3x10” piece of adhesive vinyl, applied to several tons of steel, hurtling down an eight-lane superhighway at six or seven miles per hour.
Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:
Somewhere in Texas, a Village is missing its Idiot. I chose this one first since it’s the only one that has a particle of real wit. But the Bush is an idiot meme is very tired, and the most cursory look causes it to fall apart like -- how can I make them understand? -- like a lemon almond biscotti left too long in a grande’ caffe verona.
For starters, you can of course point to the fact that the man did graduate from both Harvard and Yale, but that was with a C average, and clearly, the idea of being merely in the middle of the pack of those getting advanced degrees from America’s two preeminent universities cuts you no slack from those community-college theater major drop-outs who love to level the charge.
So let’s leave that aside for a moment – Poppy’s connections and all that – and take a moment to look at this, if you will:
This is a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. It is a second-generation, supersonic fighter-interceptor. It cruises at 845 mph.
There were some minor aerodynamic problems with the F-102. For example, at certain power settings and angles of attack – like, say, take-off -- the jet compressor would stall and the aircraft would roll inverted. It is no picnic, skill-wise, to fly a modern F-16 with advanced avionics and fly-by-wire flight control systems. The workload on the F-102 was far higher. The F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14 occurrences per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102’s accident rate was more than three times that: 13.69 per 100,000 hours. 875 F-102A interceptors were built; 259 – almost 30% - were lost to accidents or enemy action while serving in Vietnam.
George W. Bush flew hundreds of hours in the F-102.
Now look at this:
This is the cockpit of the F-102 Delta Dagger’s successor, the F-106 Delta Dart (I could not find an F-102 panel, but they would have been very similar)
Now, picture yourself in this chair, at 40,000 feet, traveling at one and a half times the speed of sound. Now imagine that someone has painted the windows white – you are flying on instruments. Now imagine that not only do you have to be able to fly blind, by referencing these instruments, but that you also have to stare into that orange jack-o-lantern of a radar, and interpret a squiggle that will lead you to your target. Now imagine that in addition to not hitting the ground, or your wingman, and watching the squiggle, you also have to turn those switches on the right side panel to activate weapons systems, to overcome enemy countermeasures…without looking outside, as you hurtle through air at -40 degrees F, air so thin that should you lose pressure, you have about 4-6 seconds of consciousness before you black out and die.
I maintain that the instant George W. Bush closed that canopy and took off on the first of his many solo hours in an F-102, it is quite impossible that he was either an idiot or a coward.
Here is a random question from the instrument rating exam I had to pass a few years ago.
Refer to figure 91: Here
What should be the approximate elapsed time from the BOSEMAN (BZN) VOR to the DUBOIS (DBS) VORTAC if the wind is 24 knots from 260 degrees and your intended True Air Speed is 185 knots? (The magnetic variation is 17deg. E)
A. 33 minutesB. 37 minutesC. 39 minutes
(It’s C., obviously)
If he had been a civilian rather than military pilot, Dubya would have had to have passed 60 questions like this with at least 70% correct. Questions on weather, radio communications, mechanical systems, aerodynamics, pilot physiology, airspace, navigation and a hundred other things. But, since he was military, he also had to know how to operate that primitive in-fight radar, plus weapons systems, rules of engagement, electronic warfare, hydraulics, fuel systems…it goes on and on.
People like Michael Moore and Bill Maher and Keith Olberman would not be able to figure out how to close the canopy on an F-102. These people would be weeping with fear when those afterburners light up and you barrel down that runway hoping that engine doesn’t flame out and roll you inverted into the asphalt, or when you’re rocketing through the soup at 300mph watching two little needles chase each other, praying the next thing you see out the window is a runway and not a mountain goat.
George W. Bush is not stupid. It’s not possible to be a moron and fly a supersonic jet fighter, and everyone knows it.
What George W. Bush is, however, is inarticulate. English is his second language. From what I can see he does not have a first language. Abraham Lincoln spoke in simple frontier language in an age of rhetorical flourish. Like Bush, he was considered a bumpkin and an idiot, and like Bush, he realized that there were times when having people misunderestimate you repeatedly was a real advantage. That’s goal-oriented. That’s playing the deep game. That’s cunning.
I personally have gotten to the point where Bush’s malapropisms cause me to look at the floor and shake my head with an affectionate smile, in much the same way supporters of his predecessor used to do with every new revelation of coerced sex from former employees. He is what he is. But he is a damn sight more intelligent than the graphic designer in the Mini Cooper with the Village Idiot sticker. Me, personally, I look at the man’s entire catalog of flaws in the same way Lincoln looked at Grant and his drinking: I can’t spare this man. He fights.
So to me, anyway, given the above information I feel that anyone calling President Bush a moron and an idiot comes off sounding like…well…a moron and an idiot.
Ravenclaw Eric said: "I have to agree with you here, despite being more the "Ivory Tower" type myself. I've never understood the contempt that a lot of the coffeehouse proletariat have for real working people."
Anonymous said: "It is very interesting how people, once they have attained a certain level of money and isolation from the common person, will look down upon and criticize those without - even if that is how they started out. Add to that the individuals like the "Ivory Tower" types who are so disconnected from actually "doing" anything constructive themselves and it does paint a pretty sad picture.
I strongly believe that welfare should only be given as an intermediate and TEMPORARY step towards pulling oneself out of financially difficult times. Requiring that anyone on welfare perform some sort of service or task while on welfare is also something that I strongly believe should exist - even if it is something simple like sweeping a section of the street they live on or picking up trash in a park once or twice a week.
Too bad most of the "Ivory Tower" types wouldn't even understand, let alone try to change, this if they saw it..."
Michele Evermore said: "This is totally my problem with a lot of the people I have worked with. Especially right now, my boss who has a Master's and is constantly calling me worthless for not having one. Meanwhile, she's trying to head a poverty reduction project. Looking down on people, and then "trying to help them" is exactly the problem with these people you are calling Ivory Tower.
generational poverty happens in many ways because no one expects "certain kinds of people" to really be able to get a job and function in the world. but in reality, the only thing that is really useful to them in the long run is getting work experience. Otherwise, even if your heart bleeds for the 13 year old mom and 26 year old grandmother, you're still being an asshole and not doing them (or the taxpayers) much good if you create a system that doesn't push them toward a real job.
This entire project I am working with is not about building a damned thing. It's about making people talk to each other more, like the overeducated people in nonprofits do. because if you talk like they talk, then you will be like them, and then you'll be rich like they are. They are really THAT disconnected from reality. Because just like being poor can travel from one generation to another, being an over-educated elitist snob does too.
And they don't understand WHY joe sixpack (who I think is me more than the overeducated people are) thinks they are full of shit.
What the towns in my program need is someone to explain to people how to start a business. How to leverage cheap loans to build the shit that needs built. But they are very steadfast in their refusal to provide any technical assistance at all. "BEcause the process works, and if they have the right communication process, the answer will have to be right." Um, yeah. Unless they want to do any one of a thousand god-awful stupid things I've seen communities come up with to solve all their woes.
Real technical assistance could happen at a fraction of the cost of this program. but nooooooo. We have to have 3 different patented processes of talking. i could go on for days but it just makes me angrier and angrier."
ravenclaw_eric
