I Hate Art History Classes
There not so much a punchline to that comment. Just a statement of fact.
I find it very hard to come up with the creative energy to write something for this site, after spending god know how many hours pouring a stream of never ending BS into my word processor, in a painful attempt to convince the professor that anyone in the world has ever cared about the content of an Art History class.
I had something neat I was planning to try to write, but frankly, I don’t have the functioning brain cells left any more.
Here are the some random thoughts off whatever I happend to find on the Internet tonight.
- Why the fuck does Snooki have a book? Why the fuck are people buying it? Can people that are interested in Snooki even read?
- Some guys bio-engineered a micro-organism to produce gasoline using only sunlight and carbon dioxide. For some reason this seems like exactly the sort of thing that happens in the beginning of a movie right before the micro-organism jumps into a human host and starts eating people. Bonus: Extremely flammable zombies.
- So the new Governor of Alabama made some comments that made non-Christians think he might be biased against them. Short version: it sounds like he said that he would like non-Christians to convert. Some folks are shocked at this slight, and the implied bigotry because they evidently forgot that they live in Alabama.
- Politicians score lower than the American average on a test of knowledge about US Government and the Constitution. I suspect I’d be a happier person if this surprised me.
- An attorney in Ohio has been charged with indecently exposing himself to two teenage boys. He claims that exposing himself is part of a mentoring program he developed to help at risk teens. He would like people to not rush to judgement, because their are two sides to every story, and he has not yet been able to tell his. All I can say is that I would pay good money to hear what he thinks is a good explanation for what happened.
- A whole slew of Congress critters are trying to introduce new anti-gun legislation. Sen McCarthy, who wants to ban high capacity magazines was quoted as saying “The only purpose for the existence of these devices is to be able to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible,”. Not true. You can also use a high capacity magazine if you want to shoot one person a whole bunch of times. Which may become very legitimate activity soon, because some asshole in a lab is trying to make gasoline zombies.
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January 19th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
I love this part about the attorney: ” ”There is more to the story that I would like to tell, but I’m not able to,” Walkley said. ”I’ve been advised [by an attorney] not to.” ”
So, the attorney was advised by his attorney. Nice.
Captcha: decided clonia. Wait, I thought the asshole in the lab was making zombies, not clones!
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January 19th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
1. I think that art history and music appreciation classes kill most people’s appreciation for both.
2. I have news for Representative McCarthy, there are quite a few uses for standard capacity magazines. Let’s take a look at some facts:
– The standard magazine capacity for most AR pattern rifles (AR-15 and similar) is 30 rounds. This is the magazine size most of these rifles ship with and what most people use.
– The standard magazine capacity for Glocks (and most other semi-auto pistols) is 17 rounds.
– The most popular (highest sales) rifle in the USA for the past several years is the AR pattern rifle.
– The most popular (highest sales) pistols in the USA are Glocks.
– In the Heller vs. Washington D.C. US Supreme Court decision, restrictions on commonly available firearms were ruled unconstitutional.
– Rep. McCarthy’s bill would not just limit magazines that can be removed from firearms (and easily changed). It would also ban firearms with in internal magazine capacity of greater than 10 rounds and a caliber larger than 22. This means the lever action rifles that many people use for deer hunting would also be banned.
Why doesn’t Rep. McCarthy concentrate on why a clearly mentally unstable and dangerous person was allowed to run free without someone even trying to get him the help he needed. Instead, she is using this tragedy to further a political agenda that polls (taken after the recent tragedy) show that the majority of people in this country does not want.
BTW, Happy Birthday! I’m sorry, you know this is one of my pet issues.
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skippy reply on January 19th, 2011 12:46 pm:
To be fair to McCarthy, her husband was killed by a crazy guy with a high capacity magazine. So while I don’t think that justifies her position, I can understand her being unreasonable about this.
And yeah, I hit “post” and went countdown to Tim’s response which will probably dwarf my original post…5…4…3…2….
It’s all good.
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Phelps reply on January 19th, 2011 1:11 pm:
To be fair, lots of husbands are killed by guys with cars, but we aren’t talking about banning them.
A lot of husbands are killed by wives, as a matter of fact, and we aren’t talking about banning them either.
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skippy reply on January 19th, 2011 1:22 pm:
True, which is why I said it didn’t justify her position. But if, for instance, your wife was killed by a car, I wouldn’t support banning them, but I would be able to understand you having a crazy attitude about them.
Don’t mistake empathy for concession.
Phelps reply on January 19th, 2011 1:49 pm:
Ehh, I misunderstood. I thought we were supposed to accept some sort of reasonableness from it, not just identify her pathology.
jmireles reply on January 21st, 2011 10:18 am:
To be fair, I see the point. She’s getting all excited because she’s had personal experience with this sort of thing, and I feel bad for her because of it, but that doesn’t make her right. It does make her too close to the situation to be objective. The car analogy is a good one. Tens of thousands of people die each year to car accidents, but no one’s trying to ban cars. Instead, laws were passed that wisely restrict the things we do behind the wheel, to lower the odds of people getting killed. Hence DWI/DUI laws, as well as laws against texting while driving. Beyond certain restrictions, which I see as necessary (i.e.- no ownership of firearms for convicted felons), I’m very strongly opposed to restrictions on gun ownership.
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StoneWolf reply on January 20th, 2011 8:07 am:
Actually, I contend her entire point, but maybe this is just because I’m a technitian.
1) The purpose of a fireamr is not to kill people. The purpose of a firearm is to accelerate a small mass at high velocity, usually with the intent to destroy some target (paper, clay pidgeons, people). Target choice is up to the user.
2) The puropse of “high capacity” magazines is neither to shoot a bunch of people or shoot one person a bunch of times. It is to allow the user to discharge the firearm multiple times before re-loading. Why you need to reload is again, up to the user.
3) High Capacity magazines. What qualifies as high? I’m used to 20 round mags for my M14 and 30 for am AR15. I consider “high” to be 50 or more.
4) The use of a national tradjedy to further your own personal political adgenda.
What McCarthy and many others seem to forget is that a firearm is merely a tool. It has no will of its own. It is dependent entirely upon the user to act. There are no dangerous weapons, only tools and dangerous people.
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Phelps reply on January 20th, 2011 10:46 am:
On HiCap, I consider anything beyond the standard magazine shipped with the weapon to be hiCap. 20 for an AR-15, 17 for a Glock 17, not high capacity. 32 for a Glock, 100 round drums for an AR-15, high capacity.
Of course, my descriptive definition is of no use for gun prohibitionists, therefore we won’t use it.
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StoneWolf reply on January 20th, 2011 12:50 pm:
What about high-capacity fuel tanks? Aren’t they more wasteful? Don’t they present a higher risk in the even of an accident? We should all be restricted to no more than five gallon fuel tanks in our vehicles, lest an accident leak precous black gold everywhere. Think of the children.
SpaceMunky reply on January 20th, 2011 8:09 am:
I hate to state the obvious, but has anyone noticed that “gun control laws” will only affect those people who abide by “laws” in the first place? “Where there’s a will there’s a way” works for Good as well as Evil (if those two concepts even exist anymore).
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StoneWolf reply on January 20th, 2011 12:48 pm:
Bad SpaceMunky. No using logic. No cookie.
Honestly, I’ve made that argument before to no avail. Add to that you may drive some otherwise law abiding citiziens to criminal activity rather than give up their arms. I know if some law got passed saying I had to turn over my stuff, I’d bury it in the family woods and say I sold it at yardsales and such. See, here’s the serial numbers, I don’t have them anymore. Go fuck yourself with my Mosin-Nagant bayonet.
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Prodigal reply on January 20th, 2011 6:38 pm:
They’ll actually affect anybody who gets charged with violating them, but the law-abiding will be the ones most widely affected.
The typical expectation in this sort of thing is not so much “This will make X never happen again” as it is “This way we have another way of nailing people guilty of X to the wall”. Whether new method Y is a good remedy for X or not is a different question.
Captcha: “literal unicur” – that’s gotta be one ugly-assed dog…
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Squab reply on January 27th, 2011 6:34 pm:
See, see, perhaps because I’m Canadian I think some sort of gun restriction law might be a good thing, but the time to implement that in the U.S. was when the constitution was written.
“Please hand over your high magazine guns”
Law-abiding citizens: “Ok!”
Mentally-disturbed people: “Waah, don’t take my gun away!” *runs around shooting people*
Yeah….
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Phelps reply on January 27th, 2011 6:40 pm:
Except that in enough cases, it will be:
Formerly-law-abiding citizen: BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM “Okay, it’s empty now, come and take it. Anyone? Hmm.”
StoneWolf reply on January 27th, 2011 8:52 pm:
sufficient reason to deny it to me. Especially when I’m responsible enough to handle a firearm safely.
Besides, the US Government is supposed to PROTECT our rights, not deny us them.
StoneWolf reply on January 27th, 2011 8:55 pm:
Okay, that got cut off. What I meant to say was a law abiding Vermonter would ask “Why?”
People have asked me why do I “need” a gun. Clearly they don’t think I need one. Setting that aside for the moment, let us assume I don’t need one. Is lack of necessity sufficient reason to deny something to someone? What about cars? We don’t NEED cars, and more people are killed by cars in the US than guns. Nobody wants to ban cars.
Squab reply on January 27th, 2011 9:04 pm:
My point was that, considering the existing amount of guns, etc that people own in the states, the only realistic way to introduce gun control is via time machine. You can’t really outlaw stuff that people currently legally own in large quantities.
Oh, and TIME MACHINE + FLAMMABLE ZOMBIES!!!
January 19th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Nah, the purpose of a high capacity magazine is to do a lot of missing in a short amount of time. That’s why cops carry them.
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January 19th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Flammable zombie cones?
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January 19th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Pretty good for random babbling, Skip.
Re #1: I suspect, but don’t know, that Snooki had a ghost writer. (OMG: Do you suppose some idiot out there has named his/her baby Snooki?)
Re #2, another movie plot would be like an old movie from the 70s, can’t remember title, where the big oil companies bought up and kept secret some technology (can’t remember details) that would make them obsolete. Anybody remember the movie?
RE #5: You know, I’m 49, and I’m always thinking that I’ve heard and seen everything. Then I hear about something like this. Wow.
The rest are good, but I’m out of comments.
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January 19th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Name of movie came to me! “The Formula”. According to the Internet Movie Database, came out in 1980. Plot: A journalist finds a Nazi formula for making gas from synthetics. Oil companies try to kill anyone who knows about it.
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Squab reply on January 27th, 2011 6:38 pm:
Yeah, that sounds all too likely. Well, except for it being a secret, lost Nazi formula.
You don’t make money off of making something valubable easier to get (and therefore cheaper.)
If that company really wants money, they should ask the gas companies to pay them NOT to use that bacteria lol.
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Phelps reply on January 27th, 2011 6:42 pm:
You don’t make money off of making something valubable easier to get (and therefore cheaper.)
Riiiight, which is why Apple is making record profits.
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Squab reply on January 27th, 2011 9:06 pm:
Err….umm…..
Shit. You have me there.
January 19th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Flammable zombies?!
…I’d better start stocking up on .45 starburst… which costs $2.50 per round.
Dammit, man! I’m not made of money!
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January 19th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
You don’t need ammo that expensive. Just some tracer rounds. I’ve got a box I ordered by mistake.
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January 20th, 2011 at 7:58 am
Back in the 70s, the joke about the local county police force was:
“What does a PG county cop say?”
blam blam blam blam blam blam click click click FREEZE”
But those were the old days, thing have changed..
Now they have Berettas.
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January 20th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Because of this, there are a number of laws people are trying to pass that only work because the rest of us have figured out that we shouldn’t do the things they are trying to legislate.
And the one guy who doesn’t know, won’t care.
Our tax dollars at work. Yay.
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January 21st, 2011 at 8:36 am
Stay strong, Skippy. I do understand – Art History is one of those subjects that can really sap one’s will to live.
Love the ‘gasoline zombies’ idea.
… And I’m staying F-A-R away from any discussion involving Yanks and their guns.
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January 21st, 2011 at 10:22 am
Hey, has anyone else spotted a pattern emerging, when it comes to politics and the name “McCarthy”?
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March 15th, 2011 at 10:42 am
instead of banning magazines and guns. ban bullets! (only because we cant ban stupid people) =(
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