Penzey's Spices Hates Gun Owners

 If you're a cooking enthusiast, you're probably familiar with Penzey's Spices.  Because of their high quality, they've been my exclusive go to for such things for over two decades.  That is until the owner of the company, Bill Penzey, essentially told me he doesn't want further business from me or anyone else in the firearm community.  This began with one of his recent newsletters, which as usual, contained a mix of 'buy this shit' and social commentary.  He tends to lean to the left, but his rhetoric has been mostly innocuous; not that I opened many of them.  However, when a recent newsletter titled "Guns Are Dumb" hit my inbox, you know damned well I opened it.  I've pasted the commentary portion of the newsletter at the bottom, but the TL;DR is only hunters and law enforcement should have guns.  Others aren't responsible enough to have them and should rely on their kitchen cutlery for defense.

The dude signs his newsletters, with his email address, so I sent him a note indicating how I thought he was being condescending and that I found his views both uninformed and frankly asinine.  Bill reads his email and responded less than 20 minutes later doubling down on one of his talking points as well as being an even greater ass hat.  Copy paste:

“Responsible Gun owner” is an oxymoron and NRA propaganda. There is nothing responsible about bringing an item into your home that will increase the chance of violent death for you and your family members five-fold. But you are indeed free to invent absurd realities where your gun makes you that special hero. Pew-pew. 

I believe what he was trying to convey was "I'm an even greater ass hat than you thought and don't want any business from the firearms community or anyone else who recognizes how much of a douche I am.  Can you please spread that message for me?"  

Yes sir!  I've already started taking care of that for you because I aim (no pun intended) to please.

Fucking dickhead.

The Newsletter
And guns are dumb. Yes, hunting, and ranching, and law enforcement, but even then there are substantial risks. But owning a gun as though it is some sort of safety accessory is stupid. It’s like spending hundreds of dollars to add a self-destruct button to your life. At any moment, all it takes is one pull of the trigger, and just like that all the goodness in your life can be gone, never to return. Guns are dumb.

We should all feel safe, and as humans, long before we had cooking we had weapons. But if you ever need a weapon, just look around you, they are everywhere. These days the kitchen of every American home rivals the arsenal of a good-sized medieval village. And who even needs the pointy things when you have cast iron? But guns are different. They try to sell you on the idea that guns give you control, yet with one pull of the trigger whatever happens next will forever be in someone else’s hands.
With yesterday’s verdict in Kenosha there were many headlines. Some spoke of freedom, and self-defense, and innocence, but once you pull the trigger there is no going back to what you were before. There is no return to innocence. Bring a gun into your home and it’s far less likely to take the life of a stranger in self-defense than it is to kill someone you love through accident, suicide, or your anger. A lot of the time someone wanting to own a gun is a pretty good sign that they’re the kind of person who shouldn’t have one. Guns are dumb.
I know that for many of you yesterday’s verdict and the joy it sent through the pro-gun crowd brought a sense of goodness slipping away. I get that. For me, in times like these I find cooking brings perspective. Once I came to see cooking as what it is, an act of kindness, the news lost much of its power to bring me down.
Even though the news presents itself as having its finger on the pulse of where we are at, it in reality shows little more than the couple dozen most out of the ordinary events that took place in the past day. Much of the news is horribly unkind. But to see cooking as kindness is to understand that for each and every event horrible enough to make the national news there are hundreds of thousands of acts of kindness happening in kitchens all across the country every day. Even on the worst of days there is so much more goodness. Please try to see it if you can.
If you are a hunter or if your job requires a gun, sure. But if you have a gun out of a sense of safety get rid of it asap. It is nothing more than a self-destruct button for the goodness in your life and in the lives of those you love. Guns are dumb.

Anti Abortion Head Explodes - Film at 11

 I can stop prodding the right wing loonies any time I want to.  I don't have a problem.  Oh fuck it, don't judge me for putting the fun back into fundamentalist!

Today, we talk about abortion (not a laugh riot, I know) and how to make a supposed pro-lifer's head  explode.  Note: that's the last time I use the term 'pro-life' to refer to those who oppose abortion, because it's not true and wrongly portrays those with opposing views as not being pro-life.  Not that it should matter, but I'm an advocate of making safe abortions available to women.  That shouldn't be interpreted as applauding every abortion that takes place or considering it to be a method of birth control, like condoms.  I shared this, along with other points of view, when the dipshits tried to pigeonhole me into a party.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the room went full Christian fundamentalist and barraged me with messages about killing babies.  And what fun would it be without some good old fashioned misogyny, generalizing women who got abortions as 'road whores' who'd fuck anyone.  Fun crowd.  The best part was that they screamed accountability for the 'whores', but assumed the men wouldn't be around to face 'personal accountability'.  WTELF?  

Once they'd worked themselves into a lather (with some assistance on my part), I posed a question that resulted in several heads exploding.  You can preach personal accountability all you want, but the reality of the situation is many of those unwanted children will be treated as such.  Abuse and neglect will occur, resulting in some being criminals and murderers.  This assertion has been confirmed via multiple studies that have found a distinct and significant correlation between Roe v Wade and a decrease in crime.  There was a significant decrease in crime roughly fifteen years after the court decision.  Sticking with the theme of murder, they found a 30% decrease in homicides directly attributable to the court case.  Now you've got a dilemma.  Do you a) allow abortions to take place, making society safer as a whole or b) ban them, knowing it'll cause a 30%  increase in murders as a result? (in addition to the number of women who die by having unsafe abortions and kids subjected to toxic upbringing)  Please choose one.

Which option was most frequently chosen?  Trick question, despite my prodding and even calling them scared little girls for doing so, no one would answer.  Instead, as with every question I've posed about how the right would fix a problem (i.e. homelessness), there was a wave of how Democrats suck and have fucked things up.  Full of hatred, but no solutions.  New slogan for the Republican party.

I also poked the bear by pointing out the massive self-owns by the far right, with their 'my body, my choice' signs and how that concept seems to only apply to vaccinations, not women's bodies.  In the end, they proved what many of us already know to be true; most ardent anti abortionists consider every life to be sacred until it comes out of the womb and outlawing abortion is really about controlling women.  Finally, I understand there are those who have a genuine religious belief that abortion is murder, but making them illegal has consequences you can't ignore.  

Did you know that one of the first instances of medical tourism was around abortion?  There were several reputable clinics in Mexico, that women would go to.  Hang out on the beach and have an abortion, while you're there.

Bill Gates Created The Plandemic - Not

 While I'm debunking stupid conspiracies, I might as well cover one I did last night, for my dear friends on the precision rifle board.  There's a huge hatred for Bill Gates amongst the crazies, which came bubbling up while I was online.  It began with a random post about how Gates has investments in various Big Pharma companies, to which I replied "so what?  The man diversifies his portfolio and drug makers are almost universally winners."  This degenerated into a Gates hate fest, including a bunch of other unsubstantiated claims about how he's using insider information to profit from the pandemic.  When I asked why the disdain for the guy, I received a "if you don't know why Gates is evil, we're not going to tell you" diatribe.   Add another data point confirming these people have zero facts from which to argue.  And talk about paranoid!  I was accused of being a government agent attempting to entrap the crazies.  There's a term for that, but I refuse to give it the light of day here.  Hell, they even tried their bullshit conspiracy nonsense with two doctors on the board, calling them liars.

In any case, the following picture was posted, claiming that Gates' intent was to depopulate the planet through vaccines.  In case you can't read it, the actual quote from him was, "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent. But there, we see an increase of about 1.3."  

For those of us with brains, it's clear he's talking about decreasing population growth, via the means quoted.  More on that later.  I guess if you don't understand the English language, you could interpret that statement as a desire to depopulate, using vaccines.  You'd not consider the reproductive health services to be germane to his statement, because that doesn't fit your narrative.  That's exactly what the Sovereign Independent, a now defunct newspaper known for spreading baseless conspiracy theories, did in 2011.  

A little side trip.  When I asked whether the poster had validated that information, or if anyone enjoyed their subscription to the paper, I received a response that frankly shocked me.  It was "here is why i believe it...because reuters says it isn' true..", along with a link to where they debunked it.  Seriously, what the ever living fuck???

And now, we come to the validation part of our game, where I bring it all home.  Slowing population growth and decreasing infant and child mortality was at the forefront for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as stated in its first annual newsletter, back in 2009.  Here's the portion of that letter, that pertains to the discussion:

When Melinda and I first started our giving, in the late 1990s, our focus was on reproductive health rather than childhood deaths. We felt that giving mothers the tools to limit their family size to what they wanted would have a catalytic effect by reducing population growth and making it easier to feed, educate, and provide jobs for the children who were born.

We were surprised when we saw a newspaper article in 1998 showing that only a few diseases cause most childhood deaths and showing how little money was being invested in creating and providing vaccines for these diseases. A chart in the article showed that a particular type of diarrheal disease—rotavirus—was killing over 400,000 children per year. How could a disease we had never heard of get so little attention and kill this many children? We sent the article to my father and asked him to look into how we could help.

A surprising but critical fact we learned was that reducing the number of deaths actually reduces population growth. Chart 3 shows the strong connection between infant mortality rates and fertility rates. Contrary to the Malthusian view that population will grow to the limit of however many kids can be fed, in fact parents choose to have enough kids to give them a high chance that several will survive to support them as they grow old. As the number of kids who survive to adulthood goes up, parents can achieve this goal without having as many children.

To summarize, the claim from the rag newspaper is complete bullshit and they knew it.  Likewise, anyone with half a brain cell can reach the same conclusion, without a great deal of effort.  There's already a number of articles out there that do the legwork for you.  Thanks to Snopes for posting the associated links, so I didn't have much legwork to do.  

It's a piece of cake to either validate or trash this shit, but some idiots can't be bothered, particularly when said shit aligns with their narrative.  Besides, it eats into their conspiracy mongering time.  Speaking of validation, while no one on the board admitted I was right (shocking!), the anti Gates rhetoric ceased after my post.  Oh, and before the loons accuse me of being  a Gates fanboy, I don't give two shits about the dude.  But I won't hate someone for being that person. 

For You Dewormer Dipshits

 One of the battle cries of the antivax right wing dimwits has been that Big Pharma is suppressing the horrible things the vaccines are doing and preventing acceptance of the animal parasite treatment, Ivermectin.  They claim there are multiple studies that prove Ivermectin is safe and effective for the treatment of Covid 19, but Big Pharma money is keeping a lid on it.  The debate is raging on the precision rifle message board I frequent, so me being me, I decided to think this stuff through.  I've already covered the horrible side effects (like getting shot) of the vaccine, so let's talk about Ivermectin.  

First, let's follow the supposed money trail.  The three manufacturers of the current Covid vaccines are Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Moderna.  The first two both have revenue in the $40B range, where Moderna is less than $10B.  Merck, the maker of Ivermectin, is of similar size to the the first two.  For the sake of this article, I'll stipulate that money talks and buys influence.  Moderna isn't large enough to have more than a few paid advocates in positions of power.  However, the other three are different stories.  Considering they're of similar sizes (huge) I can guarantee you that Merck has just as many government shills in their pocket as J&J and Pfizer and thus, a similar level of influence.  Therefore, if Merck wanted to board the Covid gravy train, they'd have no trouble doing so.  

But they don't want to.  In fact, they don't recommend Ivermectin for use as a treatment or preventative action against Covid.  From their website:

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today affirmed its position regarding use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety. 

It is important to note that, to-date, our analysis has identified:

- No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; 
- No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and; 
- A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.

We do not believe that the data available support the safety and efficacy of ivermectin beyond the doses and populations indicated in the regulatory agency-approved prescribing information.

In conclusion, Ivermectin could be a recommended treatment, if the manufacturer wanted it to be, but they don't.  Tell me again how a bunch of flawed studies and right wing looneys know more than the manufacturer?

Today In Right Wing Media

 While I'm sure there remains copious fodder to support further editions of my Old Man Ranting series, I've decided start another one. Today In Right Wing Media will tackle the hard hitting news promulgated that day by such fine outlets OAN, Newsmax, Fox News, and Conservative Daily, which doesn't really post anything daily at all. More like Conservative Whenever We Feel Like It. Being completely transparent, that's about how frequently I'll post in the series.  Sort of like my Dating Profile of the Week, which has become the Semi-annual Dating Profile of the Week.  Wasn't my blog much more interesting when I was regularly getting laid?

Being a thorough person, my intent is read the articles that are posted. However, in an indication of the right wing crazies' reading skill, many of the stories are video only.  I reserve the right not sit through five minutes of stupidity and commentary solely for the fifteen seconds of what they consider a salient fact. I'm neither a masochist nor desiring any of the crazy rub off on me!

It's one of these video stories that struck me this morning. The title is Attorney McBride: Treatment Of Jan. 6 Protesters Is Historic Hypocrisy.  In this instance the hypocrisy in question is relative the treatment of BLM protesters. Fleshing out, it seems the attorney representing a few of the January 6th insurrectionists is calling out how his clients are being treated more harshly than those arrested during Black Lives Matter protests.

My take on this: Of fucking course they're being treated more harshly. They tried to overthrow the fucking government, you disingenuous fuck!!! Furthermore, they continued to plan additional seditious actions right up to when they were arrested. If their treatment was commensurate with their actions, they'd be dead, having been mowed down the second they breached the doors of the Capitol. Do not claim equivalence or I'll sign you up for some gay porn newsletter, asshole.

Thanks for tuning in to Today in Right Wing Media.

Today In Right Wing Media - A Woman Has Her Car Stolen

 A story, broken by the crack reporters at Fox News, today made some connections very clear.  What those were, I have no idea.  But in their never ending crusade to kill George Soros, they blame everything they can think of on him.  In this case, it was the theft of a University of New Mexico law professor's car.  

It seems that the maroon Hyundai of law professor Mary Pareja was stolen last Tuesday afternoon sometime between 2:00 and 5:30.  The story goes on to note that at this same time the local district attorney, Raul Torrez, was on campus, giving a speech about crime in Albuquerque.  What made this crime particularly egregious was that this same DA was a beneficiary of Soros, kind of.  Soros had donated $107,000 to a political action committee that backed Torrez in the Democratic primary.  

The story goes on to babble about how bad crime is in New Mexico and seems to make an attempt to pin that and the stolen car on Soros.  Fuck, I'm not sure what I just read for the second time.  Who really does know with the right wing media?  Except that liberals bad, Biden bad, conservatives (who really aren't conservative, just Biden haters) good, Trump good or we just don't talk about him, depending on the outlet.  All I know is it feels like my IQ drops a little more with every bit of this garbage I read.  

Caravans and Blow Guns

 A recent exchange with someone on another blog left me with another data point to support my unoriginal assertion that those who are anti vax / anti mandate / anti everything that isn't a cheeto faced shit gibbon are getting their news from sources that don't just manipulate facts, but ignore them altogether.  I've decided to take a stroll through one of these outlets and blow some shit up, so you don't have to.  

In this instance, I was encouraged to read a story on Conservative-daily's website.  This particular bit of news was how a leaked Department of Defense document stated that hospitalizations doubled after the vaccine was introduced.  Scary, except for it being bullshit.  First, DOD doesn't track that shit, because they're the DOD and not the CDC or NIH.  Second, the supposedly leaked doc was nowhere to be found on the site to validate the story.  My theory is said document only exists in the minds of those who publish the site.  What I discovered to be a recurring theme was the use of this self-admitted inexperienced and non-expert attorney as an expert mouthpiece to give various claims more weight.  This dude is all over the sight and I can't figure out why.  

The lead story today is a standard dog whistle topic - the alleged migrant caravan heading for the US border.  Apparently, there's a leader of that caravan and he's 'declared war' on something.  For the record, this is the same caravan on which the dumb right's been sounding alarm bells about since cheeto face took office.  Either that caravan doesn't exist of it's the slowest fucking thing ever.  And in case one caravan doesn't sufficiently scare you, there's a story about a caravan of migrants from Africa now.  Two fucking caravans heading our way.  Yeah, sure there are.

Another awesome story covers how the left is casting aspersions and calling into question the outcome of the election audit in Arizona, performed by the brilliant folks of Cyberninjas.  Not they're fucking not, because the audit found that not only did Biden win there, but by a larger margin than previously reported.  

Of course, there's a story about how Mark Milley committed treason by having the same conversations with the Chinese that every damned one of his predecessors had.  

Finally, there are a few stories near and dear to my heart, relating to guns.  First is how Dems are trying to push Biden's ATF nominee through, despite objections from Republicans.  Only problem with said story is the president withdrew that gun grabber from consideration several weeks ago.  

The best story on there is the one about the Biden administration banning imports of Russian ammunition and how horrible it is.  First, it's not a complete ban, rather a halt on granting new licenses to import.  Existing licenses will be left alone, preventing an interruption in supply.  Second, the REAL conservative position on the subject would be to absolutely make it more difficult to buy ammo from our enemy, likely through higher tariffs, and engage with domestic suppliers to find out why they can't be competitive.  

I may have signed up to comment on that story...completely by accident, of course. 

Oh wait, this thing is like herpes...it keeps on giving.  The absolute best story on there is about how the FDA is going to force vaccinations and use blow darts to carry them out.  Until I hit that story, there was a part of me that wanted to give the ignorant some benefit of the doubt.  But damn, you have to be a bit of a moron to buy that one.  Blow darts!!!

A Story For All Times

 While I tend to gravitate toward Top Gun as a timeless story that helps me to understand and address any situation, there's another tale I find particularly useful, from a relationship perspective.  I've decided to share it here.

There was once a man who discovered a tiny baby alligator in his back yard.  Being an animal lover, he was afraid the poor thing would perish, being separated from its mother, so he took it in and raised it as a pet.  This man loved his Ricky unconditionally and lavished it with attention.  He gave Ricky massages and only fed him the best alligator chow.  In order for Ricky to feel like it was in its natural habitat, he had an enclosed lagoon built in his back yard, with a hot tub for when the gator was stressed.  He was positive his love and these gestures got through to the now full grown alligator, suppressing the beast's natural predatory instinct.

One day, he was teaching Ricky how to play fetch, when Ricky decided to fetch him and mauled him to death.  The man awoke at the pearly gates, face to face with Saint Peter.    

"I don't understand how this happened!  I loved Ricky with all my heart and did everything I could to demonstrate my affection."

Saint Peter responded, "What do you expect?  He was an alligator and mauling food is what alligators do, you dumb shit!"

The moral of the story is that regardless of how sincere and earnest your actions, you can't change the nature of another and can lose your head over it.  Literally.   

PSA - Getting The Last Word On Tinder

 Since beginning to use the app (off and on), I've found myself in two situations where the interaction ended in a less than amicable manner.  In both cases, I had reached my limit of 'what I'm willing to tolerate for some boom boom' and metaphorically dropped anchor in terms of further entertaining the behavior being exhibited by the other party.  And in both cases, the other party fired off a 'fuck you' note and unmatched with me.  However, I admit to having no real insight into the content of their messages, since unmatching deletes the entire conversation and I never saw them.  Thus, they weren't actually able to get in the last word or parting shot.  

Therefore, the takeaway should be that if you feel the need to fire a last shot and get in the last word on Tinder, wait a few hours to ensure the other party has time to read your fuck you.  Of course, that deprives you the pleasure of unmatching and making that person go away.  Your revised takeaway is you can't have it all.

Under the heading of pleasant surprises, earlier today, I'd been trading notes with a woman who went into full bitch mode and I called her out on it.  There were notifications of additional messages from her, but for the reasons above, I didn't bother looking for them for a bit.  The pleasant surprise was that the message she sent included an apology for being bitchy.  

Vaccine Mandates - Not Tyranny

Hey you!  Yeah, you...turn off Tucker for a moment and listen up.  I bet you're singing along with that whiny little hypocritical shithead that vaccine mandates are tyranny and interfere with your freedoms.   I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you lack access to actual data, only receive Fox and OAN, and that you're not willfully ignorant.

The bottom line is that vaccine mandates aren't tyranny, no matter what you hear from the right wing media.  Worth mentioning is Fox, OAN, and all the other toxic bullshit factories have vaccination mandates for their employees.  If your friend Tucker really believed what he was saying about mandates being tyranny, you'd think he'd be raging against his employer.  But he isn't.  I wonder why that is?  

I realize that should have been the killer punch, but let's dig into some additional food for thought.

I like data, so let's move on to the numbers.  They're big ones, but I've done my best to simplify them so you'll understand.  

There have been six hundred eighty thousand total deaths in the US due to Covid.  Of the one hundred sixty plus million who've been fully vaccinated, there have been one thousand four hundred deaths.  That number represents less than one percent of those who've been vaccinated.  LESS THAN ONE PERCENT!!!  Oh, there were over two thousand deaths from Covid, just yesterday; you can guess how many were vaccinated.  

The vaccine is effective and has saved thousands of lives; it's also FDA approved, so cross that objection off your list.

I know what you're thinking - it's still tyranny to force people to get vaccinated.  You're standing up to be dumb enough to avoid getting jabbed, get the virus, and die in your mobile home.  Trust me, if the virus only impacted the willfully ignorant, I'd be fighting alongside you, defending your right to demonstrate natural selection at work.  If only it worked that way.  

The vaccine is effective against the current variants, but viruses mutate as they're spread around, until they morph into a variant the vaccine can't defend against.  This is why you need a flu shot every year; to protect from the latest mutations.  Ultimately, the spread by the unvaccinated will allow Covid to mutate into one of those variants that the current vaccine can't fight and we'll be back to square one.  Those who remain ignorant and unvaccinated are lengthening the pandemic and making it more difficult to fight.

Even with the current variants, stupid mother fuckers like you are winding up in ICU's hand over fist and are taking beds that are needed for those whose conditions weren't preventable with a fucking shot.  There have been dozens of accounts where someone having a major cardiac issue or something equally critical have either wound up dying for lack of a bed or had to be transported several hundred miles away from home, because that's where the closest empty bed was located.

You and those like you have blood on your hands from the deaths you cause every damned day you remain unvaccinated.  These deaths are your fault, Fudd.

Do employers really have the right to mandate vaccinations?  Damn skippy they do, for two main reasons.  First, they pay your fucking health insurance and the costs go through the roof when they have a bunch of dumb fucks get sick from Covid, not to mention lost productivity because your dumb ass isn't working.  More importantly, they have a legal obligation to provide their employees with a safe working environment.  A bunch of spreaders running around is the opposite of safe.  The Federal government is the largest employer in the US and are subject to the same shit as other employers.  So is your corner coffee shop, hotel, and every other business you infect by walking into every day.  

In summary, neither you nor I have the personal freedom to kill those around us by spreading a deadly virus.  Not much different than walking around with an open jar of anthrax.

Finally, the above also applies to mask mandates.  Those of you who decry such measures in schools because you know what's best for your kids are killing them too.  

User Interfaces - WTF??

Another in my Old Man Ranting Series

There seems to be an unwritten rule amongst those who create user interfaces for software, apps, and other consumer devices.  That is once users have become accustomed to finding everything they need, we must change the fucking interface.  Until tonight, my ire was mostly kept in check, but I hit two major 'gotta change' landmines within the past 48 hours and I'm pissed.  Strangely, the same culprit laid both mines.  

Yesterday, I decided I wanted to use the Amazon music app for the errand run I was about to embark on.  When my phone hooked up to my Bluetooth stereo, the screen changed to what I came to discover was car mode.  And fuck, this thing made no sense.  I couldn't find the specific music I wanted to listen to.  Was Amazon thinking 'Let's cause people to crash their cars by making them have to figure out a whole new UI that was created to prevent people from crashing their cars.'  I'll spare you my tirade about parties deciding for you what you should see.  Fortunately, I could disable it and did at my first stop.

Then tonight, when I kicked on my Fire TV for entertainment before jumping on my treadmill, I was greeted by a 'we've updated your experience' screen, followed by a two minute video explaining how they'd fucked everything up...I mean moved everything to where I can't find it...oh, fuck it, you know what I mean.  Getting out of the video was challenging; it really wanted you to see the masterpiece.  Profanity echoed from the walls of my gym!  Fortunately, I was able to get to the content I wanted quickly.

In all fairness, I shouldn't be surprised at Amazon fucking shit up.  The hardware they make, or more accurately the hardware they have made to put their name on, is almost universally shit.  The aforementioned Fire TV was the second in that location and 4th or 5th replacement overall.  Don't get me started on the new Kindle.  The first generation was a simple device; reliable, durable, easy to use, and had real buttons.  This latest version is a handheld advertisement that's anything but intuitive and utilizes a touch screen that no longer contains information such as progress through the book you're reading or how much battery you have left.  And the processor makes it...the...slowest...hand...held...device...you've...ever...seen.  My decade old Kindle was much faster, had greater functionality, and didn't barrage me with ads.  Unfortunately, the battery took the big dirt nap, leaving me no choice but to replace it.

Back to the UI topic.  The biggest offender of them all, with respect to moving shit around unnecessarily, is Microsoft.  My job requires me to use Office; Outlook, Powerpoint, Excel are daily staples.  The upgrade associated with Windows 10 was an abomination, with features and functions moved all over the place, and some actually being removed.  The learning curve was insane and I'm still not as adept with it as I'd been with the previous versions.  Were I to hold Bill Gates at knifepoint and force him to tell me why he committed such blasphemy, I'm sure he'd whimper something about it being more intuitive.  Considering that current users, who'd already gotten used to the UI, outnumber new users who might find the new UI easier to learn, by about one trillion to one, I think most would agree that fucking up the existing UI to be fucking moronic.  

To those who have any input in designing this sort of stuff, let me offer some words of advice.  If you implement a facelift to your UI that requires users watch a two fucking minute video guide, you've failed and are undeserving of your job or life.  If your new UI requires any sort of acclimation curve versus the old one, you're a failure.  Users of consumer devices don't want to have to figure out your shit more than once.  After the initial learning curve, which had better be brief, they want to pick up their device and use it NOW.  People don't like new and unimproved. 

Fucking Filters

This subject isn't anything new, but I don't recall seeing a proper rant on the topic.  Therefore, I'm picking up the mantel and including it in my Old Man Ranting Series

Technology has delivered to us digital camera technology that yields photos with amazing clarity and resolution.  Today, even cell phone cameras yield superior quality, compared to high end digital cameras of even a few years ago.  With all of this amazing capability, it would follow that dating profile pictures would be crystal clear, but sadly, this isn't the case.  Someone created some filter app (maybe there's more than one; how would I know?) that allows the user to soft focus pictures to felony level, making it almost impossible to distinguish someone's features.  And a considerable number of women are utilizing this filter to laughable results.  Perhaps men are as well, but I don't look at their dating profiles.  Seriously, I've seen so many of these that I almost scheduled a doctor's visit to be checked for cataracts.  The worst are the ones who dial in eye liner enhancements to max level, making them appear ready for the next best horror film and causing small children to cry.

I'm sure most of my readers share my position that these filters have no place on dating sites.   Unless you plan on meeting someone after consuming half a bottle of Don Julio, you want their photos to provide an accurate representation of who you're about to meet.  Perhaps the only exception to posting such photos would be if someone had their portrait done by Annie Leibovitz and she incorporated some sort of filter.  But the most gifted portrait photographer on the planet doesn't use soft focus, so there goes that excuse.  Look, none of us become more attractive from our late forties onward; it's a fact of life.  And try as you might, those filters don't fix ugly, so if you're using them, save yourself the guaranteed ghosting after (or during) your first date.   

Some will never give up their squint inducing fog filters.  I recently saw a profile on the Big T where not only were filters used in the manner I've described, but the woman was positively combative about using them.  Apparently, potential matches challenged her on the subject and she was asserting her right to post pictures that didn't look like her.

While on the subject of filters, if you're past forty years old, leave the fucking snap chat filters alone.  Unless it was a Halloween costume, bunny ears, cat whiskers, etc. don't paint you as playful or fun.  It just screams immature.  Worse yet, the majority of those you love the bunny ears typically run the picture through the Don Julio blur filter first, completely obscuring any facial detail.  A forty something woman that does that screams she's trying to hide ugly.   

Embrace who you are and be proud of it, people.

My Own First Scammer

 If you've read my blog, you know that I'm no stranger to scammers, having dealt with the African ones who stole all of my father's savings.  However, today is the first time I've encountered a scammer on a dating site.  In all fairness, it's surprising it took this long.  I'd sent a note to a woman who seemed interesting; she was neither 27 nor out of my league.  In fact, she wasn't as attractive as most of the women I've dated.  Her response was that she's out of sorts due to a migraine and $65 short to buy the meds.  "Feel like death is so bad."

It's funny, because the tactic is the total opposite from what would work on me, if anything really would motivate me to send some unknown chick money.  Even if I were completely clueless about scams, I still wouldn't have sent her money due to her behavior being a complete turnoff.  

Regular readers know I can't just ignore a scammer and not fuck with them.  I just sent her a note, stringing her along, the intent being to see how much energy I can suck out of her.  Perhaps the next will be an offer to share some of my (non-existent) migraine meds if she comes over, ready for a gang bang, once they kick in.  

Covid Vaccines and Conspiracy Theories - Food For The Obtuse

Recently, I've been exposed to some of the current wild and fantastical conspiracies associated with the virus and more importantly, vaccination.  They've left me completely flabbergasted and provided another reminder of how gullible too many Americans are.  In all fairness, much of the medical mumbo jumbo is likely over the heads of those who believe it.  The whole mRNA thing is beyond my own span of attention.  However, we can still use the tools we all have at our disposal to ferret out bullshit, a suspicious and critical mind.  My regular readers know that I rarely take questionable assertions at face value and tend to fact check on my own.  For example, one of the fringe outlets claimed that 'CDC data released on July 9th' shows a massive spike in deaths from vaccines.  Before I called bullshit, I went to the CDC's website to confirm.  Because they're a government entity, they put everything they release on their website.  I think we both know what I found; or didn't find.  Now, I'm calling bullshit.  Something I did find was a direct correlation between vaccination rates and Covid deaths.  No surprise the states with higher vaccination rates have fewer cases and deaths.  

Another way to utilize your critical mind is to ask the questions 'to what end?' and 'Who profits from this and how?'  These questions, and most of this entry, are universal with respect to conspiracy theories in general, but we'll stick with the one at hand.  Who would benefit from the successful outcome of the supposed conspiracy and why?  Clearly, the pharma companies would receive the greatest benefit by reaping huge profits from government contracts to develop and manufacture the vaccines on an emergency basis.  PPE manufacturers also benefitted from a massive spike in demand.  Hell, I received some nice upside orders from 3M earlier in the pandemic.  Maybe I'm in on the conspiracy.  Shit, I've said too much.

What stands out to me is the massive number of 'auxiliary players' required to be complicit in the scheme, but who wouldn't profit.  What's in it for them to participate or at least keep their mouths shut?  It's not as though the profits pharma took in would be sufficient to buy everyone's silence.  Let's look at one of the most important groups of auxiliary players, the media.

Why is it that these conspiracy theories are always 'broken' by fringe media outlets, or bloggers, or some guy in the produce aisle?  They're never ever covered by legitimate news outlets.  The media's in on it!  Sorry to burst your bubble, but logic says otherwise.  For those who've forgotten, all of these outlets (CNN, NYT, Fox News) are for profit companies.  What generates the most revenue for a news outlet?  Certainly not suppressing what would be sensational developments.  Such reporting would generate massive ratings / readership, which would make them more money than an entity paying them hush money.  Because not only would they get a short term bump, but the ratings and higher ad placement prices would carry on for some time.  The media, all the media, would fight tooth and nail to break such a story and cover it non-stop for as long as that gravy train lasted.  

On the flip side, what do the conspiracy theorists get in return for their activities?  Attention, money, and (misplaced) credibility that they wouldn't have received were they going about their lives.  Who wouldn't throw out a ton of bullshit for that payout?  Seems the conspiracy freaks might have greater motivation than those allegedly complicit in the conspiracy they're trying to sell.   

Touching on the politically motivated, it would be quite the fantasy world to get D's and R's to agree to this sort of thing (or anything else, for that matter).  Make no mistake, they'd all have to be complicit.   Not happening.  The wretched right seems hell bent on their constituents dying from Covid by keeping them from getting vaccinated, even though they've all be vaccinated themselves.  There's some serious motivation for them to be driving the shit out of these conspiracies, if there were even the tiniest fragment of truth to them.  But you're not hearing a peep from even the more euthanasia worthy lawmakers, like MTG or Louis Gohmert.  I'll let you draw your own conclusion, but perhaps it's because such conspiracy theories are too obviously bullshit for even these dipshits to give oxygen to.  

The bottom line is that massive 'evil' conspiracies can't exist in secret, period.  Somebody always fucks up.  There will always be someone who loses the the fortitude to remain evil and caves.  Or, someone inadvertently shares too much with that underage hooker in Dallas.  This almost always happens when one party is involved.  Dozens of parties all gettin' down on the evil?  Hah!  Again, pure fantasy.  It becomes more of a farce, when you consider governments are involved.  Nothing stays secret in governments.  Throw in language barriers and differing agendas of the various supposedly involved countries and leaks will occur.  Every damned time.

Ultimately, there's no way the conspiracy at hand could be true.  It would have been leaked by someone and amplified through every level of media, by those with the incentive to do so, of which there are many.  

Vaccination should be mandatory.  Those who believe this is a draconian and distasteful measure are idiots.  Your kids have to be vaccinated against various things to attend school, so you've already complied with mandatory vaccinations and given proof to the school system.  Oops, didn't think of that, did you?  You're not a fucking virologist, so don't pretend to know what is and isn't true on the internet about the virus, particularly when crosschecking facts blows the damned thing up prima facia.  You don't have feathers, so stop parroting everything you read that you fall for.  Do the right thing for yourself and your family, for a change.  Take off the tin foil hat, say goodbye to Q once and for all, and get your fucking family vaccinated.  

Also, stop with the idiotic memes comparing mandatory vaccinations with the Holocaust or any other Nazi symbolism.  Comparing vaccination with genocide is offensive, because there is no fucking comparison, you moronic snowflake.  While I'm typically fine allowing morons to identify themselves in grand fashion, there are too many soft minds in this country who may believe the bullshit.  Largely in the same way there are those who believe the election was stolen from the Cheeto faced shit gibbon; but I already covered that one.  

Now, really get off my lawn.

Dog Shit and Drag Queens

It's been quite the week, filled with all sorts of things impacting my dull life.  I didn't feel as though any of these topics deserved their own entry, so here's the omnibus update.  Buckle up, buttercup.

The job interviewing process has become manic, with what should have been five interviews this past week (I feel like one of the popular girls!).  Most companies aren't bothering with phone interviews anymore, preferring to go right to video calls for first and second rounds.  I've worn the same dress shirt for at least four interviews, at this point.  I'm only wearing it for an hour at a time, so it's not as though it gets dirty or wrinkled.  It goes without saying I also wear shorts for these interviews.  

I'd be lying if I said I miss in person interviews.  For those who've never been on one in another city, it's not much fun.  Get up at O Dark Thirty, rush to the airport, pray flights are on time, arrive at destination, rent car, head to interview, try to push the stress and fatigue out of your system and appear vibrant and on the ball for an hour.  Rush to catch your return flight, land at midnight.  Try to remember what you said on your interview.  My favorite one of these was when I flew to Chicago in front of a heavy snow storm.  Flights were being cancelled all over the place.  I wound up flying into Baltimore, staying the night, then driving to Richmond in the storm.  

Next up is something that if it was a dessert, would be called Masochist's Delight.

Changing the furnace filter required a trip down a hallway I never visit and during that exercise, I discovered that my dog does have some separation anxiety, illustrated by the half dozen piles of what had began as loose dog shit.  By the time I discovered the little brown piles of joy, they were becoming fossilized and approaching diamond hardness.  I'll spare you the details of the required cleanup effort, but it probably goes without saying a good time was not had by all.  

My clothes washer decided to demonstrate its ability to sustain water flow and flooded my laundry room.  It demonstrated its displeasure with my ceasing that activity by not working since.  I'm fairly sure it's the water pressure / level sensor and have a replacement arriving next week.  In the meantime, I'm reprising my college student role, by taking laundry to my parents.

The battery on the Caddy SUV I appropriated from my parents has passed into the great lead acid beyond and from what I've read on the internet, there's a fifty fifty chance a trip to the dealer will be required for a memory re-flash.  Yet another reason I'll never buy American again.

On the positive side, I quit smoking a week ago and haven't killed anyone (yet).  Yes, I'm an intelligent individual and yes, I know it's bad for me, but it was one of the few things that gave me a modicum of pleasure.  Ultimately, I had to face the fact that I wasn't thirty anymore and couldn't grab a smoke, then jump into a vigorous workout.  It was finally catching up to me and I found myself lacking energy and occasionally becoming winded when I shouldn't have.  Since quitting, my workouts have been infinitely more productive and I'm quickly losing the weight I gained during the parental Florida incident.  Stress, ice cream, and no place to work out will pack on the pounds.  

I'll finish with something scandalous.  Tomorrow, I'm going to Sephora and buying makeup for myself.  No, I'm not joining a drag queen show, even though I have the time.  For the aforementioned video interviews, I've set the stage quite well, I think.  I've got the right stuff in the background and an inexpensive set of photo studio lights to help minimize the effects of aging.  Unfortunately, I have a very fair complexion and the lights wash me out and make me look like a member of the undead.  I'd read that a large number of men were using makeup to optimize their appearance on video conferences and it seems I'll be one of them.  

What do you think?  Vanity, craziness, or solid marketing?

Staying in KC - The Best Option?

We'll wait a minute or so for my regular readers to pick themselves up off the ground after reading the title...

As I await what I hope will be a solid job offer to arrive this week, I decided to be proactive and explore living options.  I checked out both the shit PA city, where my new office would be located (I grew up there, so I know it's shit) and home (Richmond, VA).  Because I would want to relocate to Richmond, regardless, I would only lease a house in PA.  Richmond could be a lease or potentially a purchase out of the gate.  Long story short, the housing situation is fucked, which I somewhat expected, considering the boom that's going on at the moment.  

Because of said boom, I've ruled out buying a home in either location.  It would piss me off to spend a bunch of money on a house, only to see it lose 15% of its value, once things even out again.  Besides, the only things on the market are overpriced new construction.  On the rental side of things, there are literally no options that meet my criteria at any price within 45 minutes of my potential new office, in PA.  At 46 minutes out, there's a 5,500+ sq ft house for rent at $3,250.  Both are a bit above my threshold.  Hell, I'd get lost in that place!

Richmond is slightly better, in terms of rental options, but not great.  There are slightly better purchase options, but damn, if those prices haven't jumped since I last went house shopping in the area.

Much as it kills me to say, I think it's in my best interest to stay put in KC, where I've got a reasonable lease, and ride things out.  This might make for a difficult conversation with my new employer, but unless they want to offer me an even beefier signing bonus, they can't force me to move somewhere there ain't a place to move into.  Don't get me wrong, I'll still hate this flat hell hole, but I'll at least have a solid exit strategy.

Scientists and Dating Sites

Because my life doesn't contain sufficient trauma, I continue the on again, off again, dating thing, although to a lesser extent, knowing I'll be moving in the near future.  In any case, I've discovered another trend I think is worth reporting on.  I've only encountered this one on Plenty of Fish and it's a head scratcher.  Over the course of the past few weeks, I've noticed a number of women listing their occupation as cosmologist.  For those who may not be clear on what a cosmologist does (I was a bit vague, myself), they're scientists that study the universe; how it formed, how it's changed, and what exists within it.  What's odd is none of them have advanced degrees and all have pictures with their faces with impeccable makeup.

Yep, there are a bunch of women cosmetologists who can't even spell what they do for a living.

Millions of People Believe The Election Was Stolen

Over the past few months, we've all heard this over and over from right wing dipshit members of Congress and state governors.  The statement is invariably used as justification for increasing the security of our election process.  Of course their definition is to make the process more secure from those pesky people of color and other left leaning types.   The dipshits are no longer claiming the election had actually been stolen, because anyone with half a brain would vilify them for being morons and/or liars.  The cry is that millions of people believe it was.  

What makes my head hurt is how they're claiming action is required because millions of people believe something happened that didn't happen at all.  If the election was stolen from the Cheeto Faced Shit Gibbon, why didn't the Dems steal any state legislatures and flip them?   If you're defrauding the poor Liar in Chief out of his office, why not go big?  Also, why don't you tell them it didn't happen, moron?   You know...the truth???  Fuck you, logic and reason.  But I digress.

Rather than cause my readers and myself to have an aneurism by further discussing the moronic talking points, I want to provide some context with respect to the number of people who believe the lie, versus other not real things Americans believe in.  All of the numbers below are from one or more legitimate studies, based upon responses by American adults.  Let's see if there are any other misconceptions that require a more urgent response.  

Our baseline:  30-50 million Republicans believe the outcome of the Presidential election was due to fraud, depending on your source and day of the week.  

Again, what about others who aren't that bright?  We need to address their concerns in a far more urgent matter versus our baseline group.*

- 114 million people (44%) aren't confident vaccines don't cause autism

- 85 million (33%) Americans are unable to identify a right protected in the first amendment to the Constitution.  A similar amount were unable to name either of the three branches of the US government.  If a third of Americans don't know jack about the Constitution, how the fuck would they know if an election had been stolen?

- 65 million (25%) believe the sun revolves around the earth. 

- 52 million (20%) don't know hamburgers are made from beef.

Other groups that are smaller, but more disconcerting, should be addressed as well.

- 18 million (7%) think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.  

- 12 million (5%) believe a master race of interstellar lizard people secretly run the US.  Offers a good rationale for not learning the Constitution, I guess.

There are a lot of Americans impacted by these various concerns, for much longer than the dumb MAGA heads have been impacted by their most recent stupidity.  What about them?  More people don't know that hamburgers are made from beef than believe the election was stolen!  What about the children??

If you're looking for some kernel of wisdom in this entry, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.  However, I will offer my own conclusion from the above data, which is Americans are fucking dumbasses who deserve to be ruled by the lizard people.

*Numbers based upon basis of 258 million adults in the US.

Dating Expectations - Nebraska Edition

 Surfing through my phone, while waiting for my mother at a doctor's appointment yesterday, I found myself on the dating app that reminds you of the material you'd use to start a fire.  One of the profiles I encountered of a woman, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska.  She must have been in KC today, to pop up, but that's neither here nor there.  Her photos were mostly of her dressed up for one event or another, with no casual attire present.  A few years ago, she would have made DPOW for her profile consisting solely of what she didn't want in a man, but the true reason for my taking note is what those deal breakers were.  She stated emphatically that she didn't like hunting and asked what I assume to be the rhetorical question of why so many men posted pictures with fish they caught.  Here profile is here.

I literally chuckled when I read that bit.  

I'm offering what I think is a well-reasoned rebuttal to her requirements:  You wannabe socialite of the flatlands!!!   You fucking live in Nebraska and take issue with outdoorsmen???  Fuck, half the women there have their own photos of fish they caught on their profiles.  If you want a trove of sophisticated and urbane gentleman, MOVE!!!

Now, get off of my lawn...

An aardvark's tongue can grow up to 12 inches (30.5 cm) long.  No, I don't have their number.

I Was a Threat and Had to Go

We've all heard someone make such a claim to legitimize getting whacked from a job.  It's typically those you know to be incompetent who make it, so no one takes it seriously.  However, in my case, it's true.  Below is my story.  

It started out as the best thing that happened in my career.  I was an actual executive with a VP title and everything.  All of North American sales and marketing reported to me.  The company was privately held, based in Switzerland, but mostly run by Germans.  I was the first American to run the business in over a decade as was my boss, the president of North America.  

Unfortunately, I quickly realized my boss was in way over his head.  He'd never actually managed anyone before and his previous role was as an application engineer.  The controller and I agreed we'd mentor the president; we were confident he'd rise to the occasion.  Except, not only did he not rise, he withdrew and became more resentful toward me as time went by.  

When I started, he told me he would be in the office from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. as he was responsible for the logistics for his offspring at school.  He'd be working from home and available on his mobile outside that window.  Except not only did he keep that same schedule year round, he was completely dark, when not in the office.  And that's when he decided to come in at all.  On the full days he worked from home, he was not only unreachable, but occasionally posted golf scores on his FB page (according to those who were friends with him).  There were periods of time where no one knew where he was or could get in touch with him.  One of those was when a board member from Switzerland popped by.  'We were in the same meetings, how could he just disappear?'

The man refused to make a decision on anything.  The most jaw dropping example was at a baseball game.  We'd booked sky boxes for the entire staff, complete with catering.  Sometime around the 6th inning, a hostess popped by to ask Jason if we were about done eating or would we like a final food restock.  My girlfriend and I were sitting behind Jason and were both stunned when he literally began to stammer, finally spitting out 'uh...go ask our controller'.  That's how paralyzed he was.  

Another perfect example of his complete lack of ownership was the day our office was in the path of a complete nightmare of a storm.  Hail, wind, torrential rain.  It was so bad, I grabbed my team and hustled them to the safest place in the building I could think of.  No surprise that we lost power.  That shouldn't have been a problem because our building had a generator.  But it wouldn't start because Jason hadn't signed the maintenance agreement.  So there we were; about 20 people dead in the water without power.  After it was clear that situation wouldn't be remedied any time soon, I headed over to Jason's office to huddle up on next steps.  I planned to let my own people go home, but he owned the operations side.  I wanted us to be aligned on our actions.  When I reached his door, he was in front of it, his cute little backpack on his shoulders, locking it up.  When I asked what he was doing, he said 'I'm goin' home.'   I stood there dumbfounded as he walked away, his people stuck in the dead building because he hadn't given them permission to leave.  I turned on my heel and went around, sending everyone home.  The most telling aspect of the story came the next morning, when the warehouse manager called my cell to inform me the power was still off and that they needed direction.  Despite being completely useless, I always deferred to Jason on operations issues and responded to the warehouse manager that Jason would have to make that call.  She interupted me mid sentence to say she'd already tried him and it went right to voicemail.  Then, she said something to the effect of 'you and I both know Jason's MIA and couldn't make a decision even if she could reach him.  Wow.

Because of his paralysis, I became the de facto leader of North America.  And I worked my ass off for my team; 60 hour weeks were the norm.  I quickly garnered their respect by being decisive and having a vision for the future (and communicating it).  There were literally occasions where a customer service person would stop at my door and say 'I'm so excited for the direction you're taking us'.  I shit you not.  

It was quite the downward spiral.  Jason could see he'd lost the team's respect, whereas I'd gained it.  His resentment toward me grew stronger by the day, as he saw me being who the team looked to.  He'd occasionally try to force me to kiss the ring, by berating me for doing something he didn't like, but would come up empty when I'd ask how I should have handled it.  We were spending too much money on promotion, but I caught hell for planning to skip some expensive trade shows, where we didn't have anything new to promote anyway.  There are those who would suggest he was afraid of me.  Those episodes became more and more common, until they reached a breaking point.  I remember telling him 'you want to be a leader, then you have to lead!!!'

Shortly after, there was some sort of upcoming celebration planned, with both the Swiss owner and the CEO coming in to participate.  I had solid relationships with both.  Things with Jason had gotten to the point where it was time for all of his laundry to come out.  It was time for a coup.  Obviously, I kept that to myself, but Jason would have had to be brain dead to not realize I had reached my limit and would serve up a mound of dirt on him.  I suspect there were also things he caved on to the Germans that he was afraid to tell me, so he was afraid of what I'd say about that to the Swiss.  

That's when Jason actually grew a pair of balls and made a decision (to save himself).  He lobbed a note to the aforementioned owner and CEO stating I had to be dismissed with utmost urgency.  This note also outlined my various, and completely fictitious transgressions, to support his decision.  Because the Swiss are scum bags (I've got a dozen data points on that one), they let him do it.  I know these things because the owner and his wife invited me to dinner with them, the next time they were in town and shared the whole thing.  Hans said it came out of the blue.  I remember looking him in the eye and asking, 'didn't you think the timing was a bit odd, Hans?  He absolutely had to get rid of me right before you and Walter came over.'  Blank stare.  With Hans being Swiss, it was dropped there.  

Returning to when I was shown the door, Jason waited until a day I was working from home to inform me.  Some might say he was too afraid to do it face to face.  I was told I was done, that someone would be by to collect company property, and that I would be arrested if found on the company property.  Then came the crown jewel.  Jason went around to the members of my team I was closest to and informed them they were to have no communication with me and doing so would be grounds for termination.  What would lead the president of a company to put illegal conditions on employment for select individuals? 

In the years since, the owner recognized he was in over his head (we was a young guy and his grandfather was the founder) and hired a professional management team.  I'm sure the new CEO took a all of two minutes to see Jason for what he was, although it took a year before Jason was demoted back to engineering manager, having led the North American operation to double digit losses in the interim.  

Info about the company and Jason here.

Canine Contrition - It Does Exist

 So-called dog experts have long since held the position that dogs are in capable of feeling guilt or remorse for doing something naughty.  

This position was confirmed as recently as January of this year, by the AKC.  The stance is and has been that when dogs demonstrate body language typically associated with shame or contrition, it's the result of them cuing in on their owners, who are upset over whatever transgression they committed.  Owner discovers shredded pillow, owner gets upset (even to a small degree), dog knows owner is unhappy about dog's behavior, dog offers contrite body language.  While I agree that's the most typical scenario, it's not always the case.  

I've called bullshit on this 'expert opinion' for years, particularly after a situation with a previous dog.  Today, I received another data point and call the so-called experts out as morons.  

Here's a quick review of my experiences.  The first was with my border collie, Isabel, who could recite Pi to 112 places and drive a car.  Don't call me a liar; she could dammit.  Anyway, when we first rescued her, she suffered from frequent urinary tract infections and would have occasional accidents in the house.  My first data point is from one such accident.  I was working from home, one day.  Isabel was sleeping just outside my office, but not where I could see her.  We were alone in the house.  From nowhere, she quickly walked into my office and glued herself to my side, her body language screaming 'I love you, Daddy!'.  Being Daddy's girl, it wasn't unusual for her to show the most affection to me, but this was over the top.  I suspected something was up and went to investigate, finding she'd had an accident.  Her body language couldn't have been a response to my reaction to her accident, because I wasn't yet aware of it.

Today, my dog Sadie offered very similar behavior, but I couldn't figure out why.  That is until I got a good look at her.  For the second time, she'd decided to roll around in her own shit.  Somehow, that I'd missed that little tidbit when she came into the house.  Still, she knew what she'd done was being a bad doggie, from the previous time she pulled that move, hence the contrition.  Again, body language of contrition offered before I was aware of her transgression.

In both cases, it was clear to the dogs that the behaviors were unwelcome, from reactions to their previous occurrences.  Be clear that neither were punished; that's a dumb way to modify a dog's behavior.  But there were cues that the dogs picked up on.  For example, Sadie got tossed right into a bath.  When they repeated the behavior, they knew they did something that didn't make their owner happy.

These were completely different dogs, with dissimilar demeanors.  While Isabel was insanely smart and loved her Daddy, but had some behavioral challenges, relative to strangers and was afraid of containers.  Sadie is a complete saint and the most even tempered, loving dog I've ever had, but she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  

In conclusion, the experts don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Additional source material here.

Gratuitous doggie pictures below.

Isabel

Sadie

When Guns Aren't Such a Good Idea

 Despite our relationships being destroyed by manipulation from their borderline mother, I still feel some emotional attachment to my former step kids (see previous post Down in Flames II).  Rather than subjecting myself to the ultimate vulnerability of reaching out to them, I sort of keep an eye from afar.  In today's society, that means occasionally popping by their social media accounts.

The one of note today comes from my former stepdaughter, who posted to see if anyone knew someone who could sponsor her for membership in a gun club, back in Pennsylvania (where I lived until separating from her mother).  My initial thought was that I could drop a quick email to one of my old shooting compatriots and get her sponsored into the club to which I previously belonged.  The idea of helping her brought a bit of joy, for the brief moment until I realized how much of a mistake that would be.  If you've read the Down in Flames entry, you know that my dawter has become a borderline, just like her mudda.  Those who are unable to regulate their emotions and occasionally wander into sociopathic waters probably aren't what I would consider responsible gun owners.

So, I remained silent and silently wished her well.

Annual Dating Profile of the Week

It's been some time since I've posted a dating profile of the week.  This can be attributed to two factors.  First, I'm not actively looking and second, not much surprises me at this point.  The 'here are all the things I hate' profiles that share nothing about the person themselves, the half sentence profiles...they all run together at this point.  However, I recently stumbled upon a profile that made me stop in my tracks.  

This profile belongs to 'Bibbity' on Plenty of Fish and represents the essence of what Trump and willful ignorance does to people.  Unfortunately, the neither the website nor the app codes profiles as text anymore, which prohibits copying and pasting.  So, much as I'd like to share more of her lengthy profile, there was no way I was transposing the complete raft of garbage.  You'll have to make due with the snippets I did retype, which I did verbatim.  You can see it here - Profile

Bibbity is a 47 year old hair stylist from the same suburb in which I live and says:

If you are covid vaccinated please do not message me.  Im (sic) not interested in being with you...ever.  #mybodymychoice 

Full blown Trump supporter

But honestly if you hate him, please do not message me for as we will have zero in common.  I don't pander to snowflakes in la-la land.  Just tells me you are a follower, going with the flow and can't critically think for yourself.  Big fighter for freedom and truth.

Not only does this ignoramus want to risk getting Covid, but she won't be happy unless you do as well.  Apparently the idiotic hashtag only applies to her and not you, should you wish to date her; and I can't see why you wouldn't, considering her immense charm.  Seriously, I don't recall hearing any of the conspiracy fucktards spouting that being in contact with someone who's vaccinated could be harmful.  Perhaps she's a special breed of idiot.  

I'll skipe further commentary on this section, mostly because it makes my head hurt when I have to read the 'can't critically think for yourself' section.  

And why do people insist on putting hashtags where they aren't searchable?  

She goes on:

Don't send me hunky professional pics all the time and refuse to send a current. I WILL ASK YOU FOR A PICTURE DOING SOMETHING I ASKED YOU TO DO TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT SOME JERK CATFISHING ME. HOLY SNIKEYS!!!!!!! For example... Take a FACE selfie holding a spoon..... 

If a women demanded that sort of thing from me, regardless of whether she was a Trump supporter, I have just the photo I'd respond with.  

Guns Part 468 - Breaking Down Biden's Speech Part Deux

Because I ran into the conundrum of illustrating rifles, pistols, SBR's, and Any Other Weapons (AOW), this one's taken more time, even though it was the first of the two entries on Joe's speech.  

As expected, Joe decided to take action against things that are stuck in his mind, yet won't yield a damned bit of good.  Let's read what Joe had to say and attempt to make some sense out of it.  

He starts out strong with a complete lie.

"But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check." 

As I've previously noted in other entries, this is utter bullshit, and everyone who goes to gun shows knows it.

He continues - 
"...we want to treat pistols modified with stabilizing braces with the seriousness they deserve. Stabilize the embrace [inaudible 00:13:35] essentially makes that pistol a hell of a lot more accurate and a mini rifle. As a result, it’s more lethal, effectively turning it into a short-barreled rifle. That’s what the alleged shooter in Boulder appears to have done."

In all fairness, I can't say for certain whether Joe's lying or just has absolutely no clue what he's talking about.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and default to the latter.  

Regardless, one of the President's spokespersons openly stated the above was solely a reaction to the Boulder shooting.  Because as we know, being reactionary to one minor thing makes Joe feel good.  Except the gun used in the Boulder shooting was not modified with a stabilizing brace; it came from the factory with one.  Ruger, like every other major manufacturer of AR-15's equips their complete AR pistols with a stabilizing brace.  Again, standard, stock, out of the box, not modified.  At this point, you're probably wondering what's the difference between an AR rifle and an AR pistol as well as what the hell a brace is.  The main difference between a pistol and rifle is barrel length.  Rifles have barrels at least 16 inches and pistols, less than 16 inches.  Pistols are forbidden to have stocks installed on them, whereas rifles may have stocks.  A gun with a barrel shorter than 16 inches and stock installed is considered to be a short barreled rifle, or SBR.  Unless your gun has a tax stamp, possessing an SBR is a felony.  Pistols may have a brace installed, the use of which is shown below.  

It's designed so a shooter can effectively fire the gun one handed, but everyone shoulders the brace like a stock.  Quite frankly, is a workaround to not make it an SBR.  I have a brace on one of my guns, although I always use it in the manner in which it was intended.  If you're not sufficiently confused, I've taken the easy way out and gone with a movie that illustrates how fucked up the rules are.   

Returning to Joe's comments:
"I want to be clear that these modifications to firearms that make them more lethal should be subject to the National Firearms Act. The National Firearms Act requires that a potential owner pay a $200 fee and submit their name and other identifying information to the Justice Department, just as they would if they went out and purchased a silencer for a gun."

If you're wondering, the The National Firearms Act, or NFA, was enacted in 1934 as a response to all the naughty gangsters, running amok in the US.  It made things such as machine guns (full auto anything), silencers, and short barreled rifles and shotguns illegal to possess without the proper tax stamp.  The law was basically a knee jerk reaction to the mobsters - 'anything you guys have been using, and whatever else we feel like throwing in, are now illegal unless you pay a $200 tribute to the crown for the tax stamp'.  The short barrel stuff was a direct response to a gangster, whose name I've forgotten, who used a sawed off shotgun to commit robberies.  Incidentally, the cost hasn't changed since the law's inception; it's always been $200.

Some thoughts on the NFA, from others and myself.  First, even the ATF has said silencers shouldn't be on it; not necessarily germane to this topic, but dammit, I'm tired of dealing with the shit every time I want to build a can.  Second, the law is antiquated and a knee jerk response to events almost a century ago.  That crossing a line on a tape measure requires a tax stamp is ludicrous.  You can trust me, being as close to a gun expert you can have, short of paying for the analysis, a shorter barrel rifle may be slightly easier to maneuver in tight spaces, but not a whole lot more than a gun with a 16" barrel.  This is especially true in the more open areas where mass shootings typically occur.  

Oh, and if your plans include a mass shooting, I'd hazard a guess that you're not so concerned about committing a felony ahead of it, so you can throw a stock on your gun in 15 seconds for under $30.  

AR-15 Stock

All of the above aside, our illustrious leader wants to make over a million law abiding citizens into felons because of an event that represents roughly 1% of all mass shootings!  

Finally, I return to the fact I highlighted in a previous entry - were Colorado a participant in the NICS system, the gun wouldn't have made it into the shooter's hands in the first place.  

In conclusion, I applaud Joe for latching on to dumb details and getting worked up over them.  I have a feeling we'll be reminded quite a few more times that his primary quality that got him elected was he wasn't Donald Trump.

If you want me, I'll be pondering whether to give our government another $200 for the privilege of exercising my rights.

Guns Part 137, Breaking Down Biden's Speech

Because there's both bullshit and kernels of goodness in Joe's gun speech from last week, and I'm passionate about the subject, let's break some of it down.  Lest you think I'm being too hard on him, there were things he brought up that I find encouraging.  First, he acknowledges it's not just the guns, stupid. 

"...there are proven strategies that reduce gun violence in urban communities, and there are programs that have demonstrated they can reduce homicides by up to 60% in urban communities. But many of these have been badly underfunded or not funded at all of late."

He also wants to take action against 80% guns.  I hate the focus group formulated term, 'ghost gun', which he uses to portray them as evil.  As I revealed in my previous entries, despite ignorant people claiming to the contrary, guns aren't inherently evil.  Back to the speach - 

"Much more need to be done, but the first, want to reign in the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns.” These are guns that are homemade, built from a kit that include directions on how to finish the firearm. You can go buy the kit. They have no serial numbers, so when they show up at a crime scene, they can’t be traced. And the buyers aren’t required to pass a background check to buy the kit to make the gun. Consequently, anyone from a criminal to a terrorist can buy this kit and as little as 30 minutes put together a weapon. I want to see these kits treated as firearms under the Gun Control Act, which is going to require that the seller and manufacturers make the key parts with serial numbers and run background checks on the buyers when they walk in to buy that package."

Two points on this one.  The most important is that the Gun Control Act does not prohibit a person from building their own firearm, so long as it's for personal use only, the type is not regulated by the NFA (i.e. machine gun), and the individual isn't otherwise prohibited from owning a gun (i.e. convicted felon).  Furthermore, the GCA requires neither the gun to be serialized nor a background check passed.  So, I can go out into my machine shop and legally create as many guns as I wish, so long as I don't sell them to anyone else.  

Now you're saying that I just proved Joe's point, that these 80% lower receivers should be treated as firearms.  Except they're not firearms!  These lower receivers are typically missing critical holes or aren't machined out the whole way, so they can not be used as a firearm.  Furthermore, they aren't kits that you 'put together a weapon'.  

Case in point, here are photos of an 80% lower and a completed lower.

Still a lot of work to be done on that first one before it can go bang.  

Then, we jump on the downward spiral into stupidity - no holes drilled, features not machined, and so on, until you're left trying to classify the item below as a firearm.  

Let's not forget 3D Printers, which have become quite affordable and can print guns all day.  Do we regulate those as well?  

Change the damned law so that all finished firearms require serial numbers and the owner to pass a background check.  Heavy penalties for those who don't comply.  Easy peasy, you anti gun, fuck head.  

"Finally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the key agency enforcing gun laws, hasn’t had a permanent director since 2015. Today, I’m proud to nominate David Chipman to serve as a director of the AFT. David knows the AFT well."

I think I join many people in wondering what the fuck the AFT is Joe keeps talking about.  Old Dave Chipman knows the ATF well and is quite well known for his anti firearm leanings as well as his bullshit claims that the Branch Davidians shot down two helicopters during the Waco seige.   

Guns, The First and Last of a Series

 The Gun Owner's Mind

This entry will serve as the finale to the firearm extravaganza I've written over the past few weeks.  It's intended to provide a bit of illumination into the minds of gun owners, which may be helpful for those who don't live abroad or believe we buy guns in order to stoke the evil in our hearts.  

By now, you know I like to deal in facts, so I'll start with some additional statistics relevant to this discussion.  According to a 2019 Pew Research poll, 44% of Americans say they either own a gun or live with someone who does.  Among those who own guns, 66% report owning more than one gun, with 29% owning more than five guns.  32% admit to providing a lower number to reflect what they've told their wives.  I may have made that last one up.  At 67%, protection is the number one motivation for gun ownership, followed by hunting (38%), sport shooting (30%), gun collecting (13%), and because it's required for their job (8%).  

The piece of data that I think brings illumination into the mind of a gun owner is that roughly half grew up with guns in their household.  I know a lot of folks that fall into this category, including myself.  My grandfather had guns and he taught me how to shoot at an early age.  He had a lever action 22 rifle (which is now in my safe) and we'd go shoot cans on his property.  It was a lot of fun, learning how to aim, properly pull the trigger, and satisfying when you hit what you were aiming at.  He heavily stressed gun safety, along with being responsible and cleaning your gun immediately after you were done.  

How Gun Owners See Firearms

This is the meat and potatoes that I think is important for those not familiar with guns to read.  There is one important concept the reader needs to if not grasp, recognize.  Most of us who own guns find shooting them to be enjoyable.  Yesterday, I grabbed a couple of guns and went to my club.  It was both relaxing and rewarding to put four bullets through the same hole at one hundred yards.  Once I'm fully vaccinated, I'll begin competing again.  If you read my original entry where I outline that decision, you already know I did it for the social aspect as much as the shooting itself.  

In order to drive my point home, I'll share one additional experience for those who still think we're nuts for enjoying these death machines.  A few of the women I've dated, including my now ex-wife, were hardcore anti gun liberals.  They didn't want anyone to have a gun, particularly an evil AR-15.  In each of those instances, I offered to take them shooting, so they could experience the AR-15's dearth of evil for themselves.  All took me up on the offer (partially because they knew I would have dumped them had they not) and said roughly the same thing to me:  When can we go again?  Shooting is fun, people! 

As an ambassador for gun owners everywhere, I'm willing to make the same offer to any other attractive women who've never been shooting and want to sleep with me.

Recognizing shooting as a legitimate and non-evil hobby brings us that much closer to a meeting of the minds.  With that established, it wouldn't be unreasonable for those in that hobby to want a variety of guns to enjoy.  Guns are typically at a median price point where you won't bankrupt yourself for acquiring more than one; $800-$1,500.  But prices run across an entire spectrum.  The least expensive gun I own is a Russian Makarov I bought when they first became available in the US.  I bought it because 'first Russian gun you can buy in the US and it's only $100'.  That gun is worth $550 now, which illustrates another point; you'll almost never lose money on one.  You can spend a whole lot more, obviously.  A custom 1911 can set you back up to $8k and taken sixty steps further, a pair of shotguns built by Holland and Holland can set you back close to half a million dollars.  They'd better come with a concierge blowjob service for that money.  

If you grew up with guns, you may have also inherited a few that live in your safe, such as the 22 lever action rifle I mentioned above or the 32 caliber revolver that my great great grandfather carried as a constable.  Those can add up as well.

Touching on owning a gun for protection, I think I'm similar to others in that I consider such as gun to be a tool.  Along with the vast majority who own guns for protection, I didn't make the decision from an imminent threat, rather something to have in case it's needed.  Unless we live in a certain type of neighborhood or are employed in a high risk job, we recognize the need to utilize that tool to be infinitesimally small.   However, just like a flashlight or fire extinguisher, it's there if we find ourselves in a situation where that type of tool is required.  

At the risk of another digression, let me address a common misperception / belief that many non-gun owners have about law enforcement.  Specifically, that only law enforcement (LE) is properly trained and should therefore be the only ones to carry guns.  In my experience, and that of many other shooters I know, LE as a whole is comically unskilled, when it comes to firearm capability and safety.  According to a friend of mine, one of the favorite past times for local shooters is to go to a particular indoor range when the Overland Park PD is about to requalify with their handguns.  Just don't be in the same room, because you'll see the cops put bullets into the floor, through the ceiling, and everywhere else, save the target they were supposed to be shooting.  When I was actively competing, I also served as the range safety officer for the squad I was with.  I only ever had to disqualify two shooters for unsafe gun handling.  One accidentally put a round into the dirt midway between the two of us (which was about 18") and the other swept my chest with a loaded gun, when they turned the wrong way during a stage (closest I've ever come to shitting my pants).  What they had in common was, you guessed it, both were LE.  

Hopefully, that answers the three most common questions to those of us who own guns:  Why do you own guns?  Do you really need a gun?  Why do you feel the need to have so many guns?

I've done my best to be a good ambassador and provide some insight to those who the concept of owning guns may be alien or unsettling.  

Culture of Fear

Perhaps I've cleared up a few misconceptions, but the media and libs continue to stoke the fear of guns.  Today provides a perfect example.  CNN is reporting that there have been TWENTY mass shootings between the time of the Atlanta spa killings and yesterday, when a gunman killed four in Los Angeles.  (I obviously wrote this a few days ago.)  Holy shit!  There really is an epidemic!  Except CNN is manipulating the numbers to make a more sensational story.  As I noted in my other entries on the topic, the FBI / Federal Government defines a mass shooting as an event that claimed four or more lives.  Mother Jones uses a lower threshold of three deaths.  However, CNN considers a mass shooting to be one that has a total of four deaths or wounded.  Others don't use the number of wounded specifically  because of how broad the definition can be.  Taking a small bullet fragment into your leg doesn't do anything but hurt (been there, done that), but it still counts as a wound.  In other words, I could fire a few rounds into the sidewalk of a crowded street and it would be considered a mass shooting by CNN, due to bullet fragments finding people's legs.  Worth noting is that the Mother Jones database doesn't list any mass shootings during the same period CNN claims twenty took place.   

One could argue that the right has stoked fear among gun owners over civil unrest and the government coming for their guns, causing them to buy and hoard everything they can get their hands on.  One could just as easily argue the left has done the same thing.  This is one area in which I'll admit to being biased.  To me, having a sufficient firepower to deal with as many zombies that come my way is called being properly prepared.  

Wrapping Up

Throughout this series, I've done my best to be an ambassador for my fellow gun owners.  Hopefully,  readers no longer view owning firearms, particularly multiples, as some sort of aberrant behavior.  That owning multiple guns makes one even more dangerous to society.  

I'm tired of being demonized by the left because they want an easy villain, instead of taking action against the real problems.  There's no way the libs can't recognize taking away guns will only cause more people to want them.  However, most Americans don't have the attention span to digest complex social issues.  They want someone or something to blame and government to make it go away.  

Thanks for making it through the long slog on the gun topic.  I hope you consider the time you spent reading these entries to have some value.