Our cats beat up the poor dog. But she’s a working animal and she knows it, they are just…well, they’re cats! They do whatever the hell they want. The stats won’t support it, but the felines are the second and third most dangerous animals in the house…right behind the 14 year old, female human. I know the fear that gun rights advocates feel in terms of wanting to protect their families. But rational people deal with that fear in rational ways. Increasing assured mutual destruction is never a good plan in my book.

I own Smith and Wesson but the wife hasn’t let me keep it in the house for 20 years and I don’t use it for camping anymore, anyway. For home protection I use the most statistically useful technique–a large caliber German Shepherd–’cept anyone who knows her, knows the only danger is being licked to death. Still, if stats are any indicator, the presence of any canine in any home is worth more than an arsenal in terms of crime prevention. How about a weapons exchange for shelter dogs program? Statistically, that would save more lives and prevent more crime, and give homes to dogs who need it–most of the lives saved being accidental death from one’s own gun.

I’m actually good knocking back legal firearm definitions to consist of fowling pieces, bolt or lever action rifles, and revolving chamber pistols. If there was a practical way to restrict the citizenry from semi-automatic weaponry, I’d do it. The whole, “If we outlaw semi-automatic weaponry, then only outlaws will have semi-automatic weaponry,” meme is actually useful because then law enforcement will know exactly who to arrest.

Most mittendise will go by the board, of course, but I’m betting there’s a rather large faction of the Republican party that will be utilizing this particular product until the Stench is firmly wiped away:

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Mouth-Toys-Romney-Toilet/dp/B007XN5I86/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1353213041&sr=8-9&keywords=romney

I watched Jack Welch with a sort of detached, yet sickened amusement. Detached because I don’t subscribe to his particular flavor of insanity but sickened because I realize plenty do; finally, amused because of weak, grasping effort at sophistry the old fool intended to put forward as reason. I do feel a certain dismay at my own nagging wish that these demented old idiots will take their non-lightning forking language to the grave and leave us the rest of us in peace, but what’s to commend the generation behind them–my generation? Have we learned any more acceptance, tolerance and general humanity than that money grubbing group of self-righteous capitalists who followed The Greatest Generation? They try to frame this election as a grand choice between going back to the myopic, capitalistic vision that crashed our economy in 2008 or moving ‘forward’ with Mr. Obama. And still I’m left wondering: forward to what?

I guess there would be an interesting confluence of religiousness with two oposing LDSers facing off with commentary from the fascist Catholicism that Hannity brings to bear, but I don’t know that it serves the discourse, as limited as it may be. What is the liberal, Protestant take on this religious conflagration, Reverend?

Will Rogers said something to the effect that he wasn’t a member of any organized party, he was a Democrat. In a 21st century, anemic, two party system, you are going to have the authoritarian seeking lemmings that watch the news, and then everyone else who are busy out doing stuff. Now Gregory is no Tim Russert, but he starts at the depleted journalistic standard that Russert descended to as he embraced and helped define the beltway media mindset. That’s one thing, but the love affair with McCain is a mystery in my mind, particularly after the Keating-5 crap in the eighties. No one else survived that, nor should they if the story was properly reported. I remember a RollingStone article in the 2008 (Tim Dickinson, Make Believe Maverick) run that did a pretty serious dive into McCain’s petulant little, admiral son’s history, and it was disgusting.

With an artificial intelligence, named Mike, who has a sense of humor. That’s more than you can say for the average conservative human mind.

I must have started my computer gaming career just shortly after you did. I burned my own fuse out on the next generation adventure game, Zork. That was about the last time I spent having fun in front of a terminal, but it did lead to a career in IT which is why any opportunity away from a monitor is appreciated (FDL excepted, of course). I almost hesitate to say but you can play some of the old Infocom text based games online:

http://pot.home.xs4all.nl/infocom/zork1.html

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here…

[kaseyKasemVoice]
Yeah man, like, they fails to deliver what they promise!
[/kaseyKasemVoice]

As mainstream a publication as Vanity Fair seems to have no problem with the assumption that the US, Israel, or both, conspired to direct Stuxnet at Iran.

The Obama candidate promised a new level of government transparency that the Obama White House could never possibly hope to comply with, but it would be very, very interesting to see the policy that is formed about this issue while still trying to answer your very pertinent questions as to the hypocrisy of the whole thing.

Let’s clear up some uncertainty about what happened in Kenosha yesterday. No, I never thought I’d say that either.

I had hopes someone was finally going to explain a Thomas Pynchon novel–then I read on. These events are, however, equally surreal.

Douglas Adams would round all these losers up with the rest of the Phone Sanitizers and put them on the “B” Ark to somewhere else (course in that story, we’re all already here).

Does the Citizen’s United decision affect religious contributions to political factions in any way, shape or form?

Agreed, but this hypothetical someone is gonna HAVE to have the hair. “If you want to be taken seriously, you have to have serious hair.” Mitt’s got that in spades!

Wow, that is an interesting factoid. Probably post hoc ergo propter hoc to assume that your garden variety LDSer has an increased propensity for meeting out torture. I hesitate to make broad brushed generalities about any particular religion since I honestly find them all to be flawed and hypocritical in nature. And, to celebrate that hypocrisy, I’m going to go up to the nursery later and pick up a discount Fraser Fur in some re-enactment of a Drudistic right, re-purposed for the celebration of a Persian Mithras birth and I’ll pick up a sprig of Mistletoe to bring in a Norse flavor in hopes of forestalling Ragnorak.

All religions are screwy, by nature, but Americans still seem to make “some religion” a part of their litmus test for leadership. LDS still seems to count. Ever since Kennedy busted in as a Catholic, any old religion is good enough…’cept Islam, of course. Keith Ellison, excepted, god be praised.

I don’t know if “isn’t mormon” accounts for much. Most of country has no clue what LDS means, and those who do are probably of the religiously inclined ilk such that they don’t care so much about the particular ideology as long as you are an ideologue. Mitt fits that bill.