August 19, 2013

Did your brain hurt as you typed "Liberthoritarians"? That's chock full of cognitive dissonance. nt

August 3, 2013

Gun "Enthusiast" In Your Life? Here, Let Me Make It Easier. (re: pro-gun talking points)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/20/1180504/-Gun-Enthusiast-In-Your-Life-Here-Let-Me-Make-It-Easier

It gets old, doesn't it? It gets sooooooo old. We've all been there (and by "we", I mean people with a healthy view of guns) (and by "healthy", I mean we're willing to talk about regulation and don't use bickering over irrelevant minutiae like cartridge power or lack of a threaded barrel to deflect attention from the larger point, which is no more dead children)-- Sorry. I digress. Angrily.

Back to the point: repetitive talking points. It's getting to be like arguing with a forced-birther, especially on social media. The more fixated and fetish-driven of our gun-owning friends (you know who I'm talking about; the hardcore, I'm-gonna-start-killin-people-YouTube-video-making ones) can spit out the same, shop-worn talking points on command, and often do so rapid-fire, leaving you buried in a cross between word salad and half-baked-idea jambalaya. And what the hell do you do with that mess?

Well, if they're just going to be boring and repetitive, you might as well join them. So, as a public service, I've decided to write down some convenient anti-talking-point talking points. All you have to do is memorize a few key phrases, and you can turn back to your regular life with a minimum of commitment to the gun puppy yapping at your feet.

Join me below the fleur de kos. It'll save you precious hours and blood pressure.

So basically, the format here will be Talking Point (TP) followed by one or more simple Answers. Get the answers down, and all you'll have to do is repeat one of them whenever your "worthy" opponent stops talking. If you really get them down, you can enjoy a nice book while doing so. Ready?

TP#1: Guns don't kill people; people kill people.

Answer: (Eye roll) Then us good guys don't need guns, since we're only protecting ourselves from people, and not, you know, guns.
(Note: A particularly stupid argument deserves a particularly sarcastic answer. No need to be clever on this one.)

much more at the link
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/20/1180504/-Gun-Enthusiast-In-Your-Life-Here-Let-Me-Make-It-Easier

June 11, 2013

Remember what then Senator Joe Biden said back in 2006, about NSA collecting phone records?

Watching this video may well land your IP address in a NSA database, for all we know, but at this point, whacha gonna do?

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1613914n

I think he made some very good points, fwiw.