Monthly Archives: April 2009

Violence Knows No Ideology

Glenn Reynolds linked to this, and I got a kick out of it. He speaks the obvious: there are plenty of crazy people out there, regardless of, well, almost any classification you wish to make. Left, Right, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Christian, Muslim, atheist, male, female, rich, poor… you get the idea (at least, I hope you do by now). That also goes for the victims of violence, as well. The point of the post, I think, is that the reasons why it makes it a good idea for many Americans to carry a gun has nothing to do with their ideology. Most of the time some crazy starts shooting with a high powered rifle, they don’t stop to ask if you voted for Obama or McCain.

Still, I think it’s a good thing for liberals to arm themselves and, frankly, I am not concerned what their particular reason or come to the pro-gun-Jesus moment is. I don’t care if you’re arming yourself to defend against right wing militias, rabid hippies, bigfoot, or to prevent friendly fire from wayward members of the Earth Liberation Front and the People’s Front of Judea. I’m just glad they’re seeing the value and self-reliance inherent in doing for themselves. As such, I welcome them into the gunny fold. After all, we have a lot of lefty, pro-gun readers here.

BunnyTown = Mindless Fun

Or pretty close to mindless. I’ve had my eye on this for a while for the ToddlerDaughter (hey, if Disney can do CamelCase, so can I), but through iTunes, it’s just too expensive at $2 an episode. I just looked on Amazon: $8 for the season on DVD, used, and $20 new. That’s more like it! Recessionized toddler entertainment.

BunnyTown is a for-little-kids production from Disney, created by one of the guys involved with Jim Hensen, Seseme Street, and the Muppit Show: David Rudman. MousePlanet has a review of it, and like me (I’ve only seen the first episode), they pretty much like it.

Penn on Obama

Penn as in Penn and Teller, the magic act in Las Vegas. He’s actually quite the political commentator, usually showing a heavy tilt to the Libertarian side of things. Definitely a leave-it-alone kind of guy. He has a commentary on CNN today that’s pretty good, asking, hey, maybe when your gut says that spending trillions will not get the country out of this mess, maybe you should listen.

I live in Vegas, and I see people by the side of the road with cardboard signs who seem like they might have tried that spending their way out of debt thing. Or maybe they tried the all too intuitive “crack will make me feel healthy again” thing. I don’t know.

What if power and control over citizen’s lives is our current leadership’s crack? A lot of our President and Congress has done since he took office has, in the end, concentrated power with the Federal government and taken power away from lesser sovereignties, such as state governments and, of course, the individual. For a libertarian like Penn Jillette, that’s gotta hurt.

Mmm… Squeez Bacon

ThinkGeek always has the bestest April Fools stuff on the web. Here’s my personal favorite:

Squeez Bacon

Every once in a while a product comes around that puts life into perspective. When we got our first bottles of Squeez Bacon (from Sweden) to taste test, we each had a moment of pure revelation. For years, we had thought that the BBBLBT (Bacon-Bacon-Bacon-Lettuce-Bacon-Tomato) sandwich was the pinnacle of gastronomic enjoyment. And suddenly, after a single taste of Squeez Bacon, our world was rocked. Squeez Bacon is imported straight from its Swedish source and delivers taste right out of the bottle – no cooking or refrigeration needed. Enjoy all the flavor and health benefits of bacon, without having to slave over a frying pan.

There’s lots of ‘em, including a rewrite of that classic in Victorian literature: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Finally!