It's An Imperfect World

In a perfect world, things like what happened in Blacksburg, VA would never happen. In a perfect world, guns wouldn't be needed by anyone. But we don't live in a perfect world, and as has been proven again and again, determined people willing to do evil will get there hands on guns, regardless of the local regulations (that's true in the United States, and around the world).

So, given the imperfect nature of the world, it does seem to be the rational choice to make it easier for rational people to have the right to also carry firearms given that crazies and criminals won' t let niceties like laws keep them from arming themselves.

The reaction to this incident seems to be a watershed, maybe it's the internet, maybe it's an acknowledgement of the failures of tightened gun control, or maybe it's a fluke, but I don't think what a Tennessee house panel has done will be an isolated response. (hat tip Instapundit)

On to a different but related subject, the media is performing horribly in this mess. NBC is sowing the seeds of the next incident with their handling of the package they received from "Ismail Ax". I don't object to showing the tape, but I think embedded onto every frame of video should be words of ridicule aimed at this loser. A big LOSER mark should be flashing across his forehead, and on his torso should be a downward arrow followed by the words TINY DICK, and IMPOTENT, and ASSHOLE.

By displaying the tapes unaltered, you are giving this tiny dicked, impotent, loser asshole exactly what he wanted.

Also, the audio for all his tapes should be redubbed with silly, high pitched voices and fart noises thrown in. Do not let this tiny dicked, impotent, loser asshole get to speak 'from the grave' with his own voice. Wipe his voice out of existence. Cho does not get to choose how he will be remembered, we do.

If the next tiny dicked impotent loser asshole would see the kind of treatment I'm suggesting aimed at Cho, it will become perfectly clear that your ridiculous, disgusting and evil behavior may not be stopped, but it will be ridiculed.

These unbalanced assholes crave attention and feel they aren't noticed enough. They assume that an act of spectacular evil will garner a lot of attention and a sick kind of respect. Deny these jerks that respect. Honor the dead, celebrate the lives lost, and destroy, disturb and disrupt the image that these tiny dicked impotent loser assholes try and leave behind.

I single out NBC (no links, you can find the crap on your own) cause they received the tapes first, they should have done the responsible thing and screwed up Cho's attempt to become a media sensation in death. Instead they put his vile output out there, breathlessly, quickly, and far too respectfully.

These tiny dicked impotent loser assholes don't suffer from low self esteem, they suffer from a sense of entitlement for a life void of meaning or accomplishment. Do not give to them in death what they wished for in life, these crazed losers deserve nothing but contempt and ridicule.

Ridicule should be the operative message and the message from the Chos of the world must be torn to shreds and turned into comedy. It's not to lessen the sense of tragedy, it's not to diminish the horrible loss suffered by people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, instead it's a way to make sure that any future tiny dicked impotent loser asshole knows that they have no hope of controlling the message that gets out after they commit some awful act.

Just cause someone is insane, doesn't mean that there isn't some rationale behind their actions. Cho's rationale involved becoming something big, something great, getting noticed, his paranoia, schizophrenia, and lack of empathy coalesced into a horrible need to kill others before killing himself.

Being mentally ill is no excuse for being evil. There are plenty of people suffering from disorders who don't act out in despicable ways.

Luckily, this confluence of factors rarely come together, but I strongly believe that by ridiculing these tiny dicked impotent loser assholes we will help give pause to any future tiny dicked impotent loser assholes that might be contemplating becoming the next media darling. So if the media won't do it, bloggers should.

UPDATE:

As if this post wasn't already long and rambly enough, I've just read James Lileks' Bleat from tonight and see that he had similar thoughts to my own, but he expresses them infinitely better, so I'll quote his words profusely and admire his skill. I will add that he just passively accepts 'the media's' transmission of the foul materials, while I offer a possible solution and course of action. Here's what he has to say, and needless to say, ditto

I’m at the kitchen table; Nightline is on, and the host, Person Nonkoppel, is talking about the Virginia Tech Shooter’s video message, which he notes “is now going around the world.” Passively, without assist, it seems. From his lips to YouTube’s ears. They’ve cut to John Donvan, standing in a post office in Blacksburg, through which the package presumably moved; it’s a live shot. Perhaps he’ll interview a worker who may have handled the package or spoken to someone who saw it come through. We may even get a shot of the loading dock across which the package traveled on its fateful journey into the media bloodstream.

There is nothing to learn from listening to the killer. From looking at him or reading his writings or poking through his background or sticking mikes in the face of anyone who saw him across a cafeteria. Maybe it’s just me, but when I first heard of the case I thought: sociopath. A modern word for the man without a soul, the man who either had it stolen by deed or smothered in the womb. I think you can make a sociopath, if you hurt them early enough in a way they can never get their hands around. Others are simply bad seeds from the womb on up, I suspect. No matter what you do, you get a vacant Narcissus with an infinite supply of masks, a clever manniken who cannot apprehend the humanity of others. He could only feel empathy for the object in the mirror, and it’s hardly surprising this example spent his last hours posing for the camera. It was the only thing that understood him, and accepted him for the glorious, tragic creature he knew he was.

Word of the Day (Heavily Tranqed Edition)

Gobsmacking.

(speculative thoughts regarding this, what better excuse to fulfill terms of a possible rider for a certain performer infamous for his appetites than to blame the need for the massive amounts of tranquilizers on 'horses', the drug indicated in the article seems to be used as an adulterant in smack, hmmmmmm)

Word of the Day (DUCK! Edition)

Gobsmacking.

(Who risks injury and death for a duck? And a duck that isn't even theirs, to boot)

Cable Channel, and or DTV Secondary Channel That I'd Love to See

Inspired by this Althouse post (which was in turn inspired by my comment at a different post, blogging is so incestuous)

Cable providers and DTV Public Broadcasting System stations should be required to carry one channel that has every moment of CSpan coverage involving their local Congressfolk (both Senate and Congressional variety). Every speech in front of an empty chamber, every rambling moment in front of a committee. Chop it up, so it's just the local Congressfolk (or Congresscritter if you prefer) windbagging away.

It would be the best anti-incumbent measure ever devised.

For example, there's Sen. Byrd, as punishment for electing him once again, all citizens of West Virginia should be forced to view at least 2 hours of his 'greatest hits' each week. It would be their pennance for electing and re-electing their potentate of pork.

I bet if folks watched my local critter, Rep. Henry Waxman might face a real primary challenger for a change. CSpan could facilitate this adopting a YouTube like interface where each hearing has 'tags' coupled with bloggingheads style dings so you can specify exact moments, that way creating these compilations would be a snap, or even automated through an RSS feed.

Of course, the incumbents don't want to make it too easy to watch them make their saussage, it might make them ex-incumbents sooner than they'd like.

If Google is so committed to being mostly not-evil as they claim, they should donate the engineers, time, server capacity, and expertise to CSpan and make this happen as soon as possible.

They've got billions, they can afford to waste a few million on helping us become better watchdogs on our government.

It Will Be So Nice To Watch The Lakers Bounce These Fools In the First Round

Looks like the Lakers v Suns first round rematch is nearly locked in place.

Going to be a fun series. If all the Lakers play well, they can do plenty of damage to a Phoenix team with a shallow bench. It will take more than Kobe scoring 50+ in each game for the Lakers to prevail.

Andrew Bynum is going to have to yank himself out of this late season funk that he's been in. He's young, hopefully his first playoff as a major contributor will wake him up. Also Kwame Brown will need to ignore his gimpiness and contribute again like he did early in the season. Finally, Any combination of Vujacic, Parker and Farmar are going to have to hit their uncontested 3 pointers at a 35-40% connect rate throughout the series for the Lakers to have a chance.

If all those unlikely events combine in four of the games, the Lakers will prevail, if not, it will be another early summer for the Lakers.

Hope springs eternal in Laker land, it's gonna happen I tell ya, it has to happen, losing Phoenix in the first round will suck for ABC/TNT, but gaining Kobe for an extra round or two will be ratings gold (even though Detroit and Dallas have the best records in their respective conferences wrapped up, the current picture for TNT's playoff coverage has Kobe, Nash and LeBron featured). If the Lakers can steal either (or both) of the first two games in Phoenix, the rest of the series will be watched by all the Laker lovers and Laker haters across the country.

I'll save full playoff predictions for when the playoff match-ups are definitely set.

Sadness, Anger, Uneasiness, Sympathy

That's all I've got really, regarding the events at VaTech.

The discussion at Volokh about the validity of using events like this for discussion so soon is interesting.

You have the Brady Campaign jumping on this right away, and most likely the MSM will spin this incident in favor of tighter gun control. You have 2nd amendment advocates like Reynolds, Driscoll and others suggesting that a few armed sheepdogs mixed in with the sheep might have been able to end this slaughter earlier.

And then you have asshats like Jack Thompson (heard him on FNC this afternoon, I'm assuming it's the same guy, not entirely sure, but it fits his profile) putting himself out there as an 'expert' on school shootings. He's salivating at the notion that the shooter (or shooters, still nebulous) was a fan of violent video games. He's got his hammer, and all these incidences are nails with which to hammer home his pet obsession.

Also, Mary Katharine Ham notices that the 3 main Democratic contenders put together words of condolence messages quickly while none of the three Republican contenders had done so as of the time of her post. Do Democrats feel pain quicker? I don't think so, but I'm cynical enough to think that they comprehend that the urge to 'do something' to prevent future occurrences like this one favor their natural impulse to seek government answers for every possible problem. Just as Hildog saw the Imus mess as a perfect fundraising hook, I think all three Democratic candidates will offer 'tough' solutions on how to get guns out of the hands of crazy, determined and suicidal folks bent on doing harm.

The Republicans have a problem there. If they are true to some very basic principles that all three at least pay lip service to, they can't offer the quick easy solution of 'tougher' laws. The only path open to them is the 'pack not a herd' idea, and advocate strongly for less regulations on the law abiding to carry guns. That's a position that will get chewed to bits by the media, the play field on this issue is far from level.

There are no answers, only questions. But hopefully policy makers and school administrators won't lose perspective. Determined nuts can do great harm in a free society. The answer isn't less freedom for non-nuts. Work harder at identifying nuts, greater vigilance in seeing the incipient signs of these attacks (there's always hints, these never happen out of the clear blue), and don't overreact to each unfortunate occurrence.

We may never know all that lead to this event, the only thing we do know for sure is that the perpetrator lost sight of his humanity, and lost sight of the humanity of all his victims. That's not a new phenomenon, it has nothing to do with guns, or colleges, or bad relationships, or video games, or whatever else the press is going to push forward as 'explanations' as to what happen. What went wrong with this asshole will never be known fully, but hopefully (what little hope can be gleaned from this, this isn't a hope that offers solace for those who have to deal with the aftermath of losing someone they know) it will be one more costly data point that will help prevent a future attack of this kind.

If you know a nut that you suspect capable of this, tell somebody about it, if you are an official receiving info on a nut like this, take the warning seriously, if you are a nut contemplating something like this, get counseling, or kill yourself, taking others with you won't make your life any less pointless.

Anybody who does this kind of thing must be humiliated and trashed in every possible way in death. Part of the motivation for future acts is the build up media types give these assholes in death. I'm not blaming the media, but they could do more to ridicule, belittle and put in perspective what massive losers these assholes who do this kind of thing are. For starters, exposing their sure to be tiny genitalia for all to see would be good . . .



UPDATE:

Reading this post at Dan Riehl (hat tip Michelle Malkin) reminds me how suspicious I am of the 'grief counseling' industry. These folks are misery vultures, swooping in on incidents like this one to justify the need for their job title. My hunch is that they prolong, rather than ameliorate the agony of those dealing with their thoughts and emotions in the aftermath of mass killings. Hearing the press push the 'will there be enough grief counselors' angle at the press conference was one of the more darkly stupid moments. And, Katie Couric rushing down to personally interview folks and attend the press conference seems like an ill-advised reaction to the plagarism problems she faced just last week.

Speaking of Tribalism

Louie, Louie v. I Heard It Through the Grapevine?

Which tribe do you belong to?

Tom DeLay Is An Idiot, And Let Rosie Be Rosie

I think Rosie O'Donnell is a windbag, she's unfunny (except unintentionally while blogging, it's beyond satire or ridicule, she's charmingly unself-aware of how stupid she sounds), she's obnoxious, and she's annoying. But there's a market for that it seems, and I don't mind if ABC sees fit to satisfy that market.

Tom DeLay is hoping that a purge of those responsible for insensitive remarks is in the offing and he seems to be suggesting that, "If the Left Takes Imus, We'll Take Rosie" is a good way to go. Tom DeLay is an idiot. This is wrong on so many levels, that I hesitate to know where to begin. But here's all I'll say, Rosie spewing her nonsense on The View unchallenged or barely challenged (sorry Elisabeth Hasselbeck) is good for conservatives and they should fight to keep her on the air.

Her clear support for Truther idiocy should be properly challenged though. That stuff ain't funny, ain't right, and should be challenged in the strongest terms.

As pennance for her idiocy, and to keep the threats of advertiser boycotts away, Barbara Walters should bring on the show the gentlemen at Popular Mechanics who wrote the tome that refutes point by point all this Truther nonsense (that there are folks claiming to refute the refutations adds another layer of stupid to the whole Truther madness, no links, they don't deserve links).

Have it be a sit down with just the authors and Rosie, let her sputter and spew, and let the authors talk sense. Have it be the entire hour, or at least half the show so that the great weight of facts can crash down around Rosie's piddling objections. Promo the hell out of the interview, make a big deal out of it, and if she refuses to come to her senses when exposed to the glare of hard cold facts, then she'll be exposed for the loon and America hating deranged fool that she seems to be.

(You can have BDS and not hate America in general, but it helps, however Truthers universally hate the USA and firmly believe that our government is behind everything awful that's happened over the past 50 years)

I wonder if Pravda is Rosie's favorite paper?

And if you haven't listened to this Glenn and Helen Show podcast with the authors of Debunking 9/11 Myths, you really should.

Vanity

They're talking about me, but I don't know what they're saying. The 'they' in this case are the Bo Bice fans posting at this thread at BoBice.com.

You need to register to see the thread, but the only reason for me to register would be to know what they're saying.

So, i'll just skip it, not register, and wonder.

My only reason to register would be vanity, not cause I need to know more about Bo Bice or fuel my growing devotion to his musical prowess. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Bo Bice fan, I'm just not a 'fan club' kind of guy.

But if you are a registered member of that Bo Bice fansite, treat me kindly, I did say he was the only penis-ful guy to make the final two in any of the Idol seasons, afterall.

The other fansite that noticed my Idol thoughts does let you view comments without registering, and surprisingly folks over there figured out what I was trying to say, and agreed with me.

Strange world, this.

What's Your Tribe?

Is that the question behind almost all human interaction?

Used to be, 30,000 years ago and more (or at least it seems like it used to be, nobody really knows for sure), your tribe was a mix of your genes and location. All members of a tribe shared a basic knowledge set, and were cousins, if not even closer relatives. There may have been some specialization, but for the most part everyone knew how to do every other persons function, or at least that's what the archaelogical record suggests.

At some point, for some unknown reason, someone got the bright idea to specialize. Turns out if you do the same thing enough times and pay attention to what you're doing, you might just get better with time.

Fast forward a thousand generations or so, and now everything is specialized to an astonishing degree. Add to that the internet where every specialization, every quirk, every hobby, every kink, every addiction can be shared, displayed, obsessed over, indulged, and fed.

But what does that have to do with tribes? Folks now can't rely on family bands to offer identity, instead we are constantly defining and redefining ourselves with each person we meet, and in each social circumstance.

Every choice you make becomes an identifier of which tribe(s) you want people to associate you with.

Mac v PC, Sony v Nintendo v Microsoft, Red Sox v Yankees, Trojans v Bruins, Chicago v NY Style (Pizza), Cat Fancier v Dog Lover, Horde v Alliance, Original Trilogy v Prequels (OK, that one doesn't count, that's no contest).

I think a certain degree of xenophobia and xenophilia is inborn in all folks. We are repulsed and attracted to that which is different from how we identify ourselves. There are evolutionary reasons why both might be attractive to a population. On the one hand, a small band with an especially good mutation would be advantaged by only breeding with those like themselves, but bands that have a history of favoring those unlike themselves have the advantage of new blood regularly. That ambivalence might be hardwired. Now that each of us carry identities born not just from who are parents are, or where we were born, or what gods (or non-gods) we worship, or who we choose to rub genitals with, I think we feel the need to both justify our own choices while casting suspicion on those that choose otherwise. It's an impulse from a dark and primordial place. Now that impulse finds expression across a variety of matrices.

It isn't pretty, it isn't rational, it just is.

So, if you love riding cycles, you can't just enjoy cycling, you have to hate folks in cars, if you are proud of making eco-friendly choices in your personal life, you can't just be satisfied with that, you have to despise folks who continue to 'pillage the planet', if you are a non-smoker, any soot-souled and soiled individual who dares to puff around you needs to be ostracized.

Is this something we could change? Is this something we should change? Does this look infected (wrong question, nevermind)?

If you need to blame somebody or something for these ramblings, blame the comments from this week in blogging in the comments at So Quoted. I take responsibility for the thoughts that are my own, and I deflect blame over there (or give credit if you like) for the concepts inspired by that thread.

And speaking of ridiculously specialized skills and how these odd skills are now appreciated more widely than they might have been in the past, I give you Billy Marks Balls (ping pong type).

(alternately you can divide the world into the tribe of folks who believe these tricks are real and the tribe of folks who believe that they were done through computer-aided devilry)

(hat tip throwing things)

Word of the Day (Self-Hating Edition)

Gobsmacking.

(I'm sure a conservative will lead to my feeling the need to smack my own gob, but at this moment the articles of smackitude are coming from the sinistral leaning folks)

(Every Jewish person who is critical of Israel and their influence in U.S. politics isn't a self-hater, but Mr. Soros, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and hates himself like a self-hating duck, so I say if the duckbill fits, it must be duck season)

Finetune, Newest Blog Feature

While perusing Lileks latest, he mentions finetune.com. This is good stuff. I've signed up, put together my first rather random playlist of 45 hand picked songs, and embedded them up top on the right hand sidebar.

Now you can let me be your DJ.

You could do worse. The list on the sidebar will change, but the link below should always point to this first playlist.

There's only one song by each artist (with one Funky exception) and this playlist has Bangles, Jimmy Witherspoon, William Shatner, Love, Prince, David Sylvian, Bo Bice, Fishbone, Bauhaus, The Monkees, Faith No More, Aretha Franklin, Lily Allen and many, many, more!!!

The songs stream in full, and on the little embedded widget, you can skip or replay tracks as desired (just in case listening to Leonard Nimoy (they mis-identify the artist for that particular classic as the other guy) singing about Bilbo Baggins gets too much for you, or if you have to hear that again and again just to convince yourself that it's not some sort of auditory hallucination).

There are some restrictions on what you can do. Playlists must be at least 45 songs long and no single artist can have more than 3 songs. Also, you can only skip so many songs on a playlist while it's playing. Can't let you have too much control, the RIAA might get mad, afterall.

(oh, and sorry Lileks, my playlist kicks your playlist's ass, assuming playlists have asses, presumably they have no need for such things as they don't have digestive tracks, or ever need to sit, but that aside, working off the assumption that our respective playlists both have asses, my playlist would indeed plant its non-existent foot up your playlists non-existent rear)

UPDATE:

OK, already came up with a second playlist, this one is Just Chicks.

Word of the Day (I Almost Made It Through The Day Smackless, But Then Michael Moore Happened)

Gobsmacking.

(and beyond, mindsmacking, even)

(hat tip Drudge)

My Man Crush Flags (Just a Touch)

Sen. Fred Thompson (via Instapundit) opines in the WSJ about taxes. I agree with everything he says, but (and this is a minor 'but' not a damning 'but') he doesn't go quite far enough.

Saying that supply-side economics works is well and good, it's been empirically evident that this is the case for over 40 years (at least since Kennedy's success with tax cuts).

What he didn't say is what slightly deflated my man crush. He didn't say that he'd greatly simplify the tax code. The tax code needs blowing up. It's a bloated contradictory and impenetrable mess. It's full of awful unintended consequences and pet deductions that have myriad deleterious effects on the nation as a whole.

Advocating for lower rates is good, but advocating for a simplified to the point of flat (or super simple 2 or 3 tiered, no deductions) tax would be far better and would turn my slightly flagging crush back in to the rock solid throbbing man crush that it once was.

(should this post be flagged as porn?)

For more on the flat tax, this bit from the Heritage Foundation is an oldie but a goodie.

Also, it's getting more and more obvious that he's going to run, so welcome to Election '08 Sen. Fred Thompson.

Word of the Day (Once Again, Blows To My Gob)

Gobsmacking.

(It should be Hugo Chavez getting smacked, and not my tender gob, but oh well, like Brownfield's response, dislike AP's fawning over Chavez)