Cheer Up, Leftards

Repeated For Emphasis

 

Go back and read the part of the last post where I wrote the following:

Spare me your butthurt.

1) Movies are the dominant culture medium in America, and by America. On my side of that argument are nearly 53,000 MPAA-registered productions, just since the Hays Code. (India makes more than the U.S. year in and year out, but no one sees them outside of India. US movies go literally everywhere, by vast contrast.) Game over on that point.

2) Of those 53,00 or so, it's 99:1 if you're reading this, you've seen The Terminator (1984), Heat (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Ronin (1998) , and/or Blackhawk Down (2001), if not all five. But in case you lived in a cave the last 30 years, some excerpts from each:

Shot in Tunisia, France, Ireland, and downtown L.A.

Now, the salient point: How many people were accidentally killed in those shootout scenes, with a combined round count in the thousands to tens or hundreds of thousands?

ZERO. That's Ze-fucking-ro. Period.

"Witchcraft! How can this be?!?" I hear you gasp.

Safety Bulletin No. 1: Recommendations For Safety With Firearms and Use of "Blank Ammunition"

Literally the very first (of 44, so far) Industry-Wide Safety Bulletins whose rules are, quite literally, written in blood.

Rigorous adherence to which, on all five productions, resulted in exactly no deaths whatsoever, despite using enough live arms, full-auto capable, to take over pretty much any country in South America or Africa, in any given year since 1900.

Let me underline that: the death toll from firearms at the US Capitol demonstration on January 6th (one person, Ashli Babbitt) was higher than the death toll of those five movies, combined. In fact, that panty raid had a higher body count by firearms than every movie made by Hollywood starting right after The Crow in 1993, until Thursday on the set of Rust up to 1PM, NM local time. Twenty-eight years of no deaths from firearms fuck-ups, in point of fact, on any movie or TV show.

(To whatever Hollywood industry anti-gun jackhole suggested banning all live firearms because of one death in that time - and some halfwit did, already - take those facts, and pound that dumbass idea right up your tailpipe with a shovel, good and hard. "Live guns" aren't the problem. Dumbass actors and slipshod productions are, every single time. Maybe require a minimum IQ to get a SAG card? Say 85 or so? Now you're onto something. Imagine John Lennon singing "Imagine no dumbass actors; it's easy if you try...")

Now, the "spare me your butthurt" part of that?

Weapons safety on set is not the job of actors, except to a very minor (almost negligible) degree. On purpose. The proof of the wisdom of that is the safety record you just read.

"Foul!" cries the peanut gallery. "The Four Rules!"

"Fuck off, dipshits!", sez I. The entire point of acting involves considered and deliberately breaking the Four Rules. 

Pay attention now:

Difficult as it is for some people's minds to grasp, "on a production set" is the one place in the universe where you should know that pointing a gun at someone, and pulling the trigger, will not result in any harm or destruction coming to them, or anyone else, ever, contrary to all rules of safe firearms handling elsewhere.

Otherwise, Hollywood would just use real bullets all the time, hire homicidal maniacs for lead actors, and fill out the rest of the cast with condemned prison inmates in their last starring roles. And movies would be called "non-fiction".

Anyone who cannot grasp that obvious truth is going to have their ass handed to them by the realities which proceed from that situation, and it will seem to them like Opposite World, whereupon their eyes will cross, then glaze over, smoke will issue from their ears, and vague seizure-like activity of the whole body may afterwards be noted.

Case in point:

Okay, actually 25 cases in point, if he'd updated it for the latest films. Total bodycount for all those scenes: zero. Yawn. Over nearly sixty years.

(Total number of people, anywhere, ever, who've whinged that Sean Connery/George Lazenby/Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan/Daniel Craig "broke the Four Rules" by pointing right at the camera (and the camera operator[s], DP, director, and any number of other crew persons) in all that time: zero, in the history of the Internet, or in print before that.)

Look, I've wanted to spoof that exact opening shot, and have bodies dropping like flies while the camera wobbles and people start running and screaming, spurting blood everywhere, but the comedy in that is because that's never happened, not even once, on that set. Or damned near on any other, for decades. And add in the other 100 takes of those title openers they did, and the count - dead and wounded - is exactly the same.

In fact, AFAIK, the body count of dead people from firearm screw-ups on production sets could be counted on your thumbs (until Alec Baldwin got into the act this week):

1) Brandon Lee catching a wad in the gut on The Crow in 1993;

2) John Eric Hexum cancelling his show Cover Up (and himself) in 1984;

3) Director of Photography Halyna Hutchins getting capped Thursday by Alec Baldwin.

That's. It.

In fact, for the cherry on the cake, peruse this:

Let's grant the nonsensical premise of everyone screaming "Baldwin on a rope!" because "Who would ever shoot a prop gun at a person on a movie set?"

We join the case as the defense calls Alec Baldwin to the stand, after showing the two video clips to the jury.

Mr. Baldwin, what is your occupation?

I'm an actor, sir.

For how long have you been working as an actor?

Forty-one years, sir. Since 1980. 

 And that movie was made in...?

 1989.

So, tell us, Mr. Baldwin, how dangerous were those scenes?

Not very.

"Not very" dangerous? How can that be? There was gunfire, three people carrying weapons, bullets hitting and ricocheting off the hull of a nuclear submarine. That sounds extremely dangerous.

As I mentioned, sir, I'm an actor. That was a movie.

Can you please explain what difference that makes to the jury, sir?

Of course. First of all, there was no nuclear submarine, those are all miniatures in a swimming pool tank. We were on a sound stage in Hollywood a couple miles from downtown Los Angeles. The guns were real, but they were loaded with blanks. Nothing comes out of them. They're loaded, there's a bright flash, but no projectiles issue outwards. It's all make-believe. Sean Connery isn't a Russian submarine captain, I'm not a CIA agent pretending to be a US Navy officer, and the man playing the cook wasn't a Russian KGB agent. The sparks that fly are shot off by a special effects man with a paintball gun shooting pellets that make a spark on anything they hit, even grass or hay bales. It's all for the camera. 

So you're saying nothing we saw was real?

Oh, no, just the opposite. It was all "real", but it wasn't what was being portrayed. I was really there, the cook was really there, Mr. Connery was really there. The blanks were fired, with the guns pointing at each other, they made loud "bangs", there were flashes, brass cases were ejected. The sweat on my face was real, but it was sprayed there just before each take by a makeup person. The clothes were real, the walls were real. But they were just painted luan, with blinking lights, to make it look like the missile deck on a Russian submarine, rather than a big empty soundstage on a movie lot. 

I see. And how many times did you shoot that scene?

Well, I'd have to look at the production notes, but my best recollection from thirty-two years ago is that we shot the scenes about four times apiece, and we filmed Mr. Connery getting shot, and the cook getting killed twice.

Wait! So Sean Connery was "shot" two times, and the cook was shot two times, over and over?

Yes sir. 

And each time, the props and weapons people would do what?

They reloaded the weapons, checked them in between takes, got them all ready, and then just before we were ready, they handed them to each actor.

I see. And how many times did you fire your weapon? And how many times did you and Mr. Connery get shot at?

Well, I got shot at probably 50-70 times on the various takes, and I shot the cook at least ten times, maybe fifteen or so. On one take I fired until the gun was empty, so maybe 100 shots fired, for that one scene.

And how long did that take?

Most of the afternoon.

 Why so long? And why so many shots for just a few takes?

Well, we had to shoot everything from both perspectives, ours and the cook's; and we had to move along, plus reloading the guns, re-applying my sweat, and I had a lot of movement the camera had to cover, from in front of me looking at me, and over my shoulder towards the other guy.

And yet no one was hurt, despite all of you shooting off all those guns?

No sir. That's how it works. They tell us we're ready to go, and we can blast away. And then break for lunch.

So everyone is okay now?

Well, Mr. Connery passed away from natural causes last October, 30 years after the movie, and the guy who played the KGB agent/cook has been acting pretty consistently ever since, so apparently shooting him 10-15 times hasn't hurt his acting career. And until this incident, I've done alright myself.

How can you take a gun and point it right at someone, and deliberately shoot it at somebody all afternoon, and no one gets hurt?

It's Hollywood, sir, THAT'S WHAT WE DO.

And then one of the jury members says "Duh!", and the deliberations last about two seconds, and they find Baldwin not guilty on all counts.

Then the entire jury looks over at the prosecutor and says

 

My point in all this is that unlike "reality", Hollywood is making film fantasy, and they're friggin' jet-fuel geniuses at that, unlike you, or any 500 or 5000 dipshits you know personally.

If you cannot grasp that difference between actual reality, and realistic fantasy, I have some other shocking news for you: the castaways aren't really on an island 200 miles southwest of Hawaii, Sheldon Cooper didn't win a Nobel Prize, Steve Rogers can't stop bullets with his vibranium shield, Wakanda isn't real, and you can't go off a cliff and run in place in midair with an anvil on your back for several seconds before gravity kicks in.

When all that sinks in, try not to get dizzy and throw up on the carpet.

What you think you know about how this goes, or should go, is quite simply wrong.

The rules don't apply, and you don't want them to, unless you're a moron.

Do you want an assclown like John Eric Hexum ("Just blanks, see? BLAM!") in the safety loop on determining whether a gun is safely loaded with blanks?? HELL NO! 

Do you want well-known public assholes like Tom Sizemore (amazingly in three of the five referenced clips, above) or frothing moonbats like Robert DeNiro in any sort of position of responsibility for deciding what constitutes safe firearms handling and use?? FUCK NO YOU DON'T!!!

The director and the 1st Assistant Director are responsible for blocking the shot and safety on set.

The prop master (and any weapons handler[s]) are responsible for making sure weapons are loaded properly, safe to operate, and taking custody of them before, after and between takes, and in all respects where firearms are concerned.

The Grip department and Special FX are responsible to make sure there are shields and screens erected to protect crew, bystanders, and actors from inadvertent harm from wadding, muzzle flash, and anything else.

How does that system work out, in actual practice, versus the one in your head that's used nowhere, on any set, ever?

One dead person in 28 years, over 25,000 movies since 1993. Your local shooting range doesn't have that kind of safety record, in all likelihood. Three dead in the entire industry in half a century, AFAIK.

And with overwhelming likelihood that either the actor, or more likely the amateur hack propmaster, or both, broke the guidelines in Safety Bulletin No. 1 about ten different ways, to a metaphysical certainty.

So look, the fact that he was holding a loaded movie weapon, and pulled the trigger on it, does not ipso facto make known blowhard boob Alec Baldwin guilty of anything but being there, prima facie.

IF it turns out Baldwin was horsing around between takes, that's different.

IF this was a case of pointing a weapon with blanks at someone else too close, he's culpable.

IF someone loaded a live round into the gun, they deserve to go to prison, and probably will.

But trying to pretend there weren't any ten other people, far more circumspect (or at least supposed to be, both morally and legally) is fun, but jackassical in real life. Which is what we're talking about.

I repeat what I also said yesterday:

Alec Baldwin is now the Ted Kennedy of firearms safety: he's killed more people with his gun than most of you will ever kill with your entire collection, whether that's one gun, or one hundred, even if they're all misnamed "assault" weapons, which are no such thing.

That takes all the anti-gun gas out of him, and probably ends his career. Boo frickin' hoo. Sweetest revenge would be Trump getting back into office in 2024, and Baldwin a washed-up has-been unable to even get a gig on SNL.

If he performed some additional jackassery that leads to him getting charged, well and good.

But ixnay on the yapping about how this shoulda/coulda/woulda gone if only we used your imaginary rules. Hollywood does a better job on firearms fuck-ups than the Capitol Police, since EVER. So unless you have some wee understanding of set operations, and who's responsible for what, please, for the good of all concerned, STFU.

Hate Baldwin for being an @$$hole if you must. But stop trying to pin something on him that in all likelihood, wasn't his direct fault.

Wanna dish on him for being a cheapskate producer of a schlock production using non-union amateur propmasters? Go on ahead. Hollywood will, I assure you.

As for the rest? Spare me your butthurt, until and unless something more damning than your predilection comes to light. If that happens, they'll be plenty of time to pile onto Quickdraw McJackass, and we promise, we'll be riding on that posse too. Until then, salve your buttcheeks, and get over it.

And if it doesn't turn out that way? Chill the fuck out, and enjoy the fact that besides pulling the trigger on a homicide, morally and legally culpable or not, Baldwin probably just shot his career in the heart as well.

Learn to take "Yes!!" for an answer from Fate.

Otherwise, apply the recommended balm, fill out the form below, and file it:

A New Hope?

Not a vaccine, but a treatment. We’re somewhere between a year and forever from a vaccine.

Rumbles of an effective treatment from medicine available off-the-shelf:
PDF. Caveat: From ChiComia.
PDF: ChiComia again
PDF: Corroboration from France

I hope that pans out as true empirically. Chloroquine has been around for ages. (1934, in fact).

I’m also hoping the main supplier for it doesn’t turn out to be China, and it works as effectively as some posts have reported. Finding out we have the answer sitting on the shelf would be a literal godsend. And turn this from a probable disaster to a burp in about a week. If  it’s true.

Anyone who’s panicking is the result of utter stupidity.

Mortality from this has always been a secondary concern (except to the lottery losers themselves.) It’s the hospitalization rate that’s critical. My concerns have been the effects of anything over a million hospital cases (which swamps the healthcare boat), and the follow-on effects from exactly the official responses taken to curb the pandemic, which, contrary to the actual chicken littles and head-in-the-sand ostriches, were exactly what I did warn about, and suggest people prepare for.

Trump hasn’t been perfect in this – no one ever is – but his tone and demeanor have been, and his instincts are far better than most. Where he’s stumbled is mostly attributable to some of the idiots in the admin who should have been shown to the door three years ago, but are still hanging around. Most of the idiots at CDC et al are right where we left them in 2014, just as clueless now as then, and six years older and stodgier. The FDA is another fartsack of incompetence, and them squawking over EOs setting aside off-label use of chloroquine is proof that most of them need to be retired in haste. It either works, or it doesn’t, but starting a five year testing process isn’t the way to go amidst a world-wide pandemic.

If we try it, and it works, we’re done. If it fails, we’re no worse off than we are without it.
QED

Anyone, at any federal agency, that blathers against that now should be given a choice of immediate reassignment to the McMurdo Sound Research Project, or retiring in an hour. That’s exactly the sort of thing at which Trump excels.

And I leave it to anyone's best instincts regarding the fact that China, specifically the Wuhan bioresearch laboratories, have published studies already with an allegedly efficacious cure for the strain of coronavirus that originated in...Wuhan.

From a medicine that's been around since FDR was president.

Regardless of that, if it pans out, it would be an answer to a lot of prayers.

BONUS UPDATE:

IF this does turn out to work like gangbusters, THEN cue the Retard Posse to start caterwauling that "Aesop was WROOOOOOOOONG!!!!! It was all a total HOAX!" in 0.2 seconds. The ones, that is, that still haven't stopped yelling that 24/7 already, with cases worldwide, deaths rising, half this country on total lockdown, the economy in a shambles, and the stock market totally in the shitter.

I can make that prediction with 0% chance of being wrong.
Fucktards gonna fucktard.
Those fish in the barrel aren't going to shoot themselves.









__________

Side note: It's been illuminating to read elsewhere in the blogosphere how we've been a troll, a panic-monger, stole your lunch money, and made fun of your mother, for telling you about this outbreak, or Ebola, or whatever other pet peeve(s) chapped their tender asses,  as I live in their heads rent-free. And how dare we know more than you, for any value of "you" they deem important. Generally, themselves. Doubly so that when asked for specifics, the accusers generally fart, shuffle their feet, slither away like ghosts, or just flat-out confirm they were talking out their asses all along. You go, girls. Howzat workin' out for ya?

I can link to any number of times right on these pages we told you not to panic over the present pandemic, or where we told you that deaths from Kung Flu weren't the biggest problem, or that the subsequent effects of a pandemic (second-order through N-th order) are always the bigger deal. I can even point out all the places we told you to prepare, not freak out.

But that's all assuming, against copious evidence to the contrary, that everyone with a keyboard is not a gibbering monkey with the English language comprehension skills one expects of such thoroughgoing retards. (If:Then propositions clearly kick their ass to the North Pole and back twice a day, by most accounts.)

That is because for a certain subset on the Internet, fucktards will always be fucktards.
And cannot help showing their asses, eventually, if not perpetually.

And anyone telling them something is going to upset their daily applecart jiggles their existence out of kilter, fucks with their comfortable normalcy bias, pisses them off, and kicks in their Dunning-Kruger skills with a vengeance. Reality slapping you in the back of the head is a bitch like that.

Some people just never tried having an actual public debate, or a difficult chess match, nor stepped into a sparring ring, or fenced a match, so they don't understand that I can tell you your argument is stupid, and prove the point, without therefore necessarily thinking that you must be too. Unless you leave me no other options, long after you should have tapped out. 

I've disagreed the hardest with some of the people I respect the most on the Internet, because they bring expertise in other areas that I truly respect, and they know how to make a point, or take one. But I won't pull punches in making a point, because truth isn't something you shy away from. Anyone, including your humble bloghost, can make a stupid argument. I've seen me do it. But stupid should hurt, and I step aside to no one in bringing that pain if the opportunity arises, even if your panties are binding in tender places as a result.

If that's too much, lurk and learn from others' mistakes, but don't cry because you lost. 


Learn it. Love it. Live it.

Thank heavens the terminally stupid are always a small fraction of visitors anywhere, including here, but never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups, or with loud mouths, and no self-awareness of their own shortcomings.
Stupidity is dynamite dangerous.
Envy is gasoline.
Butthurt added to the mix is generally the source of ignition.
In combination, they're a toxic stew, and the resultant blast warms our hearts.
Scars to those so afflicted are, to us, wholly irrelevant, and richly deserved.
Don't be a publicly ignorant jackhole with temper issues, and you'll get along in life just fine.
If not, well, suture self.

And maybe try the cream, instead of posting smack you can't back up from a dearth of anything worthwhile, just the over-abundant contents of your spleen, and the spackle from your diaper.

Offical Blog Of The White House Staff



'struth! Suck it, bitchez.

Thanks to frequent commenter Nemo for this news which, compared to the dismal tone from other sources lately, absolutely made my day:

"Aesop,

Your (I think it's yours, as this is the only place I've seen it other than me repeating the moniker on other sites) Kung Flu moniker finally made the big time. Just saw a head line on Breitbart.com (where else!) that included the term purported to have been asked by a PBS/NBC (of all people) newsperson. Right now it's the second headline down from the top."

And here it is at Breitbart:

PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor also challenged the president’s rhetoric, noting reports that someone called the coronavirus the “kung flu” in front of an Asian-American White House reporter.
“I wonder who said that, do you know who said that?” Trump asked. “Say the term again.”
Alcindor repeated the term “Kung Flu” twice and asked again about his use of the term “Chinese virus.”

UPDATE: And it's on the FoxNews site too.

And the FakeNews mediots just can't shut up about it, @ the 13:42 mark:

 

They're like Quentin Tarantino using the N-word in a movie - they can't stop themselves.

Who said it? I plead guilty on all counts.

Dear Mr. President,

*I* said it. Keep up the good work. Glad to hear *you* don't have Kung Flu. And please express my thanks to your staff for reading my blog.

Best Wishes,
Aesop


February 7th, my blog. March 18th, national news from the White House.
Hilarious.

And a YUUUUUGE shout-out to poster elysianfields, from whom I originally stole it, and then posted here.

Congrats, buddy. Either we're getting signed photos in the Oval Office and MAGA hats, or federal persecution for "hate crimes".

Personally, I'm pleading the First Amendment.

If the media-tards want to take me to Instapundit levels of readership overnight, by all means, come call me out over this. You might want to peruse some of the site before you go that route. One of the tags for this post would be a major cluebat there, before you give me a platform to pull the curtain out from around your Wizard-Of-Oz antics. Just saying.

And if anyone thought I was insufferable before this over-the-moon happy news, well...brace yourselves.

Meanwhile, take it away, Carl:

Oh, and to the unnamed Asian WH reporter or reporterette from this alleged apocryphal story:

Please accept my sincere and heartfelt deepest wishes that you find a suitable hand tool and
untwist your panties!

There's an ointment for that:

 

Bonus: This blog may also be research material for the L.A.Slimes.

NTTAWWT.

Thanks, Phil.

 

 

Heal Thyself

h/t Wirecutter

From Kenny's blog Tuesday,

California continues to proudly lead the charge toward a disarmed citizenry. In the latest attack on the Second Amendment, Santa Clara County is forming what they call a “county gun team” – a unit of lawyers, analysts, and prosecutors authorized to seek out and confiscate firearms from those the state feels shouldn’t have them.

Great. More fuckwittery from the leftist bastions of NorCal, and the tofu-slurping Birkenstock wearing hippie-spawn bastards that live there.

As one commenter noted

"Treasonous behavior should be dealt with accordingly JUST LIKE the forefathers did."

So far, so good. But then, there's always one lippy jackass who has to take things over the top:

"You would think, but one of CA’s most noted supposedly pro-2A bloggers who goes by some greek philosopher’s name, has told us over and over again that gun-larping and openly standing up for your rights and protesting and getting noisy is just hurting the 2nd Amendment. 

Want to lose your 2nd Amendment rights? Then go ahead and act like that aforementioned supposedly 2A blogger. 

“Oh noes, don’t rock the boat, you’ll sink it! Your rights are less important than my feelings. Muh butthurtsssss.”

Methinks he doth protest too much.

(And BTW, Aesop was a storyteller, not a philosopher. But for some people's kids, any five words coherently arranged appears to be philosophy. But I digress.)

Nota bene I was nowhere involved in the discussion prior to that point. But since you brought me into it, and Kenny may or may not post my reply there:

No, I didn't tell you it hurts the 2A, I told you idiocy like Richmond's Gun Woodstock  accomplishes nothing.
Like it didn't.
Just like all the stupid hippie shit accomplished nothing in the '60s, for those Common Core grads too young to remember it firsthand.

It isn't "standing up for your rights", it is, exactly as you noted, gun-larping.
Maybe tell the class how the citizens of Massachusetts marched on the governor's mansion in 1775, demanding their "rights". Oh, wait, that never happened.

When people assembled with rifles on Lexington Common, they weren't protesting. And when the British marched back to Boston, they weren't met with sharply-worded letters of complaint. Just musket balls, inbound.

If you're going to go into the streets armed, in a group, you shouldn't be protesting. Unless by "protesting" you mean stringing up tyrants from street lights.

If Santa Clara county citizens start doing that, I'm in. But at last look, it's a solid Blue Hive. Best wishes turning that around, especially all the people that took to their heels. It's still a (mostly) free country, but actions like that have consequences.

There are much better ways to spend your time, for most states, and we covered that long since:

https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/02/this-is-how-you-do-it.html

Counties like Santa Communist don't have sheriffs that will sanction a militia (in fact, IIRC, they've long since made "paramilitary" training of any type in this state a punishable crime).

As long as the option remains, this crap should be fought in the courts. While you were busy ignoring it, Pres. Trump's gotten within a judge or two of flipping the 9th Circus to majority conservative, which brings 11 Western states back into being part of a free republic, for the next 25 years. He's also appointed one helluva lot of conservative judges at the district level as well.

But if they come a-knocking, the answer to the SC gun-grab mob is short and simple:

Shoot the motherfuckers in the face.

Then go after the people that sent them.
Continue until you either run out of ammo, or targets.

If you've got a problem with that position, or it was too subtly expressed for you to grasp, let's hear it.

Otherwise, maybe worry less about me, and more about where you live. They have the same plan for you, times 49 other states, they just don't have the votes in most of them to pull it off.
Yet.

And while you're up, maybe pull your cleats out of your wedding tackle, Herr Scheisskopf, and slap a trauma dressing on your junk before you bleed out.

But sincere thanks for solving my post topic problem right off the bat today, and pitching such a slow hanging softball for me.

 

UPDATE:

Herr Scheisskopf apparently couldn't find his tongue. Yet, anyway.

But bloghost Kenny had a reply:

Quit. Just quit. At least they’re doing something – the only thing you’re doing is criticizing.
And as far as Trump appointing conservative judges, you’re assuming that they’re all going to be pro-gun and will automatically rule in favor of the Second Amendment every time. That’s not going to happen. Look at the US Supreme Court with 5 conservative and 4 liberal justices, yet they refused to even hear a case on the Federal bumpstock ban.

 

To which I respond:

 

"Something" ╪ something effective. I have no time in my life for futile efforts and wasted energy.

And criticizing isn't the "only" thing I'm doing, then nor now. I offered multiple positive suggestions then. I'm cheering the counties in VA that are going the citizen militia route now. MOAR, please. If they're serious, it will work - one way or the other. It may be the only thing that gets Gov Blackface Babykiller and his associated idiots' attention. (It'll damned sure get the attention of the commander of the VA State Police.)  If pushed, it'll get everyone's attention the same as it did in 1775. Dealer's choice.

 

Gun Woodstock as a tactic, not so much. It was pointless, and they're still not only laughing about it, but doing so in the face of everyone who participated.

 

And I assume no such thing about judges, either.

Use that option as long as it works.

 

As for bumpstocks, if anyone is that invested in them, keep pounding on the door. How long did it take for SCOTUS to hear a case like Heller? Only something like 70 years, last I looked. Get a better case, and try again.

 

But any hope in that route may ultimately bottom out as well. At that point, as suggested, you're going to have to handle things personally, and probably 1:1.

 

It's a course of action of Last Resort.

 

If anybody here has done it once, and can comment accordingly on how it worked out for them afterwards, I'm all ears.

 

If not, dragging me into a discussion I stayed out of is just gratuitous trolling. But kudos and thanks to the bloghost for allowing my reply here.

O, The Butthurt

Hundreds Dozens Maybe six or eight commenters, most bravely anonymous, can't help the scorching case of hemorrhoids they're suffering over the last couple of posts.

"Aesop's a big negative meanie! He won't let us shit all over his blog! He called us names! He said the emperor is naked!!!"

Boo frickin' hoo, cupcakes. It's a cruel, cruel world.
If you thought playground insults and tantrums were going to hurt my feelings, you haven't been here very long, nor listened very much. I deal with drunk and stoned a-holes for a living, and have for decades. Most of the whiners here aren't even up to single-A amateur league status.
And if your pwecious feeeeewings were hurt, clutch your pearls, grab your smelling salts, and take to your fainting couches.


But I'm willing to be fair.
Let's have it your way for ten seconds:

If yesterday's rally was such a blazing success, why not have one every month?
In fact, how about every week?
It's your idea, so why not double and triple down on it?
Again and again and again.

MOAR! Harder!

Because if it was the unmitigated victory some of you would like to think, why wouldn't you do that?

How many more rallies before you stop even one gun bill?
How many before you flip legislature votes?
How many before you get Northam to resign, or turn around?

Five?
Twenty?
Eleventy?
A thousand?

If this is such a brilliant tactic, why aren't you willing to repeat it?

Isn't your freedom worth it?

(No, of course it clearly isn't.)

Because if you're not willing to do it again, you tacitly admit it wasn't all that and a bag of chips, but rather a one-off fluke. You just got lucky, once, and managed to not shoot yourselves in the feet. Which is pretty weak sauce for gauging "success".

And everyone knows it. Then, now, always.

And you're not being magically "brave" because you did something you knew was stupid.
You're just lucky you didn't pay for that error in judgment. (And you may, yet.)

Gov. Blackface inadvertently disarmed Antifa ahead of the rally (and they prudently are too cowardly to come to a fair fight, as I've noted since...ever) with his hysterical emergency order. Watch and see that the dot-gov doesn't make that blunder again.

And if the rally was to send a message, then what was the point of flipping 90% of the counties in VA to 2A sanctuaries?

If the one sent the message, why the rally?
If the rally was so good, why do the sanctuaries?
C'mon, cheerleaders, get your stories straight.

If, as this idiocy's boosters maintain, government was so cowed by the sight of a few thousand of you, why are they plowing ahead full-steam with the very bills and plans that got you all so upset in the first place?

Could it be that your outdoor gun love-in was every bit as futile, pointless, and stupid as was alleged?

You're stomping on the brakes, and you claim the wheels are smoking, but it's not slowing down a bit.

So I'm thinking your speedometer is broken.
Show me how I've got that wrong, when your big move accomplished Jack and Shit at the end of the day.

Maybe, outnumbered as you are in your own state, you should try voting at the problem.

 

Oh, and don't forget strongly-worded letters to the editors too.

That will show those statist meanies who's boss, right?
Right??

Or maybe, not so much.

So spare me your juvenile butthurt and impotent rage. You can't even come up with a good reason for yesterday beyond "But we didn't fuck it up royally, so it was a SUCCESS!"

No sale, Snowflakes.

One commenter nailed you to the wall earlier.
You should be doing pushups, not typing.

But a considerable number of folks would rather waste their time on shiny nothingburgers than do hard work.

No points for guessing what the payoff for that will be.

So put some cream on your butthurt, rub some dirt on your injured self-conceits, and walk it off.

The rally idea didn't get any smarter just because you didn't manage to kill yourselves. If that's news to anyone, I'm sorry for the IQ points they lack.
Nothing was accomplished yesterday in the grand scheme of things but a big, outdoor public circle jerk. And that isn't going to help you now, or ever.

Public protests didn't end the Vietnam War, Ban Nukes, or Save The Whales.
Stop acting like retarded '60s hippies, and quit drinking the bong water.

Stupid should hurt. Especially if you stepped on your own junk.

Pin The Tail On The Actual Jackasses Responsible

h/t Phil

Your state's fucked up?
Tough shit.
Wanna blame "Californians"? (That would be, by actual count, about 49 other states).
Self-fornicate.
(I can make that plainer if necessary, for the Common Core grads.)

If actual "Californians" had f**ked up all the states people claimed, the population here would now be zero. Trust me, we're nowhere close.

Your states got f**ked up by the exact same toothless, banjo-playing gypsy liberal kinfolk from 45 other states to the east that screwed Califrutopia up, and their illegal alien gardeners and housekeepers.

And someone who screws things up here for a couple of years, then migrates to your patch is no more "Californian" when they leave here than they were when they got here: i.e., Not A Bit.

Pin the tail on the jackasses where it belongs: you're getting screwed by the same liberal idiots who left Back East after they'd ruined it, to come out here and sh*t on everything they found. They're universally from St. Louis, Chicongo, Detroitistan, NYFC, Bahstun, Foolidelphia, and of course, the Baltimorons. And the 30M illegals they all let in because they didn't see them as a problem until they moved all the way to there (for any value of "there" including anywhere up to and including Portland, Maine) and then started breeding like rabbits and bringing up their 57-person extended families.

And you know this is true because nobody born in a state where it's shorts weather and 72° year around moves away from that to states where it snows in winter, or rains 360 days a year. Only people who were raised on 12' of snowfall annually do something like that.

QED

But I'll tell you what:
I'll pay you a $1 for every actual native Californian who moved to your state, if you pay me a nickel for every transplant from anywhere else, and you'll buy me a Ferrari for cash just on my profits from that deal.

I've met far more liberal idiots down here driving around with OR and NV license tags than I ever heard of people I grew up with who were born here, who then moved to either place. (And to further illustrate the point, license tags don't make them Oregonians or Nevadans either; such people are invariably malcontent gypsies in all cases.)
It's easy to blame CA, but someone who comes here from BFE, tags up, and moves to your patch is no more "Californian", than Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, Barbara Boxer, or Nancy Pelosi.

You could look it up. ;)

And at the end of the day, it's simple:
Sooner or later, you're going to have to burn your problem children out.
Nothing less will suffice, and it's the only thing they really understand.
So it's either that, or get used to being screwed over forever.

Meantime, quit blaming the Imaginary Boogiemen from Califrutopia for your problems.
It simply ain't so, it's demographically and mathematically impossible for it to be so, and anyone who got past 4th grade would know that if they looked at it for two minutes. Your problems came from 40+ contiguous states east of you, and twenty countries south of San Diego. Like always.

Sorry if that reality stings where it landed, but that's how it goes. Own your own butthurt.

Fixed It For Ya

Fox is taking a lot of crap because some Common Core grad on their chyron biffed the newsbar under their morning show. They've probably already sent the poor schlub to re-education camp.

Fortunately, every pencil has an eraser.

Can't STFU To Save Her Life

 

Poor Ann Coulter. After another epic pointless rant about how President Trump is "gutless" and "cares nothing about a wall", then the "gutless" President bends Congress over, refuses to sign a stop-gap spending bill without funding for a wall, and squeezes a $5B last-minute concession out of the House of Representatives.

 

Y'know, like presidents who are serious about something do.

 

It must suck to be nothing but a shrill harpie with no clue about how the government actually works, and then go on the biggest bitchfest of this administration, to the delight of only the liberal Trump-hating media (but I repeat myself), and then be shown to be 180 degrees out from reality in less than 48 hours.

 

If only President Trump had vowed to shut down the government over this issue, berated the Democrat leadership about it publicly, on camera, and finally wrung concessions out of the legislative branch, and outgoing House Speaker Quisling.

 

And then there's the small matter of whose job it is to get a wall built.

 

Ann Coulter, former law clerk in the Eighth Circuit, and Michigan Law School grad, yet total constitutional blithering idiot:

“Article I, Sec. 7: All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur on Amendments, as on other bills.”

ZOMG! It’s almost as if there were some sort of separation of powers, or some such shit. WhoTF knew???

Maybe Ann was sick the day they covered the US Constitution in law school…?

If Ann Coulter voted for Trump because she thought he could seize the government, and rule as Caesar, god-like, from the Oval Office, or thought he was going to pay for the wall out of petty cash and poker winnings himself, she’s a world-class fucktard.

Meanwhile, find me her scathing rejoinders to Paul Quisling Ryan and Bitch McConjob’s dithering on a wall, non-stop, any time in the last two years.

Go ahead, post them all.

I’ll wait.

Wait, what?
Nothing?
You're sure about that?
How can that be...?

Wow, it's almost like she's the one who claims to be conservative, but can't seem to get her foot out of her mouth when there's a whole do-nothing GOP Congress who voted for wall funding twelve times - until they had a president who'd actually build a wall.
And then all took early retirement rather than facing the wrath of the voters.

Say, wait a minute, wasn't that what happened with repealing ObozoCare??
And wasn't the mantra then just "Repeal"??
Not "Repeal - and Replace (With More Socialism)"???

Quick, get me Lexis-Nexis...there must be dozens of Ann Coulter's shrill ranting pieces giving Quisling Ryan and Bitch McConjob rhetorical hell for that one, week in and week out, for the last two years.

What??
Crickets chirping again??
Gosh, it's almost like Ann is shrilly shilling for the George Will chair on ABC's This Week With Clinton's Former Toady, (from back when Fat Bill was raping women and molesting interns in the Oval Office).

This is Ann, giving a tongue bath to the Never-Trump crowd, because she’s going to need them for a gig when Trump’s gone.

Apparently, when your ovaries dry up, insanity sets in with a vengeance, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum. It’s going to hit cat-lady Coulter particularly hard. Ask her how rampant senility has worked out for George Will’s career.

And we’re hosed because the GOPe retired en masse after doing nothing, and is sitting perplexed, with its collective head up its ass, while the Democrats steal entire counties from them in the weeks-long election of 2018, just like they’re going to do in 2020 nationwide.

Quick, get me the Coulter columns attacking the House and Senate for ignoring the ballot-box stuffing going on nationwide just last month, since the Constitution explicitly states that those bodies are the sole arbiters of whom they seat, and could refuse the shadily-elected members in a heartbeat, right now, with full legal authority, and the Dems couldn't do shit about that.

Oh, c-mon now, you're kidding me?
She hasn't said anything about that either?

Geez, it's almost like she was...a Democrat stooge.
Naaaaah, can't be, they'd be harping on Trump for not doing things outside the scope of his office, and focusing on witch hunt investigations run by corrupt crooks with iron-clad conflicts of interest and partisan hack staffs, and if that happened, Ann would certainly have written reams of column ink about...wait, what?

Nothing?

Not a single column drawing upon her stellar legal expertise, by pointing out that the prior AG, and the current acting AG, could both fire Mueller tomorrow, then follow up with shit-canning  undercover  hiding-in-plain-sight Obozo holdout deputy AG Rosenswine, which should have been her mantra 24/7/365 since the day Mueller was hired?

You're kidding me, right?
No scathing calls about the endless ongoing slow coup since before Trump was even elected?
Are we sure she's even registered to vote Republican?

Well, with friends like this clueless banshee, her prediction about 2020 is prescient.
Pay close attention to the D nominee in 2020: that’s your next president, short of ropes and nooses for the guilty.

You’ve got about 22 months – maybe – to unfuck your preps before we begin the reign of HopeyDopey/Clinton v3.0.

And the next Great Depression could be any time.

If anybody’s hosed, it’s from electing jackholes, and their own apathy and lethargy for not even showing up, at any level, and not because of anything done or not done in the White House since January 2017.

I'm sure next week's column will be another apology for jumping the gun and getting it wrong, just like she's done the last ten times she's been wrong about Trump.

Wait, WTF??
She's never done that once either?
Color me shocked.

So, anyone: tell me how it worked out dumping Bush (41) for that other guy over his "Read My Lips: No New taxes" blunder?
1993-2001 worked out so well for her then too, I suppose?

Then explain to me the faux-outrage over Trump signing away bump stocks, when five minutes ago anyone with an opinion was busy pointing out bump stocks are worthless for doing anything but converting ammunition to noise, without any accuracy, and oh, BTW, can be replicated with a rubber band?

This horsesh*t is just trolling for the actual Never-Trumpers to come out and self-identify.

Coulter, meanwhile, seems to have sold a lot of books, including one totally drawing on Trump's election, without helping the political debate much.

Trump is simply a the guy with his finger in the dam.
And loudmouth twat Ann, once again, is the Wrong Way Corrigan idiot with both feet shoved way down her own throat, as the last two days have proven.

I Hate This Even More

I hate both the original world-class homicidal level of dumbfuckery described in the following story, and even more, the level of jackassery drawn to burp out their collective "wisdom", like moths drawn to a flame, in response.

This was the story at Kenny's Knuckledraggin My Life Away site, "where bad choices make good stories".

(Charlotte Observer) A nurse at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center thought they were giving a frightened patient “something to help (them) relax.” Instead, the nurse mistakenly administered a fatal dose of a drug sometimes used to execute condemned prisoners, WTVF reported.

Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article222422170.html#storylink=cpy

The nurse intended to order the anti-anxiety drug Versed but instead ordered Vecuronium, a general anesthesia drug used to sedate patients for surgery. It is also part of the drug cocktail used to execute some prisoners through lethal injection, WTVF reported.

Read more here: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article222422170.html#storylink=cpy

According to the report, a nurse couldn’t find the medication in the patient’s profile, and so did an “override” to find other medicines. Then nurse typed two letters, “ve” and selected the first one without checking the name on the vial. The medication dispensed was Vecuronium, not Versed.
A hospital spokesperson said the error occurred “because a staff member had bypassed multiple safety mechanisms that were in place to prevent such errors” and that the hospital would “continue to work closely with representatives of Tennessee Department of Health and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to assure that any remaining concerns are fully resolved within the specified time frame,” WTVF reported.
The incident put the hospital under review from Medicare, forcing the hospital to make a plan to prevent such an event from happening again, The Nashville Tennessean reported. Without corrective action, the hospital could have been cut off from reimbursements. About a fifth of the hospital’s income comes from Medicare, according to the paper.

A commenter posted essentially the same information here yesterday, leading to this comment from me, here, before it was even posted at Knuckledraggin , and with the additional information that Medicare was threatening to cut the hospital off completely from participating in Medicare and associated government programs, because they had attempted to cover up the original incident:

"1) Medicare isn't going to terminate Vanderbilt's Medicare contract:
They want changes, and they'll get them. They may even financially punish them, but they won't go to contract termination. That's just saber-rattling. It would ruin the hospital, possibly all the way to financial failure, and punish the Medicare recipients who lost that resource far more harshly than necessary, even more than the hospital.
2) Vanderbilt personnel should be terminated:
a) the person(s) who was/were responsible for making a report to state medical oversight, and tried to hide the incident
b) the nurse who screwed the original order/med administration up

BTW, vecuronium is a paralytic, used for intubation, while Versed is an anti-anxiety med/sedative; how someone not insane could switch one for the other and not notice is something that should be investigated, under oath, at a hearing to suspend or revoke nursing licensure at inquest, and probably at criminal arraignment.
That's an admin error that resulted in a fatality, and requires that whoever did it was at minimum a total moron, or else trying to kill someone. That level of negligence, if that's indeed what it was, or worse, should be answered at an inquest and probably a criminal trial as well. At a minimum, we're talking involuntary manslaughter by gross professional negligence.

As a single incident, it would be difficult, and gross stupidity, to punish an entire hospital system for a single medication error, even one that lead to a death. That's swatting a fly with artillery. But the failure to mandatorily report the mistake is conspiracy to cover up after the fact, and the person(s) who did that should be fired, if not prosecuted as well. That's something for the state's attorney general to look into, along with what lawyers are going to turn into a lotto payday for next-of-kin.
QED

As these are slam-dunk cases based on that article, I'm wondering why they aren't already referred for prosecution at every level.

If I were the member at large for the state nursing licensure board, that nurse's license would either be suspended for 10 years at minimum, or revoked outright.
That level of screw-up is inexcusably and unexplainably outrageous.
If I were on the civil jury for the family, the payout would be in the low 8 figures: $2-5M for the death, and treble that in punitive damages for the cover-up.
Along with criminal charges and fines, that's the only way they learn not to do that." -Aesop

And then the fun started at Kenny's site, as the lunatic fringe chimed in on the original story:

Walpurgis says:

11/30/2018 at 11:15

This shit happens ALL the time. You practice medicine. Wrong surgery, wrong amputation, all sorts of crap.

He could have left it there, and I'd have walked on by, because he'd have been right, to that point. But hubris and stupidity never knows when to quit while ahead:

It’s a fun fact to look up, but 1 in 3 patients admitted to the hospital die there.

Srsly? "1 in 3"? Like you figure no one has a mouse, or Google??
My response to that load of horseshit:

 Aesop says:

11/30/2018 at 16:12

And that’s absolute bullshit, but thanks for playing.
FTR, there were +/- 37,000,000 hospital admissions in most any year you’d care to look up.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/459718/total-hospital-admission-number-in-the-us/
I’m pretty sure we’d notice more deaths than WWII, including the Holocaust, every freaking year.
The actual number of deaths is about 800K/yr. <800k p="" yr.="">And the vast majority of those deaths are people >85 y.o., so it isn’t like the ones who die are shocking anyone.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db118.htm
So maybe actually look that shit up before you tell us how “fun” it is, when you biff the actual number of deaths by 4600%. (I even rounded that down to go easier on you.)
No excuse, man, that took me 4 mouseclicks to run down in about a minute.
Math: still actually a thing.
As far as the original story: that’s a nurse who needs a criminal trial for manslaughter, after they yank their license for from 10 years to life, and he/she and the people at Vanderbilt who failed to report that to the state need firing and prosecuting.
I expect the civil suit will come to something in the low 8 figures.
Especially as the death could have been avoided by, y’know, looking at the frickin’ label on the vial.
That should be prison time, right there.

The host:

 Wirecutter says:

11/30/2018 at 16:53

Let’s see, when I went to moderate just now there were 2 comments from you to 2 different readers, both of them insulting which seems to be the way all your comments roll.
I bet you’re a real joy to live with.

The other post in question:

GregN says:

11/30/2018 at 11:47

Fun fact. Check out CDC mortality stats for “medical misadventure” (i.e. f#$k ups). Something around 75K to 80K die every year in clinics, hospitals and MD offices because of incompetence.
On the other hand, gotta get rid of those guns because 8 or 9K are murdered and around 10K off themselves by guns every year. Oh and it’s normal to dispose of 1.5 million lumps of tissue every year /sarc
Amazing the lack of perspective isn’t it?

My response to that turd in the punchbowl:

           Aesop says:  

11/30/2018 at 16:18    

• Funner fact: there is no support for that imaginary number anywhere on the planet, inclusive.
  It’s brought to you by the same pseudo-science that gave you anthropogenic globull warming, the hazards of second-hand smoke, and spousal abuse claims during Superbowl halftime: i.e. pulled entirely from some SJW’s nether parts. still steaming, and smelling exactly like you’d expect from way up between their butt cheeks.

Nota bene, if you please, the complete lack of pejorative aimed at said second poster, rather the surgical precision of language that noted that it's the "data" cited that's absolute codswallop.
I won't apologize for pointing out someone's foundation is quicksand. Anything rude or condescending is the fault of the poster for choosing that, not mine.

The peanut gallery response to that reply:

Padawan says:

11/30/2018 at 20:30

Wow. You’re just a bright ray of fucking sunshine, ain’tcha cupcake?

Yeah, you got me. It's all me. The person who claims we whack one out of three patients routinely isn't Debbie Downer for pulling "facts" out of their ass. The person who knee-jerk swallows pseudo-science and passes it off as Truth is Good Time Charlie. All I did was try to wrangle in a couple of facts and some logic at the party, and I'm the bad guy.
Well-played.

Then there's the next buttnugget:

WestcoastDeplorable says:

11/30/2018 at 14:05

Moral to the story? Stay away from the hospital. Especially near holidays. I friend of mine went to the ER on Labor day complaining of a pain in his leg. Since it was a holiday and they were short-staffed, instead of doing a scan they sent him home with aspirin and painkillers.
You guessed it…..the problem was a blood clot and they amputated his leg the next day.

I don't recall my full reply to that one, and it's currently sitting in moderation limbo, but it won't endear me to the commentor, nor likely the host, either, but it went something like this:

"The next day?" That would have required a blood clot the size of his head. They wouldn't have needed to scan him, they could have just held him up to the light to see that.

We don't even amputate black, gangrenous body parts within 24 hours.

Seriously, guys, let's just sit around telling 3rd grade campfire horror stories.
Like the amputated hand that wouldn't die.
Or the Chicken heart That Ate New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE0hHEtkkQA

In a follow-up, I told the host I sincerely apologize for any trouble to which I put him, and I meant it. I'll also be skipping Kenny's site for the foreseeable future, without further discussion or decision. He'll do fine with or without my commentary contributions. It's absolutely his site, and any host can cultivate the commentariat he or she values. I have no desire to make his day harder, and Kenny's actual postings run from interesting to cringeworthy to hilarious, and ten days out of nine, Knuckledraggin' is a better news outlet than anything in the MSM, on any level. You should go there, regularly.

Look, I get these two facts:

(And notice, please, the typical Internet meme on that second one - that I corrected there - gets it wrong by noting incorrectly "Even if you win, you're still a retard". Comedy is hard, Internet Minions of Stupidity. If you can't do the joke without bungling the punchline, stay on the porch with the small dogs. Just me, being a fucking ray of sunshine again.)

Like all other informational media (magazines, newspapers, TV, etc.) there are two groups of people who post on the Internet:
A) Those who know what they're talking about, and
B) Those who don't.
Group B is further divided:
1) Those who don't know what they don't know. Those are the Ignorant.
2) Those who don't care what they don't know. Those are the Stupid.

It's not a crime to be ignorant. It's even curable, if you wish, with minimal effort.
But the only check on stupidity is fastballs, thrown up high near the chin.

And those groups are not represented by proportional quantities. Signal to noise on the 'net is about 1:10, on a good day, and 1:100 from some places. So if you're Ignorant, unf*ck yourself. If you're Stupid, STFU.

There's a corollary to those undeniable truths, boys and girls:
If you put on your feathered hat, and wing suit, and stick pinfeathers up your ass, then wander onto the grounds of the Turkey Shoot, hide in the bushes, and say "Gobble! gobble!", like any other total jackass, you don't get to piss, whine, and moan when you're awarded an ass-full of shotgun pellets for your efforts.

In fact, there's only one proper response to getting flamed for stupidity on the internet, from victim, witness, or sitehost:

So if anything I wrote, here, or anywhere else, has your sphincter aflame, I urge you to fill one of those out, in haste, and send it to someone who cares.
Your mommy, your congressweasel, Bill Gates, or whomever.
And then carefully untwist your panties.

Then put on your footie pajamas, and go have some hot cocoa. Like you do.

 

So as a public service, this reminder to those who live at the left side of the intelligence bell curve (If you're not sure whether that's you, ask your friends. If you have no friends, consider that a "Yes".):

 

 

And if you don't think before you post, I'm sure someone will remind you.

Kinetically.

 

You can try facts and logic, and avoid a lot of butthurt on the 'net.

Or, you can learn to treat for shock from bleeding out your shredded ass, after being target practice for people who enjoy your plight, and buy electrons by the metric fuckton.

Your call.

 

Have a nice weekend. Even if you're a dumbass.