Quote of the Day - War on Women Edition

Seen at Facebook in response to Glamour Magazine's announcement of Bru... Caitlyn Jenner as "Woman of the Year":

Not only do we make better money than women, we also apparently make better WOMEN than women.

But that's not QotD.  My wife's reaction to that comment is:

They DO! They work harder at it!

Your Moment of Zen

It's been awhile.  Saw this guy's work at an art show/sale this morning - Victor Beer Photography.  He does large-scale hi-res on canvas - looks like photorealistic oil paintings, but they're oilrealistic photographs.  This image does not do justice to the real thing, but it's the best I can do:


Had I wall space, I could see a couple of his pieces hanging in my house.  They really are spectacular in person.

Blocked at Quora.com

Well, I've been temporarily blocked at Quora.com for violating their "Be Nice, Be Polite" policy.  Can't post there until October 30.  In the mean time, I guess I can still post here!

If you're unfamiliar, Quora is a site where anybody can ask anything, and anybody who joins up can respond.

Ran across this jewel over there and thought I'd share it.  The question asked was, "What will it take to radically change America's gun culture?"  Like there's only one.

Seems this guy thinks he's struck upon something original.

Avoiding getting dragged into the gun control debate and attempting to answer your original question, I would say there are at least two options, both of which would be lengthy and difficult in application. First, like cigarettes, the government could embark on a long term effort of making gun ownership and gun use difficult and expensive, while propagandizing against equating guns with generally positive terms such as "liberty" and "freedom", instead instilling in future generations the association of guns with negatives such as "murder" and "anti-social". Realizing that a goodly number of people holding social and political power in the US are themselves gun nuts, you can imagine this is a remote possibility. Equally problematic is the idea of revolutionary change in the US which removes all notions of American exceptionalism, militarism and conservative ideology from popular thought.

Summing up, the two paths I see involve public "shaming" of gun people in the same manner as smokers are publically(sic) shamed today, or the active suppression of what I think are really defining characteristics of America: conservative ideology, religious ideology, fierce individualism, a tendency towards conspiracy theory, a preference for violence as a solution to social and individual problems, and mistrust of government. As you might guess, I'm not optimistic.

As Instapundit once said, "It’s pretty irritating, being shamed by people who have none themselves."

He apparently doesn't realize that his prescription is precisely how it was done in the UK.  I have to wonder, though, at what form his "active suppression" would take.  What's most interesting to me however, is what he himself describes as the "really defining characteristics of America,"

• Conservative ideology
• Religious ideology
• Fierce individualism
• Mistrust of government 

You begin to understand Barack Obama's appeal to people like him when Obama promised to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

They're ashamed of it.  They hate it. 

So yeah, I do think they're un-American.  They admit it themselves.

Got Law?

Sorry for the hiatus.  Busy, and I've been engaging over at Quora.com.  Got a couple of essays rattling around in the back of my head, but in the meantime, here's Bill Whittle's latest:

The Steel

Bill Whittle's latest:

How to Create a Gun-Free America

I've been playing over at Quora.com recently.  Sorry I've not updated TSM much, but I do think this belongs here:


Yeah. Good luck with that.

You Should Probably Say it Now

Bill Whittle's latest Afterburner, "Very Old Men"

The Martian

I saw The Martian this morning with my dad, a former steely-eyed missile man himself.

Matt Damon or not, FREAKING OUTSTANDING film. Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary fame) said of it, 

I'm now declaring that The Martian, (movie) is the best hard science fiction movie I have ever seen. It is not a perfect film, but it is an outstanding film that speaks the way only a film can, and uses the medium in ways that the very best films do.

I concur.

I will be seeing it on the big screen again.