When mass killers meet armed resistance is an article posted a couple of weeks ago in response to the VTech shootings. It tells the real story (the one that never seems to make the news) about several mass shootings in the last few years in which armed private citizens put a stop to the killing. This is an absolute must read for anyone who thinks that gun control stops crime.

The only thing gun control does is provide criminals with the confidence that they will not meet any resistance. Arms carried by legal, law-abiding citizens break that confidence and stop criminals in their tracks.

For a relativist, it is unconscionable to tell someone else, especially someone from a different culture, that they are wrong. Therefore, “multiculturalism” is rampant in Europe, where relativism is god.

Multiculturalism is a sad attempt to treat people delicately and not offend their cultural beliefs. (As long as those beliefs are not Christian. Nobody cares about offending them.) So German courts render verdicts differently for Muslims than for … Infidels?

Rather than jail a man for beating his wife, the German court won’t even grant her a divorce “[b]ecause the woman, as a Muslim, should have ‘expected’ it, the judge explained.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is relativism.

Sinfully stolen from Randy.

Compete article.

I can’t even tell you how pumped I am to learn that Texas has a “report a litterer” web form. I’m going to be on this thing every other day!!

Rarely does a commute go by that I don’t see someone flick a cigarette butt out of their car. It infuriates me. I ride my bike to work from time to time and when you have ride down the side of the road, even for just a few miles, you really get an idea just how much litter is generated by those disgusting butts. There are thousands of them. When a good gully washer comes along, all those butts get washed into our lakes and rivers. I’m getting all worked up just thinking about it.

You best not be flinging your butt when I’m on patrol bucko! I guarantee you’ll be getting a nasty-gram from the state on my behalf.

Cleanly stolen from Dave.

Do you have a Ben & Jerry’s near you? If so, you MUST do your duty (No, not “do your dooty”. Gaw!) and pay your favorite dairy hippies a visit today, April 17th. Why? Must you ask? It is, of course, “Global Free Cone Day”.

Good luck getting through to the B&J web site. Looks like the publicity tanked the servers. Some network ninja out there is having a very bad day and thinking to himself, “Stupid dairy hippies. I should have taken that job at Blue Bell.”

Kevin Russell, a 21-year-old resident of Hobart, Indiana, was arrested and charged with check fraud after trying to cash a check at a Chase Bank branch. The check was made out for $50,000 and signed by “King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant”. The check had no imprint (the numbers across the bottom of checks used to identify the bank account) implying that it was a sample check, possibly stolen.

Russell will spend some time in Lake County Jail awaiting trial. He’d be out on bail by now, but apparently, the bondsman wouldn’t take a check.

Original AP article

[Updated. WW Points added below.]

I’ve had this idea on the back burner for a couple of years now: A topic in which I share some nutritional wisdom. Now considering my current gravitationally challenged state, I might not seem like the right person to be doling out advice on food, but that’s the great thing about the blogosphere. I don’t have to be wise in order to post wisdom! I can just post other people’s wisdom and offer it as a service by lumping it all into one place. (Drudge doesn’t write the news, he just collects links to all the good stories.)

I wanted to start off by setting up some standard metrics so I can compare apples to oranges and still make sense. (See? Using a food based metaphor in my nutrition topic! Huh? Who’s got blog mojo now?)

Sugar

Recommended daily allowance: 8 teaspoons (32 grams)
Approximately eight sugar packets.

Salt

Recommended daily allowance: 1 teaspoon (2.4 grams of sodium)
Approximately four salt packets.

Fat

Recommended daily allowance: 65 grams
Approximately six pats of butter.

WeightWatchers Points

At 240 pounds, I’m allowed 28 points a day to lose weight. If you weigh less, you get fewer points. (At 150 pounds, you only get 20.) If you’re trying to maintain your weight, you get a bit more. It’s important to note that WW points don’t take into account the quality of the carbs you eat. They’re only concerned with total calories and fat. Cherios (made with whole grains and a very little sugar) has the same point value as Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes!

I’m probably not going to chart out protein, nutrients or vitamins, because those are pretty much all the “good” things that you seldom have to worry about getting too much of. Sugar, salt and fat are the three things that give flavor to most of our food and thus are the three things most of us get too much of.

Now that I have some cute little icons with which to express the unhealthiness of the things we eat, I hope to do a lot of posts on the topic. But for now, I’ve spent all the free time I have just creating the images and posting them. Back to work! *Cracks whip*

I hold very strongly to the opinion that “Entertainment News” is the biggest oxymoron in America. I detest tabloid society and deplore the people whose money keeps it afloat. If it were not for the vacuous multitudes who fawn over Hollywood stars and drool of every morsel of paparazzi gossip, the entire industry would fade into the septic tank of history where it belongs.

That being said, I’d like to post my first comment on Britney Spears. This weekend, in the span of 48 hours, she checked in to and out of rehab, shaved her head and got two tattoos. (Not that there’s anything wrong with tattoos.) This sounds very much like something that you’d hear about a rebellious sixteen-year-old who’d had another fight with her mom. This sounds very much like something I’d have to deal with in my youth group. But this is not a pubescent tantrum we’re talking about. This is an adult mother of two.

The first time I ever heard the name Britney Spears, it was swirling in the controversy of a jail-bate teenager doing a sexually charged music video when she professed to be a virgin and was touted as a role model for good girls everywhere. It would not have been hard, if I had even the slightest shred of interest at the time, to predict the path this young girl would take.

From Mouseketeer to sex symbol to making out with Madonna to pregnant white-trash to Paris Hilton crotch shot to drug hazed head shaving. It’s all par for the course. It’s terrible to say, but I would be surprised if she survives past 30 and if she does, she will end up one of the many curiosities in the freak show of American pop culture has-beens. There’s a long and illustrious history for people in this gutter of society with names like Howard Hughes, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Anna Nicole Smith. From that list of names you can see that there are two possible outcomes. Early death at the hands of fast living or years of sequestered insanity. Britney’s chances of ending up in one of those two situations is near 100%. 2 to 1 says it’s the former rather than the latter.

Call me a cynic, but I pray for the day when America stops idolizing entertainers. It is the root of all that stinks about our society. Something is terribly wrong in a culture where hundreds of people spend weeks outside a courthouse to show their undying support for a millionaire recluse who spends his days riding roller coasters with a monkey and someone else’s kids and has paid the mortgages of countless plastic surgeons in his futile attempts to become something other than what he is. It’s this same people who wring their hands and wag their heads over a distraught woman acting out in rebellion befitting someone half her age.

I tell you we need to treat these people the same way you treat a wayward four-year-old screaming for attention. If you ignore them, eventually, they’ll stop being so stupid. Thus ends my last ever post on Britney Spears.

Ze wraps on Valentine’s Day.

“We give flowers on Valentine’s Day. That’s a nice metaphor. You know, nature; taking something beautiful, you know, away from where it grew up and watching it slowly whither and eventually die.”

I know it must be hard for you to believe, but I’m not real big on this whole Valentine’s Day thing. In fact, I might have missed it all together if it weren’t for the fact that my wife and I are celebrating a friend’s birthday tonight. Oh, looky there. Haven’s birthday is on V Day.

The way I see it, I love my wife every day all year long. Why would I go out of my way to, at great expense, “prove” that I love her on some arbitrary day established, no doubt, to boost sales of flowers and candy.

Fortunately, my wife is the coolest wife in the whole world. (Sorry, all you married guys, but mine’s better. Deal with it.) She’s not happy about my feelings on V Day, but she’s okay with it.

Jess’s wife has an even more extreme take on the matter which I will let him explain.

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Addendum:
I should clarify something. The only way any guy can get away with shrugging off V Day is if he showers his wife with love the rest of the year. Honestly, due to my work schedule over the last few months, I have not been pulling my weight in that regard. Sorry, Squirt. I’ll do better, I promise.

YouTube strikes again. Other than the Rubber Ducky song, my favorite classic Sesame Street sketch was this one in which Ernie must explain why Bert should wear a pot on his head.

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