Radioactive Communist Zombies

Larry O'Donnell Stupidity About Gun Control

MSNBC's Larry O'Donnell just drives me up a tree. Somehow MSNBC managed to find someone worse than Keith Olbermann to fill his time slot. This admitted socialist's sanctimonious rage, his condescending voice, his holier-than-thou forehead stuck in his expressionless face combine to be about as pleasant as kittens in a blender on high speed.

I found this video on YouTube. It's from earlier this year just after the shooting in Arizona by Jared Loughner where he killed or injured 20 people. Watch this:

O'Donnell keeps harping on the fact that prior to 2003 gun magazines (not clips) were limited to 10 rounds (not bullets) each. At 1:34 he says, "[People] would have been better off if Jared Loughner, by law, could only fire ten bullets."

Pardon me, Larry, but I don't think Jared Loughner was much concerned with obeying the law. When the 10-round magazine limit was in force, yes, it was against the law to (I believe) sell, distribute, or import a magazine with greater than 10 rounds (but not to own, as I own several and did during that period). But could Loughner have bought one on the black market? Of course he could. He was planning on murdering people. I strongly doubt a so-called high-capacity magazine ban would have stopped his plans.

At 2:06 O'Donnell says, "I blame the individual for the first ten bullets; I blame the law for the next 21 bullets that he fired." (Let's ignore the error O'Donnell is making about the number of rounds in each magazine. If Loughner had a 10-round magazine he probably would have fired 11 rounds before reloading since apparently he carried one round in the gun's chamber.) Loughner pulled the trigger 31 times. Whether he did it with one magazine or three is irrelevant (could he have been stopped trying to reload after 10, who knows). But even if the high-capacity magazine ban were still in effect, he could have obtained one.

Criminals get and use weapons they are not, BY LAW, allowed to have. Gun control is based on the laughable proposition that criminals will obey one law (gun control laws) while scoffing at all other laws.

What would have stopped Loughner quicker was an armed citizen with his own high-capacity magazine unloading a few rounds into Loughner. Guns are tools that a small minority of people abuse. It's not the tool, it's the user. You might as well ban high capacity hard drives to stop child pornography.

"Money for Nothing" Banned in Canada

If you want to listen to Mark Knopfler's classic guitar riff at the beginning of the 1985 hit song "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits you'd better be south of the Canadian border.

That's because the song has been banned for being played on Canadian televisions and radios.  The Washington Times reports:

The Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" was ruled by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to be "extremely offensive" and thus inappropriate for airing on radio or television because it uses an anti-gay slur . . .

Ron Cohen, the CBSC's national chairman, told The Washington Times on Thursday that the decision effectively sets a "nationwide" precedent binding on all private license holders for TV, cable-TV and radio broadcasting. It does not cover the state-run Canadian Broadcasting Corp. or "community and university" stations.

Canada doesn't have a First Amendment and has often shown that it has no respect for free speech.  The whole country is basically under a U.S. university PC speech code.

And why should you care?  Because look at all the proposals to restrict speech in the U.S. that have been put forth after the Tuscon shooting.  And if they can ban "violent rhetoric" they can ban gay slurs or whatever else someone finds offensive.  And someone will find almost anything offensive.

And then we won't have free speech, we'll have . . . Canadian speech.  And I don't want to have to finish every sentence with "eh?"

Somebody is Going to be Drilling off of Florida

The Internet rumors are flying and even George Will stated that China is drilling 60 miles off Florida's coast--closer than U.S. companies can--in Cuban territorial waters:

Drilling is underway 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are.

But according to an AP story today, it's not true . . . mostly.

Jorge Pinon, a senior energy fellow at the University of Miami specializing in Latin America, said Cuba has awarded offshore oil leases, or concessionary blocs, in its offshore waters to six oil companies — none of them Chinese — and soon may announce an agreement with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras.

"But no one is currently drilling in any of those concessions," said Pinon in a telephone interview.

So Cuba, which is 90 miles from Florida, will be drilling in its territorial water.  And according to the CIA World Factbook, Cuba claims a 200 nautical mile (230 miles) "exclusive economic zone" they (whomever the Cubans decide to let drill) could be drilling pretty dang close to US shores.

Where we can't by law drill at all.

Young Frankenstein: the Musical

After the stunning success of his Broadway musical "The Producers" (based on his 1968 movie of the same name), Mel Brooks is back on the boards with "Young Frankenstein."  Again, based on one of his better movies (perhaps his best; from 1974), "Young Frankenstein" (hereafter "YF") is playing it's debut performances in Seattle.  If the attendance at a Saturday matinee is any indication, it's playing to near or totally sold-out crowds in the historic Paramount Theater.

And for good reason: it's hilarious.  The biggest downfall for me is the songs (full disclosure: I am not a fan of musicals, especially movies but plays I'll cut some slack).  The music and lyrics were by Mr. Brooks.  To ask Mel to be an incredibly funny man (and he is) and a funny Andrew Lloyd Webber would be asking too much.  His songs (and this is true of "The Producers," too) tend to be trite and even a bit annoying.  I still have "Join the Family Business" stuck in my head where Frederick Frankenstein's ancestors (and the beautiful Inga) encourage him in a dream to build a monster.  What saved many on the songs in "The Producer" was that they were sweet, funny, or full of double entendres.  In YF, Mel left out the sweet.  But then again, building a monster is not really a sweet story.

I also have little patience for long song and dance numbers (except for the pretty dancers).  And speaking of pretty, laboratory assistant Inga is played by Sutton Foster with the lithe body of a dancer and a singing voice that matches her loveliness, was the treat of the afternoon.  Roger Bart plays Frederick Frankenstein like Dan Aykroyd doing Gene Wilder.  Megan Mullally (of "Will and Grace" fame) plays Frederick's frigid yet frisky fiancée Elizabeth with finesse.  Comparing her to the brilliant and incomparable Madeline Kahn would be unfair, but who says life is fair.  She doesn't compare to Ms. Kahn, yet comes achingly close as she wisely chose to take the character in her own direction.  I haven't watched much "Will and Grace" (maybe 30 minutes total) but she seems to play Elizabeth just as she played Karen Walker on the TV show.  At least she can sing if not up to Ms. Kahn's standards.  And Andrea Martin as Frau Blucher (cue horse whinny) is hilarious.  "He Vas My Boyfriend" is practically worth the price of admission itself.

If YF is a hit on Broadway (not the one on Capitol Hill in Seattle)  it will be on the performances of its stars, it's high production values (but the moon has got to stop bouncing) and the hilarity of its book.  The songs are--to me--just filler.

P.S.: I'm eternally grateful to my friend Mark for turning me on to Mel Brooks circa 1976.  So when's Spaceballs The Musical going to come out?

I Want a Refund

So, yesterday I decide to go for a drive in my automobile, perhaps to spew some CO₂ while Live Earth was droning on somewhere.  I took one of my favorite drives up a twisty back road, then drove back on a state highway (stopping at Dry Falls to look at a brush fire).  Burned half a tank of premium hydrocarbon distillate.

But, when I get in the car and I turn on the XM satellite radio, I get . . . Live Earth.  Even the name of the button on the radio changes (see pic at left, click to see larger view).

XM has 69 music channels (and waaaaaay too many sports channels) and yesterday seven of them were dedicated to Live Earth.  Of the 14 channels dedicated to "rock" (2 of them kinda good) half were Live Earth (including one of the kinda good ones).

I keep hoping XM and Sirius will merge because Sirius is so much better (and XM will become more like Sirius).  I can almost always find a song I like on Sirius but XM seems to like to pull up a bunch of weird stuff I've either never heard or never liked.  Yesterday was so bad I actually switched over to FM.  (Apparently Sirius also had Live Earth, but at least they didn't suck up one of their good channels to do it).

I didn't pay for satellite radio (twice, XM in one car, Sirius in the other) to hear narcissistic hypocrites bleat about global warming.  I think I should get a pro rata refund of my subscription price.