>Reality Check

>It turns out that everything I thought I knew about the Fatty Arbuckle scandal was wrong. Names, ages, circumstances, all of it via pop culture and in every particular except the man’s stage name, incorrect. And he was none too fond of the name, either.

>Overheard At Roseholme Cottage

>In the room where we keep the litter boxes for my cats: “Phew! It smells funny in here. [pause] Have you been feeding the cats…clowns?“

>Stats

>It’s an artifact; if we had four fingers, the “Hey!” would happen in different spots but even knowing that, it still catches the eye: I had, as far as I know, my first 1000+ hit day yesterday!See there, it pays to snark.

>Somehow Part Of Superbowl 2012

>”More than 150 high school sophomores from around the state have been enlisted as part of the so-called ‘Green Corps.’ The students are part of the 1st and Green initiative, which aims at encouraging Hoosiers to reduce their carbon footprint by recycling and altering other personal habits.”

Is it wrong to point out that their lifetime carbon contribution would be hugely reduced if they each leapt into a blast furnace? C’mon, now, it’s for the Greater Good!

But, seriously, this is part of Indianapolis’ 2012 Superbowl? Man, I so hope they get the Tooth Decay booth up, too. That sports contest will never return!

This is what that Aztec Mayan[1] calendar was tryin’ to warn us about.
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1. I sit corrected. While they may all blur into a solid mass of pyramid-building, human-sacrificin’ folk with good roads and no wheels from here, just like the Wookiee-Yeti-Sasquatch-Bigfoot-Gigantopithecus divide, it would have mattered a great deal to them; some of ’em weren’t even around at the same time.

>Heh. Plenty Of Time To Do The Right Thing

>

Created by Oatmeal

Via Tam.

>Shark: Jumped

>In his latest tape to hit the pop charts (or is it “bang?” More of a fizzle, these days), the animatronic figure that claims to be Osama bin Laden scolded the United States for causing climate change.

Okay, that’s it; moonbattery from the left has reached all the way around to lay hold of hard-line paternalistic authoritarians: the shark has done been jumped.

Now, can we finally bomb the creep flat and get back to important stuff — like putting out all the little brushfires his line of nonsense helped set?

>Indy Star: Hysteria And Misinformation

>Dennis Ryerson thinks you’re a menace.

Talk about wetting the bed after the mattress is already soaked! The Indy [Red] Star is back to bleating nonsense about gun permits, even after measures to make the list of citizens with carry permits private have passed in both chambers of the State government.

Editor Ryerson continues to sling generalities around instead of actual numbers; you see, giving you enough info to do the math would reveal the appalling silliness of his steaming rhetoric. He tries to link two unrelated items: A) a handful of fraudulent applications for License to Carry Handgun which were erroneously granted and then yanked when the dear little angels got themselves into trouble or were otherwise caught out and B) the very real need to keep any lout with $42.00 American to spend from receiving the entire list of permit holders, complete with names, addresses and other personal information.

Let’s apply a mild degree of Fisk-o-lene to the matter, shall we?

He claims, “Gun owners and non-owners alike bombarded them with pleas to keep the bad guys from knowing who might have a gun in his house…” Wrong! Indiana law does not require any sort of a permit to have a gun in your house; if you can pass the Federal background check — remember that one? The one you and the Bradys told us was The Answer? — you’re good to go.

Then we’re told, “Far fewer have spoken up for the cause of open and responsible government.” Yeah, ‘cos making it possible to a stalker to get the home address of the person he’s stalking — who had to get a permit in order to defend themselves against him — is “responsible government” and putting my home address out there as a gun-owner aids “transparency.” I guess if’n I hand any real compassion for my fellow critter, I’d replace all my walls, cupboards, cabinets and gun safes with glass and Lucite versions!

After hinting that if Governor Mitch Daniels rilly rilly cared about, you know, things ‘n’ stuff, he’d veto the bill, we’re treated to a veiled threat that’s truly a monument to passive-aggressive phrasing: “Daniels, and lawmakers, might also keep in mind that the courts could become involved if a special area of privileged concealment is carved out of the state’s existing open records laws.” Dammit, he’ll hold his lawyers until he turns just totally blue! That’ll show everybody!

In the sole and only glimpse of actual intelligence, his penultimate thought is, “The problem is not law; it’s enforcement.” Um, yeah, that and people fibbing on their application; which is, O-M-G, illegal already.

But on what note does he end? Mounting to his cross, the long-suffering Journalist (who has earlier bid us be mindful that he never published any of the names and addresses of permit-holders, at least not yet…!) tearfully scolds us, “The menace is not the messenger; it’s the man with the gun and nowhere to hide. For now.”

Yes, you read it correctly: the Star’s Editor thinks you — and the 99.9 percent of permit holders who are law-abiding citizens — are a menace. And probably that you’re a mean ol’ meanie, too, an’ he’s gonna tell Daddy the Governor.

Sheesh. Effigy. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.

>State Of The Ugh

>The Hon. the blighted Vice-President Jos. P. Biden, only Veep to have rid the short bus to the office, on NBC this ayem: “People can expect unemployment to grow…” Hastily corrected by the interviewer, he appeared barely aware of having misspoken; perhaps, in a rare moment of candor, he hadn’t.

But hey, this here’s the United States; we expect our Vice-Presidents to suffer gaffitis and spew venom and his version is distinguished only by combining blindness and blandess in roughly equal measure. What about his boss?

Ah, yes, his boss. Even as I loathe his politics and policies, I’ve admired the man’s affable charm…which he sheds every time he thinks History Is Watching, trading it in for a degree of turgid pomposity matched by few other modern Presidents.

With a narrative marked by wondering aloud at how come those awful R’s won’t at least relax and pretend to enjoy it, it’s business as usual, as the President leads his party in whistling past the graveyard where their Senate supermajority lies. Remember, their side’s held a majority in Congress since 2006 — what have they done with it except spend and whine? Come to think of, that seems to be Congress’s job description.

>Starship Spotted

>It may be City of Toledo, or one of the similarly-sized “City”-class freighters. Hull shape is right.

>Hooray! Hatian Gov’t Gets $0.01 of Every $1.00 We Donate!

>So, if the other $0.99 is not goin’ to the parasites humbleservantsofthepeople, where is it goin’? Why, to direct disaster relief, to pay the folks doin’ the heavy liftin’ and to buy and haul food, just as it should.

Now, if we could just work the same magic on our own Gummint….