Odd Bits - The Naked Breakfast Edition

Now that spring seems to have finally made an appearance, at least here in the mid-Atlantic region, let’s see what’s going on…

Same Shit, Different Venue

Now it looks like schools have stepped onto the back burner and now it is no longer safe to eat at the Waffle House. Early Sunday morning, yet another blank-eyed white guy wielding military firepower shot a bunch of people, this time at a Waffle House near Nashville, TN.

Dude looks like Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber.”

Why a guy from Illinois went to Tennessee for his rampage is, so far, unknown. I figure he didn’t want to get banned from his local eatery, because sometimes a guy really needs a waffle. Or maybe he was an assassin sent from IHOP.

The kicker is that he pulled off this hit job while basically naked. All he had on was a jacket… no shirt, pants or undies. (Perhaps he didn’t know how to fold them properly and they got lost.) He’s still at large,* or if it was chilly out, at “small,” due to the shrinkage.

*Shortly after this writing, word came out that the shooter has been apprehended. I kind of figured he’d be caught sometime today. It’s virtually impossible to disappear in this day and age, without serious preparation. You see the look on that guy’s face? Tell me he knows what to do to outwit the law for an extended period.

Four people were killed, with two more seriously injured. The casualty toll would have been higher, but for the unarmed African-American guy that wrestled the gun away from him, when he heard it jam or empty. Or maybe the shooter took an empty shell casing square to the beans. 

Hero dude burned his hands on the barrel pulling it away from the gunman, then tossed it behind the counter. See, this guy knew he couldn’t keep possession of the gun; if the police would have shown up while he had it, the death toll would have been one body higher.

So how did this psycho get his hands on a semi-automatic weapon? As it turns out, the system almost worked. Due to prior scrapes with law enforcement, his guns were confiscated.

I say “almost” worked because the weapons were turned over to the shooter’s father, who in turn gave them back to his son. Isn’t justice wonderful? If you ask me, “dad” should be held liable for these deaths. If that was my family who got shot, I sue the father for providing guns to his dumbass offspring, who had clearly had no business having them.

What has the NRA/Republicans said about all of this?

Yep, nada. I suppose they’re just going to wait for this one to blow over too. Notice how you don’t hear any calls to start arming kitchen workers. I figure that has more to do with the preponderance of African-Americans in Waffle House kitchens than a change in philosophy. The last thing the white, gun-toting NRA members want is for black guys to be as well armed as they are themselves.

November is going to tell us a lot about what the country thinks. The results of the House races will tell us if NRA support becomes a liability, if Russia still has its grubby tentacles entwined around the voting process, and if millennials can turn out in force to vote.

More Debunkery

Speaking of millennials, I saw this misleading meme on Facebook today:

This shows the logical fallacy of a small sample (of one) being used to distort a much larger pool of information.

See, you could replace the word “Socialism” here with anything. For example:

·        Millennials want to live in a land without heavy industry. / This is a land without heavy industry.

·        Millennials want to live in a land with a big wall. / This is a land with a big wall.

·        Millennials want to live in a land where the military has green uniforms. / This is a land with green uniforms.

This seems to be a picture from Myanmar or North Korea, or someplace like that. There are dozens of other socialist states where there are no such horrific scenes; in fact, most of them show up ranking high in polls measuring general happiness.

To me, this looks like something sponsored by the NRA, to reinforce their talking point about needing high-powered weaponry to deter the government from infringing on their freedom (to play with high-powered weaponry.) But it’s really just a scare tactic designed to influence gun owners without critical thinking skills. Boogeyman politics.

I also take issue with the opening statement. According to what poll do 44"% of Millennials want to live under Socialism? There is no attributed source, nor have I seen any such poll results in the headlines. I suspect, given the rest of the faulty logic in this meme, that there was a survey somewhere that asked opinions about Obamacare or a single-payer health care system. Stands to reason conservatives would label as "socialism" any system where the general public benefits from a program.

RIP

If you think I, as a liberal Democrat, have anything snarky to say about the passing of former first lady, Barbara Bush, just move along. I offer my meager condolences to the Bush family on the loss of their matriarch.

I think she was a stellar first lady and only wish she would have been more vocal in the areas in which she disagreed with her husband’s (or son’s) politics. But as she once said, “I don't fool around with his office, and he doesn't fool around with my household.”

President 45 didn’t attend Mrs. Bush’s funeral, but he sent Melania. I will not criticize that. This is in keeping with executive office tradition. Presidents don’t attend funerals for former first ladies.

Of course, you may recall when Republicans all over the map (and Fox “News”) jumped on President Obama for not attending Nancy Reagan’s funeral. Perhaps they learned something from the people (like me) who showed them how full of shit they were.

And it’s a good thing Trump didn’t show, otherwise we might have seen the first dead person rising in over 2000 years.

Thank you to my dad for sharing this on Facebook.

Department of Redundancy Department

Speaking of Facebook, I posted this over the weekend. This was the result of my trying to cancel a magazine subscription.

I followed the directions in the mailing I got, which directed me to either call in or use their website.

Because I don’t like calling anyone ever, I went to the website and pulled up the email tool. I included my account number right from the email.

They wrote back that they did not have my account number on file. I responded with a picture of the letter, showing that exact account number. Then that’s when they sent me the message pictured above.

You know, it’s a wonder we all aren’t out there shooting up Waffle Houses.

And the thing is, you’d figure they want you to call so they can try to talk you out of canceling. (Or in my case, killing the auto-renewal.) But no, when I called, they said they’d take care of it.

Granted, they could be only telling me that. Good thing my credit card expires this month and I’m getting a new card and number. Let them try to charge the old one all they want.

Goofy Shit

Lastly, let me just run a couple of things that cracked me up this week. Be careful though, because if there is a God and he’s a humorless God, we could all be going straight to hell.