From  A SONG OF PARSLEY, by Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle.

Ah, the inimitable and irreplaceable Dr. Boli!

If 10 shooters kill 6 people is it still a "Mass Shooting"?

 

It is only 29 hours since the 2:00AM shootings in Sacramento yielded six dead and another dozen wounded. 

Early reports said 50 to 70 rounds fired; another said 40 of those little evidence markers on the ground at the scene.

Little is known, and early reports are often spectacularly unreliable. But where there's blood, it's never too early for the Blood Dancing.

You know.  2:00AM on a weekend night. Crowd on the street. A little family friction becomes a spark. Democrat-controlled hell-hole. Rounds are fired (and sights not used, apparently). And . . . 

Next thing you know, the droolers-in-chief are saying the solution to urban violence is to take guns away from Bible-thumping, flag-waving Duck Dynasty fans. 

Gun Legislation: Science NOT Settled, Proposals NOT Common Sense

On 31 March 2022 Aaron Brown and Justin Monticello on REASON published an article on a 2020 Rand analysis of 27,900 gun control studies.

Bottom line: "From this vast body of work, the RAND authors found only 123 studies, or 0.4 percent, that tested the effects rigorously. Some of the other 27,777 studies may have been useful for non-empirical discussions, but many others were deeply flawed."

The Reason.com authors are not saying that it would be impossible that a study could scientifically conclude that gun control leads to positive results. But they do say that "... short of legitimate scientific evidence, belief in the efficacy of additional gun control laws is, and will remain, a matter of faith, not reason."

"We should not look to pass laws that sweep up innocent victims while potentially doing more harm than good, all with the alleged backing of science that can't possibly tell us what we need to know."

Yeah, I'm sure Democrats will really listen to that advice.

Oh, there's a video on the Reason.com article too (about a 16 minute trip). The video is kind of refreshing because statistician Aaron Brown seems like a really clear-speaking and interesting guy.

 

What did I read in 2021?

 So.

What did I read in 2021?

Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth / Stanley L. Jaki

The Wrong Box / Robert Louis Stevenson

Intuitive Eating / Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Kim / Rudyard Kipling

True Grit / Charles Portis

The Big Sleep / Raymond Chandler

Plain Tales from the Hills / Rudyard Kipling

The Fellowship of the Ring / J. R. R. Tolkien

The Two Towers / J. R. R. Tolkien

The Return of the King / J. R. R. Tolkien

Leap of Faith / Gordon Cooper (well the first half is okay…)

Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: Folklore of the Old Plantation / Joel Chandler Harris

New Stories of the Old Plantation / Joel Chandler Harris

Roughing It / Mark Twain

Out of the Silent Planet / C. S. Lewis

Perelandra / C. S. Lewis

That Hideous Strength / C. S. Lewis

The Jungle Book / Rudyard Kipling

The Second Jungle Book / Rudyard Kipling

The Aeroplane Boys in Flight; or, A Hydroplane Roundup / John Luther Langworthy

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows / J. K. Rowling

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám / Persian Quatrains translated by Edward FitzGerald

Our Mutual Friend / Charles Dickens

One Hundred Years of Solitude / Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One Cosmos Under God / Robert Godwin

The Last Mage Guardian (Book 1 of the Guardian’s Compact series) / Sabrina Chase

Dragonhunters (Book 2 of the Guardian’s Compact series) / Sabrina Chase

On the Death of Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh passed away on Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2021, a bit more than a year after making public the diagnosis of his late stage lung cancer. 

Soft tissue cancers, even in this 21st century, are too difficult to sense and diagnose early. By the time you're feeling a problem, the cancer has too often spread too far to treat. (Yeah, the cigars. I don't want to talk about it. Nobody "deserves" cancer.)

It is a mark of Rush's good cheer and courage that he opted to endure treatments so he could remain behind the golden Excellence In Broadcasting microphone as much as possible, for as long as possible, through the past year. With half his brain tied behind his back (just to make it fair), AND terminal cancer.

Rush Limbaugh came into my life during the Reagan administration, as a talk show host on KFBK radio out of Sacramento, California, in 1984. The mix of news, commentary, and humor captured my attention. The man was utterly unique at the time. Though many me-too show hosts have tried since then, with mixed success, I believe that to the end Rush was utterly unique. 

The time he convinced a caller that her phone contained a camera that allowed him to see through the handset. The jokes about Rio Linda. The fake commercials. Bump music -- Rush invented that! Biting satire. Insightful commentary. Wise advice to younger callers. 

In 1988 the show went to New York and national syndication. It was a big risk, and I was worried that that would be the end. So glad I was 100% wrong! Oh, those days! Oh to hear Rush, daring to do what nobody else seemed willing to do: the thorough fisking of Democrat Michael Dukakis when he was running against "Dubya's" dad! 

Rush got me through the Clinton years, through September 11, 2001, through the Obama years.  

Though not a daily listener, I will miss him.

Let me state: Rush Limbaugh was neither divisive nor polarizing. Quite the opposite. Before we had The Rush Limbaugh Show, millions of Americans were isolated and voiceless. Since the presidential administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson (and possibly longer than that), Americans that believed in America were being separated and divided and told to sit down and shut up, because fuck you, that's why. The Left are the divisive and polarizing ones; Rush Limbaugh was a voice for America in a way that brought millions together, and if nothing else showed us that it's okay to speak up and speak out for the Good, the True, the Beautiful -- to speak up and speak out for America. 

I will miss him. Many millions will.

Here's an idea: Let's impeach President Grant!

Toward the end of the 9th century, as you may recall, Pope Stephen VII had the corpse of Pope Formosus (who had been previously excommunicated by Pope John VIII) dug up and brought indoors.  Stephen VII then held some kind of kangaroo canon law procedure (sort of a popish impeachment) of this deceased predecessor for the crime —  apparently it was a crime? — of being (pretending to be?) bishop of two places at once. This historical fact is now known as the "cadaver synod." Even though it wasn't a synod at all, of course.  Ecclesial history of that period is all very confusing, and the Church was going through popes pretty fast in those days.   

It occurs to me that the foregoing is apropos of Congress planning to impeach President Trump — after he has left office.

Which brings us to POTUS 18. 

Ulysses S. Grant was elected President of the United States in 1868, by a narrow popular-vote margin but by an electoral college landslide.  

He was obviously not a nice man. Why, those early photographs make him look sort of grizzly and dirty.  For this reason and for some others which I will elaborate below, and for many others which haven't even been cooked up yet, the time has come to impeach President Grant!

• Grant's false assumed name makes his public office illegal. Born Hiram Ulysses Grant, he became "Ulysses S. Grant" through a clerical error that he never corrected. 
• General and Mrs. Grant had been invited by President and Mrs. Lincoln to attend the theater with them the evening of April 14, 1865, but the Grants found something else to do. Coincidence? I think not!
• During President Grant's term of office, he signed legislation creating the Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service). Since that time, the weather has not improved one bit! If anything, it only continues to get worse.
• Grant smoked cigars, a sure sign of moral and spiritual corruption.
• Grant drank whiskey, and not just first thing in the morning, as George Washington did. 
• Grant is said to have enjoyed vacations on the island of Santo Domingo.
• Grant was known to speak to people from Massachusetts.

If not now, then when? If not us, then who? C'mon, man! Cancel Grant!

Books I read in 2020

Ranger's Apprentice: Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan
Jinxers, by Sabrina Chase
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
The Sling and the Stone, by Thomas X. Hammes *, **
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor Cameron
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde **
And I Was There: Breaking the Secrets - Pearl Harbor and Midway, by Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton USN (Ret) *
Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
Dombey and Son, by Charles Dickens
A Diversity of Creatures, by Rudyard Kipling 
Over the Top: By An American Who Went, by Arthur Guy Empey 
Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy Sayers
Whose Body, by Dorothy Sayers
Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy Sayers
Unnatural Death, by Dorothy Sayers
Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers
Strong Poison, by Dorothy Sayers
The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy Sayers
Have His Carcase, by Dorothy Sayers
Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers
Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers
Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy Sayers
The Wallet of Kai Lung, by Ernest Bramah
Famous Stories Every Child Should Know, compiled by Hamilton Wright Mabie for The Parents' Institute, Inc., 1907
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Story of the Treasure Seekers, by Edith Nesbit
The Wouldbegoods, by Edith Nesbit
The New Treasure Seekers, by Edith Nesbit
House of Arden, by Edith Nesbit
Harding's Luck, by Edith Nesbit
The Railway Children, by Edith Nesbit
The Enchanted Castle, by Edith Nesbit
The Magic City, by Edith Nesbit
The Wonderful Garden, by Edith Nesbit
Wet Magic, by Edith Nesbit
Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit
The Phoenix and the Carpet, by Edith Nesbit
The Story of the Amulet, by Edith Nesbit
The Book of Dragons, by Edith Nesbit
The Magic World, by Edith Nesbit
Man and Maid, by Edith Nesbit
The Red House, by Edith Nesbit
Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth, by Stanley L. Jaki *

- - - -
* Nonfiction
** NOT Recommended!