Been a while since I wrote anything. Where I live, we're all digging ourselves out of a (relatively) heavy snow fall. We got around a foot of snow over 2 nights, which is an awful lot for the region. We rarely see snow around here, but when we do it always seems to come down with a vengence. So after a 9 day vacation over Christmas, I came back to the office for a (non-consecutive) 2-day work week before another 4 days at home. Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I probably won't get paid for those 2 snow days (unless I take vacation days I can't spare, make the days up on Saturdays, or there's a miracle and my contracting company agrees to pay everyone). Snow's always a mixed blessing.

The West Wing has done it again! Am I referring to its Emmy wins? No, I'm talking about its one-sided portrayal of political issues. In a tactic going back to Galileo, the writers of The West Wing present only the barest, poorest arguments to their ideological beliefs in an attempt to convince watchers that their point of view is the only one that makes sense.

In the latest episode, the writers concoct an imaginary situation in which a legally concealed weapon used to stop a mass shooting at a church in Texas is instead directly responsible for the wounding (and later death) of a 9 year-old girl. Which follows, not surprisingly, are the typical left-wing arguments against concealed carry. Though the Vice President claims to support gun rights (being a Texan himself), not a single argument is presented in the show to back up his "belief". "Why do they have to be concealed?" the President asks. "I don't know," the Vice Prez answers. Maybe so that not only will weapon snatches be avoided, but also so that everyone can benefit, since criminals know that some people are armed, they just can't be sure who. Why "shall-issue" instead of "may-issue"? Maybe because giving that kind of arbitrary power in the hands of some anti-gun law enforcement officials ends up meaning that no one, no matter how deserving or needful, will get one. But I wouldn't expect reasoned and intelligent opposition to leftist opinions on this show about a Democratic administration penned by left-wing writers and producers.

I wrote a very long, very detailed editorial on people who blame America itself for the September 11 attacks, but because the terminal program PuTTY is such a piece of shit, I lost it. I'm not about to rewrite the whole damn thing, so here are the highlights:

Arab hatred for America is claimed to be based on aspects of our foreign policy, but it's all a smokescreen. The real reason is we are a scapegoat for the inability of the Arab world to rule itself as a whole (nevermind the rest of us) in peace. Rather than blame themselves, they'd rather blame us.

The American left who blames foreign policy for the attack is juvenilely simplistic and blind to reality. They also shouldn't be surprised when their ridiculous and despicable speech is met with outrage, hostility, and threats of violence, considering how patently offensive some people find it. The left has always been a champion of stifling the spread of ideas that people might find offensive. Guess the shoe's on the other foot now, fuckwads. The only people to blame for 3,000 civilian deaths are the people who committed the act, those who planned it, and those who supported it.

Permalink   Filed under: Politics, World

Okay, let's face it. FilePlanet sucks. It's slow, bloated, and unreliable. The day after they announce improvements, I go to download a file and find even fewer mirrors than yesterday. And yet everyone seems to rely on them to serve out files. I don't just mean mod authors, map makers, and the like. I'm talking about actual commercial developers. It's gotten ridiculous. FilePlanet cannot be relied on to provide every single file in existence. They can't do it, and it's about everyone realizes this.