Tag: cracked

Pro-forma: a world without guns is a world where pure physical strength wins.

There’s a reason why the quote is God made man: Sam Colt made him equal. And, of course, that goes double for women, the physically weak, and whatever minority group is on the outs with the rest of mainstream society this week. Still, this ‘How the World Would Look Without Guns‘ Cracked article is surprisingly not-tooth-grating.  It’s mostly just goofy. Continue reading Pro-forma: a world without guns is a world where pure physical strength wins.

Yeah, @Cracked photoplasty series are not always reliable reporting.

It’s not that I have anything against ridiculous examples of bureaucracy in action; it’s just that some of these aren’t actually ridiculous. Case in point:

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There’s a reason why they ask non-immigrants applying for visas if they’re involved in espionage, sabotage, terrorist activities, genocide, and/or are Nazis on the run. You see, people who do such things are quite often on the run from them, and/or covering their activities up.  When either situation comes to light unexpectedly it’s very helpful for the government to be able to have a piece of paper that proved that the suddenly-unwelcome visitor has clearly lied about his/her activities. The alternative would be to do extensive background checks on everybody who wants to enter the country on a visit: that either takes time, or giving the NSA about twenty times its current budget. I wonder how many people over at Cracked.com want either of those things to happen… Continue reading Yeah, @Cracked photoplasty series are not always reliable reporting.

I’m shocked at this Cracked.com article on guns.

To wit: 5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns. It… doesn’t suck. It is, in fact, a reasonably fair look at the situation that readily admits – in fact, highlights – that gun crime is down and has been down for some time.  I’m not even upset about the “bunch of grown men collecting firearms like little girls collect Barbie dolls” bit because, well, it’s true: in my experience, many of them do*.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, some useful stuff in there.  I should also note, more seriously, that one thing that should be addressed far more often in the gun control debate is the problem of handgun suicide.  It often gets ignored, largely because one side can’t use it as a scourge with which to flog the other one and the other side doesn’t want to give the one side free ammo.  But we really should do something about that… and as soon as I figure out something, I’ll let you know.

Moe Lane

*Sayeth the grown man who spent cash money to give all his dolls action figures Mass Effect 2 squad members new outfits that had no effect on the game whatsoever but did make them look pretty, oh so pretty and nice.

OK, I need to stop reading sad paeans to the death of the Netroots…

…giggling is unseemly.  Particularly at the remarkably self-congratulatory aspects of some of the melancholy: Lord love those folks, but if they were as consequential as they thought then they wouldn’t be obscure.

Moving along, as a palate cleanser there’s this:

Continue reading OK, I need to stop reading sad paeans to the death of the Netroots…

QotD, I Can’t Eexactly Argue This Edition.

Cracked.com, as part of one of its list posts.

In DuckTales, every single episode is basically about Scrooge and the nephews hunting for treasure or protecting Scrooge’s money or diving into giant swimming pools of coins (something that almost certainly would have happened in [Atlas] Shrugged had it not been cut to make room for 25,000 words about the tensile strength of railroad tracks).

Ayn Rand really, really needed an editor. Continue reading QotD, I Can’t Eexactly Argue This Edition.

#rsrh Interesting Cracked messaging article (NSFW).

No, really.  It’s more or less about why a particular humorless pro-Obama site isn’t going to work:

I may be only a simple Internet writer, but I know how not to argue online. It’s like trying to prove to a troll why your stuff is funny. People laugh or they don’t. They might not laugh because the words you use are too big, or because they don’t understand the concept of satire or, possibly, because they’re intimidated by the obvious girth of your manhood which even your comedic eloquence cannot hide. But the point is, if someone’s not laughing, you can’t convince them you’re funny. And stay at home moms forced back into the workplace, or office professionals working at 50 percent their prior salary or soldiers still waiting to come home don’t care about What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far.Com’s list of accomplishments. If you’re not giving them a voter erection (or “voterection” tm) you can’t explain one into their pants.

He’s got a point about not arguing online, at least.  I personally don’t bother, myself: I’m here to point out inconvenient realities about and to the Left, not to waste my time trying to convert them.  It’s rarely c0st-effective, anyway.