With a bang and a whimper

We can put a man on the moon, but just you try getting four of 'em out of a bird sanctuary.
We can put a man on the moon, but just you try getting four of ’em out of a bird sanctuary.

Sounds like the Redneck Revolution is on its last legs … well, outside Burns, Oregon, anyway.

The fuzz capped LaVoy Finicum, who appears to have charged them, first in a vehicle, and then on foot. Didn’t even get to draw down on them with his bad nine, yo. And the occupying army is down to four. Like the Black Knight, they’ll be happy to call it a draw. Um, no. Not until you do the Silly Walk.

I think these guys watched too many John Wayne movies and didn’t read nearly enough books. Their only point was to be found above the eyebrows and under the Stetson. Definitely time to fire the PR guy.

Whoops. Too late.

 

Peeling Apple for the CIA

Unhappy Mac

Oopsie. I guess this means the Geniuses at the local Apple Store will be taking turns pouring Coca-Cola, honey and kiddie porn into my iMac this morning.

[The Intercept] said it based its story on “top-secret” documents received directly from whistleblower Edward Snowden. It alleges Sandia researchers tried to find security flaws in Apple devices to open “backdoors” for surveillance of any device.

Thanks a lot, fellas. Now instead of a daily crash or three I’m gonna have to listen to this. And Dave’s not even here, man.

• Editor’s note: Hat tip to Steve O’ for flagging this first, in comments.

• Today’s Gratuitous Apple Joke: Early adopters, take note. If you like the Apple Watch, you’re going to love the Apple CockRing. It grabs you by the nuts and squeezes until you sign over your 401(k) & IRA to Cupertino.

Laws a mercy!

The renowned political analyst Mister Boo tries to sniff out the sense of it all.
The renowned political analyst Mister Boo tries to sniff out the sense of it all.

I don’t envy the folks who have to make sense of today’s politics for the rest of us.

Maybe I’m just suffering a bit of tummy upset after having sipped from this poisoned well for way too many years, but I’m really getting sick of watching our “leaders” flail and squeal like over-sugared kindergartners who aren’t getting their way right this second.

When was the last time you saw a speaker of the House invite a foreign official to call the president a deluded pussy, for his own political purposes, before that august deliberative body?

When will the Clintonsand the Bushes — learn they’re not royalty, or even poor imitations of the Kennedys, and they don’t get to hide the family skeletons in an ermine closet in the Black Tower?

When will faux-populist, cash-hoovering whores like America Rising and Correct the Record be fed into shredders, or better yet, to the IRS, instead of being treated as authoritative sources and quoted in The New York Times? Incidentally, I notice that The Times’ love for false equivalency does not extend to mentioning that the Bush administration hid its emails too. Though they did get around to mentioning Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.

When should intent trump ambiguity? Stop preening for the cameras, bozos, and give the bill another critical read before passing it. And don’t I wish the Second Amendment had enjoyed the tender attentions of a copy editor. We would have fewer, poorer lawyers.

It’s gonna be a long haul to 2016, folks. And you already know what the roads are like. So buckle up.

Hump Month

nob-hill-sm
If I were to find work in this neighborhood, would I be justified in calling it a Nob job? No, don’t answer that.

I know, I know, the term is “Hump Day.” But it’s gonna be Hump Month around here, and maybe even Hump Quarter, because Herself has gone and landed a new job — in Albuquerque.

Ay, Chihuahua.

It will be a homecoming of sorts. We met and married in Santa Fe, but left New Mexico for Bibleburg in 1991 to take care of my mom, who was developing Alzheimer’s and had begun acting nearly as outlandishly as me. We’ve lived in Colorado ever since, either here (twice) or in Weirdcliffe (once).

We’ve been in residence at the ultra-chic Chez Dog in the upscale Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood for going on 12 years now — 12 years! — and I figured we were all done moving, that my years of rocketing pointlessly around North America like a turpentined ferret had finally come to an end.

I’ve lived in two countries, 11 states and 18 towns that I can remember, and in several of those towns more than once. Hell, I’ve lived in five different houses right here in Bibleburg. And the appalling state of three of them is none of my doing, no matter what you may hear from the few neighbors who survived.

Well, looks like we can toss No. 19 up there on the Big Board. Some people around here insist on having actual jobs, my shining example to the contrary notwithstanding, and next month Herself starts work as a technical librarian in electronic resources and document services at Sandia National Laboratories.

And me? Well, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise — which it appears to be doing as we speak — I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing since 1989, to wit, annoying the readers, staff, advertisers and ownership of various bicycle publications. My primary residence will always be a Mad Dog state of mind.