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Matrices, matrices, matrices
6.30.16

Here are some graphics representing stuff I'm always flapping my gums about. They are a work in progress, and forever will be, and are greatly simplified compared to reality. But I hope they provide some kind of framework for understanding what I'm always going on about.

---

Mentally vs. Morally Defective

This is the mentally vs. morally defective deal I'm always going on about. It's the Concept Formerly Known as Evil vs. Stupid. For our purposes we can ignore the top two quadrants of the matrix. They talk about when you do things right. When that happens you're either lucky (actions didn't merit it) or good (competent or moral). Since I'm a negative person we'll focus on the bottom half of the matrix.

Actually that's the one that's the most relevant, since when it comes time for a politician to spin something, that person has already found himself in the bottom half of the matrix.

That's where a politician gets caught doing something wrong. They always claim incompetent, because if they did it on purpose they would be evil. That's usually the case, but they won't ever admit it.

One case in history didn't quite fit that. Ronald Reagan claimed the lower right hand quadrant in the Iran-Contra deal, when his involvement fell into the lower left hand quadrant. He just wanted to appear more engaged than he was. He was a visionary leader and he had underlings that executed for him. That's the way leadership works. But he claimed responsibility because 1) he wasn't a pendejo who throws people under the bus, and 2) he understood that he was viewed as too hands off.

An aspect that isn't explicitly noted on the matrix is the idea that with knowledge comes responsibility. That's why when people find themselves in the bottom of the matrix they scurry to the left side—the side that doesn't have knowledge. When they acknowledge knowing they have to do something about it.

Anyway . . . I actually wondered if I hadn't saved the latest version of this matrix. It's really really simple.

Oh, well.

---

Spin matrix

This is the deal I was just talking about where Hillary Clinton is reported to be crooked and untrustworthy.

The top and bottom rows are basically the same as the Mentally vs. Morally Defective matrix: Good and Bad.

Across the top is what's being reported. If they are good and reported as good, that's accurate reporting. Now we're going to move diagonally down. If they are reported as bad as they are bad, that is still accurate reporting. I call that diagonal the "line of integrity."

Orthogonal to that line (Engineer for perpendicular—engineers also say "normal") is the Line of Bias. That is reporting that's not faithful to reality. If the politician is behaving badly and reported as good, that's biased reporting, or sympathetic media allies. In the case of Hillary that's the left wing media like MSNBC and such. Like if you do a search for the speech I was talking about before (later in the upside-down chronological geography of this blog) where Hillary said she had "work to do" on how people see her trustworthiness because her enemies have lied. Search "Hillary work to do careful with words" and your top hits (Google falls in the lower left-hand corner of the matrix) are sites like Mother Jones and the Guardian protesting that Hillary is "Fundamentally Honest and Trustworthy." Seriously.

Moving diagonally up we get into the smear zone, where a person behaving well is reported to be behaving badly. In this zone the one reporting is a liar and the one they are reporting on is the victim.

So if you are Hillary and find yourself in the lower right hand quadrant, you have to spin things. You have to tell people that the reporting is inaccurate and you should be in the upper half of the matrix.

I'm not thrilled with how this graphic turned out either—the terms lack parallelism, but it's my first stab at it. And I'm going to forget all about it and not massage it into something useful, which is good 'cause I won't waste any more time on it, but bad because I already wasted time on something completely useless.

---

Persuasion Matrix

This is the deal where you look beyond the obvious. Again good is the top row and bad is the bottom row, but this time they are labelled Right (Truth) and Wrong (Error).

Concepts that are true can be obvious, but they can also be counterintuitive. There isn't a label in the truths that are obvious because, duh, they are obvious. But you have paradoxes that seem like they are wrong, but they really are true. I call this quadrant Moneyball, just 'cause I can't think of a better name (like paradoxes or something). This references Michael Lewis's excellent book that stands conventional wisdom on its head. You shouldn't try to steal bases, you don't want a heavy home run hitter. Just read the book. This is where you use Phaedrus's knife (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) to cut the observed facts in a different angle and see what you get. This is where some really smart people analyze things and see things no one else does. Then they invest in unconventional ways or create companies or win ball games or such.

Diagonal to the Moneyball quadrant is conventional wisdom that's wrong. It just seems obvious so you believe it, but it can take you in the wrong place.

Of the most interest is the Sophistry quadrant. Notice how the liberals always fall in the lower right-hand quadrant? These are people who think "Oh, that paradox deal is cool. Therefore, if something seems logical the opposite is true." Not all of them believe that. Some of them know what they're selling is wrong but push it anyway (see Evil vs. Stupid).

This is an interesting place because it's where the persuasion comes in. I guess persuasion comes in on both of the right-hand quadrants, but in the lower one you are convincing someone of something that is not true. That's a pretty good trick. You have to make up evidence or twist facts or use confusing sounding words or use tricks and techniques like irrelevant logic and . . . it's the most fun and interesting quadrant here. And it's where a lot of liberals live.

Socialism is on the bottom row of this matrix. It's bad, it doesn't work, it results in poverty and misery and war and disease and instability and voting for democrats. But people buy into it—or they sell it. You could stand the Evil vs. Stupid matrix up normal (90°) to this and form two sides of a box. If you buy into socialism because you are sincere and think it makes lives better, you are stupid. If you are smart enough to truly understand socialism and still try to sell it to stupid people, you are evil. That's where gullibility comes into play. The more sincere of a socialist you are, the more stupid you are.

Anyway . . . this graphic sucks, too. But if these were any good you'd think you stumbled into the wrong blog (he says to his imaginary reader).

And 11.22.16 I added this to the list, since I happened to come across it. You know what they say--one good matrix deserves another.

Since you sat through all of that, here's your treat.

You remember that guy I used to work with. Whenever he'd say something he deemed particularly clever, he'd do us the favor of repeating it, just so we could savor his cleverosity. "Dude, I'm all: What did you brush your hair with, an egg beater?"

So whenever someone repeats something they said that they thought was clever, I call it a dudemol. Typically it's something they've posted, for example "Like I tweeted out last night . . . "

(I may never get used to hearing public officials talking about things they've "tweeted.")

So . . . I'm going to commit a dudemol. It's like I posted on Facebook this morning . . .

A "study" is often just an opinion stated in a way designed to enhance its authority.

Judges would also accept: "Studies have shown" is another way of saying "I think . . . "

I guess I didn't have to tell you it was a dudemol, seein's how on accountz cuz you (dear imaginary reader) don't see my Facebook posts. I could've just said it here and you (my very favorite imaginary reader) would have thought I shared it just with you.

But alas, I have already typed the pre-ramble and it cannot be undone . . .

So I thought it was interesting that after I made that observation I read this piece on Townhall.com talking about how unreliable "fact checking" is on Politifact.

You don't need me to tell you this. Journalism died long ago. You have to dismiss most of what you hear or read.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about the difference between a puzzle and a mystery. A mystery can be solved if you just have enough information. A puzzle can have an excess of information that doesn't contribute to the solution. He said it much better than I did.

My point is that the more information we get, the dumber we seem to get. You still see people posting (in ALL CAPS) notices that Facebook is going to start charging if you don't copy and paste this post, or copyright notices, or all kinds of crap.

At the same time this new media age offers an opportunity for a different kind of thinking. Maybe not better, because it requires us to become very cynical, but it is a new way of thinking. Everyone has develop their own detector for Internet BS. We learn to hang up on wastes of skin who call saying "This is Barbara in the service center calling about your copier you have there." Or playing with the scum bait should be shot through the head piece of trash who calls saying "This is the Windows service center calling about a problem on your computer." (I put it on speaker phone for the family, but he hung up before I could really have fun with the miserable sack of pus.)

And no one (except me, obviously) is immune to getting fooled every once in a while. The truth has become so ridiculous that you can't make up a hoax that is wilder than reality.

Anyway . . . point is . . . don't freaking believe freaking anything. That's the world we live in.

Snopes used to be my go-to place whenever I heard something that sounded a little fishy. So when I wondered "Did Barack Obama really say that his father (who was 9 years old in 1945) fought in World War II?" I looked it up on Snopes.

Barack Obama did say his father "came home from" WWII, which was absolutely not true. But I didn't get that from Snopes.

What I got from Snopes was "Oh, no, that's just crazy racist right wing lunatics trying to bash the Greatest President in the History of Ever! True thinkers and intellectuals and people with a soul understand that the 'complex family structure' of Barack Obama includes many fathers."

All I wanted to know was, did he really say that?

They re-phrased the question to "Did Barack Obama lie when he said his father fought in WWII?"

Answer: Yes, he did.
Snopes: That depends on your definition of the word "father."

Last time I ever went to Snopes. Ever.

Wow.

Hillary was yapping about how people don't trust her. She said she's given it a lot of thought and she now knows why.

I found stories about this, but, continuing with the theme of not believing anything, I don't want to link to ABC News or CNN or any of those. You can find it yourself, but I heard the audio uncut. That gives you the best flavor of what an evil pantsuit full of pus she is.

Here is a piece about it, but it doesn't give you the full flavor. CNN wrote about it, but again, they put their own little slant on it and intermingle their commentary with the words she said.

Like I'm about to do . . .

Hillary said she has "work to do" to convince the people she's trustworthy. She's given a lot of thought to why that might be, and she's figured it all out! It's because of the all the lies the whacked out extremists on the right have been telling about her, because she's the greatest thing ever and that's a threat to the awful people who oppose her vision of a beautiful world.

It's forced her to "choose her words carefully," not because she has anything to hide, but because . . . something. I don't have time to read that crap (I have to type in my highly important blah-blah-blog)

Anyway. Hillary is the bride of Satan. Oh, actually quite literally . . .

Which brings us to something I was thinking about this morning.

This came to me with a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance kind of texture. Like I get on the motorcycle in the morning and start riding, then introduce the continuation of the Chautauqua. "Today I wanted to explore deeper into the idea that . . . "

Abuse often comes down to blame.

I could sound more sophisticated if I used Chautauqua instead of "flapping my gums," but you remember (dear imaginary reader) the "this is not that" deal where two things that look the same could be different, depending on who is on the side of right.

I talked about the way we do law enforcement in this country. In Mexico if you get stopped by a cop in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night you'd better hope you have enough to bribe him or you can overpower him before he kills you. In the United States it's (hypothetically) not a citizen vs. a cop in a uniform. It's The Law and which person is on the right side of it. If you are on the wrong side you can't possibly overpower the supreme force of The Law. If the cop is not justified, his badge and uniform and gun is not enough to counter that same supreme power.

(The other cool thing about framing these posts as a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Chautauqua is they can be a whole chapter long)

It all comes down to who is justified. But really and truly justified. The abuser will always be justified in his mind.

In the example of the car dealer I would have felt justified using extreme measures to get my vehicle and license back and my sick daughter home. The Law might not have seen that as justified. But that same breaking of a window or assaulting a salesperson would have put me on the right side if the salesperson had held a gun to my family's head. Dumb example, but I'm trying to illustrate the point of the same action being good or bad depending on whether it was warranted.

I say that the most apt metaphor for dealing with democrats is an abusive relationship. The thesis statement of this post is the thought that came to me: Abuse leaves a trail of blame shifting.

The government gets 'shut down.' All of a sudden all of the energy and effort is directed at making sure the other side gets blamed for that. That's why it's abusive. Republicans wanted this. It was at odds with that, which the democrats wanted. No deal was made.

Then the democrats start screaming that the Republicans kept the deal from happening.

Same thing as the abusive husband who refuses to change. The wife gives him one chance after another to save the marriage. Finally she has to leave.

Now everything that is difficult with a broken family is her fault. She, after all, was the person who left!

Abuse.

Slim's mother-in-law in Enough. "What did you do?" (that forced him to hit you in the face.)

The guy who has valid reason to suspects his wife of running around, vs. the controlling abuser stalking his wife when she's going out to lunch with her girlfriends (usually because he is untrustworthy himself). One action justified, one not. But in the case of the one that's not, the abuser will shift the blame. (With any luck that note will make more sense when I come back to expound on it in the next Chautauqua.)

So Hillary Clinton is a crook and a liar and is untrustworthy. But when people say she's a crook and a liar and untrustworthy she says it's not her fault (for being a crook and a liar and untrustworthy). It's those nasty Republicans!

(Rule of thumb. If you want to make Republicans look bad, lie about what they say and do. If you want to make democrats look bad, accurately tell what they say and do.)

I always remember the lady on the radio wringing her hands "It makes me so upset when people talk about how conniving the democrats are." Really? Does it make you as upset as it makes me that the democrats are so conniving?

This is the deal I'm always flapping my . . . uh, presenting a Chautauqua about. You don't want to change your behavior, but you don't want people to see you as the kind of person who behaves that way.

Bringing it back to marital relationships—Imagine an abusive husband who encounters a friend of his wife's in a store. The friend turns away from him disgusted. He goes home and rails on his wife. "What have you been telling her?!" It's gotta be her fault that people know he's a pile of camel puke.

What?! I didn't tell her anything! Anyone can see you're a schmuck. If you don't want people to know you're a schmuck, you might consider not being a schmuck.

Since this is a full on Chautauqua I'll plow ahead with another episode with barely tangential relevance. I was in Walmart yesterday and some dipschlack was berating his wife for not making a shopping list. Jack Reacher would have clotheslined the guy, held his head in the freezer where the burger patties are, and said "Here's your list. Item number 1: don't be a dick. Item 2 . . . nope. There's just one item. I don't think you can remember more than that."

That works in Jack Reacher novels. In real life the abusive husband gets home and takes his humiliation out on his wife. It's somehow her fault that he got his just desserts for being a walking pile of floor sweepings and probably a closet Lakers fan.

Robert M. Pirsig made more sense, but at least I have it written down to come back and build on.

A key characteristic you'll always see in the abuser in a relationship is maneuvering the other party into being the one to blame, no matter what the abuser's actions are.

Came across these old notes. You know the rules--I have to post them.

Read this piece by Scott Adams where he says he's endorsing Hillary for his personal safety. He's a public figure and he sees Hillary supporters as psycho enough to endanger his safety if he endorses Trump.

It's like why liberals bash Christians instead of muslims. They know that Christians aren't going to cut their throat over it.

In addition to being funny, Scott Adams is a smart guy. Just read the article already.

Then there are all these toons.

Finally . . .

Just needed a place to store these pictures of Hillary being asked about her e-mail server.

Really, America? Is this who you want representing us?

I know, Trump sucks, too.

Hillary is going to be the next President, btw. Trump is so bad, that's going to happen. He's not worse than Hillary. No one is worse than Hillary. Cannot be done.

But because Trump is so bad the Libertarian candidate will siphon off enough votes to guarantee that.

I finally got curious and asked Siri why Hillary Clinton was barking like a dog.

I watched the video. She was yapping (see what I did there?) about some dog that was trained to bark about something. She said something like "Wouldn't it be nice if we could train a dog to bark when Republicans lie?"

Then she barked. Like she does when Wall Street makes her beg for a bone.

But we already have a lie detector for her: Whenever Hillary Clinton lies we hear fingernails on a chalkboard.

See . . . 'cause Hillary's voice sounds like . . . (Dismissive Jay Leno punchline wave)

Anyway . . . the idea of Hillary calling anybody a liar. Wow. Just . . . wow. That's like . . . well, it's like Hillary calling anyone a liar.

I'm going to create a separate page I can reference for this riddle.

Three men went to a motel. The motel manager said a room cost $30, so each man put up $10 and went to their room.

A little while later the manager realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellhop back to the three guys' room with $5. On the way to the room the bellhop couldn't figure out how to split the $5 between the 3 men, so he gave each one of them $1 and he kept the other $2.

This meant that the 3 men paid $9 each for the room for a total of $27. Add the $2 that the bellhop kept = $29.

Where did the other dollar go?

Other pages I found that talk about this are:

Here
Here
Here
Here

I love this riddle 'cause the invalid premise just blows right past you and you get stuck trying to figure out math that relates to nothing. It's a classic liberal trick. You just accept it and then get into the wrong argument.

Since we're talking about Hillary, one of the most recent examples of trying to slip a false premise on us was when she was screeching that she was going to force all businesses to have profit-sharing for their employees. This isn't a good example, because it's so blatantly, obviously wrong. But the formula is: What? Don't you think people should make money for their efforts?

Yeah . . but . . . but . . .

Again, so obvious, it doesn't really make my point, which is that the false premise just blows past you. But I had to include it to illustrate what an idiot Hillary Clinton is.

Even if it's a good, wonderful, laudable thing--even if it is an essential thing--it is not the role of the federal government, especially not the President, to tell a business how to run its business. Article I Section 8. Enumerated Powers. That's your job. That's it. Federal doesn't mean boss. It's a section of government which has a role different from the States.

Just stupid.

So, do words matter, or not?

THEN. Candidate Obama:

"Don't tell me words don't matter! 'I have a dream.' Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Just words, just speeches."

Senator Barack Obama, Remarks To The Democratic Party Of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, 2/16/08)

In 2008 This gave liberals chills. They literally said that. They pointed out how brilliant it made the man sound who they were going to vote for no matter what he said or did.

Others were a little more objective about it.

NOW. President Obama thinks words don't matter:

"There has not been a moment in my 7.5 years as president where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn't use the label 'radical Islam,'" Obama steamed. "Not once has an adviser of mine said, 'Man, if we use that phrase, we are going to turn this whole thing around.' Not once."

Maybe identifying the enemy wouldn't help, but whatever it is he's doing certainly isn't helping either. An oyster on the half shell stoned on Benadryl could not do a worse job dealing with this than that useless son of a Lakers fan has done.

"What exactly would using this label accomplish?" Obama asked angrily. "What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to try to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction."

If you just fell off the turnip truck you might think his little rant made sense. "Yeah! It's just words! It doesn't matter!"

But if you've been watching that infantile egomaniac operate over the last few years it just pisses you off. "Political distraction" is exactly the right term for every single thing that little pissant does.

Go here for some other times Obama said words don't matter.

That headline is a transparent attempt to increase my readership, from the current two readers to three, by recruiting someone from Obama's Secret He-Hurt-my-Widdell-Feelings Police.

But the man is a fool.

You remember my last post (dear imaginary reader), where I questioned the logic of my side. They pointed out that the POS terrorist in Orlando purchased his guns legally, as in-your-face evidence that current gun laws are adequate.

What?

That's a variation on the Fallacy Fallacy. What they were defending was true even if the bullcrap evidence they used supported the opposite.

Okay. Speaking of complete bullcrap, Barack Obama is a fool. In a speech yesterday he said something like "The notion that other people in the night club being similarly armed would have stopped the gunman just defies common sense."

See, that's what we call "irony." When you blast someone else's logic with something that is completely illogical.

It's always been this way and will always be this way. Asymmetric power doesn't result from someone having a gun. It results from someone having a gun when no one else does.

Barack Obama is a fool.

Okay. here's the deal. the last post was just to say Barack Obama is a fool (did I mention that Barack obama is a fool?). This is the dead horse portion of the blog where I continue to blab on about a point I made.

First licks on the dead horse: If this were a real blog I wouldn't say Barack Obama is a fool. But I'm childish and I like low-hanging fruit. The guy is so ridiculously easy to poke fun at because he's a putz.

Real blogs don't call Presidents putzes . . .

So . . .

A real blog might have phrased it more like so:

The President remarked that the notion that armed people are more capable of defending themselves against armed people "defies common sense." It puzzles me how a man without the intelligence to understand that could rise to the level that he has.

What he said defies common sense, so I'm maneuvered into the bizarre position of examining all possibilities, no matter how silly they seem. To align what I heard him say with reality I have to wonder if the audio of the speech that I heard was doctored somehow.

Next . . . more in-depth dead horse beating about logic that Obama doesn't have the ability to understand.

I'm not saying that putting guns in the hands of a bunch of gay people who are drinking is a good idea. But the reason the terrorist waste of skin was in that night club instead of a biker bar (other than the fact that muslims--even gay muslims--hate gays) is because no one in there had guns.

Two points . . . or three, or however many I come up with in this James Joycian narrative.

Asymmetric force. Use this as a concept, not a rule. The reason a hijacker can take over a plane isn't because he has a gun. It's because he has a gun and no one else does.

I've toungue-in-cheek suggested that everyone who gets on board a plane be issued a gun. Obviously that's ludicrous, but the point is absolutely valid. In that scenario no one is going to stand up and say "I have a gun; I'm in control!"

Actually everyone doesn't need a gun. Just a few people need a gun, and the bad guy needs to know that there's a good possibility someone else will have a gun.

Same deal in the night club. I don't expect President Obama to be intelligent enough to grasp this. But yes, it is harder to shoot people when they're shooting back.

It's a principle we use all the time. Control by reasonable possibility. We can't put a cop in every mile of highway, but there's enough possibility there might be a cop that you think twice before speeding.

Then, last point . . . unless I swerve off into another on while I'm typing.

What he means is that no one should have a gun. Not the patrons and not the bad guy.

When I say "What he means" I'm obviously guessing, because what he says makes no sense. I have to fill in the logical gaps in what he said-- completely aware all the while that it's all throwaway and I'm ascribing philosophy to something he just threw together. It was something he was required to write when he'd rather be golfing. Just like that English paper on Samuel Beckett you had to do. Just turn something in, doesn't have to make sense. Just so you don't get an F. You'd rather be out dirt biking with your friends.

ADD Moment
The most pissed off man in America last Sunday morning was Barack Obama. He had to break away from watching Sports Central to deliver a gun control speech he'd written six months earlier. Geez, why can't these shootings happen on a week night?

But speaking of things that make no sense . .

The bad guy had a gun. The bad guy will always have a gun. Even if you take away guns.

That's reality.

They don't have guns in England. The cops don't even have guns. But a politician just got shot there.

Oh. So I guess even though they "don't have guns" there they "have guns" there.

If Obama can't understand that people who are shooting back are harder to shoot, his head will explode on this one. When you take away all the guns, bad guys still have guns.

But . . . but . . . but we took away all the guns! Pfft. I'm gonna go golfing.

Guns are here. You can't change that. Like I've said, it's like having a clueless moron formulating policy that affects the safety of your family. You can hate it all you want, but you can't change it.

Guns. Are. Here.

So, since bad guys have guns, I say it defies common sense to make sure good guys don't have them.

I get it. Reality is more complicated.

HL Mencken observed that "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

But you have to have a basis in solid principles if you have any hope of effectively dealing with reality. And you can't confront reality with principles that are 180° bass-ackwards wrong.

Garrison Keillor wrote this story about how awful Donald Trump is. I actually agree with a lot of what he says, which you know if you've read anything I've written here.

(Ha ha ha ha weeeee! Oh, geez, I slay me. *Wiping tears. Dude, I'm all "If you've read anything I've written.")

I obviously don't agree with his idea that Hillary is going to be anything but fatal for America. Not that Trump won't be--but, seriously. Hillary? No. Just . . . no. Trump is a disaster, I can tell you that right now, a disaster, believe me. But America cannot survive a Hillary Clinton Supreme Court.

But Keillor said one thing that was completely false.

He said that anyone else would have expressed sorrow. Maybe he should have said "almost anyone" or "anyone with any vestige of class."

Because his boyfriend Barack Obama did exactly what he ostensibly was so infuriated at Trump for doing. Literally before the bodies were even removed from the scene of the crime, Obama used the tragedy as political leverage for his agenda. Anybody who heard Obama's very first public remarks on the topic could be forgiven for thinking that he viewed the event as an opportunity as much as a tragedy.

Immediately! He went there immediately.

When I first learned the President was going to make remarks, two hours before he did, I said I could write the President's speech. He would say that Islam is a religion of peace. Then he would say this is not a time for partisan rhetoric--it is a time to ban guns.

I was half-joking. I knew he would get to it. But I really actually thought he would have the class to respect the dead for a moment before he used them as a political tool.

Immediately. He went there immediately.

I had predicted it and I still could not believe it. Could. Not. Freaking believe it.

David Limbaugh echoed some of my thoughts about how tacky it was for Obama to disrespect the dead by using them for a political tool.

So . . . read that. I'm too lazy to put a new headline.

In the same speech where he was pontificating that common sense defies common sense Obama told us that "This debate needs to change."

Uh . . . if you get to dictate what we say, it isn't really a debate, is it?

Vintage Obama. The last thing he wants is a debate. It drives him crazy that people get to have an opinion he hasn't reviewed and approved.

I've told you, we've seen Barack Obama exactly once. the first debate with Romney. All the other times we've seen the character he plays on TV.

On that one single occasion someone was allowed to talk to him and he was supposed to respond. And it was a complete disaster for him. Look it up. Obama can only survive when he gets to script the conversation.

Since I'm not going to make a new headline, and since this is about emotion over facts, let's continue with some more disgusting tactics Obama is using in the wake of this horrific event.

He says we need to meet the families of the victims and defend our logic to them. Look it up; I can't stand to read it again.

Really? I need to meet the family and explain how defending yourself makes sense?!

Really?!

You walk in with your heavily armed body guards and tell the families that it's a good thing their dead children didn't have guns?!

The man disgusts me.

What a putz.

Garrison Keillor, who I like a lot more than Trump (even though he has openly stated his disdain for me because of the letter on my voter registration card), is waxing poetic about the flames while spraying kerosene.

I've explained before how the Obama presidency created the Trump candidacy. Explaining that is either unnecessary or inadequate, depending on what notion is already cemented in your head.

Obama said that he couldn't understand how he could be responsible for that. Again, I understand that he's not intelligent enough to understand that. He wasn't bright enough to see . . . take your pick . . . how overthrowing Khadafi would lead to instability in Libya, how undoing military gains could hurt, how penalizing businesses would cause them to move, how painting cops as the enemy would result in them being attacked . . . The man is just not smart enough to figure out much, is he?

But it's the case. Whether he understands the orbit of the moon or not doesn't change the physics of the orbit of the moon.

The whole reason a waste of skin like Donald Trump is this close to the Presidency is because of the disingenuousness of people on the left, like Garrison Keillor, as a recent example. These people completely ignore fantastic lapses of class and maturity on the part of politicians on their side. Any otherwise credible claims they have about the childishness of Trump are rendered risible by their selective blindness.

You can't get less classy than using a condolence speech as political leverage while the victims are still on the floor of the crime scene. It's not dancing on graves--the bodies weren't even cold yet, much less in graves. But that's exactly what Obama did.

But we're expected to completely ignore that, for reasons Keillor didn't get around to mentioning. We've been trained to suck it up and the politicians on our side meekly submit like beta males. We're standing here watching in disbelief while democrats who "defy common sense" have their way with people we've elected.

Trump has dared to break the rules and speak his mind without consulting the Little Red Book or getting approval from Dear Leader.

This is the bizarre world we live in. I find myself defending the likes of Donald J. Trump. Wow. But as Mark Davis says: It is a time for choosing.

(I love how I say that an explanation is unnecessary or inadequate, then plow right ahead with a big ol' long ol' boring explanation . . . )

I had this all worked out in my head and it was brilliant. Fantastic, by the way, believe me, I can tell you that right now.

But then . . .

Yeah, my brain.

So I'll do the best I can, but just know, it won't be as great as it was in my brain. (I guess you can say that about most anything)

When you grew up you learned that is was childish to say "But . . . he started it!" So you had that tendency weaned out of you.

But then you discovered demorats.

How do they get away with what they do? Really, how do they do it? They instigate like crazy but we're not allowed to respond.

We need to learn the proper way say "He started it!" again. Without appearing childish we need to make sure we get the word out about what really is happening.

It's a technique; it's not going to be easy. But we have to do it.

Best example: When Bill Clinton shut down the government and blamed us for it. Brilliant. But not unstoppable. Except we didn't. We could not figure out the way to tell the American people that it was all a lie and don't believe it.

Well . . . they couldn't. I was screaming it for months. Screaming it. For months. Haley Barbour figured it out two days before the election.

That was the best example, but take your pick. The most recent is Barack Obama immediately politicizing the Orlando terrorist attack. Immediately. Then anything we say he points and says "Flag on the play! The Republicans are politicizing!" And we stand there with our thumbs up our butts letting him do it.

These guys are constantly pulling crap and we--check that--they, can't figure out how to tell people that they're being lied to without sounding like "Wah! He started it!"

But Trump does. He figured out a delicate maneuver to do that: Just say it. Just say it and screw anyone who says you're not allowed to say that and scurries to their safe space. Just say it, in any crass or childish or inflammatory way you want.

Okay . . . I'm done (he says to his imaginary reader).

The buzz is, of course, the Orlando terrorist attack. You know the deal--if this were a real blog I would offer up a substantive and thoughtful column about the issues and the . . . you know. All that stuff real blogs do.

Well it ain't.

You know how I feel about the Second Amendment and you can guess how far the blood shot out of my eyeballs Sunday morning when the Presidebt used the occasion to leverage his agenda before the bodies were even cold.

Here's my unique and quirky angle:

Whenever the people on my side talk about the waste of skin radical muslim who did this and the inevitable response from the other side--that this proves we need more gun laws, they always point out that the POS obtained his guns legally.

Map out that logic for me.

They are making a case that we don't need more gun laws (which case I philosophically support), by saying that no laws were broken.

Wouldn't it bolster our case more if he had broken existing laws? (Other than the ones about not killing people, you know.)

I only post this 'cause no one reads this. If I thought I were exposing my mental deficiencies I would never do it. But I'm going to think about this some more. Maybe draw up a diagram. A matrix. Laws, behavior, proposed laws . . . I don't know.

They seem so certain. "The guns he used, which he purchased legally, by the way . . . that's why we don't need to change the law." I'm saying the people writing the articles are likely correct and I'm just not smart enough to see it.

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by clicking the button if you can help me with this.

I was listening to Obama in Japan blast Trump for "not thinking through" his foreign policy proposals, and I had to wonder: "Is this just a really good impressionist doing Obama's voice?" Honestly, can you imagine Obama blasting anybody on Foreign Policy? Or not thinking things through? Anybody?

I don't know of anyone who thinks things through less than that guy. And you'd get better Foreign Policy from monkeys throwing darts at pictures of the various options.

Wow.

"Running multi-billion dollar businesses is no kind of preparation to be President." (Compared to being a . . . whatchamacallit? . . . community organizer?)

"You don't keep trying stuff that doesn't work."

"I've been an awesome President."

I just . . . wow. I'd really like to peek into that guy's head for just a second (with a very strong tether and multiple backup escape plans).

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(Someone actually left a comment)

This is actually a pretty good article on why Trump isn't releasing his taxes.

Main points are that people are easily fooled, especially about anything involving numbers, as evidenced by the lies they believe about Mitt Romney paying a lower effective rate than a hypothetical auto mechanic who makes much, much less than him. And speaking of Romney, remember the bald-faced lies that Harry Reid spouted and then his admission it was a lie but it was okay, because it contributed to Romney losing. The author ties that together with "Republicans seemed to have learned little about how dirty the democrats play," referencing Romney's (okay, yeah, kinda' dumb) speculation that there was a "bombshell" in Trump's returns.

Then the interesting point about negotiating an aggressive return with the IRS that I hadn't thought of.

It was a more interesting article than I had expected.

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Okay, I've flapped my electronic gums about this topic much more than it deserves. But I'm a guy, and what do you care what a guy has to say about women's bathrooms? This article is a woman's point of view on allowing men into women's bathrooms. Very good points. Especially if you've ever seen what men do to their bathrooms.

At work we used to only have single occupancy bathrooms. No men, no women, just go in and lock the door. But then the women insisted they get one of their own. They got tired of pee on the seats and stuff. Then they got a lock so every female employee had a key, 'cause the nasty guys would still use it.

The token Godless Communist at work keeps saying "I don't get it! Why are bathrooms such a violent place for you?!" But I've learned, and every time I counter with "Well, they seem to be for you and your transgender friends."

But the answer is simple, and it's like NASCAR—if you don't get it I can't explain it to you, and if you do I don't need to. We are civilized. That's all. In uncivilized societies, like Occupy Wall Street, handling of human waste isn't given great care. Civilized people . . . well, I'm not explaining it very well, but, like I said . . . an explanation is either unnecessary or inadequate. Civilized people have certain standards and privacy in the way they deal with that, and those set them apart from democrats and third world cultures.

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I know you've already seen this. This is obituary of Mary Anne Alfriend, who "chose" to pass away rather than vote this fall.

NOLAND, Mary Anne Alfriend. Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68.

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I heard a rabbi on Glenn Beck who was making the case for voting for Trump. He had a British accent, so he made a lot of sense.

He was explaining the realities of the electoral process. Barring some cataclysmic occurrence (you have to put that in, so as not to completely abandon hope. Dumb and Dumber: So you're saying I have a chance!) either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be President of the United States. I'll give you a minute to puke or shudder or whatever you need to do.

You've heard Glenn and crew talk about not voting for Trump. They say "A vote for x is a vote for y. Pffft. How does that even make sense?"

Uh . . . do I really need to explain that to you? Second order consequences aren't all that complicated.

So the Rabbi was basically explaining that, that we only have two choices and if you split half of half you end up with . . . and Pat said "Well, what about voting your conscience?"

Response: "That is my conscience."

That is the greatest line I heard all week. My conscience is not cast a stupid vote that allows Hillary to be President of My United States.

Okay, Trump is horrible. We can all agree on that. Just awful, I can tell you that right now. Very awful. Total loser, believe you me, I can tell you that. But what shifted it in my mind is the Supreme Court. That's the lasting legacy.

But Dennis Prager explains it much better than I can. Sorry for all the pre-ramble. Just read this article already. Dennis Prager lays out a very pragmatic case for voting for someone he hates as much as everyone else does.

In my case it doesn't matter. Hillary is going to get seventeen votes in my whole state. I'm proud I voted for Ross Perot in '92 (who by the very act of running gave us Bill Clinton, pardon my language) because I helped make Clinton come in third place in my state.

Here's the link again because you really should read this column.

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Speaking of realities . . .

A good imagination is essential to mental well-being. It is. Everyone appreciates a vivid imagination. However . . .

Being unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality is not a healthy mental condition.

We live in a world with nuclear weapons. You can like it, love it, dislike it, hate it . . . you can't change it. We live in a world with nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama (praise-ed be His Holy Name forever) wants to change it.

I don't know. Hey, the government has a lot of R&D resources. Maybe Obama knows about a flashy thingie that can take away the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons. I don't know—I'm just imagining here . . .

But . . . whatever. You get the point. The man is freaking crazy. He figures the best way to make that happen is to get rid of ours, and then the bad guys will get rid of theirs. 'Cause that's what bad guys do.

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Read this article about Obama running over to Japan to apologize/not apologize for our ending the war they started.

I expect Barack Obama to embarrass us yet again by apologizing (expressly or impliedly) for America’s dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The factual response is a simple cost-benefit analysis. If we invaded Japan to compel the Empire’s surrender – and the stories that Japan was on the verge of surrendering are the result of either raw ignorance or conscious lying – several million Japanese would have died. More importantly, hundreds of thousands of American and allied servicemen would have been killed or wounded.

Yeah, you read it right. American lives are more important than those of our enemies. Infinitely more important.

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I remember a time when I was in Amsterdam, and when you're in Amsterdam you have to ride the canal boats, you have to visit the Anne Frank house, and you have to see the red light district. I don't have a red light district in my town. I wanted to see what it was like.

Apparently a lot of other people did, too. I'm guessing 90% of the people there were just like me, not customers, just sightseeing. (And about 5% were pickpockets targeting the sightseers. Poor girls had to make a living off 5% of the people there.)

Anyway, one old guy was standing on a cross street just off the actual street and his wife was almost begging him not to walk in there. He wasn't looking for some temporary companionship (he was there with his wife), he just wanted to say he'd seen the place. But his wife was . . . not frantic, but emphatic, pleading him to not do it. It was like "Think about what you're doing here!" The old guy had a whimsical look on his face. It was a little sad and a little sweet and a little funny.

Okay, point is, my close personal friend was brainstorming about the election with his family. He was just thinking out loud, weighing the options, thinking that maybe the pragmatic thing would be to consider voting for Trump.

Right there my close personal friend's wife chimed in. "You're not going to do that. Tell me you aren't considering that."
I didn't say I was, I'm just thinking aloud.
"You're going to do it! I know you are! You're going to step into that booth and . . . "
Hey, November is a long ways away. I'm just talking here.
"If you do that, you're finished. Your soul is lost."
I'm not . . . I just . . .
"Don't do this. I know you're going to do it. If you do, there's no hope for you."

Reminded me of that sweet wife who didn't want her husband crossing the sidewalk into the red light district.

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