Horrible and Ironic Ways to Die

There are news stories that cause you to scratch your head and go "hmm". And then there are stories like this one that can only elicit a response of "WTF?"

A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.

But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.

Oh. My. God.

Somewhere in this story there's a moral. I just haven't figured out what it is yet.

Wiener of the Week

This week the WotW is all about stimulus. Phony stimulus. I mean, c'mon! REAL stimulus would involve putting money in the hands of businesses and consumers in the hope of jump-starting the economy, right? Instead, this steaming pile of legislation seeks to reward those who helped get them elected -- like voter registration fraud organizer ACORN -- as well as increase the size and power of government.

Perhaps the part of the stimulus bill that I find most vexing is the new Agency For Healthcare Research And Quality. This is the camel's nose in the tent, the first baby steps towards single-payer socialized medicine.

So, given that the stimulus bill is a steaming POS, who gets the Wiener? I'm going universal on this one.

1. The President, for failing to provide leadership
   
2. Congress, especially that moron Little Nancy Pelosi, for piling steaming pile after steaming pile of pork and largesse onto a bill that is supposed to be about rescuing the country from financial ruin
3. Big Media (the BM for short) for hiding the true nature of the legislation
4. The American public (for swallowing this steaming mess)
5. The nice but clearly misinformed lady who was handing out flyers in downtown Frederick at First Saturday urging our support for the stimulus bill

All of you, congratulate yourselves. You're the Wiener of the Week.

The Legend of Deadeye

There is a new gunslinger in these here parts...and she's a crack shot. Yeah, that's right. I said she.

Mrs. Vulture surprised me with a special Valentines Day present - a day of target shooting together at an indoor range down in Gaithersburg. It was such a blast!

Mrs. V. had only shot once before, when we visited my brother out West. She picked out a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver as her tool of choice. Since I've had my mind set on purchasing a larger caliber weapon, I decided to try out the Glock 22 .40 caliber semi-automatic.

Since neither of us qualify as "expert" shooters, we had to shoot with an instructor, a very nice young lady who has been shooting since she was 12. Once she was satisfied that we understood gun safety and could load and handle our weapons properly, she turned us loose.

I really liked the Glock. I wasn't thrilled with my accuracy -- I tended to hit low and to the left when the sights were aligned, meaning I had to manually compensate high and right. Still, I was left with a positive impression of the weapon.

And Mrs. V. with the revolver? OMG!!! She was AMAZING!!!

After an errant first shot, she proceeded to hit shot after shot in the bullseye area. See for yourself! (Click on the images to view them full size)
To the left is the main grouping. Outside of a few strays that were 'only' in the 9 point circle, everything she shot was grouped in a 6"x6" area. Her head shots (to the right) were even more impressive. Again, everything was grouped within a 6"x6" area.

Did I mention that Mrs. V had only shot once before in her whole life? Once.

From this day forward Mrs. V shall be known by only one name in the annuals of this blog: call her Deadeye!

To see all of the target pictures, click this link. Note that mine, not to put too fine a point on it, are dreadful in comparison with Deadeye's.

All hail Deadeye, gunslinger extraordinaire!

For unto us a tyrant is born

On February 12th, 1809, the man who set our Nation on its course towards eventual governmental enslavement was born. The irony of the life of this man is that he's viewed by most Americans as the greatest American President. He was nothing of the sort.

Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe. The Great Emancipator. The man who Saved the Union.

It's all crap.

Lincoln was a thug and a dictator. He took a situation that could have been resolved via diplomacy -- a group of States that were part of a voluntary union formed by our Founders who had decided to leave said union and form their own nation -- and turned it into the bloodiest war in this nation's history. His unconstitutional acts are legion: the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the coercion employed to "keep" Maryland in the Union against the wishes of the citizens of that State, the brutality employed against the Draft protesters in New York City.

Irony. His life is replete with it. How ironic that this racist bastard, who considered Blacks as little more than animals, should be remembered as the Great Emancipator, the man who freed the slaves.

His worst legacy, however, is the establishment of the Federal government as superior to the rights and wishes of the individual States. This set the stage for every anti-freedom assault for the next 150 years. Without Lincoln, the atrocities of Woodrow Wilson would have been impossible. Without Lincoln, the patently unconstitutional acts of Franklin Roosevelt would have been unthinkable. Without Lincoln, the freedom-sapping Great Society of Lyndon Johnson would have been nothing but a pipe dream. The actions of Bill Clinton and King George the Dim? Impossible!

Happy 200th, Abe. May you burn in Hell forever, MF'er.

The media cheerleading continues

This item is a tad late, but still relevant. It seems that Big Media (the BM for short) still hasn't put down the pom-poms after the election.

Earlier this week, WebNewser wrote about ABC and NBC releasing Inauguration-related DVDs in March.

Now CNN.com is getting in the Inauguration memorabilia game, with an entire section of CNN.com headline t-shirts about the event. The tagline: "Some of the most historic shirts money can buy."

Far be it for me to fault a brotha for trying to make a buck. But come on! "Obama raises hand, lifts a nation"? Go somewhere else to sell that school girl crush BS, you "objective" journalists you.

The wisdom of the common man

I have XM Radio in my car. If I didn't, I think I would blow my brains out. It's the only thing that makes my hellish commute bearable.

One of the advantages of XM Radio is being able to hear uncensored content. No FCC (don't bother to ask me what the 'F' stands for...you won't like the answer). And because I like to listen to the comedy stations on the way home from work, I stumbled upon an amazing new talk show starring Mojo Nixon. I'd tell you the name of it...but it contains a really offensive pejorative that, while an appropriate description of what/who politicians are, isn't acceptable for a "family" blog like mine.

The other day the topic was the stimulus package which, at that time, was rumored to be approaching more than $1.5 trillion dollars. There was a variety of opinions expressed - mostly references to where Washington could stick their "stimulus".

But one caller demonstrated the genius of the common man. His proposal: rather than spend all of those trillions of dollars on crap that just makes government bigger and more powerful, why not just send $1 million dollars to every American household, with this caveat on how the money must be spent:

1. Pay off your mortgage
2. Pay off all of your bills
3. If any money is left over, invest it in the stock market

Right there on the spot I shouted the word, "Brilliant!" You know, just like the guys in the Guinness ad. Why is this brilliant? Think about it! For about $200 billion less than the rumored price tag of stimulus at that time, we'd solve the whole crisis. No more bad mortgages. No more bankruptcies. A jolt of investment capital into the stock market, creating a bull market unlike any other. Without any bills to pay, people would start spending money on all of the things they've been leery about buying in a down economy, giving business a spur and creating new jobs. Within 6 months, everything would be just ducky.

Which is why it'll never happen.

Government only likes solutions that (1) perpetuate problems, not solve them, and (2) that empower government. Which, now that I think of it, is exactly what the phony "stimulus" package the Senate is considering now is.