Memorial Day

Words fail me. Today is the day when we honor the fallen, those who gave their lives that others might live - and live free.

Don't Start A War if You Can't Take a Joke

Nuclear weapons do not require a "Moral Revolution". The Tokyo firebombing killed more people than Fat Man or Little Boy. It doesn't matter whether it takes 1 plane or 100 to kill a city - the morality lies not in the how, but in the what and why.
It would have, in fact, been immoral to NOT nuke Imperial Japan. All the other options were far worse:

1. Allied land invasion, with Soviet support. Millions of Allied soldiers and Japanese soldiers and civilians die, with many more injured. The Soviets (who were pretty evil themselves) probably would have tried to use the opportunity to grab as much land as possible.
2. Allied land invasion, without Soviet support. Same results as above, only instead of taking chunks of Japan, the Soviets would have tried doing it in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Korea, and with a much lighter death toll for the Soviets.
3. Starve them out. Blockade all Japanese ports, bomb food stockpiles and production. Would have resulted in millions of Japanese dead, serious national health issues. and an utterly devastated nation.

Not to mention that if anyone ever deserved to get nuked it was Imperial Japan. The Rape of Nanking, Unit 731, the Bataan Death March, the list goes on and on. We bombed some of the worst mass murderers in history, to save MILLIONS of lives. Moral Revolution my ass.

WTF Marvel?

I mean, really, what the FUCK ARE YOU HIGH ON! My comments are in Italics.

In a shocking twist, Steve Rogers always has been and will continue to be a member of the evil group
Sure, he wears red white and blue on the outside, but on the inside? It turns out Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, supports the evil, former Nazi organization, Hydra.
Marvel comics introduced the shocking twist Wednesday morning when Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 went on sale — and it turns out there have been hints that this was coming for a long time. TIME spoke with Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort about the decision, the clues and why Hydra’s rhetoric sounds an awful lot like that of a certain presidential candidate.

This is seriously a stupid idea. What the heck made you think that this was a good idea? Drunken sailors have better decision making skills than you do.

TIME: How did Marvel decide to make Steve Rogers a secret Hydra operative?
Tom Brevoort: Nick Spencer, who is the writer of the series, pitched us the story as part and parcel of restoring Steve to his youth and vigor. In the comics, he’s been old for awhile. The super soldier serum that was keeping him young had been broken down, so for the 75th anniversary, Nick had this notion that we were going to restore him. But then we went into this other story about Hydra, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Wait, that's your reason? You think that this is going to restore Captain America? You obviously don't live in the same world that I do, because this sounds more like destroying Captain America than anything else.

If readers go back and look at older comics, will this hold up?
It will. Issue 2 kind of winds the clock back a little bit and lays out exactly how and why things are the way they are. And it lays out a roadmap for where things are headed in the future. At this point, I don’t want to say too much definitively because I want people to read the comic books. But people will be able to connect the dots and follow the trail of breadcrumbs.

You've apparently been reading comics from another universe. Captain America is Hydra's GREATEST enemy. He has, over the course of his career as Captain America, singlehandedly prevented Hydra from achieving world domination multiple times, under several different leaders. That's some real dedication as a double agent there - keeping cover, even when it would be better for your side if you dropped it. Stop trying to justify yourselves, because there's no way that this will "Hold up", and if you actually believe that it will you're either stupid, on drugs, or delusional.

How long has this been in the works?
Almost since the beginning of when Nick started writing the Captain America titles, which would have been the end of 2014. So right around there the conversations first started about this. It’s been in the works for more than a year.

So that's how long it takes to come up with a plan to destroy a classic character.

What does this mean for the Marvel Universe?
It means on the most fundamental level that the most trusted hero in the Marvel universe is now secretly a deep-cover Hydra operative, a fact that’s really only known to the readers and to him. That makes every interaction he has with anyone take on a second layer, a second meaning.

I'd say it means that the Marvel Universe has officially jumped the shark. It also means that I'm very glad that Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics aren't the same thing anymore, because the Captain deserves better than this.

In the comic the Red Skull of Hydra talks about “criminal trespassers” who “make a mockery” of America’s borders and calls the refugees in Germany an “invading army” bringing “fanatical beliefs and crime” to Europe. Obviously, this hate speech is nothing new for the organization, but it sounds like rhetoric we’ve been hearing this election. Is that purposeful?
We try to write comics in 2016 that are about the world and the zeitgeist of 2016, particularly in Captain America. Nick Spencer, the writer, is very politically active. He’s a Capitol Hill head and following this election very closely. So we can talk about political issues in a metaphoric way. That’s what gives our stories weight and meat to them. Any parallels you have seen to situations real or imagined, living or dead, is probably intentional but metaphorically not literally.

While I'll grant that Donald Trump is an authoritarian asshat, anyone who considers the bullshit that he spouts "hate speech" needs to grow a pair. He's not Hitler 2.0 (despite his populism, nationalist rhetoric, and past support for gun control). He's not the next Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mussolini either. He IS rude, intentionally offensive, crude, authoritarian, eminent domain abusing, and overall something of a fraud. But he's not Hitler, and his rhetoric isn't hate speech. If you really want hate speech, I suggest you read what Al Jazeera has to say about Jews.

What are we supposed to think about the fact that someone literally named Captain America now supports these beliefs?
Again, I don’t want to say anything too definitively because we’re laying out the story. But we want to push that button. There should be a feeling of horror or unsettledness at the idea that somebody like this can secretly be part of this organization. There are perfectly normal people in the world who you would interact with on a professional level or personal level, and they seem like the salt of the earth but then it turns out they have some horrible secret — whether it’s that they don’t like a certain group of people or have bodies buried in their basement.
You should feel uneasy about the fact that everything you know and love about Steve Rogers can be upended.

We'll you've succeeded there. I'm horrified and uneasy that anyone would be willing to butcher a classic, much loved, well defined character like that.

To ask the blunt question, is this a gimmick?
Every single month whether it’s a run of the mill month for Captain America or an extraordinary month, our job is to put him in situations that place that character under some degree of pressure and see how he reacts to that. And hopefully our readers are surprised, shocked, elated, see something of themselves, learn something about themselves. To say it’s a gimmick implies that it’s done heedlessly just to shock. The proof is always going to be in the execution. So you’ll have to read the rest of the story to see.
But I certainly believe it’s not a gimmick. It’s a story that we spent a long time on, that’s compelling and captures the zeitgeist of the world. It will make readers wonder how the heck we’ll get out of this.

Yes. It's a fucking gimmick. 
Everyone involved in this, from the writer on up, needs to commit seppuku. Or at least check themselves into a mental institution so that the rest of us don't have to deal with their stupidity.

California's obsession with Gun Control

There's no doubt about it. California is unhealthily obsessed with gun control.
11 new gun control bills have passed the state Senate. Should all or most of them get passed, it will effectively be impossible to be a gun owner in California.
My comments are in Bold, original article in Italics.

Here's a quick overview of proposed gun control measures approved Thursday by the state Senate.

• Ammunition regulation: SB 1235 by Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) requires background checks to buy ammunition. It also creates a license to sell ammunition, and creates a new system for collecting information about those sales.

Are they going to track reloading supplies? Gunpowder ingredients? Fulminate of Mercury and Potassium Chlorate? It's not like ammunition is particularly hard to produce. We are talking about a technology that dates from the mid 1800s, when black powder was in vogue. I'd like to know if California politicians are going to pass a bill banning charcoal and bat shit just to prevent people from making their own gunpowder. Not to mention the criminals will still be able to get ammunition on the black market.

• Ban on large ammunition magazines: SB 1446 by Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) bans the ownership of any ammunition clip that holds more than 10 rounds

First off, a clip is not a magazine. Second, most magazines are literally a box with a spring and a piece of plastic inside. Thirdly, what the hell makes you think that criminals will comply with this?

• Bullet buttons: SB 880 by Sen. Isadore Hall (D-Compton) expands the legal definition of an "assualt weapon" to include a group of rifles with ammunition clips that can be quickly swapped out by using a bullet to push a small release button.

It's nice to know that you're working hard to ban almost all semi-auto rifles in your state. I expect compliance to be low.

• SB 894 by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) requires reporting most lost or stolen guns within five days.

 Do you want people to not report stolen guns? Because this is how you get people to do that.

• "Ghost guns": SB 1407 by De León requires a person to get a serial number from state officials before making or assembling a gun.

I, personally, would like to know just how they intend to enforce this one without violating the fourth amendment. And even then, I don't think they can do it.

• Gun violence research: SB 1006 by Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) creates a new University of California center for researching gun-related violence.

You make it sound like they'd do something besides waste the money.

All in all, it's a crock of shit. All that will happen is making legitimate firearms ownership incredibly inconvenient.

National Seppuku

Yesterday our nation committed Seppuku. Rather than picking a candidate with a record of standing up to the establishment and of being at least somewhat pro-liberty - even if he has some serious issues - the Republicans have picked a lifelong crony capitalist, anti-gun, eminent domain abusing felonious democrat to oppose a lifelong corrupt, anti-gun, sexual predator enabling, felonious democrat (because Bernie doesn't stand a chance, and even if he did, he's a lifelong delusional batty socialist, and almost as bad as the other two).

Trumpeters, you are a bunch of freaking idiots. Trump's record is just as liberal as Hillary's, but with fewer dead people and leaked secrets, and more eminent domain abuse and fraud. You've given us an election where the best option is going to be whoever the Libertarians put forth (probably Gary Johnson). And all because you wanted to stick it to the establishment. Too bad that you just cut your nose off to spite your face. At best we're going to get four years of stupid. At worst, Hillary or Trump will start a civil war or revolution and we'll end up killing each other in the streets. Go home and dream of blood and fire. You deserve it.