Random Reflections Pt14

56. It is absolutely wrong that state and federal grants have no strings attached. There is no accountability for the wasting of taxpayer money. You should have to prove your cause’s worthiness over and over again, if we are to let the unconstitutional and immoral practice of doling out the bread of another’s labor for your research continue.

57. A recently released document states the US government wants to put weapons in space and deny access to space to any country that doesn’t have our interests at heart.

Much hand-wringing from the left, much back-pedaling and explaining by the right.

I can sympathize with both. I see no reason why nations, territories, and borders should not exist in space as on earth. Logically, it follows that such things should be enforced. However, space is a big place, and we shouldn’t be in the business of kicking people out of it.

If I had my druthers, private entities would go into space long before government. Mining rights, energy collection, tourism…last time I checked, Shopko hadn’t murdered (conservatively) 120 million of its customers in the last century.

58. When the criminal invaded the Colorado high-school recently, the call going out to the police was “Come quick” not “Come quick, but don’t bring guns, guns are yucky and violence doesn’t solve anything.” When the armed police showed up, nobody had a conniption fit seeing people trained in the use of arms carrying weapons. When the police went into the school, they went in with the intention of using their guns to enforce the safety of innocent lives.

Get it?

When it went down, they didn’t go in with plush Care Bears and M&Ms. It is unfortunate that sometimes sterner measures are called for, and no one would think to question an armed police officer killing a Bad Guy in defense of children.

Israel suffered through multiple high-profile school shootings during the 80s and 90s. Gunman walks into a school, opens fire, doesn’t care that the police just decided his life expectancy will be measured in minutes. After a spate of these shootings, the Israelis issued their teachers and chaperones semi-automatic pistols. Whereupon: The number of school shootings fell through the floor, to the approximate number of 0. (Except for that one field trip to Jordan, where the locals were offended by guns and the teachers had to leave theirs at the school.)

Get it?

So why is it that when reasonable proposals are made here to allow teachers and administrators who’ve had more training than most cops go through in their lives to carry concealed weapons, most people go into shrieking hysteria. One woman said (at the top of her lungs) on public radio and I quote: “You’re sick!” “You don’t even know what you’re saying!” “I would never send my child to a school where a teacher enjoyed shooting guns!”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the blogosphere calls: A blissninny. As in, “Ignorance is bliss.”

Check that. Ignorance can be cured. Her stupidity will last forever.

59. Bad things happen. They can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. The logical thing to do is try and prepare and within reason try and reduce the likelihood of something bad happening to you.

It is not reasonable to expect everyone else to make massive concessions so you can feel a teeny-weeny bit safer. It is not reasonable to try and rubberize the world, and put round plastic balls on all the sharp corners.

Funny thing is, odds are, bad stuff won’t happen to you. So don’t get bent out of shape about stuff that can’t be controlled, and don’t mess with everyone else’s lives for the same reason.

60. A few more rants on fashion. A current trend right now is for boys and girls to cut/style their hair so that one…flap…hangs over one eye. Every example I’ve seen of this has the wearer constantly patting and re-adjusting their impromptu eye-patch. They seem to be very proud of their vision impairment.

I saw a Goth walk into my workplace yesterday: he was wearing a yellow gas mask around his neck. I felt like asking him if mustard gas attacks were a common occurrence in his life.

Riffing on Goths a little more, why would a culture spring up celebrating negativity and death? And how is it celebrated by canvas trenchcoats and massive shorts trimmed in dayglow neon plastic cord? For all their anti-conformism, they happily (or is it unhappily) conform to another standard with surprising rigidity.