Because it’s fun to stir shit up and get under people’s skin, and because the blogging will be quiet for the holiday weekend, I just had to link this comment by Bruce Baugh at Obsidian Wings:

I’ve said this before and will again: the very heart of the “widespread gun ownership checks tyranny” argument has been tested and failed completely.

For twenty years or more, political discourse in a whole lot of online forums was swamped by people telling the rest of us how the US was getting ever more tyrannical, and that the day would come when on some flimsy pretext the government would abandon habeaus corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.

It turns out they were right about that part.

They also told the rest of us that when this happened, they would rise up en masse. They would free unjustly held prisoners, put terror into the hearts of agents of tyranny, maybe even overthrow the tyrant him/herself. (As the ’90s went on, the hypothetical tyrant was increasingly likely to be portrayed as a woman.) And did they? Did they hell.

There are no martyrs from the RKBA crowd. Their organizations sometimes join in efforts mostly initiated and staffed by others, but apart from objections to a handful of specific proposed restrictions on gun sales and such, one hears of no RKBA leadership on any of the rest. To the contrary, one hears a great deal of cheerleading for warmaking abroad and tyranny at home as long as all the right people get it, and one hears silence. Where are those freed prisoners? Nowhere. Where are those terrified agents? Nowhere. It was all the purest bloviation.

It’s really very rare for such ambitious claims about what one will do oneself and what one’s allies will do in a moment of profound crisis. But Bush/Cheney gave us all the chance. And all of you going on about how guns keep the republic safe and free are completely full of it. All the things you warned us about came to pass, and where are you? Right here with the bulk of us, and well behind some - there are individual posters here who as single people have done more actual good for American liberty than half the membership of the NRA and such groups.

It’s liberal lawyers, academics, journalists, and the like who are actually pressing the government, pretty much, and liberals at large funding them, while conservatives and libertarians (with way, way too few exceptions) either cheer and keep voting for the tyranny or sigh and shake a finger and then keep voting for it. The RKBA claims about guns’ role in society are demonstrably false for America at the beginning of the 21st century, and no amount of dithering over 18th century will change that. The Second Amendment as constituted is useless not because of then, but because of now, because of you its champions.

PS: It will of course be a glad thing if the bloviators ever do get serious about fighting tyranny, because tyranny is really bad and needs all the opposition it can get. But I’m not holding my breath waiting - it seems like we are instead well into the phase where all the loyal cheering section for the tyrant busily tries to pretend they didn’t say things. I fully expect lawsuits against Google, the Internet Way-Back Machine, and the like from right-wing legally minded folks who wish their embarrassing words better hidden.

But hey, always glad to see clues, if and when they break out.

I think I smacked my muse too hard last time.

Not sure why, but I just ain’t feeling the grieve this year.

A repeat of last year at Christmas time:

To Nintendo: Seriously, guys, make more Wiis. I want one but I’m not standing in a line or calling Wal-Mart every day to get one. I got money. Get me a Wii.

Seriously, it’s been a year and I have yet to see one in a store. Nintendo, stop spending money advertising the Wii and spend that money making more Wiis.

It’s that time of year again where we, collectively, are supposed to sit back and reflect upon things that are important and goodwill toward man and all that other hippie, tree-hugging crap that makes us feel better about ourselves. Continuing the tradition, I opt to do the opposite and tell you why you suck. And by you, I don’t mean you specifically but you in the general sense. I’m talking about the Festivus tradition of The Airing of Grievances. So, the first grievance I have is The Airing of Grievances. I feel obligated to air said grievances and, of course, must suffer through other people’s airing of grievances.

My other grievance is this: order from the damn menu. When you go to a restaurant, they’re set up to serve stuff that is actually on the menu. That’s why they have menus. Your choices generally only consist of how you want that cooked and your option of sides. That’s what they do. All else, you takes your chances. When you order something that is different, you’ve messed up the system. So, stop. Other parties at your table now have to wait an extra three or four hours while a cook, who doesn’t speak English, and a waitress, who probably didn’t write your custom order down, try to decipher what exactly it is you’re getting at. If, say, a joint serves a salad and that salad comes with the little shavings of red cabbage and you specify that you don’t want the shavings of red cabbage, odds are you’re getting some because that’s how they mix the salad that they made in bulk five hours ago. Don’t act surprised when you find some red cabbage in your salad and get hostile and demand they take it back. Because now, they’re probably spitting in your food. And, while minor adjustments like that usually work out OK for you, don’t use subjective terms such as light ice and expect their definition of light ice to jibe with yours. Use concrete terms such as the number of cubes or how far up the glass you want the ice to go. And if you make more than two adjustments, forget about it. The Army Corps of Engineers probably can’t figure it out and neither can your cook or waitress.

Past Airing if Grievances here.

Crest Lemon Ice toothpaste: like brushing with Pine-Sol. Not recommended, there’s a reason it’s on sale.

However, Crest Pro-Health is quite tasty and leaves my mouth minty, kissably fresh.

I have little to say today for some reason. But I will say this:

If I pass you on the right and you’re not making a left hand turn, you’re a fucking retard.

You know, the language of business. That secret code that MBAs come up with so it looks like they know what they’re talking about and have marketable skills? Still not getting it? Ok, some samples with Uncle’s translation:

Core competency - Shit to do
Leveraging resources - Borrow money
Value-added - Management likes this idea
Catalysist for change - Someone’s getting fired
Shifting paradigms - Either management likes this idea or someone important is getting fired

Those. I hate them. Yet, every office has someone who always uses them. I wish they’d knock that shit off. Every time I hear those phrases, I want to leverage someone’s jaw.

Xrlq has a long list, start here and scroll:

On computer programmers:

And you know what else you’re not? As important as you think you are. And neither is your application. So please, stop writing applications that yank themselves into the foreground while I’m trying to work on something else.

He also wants to ban bumper stickers. I just want to ban the ones with small print. Someday, I’ll have to explain to a cop that I rear-ended somebody while trying to read their bumper sticker. Worse, I’ll have to explain it wasn’t worth it because the bumper sticker wasn’t funny.

Tom:

Comedy Central: There’s a reason Greg Giraldo and Patton Oswalt are available whenever you want them.

Fodder has a list too:

The next door neighbor that likes to stand in his backyard (ten feet east and one story down from my bedroom window) at oh dark hundred in the morning and yell into his stoopid cell phone. You’ve been quite for awhile, keep it that way. Major pain has been prepared and is waiting.

Last year’s grievances:

It’s the end of the year, holiday time. A time for reflection. A time for a look back. A time to be thankful that the baby Jesus was born, died and resurrected as a fat guy, who delivers presents, chants Kujichagulia through a menorah during his month long fasting because he’s trying to lose all that weight. Or something, I tend to get my holidays confused. I think it may also involve fireworks. It’s also Festivus, which completely unlike the aforementioned holiday montage, is actually made up. As part of Festivus, we are to air our grievances. Tommy wants someone to start so I’ll start with a list of shit I hate:

People who use non-standard, colorful fonts in their email

People who don’t flush toilets

People who don’t realize that in email there are separate buttons for Reply and Reply To All

Gum on sidewalks

When people make weak coffee. Here’s a newsflash, if you like weak coffee, you can add water to strong coffee. Those of us that like it strong can’t make weak coffee stronger, unless we use instant coffee which happens to taste like ass.

People who can’t walk with either a distinct sense of purpose or in a straight line. Walk through the mall and there will eventually be a dumbass in front of you who you’ll try to get around. They will zig to the left and zag to the right getting in your way both times without a clue they’re doing it. Those are the morons I mean. If you’ve never seen these people, you are these people. Walk like you have a sense of purpose or, at least, like you know where you’re going.

Hidden songs on CDs. Hey, dumbass, how am I supposed to get to the song when it’s after the 10 minutes of silence after the last song.

The 20 minute feedback/wall of noise/jam session at the end of recorded songs. No one wants to hear that unless they’re at a show and had a beer or 6. Save that shit for concerts.

People who drive in the left lane who are not passing or turning.

Knoxville traffic.

When I’m checking out the donut spread and I grab what I think is a custard filled donut but it turns out to be lemon. Lemon donuts? What the Hell?

Computer applications, particularly GMail, that set focus or whatever the Hell it is that causes them to think they’re the most important application I’m running on the computer. Apparently, it has decided it’s so important that it should be the top window.

Coffee stir sticks/straws. Seriously, these things are so thin they cannot adequately stir coffee (which SayUncle happens to take with a little sugar and he likes it strong). I always wind up using three of them to get an adequate level of stirriness*. Why not just make the damn things three times thicker?

* People who make up words.

People who insist that I call them Mr., Mrs., Ms. or Doctor [their last name].

People who think turn signals are completely optional.

Websites whose main page (i.e., the one that ends in .com, .net, etc.) has a Click To Enter link. Obviously, I want to enter or I wouldn’t be there.

Sweaters. Can’t stand them yet every year the wife buys me one.

When people post lists of stuff they hate.

Crappy TeeVee shows turned into crappy movies.

And a Meppy Chrisamadkwanzakuh to you, unless you’re an overly sensitive shit stirrer. In which case, piss off.

Because I’ve decided that airing grievances is fun and want to spread some holiday cheer. Remember, I do this to entertain me . . . not you.

Timing: The holiday season apparently starts right after Labor Day. The stores put their Christmas stuff out in September. This has to stop. A full one third of the fucking calendar year is the Christmas season. That’s stupid. Hell, let’s just make every day a holiday.

More timing: Every year, I put out Christmas decorations earlier and earlier. I’ve always been a Day After Thanksgiving guy myself. But that was back when I was a bachelor and my only Christmas decoration was a festive basket with pine cones in it. After thanksgiving, I’d put it on my coffee table and I was done. Now, decoration day is a full two weeks before then. And it takes up a whole weekend. And that’s just stupid too. One good thing is that the new pad is on a sloped yard and the house has two floors. So, the sides of the house are a full 80 feet off the ground. Therefore, for safety’s sake, I don’t decorate that side. My annual work has been reduced by two thirds.

Santa: He’s a fat bitch. Seriously, can’t we have someone who can teach our children a healthy lifestyle bring them cheer and presents? And how about a haircut and a shave? Right now, it looks like we have an overweight hippie in his damn jammies spreading cheer. Is he joyous from smoking dope? I prefer a nice, clean cut dude who looks healthy spreading wonder and amazement. ‘Cause when a hippie spreads wonder and amazement, you blame the weed.

To the guy in my neighborhood: Sorry, but a 15 feet tall inflatable Scooby Doo wearing a toboggan is not a Christmas decoration. It’s a fucking eyesore. It may have a date with my Gamo 220 Hunter.

Toboggan: To the people commenting on this post on roadside survival kits, when a white boy from Tennessee says toboggan, he means a wool knit hat not a sled. You really think I keep a big ass sled in my truck?

Pocket Queens: Screw them. I’m going all in pre-flop with them from now on. When the flop comes, they’re generally as useless as a cock-flavored lollipop.

Dramatic movies with retards: Rain Man, I am Sam, those types. I’m done with them. Some of them star people who are actual retards in real life. As much as you try to tug at my heartstrings, I can’t get over the fact that what is considered acting is also considered bad taste when I do it at a party. Plus, any movie with a retard in it is automatically overrated by every critic. Let’s stick to the cameo appearance in comedies please.

Bruce: who will remind me that I use the phrase useless as a cock-flavored lollipop too much.

Iraq: Sorry but I’m doing some serious introspection on that one. As an initial supporter of the war, I’m torn between 1) the US needs to either go balls out or, err, 2) balls in. That is, get our asses in there and take control of the motherfucker. Or bring everyone home and take our ass-whippin’ and loss of respect in the worldwide community like a man. The latter is clearly the worst option. So, it’s either time for a vulgar display of power or a powerful display of vulgarity. They’re both ugly and no one wants to do either but it’s time to cowboy the fuck up and do something right, whether it’s winning or saying oops, sorry about your infrastructure. And the first person who says I’m advocating cutting and running needs to have their pee-pee whacked.

Me: The fact that by stating the above, I actually agree with John McCain about something. That sucks.

Sensitivity: I’m not an overly sensitive person but I find it to be in poor taste the fact that people care more about congressional control than the fact some dude just had his head split open and the organ that determines the fiber of his being operated on following a stroke. At least have the decency to offer sympathy first before becoming a partisan hack. Anyone checked DU to see for conspiracy theories? I mean, I’m kind of a dick but I’d at least offer condolences to the family before saying OMG, we’re doomed!

My hands: They’re faster than my brain. Been re-reading a bunch of old posts and realize they are riddled with typos.

Google: I’ve had it happen a lot lately where I am Googling up a bit of research and the source is, err, me. Well, quoting me doesn’t do much for backing up assertions made by me.

The people of DC: Look, I hear what you’re saying. Taxation without representation is bad ju ju and people have started wars over that kind of stuff. And having no say in the constitution sucks too. But you’d get a lot more sympathy if your local .gov wasn’t trying to piss on the constitution by banning gun ownership.

Anyone who believes in the collective rights (or as it should be called the ‘no rights’) model of the second amendment is either clueless or a disingenuous hack. I think it was insty who referred to the ‘no rights’ model once as creation science, wherein the goal is developed first and worked back from there to obtain that result. He’s right. For those of you wishing to have that argument again, go to Aunt B.’s place.

To Nintendo: Seriously, guys, make more Wiis. I want one but I’m not standing in a line or calling Wal-Mart every day to get one. I got money. Get me a Wii.

To Illness: Go away. I swear, ’tis the season for sick kids with winter and daycare. Can we get at least a week’s break? I’d like to sleep for more than two hours at a stretch.

Sweaters: They’re scratchy and fit too snuggly for me. I hate them. But, every year, the wife buys me one. Stop.

The dude up the street: get on the Scott’s lawn-care program or something. Your lawn looks like a cross between a desert and the jungle. Some parts of it are solid dirt and other parts are bushier that Madonna’s pits from her 1980s Playboy spread.

To hypersensitive, politically-correct twits: Don’t you have better shit to do?

To Sanford: Do you just not make erasers for my 0.9MM mechanical pencil anymore?

To Windows Rescue & Recovery: You’re useless. Backing up my hard drive on, err, my hard drive is real fucking smart.

To proprietors of link farms and sites that just re-post feeds: I don’t care that you copy entire posts from me but please stop sending trackbacks and pingbacks. You’re just noise on Al Gore’s Internets and I have no use for you. Buy an ad if you want a link back.

Glenn Reynolds: Dude, every time I post over at No Silence Here, you link to it. It’s clear you like reading what I say so just go ahead and add SayUncle to your reading list and send a few more links my way. I could use the increase in ad revenue.

To random bloggers: Somehow, your feeds update every hour or so. And all it shows me is the same post over and over. Either your blogging software automatically re-sends your feed every hour, or you’re updating spelling/grammar throughout the day. Well, stop. I only want to read a post once unless it’s updated.

To Sean Braisted: Dunno what you’re doing, but every time you post a new entry, your feed updates the last 20 posts. So, I think you’ve written a few essays. But, instead, there’s one new post and 19 old ones.

Coming up with shit to write every day is hard. Hence, more linky than thinky lately.

In addition to Terms of Use and an Email Policy, I need to come up with both a linking policy (long and short: I link to who I read) and a privacy policy (I won’t give out any info unless it’s on request of a lawful court order).

I still don’t care about your cat.

It’s frightening that using the phrase small dicks in a blog post will lead to a significant increase in traffic.

To Verizon: don’t advertise that your phone/mp3 player holds 2 gig of music. You should advertise that it takes MicroSD chips that can hold 2 gig of music.

To anyone who has ever developed a program that requires passwords: I realize it’s not good security for me to use the same password over and over. Or even for me to use the same two or three passwords over and over. But for fuck’s sake, I can only come up with so many nonsense words that I can remember. I think I’m up to about 12 now and I still can’t fucking keep up.

To MS Outlook: Why do you even have a default font setting for email when you’re just going to create everything in 10 Arial any fucking way?

To MS Excel: Seriously, make that review toolbar go away. I don’t like it. I don’t use it. Every time I get rid of it, it comes back. I even installed a fucking macro to get rid of it and it still comes back.

To Paypal: I told you to leave me alone. Our relationship is through. Stop sending me email; stop contacting me; and cancel my account. You’re like a clingy old girlfriend who can’t take the hint. I know, your monkeys with keyboards tell me they can’t cancel the account and must keep it open for 7 years but I don’t care. You’ve wasted enough of my time and I will not devote any more time to resolving the issue. In fact, I’m tempted to ask my readers to paypal me $0.01 with the phrase Semi-Automatic Assault Weapon in the subject line. Though it’d be funny, you’d make money from it.

Whoever designed and timed the red-light structure from about Northshore Drive west needs to be taken out and shot.

To all the drivers on I140, you’re dumb asses. Every morning, at about the Westland Avenue exit, traffic comes to a complete stop. Once I travel the additional couple of miles to my exit, I see there’s no problem. There’s no wreck, no stall, no anything. You just stop at random. It’s like there’s a collective cloud of dumbass that covers the area and you breath it deeply. And it looks like all you retards in the left lane need to be in the right lane. Here’s a clue: Get in the right lane sooner.

To the .gov: Despite the fact that studies concluded that red light cameras either increased accidents or had no effect on accidents, you voted to install them any way. I guess the pocketbook is more important than the lives of your constituents, who hopefully vote your sorry asses out soon. I think I’ll open a store that just sells Photoblocker.

To all executives or producer or whoever the Hell decides formatting:

I appreciate the fact that you guys want to get your logo and stuff out there but here’s the deal: I own a plasma TeeVee. So, whenever you leave your gay little logo on the bottom right of the screen, I risk it permanently burning into my TeeVee screen. I had to run the screen restore stuff this weekend because a ghost image of the Noggin logo kept showing up.

You guys should fire everyone who writes for you now and go hire some random chump off the street. TeeVee people are completely devoid of original thought these days. There’s always my idea, if you’re desperate. And you are.

I’m starting Festivus early this year and will be airing grievances for the rest of the day. So, politics:

To the Republicans: You’re all fucking retarded. I’m not sure what happened or exactly where you guys lost your way, but everything about the last six years (except one tax break) has been a colossal disappointment. You didn’t make the government smaller (in fact, you made it the biggest it has ever been); you didn’t bring accountability to the government; you didn’t do, well, anything you promised.

To the Democrats: Let’s be honest, I don’t like you and you don’t like me. But congrats on your recent win. It took you a while. In 2004, I honestly figured a retarded monkey could have beaten anyone with an R after their name. Yet, you guys couldn’t. You finally figured out that if you kept your mouths shut for a little bit, tried not to do anything stupid, and kept McKinney out from in front of a camera, that the Republicans would lose. Good job, for a retarded monkey.

It’s the end of the year, holiday time. A time for reflection. A time for a look back. A time to be thankful that the baby Jesus was born, died and resurrected as a fat guy, who delivers presents, chants Kujichagulia through a menorah during his month long fasting because he’s trying to lose all that weight. Or something, I tend to get my holidays confused. I think it may also involve fireworks. It’s also Festivus, which completely unlike the aforementioned holiday montage, is actually made up. As part of Festivus, we are to air our grievances. Tommy wants someone to start so I’ll start with a list of shit I hate:

People who use non-standard, colorful fonts in their email

People who don’t flush toilets

People who don’t realize that in email there are separate buttons for Reply and Reply To All

Gum on sidewalks

When people make weak coffee. Here’s a newsflash, if you like weak coffee, you can add water to strong coffee. Those of us that like it strong can’t make weak coffee stronger, unless we use instant coffee which happens to taste like ass.

People who can’t walk with either a distinct sense of purpose or in a straight line. Walk through the mall and there will eventually be a dumbass in front of you who you’ll try to get around. They will zig to the left and zag to the right getting in your way both times without a clue they’re doing it. Those are the morons I mean. If you’ve never seen these people, you are these people. Walk like you have a sense of purpose or, at least, like you know where you’re going.

Hidden songs on CDs. Hey, dumbass, how am I supposed to get to the song when it’s after the 10 minutes of silence after the last song.

The 20 minute feedback/wall of noise/jam session at the end of recorded songs. No one wants to hear that unless they’re at a show and had a beer or 6. Save that shit for concerts.

People who drive in the left lane who are not passing or turning.

Knoxville traffic.

When I’m checking out the donut spread and I grab what I think is a custard filled donut but it turns out to be lemon. Lemon donuts? What the Hell?

Computer applications, particularly GMail, that set focus or whatever the Hell it is that causes them to think they’re the most important application I’m running on the computer. Apparently, it has decided it’s so important that it should be the top window.

Coffee stir sticks/straws. Seriously, these things are so thin they cannot adequately stir coffee (which SayUncle happens to take with a little sugar and he likes it strong). I always wind up using three of them to get an adequate level of stirriness*. Why not just make the damn things three times thicker?

* People who make up words.

People who insist that I call them Mr., Mrs., Ms. or Doctor [their last name].

People who think turn signals are completely optional.

Websites whose main page (i.e., the one that ends in .com, .net, etc.) has a Click To Enter link. Obviously, I want to enter or I wouldn’t be there.

Sweaters. Can’t stand them yet every year the wife buys me one.

When people post lists of stuff they hate.

Crappy TeeVee shows turned into crappy movies.

And a Meppy Chrisamadkwanzakuh to you, unless you’re an overly sensitive shit stirrer. In which case, piss off.

Update: More airing of grievances here, here and here. My favorites:

Mentos! Fresh maker my ass!

People who walk around with the little wireless phone earpiece thing: you’re not a secret service agent, you’re one step away from being the homeless dude pushing the shopping cart talking to himself.

When my dog farts, it smells like a tire fire. I tell him this, but he seems proud of the fact. And his flatulence entertains him, so who am I to take that away from him?

And Les says people who don’t signal aren’t assholes but they’re out of blinker fluid.