Month: August 2014

Well CRAP

KevinLeave a comment

And now Robin Williams has passed:

On August 11, 2014, at approximately 11:55 a.m, Marin County Communications received a 9-1-1 telephone call reporting a male adult had been located unconscious and not breathing inside his residence in unincorporated Tiburon, CA. The Sheriff’s Office, as well as the Tiburon Fire Department and Southern Marin Fire Protection District were dispatched to the incident with emergency personnel arriving on scene at 12:00 pm. The male subject, pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm has been identified as Robin McLaurin Williams, a 63-year-old resident of unincorporated Tiburon, CA.

An investigation into the cause, manner, and circumstances of the death is currently underway by the Investigations and Coroner Division s of the Sheriff’s Office. Preliminary information developed during the investigation indicates Mr. Williams was last seen alive at his residence, where he resides with his wife, at approximately 10:00 pm on August 10, 2014. Mr. Williams was located this morning shortly before the 9-1-1 call was placed to Marin County Communications. At this time, the Sheriff’s Office Coroner Division suspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia, but a comprehensive investigation must be completed before a final determination is made.

Regardless of what you might think of his politics, Robin Williams is, in my opinion, the funniest man of the last 50 years. I predicted, after seeing The World According to Garp that he would eventually win an Oscar for his acting talent, and he did for his portrayal of psychologist Sean McGuire in Good Will Hunting.

I’ve never seen a faster comedian, or one better at improv. In 1990 while at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, New York on location for the film Awakenings (where Williams played a psychiatrist) director Penny Marshall appeared (along with the cast) in a video feed at the American Comedy Awards. She was congratulating her brother Garry Marshall for his winning an American Achievement Award from that organization. During her speech (with Robin just over her shoulder) she mentioned that they were on set “at a menstrual hospital.” In an INSTANT, Williams piped up: “A menstrual hospital! It’s a period piece!” Penny Marshall turned several interesting shades of red.

Here, I think, is one of the best examples of William’s brilliance – improv using a prop from the audience (Updated with a YouTube clip of the entire piece. Improv starts at about 2:22 and runs to the end of the clip.):

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGhfxKUH80M?rel=0]
The world is now a grayer place.  I hope he and Jonathan Winters are making a lot of people very, very happy right now.

Edited to add:

I think this might have been a little more real that we realized:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s26WxsgyKE?rel=0]
I wish someone could have found him his Grail.

Quote of the Day – GeekWithA.45 Edition

KevinLeave a comment

From a comment yesterday:

The separation of church and state is an awesome idea…

until you meet folks whose church IS the state.

With high minds, noble virtues and the very best of intentions, they dance around their altars like neolithic savages, gathering followers to help them implore their $DEITY to accept their sacrifice and to provide for them; to organize their economies, to calm their storms, to heal their sick, to teach their children, to pave their streets, to collect their trash, and above all, to punish their enemies.

The saddest thing is that most of these folks deem themselves to be evolved, and recognize no part of their atavism.

Yep, separation of church and state is an awesome idea until you meet the folks whose church is the state.

Then it’s irrelevant.

In connection to this, I’ll add a link to my 2008 überpost The Church of MSM and the New Reformation, this quote from Jonah Goldberg:

Rousseau says the government is there, that our rights come from the government, that (they) come from the collective. Locke says our rights come from God, and that we only create a government to protect our interests. The Rousseauian says you can make a religion out of society and politics, and the Lockean says no, religion is a separate sphere from politics. And that is the defining distinction between the two, and I think that distinction also runs through the human heart, that we all have a Rousseauian temptation in us. And it’s the job of conservatives to remind people that the Lockean in us needs to win.

“He Bravely Ran Away, Away…”

KevinLeave a comment

No, not Markaderpia this time.

I recently had a lengthy exchange (I know, so unusual for me) over at Quora.com with a Second Amendment Denier – one of those certain to their bones that the Second Amendment protects only a “collective right.”  I also responded to another commenter in that thread.  I received a notification that the original poster had replied to my last comment, and I clicked on that, read it, and was REALLY prepared to unleash, when I noticed I couldn’t reply.  Why?

[Contents hidden as answer has since been deleted.]

Down the Memory Hole!!

Interestingly, someone at Quora liked one of my übercomments enough to repost it, and that link survives.  It was not a reply to “Nick Malik,” the original thread poster, but someone else in that comment thread.  So, if you’re pining away for one of my überposts, go read that.  Warning, it’s just a repeat of what you’ve read here many times before, but hey, that’s pretty much true of the last dozen or so überposts.

This is the Definition Consequence of the Collapse of Rule of Law – UPDATED

KevinLeave a comment

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9BQDJZ42w0?rel=0]
Post title changed after comments.

UPDATE: The cop in question has resigned:

(Richard) Recine, a registered Democrat who serves on the elected Board of Fire Commissioners of District 2 in Piscataway, said he was being “sarcastic.”

“It was just a stupid statement on my part. He got me riled and I said it,” he explained. “I don’t believe that at all. I’m the most patriotic person in the world. I believe in God, the flag, country, the Constitution.”

Which is why he said it, while others just do it.

I Won’t Be Leaving Reno Early on Sunday

KevinLeave a comment

Mr. Completely emailed me tonight.  For our Sunday morning event at Gun Blogger Rendezvous IX, it looks like we’ll be doing digital shoot-house training at MiScenarios Indoor Shooting Range.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s0ZXCXzU1E]
He needs at least ten shooters @ $15 each.  That won’t be a problem, I think.  I’m definitely in.

Time’s running out, make your hotel reservations and get your registration in soon!

Silver Legacy Group Rate Code: GBLOG14 You must phone 1-800-687-7733 to get the special room rate.

So the LA School System is Going to Give Every Student a Laptop…

KevinLeave a comment

I covered that here a couple of weeks back.  Guess they can’t learn from New Jersey.

“We had the money to buy them, but maybe not the best implementation,” said Mark Toback, the current superintendent of Hoboken School District.

Once again: 

When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as “escalation of failure”.) – Steven Den Beste

Oh, and by all means, read the comments!