I'm not sure what they'd consider to be alternatives to the typical Democrat Machine Politician (full socialist? Republican?), but they are admirably pissed off at their government.

“The manner in which we have been voting needs to change,” Wendy Pearson, an activist against Chicago school closings, told the room. “I’m here to say to you that we have been trained to vote in a specific manner… we need to start looking at the manner in which our elected officials have been voting… if they have not voted in a manner that is beneficial to you, yours, and your community, then you need to start voting them out.”

McKinley told the room, “Stop blaming just anybody for the violence in the city of Chicago. Blame the right people, not just white people, but the right people. Because it’s not just white folks a part of this, but it is on the fifth floor. The fifth floor took your schools, the fifth floor just took your jobs that he said that he gave to the ex-offender… and every single alderman was a part of this criminal process.”

McKinley's a Republican candidate. He called for an end of government aid to "brand-name blue-ribbon negro organizations," by which he meant the NAACP and Urban League. He actually got a lot of applause.

An older fellow calls for a Tea Party style uprising, but I think he's only talking about the procedural aspects of the Tea Party (that is, a revolt against the political class, not necessarily embracing rightist ideology).

Interesting stuff.

Via Evan Sayet.

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Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (303)
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Happy pre-Christmas Sunday football thread!

And because I promised,

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:58 AM | Comments (191)
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For all non-book related fooforaw.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:27 AM | Comments (59)
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Posted from my phone while sitting on the tarmac at Logan. Because I'm a giver like that.

Thanks in advance to Dave for picking up gun thread duty today.

Posted by: andy at 03:13 AM | Comments (291)
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Andrew is traveling this weekend and asked me to fill in.

He's done it for me. I will do it for him.

What the heck is this cray cray assault rifle?

(answer below the fold)

Charles C.W. Cooke correctly defines an assault rifle as one that has selective fire, off, one round, more than one round, all the rounds upon the depression of the trigger. The firearm pictured above is not an assault rifle.

15 million of them were made though, and they were mo debnly "assault rifles".

Fun with gun news. Google up "guns" and "news". I'll bet you a paycheck (and my paycheck doesn't suck) the top ten googles are "gun buy backs" and "stories about kids getting accidentally shot with firearms". GOOGLE IT.

See what I mean?

Elbows Boobs up later. Promise. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:25 AM | Comments (136)
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From RD Brewer at Twitter, it looks like someone ticked off the lighting crew.

I don't even care if it's real, it's crafty.

And something more in keeping with the spirit of giving, Homefront Hugs is trying to raise money to send hand warmers to the troops. Pitch in if you can. As well, they need volunteers to correspond with the troops.

Thanks.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 PM | Comments (124)
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Merry Christmas to all of you 'rons and 'ettes! And welcome to the award-winning AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread. I know that many of you have relatives and in-laws who are progressives, LIVs, FSA volunteers, pajama boys, or other types of O-bots who you will be visiting with over the holidays. Given the current political climate, what with Obamacare crashing and burning like the Hindenburg, I'm sure the mealtime conversations are going to be EPIC.

Good and Evil

Here is another 'best of 2013' list, this time by the Wall Street Journal. I've never heard of any of the books, listed, but the blurb for Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips, about some serial killings in 1931 caught my eye:

In a welcome reversal, the novelist sympathetically imagines the lives of the victims rather than of the murderer.

Imagine that, being more concerned about the victims rather than the criminal. I think that's a big difference between the progressive mindset and the conservative one. Conservatives are horrified by the slaughter, and want to see the perpetrator punished. One the other hand, progressives, despite all of their alleged sympathy for "the little guy", will naturally tend to want to hear more about the murderer, why he does the things he does and how he got that way, and the victims are mostly secondary. Perhaps that's not altogether a healthy perspective.

Along these lines, I remember one of my English professors telling me of his thesis that he wrote about the novel Grendel, by John Gardner, which is the story of Beowolf retold from the monster's point of view. His point was only in the modern world is such a novel possible due to the different methods of how to deal with evil: the old, traditional way is to either eradicate it completely, or avoid it altogether, but the new, modern way is to try to understand it.

Perhaps the modern way is not necessarily the better way.

Hairy Tales

Son #1 bought this book for Daughter #1 as a Christmas present: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales by Kate Bernheimer. This is a collection of retold, rebooted fairy tales by a number of luminaries, among them Neil Gaiman, John Updike, and Joyce Carol Oates, and supposedly many of them are quite scary. I have no idea if it's any good, I just glanced at it as it came in the mail, and it looked interesting.

And speaking of Joyce Carol Oates, my high school English teacher made us read her novel Do With Me What You Will. Ugh. It was the most depressing book I had ever read. I've never wanted to read any of her 70+ other books ever since.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 AM | Comments (152)
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I generally like Joel and Ethan Coen's movies, although not all of them, I know they're kind of hit and miss. But I'm always interested when a new one comes out. I decided that wanted to see True Grit based pretty much entirely on the strength of this trailer:

First of all, I think this is a great trailer. It establishes the broad, general outline of the movie without giving too much away. And it introduces Mattie Ross as a compelling character. Who would not want to see a western about a 14-year old girl who is determined to bring her father's killer to justice? And how can she accomplish this task she has set for herself, given her age and gender?

So right there, you have an interesting story and a compelling character.

I was looking forward to seeing True Grit, and I was happy when it lived up to my expectations. And what's more, I think it's the best film the Coens have ever made.

Now watch this trailer of the latest Coen Bros. movie, Inside Llewyn Davis:

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:28 PM | Comments (286)
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Welcome to the longest night of the year morons. Ah, the first day of winter and it was friggin' over 70 degrees today. So nice. Sadly, it will get cold again in a few days. Well no white Christmas for me but the rest of you can see if you might have a chance for a white Christmas. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:55 PM | Comments (407)
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Welcome to the barely-a-post car thread. There are gifts to be bought and gifts to be wrapped, so you get what you get. Got it?

What's this? A federal agency comes to their senses?

It is one heck of a bizarre, twisted role reversal when the Environmental Protection Agency is the one acting as the voice of reason in any of their countless political battles, but I take it as a testament to just how deeply messed up this entire Renewable Fuel Standard debacle really is. Big Ethanol flew into an almighty uproar last month when the EPA announced that they were finally planning to relent on their scheduled increases to the biofuel volumes that refiners are required to blend into the nationÂ’s fuel supply, and the powerful lobby has been hinting that they will challenge the EPAÂ’s legal authority to make any adjustments to the RFS other than ones that continue to expand the mandate.

Read the rest here.

Not your ordinary used car ad. Nissan takes notice.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:13 PM | Comments (128)
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