This is mostly in response to this Alternet article, so yeah, read it first:

http://www.alternet.org/story/40344/

Now see, I'm reading this, and it sounds to me like a good time. The author tries to paint it as a white supremacist festival but yet there's Jewish groups setting up shop, and by his own admission people of all races in the crowds? The biggest criticism anyone makes is that some of the knick-knacks and t-shirts are in poor taste? OH GOD NOES.

What really galls me are the comments people post in reply to the article. This one is a favorite:

"In fifteen states (most Southern Christian cracker poorly edcucated strongholds) it's legal to shoot and kill someone who threatens your property. One has to wonder how long it will take for a perosn to get killed for looking like he/she was threatening someones property. Sort of like, I could pre-emptively kill a guy because the guy was staring at my house and I felt threatened.
This is Christian American at your service."

Yes, because no one should have a right to defend themselves or their property! Obviously it's only ignorant crackers who would support such laws! I'd also note that in his example, someone staring into your house is in your yard, and I'd like to hear some kind of rational explaination for staring into my fucking windows. The idea that Christianity has anything to do with it is hilarious. I'm Wiccan and pack an assault shotgun, and Rede or not, I'm blowing someone the fuck away if they're in my house.

Then we've got this assclown:

" Look what the Bushies have created: thousands of completely bonkers super-weapons nut cases."

Sorry, chump, Bush and where the US government have been heading with the Patriot Act and illegal NSA spying, etc, etc, are a big part of why I decided not just to get a gun, but to purchase one based on its ability to take down people in police-style bodyarmor.

As usual, there's some quality replies as well, but I'm always aghast at some of the people who read Altnernet. The whole thing strikes me as a divide-and-conquer strategy against the left. Let's paint liberals as gun-grabbers (some of them rightfully) and alienate the white lower class from leftism at the same time! I wonder why the Democrats keep losing?

Ok, so I have a firearms permit, a CDL with hazmat and just applied for a passport, so now's a good time for a rant about government just plain being stupid.

Applying for the firearms permit:

I had to do that at the Lowndes County Courthouse and wasn't aware there were metal detectors and armed guards in courthouses nowadays, so I didn't think to leave the 3 rather sizeable knives I usually carry behind in the car. I got to the metal detector and just put them in the bowl with my keys, figuring at worst they'd make me take the knives back to the car, or would hold them there until I left. Instead, the guard handed them back to me with everything else! This is security? What would they have actually stopped me from carrying in? A pistol?

Part of getting that was paying minor fees to a variety of law enforcement agencies and courts for the hassle of them running background checks/fingerprints on me, etc, to verify I wasn't wanted anywhere, a felon, or a person of interest in an ongoing investigation. I can understand that, but of course, every single little agency had to be paid their fee seperately. So instead of being able to hand the clerk $100 or so, I had to spread that out among 5 different agencies, some of whom took only cash, some of whom took only money orders, and others that were willing to take checks. I will note that the local sheriff was quite happy to take a personal check from a law-abiding registered voter, especially since he already knew me from when I was arrested for aggravated assault (but never charged.) The FBI and GBI, however, would not take a check. Why, exactly? Is there normally a problem with people writing bad checks to the FBI? Even if so, one would think the check bouncing would kinda save them the trouble of the background check I was paying for anyway, yeah?

Then we get to the time factor. Local police, sheriff, and superior court approved me on the spot. The FBI took around 2 weeks to run me through their computers. The GBI however actually had human beings study my fingerprints and compare them to fingerprints in open investigations. Welcome to the 1950s. This took something on the order of 3 months.

CDL/Hazmat idiocy:

Since 9/11, issuance of hazmat permits somehow now involves the Department of Homeland Security. I suppose that makes sense in a way, making sure terrorists aren't applying for hazmat permits and all. However, while every other agency (Dept. of Transporation, GA Department of Public Safety, etc) cleared me on the spot with a simple computer search, Homeland Security took around 2 weeks to figure out if I was a terrorist or not. Course, if I was, I'd have simply stolen a truck in that time and blown something up.

Passport stupidity:

To get a passport now, you've gotta mail the State Department your original birth certificate. They won't take copies, they won't let the county clerk or federal building employee handling the application simply look at the thing, or at a state ID. Nor can they look me up in a database of drivers' licenses (which I had to have an original birth certificate to get.)

Can we buy one less bomber next year and spend those $2 billion actually making any of this shit remotely customer-friendly? I'd storm out of a bank for any such acts of blatant idiocy, why do we expect less of a business we're required to use?

Well, Molly of Molly Saves The Day has been after me to do a blog myself for a while, so here we go, and for our inaugural edition: Code Red!

That's right, the terror alert system is at the highest state of readiness and alarm! *AFTER* the recent airline plot was uncovered. Seriously, people, is this "terror warning" system any value at all if it only responds to things in the newspapers? What happens to the billions we spend on intelligence, anyway? Or is this what the Republicans mean about how government should be reactive and not proactive?

Aside from exposing how generally ineffectual our government is (British police handled the crisis) this non-crisis will of course be the central campaign point for almost all of the GOP this year. Already, Homeland Security is trying to claim they had some influence, "pushing" the Brits to go ahead and make arrests. If they had the information to do such a thing, why wasn't the terror warning raised to Red BEFORE the story hit papers? But no reporter will ask such a thing, and instead the news (like CBS news last night) will run scare-monger stories about airplanes and pretty much play into the hands of the Republican re-election campaigns.

The funniest thing here is that since 9/11, Al-Qaeda hasn't actually accomplished anything. This is a terrorist organization so inept they sent a guy out to blow up an airplane who couldn't figure out to light his shoe-bombs on fire in the bathroom. And they're still making America look dumb on a regular basis.

Anyway, I don't expect this blog to always be political, I just saw the terror alert was Red a wee bit late to do anyone any good and figured I'd get in a chuckle at the morons running this country into the ground.