This and That #7

Harvey Weinstein et al...

It has apparently come as a surprise to those who aspire to be viewed as the most sophisticated among us, that wealthy, powerful men have been known to prey on the women who depend on their wealth and or power for their own livelihoods.

They can be forgiven for never having heard of Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy I suppose, two wallflowers who never made a headline.

Kennedy should have been prosecuted. Clinton should have been prosecuted. Hopefully Weinstein will be prosecuted.

I do not begrudge Weinstein's victims their outrage. I do begrudge them their phony naivete while repairing to the fainting couch.

It takes a great deal of courage to bite the hand that feeds you. Very few of us are courageous, human nature being what it is, as the otherwise self aggrandizing denizens of Hollywood have clearly demonstrated.

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Massacres and Gun Control.

Another massacre, another appeal for "sensible steps" to ameliorate the problem of gun violence.

I have a "sensible step" to suggest. Let's create a government data base of everyone convicted of a felony and insist that the name of any putative gun buyer be run through that system before being permitted to possess one.

Oh, wait. We have one of those already. So how did the latest shooter get his weapons? Was it through the so-called gun show loop hole ? No it wasn't.

The real problem stems from one word in the sentence above beginning with "Let's". That word is government.

The latest shooter was a convicted felon who bought his weapons from a licensed fire arms dealer who received the all clear from the government. There is that word again.

The arm of the government that convicted the shooter of multiple felonies failed to post those convictions in the government data base.

I have another "sensible step" to suggest. Do not ever assume that the government will get anything right. Look after yourself and those you love. As the saying goes, when seconds count the police are only minutes away.

Last week another Muslim lunatic killed a bunch of people in New York City. He had been interviewed by the ICE in 2015. He was not interviewed because he had jaywalked. He was interviewed because of association with people who had overstayed their visas, a common terrorist profile. No action.

Remember the Boston Marathon bombers.?

"The brothers were Muslim; Tamerlan's aunt stated that he had recently become a devout Muslim.^[174][175] Tamerlan became more devout and religious after 2009,^[185][186] and a YouTube channel in his name linked to Salafist^[185] and Islamist^{[181][187][188]} videos. The FBI was informed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2011 that he was a "follower of radical Islam."^[187] In response, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan and his family and searched databases, but they did not find any evidence of "terrorism activity, domestic or foreign."" No action.

Remember the San Bernardino killers??

"They said he had contacts with five people whom the F.B.I. had investigated for possible terrorist activities — including one associated with the Shabab, the Islamist militant movement in Somalia, and another associated with the Nusra Front, the wing of Al Qaeda in Syria. In all five cases, the investigations were closed and no charges were filed."

Are you seeing a pattern here? Sclerotic bureaucracy is the problem, not the solution.

Do not allow yourself to be brow beaten into agreement with the apparently endless legion of our fellow citizens who, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, believe that government should be the repository of all power.