Shot in the Dark

Speaking Of Shots In The Dark: Welcome To the New Design!

  • High Time

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: I understand Republicans saying they had to vote for this crappy spending bill because now is not a good time to stand up for our principles.  Okay, you guys are the experts, I’ll trust your judgment. It’s just that I’ve been voting Republican for nearly 40 years and I…

  • The Strib: Fake News Opinion

    Remember Paul John Scott? He’s the “writer from Rochester” who wrote the infarmous op-ed in the Strib last year telling fellow (what else?) liberals that it was OK, even necessary, to expunge all Trump voters from  your life and social circle. Rochester?  You Owe Us An Apology:  Scott has a writing style reminiscent of a junior high…

  • Another Good Guy With A Gun

    Another episode in Texas last week of an armed citizen intervening in what police term a potential spree shooting. One James Jones walked into the “Zona Caliente” sports bar in Arlington, got into an argument, and shot manager Cesar Perez,  killing him. Then, a man – unnamed, except for the cops’ appelation “good samaritan” –…

  • Promises Promises

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The spending bill doesn’t fund The Wall. The Republican strategy appears to be “remove everything that might be objectionable to Democrats so we can get the bill passed and keep government running – otherwise, we’ll get blamed for the shut-down.” That strategy is indistinguishable from “let the Democrats run…

  • I Heard It On The NARN

    Here’s the link to Cardiac Arrest by Howard Root.

  • Johnny Was A Schoolboy, When He Heard His NARN

    Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air! Today on the show: Apparently Minneapolis has solved all is problems. What’s The Point Of A Majority And Howard Root joins us again. Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is  on “The Closer” edition of the NARN…

  • Wages Of Complacency

    With the collapse (for now) of the Democrat majorities in Saint Paul and Washington, and especially the election of a pro-2nd-Amendment president, with the concomitant appointment of a suitably pro-2nd-Amendment replacement for Antonin Scalia, the threat to our Second Amendment rights has ebbed just a bit.  The pace of gun purchases and carry permit applications…

  • Memoryhole-o-matic!

    A regular reader writes: A year ago, Slate asked if the civil war could have been avoided and went back decades before the war to point to events leading up to and potentially giving rise to the civil war, as well as potential ways conflict might have been diverted. Today, I’m told that it is…

  • Not The Better Me Speaking, Perhaps

    But deep down inside, I do in fact enjoy the fact that this story – about a blackshirt being beaten up by his fellow “progressive” fascists – includes the background fact that the blackshirts panicked and went into full retreat when faced with actual resistance from Real Americans. More.  Faster.

  • Judges Gone Wild

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: This case turns on an idiotic interpretation of the statute which these three judges made, I suspect, because the judges don’t agree with the notion of individual citizens having a right of self-defense and therefore choosing to sabotage that right by intentionally being obtuse. The case hinges on the…

  • Vital Questions – Answered

    From the email: Mitch I see that the Minneapolis park board has changed the name of Lake Calhoun to “Lake Bde Maka Ska”. How in the flaming hootie-hoo is that pronounced? Sincerely, Woe-Begone Ms. Begone: “Bde Maka Ska” is pronounced “Betsy Hodges Slop”. Glad to help. That is all.

  • Now That All Of Minneapolis’ Problems Are Solved

    The city of Minneapolis is going to vote on whether to change the name of Lake Calhoun – currently named after John Calhoun, an ardent supporter of slavery.Among their top choices of new names: 10.  Lake Quetzl-Jambo-Wang-Tse (a perfectly-engineered word incorporatiing all indigenous traditions except English). 9.  Lake Julia 8.  Lake Grievance 7.  Collective Lake 6.  Lake…

  • Concentrated

    2% of US counties have 51% of the murders, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center: 54% of US counties had zero murders in 2014 (the most recent year for which national crime data is available by county. 69% of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20% of the population. These counties…

  • More Or Lesch

    First, the good news:  Rep. Mary Franson has introduced a bill that would expose parents who subject their children to ritual genital mutilation to felony charges and potential loss of custody.  It’s currently illegal for a doctor to perform the procedure; if passed into law, Franson’s bill would spread the onus to the parents. This is a good thing –…

  • A Good Kid With A Gun, Y’All

    A mass stabbing attack left one dead and three wounded at the University of Texas Austin. It could have been worse, but…: Eyewitnesses have reported seeing a student pull out a concealed handgun on the suspect, and made him back down. While one can expect the UT and Austin media to downplay such a story…

  • Orwell Was Right: Part MCMLXXXIV

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: New York Times opinion column explains why shutting down conservative speakers on college campus is perfectly consistent with freedom of speech.  The key is the kind of speech being shut down; i.e., speech that offends people.  This is not a new idea, it’s a bad old idea dressed up…

  • The Machine Lives On Forever

    A friend of this blog writes…: “We’re for wealth sharing and against white supremacy – But only on our terms. Followed this link from Minnpost. How many tales of woe started with those five words? But I digress:  The biggest 2 complaints from this blogger seems to be that wealthy people are sharing their wealth to…

  • They Told Me That If Donald Trump Were Elected President…

    …that morally-depraved halfwits would mock and taunt LGBT people with giggly impunity. And they were right.

  • Overpowered By Smug

    In one of the most glorious moments in the history of cable television, the late Christopher Hitchens told Bill Maher’s audience – basically the same species of smug droogs that dutifully clap on command, just like Jon Stewart’s and Steven Colbert’s and Samantha Bee’s audiences, and those at pretty much every other liberal Bread and Circus…

  • Dennis Prager Is Right

    It takes an elite education to be this stupid.

  • “What’s In Your GDP?”

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Turns out my way of thinking is old-fashioned. I need to think like a millennial. I understand it all now. The national debt is $20 trillion but interest on the national debt is only $200 billion, which is only 5% of the annual budget. We don’t care about the…

  • Our Sonafabitch

    SCENE:  Mitch Berg is picking through a bin of “Priced To Move” CDs at a “Half Price Books” when Avery LIBRELLE notices him, and slowly tiptoes up on him from behind. BERG:  Hey, Avery. LIBRELLE:  Er…OK, Merg, how did you know I was here? BERG:  (not looking up from the CD bin)  It’s the same…

  • Ken “The Eighth Grader” Martin

    Yesterday, Ken Martin – the Chairman of the MNDFL – posted one of his giggly little “gotcha” posts about a fairly loathsome Facebook post made on the 7th CD GOP page.  In the post, he took a swipe at new MNGOP chair Jennifer Carnahan. Because that ‘s what politics is to Ken Martin. Little did Ken Martin…

  • There Will Come A Day When Berg’s Seventh Law Is Required Reading In All Classrooms

    Bit by bit, some liberals are getting it. John Kass at the ChiTrib?  He seems to have figured out the Big Lie of the Big Left: The lie we were told as kids was this: The end of American liberty would come at the hands of the political right. Conservatives would take away our right to…

  • Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Reading a book from 2004 called “Dark Age Ahead” by Jane Jacobs, who has written about culture and cities and societal change. When it was written, everybody assumed the house price bubble would never burst. When it was written, everybody assumed that if the house price bubble did burst,…

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