Spyder

Coronation - feat. Ciscandra Nostalghia (John Wick: Chapter 2 OST)

New music from A Perfect Circle! A Perfect Circle - The Doomed

I'm not sure what this has to do with weather or allergies, but I agree!

I actually subscribe to that YouTube channel and there is an entire series of kids and teens reacting to 80's, 90's and 00's music that never fails to make me feel like I'm 80. I love watching them, but I always listen to the kids/teens on the shows talk about how old stuff from, like, 1995 is and always have to remind myself I sounded exactly as horrible as they did when I was their age and then I cringe and sigh and become very thankful that I gained perspective.

Wonder Woman - I love this movie so much.

Linkin Park - Crawling

If you can find it, feel free ;-)

It got nice here! I've spent the last few days opening up my place when I got home from work; it's been a little bothersome on my allergies, but it's too nice to let the that bother me.

Chvrches - Lungs

Metallica - One

Steelers lose to Jacksonville last week, beat undefeated KC this week. Not even going to try to pretend I have any idea what's going to happen in football anymore.

Bear McCreary - Dance of The Druids

Caveboy - Superbia

The Ringer U Podcast

I used to read Smallville fanfic, and even wrote a few stories. That show was so poorly written that I had to turn to fanfic to get some decent stories out of characters I otherwise really liked. The laziest, dullest version of any story was what they wrote every damn time and it drove me crazy. And the people who ran the show the last few years were so enamored with trying to get the story to line up with the Christopher Reeve movies that they limited themselves in the stories they could tell. Fanfic gave me WAY more interesting stories than the show would have ever dared try to tell.

It's exactly the same here where there's a threat of snow, @Squarepeg. The entire city of Austin shuts down if snow is in the forecast. Not even heavy snow, because there's no such thing as actual heavy snow here. It's absurd. Ice gets more or less the same reaction. And when we do get ice and/or snow, the local news dedicates 20 of it's 30ish minutes to covering the weather and showing montages of people trying to drive up hills before sliding back down into other cars, which is admittedly hilarious. And there are a lot of hills in and around Austin.

Where to begin, where to begin... Look, I can't argue this. Not because I agree, but because nobody ever wins a "He said, Deity said" argument. For the sake of simplicity, I'll be working off the assumption from here on out that one's rights happen to be one's rights simply because they are, rather than divine providence. First, we should give context to the second amendment. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. When the second amendment was written, a standing army had only been a thing for a little over 100 years. The early US didn't even have one until around the time the Constitution was ratified, a factor involved being a distrust of a standing army after having dealt so much with the British Army. Militias were therefore necessary to actually form part of the fighting forces. The government, such as it was at the time of the Revolution, could only provide so many weapons, and those were limited to regulars in the Continental Army. Militia leaders, who were generally more well-off land owners, were therefore expected to provide weaponry to those who fought under them, those people usually being the people who lived and worked on their land (assuming those people were white). At the time the second amendment was written, guns cost an exorbitant amount of money. Buying one was likely to cost a person 1-3 months worth of income. Many citizens didn't have one. Now, guns are still a luxury, so to speak. They aren't cheap. But dollar to dollar, the average American makes way, WAY more money year to year than most did in revolutionary times. So people can still pay their bills, throw some money into the savings account and save up for a $1700 AR-15. Which, yanno, is something of a different situation than what the founders may have imagined even in their wildest, most musket-riddled dreams. All this is, of course, a very long way of saying that context matters. Regardless of what the writers of the Constitution may have envisioned for the country going forward, they couldn't see the future. Mass manufacturing of firearms and bullets sold by the hundred just wasn't something that could have been predicted. To take as gospel (so to speak) the right to bear arms without considering that as times change so must the rules of gun ownership, is to pretend context doesn't exist and bears no importance. Furthermore, it also ignores that the Constitution was written by fallible, biased, and imperfect men with views limited by their time period. They created a very important document, but it isn't a perfect document. No such thing exists. That's why we continue to make and change laws, and why the option to amend the Constitution exists. That's how we got things like people of color and women being able to vote. Also: prohibition. Not all ideas are good ideas. Correct! Also correct! I mean, if we're dealing in things that are not outside the realm of possibility I have some land I'd like to see you that could very possibly be sitting on the world's largest diamond mine. It's possible! But seriously, when was the last time the police and military turned these weapons on the citizenry as a whole? I know they've done it plenty against people of color just about anytime they've gathered in large numbers to protest being gunned down by the police for having the temerity to not be white, but that only seemed to make about half the country mad. The other half didn't seem to care much, and that's the half, as far as I can tell, that seems to think the government is going to come after their guns. What a strange coincidence. This is news to me. Not so much that people that wish harm upon America have weapons, because terrorists. But the invasion part is news. And the not being invaded because the citizenry is armed to an absurd degree is also news. Sources? Ah yes, the roving street gangs. Always a threat except for their fear that somebody will step out of their house with an assault weapon as they rove. To address urban/gang violence, you don't need ordinary people with guns. You need more economic opportunity. The reason people join gangs and get into criminal enterprise is because they lack opportunity. If you start life poor, the deck is stacked against you. Study after study shows that people turn to crime and violence because they don't have other options. Born poor, attend sub-standard schools that the system throws it's worst teachers at, find yourself with minimal economic opportunity. And that's before you take race into account, which if you're a person of color, means you've got two or three decks stacked against your success. The people who work their asses off and escape poverty aren't the rule, their the exception. The whole system is designed to make sure of that. They're not going to repeal the second amendment. People like guns too much. And I'll be the first to admit, I've fired guns before. It's fun! It's also really fucking dangerous. Which is why regulation is needed. But I don't get this argument that regulation means military/police taking over the country or all our rights being taken away. Do people think that if the army turned on the government and then the people, that they could fight them off? Because I know we have a lot of people with a lot of guns, but I'm also pretty damn certain that the military and police are going to mow down a bunch of regular people with similar firearms due to things like training and/or a lack thereof. Pretty sure it would just end with the regulations. In regards to changing it all, I'd rather just take private money out of public politics. That would change a lot without really changing much at all.

Live - I Alone

Uncalled for and unkind.

Chris Isaak - Wicked Game

*sigh*

I was never a big fan of Spike. Much more interesting as a villain than he was as one of the good guys. Love Buffy overall, though. One of my all time favorite tv series.

It was 91F/33C here on Monday, but it had cooled all the way off to 88F/31C by yesterday afternoon. You know, standard October weather. Still, it beats the hell out of snow, or even the threat of snow. Hate that stuff.

Miike Snow - Silvia

Oasis - Champagne Supernova