The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Just last week, I awarded Hill columnist Joe Concha with Douche of the Week for his piece, "Time fumbles another Person of the Year' by excluding Kavanaugh." After posting about this on Twitter, Mr. Concha actually responded. Here's how our brief back-and-forth basically went: Him: "Do you know the criteria for the award?" Me: "'The person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.' So, to answer your question, yes." Me: "The only way Kavanaugh affected my life was by prompting immature laughter at a new term I learned courtesy of him - boofing ." Him: "If you have a beef with it, take it up with Time then." Him: "How did Hitler and Stalin win the award then?" Me: "I didn't write a column about a beef I had with it; you did. Project much?" Him: "This has to be the dumbest attempt at a conversation I'v...

Host of the late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! , Jimmy Kimmel, has gotten into it with gamers the past couple of days. Kimmel recently poked fun at people who watch others play video games online, posted this very clip on YouTube, and about 15,000 angry comments and 75,000 dislikes later (and counting), Kimmel has decided to have a little more fun with the gaming community. During last night's episode, Kimmel read off some of the gamers' angry comments at his expense, including: - "Go f**k a pigeon." - "I dare you to start your car in the morning." - "Go hang yourself with that fat string of bacon in the kitchen." - "Get cancer." - "I hope you get AIDS." - "Jump off a cliff while your cat's in a blender and the blender is being used to brush your teeth. - sincerely, the entire gaming community" I know, subtle, right? Granted, Kimmel may have egged on nasty comments by implying that playing vide...

Often times when gun rights activists get confronted by gun-control advocates, they respond with something like this: "Well, people die in car accidents every year too. What are we going to do, take away cars from people? I bet you more people die by way of car accident than by gunfire ever year. Maybe we should worry more about making driving safer with laws than making guns safer." This argument is, of course, quite flawed. First off, many more laws and regulations are already in place to limit car accidents as much as possible - much more so than with regard to firearms. Secondly, many more people own cars and drive them than own and shoot guns in this country. So, even without going into numbers, that argument doesn't hold much, if any, merit. Even if we take the gun rights activists' argument seriously, however, a new study shows that their assumption isn't 100% accurate. A new Violence Police Center (VPC) study shows that while vehicle-related deaths h...

While a detailed account of the story has yet to be released, it appears as if country singer Wayne Mills was shot and killed in Nashville, Tennessee over the weekend, after allegedly getting into an argument with Pit and Barrel owner Chris Ferrell at 5 am Saturday morning. Ferrell is claiming he shot Mills in self-defense and police are looking further into that claim. Close to three years ago, lawmakers in Tennessee voted to allow loaded guns in bars across the state. As I've been saying since that law was enacted, while Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola might mix well, alcohol and guns do not. http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/apexchange/2013/11/24/us-country-singer-killed.html

Earlier today, I saw a Facebook post made by a far-right Nebraska acquaintance of mine, which included the link to an article on a far-right website that basically suggested Obamacare is worse than finding out your fiancee is your long lost sister and your coming child may also be your nephew.  The article itself wasn't what caught my attention and made me laugh; it was this acquaintance's son's response, which was the following: "We could have told people until we were blue in the face that this wasn't going to work...but what would we know? We are dumb bigoted republicans." Okay, so if this person had just said "dumb Republicans," that would have worked. It appears this person's intent was to poke fun at Democrats for labeling Republicans as being dumb, when it was Republicans whom were the wise ones for knowing all along that Obamacare would fail (according to him). However, when he included the word "bigoted," that negate...

I've seen several posts made on Facebook by self-described liberals which say something like the following: "It's very simple. Making guns illegal will not stop gun violence. But making abortions illegal will stop abortions. Get it?" The post is attempting to poke fun at hard-core conservatives' beliefs - those whom don't feel that any stricter gun laws will ward off gun violence any, but that outlawing abortion will prevent any such procedures from taking place. I can partially understand where these liberals are coming from in attempting to make such a comparison, however, I think it's the wrong one to make, especially if they're trying to persuade people that stricter gun laws are needed in this country. The problem is in the absolutism of such comments. This has been an attempted arguing point by those on the far-right, saying, "Do you think drug laws still got broken after we passed them? Yeah. Well, same thing with guns. If gun laws ge...

Perhaps this is a very common defense mechanism, but I'll often times see or hear conservatives face criticism for their stance on a specific issue by going what I call the general positive spin (GPS) route. Let me give you an example. When confronted with their stance on universal healthcare and wanting to repeal Obamacare, I've heard conservatives say, "I believe in personal responsibility. I guess that makes me a right-wing extremist!" See what was done there? They took the claims that they lacked empathy and understanding, that they didn't care about other people's well-being, about Obamacare as a specific piece of legislation, by countering that with claiming they believe in personal responsibility, before attempting to place the other side to shame by exaggerating their general-positive-spin point and saying, "I guess that makes me a right-wing extremist!" This kind of strategy is clever on one hand, yet ridiculous on the other. It's ...

I read a comment earlier today which said, "Your all so stupid..." Indeed. For when one infers that a group of people is stupid when he himself does so by using the incorrect form of the word "your" (you're), he obviously has the authority to label these people as stupid. Rumor has it that on this individual's "Your-All-So-Stupid Tour," he lays down some of the following lines as well: - "Their stupid!" - "Their more stupider then you!" - "Your stupid two, though!"

Wanna hear a silly argument? Look no further than yours truly and my girlfriend. Granted, I think this seemingly never-ending debate is/has been conducted in a joking kind of manner. In any case, the more I think about it, the sillier it appears to me. It also reminds me of a similar debate my parents have engaged in for years and in a similar kind of tone. While I was born on February 28th of 1981, my girlfriend was born on March 19th of 1980. It is my belief that she was, is, and always will be older than I am - by about 11 months. It is my girlfriend's claim that between February 28th and March 18th of every year, we're the same age, yet she's older between March 19th and February 27th. Why is this? Because I'm measuring age with specifics and she's just using years to do so. This is reminiscent of my mother and father. While my mother was born on December 24th of 1954, my father was born on March 29th of 1952. Every December 24th, my father claims that the two...

I both love and loathe debating politics with people whom don't know what they're talking about. I love it, because there are occasions when I enjoy schooling people with research/facts and logic, in hopes that it'll prompt them to think more critically and research more thoroughly on a regular basis, and also because I am sometimes humored by their elementary responses. I loathe it because after a while, it can get mighty frustrating trying to argue numbers and logic with bumper sticker slogans and talking points, and also because too many facepalms within a short duration of time can lead to quite the headache. There comes a point in every such debate when a person (or persons) needs to accept defeat and walk away. However, it seems that sometimes, regardless of how badly a person got walloped, he/she just won't admit to being wrong, defeated, and walk away with a shred of class and dignity still left in tact. I've run into just this scenario over the past wee...

Are you in favor of stricter gun control laws? Have you ever engaged in a debate on the subject with a far-right gun enthusiast? At some point in the conversation, have they brought up Chicago as evidence that gun control laws don't work? If so, you're not alone! Is Chicago known to have fairly strict gun laws? Yes. Is it known to have a high homicide rate? Yes again. However, there's more to the story than that. The fact is that gun-related crimes have been high in Chicago since before the stricter gun laws were enacted and such crimes have actually decreased since they were put into effect. Even with the stricter gun control laws, there are approximately six times as many guns that are owned in Chicago than in New York City. Also, while the gun laws may be stricter in Chicago than most other areas in this country, such laws are much more lax in other portions of the state and adjacent states. So, just because there is a high homicide rate in Chicago and there are fairly...

It's being reported that prior to the election, former Texas GOP chair and current Texas Eagle Forum president - Cathie Adams - said the following: "...No. I'm telling you, Barack Hussein Obama has got to have a teleprompter because he fried his brain on drugs." The teleprompter joke and argument has got to be one of the stupidest thrown around by the Republican Party. I have to shake my head and softly chuckle to myself whenever I hear or read a Republican criticizing President Obama and his use of teleprompters. The sad (well, sadder) part is it seems many die-hard Republicans eat it up (not literally, of course). My question is why? While former Republican President George W. Bush wasn't fond of teleprompters, he did use them at times. Former Republican President George H.W. Bush has used teleprompters as well. Former Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used teleprompters. Believe it or not, but former Republican President Ronald Reagan used tele...

No, I can't say I feel sorry for the guy, but it seems as if nothing is going right for Mitt Romney anymore. Let's look at a list of Romney arguments: 1) Taxes - the public favors the Obama plan of raising taxes on the top income-earners 2) Medicare - the public doesn't care for the Romney/Ryan plan 3) Are we better off than we were 4 years ago? - If we're being literal, then yes. 4) Jobs aren't there - We've seen a net positive in job creation for 23 consecutive months and that's where the most recent bit of news comes along... The Labor Department revised an earlier estimate that total non-farm payrolls were at 133.300 million in August and altered that to 133.686 million. When the President's first term began in January of '09, that number was at 133.561 million. In other words, with that revision in the estimates, Obama went from losing a total of 261,000 jobs in his four years thus far to creating 125,000 of them. Romney had better...

A few days ago, I got into a discussion with someone about Mitt Romney's "47%" comment(s). This person insisted that Democrats were the only ones who cared about this comment, this number spouted by the Republican presidential candidate. As I had thought at the time, he was wrong. In a new Washington Post /ABC News poll, it showed that 54% of registered voters viewed Romney's "47%" comments unfavorably, while 33% viewed them favorably. With registered independents, 57% viewed the former Massachusetts Governor's comments in a negative light. Similar numbers could be seen in like polls taken in the battleground states of Florida, Colorado and Wisconsin. In Florida, 58% of independents viewed Romney's comments unfavorably, compared to 37% who viewed them favorably. Among Colorado independents, a whopping 37% of them said the comments made them less likely to vote for Romney. That number in Wisconsin was even greater, as 39% of independents said they...

I honestly don't mean for the title of this blog to come across as arrogant or like I have all the answers. I don't. However, political debates are becoming a bigger joke than the NFL replacement refs. The thing about it is, I don't even need to make my opinions known in most of these debates. I don't feel prompted to get involved in a debate unless I read or hear something which I know to be false. Unfortunately (for them and for me in a way), this happens quite regularly. I read, research and fact-check with more regularity than meteorologists give an inaccurate forecast. I've found that most people don't do this. They resort to partisan opinion-oriented shows in order to provide them with "knowledge" and seem to then often times mistake opinion as fact and vice versa. So these debates often times go something like this: Them: "Barack Obama is a Muslim, socialist born in Kenya and his wife thinks he deserves the presidency because he's...

Yeah, when Person B tells Person A they don't want to get into an argument about something which Person A brought up, not thinking it was an argument at all, what Person B is really saying is, "I was wrong and don't want to admit it" or "You have a point, but I'm not going to tell you that."

Ever known someone who just didn't seem to like you from the start? You have no idea what you said or did to bother them, but they just have a certain attitude about them around you that they don't contain around others? I've run into this with someone. It kind of reached a peak last week, but looking back on things, I have to say it's been rolling in this direction for quite some time. The crazy thing is, I don't see him act this way around anyone else. It is entirely possible that he does, but if so, I haven't been aware of it. He just likes to pick fights and sometimes over the silliest of things. He'll also make comments which signify a certain disapproval of me. For most of 2009 and 2010 I was ill and due to my symptoms, was unable to drive. After I was able to walk a bit again, I was able to get a ride out to a pub on a Friday or Saturday during the weekends. It was nice. It kept me sane, as I was stuck inside the house for the week, unable to move...

I appreciate apologies if they're sincere and genuine. I don't much care for them if I know the person is just doing it to please another person as opposed to actually meaning what they say. I got into a political debate with an owner of a bar on Friday night and after he angrily called me a socialist, I kind of laughed and left. He sent a couple half-hearted apologies via e-mail shortly after the situation. His wife sent a more sincere apology on his behalf via text. He then sent another e-mail yesterday and I think this one bugged me more than anything. I'll explain why after posting the e-mail: "Craig, I apologize that I offended you. I thought we were friendly enough to disagree. I do get worked up about politics especially when drinking. I concede your point about Reagan although it is here nor there. We have a president who campaigned talking about redistribution of wealth, he is openly hostile to successful people. And chastises people for being wealthy. I hav...

Yeah, so that was fun. On Friday night, I went to a pub I frequent. It's a neighborhood dive bar. Pretty much everyone there knows each other. I kind of like that, as opposed to a meat-market bar. Toward the very end of the evening, one of the two owners there seemed insistent on talking about politics. He's tried engaging me in such discussions before and while I will listen and give feedback, I don't make my opinions known. I know he and I don't see eye-to-eye on much and I know he can lose his cool very quickly if another's opinion conflicts with his own. So, I've steered clear of doing that in the past, by just trying to play the peace-keeper, let all viewpoints be known without letting my own opinion be known. This was again the case on Friday night. He talked about the Republican field and started with Newt Gingrich. I gave my opinion that I felt (and polls backed me up on this) that he was the less electable of the two, between he and Mitt Romney. I the...

I don't get into many heated arguments. That's just not my style. I learn, sometimes the hard way, who it is I probably shouldn't discuss serious maters with, as they may lose their cool very quickly and there's rarely anything productive that should arise from the conversation. Over time, I've learned whom I can actually discuss serious matters with and these talks result in very civilized discourse where both I and the other party are able to hear viewpoints which differ from our own and we can potentially expand upon the knowledge and opinion we possessed going into the discussion. Usually, there isn't a definite winner in such "arguments" or discussions. The two people may have different viewpoints, share their opinions, question the other's and at the end of the day admit that while the other made some good points, their beliefs were unswayed, so they'll have to agree to disagree. Perhaps this is why I can irritate people when engaging i...