Archive for the ‘Quote of the Day’ Category
Quote of the Day
The assault weapons ban has about as much to do with machine guns as it does with monkeys.
- Uncle, referring to Gen. Clark’s erroneous statement.
Quote of the Day
Some people apparently love writing in longhand. Some people apparently love getting whipped while their mouth is stuffed full of a ball-gag, too. Hey, it’s a free country…
Tam, in the comments of Marko’s post.
I’m left-handed as well, and writing often feels like a chore. Even so, I love the feel of pen (and oftentimes pencil) on paper, even if I am just doodling.
Scary Quote of the Day
From WorldNetDaily:
If you had gone into business on the day Jesus was born, and your business lost a million dollars a day, 365 days a year, it would take you until October 2737 to lose $1 trillion.
If you spent $1 million a day, every day since Jesus was born, you would still be only slightly more that three-quarters of the way to spending $1 trillion.
One trillion dollars divided by 300 million Americans comes out to $3,333 per person.
One trillion one-dollar bills stacked one on top of the other would reach nearly 68,000 miles into the sky, about a third of the way from the Earth to the moon.
Earth’s home galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to contain about 200 billion stars. So, if each star cost one dollar, one trillion dollars would buy five Milky Way galaxies full of stars.
One trillion seconds of ordinary clock time equals 31,546 years. So, spending money at the rate of one dollar every second, or $86,400 every day, would still take nearly 32,000 years to spend $1 trillion.
If someone were to build city blocks that contained 10 homes valued at $100,000 per home, you would end up with ten houses to a block, ten blocks to a mile and a hundred blocks per square mile. It would take 10,000 square miles to reach $1 trillion in value. This would be more than the size of six U.S. states: Vermont, 9,615 square miles; New Hampshire, 9,351 square miles; New Jersey, 8,722 square miles; Connecticut, 5,544 square miles; Delaware, 1,954 square miles; and Rhode Island, 1,545 square miles
Craig Smith, founder and CEO of Swiss America, estimates it would take approximately four generations of Americans to pay off the interest of the U.S. Treasury bonds sold as debt to create the $1 trillion stimulus package, factoring in a 3 percent growth rate in the economy throughout that time.
The U.S. national debt now exceeds $10 trillion according to the according to the U.S. National Debt Clock, at Times Square in New York City.
With the estimated population of the United States at 305,556,415 people, each citizen’s share of the national debt is $34,769.40.
Quote of the Day
Coworker*: [looking at ruler]“Wow, I had no idea that there was about two and a half centimeters per inch.”
Me: “Actually, there is exactly 2.54 centimeters per inch, by definition.”
Coworker: [glares sharply at me, then attacks me with ruler]
* Coworker at my day job (doing IT for a university department). He’s not really a science/math type.
Quote of the Day
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights is there to safeguard 2 things in times of peace and strife:
1. The unpopular rights of Americans
2. The rights of unpopular Americans
- BoobySnacks, a Fark user.
Quote of the Day
If you don’t care what’s illegal, you can do all kinds of things.
-Fark user Son Of Thunder, when asked where kids acquire guns for their acts of crime.
Scooter Quote
Is it electric?
- Woman at the grocery store gas station, in reference to my scooter.
Please note that I was in a gas station at the time, nozzle inserted into the receptacle on my scooter, actively filling it with gas* at the time.
*sighs* These are people I’m going to be sharing the road with? I’m afraid.
* $1.67 total, for a bit less than half a gallon. I didn’t need to fill up (it has a 2.5 gallon tank), but I was at the grocery store already, and figured it’d be good to buy gas anyway — if you buy gas after getting a certain amount of groceries (which I had), they give you $0.10/gallon off the posted price.
Tucson PD Nails Another Bad Guy
From the Arizona Daily Star:
Monday’s shooting occurred about 12:45 p.m. when a person called 911 and said a man was driving a dune buggy in a dirt lot near North Oracle and West Grant roads and was firing in the direction of a Circle K store.
“Numerous people were in the line of fire,” Pacheco said. No bystanders were injured.
Police don’t know why Burdon started firing at people from the dirt lot, Pacheco said.
According to the news, the shooter “had pulled into his dune buggy into the dirt lot about 10:15 a.m. and about two hours later he began driving around the lot pointing his gun at people and shooting.” His motive has not yet been ascertained.
One officer arrived and positioned his patrol car east of the dirt lot on West Sahuaro and Burdon fired at him, Pacheco said. Meanwhile another officer, Luis Campos, who is part of the SWAT team approached Burdon moving south on North 11th Avenue from Grant Road.
When Burdon refused to obey commands to drop his firearm, Campos “observed the threat to citizens and the officer and fired at the suspect, striking and killing him,” according to a TPD news release.
Campos, an 8-year-veteran, used a rifle to kill the gunman.
Sounds like a clear-cut “good shoot” to me.
Being that this is Arizona, I’m surprised that there wasn’t any return fire from private citizens. Oh well.
Since inquiring minds will no doubt want to know, according to this page, TPD SWAT gets issued Steyr AUG A1s, but I have no idea how up-to-date that information is. Non-SWAT officers do not seem to be issued rifles. There are no details on the range from the bad guy to the store, or from the police officer to the bad guy.
Officer Campos deserves a hearty “attaboy” for his actions. Hopefully he doesn’t lose a wink of sleep over the incident, as he was entirely justified in his actions.
This brings the number of bad guys shot by TPD this year to 5.
UPDATE: The Arizona Daily Star has released new information:
Police don’t know what prompted Burdon to start firing his gun in the dirt lot, but Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman, said his family said he was insulin-dependent.
Investigators will not know if that was a factor until an autopsy’s toxicology reports are complete, and that can take six to eight weeks, Robinson said. “If those are inconclusive, we may never know,” Robinson said.
More information as I get it.
Update: The Tucson Citizen has yet more information.
Philadelphia vs. Pennsylvania
Look, idiot, here in central Pennsylvania, we have lots and lots of guns, and very little crime, absolutely none compared to you. Why is that? Don’t try to answer: That’s what is known as a rhetorical question.
Here’s why. We. Don’t. Tolerate. Crimimals.
Go read the whole thing. RWP sums up the difference between crime-ridden Pennsylvania and the relatively peaceful rest of the state…and it has nothing to do with who owns more guns.
Quote of the Day
Gun control hasn’t worked as a remedy for crime. So what makes anyone think the answer is more gun control?
-Steve Chapman, of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.
Hat tip to David Codrea for the link.