Properly Assigning Blame and the AOTW

Update and apology: Due to some odd clicking, I had disabled comments on this post and not realized it (it's fixed now). Therefore I deserve an AOTW honorable mention. For future reference, if I don't say comments have been disabled, drop me an email if they are.


As I have mentioned, I've been trying to get my new laptop up and running (which involved getting a new hard drive AND installing both Linux and the Windows 7 release candidate (because Vista sucks ass (and it was free (until next year, at least))). So part of this was setting up my desktop, which looks as thus (pausing to capture the screenshot at the right).

In addition to Firefox and Digsby (both mentioned in my last tech post), I found the guilty pleasure of gadgets. I have a kickass system monitor (monitoring the CPU, RAM, battery, wireless signal strength, and my IP. I have my weather from AccuWeather.com (in addition to the Firefox plugin). And most important was my new (for me, anyway) news feed, with both the headline and political from both Fox News and CNN (best I could come up with for balance). So look for more links in posts, because it's easier when I get a constant feed. So we'll blame Microsoft for this (because Microsoft is my go-to blame bitch for computer problems (whether or not it's their fault)).

Which brings me to the blame game. Far too often, we fail to properly assign blame for bad things. Take for example this story about Arizona lifting the ban on guns in establishments that serve alcohol, which includes restaruants and bars. The title is "Arizona Moves to Allow Concealed Guns in Bars". Naturally, the assumption (by the deluded) is that this means all bars are going to have drunk people toting guns (generally a bad idea). However, as I read, I saw the same logic that should be applied to the smoking issue (as opposed to statewide Nazi smoking bans): Allow the private businesses to determine their own policy. Generally, any bar with a normally rowdy crowd and a lick of common sense will either ban weapons or have them checked at the door, Old west style (it is Arizona). And your legal concealed weapon holders won't get in trouble for walking into a restaurant packing, and that restaurant happens to serve alcoholic beverages.

The same illogic is applied to malls, and any other public place. Allowing law-abiding citizens to come in packing heat does not increase the chances that a shooting spree will occur (after all, how many shootings occur at gun clubs?). In fact, if you were a deranged nutcase, and you were going for the big-assed body count, would you go to an NRA convention and try to start spraying bullets, or go to a mall that has "weapons banned" on every door? Personally, I'd misread those signs to say "SHOOTING GALLERY!"

But some people know where the blame is supposed to be. Take Tammy Sanford, who had the damned sense to boot her cheating governor husband out. While she has left the door open to a reconciliation (on her terms), she didn't stand on the podium looking pitiful while her horndog hubby started the apology tour (unlike the wives of John Edwards, Elliot Spitzer, and Bill Clinton). She knows who's fault it is and who has to fix his shit.

And some people, even better, aren't doing the blame game. They see the problem, and they apply capitalistic principals to fill a need, solve the problem, and make money. Alfa Demmellash is such a person. She started out in Ethiopia living on a dollar a day while trying not to die. Her mother came to this country, and eventually brought her daughter over. Life was still a struggle, but Alfa's mother put her through school. Alfa then went to Harvard with financial aid. She then applied what she had learned, both in Harvard and in watching her mother struggle in semi-business, to begin a company that helps underserved populations to go into business. It's proof that capitalism, and not blaming some group or looking for government to fix it.

Although, in the misappropriated blame game, it takes an dickhole of a tinhorn dictator to make the top of the list, and the appropriate award:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Asshat of the Week!

First of all, it's best if you pronounce his name with hacking sounds any time you get an "ah" in there (as in Mhhhhhhhhock-mood Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhock-muh-din-ee-jod) . It's good fun and an apt description. Now the underendowed peckerwood is getting the award this week because of his usual bluster, this time at President Obama.

Ahmadinejad calls Obama meddler, likens him to Bush

It all began with his snatching of the "election" a couple of weeks ago. As you know, many people
9in have criticized Obama for his pansy-esque response (part of his "engagement" strategy). It appears though, that Obama has been talking not only publicly (and meekly), but also quietly trying to make headway with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (sending him a letter just before the sham election).

And Obama came out and said something that I can agree with:

Obama said Tuesday that Iran's government must justify itself not in the eyes of the United States, but in the opinion of its own people. "A sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves ... [uh, um, uh *pause to see if the POTUS has the answer8*] consider this election illegitimate," he said at a White House news conference.

So what did the man who's name sounds like an impending loogie say?

[The feckless, dickless tinhorn]... called the U.S. president inexperienced, compared him unfavorably to President George W. Bush and suggested he apologize for "interfering in Iran's affairs." ... " Do you think that this kind of behavior is going to solve any of your problems? It will only make people think you are someone like Bush," the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted [the douchbage AOTW] as saying.

While I can easily point out Obama's Bushian flaws, pisswilly sure doesn't know what he's talking about.

The president's response, thankfully, was a restrained, PC, but distinct GFY:

"The United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran, and I'm really not concerned about [that brainless cockjack] apologizing to me. I would suggest [the man with no penis] think carefully about the obligations he owes to his own people, and he might want to consider looking at the families of those beaten, shot or detained. That's where [that sex slave to Kim Jon Il] and others need to answer their questions," he said [with colorful flourishes added for humor].

As an added bonus, Mocked-moody on Monday called the death of Neda Agha-Soltan "suspicious" and urged the country's authorities to identify those responsible for it....

So for misplacing the blame more intentionally than Hitler (before that "alleged" Holocaust thing), and thinking you can fit Obama and Bush in the same category when it comes to foreign policy, you deserve not only the fun that asshattery brings, but a brick upside your head. It's not like you need a brain to come up with your stupidity.