Saturday, January 19, 2013

Astronomers: Optimists; Me? Somewhat

     Astronomers must be optimists: you never hear them talk about the Moon being half-empty!

     Me, I'm and optimist, too: I'm going to try to get to the Indy 1500 Gun & Knife Show today.  Wish me luck -- lines were reportedly up to three hours long yesterday.  (And contained at least two quislings; local TV had a couple of attendees with guns for sale remarking that they were okay with universal background checks; the reporters didn't ask if they were "okay" with the additional $35 or more it would add to the cost, or with the national database -- registration by another name -- that it would take to make such a law enforceable.)

     ETA: Or not going to gun show this morning: migraine.  :(

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What??? Are you saying that you aren't in favor of reasonable restrictions? Sensible laws to help keep deadly, military-style weapons out of the hands of criminals? Don't you want to keep our children safe???

If I didn't understand propaganda before, I've certainly learned all about it in the past couple of weeks. The ratio of emotional appeals to facts in the "debate"* has been so lop-sided that even Goebbels would think that somebody's gone a bit overboard.

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(*) If one can call hectoring, whining, badgering, villifying and demonizing a debate.

Archer said...

I'd never thought of that bit about astronomers. Though, now that you mention it, even an all-shaded-black moon isn't "empty", just "new".

Pure optimism, indeed!