Joe Biden is not a serious person. He wants more gun laws but doesn’t enforce the gun laws we already have, like the ATF Form 4473, a federal form required to buy a gun in the United States. Among other things, the form is intended to prevent crack addicts from buying guns. Lying on the 4473 — for example, saying you’re not a crack addict when you are, like your son Hunter did — carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, but Hunter won’t be going to prison because he got a plea deal. And the Democratic Party is not a serious party. I haven’t heard a single Democrat say the plea deal is a joke and Hunter should go to prison. Yes I know the president doesn’t want his son to go to prison, even though he boasts about sending other people’s kids to prison for lying… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Death
Forrest Richard ‘Dickey’ Betts, 1943-2024
SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. – Dickey Betts, a driving force behind the Allman Brothers Band that launched Southern rock and influenced the jam band scene, died Thursday at his Florida home — USA Today Betts was best known for his legendary guitar skills, but he also wrote the Allman Brothers Band’s only Top 10 hit, “Ramblin’ Man.” During Bob Dylan’s Sept. 30, 1995, concert at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa. Florida, Betts joined Dylan on stage for several numbers including “Ramblin’ Man.” Betts told the story of how it came to be while seated at his Sarasota County home in 2014. Dylan says, “Let’s do ‘Ramblin’ Man.’” “All right, let me write the words down,” Betts tells him. “I know the words,” Dylan says. “I should have wrote that song.” Betts unleashed one of his warm, charming laughs. “I said, ‘Bob, just sing whatever you want to.’ I didn’t think… Read more →
Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024
https://t.co/CZwiPjRrZ3 — Paul Epps (@paulepps) March 29, 2024 Kahneman was a genius not only at formulating original insights into human behavior but at explaining them in a way that’s interesting and understandable to the non-expert. I can’t recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow highly enough. It’s one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. RIP Daniel Kahneman Read more →
Biden Apologizes for “Illegal”
Biden Expresses Regret for Calling Laken Riley’s Alleged Killer ‘an Illegal’ https://t.co/McWvsZB68h — Paul Epps (@paulepps) March 11, 2024 There’s so much about this that I don’t like. He doesn’t express regret for an immigration policy that allows people to enter the country illegally and to stay in the country even after being arrested for multiple crimes. He doesn’t express regret for a young woman being murdered as a result of that policy. There’s no moral equivalence between word games and murder. It’s beyond contemptible. Anyone who thinks it’s important to tell people how to speak, what words they can and can’t use, is a person to be ignored and shunned. As a free citizen, I’ll speak the way I want to. Biden was given a secure border and instructions on how to keep it secure. He issued close to 100 executive orders undoing everything the previous administration had done.… Read more →
Gun Laws Don’t Work Even When They Do Work
Police Officer Paul ElmstrandPolice Officer Matthew RugeFirefighter Adam Finseth They were shot and kiIIed yesterday near Minneapolis. Another officer was injured. The alleged shooter is Shannon Gooden. Gooden applied for a gun in 2020 and was rejected due to his violent… pic.twitter.com/wV8eTbHa6F — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 19, 2024 Gun laws don’t work, even when they do work. The shooter in this case tried to buy a gun but was rejected because of his violent criminal history. Amazingly, he was still able to get his hands on a gun, despite the legal prohibition, and the victims are just as dead. I haven’t seen anything about this case except a mention in an X account. I can’t help thinking that if you flipped the script and a police officer shot a black man, there’d be a thousand times more media coverage than a black man shooting a police officer, or shooting… Read more →
Mojo Nixon, 1957-2024
An underappreciated genius. I loved this guy. RIP Mojo Nixon Read more →
True and False Statements About Trans People
Report: Trans People Seven Times More Likely Than Cisgender People to Experience Violence In California An annual report detailing how many Californians were the victims of violence over the past year finds a slight dip in reported violence among most populations, but a sharp increase in reported violence against transgender people. — sfist.com (emphasis added) Nothing I say here is intended to disparage trans people . . . I’m fine with adults doing what they want, dressing the way they want, acting the way they want, with a few minor restrictions — keep your hands to yourself, that sort of thing. I don’t really care about trans people. But I take exception to being lied to by people advancing an agenda. That said, the report mentioned in the article above is based on the fourth annual California Violence Experiences Survey, conducted by UC San Diego and Tulane University. If you… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Brooks Robinson
Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson, the “Human Vacuum Cleaner,” has died at the age of 86. Robinson played his entire 23-year career with the Orioles. He was selected to 18 All-Star Games and earned the 1964 AL Most Valuable Player award after batting .318 with 28 home runs and a league-leading 118 RBIs. He won 16 consecutive Gold Gloves. He was the best-fielding third basemen I’ve ever seen. Robinson’s most memorable performance came as MVP of the 1970 World Series, a five-game triumph over the Reds, He hit .429, homered twice and drove in six runs. In Game 1, Robinson delivered the tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning. One inning earlier, he made a sensational backhanded grab of a hard grounder hit down the line by Lee May, spun around in foul territory and somehow threw out the runner. Robinson contributed an RBI single in the second… Read more →
Doing What He Loved
Jim Tweto, the patriarch of a family aviation business in Alaska whose fame endured a decade after his somewhat reluctant star turn on television, died June 16 when the Cessna 180 he was flying failed to gain altitude after takeoff. — aopa.org “At least he died doing what he loved.” “He loved crashing planes?” Read more →
Have you built your ship of death, or have you?
Oh build your ship of death, for you will need it.
— D.H. Lawrence, “The Ship of Death”
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Vida Blue
Vida Blue was a left-handed pitcher between 1969 and 1986, most notably as a member of the starting rotation with the Oakland A’s dynasty that won three consecutive World Series championships between 1972 and 1974. He won the American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award in 1971, the youngest American League player to win the MVP Award in the 20th century. He had a 24–8 record, an AL-leading 1.82 ERA, eight shutouts and 301 strikeouts. Those were the days when starting pitchers throwing a shutout weren’t taken out of the game because of a pitch count. Today, pitchers throwing no-hitters are pulled based on pitch counts. So eight shutouts is more than a current pitcher will likely throw in a lifetime. Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader and a good guy to go to for an opinion like this, said that Vida Blue threw as hard as… Read more →
The Meaning of “Woke” By Example
What does “woke” mean? I’ve heard a lot of different definitions, some with a positive connotation, some with a negative connotation. I’d say a woke person is one who makes sweeping, prejudicial judgments about others based on race, gender and sexual preferences. People are sorted into identity groups and the groups are stack-ranked from best to worst. Riley Gaines is attacked by violent trans activists mob, physically assaulted by a man in a dress, and then held hostage by the vicious mob because she dared to speak out to save women’s sports. The left is SILENT. pic.twitter.com/4Db0NGLa85 — Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) April 7, 2023 The woke left is silent about things like this because trans is the best identity group you can be in right now. It doesn’t matter that the trans branding is “We are militant, violent and delusional.” It doesn’t even matter that you shoot up a school… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Willis Reed
Willis Reed is best remembered for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers in Madison Square Garden, not for his performance on the court (he scored only four points), but for limping gamely onto the court during warmups. Reed hadn’t played in Game 6 because of a torn thigh muscle and was considered unlikely to play in Game 7. Even as a Laker fan, I have to admit it was an all-time iconic moment, so much so that no one (except Frazier himself) remembers that Walt Frazier had one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA playoff history: 36 points, 7 rebounds, 19 assists and 6 steals. That game is always remembered as “the Willis Reed game.” RIP Willis Reed Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Dick Fosbury
THE FOSBURY FLOP! Read more →
A Parkland Parent on Permitless Carry
Hey Gavin, my daughter Alaina was killed at Parkland and I support permit-less carry in Florida. If my daughter were alive she’d be carrying, because she would be defenseless in a gun free zone. Sit this one out. https://t.co/htDcUnVK73 — Ryan Petty (@rpetty) February 1, 2023 Mr. Petty went on to make some cogent points in a subsequent interview: “California has suffered some horrific tragedies over the last couple weeks in mass shootings and gun control advocates promise that if we just implement their preferred policies, we’ll be safer as a nation. “California has enacted what you could only call ‘the dream’ for gun-control advocates, and it is not proving to make Californians any safer. The reason is simple. “Criminals don’t obey gun laws. “The only thing Gavin Newsom and the California legislature have accomplished is curtailing the rights of law-abiding Californians, and in doing so they have made no… Read more →
Strict California Gun Laws
Gavin Newsom swats down CBS reporter’s Second Amendment question — msn.com That’s not really the way I saw it. Gavin Newsom is not a smart man. He’s not going to win too many forensic scrimmages against another adult. The reason the CBS reporter was talking to Newsom about guns and the Second Amendment is that we had 3 mass shootings in 3 days in California. I’ve heard that California has the strictest gun control laws of any state in the country, whatever that means, but we still had 3 mass shootings in 3 days. What Newsom was responding to was not even a question. He had just finished calling the Second Amendment a “suicide pact” when the reporter pointed out that many people in the U.S. support the Second Amendment. This was Newsom’s swat-down reply: “Yeah, I have great respect. I have no ideological opposition with someone reasonably and responsibly… Read more →
There Were Earthquakes Before Climate Change?
The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake occurred in the early morning of Jan. 23, 1556 in Huaxian, Shaanxi during the Ming dynasty. Modern estimates put the direct deaths from the earthquake at over 100,000, while over 700,000 migrated away or died from famine and plagues, which summed up to a total loss of 830,000 people in Imperial records. It is one of the most fatal earthquakes in China, in turn making it one of the top disasters in China by death toll. Call me Nostradamus, but if this event happened on Jan. 23, 2023, it would be almost universally blamed on “climate change.” Read more →
The Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again
Black Lives Matter wants LAPD to stop responding to minor traffic incidents https://t.co/zHvBVAJnDI — O.C. Register (@ocregister) January 17, 2023 Well, the Law of Unintended Consequences has already kicked in on this one. I feel like if I know this, someone at BLM should know it. In the aftermath of George Floyd and Defund the Police, cops — the ones who were still funded — didn’t engage with Black citizens because, you know, if that’s the way you feel about cops, go ahead and do whatever you want. One result, as you can see in the chart, is a spike in traffic fatalities for both Black men and women. The same unintended consequence affected the murder rate: Read more →
Does Money Buy Happiness?
Does money buy happiness? I’ve never seen any evidence of this but the girl cutting my hair today said it does. “It allows my husband and I to have a house so it gives us freedom.” I should have delved into this a little bit more for a couple of reasons. When I’ve owned a house, I’ve found that it gave me less freedom. If I’m renting a place, even a house, and I decide that I don’t want to be there anymore, I can just leave, which I can’t do if I own a house. Of course, there would still be the issue of moving all of my possessions. Owning things is problematic. Do I own my stuff or does my stuff own me? I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t really want to own anything: houses, cars, furniture. That would be real freedom. That still leaves the… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Pelé
Pelé is the the only man to win the World Cup three times, winning with Brazil in the 1958, 1962 and 1970 tournaments. At the time of his first World Cup competition, Pelé was 17 years old and the youngest player to ever participate. In 1999, the International Olympic Committee gave him the honor of Athlete of the Century. RIP Pelé Read more →