kimmy

I could buy an AR-15 too. It's a legal, restricted firearm in Canada. It's not a super-weapon. It's a small-calibre semi-automatic rifle. -k

I actually had either forgotten or hadn't noticed that he's made it official that he's running. I had a quick look through his site, and so far there's nothing overly Tea Partyish there. The one thing in his track record that kind of impresses me is the success in reducing the incarceration rate in Texas, in particular by adopting a smarter approach to drug offenses. -k

I believe that Kim City must be among the most firearms-crazy communities in Canada. It seems like every third car on the road is a mud-covered off-road capable vehicle with a Browning buck-mark sticker on the back window. If you took every "Support the Troops" ribbons and breast cancer ribbons and every other awareness sticker on cars and added them all up, you wouldn't have 1/10th as many of those as you have of the Browning buck-mark stickers. We've got more major gun stores than major electronics stores. I bet we have more guns per capita than any other city of notable size in Canada. But the only firearms violence we've had in the 8 years I've lived here was when a bunch of drug gang members from Abbottsford came to town to party for a weekend. -k

And the Type 56 is Chinese, and the Saiga is Russian. That was kind of what Derek is getting at. -k

Was Perry "forced" to "go full Tea Party" or was all the stuff that came out of his mouth just him being himself? For example, I read that his campaign team strongly advised him against this ad, but he insisted: -k {"I'm not ashamed to be Christian, but you don't have to be in the pews every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve in the military but kids can't celebrate Christmas or pray in school."}

Further to the point about Christians turning out to support Romney: In the wake of that election, I posted about how the Tea Partiers were trying to spin the election defeat as evidence that they had to go farther right to get their evangelical base to the polls, and how they're completely wrong. This poll conducted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition -- hardly a left-wing think tank-- found that they had an unprecedented turn-out from evangelical voters-- 27% of all votes were votes cast by evangelicals, the most ever. And they voted overwhelmingly for Romney, 78% to 21%. Romney also did very strongly among *white* Catholics... 59% to 40%, a +35% swing from the 2008 election! "Nevertheless," the article states, "Obama narrowly won the Catholic vote driven largely by over-performing among Hispanic Catholics." So Romney actually did very strongly among Christian voters, far better than McCain did 4 years earlier. Trying to argue that he lost because he is a Mormon is wishful thinking. -k

We'll see how long that lasts. During the primaries last time around, we saw bland, non-polarizing Mitt Romney having to go out and say a bunch of polarizing, non-bland stuff during the Republican primaries to try to appeal to the Tea Partyists and evangelicals, then try and walk it back later. How many Latinos outside of the Florida Cuban community are going to turn against the Democrats because of eased relations with Cuba? That's not true. The religious right delivered for Romney in historically unprecedented numbers. They might not have been fired up about voting for a Mormon, but they were fired up about defeating Obama. Huh? When has she ever disrespected minorities? -k

I'm not being hard on Sansa, I'm being hard on the writers. I mean, she's been a major part of this show for 5 seasons, and has yet to evolve as a character. Finally, toward the end of last season and the start of this season, they teased us that yes, she's finally going to be a player rather than a pawn. And now she's back to square one. If Bonam is right-- that she always has been a helpless loser and she always will be-- then they should stop wasting so much screen time with her. Wallpaper her-- push her to the background-- and focus on people who are actually doing something interesting. They could find something for Varys or Littlefinger to be doing. If Mighty AC is right-- that jumping off the roof with Theon was the start of a transformation-- then what is she transforming into? A frozen meat Popsicle? She's decided to flee off into the wilderness, into the snow, with no food, no weapons, no shelter, inadequate clothing, inadequate footwear, no survival skills aside from needlepoint, and her only aid is ... a mentally incapacitated imbecile. Bold strategy, Sansa! Let's see if it pays off! How it should proceed: she and Theon flee toward Castle Black, hoping that Jon Snow will protect them. Ramsay, recalling that he told Sansa that Snow is the Lord Commander there, takes his riders and sets off in pursuit. They catch Sansa and Theon within the hour. Ramsay tortures Theon to death while Sansa is forced to watch. They take Sansa back to Winterfell where she is incarcerated in a cage to experience a whole new definition of sadism, that thankfully we the viewer never have to see because the show-runners have decided to follow more interesting characters. A plan this stupid should, if this show is as "gritty and realistic" as they want us to think, lead to utter failure. How it will instead proceed: Sansa and Theon, through blind luck, stumble into Brienne and Poddrick. Brienne is somehow able to lead them to safety, perhaps she dispatches a couple of Bolton scouts. Sansa asks Brienne to take them to Castle Black, the last place Ramsay would think to look. Ramsay and his men are inexplicably unable to figure out where they have gone. They hear of Snow's death before they reach Castle Black. Sansa wails. She only finds out that Snow survived so that she can lose him again. They change course, and seek refuge with some local Stark supporters, where they learn that Nymphadora Tonks is also hiding out, with Rickon Stark too. That takes us to the end of season 6. I can't even see what the point of this whole story line was. Earlier, it seemed as if it was tailor-made to finally give Sansa a chance to evolve as a character. If that was the intent, they failed miserably. What else did it accomplish? They built up Ramsay and Roose as even bigger villains. Was that even necessary? They were already the most evil mofos on the show. And they're the only major characters on the show who have yet to suffer a single setback. Literally everything they have done on the show has worked out perfectly for them. About the only thing that's gone wrong for them in the entire time we've known them was Miranda getting thrown off the wall, and you know Ramsay won't be shedding any tears over that. What else did they accomplish with this story arc? Theon Greyjoy slightly redeems himself? If that was supposed to be the big emotional payoff from this storyline, I think the writers have vastly overestimated the degree to which anybody gives a crap about Theon. -k

She never actually said that. The quote came from a satire site. http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/palineskimo.asp -k

I'm not sure that announcing that the PM would step down shortly after the election would *increase* people's desire to vote for them. I thought "proven leadership!" was one of the Conservative party's best selling points. (It might be their last good selling point, in fact.) I doubt people would be super-excited about the idea that the next prime minister would be selected through a party convention rather than a national election. "Elect us, and we'll choose the next prime minister for you!" It seems to me that party leadership conventions in Canada have often been pretty bad. Especially the time Joe Volpe wanted to be Liberal leader. Remember that guy? If I recall he was getting truckloads of party memberships to fictional people, and at one point they had toddlers and infants donating the maximum contribution limit to the Volpe campaign. "Francesca is very passionate about politics and made this donation of her own money of her own accord." "She's TWO YEARS OLD!" "What are you implying?" -k

Honestly, if all they ever plan to do with Sansa is put her into dangerous predicaments to create suspense, then I hope doesn't ever emerge from that snow-bank she apparently fell into. There would be much better uses of their precious screen time than carrying on this Perils Of Pauline bullshit any longer. -k

I am with you. Nonsense. The candle and the escape are the active start of her being the same spineless dipshit that she was in season 1. The only signs of growth she's had as a character were when she first off lied to protect Littlefinger, at a point in time when she could have instead outed Littlefinger and pleaded for the aid of the nobles at the Eyrie, and later on when she agrees to proceed on to Winterfell in cooperation with Littlefinger, apparently deciding that avenging her family is worth the pain she'll endure. But they hit Ctrl-Z on that. -k

People from the Religious Right blamed the Sandy Hook shooting on prayer being banned from school. "people wanted God out of schools, and now you see what happens without God's protection..." So, uh, apparently prayer doesn't actually stop gun massacres either, as the same folks are now telling us that pastors need guns. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/06/18/an-ever-growing-list-of-what-conservatives-are-blaming-for-the-charleston-shootings/ -k

What I had assumed they were building to is that Arya got the talent for stabbing things, while Sansa got the talent for "soft power". That looked like what they were aiming for, at least until about halfway through this season. -win Ramsay's trust, replace Miranda as Ramsay's non-boring love interest. We saw Margaery Tyrrell manage this with the similarly psychotic Joffrey. Margaery was Sansa's friend and role-model... it doesn't seem unreasonable to think Sansa could have taken notes. Sansa also spent enough time living with a monster already that she needn't have caved in at the first discovery that Ramsay wasn't actually The Kindest Man in Westeros. -exploit Ramsay's insecurity as Roose's real heir. Exploit his jealousy over his soon-to-be baby brother to turn him against Roose. They spent about 3 seconds exploring this angle, before completely dropping it and never revisiting it again. She could have played it up by hinting that she was already pregnant (which she could be ... ick) and saying "our son" a lot. "Our son isn't going to grow up a Snow." Have Ramsay deal with Roose and Fat Momma Frey before Roose changes his mind about Ramsay being the heir. -with Roose and Fat Momma Frey gone, and Ramsay as the new lord of Winterfell, Ramsay is new to the world of politics and intrigue. "Ramsay, we should bring Lord Baelish back to Winterfell to let him know that we still honor his agreement with your father to be team-up buddies with the Vale." Then she is re-united with Littlefinger, and they can engineer a plot to get rid of Ramsay and unveil Littlefinger's shiny writ declaring him Warden of the North. Possibly something involving the bulk of the northern bannermen (that Roose summoned to fight Stannis) turning against the Boltons in favor of the surviving Stark heir. There's no reason why they couldn't have gone in that direction, as it was far more in keeping with the direction they had previously charged and in keeping with Sansa's own history of having already endured a psychopath. Instead, following the wedding episode, they said "screw that. Fuck the last season and a half of character development, let's just have her forget that whole plan she made with Littlefinger. Let's have her whining for Theon to rescue her." -k

Bigger boobs or not, Lena's real body is way hotter than the one they digitally grafted under her head. I'd say they put her head on the body of someone with a more motherly body rather than Lena's real body, which is just too perfect for a medieval mom of three who gets little exercise beyond lifting wine goblets. Realism is hardly the show's focus, of course. I've read that Lena is actually a shy and reserved person, which is probably the real reason they used a body double rather than have her walk naked in front of hundreds of cursing, jeering extras. The Mother Sparrow actress said of the body double: -k

What does "superpower" even mean anymore? Is overwhelming military power still a key component? -k

That's not actually how the law works. If you're running a hotel you can't just refuse service arbitrarily. As for whether permission is actually required to use a song... http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/introduction/getting-permission/ -k

Yeah. He could team up with that Wildling guy Tormund Giantsbane, and they could travel around Westeros solving mysteries together! "And I'd have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling freefolk!" -k {"like, zoinks, Snowie, it's a good thing there's no such thing as zombies, 'cause these White Walkers are giving me the creeps!"}

I would think that if Trump pays the appropriate fees he would be able to use the song. Seems pretty ironic that he would want to, though, considering the song's politics... -k

That comparison completely ignores the fact that Gray was (almost certainly) killed by an intentional act of malice. Yes, I completely understand that coming into contact with the cops is risky because some of the cops are dangerous thugs. But when we catch one of those dangerous thugs, we need to deal with him as such. If anybody else says "I just meant to rough him up, I didn't mean to kill him", they've basically plead guilty to manslaughter. It should not be any different for Officer Goodson. Some here keep talking about Freddie Gray's high-risk lifestyle as if it somehow excuses what was done to him in that van. It doesn't. -k

This whole thing is quite bizarre. I don't pretend to understand any of it. However, does any of it actually matter? I don't think the NAACP actually has any policy forbidding white employees, do they? With enough exposure to sun (natural or artificial) some white people become extremely brown. You can go down to the salon and get any color of hair you like. You can have your naturally straight hair curled or frizzed. You can have your naturally frizzy hair straightened. You can get corn-rows or dreadlocks-- many female professional fighters of all skin tones get their hair in corn-rows before fights. Is what Rachel Dolezal did particularly worse than somebody who goes to the fake-and-bake for a super-dark tan, then gets their hair colored and styled? Anyway, the premise kind of reminds me of Tropic Thunder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1iV24hL8Rk#t=8s -k

I agree. Even though they've spent 5 seasons teaching us that nobody is too important to die. I think perhaps this is one reason they might have decided to ditch the "Lady Stoneheart" angle. If people start coming back from the dead on the regular, then Jon Snow's eventual resurrection seems predictable, hackneyed, and not particularly special. In season 3 they did include that guy that Thoros of Myr resurrected, which seems pointless for the most part but on the other hand does indicate that Red Priests/Priestesses do have this sort of power. They could go with Red Witch magic (she'll have to get the body before it's cremated, I would think?) but there's also this possibility regarding his wolf, as others are discussing. Tyrion and Varys (Viserys got his 'golden crown' five episodes into season one...) are a great pair, and I'm sure they'll be running Essos by the time Dany returns. More Varys is almost always a good thing. Brienne is the heroine with the Midas Touch; everything she touches turns to mufflers. That one birds-eye visual of the Bolton forces charging in to engulf Stannis's pitiful remaining forces was amazing. It was truly the picture that said 1000 words, most of them about how his inflexibility and inability to adapt or change course cost Stannis everything. And his face in the moments before he drew his sword showed he knew it as well. "daaaamn, that's a lot of horses... so, this is how it ends. (sigh.) ok, so be it." The Westeros Baptist Church I can't picture war with Dorne... for one thing the Lannisters are broke and short of allies, and the Iron Throne is broke too. That clueless fop Mace Tyrrell is busy just trying to get extensions on their repayment schedule, nevermind raising money for a new war. As well, I can't picture Cersei doing much else until she deals with this Sparrows situation. King's Landing isn't big enough for the both of them. -k

A Ramsay Bolton Retrospective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WEQnwF4yoWI What a great guy! -k

YOU CAN'T DIE!! YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!! ahem. Pretty shocking. Black Dog called it. I foolishly assumed that Jon and the White Walkers would be a major storyline in upcoming seasons; I really didn't think the writers would end Jon Snow at this point in time because it just feels like there was a lot of story left to tell. With nobody left in Westeros who gives a flying crap about fighting White Walkers, I guess that story will be on the backburner until such time as thousands of corpses show up unexpectedly at Winterfell. Regarding Winterfell... are we supposed to assume that Sansa and Theon are on the run? Or are we supposed to assume they're squished? That looked like a pretty high wall they jumped off of. Unless Brienne and Podrick were waiting at the bottom with a trampoline, I'm not sure we're supposed to assume they survived. What happened to that plan that Sansa and Littlefinger hatched early in the season? It seems like they completely forgot about that and put Sansa back into the Damsel in Distress mode, because apparently that's all they can think of for her to do. She went from Littlefinger's co-conspirator to shrieking at Theon and hoping somebody would come rescue her. I'm thoroughly disappointed in how that storyline was handled. Arya murdering the living shit out of Meryn Trant was so satisfying. Too bad about what happened later. I assume we haven't seen the last of her. If I recall, Dany and the Dothraki didn't part on the best of terms. Most of her horde abandoned her when Drogo died; she meant nothing to them on her own. I assume she'll spend most of next season getting rescued, resulting in putting off her eventual war against Westeros for yet another season. Also coming next season: a road movie/buddy movie starring Jorah and Daario. Perhaps they could call it "The Awkward Couple." I assume Daario will find a way to work the fact that he's bangin' the Khaleesi into every conversation. So... Stannis and his downfall feels positively Shakespearean. When they showed how tiny his remaining forces looked in the face of the onrushing Bolton army, it was such a graphic mismatch you wondered how he could have ever thought he could do it. All of the "Lord of Light" and "Destiny" and "Rightful King" stuff he believed in amounted to absolutely nothing. "Do your duty" are such fitting last words for him. As with the Hound, I'm sorry to see him go, but as with the Hound I'm really glad that he went out in a way that provided such an appropriate end to the story arc. Both the Hound and Stannis were characters I liked but I felt like their deaths were really fitting ends to narrative arcs. Conversely with Jon Snow, rather the opposite, I felt like there was so much left to do in his story. I was so happy for Jaime when he finally got to have his father-daughter moment with Myrcella. Back in the episode where she told him "you don't know me!" I wrote about how much that must have stung for him. Finally he tells her the truth, and she says "I know, and I'm so glad you're my father" and I got a big lump in my throat. And then 8 seconds later she's dying from Dornish poison. At least we know now what the point of the scene earlier in the season with Bronn and the hottie: they taught us about the poison, and the little blue vial of antidote. On the Witch Prophecy Watch, we now note that Cersei is down to her last child (assuming Tommen hasn't committed suicide. We haven't seen that boy for a while.) Poor Cersei... as awful as she is, that was still tough to watch. I can only imagine the wrath she'll bring against her enemies, especially once she finds out what happened to Myrcella. That wasn't Lena Headey from the neck down... they must have used some of the money they didn't spend on Dire Wolves this season to digitally graft Lena's head onto a body double. Will Cersei find a way to fricken end the fricken Sparrows? Will she do so in a way that saves Margaery's life and Tommen's happiness? I find the whole FrankenMountain concept incredibly cheesy. I don't know what else can be said about it. -k