Saturday Morning Confusion #677

Dear readers:

As usual, by the time Saturday rolls around, your faithful reporter is thoroughly confused about a bunch of stuff!

First of all, they have a pipeline that pumps oil from the deep sea terminal in Montreal to the refineries in Sarnia where it is made into Gasoline and plastic and lollipops, etc.

Now some bright engineer has suggested they  reverse the direction of the flow to help pump oil from Alberta to the East Coast.

Sounds pretty smart, eh?


Well, don't get too enthused about it kids, a bunch of teen-aged tree huggers have decided that it is OK to pump oil from Sarnia to Montreal, but waaaaaay to dangerous to pump it in the other direction! So they want the government to just shut the whole thing down ......, entirely! (Oh, by the way, these are the same people who want us to mothball the Tar Sands and put tens of thousand of people out of work. Personally, I would be OK with this as long as these assholes promised to be the first people to go back to riding a horse when we get rid of oil!)

Or maybe a flying carpet!


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Meanwhile, back at the ranch:  The latest mass shooting prompted a sheriff in New York state to make a public proclamation: if you can legally carry a gun, then you should.
A day after a husband and wife carried out a mass shooting in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead, Ulster County Sheriff Paul J. Van Blarcum said in a statement, “I urge you to responsibly take advantage of your legal right to carry a firearm.”
 “In light of recent events that have occurred in the United States and around the world I want to encourage citizens of Ulster County who are licensed to carry a firearm to PLEASE DO SO,” Van Blarcum said in the statement posted to his office’s Facebook page.
 “To ensure the safety of yourself and others, make sure you are comfortable and proficient with your weapon, and knowledgeable of the laws in New York State with regards to carrying a weapon and when it is legal to use it,” Van Blarcum said.

On the other side of the coin!


Newspapers such as The Washington Post and the New York Times have a wall between the news and opinion sections — and front pages have, in modern times, traditionally belonged to the news department. But on Saturday morning, the Times is breaking with that tradition with the first front page editorial since 1920, calling for tighter gun control laws after the shootings in Colorado Springs, Colo., and San Bernardino, Calif., over the past eight days.
In a statement, Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. wrote that the decision was made "to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns. Even in this digital age, the front page remains an incredibly strong and powerful way to surface issues that demand attention. And, what issue is more important than our nation’s failure to protect its citizens?"
In the editorial, the Times writes that regardless of the motivations of the killers in California, Colorado and so many other places, "the attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms."

It continues:

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

The editorial calls for the prohibition of certain types of weapons used for killing sprees, "like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition" — and not just future purchases, but all such weapons.
"It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens," the editorial concludes. "What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?"
The last time the Times put an editorial on the front page was to express opposition to Warren Harding's nomination as the Republican Party's presidential candidate. In recent weeks, the New York Daily News had been most colorfully rallying against what it views as excessively lax gun laws.

HEY, I GOT A BETTER IDEA FOLKS  ,,,,,,,. JUST MOVE TO CANADA!

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Well boys and girls, way back in 1953 Marilyn Monroe was the first woman to be featured in Playboy magazine.

Now, 62 years later, Canada's very own Pamela Anderson will be the last nude model in Playboy's March 2016 issue!

(Kim Kardashian wanted to be the last model to pose naked, that honor has gone to Pamela Anderson.)


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