Vidya Games! Hollywood!

The ever frothing Rick Santorum decided, like every other conservatwit, to weigh in on the Las Vegas shooting. Naturally, gun control is completely wrong, because it’s the fault of video games. And Hollywood, of course.

The failed GOP presidential candidate, who appeared Sunday as a panelist on CNN’s “State of the Union,” then suggested violent entertainment may have influenced the 64-year-old gunman.

“Violence in television and the video games — there is a mountain of evidence out there, psychological evidence, about what we’re doing to our young people with these video games, violent video games, and you never hear the left trying to go after Hollywood or the gaming market,” Santorum said. “It is never involved in this discussion. Where is the solution? Here we are. Where is the solution?”

He complained that Democrats had inaccurately blamed firearms for gun violence instead of movies.

Oy. Less talking heads, more thinking brains, please. The murderous shooter was 64 years old, Mr. Santorum. Let that sink in a moment. I’ll soon be 60 myself, so I can say that video games weren’t a thing when us old dinosaurs were young. Christ, colour televisions were still fresh way back when. As for Hollywood, nothing has changed, the effects have gotten better. And there’s more swearing. I’m a fan of old movies, in particular, old noir. There’s a whole lot of nastiness in movies, going way back, many of them now considered to be classics. Movies you couldn’t possibly consider to be in any way a moral one to watch, unless you were looking for awful morals, and that certainly includes those old bible movies. You could just paste a ‘a god behaving abominably’ on those. When I was young, and before that even, war movies were incredibly popular. Nothing but violence. Westerns, very popular – people shooting and people dropping dead every 5 seconds. People hanging out in the saloon. Where else? Always had women of negotiable love hanging about, too.  Movies have always provided people with a relief valve, a drop into fantasy for a while, where they can escape the cares of everyday life. Same goes for video games. That’s not a bad thing, even though there is always plenty of room for improvement.

I think you can easily place the blame for gun violence on those who love them, cuddle them, and fondle them all the way to their dramatic suicide. You can blame gun violence on the gun culture nourished by the government. You can blame gun violence on the NRA, which actively promotes it. You can blame gun violence on the sheer ubiquity of guns allowed in uStates. Let’s not be looking to video games and movies, because the problem doesn’t lie there, but I expect you’re well aware of that, Mr. Santorum.

Via Raw Story.

Sunday Facepalm.

A pregnancy, at six weeks and two days. No perfect little mini-infant anywhere.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas appeared on Breitbart to discuss recent efforts to restrict abortion rights and to advocate for the anti-choice “heartbeat bill,” which according to its creator, Janet Porter, is designed to eventually outlaw abortions “before the mother even knows she’s pregnant.”

[…]

After updating Marlow on the House’s passage of the bill, Gohmert advocated for Porter’s “heartbeat bill,” which would criminalize abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

“Even though it doesn’t have an exception for rape or incest, the thing is you’ve got about six weeks and you know when you’re pregnant within six weeks,” Gohmert said, “so even for them, there’s a way out.”

No, no there isn’t. What with the constant erosion of medical rights, there’s no window there. Once travel time is calculated, then the mandatory wait times, then the mandatory test times, and so on, no. Then there’s always the issue of whether or not a pregnant person has the money to secure a timely termination. A lot of women don’t know they are pregnant at six weeks. When I was pregnant, I certainly had reason to suspect that condition, and was tested. My test came up negative, twice. By the time I had a test come up positive, I was smack on eight weeks, and had a termination scheduled inside of two days later. That was as quick as possible, and with the new draconian age, it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Life is seldom simple, and there are so many bars to obtaining a termination now that a pregnant person can count themselves lucky if they make a termination by eight weeks or earlier.

Later in the interview, Gohmert compared abortion to child sacrifice.

“I remember reading in the Bible, early on, about sacrificing kids for idols,” Gohmert recalled. “And I thought, ‘Gosh, thank goodness we live in a day where that never happens,’ that people would never be that callous.”

Right. You christian assholes are more than callous enough to see women stripped of rights, with no bodily autonomy whatsoever. You don’t want them to be able to access birth control. You don’t care about pregnant people at all, you concern yourself solely with the power to force birth. You don’t care about their mental and emotional health. You’re callous enough to not give one teensy shit about actual children. You don’t care if they are neglected. You don’t care if they starve. You don’t care if they are beaten. You don’t care if they are raped. You don’t care if they end up on the street. You don’t care if they are killed. You certainly don’t care about pregnant people dying, that’s just fine with you, after all, sluts should be punished, shouldn’t they? :spits:

“And then you realize, ‘Wait, that’s what we’re doing with abortions.’ We’re sacrificing kids for the idol of self-centeredness,” Gohmert said.

It’s the opposite of self-centeredness, you vile doucheweasel. People who obtain a termination have their reasons, which are none of your business, but you can consider such decisions to be for the best, in all regards.

RWW has the full story.

Helios Day Mood.

Laura Mvula – Sing to the Moon.

Sing to the Moon.

Hey there you, shattered in a thousand pieces
Weeping in the darkest nights
Hey there you, try to stand up on your own two feet
And stumble into the sky

When the lights go out and you’re on your own
How you’re gonna make it through till the morning sun’

Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, lead you to the other side
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, heaven’s gonna turn the tide

Hey there you, looking for a brighter season
Need to lay your burden down
Hey there you, drowning in a helpless feeling
Buried under deeper ground

When the lights go out it’s a waiting game
Never gonna see a day when your world will change

Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, lead you to the other side
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, heaven’s gonna turn the tide
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, lead you to the other side
Sing to the moon and the stars will shine
Over you, heaven’s gonna turn the tide

TNET 6.

If you’re wondering why a new instance, see here.

Frances Glessner Lee, “Parsonage Parlor” (detail) (1946-48) (Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, courtesy Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore).

Frances Glessner Lee was a fascinating person, and one Marcus blogged about some time ago.

Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death is October 20 to January 28, 2018 at Renwick Gallery (1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC).  You can read all about it at Hyperallergic.

Open thread, don’t be an asshole.

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