Ahh! Baseball

It's the most wonderful time of the year. The start of Baseball season. I do love Baseball, as it signals Spring and Summer, and gives you a perfectly good reason to drink beer in the afternoon.

And the numbers. The only way I managed to pass college statistics was Baseball. Today's great baseball statistic: Jordan Shafer hit a home run in his first major league at-bat. He became the 99th player ever to homer first time up. So the next player to accomplish this will be the 100th. That's kinda cool (but only if you're a Baseball fan).

A Response to the Latest Gun Violence

Another week of senseless tragedies and mass killings as a result of nutjobs with guns leads me to repeat my favorite proposal. What we really need is not 'gun control', but 'bullet control'. Think about it. Guns don't kill people; bullets kill people. A gun without bullets is a club. So I'm advocating that we impose strict restrictions on the purchasing of ammunition, limiting wackos to one bullet each. I'll call it the "Barney Fife rule" (only readers of a certain age will understand that reference). One bullet is enough for most self-defense situations, used properly. If a wacko decides to go on a rampage but only has one bullet, there's a limit on the amount of damage that they can inflict. Perhaps they'll use it on themselves without feeling the need to murder a bunch of people first. Most of the wackos will be reduced to merely fondling their guns and listening to Lush Rimbaugh's hate speech in response to their paranoid delusions, which is a lot safer for the rest of us.
(Disclaimer: OK, I'm not being serious. I do believe in the right of gun ownership, and have owned guns most of my adult life. But there is a certain logic to the idea as a way to reduce the lethal incidents.)

Iowa?

When thinking of America's more progressive states, Iowa isn't usually one of them. But Iowa has now legalized gay marriage, which is great. I was tempted to make some snarky comment like "all four gay couples in Iowa celebrate" but that would be wrong.
Whenever debating the issue of gay marriage I'm reminded of Branch Rickey's comment on integrating baseball that "people in the future will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about." Because it really is a very simple issue: equal rights. The law should never discriminate against any group of people, and 'separate but equal' is NOT equal.
So I say "good for you, Iowa!"

Boobies Behind Schedule

A day late on the Boobies. I couldn't get a steady internet connection yesterday, and the weather wasn't conducive to exposing Boobies anyway. April snow and 50 mph winds. The joy of springtime in the mountains.