After I (finally) finished yesterday’s tweets post, I watched ‘The Five’ on Fox News. (I’d recorded it earlier.) Their first segment was about President Trump’s remarks during his visit to Las Vegas.

They played his remarks, and they were good. He read them well, and he sounded sincere. Trump usually sounds fine when he sticks to the script that others give him. (Personally, I don’t think Trump knows what a genuine emotion is. His complete lack of empathy is something I think most of the world agrees on.)

Then the commentators on ‘The Five’ had their say. Trump apologist Kimberley Guilfoyle went on and on about how the remarks were “genuine” and “from the heart” etc. I know what you’re thinking. “What do you expect from Fox?”

Anyway, I mention Guilfoyle’s response in particular because I remember what she said about Obama and his remarks following the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

When Obama made his comments about the children and teachers who were murdered, he was moved to tears. And, it was clear those tears were genuine.

However, Guilfoyle questioned whether the sorrow was real, and she did so at length. She was even trying to think of ways on the fly that he could have arranged it to make it look like he was crying. She thought he was just trying to gain sympathy for future efforts to enact new gun control laws.

Guilfoyle isn’t stupid, uneducated, or naïve. She just has two big blind spots. 1. Everything Obama does is bad. 2. Everything Trump does is good.

Later, came her colleague Greg Gutfeld. He’s the guy I mentioned a couple of days ago who thinks that because the murderer’s girlfriend was from the Philippines she must have converted him to Islam and persuaded him to kill for DAESH (ISIS). That’s despite the fact there was absolutely no evidence for this and someone from the Philippines is far more likely to be Roman Catholic (86%) or Protestant (11%) than Muslim.

Anyway, he says he loves arguing with people about gun control because there are no data to support their arguments. In the US, there’s a very good reason for that. The NRA. In 1996 the NRA got Congress to put this (the “Dickey Amendment”) into the funding rules of the the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

… none of the funds … may be used to advocate or promote gun control …

There were apparently already issues before the 1996, but this was a killer, literally and figuratively. Funding of research into gun violence at the CDC has gone down 96% since 1996.

The NRA has also made it illegal for the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to have a database of firearms to allow searches of who owns them. The ATF has to ask gun shops for the information. Gun shops that have gone out of business hand their paper records over to the ATF, and those records cover over 5 million guns. But, the ATF can’t even put those records on a database; if they need information from them they have to go through the records manually. ‘Last Week Tonight’ were shown some of those records. They include, for example, paper records from stores destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The AFT had to “dry them out in the parking lot” and many are illegible or barely legible.

A third commentator on the show is Jesse Watters. (He’s not only a Trump apologist, he’s happy to lie for the cause.) He made the point that there are not enough votes for any gun control measures anyway. He’s right. But the NRA is the reason for that too. Enough politicians rely on the NRA to get them elected that they cannot afford to vote any way except how the NRA wants them to. Many of my tweets in yesterday’s ‘Gun Control Tweets’ section covered this.

Thousands of US citizens are dying needlessly every year because of the failure of its government to enact sensible gun control laws. Most citizens are in favour of those laws. In some cases, even most NRA members are in favour of them. But the NRA itself will do anything to retain their profits. They’re far more dangerous to their fellow countrymen than Islamist terrorists.

 

Fox is having a pretty hard time dealing with the Las Vegas massacre in general. Here’s Trevor Noah’s take which, as usual, as brilliant.

 

Gun Control Tweets

It’s easy to blame mental illness and use it as a reason not to do anything. The mental health profile of the US is similar to most developed countries. The difference? The rest of us don’t have easy access to weapons. Besides, mentally ill people are more likely to kill themselves than someone else.
(Via Ann German.)

 

What’s a bump stock? Why is it legal when all other conversion kits making semi-automatic weapons into automatic ones are illegal? Here’s the answer. Note also that Nancy Pelosi (Democrat) tried to get bump stocks banned, but the Bill never even came up for a vote.

 

Good on him. Well said.

 

Political Tweets

Information proving Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon are consciously promoting the alt-Right has come out. Their denials can no longer hold water.
(Via Ann German.)

 

I think he’s got it!

 

More evidence damning the US Voter Fraud committee.

 

The Miscommunicator-in-Chief.

 

Some of the facts behind this message are important for the whole world.

 

Human Rights Tweets

Kneeling in protest has been going on for a long time. It’s been said by others, and I’m saying it too: Is there any form of protest by Blacks in the US that would be acceptable to a white supremacist?
(Via Ann German.)

Art Tweets

A statement on the US gun culture via art.

 

This is so cool!

 

Beautiful!

 

Scenic Tweets

Lumière show in the rocks of Jordan.

 

Science Tweets

Most of us already know this, but I think it’s cool so it goes in.

 

It was his birthday on 5 October, but we’re always late on stuff like dates in NZ because we’re ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to time.

 

I like this idea for New Zealand too. Planes no longer fly a lot of New Zealand’s routes because it’s not economic. Electric planes could change that.

 

Space Tweets

I’m assuming this plane isn’t flying all the way to Neptune for the pictures!

 

Well, in the northern hemisphere anyway. The planet does have another half, and quite a few of us live here!

 

Marine Tweets

I’ve seen full videos of pufferfish doing this, and they’re amazing. Maybe this gif will inspire you to look them up.

 

Other Animals Tweets

They don’t spell it out in this tweet, but I will. If you don’t store the wood away from the bonfire site, you could be having roast hedgehogs for Guy Fawkes’ Night.

 

Sand kittens, leopard cubs, pangolins playing in the mud, and moose calves.

 

Oh wow! Normal calves are pretty cute, but these ones are just adorable!!!

 

What an experience!

???? Okay, now this is just fu€king weird! It’s got no head! And you stroke it. And its tail wags, even if you’re not touching it. The rest of the world has a saying: “Only in America.”

 

Bird Tweets

I’ve said it before – I love owls!

 

Cooperation between the brave dikkop and a crocodile!

 

Starling murmuration in Surrey.

 

A couple of vids of a wild male budgie in Australia.

 

 

Insect Tweets

Oh wow! I had no idea such a thing existed! Very cool!

 

Dog Tweets

Another one for my sister Brenda – the corgi pups are back. They’ve clearly had a busy day!

 

Awww. We could all do with more love. ???? (It looks great in tweets, but dogs smell, and their hair gets all over your clothes.)

 

Here’s a new idea if you love your dog!

 

Cat Tweets

If I was this cute black kitty, I’d be worried about that Siamese kitten – the look on it’s face is saying, “I’m gonna get you good!”

 

We used to have a kitten that looked just like this when we were kids. Her name was Josephine and we dressed her in a pink dolls’ dress, which she happily wore as she slept on her back all tucked up in the dolls’ pram.

 

Now that’s a cat who looks like he’s in control!

 

I love this pic!

 

I’ve seen this before, but it’s such a cool pic I have to put it in!


What a sweetie!

 

I hope the cat didn’t make the hole!

 

Isn’t it gorgeous?!
(Via Ann German.)


Look at that tweet: “100% printed in the USA.” I wonder if that’s fooling anyone?

 

There will be no Tweets Post tomorrow (7 October).


 

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