The World Has Gone Mad

I don't know if people today are crazier than ever, or if we are just made more aware of madness thanks to the ubiquitous Internet. I suspect it's a combination of both, but for whatever reason the news is filled with stories that just make me shake my head and reach for another adult beverage.

Here's the latest.

There is a movement afoot to change the focus of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. I'm not sure why, other than the left is always happy to revise history to suit their own biased perspective.

The campaigns say the federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus — and the parades and pageantry accompanying it — overlook a painful history of colonialism, enslavement, discrimination and land grabs that followed the Italian explorer’s 1492 arrival in the Americas. The indigenous holiday takes into account the history and contributions of Native Americans for a more accurate historical record, activists have argued.

I don't think it was Chris who colonized, enslaved, discriminated, and grabbed land during the centuries following his 1492 voyage. But since when do facts matter to progressives?

Columbus Day supporters say the holiday celebrates centuries of cultural exchange between America and Europe, commemorates an iconic explorer and honors Italian-Americans, a group that has endured its own share of discrimination.

Oh, what the hell, let's just go all in on demonizing Columbus Day.

Columbus Day is the next Confederate Flag

Last year, “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (whaaa?) produced a show...

...which includes images of Americans binge-drinking and throwing up in public as it describes Columbus inaugurating “a long tradition of obnoxious white people visiting Caribbean islands and acting like they own the place.” (The bit closes by describing “America’s least favorite holiday” as dedicated to “a murderous egomaniac whose most famous discovery was a case of getting lost and refusing to ask directions.”)

Forget the courage and dedication it took to outfit and undertake an expedition intended to sail off the edge of the earth. Let's totally overlook any positive aspects and just concentrate on the negative ones.

In other news, the opposition to allowing concealed carry on college campuses (I just love alliteration!) has come up with a catchy campaign - Cocks, not Glocks.

Sex toys to replace guns at UT-Austin campus carry protest

Hundreds of students at the University of Texas at Austin will protest a new law that will allow more guns on campus not with signs or sit-ins, but by "strapping gigantic swinging dildos to our backpacks."

Their mantra? #CocksNotGlocks

Jessica Jin, who set up the "Campus (DILDO) Carry" event on Facebook, invokes the argument that allowing more guns on campus will make students safe is a fallacy. She's urging students to send campus leaders that message by strapping on the plastic phalluses.

"'You're carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I'm carrying a HUGE DILDO,'" Jin says in the group's description. "Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play."

Let me get this straight (sorry, I just couldn't resist!). These moonbats seriously believe that an artificial penis is as useful for self defense as a Glock?!?

I guess it all depends on who is attacking you.

Finally, we have this story from the world of science.

Scientist Takes First-Ever Photo of Rare Bird, Then Kills It in the Name of Science

When Chris Filardi, director of Pacific Programs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, was finally holding the elusive Guadalcanal moustached kingfisher, he told Slate writer Rachel Gross, it was like finding a unicorn.

Filardi had been searching for the orange, white, and brilliant-blue bird for more than 20 years, when on a field study in the high forests of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, he finally heard the “ko-ko-ko-ko-kiew” sound of what he described as the unmistakable call of a large kingfisher.

After days of tracking, he and his colleagues captured a male moustached kingfisher in a mist net.

“When I came upon the netted bird in the cool shadowy light of the forest I gasped aloud, ‘Oh my god, the kingfisher,’ one of the most poorly known birds in the world was there, in front of me, like a creature of myth come to life.” Filardi wrote in a Sept. 23 blog post. 

The team snapped the first-ever photos of the remarkably photogenic bird and made the first-ever recordings of a male variety of the species (a female was described back in the 1920s).

Then the team killed it.

Well, why not? It fits in with the rest of the madness that characterizes today's world.

Besides, killing that poor bird reduced its carbon footprint, thereby reducing the probability of global cooling global warming climate change weather.

Sigh...