Current Events Roundup OR What the Hell is Going On?

I'm off my game.  I admit it.  Post frequency is way, way down.  Part of it is just the simple fact that hey, I got a life.  Beautiful kids, interesting, challenging job, lovely wife, church and more.  Things to do.  My little blog effort has been getting increasingly neglected.  And the thing is folks, I can't say its gonna get any better.  But its not over.

Since everything doesn't have to be a long form post deal, I figured I would just do some quick hit and run reactions to some of the news of the day.

The Pistorious Murder Case

What the heck is going on?  This was a shocker.  The athlete formerly hailed as "Bladerunner" and held up as an inspiration now stands accused of murder in the absolutely tragic killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. His story? That he awoke in the night and believed there was an intruder in his home and shot her by accident......with 4 bullets, fired through the door of his bathroom.  Give me a for real break.  He killed her.  There is nothing believable about his story. The why of it we may never really know, but his story is totally bogus.  But I won't be surprised if he walks free.  So far the police case seems to mostly Keystone Cops caliber.  The primary officer is now off the case facing seven attempted murder charges for shooting at a mini bus while drunk.  It's tragic. She was beautiful.  He's got demons and they ate her. 

The Sequester

We got sequestered.  It happened because the yokels we call our representatives can't do their jobs. Obama created the sequester as a strategy to get a deal with the GOP.  Earlier this year he won election and got himself some revenue boosts soon thereafter.  O clearly thinks he's got the GOP on the ropes and he's trying to press his political advantage for all its worth.  An approval rating at 55% in some polls, I guess he's feeling froggy.  So he has been busy trying to scare the bejesus out of everybody about the budget cuts if he can't convince Congress to put the kibosh on them in a manner he likes and making it look like it's the GOP's fault the sequester exists in the first place.  And succeeding at least to some degree.  I'm thinking though that he may be over playing his hand a bit.  Add to that a GOP that is less unified now that the election is over with many in the House living in safe districts and immune to ginned up pressure from their  publics, and it meant the trigger got pulled on those cuts.  Now, some people make it sound like the cuts are no big deal relative to the size of the government spending behemoth and while that may be a fair statement, it doesn't mean those cuts won't be felt. When they are, I'm not sure O will find himself immune from the blowback. 

Guns, Guns, Guns, 

The gun debate is raging, pushed back into the national consciousness by the Newtown atrocity. I'm okay with people having guns. I don't care for the idea of the general populace being armed with high powered weapons of war when it comes to guns and I don't consider it reasonable that regular citizens who are just doing the normal course of business in the world need to stockpile such things, but to a certain extent, I guess I'm cool with the status qou.  If I was an NRA member though,  I might start asking for my money back, because NRA Chief Wayne Lapierre is about the most inept and wack advocate for gun rights I've ever seen.  You think Obama is fear mongering the sequester? He has nothing on LaPierre, who is selling Armageddon and post apocalyptic America as right around the corner if we give one inch of gun control. Gun control advocates make their arguments the same whether they are talking to people who think like them or to people who don't. Very unsmart way to carry out the debate.