Ever just shake your head at ignorance?

I am often amazed at the ignorance of a reporter when I read a news article. There are times when I am speaking to my friends, neighbors, co-workers or just people that I meet when you could knock me over with a feather. I will never understand how people come to believe some things that are beyond reality.

Take gun control, why would anyone expect a law against guns to work any better than a law against alcohol, prostitution or drugs? Look at the people who work in manufacturing, how hard can it be to shape a piece of steel into a gun if a high school drop-out can do it?

Take Christians and abortion. Every Christian will tell you that God gave people free will and the right to choose good and evil. Some Christians will tell you it is their job to force you to choose what they believe is "good". Anyone ever notice the passages in the bible about people picketing around the tree of knowledge?

In fact some people regardless of religion think everyone should be forced to do what is "right". Some people want to outlaw "fast food". How hard is it to grind beef into hamburgers? Do we really want "black market hamburgers"?

Where do people come up with these dumb ideas? Take the second law of thermodynamics, that is the one that tells you that in a closed system you can't get more out then what you put in. Some people think that applies to the entire universe, duh! If the universe were closed where did the matter come from in the first place? The universe has to be either intermittently or constantly opened. How else could matter exist?

Sushi! How many people out there hear the word "sushi" and think "raw fish". Sushi describes a wide range of foods some of which have raw fish, some of which don't. Ask someone what sushi is and they will tell you with authority, "sushi is raw fish!"

Take Social Security. Any financial manager will tell you that you should never put all your eggs in one basket. That same financial manager will probably tell you that having SSI "100% invested" in T-Bills is a good idea. Invested in T-Bills? Congress spends the excess SSI money and then writes a check called a T-Bill. The check is put into the "assets" of the nation and it offsets the real deficit. Write a check to yourself and call it an asset? Take a debt you have to pay off and call it an asset? How dumb is that? Who thinks these things up?

What really kills me is that people will defend obviously dumb ideas to the death. Ask a Christian outside an abortion clinic how many protesters God put around the tree of knowledge and you might get hit with a sign. Tell someone that Sushi is not a synonym for raw fish and I bet you get a blank look. Tell someone that a law against guns will cause a black market in guns and watch them get angry and explain how guns can't be manufactured without "geniuses" and "special chemicals", never mind most of them are manufactured right now by high school graduates or below and gunpowder has been around for thousands of years.

Don't talk about SSI unless you want to fight.

How weird is that? What causes a normal person to disregard common sense and believe "whatever"?

Hey, did you know that cats will suck the life out of newborn babies?

Oh yeah, and Mr. Ed was really a zebra.