I recently celebrated a birthday. My birthday day rocked. My birthday night...not so much. Two, count 'em two completely unrelated events that kept us up until the wee hours of the morning.
To understand part of the story, you have to know something of the geography of our house. My bedroom resides all the way down on the right end. I sleep next to an outside wall, on the other side of which there's a garden, a tree, birdbath, window wells, all the stuff you normally find in a side yard. The inside of our house, with the the exception of both ends where there are bedrooms, is open concept. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and takes up the middle third of the front of the house.
Whew. Now that that's out of the way.
Last night I heard bump from outside my bedroom window. Sounds like someone tripped over the short garden fence or a window well cover. I think "squirrel" and forget about it. This is about 11:40, maybe. Around 12:25, I hear footsteps outside my room (I figure it's a parent), and then something from the main body of the house, it sounds like someone's trying to rattle our patio door against the block in the track, or maybe pry open a window. My curiousity piqued, I get out of bed, consider and then discard the idea of taking a knife with me (it was a weird noise, ok?), and stumble out into the hall.
My mom's out in the hall, looking confused. She got up AFTER the rattle (who's footsteps were those?) and thinks there might be someone in the house. One person hearing something suspicious is understandable - houses settle. Two people hearing it is not coincidence. This coupled with the sound like someone tripping outside my window (I explained this to her) leads me to believe we have either a home invader or a prowler on the premises. I go back to my room, briefly consider the advantages of a carbine against a pistol, and retrieve my 9mm from under my bed. Suitably armed, I return to the hallway, tell my mom to wake my dad, and watch the darkened rest of the house from the back of the hall. It's cold in the house, I'm wearing only athletic shorts, my heart sounds like a dang jackhammer, and I'm wondering how fast someone can get down the hall from the kitchen and if I'll get enough time to put a round in the chamber, aim, and find it within myself to fire.
My dad gets up, takes my gun and does a walkthrough of the house, turning lights on and examining the outdoors as he goes. All the doors and windows are locked, no signs of entry. That's good. From there he checks the basement, retrieves my freaked-out brother from his basement bedroom, and once we've made sure the house is secure, we all return our various weapons to their places of origin, and go back to bed, my brother choosing to sleep upstairs in his old bed in my room.
It's now about 12:45, and the fun is just beginning.
We have two birds. A parrot lives in front of the patio door in our kitchen. A 900 year old finch resides in a cage on a chest in front of the living room window.
At about 12:50, we hear the parrot freaking out. My mom and my dad get up to comfort him, and me and my brother follow.The parrot appears to be fine. My brother looks over by the finch and utters those infamous words "There's a chipmunk over there."
Yeah. The absolute LAST thing you want to hear at 1 in the morning.
This critter ain't a chipmunk. It's about the size of a rat, with a flat bushy tail as long as itself, big black bug eyes, and an angelic face, sort of like a squirrel/chipmunk/possum cross. Everyone's since commented that it looks like something out of Australia. He's sitting on the finch's cage. At our slightest movement, he transfers himself about 3 feet over and 3 feet up to the top of a potted plant. We grab towels, a spatula, and a laundry bucket and head into the living room. He jumps another few feet into the air, and proceeds to do upside-down hand-over-hand along the curtain rod, then runs the length of the curtain back to the plant he came from. By this time we've shoved towels under all the doors in the house, opened the front door, and are considering plans to remove the offending house-guest.
Using a long piece of wood, my brother pushes the plant-box over to the now open front door. From there, my dad, shielding himself with the laundry bucket, chases the animal down the tree with the spatula, and out into the yard.
We all got to bed around 1:30.The happenings with the animal are all funny in retrospect (The phrase "There's a chipmunk over there" will be a punchline for years to come, and we've got several photos of the furry guest that are quite cute) but at the time it was most aggravating.
Our theory is someone tried to break in, and then while we were clearing the house, we woke up the critter that had been come in (unknown to the rest of us) earlier in the day and had been napping under the couch. We know the 2 events were not connected because the noises we heard that we attribute to a human were A)Outside and B)Not capable of being made by a critter of the small four-legged variety.
This is just great - this is the second time in a year that someone's tried to break in.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
Random Reflections Pt5
11.I’m going to come across sounding like an evil, racist young cuss and I don’t care.
In another life, I sold cellphones. Without fail, once a day, we got several Latino persons or families in the store, either looking to pay off their bill (Sprint will let you buy what amounts to a gift card, and once a month you present this card to someone like me, we punch a few buttons on the register, you hand me cash enough to cover your bill, and voila! you’re paid up for another month) or buy a cellphone. And also without fail, at least one person per day had absolutely no command of the English language. I’m not talking about poor grammar or a thick accent – I mean they SPOKE NO ENGLISH. They’d go up to each person in the store and say “Spanish?” If you said no, they’d try every other employee. If you said yes, or I’ll try, you spent the next 4 hours working out a cellphone deal caveman style.
Here’s the thing though – never once did I see one of these people have anything less than a $150 dollar cash deposit on their phone. They bought phones with a minimum $30 per month contract (usually $50+, to tell the truth) and a load of taxes, activation fees, and sundry expenses. Not counting the price of the phone, buying and activating a cellphone is EXPENSIVE. And they bought decent cellphones. Middle of the road, not crap phones, not top of the line phones, but solid, reasonably performing phones. And they paid in cash.
I remember this one transaction vividly, this family of Latinos come in, a husband, wife, older daughter and two to five kids between the ages of fifteen and five, and ALL of them have cellphones clipped to their belts or waistbands. Every single one of them. None of them spoke any English while they were there, and the husband understood barely enough to indicate which one of my inquiries (buy a phone, pay a bill, etc) was correct. He paid me nearly $250 in twenty dollar bills to cover his phone bill for the month.
Now maybe I’m just dense, but how does someone who speaks not a lick of English get enough cash to pay for a four or five hundred dollar cellphone package outright, and then keep coming back each month to pay a (usually) hundred and fifty dollar bill in cash? How? I wanna know – I want that job!
12.The benighted governor of my fair state recently proposed and passed two laws benefiting military veterans. One allowed veterans or their families to cancel their cellphone coverage at any time without monetary penalty. For the rest of us, that penalty after an average of one week is around $200. The second measure allows veterans and their families to attend any state university for no or little cost. What the hell, over?
We’ll pick these apart one by one. The first law is directly screwing with a private company, an act of government specifically targeting certain companies to give government employees better business than everyone else. Government legislating business practices, not to make them more fair (which is in itself a travesty) but to get their own employees better treatment…what…how…I’m speechless.
The second law may or may not be worse than the first. It’s of greater monetary value, but it doesn’t screw with private companies for selfish reasons. No one knows how we’re going to pay for the education of every “taker” vet and their family in the state. Even the governor admits he’s flying by the seat of his pants, though in far more eloquent and duplicitous terms. He’s taking money from every other person in this state to give government employees better treatment than anyone else gets.
Not that I’m complaining that everyone else doesn’t get this treatment. No one should get a free or partially free ride on anything, for anything, to anywhere. There’s no faster way to bankrupt something than to start offering free stuff to everyone and their brother’s cousin.
No, what I’m complaining about is interference in private companies’ business for the benefit of only certain people, and sticking you and me with the bill for someone else’s expensive education, based only on who they choose to associate with. This is tyranny. This is the creation of a new “landed” class of people, a fostering of the “Us Vs Them” mentality that’s going through society. Government has NO right to determine who gets special treatment, better perks, hell, they don’t have the right determining who gets average treatment or ANY perks.
13.9mm is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber. I don’t want to get shot with it. Anything over a pellet gun is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber, but only if you use decent hollowpoints, and can hit your target multiple times. If someone could build a reliable semi-automatic handgun that held 25-30 rounds of .22LR or .22MAG, I’d think long and hard about carrying it. Capacity is to a gun what endurance is to a runner. When it’s on, you want to stay in the game as long as possible. That said, .44AMP will put a guy on his back faster than .17HMR. Doesn’t mean we should all carry Automags though, it means we should puzzle and puzzle till our puzzlers are sore about what we want in a gun. I want rounds at least a third of an inch wide, and a lot of them, and I want them to come out of the gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. Make your own decision about what you want to shoot defensively.
14.More on clothes. Kohl’s department store has a pair of pants the tag of which proudly proclaims “Two legged pants.” Even amputees wear two legged pants, they just pin one leg up. Would pants with one leg be called a pant? Has anyone ever see three legged pants? I fail to see where having the same number of legs to your pants as everyone else is a selling point.
Why do socks come in Ziploc bags advertised as “easily resealable?” Does anyone buy a bag of socks, put them in the closet, and remove a pair and then reseal as necessary?
15.Some people are going to accuse me of being disrespectful after reading this one. I’m not. I’m just fed up with this public official adoration stuff. Just about any death is a tragedy. Being on the government dole does not elevate your death to a national crisis.
A firefighter died in my city a few days ago. He wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic at the time (carrying infants out of a burning building, giving mouth-to-mouth to a cat, that sort of thing), he was just walking through a flaming house, spraying water. He fell through the floor and rescue crews were unable to retrieve him. This is bad. His surviving family has my condolences. He is not, however, any more important than anyone else who dies in this town, at the rate of five or six a day.
He was on the front page of every local newspaper for, well, since he died. That’s been about a week. Today was his funeral, and boy, was it a doozy. Televised on four channels. Cameras dedicated to his wife and son. Coverage of the funeral from the first car pulling up to the last swing of the incense burner. THEN, he gets driven through the city by about half the police force. The city’s rented several super-duper hook-and-ladder trucks and set them up two-by-two along the route, with huge custom flags hanging from each. I bet the coffin doesn’t go more than three feet without passing under at least two flags. Firefighters from New York, that he DIDN’T even know, have been flown in for the event.
This guy was just a man. Just folk as Capt. Reynolds says. He ate, drank, slept, shopped, put his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. But Suzy Q. Public doesn’t get laid to rest with all the pomp and splendor that a firefighter or police officer does, because she’s not paid by the government.
Our firefighter didn’t NOT know that his job was dangerous. He accepted, of his own volition and without coercion, a job that paid him well in exchange for going into places the rest of us would rather flee. He was paid well to do dangerous stuff and try and outrun the numbers. The numbers caught up to him, as he was perfectly aware that they might.
Yes, his death is a tragedy, but there is positively no need for the city to blow several thousand of yours and my dollars (probably tens or hundreds of thousands, to tell the truth) to make sure that his coffin is protected from sun during its trip to the graveyard by flags hung from outrageously expensive rented firetrucks, or that there are men he didn’t know from New “Remind us incessantly of 9/11” York there to be visible at his funeral.
Let the man rest in peace.
In another life, I sold cellphones. Without fail, once a day, we got several Latino persons or families in the store, either looking to pay off their bill (Sprint will let you buy what amounts to a gift card, and once a month you present this card to someone like me, we punch a few buttons on the register, you hand me cash enough to cover your bill, and voila! you’re paid up for another month) or buy a cellphone. And also without fail, at least one person per day had absolutely no command of the English language. I’m not talking about poor grammar or a thick accent – I mean they SPOKE NO ENGLISH. They’d go up to each person in the store and say “Spanish?” If you said no, they’d try every other employee. If you said yes, or I’ll try, you spent the next 4 hours working out a cellphone deal caveman style.
Here’s the thing though – never once did I see one of these people have anything less than a $150 dollar cash deposit on their phone. They bought phones with a minimum $30 per month contract (usually $50+, to tell the truth) and a load of taxes, activation fees, and sundry expenses. Not counting the price of the phone, buying and activating a cellphone is EXPENSIVE. And they bought decent cellphones. Middle of the road, not crap phones, not top of the line phones, but solid, reasonably performing phones. And they paid in cash.
I remember this one transaction vividly, this family of Latinos come in, a husband, wife, older daughter and two to five kids between the ages of fifteen and five, and ALL of them have cellphones clipped to their belts or waistbands. Every single one of them. None of them spoke any English while they were there, and the husband understood barely enough to indicate which one of my inquiries (buy a phone, pay a bill, etc) was correct. He paid me nearly $250 in twenty dollar bills to cover his phone bill for the month.
Now maybe I’m just dense, but how does someone who speaks not a lick of English get enough cash to pay for a four or five hundred dollar cellphone package outright, and then keep coming back each month to pay a (usually) hundred and fifty dollar bill in cash? How? I wanna know – I want that job!
12.The benighted governor of my fair state recently proposed and passed two laws benefiting military veterans. One allowed veterans or their families to cancel their cellphone coverage at any time without monetary penalty. For the rest of us, that penalty after an average of one week is around $200. The second measure allows veterans and their families to attend any state university for no or little cost. What the hell, over?
We’ll pick these apart one by one. The first law is directly screwing with a private company, an act of government specifically targeting certain companies to give government employees better business than everyone else. Government legislating business practices, not to make them more fair (which is in itself a travesty) but to get their own employees better treatment…what…how…I’m speechless.
The second law may or may not be worse than the first. It’s of greater monetary value, but it doesn’t screw with private companies for selfish reasons. No one knows how we’re going to pay for the education of every “taker” vet and their family in the state. Even the governor admits he’s flying by the seat of his pants, though in far more eloquent and duplicitous terms. He’s taking money from every other person in this state to give government employees better treatment than anyone else gets.
Not that I’m complaining that everyone else doesn’t get this treatment. No one should get a free or partially free ride on anything, for anything, to anywhere. There’s no faster way to bankrupt something than to start offering free stuff to everyone and their brother’s cousin.
No, what I’m complaining about is interference in private companies’ business for the benefit of only certain people, and sticking you and me with the bill for someone else’s expensive education, based only on who they choose to associate with. This is tyranny. This is the creation of a new “landed” class of people, a fostering of the “Us Vs Them” mentality that’s going through society. Government has NO right to determine who gets special treatment, better perks, hell, they don’t have the right determining who gets average treatment or ANY perks.
13.9mm is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber. I don’t want to get shot with it. Anything over a pellet gun is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber, but only if you use decent hollowpoints, and can hit your target multiple times. If someone could build a reliable semi-automatic handgun that held 25-30 rounds of .22LR or .22MAG, I’d think long and hard about carrying it. Capacity is to a gun what endurance is to a runner. When it’s on, you want to stay in the game as long as possible. That said, .44AMP will put a guy on his back faster than .17HMR. Doesn’t mean we should all carry Automags though, it means we should puzzle and puzzle till our puzzlers are sore about what we want in a gun. I want rounds at least a third of an inch wide, and a lot of them, and I want them to come out of the gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. Make your own decision about what you want to shoot defensively.
14.More on clothes. Kohl’s department store has a pair of pants the tag of which proudly proclaims “Two legged pants.” Even amputees wear two legged pants, they just pin one leg up. Would pants with one leg be called a pant? Has anyone ever see three legged pants? I fail to see where having the same number of legs to your pants as everyone else is a selling point.
Why do socks come in Ziploc bags advertised as “easily resealable?” Does anyone buy a bag of socks, put them in the closet, and remove a pair and then reseal as necessary?
15.Some people are going to accuse me of being disrespectful after reading this one. I’m not. I’m just fed up with this public official adoration stuff. Just about any death is a tragedy. Being on the government dole does not elevate your death to a national crisis.
A firefighter died in my city a few days ago. He wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic at the time (carrying infants out of a burning building, giving mouth-to-mouth to a cat, that sort of thing), he was just walking through a flaming house, spraying water. He fell through the floor and rescue crews were unable to retrieve him. This is bad. His surviving family has my condolences. He is not, however, any more important than anyone else who dies in this town, at the rate of five or six a day.
He was on the front page of every local newspaper for, well, since he died. That’s been about a week. Today was his funeral, and boy, was it a doozy. Televised on four channels. Cameras dedicated to his wife and son. Coverage of the funeral from the first car pulling up to the last swing of the incense burner. THEN, he gets driven through the city by about half the police force. The city’s rented several super-duper hook-and-ladder trucks and set them up two-by-two along the route, with huge custom flags hanging from each. I bet the coffin doesn’t go more than three feet without passing under at least two flags. Firefighters from New York, that he DIDN’T even know, have been flown in for the event.
This guy was just a man. Just folk as Capt. Reynolds says. He ate, drank, slept, shopped, put his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. But Suzy Q. Public doesn’t get laid to rest with all the pomp and splendor that a firefighter or police officer does, because she’s not paid by the government.
Our firefighter didn’t NOT know that his job was dangerous. He accepted, of his own volition and without coercion, a job that paid him well in exchange for going into places the rest of us would rather flee. He was paid well to do dangerous stuff and try and outrun the numbers. The numbers caught up to him, as he was perfectly aware that they might.
Yes, his death is a tragedy, but there is positively no need for the city to blow several thousand of yours and my dollars (probably tens or hundreds of thousands, to tell the truth) to make sure that his coffin is protected from sun during its trip to the graveyard by flags hung from outrageously expensive rented firetrucks, or that there are men he didn’t know from New “Remind us incessantly of 9/11” York there to be visible at his funeral.
Let the man rest in peace.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Reflections On Firearms
This post wasn't planned. Someone somewhere rebutted Point Something-Or-Other, saying restrictions on weapons lower crime. Here's the rebuttal of that rebuttal:
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The story begins on Halloween 2005. Well, actually, before that. Stephen has always been a rather bad person. He started off with theft and moved up to assault and animal abuse so heinous he got tossed in jail for 1.5 years. He ran a woman off the road and held her at gunpoint for nearly a day at one point. Around the time I was born, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to a very long stay in the county pen. While in prison, he writes threatening letters to his wife, claiming he's going to do some thing horrific when he gets out. In early 2005, it was determined through DNA evidence that he hadn't committed the crime after all. He is released, an innocent yet evil man. Once out of prison, Stephen buys handcuffs, leg irons, and illegally (because of his status as a felon) procures a rifle.
Enter Tereasa, a 25 year old photographer, who has, on at least one occaision, photographed Stephen's family salvage yard.~Halloween 2005, Stephen calls Tereasa's business, and using a fake name, requests that she (her specifically) take some more photos of the salvage yard. She shows up, snaps a few photos, and vanishes into thin air.Several days later, her burned and dismembered body is found in a pit in the salvage yard, her car and personal effects are found there too. DNA matches from pools of blood found around the property and in the car show a mix of his and her blood. Poor girl was a fighter. We'd be less one evil SOB and plus a young woman today if she'd been allowed to carry a gun. But on to the rest of the story. Stephen is arrested, held for murder. All seems as well as can be expected.
In February, Stephen's nephew Brendan (16yo)steps forward with new information. On Halloween afternoon, he'd come home from school, and heard screaming emenating from Stephen's house (the whole clan lives together in trailers), from a distance of one hundred yards. He walked to Stephen's house, knocked between screams, and was promptly informed by his blood-drenched uncle that he was raping and torturing Tereasa, and did he want to help? The nephew joined in the "games." Later that evening, they decided to kill her. They strangled her. She would not die. They cut her throat. She would not die. Finally they shot her with aforementioned blackmarket rifle. She died. They cut up her body, burned and buried it, and kept mementos of the incident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teresa Halbach wasn't killed because Stephen Avery had a gun. She was killed because SHE did NOT have one.
You see, every year, nearly 800,000 Americans use a gun to defend themselves. They don't dramatically down the dastardly villain in every instance, else we'd be seeing an explosive growth in the undertaker business. Nope, just the presence of a gun in the hand is sufficient +90% of the time to scare away the criminal. That 800,000 number, where does it come from? Well, that's the LOWEST number reached among 9 national surveys by such groups as the Los Angeles Times and the Gallup organization. The higher numbers reached into the lower millions. And a good many of those criminals doing the threatening were armed, so the whole "If you're both armed, you're screwed" position is patently false.
Guns do not equal crime. A paucity of guns in civilian hands equals crime. Florida enacted their state-wide concealed carry law around the time I was born, and their homicide has dropped by at least 10% for the last 13 years (for a total overal of 21%), while the US homicide rate has climbed 12%. What's happened in the gun free utopia of Washington D.C.? It's been voted the murder capitol of the country for at least six of those years, and the city was just recently declared a "crime emergency." In fact, according to FBI crime statistics, you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime (by 26%) in a state where concealed carry is restricted than in a state where it is not. 49% more likely to be murdered. 58% more likely to be robbed. And 15% more likely to be a victim of an Aggravated Assault.
Meanwhile, our neighbors across the pond (in what one former UK citizen calls the "Benighted Kingdom") are experiencing skyrocketing crime rates despite the fact that all but a teeny tiny minority own anything more powerful than an airsoft pistol, and their Knife Amnesty programs have become a joke among American GUN CONTROL advocates. I believe it was a spokesperson for Handgun Control Inc that said "What's next? Pointy stick control?"
All of this talk of crime ignores, momentarily, the real reason behind the enumeration of the HUMAN (note I didn't say "American," but "HUMAN") right to keep and bear arms of military significance in the United States Constitution. The founders had just fought a long and bloody war against their fellow citizens and a handful of hired mercenaries, using privately owned rifles that were the military equivalent of those given to their enemies. They had seen government go tyrannical (tyranny then being small fry to what we have now), and knew the only way for a citizenry to reclaim lost freedom was at the point of a gun. They wrote the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because they knew that guns in the hands of governments and criminals only meant dead innocents, and they knew we needed a cut-and-dried, in-writing guarantee of the ability to fight back.
They were right, about that dead innocents thing. In the 20th century, millions of innocent people (the estimates range from 20 to 120) were killed by their own government in genocides, ethnic cleansings, political attacks, what have you. In every example - EVERY EXAMPLE - these killings were preceded by absolute and total Victim Disarmament. Not in a handful of examples, not a few examples, not some of the examples, but every bloody time a Chinese political dissident knelt by a ditch, every time a Jew was gassed to death, every time a Russian was shipped to Siberia, every time an Armenian dropped dead on a forced march, they had been disarmed first.
That is the legacy of victim disarmament, your so-called "Gun Control." That is what happens.
Every. Single. Time.
But those people are so long dead, in countries so far away.
Very well. We have more recent examples. Tell me you'd rather I was in a gun-free house when that person came through my front door while I was home alone. Tell me you'd rather I'd been beaten to death in that parking lot rather than see a gun in my hand.
None of those incidents involved me dying though, obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this. Tell Teresa Halbach then. Come, tell her to her face that given the choice and opportunity, you'd take a gun from her as Avery approached her car for that last time as she drove away from his trailer. Tell her to her face you'd rather see her tortured and raped for hours before being given a bloody, ugly death that was at an end to her suffering than see her armed. You can't. Because she's dead. Because she was killed, brutally. Because she didn't have a gun.
So, come tell me, to my face, what you want to tell Teresa. And stay out of arm's reach, because if you do say that to my face, I will hurt you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The story begins on Halloween 2005. Well, actually, before that. Stephen has always been a rather bad person. He started off with theft and moved up to assault and animal abuse so heinous he got tossed in jail for 1.5 years. He ran a woman off the road and held her at gunpoint for nearly a day at one point. Around the time I was born, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to a very long stay in the county pen. While in prison, he writes threatening letters to his wife, claiming he's going to do some thing horrific when he gets out. In early 2005, it was determined through DNA evidence that he hadn't committed the crime after all. He is released, an innocent yet evil man. Once out of prison, Stephen buys handcuffs, leg irons, and illegally (because of his status as a felon) procures a rifle.
Enter Tereasa, a 25 year old photographer, who has, on at least one occaision, photographed Stephen's family salvage yard.~Halloween 2005, Stephen calls Tereasa's business, and using a fake name, requests that she (her specifically) take some more photos of the salvage yard. She shows up, snaps a few photos, and vanishes into thin air.Several days later, her burned and dismembered body is found in a pit in the salvage yard, her car and personal effects are found there too. DNA matches from pools of blood found around the property and in the car show a mix of his and her blood. Poor girl was a fighter. We'd be less one evil SOB and plus a young woman today if she'd been allowed to carry a gun. But on to the rest of the story. Stephen is arrested, held for murder. All seems as well as can be expected.
In February, Stephen's nephew Brendan (16yo)steps forward with new information. On Halloween afternoon, he'd come home from school, and heard screaming emenating from Stephen's house (the whole clan lives together in trailers), from a distance of one hundred yards. He walked to Stephen's house, knocked between screams, and was promptly informed by his blood-drenched uncle that he was raping and torturing Tereasa, and did he want to help? The nephew joined in the "games." Later that evening, they decided to kill her. They strangled her. She would not die. They cut her throat. She would not die. Finally they shot her with aforementioned blackmarket rifle. She died. They cut up her body, burned and buried it, and kept mementos of the incident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teresa Halbach wasn't killed because Stephen Avery had a gun. She was killed because SHE did NOT have one.
You see, every year, nearly 800,000 Americans use a gun to defend themselves. They don't dramatically down the dastardly villain in every instance, else we'd be seeing an explosive growth in the undertaker business. Nope, just the presence of a gun in the hand is sufficient +90% of the time to scare away the criminal. That 800,000 number, where does it come from? Well, that's the LOWEST number reached among 9 national surveys by such groups as the Los Angeles Times and the Gallup organization. The higher numbers reached into the lower millions. And a good many of those criminals doing the threatening were armed, so the whole "If you're both armed, you're screwed" position is patently false.
Guns do not equal crime. A paucity of guns in civilian hands equals crime. Florida enacted their state-wide concealed carry law around the time I was born, and their homicide has dropped by at least 10% for the last 13 years (for a total overal of 21%), while the US homicide rate has climbed 12%. What's happened in the gun free utopia of Washington D.C.? It's been voted the murder capitol of the country for at least six of those years, and the city was just recently declared a "crime emergency." In fact, according to FBI crime statistics, you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime (by 26%) in a state where concealed carry is restricted than in a state where it is not. 49% more likely to be murdered. 58% more likely to be robbed. And 15% more likely to be a victim of an Aggravated Assault.
Meanwhile, our neighbors across the pond (in what one former UK citizen calls the "Benighted Kingdom") are experiencing skyrocketing crime rates despite the fact that all but a teeny tiny minority own anything more powerful than an airsoft pistol, and their Knife Amnesty programs have become a joke among American GUN CONTROL advocates. I believe it was a spokesperson for Handgun Control Inc that said "What's next? Pointy stick control?"
All of this talk of crime ignores, momentarily, the real reason behind the enumeration of the HUMAN (note I didn't say "American," but "HUMAN") right to keep and bear arms of military significance in the United States Constitution. The founders had just fought a long and bloody war against their fellow citizens and a handful of hired mercenaries, using privately owned rifles that were the military equivalent of those given to their enemies. They had seen government go tyrannical (tyranny then being small fry to what we have now), and knew the only way for a citizenry to reclaim lost freedom was at the point of a gun. They wrote the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because they knew that guns in the hands of governments and criminals only meant dead innocents, and they knew we needed a cut-and-dried, in-writing guarantee of the ability to fight back.
They were right, about that dead innocents thing. In the 20th century, millions of innocent people (the estimates range from 20 to 120) were killed by their own government in genocides, ethnic cleansings, political attacks, what have you. In every example - EVERY EXAMPLE - these killings were preceded by absolute and total Victim Disarmament. Not in a handful of examples, not a few examples, not some of the examples, but every bloody time a Chinese political dissident knelt by a ditch, every time a Jew was gassed to death, every time a Russian was shipped to Siberia, every time an Armenian dropped dead on a forced march, they had been disarmed first.
That is the legacy of victim disarmament, your so-called "Gun Control." That is what happens.
Every. Single. Time.
But those people are so long dead, in countries so far away.
Very well. We have more recent examples. Tell me you'd rather I was in a gun-free house when that person came through my front door while I was home alone. Tell me you'd rather I'd been beaten to death in that parking lot rather than see a gun in my hand.
None of those incidents involved me dying though, obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this. Tell Teresa Halbach then. Come, tell her to her face that given the choice and opportunity, you'd take a gun from her as Avery approached her car for that last time as she drove away from his trailer. Tell her to her face you'd rather see her tortured and raped for hours before being given a bloody, ugly death that was at an end to her suffering than see her armed. You can't. Because she's dead. Because she was killed, brutally. Because she didn't have a gun.
So, come tell me, to my face, what you want to tell Teresa. And stay out of arm's reach, because if you do say that to my face, I will hurt you.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Random Reflections Pt4
6.DON’T trust anyone who says they’re the good guys. The good guys won’t need to tell you they’re the good guys, you’ll know them, respect them, and they’ll sense that respect. The bad guys always have to pretend to be the good guys in order to get anywhere. NO ONE portrays themselves or views themselves as evil. They’re always doing the best they can, just getting by, doing what they can, making the best out of it, trying to help the most people…yadda yadda yadda… And maybe, they aren’t the truly bad guys. Maybe they’re only a little rotten. But once they’re thought of as the good guys…the real bad guys have free reign, and since they’re still living off the credit their predecessors have built up…well, you’re gonna have a hard time convincing anyone what right and wrong are.
7.There are few things more beautiful than a summer day. A cloudless sky so blue it can hurt your eyes, the sound of the leaves being rustled by the same gentle, cool breeze that’s playing off your face, the way the sunlight filters through the swaying leaves and makes yellow patterns on the green grass, the particular slant of the light between 4:30 and 7:00pm. The smell of a grill, the sound of people talking a few houses down…
It’s almost beat by a snowfall at night, the way the snow sparkles in front of a porchlight, the soft clumping rustle the only interruption of absolute silence as it hits the foot or so of fluffy white already on the ground, purplish white of the sky against the black trees, the way the wind doesn’t feel too cold while watching the scene from your front porch. Then you wake up in the morning to a misty white slate sky, snow piled four inches thick along every branch and twig and horizontal surface it can find. Days like I just described are pure scenic heaven. They cannot be photographed, they cannot be described accurately, and more’s the pity that you can only live each unique one once.
8.I hate being unarmed. Absolutely hate it. If I leave my knife in another pair of pants, the fact that I am unarmed sticks in the back of my mind until I have it in my pocket again. This may be disagreeable to some people. They may think I’m paranoid. Well let me tell you something friend, that’s just too damn bad.
When you’ve stood in a cold parkinglot at 10pm and heard some foul mouthed punk say the immortal line “What’re you staring at?” as he starts walking towards you, then you can talk. When you’ve been the only one home during a home invasion, then you can talk. Most people are never placed in situations where they want/need a gun – ever – in their entire lives. I was placed in two, within a year of each other. When you can say the same, THEN we can talk about how my wishing for something other than a glorified razor blade conflicts with your vision of the perfect society. THEN we can talk about how my life means less than your dream of reality.
9.Pop-culture clothing continues to weird me out. Especially the kind designed for the female of the species. What’s up with short pants? Not shorts. Not pants. Short pants, the bottom-hem of which are about five inches above the shoes. Are their ankles too warm? Are they expecting a sudden flood? Where did they get the idea that this is fashionable? Guys don’t tend to look at girls’ feet, so showing off more skin down there makes no sense. And jackets that have short torsos, but long sleeves. *scratches head* Huh? The lack of material negates the need for the extra warmth of the jacket. And writing across the backside. I never thought of myself as much of a puritan, but that’s just…wrong. Is that where they want me to look first? During my favorite part of my life, when I was a third key at Sam Goody, I witnessed the most outrageous example of nonsensical/explicit clothing for girls – a young teen wearing a short skirt and a Martha-Stewart-In-Prison style knit shawl, with no shirt on underneath. I’m still speechless. Her parents should’ve had their heads slammed in a refrigerator door for hours.
Clothing for guys is nearly as strange. Jeans that have been worn out already. Doesn’t that mean you have to buy pants more often? How is that a good thing? When the knees of my jeans wear out, I go looking for another pair. Pastel-plaid cotton shorts – who buys these abominations? You look like you don’t know which way your gate swings if you wear pastel plaid anything as a guy. And now the “Writing on the fundament” style shorts have made their way into the men’s department. Sometimes I want to go blind. And those “ghetto” styles (yes, you know what I’m talking about, and I’m no, I’m not being racist) that think wearing sixteen sizes above yours is fashionable. Where does nine extra yards of fabric hanging off you get fun? And lest y’all think I’m unfairly criticizing women’s dress, here’s a guy example: A young, urban-dressed youth walking through Shopko, the only thing holding up his size 96XXXXL pants being the death grip he had on his crotch. I don’t want to see that. He should’ve had something ELSE slammed in a refrigerator door for his stupidity.
10.Fredrick Douglass’s memoirs were recently reprinted. The modern edition has footnotes explaining the meaning of words like “exculpate,” “arraign,” and “curried.” Granted, they talked mighty strange back in the day, but how is it that a book written by an ex-slave who never attended school should require translation to us, more than 100 years of free public school down the pike?
7.There are few things more beautiful than a summer day. A cloudless sky so blue it can hurt your eyes, the sound of the leaves being rustled by the same gentle, cool breeze that’s playing off your face, the way the sunlight filters through the swaying leaves and makes yellow patterns on the green grass, the particular slant of the light between 4:30 and 7:00pm. The smell of a grill, the sound of people talking a few houses down…
It’s almost beat by a snowfall at night, the way the snow sparkles in front of a porchlight, the soft clumping rustle the only interruption of absolute silence as it hits the foot or so of fluffy white already on the ground, purplish white of the sky against the black trees, the way the wind doesn’t feel too cold while watching the scene from your front porch. Then you wake up in the morning to a misty white slate sky, snow piled four inches thick along every branch and twig and horizontal surface it can find. Days like I just described are pure scenic heaven. They cannot be photographed, they cannot be described accurately, and more’s the pity that you can only live each unique one once.
8.I hate being unarmed. Absolutely hate it. If I leave my knife in another pair of pants, the fact that I am unarmed sticks in the back of my mind until I have it in my pocket again. This may be disagreeable to some people. They may think I’m paranoid. Well let me tell you something friend, that’s just too damn bad.
When you’ve stood in a cold parkinglot at 10pm and heard some foul mouthed punk say the immortal line “What’re you staring at?” as he starts walking towards you, then you can talk. When you’ve been the only one home during a home invasion, then you can talk. Most people are never placed in situations where they want/need a gun – ever – in their entire lives. I was placed in two, within a year of each other. When you can say the same, THEN we can talk about how my wishing for something other than a glorified razor blade conflicts with your vision of the perfect society. THEN we can talk about how my life means less than your dream of reality.
9.Pop-culture clothing continues to weird me out. Especially the kind designed for the female of the species. What’s up with short pants? Not shorts. Not pants. Short pants, the bottom-hem of which are about five inches above the shoes. Are their ankles too warm? Are they expecting a sudden flood? Where did they get the idea that this is fashionable? Guys don’t tend to look at girls’ feet, so showing off more skin down there makes no sense. And jackets that have short torsos, but long sleeves. *scratches head* Huh? The lack of material negates the need for the extra warmth of the jacket. And writing across the backside. I never thought of myself as much of a puritan, but that’s just…wrong. Is that where they want me to look first? During my favorite part of my life, when I was a third key at Sam Goody, I witnessed the most outrageous example of nonsensical/explicit clothing for girls – a young teen wearing a short skirt and a Martha-Stewart-In-Prison style knit shawl, with no shirt on underneath. I’m still speechless. Her parents should’ve had their heads slammed in a refrigerator door for hours.
Clothing for guys is nearly as strange. Jeans that have been worn out already. Doesn’t that mean you have to buy pants more often? How is that a good thing? When the knees of my jeans wear out, I go looking for another pair. Pastel-plaid cotton shorts – who buys these abominations? You look like you don’t know which way your gate swings if you wear pastel plaid anything as a guy. And now the “Writing on the fundament” style shorts have made their way into the men’s department. Sometimes I want to go blind. And those “ghetto” styles (yes, you know what I’m talking about, and I’m no, I’m not being racist) that think wearing sixteen sizes above yours is fashionable. Where does nine extra yards of fabric hanging off you get fun? And lest y’all think I’m unfairly criticizing women’s dress, here’s a guy example: A young, urban-dressed youth walking through Shopko, the only thing holding up his size 96XXXXL pants being the death grip he had on his crotch. I don’t want to see that. He should’ve had something ELSE slammed in a refrigerator door for his stupidity.
10.Fredrick Douglass’s memoirs were recently reprinted. The modern edition has footnotes explaining the meaning of words like “exculpate,” “arraign,” and “curried.” Granted, they talked mighty strange back in the day, but how is it that a book written by an ex-slave who never attended school should require translation to us, more than 100 years of free public school down the pike?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Random Reflections Pt3
1.There’s a topic I’ve been hesitant to broach because of its sensitive and rather uh, volatile nature. However, a recent on-the-job experience has convinced me of the necessity of discussing it.
It is now time to talk about children.
Specifically, those ill-behaved lawn-apes that seem to show up everywhere there is a congregation of more than five people. I can forgive a lot from a critter the size of a football that only recently discovered what daylight looked like, really I can. Any irritation at that age is perfectly normal, that’s hardwired into them – annoy any nearby person until they get fed or removed from whatever mess they’ve created.
What I cannot brook, however, is extending the age of stupidity all the way up to five, six, seven, eight years old. Sensible, controlled, adult people should not have insensible, uncontrollable, little people running around rampant underfoot while these sensible adult people are trying to conduct business. While screaming nonsensical gibberish (despite having a passable command of the English language) while running may seem like a bonus to the weasels in question, the rest of us find it highly offensive.
Listen up: Having kids is not a novelty. It’s not a status symbol. It’s not a rite of passage, it’s not a fashion statement, it’s not an entry into a popularity contest. It’s the greatest responsibility the vast majority of us can entertain thoughts of possessing, and if you have no intention of bearing that responsibility with anything other than the gravest sense of honor possible, then for God’s sake DON’T HAVE KIDS. Yes, it IS that simple. For all practical intents and purposes, they are your property for 18 years. If you’re not going to keep them fed, watered, washed, waxed, covered, and under your control until they’re capable of exercising some control of their own (which you could teach to them if you took six seconds out of your Survivor marathon), don’t come crying to me and mine when popular culture raises them and you don’t particularly care for the results. I’m too busy dealing with the adult world to worry about your little monsters, unless and until they become big monsters and intrude into MY life with none of the control you didn’t teach them.
It’s not THAT hard to teach small children not to behave like savages at the bookstore, grocery store, any public place. The rest of us don’t find that behavior cute, and we dread what kind of whirlwind that’ll reap down the road. So either do your job or stop dabbling in matters of which you know nothing.
2.My former best friend has been converted into more of an acquaintance because he’s gotten hooked on alcohol. While I don’t know the depth and extent to which this hook is embedded in him, I do know that it has brought with it many of the ugly consequences that are the known and foreseeable results of imbibing to excess. I just wish I had the strength of will and the coldness of heart to shake the hand of the friend that is encouraging this behavior, and then beat him to the point where someone needs to pull me off. It might not do squat, but it’d make me feel dang good.
It's ironic, but not only do kids my age believe themselves to be invincible due to their youth, they believe themselves to be wise and worldly at least 3-5 years older than they truly are. I need two hands and possibly a foot to count off all the people who I’ve known who have done truly stupid things with addicting substances. Some have pulled back from that brink. Some have not. That is a cliff’s edge on which you do NOT want to play Twister.
None of us had the fortune to be born immortal. More’s the pity.
3.Do not trust any organization that has some derivation of the feminine gender in the title. Do not trust any law that has the words “Children,” “Free,” “Equal” or some mutation of the quoted in the title, or that intends to appeal to the patriotism of the reader. These two categories have done and have the capacity to do untold damage to the freedom of the American people. I bring before you the examples of the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child - which would ban home schooling, and would make spanking a federal offense (the treaty is stalled in Congress) – and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – mandatory sobriety checkpoints, anyone?
4.I work across the street from the biggest mall in the city, and once a week I run over there during my lunch break. So I’m standing at the entrance, looking at the huge building across the way – where I work – and I realize, we’re nothing. I mean, humanity is so dang small compared to the world we’re barely more substantial than dust motes. We’re tiny in comparison with the world, the universe, everything. And yet the tiny buildings and cars and people we surround ourselves with mean everything to us, despite the fact that they and we could disappear in an eyeblink and everything else would go on without so much as a hiccup. The things perspective will make you think about. We’re ants, crawling around on the skin of something we don’t even think about, surrounded by bright blue sky, and we’ll never know anything else. We don’t even stop to think like that, usually.
5.There’s a saying I’ve grown up with – “Pick the rock you want to die on.” It means pick the cause or belief for which will stand your ground and from which you will not retreat under any circumstance, and then draw your line in the stand. You’ve gotta pick carefully though. You don’t get a last-minute do-over when you things don’t go your way. Be sure of where and for what you make your stand, and then do NOT budge.At the same time, don’t be stupid about something that means a lot to you – NOW. You can get yourself in a world of hurt picking something moronic as the rock you want to die on, and it’ll come back and bite you when you least expect it. And remember, the point is not to die on, but to defend that rock. Be crafty, be cunning, be a master of strategic retreat, but make sure you can live with your chosen stand, the things you have to do to defend it, and the consequences that follow.
It is now time to talk about children.
Specifically, those ill-behaved lawn-apes that seem to show up everywhere there is a congregation of more than five people. I can forgive a lot from a critter the size of a football that only recently discovered what daylight looked like, really I can. Any irritation at that age is perfectly normal, that’s hardwired into them – annoy any nearby person until they get fed or removed from whatever mess they’ve created.
What I cannot brook, however, is extending the age of stupidity all the way up to five, six, seven, eight years old. Sensible, controlled, adult people should not have insensible, uncontrollable, little people running around rampant underfoot while these sensible adult people are trying to conduct business. While screaming nonsensical gibberish (despite having a passable command of the English language) while running may seem like a bonus to the weasels in question, the rest of us find it highly offensive.
Listen up: Having kids is not a novelty. It’s not a status symbol. It’s not a rite of passage, it’s not a fashion statement, it’s not an entry into a popularity contest. It’s the greatest responsibility the vast majority of us can entertain thoughts of possessing, and if you have no intention of bearing that responsibility with anything other than the gravest sense of honor possible, then for God’s sake DON’T HAVE KIDS. Yes, it IS that simple. For all practical intents and purposes, they are your property for 18 years. If you’re not going to keep them fed, watered, washed, waxed, covered, and under your control until they’re capable of exercising some control of their own (which you could teach to them if you took six seconds out of your Survivor marathon), don’t come crying to me and mine when popular culture raises them and you don’t particularly care for the results. I’m too busy dealing with the adult world to worry about your little monsters, unless and until they become big monsters and intrude into MY life with none of the control you didn’t teach them.
It’s not THAT hard to teach small children not to behave like savages at the bookstore, grocery store, any public place. The rest of us don’t find that behavior cute, and we dread what kind of whirlwind that’ll reap down the road. So either do your job or stop dabbling in matters of which you know nothing.
2.My former best friend has been converted into more of an acquaintance because he’s gotten hooked on alcohol. While I don’t know the depth and extent to which this hook is embedded in him, I do know that it has brought with it many of the ugly consequences that are the known and foreseeable results of imbibing to excess. I just wish I had the strength of will and the coldness of heart to shake the hand of the friend that is encouraging this behavior, and then beat him to the point where someone needs to pull me off. It might not do squat, but it’d make me feel dang good.
It's ironic, but not only do kids my age believe themselves to be invincible due to their youth, they believe themselves to be wise and worldly at least 3-5 years older than they truly are. I need two hands and possibly a foot to count off all the people who I’ve known who have done truly stupid things with addicting substances. Some have pulled back from that brink. Some have not. That is a cliff’s edge on which you do NOT want to play Twister.
None of us had the fortune to be born immortal. More’s the pity.
3.Do not trust any organization that has some derivation of the feminine gender in the title. Do not trust any law that has the words “Children,” “Free,” “Equal” or some mutation of the quoted in the title, or that intends to appeal to the patriotism of the reader. These two categories have done and have the capacity to do untold damage to the freedom of the American people. I bring before you the examples of the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child - which would ban home schooling, and would make spanking a federal offense (the treaty is stalled in Congress) – and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – mandatory sobriety checkpoints, anyone?
4.I work across the street from the biggest mall in the city, and once a week I run over there during my lunch break. So I’m standing at the entrance, looking at the huge building across the way – where I work – and I realize, we’re nothing. I mean, humanity is so dang small compared to the world we’re barely more substantial than dust motes. We’re tiny in comparison with the world, the universe, everything. And yet the tiny buildings and cars and people we surround ourselves with mean everything to us, despite the fact that they and we could disappear in an eyeblink and everything else would go on without so much as a hiccup. The things perspective will make you think about. We’re ants, crawling around on the skin of something we don’t even think about, surrounded by bright blue sky, and we’ll never know anything else. We don’t even stop to think like that, usually.
5.There’s a saying I’ve grown up with – “Pick the rock you want to die on.” It means pick the cause or belief for which will stand your ground and from which you will not retreat under any circumstance, and then draw your line in the stand. You’ve gotta pick carefully though. You don’t get a last-minute do-over when you things don’t go your way. Be sure of where and for what you make your stand, and then do NOT budge.At the same time, don’t be stupid about something that means a lot to you – NOW. You can get yourself in a world of hurt picking something moronic as the rock you want to die on, and it’ll come back and bite you when you least expect it. And remember, the point is not to die on, but to defend that rock. Be crafty, be cunning, be a master of strategic retreat, but make sure you can live with your chosen stand, the things you have to do to defend it, and the consequences that follow.
A few things first
Gun Stuff
I picked up a Beretta CX4 Storm around the 4th of July. Absolutely phenomenal rifle. I don't have a single bad thing to say about it other than I prefer post-and-notch Russian sights to post-and-circle American sights. It feels like a .22. Yeah, there's more recoil than with a .22, but there's something about the feel and sound that make it seem like I'm shooting my uncle's Marlin. And accurate... All 21 rds on a paper plate at 25 yards, standing, and all except 2 or three in a group small enough to cover with a measuring cup. My dad gets the same groups at 50 yards(showing up your son with his own rifle is a mean thing to do!) and got 1 out of 4 in a 3 inch bullseye at 100 yards, despite the fact that the only thing we've ever taken out to 100 is a borrow CETME that we could barely shoot for the recoil. I love this gun. That it takes the same magazines as my 92FS is a bonus too. Now I need to find a small pistol to keep in the drawer of the desk I'll get when my brother moves out of my room. Oh and, I found a Smith 1076 at Gander Mountain...too many guns, so little time and money...
I feel dirty
I don't know if I'll be able to do it, or live with myself if I did it, but there's a Democrat running Congress 'round here named Steve Kagen and from what I've heard, I like him alot more than his so-called "Conservative" opponent, John Gard. I'm sending a letter off to Kagen tomorrow asking him what he thinks of assault weapons, the draft, and McCain-Feingold. Gard will get a similar letter. I'm guessing Kagen will go the default Democrat postition (GUNS ARE BAD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!), in which case I'll vote for Gard just because he's the lesser evil. But it'd be dang cool if Kagen were a cut above the rest of his communistic party. On second thought, maybe not, I'd never be able to show my face online again. I'll keep y'all posted.
I picked up a Beretta CX4 Storm around the 4th of July. Absolutely phenomenal rifle. I don't have a single bad thing to say about it other than I prefer post-and-notch Russian sights to post-and-circle American sights. It feels like a .22. Yeah, there's more recoil than with a .22, but there's something about the feel and sound that make it seem like I'm shooting my uncle's Marlin. And accurate... All 21 rds on a paper plate at 25 yards, standing, and all except 2 or three in a group small enough to cover with a measuring cup. My dad gets the same groups at 50 yards(showing up your son with his own rifle is a mean thing to do!) and got 1 out of 4 in a 3 inch bullseye at 100 yards, despite the fact that the only thing we've ever taken out to 100 is a borrow CETME that we could barely shoot for the recoil. I love this gun. That it takes the same magazines as my 92FS is a bonus too. Now I need to find a small pistol to keep in the drawer of the desk I'll get when my brother moves out of my room. Oh and, I found a Smith 1076 at Gander Mountain...too many guns, so little time and money...
I feel dirty
I don't know if I'll be able to do it, or live with myself if I did it, but there's a Democrat running Congress 'round here named Steve Kagen and from what I've heard, I like him alot more than his so-called "Conservative" opponent, John Gard. I'm sending a letter off to Kagen tomorrow asking him what he thinks of assault weapons, the draft, and McCain-Feingold. Gard will get a similar letter. I'm guessing Kagen will go the default Democrat postition (GUNS ARE BAD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!), in which case I'll vote for Gard just because he's the lesser evil. But it'd be dang cool if Kagen were a cut above the rest of his communistic party. On second thought, maybe not, I'd never be able to show my face online again. I'll keep y'all posted.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
V For Vendetta
Watched V For Vendetta last Sunday. Good movie, definitely the most faithful adaptation of a comic book that I've seen (though I've not see too many comic-movies). It did miss some rather major details though - V was not portrayed as the terrorist that he was in the book, nor did Evey become V when he died. Hugo Weaving is a fantastic actor - he was tasked with conveying a character without a face, and he did so nearly perfectly, carrying an otherwise average movie. Natalie Portman did a passable job, but she got some real bad lines to read. Her transformation from average citizen to hardened rebel was handled moderately well. The movie dragged through the 3rd quarter, but not terribly so.The only major complaint I had with the movie was the ending. It was far to upbeat. We were left with the feeling that England was going to back to bunny rabits and sunshine because a bunch of people wore Guy Fawkes masks and watched the demolition of Parliment. I know they had to leave this part out, but they shouldn't have: The only reason things were going to change was because V had poisoned, choked, stabbed or otherwise eliminated everyone who opposed him.Besides that, it was a good movie. I was expecting an action/special effects extravaganza, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of character development and plot.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Random Reflections Pt2
1.I don't mean anything harmful by this, I mean no insult to anyone, all the usual caveats and addendums apply, blah blah infinite blah...why is everyone overweight these days? We're not in the middle ages anymore, obesity is not a sign of prosperity and good breeding potential. And I'm not talking about 5 to 10 pounds overweight here...I'm talking about, like, Jabba The Hutt, and dressed like Gap beach models, which is nearly blinding to anyone who looks for more than 3 seconds in their direction. How does one let oneself get that large? Everyone has a mirror across from their shower...I can't believe they'd get out soaking wet and say "Hm, not bad." I mean seriously here folks, do they not notice it at 20 pounds overweight? 30? 50? It's not like you wake up one morning looking like that, there are various stages of transition and by the time you're the size of a small European sedan, you've had plenty of time to see it coming. The time to stop is not when you're begging Dr. Phil or Geraldo to reverse your mistakes FOR YOU and pay for your stomach stapling, it's when you stop dead in your tracks and momentum wants to take various parts of your anatomy forward. Better yet, don't start! And the hormones and glandular imbalance excuse holds no water - the number of people who can actually contribute obesity to diagnosable medical conditions is a fraction of a percent. That statistically tiny minority has my deepest sympathies...everyone else...don't complain about society's standards of attractiveness just because you've chosen NOT to live up to them. Lose your three spare tires and your family of chins and then come back and talk to me about how unhealthy it is for models and actors and actresses and musicians to be so thin.
I'm not a health freak. I eat alright, moderate my fat and sugar intake, run a mile every day and lift weights, but I feel dang near anorexic when I walk through the mall.
2.Why is it that most rap music is about crime? With the exception of a statistically nonexistant minority, they ALL make their careers rapping about various felonies - murder, the selling of women, and drug trafficking. And then, hypocritically, a majority of them refer to God reverentially on their CDs, support groups like the Million Mom March, and whine that the police harass them. Well dang folks, I'm fresh out out of sympathy here - if'n I was in the field of law enforcement and some local critter was proclaiming from the youth's boomboxes about his prowess in drive-bys, I'd cast more than a significant glance or two in his direction. And don't try and sell me on this poor, ghetto lifestyle - you're either downtrodden and living hand-to-mouth or you're living high on the hog, JUST LIKE YOU RAP. Pick one and stick with it.
3.My brother attended court to pay his fireworks ticket today. A hit-and-runner who capped a mailbox was up before us, was ordered to pay $1 plus replace the mailbox. My brother got nearly $200 in fines. What the hell, over? Let us consider for a moment the act of reckless driving and property damage, weighed against celebrating our country's birth ten days before the anniversary, in the manner in which the founding fathers told us they preferred - behavior that harms absolutely no one except, possibly, the perpetrators. The judge said to check out the hospital burn unit that it's "filled with people injured by fireworks. You could've hurt yourself or others." Nazzo fast there Clarence Darrow, the town newspaper reported 3 fireworks burn cases total for the summer, discounting of course, the terminally moronic man who torched his car by lighting a pack of sparklers while driving and setting them in a blanket on his lap. Go get yourself a new shtick with which to threaten and intimidate, this one's limp as a wet rag.
4.When did making effigies of public figures and mutilating said effigies (in public no less!) in protest go out of vogue. Nothing expresses your displeasure with your Congresscritter faster than hanging a statue of him from a lamp-pole or nailing his likeness to the Liberty Tree. Funny, but our country was freest when this was a common occurance.
5.Bush wants to take command of the national guard during emergencies (guess who gets to define emergency) without the consent of the governers of the called-upon's state. This was one of the grievances in the Declaration Of Independence:"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." Now I don't know about you, but I remember Katrina survivors disarmed at gunpoint, tossed from their homes, and put into veritable pits of degredation and crime like the Superdome...at the behest of the federal government and out-of-state guard units, and the thought of having fifty states worth of guard units roaming over the countryside during a disaster makes the hair on my arms stand on end. This is the very definition of Bad Idea.
I'm not a health freak. I eat alright, moderate my fat and sugar intake, run a mile every day and lift weights, but I feel dang near anorexic when I walk through the mall.
2.Why is it that most rap music is about crime? With the exception of a statistically nonexistant minority, they ALL make their careers rapping about various felonies - murder, the selling of women, and drug trafficking. And then, hypocritically, a majority of them refer to God reverentially on their CDs, support groups like the Million Mom March, and whine that the police harass them. Well dang folks, I'm fresh out out of sympathy here - if'n I was in the field of law enforcement and some local critter was proclaiming from the youth's boomboxes about his prowess in drive-bys, I'd cast more than a significant glance or two in his direction. And don't try and sell me on this poor, ghetto lifestyle - you're either downtrodden and living hand-to-mouth or you're living high on the hog, JUST LIKE YOU RAP. Pick one and stick with it.
3.My brother attended court to pay his fireworks ticket today. A hit-and-runner who capped a mailbox was up before us, was ordered to pay $1 plus replace the mailbox. My brother got nearly $200 in fines. What the hell, over? Let us consider for a moment the act of reckless driving and property damage, weighed against celebrating our country's birth ten days before the anniversary, in the manner in which the founding fathers told us they preferred - behavior that harms absolutely no one except, possibly, the perpetrators. The judge said to check out the hospital burn unit that it's "filled with people injured by fireworks. You could've hurt yourself or others." Nazzo fast there Clarence Darrow, the town newspaper reported 3 fireworks burn cases total for the summer, discounting of course, the terminally moronic man who torched his car by lighting a pack of sparklers while driving and setting them in a blanket on his lap. Go get yourself a new shtick with which to threaten and intimidate, this one's limp as a wet rag.
4.When did making effigies of public figures and mutilating said effigies (in public no less!) in protest go out of vogue. Nothing expresses your displeasure with your Congresscritter faster than hanging a statue of him from a lamp-pole or nailing his likeness to the Liberty Tree. Funny, but our country was freest when this was a common occurance.
5.Bush wants to take command of the national guard during emergencies (guess who gets to define emergency) without the consent of the governers of the called-upon's state. This was one of the grievances in the Declaration Of Independence:"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." Now I don't know about you, but I remember Katrina survivors disarmed at gunpoint, tossed from their homes, and put into veritable pits of degredation and crime like the Superdome...at the behest of the federal government and out-of-state guard units, and the thought of having fifty states worth of guard units roaming over the countryside during a disaster makes the hair on my arms stand on end. This is the very definition of Bad Idea.
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