Further Proof That The UK Is Absolutely Nuts

http://www.theregister.com/2007/03/27/biometric_ipod_activation/

The iPod mugging has become one of the top crimes de nos jours, but despair not, worried teen victim - the Tony Blair crime policy legacy is poised to come to your rescue. With fingerprint activation of MP3 players.

The suggestion makes a brief (which is the good news) appearance in the second of Blair's policy reviews, Building on Progress: Security, Crime and Justice, published this week, as an example of how crime can be 'designed out' of products. It is however the only example, which we think is the bad news.

The Government proposes, the review says, to "Work in partnership with businesses to crime-proof their products, services and processes to the highest standards. One example could be introducing fingerprint activation of MP3 players."

Regrettably, the review neglects to explain how the authors think this might work, but given the generally rickety and delusional grasp Government wonks tend to have of biometric technology's capabilities and limitations, we fear we can surmise. In principle it's fairly easy to add fingerprint activation to a personal music player - it's already being done on some laptops and various consumer electronic add-ons, and we're pretty sure we could find a couple of MP3 players that already have it if we could be bothered looking, so don't write in.

That is not the point. The point is that 'security' of this class is generally part speed-bump to the casual intruder, part convenience for people who don't want the hassle of remembering passwords. It is not serious protection of your data, if you want that then you'd be better using encryption, and it does not prevent hardware theft. So long as a thief can reset the biometric activation and reformat the hardware, the previous owner's fingerprints are of little relevance.

So, if the Government proposes to pursue this one, it can possibly persuade a few manufacturers to stick the speed-bump onto their devices and happily bank the crime-fighting marketing collateral. If, however, it proposes to pursue it to the extent that a system that could (theoretically, at least) make a difference was produced, then we'd end up with something along the following lines. Your iPod, mobile phone, electric toothbrush or whatever would require you to undergo a fingerprint activated registration process before it would start working. Your fingerprints could then be stored by the manufacturer along with your name, address, email, phone number and spamming preferences. Then, when the device was lost or stolen you'd simply contact the manufacturer and... Well, as whoever stole your iPod already can't get it to work unless they stole your fingers too, and the manufacturer is surely not about to give you a new one for free, we're not sure about what would come next, or why you'd have bothered contacting the manufacturer, considering.

But anyway, there'd be no point in stealing iPods, probably. Not without the fingers.
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We can't crack down on crime, so we're going to get government involved in the manufacturing of IPODs. Here's a brilliant idea: How about NOT making your country a bloody thieves' paradise?

Or is that too complicated for them to follow?

Law & Order Is A Joke

Need a villain? How about an offshoot Christian group with conservative fundamentals. I don't watch this show regularly but I've seen bits and pieces, and I swear, there are more violent Christian denominations than there are liberal academics.

Do they feel compelled to put this plotline in every bloody episode? Need a sympathy angle, give 'em dozens of kids. Need a reason to hate 'em, make their wives browbeaten, make 'em pedophiles who want "pure" bloodlines.

And don't even get me started on the anti-gun angle, for which they have an actual Honest-To-Goodness handbook, which a few minutes on The High Road will reveal for you.

Ye Gods...who writes this dreck, and who in their right mind watches it for entertainment.

Meat Loaf - Cry Over Me

Another night sleepless
I don't want to feel this
Nothing can stop this pain
Trying to get to
A time I forget you
Still tangled in yesterday

It's so easy for you
To give nothing for me
Did you ever feel anything?

I want you to Cry Over Me
Die over me
Even for a moment
Even for a moment
I want you to hurt over me
Feel what I feel
I want you to cry over, die over me
Baby, just for one time

I want your heart broken
Some sign of emotion
I want to see the tears tumble down
Show me I meant something
And that you feel nothing
But your world crashing to the ground

It's so easy for you
To forget about me
Did I ever mean anything?

I want you to Cry Over Me
Die over me
Even for a moment
Even for a moment
I want you to hurt over me
Feel what I feel
I want you to cry over, die over me
Baby, just for one time

Cry...Cry... Cry...

Well did you feel something?
Did we mean nothing at all?

I want you to Cry Over Me
Die over me
Even for a moment
Even for a moment
I want you to hurt over me
Feel what I feel
Even for a moment
Oh why can't you just cry over, die over me
Baby, why can't you hurt like I do like I hurt over you
Can't you cry over, die over me
Baby, just for one time
I want you to cry over, die over me
Baby, want you to fall on your knees
Baby, crawl back to me
Want you to cry over, die over me
Baby, just one time...
-------------------------------------------------------
From the CD The Monster Is Loose, here's the meanest love song since Keith Urban penned You'll Think Of Me.

Honestly, I didn't think this was such a great song to start with. Diane Warran shouldn't be allowed to touch a Meat Loaf CD with a 39 1/2 foot pole. I will say she didn't do half bad with this one. Meat belts it out and then just keeps amping the power up and up as the song goes along. He really feels what he sings, and if you weren't feeling it before, you're feeling it with him.

Def Leppard - Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad?

Here I am
I'm in the wrong bed again
It's just a game
I just can't win
There you are breathin' soft on my skin
Still you won't let me in

Why save your kisses for a rainy day
Baby let the moment take your heart away

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad, yeah
Have you ever wanted someone
You just couldn't have
Did you ever try so hard
That your world just fell apart
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
And you're the girl I gotta have
I gotta have you baby

There you go, midnight promises again
But they're broken by the dawn
You wanna go further, faster every day baby
But in the morning you'll be gone
And I'm alone

Why save your kisses for a rainy day
Baby let the moment take your heart away

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad, yeah
Have you ever wanted someone
You just couldn't have
Did you ever try so hard
That your world just fell apart
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
And you're the girl I gotta have
I gotta have you baby

Every dream I dream is like some
Kinda rash 'n' reckless scene
To give out such crazy love
You must be some kinda drug
And if my time don't ever come
For me you're still the same
Damned if I don't, damned if I do
I gotta get a fix on you

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad, yeah
Have you ever wanted someone
You just couldn't have
Did you ever try so hard
That your world just fell apart
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
And you're the girl I gotta have
I gotta have you baby
----------------------------------------------
Apparently, as a little critter, I had quite the unnatural fascination with Def Leppard. Not that I ever listened to them mind you - when I was just old enough to stand, I recognized their albums in stores, pulled them off shelves, ran around saying "De' Lepp'" all the time.

As I grew up, I thought they were more of a metal band, like Metallica, Megadeath, those kind. Only found out recently they were 80s hair rock. The above song got me into Def Leppard.

To listen to it, I thought it was the standard "Boy meets girl, boy can't have girl, much angst ensues" type song. To read the lyrics, it's "Attached boy meets attached girl, attached boy and attached girl have relationship, much angst ensues." Weird I never picked up on that before now. Cool song though. At the risk of sounding like a Liberal-Hippie-in-tune-with-my-feelings-schoolteacher-socialworker-problem inventor type: It speaks to me.

Selective Enforcement

So I'm watching the news this afternoon, and they're doing a human interest piece on the huge influx of Latinos into my city, and how they're all congregating on the East side, setting up Mexican businesses, that sort of thing. Lots of clips of store-fronts, people sweeping floors, food-packaging in Mexican, that sort of thing.

Then they start the interviews.

At first I wonder why everyone they're interviewing is under the age of 18. Then they conduct an interview with an adult, and it all becomes clear - the kids are the ones who know English. The adults all need translators.

IIRC, one of the kids said:
"It's nice to be here. It's like a melting pot. We're sharing our culture with everyone, and they're coming to appreciate our culture. We're here for everyone - Latinos and Americans."

Latinos AND Americans.

Why don't INS start the investigation right there? I mean seriously here, if I showed up at the range with a rifle someone suspected of being two inches under the Federal minimum, they'd pull the range records, and my name would be mud.

Someone as much as admits on public television that they're here illegally, and nothing happens. Sickening, when we refuse to enforce our own borders, and refuse to prosecute those who ignore them.

Female German Judge Quotes Quran As Excuse For Spousal Abuse

I translated this from the following link:
www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,472849,00.html

GERMAN JUDGE EXCUSES SPOUSAL VIOLENCE WITH QURAN

He beat her, he threatened to kill her: A German woman from Marocco wanted a divorce from her husband as soon as possible. A judge denied her request. Her reason: Physical chastisement is called for in the Quran.

Hamburg - The case sounds too odd to be true: A 26 year old mother of two little children wanted to throw off the bonds of her marriage. There is no doubt that her husband, who is also from Morocco, beat her as police have determined in May of 2006, when an argument turned violent in their apartment. The man had to move out, but the terror continued: After the separation the husband threatened to kill the young mother.

A quick divorce seemed to be the only answer - the 26 year old didn't want to wait the one year separation period mandated by law. If she weren't married anymore, her husband may leave her alone hoped the 26 year old. Together with her attorney Barbara Becker-Rojczyk she petitioned the Frankfurt court for a divorce last year. Physical violence and death threats seemed to present a hardship case - the only reason for a premature divorce - the attorney was sure.

In January, the letter of the presiding judge arrived. And with this letter, the scandal was made perfect: Using the Quran as a guideline, the judge denied the request for an early divorce. "The use of physical chastisement is not an undue hardship according to paragraph 1565 of the BGB (Bundesgesetzbuch, German law)" quoted the "Frankfurter Rundschau" out of the judge's decree. One had to consider that both husband and wife came out of Moroccan cultural circles.

To be clear: Since the Quran allows men to beat their wives, a german judge denies a petition for an early divorce of a woman being beaten by her husband. "Physical chastisement, that means to me: The man is allowed to beat (the woman)," interprets attorney Becker-Rojczyk the explanation of the judge.

The judge made it clear that continuing with the petition was useless according to that reasoning, Becker-Rojczyk told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Her client should simply wait until the one year waiting period had elapsed.

Together with her client, Becker-Rojczyk peitioned the court again, doubting that the judge could render an objective verdict. In response, she received a formal response from the judge, quoting a specific Sura out of the Quran, which determines the man's honor to have been damaged when his wife behaves in an unchaste manner. "It appears that the judge considers it unchaste when my client attempts to conform to the lifestyle of the West," according to Becker-Rojczyk.

That the judge is still on the bench surprises her. The verdict had been rendered several weeks ago alreday. Nothing has happened - Becker-Rojczyk contacted the press to bring attention to the case. The Frankfurt court was not available this evening for comment.Christa Stolle, business administrator of the women's rights organization Terre des Femmes is outraged by the explanation given by the judge: "It is unbelievable that a judge in Germany uses the Quran to render a verdict," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE. She is requesting disciplinary measures. The explanation of the judge is a ominous signal for all women, who are trying to free themselves from violent marriages. "To deny a divorce request with a reference to the Quran is beyond good and evil."

Using cultural background as an argument in German courts is not an isolated incident. "In the area of spousal crimes, mitigating cricumstances have been brought to bear based on the traditional background of the abuser." There have been cases of "honor killings", which have been punished as other than normal murders, says Stolle. In the meantime, this way of thinking has changed. "I hope that the Frankfurt case remains an isolated incident."

A verdict, if the terrorized woman will be divorced before the end of one year has not been reached. The family judge responsible, Michael Höhler, will have to render a decision.

Attorney Becker-Rojczyk is telling her client not to get her hopes up. She doesn't expect that there will be a negitiation before the year elapses in mid May. In her experience, several cases were drawn out so as to let the year elapse without taking further steps. When a dissenting opinion is given, the beaurocratic path is even longer, says Becker-Rojczyk.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard to imagine this is the same country that made a serious attempt to put most of the free world under the sword 70 years ago. Now they're enforcing someone else's laws (in contradiction to their own) inside their own country.

Someone tell me why beating your wife is something advocated by The Religion Of Peace?

FBI Reports...

...more and more Islamic men are showing an interesting in becoming schoolbus drivers. They say there's no need to worry - buses full of school children have never been used before in terrorist attacks.

Very much, to my mind, like "Planes have never been used in terrorist attacks, don't worry about all those 45yo Saudis on student visas who are expressing extreme interest in flying, and none at all in landing..."

Random Reflections Pt.20

86. Seen on a bag of chicken. “Genuine Amish Chicken. Call ***-***-**** with questions or complaints.”

No Amish people I know of have phones.

87. Time is the most valuable commodity in existence. It’s how we measure out lives. Each moment exists only once. They belong to us to trade away as we see fit. We can never have them back, never call a do over. It is up to us to use our life as we see fit.

As my dad once told me, “Each day is like a new hand of poker, but you never how tall your pile of chips is.”

88. Somewhere on the order of 12 states are now mandating STD vaccines (which have the side effect of possibly preventing some kinds of cancer, which can be caused by licentious behavior) for 6th grade girls. One state’s governor even issued an executive order requiring them, because the legislature didn’t want to pass the bill for fear of risking the ire of parents.

First and foremost, I will decide what gets put it my child’s body, thank you very bloody much. Your suggestions may receive some consideration, but in the end, it’s not up to you. If you feel so strongly on the issue, come and try it yourself.

If you can’t figure out why I might object to such things, look at the market demographics for such products, and see if you can produce a coherent thought on the process.

*sigh* Yet another reason to homeschool your kids.

89. The state of Maryland has, in the past year, suspended 28 kindergarteners for indecent behavior, including what they classify as felony harassment of their classmates. Inappropriate touching topped the list of offenses.

They’re 5 years old and younger, for the love of money! They’re like bloody kittens – put a bunch of them in a room and they’ll wind up in a scrum, and after that, they’ll all fall asleep in a pile. Their brain functions have just barely moved past the “lie in our own mess and scream for food stage” they don’t know that what they’re doing now will be wrong for them to do in TEN YEARS, or on the job in FIFTEEN. They’re CHILDREN, they don’t know any better!

I’d probably be locked up for all the crap I did when I was 5, if’n I was in Maryland. Made the neighbors laugh for dang sure though.

They thought it was cute.

90.It was provided for in the United States Constitution that Congress must meet for at least one day a year.

Imagine that! They thought Congress would have so little to do that they wrote a passage FORCING them to meet and discuss the nation once a year.

Our current Congressional sessions are what, 190 days long, give or take? And we still moan about how little they’re doing, how much time they spend on vacation.

Therefore, I would like to propose that they retain their current salary and go back to the old schedule. I’ll even pay MORE, to have them do less than 1% of their current duties.

Like Harry Browne said “Government should be small enough to fit in my kitchen, and even that’s a little too big for comfort.”

Home Defense Rifle

My rail system arrived yesterday, and I decided to break down my rifle (Carolynn The *edited* McCarthy) and fit the rails to their various connecting parts.

No dice. One tube is slightly out of spec, and too wide/long. Given that I own multiple copies of this rifle platform, I tried out a tube from Nancy Pelosi, my brother's rifle. It fits, so I'll use it. Only problem being, the tube I have to swap in to make Nancy Pelosi work is too long, and will require filing to work. After trying various combinations of parts, I put Nancy Pelosi's collapsible stock on Mrs. McCarthy, and will be going with Pelosi as my base rifle for the build.

An ACE sidefolder is in the care of Post Office, pending delivery to your truly. Next up is a beautiful adjustable pistolgrip, and a frontgrip. Then maybe some rings for a flashlight, and a quick-detach sling.

...And All Will Know That 300 Spartans Gave Their Last Breath To Defend It...

Went to see 300 tonight. I can't tell if that was the best movie I've ever seen or the worst.

It had flashes of brilliance: The death of Leonidas for example, or the first time he met with Xerxes, or the "Come home with your shield or on it scene." Such scenes were beautiful, moving, soul stirring, everything you could want in a dramatic movie.

On the other hand (isn't there always an "On the other hand?") it was horribly inaccurate, the adult content was gratuitous and for the most part unnecessary, and worst of all: They sped through pretty much everything of substance to get to the fight scenes, which were, of course, fantastic.

For all the talk of freedom, the Spartan culture was depicted as very much like ours and not very much like reality. Straight men were fined, the entire culture depended on the draft and other forms of slavery, and the Spartans declared war on their neighbors for sport. It's hard to reconcile the incessant talk of liberty in this movie with the actual Spartan lifestyle.

Furthermore, the Persians were depicted as malformed, ugly, decadent, immoral, needlessly violent... while I know little of Persian culture I'm fair certain they didn't have hook handed fatmen with chest piercings doing their executions, nor were the 10,000 Immortals made up entirely of radiation victims.

I'm trying to reconcile my criticisms of the movie by telling myself that it is nothing more than a movie. Except, that's not entirely correct. It's more than a movie. It's the modern day equivalent of a campfire story - Beowulf cleaving foul villains collar to hip with an axe, that sort of thing. It's a story of extremes: The good and brave know nothing other than goodness and bravery, the traitors are malformed and easily manipulated, and the enemy is so inhuman as to be unworthy of sympathy. It's monosyllabicaly simple. 300 is propaganda for our souls. It's designed to make us believe in heroes again, and packaged up in the only media the video-game generation will accept.

DC Handgun Ban Struck DOWN!!!

An appeals court found that the handgun ban Washington D.C. (otherwise known as the high-crime, gun-free perfectly good swamp that they turned into the seat of government) was unConstitutional on the grounds that it violated the Second Amendment.

The majority opinion stated that the right to keep and bear arms existed before the Constitution was written and was still in effect.

The Mayor of D.C., affectionately known as "The Man In Charge Of The Ding-a-lings," has said the city will keep enforcing the ban. Not hard to do since there are no gun stores in that cursed city. Shades of Ray Nagin anyone?

Predictably hand-wringing and dire threats of blood in the streets from all the usual suspects ensued, and went largely unnoticed by anyone except their choir, and those blessed saints of the internet, gun community, who made merciless fun of them to no end.

We'll see if the Supremes take this case up. They haven't touched guns since the 30s, because they either have to dissolve the union by declaring the 2A null and void, or put a whole lot of Federales out of business and negate all firearms laws whatsoever. Two courts are in conflict over the DC case, so it looks like SCOTUS will be looking at this sometime in the future.

In the meantime, I'm contemplating buying and fixing up a Sistema when I'm finished with my Home Defense Rifle build, and have done some investing. We'll see. I hate seeing people fix up and mod their guns - it makes me want to as well.

Tales From Retail Pt.8

8.Stoners are funny to watch. They’re not violent and they do the dumbest things.

A kid I’ll call Red The Stoner (because of his perpetual red shirt) was a frequent customer. Well, shopper. He never figured out, in his constant pot-induced confusion, that he could actually buy anything.

The first time I interacted with him, he was wandering aimlessly at about 5 in the evening. I pulled my usual shpeel about helping him find stuff, and he half-heartedly waved me off.

Over the course of the next FOUR hours – one sixth of a day – he circled the store endlessly.

At 9pm, I advised him that the store was closing and he should bring his purchases to the register for check-out.

He arrives at the register, and I’m overjoyed. Not only has he displayed brain activity, but he’s buying something. He puts his CD on the counter, I scan the barcode, and inform him of the price.

He looks at me blankly.

For the next sixty seconds, I continue to remind him of the price. He finally rouses himself from his stupor and utters a line I will remember forever: “You mean…I have to pay for it?”

When I gently advise him yes, federal reserve notes are accepted in all merchandise sales, he stares off into space, for a few seconds, and then ambles quietly outside.

He came back in several times over the next few months, but never bought anything.

Reply On HR1022

One of the congresscritters I wrote last month wrote back. Here's the text of his letter. Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent, guilty, and downright indifferent. A proper fisking follows in bold.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
March 8, 2007

Dear Mr. Vincent:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. I value the correspondence I get from people in *, and I would like to take this opportunity to address your concerns.

As you may know, H.R. 1022, the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007, was introduced by Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) on February 13, 2007. This legislation would reinstate the federal ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic assault weapons. This prohibition, which was originally passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, expired on September 30, 2004. Yeah, I know it. That's what I was writing you on. It wouldn't reinstate the ban, it would enact a whole new ban on parts, transfers, weapons, magazines, and would begin Nazi-style gun registration on American soil.

I agree that the right of law abiding Americans to own a gun should be protected. However, laws prohibiting felons and other potentially dangerous individuals from owning guns are reasonable and effective ways to reduce violent crime in our communities. In the past, the Senate has considered a variety of gun safety measures. I carefully evaluate each of these proposals, and I only support gun control legislation that corresponds to two important principles. First, I do not believe we should deprive law abiding gun owners, particularly hunters and target shooters, of their Second Amendment rights. Second, I only support proposals that I believe will unquestionably make our communities safer.And Britain, Canada, Australia, Russia, China, Darfur, Rwanda, Washington DC, California, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have all had such wonderful luck with reasonable and effective ways to reduce violent crime. They've been made UNQUESTIONABLY SAFER.

Bull.

Get it through your thick head:The Second Amendment is NOT about hunting animals and targetshooting. Well actually, in its original format it was about hunting politicians and targetshooting those who'd infringe upon human liberty.

H.R. 1022 has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. Similar legislation has not yet been introduced in the Senate. I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind should this legislation be considered by the Senate. Oh I bet you will keep my thoughts in mind. Right in with those other three neurons that make up "US Constitution, sovereignty of."

Again, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing from you.
Sincerely, Herb Kohl U.S. Senator
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Only slightly better than I'd hoped, and that's because he doesn't say anything.

Those Crazy Europeans...

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03...eban/index.php

Film or photograph a violent act (like taking a picture of a robber, or a video of some Religion Of Peace adherants torching cars) and the French.gov will toss you in prison for 5 years and fine you $100,000. They refuse to control and punish hooliganism and crime, so, in the tradition of governments everywhere, at all times throughout history, they go about making criminals out of free men and women.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/nsamurai105.xml

First they banned rifles. Crime went up. Then handguns. Rinse and repeat. Then most everything in between. Predictable results. Then large knives. Guess what happened? Then Swiss army knives. Duh... Then the serving of alcoholic beverages in glass bottles. Now they're on to the crap samurai swords sold at mall kiosks everywhere. And guess what? Crime is STILL going UP! There are some times where pointing and laughing is not only appropriate, it's necessary. This is one of them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/6423103.stm

77 year old man confronts hooligan in his 20s about peeing in public. Hooligan bodyslams 77yo into the pavement. Hooligan sentenced to 20 months in prison. And the pinkos here hold up The Benighted Kingdom as a beacon of liberal civilization...tsk tsk tsk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/ntax05.xml
Roughly 50 percent of a middle-class British family's income disappears to taxes. I wish I could find the article about how 30-40% of the British population was on welfare. That's a great read, and a good companion piece for this article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6424377.stm
A powerful politician wants to send illegals text messages reminding them to leave the country.
------------------------------------------------------
And we sent American citizens to die for these fools WHY? And we want to implement their leftist policies here WHY?

Tales From Retail Pt.7

7.The most inventive (and stupid) shoplifter I ever saw came into the store on a bright summer afternoon. He was wearing an ice-denim jumpsuit of the style (if not the fabric) favored by car mechanics, and he set his backpack next to our registers and said “I’m going to leave this here so you don’t think I’m going to steal anything.”

The assistant and I exchange glances, offer to help him, and spend several minutes ruminating on how society is finally turning itself around.

After about half an hour of hanging around the anime DVDs, our shoplifter walks up to the counter, grabs his backpack, and strides purposefully out, to a chorus of alarms. The assistant takes after him, but loses him in a crowd.

Four months pass. It is now the Christmas season. I’ve finished my dinner in the back room and come up to the registers. A backpack is laying on the counter, and a full Chinese gong bad starts playing in the Bad Things Are Going On section of my brain. I ask around, and one of the Christmas temps said that a guy (who I was able to determine matched the description of our shoplifter) had left that on the counter so we wouldn’t think he was a thief.

He’s got 15 CDs in hand when I catch up to him, and say “Welcome to *redacted*. I’m *redacted*, anything I can help you find?”

He says no and walks off. I follow. I trail him at 5 feet up and down the aisles. He finally realizes that this isn’t going in his favor, drops his CDs in a display, and walks out.

Right before the store closed, he came in again. Multiple customers, and Dave’s the only one there beside me, yours truly being engaged at the register. I told Dave to forget everyone else and be the guy’s personal shopper. Dave stood right next to him and riffled CDs in the racks everywhere he went. Eventually the guy wised up and left.

I see him occasionally at my current job. He no longer dresses like a rap video reject, and is usually inquiring about textbooks and historical films. I’d like to think he turned his life around.

I Laughed Until I Cried

For his birthday a friend bought her husband, (and I quote): "A one legged tripod." When asked how it worked she said "You sort of lean it against the ground."

As dad put it: "There's no good way of visualizing that."

I haven't laughed that good in years.

BAG Day Gun Pt. Whatever Pt.2

Took the handguard out to Gander Mtn. with the replacement piece. Spent the last 24 squirting WD40 all over the recessed pin in the end of the gas tube, and banging the hell out of it with a punch and hammer. Nearly bent the punch, but still no dice.

So, out to Gander I go, wallet in hand. The guy offers to try to punch it out, but says my best bet is to have them drill it out and replace the pin later. 3.5 weeks, $35. I say try punching it.

Five minutes later, the little critter that had so irritated me and my dad is out, and the handguard is reassembled. Got Mr. Bush all finished up in the basement as we speak. Looks kinda like an M1A.

Oh yeah and, guess how much it cost me to get the pin punched and the handguard replaced?

Nada. The 'smith (not the one who worked this gun over last fall, BTW) refused payment.

THAT, ladies, gentlemen, and assorted transgender beings is what happens when you drop a grand a year in a place, and visit once or twice a week.

Once the snow that has so plagued us for the past two weeks (and it's been snowing for 72 hours straight BTW) melts a little, we'll take Mr. Bush out to the range. See how he runs.

I Love Seeing This...

Just dropped in to CDNN to see if they have any 20rd MecGars for my Beretta yet. No dice. On impulse, I checked the major brand mags for major brand handguns and rifles. Glocks are the only ones with a decent stock of magazines available. Berettas, BHPs, Sigs, ARs, AKs, all the hi-caps are selling out.

Law of unintended consequences, people. Learn it. You screw with guns, you sell more of them.

We're The Government, And You're Not

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvsADU2OOWM

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll think. Then you'll cry some more.

This is parody at its finest. Pure truth, proceding with utter relentlessness, not acknowledging its own absurdity. A lot better than most of the Libertarian work on the market right now.

We've got The Black Arrow, which by all accounts is violence and pornography wrapped around a couple dozen essays. We've got Atlas Shrugged which is a book cover wrapped around a 1500 page essay, with characters. We've got Unintended Consequences, which I know for a fact is pornography and justifiable (and quite, uh, inspiring, cough cough) violence, wrapped around essays and reloading information. Matthew Bracken's first book was pretty good, we'll see how the second and third books are.

Are you sensing a pattern here? High profile Libertarians suck at communicating, even amongst themselves. Their party can't get jack done because they're all too busying ****ing about who's the most doctrinally pure, and holding rallies for pot. They could've been on Kelo like white on rice, and gained some political cred.

Instead, they spend their time arguing about Iraq.

And because of this, they're a joke of a party. The Libertarian party is where you go to vent some steam when you get so fed up with the Republicans you want to strangle someone.

Anyhoo, go watch the video. Then, watch it again. Then send it to a friend.

Socialism And Legos

This is my first "fisking" of a news article. We'll see how it goes, and maybe it won't be my last.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022107C

Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.GREAT hook.

A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children's Center in Seattle. According to an article in the winter 2006-07 issue of "Rethinking Schools" magazine, the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil.Schools teaching socialism? Who'da thunk it. I'm just surprised that it came from a private school - these people should be the ones preaching the opposite.

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate "Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership." According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."Anybody remember what Franklin said about democracy? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner? What the rest of the founders called Democracy - MOB RULE?

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."And we all know that roughly a hundred million Russians and Asians throughout the last hundred years were murdered by capitalist societies...that the socialist countries still existing today are such BEACONS of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Give me a break.

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."Again, maybe you call a hundred million dead in a hundred years equitable and socially just. Maybe you need to quit using drugs, or have your brain examined, too.

So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the students shared the teachers' anathema to private property ownership. "If I buy it, I own it," one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of several months.If I buy it, I own it. The only way you can get your paws on it is buy using a gun, or by employing someone to use one. There's nothing fair and equitable about forcible confiscation of private wealth.

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes." Play how we want you to, or don't play at all.The teachers quote the children:

"A house is good because it is a community house."

"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes."I'm thisclose to typing something REALLY foul here. RCOB moment.

"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building."Damn straight. But:It's MORE important to have more power than other people over your building.

Given some recent history in Washington state with respect to private property protections, perhaps this should not come as a surprise. Municipal officials in Washington have long known how to condemn one person's private property and sell it to another for the "public use" of private economic development. Even prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, which sanctioned such a use of eminent domain, Washington state officials acting under their state constitution were already proceeding full speed ahead with such transactions.In the past, eminent domain was only intended to be used for things like highways, hospitals, and other PUBLIC necessities, and only for things owned by the state and federal governments. In Kelo, it was ruled that eminent domain could be exercised to give private property to PRIVATE entities, as long as those private entities would use the confiscated properties to raise tax revenue.

Every Supreme Court Justice who signed off on that should be hung. From lamp-posts. I'm thinking along the lines of "reactive targets." Sort of like .22 spinners, only bigger.

Officials in Bremerton, for example, condemned a house where a widow had lived for 55 years so her property could be used for a car lot, according to the Institute for Justice. And Seattle successfully condemned nine properties and turned them over to a private developer for retail shops and hotel parking, IJ reports. Attempts to do the same thing in Vancouver (for mixed use development) and Lakewood (for an amusement park) failed for reasons unrelated to property confiscation issues.

The court's ruling in Kelo, however, whetted municipal condemnation appetites even further. The Institute for Justice reports 272 takings for private use are pending or threatened in the state as of last summer. It's unclear if Legos will be targeted. But given what's being taught in some schools, perhaps it's just a matter of time.You're right its only a matter of time. I've been told for years by Europeans living in socialist countries that socialism can never come to the United States, much to their dismay. Start with the little tykes, and socialism will come a lot sooner than one thinks. It's the whole bloody principle of public schools - impressionable critters running around to the Prussian equivalent of Pavlov's bell, the whole perverse experiment is designed to drill out inquisitiveness and free thought, and create soldiers and factory workers, who will accept things without question. They're getting to them in their formative years, which is why this socialism crap is such a threat and needs to stop right NOW.

BAG Day Gun Goodness, Pt.Whatever

So I'm at school this afternoon, in the middle of a break, in the middle of the second most worthless class I've ever paid money to be aggravated by, and I decide to check my AOL mail, check the shipping number that a certain online distributor of fine gun products gave me, maybe see if my package has been delivered.

It has. I spend the next two hours in as close to happiness as I ever get in the Festival Of Frustration(TM).

When I get home, I'm surprised at how small the box is. But yeah, all the parts are in there, including the $35 dollars worth of 922 compliance parts I ordered. Grrr...

With the help of my brother, mother, a hammer, and a socket set, I have transformed my previously innocent looking BAG day gun into a decent entry into the Evil-Feature contest. Bayonet, handguard, pistolgrip, detachable mag, grenade launcher, collapsible stock, all on a semi-auto. That's six evil features out of something like 8 possible.

DANG!

Gotta take it out to the range soon. Oh yeah and, I've gotta name it. I'm thinking about the President Bush Commemerative Rifle. What's funny is, both of the Republican named guns are named for men. Both of the Democrat named guns are named for women. Weird.

Anyhoo, I'm ecstatic about this conversion. All that's left is take part of the handguard out to the gents at Gander Mtn and see if I can pay them less than $60 to hammer out a pin, replace the wood with a supplied piece of plastic, and hammer the pin back in. THEN it'll be finished.

If I get another one of these guns with my tax return, I'll have to do the same mods. Which reminds me, despite how sad I am that my project is now over, I still have my home-defense rifle build to do.

Saliva - Blood Stained Love Story

I LOVE this CD. Has sort of a classic rock feel, and Here With You reminds me of Christmas music. Very inventive, yet common, yet accessible lyrics, and some decent pop rock music behind it.

I've, ah, procured most of it, now I need to buy the hardcopy and give these deserving artists my money.

Awww...Isn't She Cute...

This is a humbling moment for me. This proud new father would like to welcome home the newest member of his family...

At around 7pm this evening, I brought home my newest battlerifle, Carolyn "The *edited*" McCarthy. She weighed in at around 9lbs and probably 32 inches long. Kinda homely, in a Git 'R Done sort of way, but she's got her own special charm. Sort of like a newborn baby, so ugly they're cute. At least, most people tell me they're cute, I just see the "so ugly" part.

Anyhoo, I took the last 2 hours cleaning her up. The techs who assemble these particular rifles (of which I now have 3) have been charitably compared, online, to a band of drunken monkeys. My first battlerifle (John Kerry) was manufactured during the ban, and was in as good or better condition than most of the ARs and M1As I see. The second one (Nancy Pelosi) was dirtier, and the wood was worse, but the metal was higher quality. Carolyn was fantastically dirty - I ran the cover underwater for about ten minutes and it's still slick with paint. There's metal shavings all over the inside of the gun, even the barrel. The handguard doesn't fit quite right, and the wood looks like fiberboard. Metal's nice though. The overall quality has gone up, but quality control has hit the skids. I did what I could, but she's getting a gasoline bath once I start modding her.

And hoo boy, do I intend to mod her. Kinda cute now, like I said, in a homely way, but this is going to be my goto gun, what I keep under my bed for home defense (and no, rifle rounds aren't any worse at overpenetration than pistol rounds, go look at the http://www.theboxotruth.com). Anyway, the first thing that's gonna get added is a folding stock. Perfect for under-the-bed storage. A nice quick-detach sling will get connected to that. Then a new ergonomic pistol grip, a quad rail set, and a front pistol grip. Maybe a flashlight too. Lessee here...that's 1, 2, carry the 16...that's 4 total evil features on one gun, and one that's been specifically targetted for elimination too.

Take that, Carolyn McCarthy.

You...witch.

(Yes, WITCH was the word I was looking for, NOT the one that rhymes with it! Nope, it was witch!)

Congresscritters

Write the House Judiciary Committee:
http://judiciary.house.gov/CommitteeMembership.aspx

Write your "Representative:"
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Write your Senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

I thought I'd push up some contact information, in case my handful of readers wants to write their Congresscritters. Be firm. Do not be afraid to hook your fingers into their nostrils and scream in their face. Just do it politely.

Fighting Dirty

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=88508969

Following the career suicide of Jim "Terrorist rifles" Zumbo, it was noticed that the Brady Campaign *hack, spit* had latched on to it as proof of a hole in the armor of the gun-owning world. They had apparently uploaded an essay on it to the above Myspace page. Further essays were found on said page, waxing moronic on bolt-action rifles, shotguns, and .22s.

The internet was abuzz with the essays, and it copies of them were distributed far and wide, as proof that the Brady-ites did indeed want ALL private weapons made illegal. This very official looking site went along way towards mobilizing the online gunnies.

According to the good and kind folks at http://www.thehighroad.org, this page is a forgery, placed upon the internet by a former troll, booted from the site and now angry at the proprietor, Oleg Volk, who's name you might notice appears in my list of links.

However, it also appears that links to this Myspace page appear on the Brady website, and owner of the page even congratulated Oleg for reaching out to the victim-disarmament community when he alerted them to fact that their page may have been hacked.

Whether the page is real or not is up in the air right now.

I've not heard this sentiment echoed online before, but quite frankly: I don't care if it's real or not.

I'm not a reader of comic books, but I remember a quote from The Punisher, something about when you're fighting a losing battle, you don't fight dirty, you do things that make fighting dirty look good.

Another quote I read once stands out as well: "Sometimes in a fight you have to get dirty to win, the only real shame is to allow yourself to be beaten over false notions of honor." I don't know who said it, but bless their heart for saying it.

When you're fighting a war to preserve your culture against barbarians, and possibly even your life, is there ANYTHING you should not say?

Is there anything, short of harming truly innocent people, that you should not do?

I don't think so.

Their lies and dirty tactics get a free ride from the whole world, I kid you not. They have carte blanche to say or do anything they want to get their agenda across. Gunnies only write letters when new legislation to destroy our rights hits Congress.

Fighting is not about good or evil, right or wrong. It's not about being kind or just or fair or sporting or truthful.

It's about winning or dying.

Did My Part, The Third Of Many Parts

Wrote both my Senators today, along with every member of the House Judiciary Committee that would allow email from people out of state. Here's the text:

Hello:

My name is *edited*. Unfortunately I am not one of your constituents, being a resident of the state of *edited*, however, I write to you today, not as a resident of this state, but as a citizen of the United States of America.

I would like to bring to your attention a bill now in the House Judiciary Committee, HR1022, the reauthorization of federal Assault Weapons Ban, amended to contain new, more restrictive provisions. This bill is totally destructive to the fabric of this nation - it is a violation of multiple human rights enumerated in the Bill Of Rights. Its passage will make criminals out innocent free men and women, and do positively nothing to curb the actions of real, violent criminals.

We were promised in 2004, that the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban would mean soaring crime rates and blood flowing freely in the streets. Nothing of the sort happened, and numerous studies before and after the expiration, conducted by federal and state governments show that neither its passage nor expiration had effect on crime.

It is your duty as a member of the federal government, someone who swore an oath to uphold the United States Constitution, to do everything in your power to make sure this bill does not become law. Anything less would be a total violation of that oath. Please do your duty as an elected representative and as a human being: Defend the United States Constitution, the human right to keep and bear arms, and do not let this bill leave your committee.

Sincerely,

*edited*

---------------------------------

Congresscritters, doing their duty? Upholding the Constitution. Not bloody likely, but I'll see what kind of mail I get back from these people.

...that even a God-King can bleed...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/300/trailers_player.php?IGNMediaID=1912040&playerType=playlist

As Lawdog would say, Hie Thee Hence and watch. Every single clip.

Yes, I know this is not an accurate representation of Spartan life, law, beliefs, morals, culture or battle-tactics. They'd all have rotten teeth too.

The point is the retelling of a story few people have heard, and possibly exposing millions to the concept of individual liberty and the rightful defense thereof.

Did My Part, The Second Of Many Parts

My Beretta and battlerifle mags arrived UPS this evening. I now need to buy a new rifle case to house A.My second battlerifle Nancy Pelosi, and B.The five 30rd mags that don't fit in the case occupied by John Kerry.

The Beretta mags were a *edited* to load. New, factory mags, 20rd capacity, and I can feel every one of those 40 rounds in my hands right now. About 8:30PM I developed a blister on my left thumb the size and consistency of your average water balloon. Spent the rest of the night randomly poking holes in said thumb with a needle.

Oh happy evening.

Anyhoo, I've placed another Internet order for more goodies. New stock (and compliance parts *hack, spit*) and 2 mags for my BAG Day Gun. We'll see how those work. If they don't, I've got 90 days to mail 'em back.

Oh yeah and, I got my old job back, tenatively. I'd been transferred to a new department (read:dragged, kicking and screaming) because of a theft issue they resolved by switching out the old staff and putting in new people. My boss pulled some strings with his boss, traded out an employee who didn't like her job for me, so, I'm back...I think. It means working until midnight at least one night a week (not cool), but there should be 24 hours a week of work, and that's a not inconsiderable jump up from the 8 I'm getting now.

More money.

What do you think I'm going to do with it?

PS I'm writing pretty much every member of the House Judiciary committee tomorrow, and expressing to them that it would be treasonous to let HR1022 (the new AWB, basically the People's Republic Of California version, with some venomous stuff about registering standard-caps) out of committee.

Richard Marx - Someone Special

So here's the other song I was going to post to depress both my readers on That Accursed Holiday.

Richard Marx - Someone Special

I've lived my life in a single room
Hiding my scars from the moon
I dream my dreams in the light
Rehearse the lines I already know
Basking in the tvs glow
And pray that tonight is the night

Ooh, theres gotta be more than this
A future hanging on a strangers kiss
Could it be I'm not so alone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me

I guess the joke hasn't hit me yet
Cause I'm still waiting on my Juliet
She must be held up somewhere
Ooh, she will be the air I breathe
She'll come for good and never want to leave
And I'll love her only, I swear

People say there must be something wrong
For me to be all alone so long
And their words hit me like a stone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me

Lying in bed in a cold, cold sweat
Dreaming bout women I'll never get
I wont always be sleeping alone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me
-------------------------
As with most of Mr. Marx's work, I listen to it and I'm of half a mind to slap him and say "Be a man, Richard!" Lots about "my pain" and similar themes, and it draws the same reaction as when I listen to anything My Chemical Romance.

Ignore the verses, and the chorus really stand out. 8 lines, and it wraps up hope, loneliness, despair, love, a whole lot of emotions, and does so simply and with some very interesting phrasing. "I'm someone special/I'm just in disguise." That's twisting of a phrase right there.

Nickelback - Someone That You're With

I was gonna do this and the next one for Valentine's Day (otherwise known to me as That Accursed Holiday). Two songs that sum up my take on the whole festival of pink and red. So, here are my depressing picks.

Nickelback - Someone That You're With

I reside in 209, you're in 208
You moved in last Friday night
And I just couldn't wait
So I tried to call across the hall
To ask you out someday
But a lineup formed outside your door
And I was way too late

Well I'd rather start off slow
This whole thing's like some sort of race
Instead of winning what I want
I'm sitting here in second place

Because somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I wanna be that Someone That You're With)
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God I wanna be that Someone That You're With

Well I hear your favorite songs
You sing along with everyday
And I borrow things that I don't need
For conversation's sake
Last night I heard your key
It hit your lock at 4 AM
Instead of being out with me
You must be out with them

Because somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I wanna be that Someone That You're With)
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God, I wanna be that Someone That You're With

Well somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God, I've got to be that someone that
I wanna be that someone that
I've got to be that Someone That You're With
----------------------------------------------
Not something I'm posting FOR or about someone, but dang if that overused cliche "Story of my life" doesn't fit this.

It's almost a techno song, very fast, sort of throbbing beat. Not typical Nickelback fare, for either their entries into the ballad or rock genres, thought it fits both or either. A great song, one of those that you "feel" and then you hear it on CD, and say "So that's it..."

Tales From Retail Pt6

6.When last we left the good (or would he prefer “bad”) Rev, he was giving me grief for not processing his CD purchases for his Satanic church as tax exempt.

Fast forward. It is now January, and we have hours before been informed that we are going to be closing our gates forever in just a few weeks. Not only that, but our store is going to be occupied by a women’s clothing store, which sets everyone’s teeth on edge.

So. With a few days left before the clock strikes midnight, who should come waddling through the door, but the one man guaranteed to cause a few laughs…Rev.

He rolls his girth up to counter and demands that we refund the discount card that one of our staff forced upon him…back in September. A few words on his discount card. He’d used it between then and now. He’d benefited from it. He had renewed it of his own free will for the fourth year in a row back in September.

He doesn’t have a receipt. He has no transaction number, absolutely nothing to make our job of returning this discount card any easier. And he’s being a jerk about it besides – making repeated references to how we knew about closing long in advance (back in September, if he was to be believed), we forced him to take it, we lied about not closing the store, we’ve been lying to everyone who comes into the store, and isn’t it humiliating to be run out of the mall by a women’s clothing store.

I said no, I wouldn’t return it. I said I’d go get another manager. That manager said no, and laughed at this fat, little lisping ball of indignation. The assistant manager gets called, and after all three of us listen to Rev whine and carry on, she finally returns it to get him out of the store. She shouldn’t have.

The next day, he came in, grabbed a Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD, and ran out with it. Aside from making me extremely mad, I find that quite funny - this little blob of Danny Devito shaped lard bobbling out of the store like a bat ouf heck with a DVD tucked under his arm like a running back. I wasn't there, but I can picture it greatly.

Oh yeah, and he tried to cast a spell on the store manager.

So I start work at my new job (the one after the cell phone gig), and according to the store manager (who had come over a few months before from my old job), Rev is now shopping there, complaining loudly and vociferously “I’m thick of thith. I’m thick of the way you treat me here.”

No matter what he’s doing when next I see him, I’m calling the managers and reporting that he stole something. Even if he didn’t.

Steven Avery Trial

I don't know if y'all remember this, but around Samhain 2005, a local feral predator by the name of Steven Avery abducted a photographer, and with the help of his 16yo nephew, tortured and murdered her.

Steven's on trial presently. Day one of the trial another nephew got up and told the jury Steven asked him to help hide a body. Defense asked for a mistrial, because they'd neglected to talk to the kid who'd given the testimony.

Denied. First rule of committing a crime is to NOT talk about it, or at least that's what I keep hearing.

I hope we never see Mr. Avery nor his feral nephew, Brendan Dassey on this side of the bars again. These two need to go away for the rest of their lives.

Did My Part, The First Of Many Parts

If the victim disarmament folks inhabiting Washington want to get guns out of our hands, they need to shut their fat yaps, 'cause every time they go about opening them, they sell more guns than if they'd kept quiet.

I didn't exactly go buying guns, but I put in an order this morning for 2 20rd mags for my Beretta 92, and 5 more mags for my battlerifle. Get this equalled out in the checking account with a check or 2, and then I'm converting my BAG Day gun into another battlerifle. Might pick up another one of the same kind for BAG day this year (with my tax return *hack, spit*), and then it's on to my Home Defense Rifle build.

That's not counting ammo buys.

See what happens when you talk about banning guns?

Random Reflections Pt19

81. The worst thing in the world is wanting something to or not to happen, and not being able to do a damn thing to cause or forestall it. I think that’s why I have a somewhat irascible and anarchic personality – I hate not being in control at all times.

82. A bill proposed in Wisconsin would have any citizen fined $250 dollars for asking publicly nursing mothers (even on private property) to be a little more demure in their exposure of themselves. No matter the language, no matter the tone, no matter nothing, ask a woman to cover up some while she shares a Close Moment™ with her child, and you’re a criminal.

No one’s yet addressed how this would be enforced, or what to do with all the maliciously false “complaints” that will undoubtedly arise.

The ugly part of this is, there ain’t a person talking about it who’s not in favor of it.

Has the whole world gone crazy as an outhouse rat?

83. It is humbling and awe-inspiring to see in others the values and virtues you always hoped and believed you possessed. Especially when this other or others are reputed to have very little in the way of values, virtues, common sense, and responsibility in the first place.

84. It is horrifying to learn that those you trust deeply can be completely and absolutely wrong about something. Equally horrifying is seeing how those same people can use their power capriciously, over that which they are wrong about.

85. Riffing on Q-Tips.Seen on a box of Q-Tips: “Satisfaction guaranteed. Return for refund or exchange.” How can you not be satisfied with the performance of a Q-Tip, and if you’re not satisfied, why would you exchange it for exactly the same product? How do you prove you weren’t satisfied?

Why are they called Q-Tips? Aren’t they tipped with cotton? If it’s based on shape, shouldn’t it be called an I-Tip? That sounds like an invention by Apple Computers.

Fun Times Pt3

The Fun Times series is dedicated to those little family crisises that get everybody all angry and frantic for a while, and just generally disrupt life. So far they have all had good outcomes, which is why I can ironically call them Fun Times™.

The very first "Fun Time" involved an intruder alarm that morphed from scaring away a burglar to chasing a flying squirrel out of the house with a spatula.

The second "Fun Time" was actually kind of scary - my mom was home alone and thought someone broke in, and my brother later performed his house-clearing duties admirably.

Last night was the third "Fun Time." I'm sitting downstairs, watching Deep Space Nine, when all of a sudden, thing seem...off...and not in any way that I can fully describe. The air has changed in some way. I ignore it and keep watching. After a few minutes, I'm sniffing the air...this is really weird...it smells like sulfur. Like really, badly rotten eggs. But just a hint of it.

Perplexed, I shut off DS9, and head for the stairs at the end of the long "family" room. WTH? It smells horrible over by the stairs. I run upstairs and tell my mom it smells awful downstairs. She heads down and just about chokes at the stench. We walk into the laundry room, and the smell is stronger, much stronger. We turn left into my brother's bedroom, and now the smell could knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon. This is, like, a panic situation. Something really bad's going down here.

My brother is not, ahem, the most...clean...person in the world, so the possibility of him leaving a meal under his bed and then having it decompose is not exactly an alien thought. We go back upstairs, and wake him up from where he's sleeping on the sofa.

And here is where the situation veers off into the absurd. Slightly peeved that one of her children may have just fumigated the house through carelessness, my mom tells my brother to open up the freezer and take a deep breath so he has a suitable control with which to appreciate the full awesomeness of the stench he is about to behold. Not in so many words though. "Stick your head in the freezer and breathe," is closer to the original wording.

He refuses, and asks what's going on. "Just stick your head in the freezer." This goes on a for a minute and we all finally troop downstairs. My brother can sniff this just as soon as he heads downstairs. Once in his room, we realize the smell has gotten exponentially worse. It is unholy on a thousand different levels. This is something that no decent human being should be exposed to.

Definitely not something of my brother's creation.We have an upright freezer in the basement, and my thought is maybe it came unplugged, the...meat...inside going rancid with time. But my musings on this are quickly derailed...my mom sends me to go get the carbon monoxide detector from upstairs. My protests that carbon monoxide is odorless fall on deaf ears, and I go get the thing and plug it in in my brother's room. It reads 0 to no ones surprise.

It is around this time that my dad ventures downstairs, just having noticed that there is A Fuss on under his roof, and he asks what the matter is. Very unflappable. My mom asks if he notices the smell, and he says yes, it's his bathroom.

Last summer we had a problem with plugged pipes. Varying brands of Drano wouldn't clear out the problem, wire pipe-snakes didn't do it...so my dad bought some industrial drain cleaner. Whereas most drain-cleaners are bases, this stuff was full-on sulphuric acid, diluted to the point where it didn't eat through the pipes (be very careful about not getting on the tub though, pour it straight down the drain). Half a bottle of that later, some very unpleasant odors started wafting out of the various drains in the house, as the sulphuric acid dissolved the biological growths that every household pipe system has. These odors were so strong that after opening all the windows, our house stood as the epicenter of a kind of funk that could be sniffed for dozens of yards in every direction.

Now let your mind wander, and grasp if it can, the full horror of unleashing such a pungent menace inside a house in the winter. With all the doors and windows closed.

YEAH.

My dad had poured some more of this industrial cleaner down his shower's drainpipe.By this time the stench has flooded the living area of the upstairs, and my mom's worried about our two pet rats and our two birds, one of which is a ten-year-old finch (finches are only supposed to live four to six years). They get hastily relocated to the bedrooms at the far end of the house, and we start turning on every fan in the house.

After fifteen minutes, the god-awful stench has not depreciated, and we start wondering what to do to render the air suitable for sleeping in. My brother sprays three cans of AXE in his room, lights a candle, and sets a fan to blow air out of his room - which results in mixing the heavy smell of AXE with the smell of rotten eggs.

We finally hit upon a solution - open all the doors and windows! I should comment that this is Wisconsin, and it is winter, and our median temps for the past few days have been 10 degrees in the sun. It is nine at night. It is damned cold outside. Soon it is damned cold inside. We watched Lost, made hot drinks, and wore hats and gloves.

Around ten we finally closed the house up. Despite cranking the heat to 90 to offset the cold air, the ambient temperature had dropped seven degrees. We ran a propane space heater for a couple of minutes to warm up the living room before going to bed.

BAG Day Gun Goodness

So, before this moon-battery with the 2 McCarthy started, I was considering converting my decent BAG Day gun into an Honest-To-God battlerifle. This would entail replacing the stock and getting some decent detachable hi-caps.

Figured $150 for the stock and 2 mags. I could buy another rifle just like it for that much, but this'll give what I've got some utility. I start poking around the internet, and what do I find?

In order to stay a few steps ahead of breaking importation laws, I have to replace some of the internals with US made parts. See, AFAIK, it works like this:

@I've got a Curio & Relic gun. As such, I can ignore that parts-count game.
@I replace the stock with something more useful, I've just assembled a non-sporting, foreign assault rifle and voided C&R status. This is a Bad Thing, they'd have us believe.
@In order to avoid doing this Bad Thing, I must replace some of the foreign-made internals with identical US-made pieces.
@I will then have a US-made sporting rifle.

This is a *edited* joke. I've got to budget an extra $40 (on a college budget, getting 8 hours a week) to buy US parts that look and work identically to the foreign parts already in my rifle. Whoever came up with this should be tossed in jail, for life.

With a sign that says "Cop" or "Snitch" around their neck.

And so it begins...

The 2 (remember the swearing code), Carolyn McCarthy (isn't she up for a lung-cancer scheduled vacation to the great shooting range in the sky sometime soon?) introduced a bill to reauthorize the Assault Weapons Ban.

Because, the pump action shotgun and .38 revolver used by the Utah mall shooter were covered in the bill, you see.

As teenagers would say: NOT.

Time to go read Unintended Consequences again, and wish there was someone out there with nothing to lose and the backbone and smarts to, at the very least, exact some appropriate vengence upon those who would deprive us of our God-given rights.

Maybe it won't make it out of committee. We can hope. In the interregnum, I'm going to be buying magazines, and maybe another battle-rifle.

Random Gun Stuff

So I decided I needed to make some purchases yesterday. I've stocked my checking account for the past few months, so I didn't feel horrible about taking a hundred out of the last paycheck to deal with some of the purchases I've been needing/wanting to make.

First up was a prepaid phone card. I'll restock my phone when I go back to school.

Then I got 2 30-round mags for my battlerifles. I was horrified when I brought them home and the follower on one was too depressed due to a rust spot. Despite scrubbing at the mag with paper towel, gun patches, WD40, and the most caustic chemical I've ever handled CopperKleenz gun-cleaner (it chaps my hands every time I clean a gun, and I take maybe 10 minutes per gun...nasty stuff), the follower was still stuck on the rust spot. I begin to think it's a spring problem, so I took it back, got a new one that worked perfectly.

Finally, out to Sportsman's Warehouse where I pick up Hogue Grips for Paul Nelson, my Sig P220. VERY nice. They were a pain to put on, but they're nice and slim and increase my ability to grip the gun well. I wonder how well they'll aid my shooting, since the only problem I have with the gun is the muzzle-flip provided by the 4in barrel. On top of that, the pistol looks really nice now.

What do you say?

On what may have been the last night at my regular job, a late-middle-aged woman comes in, looking for a CD with the Metallica song "Am I Evil?" without the lyrics.

We joke about how few kareoke CDs Metallica put out, and I eventually just hand her Garage Inc. and tell her this is the best I can do. Nope, she's looking for the backing track, so someone could play guitar over it.

I make a few recommendations for places to look online, and let her know that getting someone to record the guitar part for her is going to be expensive and time consuming. She tells me her son used to play it, and she wants to hear it again.

A couple of years ago in my fair city, a couple of Hmong kids pitched a white youth off a five story parking garage for the crime of not being Hmong. It wasn't a hate crime, like the recent shooting of a Hmong hunter by a white guy, so it didn't get much press.

That was her son that got tossed off the roof.

She's a wreck now. We talked for half an hour. She moved into her son's empty apartment. She destroyed her family connections in the way she divided up his possessions. She goes to grief counseling. She's on more medications than the local cancer ward.

She simply cannot, and will not move forward with her life. The life that she created was horrifically taken from this earth, and that's why she spends all her time listening to his CDs and looking at boxes of his crayons from when he was eight.

It's not every day you get to speak with someone who's loved one was the victim of homicide. It's not every day you get to see how the mind can destroy a person.

What do you say to them?

What CAN you say to them?

House

Funny episode (at times) tonight. I'll paraphrase.

*House pulls a microscope out of a man's nose*
H."Very nice. If my lawn looked like that, pigeons wouldn't dare poop on it."
Patient"First impressions do count. For example, I noticed that your shirt isn't pressed, and you obviously haven't shaved in many days."
H."You use a toenail clippers to trim your nose hairs?"
P."They give me more...reach."
H."I haven't combed my hair and my shirt is rumpled. You have athlete's foot in your nose. I'm ready to be judged."

When The Crowds Are Gone

Yeah, I've threatened to post songs...here's the first one. One of my favorites of all time, Savatage's When The Crowds Are Gone.

I don't know where the years have gone
Memories can only last so long
Like faded photographs, forgotten songs
And the things I never knew
When the skin is thin, the heart shows through
Please believe me what I tell you is true

Where's the lights, turn 'em on again
One more night to believe and then
Another note for my requiem
A memory to carry on
The story's over
When The Crowds Are Gone

All my friends have been crucified
Made life a long suicide true
Guess we never figured out the rules
But I'm still alive, my fingers feel
Gonna play on till the final reel's through
And read the credits from a different view

Where's the lights, turn 'em on again
One more night to believe and then
Another note for my requiem
A memory to carry on
The story's over
When The Crowds Are Gone

When The Crowds Are Gone

When The Crowds Are Gone
And I'm all alone
Playing the saddest song
Now that the lights are gone
Turn them on again
One more time for me my friend
Turn 'em on again

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me
Never wanted to go
Always wanted to stay
'Cause the persons I am
Are the parts that I play
So I plot and I plan
Hope and I scheme
To the lure of a night
Filled with unfinished dreams
I'm holding on tight
To a world gone astray
As they charge me for years
I can no longer pay

Turn 'em on again (repeat)

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me
I Never wanted to go
Always wanted to stay
'Cause the persons I am
Are the parts that I play
The parts I play

And the lights
Turn them off my friend
And the ghosts
We'll just let them in
Cause in the dark
It's easier to see
---------------------------------------------
The Savatage website says it's about a master composer who...wastes...his life trying to publish his masterpiece, only to have it played for the first time at his funeral.

I see in it more a musician (or maybe just a person) looking back on his life (maybe at his last show, I see it at his deathbed), seeing the things he's sacrificed for his music, his interest, his obsession. He's obviously begging, hoping, for one more moment, fighting the inevitable. In the end, he accepts his fate.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8WWiJ6TU4s
I'm pretty certain it's standard 80s fare. Like the song, it gets far better around "I never wanted..." It's quite enjoyable watching Jon and Criss Oliva with their seperate parts, one beating a piano to death with his guitar, the other finishing the song on his knees, screaming about the parts that we play.

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me

Fun Times Pt2

Before I move on to the meat of the entry, let me just apologize in advance for the lack of content. My life the last few weeks has looked something like this:

Work, 11-7:30 Sunday & Monday
School, Tuesday 10-4:30
School, homework, and all the stuff I can't do after 7:30 at night, Wednesday & Thursday
Work, 11-7:30 Friday & Saturday

Anyhoo, onto the story.

I call for a ride home from school Thursday afternoon, and my mom sounds weird. On the verge of crying. It's easy to tell in the car that's she's freaked out. While I was at programming class, and my brother was at the Y, another set of voices started talking in the house, over the radio. She'd been out feeding squirrels and left the back door open, then went down to the opposite end of the house... and after turning off the radio, the voices persisted. She went from room to room, making sure all noise-making appliances were off.

They were.

The voices were still talking. Mom went to the top of the basement stairs. The voices were coming from downstairs. Someone had turned the TV on, while she was upstairs. No one else was home.

This is the very definition of A Bad Thing(TM).

She couldn't leave, because my brother was coming home, and she didn't want him walking in on a burglary in progress. Not only that, but I'd be calling soon. So, she went and retrieved my dad's newly restored 1911, and stood by the back door for 15 minutes. She didn't know how to make it operational, but the impulse to get a gun was the right one.

15 minutes later, my brother gets back from the Y. In his words, "there are few things scarier than being greeted at the door by your mother, who's holding a gun and going 'ssshhhh.'"

Brother doesn't know how to operate a 1911. Nevertheless, he takes it, stands at the head of the stairs, and tells mom to retrieve my CX4 (which he does know how to operate) from my room. She does, and he ventures into the basement.

A note aforehand. My brother's not quite the gunny I am. He has no interest in self-defense theory, doesn't read or watch tapes, or constantly surround himself with people who talk guns and survival more than they eat (slight exaggeration), like yours truly does.

Our basement is divided up into a long room running parallel under the front of the house, and a bedroom (my brother's), a laundry room, a bathroom, and a workroom running parallel to long room, under the back of the house. The stairs lead down to one end of the long room.

My brother sprinted down the stairs, got to the end of the long room, put the wall to his back, and evaluated. The lights had been turned on, and the TV was on. He quickly checks visible hiding places, and sprints to the laundry room, which is an intersection for the basement. From there, he moves fast to his bedroom, and trades the 9mm carbine for Nancy Pelosi, the battlerifle that he practically owns, and keeps in his closet. From there, he runs back upstairs.

I'd called by then, and he tells mom, in her words "Go get 'Vincent.' He's the safe one, he'll know what to do." My mom says it's a measure of the respect my brother has for me, that he'd rather rely on my judgement in a crisis than his own.

Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like coming home, and finding your brother sitting on the sofa with a battlerifle over his knees.

I jack a round into the 1911, and we go downstairs, check room to room. Nobody. Empty. Having thoroughly cleared the basement of all hiding places, we return our various weaponry to the places from whence it came, go upstairs, and begin the Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

My mom has since handled every gun I own, and does not possess the physical strength to draw back a bolt or slide. She just can't, and it's our practice to leave chambers empty around the house. So, I'm looking into a revolver. It'll cost as much as a battlerifle probably, and it won't have near the utility.

The reason I write this is to show my respect for my brother. It just keeps climbing. I've observed him and his actions now for quite a while, and I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better, more practical person, and not just when it comes to handling the household weaponry. I can't go into it here, but I find it humbling to see in someone else the qualities I WISH to see in myself, especially in someone who I've been told doesn't possess them. But let's look at what he did right in this situation:

Traded up from a handgun to a carbine.
Moved through a big empty space fast, and only stopped when he had his back to something.
Cleared the hiding places and intersection fast.
Traded up from a carbine to a rifle when the opportunity presented itself.
Waited for backup before going any deeper into an unknown situation.

I doubt he'll read this, but for someone who's spent zip for time around the gun culture, that's pretty damn good for a first try, and deserves a slap on the back.

Oh and, we have no idea how the lights or TV came on. My mom hadn't been downstairs for about half an hour before they turned themselves on. It's a mystery.

Gander Mtn. will be getting a visit from me this week, and I'm definitely coming back better schooled in wheelguns than when I left.

Happy New Year

So here I am, 12 days after the new year. Busy as heck with a full-time job and school that's described as equal to a full-time job. Brief updates follow, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to be updating here. I gotta find some equilibrium between school and work before I can say "I'm going to write x essays and y posts a month."
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Got Miami Vice for Christmas. Love that movie. Not as good as Heat, or Collateral, but better than 95% of the movies I've seen in my life.

I'm buying up the DS9 box-sets. It's my treat to myself for when school kicks in in full swing and there's nothing much else to enjoy in my day.

That giddily happy post I made a couple months ago? "Time is luck." "Luck ran out." That's from Miami Vice, and uttered in almost the same context.

I put a collapsible stock on Nancy Pelosi, my Election Day Assault Rifle. Lovin' it. Thinking of getting another one and outfitting it with a folding stock. I think 3 assault rifles and a couple companion rifles (go find the meaning of that term), should be enough. Now I want to get a taste of shotgunning. And go shooting more. BTW, my dad's 1911 works flawlessly. Apparently the smiths at Gander Mtn aren't complete morons.

I watched Blood Diamond on New Years Eve. Decent movie. I like seeing USPs featured so prominently, and characters that chamber-check their guns when appropriate. Of course it was a bleeding-heart liberal ending, but what else is one to expect.

Also went bowling on NYE, and enjoyed it once I'd pulled myself out of my funk. After bowling, my brother got pulled over for pausing at a red light instead of stopping. It's his own fault, but I still don't like it.

I've got roughly half of my New Years resolutions taken care of already, but monetarily, I still have to account for about two thirds.
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I'm thinking I'll start posting song lyrics here - songs that I like or that I have running through my head.

Random Reflections Pt18

76. Apologies to the THR’er that I’m about to steal this from. A minister said as he handed in a bunch of .22 rifles at a gun buyback “I don’t believe in violence, I have faith.”

Whereupon the THR’er posted “Not believing in violence is like not believing in gravity. Don’t believe in it all you want, but don’t take away my parachute.” Dang straight.

77. I think humans have certain programming built in. There’s one set of hardcoded instructions I’d like to reference, and that’s fear of the dark.

There is no logical reason for humans to fear what darkness conceals. But we do. Our steps get tentative. Our breathing goes quick. We tense up. Our eyes move about more. I can’t think of a logical reason for this except for some sort of basic operating instructions printed on our genes.

78. I can’t figure out why people have such a problem with Myspace. I think it’s a generational thing. Elvis, The Beatles, Nirvana, violent video games, Myspace…every generation’s parents need something to hate.

Name me one thing that can be done on Myspace that can’t be done on your standard bulletin board, or by someone with a passing knowledge of Geocities. You can’t!

Myspace is representative of the internet. It is a place that people meet. It will be used for good or ill. It is a parents’ job to make sure that their child uses it responsibly – no one else’s.

79. The best way not to do something wrong or stupid is to not place yourself into situations where you could choose to do something wrong or stupid. Better to remove temptation as much as possible than find out the hard way your willpower ain’t up to the task.

80. Expanding on the “things I learned from programming” RR above, the only thing that matters is What IS. Wasting time living on What Isn’t or What Should Be is a state of delusion and a waste of life.

An Anniversary Of Sorts

Not only do I get to wish everybody reading this blog (both of you) a very Merry Christmas, it's also my 100th post.

Seems like a lifetime ago since I sat down in a library somewhere, logged into a generic computer using a fake name, and decided to try my hand at the blogging thing. In reality, it's only been about a year and a quarter.

So here's to another year, another 100 posts, and most of all, peace and freedom for mankind.

Merry Christmas!

Tales From Retail Pt5

5.It’s Christmas Eve, and the store has been off-and-on busy all day. I got in at about 8:45am, I’m scheduled to be getting out at 6:00pm, and I’m wearily wondering why on earth we can’t just close the store so all these people can go spend some time with their families.

It’s about 4pm, and a biker gang walks in. Or should I say, they look like a biker gang. 5 BIG guys wearing jeans, denim and leather letter jackets, their hair is a mess and they’ve all got huge scraggly beards. I think “Ok, biker gang,” and my trouble radar perks up.

Yes, I know, bikers are usually nice people. I will say that I believe stereotypes usually exist for a reason, and it doesn’t ever hurt to be cautious.

Following these scruffy bikers are about 5 of the richest-looking women I’ve ever seen. Now, I’m not one spend lots of time hanging out in the women’s clothing department, but if any one of their coats cost less than $1000, I’d be surprised. Jewels, expensive hairdos, expensive shoes, the works…didn’t look like they’d ever shopped at Walmart.

So my night’s just gotten a little weirder, and I figure “What the heck, these guys aren’t going to do anything funny with this crowd of women in tow,” so go up to the first guy, who looks like a grizzly bear trying to walk among mankind for a day, offer my hand and say “Welcome to *redacted*. I’m *redacted*, anything I can help you find?”

He says no, and I move on to the next biker. The rest have scattered throughout the store, and when he says no he’s not looking for anything, I let him pass and turn to watch them. All the men’s letter jackets are labeled with a rose and a guitar, and say “Trans-Siberian Orchestra World Tour 2005-2006.”

This is not unusual. TSO was playing the arena two days later, and lots of people are wearing their merchandise. So, I decide to shmooze a little. I find the first guy and say “Wow, a Trans-Siberian fan! Gonna be at their concert on the 26th?”

His reply, “I should hope so, otherwise they won’t have a drummer.”

It is to my credit that I had the presence of mind not to kneel down and start praying in his direction. Looking at the band photos, I’m pretty sure I shook hands with either John O. Reilly or Jeff Plate.

They didn’t buy anything, but did ask where we kept the TSO CDs. I VERY politely informed them that we had sold out of everything except Beethoven’s Last Night. Then they left, and I felt like little ol’ me again.

So, ‘bout an hour later, two women enter the store. Late teens, early twenties, college age. One’s dressed like Han Solo, jeans, white button-up shirt, black vest. They’re not looking for anything, but I do note that they both have heavy European accents and it’s obvious English is not their first language, nor likely second or third.

After about 5 minutes, the Han-Solo-dressalike calls me over and requests a Beatles DVD. Now, it’s about 8 hours till Christmas and the store has been thoroughly cleaned out of everything except marijuana posters, CDs in the Finnish language, and novelty lip gloss on the Jessica Simpson label.

But, I found a DVD by A Beatle. A George Harrison DVD. I recall it was orange, and evoked psychodelic sensations in the eyes.

I bring it over to her, and notice she’s doing something with her hands. What the heck, over, she’s undressing…

She had her shirt unbuttoned down to her navel by the time I gathered up what senses hadn’t deserted me, handed her the CD, and had beat feet to the farthest corner of the store.

Oh yeah, and the registers choked at store closing, so I had to call the store manager at home (this is on Christmas Eve) at 7 at night to figure out how to find a “lost transaction.” I finally got home around 8pm.

Tales From Retail Pt4

4.The first time I saw the man I call Rev, I thought he was literally retarded.

He was about 4 foot nothing, and equally sized through the x and z axis. He had a face and head like Danny Devito, except Danny Devito doesn’t have eyes that bulge out like a victim of strangulation. He was pushing a shopping cart loaded with CDs, and when I asked him if I could help him, he talked in a high, squeaky voice like Alvin The Chipmunk, speaking really fast and with a major lisp.

He was looking for parody Christmas CDs, and I kindly offered to order them for him. He accepted my offer, and after ringing up his transaction with nary a word of complaint, he rather rudely asks me if I’ve exempted him from the sales tax.

I didn’t know your average Joe was exempt, file the data away for future use under Taxes: Avoidance Of, and go get a manager higher than myself to help me figure out what to do when someone’s asking for something I can’t legally give them.
The manager OK’s it, and I process everything as tax exempt. He pays with a check. Labeled “First Church Of Cain.”

Now, I’m the first in line to say nobody should get special breaks on anything, but I find it even funnier when I have to give a Satanist priest tax exempt status on Christmas comedy CDs.

To be continued…later…

Shi'ite Christians

Or:Very, very religious persons who don't know when to leave the h*ll enough alone.

I'm a fairly religious person. I have a strict code of ethics that by and large intersects with those laid down by Christ. I'm not a big one for praying (it's started to seem kind of hypocritical to say anything other than thanks, given that I know God ain't gonna protect me and mine from anything bad, why ask?) I wish I went to church more, but work doesn't allow. So, in no way, shape, or form is the following an attack on organized religion or any denomination or practice of Christianity.

I'm getting into the car after exitting the post office, and it being Wisconsin, and WI weather being what it is, I'm wearing my leather jacket, and the warmest shirt under it that I own - my Punisher sweatshirt. Which has the standard Punisher skull emblazoned spraypaint style on the front.

I've got one leg in the car when an overweight, late-middle-aged to early elderly gent steps down off the sidewalk in front of the car, approaches my door, and crooks a finger at me.This is somewhat odd. He looks like one of my old teachers, but not quite. Thinking that maybe my fly's open or I dropped a $20, and he's looking to Pay It Forward today, I get back out.

"Excuse me," says the man.

"Can I help you?" is my standard reply.

"There's one man in all of history who came to bring peace and everlasting life, only one, and his name is Jesus Christ. Whether you choose to accept him is up to you.

"I'm too busy trying to figure out what he's going on about to process his next words correctly, but I'm thinking it was something along the lines of "You must choose, but choose wisely." Sort of like from Indiana Jones, but not nearly so inspiring when it doesn't come from a 900 year old Crusader.

Getting defensive, I say "I am a Christian, what are you talking about?"

Serenely, he points at my shirt and replies "I see that symbol, and I am reminded of that man who came to bring..."

I cut him off. "This symbol's from a movie."

He raises a hand. "I mean no offense. I don't know if it is or not. But be that as it may..." He drones on for another moment about my choice and the man who came to bring everlasting life, while backing up and moving away.

"Thanks. Have a nice day." I get back into the car.

Still torques me off. This is the only problem I have with Christmas - not the (wonderful) marketing, not the commercialization - all the religious fruits come out of the cake. Unless I'm wearing something so...vile...that I'm breaking public decency laws, why do you give a damn what I wear, and who are you to try and tell me that my shirt (inferred) is a symbol of Satanism. It must be real ... nice to be that secure in your own righteousness that you can deign to lecture people you've never met before on how their clothing threatens their salvation.Adrian

Defining The Second Amendment?

Apparently, the gun-free high-crime utopia of Washington D.C. (they took a perfectly good swamp and turned it into the seat of government) has a lawsuit on its hands regarding the ownership of handguns. Seems they told 6 of their embattled citizens that they can't keep guns for protection, only for National Guard use, and said citizens are suing.

There's the very real possibility that this could go before the Supreme Court. The SCOTUS has refused to take gun cases before (one theory being that either way it goes, it could spark nation-wide strife of the ballistic variety), and the only way this could well for us is they could rule it's an individual right.

Alternatively, they could rule that it's only applicable to the National Guard (despite the fact that the US militia is comprised of every adult male, and has been defined as such since the beginning of the nation).

Then they could ignore it completely, and the case gets decided by a lower court, which will rule against us. The precedent there would not be good.

This sucks.

Meanwhile, 17 senators have written legislation that would bind the US with UN gun trade policies. The list of traitors reads like a who's who of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, there's one surprise on there - the one Democrat I thought actually had their head on straight, Russ Feingold.

There are a few spots of good news: My Sig magazines (the Novaks I ordered) came, and work perfectly. And Dunham's is having a sale on rifle ammunition. I've got about $50 cash burning a hole in my back pocket, and I think Dunham's is as good a place as any to unload it.