I'm not an XD owner, but I'm ecstatic about the new XD45 Compacts. Someone somewhere finally remembered that it's not the barrel you worry about concealing, it's the grip. So instead of chopping that barrel down to a ridiculuous length, the left it at 4 and 5 inches, and cut down the grip instead. Ten rounds of .45. & a 5 inch barrel, all in a compact gun. I have to hold one.
Then there's the EMP. Enhanced Micro Pistol. Basically a teeny-tiny "Loaded" 1911, chambered for 9mm. Ten rounds of 9mm, cocked and locked carry, and you can dang near fit it in your pocket. What's not to like?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Tales From Retail Pt1
This will supplement the Random Reflections until I gather up some new material. It's sort of like doing 5 standup comedy routines per week. I don't want to just keep hitting the same easy-to-ridicule targets (victim disarmament, stupid trends, bad government) over and over. So here's something completely different.
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1.In another part of my life, I sold cellphones. Not very well, mind you, but I did sell them. The staff of which I was part (and indeed the entire industry) refers to cellphone services in a sort of ambiguous personal way (they, who, etc.).
So, I’m working one night and two (rather attractive, if I do say so myself) teenage girls come into the store and start looking at Sprint phones. I amble over, and as per my training, the first thing out of my mouth is a qualification about which provider they currently use.
I hope you can see where this is going.
Yup. I walk over, and start the conversation by asking “So, who are you with currently?”
There’s that moment of dawning comprehension between the time when you’ve finished a sentence and when you realize what you’ve committed to saying where this little, calm voice in your head states, very matter-of-factly “You idiot.”
They both looked at me like I was pondscum, and I managed to save face by laughing and saying “Yeah, that didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.” They left shortly thereafter. I wish I had a surveillance tape of the incident, because I think that for about 5 seconds, the looks on all 3 of our faces were probably priceless.
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1.In another part of my life, I sold cellphones. Not very well, mind you, but I did sell them. The staff of which I was part (and indeed the entire industry) refers to cellphone services in a sort of ambiguous personal way (they, who, etc.).
So, I’m working one night and two (rather attractive, if I do say so myself) teenage girls come into the store and start looking at Sprint phones. I amble over, and as per my training, the first thing out of my mouth is a qualification about which provider they currently use.
I hope you can see where this is going.
Yup. I walk over, and start the conversation by asking “So, who are you with currently?”
There’s that moment of dawning comprehension between the time when you’ve finished a sentence and when you realize what you’ve committed to saying where this little, calm voice in your head states, very matter-of-factly “You idiot.”
They both looked at me like I was pondscum, and I managed to save face by laughing and saying “Yeah, that didn’t come out the way I wanted it to.” They left shortly thereafter. I wish I had a surveillance tape of the incident, because I think that for about 5 seconds, the looks on all 3 of our faces were probably priceless.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
92 Year Old Woman Dies In Police Shootout
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/22/national/main2205048.shtml
Cops supposedly hit the right house, but get the occupant wrong. Instead of some drug-dealing gangsta with a face full of chrome, they get an irascible old woman who takes the notion of home defense seriously.
Predictably, she died. Not so predictably, she put the hurt on at least 3 cops before going down.
Probably used a pistol. I can't see a woman nearly 100 years old using a (much better) rifle like an AR, AK, or M1A.
The warriors in Valhalla have some rather unexpected company tonight.
Cops supposedly hit the right house, but get the occupant wrong. Instead of some drug-dealing gangsta with a face full of chrome, they get an irascible old woman who takes the notion of home defense seriously.
Predictably, she died. Not so predictably, she put the hurt on at least 3 cops before going down.
Probably used a pistol. I can't see a woman nearly 100 years old using a (much better) rifle like an AR, AK, or M1A.
The warriors in Valhalla have some rather unexpected company tonight.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Charles Rangel Promises To Propose Draft
http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2006/11/19/524445.html
I know this likely has little chance of going anywhere. Really, this is little threat. BUT. He is a Democrat, and one who is gaining power.
After stuff like this, it makes me think that maybe the right side of the grass is the wrong side for him, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
For anybody reading this and looking for hidden meanings or messages, I am a peaceable person. I will remain so until myself, my family, or my freedom is threatened. I'm just thinking aloud that the country needs a Henry Bowman, now more than ever, and not to have words with just Chuckie.
I know this likely has little chance of going anywhere. Really, this is little threat. BUT. He is a Democrat, and one who is gaining power.
After stuff like this, it makes me think that maybe the right side of the grass is the wrong side for him, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
For anybody reading this and looking for hidden meanings or messages, I am a peaceable person. I will remain so until myself, my family, or my freedom is threatened. I'm just thinking aloud that the country needs a Henry Bowman, now more than ever, and not to have words with just Chuckie.
Random Reflections Pt17
71. The local elementary school was displaying artwork at my store today. One of the biggest displays was a set of “Death Day” dioramas. A cardboard box with a picture of a deceased loved one inside, surrounded by a few of their favorite things and – get this – paper cut-outs of dancing skeletons. I thought it was rather morbid and disturbed.
And then I dug a little deeper.
My tax dollars are going to fund tweens making low-quality art projects about a very personal matter, the design of which is based on a holiday not even belonging to their culture! What did this teach them? What did they take away from this exercise that will benefit them at any time in the next 80 or years that they’re alive? How could, in a free market, anyone sell this a good expenditure of money to a rational adult?
72. One of the many things that few people understand is that you can’t CONTROL anyone. No threat, law, words, restraining order, plea, or request can control another humans’ actions if they decide not to obey.
Sure, you can threaten them with dire consequences. You can convince them to do something. You can punish them at threat of violence if they do not do your bidding. But the honest truth is every human being chooses what they’re going to do. Whether they go along with laws or not, societal conventions, little niceties, proper etiquette, it’s all a matter of choice. We make this choice because deep down, we want everyone else to (whether we want to or not), and a majority of people sharing this opinion has decided to hurt us if we don’t follow some basic (and a whole lot of not so basic) principles. But ultimately, we still CHOOSE to play along.
You can’t make someone play if they don’t want to. You can do any number of horrible things to them, up to and including taking their life, but you can’t force them to do anything they do not choose to.
73. If their signs are to be believed, according to the Salvation Army, Need Knows No Season. Despite this, they only appear around Christmas. What gives?
74. A person can still be good and do bad things. The federal agents who bankrupt a family for possessing endangered bird feathers they picked up at the bird feeder can still have husbands and wives and kids and can still love their cats. The judge who sends a guy to prison for having a smoothbore .22LR rifle 16 inches long can still buy his grandkids Christmas presents and sit on his back porch and watch the sun go down. The youths marching off to die for the Fuhrer probably didn’t believe that the only people who deserved to live were blue-eyed blondes. They probably had dogs when they were kids and went to school and hugged their parents before they left for the war.
Evil is a description we like to place on those who oppose us. The problem is, the majority of the people who get that title don’t deserve it. The majority of them are good people. But they still do evil things.And evil should always be punished, even when performed by good people.
75. What is permissible in the quest to survive? What can legitimately and justly be done to remain on the green side of the grass? Is there anything we cannot justify for survival?
Can we apply what we justify for our survival to the survival of others?
Can we apply what we justify for our survival to the defense of liberty?
A wiser man than I once said "Extremism in pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation in defense of tyranny is no virtue."
And then I dug a little deeper.
My tax dollars are going to fund tweens making low-quality art projects about a very personal matter, the design of which is based on a holiday not even belonging to their culture! What did this teach them? What did they take away from this exercise that will benefit them at any time in the next 80 or years that they’re alive? How could, in a free market, anyone sell this a good expenditure of money to a rational adult?
72. One of the many things that few people understand is that you can’t CONTROL anyone. No threat, law, words, restraining order, plea, or request can control another humans’ actions if they decide not to obey.
Sure, you can threaten them with dire consequences. You can convince them to do something. You can punish them at threat of violence if they do not do your bidding. But the honest truth is every human being chooses what they’re going to do. Whether they go along with laws or not, societal conventions, little niceties, proper etiquette, it’s all a matter of choice. We make this choice because deep down, we want everyone else to (whether we want to or not), and a majority of people sharing this opinion has decided to hurt us if we don’t follow some basic (and a whole lot of not so basic) principles. But ultimately, we still CHOOSE to play along.
You can’t make someone play if they don’t want to. You can do any number of horrible things to them, up to and including taking their life, but you can’t force them to do anything they do not choose to.
73. If their signs are to be believed, according to the Salvation Army, Need Knows No Season. Despite this, they only appear around Christmas. What gives?
74. A person can still be good and do bad things. The federal agents who bankrupt a family for possessing endangered bird feathers they picked up at the bird feeder can still have husbands and wives and kids and can still love their cats. The judge who sends a guy to prison for having a smoothbore .22LR rifle 16 inches long can still buy his grandkids Christmas presents and sit on his back porch and watch the sun go down. The youths marching off to die for the Fuhrer probably didn’t believe that the only people who deserved to live were blue-eyed blondes. They probably had dogs when they were kids and went to school and hugged their parents before they left for the war.
Evil is a description we like to place on those who oppose us. The problem is, the majority of the people who get that title don’t deserve it. The majority of them are good people. But they still do evil things.And evil should always be punished, even when performed by good people.
75. What is permissible in the quest to survive? What can legitimately and justly be done to remain on the green side of the grass? Is there anything we cannot justify for survival?
Can we apply what we justify for our survival to the survival of others?
Can we apply what we justify for our survival to the defense of liberty?
A wiser man than I once said "Extremism in pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation in defense of tyranny is no virtue."
Monday, November 13, 2006
Random Reflections Pt16
66. I’ve got a confession to make. Unless the product is really cheesy/tacky/horrible, I don’t see much wrong with the commercialization of Christmas. Yes, it’d be nice if people spent more time with their families, celebrating the birth of the Christ. I ain’t disputing that.
But. There such things as supply and demand. There’s a demand for Christmas gifts, and it’s amazing and inspiring to see the human creativity at work in trying to get a share the money that WILL be spent fulfilling that demand. It’s not a horrible thing – it’s human intelligence and ingenuity at work.
67. It’s hard to believe in evil and badness when looking at a countryside in the fading light of a fall afternoon. The sun skimming the tops of the corn stalks, making them glow, the way the fields roll on and on, bordered by either dark looking patches of evergreens or grayish-brown skeletons of trees. I can understand, now, why so many people love the countryside. Never used to – I hate empty skies. Now though…well, it is the stereotypical American dream going back 200 years: Buy some land, raise some crops, raise a family…and I can see why. I guess I’m getting mellow in my old age.
68. Never had a significant other in my life, not so far at any rate. Don’t know what the future will bring. But I see these guys being jerks to their girlfriends and I want to dope-slap them upside the back of the head – with lead-shot gloves. You do not tell anyone you care about where to go by pointing at them and then pointing at where you want them to be. You do not make fun of them. You do not stop them from going somewhere by grabbing their arm and buttonhooking in the other direction.
And sometimes I wonder why my gender gets a bad rap.
It’s the golden rule here folks. Learn it.
69. Rappers who invoke God on their albums bug me. They spend hours rapping about violence and stupid or immoral choices, arrogance and their prowess in the criminal trade, and then they have the audacity to croon about how they’re just trying to do the right thing and God sees and either approves or forgives.
If you’re going to create an 80 minute CD about drug use and drive-bys, and the last 3 minutes are about God, I expect that to be your last CD with that subject matter.
*sigh* They’re just trying to show their sensitive sides, trying to keep from looking like total wastes of space and oxygen. To those of us with a brain, it ain’t working.
70. Political yard signs weird me out. Are we to believe that seeing a sign with a person’s name emblazoned upon it will inspire them to vote for that candidate? Or that a bigger sign will have a bigger impact? Is a bumper sticker more or less likely to inspire someone to vote a certain way than a yard sign? How about a pin? Or a highway sign-board?
But. There such things as supply and demand. There’s a demand for Christmas gifts, and it’s amazing and inspiring to see the human creativity at work in trying to get a share the money that WILL be spent fulfilling that demand. It’s not a horrible thing – it’s human intelligence and ingenuity at work.
67. It’s hard to believe in evil and badness when looking at a countryside in the fading light of a fall afternoon. The sun skimming the tops of the corn stalks, making them glow, the way the fields roll on and on, bordered by either dark looking patches of evergreens or grayish-brown skeletons of trees. I can understand, now, why so many people love the countryside. Never used to – I hate empty skies. Now though…well, it is the stereotypical American dream going back 200 years: Buy some land, raise some crops, raise a family…and I can see why. I guess I’m getting mellow in my old age.
68. Never had a significant other in my life, not so far at any rate. Don’t know what the future will bring. But I see these guys being jerks to their girlfriends and I want to dope-slap them upside the back of the head – with lead-shot gloves. You do not tell anyone you care about where to go by pointing at them and then pointing at where you want them to be. You do not make fun of them. You do not stop them from going somewhere by grabbing their arm and buttonhooking in the other direction.
And sometimes I wonder why my gender gets a bad rap.
It’s the golden rule here folks. Learn it.
69. Rappers who invoke God on their albums bug me. They spend hours rapping about violence and stupid or immoral choices, arrogance and their prowess in the criminal trade, and then they have the audacity to croon about how they’re just trying to do the right thing and God sees and either approves or forgives.
If you’re going to create an 80 minute CD about drug use and drive-bys, and the last 3 minutes are about God, I expect that to be your last CD with that subject matter.
*sigh* They’re just trying to show their sensitive sides, trying to keep from looking like total wastes of space and oxygen. To those of us with a brain, it ain’t working.
70. Political yard signs weird me out. Are we to believe that seeing a sign with a person’s name emblazoned upon it will inspire them to vote for that candidate? Or that a bigger sign will have a bigger impact? Is a bumper sticker more or less likely to inspire someone to vote a certain way than a yard sign? How about a pin? Or a highway sign-board?
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Nancy Pelosi Commemorative Assault Rifle
I saw the writing on the wall for this election about six months ago, and began stocking my Money Market account for another Election Day weapons buy.
After 60% of my countrymen flushed their brains down the toilet and voted a gang of outright socialists into office, I took a look at some Democrat platforms. If I'm not mistaken, #23 or #26 on their agenda is re-enacting the assault-weapons ban, which they unfortunately have the votes to do in both houses.
So, being possessed of the contrary and irascible nature that so many of my family are, I decided today it was time to bring home the Nancy Pelosi Assault Rifle.
A little less than $350, and if it goes on sale after Thanksgiving, I can redeem the receipt for the sale discount off my purchase price.
Got it all outfitted the way I want it, and I must say, Ms. Pelosi has never looked more beautiful. I'll be plugging a collapsible stock into her within the the next few weeks.
After 60% of my countrymen flushed their brains down the toilet and voted a gang of outright socialists into office, I took a look at some Democrat platforms. If I'm not mistaken, #23 or #26 on their agenda is re-enacting the assault-weapons ban, which they unfortunately have the votes to do in both houses.
So, being possessed of the contrary and irascible nature that so many of my family are, I decided today it was time to bring home the Nancy Pelosi Assault Rifle.
A little less than $350, and if it goes on sale after Thanksgiving, I can redeem the receipt for the sale discount off my purchase price.
Got it all outfitted the way I want it, and I must say, Ms. Pelosi has never looked more beautiful. I'll be plugging a collapsible stock into her within the the next few weeks.
Swearing code
While dealing with a very bad man on the basketball front long ago, my brother decided he needed a way to express his displeasure with a person or situation without actually saying the appropriate words in innappropriate places.
Thus was born the swearing code.
It's simple. You take the first letter of the word (or of each word in the phrase), and convert it to its numeric equivalent. A=1, B=2, C=3, etcetera and so forth.
Then you use that number or string of numbers in place of the far more satisfying word you wish you could use. For example, if I called Governer Doyle a 21136 in its entirety, the people reading this blog (both of them) would probably not come back. But this way, I can say things the way they're meant to be said, without unduly offending anyone.
Thus was born the swearing code.
It's simple. You take the first letter of the word (or of each word in the phrase), and convert it to its numeric equivalent. A=1, B=2, C=3, etcetera and so forth.
Then you use that number or string of numbers in place of the far more satisfying word you wish you could use. For example, if I called Governer Doyle a 21136 in its entirety, the people reading this blog (both of them) would probably not come back. But this way, I can say things the way they're meant to be said, without unduly offending anyone.
Stupid vs Evil, and Evil wins
Yeah, that's right. Bush drove his party into the ditch. Turned the 06 elections into a referendum on Iraq pretty much.
Socialists control the House, Senate, and most states by a narrow margin.
I vote straight Republican. Voted Yes on the marriage amendment, because like the Democrats, I don't want one more group squeezing me for money now or in the future. Voted no on the death penalty because I don't believe that a state that denies me the right to defend myself outside my home has any right killing anyone. H*ll, they can't even pave the roads right.
DP and marriage passed, by large margins. There's a nugget of hope in there - people who voted for liberals have conservative tendencies. That strikes me as a good thing.
Back on the national front...Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi...*shudders*
Socialists control the House, Senate, and most states by a narrow margin.
I vote straight Republican. Voted Yes on the marriage amendment, because like the Democrats, I don't want one more group squeezing me for money now or in the future. Voted no on the death penalty because I don't believe that a state that denies me the right to defend myself outside my home has any right killing anyone. H*ll, they can't even pave the roads right.
DP and marriage passed, by large margins. There's a nugget of hope in there - people who voted for liberals have conservative tendencies. That strikes me as a good thing.
Back on the national front...Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi...*shudders*
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Hold Your Nose
I had the idea to write an Election Day piece quite a while ago. What I had in mind back then in no way resembles what I’m about to write. It occurred to me, while reading a centrist appeal to vote for our values, that this election really comes down to holding our noses.
Bear with me awhile whilst I explain that.
Should we hold our noses and vote for socialized medicine, open borders, massive welfare, failed and evil victim disarmament, punish-the-successful economics, and appeasement-based foreign policy simply because the alternative is hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and vote for big-oil subsidization, library searches, illegal detainments, the so-called Patriot Act, illegal declarations of war, and an unnecessary invasion and occupation simply because the alternative is hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and spend our precious agent-of-change vote on a third party that we must, honestly, acknowledge cannot win at any state or federal level, simply because we wish a conscience free from the knowledge that we voted for ANY party hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and stay home – waste our precious agent-of-change vote, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the rigged game by refusing to play?
Can it be that one option is as repugnant, or only slightly less so than every other? Is the only choice now left to us to pick between evils? What is to be our guide in choosing between equally bad?
Or perhaps the question is: How did we get to a point where our only choice is evil or evil?
I think I can answer that one. We got to this point by systematically removing the shackles of the Constitution from the American government. Each arm we unchain throws punches, each leg lashes out. Each tie we undo is one more place upon ourselves, of our own undoing. When we stopped applying the laws governing our government, we created the opportunity for tyranny, which has grown day by day, year by year.
I don’t know whether to blame ignorance or malice.
On one hand, there’s the innate human tendency to seek power, best exemplified by Lincoln’s Secretary Of State William Seward’s boast that he could ring a bell and have any man in the nation arrested at whim.
On the other hand, there’s the innate human tendency to try to raise up those in distress, best exemplified by Noam Chomsky’s assertion that the welfare nation must flourish for the good of the poor and destitute.
Let a man seek personal power under the guise of seeking charity and hospitality for all, and there’s no measuring the number of previously reasonable people he could bend to his cause. With the apparent blessings (and the votes) of reasonable people, there’s no measuring the political force that man could wield, the laws he could change in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We’ve seen it before – liquor was once blamed for all of society’s evils, by a majority of previously rational people. The putrid lies of “gun control” and “the drug war” had their roots in racism, but are now regarded as near gospel by what are deemed to be rational people. The invasion of Iraq came about because previously rational people demanded action based on the implied (and false) connection that Saddam Huessein was planning to attack America.
When we ask who is to blame for the evils and evil choices of today, we need only look at our neighbors, who advance an agenda handed down to them for the past 150 years. THEY are the ones who cannot recognize the evil their choices propagate, and so are doomed to repeat history.
Whether we vote for change or vote our values, vote Republican or Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or not at all, we are more or less not aware that the choice of evils that we face is ultimately the responsibility of people who were either too selfish or stupid to realize the monster they were loosing upon their country long ago, and of the people since then who were too selfish or stupid to put a halt to it when they had the chance.
We have been cast by those before us, for good or ill, into a position where the ONLY choices left to us are between a rock and a hard place, bad or worse.
It is no longer a choice between good and evil, right or wrong. It is no longer a choice between those who would bind government down and those who would give it powers it neither needs nor deserves. It is no longer a choice between freedom and tyranny, chains or liberty, life or death. It is a choice between tyrants who cast their tyranny in the light of fairness and common welfare, or those who cast their tyranny in the light of safety and protection. When measured by the yardstick that is our highest law, it is clear one side wishes to enslave us for our own protection, the other for our own well-being.
You cannot deny it. Those are the choices: Those and no other.
The question now becomes – what to do? Knowing that we have been doomed to this choice by the selfishness, stupidity, and cowardice of those who chose to either support evil and illegal policies, or go along to get along, how are we going to remedy the situation? How are we going to fix it? How are we going to make it right?
A far greater philosopher than I once said: “It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
That whole and painful truth is, now, that there is nothing we can do to make it right.
The situation is, in a word, hopeless.
Those before us locked us into this ugly conundrum, where no choice we make can matter. Like it or not, the choice has been for far to long, which evil will we pick. Like it or not, the vast majority of our fellow man is too selfish, stupid, or malicious to recognize that. We are now on automatic pilot. There is no way to reverse our course.
No choice we make now can reverse the evil. No checkbox on the ballot will fix things. No vote we cast will restore just, legal, constitutional government. It just won’t.
Any evil we choose only perpetuates itself. Any choice we make beyond that at the ballot box does not matter to anyone other than ourselves. Meanwhile, everyone keeps telling us that things just keep getting better and better.
As many have said, jokingly: “If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal.”
But there is hope. The machine of government can only be strained for so long. It can only continue to debase the currency for so long. It can only continue to oppress people for so long. Despite the vicious cycle of evil vs. evil every 2 years, the machine will begin to break down. Probably economically first. Then, as control starts slipping away, the true nature of the beast will be revealed – in the form of capricious power, used at whim. More and more control will be asserted, until, at the very end, the choice will be between a flailing and failing prison state, and some sort of revolution – intellectual, political, or violent. I cannot say.
That’s the brightest future we can look forward to: That someday, probably sooner than later, something’s going to break.
That’s not much of a hope. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get even the slightest bit better. That hope, summarized, is that somewhere, down the road, some group of people will have to make a choice between the light at the end of the tunnel, and the darkness midway through.
Between then and now, our choices are evil and evil. For my part I'll take this time to prepare, hold my nose and vote based on who gives us the most time for this preparation. I'll buy gold and silver. I'll buy guns. I'll privacy-proof my communications. I'll make plans to move through the nation without detection. I would ask that all who are able do the same. But most importantly, teach. Teach everyone we can reach, anyone who can possibly hear us, WHY our choices are between evil and evil. Teach them HOW we got to this point. Teach them to oppose, with cold mercilessness, the tyranny that selfishness and compassion and tyrannical power exercised for the good of your neighbor, for any reason, can bring.
Because someday, hopefully, the people we teach will be in a position to make that choice I talked about earlier.
Until then, we can only hold our noses.
Bear with me awhile whilst I explain that.
Should we hold our noses and vote for socialized medicine, open borders, massive welfare, failed and evil victim disarmament, punish-the-successful economics, and appeasement-based foreign policy simply because the alternative is hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and vote for big-oil subsidization, library searches, illegal detainments, the so-called Patriot Act, illegal declarations of war, and an unnecessary invasion and occupation simply because the alternative is hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and spend our precious agent-of-change vote on a third party that we must, honestly, acknowledge cannot win at any state or federal level, simply because we wish a conscience free from the knowledge that we voted for ANY party hostile to our values?
Should we hold our noses and stay home – waste our precious agent-of-change vote, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the rigged game by refusing to play?
Can it be that one option is as repugnant, or only slightly less so than every other? Is the only choice now left to us to pick between evils? What is to be our guide in choosing between equally bad?
Or perhaps the question is: How did we get to a point where our only choice is evil or evil?
I think I can answer that one. We got to this point by systematically removing the shackles of the Constitution from the American government. Each arm we unchain throws punches, each leg lashes out. Each tie we undo is one more place upon ourselves, of our own undoing. When we stopped applying the laws governing our government, we created the opportunity for tyranny, which has grown day by day, year by year.
I don’t know whether to blame ignorance or malice.
On one hand, there’s the innate human tendency to seek power, best exemplified by Lincoln’s Secretary Of State William Seward’s boast that he could ring a bell and have any man in the nation arrested at whim.
On the other hand, there’s the innate human tendency to try to raise up those in distress, best exemplified by Noam Chomsky’s assertion that the welfare nation must flourish for the good of the poor and destitute.
Let a man seek personal power under the guise of seeking charity and hospitality for all, and there’s no measuring the number of previously reasonable people he could bend to his cause. With the apparent blessings (and the votes) of reasonable people, there’s no measuring the political force that man could wield, the laws he could change in pursuit of fairness and justice.
We’ve seen it before – liquor was once blamed for all of society’s evils, by a majority of previously rational people. The putrid lies of “gun control” and “the drug war” had their roots in racism, but are now regarded as near gospel by what are deemed to be rational people. The invasion of Iraq came about because previously rational people demanded action based on the implied (and false) connection that Saddam Huessein was planning to attack America.
When we ask who is to blame for the evils and evil choices of today, we need only look at our neighbors, who advance an agenda handed down to them for the past 150 years. THEY are the ones who cannot recognize the evil their choices propagate, and so are doomed to repeat history.
Whether we vote for change or vote our values, vote Republican or Democrat, Green, Libertarian, or not at all, we are more or less not aware that the choice of evils that we face is ultimately the responsibility of people who were either too selfish or stupid to realize the monster they were loosing upon their country long ago, and of the people since then who were too selfish or stupid to put a halt to it when they had the chance.
We have been cast by those before us, for good or ill, into a position where the ONLY choices left to us are between a rock and a hard place, bad or worse.
It is no longer a choice between good and evil, right or wrong. It is no longer a choice between those who would bind government down and those who would give it powers it neither needs nor deserves. It is no longer a choice between freedom and tyranny, chains or liberty, life or death. It is a choice between tyrants who cast their tyranny in the light of fairness and common welfare, or those who cast their tyranny in the light of safety and protection. When measured by the yardstick that is our highest law, it is clear one side wishes to enslave us for our own protection, the other for our own well-being.
You cannot deny it. Those are the choices: Those and no other.
The question now becomes – what to do? Knowing that we have been doomed to this choice by the selfishness, stupidity, and cowardice of those who chose to either support evil and illegal policies, or go along to get along, how are we going to remedy the situation? How are we going to fix it? How are we going to make it right?
A far greater philosopher than I once said: “It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
That whole and painful truth is, now, that there is nothing we can do to make it right.
The situation is, in a word, hopeless.
Those before us locked us into this ugly conundrum, where no choice we make can matter. Like it or not, the choice has been for far to long, which evil will we pick. Like it or not, the vast majority of our fellow man is too selfish, stupid, or malicious to recognize that. We are now on automatic pilot. There is no way to reverse our course.
No choice we make now can reverse the evil. No checkbox on the ballot will fix things. No vote we cast will restore just, legal, constitutional government. It just won’t.
Any evil we choose only perpetuates itself. Any choice we make beyond that at the ballot box does not matter to anyone other than ourselves. Meanwhile, everyone keeps telling us that things just keep getting better and better.
As many have said, jokingly: “If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal.”
But there is hope. The machine of government can only be strained for so long. It can only continue to debase the currency for so long. It can only continue to oppress people for so long. Despite the vicious cycle of evil vs. evil every 2 years, the machine will begin to break down. Probably economically first. Then, as control starts slipping away, the true nature of the beast will be revealed – in the form of capricious power, used at whim. More and more control will be asserted, until, at the very end, the choice will be between a flailing and failing prison state, and some sort of revolution – intellectual, political, or violent. I cannot say.
That’s the brightest future we can look forward to: That someday, probably sooner than later, something’s going to break.
That’s not much of a hope. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get even the slightest bit better. That hope, summarized, is that somewhere, down the road, some group of people will have to make a choice between the light at the end of the tunnel, and the darkness midway through.
Between then and now, our choices are evil and evil. For my part I'll take this time to prepare, hold my nose and vote based on who gives us the most time for this preparation. I'll buy gold and silver. I'll buy guns. I'll privacy-proof my communications. I'll make plans to move through the nation without detection. I would ask that all who are able do the same. But most importantly, teach. Teach everyone we can reach, anyone who can possibly hear us, WHY our choices are between evil and evil. Teach them HOW we got to this point. Teach them to oppose, with cold mercilessness, the tyranny that selfishness and compassion and tyrannical power exercised for the good of your neighbor, for any reason, can bring.
Because someday, hopefully, the people we teach will be in a position to make that choice I talked about earlier.
Until then, we can only hold our noses.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Karl Van Roy For State Rep.
Yup, time for a new McCain-Feingold violation post. I do so love these things.
State rep Karl Van Roy came to the door the other day, talked to my mom, left. So, after coming up with some questions, she emailed him about his positions on abortion, the draft, and concealed carry.
He called back (had to hunt up our phone number himself) to answer her questions, and said "no, don't know, and yes" respectively. He said he doesn't currently own a gun, but if CCW goes through, he's going to buy, learn, and carry. My mom said, "you should talk to my son."
The short of it is there's a state rep out there who'll be giving me a call for tutoring and gun-advice if CCW goes through. I'll probably give him a call in a few months and offer to take him shooting sometime, whether it goes through or not.
I ENDORSE KARL VAN ROY FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE. GARY FROSETH, YOU'RE AN ANTI-RIGHTS SOCIALIST.
There. I think that's a big enough violation.
State rep Karl Van Roy came to the door the other day, talked to my mom, left. So, after coming up with some questions, she emailed him about his positions on abortion, the draft, and concealed carry.
He called back (had to hunt up our phone number himself) to answer her questions, and said "no, don't know, and yes" respectively. He said he doesn't currently own a gun, but if CCW goes through, he's going to buy, learn, and carry. My mom said, "you should talk to my son."
The short of it is there's a state rep out there who'll be giving me a call for tutoring and gun-advice if CCW goes through. I'll probably give him a call in a few months and offer to take him shooting sometime, whether it goes through or not.
I ENDORSE KARL VAN ROY FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE. GARY FROSETH, YOU'RE AN ANTI-RIGHTS SOCIALIST.
There. I think that's a big enough violation.
Random Reflections Pt15
61. People must take great pleasure in messing up retail restrooms, because they do it so often. Can’t they just be nice? And the toilets are there for a reason, with handy flushers attached…one should make use of both. You’d think they’re proud of the bodily functions the rest of the world is possessed of, they feel the need to display them so much. Idiots.
62. It’s amazing to me how people stick to things that are proven to be bad – tobacco, for one. Even in the 1700s they were saying “A cigar is a fire on one end and a fool on the other.”
One of the things I learned as I started to become a programmer is the almost tautological wisdom “If it doesn’t work, stop doing it.” I will get nowhere in programming if keep doing things that don’t work, simply because I like them or I think they SHOULD work.
Prohibition of items and edibles is an example, if you know what I’m referring to and I think that you do. It hasn’t worked – ever. Not since its inception. Not at any time in recorded history. It’s been proven again and again that you cannot fix people by making it harder for them to buy certain plants and certain configurations of metal, wood, and polymer. Yet year after bloody year, they keep banging away at it. It’s OK. We won’t point and laugh. You can STOP now.
63. I love this line from The Libertine. “I will be frank from the commencement. You will not like me.”
I’m going to say something that will make you not like me.
In my humble opinion, and that’s all I have, men should not have to pay one penny of child support until they have a say in whether or not their significant other can have an abortion. See, it goes like this. If the mother doesn’t want the baby and the father does, the mother can kill his kid. If the mother wants the baby and the father doesn’t, he’s forced to pay (usually) unnatural amounts of child support for 20 years. The father is screwed either way.
So, we should level the playing field. All or nothing, for both sides.
64. The political candidates this year are real *edited*’s. I’ve written both candidates, TWICE, with some simple, non-confrontational questions (not stuff like “When did you stop beating your wife?”). I have not heard one thing back from either of them.
In the past, Congressional candidates have walked through selected neighborhoods to meet their (hopefully) future constituents face to face, maybe get a read on their important issues. Nada. Not a’tall. Nothing. I’ve met one candidate this year, and that was for state rep.
I sense a growing disconnect between us and those above us. Having an election isn’t worth a tinker’s damn if the people we elect don’t listen to the people they’re elected to govern and represent.
65. Every election year, though more often during presidential election years, we get a bunch of air-head celebrities in print, on radio, and on TV, trying to convince 18-20somethings to vote.
I’m sorry for being mean here, but this needs to be said. If you’re dumb enough to be convinced by a rapper with more gold in his mouth than resides at Fort Knox that voting is cool and will make you appear intelligent and attractive, then the country is better off without your vote. You are not possessed of the required intelligence to exercise your civic duty responsibly. Go back to reading your SI and tabloids. Move along, nothing to see here.
Seriously though folks, if someone can’t decide to influence their country’s future without celebrities appealing to their vanity, are they really smart enough to vote? Really. If they can’t make the decision without the it-boy/girl telling them how attractive voting is, what’s their vote worth? Not crap, in my opinion.
Being young and the average product of public schools, they’d probably vote a straight socialism ticket anyway.
62. It’s amazing to me how people stick to things that are proven to be bad – tobacco, for one. Even in the 1700s they were saying “A cigar is a fire on one end and a fool on the other.”
One of the things I learned as I started to become a programmer is the almost tautological wisdom “If it doesn’t work, stop doing it.” I will get nowhere in programming if keep doing things that don’t work, simply because I like them or I think they SHOULD work.
Prohibition of items and edibles is an example, if you know what I’m referring to and I think that you do. It hasn’t worked – ever. Not since its inception. Not at any time in recorded history. It’s been proven again and again that you cannot fix people by making it harder for them to buy certain plants and certain configurations of metal, wood, and polymer. Yet year after bloody year, they keep banging away at it. It’s OK. We won’t point and laugh. You can STOP now.
63. I love this line from The Libertine. “I will be frank from the commencement. You will not like me.”
I’m going to say something that will make you not like me.
In my humble opinion, and that’s all I have, men should not have to pay one penny of child support until they have a say in whether or not their significant other can have an abortion. See, it goes like this. If the mother doesn’t want the baby and the father does, the mother can kill his kid. If the mother wants the baby and the father doesn’t, he’s forced to pay (usually) unnatural amounts of child support for 20 years. The father is screwed either way.
So, we should level the playing field. All or nothing, for both sides.
64. The political candidates this year are real *edited*’s. I’ve written both candidates, TWICE, with some simple, non-confrontational questions (not stuff like “When did you stop beating your wife?”). I have not heard one thing back from either of them.
In the past, Congressional candidates have walked through selected neighborhoods to meet their (hopefully) future constituents face to face, maybe get a read on their important issues. Nada. Not a’tall. Nothing. I’ve met one candidate this year, and that was for state rep.
I sense a growing disconnect between us and those above us. Having an election isn’t worth a tinker’s damn if the people we elect don’t listen to the people they’re elected to govern and represent.
65. Every election year, though more often during presidential election years, we get a bunch of air-head celebrities in print, on radio, and on TV, trying to convince 18-20somethings to vote.
I’m sorry for being mean here, but this needs to be said. If you’re dumb enough to be convinced by a rapper with more gold in his mouth than resides at Fort Knox that voting is cool and will make you appear intelligent and attractive, then the country is better off without your vote. You are not possessed of the required intelligence to exercise your civic duty responsibly. Go back to reading your SI and tabloids. Move along, nothing to see here.
Seriously though folks, if someone can’t decide to influence their country’s future without celebrities appealing to their vanity, are they really smart enough to vote? Really. If they can’t make the decision without the it-boy/girl telling them how attractive voting is, what’s their vote worth? Not crap, in my opinion.
Being young and the average product of public schools, they’d probably vote a straight socialism ticket anyway.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
More Meat Loaf Thoughts And An AR15
The Monster Is Loose
The Monster Is Loose sounds like Meat Loaf doing a really good Bon Jovi album and less like Meat Loaf doing a really good Meat Loaf album. Shades of the previous BOH CDs are all over the place, definitely influence it, but the writing is definitely poppier, despite the darkness. Probably has to do with the hired help writing +1/2 of the material.
AR15 Goodness
Got to fire a 20in Bushmaster A3 this evening. I've only ever fired an AR once before - 5 rounds total - and I loved this one. By 5s and 10s, all 30 rounds went into the plate at 25 yards. The gun sounds like a slinky when you fire it. Followed by a massive boom. The recoil is non-existent. A beautiful weapon.
The BAG gun performed beautifully, despite its supposed hatred of Wolf ammunition. I guess I know my gun better than the gunsmiths.
Sold a guy on a Beretta 92FS and probably a CX4 Storm. Good deal. I'm probably going to do a writeup on the Storm soon. I realized if you could only have one gun, it's probably the best all-around weapon to have, and I want to impart my reasoning.
The Monster Is Loose sounds like Meat Loaf doing a really good Bon Jovi album and less like Meat Loaf doing a really good Meat Loaf album. Shades of the previous BOH CDs are all over the place, definitely influence it, but the writing is definitely poppier, despite the darkness. Probably has to do with the hired help writing +1/2 of the material.
AR15 Goodness
Got to fire a 20in Bushmaster A3 this evening. I've only ever fired an AR once before - 5 rounds total - and I loved this one. By 5s and 10s, all 30 rounds went into the plate at 25 yards. The gun sounds like a slinky when you fire it. Followed by a massive boom. The recoil is non-existent. A beautiful weapon.
The BAG gun performed beautifully, despite its supposed hatred of Wolf ammunition. I guess I know my gun better than the gunsmiths.
Sold a guy on a Beretta 92FS and probably a CX4 Storm. Good deal. I'm probably going to do a writeup on the Storm soon. I realized if you could only have one gun, it's probably the best all-around weapon to have, and I want to impart my reasoning.
Meat Loaf:Bat Out Of Hell III:The Monster Is Loose
Got this album yesterday. Absolutely fantastic. Here are some brief notes on it:
1.The Monster Is Loose. Fantastic song. Atmospheric, angry, loud...a really beligerent rock song, with some creative writing.
2.Blind As A Bat. There is approximately one half of a good song here. Exactly everything forward from the start of the guitar solo. Great chorus, but the writing to start sucks. You'd think this was written by 3 Doors Down or Bryan Adams it's so stilted.
3.It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Good song. I remember hearing Celine do it and thinking "That's got Meat Loaf written all over it."
4.Bad For Good. Not a bad song...it should be better though. It's kind of boring. The repeated bridge is where it starts to get better.
5.Cry Over Me. Yet another fantastic song. The meanest love song since Keith Urban recorded "You'll Think Of Me." I wanted to hate it - Diane Warren should never be allowed near a BOH record - but it works.
6.In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King. Great running music. Fun, mean, and pretty meaningless, it's good to listen to when you are either angry or need to get your blood pumping. Steve Vai on guitar is great. Love the chorus. Starts off sounding like TSO.
7.Monstro. Starts off sounding like TSO. Ultimately a throw-away song. Nothing interesting here.
8.Alive. Another throw-away. Tried too hard to make it a fist-pumping anthem, wound up with a few too many syllables in each line, and a rather flat chorus.
9.If God Could Talk. Most excellent song. Can't say anything else about it really. Enjoyable to listen to.
10.If It Ain't Broke, Break It. Like Alive, it's kind of flat sounding, and winds up as a throw-away song. Just filler, though it does have some good points.
11.What About Love. The duet works better than any of the Bon Jovi duets ever did, but it should've been just Meat on vocals. At least as good as If God Could Talk.
12.Seize The Night. Massive, ponderous, and ultimately too big for its own good. It tries too hard to be a massive rock epic, in traditional Meat Loaf style. It just ends up being boring and repetitive.
13.The Future Ain't What It Used To Be. This is how a long song should be done. Lots of emotion, lots of ear-candy. I won't call it fun, but it is enjoyable.
14.Cry To Heaven. Either this is Meat's goodbye wave, or it's a setup for the next BOH album. I hope it's the later option. Ultimately it's just wasted space.
To recap: Good album. Great to listen to. I was going to say that Desmond Child (who's penned pop for Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, Bon Jovi, and Aerosmith) shouldn't be allowed near a BOH album ever. To look at that review though, Steinman penned just as many filler songs (though they were more intelligently written than Child's). I kind of wish they had've shrunken this down to 7-10 songs, but there's not really a BAD song here that I HATE. It's ten dollars well spent.
1.The Monster Is Loose. Fantastic song. Atmospheric, angry, loud...a really beligerent rock song, with some creative writing.
2.Blind As A Bat. There is approximately one half of a good song here. Exactly everything forward from the start of the guitar solo. Great chorus, but the writing to start sucks. You'd think this was written by 3 Doors Down or Bryan Adams it's so stilted.
3.It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Good song. I remember hearing Celine do it and thinking "That's got Meat Loaf written all over it."
4.Bad For Good. Not a bad song...it should be better though. It's kind of boring. The repeated bridge is where it starts to get better.
5.Cry Over Me. Yet another fantastic song. The meanest love song since Keith Urban recorded "You'll Think Of Me." I wanted to hate it - Diane Warren should never be allowed near a BOH record - but it works.
6.In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King. Great running music. Fun, mean, and pretty meaningless, it's good to listen to when you are either angry or need to get your blood pumping. Steve Vai on guitar is great. Love the chorus. Starts off sounding like TSO.
7.Monstro. Starts off sounding like TSO. Ultimately a throw-away song. Nothing interesting here.
8.Alive. Another throw-away. Tried too hard to make it a fist-pumping anthem, wound up with a few too many syllables in each line, and a rather flat chorus.
9.If God Could Talk. Most excellent song. Can't say anything else about it really. Enjoyable to listen to.
10.If It Ain't Broke, Break It. Like Alive, it's kind of flat sounding, and winds up as a throw-away song. Just filler, though it does have some good points.
11.What About Love. The duet works better than any of the Bon Jovi duets ever did, but it should've been just Meat on vocals. At least as good as If God Could Talk.
12.Seize The Night. Massive, ponderous, and ultimately too big for its own good. It tries too hard to be a massive rock epic, in traditional Meat Loaf style. It just ends up being boring and repetitive.
13.The Future Ain't What It Used To Be. This is how a long song should be done. Lots of emotion, lots of ear-candy. I won't call it fun, but it is enjoyable.
14.Cry To Heaven. Either this is Meat's goodbye wave, or it's a setup for the next BOH album. I hope it's the later option. Ultimately it's just wasted space.
To recap: Good album. Great to listen to. I was going to say that Desmond Child (who's penned pop for Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, Bon Jovi, and Aerosmith) shouldn't be allowed near a BOH album ever. To look at that review though, Steinman penned just as many filler songs (though they were more intelligently written than Child's). I kind of wish they had've shrunken this down to 7-10 songs, but there's not really a BAD song here that I HATE. It's ten dollars well spent.
Upcoming Election Ire
I'm sick of seeing political ads on TV. There are probably 2-5 per commercial break, and at 4-5 commercial breaks per hour of TV, that's 8-25 ads per hour. I'm even sick of seeing the Republican ads. They're all annoying now.
At least we don't have to look at Nancy Nusbaum. As my brother said "She looks like she had plastic surgery, and the doctor left a towel in her face."
Even more annoying than TV commercials for spineless Republicans and socialist Democrats, it seems political candidates are exempt from the No-Call-List.
YEAH.
Every hour, on the hour. Mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans. And they're all recordings, so you don't get a chance to tell the caller exactly what you think of them. If I had the ability to call them socialists and wimps, that'd mitigate the annoyance factor. They don't even have the decency to display a number on the caller ID, just "Unavailable."
Grrrr...
The only bad thing about the election ending is that the Commies will be taking over (probably).
At least we don't have to look at Nancy Nusbaum. As my brother said "She looks like she had plastic surgery, and the doctor left a towel in her face."
Even more annoying than TV commercials for spineless Republicans and socialist Democrats, it seems political candidates are exempt from the No-Call-List.
YEAH.
Every hour, on the hour. Mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans. And they're all recordings, so you don't get a chance to tell the caller exactly what you think of them. If I had the ability to call them socialists and wimps, that'd mitigate the annoyance factor. They don't even have the decency to display a number on the caller ID, just "Unavailable."
Grrrr...
The only bad thing about the election ending is that the Commies will be taking over (probably).
Monday, October 30, 2006
Random Reflections Pt14
56. It is absolutely wrong that state and federal grants have no strings attached. There is no accountability for the wasting of taxpayer money. You should have to prove your cause’s worthiness over and over again, if we are to let the unconstitutional and immoral practice of doling out the bread of another’s labor for your research continue.
57. A recently released document states the US government wants to put weapons in space and deny access to space to any country that doesn’t have our interests at heart.
Much hand-wringing from the left, much back-pedaling and explaining by the right.
I can sympathize with both. I see no reason why nations, territories, and borders should not exist in space as on earth. Logically, it follows that such things should be enforced. However, space is a big place, and we shouldn’t be in the business of kicking people out of it.
If I had my druthers, private entities would go into space long before government. Mining rights, energy collection, tourism…last time I checked, Shopko hadn’t murdered (conservatively) 120 million of its customers in the last century.
58. When the criminal invaded the Colorado high-school recently, the call going out to the police was “Come quick” not “Come quick, but don’t bring guns, guns are yucky and violence doesn’t solve anything.” When the armed police showed up, nobody had a conniption fit seeing people trained in the use of arms carrying weapons. When the police went into the school, they went in with the intention of using their guns to enforce the safety of innocent lives.
Get it?
When it went down, they didn’t go in with plush Care Bears and M&Ms. It is unfortunate that sometimes sterner measures are called for, and no one would think to question an armed police officer killing a Bad Guy in defense of children.
Israel suffered through multiple high-profile school shootings during the 80s and 90s. Gunman walks into a school, opens fire, doesn’t care that the police just decided his life expectancy will be measured in minutes. After a spate of these shootings, the Israelis issued their teachers and chaperones semi-automatic pistols. Whereupon: The number of school shootings fell through the floor, to the approximate number of 0. (Except for that one field trip to Jordan, where the locals were offended by guns and the teachers had to leave theirs at the school.)
Get it?
So why is it that when reasonable proposals are made here to allow teachers and administrators who’ve had more training than most cops go through in their lives to carry concealed weapons, most people go into shrieking hysteria. One woman said (at the top of her lungs) on public radio and I quote: “You’re sick!” “You don’t even know what you’re saying!” “I would never send my child to a school where a teacher enjoyed shooting guns!”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the blogosphere calls: A blissninny. As in, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Check that. Ignorance can be cured. Her stupidity will last forever.
59. Bad things happen. They can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. The logical thing to do is try and prepare and within reason try and reduce the likelihood of something bad happening to you.
It is not reasonable to expect everyone else to make massive concessions so you can feel a teeny-weeny bit safer. It is not reasonable to try and rubberize the world, and put round plastic balls on all the sharp corners.
Funny thing is, odds are, bad stuff won’t happen to you. So don’t get bent out of shape about stuff that can’t be controlled, and don’t mess with everyone else’s lives for the same reason.
60. A few more rants on fashion. A current trend right now is for boys and girls to cut/style their hair so that one…flap…hangs over one eye. Every example I’ve seen of this has the wearer constantly patting and re-adjusting their impromptu eye-patch. They seem to be very proud of their vision impairment.
I saw a Goth walk into my workplace yesterday: he was wearing a yellow gas mask around his neck. I felt like asking him if mustard gas attacks were a common occurrence in his life.
Riffing on Goths a little more, why would a culture spring up celebrating negativity and death? And how is it celebrated by canvas trenchcoats and massive shorts trimmed in dayglow neon plastic cord? For all their anti-conformism, they happily (or is it unhappily) conform to another standard with surprising rigidity.
57. A recently released document states the US government wants to put weapons in space and deny access to space to any country that doesn’t have our interests at heart.
Much hand-wringing from the left, much back-pedaling and explaining by the right.
I can sympathize with both. I see no reason why nations, territories, and borders should not exist in space as on earth. Logically, it follows that such things should be enforced. However, space is a big place, and we shouldn’t be in the business of kicking people out of it.
If I had my druthers, private entities would go into space long before government. Mining rights, energy collection, tourism…last time I checked, Shopko hadn’t murdered (conservatively) 120 million of its customers in the last century.
58. When the criminal invaded the Colorado high-school recently, the call going out to the police was “Come quick” not “Come quick, but don’t bring guns, guns are yucky and violence doesn’t solve anything.” When the armed police showed up, nobody had a conniption fit seeing people trained in the use of arms carrying weapons. When the police went into the school, they went in with the intention of using their guns to enforce the safety of innocent lives.
Get it?
When it went down, they didn’t go in with plush Care Bears and M&Ms. It is unfortunate that sometimes sterner measures are called for, and no one would think to question an armed police officer killing a Bad Guy in defense of children.
Israel suffered through multiple high-profile school shootings during the 80s and 90s. Gunman walks into a school, opens fire, doesn’t care that the police just decided his life expectancy will be measured in minutes. After a spate of these shootings, the Israelis issued their teachers and chaperones semi-automatic pistols. Whereupon: The number of school shootings fell through the floor, to the approximate number of 0. (Except for that one field trip to Jordan, where the locals were offended by guns and the teachers had to leave theirs at the school.)
Get it?
So why is it that when reasonable proposals are made here to allow teachers and administrators who’ve had more training than most cops go through in their lives to carry concealed weapons, most people go into shrieking hysteria. One woman said (at the top of her lungs) on public radio and I quote: “You’re sick!” “You don’t even know what you’re saying!” “I would never send my child to a school where a teacher enjoyed shooting guns!”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the blogosphere calls: A blissninny. As in, “Ignorance is bliss.”
Check that. Ignorance can be cured. Her stupidity will last forever.
59. Bad things happen. They can happen anywhere, to anyone, at any time. The logical thing to do is try and prepare and within reason try and reduce the likelihood of something bad happening to you.
It is not reasonable to expect everyone else to make massive concessions so you can feel a teeny-weeny bit safer. It is not reasonable to try and rubberize the world, and put round plastic balls on all the sharp corners.
Funny thing is, odds are, bad stuff won’t happen to you. So don’t get bent out of shape about stuff that can’t be controlled, and don’t mess with everyone else’s lives for the same reason.
60. A few more rants on fashion. A current trend right now is for boys and girls to cut/style their hair so that one…flap…hangs over one eye. Every example I’ve seen of this has the wearer constantly patting and re-adjusting their impromptu eye-patch. They seem to be very proud of their vision impairment.
I saw a Goth walk into my workplace yesterday: he was wearing a yellow gas mask around his neck. I felt like asking him if mustard gas attacks were a common occurrence in his life.
Riffing on Goths a little more, why would a culture spring up celebrating negativity and death? And how is it celebrated by canvas trenchcoats and massive shorts trimmed in dayglow neon plastic cord? For all their anti-conformism, they happily (or is it unhappily) conform to another standard with surprising rigidity.
More cool stuff
M:I:3
Rented Mission Impossible 3 this morning, watched it all the way through already. Great movie. Alternately like and not like J. J. Abrams's style on Lost. I think he even canabalized some Lost music. The pace just does not let up in MI3. It goes from one action scene to a few seconds interlude of peace to another action scene.
The part where Ethan breaks out of prison with a Kershaw Chive was my favorite. Not nearly bloody (realistic) enough, but it couldn't be and still be PG13.
Range Day
Took my carbine and my Sig 220 out to the range today. Ran 50 rounds through the Sig, and an equal amount through the carbine. Actually, it was my brother doing the rifle work, I never fired it. He did quite well.
The Sig has a moderate kick. Well, let me rephrase that. It's powerful. It likes to jump around. But fortunately, it's easy to hang onto. I'd estimate the kick being at or just a tid more than my dad's 1911.
I had 2 misfires, but I believe those are because I didn't let the trigger reset all the way. I'm used to being able to judge the reset distance on my Beretta and keep squeezing, letting it only move forward as much as it needs. Haven't learned how to do that with Mr. Nelson yet. It liked all the ammo I put through it - 7 rounds of Blazer Brass and 43 rounds of Wolf steel case. Next up, some hollowpoints.
I had acceptable accuracy at pistol distances. Roughly 12x12 inches at 15 yards. There were times when I was punching one big hole, there were times when I opened up my pattern high and right. It's perfectly accurate for house or room distances, as long as I don't have to target specific parts of, say, insect anatomy.
All in all, Mr. Nelson performed admirably. Which is more than I can say for his animate counterpart.
Rented Mission Impossible 3 this morning, watched it all the way through already. Great movie. Alternately like and not like J. J. Abrams's style on Lost. I think he even canabalized some Lost music. The pace just does not let up in MI3. It goes from one action scene to a few seconds interlude of peace to another action scene.
The part where Ethan breaks out of prison with a Kershaw Chive was my favorite. Not nearly bloody (realistic) enough, but it couldn't be and still be PG13.
Range Day
Took my carbine and my Sig 220 out to the range today. Ran 50 rounds through the Sig, and an equal amount through the carbine. Actually, it was my brother doing the rifle work, I never fired it. He did quite well.
The Sig has a moderate kick. Well, let me rephrase that. It's powerful. It likes to jump around. But fortunately, it's easy to hang onto. I'd estimate the kick being at or just a tid more than my dad's 1911.
I had 2 misfires, but I believe those are because I didn't let the trigger reset all the way. I'm used to being able to judge the reset distance on my Beretta and keep squeezing, letting it only move forward as much as it needs. Haven't learned how to do that with Mr. Nelson yet. It liked all the ammo I put through it - 7 rounds of Blazer Brass and 43 rounds of Wolf steel case. Next up, some hollowpoints.
I had acceptable accuracy at pistol distances. Roughly 12x12 inches at 15 yards. There were times when I was punching one big hole, there were times when I opened up my pattern high and right. It's perfectly accurate for house or room distances, as long as I don't have to target specific parts of, say, insect anatomy.
All in all, Mr. Nelson performed admirably. Which is more than I can say for his animate counterpart.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Cool stuff
The Monkey's Corner
Blogger's messed up, and has put all my links at the bottom of the page. This is unfortunate, as I've added my first link, The Monkey's Corner. Belongs to a friend of mine, as cool a monkey as I've ever met. We stand together on some issues, apart on others, but I'm honored to call him my friend and link to his blog.
I LOVE THIS GUN!!!
Mr. Nelson was a police trade-in about a year ago. Seems every year around Halloween, a local constabulary farms about 5 P220s and 3 P226s out to Gander Mtn (this year they dropped a P2009 on the store, which is odd, considering it was NIB and still had the original 10rd mag). Like I said, Mr. Nelson came in a year ago. This year, they dropped a few more used 220s and 226s (including a NIB 2006 220, and a P220T, which looks like it's about 20 years old but has a Titanium slide), all of which were in better condition than Mr. Nelson. I got the pistol I'd been handling for a year, instead of the newer, less-beat-up guns that were priced the same. Yes, I'm a sentimental fool - Mr. Nelson has character and I felt sorry for him.
Ye Gods, this Mr. Nelson thing is getting creepy. I'm going to stop now.
Ok. So Mr. Nel...So the 220 I bought was a beat up police trade in that had been sitting in the case for a year. I bring it home, clean it up, load it, etc. What I failed to pay attention to were the sights. Standard Sig sights are three little dots of white paint in dimples on each of the three posts. Lots of used Sigs (especially the multiplicity of 225s (great guns BTW) that I've handled) have some or all of this paint scratched/scuffed off, or the paint is faded. This looked to be the case on Mr. Ne... my gun. The dimples are filled with this grayish scuffed metal looking stuff. On impulse, I cover the sights with my hand, and peak under my fingers.
They glow.
(Note:I've unloaded the gun at this point) I shut my bedroom door, turn off the lights, and push the gun forward and up, sighting in (on nothing - it's dark in my room). Three glowing green dots hover in the pitch black. Night sights. Not the best or brightest, but DEFINITELY visible in the dark.
I just checked online. To have Sig put nights on your gun costs around $150-$200. The sights themselves cost $100, and if I'd bought them seperately, Gander Mtn. would probably charge me another $100 to install them and sight them in, and they'd keep my gun for 2 months while they were doing it.
Like me, I bet the Gander Mtn. people never thought to check to see if the nights worked. They just assumed they didn't. That's at least $100 value that I got for free.
I am SO pumped right now.
Blogger's messed up, and has put all my links at the bottom of the page. This is unfortunate, as I've added my first link, The Monkey's Corner. Belongs to a friend of mine, as cool a monkey as I've ever met. We stand together on some issues, apart on others, but I'm honored to call him my friend and link to his blog.
I LOVE THIS GUN!!!
Mr. Nelson was a police trade-in about a year ago. Seems every year around Halloween, a local constabulary farms about 5 P220s and 3 P226s out to Gander Mtn (this year they dropped a P2009 on the store, which is odd, considering it was NIB and still had the original 10rd mag). Like I said, Mr. Nelson came in a year ago. This year, they dropped a few more used 220s and 226s (including a NIB 2006 220, and a P220T, which looks like it's about 20 years old but has a Titanium slide), all of which were in better condition than Mr. Nelson. I got the pistol I'd been handling for a year, instead of the newer, less-beat-up guns that were priced the same. Yes, I'm a sentimental fool - Mr. Nelson has character and I felt sorry for him.
Ye Gods, this Mr. Nelson thing is getting creepy. I'm going to stop now.
Ok. So Mr. Nel...So the 220 I bought was a beat up police trade in that had been sitting in the case for a year. I bring it home, clean it up, load it, etc. What I failed to pay attention to were the sights. Standard Sig sights are three little dots of white paint in dimples on each of the three posts. Lots of used Sigs (especially the multiplicity of 225s (great guns BTW) that I've handled) have some or all of this paint scratched/scuffed off, or the paint is faded. This looked to be the case on Mr. Ne... my gun. The dimples are filled with this grayish scuffed metal looking stuff. On impulse, I cover the sights with my hand, and peak under my fingers.
They glow.
(Note:I've unloaded the gun at this point) I shut my bedroom door, turn off the lights, and push the gun forward and up, sighting in (on nothing - it's dark in my room). Three glowing green dots hover in the pitch black. Night sights. Not the best or brightest, but DEFINITELY visible in the dark.
I just checked online. To have Sig put nights on your gun costs around $150-$200. The sights themselves cost $100, and if I'd bought them seperately, Gander Mtn. would probably charge me another $100 to install them and sight them in, and they'd keep my gun for 2 months while they were doing it.
Like me, I bet the Gander Mtn. people never thought to check to see if the nights worked. They just assumed they didn't. That's at least $100 value that I got for free.
I am SO pumped right now.
Overheard at 10pm
While watching the news after CSI:Miami:
Dad:John Gard is a wimp.
Vincent:I wish John Gard and Steve Kagen would both take it upon themselves to drop their drawers in front of the state and show everyone that they do indeed possess the defining anatomy of the male gender.
Mom:*snort*
Dad:John Gard is a wimp.
Vincent:I wish John Gard and Steve Kagen would both take it upon themselves to drop their drawers in front of the state and show everyone that they do indeed possess the defining anatomy of the male gender.
Mom:*snort*
...And it's home!!!
Picked up the Paul Nelson Commemerative .45 at about 5:30 this evening. Brought it home, cleaned all the green shipping gunk SIGARMS filled it with, oiled it, loaded it, and it's now slumbering peacefully next to my carbine under my bed.
When cleaning it (CopperCleenz, or whatever it's called is the most destructive substance I've ever had the misfortune to be around. It literally chaps my hands whenever I clean a gun. Nasty stuff.) I noticed several things.
~First, a lot of the wear on the inside of the slide is just dirt and that green gunk.
~Second, the rifling looks much stronger when clean. Not as strong as, say, my 9mm, or my battle-rifle, but better than I thought it was.
~Third, the lockup on this gun is TIGHT. It fits together like clockwork. When chambering a round, the slide demands some muscle, but moves like glass on oiled glass. Smooth, that's how we do it...as they'd say in Miami Vice.
~Fourth, this thing has some miles on it. A smile on the barrel, a heckuva ding on the trigger guard that went straight through the finish...those are just the imperfections I remember.
~Fifth, this is not an elegant gun. It's heavy, it requires some muscle to operate, and unlike my 92FS, it's just plain ugly. Absolutely no frills, no unnecessary curves or metal at all. It is utilitarian in the extreme - it is designed for one task only and it is designed to accomplish that task with no flash or pizzazz, just extreme dedication and hard work. It's like a my Spyderco in that regard. I'm not sure I could destroy it, even with a week off work, a pickaxe, and a mission statement. It is THAT tough.
I look forward to taking it out to the range on Monday.
Post-script:I'm buying another battlerifle on Nov. 7th. It's sort of a family tradition - vote, then go buy an assault weapon.
Post, post-script:Two nickel Novak mags and 2 boxes of either Hydrashoks or Silvertips will be entering the house in the next few days. Then that's it, I'm done with buying guns until my 21st birthday, when I pick up a USP45. Or until the godless communists this country's about to offer it's throat to start passing more victim-disarmament.
When cleaning it (CopperCleenz, or whatever it's called is the most destructive substance I've ever had the misfortune to be around. It literally chaps my hands whenever I clean a gun. Nasty stuff.) I noticed several things.
~First, a lot of the wear on the inside of the slide is just dirt and that green gunk.
~Second, the rifling looks much stronger when clean. Not as strong as, say, my 9mm, or my battle-rifle, but better than I thought it was.
~Third, the lockup on this gun is TIGHT. It fits together like clockwork. When chambering a round, the slide demands some muscle, but moves like glass on oiled glass. Smooth, that's how we do it...as they'd say in Miami Vice.
~Fourth, this thing has some miles on it. A smile on the barrel, a heckuva ding on the trigger guard that went straight through the finish...those are just the imperfections I remember.
~Fifth, this is not an elegant gun. It's heavy, it requires some muscle to operate, and unlike my 92FS, it's just plain ugly. Absolutely no frills, no unnecessary curves or metal at all. It is utilitarian in the extreme - it is designed for one task only and it is designed to accomplish that task with no flash or pizzazz, just extreme dedication and hard work. It's like a my Spyderco in that regard. I'm not sure I could destroy it, even with a week off work, a pickaxe, and a mission statement. It is THAT tough.
I look forward to taking it out to the range on Monday.
Post-script:I'm buying another battlerifle on Nov. 7th. It's sort of a family tradition - vote, then go buy an assault weapon.
Post, post-script:Two nickel Novak mags and 2 boxes of either Hydrashoks or Silvertips will be entering the house in the next few days. Then that's it, I'm done with buying guns until my 21st birthday, when I pick up a USP45. Or until the godless communists this country's about to offer it's throat to start passing more victim-disarmament.
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