I guess since you can’t walk around with your dick hanging out #opencarry is the next best thing. #juvenile
DarthWeiner75
Tweeted on November 17, 2012.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday! Via a Tweet from Linoge.
It’s “interesting” that someone would consider the exercise of a constitutionally protected right “juvenile”. Would he consider exercise of your right to not incriminate yourself “being a sissy”? Or maybe “freedom of speech is for crybabies”.—Joe]
For several years I have been using KitchenAid mixers for Boomershoot. We have made several tons of explosives with them. They work great.
Today I bought another mixer and brought it home to my clock tower. It turns out they can be used for other things as well as explosives:
I made a big batch of lentil chocolate chip cookies this afternoon with it. It’s not Boomerite but it still did a great job.
Thursday morning I found this on the stairway to my clock tower:
Those are six taco shells carefully placed on six steps. I have no idea what the story on those were. Had they been roses I kinda sorta would have guessed what they meant. But since they look like burnt taco shells I’m baffled.
Of all the classes of men, I dislike most those who make their livings by talking—actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. All of them participate in the shallow false pretenses of the actor who is their archetype. It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause of the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric.
Henry Louis Mencken
From Minority Report, H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks, Knopf, 1956.
[It would seem to me that the appreciation of the applause is an important item. If the talker causes the listener to think and contemplate it would seem to me that you have an entirely different species than if the talker stirs the emotions with the intent to generate applause.
Still, I understand his point. I get particularly annoyed at actors and politicians that know how to “work a crowd” but know next to nothing about the topic they are pontificating on.—Joe]
Increasing taxes won’t increase their total tax revenue. Politicians have tried this for decades. It doesn’t work. The only way to increase tax revenue is for the economy to grow… and higher tax rates do not pave this path to prosperity.
Ron Paul was spot on. Economic ignorance abounds. And all the Talking Heads in the mainstream media blathering away about the Fiscal Cliff are only reinforcing his premise.
Bottom line– the Fiscal Cliff doesn’t matter. The US passed the point of no return a long time ago.
Simon Black
Guess what they’re NOT cutting in the Fiscal Cliff…
November 15, 2012
[H/T Tyler Durden.
I’m headed for a cabin in the woods this weekend. What are you doing?—Joe]
Observe Greece to see what our future looks like… Greek Brothel To Sponsor Broke Elementary School:
This is what complete social collapse looks like. First, the local Neo Nazi party has soared in the polls and is now the third most popular Greek party. Then, in lieu of other sources of capital, a local brothel became the head sponsor of a minor-league soccer club from Larissa. Now, the same brothel which appears to have seen a substantial return on its advertising spend, has decided to branch out… straight into a local elementary school. That’s right: a whorehouse is advertising its “services” to children in an elementary school. In exchange for what? Money to purchase a Xerox machine and a library.
Guns owners are disrespectful of authority. A failure to rely on authorities is an invariable sign of improper and overly independent attitudes. The mere fact that they gather together to talk about guns at gun shops, gun shows, shooting ranges, and on the internet means that they have some plot going against us normal people. A gun owner has no right to associate with another gun owner.
Therefore, to help ensure our right to happiness and safety we must ban and seize all guns from private hands, and forbid NRA-based criticism towards people who are only trying to help. Searching the homes of all NRA members for any guns and pro-gun literature will go a long way towards reducing crime.
jack burton
November 14, 2012
Comment to Columnist: Gun control doesn’t control enough.
[I’m pretty sure this was sarcasm. But I don’t know for sure.
Regardless, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!—Joe]
For people like myself who are not satisfied with the justifications for carrying dangerous weapons, it sometimes seems that your viewpoint isn’t important when it’s a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Keep in mind, the Constitution has been changed before and can change again as long as you’re willing to put your efforts in the right place in Washington to get laws changed.
Rachel Elmalawany
November 14, 2012
Columnist: Gun control doesn’t control enough
[Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, the constitution can’t be changed “in Washington”. It takes quite a bit more than that.
Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, the entire Bill of Rights was a qualifier for agreeing to the constitution to begin with. If one of those items are nulled out the agreement to form a union is nulled.
Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, that if you were to successful in repealing the 13th Amendment you would encounter, and rightly so, “stiff resistance” in the implementation. There are probably just as many people that would resist the implementation of a 2nd Amendment repeal as there are that would resist a 13th Amendment repeal implementation.
Keep in mind, Ms. Elmalawany, there are about 220 million people in the U.S. that don’t own guns. There are about 80 million people who do and who consume about 10 billion rounds of ammo each year. That’s what we do for practice. Please don’t attempt to verify our level of resolve or the quality of our practice.—Joe]
While there is a lot of public pressure to repeal the no duty to retreat and the self-defense immunity provisions, this task force should not bow to the uninformed opinions and allegations being made.
Instead, it should recommend that the Legislature take action to correct the deficiencies in the law and to make clear once and for all that law abiding Floridians and visitors to our state should never be forced to turn their back on a violent criminal attacker and should not have to fear that they will lose their livelihood, their freedom, or their financial future and become a victim twice.
Eric J. Friday
October 16, 2012
10/16/12 Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection
[H/T Robb Allen.
Public pressure frequently has little to do with the facts. Public pressure is often a lot more like a mob. Rumors, inflammatory rhetoric, and high emotions substitute for data and logic.—Joe]
Sorry, my current handgun is black, but if I’m going to murder my wife, it just has to be stainless. She deserves nothing less!
Sebastian
November 13, 2012
Attitudes on Gun Rights
[Yes, of course it’s sarcasm.
One could also turn that around a bit and say something similar about substituting an evil black rifle for a wood-stocked Mini-14.
Mocking the enemies of freedom is good thing.—Joe]
[I]t’s widely known that anyone carrying a Glock has mental issues. In fact, I’m surprised that potential Glock owner’s aren’t disqualified by default when filling out the 4473 form!
Mike Lubrecht
November 1, 2012
WA-CCW email list.
[I find this funny even if I disagree with it.
Let the flame war begin.—Joe]
Roberta, Sebastian, and Tam report on the nanny’s in Indiana getting their panties twist over Tannerite.
A few years ago almost exactly the same thing happened. A T.V. station (WSBTV) made a video whining about, as Roberta said, “Scary–Go-BOOM!” They got a politician to talk about how terrible it was and how he was “going to do something” about it.
I sent them an email and within 24 hours the video was taken down and we didn’t hear anything more about it. Not even from the politician.
This is a little different case in that they didn’t use any of my video for their whine piece but the same principles apply. Here is a starting point for your letter to the T.V. station. Modify it a bit and you have one for your legislator:
You recently produced a video about a legal product used by thousands of people every year and found people willing to say it scared them and you. For you to engage in a such a biased and even bigoted attack on a legal product used in a legal manner is exceedingly offensive to me and thousands of other people.
I can’t imagine what you were thinking. Would you show video of people using guns to legally hunt, shoot tin cans, or put holes in paper targets and then contact the opportunist politicians because you were worried someone might use their guns to commit a terrorist act? Or how about showing someone having a glass of wine with dinner or drinking a beer in their backyard? Would you demand the government do something about this because of your concerns about drunk driving?
When I was growing up my family was able to, and did, buy dynamite, blasting caps, at the local hardware store with no special license or transportation requirements. We paid for it, picked it up out back, put in it in the trunk of the car and drove home with it. That the average person can still acquire explosives easily, legally, and safely is a testament to what a great country we have. It shows that not only the government is subservient to its citizens but that its citizens are responsible and can be trusted.
If you had demonstrated these explosives were used in thousands of crimes each year I might think you had reason to be concerned. But you did not do this. You could have used that same product and those same video to show what a great country we have. You could have shown what unique freedoms we have and how those freedoms are not being abused. Seattle King 5 Evening Magazine did that with this video: http://www.boomershoot.org/2005/KING5.wmv. But you didn’t do that. You merely demonstrated you are a Puritan–afraid that someone, someplace, is having fun.
A few days ago one of the women I met online in my nine dates with six women in nine days adventure sent me an email asking information about a local gun range and instructor for a female friend of hers.
Yesterday I had my semi-annual eye exam (yes, my eyesight is quite good). I wore an Insights Training sweatshirt. As I walked in the door a female patient looked at me and said, “Insights! Are you an instructor?” “No”, I told her, “I’m just a student of theirs.”
It turns out she had worked at Weapons Safety Inc. (a gun shop and range) when Insights did a lot of their classes there and hence was quite familiar with Insights. The female optometrist asked the other patient a little about what it was like to work there and then it was back to business.
As I was waiting the female receptionist was talking to still another female patient about LASIK and told her that her ex had bad eyes and wore very thick glasses. He then had LASIK and the next year was able to win a rifle competition he had no chance of winning with his previous eyes. The woman she was talking to didn’t seem the least bit fazed.
This was all in the Seattle area. Historically Seattle is very anti-gun.
We have essentially won the culture war on guns. We need to keep taking new people to the range (I had another one scheduled for 2:00 PM today but she became ill and we are rescheduling) but short of a major screw up the worst case in the next decade or so is that progress toward our end goal is halted.
But there is another culture war that looks every bit as bad as things did for gun rights advocates 15 years ago.
We have long known something was very wrong with our country. The gun issue was/is just one symptom. TSA is a big deal. The war on drugs is a big deal. The government involvement in health care is a big deal. The welfare state is a big deal. The government involvement in education is a big deal. The national debt is a huge deal.
Looking at the bigger picture there are just so many things wrong that it is easy to want to just run away, create Galt’s Gulch, or encourage secession. 15 years ago the gun rights situation looked hopeless too. As Tam said if you arrived as a time traveler at a gun store in 1995 and told them the future of gun ownership in 2012 they would have found the time travel part the most believable part of your story.
I’m not saying “everything is going to be okay”. In fact in at least one way we have essentially a mathematical proof that it’s game over and we are just watching the clock run out. But the question is, what do we do about it?
Some people are buying gold and silver. Lots of people are buying guns and ammo. But you can’t eat gold or silver. You can eat a bullet, but one is your lifetime limit and few people consider the Smith and Wesson retirement plan the best they can do. Stockpiling food and water in the city, at best, will only get you by as long as your supplies last. And even if you join up with a like minded tribe deep in the woods it’s going to be at best a couple of generations until the latest fashion debate is about how to arrange which type of bird feather on your fur coat and there is talk of an “assault weapon ban” on crossbows with the real agenda of getting rid of all bows and arrows and maybe spears too.
I think there may be a better way. I have the big vision but I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to implement it. It’s sort of like I know I need a bridge across this dangerous ravine. I know a fair amount about different types of bridges but none of them seem to be feasible. I suppose it’s possible the “ravine” is actually the “Grand Canyon” and we simply don’t have the “technology”, money, and/or time to build such a bridge in the time we have left. But if you consider 1995 the darkest days in the gun wars and a win being clearly visible by 2003 (most people predicted the AWB probably wasn’t going to be renewed) then that only took eight years.
One way to look at that is those eight years is that they were essentially a politically delaying action until we got our culture war game on. I claim a similar situation exists today. I’m sure freedom has not yet reached it’s nadir but there is a fair amount of political action that will slow the descent. If we can get our culture game going for freedom then we might be able pull out a win before the clock runs out.
The problem is I don’t see how to win the culture war. I don’t see that we have effective weapons in this culture war. I don’t even see how to fight the culture war. People are certainly trying but we are rapidly losing.
With guns we could take people to the range and the anti-gun people didn’t have anti-gun ranges to compete with us. The anti-freedom people have “free stuff” and “security” to offer. It’s all a lie in the long, or even intermediate, term but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is here and now. The media shows the sick getting treatment, the hungry being fed, and the TSA proclaiming the world is a safer place when they find eight ounces of toothpaste in grandmas carryon luggage. The hidden costs and the cancerous belief that more government is the solution to every problem are difficult to see and in the “distant” future of a few years from now.
What are the freedom games that would be the equivalent of USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, and Boomershoot? Something that quickly engages people and gives almost immediate feedback would be ideal. It is a video game? But maybe the definition of “immediate” can be stretched a bit. Perhaps it is an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains, or sales. Or maybe it is teaching philosophy in our schools.
The way I see it we can win the culture war in the next few years or we can say George Orwell was off by two generations.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 3, Chapter 3.
[A good case can be made for this claim.
Prove him wrong.—Joe]
I found your email when you were sticking up for that republican bitch michelle malkin. If you know whats good you will keep your fucking mouth shut about Obama or you will come up missing on the news.
Joseph C.
jcXXXXX@yahoo.com
November 10, 2012 8:43 AM
Original email and header is here.
[I suspect he was referring to this web page. I haven’t checked my log files yet but I suspect he found it via this blog post.
Additional information about Joseph C.:
Additional information for Joseph C.:
Yet another example of violent liberals. We are better than this.
And, yes, I sent an email to Ms. Malkin about it.—Joe]
Update February 19, 2013: He called me.
Update February 26, 2013: He called again.
We need gun control. Obama, if you’re reading, which I know you are of course, it’s time to tackle gun control now that your second term is in the bag. Be a badass. Do it.
I got carded at Dominick’s the other day for buying natural cough medicine. Ingredients? Honey and eucalyptus – a real meth lab waiting to happen. We live in a world where cough medicine is regulated, where you need a license to fish and in most states, women have to endure mandatory waiting periods for a certain medical procedure. Our cars have to pass emission inspections. Restaurants have to adhere to health codes. But guns? Oh, you just buy those and toss ’em in your closet for your kids to find, sell them on the black market or twirl them around your thumbs like Yosemite Sam. Root ’em toot ’em! Guns are dangerous and yet remain highly unregulated.
Jenna Myers Karvunidis
November 7, 2012
Obama second term: Gun control
[
She recognizes being carded for honey and eucalyptus is silly but rather than call for an end to that she demands guns, a specific enumerated right, be more regulated than they already are.
From a legal standpoint governments have the power to, and do, regulate honey and eucalyptus. There is even a good chance they could ban both and no court would overturn it (the voters probably would be different story). A specific enumerated right such as your religion, speech, reading material, firearms, a speedy trial, right to legal counsel, and right to not incriminate yourself? Not so much.
But she is from Chicago, you shouldn’t expect her to understand freedom and rights.—Joe]
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.
Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
Judith Martin
AKA “Miss Manners”
[I was reminded of this Saturday after making dinner for Barb L. A great number of our dates have not involved any food. It is clear that neither of us are “customary” and this is just one more data point.
For more background–her daughter insisted that Barb change her match.com description of herself to say “eclectic” rather than “eccentric”. I don’t think it would have mattered to me. If eccentric or even weird were to be an issue then the first ten minutes of the first date would have been the end of it.—Joe]
I was inspired by comments on a Facebook page (Annette Wachter’s) about considering moving to another state such as Idaho, Wyoming, or South Dakota and I added my random thought:
I’m thinking I would like to move a little further away. The moon sounds nice. Or maybe Mars. I wouldn’t need any wind doping skills on the moon but I think I want a little more gravity so my bones don’t weaken to the point I couldn’t return to earth if I really wanted to sort through the wreckage in a decade or so.
I had a rough day today. Not nearly enough sleep last night then some lawyer/divorce stuff to deal with on top of the election results. It’s time to go to bed and pull the covers over my head for a few hours. I’ll feel better in the morning.
I received a text message this morning:
Are you free sometime this weekend? I feel the need for a long, serious conversation.
My first thought was, “OH NO! What did I do this time?”
Then I realized there was the potential for another reason. I responded with:
Topic? Politics? Personal?
I guessed right. It was the election:
Politics/survival
We will have our conversation. We’ll increase our odds and probably do okay. The rest of the world? I’m skeptical. As Thomas Sowell has said via Twitter recently:
Or as Say Uncle said:
And as I have said many times, the looters are soon going to run out of places to loot. And I don’t plan on hanging around when that happens. I just hope I can get most of my possessions and all of those I care about out of harms way.
This is the fifth in the series of ESS Boomershoot videos.
The first four, and my comments, are here:
I agree with Ari in this video. The design of their “suppressor” eye protection is a great improvement in comfort and getting a good seal around your ears when wearing hearing protection. They gave me a pair and I am very pleased with them.
Barron has his comments about this video here.