As pointed out in comments (Lyle in the second comment) it would be very interesting to know “What in the world were you thinking?”
Quote of the day–Thomas Sowell
Policies that he proposes under the banner of “change” are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries— and failed repeatedly in other countries.
Politicians telling businesses how to operate? That’s been tried in countries around the world, especially during the second half of the 20th century. It has failed so often and so badly that even socialist and communist governments were freeing up their markets by the end of the century.
The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of “change.”
Putting restrictions on international trade in order to save jobs at home? That was tried here with the Hawley-Smoot tariff during the Great Depression.
Unemployment was 9 percent when that tariff was passed to save jobs, but unemployment went up instead of down, and reached 25 percent before the decade was over.
Higher taxes to “spread the well around,” as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.
Thomas Sowell
October 29, 2008
A perfect storm
[Via an email from Lyle. I had so many possibilities for quotes today that it was tough to choose. And all of them are time sensitive too.
Putting the ugliness behind us
In regards to Cooper Firearms incident it appears the board of directors has taken swift and decisive action. David has the story.
It’s the power of the Internet at work. It’s a new world out there.
It’s that time of year
I’ve had two requests from people for help celebrating Halloween this year. Son-in-law Caleb and a friend from my work both want to blow up some pumpkins. That is planned for this Saturday.
This morning I got a report from someone else on the same topic:
As the crowd thinned, we started the good stuff. Saturday I had placed a baggie of amn mix in the seed cavity and shot it with the 300 weatherby loaded with 125 grain ballistic tips. I wanted to tell folks that I had acquired some new bullets and demo their performance. The pumpkin absolutely vaporized.
Yeah. That’s what happens alright. I’ll try to have pictures and video next week sometime.
Update: Video from November 2000 is here.
Voting in Washington State
The Washington Arms Collectors have done the homework for gun owners in Washington State. Here are their recommendations.
The NRA has some advice for everyone in the states.
Quote of the day–Glenn Reynolds
Brian Doherty’s Gun Control on Trial is to the Heller case what Richard Kluger’s Simple Justice is to the Brown decision—an essential history made up of equal parts legal theory and personal struggle, presented in page-turning fashion.
Glenn Reynolds
Professor of Law, University of Tennessee
Founder, Instapundit.com
From What Others Have Said on the Cato website about the book.
[You can preorder the book on Amazon for only $11.53. I was interviewed for this book. I don’t know if I actually made it into the book but I’m buying a copy to find out and get the rest of the story.–Joe]
Root canal news
I have been having pain in one of my teeth off and on for about three weeks now. Over the weekend it got bad enough and persistent enough that I decided it was time to seek medical attention.
I called the dentist yesterday but they couldn’t get me in until this morning. I made it through the night without much difficulty. I woke up a couple times and had trouble getting back to sleep but not that big of a deal.
Today was pretty much consumed with visiting the dentist, doing paperwork at the doc next door who would do the root canal, handling a few things at work, going back to the dentist office and getting the work done.
Hunter006 has some more details from an email exchange and there are some more details on Twitter.
All is better now but I need to catch up on some sleep.
Keep the change
A point I heard Glen Beck make this morning was that history shows us the more the difficult the economic situation is the more people support/demand socialism and communism. This was true in Russia, China, Nazi Germany, Western Europe and in the United States earlier this century. But in all cases it extended and worsened the economic situation.
Via Robb Allen we have this ad. But what occurs to me is that this may actually make him more popular rather than less. But like sick children given a choice between bitter medicine that works and a candy placebo most will go for the candy.
NRA checks FactCheckers
Do you think Newsweek will pick this up?
A new story by Brooks Jackson on the FactCheck.org website once again shows that FactCheck cherry-picks “facts” to suit its anti-NRA, anti-gun, anti-self-defense agenda—an agenda that the American people do not share.
…
Obama has also supported a federal ban on carrying concealed handguns, even though 40 states now respect this right. Obama’s home state of Illinois is one of only two that provide no means whatsoever for people to carry guns outside the home for self-defense. In the Illinois state senate, Obama even sided against crime victims by opposing a bill that would have allowed people who receive protective orders—such as domestic violence victims—to carry firearms. Why? Because, in his words, “authorizing potential victims to carry firearms would potentially lead to a more dangerous rather than less dangerous situation.”
With all this information from independent sources readily available, why did Jackson and FactCheck choose to highlight facts and details that bolster only one side of the story? Is it because the points they chose to highlight advances their preordained beliefs? Do Brooks Jackson and FactCheck have an intrinsic bias against gun owners?
These are legitimate questions that we encourage everyone to ask before buying Brooks Jackson’s or FactCheck’s perspectives.
Maybe after the election and hell freezes over.
Hopes of being eaten last?
Via reader and blogger William I received this link regarding Cooper Firearms:
Dan Cooper, a proud member of the National Rifle Association, has backed Republicans for most of his life. He’s the chief executive of Cooper Arms, a small Montana company that makes hunting rifles.
Cooper said he voted for George W. Bush in 2000, having voted in past elections for every Republican presidential nominee back to Richard Nixon. In October 1992, he presented a specially made rifle to the first President. Bush during a Billings campaign event.
This year, Cooper has given $3,300 to the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama. That’s on top of the $1,000 check he wrote to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2004, after he was dazzled by Obama’s speech at that year’s Democratic National Convention.
Perhaps his hope is that Barack Crocodile Obama will eat him last.*
I know I won’t be doing any business with Cooper and I hope other gun owners don’t either.
Update: Sebastian has similar things to say.
Update2: Sebastian does the research on Cooper’s donations. To say Cooper is trying to put a spin on the story is being generous. He needs to be taught a lesson similar to the one learned by Smith & Wesson a few years ago.
Update3 (10/29/2008): It appears David may have the final word on this bit of ugliness. They apparently didn’t need the full lesson–just a reminder.
*Rewording the old saying, “An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile in the hopes they will be eaten last.”
Quote of the day–Barack Obama
But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in the society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted…
Barack Obama
Chicago Public Radio Interview — 2001
[H/T to Kevin and Say Uncle.
This may be the deciding factor in the election. My guess it will be a very tight race between “spreading the wealth” quotes and the voting fraud as to which will ultimately decide the election.–Joe]
Potowmack Institute blind spot
I’ve briefly mentioned these guys before but they have updated their website for our current election. They haven’t become any more connected to reality since the last time I visited:
The McCain Campaign has denounced Barack Obama for his tenuous association with William Ayers, characterized as a domestic terrorist who hates America. Sarah Palin has her own associations with those who espouse insurrectionist and secessionist doctrines. The doctrines are pervasive in the present political culture. Are these the people who love America?
The problem is both embrace the National Rifle Association’s childish political fantasy. A member of the NRA’s National Board wrote in the Washington Post in 1989:
Twentieth century military machines are far from invincible when outflanked by armed citizen guerrillas.
Ayers can only be faulted for acting out the NRA’s childish political fantasy. The Obama Campaign can be faulted for the failed political leadership to turn the whole issue around on the McCain Campaign and exploit the opportunity the courts have given to bring rationality to firearms policy. See below. The gun rights militants need not worry that political and intellectual leadership will emerge anywhere else.
http://www.potowmack.org/emerappd.html#ak47
http://www.potowmack.org/parkappe.pdf
p. 40
Their most glaring flaw in the above is they seem incapable of distinguishing between violently overthrowing our constitutional established republic (as Ayers attempted) and defending the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution from a tyrannical government attempting to infringe those rights.
As near as I can tell the person or persons at the Potowmack Institute regard all governments as equally valid and deserving of having a monopoly on the use of force. This is a false assumption. The truth is that no government is deserving of a monopoly on the use of force. No government can legitimately claim to possess powers that the individual also does not have and were granted to the government by the individuals. The individuals may grant the government a monopoly on the use of force in certain circumstances such as when declaring war on a foreign state, enforcing contracts, or punishment of criminals. But those are limited monopolies and are subject to revocation by the people.
There are other uses of force the government may never have a legitimate monopoly on such as the use of force to defend ones self and other innocents against imminent serious injury or death. Any government that claims to have a such a monopoly on the use of force is an illegitimate government.
I don’t have it
My blog shows up as number four on Goggle when they went looking for it but I didn’t have it. And I’m pretty sure none of the top ten do either. Still if someone did have it they could turn it into some money.
What is “it”? See for yourself:
| Domain Name | charter.com ? (Commercial) | |||||||||||||||||||
| IP Address | 68.117.42.# (CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS) | |||||||||||||||||||
| ISP | CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS | |||||||||||||||||||
| Location |
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| Language | English (U.S.) en-us | |||||||||||||||||||
| Operating System | Microsoft WinXP | |||||||||||||||||||
| Browser | Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Javascript | version 1.3 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Monitor |
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| Time of Visit | Oct 27 2008 6:43:52 pm | |||||||||||||||||||
| Last Page View | Oct 27 2008 6:49:54 pm | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Length | 6 minutes 2 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||
| Page Views | 2 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Referring URL | http://www.google.co…&q=list of tsa goons | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Engine | google.com | |||||||||||||||||||
| Search Words | list of tsa goons | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Entry Page | http://blog.joehuffm…/07/11/TSAGoons.aspx | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Exit Page | http://blog.joehuffm…/07/11/TSAGoons.aspx | |||||||||||||||||||
| Out Click | here http://abclocal.go.c…ews/local&id=6257417 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Time Zone | UTC-4:00 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visitor’s Time | Oct 27 2008 10:43:52 pm | |||||||||||||||||||
| Visit Number | 375,386 |
Like that would make things better
From the Crap for Brains file:
The court records say Cowart and Schlesselman also bought nylon rope and ski masks to use in a robbery or home invasion to fund their spree, during which they allegedly planned to go from state to state and kill people.
For the Obama plot, the legal documents show, Cowart and Schlesselman “planned to drive their vehicle as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows.”
“Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt,” the court complaint states. “Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt.”
It sounds to me like they weren’t getting enough oxygenated blood into their drug circulation system.
Quote of the day–Jaclyn Cousins
According to new research done at Oxford University, people who eat meat are less likely to suffer from shrinking of the brain than those that stick strictly to a vegetarian diet.
…
This doesn’t mean that vegetarians need to immediately start eating meat; it just means that when they decide to attack meat-eaters they should think about their small mindedness before hand.
Jaclyn Cousins
October 13, 2008
Vegetarianism Shrinks Your Brain
[H/T to Phil.
I’m in agreement with Kevin Baker on the topic:
Kevin Baker at the 2008 Gun Blogger Rendezvous on Friday October 10.
Xenia, be sure to eat your eggs and drink your milk.–Joe]
I received an award
I’m always a little embarrassed and uncomfortable when someone says something nice about me or something I did. This is no exception and for more than the usual reason. The number one reason was that Mark made his post on Friday and I didn’t notice until this morning.
Mark gave me a “Superior Scribbler Award”:
He had this to say about me:
Joe Huffman, who blogs The View From North Central Idaho, as well as trenchant observations of the political scene from the perspective of a well-trained and -experienced gunny. Joe always seems to have the bons mots for the moment, whereas I generally have the esprit d’escalier.
Additional reasons number two and three were that I had to look up two phrases to figure out exactly what he was saying.
As per the rules of the award I have to post the rules:
- Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
- Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
- Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
- Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
- Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.
The five most-deserving Bloggy Friends deserve some thought.
In terms of “Superior Scribblers” I would have given the award to each of my three children had they actually put their best writing works on blogs. From the time they were old enough to write essay’s and papers I have been super impressed with the quality of their work. But only Xenia has a blog and it’s more social than representative of her writing. Here is something from James and Xenia. I also have stuff from Kim that would definitely qualify but none of it is on the web (hint, hint).
They must have inherited this from their mother. I always had an extremely tough time writing until I was in my early twenties. It was just extremely painful and difficult for me to think of anything worth putting into words.
Barb on the other hand wrote lots of stories and got excellent grades on her writings all through school. And then there was the book she wrote but never bothered to try and get published. She said, “It was just for practice.” Here are some samples of her work:
- Can’t Say Goodbye Again. Very short romance. Written for a contest in the Writer’s Edge Ezine (defunct web site).
- The Medicine Cabinet. This is what I call one of her “Anti-Romance” stories. Others have compared it to Hitchcock because of the suspense, story twists, and surprises. Very good stuff.
- The Rose. Another “Anti-Romance” story. Definitely Hitchcock like.
She would definitely get an award–if she had a blog and put her best work on it.
Enough with the potential nepotism.
In line with having to look up words, as I did with Mark’s work, to understand the post I have to give an award to Roberta X for The Adventures of Roberta X. She writes with a vocabulary a little bit above my comfort level at times but she puts interesting twists on things.
In terms of “interesting twists” (extreme snark is a better description) Tamara K with view from the porch also gets an award.
Alan Korwin and his blog Page Nine gets an award for inspiring a lot of my alternate ways of viewing things in the world of gun politics. And that doesn’t even count all the books he has written.
I don’t know who it is but the VPC Blog has to get an award. Wow! Just Wow! He or she really does a number with the satire.
Yeah, I know, that’s only four. But with all the recognition to my family members can’t each of those count as 1/4 of an award each?
Quote of the day–Roberta X
Well, you’d be no fun if you lost interest.
Roberta X
October 26, 2008
Speaking Of Wood
Regarding a new camo pattern (it’s call Morning Wood) she saw at the gun show yesterday.
[I really need to write the post that has been poking around in my head ever since I read Bonnie’s Twitter post from over a month ago. It all has to do with the differences between the male and female brain. Read The Female Brain for the long version–you might get the answer sooner than if you wait for me to write the post.–Joe]
I wasn’t imagining it
Several years ago while debating gun control with someone I claimed the crime numbers from the U.K. were known to be erroneously low. I had read that somewhere but when confronted for proof I looked all over the net for several hours without being able to find my source.
Kevin reports on the story that “just broke”.
I know that guy!
Ry points out a great article on the evolution of sniping gear and deployment in the last few years.
The article was written by Michael Haugen who attended two Boomershoots. Michael also wrote three articles which are posted on the Boomershoot website:
If you have ever heard me tell the story about shooting on the 1000 yard range at Fort Lewis–Michael was the guy next to me with Eugene Econ spotting for both Michael and me.
Michael was the guy that referred to watching me build reactive targets on the tailgate of my pickup as “Bomb Building 101“.
I’m glad to hear he is still in the sniping business and apparently is well. I was impressed with his brains, seriousness, and dedication to our country and constitution.
And, as Ry said, I’m happy he calls out American Snipers as Good Thing. I donate money to them which Microsoft matches dollar for dollar.
Quote of the day–Barrett Tillman
Tell me why you think a woman should ‘lie back and enjoy being raped’ instead of shooting a rapist dead with the handgun in her handbag.
Tell me why black Americans should submit to being lynched instead of shooting the lynch mob dead.
Tell me why homophobes should be free to beat up homosexuals without the risk of being shot.
Watch Schindler’s List and tell me again why only the police and military should have guns.
Tell me why you think police should be able to shoot an attacker to save their lives but I shouldn’t.
Tell me why I shouldn’t have the best means of defending myself — a semiauto firearm with a standard capacity magazine.
Tell me why a woman’s right to choose should not include weapon, mag size and ammunition.
Tell me why you think I shouldn’t be able to defend my life or my freedom.
More than that, tell me why you should not have that right!
Barrett Tillman
Via Alan Korwin October 25, 2008 — Liberty Poll Grows