Friday, January 12, 2007

Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Iraq Plan - New York Times

Democrats Plan Symbolic Votes Against Iraq Plan - New York Times

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usCan it be that the venerable NY Times is suggesting that "Symbolism" is A Bad Thing?

Take a look at the image they recently ran of "Dingey" Harry Reed, and tell me that they don't indulge.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Best of the Sidebar Blogs Today

Here's summary of some of the most interesting things I found as I was surfing my sidebar today.


Fun Turns To Tragedy!!! presents a 5 minute video of Jet Powered Man, which he calls "...the coolest thing that I have seen all year".

It's not Rocket Man ... This guy has wings, and a dwell-time of 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds ... but this looks like The Dane From Heaven.

Icarus, eat your heart out.


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45-caliber Justice
includes a 31 minute video From Penn and Teller called "The War On Drugs Is Bullshit!".

Yeah, I know what you're thinking.
No, I don't do drugs.

Wait a minute ... yes I do.

I smoke cigarettes, drink liquor and coffee, and put oleomargarine (the evil "Trans-Fats") on my morning English Biscuit. Oh, and did I mention the bacon?

Nicotine, Alcohol, Caffeine, Transfats, Nitrates ... all legal drugs. And they all will kill you.

What's worse, the Drug Warriors will kill you, as I have mentioned before.

(Ninth Stage also has a few words to contribute on the same subject.)

The fact is, the war on drugs has caused the death of innocents , but we can't say that it has actually served its original purpose ... to lessen the number of people who use ilegal drugs. In fact, narcotics usage has increased since the War on Drugs began in 1971. (And as Penn and Teller propose, the case can be made that "street drugs" are actually less expensive today than they were 25 years ago.)

This is a program which already costs us billions of dollars a year, is not effecting the desired results, and actually causes harm to people who are not otherwise involved except for the excesses of those agencies who are attempting to stop illegal drug usage.

What's wrong with this picture?

The video will educate you. I don't know that the opinions presented there are supported by the actual facts, but at least it will make you think.

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Cowboy Blob tells the story about an 18 year-old who tried all the non-confrontational give-up-your-stuff approaches to pacify a mugger, until said mugger said "your backpack's still heavy, what else do you have in there?"

At which time the teenager came up with The Perfect Squelch.

I loved the story. Hope to hear more about "Harry".

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My Ol' Pal Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes *(SoftGreenGlow)* encourages you to contact your legislator in response to some interesting RKBA bills now being considered in Congress.

Phil's getting cranky and won't tell you how to contact your legislator because, as he says, "If you don’t know them off the top of your head/have their contact info in you “Favorites”, what are you doing calling yourself “An Advocate for Gun Rights”?"

I'm not quite as cranky as Phil is tonite. I'll tell you how to contact your legislator(s) because (Ta-Dah!) I have them bookmarked.

If you don't, yet ... get with it and make your bookmarks tonite.

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Kevin at The Smallest Minority (One of the two Bloggers in The World who are even more verbose than I) has a surprisingly short article about "What it's like to take a CCW class in Kentucky". He presents it as "I'd exhaust myself trying to fisk this one".

Having read the article, I was struck by three things:
  1. He's right. I couldn't possibly fisk all the points ... pro and con ... which are raised in the original article (and I admit I'm feeling a little guilty about linking directly to it, because I want to encourage us all to visit the folks I'm citing here.)
  2. The author describes himself as a " ... liberal, pierced, tattooed, Zen Buddhist freak...". And he obviously holds his fellow CCW Instruction Pupils in contempt, who he refers to his fellow instructees as (among other, more colorfully descriptive phrases) "backwoods detritus".
  3. Still, the article is particularly well-written, and while his contempt for the usual RKBA priorities are made obvious by his glib patter, he makes his main point resoundingly clear; he wants to acquire official permission to carry a concealed firearm " ... to protect my wife and myself ..." and "... to have some harmless, high-caliber fun ...".
While the author is contemptuous of his fellow denizens of the range, he puts himself in the same category by virtue of his recognition of the two main reasons to possess a firearm: self-defense, and enjoyment. (Sport, competition, plinking, hunting ... it's all under the same umbrella.)

If you read this post, you'll probably be as enturbulated as I found myself. "This guy is an elitist asshole" may be your first reaction, but you may find yourself saying, as I did: "yeah, but he's our asshole". He enjoys shooting, he's willing to make the effort to jump through the hoops just to acquire a CCW license, and he recognizes the primary reasons for owning and using a firearm.

Everything else is hyperbole.

If you don't check out any of the other interesting links, I sincerely encourage you to read the Zen Anti-NRA (can't say I blame him, entirely), Anti-Bubba, lo-cal rant.

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Speaking of which, I have been thinking about the establishment of a Monthly Award, to be offered for the most thought-provoking (or provocative) gunblog-related post. I don't have a name for it, and I doubt it would be something which would 'catch on' as an honor to be coveted by the awardees.

But if you have a suggestion for the name of such an award, I would appreciate some help here. It's something which I have already decided to do, and if I had already established it I would have awarded the "What it's like to take a CCW class in Kentucky" for January, 2007.

Okay, partly to piss him off, but mostly because it is so well written, and because it reveals a facet of the author's private priorities which he may not acknowledge even to himself ... justification for the 2nd Amendment.

If you have a suggestion for the name of this award, please emal it to me (see the email address at the bottom of the page) or comment on this article.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Slow Down!

Denmark, home of Coppenhagen (the city, not the chew) has "for years" dealt unsuccessfully with speeders.

Now they have a new idea for drawing the attention of drivers to the speed limit.

You can see it here (18MB download), but I warn you this is decidedly NOT WF (Work Friendly)!

Semi-nudity may not be the answer for YOUR neighborhood, but I guarantee you that if Corvallis, Oregon, chooses this approach to traffic control, it would be far more effective than Traffic Circles.

PS: Don't say I didn't warn you -- this is NOT Work Appropriate!

PPS: no, this has nothing to do with IPSC competition. Why do you ask?

Monday, January 08, 2007

Benelli TV Commercial: Same Time Tomorrow

The Shooting Wire is one of my favorite email subscriptions. They send me information I don't see anywhere else.

Today's issue featured an article about a television commercial for Benelli Shotguns:
Accokeek, Maryland— After just one month of airing, Benelli's new 30-second commercial spot called, Same Time Tomorrow, created by Benelli's in-house marketing department was nominated for The Outdoor Channel's prestigious Golden Moose Award for the Best Commercial for 2006. Currently appearing on The Outdoor Channel, the highly entertaining 30-second spot also runs on Versus; ESPN 2; The Sportsmen Channel and The Men's Channel.

The spot features America's favorite exhibition shooters, Tom Knapp and Tim Bradley, using their Benelli shotguns to break multiple clay targets in every way imaginable—many of the shots seemingly impossible. One of the most dramatic scenes shows Knapp tossing a handful of clay targets at a jib-mounted camera and breaking them one at a time as they fly toward the camera lens.


This naturally piqued my interest, so I went searching YouTube to see if anyone had posted the commercial. I wanted to see it, and since my television is connected to nothing more 'networky' than a DVD/VHS player there's no hope of seeing it anywhere else.

My luck was good. Someone posted it right after Thanksgiving, 2006, and it has already been viewed over 5400 times.

For your convenience and amazement (and so I could go back and re-watch it easily), I've also included it in this post.

Enjoy!



(Note that this is the three-minute "full" version of the video. You can see the award-winning 30-second tv advertisement here.)

Beretta: Tim Bradley

Maybe it's not the gun?

Maybe it's the gunner!

If you liked the Benelli video (see above), I bet you'll enjoy this one.

The same Tim Bradley who looked so good shooting the Benelli performs the same 'trick shots' with a Beretta. And the script has him saying "I don't know of any shotgun that can match the speed of the (Beretta) Xtrema2".

Judge for yourself. Here's the three-minute video:

Assassins

Oh what the heck. It looks like this is going to be a YouTube night, I might as well wrap it up the same way it started.

(I sent an Idiots With Guns link to Xavier tonite, too. You can see how I wasted my evening.)

This is from Ninth Stage, who got it from Porta's Cat.

It's "Mexican Carry" with a bullet!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Bullets Go Pointy End Forward

This just in from The Hobo Brasser:

Friday night before this Saturday’s DRRC USPSA match, one of the guys had hurriedly installed a mag well on his single stack. At the LAMR he discovered this.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

"If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane"


Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usHere's a closer look courtesy of The Hobo Brasser.
(Click on the photo for full-size image.)

Previously posted as: "Do Your Own Gunsmithing"

Blogger Busts Bloomburg

I received the following email from Sailor Curt this weekend:

For widest dissemination:

The VCDL is sponsoring a rally and protest to raise awareness of the antics of Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York.

I blogged about it here:

http://sailorcurt.blogspot.com/2007/01/protest-is-on.html

The VCDL Alert is here:

http://www2.vcdl.org/webapps/vcdl/vadetail.html?RECID=1024962

I'm asking all freedom loving bloggers to please post about this and help us get the word out. The bigger the turnout, the more effective it will be.

Thank you all for your help.

Curtis Stone
aka Sailorcurt
Captain of a Crew of One
NRA Life Member
VCDL Member
US Navy Marksmanship Team Member
Virginia CHP Holder