Snowflakes in Hell

I found some better video of the Boston Bomb Scare press conference in case anyone missed it:

I’ve taken a few pot shots at Ed Rendell on this blog, and certainly will take many more, but I feel like I should say some good things about him in the tradition of “If you don’t have something nice to say…”, etc. I will say that Ed Rendell passes the douche test. What is the douche test? It’s pretty simple “Would you go out and have a beer with the guy?”. Ed Rendell passes. Who wouldn’t pass? John Kerry, definitely. Joe Biden. Al Gore. Probably Hillary Clinton too, but Bill passes.

Another thing I will say about our Governor, he’s a shrewed politician, and I think could have a shot at being a presidential candidate if he chose to run. He’s managed to successfully paint himself as a moderate despite a pretty liberal record. As governor, he’s kept mostly quiet on issues that could get him in trouble, and I’m happy that on a few issues, he seems to lack the nanny gene that a lot of liberals seem to have expressed in abundance. And while I think his record contains a strong element of luck, he has a lot of accomplishments he can tout.

Plus, I will admit, this is pretty admirable behavior, from his Wiki page:

The mass snowballing of former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson is often attributed to Rendell. As the story goes, Rendell wagered twenty dollars that the person sitting next to him could not hit Johnson in the head with a snowball at an Eagles-Cowboys football game at Veterans Stadium. The incident ’snowballed’ and resulted in many fans hurling snowballs at Johnson.

OK, so there’s my nice Ed Rendell post. But I really don’t like the guy’s politics, so back to bashing from here on out :)

I won’t do regular cat blogging because I don’t own a cat, and I think cat blogging is stupid, but I thought this was amusing and creative:

At first I thought maybe this was part of Ed Rendell’s new energy plan.  I think I could probably make a kid sized one that could solve the problem of childhood obesity.  If Ed wants to pass another new tax on fast food, I’d be happy to collect some tax grant money and get right to work on the problem!

I know there are folks out there who think carrying in anything other than leather to be an abomination in the eyes of God. I got my carry license when I was 28 years old, which, I’m sorry to say, was five years ago, and I’m up for renewal this year. I went through the typical drawer full of holsters that didn’t work for me, along with the awkward phase where you always thought people could see your pistol.

I eventually settled on the Galco Royal Guard, in-waist-band holster. This worked pretty well for me, but I could never get over the fact that it added some significant dimension to my Glock. I decided at some point that it would be worth it to try a Kydex holster.

I started off with a Comp-Tac Pro Undercover holster. The first time I did a practice draw out of the kydex, I almost lost control of my grip, because kydex provided much less draw resistance than leather. Once retention is broken, the pistol comes clean out. After a few tries, I decided I really liked how the draw felt. The downside to the Pro Undercover was that the belt loop, after repeated removing and adding, kept breaking off. I went through two of them before I decided to give Sidearmor’s Glock IWB holster a try. The sidearmor holster is pretty good, and I like the fact that you can swap out the belt loop. My only complaint is that, unlike the Comp-Tac holster, you have to undo your belt to remove the holster, since the loop surrounds the belt.  I like to take my holster off with the pistol still in it for storage in the drawer at night.

I’m really liking Comp-Tac’s Infidel line, and I think I might have to order one. It seems to combine the features I like about the Sidearmor holster with what I liked about the Pro Undercover. The Comp-Tac people were always prompt and friendly too. I had my holster in a matter of days.

Both Comp-Tac and Sidearmor make great holsters. I would recommend you try them if you’re thinking of switching to Kydex. I know a lot of people won’t carry in anything other than leather, but I’m never going back. The slim profile, combined with an easy draw, easy reholstering, and good support make it superior in my view.

Comments are broken for some reason. I have no idea why. Time to dive into source code.

UPDATE: Comments are fixed.  I kicked the power cord out for my machine Wed night and the time somehow reset to Feb 20th.  Apparently WordPress’s spam feature get confused if it shows comments in the future.  I had to go into MySQL to reset all the Feb 20th entires to Feb 1st as they should be.  I think I need to get a decent SQL editor so I don’t have to do crap like that by hand.

Dave Kopel points us to a study done by the Independence Institute that showed the NRA can actually influence elections.  I think they are using a limited number of elections here.  You’d have to use more to draw solid conclusions, but it’s interesting, nontheless.  Particularly in the conclusion:

So, does the NRA have any political impact? The answer is yes. This interest group gathers information on gun control and other issues important to the members, disseminates the information to the membership, represents its members to elected officials, reports to the membership the behaviors of elected officials, and helps shape public opinion on some issues. Put another way, the NRA is like a political party, but one that cuts across the current two-party alignment.

I’d like to see copies of this passed out on the Hill to all the Democrats, to inform them, and to serve as a very subtle warning; cross us at your own peril.  Read the whole thing.