Snowflakes in Hell

John Lott’s Freedomnomics in my spare time, which sadly is not as plentiful as I would like.  Now I’m off to Virginia to see Bitter.

All the cool kids are doing it:

• Front Sight Firearms Training
• Ignatius Piazza - founder of Front Sight
• Ignatius Piazza Blog
• Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Mercury
• Front Sight - in The Mail on Sunday Review
• Ignatius Piazza - in Times Democrat
• Front Sight - on CNN
• Ignatius Piazza - in National Enquirer
• Front Sight - in Icon Magazine
• Ignatius Piazza - in Chicago Tribune
• Ignatius Piazza - in Gun World
• Ignatius Piazza - in San Francisco Chronicle
• Ignatius Piazza - in Fort Worth Star Telegram
• Front Sight - in Financial Times
• Front Sight - on BBC News
• Front Sight - in Gun Web
• Front Sight - in New York Times
• Ignatius Piazza - in Small Arms Review
• Front Sight - in Sierra Times
• Ignatius Piazza - in Forbes Magazine
• Ignatius Piazza - on World Net Daily
• Front Sight - in Guns & Ammo
• Front Sight - on USA Today
• Front Sight - in Santa Cruz Sentinel
• Ignatius Piazza - in Handvapen Guiden
• Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Sun
• Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Life
• Front Sight - in US News & World Report
• Front Sight - in London Times
• Ignatius Piazza - in Washington Post
• Front Sight - in El Pais Seminal
• Front Sight - in Pajaronian Register
• Front Sight - in Black Belt Magazine
• Front Sight - in Cybercast News Service
• Ignatius Piazza - in El Mercurio
• Front Sight - in Los Angeles Times
• Ignatius Piazza - in Playboy
• My Experience at Front Sight
• Ignatius Piazza - on Reform America

I think now I have to call him John “I’m doing my job” Street. After reading this article, it’s pretty clear that despite his assertions, that no, he is not. Can you imagine what would happen to me if I decided to leave the office for a day to stand in line for an iPhone?

UPDATE: Well, at least John Street had the decency to pull up a chair and wait in line with everyone else.  Mayors of some other towns didn’t even have the decency to do that.

I have to admit, my muse has gone on vacation too.  But I haven’t so run out of things to say that I’m resorting to posting what the trolls say on the blog.  When you get people posting crazy stuff, just ignore it.  That’s what most of us do.  I mean, I’ll gladly approve someone who disagrees with me, even if it sounds a bit nuts, but if you’re completely off the reservation, to the point where I don’t know what you’re saying or why you’re babbling, the “Spam” button works pretty well for that.

In defense of the Brady Campaign, I think that was probably an actual comment, though I see some people are skeptical of this.  You’re probably seeing what they don’t approve.   But still, we all get crazy stuff as comments from time to time.  This is like having show and tell at an elementary school, and the Brady’s are the kid that brings a pencil.  We’ve seen it before, and we all have one.

She doesn’t think I should have bent over backwards over the Pat Brown thing.

Wyatt Earp over at Support Your Local Gunfighter is a Philadelphia police officer, and marks an unfortunate milestone for the city: the 200th murder of the year.   Read the whole thing.   He doesn’t have good things to say about Commissioner Johnson’s last act of “leadership”:

Look, when you take someone who has been behind a desk for half their career and put them in patrol for the summer, who is that helping? No one. They don’t want to be there, so they’re not going to be stopping cars and rushing to priority jobs. But, when the media asks, the brass can say, “We’ve increased the amount of officers on the streets!” It’s a shell game.

Yup.  I talked about that a few months ago here.  Until the city politicians actually face the problem, instead of deflecting blame to Harrisburg or elsewhere, this is going to continue.  The city’s politicians lack the political courage to do anything.  The only thing that will work is taking the criminals off the streets and keeping them off the streets.  It’s my understanding that the courts, jails and prisons in the city have become a revolving door.

I think it’s a tough thing to for the politicians to face, because to go into a bad neighborhood and say “We’re getting the criminals off the streets, and we need your help” means telling folks that you’re going to lock up someone’s brother, child, nephew, husband or other loved one.  It means people will have to take responsibility.  It’s far easier for the politicians to deflect blame, whether it to be to Harrisburg, guns, drugs, what have you, so no one has to take responsibility.   There may be things Harrisburg can do to help, but the problem won’t abate until someone stands up and admits what the problem is.   I may have my disagreements with Michael Nutter, but he’ll be an improvement over the circus clowns that currently run city hall.  Hopefully he’ll impress me.

Buying a new surplus SKS is not for those who don’t know how to completely strip down a rifle and reassemble it. I don’t mean field strip either, I mean strip down every part, clean, and reassemble. I picked it up from the UPS depot on Tuesday, and got to work immediately. I learned that Bitter frowns on the practice of using a tin foil tray in the toaster oven to melt off the excess cosmoline from the smaller parts. After a mishap, I ended up with a new toaster oven. It was a tough battle, but I think I’m happy with the result:

It’s now ready to take to the range. I can’t wait to shoot it. It had quite a lot of cosmoline on it that had to be removed. Turns out Gunzilla doesn’t work as well as Hoppes No. 9 on cosmoline. It works decently, but just not quite as well. That’s probably because Hoppes is mostly kerosene, which is going to solvate a heavy grease better than most other things.

What has me stoked is that it’s in really good shape. No rust, very little wear on the finish. Shiny barrel without any evidence of pitting. Good stock, which looks like it’s seen some use, but in decent shape. The kit that came with it has someone’s name written inside, which I thought was a nice added touch.