Snowflakes in Hell

Bloomberg is seeking a third term, hoping to overturn the city’s term limits laws.

Looks like NRA has a new anti-Obama video out.  Looks like they’ll also have to translate that threat letter into Spanish.

Blackfork (Robert) runs and incredibly well written blog, and it’s high time I added him to the blogroll.  Here is his coverage of the Texas State Rifle and Pistol Assocation 2008 Garand Championships here, here, here and here.  His YouTube channel was also pretty helpful to me in figuring out how to rig up the M1907 sling I had just bought to my AR.

This kind of crap freaks me the hell out.

UPDATE: Wretchard notices too.  In the past it’s always been our country or our traditions that’s inspired us to song.  This was to be a nation of laws, not of men.  I can’t imagine any politician on the American scene inspiring me to song, and the fact that Barack Obama is having this effect on people is nearly enough to make me pray for his defeat.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren says:

My first thought was that neither Obama nor his staff is responsible for this video, nor would Obama recommend such devotional singing. My second thought was that – as creepy and inappropriate as this singing is – it’s not as bad as what Obama is actually proposing: forcing all children, starting at the age of 11, to give 50 hours a year of child labor working in their communities at the direction of the federal government. When Obama himself crosses the line, it’s not surprising that some of his supporters do as well.

Here here.

I just noticed that Google dropped my page rank from 5 to 4.  I wonder what’s going on there.  I was 5 a day or so ago.  Bummer.  Anyone else notice their page ranks dropping?

I understand that NRA is trying to attack Biden here, and I fully support that, but I would beware of highlighting articles that have language like this:

Just imagine what the sneering left intelligentsia, in the United States and elsewhere, would have said if a Republican vice-presidential candidate had told CBS News that “when the stockmarket crashed [in 1929], Franklin Roosevelt got on television” and informed Americans what had happened.

The feminist Maureen Dowd has depicted Palin as “the glamorous Pioneer Woman, packing a gun, a baby and a Bible”. Professor Wendy Doniger, of the University of Chicago, has gone further, declaring that Palin’s “greatest hypocrisy is her pretence that she is a woman”. And the NBC News commentator Andrea Mitchell has been reported as maintaining that “only the uneducated would vote for Mrs Palin”.

Who needs an engagement ring when you could have this?  Bitter coming on to say “You better not!” in 5… 4… 3… 2…

One thing I want to do for the Allentown show this weekend is make our table look attractive, to entice people to come over and talk with us.  The typical literature isn’t very interesting or eye catching, especially when you’re in a room with wall-to-wall guns.

In the mail is a digital picture frame, which I will use on the table to play video.  I’m planning on running the NRA Katrina video on that, with some literature placed near it.  In the other corner of the table, I’m going to borrow a Shuttle PC from my friend Jason, along with an LCD touch screen.  My idea was to put up NRA’s O-Match application up full screen and let people use it.  I figured kids especially may be drawn in, giving us an opportunity to talk to the parents.  Can you say “Barack Obama is a free speech stifling, gun banning weasel?  I knew you could.”  This should be something different, and we’ll see how this experiment goes.  I might lose my faith in humanity if I discover that cats and humans have more in common than I once thought, but if I get some more people at my table, and on my e-mail list, I’ll be happy.

The Lehigh County District Attorney is resisting attempts by Allentown to pass local gun ordinances similar to Phialdelphia’s.  If people want to know why we defend preemption tooth and nail, this is why.  Before long you have a patchwork of laws that no one can reasonably comply with:

Any officer who makes an arrest under the ordinance could face obstruction of justice charges, Martin said in an interview Monday.

”The issue is clear,” Martin said. ”When it comes to gun-control legislation, any city ordinance is preempted by state law and that makes any Allentown law unenforceable.”

James Martin deserves the support of gun owners for being willing to stand by the law and our state’s constitution.

I would like you to explain why it took the death of four police officers before you thought it might be a good idea to review the practices of the Pennsylvania Parole Board?  The other officers that were killed weren’t murdered by Boy Scouts.  This has been a systemic problem, and it’s outrageous that only after Philadelphia has buried four officers you now feel the need to actually start looking at the problem.

Sincerely,

A Very Angry Sebastian

… isn’t the only city practicing catch and release to the detriment of the safety of its police officers.

I’ve been reading voraciously about this financial crisis facing our country, and there’s a lot of quality econ blogs out there with good information about it.  My instincts tell me that a government bailout of people who made poor choices is bad.  But the financial system grinding to a halt would also be bad.

So is this something to not really worry too much about, or should I be pulling all of my money out of the bank and stockpiling ammunition?

UPDATE: I was mostly kidding about the last sentence.  I always have a healthy stockpile of ammunition on hand.  These days, most of it I loaded myself.

My bank name has tracked exactly to the name of our Hockey/Basketball arena in Philadelphia.  First it was the CoreStates Center, then CoreStates got bought out by First Union, which got bought out by Wachovia.  So I wake up this morning and find out my bank has failed, and is now owned by Citigroup.  So the Citigroup Center it is, and it will appear that’s who I’m banking with now.

Robb beat me to another one.  This one is from The Bulletin:

Here’s a quick lesson in the law. If you’re a convicted felon, as Giddings was (and a very dangerous one at that), you can never legally buy a gun again. Never. That means that the weapon he used to kill Officer McDonald was obtained illegally. So no matter how tough you make it to buy a gun in Philadelphia, hardened criminals like Giddings will still obtain them illegally.

At least the media is starting to perhaps, finally, pull back the curtain to see what’s really behind it.

Jersey City lost its appeal in its efforts to uphold its one-gun-per-month gun rationing scheme.  Good news, but it’s probably going to prompt the legislature to act on a state-wide bill to do the same thing.  After all, all those cousin humping rednecks in the Northwest and Southern parts of New Jersey keep killing themselves, and someone has to take all those dangerous things away from them.

“The owner was considering a load of 275 - 325 grains of blackpowder firing 3500 grains of lead.“

In response to the school shooting:

First-time applicants for a handgun license must now prove that they have been members of a shooting club for at least a year. In addition, all applicants must provide a note from a doctor about their mental health.

So you have to spend a year in a club without having access to a firearm?  And this is the kind of gun laws people want for this country.

Speakertweaker is a Texan, the land where printing can get you in trouble.  He agrees with me that open carry should be legal, but warns “Don’t overdrive your headlights,” using a Drivers’ Ed metaphor.  Every time something like this comes up, folks seem to think I’m advocating never pushing beyond people’s comfort level.  That’s not what I’m saying.  But you do have to be cognizant not to push so far beyond most people’s understanding that they dismiss you, rather than thinking.

Most people don’t feel a need to carry a gun in public.  We don’t live in a society that’s so absolutely plagued by violence that most people are thinking about carrying a firearm for self-protection everywhere they go.  That’s why people have a difficult time wrapping their heads around carrying openly to a kids’ soccer game.  The disconnect for people is that they assume that carrying a firearm is a large burden, when it is not.  It’s less burdensome than carrying a cell phone.  When people see that it is burdensome, even if it’s only socially burdensome, they aren’t going to conclude that people who carry firearms for self-protection are normal, they are going to conclude they are unusually fearful.  That’s not really the image we want people to have of public carry.

Breda illustrates the difference between weapons and jewelry, just in case there was any confusion.

Looks like they made a fatal mistake in the vicitim selection process.

At least someone is willing to tell the Obama Campaign where to stick it:

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

And I thought the Clintons were dirty.  Hillary would be a godsend compared to this guy.

Yves Rossy has to either be the craziest guy in the world, or the coolest guy in the world.  Quite possibly I think both.  It takes some balls to jump out of a plane with a jet wing you built strapped to your back.  Apparently he used it to cross the English Channel Friday.  Here’s some video:

His jet pack has a bunch of these strapped to the underside.  The funny thing is they only cost a few thousand bucks.  Here’s his web site.  Awesome.

These guys show you how you can make jacketed bullets for .223 out of fired .22LR cases.  This is pretty damned cool, but I’m not sure I want to go that far down the reloading rabbit hole.

I actually won a gun in one of the raffles at the Bucks County Friends of the NRA dinner!  I never win anything.  From the Friends of the NRA merchandise:

NRA Edition Marlin .17HMR

Imported from Italy by Marlin, each rifle includes a carbon fiber dipped stock, four-shot and seven-shot clip magazines, and stainless steel heavy bull barrel.  Perfect for a long day at the range or hunting varmint.  With the NRA logo lasered on its stock, this rifle will boost any hunter’s collection.

That’s not all I got either.  I bid in the silent auction too, and ended up with one of these, which I figure I can use to store powder and primers:

Up and coming Friends events are a hidden secret. The NRA limited edition Kimber Custom II 1911 went for 690 dollars.  The Smith & Wesson .38 Small Cheif’s special NRA edition revolver went for like 320 bucks. This is a bit cheaper than you’ll get them on the open market, and all the proceeds are going to a good cause.  The manufacturers donate these guns to the NRA Foundation to be auctioned.

The Garand and CMP match this morning were rained out.  Drat.  I spent several hours last night loading up .223 to shoot my AR in the CMP match, and got up at 7:15 to make the match.  Oh well, some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.  I’ll try again next month.

Bitter and I are attending a Friends of the NRA event tonight.  Since Friends is a program to raise money for the NRA Foundation, I can’t do any EVC electioneering outreach there.  But I can introduce myself, handing out my business cards, and hoping later I might get a few people signing up to my e-mail list.  Outreach is going more slowly than I would like.  One problem is the people who have time to do this tend to be older, and tend to not have computers and e-mail.  It’s hard communicating with these people and getting information to them.  I kind of feel like I’m in the wrong generation for trying to get people involved in local efforts.  We can bring a lot of new ideas, and new methods of organizing to the gun rights issue, but that doesn’t do us much good if the people I’m trying to reach don’t have the means to integrate with it.