Friend went to the gun show in OKC today,

and called me with a report:
Least expensive AR he saw: about $1400. Magazines, $40. Etc. Think the usual gun show jumpup multiplied. Some guy had a completestripped lower receiver marked $800.

I'm glad I'm not looking for one.

And it makes me wonder what the 15-22 would go for right now...

Holder, you're not getting off that easy!

In a statement issued moments ago, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa “praised the inclusion of special provisions in the proposed 113th Congress rules package that will keep in place legal obligations on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and others at the Justice Department as a result of lawful subpoenas issued in the 112th Congress.

“The inclusion of these provisions in the House rules will allow the civil suit, authorized by a bipartisan vote of the House in July 2012, which seeks federal courts to compel the production of relevant subpoenaed documents to continue,” the press release issued by Frederick R. Hill, Committee Director of Communications advised. “Without these provisions, the Justice Department could have argued that its obligation to produce subpoenaed documents expired with the previous Congress.”
 I'll bet Holder and Obama and every other appointee connected to this had hoped it would go away; I hope they get ulcers thinking about this.

And, of course, Rep. Cummings(referred to by the Dutchman as Bloody-Hands) is still trying to protect Holder and the others; after all, no pile of bodies and lies is enough to justify troubling The Lightbringer and his minions, right?


Found a link at the Dutchman's about a group called the 'Center for Biological Diversity' which has decided that banning guns is an essential part of their movement:
The Center for Biological Diversity has long fought the NRA over the senseless killing of endangered wolves, condors, polar bears and bald eagles. After the horrific, gun-charged killings in Newtown — and seeing the NRA’s sickening refusal to take responsibility or support any gun violence reforms at all — I’ve decided that enough is enough! . . .


We just ran a full-page ad in The New York Times calling out the NRA’s extremist political agenda and endorsing not only the elimination of highly toxic lead from bullets (a longtime Center campaign) but also legislation to end gun violence against people.

Please stand with us this holiday season. Donate to our Stop NRA Extremism Fund today so we can continue to run ads and campaigns protecting people and wildlife from gun violence and pollution. Then visit our NRA Hostage website and sign the petitions. Spread the word by sharing the website on Facebook and forwarding this email to your friends.

Some will say gun violence is not an environmental issue. I say, after Newtown, gun violence is an issue for all Americans. After Newtown, breaking the NRA’s stranglehold on our political system is an issue for everyone.
Translation: "Banning private ownership of guns is part of the progressive cause, and we're part of it!"
Yeah, watermelons: green outside, red inside.


Speaking of gun bigots, had a go-round with a guy who announced that
the .223/5.56 and 5.7x28 cartridges should be banned from civilian possession( including banning all reloading dies for them),
ANY rifle or pistol chambered for either cartridge should be banned(yes, bolt-actions and single-shots, too),
ANYTHING with a 'black parkerized finish or charging handle on the top or side' is not for self-defense and should be banned,
and on.  And on.  And then moved onto wanting gun licensing, registration, nation ballistic fingerprinting of every gun, sales only through a FFL holder or LE agency to other licensed owners, etc.  And ending with
 Is this a form of registration (like Hitler used when he collected all the guns and put a captial penalty on possession) - Unfortunately, yes. Will this prevent a Sandy Hook? Probably not, the gun owner was irresponsible (and largely I have no sympathy for her because of that.) But will it potentially prevent countless other Sandy Hooks? I think yes.
So.  It'll be hugely expensive, won't work very well, insanely troublesome for honest people and would NOT have preventted Sandy Hook, 'but it might prevent others so it's worth it!'
No, I did not move to Language Practice; I did keep to facts and history.
Ever notice how that pisses off people like this?


Dick's Sporting Goods hasn't just stepped on its dick; it did so wearing cleats.  This is going to cost that chain hugely, not only because of the "We won't deliver what we sold you" but the WAY they did this; I mean, come ON, people, how stupid are your managers?


Michael Moore, you racist bastard!
Back when this dirtbag brought out Fahrenheit 911, friend saw it and was really pissed at Bush; I printed out a list of, as I recall, '20 lies in the movie' and gave it to her.  Which list pissed her off even more at having been lied to so openly.


The wonders of gun control on display in Chicago:

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago has logged its 500th homicide of 2012.

The last time the city reached the 500-homicide mark was in 2008, when the year ended with 512 killings. Last year, city records show Chicago had 435 homicides.

Ah, Chicago; where  Richard the Turd had constant armed security, where the Mayor's kids get police escort to and from their private school(which has armed guards), and they all lecture the commoners that "You don't need a gun, trust the police!"

But wait!  It's only 499 after all!  Except

Of course, the real reason can be found in our comment section:

• Nope time to update again scc.... It appears gmac shit a brick at the morning phone conference with all of the commanders and demanded we stay under 500... Then poof, chief of dics offered the supt a case that could be reclassified to a death investigation... So now the dept officially came out and said we are at 499. This was info from a commander who was on the morning call but has now been confirmed via the statement and story by the tribune this afternoon... Yep it's all legit

What a joke.

How could the Senate deal with finances when they're busy

with this crap?
Of course, that doesn't cover the PREVIOUS three years or so that Reid wouldn't allow votes on a budget...

Speaking of budget trouble,
President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.
According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year.
Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

Slimy, corrupt, backstabbing, dirtbag politicians...

Last night they said 'Maybe some flurries this morning';

So far it's flurried more than it snowed in the 'winter storm' the other day

If it keeps flurrying, we might actually get some moisture in the soil.


Further "What do we need borders for?" crap from Obama & Co.  You live near the Mexican border, it's not going to get any better.


On the Feinstein "We want to ban all your guns" bill, write to the congresscritters; and Moe Lane has a list of senators who especially need pressure(for some) and opponents(most), with notes.

Y'know, these politicians are really pushing to find out just what this saying really means

Short version of the NYEffingTimes story: "If these kids stop going straight to college, and instead start working at good-paying jobs(in OIL, yet!), how will we see them properly indoctrinated in progressive values of hating America?"
Not to mention, how will all the fatass college bureaucrats keep their pay levels up if those kids aren't going into debt to pay for classes in "How America Sucks 101"?
And what happens when some do go to college in a few years, with some hard work and life experience in how A: you CAN get ahead by working and B: how people like Professor Loomis hate you and want you dead if you don't believe as he does?
Not to mention students who don't feel like they have to play 'agree with the Professor' and be quiet; isn't THAT a horrible thought?


"Why should we trust the major media?" Part 372.
Doesn't help that they think the laws don't apply to them, either.


 Erin is having some serious family health trouble; if have a minute, might leave her some good thoughts.


Back to the media, how many of the reports they made after Newtown turned out to be bullshit?  And the 'corrections' were bullshit?  But we're supposed to believe what they report, not trust anyone else?
And now this:
As Ben Domenech said in the Transom, which is where I got that link, marketing guy should learn the term "false positives". Hell, every time I go anywhere that sells ammo, I pick up a few boxes. Couple this with that dangerous accumulation of school backpacks for the kids from L.L. Bean, and data guy would have the cops camped out on my doorstep.
But, hey, what's a little invasion of privacy for such a laudable goal. And by little, I mean massive.


 Biden's commission?  Who's going on it?
The White House selected Dixon for the task force because of his position as vice president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
People who want a complete ban on the ownership of guns, of course.  And find definitions very, ah, 'expandable' let us say:
President Obama created the gun violence task force to devise new gun safety proposals by January. Dixon said no concrete measures were adopted at the Dec. 20 meeting in Washington, but the group of a dozen people focused on new laws concerning assault weapons.
"We talked about redefining assault weapons and what assault weapons are," Dixon said. "Who should actually be allowed to have assault weapons? Should it be an everyday thing? Or should it be a process you have to go through to get an assault weapon?"
I'll bet they'll define AWs to be anything they don't like. 
Any takers?

Have you noticed that it's still NEVER

Obama's fault?  Or responsibility?

No matter what?

Also:

What Feinstein & Co. would like to force on the country:

• Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
• 120 specifically-named firearms
• Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
• Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
• Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
• Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
• Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
• Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
• Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds. 
• Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
• Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
• Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
• Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons

And that's not all.

I agree: HELL no.

From someone who grew up under communism in Romania:

My father once told me: son, the single biggest mistake me and your grandad did was to surrender our guns in 1949 when the communists made gun ownership illegal. You paid for our mistake and I am sorry for that.
Now I have a 22 year old son and I am making ANYONE who wants to come to my home take my guns away A PLEDGE: 

It's not a happy ending, but the sauce is getting a bit spicy

for the gander:
Let's see, editor, publisher, visual editor, publisher, CEO, other staff members; pretty good list there, addresses and all.


Attention David Gregory and Howard Kurtz:
Welcome to the world of gun owners, where you can be charged with a crime and jailed for having a metal box with a spring inside that's longer than the local authorities approve of.

How do you like it?  (Not much, from all the whining)

Oh, that petition on deporting Morgan?  A way for people to say they're tired of a whining, arrogant, corrupt journalist whining at, insulting and generally acting like a jerk toward anyone who won't agree with him; another use of the 1st Amendment.

Deal with it.


Speaking of wankers thrown out of their own country who come here to bitch and whine, I have news for you, Mr. Morgan: a sacred text of a religion is not up for 'amending' because you decide 'times have changed'.
Tell you what, why don't you demonstrate your commitment to change by having some imam on the show and telling him the Koran needs to be amended to no longer call for the deaths of Jews, and homosexuals, and unbelievers in general(which you won't do, because it would require both balls and some integrity)?

Speaking of the obnoxious little shit,

Another view on the "We must not waste this crisis!"-mongers:
Demonizing those who support gun freedom was always intended as a weapon to silence them. It was also critical that we, law-abiding gun owners, become the Other. By dehumanizing us and painting us as evil, it is that much easier to strip us of our rights. 

But gun freedom advocates fought back. Using the mainstream media, conservative media and especially social media – we need to understand its huge significance here – gun freedom advocates countered liberals’ bogus “facts.” Media reports about “automatic” weapons were corrected, clownish statements about “high caliber magazines” and “large capacity round” were mocked. The struggle raged over millions of Facebook posts. The average citizen saw gun banners ask “When will America control access to weapons?” and then saw several experts among his or her friends post about the significant hurdles one needs to get over to get a gun. Truth bypassed the mainstream media and became a weapon for the side of fundamental rights. 

The banners overplayed their hand, losing credibility with every distortion, evasion and smear. The cries of “Blood is on your hands!” failed to resonate – reasonable Americans just did not blame the actions of a single sociopath on millions of their fellow neighbors. And it did not help when third-string celebrities and wizened literary has-beens took to hoping gun rights advocates would be shot for daring to oppose disarmament.


And, from where Great Britain used to be: bad guys using kitchen knives? Why the solution is obvious!
The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.
Holmes, Watson, Churchill, and Sir Colin Campbell are quietly weeping.

I love happy endings

Found a dog outside this morning.  Some kind of husky/shepherd mix, looked like, curled up in a corner by the fence.  No tag.  Cold, shivering, and badly wanted in the yard with my dogs.

Some food & water helped.  Called animal control and got on the schedule to get him picked up(budget cuts, etc.)  Then had the bright idea of posting a pic on Facebook, and a friend pointed me to a site there, OKC Pups: lost & found dogs and such.  Put up a picture there, wasn't five minutes till someone pointed me to a lost dog post; less than 15 minutes later a frantic guy almost slid his car to a stop in the driveway.  Dog came out and "DADDYYYYY!"

I repeat, I love happy endings

Armed teacher bill being pushed here in OK

McCullough plans to introduce legislation that would give school teachers and administrators the right to carry firearms in school. Under current law in Oklahoma, it is a felony to possess a gun on school property.
...
And McCullough explained to KOKH’s Marisa Mendelson that parents shouldn’t worry because teachers would required to get the same type of Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training (CLEET) certification that police officers have.
So this isn't a 'teachers with carry permits can carry' bill, it's a 'Take LE CLEET training and then you can carry in school' bill.

I just love this objection:
Oklahoma parent Tom Jones, however, wasn’t comforted by McCullough’s assurances.
“I don’t believe that’s the answer, I really don’t,” Jones insisted. “I’d have to ask, how are you going to screen the teachers? How do you know you don’t have a mentally ill person?”
Um, because they've already been through the teacher screening?  And if that's not good enough for you, how much more screening should teachers have before they're in the classroom in the first place?

I like this better, personally:
Republican state Sen. Ralph Shortey is also on board with McCullough’s plan, but he said that he would allow any teacher with a concealed-carry permit to bring firearms into the school without additional training. 

“When citizens have the liberty to protect themselves, they will do so, and they will do so responsibly,” Shortey told The Oklahoman.


You'll note, if you read the comments, that the place is infested with socialists, democrats and gun bigots; piles of invective, and not much else.

Sarah Hoyt has a piece about the current mess

 well worth reading.  Which started me thinking(shut up).  This is kind of roundabout, so if you decide to read be ready to wind around the trees a bit.

And that brings us to where we are.  The war with Islam is just the front in the current European Expansion.  Europe is, of course, expanding its form of government, its mental furniture, to the lands of Islam, and Islam resents it.  They are the ultimate tribalist society.
Then there’s us.  We are the other front in that war.
 And yeah, there are lots of 'elites' who think we should join hands with the EUnuchs and bow to the UN as the world government; the rest of us just aren't smart enough to see that that's the way of the future: one world government that'll take all earnings(not just 'wealth', remember, all earnings) and distribute them as the elites and their pet bureaucrats(who actually run most of it) see fit.

(formerly Great)Britain is mostly down the drain; join a political party that's not PC-enough to suit the socialists?  Demand that the police enforce the law equally on everyone?  Say you have a right to defend yourself, family and home without being made a criminal?  Go to jail, lose kids, lose jobs, be called all kinds of names for not bowing down to the tin idol.  And the socialists and communists eating at us here want the same thing; they don't just argue points, they demonize, they threaten, they want to destroy the life of anyone who opposes them.

They'll accuse us of the same, because they really don't understand or flat hate what we really want: leave us alone.
Get your hand out of my pocket.
Stop claiming I owe you; earn your own.
Stop ordering me to pay for socialized crap I despise(You can't buy your own birth-control pills?  Really?  You can't tell your current male to buy some condoms?  What the hell do you mean, I OWE it to you to pay for your abortion because you were too lazy or stupid to do either of the above?)
Stop teaching my kids that this country is responsible for all evil in the world.
Stop using schools as indoctrination centers instead of schools.
And so on.
They never will, of course, because this is all they've got: hate and accusation and threats, "If you don't do what I want/think what I want/say what I want it means you hate ( )!"
And they really, really want the power to imprison and 're-educate' and kill anyone who doesn't bow down.

I threw that last at someone I used to know a while back, and they accused me of lying and exaggeration.  She really didn't like it being presented bluntly that every law she wants to shove down our throats carries the threat "Do what you're told, or it's jail or a grave."; can't speak too bluntly and honestly, y'know, it'll scare the masses into paying attention.  But that is what they want.
See Cuomo in NY and Feinstein in Sodom on the Potomac talking about 'forced buybacks' as an example: "You will let us give you some money for what you own, and if you don't we will imprison or kill you." for example.


Hoyt mentions that one thing that kept Rome going so long was the inclusiveness: become a Roman citizen, and that's it: you are Roman, with all rights and privileges(yes, I know, but that's the baseline).  A freedman, a former slave, had just about all the legal rights of a freeborn Roman except running for office; that freedman's children COULD run for office, many did.  One of the problems with the European Union ideal is that they want to get rid of all national identity, any identity except European("You are now New Romans!"), and except for the bureaucrats and high-level 'elites', it doesn't work.  They're having real problems(always have) with trying to force that uniformity on everyone, for various reasons.  And that's not including one of the nastier messes still growing, that you can be arrested for 'hate speech' if you talk about: muslim immigrants.

Germany, for instance, brought in lots of Turks as 'guest workers'; it was generally understood that they were to do the low-level labor that lots of Germans didn't want to do, and that's it.  No matter how long they stayed, they'd never actually become Germans, even if they wanted.  Happened all over Europe, especially as birth rates dropped; hey, if there are not enough kids, let alone kids willing to start at the bottom and work up, you need someone to take their place.  Especially when you've got a social model that depends on those kids, and you're not having them; it doesn't fix the problem, but it covers it up for a while.  While the pressure builds and you work hard to ignore it.

Here?  My kids, if you count everything, are parts Scots-Irish, Cherokee, English, Kiowa-Apache and German(and if something a grandmother once mentioned is true, a bit of Swede in there somewhere); here that makes them full-blood American.  Yes, you've got racists and bigots, we're humans and those will always be around; La Raza is just as nasty and racist as the KKK, just from the other direction.  People like Rev. Wright and Jesse Jackson and Sharpton and the New Black Panthers, the KKK has nothing on them in hating anyone with the wrong skin color.  Idiots who don't see a problem with harassing other black kids who're actually trying to learn in school for 'acting white'; oh yeah, we've got them.  But everyone else doesn't give a damn.  "Can you do the job?  Can you do it properly and well?  Can I trust you?  Yes?  Then I don't give a crap about your skin color or church, I've got real things to worry about."*

But Europe has millions of people who were, for the most part, flatly told "You're not here to become 'X', you're here to do work we don't want to dirty our hands with."  Add to that those who either never wanted or no longer want to integrate, and you've got the situation in France: if the 'disaffected north-African youths' only steal and burn, oh, 50 cars in a weekend, it's not really considered news anymore, and let's not talk about it because it doesn't fit our 'one big happy country' picture.  Big areas of cities where women without the right skin color and dress don't dare go because they'll be kidnapped and gang-raped; places the police only go in heavily-armed units, and only go when they're forced to act.  And lots and lots of politicians and PC-at-any-cost fools who refuse to allow notice to be taken.  Here's a video not long ago from the Netherlands of a guy who protested the swearing-in of a couple of newly-elected councilmen:

 the two were muslim and had flatly stated they wanted to see sharia as the law.  The man protested that that violated the oath they were taking to uphold Dutch law, and he was insulted and chased out.  No problem with the new counselors who openly want the democratic government destroyed, oh no, but don't you DARE talk openly about it.

But deriding America?  Oh, that's fine!  We openly, legally own guns and refuse to give them up, we don't like communism and socialism, we make jokes about the EU, we fight the socialists who want to control our lives: WE'RE the enemy they want to talk about, to insult.

And that brings us to where we are.  The war with Islam is just the front in the current European Expansion.  Europe is, of course, expanding its form of government, its mental furniture, to the lands of Islam, and Islam resents it.  They are the ultimate tribalist society.
Then there’s us.  We are the other front in that war.
 And they hate and fear us worse.  More than slightly stupid; we may be a threat to their desired hegemony, but we don't want to kill them, and the muslims do.
I think two reasons:
One, they actually think all they've got to do is keep pushing their communism-with-a-smiley-face model on the muslim world, and it'll finally join in("No, all that 'kill the unbelievers' stuff is just window-dressing, they don't actually believe that!")
Second, they do see us as a real threat, because so many of us say "No.  Not joining.  You want to be trading partners, fine, but try to force your government on us and we'll kick your ass."  THAT they fear**.  Because if there's anyplace with high visibility that won't join in, it threatens the whole plan.

 Sooner or later, things are probably going to explode over there.  The islamists are going to openly form enclaves of sharia law and raid out from them.  There will be slaves taken, and beheadings, and the whole works(yes, I really do think it could happen).  Considering the status of slavery in the world, especially in some arab/muslim countries, it wouldn't surprise me if video comes out of an open slave auction with non-muslims being sold.  And if the governments don't act to stop it, it will break into open civil war(you want a real headache, try to figure out how the governments will try to make everybody happy and mostly blame the non-muslims; and imagine how that'll make it worse).

And what'll make it even more fun is a bunch of our politicians and the socialists will want to 'intervene to prevent harm'.  They'll want to send troops(who they hate, and have starved of equipment and supplies and training) into the middle of the mess.  Where both sides will shoot at them, and somehow it'll all be our fault that the mess happened in the first place.
Because both groups of idiots will still fear and hate us at least as much, probably more, than the ones actually trying to kill them.




*There's a quote from someone,  Why would I hate you for the color of your skin, when there are GOOD reasons to hate you?

**Which is really, truly stupid.  They fear us being unwilling to join in their Union more than they fear people who flatly state "We will see you Submit to our beliefs, or we will see you dead".

Oh joy, the celebritutes are mad at each other

One says a new movie is 'disrespectful to his ancestors', the other says 'screw you'.
Apparently if you're not the first, you're not supposed to use racial stuff in a movie.  Or not without his approval.  Or something.
Oh, Lee?  Black Africans weren't 'stolen' from Africa by white slave raiders; they were generally bought from the other black Africans who ran slave raids and happily sold them to whoever gave the highest price.
And I wonder when Lee will start screaming and yelling about the arabs who kept raiding for slaves and- in some places- are STILL keeping blacks as slaves?


Let us not forget, Piers Morgan is not just a bigoted jackass, he's a journalistic faker.


The State Department under Clinton and Obama: punishment actually means 'you're on paid leave for a while'.


Now Feinstein wants to call it a 'forced buyback'; apparently she decided 'confiscation' was getting a bad reaction.


Just a reminder: the staff on the NY Journal News are finding out about that 'sauce for the goose' thing.  Wonder how they like it?


So now Egypt has a sharia-based constitution.  That went well, didn't it?


The sun is out, and it's up to a whole 14 degrees, and the streets still have that mirror-sheen appearance; I'd like to go do a couple of things while I'm free, but not till it warms enough that the streets can melt a little.  They're saying 31 for the high this afternoon; we'll see.

So, after several days of WINTER STORM! Updated

6-8 INCHES OF SNOW!!! crap, this morning it became "Oh, the storm moved further south than our models predicted..."  maybe 2" by tonight; enough that the roads are fairly bad but that's it.  Of course, the people further south who were told to expect, oh, 2-4" are kind of screwed.
Update: MAYBE an inch of snow here; with just enough freezing rain to turn the streets and anything else flat into surfaces with the traction of wet, buttered glass.  I tried to take a walk, and after the second meeting of pavement decided that wasn't a good idea.

So, it being that I'm here instead of with the people I had planned to see, I'm browsing over the web.
Remember the NY Journal News deciding to make an interactive map of people with handgun licenses?  It was decided that Publisher Janet Hasson and reporter Dwight Worley should find that sauce for the goose, etc.
And let's not forget a bit on Publisher CynDee Royale.

FWIW also notes that the school where lots of important people who show disdain for armed guards in schools send their kids has a friggin' infantry squad guarding the place.
And that's NOT including the Secret Service there for Obama's kids.


Gee, I wonder if our noble Attorney General and the DoJ he runs will consider a openly-published assassination list worth investigating, seeing as it's from a left-wing enviroweenie group?


The apparent motto at CNN: Twist words and tell lies, even as you're being corrected.


The Daily Mail takes not of the sales of magazines for EBRs; it'd be nice if they could
A: Get their facts straight, and
B: Not infuse the story with Eville Assault crap.


A slight hitch for Cuomo's confiscation-by-another-name plan: his broke-ass state can't afford it.
Poor little elitist bastards: they're afraid if they just order confiscations they'll get their ass handed to them in court for seizing private property without compensation, but they can't afford the compensation.  And if they try to short it, they're back to the courts.
Which I don't consider that much of a safeguard with these people: Nagin and New Orleans were ordered multiple times to return guns they seized, and how many are still rusting in barrels?  How many just 'disappeared'?  How hard did the bastards make it to even try to get your property back?  I don't doubt that if Cuomo thought he could get away with it he'd do the same: order confiscation and then seize as many as possible and then- at the least- make it as long, hard and expensive as possible for people to even try to get them back, all the while dragging things out in courts.


And, by the way, ever notice that a lot of the people causing "We must ban something!" demands wouldn't have been able to do bad things if they'd been locked up like they should have been?
Spengler was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer, according to New York State Department of Corrections records. After prison [16 years] he spent eight years on parole. 
...
Jones was convicted in 2009 of the high-profile, brutal beating death of ‘the Tuba Man,’ a beloved Seattle street musician. Because he was 16 at the time, he served less than 36 weeks in juvenile detention.


Used to have actors like Charles Durning:
He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his Army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.
In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
“Too many bad memories,” he told an interviewer in 1997. “I don’t want you to see me crying.”
Now we have "America is like a clumsy puppy' assholes like Johnny Depp and communist-lovers like Sean Penn.


So David Gregory & Co. were flatly told that it would break the law for them to show a 30-round mag, and they did it anyway. 
Anybody believing the DC Police will actually do anything, you need help.


About that petition to deport Piers Morgan,
I wonder why the pitch for signing omits the strongest reason: "pontificating, underinformed, supercilious twit, whose arrival here was in violation of the legal prohibitions against importing foreign insect pests." There's that. Hell, even Professor Elemental apologizes for the clown(at about 2:45)


And that's it for now.  I think, my fingers having thawed from shoveling the walk, I'll do something that requires more dexterity than typing.

Two last things for tonight(I promise!)

When the kids were about 7 and 5, we were planning to go to the grandparents for Christmas when OK delivered one of the more malicious 'wait a minute' surprises: ice storm.

Not a bad one, but it left about a 1/16 to 1/8" skin of ice on everything.  And it was cold enough that the roads wouldn't melt with traffic.  I didn't think we should go, but was convinced otherwise. So, we all loaded into the car and headed southwest.

Slowly.

I'd figured that, once we got to the turnpike it might be better, as they're pretty good about salting and sanding it.  We didn't get to find out. We're going along at about 25mph, me as tense behind the wheel as I've ever been and planning just how long it was going to take to get there, when we reached the Canadian River bridge. It's a nice, wide bridge.  Now coated with ice. Being surrounded by a bunch of other idiots people heading that direction as we reached the bridge, my anxiety level went up  a bit; one thing to watch yourself, another to have to watch all those other people.  That lasted about ten seconds.

At that point we'd reached roughly halfway across the bridge when a car in front, for God-knows-what reason, started curving and sliding left.  And other people twitched their wheels and touched brakes.  I'm sitting there, afraid to even let off the gas, chanting "Don't try to turn" to myself and keeping my eyes locked on the line.  And somehow, it worked: with cars hitting the guard rails and each other all around, we kept tracking straight ahead and clear of it all.

That was it.  There was an exit about 1/4 mile ahead and I announced we were turning back.  Wife said "I think that's best."  Kids announced "Awwww!"
"I SAID WE'RE HEADING HOME."
"awwww."

I managed to get turned around, and we made it home with no more excitement(probably extending my life by about five years).  The kids were disappointed, and I was pissed at myself for letting everyone else convince me to try.  But we were whole and the car undamaged*.

Second:
And now, with somewhere between 4-8" of snow and sleet forecast for tomorrow, I bid you good night.
And plan on staying home tomorrow.


*Not counting the fingerprints permanently pressed into the steering wheel

Well, well, well, that kind of trashes the 'strict gun laws will make us safe'

argument:

Contrary to widely-accepted national myths, public gun ownership is commonplace in most European states. It may appear to some outside observers—especially Americans—that Europeans have blindly surrendered their gun rights (Heston, 2002). The reality is that the citizens of most European countries are better armed than they realize. ...
Regulations tightly control gun ownership in only a few European countries like the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. In much of the rest of the continent, public officials readily admit that unlicensed owners and unregistered guns greatly outnumberlegal ones. ...

"Greatly outnumber?” Just how greatly?
Well, says the Small Arms Survey, a research outfit established by the Swiss government, the United Kingdom, with just shy of 1.8 million legal firearms, has about four million illegal guns. Belgium, with about 458,000 legal firearms, has roughly two million illegal guns. In Germany, the number is 7.2 million legal guns and between 17 and 20 million off-the-books examples of things that go “bang” (a figure with which the German Police Union very publicly agrees). France, says the Survey, has 15-17 million unlawful firearms in a nation where 2.8 million weapons are held in compliance with the law.
 
 And this:
Small Arms Survey reports that, for Europe, illegal guns tend to flow from East to West. In need of the hard cash that black market dealings can provide, and suspicious of state power after decades of heavy-handed rule, Eastern Europe has become a major source for manufacturing and distributing illegal weapons—and of overall defiance of gun restrictions.

In central and eastern Europe, quiet resistance to over 40 years of socialist rule created a pervasive culture of non-cooperation with public authorities. When communism collapsed, leaving power to be inherited by weak and disorganized democratic regimes, innumerable opportunities arose for people to acquire and hide personal guns. It is no wonder that in much of the region registered guns appear to be the exception.

LOTS more at the link.  Pass it around.

Think about it: all those preening "We don't allow guns!" EUnuchs, and these are the real numbers. 
So if the EUnuchs can't disarm their own populations, with the laws they have, what the hell makes the politicians think it'll work here?

Oh, yeah: as Kevin says, "We have to do it again, only HARDER!"

The New York Journal News: miserable little hypocrites

Yeah, it's Christmas Eve, but this kind of crap needs to be pointed out:
New York newspaper the Journal News has published the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. You know, as though they’re on some kind of sex offenders register. But look at this note attached to the accompanying news story:Editor’s note: Journal News reporter Dwight R. Worley owns a Smith & Wesson 686 .357 Magnum and has had a residence permit in New York City for that weapon since February 2011.

No address given. "
Because the address of THEIR REPORTER is important to protect, but not that of anyone else...

Also in the link, note that the PM's neighbors LIKE having armed men around. I wonder if they realize those guards aren't there to protect any of them?

The current Merry Christmas forecast:

Sleet before 9am, then snow. Temperature falling to around 22 by 5pm. North northeast wind 11 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow and sleet accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible.
 Earlier it was '4 to 6, may be higher in some areas'; I'd be happier with actual numbers if there wasn't a 4" variance in them.

"Mom, guess what I found!"

indeed:
Kyle Cummings, a three-year-old boy from Queensland, Australia, was delighted to find a pile of eggs in his backyard, so he did what any toddler would do: he scooped them up and stashed them in his closet. Three days later, his mother discovered the not-so-delightful result of her son’s curiosity, when seven eastern brown snakes–the second most venomous snake in the world–came slithering out.
Actually, I believe they're like just-hatched rattlesnakes; small amounts of venom but still dangerous as hell.


The other day I had a 'why people hate vegans' link; today I have a "Why we think globular warmening True Believers are freaking nuts:
“GW deniers fall into a completely different category from Behring Breivik. They are already causing the deaths of hundreds of millions of future people. We could be speaking of billions, but I am making a conservative estimate.”
Consequences
If a jury of suitably qualified scientists estimated that a given GW denier had already, with high probability (say 95%), caused the deaths of over one million future people, then s/he would be sentenced to death. The sentence would then be commuted to life imprisonment if the accused admitted their mistake, demonstrated genuine regret, AND participated significantly and positively over a long period in programs to reduce the effects of GW (from jail) – using much the same means that were previously used to spread the message of denial. At the end of that process, some GW deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them. The death penalty would have been justified in terms of the enormous numbers of saved future lives.
This is from Richard Parncutt, Professor of Systematic Musicology, University of Graz, Austria.
Who, like so many who say crap like this, don't seem to understand that The Interwebs Is Forever.


More "You commoners have no business owning guns; you're not a Only One, after all" crap.
Which might gain more traction if we didn't know what lousy shots so many cops are.


There is a ghastly ahistoricity in these complaints against the antiquity of the Second Amendment. What very few understand is the power-relations of the progression of arms in the past five hundred years. In 1789, the flintlock musket was the "assault weapon" of its day. It was every bit as dangerous and menacing then as the AR-15 is now. Anyone who doubts this need only reflect upon the fact that civilians took their weapons into battle against the greatest military power in the world, and prevailed.


Jeez, not only does Obama have to make everthing about him, he has to lie about it.


Proving- again- that the Stupid Party leadership is a bunch of clowns.


If this is correct, Syria has told Obama and the EUnuchs to kiss its ass and used chemical weapons.  Wonder what the reaction will be(if any)?


Why do people lack trust in the media?  Let us reflect on one of the reasons:
In the final version that went to air,  not only did three of the four key sets of evidence that fuel our skepticism vanish, the editors split and diced sentences to make it appear that David said a sentence he never actually said. He doesn’t think the poorly sited thermometers show the “models were wrong” (we have much better evidence than that); that’s illogical and absurd. Everything I said of any substance was edited out (which I’m kinda proud of). They came all that way to watch me try to convince Anna Rose, then left me with 18 bland words.  Perhaps what I discussed (and Anna’s weak replies) was too dangerous, not easy to mock, and they couldn’t ambush Nick Minchin with any experts that could debunk what I said?


Rep. Jerrold Nadler(Gun Bigot & Hoplophobe-NY) lies. Again and again and again.


And that's enough.  I've got crap I want and need to do.  Catch you folks later.

The number one thing for the day: To all my friends who read this,

and all my acquaintances on this here innerweb:

Merry Christmas to you all!
May you be warm and happy!

And if you don't like that greeting, you can bugger off.

Hey, Slate, what did you expect? To Obama,

EVERYTHING is about him.


The level of- stupid? hope over facts?- in this is just amazing:
Ammunition will be registered and signed for just like sudafed in a drugstore. There will be a one time purchase limit per month unless exception made in advance. For all of you folks saying that won’t work; that it will cause a black market, you are right but we have to try otherwise we will be Gotham City in no time. "It won't work, BUT WE HAVE TO DO IT ANYWAY, OR ELSE!!" Jeez.


From a post by the Dutchman some time back:
"I, myself, remained on the balcony and fired at the confused and embarrassed Germans with my Mauser. From my balcony, I could see them in all their helplessness and their loss of control. The air was full of wails and shouts. Many of them tried to run to the walls of the houses for cover but everything was barred and beyond that, death was pursuing them. In the noise, the fluster, and the cries of the wounded, we heard the astonished outcry of one of the Germans: 'Juden haben waffen! Juden haben waffen!' ('The Jews have arms!') . . .

The battle lasted for about a half an hour. The Germans withdrew and there were many corpses and wounded in the street." -- Recollection of the opening engagement on 19 April 1943 of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Haim Frymer, Jewish Fighting Organization, quoted in Resistance by Israel Gutman, New York, 1994, pp. 206-207.
Post then moves on into the usefulness of stripper clips('chargers' more correctly, but...)


I've linked to this before, but it's a good time to do so again: someone asks why a plain old citizen(I refuse to use 'civilian' for this) might actually need a gun, tell them to go read.

If they're a hard-core gun bigot or hoplophobe, it probably won't help; for others, it just might.


Let it not be forgotten that the three worst mass-murderers of modern history were all socialists; and two of them really seemed fond of using starvation for the killing.
(thanks to the Dutchman for the link)


Naw, nobody want to take our guns; the leftists and apologists all say so.
Oops.
Amid talk of reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired eight years ago, police departments nationwide are thinking of ways to confiscate such weapons.

As WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond reported, among the departments considering taking action is the NYPD. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said if Congress were to reinstate the ban, police are wondering whether it will be their responsibility to confiscate them.


I think it was Tam who said 'a loophole is someone legally doing something you don't like':
Although senior correspondent Judy Wooodruff asked Gross about banning so-called "assault weapons," he quickly turned the subject to private sales, leading Woodruff to (understandably) believe that he thought a private sales ban should be pursued instead of a new AWB. Gross was quick to deny that that was his intent, but nevertheless chided Kopel for continuing to talk about "assault weapons," rather than private sales.

This is not because Gross does not passionately want a new AWB--he certainly does. Presumably, though, he sees a private sales ban as being a more attainable goal in the short term.

As the spammers(may every reindeer in the world

crap on their heads) have been working overtime lately, I'm turning word verification back on for a while.