You Know, I Really Should Write Something

But I'm just not feeling it.

Maybe later.

For Breda

Since I've not, you know, actually been blogging recently:


From the Canadian Open Fastdraw Championships.  The hands (and fingernails) in question belong to multiple World Fast Draw Association champion Nicole Franks.  (Helluva photograph, no?)

I've tried Fast Draw a couple of times.  Very, very challenging.

Quote of the Day - Michael Ramirez Edition

A black President and Attorney General?  That's just crazy talk!!

The Immortal Corporation, Part I

The Immortal Corporation is the title of the second chapter of Kevin D. Williamson's new book, The End is Near and It's Going to be Awesome, and that chapter is about, not corporations, but government.  It has been said that "Governments presumably will exist forever. People do not."

Yes indeed, governments will presumably exist forever.  Just not the same ones.  But governments can last, unless they are very, very bad, for a very, very long time.

I ran across this image at Gerard Van der Leun's American Digest:


The asterisk denotes that some classical liberals did support public funding of education (like Thomas Jefferson) while others (like Frederick Bastiat) did not.  Following the link trail, I discovered that the original poster accompanied it with a quote from F.A. Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom, from his essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative" (PDF):

Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments.

And the evidence largely supports this.

And I would be fine with that, seeing as I'm not a conservative either, but I am a minarchist and I am not at all pleased with the direction of the path that we're being dragged down and which is illustrated in that image above.  Rev. Donald Sensing wrote several years ago,

Big government is itself apolitical. It cares not whose party is in power. It simply continues to grow. Its nourishment is the people’s money. Its excrement is more and more regulations and laws. Like the Terminator, "that’s what it does, that’s all it does."

And we're seeing more and more evidence of the metastasizing growth of Big Government every day—NSA snooping into our telephone records, use of surveillance drones over American soil, Radley Balko's coverage of the explosive growth of SWAT team raids (Seriously? The Department of Education has a SWAT team?), IRS harassment of "TEA Party" groups, and now a massive "Federal Data Hub" being implemented to go along with Obamacare, just for a short list.

That joke about ordering a pizza for delivery is no longer so goddamned funny.


Or so farfetched.

None of this began with the present administration—far from it—but the pace does seem to be accelerating exponentially.

On the topic of corporations, Kevin Williamson writes:

Twenty-first-century corporations are more like temporary associations of people and capital lucky to survive for a few decades, and, if present trends continue, the future corporation will be an even more ad hoc tissue of tenuous short-term relationships.

--

Given the power of branding and the impressive headquarters that corporations still sometimes inhabit, and American presidents' habit of picking corporate executives for influential positions, it is easy to mistake familiar corporations for enduring, deeply structured enterprises.  The illusion of permanence that led to the building of the Chrysler Building is for the most part a thing of the past—which is why there are multibillion-dollar corporations that work out of rented space.

--

The corporate lifetime is shortening becaue the pace of social learning is accelerating.  More complex economic entities develop adaptive strategies more quickly.  We recognize our economic mistakes more quickly and develop alternatives in great number and at high speed.  Understood properly, bankruptcy and business failure are pedagogical tools: They are an important part of how individuals, businesses, and industries learn—and the global marketplace is an exercise in social learning.

Strange thing:  Nobody ever stopped to ask, "If there is no U.S. Steel, then where will we get steel?"

--

It seems paradoxical, but failure is what makes us rich.  (And we are, even in these troubled times, fabulously rich.) We'd all be a lot worse off if corporations such as U.S. Steel did in fact live forever.  Obvious counterexamples include Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service, two institutions that would have failed long ago if not for government support—subsidies for Amtrak, the government-chartered monopoly on letter delivery for the postal service.  The cost of their corporate immortality is not only the waste associated with maintaining them, but the fact that their continued existence prevents the emergence of superior alternatives.  No death, no evolution.  A political establishment is a near-deathless thing:  Even after the bitter campaign of 2012, voters returned essentially the same cast of characters to Washington, virtually ensuring the continuation of the policies with which some 90 percent of voters pronounced themselves dissatisfied.

And now Detroit is trying to file for bankruptcy, but is being told by another entity of government that it can't.

Williamson again:

In politics there is very little reason to grow less wrong, and sometimes good reason to grow more wrong. In aggregate, this leads to destructive policy choices. This is a structural defect inherent in the political model of decision making. Substituting one political philosophy for another will not eliminate the underlying problem. The problem of politics is, for the most part, not that politics is full of bad people or stupid people; the shocking truth is that politics is full of intelligent, well-meaning people. Often they do things the know are not the best or smartest move, and usually it is in the belief that by tolerating smaller wrongs they may serve a greater good. When this produces an outcome the public likes, that is called compromise; otherwise it is called hypocrisy, but it is difficult to tell the difference at the margins, and the shamefacedness with which politicians sometimes go about such business is probably a good sign.

--

Politics suffers from an insurmountable information deficit, resulting in an inability to plan. It suffers from problems associated with the self-interest of politicians and political institutions. Both of these are made much more acute by the fact that politics has for centuries successfully insulated itself from competitive and innovative forces that produce gradual (and sometimes radical) evolutionary change in other social institutions. Each of these problems is a direct consequence of the fact that politics is, as noted, a monopoly.

But a monopoly on what?

I'll let Bethesda, Maryland resident Ernest McGill answer that question.  From a letter he submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine (rejected), and the American Medical Association (ditto):

The monopoly on the exercise of armed force, separated from simple gun ownership, defines sovereignty. Government is the administrative apparatus of sovereignty.

Or as Kevin Williamson puts it, "Politics is Violence," and therefore government is a monopoly on violence.  It's called legitimate violence, but a monopoly nonetheless.

Now that expansion in SWAT raids seems a little more logical, doesn't it?

(To be continued....)

Rendezvous!

Only 45 days until Gun Blogger Rendezvous VIII!  As I've reported previously, the activities this year will include some time using the new OCAT (Optical Computer Aided Training) System both indoors with a laser, and outdoors with live-fire. Here's a demo:


Plus, one attendee will be taking one home with them!

If you attend, you can also win a new Ruger Blackhawk in .357 Magnum, a Hi-Point pistol-caliber carbine, or a youth-sized Stevens take-down .22 rifle.

Mr. Completely says:

The Gun Blogger Rendezvous is not just for gun bloggers. if you read gun blogs, enjoy shooting or shooting sports, are interested in Second Amendment issues, or are in the shooting sports industry in some manner, you are all welcome to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous.

As we have done for the last seven years at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, every penny we can raise goes to benefit Soldiers Angels and project Valour-IT. if you have not attended a Rendezvous in a few years, then this is the year for you to get back into the swing of the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. The registration for the Rendezvous is only $30, and it has not changed price in eight years. For the $30, you get one dinner, two breakfasts, access to all of the events, and several trips to the door prize table. Between now and the Rendezvous dates there may be additional items and benefits also added. The Silver Legacy hotel and casino where we are holding the Rendezvous provides the hospitality room for us at no charge, since we book a block of rooms for the attendees. they also provide free in room Wi-Fi for attendees.

It is very important that you send in your registration right away, so that we will know how many people are planning on attending. We are expecting a really good turnout this year, and it is possible that those who sign up at the last minute may not be able to get in on all of the free meals. We must notify the hotel well in advance as to how many people will be eating at each meal. If we give them a number that is too high we pay for those meals whether they are eaten or not. If we give the hotel a number that is too small there may not be enough meals for everyone to eat. As you can see, it is very important that you get your registration in right away. Since the all you can eat pizza feed on Saturday night sponsored by NSSF is not catered, we can order the amount of pizza that we need right at the last minute, so everyone will get plenty of pizza!

To make your room reservations at the Silver Legacy you need to use the group code GBLOG13 in order to get the discounted room rate. to use this group code and to get the discounted room right, you must place your reservations by telephone. It will not work if you try to book online. The telephone number for the Silver Legacy is 1-800-687-7733.

To register for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous you must download the registration form and mail it in along with your $30 to the address on the registration form. you're check will be deposited into a Gun Blogger Rendezvous escrow account, and after the Rendezvous one check for the total amount will be sent to soldiers Angels.

If it is too far to Reno for you to drive, and you would prefer not flying, the Amtrak train station is only a block or so away from the Silver Legacy.

This is definitely the year to come to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno. We will be having more fun and more activities than we have ever had in the past. Hopefully, we will also be raising more money for Soldiers Angels than we ever have raised at any previous Gun Blogger Rendezvous. For that to happen, however, we need for you to come to the Rendezvous, bring your friends, and also help promote the Rendezvous by forwarding this on to other folks who you think would also enjoy coming to Reno for the Rendezvous.

So make your plans! I'd love to meet you!

Quote of the Day - James Madison Edition

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be to-morrow.

Via "non-starter" Thomas Sowell.

Discuss.

OK, Let's Have a Vote (Bumped)

Markadelphia is currently doing his thing in the comments to So Detroit Files for Bankruptcy, having veered off into a non sequitur thread about Trayvon Martin and race relations in the U.S.  Current comment count as I write this is 91.

I will admit that through the years (going on seven now), Markadelphia has inspired some pretty good posts (see the left sidebar) and a LOT of outstanding commentary (inspired, not generated).  And I will admit to "hunting over bait" to draw him and his special brand of Leftist brain-damage out from time to time, but as the GeekWitha.45 (among others) has noted more than once, what Markadelphia does in general is well described as comment shitting.  Great for traffic, but the signal-to-noise ratio drops right the hell off when he starts up.

I, your "Cult Grand Wizard" have said that I will never ban him from this site, but he left once previously voluntarily when he believed he had been "voted off the island" by my readers.  I pointed out to him the "vote" was 2-2, which is known in my world as "a tie."  So he came back.

So let's do this for real.  Leave a comment below:  Should Markadelphia be voted off the island, Yes or No?

UPDATE:  Regardless of the vote, I'm not going to ban-hammer Markadelphia.  I'm going to let his conscience be his guide (I can't believe I actually wrote that.)   Voting concludes Monday at midnight, MST.

As of 4PM MST 7/20/13:  Yes - 4, No - 9

As of 9:30PM 7/20/13:      Yes - 5, No - 11

As of 7:50AM 7/21/13:      Yes - 5, No - 16

5:05PM 7/21/13:               Yes - 10, No - 13, Abstaining - 3

I just rechecked the comment thread and also my email.  Sixty-two comments, 23 votes.  A couple of people have changed their votes, I've gotten one "Yes" vote via email because Disqus refuses to work for them, and I think I might have double-counted one "No" vote on the last round.  Somebody check my work.

07:28 7/22/13:  OK, with Unix having now weighed in, the vote stands at:  Yes:  12 13,  No:  14 (two "Yes" votes via email) and Abstaining:  2.  Voting continues until midnight tonight.  Anything timestamped after that will be ignored.  Honestly, it's closer than I thought it would be.

I changed the "Yes" count to 13.  I'm tired of him, too.  I'd have been happy if he hadn't gotten progressively (and I use that word deliberately) worse over the last six years, but his complete wharrgarbl of late has prompted me into it (and this post).  I still won't ban him, but I am tired of him and would not be disappointed if he took his navel lint and went home.

12:32 7/22/13:  TIE!  Yes - 14, No - 14, Abstaining - 2.  Less than twelve hours left.
14:03 7/22/13:  Another vote change.  Yes - 15, No - 13, Abstaining - 2.
18:40 7/22/13:  Yes - 16, No - 16, Abstaining - 2.  Yup.  We're a monolithic cult here marching in mindless lockstep.  What kind of "Cult Grand Wizard" am I?

UPDATE — FINAL TALLY:

YES	NO	ABSTAIN
DJ	juris imprudent	Lyle
Toastrider	Helen Thomas	Perlhaqr
Peter G. (email)	Grumpy Old Fart
Merchant O'Death (email)	GuardDuck
Phil B	RandyGC
Andrew P	Robert Frampton
QuadGMoto	Frognot
Mark Dietzler	John Pryce
GeekWithA.45	Ragin' Dave
Pascal	MiddleAgeKen
DC	Jeffro
Unix-Jedi	John Hardin
Mark D	Steve
John Hardin	6Kings
Will	Haplo9
Dixie	MrBill
JustSomeGuy
Peter Barrett

One late vote from pedeim was excluded.  "Yes" - 18, "No" - 16, Abstain - 2.  I left my vote off because it didn't matter.  The People Have Spoken.

UPDATE 4:07 MST 7/23/13 - Now that we're done with this, I'm going to lock this thread in a little bit.  If you have something you want to say, please get it off your chest, but leave comments specifically about Markadelphia out of it.  We've voted, it's done.

Quote of the Day - Mark Steyn Edition

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina declared Detroit's bankruptcy "unconstitutional" because, according to the Detroit Free Press, "the Michigan Constitution prohibits actions that will lessen the pension benefits of public employees." Which means that, in Michigan, reality is unconstitutional. -- The Downfall of Detroit

Much, much, much more at the link.

Race and Self-Defense

Massad Ayoob relates a miscarriage of justice. (Watch the whole thing, but this link starts at the story I wish to relate.)  I had not heard of this, or if I had I never posted about it.  That gets fixed now.  Listen to Mass explain the situation, then go read this.  I've found nothing more current.  If anyone else has more information, please let me know and I'll post it.

Another case where Qualified Immunity should be rescinded.

RCOB.

h/t to /var/log/otto

Quote of the Day - Health Care Edition

This is a long one.  As I've previously mentioned, I'm currently reading Kevin D. Williamson's new book, The End is Near and It's Going to be Awesome:  How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer, Happier and More Secure.  I generally try to read one non-fiction and one fiction book at the same time.  No, not with one eyeball on each text.  I read the fiction book when I'm at home, I read the non-fiction generally during lunch breaks.  I've recently finished the novel I was reading and The End is Near is getting pretty interesting, so I spent some time today with it.

What follows is an excerpt from the chapter titled Health Care is a Pencil that makes up one of the better explanations of just why the American health care system is as expensive as everyone complains about:

The price of health care is high because there is no price for health care.

Some years ago, I found myself needing a medical procedure at the same time I was considering changing jobs.  It was a possibility that I might find myself without health insurance and paying for the procedure out of pocket.  In order to calculate how I should modify my plans, I began calling around to various medical practices and inquiring as to the price of the procedure.  It was nearly impossible to get an answer other than "Let's see if your insurance covers it."  I was quite insistent that I needed a price that I could rely upon in the event that I needed to pay out of pocket, a proposition that seemed to universally mystify every medical professional with whom I came in contact.  After dozens of phone calls to several medical practices—including some very prestigious ones—the answer was the same:  "Talk to the lady in insurance."  When I finally succeeded in getting an estimate from one doctor, the possible price ranged from the low five figures to the low six figures, the higher end of the estimate being more than ten times the lower end.  Strange that I can get an exact price on an iPhone, a Honda Civic, or a pizza, but not on something as essential to my well-being as health care.

There are almost no consumer prices in health care.  Because there are no prices, there is no price discrimination by consumers, and therefore no pressure to keep prices down to where consumers can pay them.  It's a chicken-and-egg problem:  One of the reasons that we rely on insurance or government programs to pay medical bills is that the bills are too high for ordinary consumers to pay; one of the reasons that the bills are too high for ordinary consumers to pay is that we rely on insurance and government programs to pay for them.

--

American health care is great.  Health-care financing is a mess.

--

Is there something inherent in the structure of the health-care market that means consumers cannot pay expenses out of pocket and negotiate prices the way they would on a television or a car?  In some cases, yes:  If you get hit by a bus and are wheeled unconscious into the emergency room, you are not in a very good negotiating position.  Likewise, if your daughter has a brain tumor, you probably are going to pay whatever it costs to have that tumor treated.  but most health-care decisions are not immediate life-and-death issues.  There is less reason to think that consumers cannot negotiate the price of an annual checkup or routine dental work, the inevitable cuts and scrapes in life, or preventative and diagnostic care.  True, most consumers do not have a great deal of medical knowledge; most of them aren't telecommunications engineers either, but they manage to negotiate that market just fine.  But with no prices there can be no price discrimination and no negotiation—none of the iterative social learning that characterizes our most productive enterprises.

And here I will give a rare nod of appreciation to the Obama administration for at least giving a nod to this problem:

As part of the Obama administration's work to make our health care system more affordable and accountable, data are being released that show significant variation across the country and within communities in what providers charge for common services. These data include information comparing the charges for the 100 most common inpatient services and 30 common outpatient services.  Providers determine what they will charge for items and services provided to patients and these charges are the amount the providers bills for an item or service.

But that's not enough. Williamson elaborates:

The lack of consumer prices produces some truly odd consequences.  Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Dog Trainer Times (Sorry.  Ed.) identified a clinic that charges $4,432 for a CAT scan.  The clinic has a relationship with Blue Shield, which pays a negotiated price of about $2,200 for the same procedure.  And the out-of-pocket price for a consumer paying cash?  Only $250.  But they do not advertise that price.

It's gotten so bad that the market is finally beginning to respond:

Doctor stops accepting insurance, lowers prices and posts costs online

A family practice doctor in Maine is refusing all forms of health insurance, including Medicare, in order, he says, to provide better service to his patients.

Dr. Michael Ciampi told the Bangor Daily News that he wants to practice medicine without being dictated to by insurance companies.

On April 1, Ciampi lowered his prices and posted the costs online. For example, an office visit in which patients discuss "one issue of moderate complexity or 2-3 simple issues" costs $75. When Ciampi accepted insurance, the visit would run $160, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The fact that Ciampi lists the prices, he says, means no surprises for his patients.

Dr. Ciampi is not alone.

But seeing that health care expenditures in this country costs well in excess of 15% of GDP, and the passage of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" now puts the Federal government SQUARELY in the driver's seat, I don't see this effort gaining much traction. It takes power away from too many people firmly entrenched in both industry and government for either one to ever let it survive the nursery.

Saw It, Liked It, Posted It

One Small Step...

On this day at 02:56 UTC 44 years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to leave one of these on the surface of another astronomical body. Three years and five months later, Eugene Cernan became the last man to do so, so far.

The last Space Shuttle touched down for the last time on this day two years ago.

Elon Musk of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX fame has said that the impetus behind the development of SpaceX came when his son asked him, "is it really true that they used to fly to the moon when you were a boy?"

Now there are two-dozen or more private space ventures around the world. There is a plan to capture and retrieve an asteroid for commercial purposes. Other companies want to mine the moon.  Still another plans to put an observatory there.

If we can just hold it together for a couple more decades, humanity might get off this rock, and we might do it in my lifetime.

But it's not looking too good.

(Updated and reposted from last year.)

Quote of the Day - Heather Mac Donald Edition

From her NRO column, The Post-Zimmerman Poison Pill:

The idea that the criminal-justice system discriminates against blacks — and that this bias explains blacks’ disproportionate presence in custody — is a staple of civil-rights activism and of the academic Left. Every effort to prove it empirically, however, has come up short. A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country's 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Alfred Blumstein has found that blacks are underrepresented in prison for homicide compared with their arrest rates. A meta-analysis of charging and sentencing studies showed that "large racial differences in criminal offending," not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms, according to criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen.

Pesky things, facts.  RTWT.  More pesky facts therein.

I'm Geeking Out Here

Ok, one of these years I'm going to Comic-Con:



My wife and I were in San Diego over Comic-Con weekend a few years ago, but not to attend the event.  I kind of regret not taking advantage of the timing, but ...

Yup, I'm a One-Percenter!

Seen at Alan's:



I begin to understand the Left's visceral hatred of the Koch brothers.  Pesky things, facts.

The Lynching

Bill Whittle on "weaponized media":

Quote of the Day - Thomas Sowell Edition

I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

RTWT.  Professor Sowell is always worth your time.

So Detroit Files for Bankruptcy

What, it can't loan money to itself to get out of its hole?

Gov. Rick Snyder justified approving the historic filing by reciting a litany of the city’s ills, including more than $18 billion in debt, maxed-out tax rates, the highest murder rate in 40 years, 78,000 abandoned buildings and a half-century of residential flight. He said the city failed to provide basic services to residents or pay creditors.

--

"There were no other viable alternatives," Snyder told reporters Thursday. "We have a great city but a city that has been going downhill for 60 years."

Just a coincidence I'm sure, but Detroit hasn't had a Republican mayor for ... sixty-one years.

It will be interesting to see if Obama inserts himself into this bankruptcy proceeding and screws the secured bondholders in favor of the unions.  Again.  (ETA:  Walter Russell Mead says "No.")

Edited to add:


And, of course, this classic from Steven:


UPDATE #4: Michigan AG challenges judge's ruling that Detroit bankruptcy is unconstitutional

An Ingham County judge says Thursday's historic Detroit bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn.

But Attorney General Bill Schuette said he will appeal Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s Friday rulings and seek emergency consideration by the Michigan Court of Appeals. He wants her orders stayed pending the appeals, he said in a news release.

There's more.

Apparently Judge Aquilina is a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences," instead of someone who, you know, cares about rule of law.

For Breda

...everyone's favorite research librarian.

I'm currently reading The End is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome:  How Going Broke will Leave America Richer, Happier and More Secure by Kevin D. Williamson.  I'm about halfway through it, and so far it's been written in pretty pure libertarian win.  Lots of Quote of the Day fodder, but I get the sinking impression that the last third is going to largely be of "and then a MIRACLE will occur!" variety, because, by George, we're AMERICANS and that's what we DO!

Time will tell.

But for today, I ran across a section that just had me saying to myself "Gotta post this for Breda."  It's in the chapter on "What Government is For.":

Privately funded and volunteer-staffed public libraries were the norm for many years, from magnificent ones such as the New York Public Library―the main branch of which was the largest marble building in the world at the time of its opening―to modest ones throughout suburbs and small towns across the country.  At the apogee of WASP society-lady culture, volunteering at the local library was practically a rite of passage, an entrée into more prestigious charitable work.  (It was a perfection of mid-twentieth-century American upper-class culture that the vanity of ambitious social climbers was exceedingly well aligned with genuine civic virtue, and that conspicuous consumption had not yet displaced conspicuous civil service.  The WASP establishment had its shortcomings, to be sure, but its absence is today keenly felt from the Main Line to Orange County.)  To be sure, in many of these cases there was some entanglement with politics from the beginning, and in a great many more an eventual entanglement with politics, which has been especially harmful in the case of the public libraries: Somehow, as library budgets ballooned and volunteer society ladies were displaced by graduate-schooled, credentialed professionals in the faintly ridiculous field of "library science," our libraries were transformed from quiet places to read a book into psychiatric wards in which homeless men masturbate to Internet pornography.  The San Francisco public libraries recently installed barriers to increase the level of privacy for this activity.

Coming to a library near you?

Quote of the Day - Weaponized Media Edition

I'm unsure who coined the term weaponized media, but IowaHawk has perfectly illustrated the concept in today's Quote of the Day:

Of all the young black shooting victims in this country, you can name 1. Because you’ve been trained like a circus seal to bark on command.

A Crutch? It Should be Used as an Impaling Stake.

How many inconsistencies (and how much bullshit) can you find in this story:

Affidavit: Man using rifle as crutch when it fired

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- An Oregon man told police he was using his assault rifle as a crutch to help him get up from a couch at a friend's apartment when it fired a burst through the ceiling and killed a little girl upstairs, court records show.

He was using the gun as a crutch, but it "fired a burst" through the CEILING?!?! Why didn't it take his arm off at the shoulder?

A police affidavit said Jon Andrew Meyer Jr. told investigators the gun went off accidentally June 27 at the Grants Pass apartment, the Grants Pass Daily Courier reported.

Defense lawyer Gary Berlant adds Meyer had been assured the gun was not fully automatic.

But it "fired a BURST"?  How long had he owned it?  Did it have a happy switch?

Meyer is being held on $250,000 bail on charges of manslaughter, assault and unlawful possession of a machine gun.

Authorities say he was responsible for the reckless burst of rifle fire that killed 5-year-old Alysa Bobbitt of Shady Cove and wounded apartment resident Karen Hancock. The girl and Hancock were upstairs in the same apartment as Meyer.

The little girl and her mother were visiting friends there, but just what Meyer was doing in the apartment with the rifle was unclear. Court records say his fiancee had kicked him out of her place, getting a restraining order, and he listed his current residence as his sister's home.

So he was under a restraining order, but he still had firearms? That's unpossible!!

Meyer listed his occupation as lead bouncer at a Mexican restaurant, where he has worked for two years.

Though his fiancee, Victoria Kohout, told authorities that Meyer was a "big teddy bear," her June 20 petition for the restraining order described him as an "unpredictable drug addict" who had threatened her with a gun, and threatened to burn down her house, slash her tires and break the windows on her car. The judge noted in the file that Meyer had four guns.

So he was a drug abuser, and the court was informed that he had firearms? And they didn't take them?  Or did he acquire this one after the fact?

Lori Nelson, who lives down the block, said she was startled by the noise of gunfire, and saw Meyer running down the driveway. Then she heard screaming and saw Danielle R. Wilson, Alyssa's mother, come outside holding the child in her arms.

"She looked up at me and said, 'Please, help my baby,'" Nelson said.

The perp was using the rifle as a crutch in his apartment, but after it "fired a burst" through the ceiling he is then seen "running down the driveway". It's a MIRACLE! He was HEALED THROUGH THE POWER OF JESUS!

Everything about this story stinks. I can't wait for the junk-on-the-bunk pictures and the handwringing over this guy's "arsenal."

And I hope he dies screaming in a fire.

Now watch the AP come after me.  I claim "Fair Use."  Read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Quote of the Day - Zimmerman Debacle Edition Pt. II

This one's from SayUncle:

Two idiots tried to out idiot each other. One was successful.

Pretty much.  Let me retract that.  Zimmerman was doing his duty as a Neighborhood Watch member.  The evidence indicates that Martin confronted him and attacked him.  Everything prior to that is moot.  Martin played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.  Zimmerman did not maintain situational awareness.  This doesn't make Zimmerman an idiot.

Quote of the Day - Zimmerman Debacle Edition

Allapundit tweets the QotD:

No matter how much contempt you have for the media in all this, you don't have enough.

Can I get an "AMEN!"?

Charges Should Never Have Been Brought

Zimmerman found not guilty.

Here's the story as I understand it:

Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch member after a recent string of burglaries in his neighborhood, sees a young male he doesn't recognize.  Young males are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of property crimes, regardless of race.  Doing his volunteer job, he follows the suspicious person and calls 911.

Martin, fresh to the neighborhood because of personal problem - he's staying with his father and his father's fiance - notices that he's being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker."

Zimmerman is advised by the 911 operator that he "doesn't need" to follow Martin.  The police are on their way, but Zimmerman gets out of his truck and follows anyway.  He's Neighborhood Watch, remember?  He loses sight of Martin.

Returning to his truck, he is confronted by Martin, who is younger, fitter, and probably stronger.  The confrontation is violent.   Zimmerman ends up on his back under Martin, getting beaten.  His nose is broken and his head shows signs of trauma indicating that it was in contact with concrete.

In fear for his life or at least serious injury, Zimmerman draws his properly licensed concealed weapon and fires one shot, stopping the assault.

NOTHING prior to that next to last paragraph has any standing on the defensive shooting.  Once the assault began, Zimmerman was justified in defending himself.

I'm glad the jury understood that.

Now we get to see what happens with the racial grievance crowd.

Vigilantes!!

Pennsylvania teens chase down kidnapper's car on their BIKES and save five-year-old girl

Two Pennsylvania teens are being hailed as heroes after they chased down a man in a car who had snatched a five-year-old girl from her grandmother's front yard - on their bikes.

Jocelyn Rojas, five, was missing for two hours yesterday when Temar Boggs and a friend saw the child in a car near Lancaster Township and gave chase.

After Boggs, 15, and his friend had been tailing the vehicle for 15 minutes, the driver let the little girl out of the car and sped off.


Now that the little girl is safely back with her family, police are focusing on finding the suspect.

Jocelyn Rojas was playing in the front yard of her grandmother's home on the 100 block of Jennings Drive in Lancaster Township when she disappeared at about 4:35pm Thursday.

The family notified police and officers sprang into action, blocking off streets and scouring the area with canine units. Police showed Jocelyn's picture around the neighborhood and Boggs and his friend joined more than 100 first responders searching for the girl.

Boggs spottted the girl in the abductor's car and he and his friend began to follow the car.

The high school student said the little girl ran towards him when she got out of the car.

'If he wasn't going to stop, I was probably going to like, jump on the car,' Boggs told ABC6.

Boggs said the suspect would turn around to see if they were still following him after they began to give chase.

'As soon as the guy started noticing that we were chasing him, he stopped at the end of the hill and let her out, and she ran to me and said that she needed her mom,' he said.

Boggs took the little girl to the police and they contacted her frantic mother and family.

Good on ya, kid young man sir!  (Edited due to some excellent comments.) Here is someone who instinctively understands Robert Peel's Seventh Principle:

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

Rendezvous!

The 8th Annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous is fast approaching, September 4-8 at the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino in Reno, NV.  Event organizer Mr. Completely has published the schedule of this year's events:

Wednesday, September 4th.

6:15 Pm. For those arriving on Wednesday, KeeWee and I and some of the other early arrivers are planning on having dinner at the El Dorado Buffet Restaurant. The El Dorado is part of the same giant casino complex as the Silver Legacy and the Circus Circus. The El Dorado Buffet is at one end of the complex. The Silver Legacy is in the middle, and the Circus Circus is on the opposite end.

Thursday, September 5th

8:30 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality Room for one of the restaurants for breakfast.
1:15 pm. Leave the Hospitality Room to car pool to Cabela’s.
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm. Guided tour Cabela’s and browsing/shopping. Buy ammo? Pick up munchies and soft drinks on way back to hotel.
6:00 pm. Leave the Hospitality Room to go to dinner. Location to be determined later.
Thursday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Friday, September 6th.

8:00 am. NRA Sponsored breakfast in our Hospitality room. NRA representative will be speaking to us over breakfast.
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, the Pyramid range for rifle and pistol target shooting out to 900 yards.
9:45 am – 2:00pm. At the range.
4:00 pm. – 5:45pm. Show-N-Tell at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Manufacturers and show new stuff, and attendees show neat things too!
6:00 pm. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to go to Dos Gecko’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner sponsored by Gunlawsbystate.com and Brian Ciyou.
7:15 pm. (Approx) Ray Carter from the Second Amendment Foundation and Brian Ciyou from Gunlawsbystate.com, will talk to us, and other industry, shooting sports, and legal aspect folks will follow.
7:45 pm. Double Elimination Pistol competition in Hospitality Room using the Optical Computer Aided Training Simulator from Outwest systems, using real guns shooting lasers instead of bullets. An OCAT System will be awarded to one of the competitors by random drawing!

Friday Evening until midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Saturday, September 7th.

8:00 am. Gunauctions.com sponsored Breakfast in the Silver Legacy Hospitality room.
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for an introduction to Steel Challenge Action Pistol shooting, a demonstration of the live fire version of the OCAT system, and more.
9:45 am – 2:00 pm. At the range.
5:00 pm – 6 pm. Short presentation by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
6:00 pm. NSSF all you can eat pizza feed at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. After dinner will be the fund raiser raffle for Project Valour-IT and the drawings for the door prizes.
Saturday Evening until Midnight: Refreshments and conversation at the Silver Legacy Hospitality room. Bring your own refreshments and munchies.

Sunday, September 8th.

8:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room for one of the restaurants for breakfast
9:00 am. Leave the Silver Legacy Hospitality room to car pool up and head out to the Washoe County Shooting Facility, Western Nevada Pistol League Action Pistol bays at the Pyramid range for some fun with the Black Powder bowling Ball Mortar from Gunauctions.com, and some other surprises you won’t want to miss!
9:45 am – 1:00pm. At the range.

This year sounds like a real blast!

This Woman Had More than Tissue Paper

Wife killed husband in self-defense

A McMinn county man was shot and killed by his wife on Saturday within 15 minutes of leaving jail after he was arrested earlier in the day.

The McMinn County Sheriff said shortly before 8 am Saturday, Athens Police Officers received a report that Robert Vann Marshall, 34, was irate, suicidal, armed and threatening to kill his wife and children.

Officers stopped Robert Marshall shortly afterward at the Athens Super 8 Motel. The officers found he had a handgun and various narcotics pills in his possession.

Authorities found there to be an active order of protection against him and arrested him for the firearms and narcotics charges and took him to the McMinn County Justice Center.

While in custody authorities read and explained the order of protection to Marshall and gave him a copy of it. He was ordered to not contact his wife, or go to their residence, or else he would be charged.

Authorities said Robert Marshall made bond and was eventually released at approximately 1:27 p.m.

Then at approximately 1:38 p.m., 911 received a call from the Marshall residence where Melissa Marshall, stated that her husband, Robert Marshall was at the residence attending to get inside.

While authorities made their way to the residence, Ms. Marshall indicated that her husband forced his way inside and then she told dispatchers that she had shot him.

Athens Police Officers and McMinn Sheriffs Deputies arrived at the home and found the front door kicked in with Robert Marshall lying in a back bedroom with a fatal gunshot wound to his chest.

Unlike Claudia Pascal or Shennell McKendall or Yong Sun Park, her mother, father, and six year-old son.

Melissa Marshall will now live with the aftermath of having taken a life, but she's alive to have that experience and not dead at her husband's hands.

This is What I'm Talking About

A Republic no more.

And Then There Were None

Sorry I'm late.  It was the shock.

General Assembly overrides governor's veto of concealed carry bill

Now we just have to get those few "may issue" states to become "shall issue."

I'd Pay to See That

Schlock Mercenary's author Howard Tayler reviews pans The Lone Ranger and gets this gem in comments:

What's really important though is whether Disney is going to insist on shoehorning this big chewed-up wad of failure into the Kingdom Hearts franchise, when they SHOULD be taking advantage of their ownership of the Muppets, Marvel Comics and Star Wars to have the Beast (X-Men), the Beast (Beauty & the), Chewbacca and Cookie Monster having Jedi Lightsaber Duels with FFVII's Sephiroth on the slopes of Chernabog (the big mountain demon from Fantasia), who has been relocated to the surface of the Death Star, while Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band provide their interpretation of his signature "Night on Bald Mountain". Holy crap, Disney! HOLY CRAP!!!

.... what the heck were we talking about again?

Oh HELL yes! I'd pay to see that!

Quote of the Day - Larry Corriea Edition

...when liberals argue, victory is determined by whoever can scream "I'm offended!" loudest....

From a recent post on a Science Fiction Writer's of America kerfuffle.

Someone Else Hates HP Printers!

A while back my daughter gave me an HP printer she got in a PC bundle and didn't need.

It was a complete piece of crap.

English expat PhilB. from New Zealand emailed me with a link to someone else who hates their HP. He notes:

The comments are worth a read too - NOTE Trademe takes the advert down after a few days so get there quick!

It's a pretty damned funny read.

Sample:

Words cannot express how much I hate this printer. It never works when I need it to - it's like it knows when I have to urgently print something. It randomly decides if it wants to work wirelessly or not. And scanning wirelessly? Forget about it!

When you first turn it on it will play an endless symphony of sounds that are simply there to fool you into thinking that it might actually do what it's designed to do. Don't be fooled. This thing is evil incarnate.

By all means, read the comments!!

I Push ELECTRONS for a Living

I am most definitely not a plumber.

Had a major garbage disposal failure Sunday morning. I knew the unit was failing and had bought a replacement previously, but I just hadn't gotten around to swapping them out. The new one is longer than the old, and the discharge port is located at a different elevation than previously, so the undersink drain piping doesn't line up.

Two days later, it STILL doesn't line up. I'm tired of fv%$ing with it. Got a pro coming tomorrow. (Anything worth doing is worth paying a professional to do.) All I want is for it to drain and not to leak when it's finished.

I may actually start posting things to the blog again afterward....

THIS is Charity

Eva Mickelthwaite, is a competitive IPSC/USPSA shooter here in Arizona.  Some friends of hers live in Yarnell, the area recently devastated by wildfire:

As you all may know the Yarnell Fire has burned more than 8000 acres in Arizona.  It has devastated the town of Yarnell and abruptly took the lives of 19 brave men, a loss that will be felt for a very long time to come.

Unfortunately, as many of you may already know, it has also taken the home of Steve & Debi Keehner.  Due to the age of the home, it was un-insurable, so it is a complete loss for them.

Annette Williamson and I have received an enormous amount of feedback from the shooting community asking what we can do to help.  At this time, we think the best way we can help is in the form of a monetary donation.  We have set up a Paypal link on my website that accepts many forms of payments.  We have also set up an account at Wells Fargo under "Keehner Rebuild Fund" in case you prefer to handle it the old fashioned way.  You will need to reference the zip code 85226 if you plan to go to the bank.

Please take the time to make a donation, no matter how small.  We received our first $10 donation from the Wells Fargo account specialist  who set up the account. She contributed out of her personal pocket for a couple she doesn't know.  It all adds up folks, and I'm sure they will appreciate whatever we are able to do. (BTW...they have only just been told about this account. We're not sure they are aware of the amount of support they have behind them, but are about to see so).

Thanks to all of you who have contacted us to ask what can be done.  It was your overwhelming response that motivated us to make this happen.

If you have any questions or problems with the link, please feel free to email me at lady38shooter@gmail.com.

Thanks,

Eva L. Micklethwaite

Michael Ramirez on the Promise of "Green Jobs"

Repeat after me:

Amonix ($5.9M)
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3M)
Nordic Windpower ($16M)
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20M)
Evergreen Solar ($25M)
Raser Technologies ($33m)
Beacon Power ($43M)
Range Fuels ($80M)
Ener1 ($118.5M)
A123 Systems ($279M)
Abound Solar ($400M)

Not to mention the $535 million lost with Solyndra's bankruptcy.  And, as I said before, "This list is not complete."

But Nobody Wants to Take Your Guns!

RCOB™

Tam has the latest on the TJIC story. Check your blood pressure. Some shot out of my eyes.

Repost: TL;DR

I originally posted this on July 4, 2011. I may do this one annually like the Victims of Communism post on May 1.

One year prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the overwhelming majority of colonists considered themselves loyal subjects of the Crown, full British citizens with all the rights and privileges that citizenship entitled them to.  Yes, there were problems with the way the Colonies were being administered, but these were largely misunderstandings and could be worked out.

One year later that attitude had changed.  The colonies were ripe for rebellion.  In honesty, not much had really changed in the way the Crown treated the colonies, the difference was that the ideology the colonists lived under had changed.

The cause of that change was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a 46-page pamphlet published January 10, 1776.  In the first three months, 120,000 to 150,000 copies sold at 2 shillings each, the rough equivalent of $15 today.  In the first year after its initial printing, 500,000 copies sold in a nation of only about 3 million people.  By July, 1776 it had had its effect, and the colonists by and large no longer considered themselves Britons, but Americans.

In 1776 it is estimated that 90% of the population was literate - and not just literate, but at a fairly high level. I've quoted this before, but Thomas Sowell on literacy and education:

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) has footnotes explaining what words like "arraigned," "curried" and "exculpate" meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

There is really nothing very mysterious about why our public schools are failures. When you select the poorest quality college students to be public school teachers, give them iron-clad tenure, a captive audience, and pay them according to seniority rather than performance, why should the results be surprising?

Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.

In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.

An excerpt from Common Sense:

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

THAT is the expression of the minarchist, or "small-L" libertarian.

Back when I wrote True Believers, I quoted Glen Wishard from his Canis Iratus post, A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century:

The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls "politicism". In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

(Emphasis in original.)  Other than disagreeing with Glen's contention that the end of the Twentieth Century marked the fall of the Marxist ideal, I think his observation is spot-on - and it illustrates the polar opposite of the minarchist ideal espoused by Thomas Paine in which government is a necessary evil.  I think proof that Glen's thinking was wishful is easily illustrated by former Vice-President and nearly President Albert Gore's contention that the purpose of Rule of Law was "human redemption," or Barack Obama's declaration that his election meant "fundamentally transforming the United States of America," that the rise of the oceans would slow, and the planet would begin to heal upon his ascension.  There are more, but those two scream for themselves.

The Nineteenth Century was a century of struggle between the old feudal, colonialist paradigm and the new individualist, capitalist, democratic one. Feudalism and colonialism lost. At the start of the Twentieth Century "the sun never set" on the British Empire. England had colonies in India, Asia, Africa. France in Southeast Asia and North Africa. Spain, Portugal, Holland, Germany and Italy all had colonies in Africa and Asia. South and Central America were overrun with colonies.  And all of these polities were monarchies.

By the middle of the Twentieth Century, colonialism was over, and England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany were representative democracies of one form or another. England may still have a reigning Queen, but she has very little actual power.

But while the Nineteenth Century was a battle between the ideologies of monarchy and democracy, the Twentieth Century was a struggle between democracy and "politicism."  The outcome of the Ninteenth Century's conflicts were not fully felt until the end of the Twentieth.  The outcome of the Twentieth Century's struggles, I think, will be felt much sooner.  As with everything else, political change moves faster as time progresses.

As others have noted, Marx predicted that the proletariat would overthrow the capitalists in the industrialized world, but it didn't happen.  The question was "why?" and the conclusion was that capitalism made too many people comfortable.  In order for the revolution to succeed, it would be necessary to change the culture of the people.

To change the culture as Thomas Paine had done in a few short months in 1776.

However, the ground in which Thomas Paine sowed his seeds of rebellion was already rich and prepared for his ideas.  Near universal literacy.  Exposure to and understanding of the philosophy of John Locke versus that of Thomas Hobbes.  A firm faith in a Higher Power.  That soil is not a good one in which to plant the seeds of politicism.

Politicism requires a different fertilizer mix.  Ignorance. Illiteracy.  Illogic.  Envy.  Dependency.  Despair. Apathy.

To surrender completely to the control of others - either a secular government or a religious one - control that invades every waking action, requires people unwilling to do for themselves. The first step is and must be the destruction of education. People must be prevented from thinking for themselves, from reasoning. George Orwell explained it with "Newspeak" in his novel 1984:

NEWSPEAK was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in the Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here.

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

That preparation started in the early years of the 20^th Century.  Thus today we have "politically correct" speech.  With destruction of language skills comes the destruction of logic skills - if you can't read, you can't integrate ideas new to you.  In fact, new ideas are gibberish - words that have no meaning.  "Politically free" is a null value to someone planted in the fields of politicism.  It's a weed.

A free society requires an informed and virtuous citizenry.

"Free," "informed" and "virtuous" have become null terms.

The 21^st Century will be a century of struggle between freedom and politicism. Polticism has two competing versions - Marxist and Muslim. Freedom?

Null term.

When in the course of human events . . . .

Happy (In)Dependence Day.

UPDATE 7/12/13:  I'm putting this above Bill's video.  I cannot imagine a better example of what I'm writing about above:



UPDATE 7/4/13 - Bill Whittle has something to say on the subject:

Quote of the Day - Bobby Jindal Edition

On the delay of full implementation of Obamacare until AFTER the 2014 election:

You know things are bad when you can’t even successfully implement your own bad ideas.

If there were any justice in this world, that would leave a smoking hole.

Quote of the Day - Tam Edition

On the eve of Independence Day, Tam has a poem for us:

Oh, beautiful for drone-filled skies
A tax code so arcane!
A voting class on their fat ass
From Houston to Fort Wayne!
America! America!
You voted stuff for free
You made your bed, ye overfed
Go watch some more TV!
I wish I could snark a tenth as well as the Empress....

Seen on Facebook:

Obama's signature law's enforcement is delayed until AFTER the 2014 elections. No, there is no politicizing going on here. And the government is actually following the law. And they won't do something in your mouth either.

They totally didn't realize it was the wrong hole, and thought you were really into it.

This Kicked Over My Gigglebox

(NSFW)

This Would Explain a Lot

Damn...

It's a tragic night for families in the small Arizona community of Yarnell.

Nineteen firefighters have been killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire in the Town of Yarnell, said Wade Ward, the Incident Command Post said.

Eighteen of those killed were from the Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots, fire officials said. It's not known where the other victim was based.

Damn. Just... damn.

Edited to add: