A Tragic Boating Accident

Today's Failure to Fire comic:

No S.B. 1062 in Canada!

Ezra Levant writes about religious freedom in Canada.  Quote of the Day:

It's like poker.

A white, Christian male has the lowest hand — it's like he's got just one high card, maybe an ace. So almost everyone trumps him.

A white woman is just a bit higher — like a pair of twos. Enough to beat a white man, but not much more.

A gay man is like having two pairs in poker.

A gay woman — a lesbian like McGregor — is like having three of a kind.

A black lesbian is a full house — pretty tough to beat.

Unless she's also in a wheelchair, which means she's pretty much a straight flush.

The only person who could trump that would be a royal flush. If the late Sammy Davis Jr. — who was black, Jewish and half-blind — were to convert to Islam and discover he was 1/64th Aboriginal.

So which is a better hand: A lesbian who wants a haircut or a Muslim who doesn't want to give it to her?

Nope, adding the wheelchair makes it four of a kind. Sammy Davis was the straight flush.

Muslim? ROYAL flush.

Edited to add:  Back in 2006 I made a similar observation:

Ms. Johnson most definitely violated the law, but will the DA prosecute? Absolutely not. I think they learned their lesson there with Ronald Dixon. She's an older black woman in a wheelchair who successfully defended herself against a career criminal. (I hate to be the one to say it, but as far as publicity goes the only PC box left unchecked on this one is "lesbian.") No WAY are they going to do ANYTHING to put her in a position to point out how idiotic and anti-citizen New York's gun laws are.

I'm still curious as to whether or not they pulled her premises permit.

Plain Grey Wrapper

Bill Whittle's latest:

Quote of the Day - Sultan Knish Edition

Daniel Greenfield certainly has a way of cutting through the bullshit:

The progressive law professors, who are currently the only thing standing between the working class and the abyss, at least according to other progressive professors, not only haven't worked for a living, but don't know what working for a living entails and don't even understand the concept. Other things that they don't understand include personal responsibility, consequences, elementary arithmetic and human free will.

That last one never fails to throw them for a loop. No sooner do they pass some comprehensive plan intended to ameliorate a terrible problem then they discover that the working people have made a hash out of it. But they never despair because they are certain that there is no progressive solution that cannot be fixed by an even more comprehensive progressive solution.

The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only HARDER!

Now I Have TWO Shotguns

Got my taxes done over the weekend.  No repeat of last year's bloodbath, this year the non-interestbearing payroll savings plan paid off, so I dropped a little of it on a new gun - a Mossberg 930 JM Pro Series.  Looks a lot like this:



The specs are:

Gauge	12
Chamber Size	3"
Capacity	10
Barrel	24" Vent Rib
Sights	Fiber Optic Front
Chokes	Accu-Set
Overall Length	44.5"
Length Of Pull	14"
Barrel Finish	Matte Blue

So what accessories should I get for it?

EDITED TO ADD:

Comments have been left noting the rather long 14" length of pull.  In looking at pistol-grip stocks, I see that Choate notes: "The 930/935 shotguns can not be shortened shorter than 13 3/4 inches because of the recoil spring tube that protrudes form the back of the receiver."

I don't think I'd use this as a home-defense shotgun.  The barrel is too long.  For that, I'd stick with my 590.  Its barrel is 4" shorter.  Doesn't sound like much, but it is.

Party-Poopers

So the Colorado Girl Scouts have been told not to sell their cookies outside of pot dispensaries.

I didn't know that Colorado had a "no hunting over bait" restriction.

It HAD to Happen

Hitler gets Obamacare:


(h/t Mr. Completely)

Quote of the Day - Kasparov Edition

I've said it before, but if Barack Obama had been president instead of Ronald Reagan, I'd still be a citizen of the Soviet Union. - Garry Kasparov on Twitter

And there'd still be a Soviet Union.

In Praise of Prejudice

The Arizona legislature has passed a bill and put it on Gov. Brewer's desk that protects persons, businesses or legal entities from prosecution for exercise of their conscientious objection to government mandates due to sincerely held religious belief.  To wit:  Christians can, without legal threat, deny services to openly gay people.

Hell, I think it's a terrific idea!  And it shouldn't be limited to just religious beliefs!


I think persons,  businesses and legal entities should be able to deny services to anyone for any reason without fear of legal entanglement.  The less .gov butts into people's business, the better, as far as I'm concerned.  Want to deny services to people because they're black?  Fine!  Jewish?  Go right ahead!  Physically disabled?  Knock yourself out. Cismale gendernormatives?  If you can spell it, sure!

The function of government should not be to punish people for acting on their fervently held beliefs.  It's function should be to ensure that potential customers are made aware up front who a person, business or legal entity will refuse service to.

They already do that in a tiny way under Arizona Revised Statute §4-229, which states:

A. A person with a permit issued pursuant to section 13-3112 may carry a concealed handgun on the premises of a licensee who is an on-sale retailer unless the licensee posts a sign that clearly prohibits the possession of weapons on the licensed premises. The sign shall conform to the following requirements:

1. Be posted in a conspicuous location accessible to the general public and immediately adjacent to the liquor license posted on the licensed premises.

2. Contain a pictogram that shows a firearm within a red circle and a diagonal red line across the firearm.

3. Contain the words, "no firearms allowed pursuant to A.R.S. section 4-229".

A sign like this:


So, the legislature should simply extend this logic to whatever other prejudices there are out there and require signage to advise potential customers where they're not wanted.  Something like this, for instance:



Or this:


That way everyone will know right up front what kind of bigots they will be dealing with, and can decide for themselves whether or not they want to spend their money there. No hurt feelings, no lawsuits.

Quote of the Day - Venezuela & Ukraine Edition

From Caracas Chronicle (read the whole thing):

A grave line has been crossed. Real, physical violence is finally catching up with the huge reserve of pent-up rhetorical violence we've suffered through since 1999.

We've spent 15 years fearing this.

Now were living it.

Obamacare Backlash

OK, the memesters are running with it:










But will it be repealed?  Of course not! 

Just Like a Skipping Record

(For those who remember records.)

Ten years ago I wrote The ACLU Hasn't Changed Its Tune, quoting then-President Nadine Strossen from a Reason interview:

Reason: So why doesn't the ACLU challenge gun-control laws on Second Amendment grounds?

Strossen: We reexamine our positions when people come forward with new arguments. On the gun issue, I instituted a reexamination a few years ago in response to a number of things, but the most important one was an article by Sanford Levinson at University of Texas Law School that summarized a wave of new historical scholarship. Levinson's argument was that in the 18th century context, a well-regulated militia meant nothing other than people in the privacy of their homes.

So we looked into the historical scholarship there and ended up not being persuaded. The plain language of the Second Amendment in no way, shape, or form, can be construed, I think, as giving an absolute right to unregulated gun ownership. It says, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." Certainly, when you have the notion of "well-regulated" right in the constitutional language itself, it seems to defy any argument that regulation is inconsistent with the amendment.

Putting all that aside, I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.

Mentioned. MENTIONED in, not just the Constitution, but the Bill of Rights.

Nah. Doesn't mean anything.

Then we had D.C. v Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. And the ACLU?

The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. Therefore, we disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller. While the decision is a significant and historic reinterpretation of the right to keep and bear arms, the decision leaves many important questions unanswered that will have to be resolved in future litigation, including what regulations are permissible, and which weapons are embraced by the Second Amendment right that the Court has now recognized.

So much for "reexamin(ing) our positions when people come forward with new arguments."

My original piece still stands. And the ACLU is cordially invited to kiss my ass.

For Those of You Freezing Your Posteriors Off

...a Moment of Zen:

Police State? What Police State?

Read this.  If a tenth of what is in it is accurate...  Well, you know.

Quote of the Day - Thomas Sowell Edition

From his recent Random Thoughts column at The American Spectator.  (It's chock-full of candidates.  I chose this one.)

With his decision declaring ObamaCare constitutional, Chief Justice John Roberts turned what F.A. Hayek called "The Road to Serfdom" into a super highway. The government all but owns us now, and can order us to do pretty much whatever it wants us to do.

Choose Your Own Crime Stats

Ran across this last night:


A bit simplistic (it is, after all, a six-minute YouTube video), but it hits all the high points.  QotD:

So what I find astonishing about these numbers is that nobody's talking about it.  We have a 50% reduction in violent crime over the last twenty years, yet no one is taking credit for it.  I find it pretty astonishing, I mean, it's unbelievable.  Does it not play into their fear agenda?

Three Felonies a Day,

I recently finished reading Harvey Silverglate's Three Felonies a Day:  How the Feds Target the Innocent.

Here's another example of what he was writing about.  Read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:

...every incentive that we put in place as a company was designed to encourage people to achieve their goals. All these incentives had the caveat that the goals must be achieved while obeying the law. Now that may sound simple, but in virtually every meeting every day people discuss their goals and how they will achieve them. They almost never discuss accounting law. In a sales forecast meeting, you will often hear, "What can we do to get this closed by the end of the quarter?" You never hear, "Will the way we made the commitment comply with Statement of Position-97-2 (the critical software accounting rule)?"

Beyond that, U.S. accounting law is extremely difficult to understand and often seems illogical and random. For example, the law in question with respect to stock options, FAS 123, is filled with paragraphs such as this:

"This Statement does not specify the measurement date for share-based payment transactions with nonemployees for which the measure of the cost of goods acquired or services received is based on the fair value of the equity instruments issued. EITF Issue No. 96-18, "Accounting for Equity Instruments That Are Issued to Other Than Employees for Acquiring, or in Conjunction with Selling, Goods or Services", establishes criteria for determining the measurement date for equity instruments issued in share-based payment transactions with nonemployees."

And that is the clear part.

Here's Ayn Rand once again on the topic:

There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law. Create a nation of lawbreakers and then you can cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system! - Atlas Shrugged, 1957

As others have observed, Rand wrote a cautionary tale. It seems more every day that it's being used instead as an instruction manual.

Quote of the Day - Edward Snowden Edition

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

But given our media, the public won't be informed, and being uniformed the public won't get angry, so no worries!

"...only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."

I'm sure everyone remembers this:



News out of LA yesterday:

Shooting during Dorner stakeout violated policy, panel rules

Eight Los Angeles police officers who opened fire on two women delivering newspapers in a pickup truck during the hunt for Christopher Dorner violated the LAPD's policy on using deadly force, the department's oversight body found Tuesday.

In making its ruling, the Police Commission followed the recommendation of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who faulted the officers for jumping to the conclusion that Dorner was in the truck. Beck said the officers compounded their mistake by shooting in one another's direction with an unrestrained barrage of gunfire.

Reports made public Tuesday offered new details of the hours that led up to the shooting and how it erupted into a wild, one-sided firefight in which the officers fired shotguns and handguns more than 100 times. One woman was shot twice in the back; her daughter received superficial wounds.

--

A panel of high-ranking police officials that reviewed the shooting urged Beck to clear the officers of wrongdoing, according to several sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Violated policy. POLICY. How about LAW? Common sense? Decency?

So, thirty days without donuts, or do they get a six-week paid vacation (suspension with pay)?

Not Feelin' It

Another free ice cream machine update.

I've been spending a lot of hours on jobsites recently, with corresponding 12+ hour days and/or being out of town.  The last hotel I stayed at, I asked the desk clerk what I needed to get logged onto their WiFi network.  "Luck," she said.

She wasn't kidding.  Two days with only my iPhone for internet access.  (I could make a Phillip Seymour Hoffman joke here, but I'm not that tasteless.  Really.  No, really.)

As a consequence, I've been reading more - not up to the levels I have maintained in the past, but more than I've managed over the previous few months.  Over just the last week I finished Harvey Silverglate's Three Felonies a Day:  How the Feds Target the Innocent, Stephen Hunter's The Third Bullet, and I blasted through Marko Kloos' Lines of Departure Sunday and Monday.  I read his short-story Lucky Thirteen at lunch today.

Now, at my wife's insistence, I am starting Divergent, by Veronica Roth.

The stack on my headboard keeps getting taller.

And the tumbleweeds blow through this blog.

Ammo Recall Notice: Winchester M22

Recall page is here.  If you were somehow lucky enough to find .22 ammo, I hope it wasn't this stuff:

Olin Corporation, through its Winchester Division, is recalling two (2) lots of M*22™ 22 Long Rifle 40 Grain Black Copper Plated Round Nose rimfire ammunition.

Symbol Number: S22LRT

Lot Numbers: GD42L and GD52L

Winchester has determined the above lots of 22 Long Rifle rimfire ammunition may contain double powder charges. Ammunition with double powder charges may subject the shooter or bystanders to a risk of serious personal injury and/or death, or cause firearm damage, rendering the firearm inoperable.

That would leave a mark that would not buff out.

Bill Whittle Asks a Question