Bleg!!

The Missouri House of Representatives is selecting a "famous Missourian" to induct into their Hall.

Robert Anson Heinlein is currently running in second place.

Please go vote for him:  http://www.house.mo.gov/FamousMissourianVoting.aspx

Thanks!

UPDATE 12/9/12:  He made it.  Thanks again!

Mr. Virtual President - On Healthcare

So much for the Right not having an alternative to Obamacare™.

So the Democrats Pushed the Button

They detonated the "nuclear option" and, violating the rules of the Senate, violated the rules of the Senate.

Over at Quora.com someone asked the inevitable question:

The U.S. Senate Democrats have enacted the "Nuclear Option" for many judicial and executive branch nominations. What do you think of this?

My answer:

What do I think? 

I think what the Democrats thought in 2005:


They were right then.  Fascinating that they've all changed their minds now.

They're so certain they're right, that Progressivism is the equivalent of salvation and any opposition to it is evil, they practice...

...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.

It's taken us two and a quarter centuries to get to this point, but the Republic is finally dead.  We've finally achieved "democracy," which John Adams warned:

...while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy.  Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and  murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century

Welcome to the Twenty-First.  Fasten your seatbelts.  It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Why We're Winning

Seen in traffic tonight (sorry about the image quality - cellphone cam):


AR-Kitty!  And AR-Kitty Jr!

Bill Whittle - The Hammer of Reality

So, there's just one question here: are these people really so incredibly dense, out of touch, incompetent and downright delusional to think that all this was going to work, or was it destined to fail from the beginning in order to destroy the private insurance market and leave us nothing but the single payer utopia that gives progressives a thrill up their legs?

Good question.

Thomas Sowell Calls Them "The Anointed"

I ran across an interesting essay today.  Published at Bloomberg.com, it's entitled Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays. Excerpt:

Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.

Or, as the GeekWithA.45 put it some time back, "Entire societies can and have gone stark raving batshit fucking insane."

How does growing economic inequality lead to political instability? Partly this correlation reflects a direct, causal connection. High inequality is corrosive of social cooperation and willingness to compromise, and waning cooperation means more discord and political infighting. Perhaps more important, economic inequality is also a symptom of deeper social changes, which have gone largely unnoticed.

Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The "1 percent" becomes "2 percent." Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.

--

Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives -- the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as "elite overproduction."

Please read the whole essay, it's not long.

The gist of it is what Thomas Sowell observed back when he wrote Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy.  (OK, one more quote from the piece):

A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions.

The "elite" and "elite-wannabes" are what Sowell refers to as "the Anointed." They're better than the rest of us because they went to the right schools and know the right people. As that quote from Sultan Knish in the header of this blog says, they 

...see themselves as the individuals who have been 'liberated' to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem.

Eric Hoffer observed about such people, they end up as government bureaucrats, bunny inspectors - overeducated mid-level functionaries angry at their lot in life and willing to take it out on the "great unwashed" public. And "Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America."  Listen to what he told Eric Sevareid:


The author of the piece doesn't forecast systemic social collapse, but he does predict - well, one last excerpt:

We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. And because complex societies are much more fragile than we assume, there is a chance of a catastrophic failure of some kind, with a default on U.S. government bonds being among the less frightening possibilities.

Isn't that cheerful news.

And now you understand why gun and ammo sales have been astronomical for the last five years.  "Less frightening," indeed.

THIS is The Other Side™

And why we call them "blood dancers."

Damn, those people are sick.

Well, They Finally Found Rising Gun Violence Statistics SOMEWHERE...

...other than Chicago, that is.

In PG-13 movies.

When the first "Die Hard" and "Terminator" movies landed in theaters in the 1980s, both were rated R. But their sequels arrived with PG-13 marks — even though the level of violence had actually escalated.

Critics have blasted Hollywood's movie ratings for years, claiming that the Motion Picture Assn. of America takes a prudish view of sex and foul language but a very liberal one when it comes to mayhem and bloodshed.

A new report provides strong evidence for that critique, concluding that gunplay has tripled within PG-13 films since 1985, the first full year the rating was used. Last year, PG-13 films were actually more violent than films rated R.

--

Researchers found that 94% of the highest-grossing films since 1985 had one or more sequences containing violence. Of those 396 films, gunplay has tripled within the PG-13 rating, while it remained flat or declined in films rated G, PG and R.

And, of course, this cinematic violence is responsible for school shootings:

In addition to quantifying the accelerating levels of violence in blockbuster movies aimed at children and teens, the report also addressed the effect this kind of cinematic bloodshed can have on young moviegoers, which several other investigations have shown can increase hostile behavior.

"The presence of guns in films also provides youth with scripts on how to use guns," the report said. "In addition, children no longer need to go to movie theaters to see films; films are readily available on the Internet or cable. Thus, children much younger than 13 years can easily view films that contain ample gun violence."

As The Onion put it,

How else are children going to learn to shoot while jumping sideways?

Gun Pr0n - I Found My New Coffee Table!

Check THIS out!

The Truth About Mental Illness and Guns

From Reason.com

Worth your eight minutes.

GeekWithA.45 on Health Care "Reform"

He left this as a comment to yesterday's QotD, but it's too important just to leave there:

I've said it before. The pre-Obamacare healthcare market was already distorted by perverse, unnatural market forces, and that this sort of problem whose root cause was complexity was not going to be solved by adding additional complexity to it.

The only thing additional complexity would do would be to shake things up, find a new set of winners and losers, and generally cost everyone.

Coming off my yearly engagement with the think tanks, I've heard, for the first time, a series of data points coming from hospital CEOs that add up to one thing: the admission that exercising a hospital's primary function is no longer a source of value and revenue, it is viewed as entirely cost, risk, and liability. Consequently, they are no longer building any capacity, and are in fact looking for ways to reduce their capacity and eliminate hospital beds.

The aging boomers are gonna love that when it comes home to roost.

Again, I think it bears repeating: the healthcare industry now views exercising its particular expertise and primary function as primarily a source of cost, risk, and liability.

That, as they say, isn't sustainable.

In desperation, they're looking to preventative care across their collective "healthcare community" (defined by what?) to save them, but at the end of the day, preventative medicine comes down to 3 things: "Don't smoke, don't be obese, and get a checkup once a year, do what doc says if they find something". That will get them something, but not a whole lot. Humans being what they are, horsehair shirts never work.

The dark portent dripped across the whole thing is, of course, the premise that any lifestyle choice that potentially affects health becomes a matter of public policy, because it's now a matter of public expense.

Welcome to the endarkenment, a peculiar state of nature.

I'm going to close this post with a quote from the Starship Nostromo's AI "Mother":

"The option to override detonation procedure has now expired."

American healthcare is all over but the screaming.

Quote of the Day - Government Competence Edition

Reader J. in the first comment to yesterday's QotD:

I am 100% convinced at this point, that if you asked the US Federal Government to come into your kitchen and make you a peanut butter sandwich; it would cost $100 Million, they would burn down your house, and you would be handed two roofing shingles with a dog turd in between.

I'm not sure they'd get the "shit-on-a-shingle" part right.

Holy Crap, the Chicago Tribune?!?

Did someone drop acid in my iced tea?  Just let me leave this here:

Stop digging. Start over.

The Americans manhandled by this exercise in government arrogance now find themselves divided into warring tribes: Those with chronic ailments who have found new plans on Obamacare exchanges and are pleased. Those who don't want or can't afford the replacement policies Obamacare offers them. Those whose new policies block them from using the health providers who have treated them for many years. The estimated 23 million to 41 million people whose employer-sponsored plans are the next to be imperiled. And on and on.

Most of these tribespeople only wish their big problem was a slipshod Obamacare website. On Thursday, their plight grew more frightful. With even Democratic members of Congress storming the White House over the cancellations, Obama declared — by what legal authority is unclear — that he would overrule the law he signed in 2010 and allow insurers to extend those canceled policies for a year.

--

We understand why the president and leaders of his party want to rescue whatever they can of Obamacare. On their watch, official Washington has blown the launch of a new entitlement program ... under the schedule they alone set in early 2010.

What we don't understand is their reluctance to give that failure more than lip service. Many of the Americans who heard their president say Thursday that "we fumbled the rollout of this health care law" would have been pleased to hear him add: So we're admitting it. This law is a bust. We're starting over.

(Bold emphasis mine.)  RTWT.

Wow.

Who knew the editors of the Trib were racists?

Quote of the Day - Og the Neanderpundit Edition

From a comment to Tam's post If schadenfreude had calories, I'd weigh 300 pounds:

I would be inclined to believe you are correct, and that this whole debacle is purely incompetence, and had no reason or logic behind it, but that isn't what concerns me. Have you seen what liberals can do with incompetence? Incompetence is their milieu; the left can build shining towers out of incompetence while the sane and competent are barely keeping a roof over their heads. However this breaks, it will break bad for us.

Quote of the Day - Angelo Codevilla Edition

Democracy has no cure for a corrupt demos. Politicians’ misdeeds taint them alone, so long as their supporters do not embrace them. But when substantial constituencies continue to support their leaders despite their having broken faith, they turn democracy’s process of mutual persuasion into partisan war. -- Lies Corrupt Democracy

RTWT - most especially the comments.

And this is a good place to repeat one of the quotes up on the masthead:

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

What About That Quaint Idea of "Separation of Powers"?

So the Democrats ram through - without a single Republican vote - the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," and Obama signs it into law on March 23, 2010.  Before passage, Nancy Pelosi laid this one on us:  "We have to pass it so you can find out what's in it!"


Well, now we know what's in it:


About 11.5 million words of regulations from the 906 (PDF) page law (2700 pages as published for the consumption of Congress) that, again, apparently nobody read prior to voting for. (Thanks, Nancy!)

And, in direct contrast to Obama's promise that the legislative negotiations behind this law would be aired on CSPAN...


...the actual negotiations took place away from cameras, and with major influence from the lobbyists that Obama told us would not stain his presidency.  Even the Daily Kos objected. 

And then he told us that the "penalty" for non-compliance with the ACA requirements was NOT. A. TAX.

Then it survived a Supreme Court decision which said it was only constitutional if the "penalty" WAS. A. TAX.

And in July of this year when problems with implementation began to become apparent, Obama unilaterally gave businesses a one-year extension on their legal mandate to conform with the law.

Wait a minute. This is a LAW. Part II, Section 1511 specifies what "Employer Responsibilities" are, effective "calendar years beginning after 2013."

Congress has not voted on this change.

And today, after his repeated promise that "If you like you plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" turned out to be as false as his CSPAN transparency promise and his "not a tax" declaration, he's done it again with respect to the individual mandate.

Even Howard Dean wonders where he gets this amazing power:


It's not like this is anything really new, though. The Justice Department certainly isn't going to go prosecuting anyone that Obama doesn't want prosecuted.

But this isn't rule of law. This is Obama granting "special dispensation" - a power not given to the Office of President under the Constitution. The Legislative branch passes the laws, the Executive signs or vetoes them, and the Judicial branch tries and punishes violators of those laws.

But we've reached a point where the President can just say "never mind," and nobody calls him on it.

What do you call that form of government again?  Because it's certainly not a Constitutional Republic.

Quote of the Day - Joe Biden Edition

From Politico, Biden: Don't let immigration die like gun control:

This kind of reminds me of the gun control kind of fights we had, and gun safety. You know, the people who don't want anything changed to have a more rational position, they're the ones who show up in large numbers.

(My emphasis.)  Thanks for noticing, Joe!  Oh, and we have the "more rational position."  That's why we show up in large numbers.

People Policing the City on Their Own

A few days ago, I blogged about a bystander attempting a citizen's arrest on two armed robbers as they exited the convenience store they'd just stuck up.  The robbers pointed their guns at the citizen, and he killed both of them.

The families of the perpetrators were outraged.  "So how about if people start policing the city on their own?" one asked.

Well, you could get this:

Small Georgia Town Forms Posse, Corners Armed Robbery Suspect

Criminals take note; You're taking a chance if you try to ply your trade in the Dodge County town of Rhine. Local law enforcement is praising townspeople for some de facto community policing, after tracking down and helping catch an armed robbery suspect.

For 60-year-old Ken Lowery the commotion began around 2:30 Thursday afternoon as he stepped inside Aden's convenience store and encountered the store clerk in distress.

"The lady screamed at me and said 'I've been robbed, he's got a gun, and I gave him all the money,'" Lowery recalled.

Lowery says he saw the suspected gunman, identified as 24-year-old Damien Durham of Wilcox County, walking down the street making a nonchalant getaway. Witnesses say it was a bizarre sight, but what happened next was even more unbelievable.

"People just kept coming around and they were mad, people in Rhine were mad," Lowery said. "Here we had an armed robbery in the middle of the day at Aden's and they wanted to form a posse."

Lowery says more than 20 people, many of them armed, spread out looking for the gunman, in trucks and on foot.

"We didn't have no leader of it all, we just went all our separate ways and the people in Rhine they knew they were going to get that rascal," Lowery said.

And they did. He's in jail.

"Here Lies Lester Moore...

...four slugs from a .44.  No Les no more."

(From a headstone at Boot Hill in Tombstone AZ.)

Until this time I have resisted purchasing anything chambered in any of the various .44 calibers.  I have .22's, .223's, 6.5mm, 7mm, .30, 8mm, 9mm, .40 and .45, but nothing in .44.

That just changed.  Or, well, it will on 11/22 when I can pick it up.

I dropped by to visit my favorite Merchant O'Death this morning just to see what they had on the shelves (the AR-15 drought is most definitely over, and ammo is beginning to turn up again - even some .22, though it's limited to 100 rounds per customer).  "So, what's on your 'must have' list these days?" he asked.  I responded "Nothing, really.  I've got all the 'must haves' and now I'm down to the 'kinda wants.'"

"So what do you kinda want?"

"Well, I'll eventually get something chambered in .44."

We discussed the various Specials and Magnums (of which he had a pretty good selection of the latter in the case), then he said, "I've got something interesting!" and headed over to the display case where they keep the special stuff.

This is never a good thing to hear when it comes to my wallet.

What did he have?  This:

That's a pre-2000 629-5. According to the Smith & Wesson forum it is:

a Lew Horton Model 629 S&W Hunter Competitor, 200 were made, only 90 in the US.

The cylinder is unfluted with a brushed finish, the frame and 6" Mag-Na-Ported and weighted barrel slab sides are polished, barrel and frame top are bead-blasted, smooth trigger, no lock, floating firing pin. The serial number supports the "200 were made" claim.

 It's freaking beautiful. I almost hurt myself whipping out the plastic. Can't pick it up until the 22nd because it's used and the shop has to hold it while the Tucson Police ensure it's not stolen property.

I think I stole it.

UPDATE:  Smith & Wesson customer service says it shipped to Lew Horton in 2000, but that's all they have on it.

UPDATE II:  Lew Horton says they're sending me a letter about my gun.

Final update:

Lew Horton Distributing got back to me:

Thank you for your interest in Lew Horton Distributing. Your Smith & Wesson Performance Center Model 629 (S&W #170049), serial number MHR0XXX, is indeed a Lew Horton Special Edition. This model was unique in the market place at that time. It was fitted with a six inch slab sided barrel that had an integral variable weight system, and featured barrel cut outs. The barrel had an integral Weaver style scope mount, and was Mag-na-Ported. The cylinder was unfluted and the cylinder edges were beveled. It was fitted with the then new style Performance Center thumb latch. The action was hand tuned by the craftsmen in the Performance Center. This gun is one of several different variations of the PC 629 Hunter that we did over the years.

This gun is one of 457 units produced in that configuration. This run Model 629 was manufactured by Smith & Wesson and delivered to Lew Horton Distributing from 1999 to 2001.

This Lew Horton Special Edition is listed in the Bluebook of Gun Values under the "Lew Horton Distributing" section.

Best of luck!

So not one of 200, but one of 457 ain't bad!

Bleg

OK, I want some help here.

Awhile back I linked to a post at Rick's Notes that stated that:

The Brits count and report crimes based on the outcome of the investigation and trial.

  This was based on a post at Extrano's Alley which cited a report from Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood to the House of Commons in 2000. The inspector states:

Homicide statistics too vary widely. In some developing countries, the statistics are known to be far from complete. Figures for crimes labelled as homicide in various countries are simply not comparable. Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defence or otherwise. This reduces the apparent number of homicides by between 13 per cent and 15 per cent. The adjustment is made only in respect of figures shown in one part of the Annual Criminal Statistics. In another part relating to the use of firearms, no adjustment is made. A table of the number of homicides in which firearms were used in England and Wales will therefore differ according to which section of the annual statistics was used as its base. Similarly in statistics relating to the use of firearms, a homicide will be recorded where the firearm was used as a blunt instrument, but in the specific homicide statistics, that case will be shown under "blunt instrument".

Many countries, including the United States, do not adjust their statistics down in that way and their figures include cases of self defence, killings by police and justifiable homicides. In Portugal, cases in which the cause of death is unknown are included in the homicide figures, inflating the apparent homicide rate very considerably.

(My emphasis.)

In 2001, Dave Kopel, Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen wrote a column which included this statement:

More recently, a 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police departments with systemic under-classification of crime – for example, by recording burglary as "vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes.

Britain's justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being careful about what to count.

"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes.

This backs up what Inspector Greenwood asserts, but I can't find that specific report.

What I have found is an document from the Home Office dated April 2013 on their official "counting rules" (PDF) that does not mention convictions or even prosecution.

That's all.

I'd REALLY like to find something definitive on this question, but I'm coming up blank. Help?