Multiply by the Zip Code

Via Neo-Neocon comes this fascinating piece by an actual doctor on the wonders of .gov health care, Obamacare and Me. By all means, read the entire piece, but I want to archive here the crucial portion:

I have taken care of Medicaid patients for 35 years while representing the only pediatric ophthalmology group left in Atlanta, Georgia that accepts Medicaid. For example, in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.

Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.

Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved list. Get the point -- rationing of care.

Over the past 35 years I have cared for over 1000 children born with congenital cataracts. In older children and in adults the vision is rehabilitated with an intraocular lens. In newborns we use contact lenses which are very expensive. It takes Medicaid over one year to approve a contact lens post cataract surgery. By that time a successful anatomical operation is wasted as the child will be close to blind from a lack of focusing for so long a period of time.

Again, extreme rationing. Solution: I have a foundation here in Atlanta supported 100% by private funds which supplies all of these contact lenses for my Medicaid and illegal immigrants children for free. Again, waiting for the government would be disastrous.

--

I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and trained for 10 years post-college to become a pediatric ophthalmologist (add two years of my service in the Navy and that comes to 12 years). A neurosurgeon spends 14 years post-college, and if he or she has to do the military that would be 16 years. I am not entitled to make what a neurosurgeon makes, but the new plan calls for all physicians to make the same amount of payment. I assure you that medical students will not go into neurosurgery and we will have a tremendous shortage of neurosurgeons. Already, the top neurosurgeon at my hospital who is in good health and only 52 years old has just quit because he can't stand working with the government anymore.

You want to know what "Single-payer Universal Health Care" would be like for those with serious illness?

Take that, and multiply by the Zip Code.

Obvious Penis Compensation Issues

Obvious Penis Compensation Issues

(To steal a meme from SayUncle)

Harlem Store Owner Shoots 4 Robbers, Killing 2

They strode into the restaurant supply store in Harlem shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday, four young men intent on robbery, one with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. The place may have looked like an easy mark, a high-cash business with an owner in his 70s, known as a gentle, soft-spoken man.

But Charles Augusto Jr., the 72-year-old proprietor of the Kaplan Brothers Blue Flame Corporation, at 523 West 125th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, had been robbed several times before, despite the fact that his shop is around the corner from the 26th Precinct station house on West 126th Street.

There were no customers in the store, only Mr. Augusto and two employees, a man and a woman. The police said the invaders announced a holdup, approached the two employees and tried to place plastic handcuffs on them. The male employee, a 35-year-old known in the community as J. B., struggled with the gunman, who then hit him on the head with the pistol.

Watching it happen, Mr. Augusto, whom neighborhood friends call Gus, rose from a chair 20 to 30 feet away and took out a loaded Winchester 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a pistol-grip handle.

This would be an "evil assault weapon" in New Jersey, a weapon "manufactured for no other reason than to hunt man" that, according to Jersey City Police Chief Thomas Comey, should be banned.

The police said he bought it after a robbery 30 years ago.

Apparently they're pretty effective for defending against criminals.

Mr. Augusto, who has never been in trouble with the law, fired three blasts in rapid succession, the police said,

Well of course. It's a rapid-fire assault weapon after all!

although Vernon McKenzie, working at an Internet company next door, heard only two booms, loud enough to send him rushing to a window, where he heard someone shout: “You’re dead! You’re dead!”

The first shot took down the gunman at the front. He died almost immediately, according to the police, who said he was 29 and had been arrested for gun possession in Queens last year and was the nephew of a police officer.

I wonder if he had any problems acquiring the firearms he used in crime?

Mr. Augusto’s other two blasts hit all three accomplices, who stumbled out the door, bleeding.

One of them, a 21-year-old, staggered across 125th Street and collapsed in front of the General Grant Houses, a nine-building complex with 4,500 residents, one of the city’s biggest housing projects. Someone called 911, and an ambulance rushed him to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he was dead on arrival. The police said he had a record of arrests for weapons possession and robbery.

Another criminal with a long rap sheet. And Mr. Augusto? Clean as a whistle. But I do wonder if he jumped through all the hoops necessary to acquire and maintain a premises permit for his 12-gauge.

A law enforcement official said that the district attorney was considering a possible misdemeanor weapons charge against Mr. Augusto, indicating that he did not have a permit for the shotgun.

Apparently not.

Read the whole thing. As Instapundit said, "Surprisingly sympathetic treatment from the NYT."

Quote of the Day

Back to John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education:

I lived through the great transformation which turned schools from often useful places (if never the essential ones school publicists claimed) into laboratories of state experimentation. When I began teaching in 1961, the social environment of Manhattan schools was a distant cousin of the western Pennsylvania schools I attended in the 1940s, as Darwin was a distant cousin of Malthus.

Discipline was the daily watchword on school corridors. A network of discipline referrals, graded into an elaborate catalogue of well-calibrated offenses, was etched into the classroom heart. At bottom, hard as it is to believe in today’s school climate, there was a common dedication to the intellectual part of the enterprise. I remember screaming (pompously) at an administrator who marked on my plan book that he would like to see evidence I was teaching "the whole child," that I didn’t teach children at all, I taught the discipline of the English language! Priggish as that sounds, it reflects an attitude not uncommon among teachers who grew up in the 1940s and before. Even with much slippage in practice, Monongahela and Manhattan had a family relationship. About schooling at least. Then suddenly in 1965 everything changed.

Whatever the event is that I’m actually referring to—and its full dimensions are still only partially clear to me—it was a nationwide phenomenon simultaneously arriving in all big cities coast to coast, penetrating the hinterlands afterwards. Whatever it was, it arrived all at once, the way we see national testing and other remote-control school matters like School-to-Work legislation appear in every state today at the same time. A plan was being orchestrated, the nature of which is unmasked in the upcoming chapters.

Think of this thing for the moment as a course of discipline dictated by coaches outside the perimeter of the visible school world. It constituted psychological restructuring of the institution’s mission, but traveled under the guise of a public emergency which (the public was told) dictated increasing the intellectual content of the business! Except for its nightmare aspect, it could have been a scene from farce, a swipe directly from Orwell’s 1984 and its fictional telly announcements that the chocolate ration was being raised every time it was being lowered. This reorientation did not arise from any democratic debate, or from any public clamor for such a peculiar initiative; the public was not consulted or informed. Best of all, those engineering the makeover denied it was happening.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Nice to have that from a "Primary Source."

It's Not About Ownership, It's about CONTROL

It's Not About Ownership, It's about CONTROL

Since it appears to be "Spank Markadelphia" week here at TSM, I'd like to point out one of his sillier "gotcha!" points, one he is so proud of:

Currently, 20+ trillion dollars is in the hands of private organizations in this country. That's 99.77 percent of our nation's wealth. The other .23 percent is owned by the government.

--

Most bankds(sic) have paid back their loans and the government owns .23 percent of our wealth. The rest is in private hands. So...who has the power again?

I think he got his information from The Atlantic, since he used a graph from there in a post of his own, but that piece says 0.21%. I believe he's mentioned this number here in other places, but my Google-fu is weak this evening.

So, for Markadelphia, possession of wealth is apparently the only marker of power that matters.

No wonder he apparently hates people with three vacation homes.

I found an interesting piece today from the Center for Fiscal Responsibility, which declared that yesterday, August 12, was "Cost of Government Day" - the day on which working people stopped earning money that would go to Federal, State, and Local governments, and finally start going into their pockets. It was the latest date this has ever happened. Per the piece, the date shift is almost entirely due to the recent massive increases in Federal spending - Bush's TARP and Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, noting ". . . these spending bills set taxpayers up for a year when federal spending has reached a record 28.5 percent of GDP.

The GDP for the US, according to the CIA World Factbook was $14.33 trillion in 2008. As many are now aware, our annual expenditure for health care in 2007 was estimated at $2.4 trillion, about 1/7th of our GDP.

And now the government wants to control a bigger - much bigger - chunk of that.

So the Federal government controls about 28.5% of our GDP - that is, about $4.8 trillion dollars annually. To that they want to add a significant portion of an additional $2.4 trillion - and, if you happen to believe (as I do) that the plan is to eventually control it all, and with "normal government efficiency" that means more than the $2.4 trillion we spend now, while we get less for it.

The control of $4,800,000,000,000 annually isn't power?

Then there's this:


The ability to print money isn't power?

And, finally, the Federal Government outright owns an estimated 28.8% of all land in the United States, and with the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision of 2005, pretty much any government entity can take any property they want for pretty much any reason. In addition, as of 2004, the Federal government outright owned a bit over 411,000 buildings, about 17.5% of which (and 20% of the square footage) provide housing to American citizens. (Source: GSA's FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY PROFILE 2004 - PDF)

THIS isn't POWER?

By comparison, at his peak Bill Gates was worth only $101 billion.

So, who has the power again?

Oh, and just who is it that controls the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, FBI, NSA, CIA, Secret Service . . .

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

As a recent convert from liberalism to conservatism, I must say… you all are so much more fun and entertaining! I truly wish I could have come to my senses sooner!

But now I find myself in this very strange place of conversion. I still hold some of my more liberal thoughts, but now find myself reviewing them from a firmer stance in reality. As my dear friend Kevin would probably phrase it, “You must have gotten tired of sniffing the Unicorn Farts!”

With this newfound light to the world, I also have a new view of where this illustrious country of ours is headed… and frankly it scares the crap out of me. I used to blind myself by saying, “We can make it better, we just need to try harder and come up with better solutions.” Something that I now have found out is very closely related to the Democratic motto when a plan of theirs goes wrong, “The philosophy can’t be wrong, the idea is sound… we just have to do it again, only harder!” Ah… to be free of the shackles of delusion.

-- Mr. Bill, Rants and Reviews, "Where are we going, and what are we doing in this handbasket?"

I'm not solely responsible, but I may have helped create a monster.

The rest of it is worth a read, too. He's asking questions.

"You Don't Trust Me?"

Claire McCaskill asked that question of her constituents at a Town Hall meeting, insisting that a "single-payer" bill wouldn't pass. The response was swift. I'm going to pick on Markadelphia some more, because he is such a stereotype that he lends himself to it.

We've been discussing the ChOsen One's enthusiasm for rushing "Health Care Reform" through the Congress with as little delay, transparency, and discussion as possible, and just why that might be. As many here have objected (me included), it's a plan that will lead to "single-payer" / "Socialized medicine."

Markadelphia denies this. For example:

I don't know for certain what system we will have. So why are you so certain that it will be a single payer system and be as bad as GB?

And:

I didn't answer the question because the solutions that are out there don't have the government as a single payer. What they have is the government as one option and private insurance as another.

And from his own blog:

And speaking of the single payer system, the final bill floating around DC is the United States National Health Care Act. This bill is a single payer system, similar to Canada's health care system, that was put forth by John Conyers. Of the three bills that seek to overhaul health care in the United States, this is the one that is being taken the least seriously. Although, you wouldn't know it by listening to hyper paranoid voices on the right.

In fact, virtually all single payer advocacy groups have been screaming at the top of their lungs that they are being excluded from the process...other than a pity meeting with Max Bachus. The fact is that this bill is never going to pass because our country, despite what the flat earthers will have you believe, is center right. Private industry will never be shut out of the process. It's too integral to our economy and our future as a nation. This is very true when it comes to health care. I do agree that competition spurs innovation and with a single payer system, we would not have that.

And that's why out of all three bills, I favor HR3200 out of all three. Primarily, it offers the best of both worlds and addresses the issue of how to pay for all of this. Wyden's bill relies too heavily on the private sector and Conyers bill will, in all likelihood, break the bank. We need to strike a balance and that's what this bill does. And this balance allows for traps and pitfalls that are going to occur along the way where the other two really don't.

Yes, Markadelphia trusts the government to come up with a "third way" that will provide a "public option" without eliminating private insurance.

Neo-Neocon found a video I've been waiting for. I've seen all of these clips spread around, but someone took the time to compile them into a coherent whole:


Why are we "so certain that it will be a single payer system and be as bad as GB?" Because they've told us what they're doing. It's not a Trojan Horse, it's just right there!

Why should we trust them? "It is not a principled fight!" Indeed, it is not. The fact that they are confident enough to admit it publicly, proudly, should frighten you.

It does me.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

Another comment by reader "GrumpyOldFart" only this one's all his:

Since Mark is making all these declarations about what the Republican base must obviously believe, let's examine the actions of the Democrat base and see what they must obviously believe.

Let's start with what they know. As always, the right will be held to a higher standard than the left, so I'll limit myself to things that "I didn't know _________!" on a given subject would be as absurd as saying, "I didn't know professional wrestling was fake!"

1. They know that their party's House Financial Services Committee Chairman, House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman, House Speaker, Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Chairman, Senate Rules Committee Chairman, are all flat-out crooks, and make very little attempt to hide it.

2. They know that one of their primary fundraising organizations is wholly owned by a multibillionaire who makes no attempt to hide the fact that he manipulates the organization, and thus Democrat Party policy, for his own purposes.

3. They know that that one of their primary "activist" organizations is under indictment for voter registration fraud in a dozen states, and that this same organization is going to be given quite a bit of authority over the census, which determines what? Oh, just unimportant things like Congressional districting, electoral votes, stuff like that.

4. They know their party's current leader chose someone as Attorney General who declines to prosecute people caught on video engaging in blatant voter intimidation. Whether it's because the thugs in question were his same party or his same ethnicity is immaterial, it's quite obvious that the AG has neither the desire nor any intention of impartially enforcing the law. They also know this same leader nominated a Supreme Court Justice who demanded a case be judged on the race of those involved rather than on its merits.

5. They know that nothing the aforementioned leader says can be taken at face value. Nothing. I was for Single Payer before I was against it, the stimulus was not intended as a stimulus, you can start blaming me for the economy right now but it's your mess, there will be no lobbyists in my administration except for almost the entirety of my cabinet, it's time to embrace science rather than superstition even though my "science czar" is a eugenicist, everything will be discussed on C-SPAN and there will be a full debate and five full days for the American people to see the bill cos it's all about transparency (although the Republicans will be locked out of most of the process, I'll refuse FOIA requests, and I'll insist that the bills are too important to actually read them before I demand your unequivocal support), we must have a full and open debate on the issues while my senior advisor unleashes union thugs on my opponents, we have to get clear of the lies, disinformation, misinformation and distraction even though I'm pressuring the CBO to fudge their figures when they disagree with me....

...I could go on, but you see the point.

6. They know that this same leader produced more deficit in six months than every other President combined in the entire history of the Republic, all while preaching fiscal responsibility.

Okay, that's the highlights of what the Democrat base pretty much cannot help but know. And yet what quality, more than any other single factor, defines the difference between Republicans and Democrats? It is this:

When Republicans find out one of their leaders is making no real attempt to "walk the walk" (Ted Stevens is a good example) the base calls for him to be thrown out.

When Democrats find out one of their leaders is making no real attempt to "walk the walk" (Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Murtha, Jackson, Rangel, Waters... sheesh, pick one) the base either defends him by demonizing his/her critics or says "So what?" and ignores it.

I'll do links if you ask, but this is already very long and 5 seconds on google will provide you all you want.

What conclusions can we draw from this? There are really only two choices:
Either

a) The Democrat base fully shares the corrupt, "it's all about my power, my perks, screw everybody who gets in the way, I don't give a shit if it's legal or not" mindset of the leaders they choose, or

b) The Democrat base considers ethics, honesty and the rule of law at best indifferent if not actually destructive to the process of good government.

Were there any justice in this world, that would leave a scar.

How much is it the insurance companies are paying you? Well deserved, sir! Well deserved!

Your Moment of Zen

Your Moment of Zen



Lofoten Islands, Norway

Another Blast from the Past

Another Blast from the Past

Recently, perpetual commentator (and personal "reactive target range") Markadelphia has made noises about how the Left just isn't as mean and nasty and violent as the Right.

Orly?

I invite you to read an op-ed printed in an "alternative" weekly immediately after Bush won re-election in 2004. (The link to the original piece is still good - I checked.) Remember: This is something they printed. What do you think they didn't put in ink?

There's this, too, but the link to the original is now broken.

And these are the people with their hands on the levers of power. Don't doubt it.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

Hat tip to commenter GrumpyOldFart who found it in a comment thread at HotAir

It's darkly amusing to watch them fumble across this new, less slanted landscape, shrieking the devil words they think will scare voters out of questioning them. If you look beyond the squalid little insinuations about swastikas and un-American fifth columns, even the less hysterical challenges to the legitimacy of their opponents are revealing. The accusation that people asking questions at town hall meetings are paid operatives of the insurance companies supposes the superior virtue of politicians to private industry. When Obama's political staff sends out marching orders to supporters, along with scripts for how to look credible and concerned while advocating state-run health care, it is considered to be noble "community organizing." If insurance companies were to assist with any kind of organized resistance to Obama's agenda, it would be denounced as sleazy and sinister.

To appreciate this mindset, you must embrace the central tenet of socialism: the State is caring, compassionate, and wise, far beyond the vile and money-grubbing businessmen of the private sector. The insurance industry couldn't possibly know anything useful about insuring people, could it? Of course not. Only their greed prevents them from showering Americans with cheap, universal coverage. The same dynamic is at play when liberals sneer at the idea of allowing energy companies to have any say in energy policy. It's also why the Left loves to extol the virtues of "working Americans," while offering only hatred to the business owners who employ them, and arrogant contempt for the consumerist culture that purchases the products they create. On any given topic, the only legitimate voices belong to politicians and their supporters. Businessmen are expected to sit quietly in their cells and await judgment. -- "Doctor Zero"

And this seems an appropriate place to repeat a couple of quotes from Jonah Goldberg's best-seller, Liberal Fascism:

Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don't matter. It also highlights the real fascist legacy of World War I and the New Deal: the notion that government action in the name of "good things" under the direction of "our people" is always and everywhere justified. Dissent by the right people is the highest form of patriotism. Dissent by the wrong people is troubling evidence of incipient fascism. The anti-dogmatism that progressives and fascists alike inherited from Pragmatism made the motives of the activist the only criteria for judging the legitimacy of action.

--

This has been the liberal enterprise ever since: to transform a democratic republic into an enormous tribal community, to give every member of society from Key West, Florida, to Fairbanks, Alaska, that same sense of belonging - "we're all in it together!" - that we allegedly feel in a close-knit community. The yearning for community is deep and human and decent. But these yearnings are often misplaced when channeled through the federal government and imposed across a diverse nation with a republican constitution. This was the debate at the heart of the Constitutional Convention and one that the progressives sought to settle permanently in their favor. The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good. And yet ever since the New Deal, liberals have been unable to shake this fundamental dogma that the state can be the instrument for a politics of meaning that transforms the entire nation into a village.

--

All public policy issues ultimately boil down to one thing: Locke versus Rousseau. The individual comes first, the government is merely an association protecting your interests, and it's transactional, versus the general will, the collective, the group is more important than the individual. Everything boils down to that eventually. And the problem with "compassionate conservatism" is the same problem with social gospelism, with Progressivism and all the rest: it works on the assumption that the government can love you. The government can't love you. The government is not your mommy and it's not your daddy, and any system that is based on those assumptions will eventually lead to folly.

Obviously a Paid Shill of the Insurance Companies

Obviously a Paid Shill of the Insurance Companies


WITNESS!

Malice vs. Stupidity

Heinlein's (or, if you insist, Hanlon's) Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

Then there's Grey's Law:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

And Rick Cook's admonition:

The key to understanding the American system (of government) is to imagine that you have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy will be the one to enforce it.

One more on top of that, from my comments recently:

Congress does two things well - Nothing and Overreact. -- Adam Putnam

The topic of the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act has once again arisen in the blogosphere. Megan McArdle brought up one unintended consequence of that particular overreaction, and that was picked up in a couple more places, like Tam's View from the Porch (not a good idea to get Tam mad at you), and The Washington Examiner. But these pieces were primarily about children's books, and the CPSIA covers a lot more than just books.

Walter Olson of Overlawyered has been on top of this since the legislation was introduced. From a Forbes piece from January:

Self-congratulation makes for bad law.

If someone you know volunteers at a thrift store or crochets baby hats for the crafts site Etsy or favors handmade wooden toys as a baby shower gift, you've probably been hearing the alarms about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

Hailed almost universally on its passage last year--it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter--CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?

I find the title to Olson's piece particularly interesting, since it echoes a particularly fine book, Thomas Sowell's Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Professor Sowell's book was published back in 1996 and it covers thirty years of history, so the CPSIA has a lot of company. I strongly recommend it, if you haven't read it.

Malice, or "sufficiently advanced incompetence"?

Does it really matter?

For example, let's look at the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Campaign Finance Reform Act. It passed in the House by a fair margin, and squeaked through the Senate, and was signed into law by G.W. Bush, even though Bush said he thought parts of it were probably unconstitutional. Shortly after passage, training seminars were instituted to instruct incumbents on the nuances of the bill they had just passed.

The general response when told what they could and couldn't do under the restrictions of the new law? "I didn't know it said THAT!"

The tradition of not reading bills (a book on the law and its meaning runs a mere 457 pages) has a long, rich history. The War on (some) Drugs™ has resulted in numerous unintended consequences from poorly thought-out legislation and laws enforced with either malice or incompetence sufficiently advanced so as to be indistinguishable. Radley Balko has made a career out of reporting on those. But there are others that people know less of. I wrote about the prosecution of Christopher and Trudy Sherburne for the possession of ten rounds of tracer ammunition. The state of California destroyed their home and business - literally - over those ten rounds, and sentenced Christopher to five years in prison.

I've written about George Norris, whose business was raided and in effect destroyed by gun toting, body-armor clad agents of the Fish & Wildlife Service over some rare orchids that he insisted were legally imported, but the Feds insisted were not. The Feds have unlimited funds with which to persecut, er, prosecute. Mr. Norris did not. He plead guilty at the advice of his attorney and got a 17 month sentence. Read the update to the story here. Store all breakables before you do. Then read the story of Krister Evertson and his persecution by the Feds.

And it's not just laws, look at a recent regulatory change. The EPA has now classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and the EPA has the power to regulate the production of pollutants. I'm unsure where, exactly, that power comes from under our Constitution, but it's a fait accompli. What will the unintended consequences of this decision be?

I've quoted Rand's take on this several times (do read that link). As others have noted, as time goes on she seems more and more prescient.

And now the Obama Administration wants to shove a 1000+ page bill that totally reforms the American health-care system through Congress, and Congresscritters aren't even shy about admitting that they don't know what's in it.

At some point it becomes immaterial whether the laws were due to incompetence or maliciousness. That point is when their implementation is indistinguishable from maliciousness. I submit that we've passed that point, and the only thing preventing even more massive public blowback is our general ignorance and our well-established general respect for the Rule of Law. As I've said, the .gov has done a good job of practicing such persecution on a retail level, rather than wholesale, but it's getting to the point where the abuse is going wholesale and the stories are getting out to the mass audience.

I've also stated that I know where my personal "line in the sand" is. I suspect that the number of others reaching their own conclusion on that subject is growing.

Too bad it won't result in a restoration of the Constitution. Entropy doesn't work that way.

And I need to cheer the hell up.

UPDATE: PolyKahr has a related post up.

Open Carry ≠ Public Panic

Open Carry ≠ Public Panic

Long ago another blogger (I won't link to it now, but you can search this site if you'd like) said about citizens carrying firearms:

I just...I just blink my eyes in amazement everytime this crops up - actually watching people feel the need to carry a concealed weapon in public...

If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment's notice to possibly kill...a child. A homeless person. An innocent.

Tonight I had dinner with about thirty people at a packed Golden Corral restaurant in Phoenix.

And almost every one of us was open carrying. About half of us (me included) were toting 1911s. At least another third were carrying revolvers of various types, from Single-Action Army models to modern Smith & Wessons. Then there were a smattering of the various plastic-fantastic pistols - Glocks, Springfield XDs, etc.

There was no public panic. Lots of children running about the place. (I damn near stepped on the cutest little girl - so much for my situational awareness in a crowded restaurant! She came around me like John Force at the WinterNationals, only without the blast of nitromethane exhaust to warn me.) Lots of families. No one got shot at the salad bar. No one was winged at the dessert buffet. There were no duels over the last popcorn shrimp. No wild-west shootouts over the last parking space.

No one ran screaming from the restaurant in fear. No one (to our knowledge) complained about all the armed people in the place. The police were not summoned. The FBI did not put in an appearance.

And nobody robbed the place either. (Can you imagine what an epic failure of the victim-selection process that would have been?) All in all, it was a pleasant meal with good company - all members of The Gun Counter. And me. I'm not a member, but I got an invite anyway. It was a much bigger turnout that I expected.

UPDATE - 8/16/09: INSTALANCHE!! Welcome! Please do spend a little extra time perusing the site. I recommend checking out the "Best Posts" on the left column.

<--------- (Over there! Scroll down a bit.)

But get a beverage and a snack first. Some of them run a little long. I call them "Überposts." One reader, for example, said Of Laws and Sausages was a "13,000 word wall of text, but I assure you, it's worthwhile."

Thanks for visiting!

OK, How Did I Not Know About This?

OK, How Did I Not Know About This?

I've lived in Arizona now for 28 years, moving here from Cary, NC in July of 1981. How did I not know about the bi-annual Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot? It's been going on almost five years!

I don't own any NFA items, but I will be the first person to tell you that full-auto hardware is the finest mechanism for turning large volumes of cash into noise and smiles. The next shoot is scheduled for October 16-18.

Here's a short promotional video of the inaugural 2005 event:



Remember that op-ed I fisked a bit back where the moron Marc Rubin asked about privately-owned cannon? I bet he'd leave skid-marks in his drawers if he watched that clip.

I think I might have to take a drive up there that October weekend. It's only about five hours . . .

Because Bank of America Thinks You're Stupid

Because Bank of America Thinks You're Stupid

Now we have three bloggers in my office. The Obama supporter I've written about? While his worldview remains left of center, recent events have altered his thinking a bit. The world may not run on unicorn farts after all! I've even gotten him to put up an 11x17 full color poster of the Obama-as-Joker image in his office! And he has decided that everyone deserves to know what he thinks - thus a newbie joins the blogosphere.

His first post is a worthy one. Bank of America has had three advertising slogans recently:

Bank of America. Higher Standards
Embracing ingenuity
Think what we can do for you
Perhaps those would be better stated thus:

Bank of America. Higher Lower Standards
Embracing ingenuity (in how we screw our customers)
Think what we can do for to you

If you have a BofA mortgage (like I do, since they bought it from Countrywide), perhaps you should look very carefully at the multiple payment options BofA offers. Specifically, the terms of those options.

Bill did. He was not amused.

Neither am I.

Hey! STILL Wanna Win One of These?

That's ParaUSA's new GI Expert entry-level 1911 I've been talking about for a couple of months now. Gun World magazine just published a review of it that was very positive. The specs are:

Caliber: .45 ACP
Barrel: 5 inches, stainless steel
Twist: 1 in 16 inches, left-hand
Action: Single-action, Semi-automatic
Sights: Dovetail Fixed, 3-White Dot
Receiver: Carbon Steel
Trigger: Medium length
Hammer: Skeletonized Spur
Magazine: 8-round with removable base pad (two provided with pistol)
Overall Length: 8.5 inches
Height: 5.75 inches
Weight: 39 ounces
Finish: Covert Black Para Kote™
Stocks: Checkered Polymer
Safeties: Slide Lock, Internal Firing Block, Grip
Additional Features: Lowered and flared ejection port, beveled magazine well, flat mainspring housing, grip safety contoured for spur hammer, two eight-round stainless magazines
MSRP: $599

I picked up the pistol from Murphy's Guns this afternoon at lunch, and it's a beauty!

Regardless of our being screwed by PayPal, this raffle is going forward. Soldiers' Angels is still taking phone orders for the tickets, AND hopefully tonight or tomorrow on-line ticket sales will resume HAVE RESUMED! Rendezvous sponsor LuckyGunner.com has stepped up to let us use his commercial web site to sell the tickets with all proceeds (minus the 3% credit card fee) going to Soldiers' Angels. At least PayPoop won't be getting another dime.

We've got about four weeks left before the Rendezvous for ticket sales, and - don't forget - the OTHER prize in the drawing is a $2,000 value gift certificate to Front Sight, good for a four-day class or two two-day classes. I think if the first ticket we draw comes from a "prohibited" state, you might very well be the winner of that prize. I'll talk to Mr. Completely about that.

Here are some pictures of the actual pistol in question:





Add to that, Maryland. No spent casing in the box for their useless IBIS system.
Sorry about that, but I don't make the stupid damned laws, I just have to abide by them.


What's on the inside.


It even comes with a bushing wrench and lubricant!


Puuurty!


Pretty nice, no? Only $10 a ticket! And it's for a great cause! Tickets will be on sale both on-line through LuckyGunner.com and by phone through Soldiers' Angels until September 7, so hurry! Get yours today! (And maybe buy some ammo while you're at it. If it's on the LuckyGunner site, it's in stock!)

White House Anti-Sedition Squad

White House Anti-Sedition Squad

I received a few pads of these permits from a reader a couple of weeks ago, and I was waiting for the right time to post about them. Looks like today is a good day:


Feel free to spread it around. I added the "flag@whitehouse.gov" email address to the form.

Words to Live By - QotD

Words to Live By - QotD

I got to the "public" townhall sponsored by Rep. Kathy Castor and the SEIU an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open. Apparently, it would not have mattered when I arrived. We stood out in the 90 plus degree weather only to be told that that the hall had been filled through a side door and no one else would be let in.

The crowd surrounded the building. We stood in front of every door and window and chanted "just say no" and "live or die". The crowd was well behaved but really worked up. I heard several people say that there were three thousand people outside. I can't confirm it but I certainly don't doubt it.

--

I am upset, like everyone else that showed up, that we were locked out of what was supposed to be a public meeting. On the other hand, I am really proud of my fellow citizens. We represented every age group, every race and ethnic group. Rep. Kathy Castor made it clear that she doesn't represent us. That is okay. Next election, we will find someone who does.

-- Carol's Closet, The Tampa Town Hall WAS NOT Open to the Public

Throw 'em ALL out.

RTWT. It's a pretty interesting first-hand ("Primary Source") account of the Tampa hijinx.

(h/t: Instapundit)

Where Are My Wheelbarrows Full of Cash

Where Are My Wheelbarrows Full of Cash?

First I'm supposed to be a paid shill of the NRA and the eeeeeevil gun manufacturers, and now I'm supposed to be a paid shill of the Rethuglicans, the Big pHarma, and the Health Insurance Cabal for opposing the chOsen One's selfless efforts to save us from our near-sighted stupidity.

I want to know, where's my damned money?

A Blast from the Past

Back in May of 2007 I wrote Good Guys 1, Bad Guys 0, the story of a defensive gun use by a Cape Coral, Florida man who was accosted in his own front yard by two young men, one armed with a revolver. He resisted and managed to disarm one opponent, who he then shot. That assailant died as a result of his wound. His accomplices, the other young man involved in the assault and a young woman who was acting as the getaway driver, were later caught. They were charged, per Florida's law, with murder, since a death occurred during the commission of a felony.

One murder trial began yesterday:

The trial of a Fort Myers man charged with murder started this morning with opening statements and the case's first witness.

Damion Shearod, 22, faces up to life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm, attempted armed robbery with a firearm and burglary with a firearm.

Shearod is charged in the killing of John Patrick Moore, who was shot to death by Cape Coral homeowner Jacob Selack at 2125 N.E. 1st Ave. on May 16, 2007, during a botched robbery.

According to police, Shearod, Moore and Jazzmyne Rahshel Carrol-Love drove from Fort Myers to the house occupied by Selack and his fiancee Elizabeth Kachnic.

Moore, who was carrying a weapon, and Shearod walked up to Selack, who was mowing his yard, according to Cape Coral police. They put a gun to his head and demanded he take them into the house. Selack resisted and when Moore dropped the gun, Selack fired it at him, killing him in the driveway. Shearod ran away. Carrol-Love remained in the car during the alleged robbery attempt.

Shearod was convicted of murder in 2005 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but a judge overturned the conviction because he determined the jury didn't have enough evidence to convict.

They should now.

Read the original post, it's pretty interesting. Note that, once again, the media has no qualms about printing the street address of the actual victim here, Jacob Selack. You can look it up on Google Maps and get a damned street view of the place.

But do we get the home addresses of the perps?


(*crickets*)