This is Why

I like Popehat. The whole snarky thing HERE. And, yanno, I’ve always wanted a M1919BAR, among other neat toys, I should just buy a Bridgeport and be done with it. I’ve already got a 220 line into the basement.

Troy Davis

The Liberty Papers has a very good essay on the Troy Davis kefuffle in Georgia. Go thou and READ.

Big Round Number

I’m annoyed. Humans, with ten digits, are interested in big round numbers. Tenth, fiftieth, all sorts of anniversaries that divide neatly by 10 (or 25) for that matter. It’s arbitrary, it’s capricious, and it’s really useless.

The kerfuffle over 9/11 is really pretty disgusting. Matt G said it best, in his post Just Stop It. I quote the key grafs: You want to wave our flag? Push to bring back most of our troops from the errands we’ve sent them on. Push to sunset the Patriot Act for good. Push to fire the TSA. Push to strengthen our borders (still as porous as they were 10 years ago, from what I see.).

But don’t use some arbitrary tenth anniversary of the death of our countrymen as a day to be entertained. Do something GOOD for your country for a change, would you, please? We’ve spent the last 3,652 days dismantling it.

Yeah, what he said. Too often, as a society, we opt to do “consciousness raising” and theater instead of actually, you know, DOING something that will work. We choose cheap sentiment and emotion over testing hypotheses and doing what works. Well, screw that noise. Do something useful, or shut up.

Several thousand people died that day, ten years ago. The guy who planned it is now fish food. His minions are cowering, hiding from missiles fired by drones. Good. But we’ve got a long way to go. Fix the border. Get rid of the TSA security theater. Don’t put up with cops who are afraid to be photographed doing their jobs. Get rid of stupid drug laws that fund terrorism.

Use tragedy to make sure those folks didn’t die in vain.

If You Aren’t Outraged, You Aren’t Paying Attention

Francesca Rice is a veteran. She owns firearms. Lakewood OH police heard about it, came to her condo, got the super to let them in and took them. Ms. Rice was not arrested, she wasn’t home, they just came an took her property. Ms. Rice owns them legally, but the cops will not return the weapons, worth over $15,000 without a court order. So she’s suing them. Story is HERE (Hat tip, Misfit)

If the people who did this weren’t wearing ugly blue polyester uniforms, this would be called “Grand Theft” and “Breaking and Entering”. The Earth-Bound Misfit suggests sending a copy of the United States Constitution to the Lakewood Chief of Police. I concur.

Chief of Police Timothy J. Malley
Lakewood City Hall
12650 Detroit Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107

Also, the cash-strapped city of Cleveland (who is laying off police officers) is spending money and time on a gun registration program that is a. voluntary and b. has no data about efficacy whatsoever.

This might be a radical idea, but if you’re short of money and crime is a problem, you might want to stop hassling the law-abiding, and shift resources to, oh, I don’t know, actually catching criminals.

Kandahar Hospital

A five part series, H/t LEX. Go READ.

A Fine Rant

From the Gormogons

Key Graf:

That’s about it. We are honorable people. We believe in helping the poor and less fortunate. But we also believe in earning your keep, and in keeping what we earn. We produce and give and fund the government, yet we get nothing back but disdain and scorn. We are not your ATM. We are not your indentured servants. You no talent ass clowns work for us, and don’t you forget it. We are sorry you elites are uncomfortable being asked what your value-add is. It must be discomfiting to realize you add little if anything of value to our society. Forgive us for not caring what someone who has never had to make payroll or lay off employees thinks about small business and the economy

Read the whole thing.

Casey Anthony

I haven’t been following this case closely, because I don’t really care.  At the end of the day, though, do please remember what John Adams said, “”It is far better to let 10 guilty men go free than to send one innocent man to prison”.  The Lawyer With A Gun has some excellent thoughts on the subject .

Booty Call Ninjas

I am not sure if this is a rule of crime or a rule of life; but one should be careful in dealing with ex-lovers.  Particularly ex-lovers who are…peeved.  It seems a man in the peri-Chicago area called his ex-girlfriend and asked her to come over for sex (1).  She agreed, (2) but when he went to go to her car, he was assaulted by a masked figure with nunchuks and throwing stars (3).  He was found in a bloody heap, but identified his ex-girlfriend as one of his assailants (4).  The story is here, H/T Gormogons.

1.  He actually thought this would work?

2. She’s a much better actor than me.

3. Nunchucks and shuriken?  Really?  They went out of their way to get martial-arts weapons?  You can get dimensional lumber and lead pipe at the hardware store, fer crying out loud.  You’ve just given the DA premeditiation.  OK, you get style points for the nunchuks, but those are outweighed by the doofus points.

4. If you’re gonna attack the guy, cover your face TOO.  A smarter idea would be to give it a pass yourself, and have the assailant snatch your purse or something, making you look like a victim, not a perpetrator.

Do It, Already.

Humans like charismatic leaders.  One like John F. Kennedy can inspire us to literally shoot for the moon.  Others, like Jim Jones can lead to horrible disasters.  It is not a good idea to look for a leader to inspire and take us to the promised land.  I frankly wish for more personal responsibility, and believe with all my heart that people should not use the power of the state to tell others what they should or should not do, be that smoke cigarettes or marry their beloved.

Over at Sharp As A Marble, Robb said it very well.

We need to stop letting these idiots who can’t even keep their privates off of the Internet run our country into the ground. We need to stop bending over with each new unconstitutional law they pass and start ignoring them. The key word there is WE, not some politician (and make no bones about it, Sarah Palin is still a politician) who will come in with a magic wand and make all the bad things go away. It’s that false belief in ‘Hope & Change’ that got us here today, and I’m not just talking about Obama.

YOU do it. Don’t want for someone else. That’s the problem.

Yeah. There is no savior, there is no justice, there is just us. I want personal responsibility, patriotism, civil liberties, and to be left alone. No-one is going to do it for me, and the first rule of organizations is to retain power.

QOTD

From the Earth Bound Misfit, about the sheriff’s shooting in AZ:

If the police want to retain the support of the people, they had better knock this shit off. For the day will come when we will strike back, legally, through the budget process and through the legislative process.

And from Tamara, on the same subject. :

 If your people weren’t dressing up like masked thugs and kicking doors down and shooting people, then robbers wouldn’t be able to impersonate your people by dressing up like masked thugs and kicking doors down and shooting people, in turn necessitating your people dressing up like masked thugs and kicking their doors down and shooting them.