Month: August 2004

Lack of Posting…

Sorry about the dearth of new stuff, but I’ve been really busy and had other things to attend to. Were it not for the fact that I had promised to host the Carnival this week, I might not have posted anything at all. I’ve got a mother of an essay rolling around in the back of my skull somewhere that might actually get out of me tomorrow or the next day, though.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me this week. Expect, however, that the volume of my output will be somewhat reduced for the foreseeable future due to work and other considerations. There’s a lot going on that I’d really like to comment on, but I simply have not had the spare time.

Welcome Instapundit Visitors!

Welcome to my humble abode. While The Smallest Minority is the host of the Carnival of the Vanities this week, the normal focus of this blog is on the rights of individuals in general, and the Right to Arms in particular. If this subject holds any interest for you, please take some time while you’re here to peruse some of the “Best Posts” linked on the left sidebar of the page. (And, remembering that this IS a Blogspot blog, if the link doesn’t take you directly to the post when you click on it, it WILL take you to the proper page. Clicking the sidebar link again on the page that opens should take you directly to the post in question.)

Enjoy your visit, leave a comment, and – this is especially important – if you disagree with my position, and feel motivated enough to debate the subject, drop me an email. Or, if you’re interested, but uninformed, I’m more than happy to discuss it with you. I’ve studied my subject for going on ten years now. If they offered a PhD, I’d qualify, and I LIKE to argue educate!

Go on, now, and have a good time!

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends,

We’re so glad you could attend. Come inside, come inside!

Welcome to the 99th Edition of the Carnival of the Vanities. (What did I get myself into?) I’ve decided to go with a carnival theme this week (there’s an original idea!). So let’s get to it, shall we? Here they are in the order they were received:

First up, the ticket booth!

Elliot Fladen of The Fladen Experience gives us his take on why Voting Third Party Is Not Throwing Your Vote Away. You tell ’em, Elliot!

For the entertainment of the kiddies, there’s an inflatable boxing ring!

And from the blog The Watcher of Weasles, the Watcher sends us He Fought for His Country… Before He Fought Against It. Guess who it’s about?

Remember the Shoot the Star game? Where you use an air-powered BB machine gun to shoot out the red star from the center of your target to win a prize?

Ravenwood sends us his first Carnival entry for a while, this one entitled Police Confiscate 500-1000 Guns. It seems that a gun registered to a Thad Shank, a 63 year-old New York man was recovered as stolen property. When the police went to visit Mr. Shank…

Well, let Ravenwood take it from there.

I know this is a Carnival, but there’s some 4H farm animals here too. Here are the prize sheep:

Which brings us to Pieter Dorsman’s entry. Pieter is proprietor of the blog Peaktalk, and this week’s entry is described by Pieter as “about the inability of political elites to drive a society forward with fresh ideas.” It’s entitled Progress by Ideas.

And there’s clowns! Little kid clowns!

Because Norman of Espresso Sarcasm sends us his entry, The Top Ten Signs it’s Time for Your Spawn Kids to Go Back to School. And it’s a good list.

Food? Of COURSE there’s food!

Hungry? ‘Cause Autie Goob of Goobage sends us her entry, “Linking statins, low-carb diets, diets in general and Teflon.” Entitled, More on Statins (and then low carb). Yuuuum, yum!

What is this, a Circus? Well, here’s a juggler!

For John Ray has given us not one, not two, not three, but FOUR entries this week from FOUR DIFFERENT BLOGS! (I barely have time to manage ONE.)

From Gun Watch, he has a post that “points out that a liking for guns is perfectly normal among the hunters that human beings evolved as.”

From Dissecting Leftism, a post that “points out that the Vietnamese “Communist” regime that the Left so loved in the 1960s was in fact a Fascist regime”

From Greenie Watch, a post that “reports that acid rain has once again been found to be beneficial rather than harmful”

And, finally, from Political Correctness Watch, a post sure to stir up some reaction, entitled “Blatant Anti-White Racism Thwarted in UK”

Try to keep all those balls in the air, John, would you?

Next up! So you WON the Shoot-the-Star game? And all they gave you was a Dilbert doll?

How appropriate! Because Bussorah of Wicked Thoughts sent us Office Nuttiness – a Top 10 list of quotes from the office sure to appear soon in a Dilbert strip. (My favorite is #2.)

But you say you “accidentally” shot your little brother in the ear with the BB gun? Well then, its off to the First Aid tent!

Because Beck of the blog INCITE writes there on The Case Against Socialized Health Care

It’s only a flesh wound. Give him a band-aid and a purple heart!

Hey, everybody! It’s time for the next Wild West Show!

And La Shawn Barber gives us her entry, I Am a Native American. Me too, La Shawn. Me too.

Whew! That was fun! Hey kids, how about a sack race?

Brian J. Noggle muses on the news that President of the United Nations General Assembly, Julian R. Hunte appealed to all States to demonstrate their commitment to peace by observing the traditional truce during the Summer Games. He’s got an interesting observation in his post Bistandardathon

Wanna play tag in some BUMPERBOATS?

John Moore of Useful Fools writes about The Mystery of Kerry’s Crew in this week’s Carnival entry.

Shield the kids! It’s the Ambiguously Gay Duo!

Alan K. Henderson gives us The Unasked Question for this week’s entry. Is it, or isn’t it?

Want another Dilbert doll? Step right up and try the Football Toss!

Northstar from The People’s Republic of Seabrook tells us that the Dolphins may be looking to get some of their money back from Ricky Williams. The only people who win here are the lawyers.

Hey! Look in this tent! A magician’s gonna cut off a guy’s head!

Eric of Classical Values writes Defending the Indefensible?, about the guy who did the video faking his own beheading.

MAN those Carnival barkers are annoying! They won’t shut up, and they won’t take “NO!” for an answer.

Erik Erickson of Confessions of a Political Junkie gives us Alan Keys – The Right Disaster – another guy who “won’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject.”

You’ve got a blister on your heel? Well, there’s the Paramedic’s ambulance. Go ask for a plaster.

But don’t ask for any OxyContin! RoguePundit writes this week about doctors and pharmacists living with the accusation of over-prescribing six years after the the allegations came out. People who have still been found guilty of nothing, but are paying the price in Ruining Lives with Allegations

I’m tired. Let’s go in here and listen to the Storyteller for a few minutes.

Donald Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope gives us a taste of his original piece Hunter of Shades and a little background on it.

Say “Hello!” to the nice security guard!

The King of Fools writes this week about “how federal agencies eventually reach a point where their rules and internal culture preclude them from accomplishing their original purpose,” in this case, Federal Air Marshals, in Secret Agent Man.

MAN that Oompah band is loud!

I had no IDEA you could do “Stairway to Heaven” on a tuba! Caleb Walker gives us a short trip down Memory Lane – the “Classic Rock” Memory Lane – in rockin’.

Let’s ride the rockets!

Graham Lester of point2point writes on Kim Jong (mentally)-Il’s missles in Enemies Within? A Synopsis of the North Korean Missle Scandal.

Next, the FuNHouSE!

Les Jones discusses when (and when not) to capitalize in Upstyle and Downstyle in Blog Headlines – a tutorial for us bloggers.

I’m HUNGRY again. Let’s stop at this trailer and see if they’ve got some fried chicken!

Last One Speaks gives us another interesting story in the idiotic War on Some Drugs™. In Marijuana Raiders get Chicken we find that the Santa Clara County Sherrif’s Dept. managed to snag themselves dozens of fighting roosters after a week-long stakeout at a suspected marijuana farm. Can gamecocks fight stoned?

Wow! Look at all the flags from all the different countries!

Pietro The Smarter Cop reminds us that our foreign “allies” don’t show any enthusiasm for joining us in Iraq, no matter how much John Kerry tells us that he’ll get “international cooperation” if he’s elected, in Where are All Those Unnamed Foreign Allies Now?

Ooh! Pizza! Gotta have a slice!

While munching on a piece of pepperoni himself, Doug of Considerettes found that Boston Herald piece on the benefits of Acid Rain, and a link to the original BBC piece on it, too, in Global Warming Update.

Damn, that juggler does get around!!

This time, though it’s JFelik with multiple blogs – and a baby girl! From his blog Man Meets Baby comes More lessons from my baby girl. (And you thought the juggler was a bad metaphor!) Then from his other blog Quibbles-n-Bits comes a warped fairy-tale – Tale of a Pretty Princess – a birthday gift to Dana of Eat the Lettuce

Let’s not see the sideshow freaks.

Idler Yet also thinks it’s a bad idea to run Alan Keys against Barack Obama in the Illinois race, as he makes it perfectly clear in Exactly Wrong.

It’s all about the kids, you know…

As Da Goddess reminds us in What Really Matters

Man, why don’t these people learn English? I couldn’t understand a word that ticket-taker said!

And Interested Participant has a post up about just that subject in The English Language.

At least now we can get into the House of Horrors!

Though Francis W. Porretto‘s piece on the Conservative reaction to Dennis Hastert’s idea of eliminating the income tax is frightening enough. Read Counsels of Despair.

Hey! They’ve got a Hall of Presidents just like Disneyland’s!

And Triggerfinger.org give us a four-part essay on Governing by Consent.

Salad?!? Who eats a salad at a Carnival? What you want is COTTON CANDY!

The Fusilier Pundit of WeckUptoThees! give us his post, My Salad Days about when he got crosswise with the ACLU over their position on the Second Amendment. (I’ve got a post up on that topic as well over there on the left sidebar – “The ACLU Hasn’t Changed It’s Tune”)

And after a long, full day at the Carnival, we head out for the emptying parking lot

with one last submission. Jeremy of Parableman gives us an energetic sendoff with White Liberal Racism.

That’s thirty-three (33!) entries this week. Whew! I’m beat! Another slice of pizza? Well, if you twist my arm…

The Carnival of the Vanities continues…

August 18th – Fringe

August 25th – Ego

September 1st – Blogo Slovo

September 8th – Food Basics

September 15th Silflay Hraka – The Two Year Anniversary

September 22nd – The Eleven Day Empire

September 29th – Last One Speaks

October 6th – Incite

October 13th – Conservative Dialysis

October 20th – The People’s Republic of Seabrook

October 27th – The Twins Tell the Truth

Carnival Reminder!

Don’t forget: The Carnival of the Vanities will be posted here sometime tonight! Get your entries in by 8:00 PM PST so I can include them. I’ll be gone tomorrow, so no late entries! Send your entry to gunrights-at-comcast-dot-net (replace -at- and -dot- with the appropriate symbols). I need:

Your name or nom de plume

The name of your blog and its URL

The name of your post (if applicable) and its permalink

A short blurb on the subject of your post.

Here’s hoping I do your stuff justice!

The Four Ways You Can Spend Money

Ravenwood discusses a child’s first exposure to “government” in the classroom in his post Back to School Government Indoctrination Centers. He quotes Neal Boortz from his article Back to Government School:

As fast as you can say the Pledge of Allegiance without the “under God” part, the indoctrination begins. The government teacher steps in front of her virtual hostages and promptly delivers the first raw lesson in the power of government. The students are instructed to bring all of their precious school supplies – their property — to the front of the classroom and put them into a huge box. These supplies no longer belong to them. They are now community property … they belong to all of the class. The teacher, representing the government, will from that point on assume the responsibility of distributing the supplies to the students as they are needed.

“Whoaa! Hold on a minute here! These are MY supplies. My daddy bought them for me. You can’t have them! They’re mine!”

Not any more kid. Those pencils and erasers were yours. They have now been seized by the government to be used and distributed for the common good.

To which, Ravenwood adds:

This year he left out the part where parents who are in the know deliberately buy the cheapest school supplies they can. After all, why buy premium when you know that the government teachers are just goint to take them away. That’s socialism for you.

Which reminded me of my favorite lesson in economic theory: The Four Ways You Can Spend Money.

1. You can spend your money on yourself: When you do that, you work hard to get the most for your dollar, searching for the best deal on what you really want, or compromising when you just can’t afford (or bring yourself to bear the expense of) what you really want. Which explains why I drive a Ford Ranger pickup, and not a Ford GT.

2. You can spend your money on other people: This is what you do when you buy gifts – or in the example above, when you’re buying school supplies that will be “shared” by the whole class. The more important those people are, the more you will pay attention to your expenditures. If you don’t know or care about them, fuck ’em, they’ll get only what you can spare. (But then, I’m an evil Republican. If I were a Democrat I’d say “I’m a little short this week – can you go first?”

3. You can spend other people’s money on other people: This is what the government does for its citizens. Normally it just takes your money, and then, well, fuck ’em – they’ll get what you can spare. Unless you really need to give a gift to someone important. Like a voting bloc. I mean, it’s just money, right?

4. You can spend other people’s money on yourself: This is what politicians do. And a lot of bureacrats. And leaders of “charity organizations.” And evangelists. (See Option 3 above, re: voting blocs.) Pay raises. Limousines. Office furniture. Travel vouchers. And…

Hell, when its other people’s money, the sky’s the limit! Why else are “government handouts” so popular?

I’m handicapped by a severe Ford GT-deficiency! Where’s my ADA grant money? And Midnight Blue, or I’ll sue!

I Just HAVE to Know…

Driving back from a jobsite this afternoon, I listened to Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Hugh read from an AP story where Kerry said that he personally used his Swift Boat to insert CIA agents (plural) into Cambodia – this was after the “Christmas in Cambodia” stories as related in Senate testimony and his letter to the Boston Globe Herald. The claim was repeated by the Globe in June of last year. (Nod to No Oil for Pacifists for multiple links to the story, via – who else? – Instapundit. Go read Carl’s post. Very, very thorough.)

Well, we know Kerry wasn’t in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968.

So I have to ask:

Was one of the CIA agents Valerie Plame?

The ProtestWarriors Strike Again!

I LOVE IT!

Read the details of Operation Halliburton Defense Force.

The protesters then asked us to move across the street – an offer I respectfully declined. Hadi then asked if he moved his group across the street would we follow? I gave him my most sincere promise that we would stay in front of Halliburton where we belonged. At that point he concluded his proposition was an act of concession and gave up on the idea.



So what to do? Now that the “neo cons” have showed up, your people have embarrassed themselves by attacking one of them, their signs are bigger and nicer than yours, and your entire group is agitated and demoralized? Call the cops and have the bastards with differing opinions removed, of course!

Much more, with photos! Go read!

OMFG!

Allahpundit is… unbelievable.

I literally laughed out loud at this one.

After the recent brouhaha over Glenn Reynolds’ endorsement of the “Celebrate Diversity” T-shirt, Allah has found a way for Glenn to “prove his decency” to the Left.

Don’t drink or eat anything before opening the link.

I would say “Touché,” but this was not a touch to the chest with an épée, it’s a goddammed axeblow to the skull!

All bow to Allah! We are not worthy!

“Recovered,” My Ass

I was going to write a piece on the State of New York confiscating 63 year-old Thad Shank’s gun collection, but Ravenwood had done the definitive job of it. I can’t add anything.

I will NEVER register my guns, nor live where it’s required. Period. It’s an invitation to the State to find you in minor violation of the rules, and take everything you’ve got.

Fuck ’em.

There’s a nice turn of phrase, from the New York Daily News‘s Zev Chafets:

Why Bush is going to win

In 1972, The New Yorker’s movie critic, Pauline Kael, won herself a place in political lore by expressing astonishment at the Republicans’ 49-state landslide victory. “How could that be?” she demanded. “I don’t know a single person who voted for Nixon.”

I don’t live in such a rarified world, but most of my friends are voting for John Kerry. And I imagine that a good many will be shocked when President Bush wins in November.

It is possible that no Democrat could beat Bush this year. The President has Ralph Nader on his side, and demography. Since the 2000 election, shifts in population have added seven electoral votes to the Red Bush states and subtracted seven from Goreland.

This alone might be enough to put Bush over the top in a tight race. But despite the polls, I don’t think this election will be close, and this time the Democratic establishment won’t be able to blame the Supreme Court. If they’re fair, they’ll blame themselves. Since this is politics, they’ll blame the candidate.

John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn’t make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.

Amen.

These people don’t comprise a majority of the electorate or even Democratic voters (how could they and remain an elite?), but they have convinced themselves that they and their candidate – if packaged properly – will prove irresistibly attractive to lesser Americans.

Precisely. They believe they can fool the average gullible idiot into voting for them. After all, it’s how the Repubicans win!

It’s a common theme if you read the DemocraticUnderground.com forums and other Lefty sites.

Boston, with its flag-waving and saluting and balloon-blowing was supposed to be a commercial for this new and superior brand of politics. But Americans are expert TV watchers. A lot of them voted with their remotes. Those who did watch weren’t impressed. The Democrats’ much anticipated post-convention bump turned into a thud. George McGovern got one of those in 1972.

Kerry now has 90 days to convince voters that a Bush victory in November would be, as his wife put it in Milwaukee on Monday, “four more years of hell.”

The problem is, most Americans don’t regard their lives as “hell” or Bush as Satan. The economy, after all, is not really in a Great Depression. In fact, it’s doing pretty well. Iraq isn’t Vietnam, and won’t be unless there’s a draft. The Islamic jihad against America isn’t Bush’s fault, either. A candidate who insists otherwise is bound to strike voters as detached from reality.

Kerry ought to know this, and he may. But his party is dominated, as it was in 1972, by people who talk only to one another and who are convinced that everybody despises Bush. They will judge Kerry by how hard he goes after the Crawford Beelzebub.

Right now the polls look even. But that’s an optical illusion. The President has a Republican convention coming up and the power of incumbency to shape events between now and November. In other words, he’s way ahead.

Kerry is a weak campaigner. Barring some kind of national disaster, his best shot is the debates. Democratic true believers think he’ll kill Bush, one on one. That’s what they thought about Al Gore, too.

Calling a presidential race in August is risky, especially a race that’s supposedly close. But no guts, no glory. Bush will beat Kerry in a walk. If I’m right, you read it here first. If not, well, even Pauline Kael got it wrong once in a while.

As several people have noted, Kerry does better the less you see (and hear) of him. But now he has to be out in public – doing things like faking lunch at Wendy’s for a photo-op, getting dissed by some Marines there, and then having a gourmet box-lunch of Shrimp Vindaloo delivered from the local Yacht Club. Apparently Teresa has never had Chili before.

Yes, we “little people” will certainly recognize Sen. Kerry’s obvious superiority and vote him in as the man best qualified to tell us how best to live our miserable little lives.

“Standard bearer for the unbearable,” indeed.