The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Yeah, It’s About Time to Re-read Dune
I’m not a paintballer, but I do enjoy reading The Whiteboard.
I love Dune. I think it is perhaps the most finely crafted novel I have ever read. However, the rest of the series does absolutely nothing for me. I used to re-read it annually, but now it’s gotten to the point that I pick it up again about every five years.
I Think I Want One of These
I received an email Friday concerning the upcoming trip to play with ParaUSA’s guns at Blackwater. Seems we’re going to be transported in Blackhawk‘s 20-passenger bus. But before we head to the Blackwater facility, we get to go to Blackhawk’s store and peruse the merchandise.
So I went to their website, being unfamiliar with the vendor, and took a look around. Much tacticool urban-ninja gear.
But I think I’m going to have to buy me one of these:
If you can’t see exactly how the edges and point are constructed, watch the video at the site. That is very cool; chisel-ground edges and point. That has to be hell-for-stout. Pricey, but. . .
Anyway, I plan to look at one, and if it’s everything it appears to be, I think I’ll be shipping one home. (What, you don’t think I’m going to put it in my checked baggage, do you?)
You Can’t Do That! You’re Not Qualified!
Another one of those government overreach incidents.
The youngest of the children, 3-year-old twins Erin and Eric, were born a few days before Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. The babies, along with their three siblings and their young mother, all got bused to the Astrodome in Houston.
Rhonda Tavey was passing by the Astrodome on her way to the doctor when she decided to stop and volunteer.
“I was recovering from a bout of breast cancer and surgery, and God turned my car around that day,” she told WFAA.
She could not resist the need she saw in the Alphonse family.
“This mom needed my help, she was very young, and she had all these babies,” Tavey said.
So she took the whole family home with her. She has taken care of the children ever since, and in the process became very attached to them.
That’s from ABC News.
Interesting human-interest story, no? Here’s Neal Boortz’s expansion of what has happened here:
Rhonda Tavey lives in Houston, Texas. After Hurricane Katrina, she was passing by the Astrodome in Houston where many of the Katrina refugees had evacuated. Rhonda stopped to volunteer. That’s where she met Erica Alphonse, the 22-year-old mother of the five children, ages 3 to 8. She’s 22. She has five children. Do the math. No mention of a baby daddy. (Keep in mind that we only have one side of the story, so far.) So Rhonda took the family into her home. She cared for the children and apparently opened up bank accounts for them. The mother, Erica Alphonse, was described by Rhonda as a “neglectful mother who often went for weeks without seeing her children.”
Something happened recently that caused Rhonda to take the kids and run away. Rhonda’s daughter said the incident had to do with money. She says that Erica knew the children had bank accounts … she had been stealing bank statements … and demanded her right to the money. When Rhonda refused, Erica apparently pulled a knife on her. Then Erica said that her boyfriend would be coming to “take care of us.” This is when Rhonda packed up the kids and left.
Now Rhonda has been arrested and charged with five counts of kidnapping. The children have been placed in the custody of Child Protective Services.
Ah, yes. Child Abductive Services! Those paragons of virtue who tend to miss incidents of actual, you know, abuse, and sometimes (far too often) place at-risk children with people who (oopsie!) kill them.
But only the STATE is qualified to handle these situations, don’tcha know!
Ms. Tavey is now charged with five counts of kidnapping. And we’re supposed to believe this is justice.
Go READ
I realize that in the great scheme of things this blog is a couple of rungs down from Tam’s on people’s “Daily Reads” list, but if you haven’t seen it yet, go read Further ruminating on South Ossetia… I can’t take a pullquote from it. The whole damned piece is quotable.
And ought to be on the front page of every damned newspaper in America.
Keith Olbermann should be held at gunpoint and forced to read it, repeatedly, on his show.
The trouble with the social-democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything.
After September 11, I wondered rhetorically midway through a column what we in the West are prepared to die for, and got a convoluted e-mail back from a French professor explaining that the fact that Europeans weren’t prepared to die for anything was the best evidence of their superiority: they were building a post-historical utopia — a Europe it would not be necessary to die for.
But sometimes you die anyway.
Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, concluding the chapter “The Four Horsemen of the Eupocalypse.”
I called Michael Crichton’s recent Next one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read recently. America Alone is the most disturbing non-fiction work I’ve read in quite a while. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you pick up a copy. If Steyn is even half right, the future looks bleak indeed, and it’s a hell of a lot closer than we think.
If you want further evidence of this, look at what the Brits did in Basra. And they’re our closest ally. The Fadhil brothers nailed it in one sentence:
In our opinion, although the deal was made last year, Britain made the decision to offer basically the same deal unilaterally years before that by watching the monster grow under their noses without doing anything serious to stop it.
Calling all Photochop Experts
OK, we’ve got the Exxon sign, and the campaign posters, but now we’ve got the Obama Salute.
I have to admit to a dirty mind, because when I saw that, my first thought echoed the third comment to that post:
wipe the comments all you want…it’s still goatse.
So, here’s a challenge. Can you take the hands from this image:
and the Obama symbol:
and make a goatse image?
I have not the photochop-fu necessary to do it myself.
UPDATE: Jed goes above and beyond, but for my purposes, Regolith WINS! The left sidebar has been updated.
THIS Was Interesting
National Public Radio’s Weekend America show tomorrow will have a segment I wanted to listen to. Here’s the blurb for it that I received via email this morning:
In This Week’s Show, We…
… Shoot a Gun.
Weekend America Correspondent Sean Cole is terrified of guns. The only thing that scares him more than guns is the idea of falling asleep with one beside him. This weekend, Sean goes to the shooting range for the first time.
Actually, he went some time ago, but the segment airs this weekend. But there’s more to it than that. At their website, this is the blurb:
This weekend in Manchester, N.H., you can shoot a machine gun for $25. If you don’t have your own, you can rent one. And actually you can do that any day of the week in Manchester. Weekend America’s Sean Cole was recently invited up to one of those ranges by his friend Nick, who called the trip a “man-cation.” Unfortunately, Sean is what was referred to on the playground as a “girl.”
The New Hampshire shoot is a machine gun shoot to benefit the New Hampshire GOP. Very anti-PC. Twenty-five dollars lets you shoot an Uzi. I wonder if Mark Steyn will be attending?
The Sean Cole story is currently available as streaming RealMedia here.
Cole didn’t react like Emily Yoffe did, though I am not surprised. This is the second piece on guns and shooting (that I’m aware of) that Weekend America has done. The last one was surprisingly positive. This one was surprisingly not negative.
And Heller wasn’t mentioned once.
Make ‘Em Mad
Well, that’s what I recommended.
I had an interesting referral today, a link from a gunboard, Calguns.net. “Librarian” linked to the most recent überpost, quoting that line:
Our job, then, is not to “Frighten the White People,” it’s to make them MAD. It’s to make them “pro-freedom, pro-individual, pro-principles.” It’s to educate them.
But the topic of the thread was what I found interesting. The thread is entitled “Anybody else getting tired of this?” As of this writing it’s six pages long. Here’s the first post:
I’m getting a little tired of seeing this crap. Read this guys description
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie…Item=106726648
I understand where the guys coming from and it bugs me too. But I’m also tired if how they word things. I feel like I’m being quarantined
I think I’m mostly bothered by some of the cool stuff I cant buy
When I’m all growed up and become President…
The gunbroker link is to the sale of a 6″ S&W Model 29 revolver. Here’s the part the thread originator objects to. (Sorry for the ALLCAPS):
ATTENTION: IF YOU RESIDE IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, DO NOT BID ON THIS AUCTION. YOUR BID WILL NOT BE HONORED.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, ADAMS GUN EMPORIUM, LLC HAS CEASED DELIVERY OF ALL FIREARMS, FIREARMS PARTS AND AMMUNITION TO ALL POLICE DEPARTMENTS, POLICE OFFICERS AND RESIDENTS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE RESIDENTS OF, WHAT HAS BECOME THE PEOPLES REPUBLIK of KALIFORNIA, BECOME ANGRY ENOUGH, AND GROW ENOUGH COURAGE, TO REMOVE FROM OFFICE THE SOCIALIST POLITICIANS WHO PASSED SECTIONS 12072(F)(1) & 12083(C)(1) OF THE CALIFORNIA PENAL CODE INTO LAW AND THE GOVERNATOR WHO ALLOWED IT TO BECOME LAW, I SHALL NOT HONOR ANY FURTHER BIDS FROM THE RESIDENTS OF THE PEOPLES REPUBLIK of KALIFORNIA. THIS SHALL ALSO APPLY TO CURIO & RELICS (03) FIREARMS AND LICENSEES. NO EXCEPTIONS WILL BE MADE.
I BELIEVE THAT THESE LAWS VIOLATE THE COMMERCE CLAUSE AND ARE CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND I REFUSE TO BE KALIFORNIKATED BY YOUR SOCIALIST POLITICAL HACKS. DON’T LIKE MY ATTITUDE, THEN GET BUSY THIS ELECTION AND VOTE THE BUMS OUT’A OFFICE WHO VOTED FOR THIS ABOMINABLE SET OF LAWS, AND MAKE SURE THEIR SUCCESSORS KNOW EXACTLY WHY THEY GOT ELECTED. THEN INSIST THAT THEY REPEAL THESE ABOMINABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS BEFORE IT BECOMES NECESSARY FOR THE GOOD CITIZENS OF CALIFORNIA TO DO SO BY FORCE OF ARMS.
It would appear that this FFL is serious. And someone else the Brady Campaign should be in fear of.
Read the thread. I’m not sure this is actually constructive, but it sure pissed some people off.
Another Voice on the 3% Question
21 Guns, Salute has an excellent post up, Perspective, that I think everyone should read.
(h/t: The Liberty Sphere)
