Tag: linkery

21 Days!

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There are now THREE WEEKS until Gunblogger Rendezvous IV! If you haven’t signed up, time is running out. Once again, for those of you who may be new to this site, the GBR is an annual gathering of gunbloggers, readers, and guests in Reno, NV for a nice long weekend of shooting, show-and-tell, bullshitting, eating, adult beverages, and damned little sleep! And there are prizes!

The attendees this year include (but are not limited to):

Mr. Completely, our host

KeeWee, from KeeWee’s Corner

Phil & David, from Random Nuclear Strikes

US Citizen of Traction Control (who failed to secure Summer Glau, but we’ll forgive him.)

Ride Fast & the Commandress, from Ride Fast – Shoot Straight

Mr. & Mrs. JimmyB, the Conservative UAW Guy

Lou from Mad Gun

Derek from The Packing Rat

Rachel Parson from the NRA

D.W. Drang from The Clue Meter

EJ from Engineering Johnson

Cap’n Bob & The Damsel

Mark Knapp from Firearms Lawyer

Maj. Chuck Ziegenfuss from From My Position – On the way and founder of Project Valour-IT.

Dirt Crashr, from Anthroblogogy

Chris & Mel Byrne, from The Anarchangel

Uncle, From Say Uncle

Miss Elain-eous of Bearcat’s Spin

Azreel of Free Spirit Mind

John O’C. of the Gun Counter forum

Benjamin of The Reasonable Nut

Larry Weeks, from Brownell’s

Andy and Lance from HiCap Gun Works

and Guest of Honor, Alan Gura
And me, of course. And the prizes? Well, I’m giving away a Para USA GI Expert that you need not be present to win! In that same drawing, you can win a certificate for four days of training at Front Sight in Nevada. Valued at $2,000, you can use it for one four-day class or two two-day classes.

IF YOU ATTEND you can purchase raffle tickets that might win you another Para pistol, or a Hi Point 9mm Carbine. Or you might win a framed Heller Kitty t-shirt autographed by Alan Gura! Other sponsors include (but are not limited to):

Steel Challenge Shooting Association

National Shooting Sports Foundation

Brownell’s

GLOCK

Dillon Precision

Lucky Gunner Ammo

Natchez Shooter’s Supply

Midway USA

Remington

Nosler Bullets
Which means there will be some damned cool stuff.

And, of course, there will be shooting!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1933EPNUIY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&w=480&h=385]

So make your hotel reservations, sign up for the Saturday night all-you-can-eat Pizza dinner, and we’ll see you there!

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

I must simply state

That the most awesome plane ride in the world is the one that takes you OUT of Iraq. We’re not back on American soil yet, but I’ve now checked off the second tour where I got out of that country with all MY fingers and toes, and all my Joes are healthy and riding the plane home with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is a win.

Abby is coming home! Welcome back!

Another Sign We’re Winning

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Another Sign We’re Winning

Another incident that makes Paul Helmke a Sad Panda. Verbatim from Instapundit:

SCENES FROM A NEW AMERICA: So I dropped the girls off at a movie, and — since the Insta-wife was lunching with her mom — stopped at a Sonny’s Barbecue for lunch. A man — late 40s, big, with a wife and a daughter — came in with an empty holster on his belt. As he sat down at the booth next to mine, the manager came by and asked him if he’d left his gun in the car. Yes, said the man, who had a permit but thought he wasn’t allowed to carry in restaurants in Tennessee.. Well, they’ve changed the law, said the manager, and if you want to go get it that’s fine with us. It’s legal now, and I’m happy to have you carrying — if somebody tries to rob me, it’s two against one.

The man stepped outside and returned with a Springfield XD in the holster, chatted with the manager for a bit about guns, and then sat down and had lunch with his family.

Note that no children, homeless persons, nor other innocents were harmed by this customer.

Immortal Quote of the Day

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Immortal Quote of the Day

“In actual shootings, citizens do far better than law enforcement on hit potential,” said (Cole County, Missouri Sheriff Greg) White. “They hit their targets and they don’t hit other people. I wish I could say the same for cops. We train more, they do better.”

— Guns to be allowed on campus?

h/t to Robb at Sharp as a Marble for that shocker. We’ve known it for a long time. Nice to see a Law Enforcement official admit it in a public forum, and the media repeat it.

Multiply by the Zip Code

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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

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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.”

Because Bank of America Thinks You’re Stupid

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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 11×17 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.

August 6, 1945

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August 6, 1945


At 08:15 on this date in 1945, an atomic bomb was for the first time used against a wartime target – the city of Hiroshima on the island of Honshu, the largest of the Japanese Home Islands. At the time, the population of Hiroshima is estimated to have been 300-350,000.

Ever since the end of WWII, America has been excoriated for being the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in warfare, especially for using those weapons against civilian targets – cities – rather than strictly military targets. Most recently Jon Stewart expressed such an opinion, and essayist and now video star Bill Whittle took some time to explain to him how many ways he was wrong.

I want to do something similar, but I don’t have days to do interviews, much less access to quality video recording and editing hardware. However, via Blackfive I discovered that the Rome, Georgia Rome News-Tribune had done extensive video interviews with surviving WWII vets in their town, and produced some damned fine documentary shorts of those interviews. Fine enough that they ought to win that publication some prizes. Here are two of them, of survivors from the Pacific Theater. Watch and listen, and hear how these men felt about the atomic bombing of Japan.

http://img.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v99/smallestminority/harrybattle0709b_F8_1Mb.flv

http://img.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v99/smallestminority/atomicbombforweb_F8_1Mb_IVND.flv
The two atomic blasts killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, but they ended the war. Estimates of American casualties alone, had we invaded the Japanese Home Islands, were on the order of 1 million. Japanese casualties, given the grim statistics of Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa, would have been at least 3-5 times higher, and would have included women, children, and old men.

My only question is when and where will the third atomic bomb used in war be detonated? Tel Aviv? Los Angeles? Paris? London? New York? Because it is going to happen, sooner or later.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

AZLibertarian discusses the FedGov’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, reflecting on the experience the Arizona state government had with a similar program aimed at “alternate fuel” conversions a few years ago:

The taxpayers of Arizona bought me a third of my truck. Nice if you can get it, but the state can’t stay in business this way.

So, why is this relevant today?

Here’s why….The Cash for Clunkers program is going broke. They overstimulated. They’re having to add money to keep a program meant to last until October make it last beyond its first week.

In short, the fed.gov is doing today what the Arizona state.gov did 10 years ago. For their own reasons, they believe they’re smarter than the Invisible Hand, and it isn’t working.

Again.

— Alternative Fuel Clunkers, Twenty Miles of Bad Road

So we should obviously put them in charge of our health care.

RTWT.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

If you’re a journalist, want to help people and want to tell the truth, what truth are you going to tell? Why, the truth you think helps people, of course!

Technically, that’s the truth.

But it’s very different than the truth.

Barbara Oakley, Why Most Journalists are Democrats: A View from the Soviet Socialist Trenches

h/t to Dr. Helen for this one – a definite must-read! And you might want to peruse my January, 2008 essay The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation, too.