The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Phrases You Wish You’d Never Read
The Glock is as sexy as Helen Thomas in a thong bikini. – Robb Allen
Carradine was found with a rope tied around his genitals and another rope around his neck. – AP story on David Carradine’s death.
I need to scrub out my mental image file with steel wool and acid now.
Movie Review: UP
$2,287,706,658,821 ($2.29 Trillion)
I received an interesting email today.
It turns out that the number $2.2 trillion is not an uncommon one. It seems that in 2007 the country spent $2.24 trillion on health care.
The IMF estimates that worldwide bank losses on U.S. assets topped $2.2 trillion.
The projected cost to repair America’s infrastructure is estimated at $2.2 trillion.
Oil companies have paid a combined total of $2.2 trillion in taxes over the last 25 years, adjusted for inflation.
There’s more, but that gives you a taste.
But how do you visualize that much money?
My correspondent was ingenious. According to WikiAnswers, a single crisp new dollar bill has dimensions of
6.6294cm (2.61″) wide, by 15.5956cm (6.14″) long, and 0.010922cm (0.0043″) in thickness
Not much help.
Here’s a visual:
That’s Kheops’ pyramid, the Great Pyramid at Giza. Click for a bigger version of the image.
It has a volume of 2,583,283 cubic meters.
Now imagine all that stone was instead stacks of $1 bills:
$2,287,706,658,821.00
$2.29 trillion.
Boggles, doesn’t it?
What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
I’ve agreed to appear tonight on Gun Nuts Radio. I’ve often said that I have a face for radio and a voice for print. I guess I’ll get to prove the latter this evening. See Hear you there!
. . . and who have read the first comment posted there by “Susan Gill,” I wrote a piece last week that coincidentally addresses her “more gun control” recommendation. It doesn’t look like CSM will be printing my direct reply to Ms. Gill, but if you have an attention span longer than the average American’s, I invite you to read Cultures: Compare and Contrast. You might discover something you were previously unaware of. And if you’d like to know why you were previously unaware of it, I invite you to read The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation.
Thank you for your time and attention.
UPDATE: The comment floodgates at CSM have opened!
It’s Good to Know How Valuable We Are
When we signed up for the 2A Blog Bash, we were told that if we were attending the annual banquet, they’d make sure to seat us all together at a “good” table. Last year in Louisville, we were towards the back, but right on the center aisle with a good view of the podium and the speakers.
This year? Well, as Denise said “We weren’t at the worst table, but . . .” The “but” being we were at the table right next to it. I don’t know what those people did to anger the NRA, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know! Granted, something on the order of 6,300 people were served at one time, but still.
Having said that, the food was actually pretty good (the main course, anyway), and the two speakers were excellent. John Stossel kicked ass, and while I’m not a fan of Ollie North, he gave a damned good speech.
Stossel is trying his best to get his 20/20 pieces distributed to as many schools as he can on DVD to help teach “critical thinking” to students, which I think is a fine idea. He showed some short clips from a couple of those DVDs, and noted that most of his stuff is available on YouTube. In my copious (*COUGH!*) spare time, I’m going to have to go peruse those.
A Good Cause
This morning’s seminar was put on by Crimson Trace. The CT guys have been very supportive of the gunblogger movement. Last year, all of the Para pistols we shot at Blackwater were equipped with Lasergrips. Very cool. Crimson Trace is one of those triumphs of free-market capitalism. A guy with a good idea builds a product in his garage, and turns it – through hard work and sacrifice – into a company with 125 employees and several dozen products doing multi-million dollar sales annually.
And now they spend some of that income giving back.
If you’ve not heard of it before, let me point you at Honored American Veterans Afield. In association with Smith & Wesson, Leupold, Surefire, Yamaha, Hornady and FMG Publications HAVA is dedicated to “raise awareness and assist disabled veterans with the healing process through active participation in outdoor sports.”
The purpose of HAVA:
HAVA was conceived and organized in 2007 by a Committee of shooting sports industry executives to help the healing and re-integration of disabled combat veterans back into normal American life through participation in outdoor events. Seven companies have committed funds and personnel to organize and sponsor initial HAVA sanctioned activities, and will serve on the oversite Committee for a period of three years to insure that the organization is launched in the proper manner.
The HAVA vision is the creation of a small organization of volunteers from the shooting sports industry to facilitate a series of hunting and shooting activities for small groups of disabled veterans wherein personal attention of the sponsors and facility operators contributes to the veteran’s sense of joy and accomplishment, and a permanent awareness that marvelous things are possible despite disabling injuries. These veterans have given their full measure of commitment to the preservation of their country’s values, and deserve America’s contribution to their healing process to whatever degree necessary to accomplish physical, mental and cultural rehabilitation. The shooting sports industry, through the efforts of the Committee and other contributors, can become an inspiration to both the veteran and to a grateful nation whose best instincts are to support the veteran who has served its cause so well.
Travis Noteboom, Crimson Trace’s Director of Public Relations is the point man for CT’s involvement in HAVA, and is very enthusiastic about it, but he wants to get the message out as far and wide as possible.
I was reminded of Project Valour IT, which was created by Maj. Chuck Zeigenfuss and Soldier’s Angels after the Major came back from Iraq the victim of a buried 80mm mortar IED. His intent was to get recovering vets connected to the internet again, and interacting with the world through that means. HAVA’s intent is to do the same by reconnecting recovering vets to the outdoor sports world again.
If you know such a vet or their family, please look into HAVA. At this time they have about 150 guided hunts available, and can set up many other types of outings and events. Guns, ammo, guides and coaches are provided by HAVA.
OK, Why Didn’t I Know This Before?
One of the seminars yesterday was about “State associations.” One of the attendees, David Pehrson, started the Pennsylvania Firearms Owner’s Association, essentially a huge gunboard, and possibly the opening shot in how activism will be done in the future. The other attendees were from the California Rifle and Pistol Association, and the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association. The CRPA has associated with Calguns.net to take advantage of their web-savvy. California, of course, has a lot of bad legislation that they have to deal with, and thus the CRPA has a full-time lobbyist on staff.
In Arizona, things are a bit different. This is a very gun-friendly state, overall, and even our Democrats are generally gunnies. This is changing, however, as more and more people flee California. But why didn’t I know that the ASRPA existed?
Well, for one thing it only has about 1,700 members, and they tend toward the geriatric end of the scale. We don’t have a lot of anti-gun bills to fight here in Arizona, but I can see it coming. The concentration of the ASRPA is and has been toward competition shooting, but it’s becoming obvious that what we’re going to have to do, and soon, is work on new shooter recruitment and retention. So today I joined the ASRPA, and there’s a new banner on the left sidebar over there with a link to their web page. If you’re an Arizona resident and interested at all in hunting, shooting, and the right to arms, I strongly recommend that you join the ASRPA.
Arizona is a very gun-friendly state. As Sebastian (a resident of a suburb of Philadelphia) said this morning, “I’ve never seen so many people open-carry, and nobody cares!” We want to keep it that way.
OK, So, I Lied
I said a couple of days ago that “normal blogging would resume” shortly.
OOPS!
I took the rest of this week off, and figured I’d use the time to write and reload. WRONG! Instead, I’ve been reading and vegetating – plugged Serenity into the DVD player Thursday and thoroughly enjoyed it for the nth time, finished reading S.M. Stirling’s In the Courts of the Crimson Kings yesterday, then went to the book store and picked up some more books, saw Wolverine yesterday afternoon, then blasted through John Scalzi’s Zoë’s Tale last night (first time I’ve done a non-stop cover-to-cover read in quite a while).
I’ve got stuff I want to write about. (Specifically, I want to finish my final reply to James Kelly, but I’m having problems working up the enthusiasm to actually do it. Sorry.)
I guess you could say I’m enjoying my vacation.
And now I’m getting ready to go to the gun show downtown to see if I can find any of that elusive prey known as primers. Wish me luck.
My wife came home on Friday and handed me a slip of paper with a URL on it and said, “You have to buy this shirt I saw today. It’s perfect for you. I asked the lady I saw wearing it where to get it, and she said you could buy it here.”
When my wife tells me to order a T-shirt, I order the T-shirt:
It arrived today, in time to take with me to Boomershoot. You can get yours here.