9/17/2005
A Good Afternoon
Had some free time this afternoon, and access to a vehicle, so I took a drive to Yakima's only single-purpose gun store, Shooter's Supply. And I'm quite glad that I did. Sitting on the used rifle rack, on consignment, was an Egyptian contract 8x57mm SAFN-49 for the relative bargain price of $495. Beautiful wood, good metal (tiny bit of rust and some wear on the sticky-outy bits). So I put down a deposit to hold it until I can get a copy of my C&R license sent to me. Now to do the New Old Gun happy dance. The shop also had another interesting item, one that I'm thinking about picking up just for the curiousity value. It's a Schmidt-Rubin 1911, sporterized and rechambered (I assume it's rechambered, since .308 didn't exist when the 1911s were still being made) for .308. $125, well worn, and with for holes drilled and threaded into the left side of the receiver. Given the oddness of the thing, I expect it to be sitting on the rack for a long time, so I don't have to make a decision in a hurry. The shop is also the first shop I've seen to stock Hornady 7.5x55mm hunting ammo.
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9/14/2005
Wisdom from an Unexpected Source
I've linked to her work before, but it still comes as a surprise to hear pro-gun arguments coming from someone with a name like Cinamon Stillwell: If there's anything Americans have learned from the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it's that there are times when the government is simply unable to protect its citizens. The looting of nonessential items, robberies, carjackings, murders and rapes that overtook New Orleans as chaos gripped the city demonstrated what can happen when the government loses control. Countless stories were told about unarmed citizens who were defenseless against the criminals who preyed upon them. Only those who were armed were able to fend off the encroaching violence. In such cases, self-defense is all that's left, which is perhaps why gun sales rose exponentially in Louisiana right after the disaster. The fact that police and military units in New Orleans later began confiscating those weapons does not bode well for the city's remaining residents. Similar opinions from Larry Pratt are much more predictable, but still worth reading.
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Why They're the Stupid Party
Or Speaker DeLay may be providing evidence that we are indeed losing the War on Drugs. From today's Washington Times: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget. ... Asked if that meant the government was running at peak efficiency, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good." Somebody please, make Rep. Delay piss in a cup. The budget is more bloated than the contestestants on a weight-loss TV reality show. For starters, how about all of those pork-barrel earmarks that infested the transportation bill (and just about every other appropriations bill, for that matter)? $100,000 here, half a mil there, that's real money, Mr. Speaker. Or how about subsidies for sugar (especially sugar beets), along with all the other subsidies doled out farmers across the country? Or how about PBS and NPR? With hundreds of cable TV channels, and the massive variety offered by both over the air and satellite radio, do these things even have a viable mission anymore? (For the record, I don't think they were ever a Constitutionally permissible expenditure in the first place.) And don't even get me started on HUD, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, etc. Mr. Speaker, if you really can't come up with anywhere to cut expenditures, I suggest you walk down the hall to t he office of Rep. Ron Paul. I'm sure he could suggest a few places.
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9/12/2005
Finally
Some folks in the MSM are asking Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin some tough questions, especially about their failure to use city owned school and transit busses-some of which were only a mile and a quarter from the Superdome-to help evacuate New Orleans. Tim Russert hit Mayor Nagin point blank with the city evacuation plan, and Mayor Nagin told Stone Philips that the busses were "somebody else's" problem. Gov. Blanco, meanwhile, blamed the fact that the busses weren't used on lack of mass transit funding from the Bush administration, saying that the bus drivers can't be expected to show up for evacuation duty in the face of a hurricane. Here's a thought for you folks: if it's not already in there, make sure that evacuation duties are included in any future bus drivers' contracts, and make failing to report for duty in the event of an evacuation grounds for immediate firing. Meanwhile, Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that, despite the hue and cry from Louisiana officialdom and the MSM, federal response was in fact substantially better than in similar disasters in the past, such as Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew. Of course, you know my opinion-that disaster response isn't within the scope of the federal government's powers anyway.
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Let Me Be the First
I'll be the first to say it... If Condi Rice won't run in '08, as of right now I would support Governor Haley Barber (sp?) of Mississippi as the GOP nominee. Gov. Barber has done a great job thus far of managing his state's response to Hurricane Katrina. Has anyone out there noticed the almost complete lack of stories coming out of Mississippi? That's because the recovery job is being done well, about as efficiently as can be done given the massive devastation. Contrast that with the screwed up state and local response, and subsequent game of musical blame shifting, in nieghboring Louisiana. As the former Chairnman of the RNC, Barber also is extremely well connected within the national GOP. And he's got to be a heck of a lot better on just about any issue than the current front runners-McCain and Guiliani.
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Just Wondering...
I'm pretty sure the press didn't end every report from the front with a body count during WWII, did they? Any old timers out there who can tell me if any front line news story from back then ended with something like "U.S. forces have lost 50,129 killed in the Pacific fighting since Pearl Harbor was attacked December 7, 1941?" Because I can't remember the last time I read a report from Iraq that didn't include the body count in the last paragraph.
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