A Critical Endorsement (sort of) for Fred Thompson

Via Hot Air, Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday...

There was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson. … …we have a campaign now where most of the candidates are not genuine conservatives. They may be saying they are, but in their past they have done some things that are not conservative in any way, shape, manner, or form — and I think a lot of those things are being overlooked even by friends of mine in the conservative media because the obsession is Hillary...

He didnt come right out and say "Fred Thompson for President" or anything like that, but it's difficult to believe that Rush would say such things if he didn't support Thompson. But in any case, he's absolutely right. Many say Thompson won the debate more or less, and from what I've heard about it I'd have to agree. Reading that at HA, I thought, boy, it's gonna be fun to see what the lefty RINO apologists have to say here, and I was not disappointed, not by a loong shot...

Conservatives all need to get realistic and they need to do so now. It doesn’t matter who you would like to see elected. It really doesn’t. You need to decide between the two electable Republicans, Romney and Giuliani. Fred just isn’t going to get the nomination. Neither is Huck or any other candidate out there right now. Put your fantasies aside and choose between Romney and Giuliani.

I'll certainly admit those of us who vote our guns probably aren't nearly as politically active as we should be, but if we took the attitude embodied in the above comment, I think it's safe to say we'd have probably reached the point England's at long before even England got there. I have very little use for total defeatists like that, and that's putting it mildly.

Oh come on, Rush! First of all, among the five “major” candidates, three are ex-executives who have not served in significant elected legislative functions, and the other two are Senatirs, who have never served in any significant executive functions. These two senators are actually quite similar when you look at their records in office over the time that they were in office. Fred’s made a lot of headway, apparently, criticizing the others who actually do the work from the sidelines. This is the only way he can be considered more consistently conservative than any of the others.

I really can't testify as to Thompson's record vs. McCain's, but I'm betting the above commenter can't either. After all, of course, these RINO apologists are quite adept at just pulling things out of their asses and not addressing their own candidates' blatant liberalism leftism.

I have asked about Fred’s record repeatedly. No one ever wants to have a substantive discussion about it. Usually they engage in deflection and bring up say, Romney’s record or Rudy’s record and repeat “a constant mantra” of RINO RINO RINO.

Now that I think about it, that one's a bit of a cop-out, if you ask me. I just googled "Fred Thompson's record" and all sorts of things came up. A sample:

Thompson hit all the right notes from a conservative voter's perspective: Pro-life; Scalia-like judges; against gay marriage; opposes gun control; would pardon Libby; and supports the President's surge in Iraq.

Thompson's record in the Senate from 1995 through 2002 sustained his answers: His lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 86 (out of 100) and his lifetime Americans for Democratic Action (the liberal quotient) rating is a measly 5. Add in his presence in front of the camera as well as his folksy way of speaking, and it's no wonder conservatives are pressing him to get into the race.

There were a few stumbling blocks, however. On immigration, Thompson had to splice some comments he's made which make it sound as if he agrees with his friend Sen. John McCain. The very fact that he felt he needed to address that issue means Thompson well understands that the McCain position doesn't play well with the conservative base. Wallace also asked, though didn't press, Thompson about his previous support for campaign-finance reform - another McCain albatross.

But there are two questions Wallace didn't ask. First, he didn't ask Thompson about tort reform. In 1995, the GOP-led House passed a tough medical liability bill that included tort reform as part of the Contract With America. Things were all ready to go in the Senate under Majority Leader Bob Dole, when freshman - and former trial lawyer - Thompson introduced his own medical liability reform bill, sans tort reform. The bill passed and in conference committee the House's tort reform package got completely extirpated. Conservatives were outraged and many blamed Thompson.

Second, Wallace introduced his guest by asking, "Is Fred Thompson the next Ronald Reagan?" What he didn't bring up is that this isn't the first time conservatives have expected big things from Thompson nor the first time he's been compared to Reagan.

In a 1999 National Review article by Jay Nordlinger, for instance, we're reminded that Thompson's Senate career failed to live up to the hype. Who recalls that in 1994, before Thompson was even sworn in, Dole tapped Thompson to give the rebuttal to an economic address by Bill Clinton? The day after his five-minute retort the New York Times ran a headline "A Star is Born." The New Republic followed with an article called "Reagan Redux." Nordlinger wrote, "The mentioning class began to mention him as a possible vice-presidential nominee in 1996, and certainly as a contender for the top prize in 2000."

My take: Thompson has his flaws, of course, but it would seem from the above, and looking also at Romney and Giuliani's records at their respective previous posts, Fred Thompson is the most reliably conservative candidate with a chance to win. There are those who say that Fred got in too late and that his showing at this point is proof that he won't go all the way, but I can't help but agree with those who say that it's not that Fred threw his hat in too late, but all the others jumped in too early. At least that's what I'd like to think...but in any event, there's a long way to go yet.We'll see what happens, but I'm betting Rush's kinda-sorta endorsement gives Thompson a pretty big boost in the long run, especially if Rush keeps hammering home the message he did on his show yesterday. Here's hoping, anyway.

good stuff, Maynard...

Now playing here: Miranda Lambert, "Dry Town," from her sophomore cd Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That whole cd is great, but I would love to have seen more songs with this sound on it.
"....I'd give a nickel for a sip or two, to wash me down, out of this dry town..."

I Had Special Visitors Today...

from none other than the frothing at the mouth Violence Policy Center!




I feel special now, it's my first-ever confirmed visit from the gun-grabbers. I wonder if they were working on another study. ;-)

Massachusetts Takes Another Swirl Around the Statist Toilet

So I just saw part of this on ABC, and just had to comment...

...the Massachusetts State House will debate legislation that would outlaw corporal punishment. If it becomes law, parents who strike any child under 18 years old will be charged with abuse or neglect, unless the action was intended to protect them from danger.

Call me crazy, but I'd say that if kids were spanked more when they were young and impressionable, as part of a sustained effort to teach them right and wrong, maybe there wouldn't be such a problem with the violence in the inner cities that the Northeastern nanny-statists are always raising hell about. First they blame the guns, and now they practically want to make against the law one of the most effective methods to tackle the problem at the root! But that's just what I think. I got my hide tanned here and there when I was little but was not forever traumatized by it, nor do I first resort to violence to solve a problem, as I suppose the people might think who want to outlaw corporal punishment.
And, of course, the authorities in Massachusetts obviously haven't stopped to ponder the unintended consequences of such a law -- namely, the thugs-in-training who wants to get their parents in trouble with the authorities, this law gives them a sure-fire mechanism for doing so. It'd be quite interesting to see how many parents were punished for violating that law when they hadn't actually done so. It'd be the kid's word against the parent's, and just who do you think the Mass. authorities would believe? My money's on the thugs-in-training. Call the mentality that leads to laws such as this even being proposed just one more reason I am quite glad I don't live anywhere near the land of the Kennedys.

Nailing Giuliani to the Wall

Mary Matalin, on Meet the Press a couple of days ago, nailed Rudolph Giuliani's leftist authoritarian arse to the wall, and it was a thing of beauty (emphasis mine -- ed.):

...the gun culture, it’s not a gun culture, it’s a mainstream culture. It’s emblematic of a really important element of the conservative psyche. They’re hunters, they’re sportsmen, it’s a lifestyle thing. They’re Constitutionalists. And it wasn’t that Rudy was just for gun control. He was hostile to gun owners and hostile to the Second Amendment. He’s the only mayor that sued gun companies. He blamed five Southern states for the troubles that New York was having with guns. He was the only mayor who bragged about running around the country in support of Clinton’s gun control.

I just don't think it can be put any more succinctly than that. And I would love for someone to use that quote and ask him point blank why in the hell we should trust him not to come after us and our culture the way he did in New York City.
That particular nugget I discovered at Hot Air, in a thread about Mitt Romney linking Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani to a so-called "New York State of Mind." Riiiight. As if the "Massachusetts State of Mind" isn't its identical twin. And the pot sayeth unto the kettle, "thou art black!"
Speaking of nailing Giuliani to the wall, Fred Thompson did a masterful job of it last week as well:

Fred Thompson said Friday while visiting a New Hampshire gun store that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani should stop bringing up the Big Apple on the campaign trail and criticized him for consistently supporting gun control legislation. Thompson's popularity in early-voting New Hampshire has sunk rapidly in recent weeks, but his visit to Skip's Gun and Sport Shop to trumpet second-amendment rights could be geared toward libertarian-leaning primary voters in the state.
And the usually laid-back Thompson aimed his tough talk straight at the Republican frontrunner.
"(Giuliani) simply supported just about every gun control legislation that came down the pike. And I just disagree with him on that.... over the years and he's been very outspoken about it. Of course he's not outspoken about it anymore," Thompson told reporters with a smile. "It's a major differentiation. He relates everything to New York City ... Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country.

Giuliani spokesperson Katie Levinson said in response, "Coming from a man who lives in the Beltway, who is a Washington insider and lobbyist and who played the role Rudy Giuliani actually lived on a television series, I am not sure what to make of the senator's comments, except to say results are results."
That's roughly translated into plainspoken American English as, "My boss got his arse nailed to the wall and I ain't got jack to counter it, so I'll just toss out Pre-Written Attack Response No. 2. Yeah, I know it's crap, but it's all I got, sorry."

I Love Rock'n'Roll

"...so come and take your time and dance with me...yeeooow!"
Seems like that's the one Joan Jett song that gets played on the '80s station in Houston more than anything else, but there is this one other song that was a big hit for her...



"I think of you every night and day, you took my heart, and you took my pride awayyayayay..."
For the uninitiated, that's "I Hate Myself For Loving You." That one and "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" are the only two songs from her that I've ever heard, but I love them both. I think "I Hate Myself For Loving You" was one of the best songs to come out of the '80s, and I hated, hated to see NBC and Faith Hill make a damned commercial jingle out of it. I don't know if it merits quite the same level of outrage as the Old El Paso Co. butchering Marty Robbins' "El Paso" in an attempt to sell some "crappy burrito boxed dinner," as Country Standard Time's Robert Loy so artfully put it a few years back, but it comes pretty close. Come to think of it, I think he's got the right idea:

Maybe we should thank the censors and the pitchmen too lazy and blasphemous to write their own jingles. They certainly have turned us on to some great music and art.

Or maybe we should hang them.

Call me crazy, but I think some songs just deserve better than to be twisted into a jingle to sell something. "El Paso" and "I Hate Myself For Loving You" are just a couple of them. Even if they're on vastly different levels.

Might wanna bring more gun there, Sparky...

More interesting referrals from the Site Meter: "Ammo to stop bears Rugar (sic) P90".
I've never been in bear country, but from everything I've read, as far as a sidearm goes you'd need at the very least a hot-loaded 10mm, and even that might not cut it in brown bear or grizzly bear country. Me, I'd be taking some sort of big-bore revolver, .41 or .44 Magnum, loaded as hot as I could stand it. But if you absolutely must have an autoloader to stop a bear, a 1911 converted to shoot .460 Rowland looks like it would be pretty hard to beat, though I wouldn't take anything smaller than a Govt. model as far as that particular cartridge goes. Clark doesn't make a conversion kit for the Ruger P90, but I think it'd be interesting to see how it would hold up with the Ruger's aluminum frame.
On a slightly different note, vis-a-vis the 1911 chambered in more powerful cartridges, one of those linked stories said the Kimber 1911 with the .460 conversion kit held up pretty well. That makes me feel a little better about shooting hot loads in my Kimber and Dan Wesson, although I still probably would be wise to invest in stiffer springs and shock buffers for them.

Separation?

Interesting referral to my humble corner of the Web a couple of days ago, from Barrington, Illinois: google search, "will texas separate if court bans handguns".
I don't know if it'd ever come down to secession if the court actually opened the door to any kind of broad ban like a ban on defensive sidearms, but I'd like to think Texas would go all the way and separate from the United States if it came down to that. I am a proud American, but I fully believe that if the people in charge actually decided that a ban and/or confiscation of any more types of guns was in the best interest of the country, then there would be little if any question in my mind that the grand American experiment either had failed or was well on its way to failing and then would be as good a time as ever for Texas to opt out and try it again on our own. It's bad enough that we have the ban on imports and the de facto ban on full-autos. Maybe it's a radical suggestion, but something tells me in the end it would be a lot more appealing -- read that as less bloody -- if it ever came down to bans and confiscations.
I wouldn't be surprised to see several other states follow suit, too. I hope it doesn't come to that, and I am thinking it won't -- but again, I wouldn't be the least bit afraid of separating and becoming our own country. I think the Founding Fathers would indeed encourage such a move, as it would be more or less upholding the things they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to more than 230 years ago.

Run That By Me One More Time?

Allahpundit on Heller going to the next level, at Hot Air:

Ironically, the GOP losing this case would be a huge boon to gun-grabber Rudy, assuming he’s the nominee, since it would sharpen the focus on his promise to appoint conservatives like Scalia and Thomas, who share Rudy’s own, ahem, originalist philosophy.

That's assuming, of course, that Giuliani's not letting his mouth write a check his ass won't cash if he actually makes it to the Oval Office, but really that's neither here nor there for purposes of this post. I don't see how anyone could come to the conclusion the gun issue being catapulted into the national consciousness is going to help Giuliani in any way with any gun owner who's aware of his record in New York City. Promises be damned, Giuliani's record in New York City speaks for itself, and with the issue thrown back in the spotlight in such a high-profile manner the one of the only ways this could help Giuliani is if the Republican bloggers can manage to pull the wool over the eyes of the GOP base. You'll note I didn't call them conservative, and there's a reason for that. They themselves might well be conservative, but for all the advocacy of Giuliani they might as well be casting their lot in with the Democrats because when you look at Giuliani's record, at least on the gun issue, he's no better than any of the Democrats. He supported every one of the gun control initiatives the Clintons got through or were going to try to get through Congress -- the Brady Bill, the AWB, licensing, registration, the whole gun-control enchilada. And there's absolutely no reason, at least as far as I can see, to believe he's renounced any of that. Another one of the only ways this could help him is if certain people -- yes, Wayne LaPierre, I'm talkin' to you! -- dropped the ball and didn't call attention to Giuliani's record, choosing instead to focus on the Democrats' shortcomings. As far as that goes, I hope the NRA shows it at least has some integrity and gets busy exposing the potential weaknesses on the GOP side of the aisle as well, but we'll see.

Heller v. District of Columbia Goes to Supreme Court

From this morning's Chron...

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether the District of Columbia's ban on handguns violates the Constitution, putting the justices at the center of the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years.

The court's decision could have broad implications for gun-control measures locally and across the country, and will raise a hot political issue just in time for the 2008 elections.

The court will hear the case after the first of the year. A decision likely would come before it adjourns at the end of June.

For years, legal scholars, historians and grammarians have debated the meaning of the amendment because of its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Yes, it has been debated, but that debate has arisen for one reason -- socialist do-gooders who pull interpretations of the Constitution out of their fourth point of contact. If there's any hope for our Constitutional Republic, this debate will be settled once and for all in favor of individual rights and the socialist nanny-state would-be totalitarians will no longer be able to throw the American people's natural rights to the wolves just because they think it makes for good social policy. I'd bet we have at least four solid votes in Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Thomas, but then there's Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens on the other side. I'm betting it's probably going to end up 5-4 one way or the other, as I don't really know enough about Justice Anthony Kennedy's voting record to comment. But it should be fun to see what happens in the nation's gun stores during the next 9 months or so, as Heller's case is debated and voted on. What I would love to have seen in the Post's write-up of this is Gura & Possessky's response to D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer's ludicrous comment that "Whatever right the Second Amendment guarantees, it does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die" (Page 29 of their response to D.C.'s petition for certiorari):

Yet the city consistently fights to secure its right to stand by while its citizens are victimized by crime. For example, the city has successfully defended its right to “stand by while its citizens” are raped, kidnapped from their homes, and further abused. Warren 30 v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). The city has likewise successfully defended its right to “stand by” in the face of the worst urban rioting in our nation’s history. Westminster Investing Co. v. G.C. Murphy Co., 434 F.2d 521 (D.C. Cir. 1970).
The city has even defended its right to “stand by while its citizens die” when the perpetrator is a police officer. Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. 1983) (en banc). Indeed, the city has asserted its right to “stand by while its citizens die” in the course of volunteering their assistance to the police.

But I guess that would have too balanced for the Washington Post and their not-so-hidden anti-gun agenda. In any event, I couldnt have said it much better than Joe Lemire at Cold Fury did:

...This is our birthright, and something sixteen generations of my family have defended. We don’t much care what you overpaid, supposedly “public servants” in D.C. think of that.
But if the Supreme Court wants to pretend that “shall not be infringed” doesn’t mean exactly what it says, us Carolina boys will be glad to re-enact the burning of D.C. for ya. I’m pretty sure the decendants of the Green Mountain boys will want to help, too, and we might even find some of Sam’s kin with an itch to set you straight. There’s plenty of us decended from the founders still around, you know. And we have a message for you:

From our cold, dead hands, motherfuckers.

A-yep. Or, as my Texican brethren told their would-be Mexican overlords back in 1835 at Gonzales...

"Come and Take It."

Just Stuff?

I haven't blogged about this, more or less due to lack of time the last few days, but Mutt has some good thoughts, a perspective I'd have never thought of:

What is the first thing someone says after their house or car is broken into? It happened in broad daylight and no one did anything...sound familiar? How about when someone gets mugged or killed? Something like...I would kill them if they did that to anyone in my family...right?

*snip*

You aren't in danger this time, but what about the next time when it is your turn and your neighbor just stands and watches as the emboldened criminals come for a bit more than a TV?
Armed, not armed...who gives a crap, they are committing a felony against a fellow man...does that mean that a DWI gets away because he wasn't armed, or a child molester, rapist, or even someone that kills you with his bare hands?
It is only stuff when it someone else's is what you mean. You selfish bastard.

I had never really thought about it that way, but it sounds to me like such an assessment is right on the money. Suffice it to say that I for one would be incensed if my place was being ransacked and my neighbors stood by, watched and did nothing because "it's just stuff." Something tells me that the people voicing the quoted sentiment mean exactly what Mutt says they do -- that it's just stuff when it's somebody else's, but when it's theirs, "Katie bar the door, boys, 'cause the lead's about to fly!" Of course he'd probably get called out for being off-base, but really, do you think any of the self-righteous jackasses who say "it's just stuff" are going to have the balls to cowboy up and admit it would be different if it was their stuff? Something else that could make for an interesting contradiction is just how many people who are condemning Joe Horn for his actions would, in any other situation, be lecturing us on the need to look out for our fellow man.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

File this one under "people get the government they deserve, and they get it good and hard"...

Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms.
The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households.
In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.

Reaction I've seen to this has been varying, from dry snark to fire-breathing outrage. It IS an outrage that this is happening in the United States of America, and we all know that were the Founding Fathers alive to see this they'd be going for tar and feathers, or even rope. But at the same time what the hell else are we to expect from the kinds of people in charge in Massachusetts? You just have to remember the people who think this sort of thing is acceptable are the same people who send Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry to the Senate year after year. A lot of people aren't gonna agree with this, but the people affected by this by and large have no one to blame but themselves for this outrage, because they rolled over and accepted it instead of taking care of the problem themselves. I guess it's only by the grace of the good Lord above those kinds of shenanigans are largely confined to leftist ratholes like Boston, though I know that there are people everywhere who don't see anything wrong with them, after all, it's for the chillllldreeen, and if it saves just one life it's worth it and all those other utterly vapid platitudes. I do hope like hell that insanity never makes it here.

It's A Brave New World...

What'd I tell ya?

On Tuesday the St. Charles Journal in Missouri published a sad story about cyberbullying that drove a 13-year-old girl named Megan Meier to commit suicide last year. Meier had been harangued by one of her MySpace friends named "Josh Evans" who sent her a barrage of hateful comments that sent her over the edge.

It turns out that Evans was a pseudonym created by two adults -- one of whom knew the Meier family very well. The St. Charles Journal decided to protect the privacy of the two adults and declined to name them in the story. That didn't sit well with incensed readers, who tracked down what they say is the identity of one of the adults and posted it online. Now the paper is being criticized for giving the adults anonymity.

*snip*

The St. Charles Journal wrote in the story that it decided not to name the woman and the other adult involved in the incident out of concern for the woman's own teenage daughter. The two adults haven't been charged with any crime.

But readers of various blogs that posted the story were furious with the paper's decision. By matching certain details in the article with property records, they found the name and address of a woman who they believe created the Josh Evans persona, and published her details online.

Amazing what modern technology allows one to do. I'll say that I am not sure there should be laws passed in the wake of Megan Meier's sad story, as they could end up with very bad consequences -- but I can't say I disagree with the outing of the creatures behind her fake "friend" one little bit, even with the margin for error and the potential for embarrassment to the kids. After all, as a commenter said on another blog, if the experience of being outed and publicly shamed keeps the kids from becoming the sociopathic shitbags their parents turned out to be, well, that can only be a good thing.

An American Tragedy

I was doing the blog-run this morning, and ran up on this unspeakably horrible story via Protein Wisdom and Sister Toldjah....

His name was Josh Evans. He was 16 years old. And he was hot.

"Mom! Mom! Mom! Look at him!" Tina Meier recalls her daughter saying.

Josh had contacted Megan Meier through her MySpace page and wanted to be added as a friend.Yes, he's cute, Tina Meier told her daughter. "Do you know who he is?"

"No, but look at him! He's hot! Please, please, can I add him?"

Mom said yes. And for six weeks Megan and Josh - under Tina's watchful eye - became acquainted in the virtual world of MySpace.

*snip*

She loved swimming, boating, fishing, dogs, rap music and boys. But her life had not always been easy, her mother says.

She was heavy and for years had tried to lose weight. She had attention deficit disorder and battled depression. Back in third grade she had talked about suicide, Tina says, and ever since had seen a therapist.

But things were going exceptionally well. She had shed 20 pounds, getting down to 175. She was 5 foot 5½ inches tall.

She had just started eighth grade at a new school, Immaculate Conception, in Dardenne Prairie, where she was on the volleyball team. She had attended Fort Zumwalt public schools before that.

Amid all these positives, Tina says, her daughter decided to end a friendship with a girlfriend who lived down the street from them. The girls had spent much of seventh grade alternating between being friends and, the next day, not being friends, Tina says.

If you're one of those whose faith in humanity is the least bit shaky, be warned that story isn't going to do a thing to restore said faith. I am well aware that Homo sapiens can be unspeakably cruel, but every now and then there's a display of said cruelty that sets the bar at an even lower level. And this is just one of these displays. Like Megan Meier, I wasn't one of the cool kids in school, and I had people make fun of me now and then at that age for varying reasons, but I was blessed in that it was nowhere near that level. I do hope and pray that the Lord had mercy on little Megan's soul and that she found peace in the next life...it's all too obvious she couldn't find it in this one. You'll see that there is no mention of the names of the vile creatures who did this, ostensibly out of a desire to protect the little girl in the family. I understand where they're coming from, but at the same time I can't help but agree with this comment at Sister Toldjah's place, so much so that I had to quote it in its entirety:

I hope these awful people’s names are well known in their community so that they can be properly shunned. In my opinion, shunning should be used much more than it is in modern society.
There is no law against what these people did. But we don’t always need the law to enforce social norms. Nor do we need to resort to destruction of property and physical attacks. Shunning should not be used for every minor social infraction – only for the most egregious cases. This case certainly qualifies.
I understand people don’t want to hurt the kids of the offending family. Sorry kids - it is your own and your parent’s bad behavior that caused you to be pariahs in your town. You can remain where you are and feel despised by everyone everyday - or you can go away. Move far away where people don’t know you. Start over again in a new place. That will be difficult and painful. Yes - and it should be. You can build a new life. If you act decently you can be welcomed as respected members of your new town. But you shouldn’t have the happy comfortable life you had before - you don’t deserve it and you old neighbors don’t deserve to have to look at you.
Maybe then the whole family will learn a lesson. It will also serve as a lesson for generations in the town they are driven from. Harsh? Damn right - and certainly no less than they deserve. Unchristian? Perhaps (forgiveness has never been my strong suit) but not entirely. As long as those people remain in that community a festering wound will never heal. And if these heartless people feel compelled to leave town the family of this poor girl can perhaps feel that some justice has been done. Some significant punishment should be meted out. The law can’t do it. The people of the community should take it upon themselves to, lawfully, execute justice themselves. Shunning is perfectly suited to this situation.

A-yep. I must admit I found it quite interesting that the names were left out for the desire to protect these people's privacy, when on the other hand so many media outlets seem to be chomping at the bit to -- just for a topical example -- publish the names of concealed-carry permit holders. Seems privacy concerns go right out the window there. Notwithstanding that, though, I am sure the names of the offending parties can and will become quite well-known -- ironically enough, one way for that would be through the medium that played such a part in little Megan's death. I don't know that her parents would want that, but I'm sure there are others in that town who will take that ball and run with it. I can't help but hope they do, too.

And As A Counterpoint

to the last post...
Now playing here: Ed Burleson,"Goin' Back to Texas," from his My Perfect World cd...
"...Ernest Tubb, Willie Nelson, Lefty Frizzell, and ole Bob Wills is still the King...well they can blow more soul, with them put together, than the whole damned state of Tennessee..."

Random Musings: Miranda Lambert, Killin' and Major-Market Texas Country Radio

Get a drink, folks, this one might be loooong...
Got this comment to this post earlier this week:

Miranda Lambert is quickly going down the path of "rock" country...smashing guitars and head banging licks...she certainly wants it both ways "look at me as a song writer of real country" and "we're going to show some skin and rock this place!".
I'll pass..

That could be. I haven't seen her live and I am not sure when I'll be doing that. And I certainly make no secret of my dislike for Garth Brooks-type theatrics, but so far her music seems to be speaking for itself. As for "rock" country, I really don't know exactly what to say to that. I also make no secret of my dislike of modern mainstream "country" precisely because of the distinct lack of a country sound in a lot of it. But at the same time I don't necessarily mind that rock influence here and there. I'd much rather be hearing someone like Cross Canadian Ragweed on my radio than someone like Kenny Chesney even if Chesney is perceived to have more of a "traditional" country sound than a band like Ragweed. I dunno, that might have something to do with the fact that Cody Canada and the boys don't make every other one of their songs about summertime, getting drunk on the beach or teenage love. Chesney's a one-trick pony if ever there was one.
Speaking of Ragweed, if you know their music well you know they've done some songs here and there about killing cheating lovers. Seems that Miranda Lambert's next single is gonna be "Gunpowder & Lead":

I'm goin' home, gonna load my shotgun
Wait by the door and light a cigarette
If he wants a fight well now he's got one
And he ain't seen me crazy yet
He slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll
Don't that sound like a real man
I'm going to show him what a little girl's made of
Gunpowder and lead

Should be interesting to see what country radio does with that one, considering how they more or less treated the title track from "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" like it was radioactive. I hope it does well, but I am not necessarily holding my breath. I hate that, 'cause the story of the protagonist in "Gunpowder & Lead" is all too common (but for the fact that too many women take the abuse as opposed to taking that route to stop it), and the great thing about songs like that and country music as it should be is about life, the good things AND the bad. Why country radio seems to skip over most of the bad I'll never quite figure out. I can't speak so much for the state of Contemporary Hit Radio, as a lot of the cds from the artists who get played there I don't have -- but how about that new single from Maroon 5?!

Wake up call, caught you in the morning with another one in my bed
Don't you care about me anymore?
Don’t you care about me? I don't think so.
Six foot tall, came without a warning so I had to shoot him dead
He won't come around here anymore

I must say, I was more than a bit surprised. Never expected to hear THAT one on the local Top 40 station. Talk about a complete reversal of expectations for the formats. Who knows WHAT I'll hear next...

Speaking of country radio, specifically country radio in Texas, Leslie T. was talking about 99.5 The Wolf some time ago on her blog, quoting Texas Made Music:

"Everyone was wondering what John Sebastain would do when he took over as program director at 99.5 The Wolf in Dallas. Many of us have feared that he would go more mainstream Country and program less Texas Music. This week he discussed his plans to Country Aircheck on changes at the Wolf. His goal is to become a 35-44 demo vs the old 18-30 demo. He blames the ratings decline on too many promotions, not playing some national releases and too much talk with air personalities. He has changed the news time, put in more songs and less promotions. We are now hearing more Patsy Cline, Garth Brooks vs. Kevin Fowler, Deryl Dodd, Robert Earl Keen, etc. It's a sad day. Cody Allen resigned last week over the new direction."

And that's a damn shame, too. 99.5 the Wolf had a great thing going on in D-FW with that Texas-centric approach, even if their calling EVERYTHING they played "Texas country" was grating. The last time I listened to the Wolf was back in mid-June and even then I knew something was different -- as in less of the Texas music. I don't know how the ratings were doing before, but they'd been doing well for a long time from what I understand. So I just can't see the reasons for the ratings decline having as much to do with not playing some national releases -- you could probably reasonably translate that as playing too much Texas music -- as it being just one of those periodic downturns. I found this comment at radio-info.com interesting:

Personally, I think KPLX has run off listeners (me included). It started about 2 years ago (even before Cumulus took over and the DJs were all changed), when the music was changed. We live in Texas. People in Texas want a country music station that sounds like it is from Texas. For the last 2 years, the music has been changed to a generic country station playlist that is indistinguishable from a country music station in Miami, Portland, Boston, or Des Moines. If KPLX listeners wanted to hear a Yankee country music station, they could listen to KSCS. I don't think the a lot of Wolf listeners wanted a KSCS clone; if they liked KSCS, they would be listening to it already.

I wonder how many country music fans and radio listeners in Dallas-Ft. Worth feel the same way. Judging from the stagnant ratings for The Wolf it seems quite a few. I dunno, maybe it'll take a little longer to see how the aforementioned changes at The Wolf fully affect the ratings, but my wild-arsed guess is that if anything they'll be even worse -- if not in the short run, definitely in the long run. As I said at Leslie T's place, I used to think the Wolf was the best major-market country station in the country. I am sorry to say I don't think that anymore. From what I've heard, I'd have to say KILT beats them now. Even if they don't play as much Texas music as some of the smaller-market stations do, what Leslie T. does on Sunday nights is hard to beat. And judging from the feedback she gets, I don't know why KILT couldn't get away with putting more of the Texas stuff into regular rotation. I don't know if they ever will, but we'll see...

A Quick Shout-Out

Leslie T. Travis, if you're reading this, I'd just like to say thanks for stopping by, as well as for putting me on your blogroll. I've been listening to KILT on and off since 1998, continuously since late 2001. What you've been doing with the Texas music on the station Sunday nights is great and I am glad to see you've been given that opportunity by the folks at CBS Radio in Houston. I will say, though, that it would be great if y'all could get more of it into regular rotation like they have on KYKS in Lufkin, and, to a lesser extent, KAYD here in the Golden Triangle. I also listened to KIKK before it finally went under and I hated to see it die. The Young Country days sucked, but in its last couple of years with the Texas and alt-country it was sounding great. I don't know why that format couldn't have succeeded under different circumstances. YMMV, and excuse the phrase, but CBS really screwed the pooch with KIKK in its last few years of existence and I think that dreadful mismanagement of the station to an extent tainted the great things it was doing in the last year or so that it was on the air. That's not necessarily an indictment of the Texas/alt-country scene so much as it is the station itself. But again, thanks for everything, and for keeping me sane and entertained on my Sunday nights at work.
:-)

"No One" Can Protect Your Rights?

Seen on The High Road this morning...

Nothing nor no one can protect your gun rights *if* the majority of "The People" don't want you to have them. SCOTUS could come up with the most favorable ruling on the meaning of the 2A, and a large enough majority of citizens could make the 2A go away through constitutional amendment.

I must beg to differ on that point. It would seem to me that if the Second Amendment were repealed outright, our gun rights could still be protected. We'd just have to resort to, shall we say, other measures, from civil disobedience right on up to "voting from the rooftops" if those we elected to lead us resorted to more Waco- and Ruby Ridge-style jack-booted thuggery. Those rights would still be protected, of that I have no doubt...we'd just have to resort to extraordinary measures to ensure we kept them. But now that I think about it, it's not really that extraordinary -- or at least it shouldn't be. As Thomas Jefferson said,
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?"
It would be interesting to see what the country would be like today had the Civil War not put the American people off the idea of armed rebellion every couple of decades. But I digress. Our rights can still be protected. They might just have to be protected with blood. As Jefferson went on to say:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

...more great Texas music....

here: Cross Canadian Ragweed, "17," from their great self-titled "purple" album...
"...The porch swing still looks the same, she probably won't even remember my name, just like she didn't back then...is she married, is she doin' fine, does she know about all the nights I laid awake cryin', just to know her hand...the door opens and I run away, just like the same old clown, you're always seventeen in your hometown..."

11:09: Aaron Watson, "Barbed Wire Halo," boy, does this one ever cut close to home...
"...and today he joined up with Jesus, wearin' shiny pearl snaps..." They buried my grandfather in a pearl snap shirt...

Lord, but what a GREAT song...

Now playing here: George Jones, "A Good Year For the Roses," 1976.
"I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick, on the cigarettes there in the ashtray lyin' cold the way you left them, at least your lips caressed them while you packed...And a lip print on a half-filled cup of coffee, that you poured and didn't drink, but at least you thought you wanted it, that's so much more than I can say for me..."

...that last line just kills me...

8:03 p.m.: Mac Davis, "It's Hard To Be Humble," from 1980. This one always cracked me up! "Some folks say that I'm eeeegotistical, hell, I don't even know what that means....I guess it has something to do with the way that I fill out my skintight blue jeans...."

8:26 p.m: Cal Smith, "Country Bumpkin," 1974. I didn't like this song when I first heard it, but now it's one of my all-time favorites...

8:43 p.m.: Awww, YEAH! "...I could be holdin' you tonight....could quit doin' wrong, start doin' right...but you don't care 'bout what I thaink....I think I'll just stay here and draiiiink...." Come ooon, you know who that is! And if you don't, shame on you!

12:10 a.m. : Steve Wariner, "Some Fools Never Learn," 1985. My favorite song of all-time, from any artist, or any genre of music. I was only 7 years old when that song came out, but 've always, always loved it.

Looking For A Good Gun, Eh?

Via ye olde Sitemetre, from Los Angeles, California, are Kimber 1911s good guns?
The answer to that one more or less depends on who you ask. In my experience the Kimbers have been great, and the folks I've run into on the range like them too. To be honest the only bad things I've heard about the Kimbers have come from the Internet gun boards. How much more accurate those reports are of the state of Kimbers as a whole I haven't a clue; I've heard it said more than once that a dissatisfied customer is much more likely to speak up than a satisfied customer is. That might explain part of the bad Internet reports on the Kimbers, though not all of them. I've also heard Kimber's customer service leaves much to be desired, though I've never had to deal with them and hope I never have to. I am not at all averse to buying another Kimber, but I've said it before and I'll say it again...in my experience the Springfield Armory 1911 is every bit the equal of the Kimber that'll take $150 more out of your wallet. I'd also be amiss if I didn't mention the Dan Wesson 1911s, too...I had always heard great things about them as well, specifically the quality of the pistols after the CZ buyout, and so far my experience with the Dan Wesson Razorback has been very good. You'll be getting a good gun if you buy a Kimber, but don't drink the Kimber Kool-Aid. They're good, but I just can't honestly say they're THAT much better than the Springfield or Dan Wesson 1911s. There are also the Colt and Smith & Wesson 1911s to consider, but I've never had any experience with either of those.

Lube Discoveries

Some time ago, Xavier said:

I have been accused of running my guns excessively greasy.

I might well be accused of the same thing. Usually my cleaning and lubing treatment includes some type of gun scrubber compound and Hoppe's No. 9 gun oil. And if you've ever used that stuff you know it can get to be pretty messy. I lube and rub down my guns with it after every time I take them out. I tried something different with the Dan Wesson when I got it, out of sheer necessity because I was out of cleaning stuff and they didn't have what I normally used. I'd heard good things about BreakFree CLP, so I thought I'd pick some up. I'll admit it's pretty good at cleaning, but I am now not so sure about its lubrication abilities, at least on the Razorback; the first couple of times I took it out I experienced a couple or failures to return to battery and it seemed the slide was catching on something as the pistol was going back into battery. I had not had any experience with CLP before and I remembered thinking that it seemed a lot drier than the Hoppe's oil. So I thought I'd go back to the way I've done it with my other guns, and I picked up some Hoppe's No. 9 oil and Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber last week to try out. I ran the RZ-10 through the cleaning and oiling process with it and took it out Monday with some more Remington UMC and it worked just fine -- no kinds of issues whatsoever. Well, I did have a couple of issues of the slide locking back before I emptied the pistol, but that's about it, and the best I can tell that one was just user error. ;-) I was still getting low velocity with the UMC, though; it was still running about 100 fps slower than the advertised 1150 fps. I don't know if that's the gun or the ammo, but I do have now about 150 rounds of once-fired UMC nickel-plated brass and a fresh batch of CCI large pistol primers. I've had good luck with the CCI primers before vs. the Remington primers. Should be fun to see what happens. I'll be developing some more loads this weekend.

Thoughts on the 2007 CMA Awards...

...or rather, the award winners, one in particular...
I didn't see the CMA Awards, but I thought it would be interesting to see who took them home. No really big surprises, I guess, though it was good to see Brad Paisley take home Male Vocalist of the Year. If George Strait couldn't take it, Paisley was the next best choice.
And how 'bout ole George? 2007 Album of the Year for It Just Comes Natural, and he had a tie to Song of the Year (which actually goes to the writers) for "Give It Away." I thought that was one of the best songs on George's record and was glad to see it do so well, as I was the album too. The last time Strait took home the Album of the Year Award was in 1998, for Carrying Your Love With Me. I thought that was pretty appropriate, considering I said when It Just Comes Natural came out that it was George's best album in the last 10 years. It makes me wonder when the last time was that a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame took home a major award after being inducted. It's amazing, just absolutely amazing that he can do so well after all this time and after all the changes in the genre through the 26 years since he had his first hit record. Congratulations, George. Now when's the next album gonna come out?
;-)

National Report ATF Abuse Day

Ryan Horsley, proprietor of the besieged Red's Trading Post in Twin Falls, Idaho, has proclaimed today to be National Report ATF Abuse Day...

This should happen at least once a year, because it is proven that their abuses never stop. I am encouraging everyone to write a letter to the Office of Inspector General and your Congressional Delegates.
If you are not sure what to write on, I have compiled a small list:

1. Violating our Second Amendment
2. Continually perjuring themselves
3. Shutting down Firearms dealers and manufacturers
4. ATF Losing or destroying records
5. Modifying firearms to make them illegal to convict gun owners
6. The Dishonesty and corruption of the ATF Seattle Field Division
7. Failing to comply with Congress and the OIG's request to establish fines or revocations for dealers, instead revoking licenses
   
8. Acting ATF Director Michael J. Sullivan's refusal to stop abuses against gun owners
   
9. The continuing waste of tax money to justify their own existence
10. Developing an illegal gun registration

As Mr. Horsley goes on to say, the ATF has done more to destroy our rights in order to justify their own existence than any government agency. And he's right. Personally, I'd say the very existence of the ATF is an affront to the ideals of the Founders and should be dismantled, and the sooner the better. They have revoked well over half of the federal firearms licenses held by Americans in the last ten years, which of course are required to sell firearms in this country. Somebody tell me how that isn't a violation of the Second Amendment, and quite possibly the Fifth and Eighth Amendments as well, because it seems pretty clear-cut to me, and when you have former ATF agents on the record saying things like "If it wasn’t for criminals, there wouldn’t be a gun industry in this country" then that's another clear indication that something has got to give. Once more, with feeling, say it with me, friends...
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store -- not a government agency.
Oh, and Mr. Horsley, into the blogroll you go...please accept my humblest apologies for that oversight...

I wouldn't count Rascal Flatts regardless...

From the AP, by way of Macleans...

If the Country Music Association was going to set up a special dressing room for its entertainer of the year nominees, it would do well to put in a couple of leather couches, a box of cigars, ESPN on the tube and a sign on the door proclaiming, "Men Only."

All five nominees - seven if you count Rascal Flatts as three instead of one - are men. It was the same last year - and the year before that, and the year before that. One has to go all the way back to 2001, when the Dixie Chicks were nominated, to find a woman on the list.

Like I said, I wouldn't count Rascal Flatts even if its members are technically males, 'cause what they put out is more or less music with no balls. No offense, but were those cats castrated at birth? I picked up Texas native Miranda Lambert's latest album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, last week, and listening to it that's exactly what I was thinking -- "Miranda Lambert may be a female, but listening to this she sounds like she's got bigger balls than Rascal Flatts does." As for the mention of Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill, for some strange reason the characterization of certain other artists in the letter to Rolling Stone that was first thought to be penned by Joan Jett come to mind -- "overexposed pop princesses who have nothing to do to do with (country)," Underwood's "Before He Cheats" notwithstanding. I don't know if Miranda Lambert is Female Vocalist of the Year material yet, but she's gotten a pretty good start on making her mark as a traditional country artist. But that's just what I think...

Some Light Monday Reading

...on the plight of the English, and how they see the American experiment vis-a-vis guns, both via The High Road.
First up, we have this, from one English newspaper. Just a snippet:

...the United States is a deeply troubled society. According to the Violence Policy Centre, 29,569 Americans died by gunfire in 2004. When there is no war going on such a statistic is evidence that something is deeply wrong.
Against such a backdrop of catastrophe it is easy to portray gun-owners and their favourite politicians as priests in a cult of death. But a crude caricature takes us nowhere near understanding why firearms remain so dear to so many.
*snip*
If a British Prime Minister was found to have a cupboard full of guns in Downing Street he could be arrested, but for an aspiring president it is almost a prerequisite for office.
This may change if Hillary Clinton wins the election and recalibrates the concept of the presidency but the gun will remain a regrettably destructive but enduring symbol of a nation’s otherwise admirable romance with liberty.

Ah, yes, statistics from the Violence Policy Center, that bastion of objective firearm policy analysis...
/sarcasm
Personally, I think Michael Marks of the Fifty Caliber Institute was much closer to the mark when he described the VPC as "a small lobbygroup-for-hire, funded largely by Barbra Streisand." Quite telling that the writer went to the VPC instead of going to the Centers for Disease Control or the Department of Justice. Kinda tells you which way he leans, but then being an emasculated Brit that much is pretty well a given anyway.
As for the "regrettably destructive" symbolism of guns...I guarantee you a lot of Mr. Williamson's countrymen wish to hell they had some of that regrettably destructive equipment, as about 60 percent of house burglaries in the UK occur when the resident is in the house. In Texas that sort of thing tends to get people shot and I can't say that's anything but good. But really, I could probably write a book in response to what this guy says, but I find more and more that a raised middle finger and a hearty "Molon Labe!" sums it all up very nicely.

And then there's the following missive (and to whoever accused me of stealing it, I saw it here, you happy now?):

Dear UK,
What happened to you? When Germany threatened to bomb you out of existence, you cowboyed up and took to the shelters. You drank flasks of tea, sang ribald songs about Hitler, and pretty much won the spiritual war before the bad guys knew what hit them.
You died on the fences in Flanders in WWI; in WWII you ran operations behind enemy lines all over Europe that are still the stuff of conversation in military circles. Your bravery and fortitude were never in doubt.
You were once the greatest naval power in the world.
You were once a tiny island that extended its colonial reach to the farthest corners of the earth.
I came here to practice medicine at the invitation of the National Health Service. I see 30 - 40 of your post-war generation all day, every day. I see little but passive aggression and entitlement. I see statutory sick pay that has people going on extended sick leave because they "can't cope" (that's an actual NHS diagnosis by the way). I see people too cowed to ask their surgeons what body parts were removed during an operation. I see a generation of drones that will very likely never again rise to the occasion.
I see a small percentage of your elderly every day too. They are proud, vibrant people, brimming over with dignity. They often apologise for troubling me with their complaints since surely I have better things to do with truly sick people. They often have congestive heart failure, undiagnosed cancers, severe peripheral vascular disease. They don't weep when I give them bad news. They don't ask for special accommodation. They are as tough as hammered steel. They are the WWII generation.
The Flower of England is no longer your "yoof". It is your elderly. They are the standard bearers of what Britain once was. Once they are gone, in the next 10 years or so, you will be left with your weakness, your ineffectualism, your endless apathy that encourages the nanny state in which you live. You can't even dredge up the sincerity to vote in a decent government.
I'm contractually bound to be here until May 1st. When the clock runs out, I'll leave. I won't be back.
I'll sit in the US, which you often revile, and I'll know that as imperfect as it is, I'll be better off than you will ever be. You can sit on your beknighted little hunk of rock and descend into the quagmire of rules and regulations you've created.
Europe is better than you. The US is better than you. Whatever you were once, you are not now. You are little more than a convenient place to stop on the way to other places.
The United Kingdom. The irony practically writes itself.

And that's what happens when a society disarms. It removes the will to fight for those things worth fighting for, and it's going to be the death of England. I can only hope it isn't too late for the United States of America...

Humanitarian WHAT?

Pardon my french, but this is just un-fragging-believable...

(Supreme Court Justice John Paul) Stevens told me he was troubled by the fact that Yamamoto, a highly intelligent officer who had lived in the United States and become friends with American officers, was shot down with so little apparent deliberation or humanitarian consideration. The experience, he said, raised questions in his mind about the fairness of the death penalty. "I was on the desk, on watch, when I got word that they had shot down Yamamoto in the Solomon Islands, and I remember thinking: This is a particular individual they went out to intercept," he said. "There is a very different notion when you’re thinking about killing an individual, as opposed to killing a soldier in the line of fire."

Oh, really? So Yamamoto was "just an individual," as opposed to a high-ranking officer in the Japanese navy -- a high-ranking officer who, not incidentally, conceived and designed an offensive that left 2,403 American soldiers, sailors and airmen dead in one day? The moral relativity and blindness on display here is just absolutely staggering! And considering it's coming from a sitting justice on the highest court in the land, quite frightening as well. Noel at Cold Fury nailed it:

As for "humanitarian considerations", those were also made–on behalf of our troops, who were also "human". Yamamoto was not allowed to kill any more of them–that’s very "humanitarian" in my book. Telling, isn’t it, that the presumption for 'humanitarian consideration' automatically accrues to the guilty…and never to his victims?

Or, for that matter, his potential victims -- which in Yamamoto's case, if bad came to worse, could well have included the American people if the Japanese had come to fulfill their ambitions of world empire. I think it could be argued -- nay, should be shouted from the rooftops -- that as a member of an opposing military force, Yamamoto was a legitimate target and failure to take him out when we had the chance would be at best a huge tactical blunder and at worst a dereliction of duty, John Paul Fragging Stevens' moral qualms be damned. Thank God those qualms weren't shared by the civilian leadership in place then, because if they had been, it's real damned likely we'd all be speaking German or Japanese right about now, and who knows what kinds of cruel fates would have been visited upon certain races and members of certain religions in this country -- ironically enough, the same people whose rights that cretins like Stevens would claim to stand up for. Amazing, just absolutely amazing...

Alienating With the Truth?

Sebastian from Snowflakes in Hell, on Wayne LaPierre's silence discussed here:

The reason Wayne hasn’t said anything about any Republican candidate records is because you don’t want to risk alienating the potential nominee.

I can see the reasoning behind that -- it makes perfect sense -- but what does it say about a candidate that someone who would tell the truth about his record risks alienating him? Good grief, how in the bloody HELL did we get to THAT point?! If we risk alienating someone with that aforementioned truth, well then we might as well either go ahead and turn 'em all in OR stock up on supplies and munitions now and get prepared for the fecal matter hitting the rotating air circulation device. Would it lead to a shooting war? I don't know, but when we have people telling us it's best to stay silent instead of speaking the truth, it just can't lead to anything good. As I said at Ahab's place, maybe some truth-telling vis-a-vis Giuliani and Romney is in the offing, but I'm guessing that's probably contingent on how Fred Thompson does in the campaign. No matter how Fred does, I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the NRA isn't helping its credibility among liberals and Democrats with the silence on the practically fatal flaws of the GOP front-runners vis-a-vis Second Amendment rights. The truth needs to be told, no matter the consequences. It's not gonna do us any good not to.

Shoulda been the Texas state song...

Now playing here:
"You ask me what I like about Texas, I tell you it's the wide open spaces, it's everything between the Sabine and the Rio Grande...it's the Llano Estacado, it's the Brazos and the Colorado, it's the spirit of the people, who share this land..."

File This One Under "The Blind Squirrel Finding A Nut"...

Frank Rich, in the New York Times, aka Pravda-on-Hudson...

No matter how you slice it, the Giuliani positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control remain indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton’s.

A-yep. Tell me again how voting for Giuliani is going to be any different than marking my ballot for Hillary in the long run. Or piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, as the old saying goes.

(h/t Kim du Toit)

Food for Thought

Lots of people pooh-pooh the defensive sidearm for its relative lack of power when compared to a longarm. But to me, saying a pistol sucks because it's not a rifle is akin to saying a hammer sucks because it's not a drill press. Two different tools for two different jobs. Thoughts, readers?