Fawk yeah!

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Phil Kadath

Without comment. Except for the title of the post.

Found here

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Man With A Gun!

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Oscar Gordon

At a gun store, go figure.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Wow, what a Clusterfuck

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Alaska

This is not the way to launch a business venture. Sailorcurt, Bonnie and a bunch of other folks are hopping mad at GPal. I made some donations to the Calguns Foundation earlier this year through GPal; after learning about this issue from Bonnie and reading the above links I became alarmed and fired off a query to the Foundation president to see whether or not they received the funds. My GPal account says the transactions were completed, so ???. More when I find it out.

FWIW, I know from my own business clients that underwriting standards for setting up ACH “merchant accounts” have been tightened to a ridiculous level over the past year, as part of the overall tightening of business credit. Lots of businesses got surprised by this and lost their longstanding accounts. Lisa Wolf of Elite Ammunition mentioned in one of the threads in the GPal forum at Calguns.net that the problem started when GPal changed its name from GunPal. I’m guessing something as simple as that name change might have been sufficient for a merchant account underwriter to temporarily kill the account? I dunno if that’s what happened, though.

One thing that I’m noticing is a lot of complaints that GPal hasn’t told everybody what caused this problem. From my perspective as in-house attorney for a number of companies, you shouldn’t expect them to do so. If the problem was caused by either a bad-apple employee or an outside entity (such as a gun-fearing bank or a tightwad underwriter) I’d think GPal is going to be suing the responsible parties and is being strongly advised by its attorney NOT to say anything related to pending litigation. That causes problems for public relations to be sure, but legally it’s very important. Again, I’m not sure that’s what’s happening here, but I don’t see folks considering this possibility either as the reason for GPal’s silence.

I’m not affiliated with GPal, but sure hope GPal gets everybody paid ASAP as this issue is really tarnishing the Calguns reputation, even if undeservedly so. I’ve been hired in the past to repair a poor customer service division and the damage it caused, and cleaning that up can be a real nightmare even if you’ve fixed whatever the underlying problem may have been. Oleg’s indicating that the board members are stepping up to help hire tech-support and customer-service staff, so that’s a good sign.

UPDATE: Oleg resigned from the board. He did mention some interesting documents that are related to litigation that he thinks will be public soon, which would indicate a court filing’s coming up. Reading court filings can be fascinating….

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Amidst the sounds, of violence

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Phil Kadath

Bill Quick has a tale to tell

A couple of nights ago I woke up about two a.m. Took me a second to figure out why I was awake, and then I realized I could hear noises of some sort coming from my back patio, which is directly beneath my bedroom window.

Now this patio is surrounded by a six foot solid wooden fence with a locked gate, so anybody in there hadn’t wandered in by accident. I got up, peeked through the blind, and sure enough, could see a shadowy figure moving around down there. Then something started scraping at the barred gate which covers the sliding glass patio door.

Hmm.

I went back to the bed and returned with my Remington 870 pump shotgun. I carefully raised the blind, then slid the bedroom window open and pumped the shotgun once.

Instantly two figures leaped the back fence. I swear that one of them seemed to go over it from a running start without ever touching it. The other grabbed it with one hand as he vaulted it.

And just that quickly, it was over.

I put the safety back on the shotgun and returned to bed, grinning.

No, nothing was taken. And of course the fierce watchdog snored through the entire episode.

I do think I’ll probably finally get around to nailing up that razor wire this weekend, though.

One more crime halted by a warning of a display of a firearm that’ll never make it into any statistic set.

Hopefully, the crooks didn’t see anything interesting enough to want to come back armed themselves.

And Bill really needs to find a better neighborhood.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 5 Comments

Clowns to the left of me

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Phil Kadath

Jokers to the right.

Here I am, stuck in the middle with a metric shit-ton of ammo and an attitude.

So Joe posts a link to this picture of a person with a dumb idea. The opening salvo of comments to that post contained 110 Octane levels of stupid. And by using that terminology, I am expressly implying that I believe those folks have recently stuck their heads in tanks of AV fuel and inhaled deeply.

This not being the first time I’ve come across this idea, let me just point out why it is a dumb idea. Again.

Continue reading →

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 1 Comment

Works for me

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Phil Kadath

I don’t eat at restaurants much anymore. If I do it is because I’m with guests or The Wife, so I go to the higher end places to avoid the riff-raff that makes eating unpleasant.

Like people who shouldn’t have children, with children.

Thankfully, someone is catering to my demands.

Restaurant to Parents: No Screaming Kids Allowed

“Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!” say placards posted at the Olde Salty restaurant in Carolina Beach. N.C. And while the signs may seem to be telling some parents their patronage is unwelcome, restaurant owner Brenda Armes said it’s actually been a business boon.

“It has been a good thing for us,” Armes told NBC affiliate WECT. “It has brought in more customers than it has ever kept away.”

Indeed, a first-time diner at the Olde Salty told WECT he embraced the signage. “It’s not very enjoyable when you hear a bunch of kids screaming,” Gary Gibson said. “It’s nice to see a sign like that up.”

No shit. I’d make it a point to not only inform the owner/manager of a place with a sign like that of my approval, but to go there frequently.

But not all agree: In fact, one local woman told the station she believes the sign is downright illegal. Kelly Chambliss, the mother of an autistic child, accused Armes of discriminating against special-needs children.

“I think she needs to meet some of these kids, and I think she needs to see that they are awesome,” Chambliss told WECT. “Please don’t shut them out because they don’t fit in the perfect box everyone wants them in.”

First of all, I’ve seen so many standard grade brats labeled as “autistic” that I already suspect this lady of being a world-class twit. Secondly, if her kid is “awesome”, then he is not screaming and is therefore welcome in the restaurant.

How come this is so difficult for some people to understand?

Just because someone finds a doctor willing to give a bad parent an excuse as to why they’re not to blame for their child’s behavior doesn’t give them a free pass to ruin the peace and quiet of the other patrons. The kid should get one warning and then taken out to the car. The parent gets to sit in the car with the kid until either they act right or the rest of the family is done eating.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 9 Comments

Color me confused

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Phil Kadath

Indeed.

So my head was spun as I look at these two news stories, wondering if they’ve got it right or if it is just a case of the left throwing enough of their friends against the wall that the shit has finally stuck?

Regulators meeting in Switzerland agree on new global rules to strengthen banks

Regulators meeting in Basel, Switzerland, on Sunday agreed to take new steps to immunize the financial system from the sort of crisis that pushed the world into recession two years ago.

The new rules would make banks roughly double the amount of capital set aside as a buffer against possible losses, slash stockholder dividends and executive pay if that stockpile falls short, and limit lending during economic boom times.

Just to put it out front, I’m not a fan of the second half of this idea. Let the banks lend when they want. Otherwise, they may as well have government managers.

Secondly, as I understand it, the regulations currently let banks lend on a 10% margin: If they have $1,000,000 in cash they can lend $10,000,000. The rest is unofficially covered by the government (in the form of bailouts). This is stupid. While I believe it should be a 100% margin, I’m willing to let them slide by with only 50%. This latest idea pushes them up to nearly 20%.

Any percent bigger than 10% is a good idea in my book.

SEC threatens credit ratings agencies with fraud charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission has declined to seek fraud charges against Moody’s Investors Services over its ratings of risky investments that led to the financial crisis.

But the SEC said it decided against seeking civil charges only because it determined it lacked authority to charge a foreign affiliate of Moody’s.

Instead, in a report on its investigation, the SEC warned all credit rating agencies that they could face charges if they mislead investors with deceptive ratings.

I honestly wish them good luck in proving any of that. The companies are there for a single reason: To rate the risks involved in an investment. If they betray that reason they need to be liquidated and someone new put there.

It’s not personal. It’s business.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 2 Comments

Doggie Cam!

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Alaska

The wife and I have been enjoying a fantastic Gunblogger Rendezvous ($2000 raised for Project Valour-IT! My wife shot her first Glock! She loved it!! Then my wife WON a Glock!!!!), and our doggies are enjoying their usual kennel at Woodland Vet Hospital.

To watch them luxuriating, go here. If that link doesn’t work, go to http://www.woodlandvethospital.com/ and click the “Boarding Cams” link on the right. You want Boarding Cam 1. User name is “view” and password is “run 7″.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Off to see a man about recovery gear

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Phil Kadath

While I was waiting for the guy in the forklift to bring Buddy’s new axle around the front of the wrecking yard, I got a call from a guy I met at the garage sale I attended a couple weekends ago.

He didn’t have the cash for the item I had then, and he doesn’t have it now.

But, he has one of these with all the goodies, so I’m interested.

Things just keep popping up. I’m very glad the start of school is still over a week away. Hopefully this streak will be over by then.

Posted in Kewel! | 4 Comments

Like using a mirror to ID a vampire

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Phil Kadath

This will reveal his true nature

GOP takeover of House would move White House to focus on regulation

He will not need his tyrant’s pen. Just a few meetings with the heads of the regulatory agencies will do. And he will attempt to shield himself behind the bureaucracy.

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 4 Comments