By the dawn’s early light

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Phil Kadath

We’re having a range-type shindig this weekend at Champion Arms in Kent, my co-workers and I are, and I though it might be a good idea to grab some more .380ACP this morning on my way home for it.

I get off work at 0600 and stop in at the Wally World on the way home. Apparently, they don’t sell ammo before 0700, because I had to wait to for nearly 20 minutes before they could find someone with the keys to the ammo cabinet. I got their last three boxes of .380 and their last two of .45ACP as well. I almost bought their last six boxes of Remington green box .22-250, but I have an unopened case and not a whole lot of cash.

As I was being rung up a guy saunters on up to the counter and asks the lady if they have any .45ACP left. She points to me and says that “He just bought our last two boxes.”

The guy asks me if I’d been to the Walmart at the other end of town and if they have any left. I said that I hadn’t been there yet because that one doesn’t even open until 0700, and if they did I was going to buy it all in about 10 minutes when I walked through their doors.

His reply: “Not if I get there first!”

Even with the check out process giving him a two minute head start, I still got there in time to see him walk through the doors. But he was out of luck as they were out of everything except .25ACP, .32Auto and .40S&W. We ended up chatting on his way out the door and I almost sold him one of my boxes of .45 just to be a nice guy.

Unfortunately for him, he was an HK fanboy who badmouthed 1911’s in an under 30 second conversation. Nobody puts down JMB near me and then gets a deal.

Gotta go. I’m gonna see if I can score some more .380 while taking care of the weeks end business.

UPDATE: Scored the last 300rnds of .380ACP that my local GIJoes had. One thing I noticed in my rounds is that rifle hunting ammo is in very good supply around these parts. .22-250 to .338WinMag. Even boxed .223Rem and .308Win. Anyone think I should start a buy/ship ammo business during these times?

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 5 Comments

Call, call call and call again.

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Phil Kadath

They want howls.

We can give them howls.

Despite the fact that tomorrow’s supposed to be the day to show love and affection, it looks like Canadian firearms enthusiasts aren’t much in love with parts of the government right now.

The reason? A report making the rounds in Canada that says officials have it on “good authority” that our State Department may be on the verge of cutting off all imports of certain calibers of ammunition.

Ammos listed for this rumored ban include the .50BMG, 7.62x39mm Soviet, 7.62x51mm NATO, .308 Winchester, 5.56 NATO and .223 Remington. Additionally, we’re hearing that an expansion of this proposed ban might be broadened to include the 6.8mm SPC, 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP- among others.

In other words, State Department officials may be floating a trial balloon to see if there are howls of protest, or whimpers of compliance. Canadian elected officials who have directed this information to me say the move seems to be motivated by “emboldened” anti-gun officials who think they have a kindred spirit in President Obama.

Additionally, Canadian officials tell me they are hearing rumblings of blanket export bans on certain firearms to Canada and the attachment of DSP-83 End Use Certificates (with their $250 Export Fee) attached to all other types of American firearms.

Should that happen, opposition leaders remind Canadian firearms owners, it will not affect European Union imports. Firearms and ammo exported from Europe would be unaffected- and certainly at far more appealing prices than comparable U-S firearms. In effect, the State Department would be hammering gun manufacturers, distributors and exporters in the United States while simultaneously making firearms -and ammunition – ownership and acquisition more difficult for Canadians. To antigun politicians, this must smell like roses. To pro-gun politicians in Canada, it smells fishy, and they’re trying to drum up awareness on both sides of the border because it is “still being fought and the battle isn’t over yet.”

But it looks like an indirect campaign against firearms and ammo may have already begun.

Found via the VSSA

House contacts

Senate contacts

Posted in Evil walks the earth | 1 Comment

I’ve Lost My Wife

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Alaska

…to a video game.

Managed to get the company to spring for a Blackberry for her, and the next thing I know she’s spending all of dinner playing something called BrickBreaker.

On the one hand, that’s annoying. On the other, she’s got an inner geek and didn’t know it! Excellent… I think.

Posted in Color me confused, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Fitting

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Phil Kadath

It seems that Ayn Rand’s works are quite popular these days (though apparently not with members of the current administration).

Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

Maybe people are buying her works for the same reason they are buying guns and ammo -  Afraid they’ll be outlawed soon.

Glad I bought mine when I could get them used and cheap (All the non-fiction titles as I find her fiction to be unreadable. Blasphemy, I know.).
Though it fits with what a number of surveys are saying:

Many Americans question fairness of tax system
Americans tend to believe they pay a higher share of their income in taxes than people in other income brackets.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% say people who earn twice as much as they do pay less than twice as much in taxes. At the same time, 37% say those who earn half as much pay less than half as much in taxes.

Only 14% believe those with higher incomes pay a higher share of it in taxes, and only nine percent (9%) believe those with lower incomes do the same.

Democrats are more suspicious of high earners, Republicans of those who earn less.

A progressive tax system is how you keep the class warfare alive, baby!

Most say tax cuts always better than increased spending

Paul Krugman, last year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and a regular columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote that you should “write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.”

If you follow that advice, you’ll be writing off a majority of Americans. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 53% say that it’s always better to cut taxes. Only 24% share Krugman’s views.

Krugman and folks who like him don’t mind “writing off” a majority of folks who disagree with them. They believe that said majority are just too stupid to know what is best for them.

And lastly,

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) said small business and entrepreneurs will lead the U.S. to a better future, while 52% said the same of science and technology leaders. Americans are far less optimistic about the leadership of government (31%), large corporations and business leaders (21%), or traditional news media such as newspapers, television, radio, and magazines (13%).

Americans think leadership toward a better future is more likely to come from family and friends (38%), non-profit groups (32%), or even themselves (36%). The Zogby Interactive survey of 2,397 adults nationwide was conducted Feb. 11-13, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.0 percentage points.

And those 63% are right. No doubt about it from anyone who is sane, that is.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

The Soundboard: My Week Edition

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Phil Kadath

And what a week it has been. I can’t even find the tunage I want on video and will have to hand out vids and mp3’s to y’all.

First, the audio only selections:

I log on last night and find that Obama is sending out AG Holder to call for a new and expanded “Scary Looking Guns Ban” and is hiding a repeal of the Tihart Amendment in his “budget”.

If I were to assemble a group to try an talk some sense into PBO, I would quickly ask this man to be on the team.

Sir Mix-A-Lot – No Holds Barred

Mr. Anthony Ray knows exactly what his 2nd Amendment rights are for. If you haven’t seen me post this one before, give it a click this time around.

And, of course, I have to post music up for my Black Supremecist co-worker. I wouldn’t be having this crappy a week without him.

Sly and the Family Stone – Don’t call me whitey, nigger

NSFW. The title is the chorus.

And for our videos this week:

I think that this the title of this track is an accurate desciption of our President and his Congressional lackeys.

It also means that we are all “Annie”.

And lastly, I ran across this video last night and thought it perfectly encapsulates what the left was hoping for when they oted for The Obamessiah.

Except for maybe the cigarette trees. But he smokes, so they’ll gladly take the bad with all the kittens riding unicorns that fall out of his ass.

Enjoy!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

They only want what is best for us

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Phil Kadath

It has been shown that the “Progressive” belief system is a mental disorder.

Now that they are in charge, that knowledge will have to go away. But what to replace it with?

Hmmm…..

The Harvard Law School is having a conference to analyze the “free market mindset.” The basic premise of the conference seems to be that people who believe in limited government are psychologically troubled.

The conference schedule features presentations such as “How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community” and “Addicted to Incentives: How the Ideology of Self Interest Can Be Self-Fulfilling.” The most absurd presentation, though, may be the one entitled, “Colossal Failure: The Output Bias of Market Economies.” According to the description, the author argues that the market “delivers excessive levels of consumption.” Damn those entrepreneurs for creating so much wealth!

In the good old days of Soviet dictatorship, the regime classified dissidents as being mentally ill (after all, only a nutcase would fail to see the glories of communism).

Now that leftists at Harvard want to portray laissez-faire philosophy as being somewhat akin to a mental disorder, maybe the next step will be re-education camps for Cato staff? Maybe the next “stimulus” bill could include a few earmarks for such facilities?

Because being smart with your life means that others may not have the chance to “help” you and then you won’t feel obliged to “help” them and if that happens, who will teach the world to sing in perfect harmony?

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 6 Comments

Thanks where it is due

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Phil Kadath

There is one thing that I would honestly like to thank Jimmeh Cahtah for

For connoisseurs of Budweiser, the 1970s were a pale golden age. In every supermarket across the land, the King of Beers maintained its status as the grocery world’s most superfluous monarch, reigning over just a handful of domestic taste-alikes and one or two upstart imports. The American public had decided it liked its beer cheap, bland, and less filling, and the industry—which, after decades of consolidation, consisted of a mere 44 breweries in 1979—was happy to oblige. Consumers with a thirst for something tastier, or at least different, had few options. Things were so bad, in fact, that Coors, distributed in just 11 Western states, was considered such a rare delicacy in other parts of the country that bootlegged cases went for three times their retail price in New Jersey and Tennessee. Was it any wonder that the nation was feeling weak and watered down?

Then Jimmy Carter took pity on our wretched souls. In 1978 he signed Senate Amendment 3534, a portion of which gave each household permission to produce up to 200 gallons of tax-exempt beer each year.

Three decades later, the U.S. boasts 1,463 breweries, including 975 brewpubs. Bud Light and its analogs still dominate the market, but even your corner market may have at least a few selections to tempt the palate of Joe Microbrew: summer ales, double bocks, black lagers, maybe even a honey orange wheat ale. If you’re looking for a textbook example of how government can stifle innovation and discourage productive activity, even when operating in Regulatory Lite mode, the story of home brewing in America should hit the spot.

In colonial times, home-brew was as much a part of American life as burning witches or shooting Redcoats. George Washington had a brew house in his backyard. Thomas Jefferson gave beer-making seminars to friends at Monticello. By 1872, however, there were 3,421 commercial breweries in America, or roughly 17 times as many per capita as there are now, and home brewing was a less necessary endeavor.

Thank you sah. And thank Billy for me too.

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

I’m not offended in the least bit

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Phil Kadath

It seems that the ICE has made a boo-boo.

But only in the eyes of pro-illegal immigration groups and the Obama administration.

Immigrant rights groups blasted President Obama on Wednesday for breaking what they called his “personal commitment” to change Bush-era immigration raids after U.S. authorities raided an engine machine shop in Washington state and detained illegal immigrants.

The Obama administration itself seemed taken aback by the raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano vowing to Congress that she would “get to the bottom of this.”

“The secretary is not happy and this is not her policy,” a Homeland Security official said Wednesday evening, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the secretary’s review is ongoing.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said “these raids are not a long-term solution.”

They aren’t long term, because the day we don’t have an immigrant crime problem they will end. So the soon the pro-illegal immigration groups stop supporting criminal aliens, the raids will stop.

Unsurprisingly, they don’t see it that way. They would prefer that every city be like those in a third world country.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

A New Era of Open Government

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Phil Kadath

Still waiting and hoping for it?

I hope you aren’t holding your breath.

The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government.

In an undated non-disclosure agreement obtained by Defense News, the administration tells defense officials that “strict confidentiality” must be practiced to ensure a “successful” and “proper” 2010 defense budget process.

The secrecy pact comes as dozens of Bush-era Pentagon appointees remain on the job, asked to stay on by the Obama administration until replacements are confirmed to ensure continuity during wartime.

Because really, who would want to know how they’re spending our money?

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | Leave a comment

RNS Quote of the Day, 02/25/09

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Alaska

Found at COACOO’s place.

Heckewelder’s writings may be found here.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment