The Soundboard: Sonic Therapy Edition

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Though y’all might like to join me

Anthem – Rush (Live 1976)

A Farewell to Kings – Rush (Live 1978)

Both notable and quotable.

Enjoy!

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Gunnie Stuff

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Firstly, I have to get this off my chest:

Right now, I’m about sick to death of being the workplace gunnie. I’ve got every nimrod and nincompoop who slipped through the Darwinian Net and got hired by my employer asking me to tell them “The Secret Store” where their preferred rifle or pistol is in stock or to build them an AR.

I wouldn’t trust these guys with a firearm if they promised to never come within ten miles of me. Even if I did know a secret, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell them.

And some of them are making me feel like I’m back at the gun shows of the Bush I and Clinton days, with jackholes asking about M203 launcher attachments and select fire parts.

The worst part is that I can’t be rude to them like I could with gun show creeps because I still have to work with these numbnutted fucks until they do something stupid enough to get their asses fired.

————

And this last bit has been bothering me since I read it Monday night.

Earlier this week, Uncle relayed that he had had an Unintentional Discharge with a poorly designed pistol (Unc is calling it an Negligent Discharge, but he was not being negligent of the rules, so for my purposes, I’m reclassifying it).

In the comments, Ahab posted:

“They say that if you’re a shooter and you haven’t had an ND, you haven’t been shooting long enough.”

I’m not knocking Ahab on this. He’s a good guy and a good blogger and I hope to meet him someday. Nor will I truck with anyone who knocks him here.

It is just that I find my stomach turning whenever the ever mysterious “They” say much of anything. That sentence is just about the most defeatist thing I’ve heard in years. It makes firearms accidents sound inevitable. I’d like to meet the guy who passed that little butt-chunk of bunk knowledge to Ahab and have a little talk with him.

I’m not posting this in an attempt to brag or engage in self-congratulation, but I’ve never had an UD, and AD or a ND. I’ve been around firearms all my life and quite literally grew up behind the counter of a gun shop. Since 1982 I’ve competed in various firearms disciplines; from DCM to three-gun match series so intense that no official body or organized range club would sanction them.

Granted that that is only 26 years so far. I will be the first to admit I’ve not clocked in a Jerry Miculek amount of on-trigger hours, but I don’t want to count myself as lucky. Nor do I want others to think of me, or themselves, as lucky either.

As Uncle closed his post: Be safe out there.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 4 Comments

Rubes

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Oliver Willis (Occupation: Toole) has decided that anyone who is buying firearms in the time before his preferred candidate and his preferred political party get the votes to legislate them away from the citizenry is a Rube.

Why do I feel the gun sales would match up well with the counties here who voted more GOP than in the past, mostly in the south. Or, The Rube Belt, as I like to call it.

I can say, quite definitively, that at least in the three counties I shop in here in tried, true and blue Washington, all of which voted for Obama, Kerry, Gore or Clinton in their respective elections, the stores are all out of “The Good Stuff”, and not because they don’t stock it in quantity.

I knew that Obama voters were bigots and rubes. I’m just very glad that Willis now thinks so too.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 1 Comment

Buyin’ Guns — the Free Way

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Alaska

I’ve taken a bit of a different tack than most folks. I’m not buyin’ EBRs right now.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t, and there are certainly many of my fellow Californians who are buying AR lower receivers (they were running $130 before tax in local shops until last Wednesday). My local gun shop had 50 or so stripped lowers in stock (DoubleStar and another brand, I think) as of last Friday, and by Monday they had four left and are now sold out. Kudos to them, they kept the price at around $130 instead of doubling it as appears to be the case elsewhere in the Bay Area. Josh has a similar tale here.

But no, I’m not buying ARs or other detachable-mag rifles. I’m buying paperless rifles. (If you don’t know why that’s important, you haven’t, as they say, been paying attention.)

What’s that, you say? You can’t do that in California?

Well, to borrow a phrase yes, we can! The state law has a couple of loopholes exceptions to the requirement that all gun sales go through an FFL and be reported to the State Bureau of Firearms. The exception I’m using is for long guns that are curios and relics (not necessarily on the Federal C&R list, although it helps) and more than 50 years old. Those may lawfully be transferred between two California residents without any paperwork.

Two Boomershoots ago, I casually insisted to Phil that a .223-caliber self-loader is sufficient for self defense; a .308 isn’t necessary. He and his wife just looked at each other knowingly, as if I were a misguided child. Well, after reading (and rereading, and rereading) Boston’s Gun Bible (and you should too!), I’ve come around to the realization that everyone needs a battle rifle, and an AR is not a battle rifle.

At the Gunbloggers’ Rendezvous (and yes, I know I’m horribly late with pics) I knew I was going to shoot a M1 Garand for the first time. It was going to be Derek’s but Kevin Baker’s Garand (above) found its way into my hands first. It’s a gorgeous rifle, wonderful to shoot, and given all the complaints about the Garand’s weight, I found it surprisingly light and balanced.

I wanted one.

So… this week I picked up a couple of General Patton’s favorite battle rifles. A .30-06 will go through just about anything I want it to, and will stop just about anything I want to stop. No poodle-shooter, this. Works for me.
A double dose of freedom: I now own battle rifles, and acquired them in the manner of free men and women. Unregistered. Feels good.

Here’s a picture of a couple of Garands. Are these mine? Well, that’s for me to know, nyah nyah nyah. ‘Cause I can, for the first time in my life, say that nobody else knows about a pair of my rifles except one other human being, and he sold them to me. And that’s a legal right I’m going to keep exercising, thank you very much!
So the rifles pictured might not be the ones I bought. But they sure are pretty, and that’s why I posted this pic.

Now I have to go about buying surplus ammo (from CMP, natch) and building up supplies of spare parts, and clips, and cleaning kits, and building a Garand library, and learning about disassembling and reassembling the rifles, and maybe get around to shooting them too.

And every bit of that will be doubly pleasurable, because it’ll be tinged with that extra gloss of Freedom.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 20 Comments

Eye Candy

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Autblog presents: The Sirens of SEMA

Not that y’all need to be reminded that it’s humpday.

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

No wonder the Germans liked him

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Flippity. Floppity.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA’s interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

Yet he more recently voted for a White House-backed law to expand eavesdropping powers for the National Security Agency. Mr. Obama said he opposed providing legal immunity to telecommunications companies that aided warrantless surveillance, but ultimately voted for the bill, which included an immunity provision.

The new president could take a similar approach to revising the rules for CIA interrogations, said one current government official familiar with the transition. Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.

It is as though Obama tied Hope to the bed and is forcing Change to toss Hope’s salad at knife point.

No wonder the Germans liked him; His transition to power is like a shitze video.

Any bets on how silent this minions will be about this lack of Change if it does come to pass?

Or perhaps they’ll be forced to be silent by their “newsgivers”. That link goes to The Huffpo, where they posted the story and then swiftly shut the comments section.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons | 1 Comment

Too Little, Too Late?

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Phil Kadath

Quite possibly. There are far too many people who worship at the altar of FDR. Possibly more than the number who worship the Obamessiah.

But we can at least get the word out now.

It’s exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I’m excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.

But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.

The infatuated chattering classes now demand “action” on the economy. They use positive words like “bold steps.” The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is “between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach …. ” There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar “stimulus.”

Please. FDR’s “bold” moves didn’t end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.

That is John Stossel writing about the UCLA study showing how FDR’s policies lengthened the Great Depression by at least seven years 9which we wrote about here nearly a month before the election.

But if you follow this link, you’ll see that the UCLA study is only repeating old news.

FDR’s own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau too Congress in 1939 said

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!”

Now exactly what reason would the education industry have for leaving statements like this out of textbooks? I’ll let you all answer that question.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 2 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day: 11/12/08

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Phil Kadath

I was undergoing high-volume sonic therapy while reading the article linked in the post below, when this line made its way out of the speakers.

Some world views are spacious, and some are merely spaced.

Rush – Grand Designs

All of a sudden, it clicked.

So into the rotating comment box it goes.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

I “Hope” they keep this up

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Phil Kadath

What is it with these freaks?

According to Richard Kim, Associate Editor of The Nation Magazine, the no on 8 Campaign failed for three reasons. It was disorganized and slow to respond. It didn’t organize in communities of color soon enough. And it fundamentally misunderstood what the yes on 8 campaign was about.

Or, to put it as previous Democrats would have “Them darkies weren’t smart enough to vote for what was good for them.”

Please, you guys, don’t keep these thoughts to yourself. Go on national television and say them.

I’m sure that the fine, upstanding people in the “communities of color” would love to hear that that you think they’re stupid unless you get a chance to “educate” them first.

Posted in Dare To Be Stupid | 1 Comment

$0.02 Requested

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Phil Kadath

This time, it’s me asking.

Let me give y’all a little background:

On October 31, 1517, Father Martin Luther arrived at the All Saints’ Church in Wittenburg and promptly nailed his now famous 95 Theses to the front door to protest the actions and teachings of the Catholic Church under Pope Leo X.

Last Tuesday 52% of America elected the poseur king of the Church of the Obamessiah to be the next President of the United States of America.

I see many filibusters in the Congressional future. I also see a distinct possibility of the Democrats getting tired of the phony grandstanding votes that are called filibusters today, so much so that they may actually believe themselves unassailable and be willing to unholster The Nuclear Option on the Republican minority.

I would like for the Democrats to know that there is still 48% of America who did not vote for the agenda they and their party’s leader are pushing, and would like to create a relevant 95 Theses for our Senators to be able to read during their extended podium time.

Here is a link the Martin Luther’s 95 Theses are here for you to read.

I’m sure you can see how I see these being modified for current use, e.g.:

#1 Our nation’s founding document, the Constitution of the United States of America, secures the blessings of liberty to the citizens of this country.

#2 The Constitution lists the limits to which the federal government must be held.

#3 The agenda of the majority party in this legislative body grossly exceeds these limits.

You get the drift now, I’m sure.

Now here is the problem: I’m about as creative as a #2 pencil. I’m going to need help filling these out.

If you think this is worthwhile, grab a few and whip up some statements. If you really like the idea, spread it around so that we get 300 Theses to send off.

If you don’t like the idea tell me about it in the comments.

Yes, I would absolutely love to print these out and nail them to the door of the Senate chambers. But I’m of the thought that the Capital Police would consider that damaging government property so we’ll have to do without, and I think that this or something close to it will be our next best option.

Posted in Color me confused | 4 Comments