It’s finally here

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

We told you of this day back in October. The Thermopylayen epic, 300, hits theaters this AM.

300.jpg

(pic borrowed from The Dane) 

Sadly, work is not yet calm enough for me to see it today as I had planned. Not quite as sadly, I’ll be going to a gun show tomorrow and will not be able to attend then either.

My target is Sunday, late morning, first matinee. We’ll see how that goes.

Since I skimped on The Soundboard yesterday, I have a couple of audio clips from the movie here for your enjoyment. I use them as custom sounds on my home PC for when I fire up or fire down the machine. I’m sure you’ve heard them before, I just figured you might like them. (Caution: they did lose a little in the transfer to wmv format)

Come and Get Them!

We will fight in the shade

While parusing the interweb on my lunch, I saw that Ace found some blithering strumpet from the online rag, Slate, named Dana Stevens whining about 300.

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Yes, she actually said that, which means she had to think it first. Clearly, she is not a mentally stable individual.

I was already going to see the movie. Poor kerfluffled Dana didn’t have to go and make idiotic statements to try and incite me to do so. But hey, if it’ll get her panties in a knot if I go, than that is just a bonus.

Do take a moment to laugh at Dana’s review sometime before you step up to buy your tickets.

I’ve seen numerous right-of-center blogs talking about 300 this week. I wanted to, but for obvious reasons, I just didn’t get around to it until today.

In contrast, other than this review full of chronic BDS, I have seen nothing, zero, nada, zip, zilch, nolo, on any blog in the leftosphere. Not even a post mocking the coverage on the right wing blogs.

I hope they don’t believe that their “media silence” will be successful?

Posted in Kewel! | 9 Comments

AMT Hilarity

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Alaska

This morning, NPR ran a story about how the Alternative Minimum Tax, passed in the year of my birth (1969) and never indexed to inflation, is now hitting middle-class individuals and families in addition to the rich types it was supposed to soak. According to the report on the radio this morning, within the next ten years, 50% of American taxpayers are projected to be paying the AMT. NPR is shocked, shocked at the injustice of it all, you see.

They even ran a clip from a Congressional hearing wherein the Dems were outraged that the Administration is only proposing adjusting the AMT for one year.

Gee, could the Left’s sudden concern be based on the fact that they’re just now realizing that the AMT hitting that many middle-class folks might spur a nationwide tax revolt? Might put the Republicans back in power?

And could that “outrage” be based on the fact that the Administration is perfectly willing to let the AMT go back into full effect just in time for the 2008 elections?

Sometimes watching this inside-the-Beltway inside-baseball stuff is fun.

Wake up, Democrats. Nobody’s ever going to believe that you’re the party that wants to save people money on their taxes.

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

The Soundboard: Too busy to know better

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I’ve been attempting to try and find some tunage for this week, but right now the only thing that sounds good is way too fast Acid Jazz that sounds kind of like this.

That won’t do, so I’ll be bowing out for the week (except for that 2mins and 55secs of percussion from D&B artist “Klute”)

I’ll be better next week.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Par for the Course

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Phil Kadath

With the title, I speak of the Washington State Legislative Democrats.

They want to make all number of new laws that can land someone in jail or prison, but then they don’t want to do what is necessary to keep them there.

On Tuesday, Republicans in the State House made a push with their House Bill #2377 which would put an end to the early release of sexual predators and violent felons, like the situation we spoke of here last week.

A grand total of three (aka: 3, III & tres) Democrats stepped across the aisle to support the expedited approval, meaning it doesn’t have go through committee debate and approval before hitting the floor. Unfortunately, that was not enough votes and it failed 39-58.

The head of the Washington State DOC, Harold Clarke, has still refused to answer the questions from either the state Repubs, the media and any and all citizens as to why his agency cannot 1. Keep violent and sexual offenders behind bars, and 2. Why his “charges” being released into the populace under the Community Supervision Plan (aka: Parolees) aren’t being sent back to prison for repeat violations of their release.

I’ve received an email from John Rothlin, Communications Honcho for the House Republicans about a conference call on this topic this morning. Unfortunately, because of work, I won’t be able to take part in the call, but with as pissed off as I am on this topic, it may just be for the better.

Over the weekend, when I get some free time, I will write about a pair of letters I have in my hand from the Chief of Police of a city in Washington to DOC Secretary Clarke on this subject, and then post it on Monday.

Prepare to be pissed.

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

A Find

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Phil Kadath

So I’m going through the boxes of stuff in the garage, looking for something of course, and I find a few pacls of some old 4×6 pics that miraculously survived the “Great Storage Unit Deluge” back in RNS pre-history.

I have come to the conclusion that I would take a picture of just abotu any damn thing back then, although most went into the trash, I did keep a good number of them. They are mostly just of people and are going into an album (a move which probably would have saved the ones which were lost).

However, I did find a couple classic car shows and even a few from one of the Seattle Auto Shows of years gone by. I want you all to take a look at this photo and tell me what this prototype eventually became. This one will be easy.

The sign under the door reads “The Pronto”, which is what it was called at the show.

Pronto.jpg

Personally, I like the prototype better, but that is how it usually is with me.

Next week’s pics will be of a car that I think just about everyone I know wants. However, it wiill be moderately more difficult.

(Btw, we can all thank The Mom for scanning these to jpgs for me)

Posted in Kewel! | 5 Comments

Essential Reading

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Alaska

for Californians, but also for the rest of you if you want to see what can happen all too quickly to the gun laws in your neck of the woods if you let it.

GLB 2007 front_01.jpg

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I’m sorry, I’ve been busy

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I heard that someone was found guilty of perjury yesterday but I haven’t been able to follow up on who it was.

Did they finally put Clinton on trial?

I didn’t think I’d been busy quite long enough for that to pass me by.

Oh, I guess it wasn’t him. It was some lackey named Scooter.

Btw, don’t bother bringing that point up in the leftosphere. That was all about sex, so even though he went on television and followed up lying under oath by lying to the faces of the American citizenry, it was OK.

Btw, the new position at work is getting better every day.

Also, in something of a relation to the post below this one, the Army is being the Army, and “Tits McGhee” hasn’t gotten her orders yet, so she is supposedly coming back to lend me a hand tonight. The “going away present” I gave her on Friday was a fifth of Grey Goose, so I’ll just be hoping I didn’t screw myself with my generosity.

Posted in Color me confused | 1 Comment

Ahh, yes. But they still won’t see.

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I speak of the current light being shed upon the bad living conditions of Walter Reed MH and that folks are starting to contrast that with the left’s demand for government run, socialized medicine.

At least, folks on the right side of the blogosphere and the media are doing that. The leftosphere has it’s maxi-blinders on, running stories about the situation WRMH and socialized medicine on the same webage, sometimes one story right on top of the other.

A link found at DANE’s place led me to Reynolds who posts an exceprt from David Bernstein at Volokh

If private companies had mismanaged outpatient care for veterans the way the V.A. system has, there would be strong calls from all the usual quarters for a government takeover, and proclamations of how we can’t trust “greedy” for-profit companies to take care of veterans. Funny how this thought process doesn’t seem to work in reverse, except among “free market ideologues,” who have been criticizing the V.A. for years.

Insty also has a link to the Q and O Blog who points to this Feb 2005 article in the Washington Monthly bragging about how the VA health system is a model for how a new, nationwide, single-payer, socialized medicine program should be run, just to drive the point home.

I know folks on the left read Reynolds. Maybe they just don’t click on the links?

Posted in Color me confused | 2 Comments

Screw You, Quad-Boy!

Posted on March 6, 2007 by Phil Kadath

That is the message the illustrious Washington State Senator, Adam Kline (D) Seattle, has sent quite loudly to ATV owners in this statement via David Postman at the Seattle Times. It was promted by an email from an ATV/ORV enthusiast.

Dear Mr. Helgeson,

I signed on because I have been annoyed, endangered, and angered one too many times by people riding motorized dirt-bikes and other off-road vehicles that have no damn business anywhere. To me, this bill is narrow — it doesn’t include those “personal watercraft,” seemingly jet-powered little missiles whose only apparent purpose is to risk death and dismemberment for boaters and swimmers, for the amusement of spoiled drunk teenagers.

Yes, I am sure there is the occasional responsible person who rides one of these machines on land or water. And yes, like every human being I have been pleasantly surprised to find my stereotypes broken. But why, why, why, do folks insist on motorized “sports”? Those two words are an oxymoron.

There is nothing sporting — athletic, physically demanding — about riding any machine anywhere. And it’s a damned annoyance to folks who see the outdoors as a place to go for quiet and solitude and self-exploration. I would be happy to ban the use of the internal combustion engine off-road, by anyone without a handicapped sticker, subject to a stiff fine. Maybe we could call this an anti-obesity measure.

Please circulate this to all motorized sports enthusiasts, so they can remember never to vote for me.

Adam Kline

We here at RNS have all heard of Senator Kline before. He testified alongside Senator Tom at the anti-gun show bill in Olypmia. Senator Kline, as well as Senator Tom now appears to be, is in the pocket of the local Brady Foundation affiliate, Ceasefire Washington.

Here is a map of Senator Kline’s district. There is not one single place where anyone could legally ride anything remotely resembling an ORV. This bill will not affect him or his neighbors in any way.

That is why he signed on to it. He doesn’t like ORVs, just as he doesn’t like firearms, and he is of the belief that no one else (except for the police, who have quads and dirt bikes in the motor pool) should be allowed to have them.

Make sure you hit the link to the rest of the Postman story. It has the email that prompted this response as well as Senator Kline stating that while he shouldn’t write while he is angry, he doesn’t regret a single word of what he wrote.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 5 Comments

Step Quick

Posted on March 6, 2007 by Phil Kadath

From Eugene Volokh (via Uncle)comes word that the 9th Circuit Federal Court has ruled that wearing a shirt with a printed message that could be seen as “derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students’ minority status” is not covered under the 1st Amendment.

Was the student’s shirt offensive? Yes, probably it was. But he has the right to wear it so long as it doesn’t disrupt the learning process. At least according to previous SCOTUS rulings.

However, Judge Reinhardt and Judge Thomas of the 9th Circus decided that because of the derogatory nature of the shirt, and their need to created a “protected” class of students, the previous decisions are too “liberal” an interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

We need to get on this bandwagon as of yesterday. Here is my plan:

Some one of y’all out there has to have a child of school age who is an active shooter or know of someone, a gunsmith perhaps, who feeds his children via the firearms trade. The next school emplyee who speaks ill of firearms in the presence of that child gets dragged into court under this ruling.

Yes, it is far fetched. And yes, I am probably too tired from work to be speaking this facetiously (aka: it may only be funny to me), but if a t-shirt can be seen as offensive to a minority, then how much worse would it appear if a school official, or even the ASB President, goes on a tear about “those eevviill guns” in front of a child whose clothes are provided with money from the firearm industry?

You don’t get much more “minority” than that!

Ahh, nevermind. I don’t know a Red State kinda person who is that much of a whiner.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 2 Comments