11 August 2007

A little shooting fun

While Dan and JR were out hiding from the heat today, The Girl, D and I were out having fun with the North Texas Practical Shooters. Plenty hot today, I know I went through over 4 liters of water.











Kids

Ah, the joys of having a teenage daughter...



At least you can't tell the yard needs mowing.

10 August 2007

6ft tent pole spears girl of 16

Props to Fark on perhaps the best headline EVAR:
More fun than you can stake a chick at.

DON'T CLICK THIS LINK!

If it saves one child...

I'm sure many of you will remember those calls for gun control, in the name of our children. The squeaky voices on the left calling for an end to private gun ownership were/are constantly telling us that if we think ONE child's life is worth saving, we must ban all guns and do it now!

Where are those same voices of "reason" when it comes to illegal immigrants? In New Jersey, we learn that the person who executed 3 young people was not just an illegal immigrant. In addition,

FOX News has learned Carranza, who has a fake Social Security number, had been arrested on charges of raping a 5-year-old girl and then threatening the child and her parents. In that case he faced a 31-count indictment.
In another, he was arrested on assault charges stemming from a bar fight.
So here we have a first class scumbag. He's ALREADY under indictment for RAPING A FIVE YEAR OLD GIRL. Yeah, a five year old. He's ALREADY been arrested for an assault in a bar. Someone, anyone please tell me why this asshole was still in the country which enabled him to kill 3 college kids.

It's bullshit like this that absolutely drives me insane.

NASA quietly fixes flawed temperature data

WHAT? Some of the numbers used to stir up the BS global warming debate were cooked?? Turns out that the warmest years in recent history were back in the 30s, contrary to what the eco-clowns would have us believe. For you see, the decades after the 30s are when the eco-nazis tell us that man made carbon emissions started to take effect and ruin the environment. By cooking the numbers to make it appear that the warmest years on record were in the last few years (and not in the 1930s), the clowns supplemented their bogus argument with bogus facts.

How long before we'll see this story on CNNCBSNBCABCFOX????

09 August 2007

Algore? Algore? Algore?

Surely this must be another sign of the Bush/Haliburton conspiracy.

Government forecasters minimally reduced their prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season Thursday, but said that up to nine hurricanes and up to 16 tropical storms are expected to form, still a busier-than-average season.
WHAT? I thought Algore promised us busier and busier hurricane seasons, with years of Katrina type storms. Yet, since Algore opened the pie-hole that is his mouth, I don't believe we've seen his predictions come true. You will recall, I'm sure - the predictions last year that said we'd get plastered again; which were then continually downgraded throughout the year as the doom and gloom predictions didn't come to fruition.

Yeah, I know. The "busiest" time of year for hurricane season is coming up. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it? If the "best and brightest" can't properly predict what's going to happen over the next two months with any sort of certainty - and failed miserably last year, why would anyone trust the climate change freaks when they tell us what's going to happen in 10-20 years? Hell, they can't even predict what's going to happen this weekend!!

why the gun is civilization

From The Munchkin Wrangler:
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Too much security can be overbearing: Microsoft | APC Magazine

I'd like to invite you all to take a look at the article I've linked to above. It's a report on one of Microsoft's security strategists. Here's what got my attention...one of the kids that has ostensibly made Windows Vista security SO invasive is belly-aching about our nation's policy on national security and the war on terror. First of all, I'm not sure that his extrapolation from software security to national policy is relevant, much less worth consideration. In fact, what I see is that this kid has an opinion about the current policy, and has used his position to forward his political views. Get a blog to do your soap-boxing, okay? If I'm paying money to attend Tech.Ed, and you're espousing politics, well - give me my money back. Second, the position that we're no safer as a result of certain security measures and the war on terror just doesn't hold water. We've dismantled and disabled enemy assets, and forced them to cower in caves. As long as they're doing that, then we ARE safer. I agree that taking my shoes off is a pain in the ass, but there IS a precedent for it (does the name Richard Reid ring a bell?).

I do like his philosophy about recognizing methods of attack. However, this doesn't mean you can discount the focus on stopping the tools of attack. You have to address both, and that's what some people just can't seem to grasp, mostly because it inconveniences them.

Here's a case in point: I get pretty aggravated whenever I open up the Control Panel on my own desktop, and get prompted by a security pop-up. It seems stupid and useless to me, since I'm already logged in and authenticated. Yes, I'm sure, so open the damned thing! However, I recognize that it's there for a reason, and I just tolerate it. It seems hypocritical to me that someone who (presumably) helped design this approach has a problem with taking off shoes and passing through a metal detector.

Swedish grandmother hospitalised after beaver attack

"The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal's tail and received a number of bites and scratches," an officer told the newspaper.

I have had an encounter with an overly aggressive, giant, hairy beaver before, and it has left me scarred for life. I was hit by her large tail, bitten, scratched, and damn near smothered.
The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.

"Beaver Shot at Swedish Beach!" will be the next headline.

08 August 2007

Look, a monkey!

So how, in this day and age of being practically strip searched in airports does this guy manage to smuggle a monkey on to a plane? OK, it's a really cute monkey, and I assume "spirited" doesn't mean it was the poo-flinging variety, but still...

Texican Tattler: Hooters Dubai plans in Middle East NOT deflated after all


Thanks a lot, Big D.

07 August 2007

Hooters Dubai plans in Middle East NOT deflated after all

It's unclear how many branches are being planned or where the locations will be.


I'm sure there will be no shortage of hot waitresses like this one.

TJ shows some tricks

Todd Jarrett is one of the best in the biz.

Wanna improve your shooting? Check out this link and it's full of tips.

About the only thing he does on video that I wouldn't recommend to anyone (and I think he's just doing it for the sake of time) is to put a partially loaded mag back in your mag pouch. That, my friends, is a big no no that will indeed bite you in the booty.

Minnesota Cops Seek 'Professionals' Who Removed Man's Testicles

That man's nuts!
The 62-year-old man, Russell Daniel Angus, said he'd been suffering from chronic pain and had asked doctors to remove his testicles, but they'd refused...
Chronic pain, huh? There's a clue.
Police said Angus hired two or three "professionals" to do the job on a makeshift operating table in his home and that's where his daughter found him bleeding on July 28, the paper said.

"I have never in my life seen anything quite like that," Tom Walsh, a St. Paul police spokesman, told the Star Tribune.

Angus refused to tell police who performed the surgery.

Police removed three specimen jars in their search of the home, but it was unclear if the man's testicles were found.
Check his wife's purse, Sherlock.

06 August 2007

Dear Verizon: Suck it.

eBay - Message from Matt Halprin – New Listing Restrictions on Koreans


Message from Matt Halprin – New Listing Restrictions on Koreans:
Hello everyone…In mid-August, we will be updating our Koreans Policy to place more restrictions around Korean-related items. Once these changes take effect, we will prohibit listings of any Korean part that is required for the firing of a gun. This includes items like finger tips, brain casings and skulls, bodies, arms, legs,etc. Please read the Korean Policy for more details on our current policy.
As you may know, eBay does not allow the listing of any items which are regulated by individual states or the federal government; however, there are still a large number of Korean-related parts that are legal and are widely available in retail stores. These items have also historically been allowed on eBay.
After learning that some items purchased on eBay may have been used in the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, we felt that revisiting our policies was not only necessary, but the right thing to do. After much consideration, the Trust & Safety policy team – along with our executive leaders at eBay Inc. – have made the decision to further restrict more of these items than federal and state regulations require.
This new update continues to encourage safety among our community members and brings our policies in the U.S. and Canada in closer alignment with our existing policies in other markets around the globe.
Sincerely,
Matt Halprin
Vice President, Trust & Safety
Makes about as much sense. This is an example of why "feel-good" legislation is a popular tool of politicians. It does absolutely nothing, yet they "feel" good. Morons.

Boycott eBay, use GunBroker.com. eBay doesn't want your business, so don't give it to them.

The New Texican Tattler

We moved. We changed our look.

Yes, it's disconcerting for those of us who aren't used to change, but change is progress. It's also easier to use and easier to maintain.

Your feedback is welcome.