Contact
Brian Chapin (AIM)
Greg Markle (AIM)
Submit an Article
This Site Defined
Search the Site
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
- John Lubbock
Michele of A Small Victory
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
--Samuel Adams
Blogroll Us!
Our Favorites
-> Heretical Ideas
-> Dean's World
-> John Cole
Silent Running
Simply American
Glenn Reynolds
Blogs of War
Rob Bernard
Sgt. Stryker
Country Store
ScrappleFace
DANEgerus Weblog
Donald Sensing
Viking Pundit
Israpundit
Tiny, Vital.
Grunt Doc's
Right Thoughts
Redux
Broken Masterpieces
Political Comics
Day By Day
UComics
Slate
Ramirez
Cox&Forkum;
CNS
JWR
Time Wasters
Right Wing Stuff
Blogdex
C-Log
Cruel
Daytop Top40
Drudge Report
MetaFilter
National Review
NY Press
Plastic
Tech Central Station
WebLogs
WSJ Best of the Web
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Including Sean Hannity, Oliver North, Ann Coulter, and more!
We Hate You Because You Give Us No Choice!
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
I really have to commend Jane Smiley, the author of the opinion piece titled "Why Americans Hate Democrats - A Dialogue", for really hitting the nail on the head - she leaves virtually no stone unturned in pointing out why some Democrats are hated. Now, don't get me wrong, she is 1000% absolutely wrong in every one of her characterizations, her examples are bullshit, and she obviously has not an iota of a clue as to the character of 90% of those who voted for Bush. So why do I say she does a great job?
Her subtitled for the article being "The unteachable ignorance of the red states" should give you some idea.
I won't quote any of the ludicrous tripe from her bile-laden essay but suffice it to say that her intellectual vanity, arrogance, and narrow-minded viewpoint are exactly why "Americans Hate Democrats" - as she puts it. Frankly, I don't "hate" the vast majority of Democrats and I actually have quite a few very close friends plus my parents and brother who consider themselves Democrats (my brother voted Bush though, yay!) What I do hate are snobs like Jane AND their equivalent on the Republican side...people who just can't accept that there may just be other opinions out there that are just as valid as their own.
Jane and her ilk (like these assclowns) would do well to take some simple advice from The Backseat Philosopher...
- Whatever the UN was, might have been, or should be, it now isn't. Genocidal tyrannies are on the Human Rights commision. Saddam Hussein funneled over 1.7 billion dollars to various decision makers and world leaders to weaken his sanctions program. One out of every three votes is about Israel. Until the UN is significantly reformed, you shouldn't take its decisions seriously.
- If we view 1000 or even 10,000 dead soldiers as unacceptable, we will never be able to fight a real war again.
- Proportional response with no preemption allows the other side to set the pace of the battle.
- Throughout history, governments have had a strong interest in promoting long-term child-rearing heterosexual relationships. That is why governments create a legal definition of Marriage and provide lots of benefits to heterosexual couples who enter into it. This has been true for States throughout history independent of the religious beliefs of the populace. Worrying about changing that definition, even to the point of deciding against a change, is not automatically sexism or bigotry.
- If you never are willing to draw a line where human life starts, there will be no line.
- Just because it says something in the Bible doesn't mean there are no ancillary arguments supporting it. And just because someone uses the Bible as a source of their morality doesn't mean that any particular view of theirs is wrong. Actually, stuff that's lasted for thousands of years is more likely to be useful than stuff that was dreamed up in a French philosophy book.
This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.
Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.
It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.
Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.
The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.
He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.
The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism.
...but we ALL know that instead of getting introspective and looking for the faults of their candidate, the faults of their ideology, and the strengths of their opponents, they'll simply repeat trash like this for yet another four years...
...even though the European elections monitors whom they had called in to watch over the elections had this to say...
The assessment, by a 60-member delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), also said the United States had met election bench marks "despite isolated glitches and inconsistencies."
...and, of course, if we actually tried to implement the Democrat requested election monitors suggestions: a national voter identity card and staining of a cuticle with ink to prevent the possibility of an individual voting twice under separate identities they'd scream bloody murder about privacy issues and civil rights.
I guess the curious thing is why Jane Smiley felt any compulsion to write about why people like her are hated...I'd think her self-aggrandizing attitude towards us "untermenschen" would make it obvious. Just a few more examples of the "reality-based community" living in manufactured housing!
The UN is Hopeless?
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
You know the UN has finally started to hit rock bottom when opinion pieces like this one are published in The Village Voice of all places!
A Point to Ponder
| Posted by Brian D. Chapin | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (1) |
What it has succeeded in doing is cracking the great dilemma of modern history: how can disparate and ethnically diverse people live together? How can people of differing and deeply felt religious convictions survive, with their beliefs intact, in a single unified country - evangelical Protestants such as Mr Bush alongside practising Catholics with Jewish roots such as Mr Kerry - without their cities turning into Belfast or Beirut?
The answer lies not in the post-religious, anti-clerical mania of the European Union which has just rejected a commissioner for espousing mainstream Catholic principles, but in that patriotism so despised by European elites. It is the unifying force of national self-belief with all those ridiculed school rituals - pledging allegiance to the flag, reciting the preamble to the Constitution - that makes America whole and at one with itself.
Bush is the personification of that unashamed America and that is why Europe cannot bear the sight of him. --Janet Daley, writing in London's Daily Telegraph
Steadfast
| Posted by Brian D. Chapin | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
The election gave us another little peek at the kind of steadfast leader that Bush is - one of the many reasons we here admire him.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush had been saying the state was looking good, and the Bush team had expected to be ahead in Ohio. But Kerry was leading everywhere. "I wanted to throw up," said an aide onboard. Bush was more philosophical: "Well, it is what it is," he told adviser Karen Hughes."
It seems the man is a closet Taoist too.
Just Stop It
| Posted by Brian D. Chapin | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
There has been a hell of a lot of talk in political circles over the past 24 hours about how Bush has to "reach out" to disgruntled Democrats and "moderate" his agenda.
Uh, how to put this gently... BULLSHIT.
Tell the UN exactly what we think of them, drill ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), rewrite and simplify the Tax Code, revamp Social Security to allow those under 50 to opt out of the system, nominate strict constructionists to the Courts, etc. DO the things Republicans are supposed to do.
Nobody ever talks about Democratic presidents having to "moderate" their agenda, nor should they. It's a winner-take-all system and when you are in power, it behooves you to do the things your voters put you in power to do.
Update: Ace of Spades calls it the Second Obligatory Liberal Media Story: "After a Republican Victory, Declare That the Most Important Thing Republicans Do is Cede Power to Democrats and Immediately Implement a Liberal Agenda."
One Fine Jay is of the same mind, opining: We have extended our hands towards yall, and many have done nothing but spit on our palms. We dont have four years to be conciliatory. Bush, his voters, Middle America, and Americans on an individual level have plenty of work to do. There are plenty of seats, and you have been invited. But the train does run on time.
The Liberal Society of Enternal Victimhood
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (3) |
Well, it's all over but the crying and it looks like many Kerry supporters are getting off to a fine start on that! One would think that the same people who impotently cried "but he won the popular vote" for four years would be sated by a candidate winning with the largest vote tally in the history of the nation and besting the loser by well over 3.5 million votes - but one would be wrong. It seems that the online liberal punditry is seeking out who and what to blame for what simply is a lack of support...but this behavior is simply part of the nature of the modern Democratic Party.
The Democrats, whether they realize or not, have styled themselves as the party of eternal "victimhood"...they have continually sought out and pandered to groups that view themselves as "victims" and their policies have done little more than maintain these individuals as victims and accentuate their helplessness. While that in and of itself isn't a bad thing as it has provided them with a reliable voting bloc of dependents, the party has wrongly styled their own actions in the same mode as those whom they claim to represent. They were crying about "unfair" voting practices a year before the voting began, they whined about extending registration limits, they screamed bloody murder at the thought that voters might actually have to identify themselves as actually being able to vote at the location where they showed up to vote, they decried poor organization and a lack of proper facilities in the very precincts where they maintain control and are responsible for such amenities, as the election neared the party that declared that "elections should not be determined by the courts" sent in their lawyers and filed lawsuits in a dozen or more states, and as the the clock ticked away last night they bawled that not enough time was being given to count all of the votes. Personally, I think that these are actions were far more decisive in Kerry's defeat than anything either candidate said or did during the entire campaign.
No matter how confident Kerry tried to sound or how vulnerable Bush might have seemed, the Democratic Party behaved throughout the election as if they were not confident in the ability of their candidate to win. Much of their public face and most of their punditry focused on possible legal challenges and voting "irregularities"...up to and including the very vocal Michael "Missing in Action Since Leaving Florida for Ohio Last Night" Moore who flooded the media with statements of Jeb Bush "fixing" Florida yet again this time and spent his time focusing on a state whose balloting went as well as could be expected and produced a race that wasn't even nearly close enough to carp about (not that Michael will let mere facts and realities deter him.)
In the months leading up to the election I can't even count how many national and local papers were inundated with stories and letters from Democrats who complained that their election signs were stolen...but they seemed not to notice the other articles. The ones where Republican signs were stolen also. Where swastikas were burned into Bush supporters lawns. Bullet holes, massive vandalism, and death threats at Republican campaign headquarters across the nation. Locally, people whined about a local businessman who put up a large sign that said "Kerry Sucks" in a window and called it a "sign of the nature of the Republican Party"...yet they never once made any reference to the bile, vulgarities, and vitriol spewed at Kerry Meetups held in an establishment almost directly across the street (my long hair makes me a great mole for sitting in on such things!) These same people did not have to endure the concert I attended in Washington, D.C. (Ministry at 9:30 Club on 10/25/04) where the lead singer came out wearing a shirt that said "Fuck Bush" and began the show by helping another man in a simulated beating of an individual in a Bush mask (video here, I suggest downloading and forwarding towards the end as the connection is VERY slow...and here's a still from the video) and yet he had the chutzpah to decry "Republican censorship" while actively encouraging rioting, violence, and vandalism directed against the President only a few blocks from Congress and the White House. At this show transvestites strutted their stuff and many women walked around topless. People wore t-shirts calling for violent revolution and celebrated death and destruction. Yet the only sign of someone being "oppressed by the system" was the single police officer stationed out front who asked some asshole to clean up the broken glass on the sidewalk after he dropped a bottle and walked away. The lead singer (Al Jourgensen) screamed lyrics inciting people to rise up against the "oppression" Bush represents...while doing so in front of video graphics modeled on Communist Chinese, Soviet, and North Korean propoganda - the imagery of the very idealogies our current administration is most diametrically opposed to and which were some of the most oppressive societies in modern times and yet are celebrated as bastions of freedom by those in attendance. And yet, somehow, this individual wanted us to believe that he was somehow a victim of oppression and prohibited from speaking his mind - and for some reason the crowd believed him. I think my buddy and I along with the small group of individuals who booed some comments Al made in between songs from the balcony bar who were not willing to lay down our lives and become amateur victims of oppression!
Kevin Drum posting at The Washington Monthly is a perfect example of this victimhood...and he's already found his boogeyman to blame the loss on.
Yup, that's it. The liberal courts gave the election to Bush with their actions many, many months before the election. Really Kevin? Are you really that shallow? Do you really need to blame this on something other than the majority of Americans just plain not agreeing with you? Well, I'll apologize for myself and others. Kevin, John Kerry, and supporters, I and 59,025,426 and counting of my countrymen are very sorry that we do not consider ourselves victims of the machinations of others. You have branded the average American as "victims" of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, the world as "victims" of United States foreign policy, and yourselves as "victims" of conservative chicanery. Unfortunately for your social agenda...we have declared ourselves to be strong, capable, and only beset by our own inability to accomplish what goals we set for ourselves. We don't accept that others dictate our successes and failures...we accept that we succeed and fail according to OUR own merits as individuals and as a country. As a country, we have removed the former Soviet satellite states from being victims of an oppressive foreign dictatorial regime, we have removed Afghanistan from being victims of the Taliban, we have lifted the Iraqi people from being victims of Saddam Hussein's thugocracy, and while you decry the "oppression" of homosexuals not being given the right to marry and women not having the right to murder fetuses...the Republican oppressors you rail against have relieved thousands of homosexuals in the Middle East from being jailed, tortured, and executed for their sexuality and millions of women there now have the right to go out in public, attend schools, drive a car, vote, and hold government office. I think you need to look long and hard about who the "progressives" are who are fighting for the "basic rights" of freedom.
With that, we here at American Realpolitik congratulate the President on his triumph...which although close in electoral votes was a resounding victory. Gains in both the Senate and House plus a HUGE superiority in the popular vote may not be a "mandate" but it certainly does not signal "a need to appeal to the median" that many Democrats have been positing all day. Bush won the median and beyond...the numbers don't lie. And while they signal for Bush to appeal to the middle, many cry for change within the Democratic Party which signals movement AWAY from the median.
Howard Dean for DNC Chair.
So, how does a party that feels Bush must try harder to appeal to the "average American" feel that moving their party ever further left is going to help them? It's perplexing. And the "International Democratic Pundit of Mystery" Markos Moulitsas, dubbed by The Guardian as the voice of the American left had this to say...
But best of all, we'll continue to see this great resurgence in progressive activism - the kind not seen in American politics in over a generation.
Where do these guys come up with this crap? So, Moulitsas feels that Republicans need to "recover" from extending their majorities in both houses of Congress, re-electing an incumbent President, defeating the House Minority Leader, and ten years of unprecedented gains in governorships and state legislatures with controlling minorities in the face of what is objectively 20 years of reasonably steady decline in Democratic political influence and continued alienation from the reality of the average American?
The meme of the year in liberal blogging circles seems to be referring to themselves as part of the "Reality-Based Community" (Atrios is using it as a banner currently and I've seen it elsewhere) - but it strikes me as if they're only visiting by absentee ballot.
Flash Based Maps for All Election Occasions
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (1) |
I keep finding stuff...as I find something cool I'll add links to this post...
Electoral Map
This link will open a really sweet Flash based electoral map in a new window on your machine (courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.) You click on each state to set the winner (Bush, Kerry, or Undecided) and it tallies the total Electoral Votes for each candidate in the upper right. Entertaining and possibly useful if you want to quickly explore scenarios as the evening presses on.
Voter Alert Line Map
Here's a map which lists the rate of calls to MSNBC's Voter Alert Line where voter's who are concerned about issues at their local polling site. It looks like Florida had better get it's shit together and start really disenfranchising their voters because South Carolina is currently kicking their asses with 530.5 calls per million population versus Florida's paltry 485.2 while the rest of the nation flounders at a mere 159.2 per million. Crickey, even at 530.5/M that's only .05% of their population...multiply that by 100 and you're still far shy of the number of people in our society that I believe are almost completely unable to do ANYTHING without it turning into a complete disaster due to their own extreme degree of incompetence and lack of comprehension.
Mike's Election Watch 2004
Contrast MSNBC's map above with the national voter fraud hysteria map at (spit)Michael Moore's website(/spit). Moore lists no numbers or gives any sort of voter fraud rate to compare states with and the criteria for declaring states as being other than normal is unstated (such a total lack of methodology and/or accountability should be absolutely no surprise given the source.) Looking at his map you'd think the nation was a disaster...I'd highly recommend the MSNBC map over this heap of partisan ranting and hyperbole.
Y Kan't Teh Medeeyuh Reed?
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (2) |
You need look no further than the brouhaha over the arrest of James Henry outside of a Florida polling place to see why our country is in a shambles...it's because there are people out there who simply WANT it to be in a shambles to suit their own purposes. The headlines have been going out and the stories have been written by many outlets and they all ring the same, "Journalist arrested in Florida for photographing voters". The problem is that photographing voters ISN'T even remotely what he was arrested for...but the mega-mass media seem to want to hold him up as a martyr for the cause of their First Amendment Rights so the reality of the situation is ignored for the rhetorical image they wish to display.
So what REALLY happened?
Sunday afternoon, Henry, 54, was photographing voters in line at the Supervisor of Elections Office in West Palm Beach when Sheriff's Deputy Al Cinque approached him, asked for press credentials, and told him to stand at the media tent outside the restriction zone, Carhart said.
Henry fled from Cinque and tripped, before he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence, Carhart said. He posted $500 bond and was released at 2 a.m. Monday.
First, Florida law is quite clear on the issue of voter intimidation...and it states that voters at a polling place may not be approached by ANYONE...and somehow the media finds it offensive that the list of "everyone" includes James Henry and them. The big question in my mind really is why did Henry run? A question which is only touched on briefly and not followed up after a lame as hell answer.
Scared? Of what? Being asked for ID and told to stay in a defined area? Christ, I'd NEVER have another beer in my life if I ran away every time those two requirements were levied on my actions. But somehow through these actions he was "intimidated." How? Henry ran. Henry tripped. Henry then claims he was "punched in the back" but I'd bet that it was merely the result of a confused and possibly terrified sheriff's deputy attempting to quickly restrain him after he tripped...a man who had no idea WHY Henry, whom he simply asked to identify himself and remove himself to the prepared media area, had decided to run and had to assume the very worst - that he was possibly not who he claimed he was and/or had criminal intentions. But, once again, it's a trumped up charge of intimidation and police brutality against a guy who was just trying to do his damned job.
And, yes, from the sound of it the Florida regulations concerning the controlled area around polling places sounds like it needs to be re-written to account for the fact that polling places and the strict definition of the perimeter can't contain the vast numbers of voters. However the CLEAR INTENT of the law was to protect ALL voters waiting to vote from ANY persons not DIRECTLY involved in the voting process.
I'm sorry but the polling place is NOT the location to hard sell your candidate to voters...if a person who is already in line is unable to make a decision by themselves without some do-gooder (from ANY part of the political spectrum) yakking them up well, frankly, I'd rather they not make one at all.
Enough Talk...
| Posted by Brian D. Chapin | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
Go Vote. Don't know where your polling place is? Regardless of which candidate you support, this handy page on the Bush site will tell you where to go including a map.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out who we support here. For the past two months, blogging has been limited to non-existent; this campaign has completely sickened me with it's dishonesty and stupidity. Now that it is finally over (except for the threat of legal battles) the wife and I are moving - so there is yet one more thing to keep me away from the site.
I'm hoping the major media fails in their efforts to "color" the news, but we'll know for sure how effective they were tonight. Oddly, I found myself agreeing with Rush Limbaugh this morning, which hasn't happened in quite a while.
We have a man who even today, in an AP interview, said something along the lines of, "Well, I'll tell you again what I'm going to do in January. I can't tell you now." John Kerry, on the eve of the election: a man who doesn't want to be pinned down on anything, a man who doesn't want to have to offer a solid position on anything for fear of what that will do to him in the polls. He is free to Monday morning quarterback; he is free to use hindsight. He's taken every decision that has been made and said, "I would have done it different or better or smarter," but never define how. The fact that this race is as close as it is, is what befuddles me when you get right down to it.
In the America I thought I knew, John Kerry wouldn't be within 30 points, nor would anybody in the Democratic Party, using their campaign, their rhetoric, their mean-spirited bile. There's no candidate in their party using this campaign and using the allies they've used that would be within 30 points of George W. Bush. It may not be the America I know, so we have to fight for that, as well as our liberty at the same time -- and that's what it takes, folks. You have to fight, even for the people who are wrong. The people are too blind or too uninformed or too uneducated or too ignorant or too whatever to see the threat that faces them because they refuse to take a look at it. That's the job that we all have. That's what you do when you fight for your country: You fight for everybody in it.
p.s. Rush has been off my radar for the last year so I have no idea what else he's been saying.
Update: I hope Mark Steyn is right about his prediction - I have no doubt he's right about the rest.
John Kerry, with his pining for summits, his aspirational French, his boundless retrospective wisdom after some other fellow's taken the difficult decisions he ducked, his modish embrace of the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas and even Saddam in his Kuwaitswallowing days, is almost a parody Eurograndee.
But America cannot be a Greater Belgium or a Greater Canada or a Greater Spain. The only thing that enables Belgium to be Belgium and Canada to be Canada and Spain to be Spain is that America is America. If everyone in the civilised world's torpid and ineffectual and semi-non-aligned, it's not gonna work. Americans will not choose transnational complacency over national resolve.
Just Priceless...
| Posted by Brian D. Chapin | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
I found this exchange over at Instapundit...
First, we have a quote from the latest Bin Laden tape:
"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration," bin Laden said. "All that we have to do is to send two mujaheddin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses, without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
He added: "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."
To which, Megan McArdle responds:
If Osama really wants to gut the US budget, he's going to need to try something more drastic, like opening up a chain of Medicare clinics. His efforts so far haven't even done that much damage to the deficit, much less the US economy.
Advice for the Reluctant Voter
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
Big thanks to Will Collier posting over at Vodkapundit for giving me something to say the day before the election...
"And this year... no one can honestly say we've lacked the chance to see and hear these [candidates], or their records, or their ideas, or their personalities.
"So please, if you still feel too lazy, too uninvolved, too apathetic to care about this election, do not tarnish the votes of your genuinely interested friends and neighbors.
"Go back to sleep."
--Jeff Greenfield, "Nightline", ABC, November 3, 1992
That's it...I'm just about burned out with this election. If you haven't figured out who I'm voting for yet, I doubt an out-and-out endorsement would help much at this point because you're obviously not listening! As for your vote...it can either make a difference in the next four years or be a statistic. If you actually believe that there won't be much difference between the two major candidates in office, once again, you've obviously not been listening very hard to their statements and haven't examined their pasts...
...let's ALL pray for one thing tomorrow night though - a CLEAR winner. The legal bloodbath that the Democrats (you know, the party that has been harping for four years that the courts should not be involved in determining the President) have already staged themselves for in case of a close electoral margin is almost staggering...their penchant for blatant opportunism and "win at all costs" attitude mirrors that of their candidate perfectly. Hopefully a wide margin of victory can prevent such chicanery...but I can guarantee you I won't be holding my breath in either case.
Translation
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (0) |
I simply don't post these guys enough anymore (mainly so I don't hear about us not doing the daily comics anymore) but I just HAD to bring you the latest Cox & Forkum comic. Frankly, if you heard anything else in the steaming heap of rhetoric that flowed forth from Osama's filthy sewer of a mouth...you simply don't understand the objectives of him, Al Queda, and the Wahhabi religion.
Swift Vet Interview at Dean's World
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (0) | Link | Comments (1) |
Go check out Dean Esmay's interview with Steve Gardner who served for two and a half months on PCF-44 with John Kerry. It's a long read but after Kerry bragging up his Vietnam experience for two years, it's nice to read something from one of the men who stood next to him during much of his combat duty. I'll only blurb a tiny bit...but it is telling of this man's opinion of the Ketchup Kommando.
SG: Only that the scariest proposition that I can think of at this point in time is John Kerry being President of these here United States.
More Media Firearm Hysteria
| Posted by Gregory Markle | TrackBack (1) | Link | Comments (2) |
If anybody locates any less biased reports concerning the man in Beaverton, Oregon who has been arrested for firearms violations please forward URLs to me...I'd really like to read something other than this poorly researched and obviously anti-gun piece.
Well, as someone who fully believes that the possession of these weapons is my Constitutional right...GOOD!! A .50 cal is a damned dangerous weapon and someone who is behaving in a careless or reckless manner with one SHOULD be punished.
The weapon, which is over five feet long and weighs almost 130 pounds, is capable of blasting out between 400 and 550 rounds a minute and accurately hitting a target 2,500 yards away.
Is it just me or do these people intentionally try to find the most arcane, outdated, and/or simply exaggerated information available. First, the .50 is not an "anti-aircraft" weapon...while it CAN be used in that capacity it is almost useless against modern military aircraft in the manner that the people who wrote this article claim it is used (see the picture in the linked article.) The .50 caliber round was originally developed to suppress armored vehicles during WWI and evolved into an anti-aircraft and aircraft mounted gun by WWII. While they were reasonably effective against the "low and slow" planes of that era, they are almost useless in a ground-deployed mode against most aircraft fielded today and are incapable of puncturing any formidable armor. They used mainly to suppress troops in fixed positions by defeating unarmored defenses such as walls, vehicles, and other objects and to incapacitate vehicles, machinery, and other ordnance.
As for their other stats: the "official" weight of the .50 caliber Browning style machinegun is listed as 84 pounds (according to manfacturers statements by General Dynamics and FN Herstal, so maybe they included a few full ammo cans in their figures), the firing rate can vary from the 400-550rpm they listed (M2 models) to over 1,400rpm (M3 models), and the phrase "accurately hitting a target 2,500 yards away" is simply bullshit. While one MAY be able to hit a target at that distance under optimum conditions and with a VERY specially outfitted gun (and almost CERTAINLY a bolt action sniper weapon and NOT an automatic)...it is simply absurd for them to imply that such a feat is not a extremely difficult and, without HIGHLY specialized equipment and training, damned near impossible is just inexcusable. Crimeny, at that distance you're going to probably have to compensate for visual distortion caused by air temperature difference and even for the coriolis effect...something that is RARELY done without highly specialized computing equipment for obvious reasons.
Interesting how they use the terms "machine guns and automatic weapons" so that they can cite a higher number. How about reporting how many weapons found were actually ILLEGAL for this man to own. At this point, as shoddy and biased as this story has been, I am curious as to whether or not ANY of the weapons actually were machineguns...since the media seems to think that ANY gun that looks like a M2HB .50 or an M-16 is a "machinegun". Semi-auto .50's are quite easy to come by and are relatively inexpensive...and frankly I suspect that's what this individual had...in fact, I doubt he had ANY full-auto weapons except maybe an illegally converted AK, SKS, or AR-15 since they are relatively easy to convert and much more likely to be done than a beltfed gun.
Well, I finally managed to find some info through Google and it seems that FIVE of the "more than two dozen" guns found (I guess twenty-nine was too accurate for the previous writer) were full-auto...and two of them were legally owned and registered.
I'd suspect that the legally owned weapons in this bunch were the MAC-10 and at least one of the UZIs as they are by FAR less expensive than an AK (you could buy one of each for about the price of a single AK) and AK's are one of the more likely guns to find converted (although a converted UZI wouldn't surprise me either as the info is pretty readily available.) But the problem is that also stated that there was a .30 caliber beltfed "automatic" in addition to the "semiauto" .50 which throws the numbers all out of whack. If the machineguns included "several" AK-47s, UZIs (plural), and a MAC-10...the MINIMUM number that these weapons can add to is five (assuming each of the "severals" at the minimum number of two)...and yet they claim the .30 beltfed (my guess, a Browning 1919 since sideplates and drilling templates are common) to be "automatic" also which exceeds the number of "automatic" guns seized. Whatever happened to checking your sources and proofreading?
Of course, they also seized 110 marijuana plants and this guy was also distributing documentation on converting semi-auto weapons to full-auto. In other words, unlike those of us who go to great pains to obey the laws in our desire to pursue our chosen hobby...this individual was a criminal who was openly breaking the law. He should be punished...and punished severely...first criminal offense or not. The drug charges alone impose a minimum term of five years and the possession of an illegal machinegun SHOULD impose a mandatory ten year sentence. Good riddance is all I have to say...and to those who would point this out as yet more proof that guns are eeeeeviiiillll and should be banned I'd have to ask what exactly this deranged individual with obviously criminal intent has to do with honest, law abiding gun owners pursuing their passion?