Well, it's sort of a revolver. It's a DIY affair:

Pistols that shoot shotgun shells are exotic, but not unknown. But they've been limited to .410 caliber shells in the past. This is a full 12-gauger.

Other blogs are claiming this is the "first" such weapon but that can't possibly be true. There are a lot of gunsmiths making crazy stuff like this every day.

Thanks to EdwardR.

Posted by: Ace at 10:05 AM | Comments (126)
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Only 44% say he does.

Newsworthy? CNN doesn't think so. They think the headline is...

CNN Poll: Anti-incumbent fever at record high

Anti-incumbent? Well... yeah. But who are the incumbents? Which party controls the White House and the Congress?

CNN waits until the eleventh paragraph to report Obama's quite-bad re-elect number.

And they bury other big findings too, in favor of their "anti-incumbent, not anti-liberal or anti-Obama" Narrative of Choice.

For example: Paragraph Seven.

The poll suggests Americans are split when it comes to their vote this November, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they will support the Republican candidate in their district for the House of Representatives and 45 percent saying they will back the Democrat. Republicans trailed the Democrats by 6 points in November.

This sudden reversal of Democrat fortunes is merely an "anti-incumbent" animus?

And note CNN is polling adults, and their screen only narrows the sample to registered voters, the most Democratic-friendly pool of respondents. Even with this generous sample, Democrats (and Obama) are faring poorly.

Also not reported at all: Obama is now officially underwater in the CNN poll, though within the margin of error: 49% approve, 50% disapprove.

Bonus: Where Does This Cheerleading for Democrats Come From?

*** Bye, Bayh: If we told you that Democrats were favored to lose about eight Senate seats (six of which are in states Obama carried in '0 , lose some 30 to 40 in the House, and see their top domestic issue -- health care -- stalled in Congress, youÂ’d guess that President ObamaÂ’s approval rating was, what, 35%? Maybe 40%? But as any close follower of American politics knows, ObamaÂ’s approval is at or near 50% (even at 53% in the always-volatile Gallup daily track). Yet Democrats, including what we saw and heard from Evan Bayh yesterday, are behaving like Obama is at 35%. This is particularly ironic when weÂ’re just a year-plus removed from a president whose approval was 25% to 30%. There is no doubt that this is a TOUGH political environment for Democrats, but are they making it tougher by running for the hills when things might not be as bad for them as was the GOPÂ’s situation from 2006-2008? And what does it say about the Democrats and their ability to govern when theyÂ’re acting like this when their president is at 50%? Republicans rallied around their president in '04, when he was hovering around 50%.

Obviously this is a stridently partisan paragraph, written with clear sympathies for the Democrats, offering fellow Democrats advice on how to govern and win elections.

So where would you guess it was from?

Kos?

FireDogLake?

Alec Badlwin writing in the Huffington Post?

Nope -- it's from MSNBC, which is apparently ditching the even the thinnest pretense of nonpartisanship.

Thanks for both to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (78)
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So says the Sage of Screech, Keith Olbermann.

The whole of the "anger at government" movement is predicated on this. Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real (as if we weren't to some extent doing it for them). And the president is black. But you can't come out and say that's why you are scared.

Say that, and in all but the lifeless fringes of our society, you are an outcast. And so this is where the euphemisms come in. Your taxes haven't gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration's adventurer's war, Grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a Socialist president would be one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with tax cuts.
Â…
But facts don't matter when you're looking for an excuse to say you hate this president (but not because he's black). Anything you can say out loud without your family and friends bursting into laughter at you, will do. And this is where the Tea Parties come in.

But recognize what this backlash is, and you can free yourself of this movement built of inherited fears, and of echoes of 1963 or 1873. Look at who is leading you and why and look past the blustery self-justifications and see the fear — the unspoken, inchoate fear of those who are different.

If you believe there is merit to your political argument, fine. But ask yourself when you next go to a Tea Party rally, or watch one on television, or listen to a politician or a commentator praise these things or merely treat them as if it was just a coincidence that they are virtually segregated.

Ask yourself: Where are the black faces? Who am I marching with? What are we afraid of? And if it really is only a president's policy and not his skin. Ask yourself one final question: Why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you'll ever again see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you?

So much stupid and so little time. And thatÂ’s just the excerpts.

Now, I donÂ’t accept OlbermannÂ’s description of tea parties as all white affairs. He offers no evidence of this, just ugly accusation but two thingsÂ…

First most polls show Obama polling at upwards of 90% with blacks so IÂ’m not sure why youÂ’d expect to find a lot of people who support these polices at rallies against them. And letÂ’s not pretend this divide is a new and sudden phenomenon. For comparison consider that in October 2005 George W. Bush was polling at 2% approval among blacks after Katrina. It's almost like all Presidents pay a political price for real or perceived failures.

Now we know for a fact that when blacks do attend these protests MSNBC has a nasty habit of whitewashing them out of the story (see what I did there?). Seems to me erasing a black man out of existence is a tad bit racist.
DonÂ’t forget that when SEIU goons attacked someone at a St. Louis protest, it was a black man named Kenneth Gladney who was injured.

But enough about the race angle. Race is a complicated subject thatÂ’s not going to be improved, let alone solved, in by an Olby Special Comment or a blog post. ThatÂ’s okay because itÂ’s irrelevant to this discussion anyway.

more...

Posted by: DrewM at 09:25 AM | Comments (138)
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Now if I haven't got your attention with that headline, you must be unconscious or captivated by Olympic curling/mini-zamboni-ing.

How come I haven't heard about this story on a smart military blog? A covert team of ten men and a woman assassinated a senior Hamas terrorist in a Dubai hotel room last month. Attempts to figure out who the assassins were or even who they worked for are coming up bupkus (do you see what I did there, just sayin'):

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior figure in the military wing of Hamas, was found dead in a hotel room on Jan 20. According to one report he was killed by a female assassin who entered his room by posing as a member of hotel staff, injected him with a drug that induced a heart attack and hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.

But other officers said he was strangled, probably after receiving an electric shock.

Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, blamed IsraelÂ’s Mossad intelligence service for the killing.

But video footage and a series of passport photographs released by the Dubai police suggested a much more convoluted and bizarre operation than is normally associated with Mossad, which has a reputation for ruthless professionalism.

Ireland says the names, photos, and passport numbers do not match anything they've got. The passports were counterfeit. Israel is keeping quiet, not denying, but not confirming anything. The UK has also refused comment.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:48 AM | Comments (159)
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She submitted just three signatures in Marion County (and she needed 500), so so it appears she missed the ballot.

Or did she?

Note there's a fair chance other people have submitted a good number of signatures on her behalf-- and they seem to be looking only at the stack of signatures she herself submitted.

Did anyone from Marion County submit signatures for her? Might be a good idea to figure this out, because the clerks, if they're Democrats, have a very strong interest in "overlooking" those petitions.

She's saying she thinks she has them...

Reached at her home, d'Ippolito said she was on her way out the door to drop off more signatures at the county clerk's office. "To my knowledge, yes we do. There's people putting in signatures as we speak," d'Ippolito said when asked if she has the signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. "The answer is yes."

...but she has an interest in saying that.

It's likely that at least half of all signatures (if not more) will be disqualified -- and the Democrats will be attempting to disqualify very aggressively here -- so she really needed like 1000 (if not more) from each district.

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (30)
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With three exceptions -- FoxNews and the Washington Times (of course) and this brief single mention on CNN:

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There's also something else that's out there. Phil Jones from the University of East Anglia, the climate research unit, the guy that was at the center of this recent e-mail controversy late last year, has said in an interview with the BBC that he has not seen any, quote, "statistically significant warming since 1995," though he says he still believes that the earth's temperature has warmed. And he also said that he might be missing some of the data that is responsible for his climate models.

Of course, skeptics are jumping all over this, saying the whole thing is a farce. Global warming doesn't exist.

What do you think of the Professor Jones situation, the lack of statistically significant warming, and the fact that he may have misplaced some of the records?

JOHN CHRISTY, PROFESSOR, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, UNIV. OF ALABAMA- HUNTSVILLE: Well, I think what Phil Jones is saying is that Mother Nature is perfectly capable of making the temperature rise and fall through the past several hundred years. And in terms of the data problems, well, we do have to be careful when we're talking about public policy, that means trillions of dollars, and we haven't had that very hard and critical situation where you take care of data and make it publicly available to everyone. And that needs to be done now.

We have a childish, petulant, insecure, unprofessional media. It has to be noted again that the British media is covering this story well -- even left-wing outfits like the Guardian and the statist-establishment-left BBC.

My respect for the BBC and the Guardian has increased quite a bit. This story is obviously against their political agenda, but they covered it anyway, because it's, you know, news.

Compare to the American Media, which is principally now in the business of blocking the reportage of news.

Posted by: Ace at 08:21 AM | Comments (85)
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Gibbsy has been blathering about a new media strategy that returns the White House to the salad days of the 2008 campaign, but it seems the President's fellow Democrats would prefer him to keep his head down and out of their spotlight:

Richard Blumenthal, the [Connecticut] Democratic attorney general, who is running for the U.S. Senate, Monday said it was “an open question,” whether he would ask President Barack Obama to campaign on his behalf.

Asked if the president’s appearance would be a plus or minus for his campaign, Blumenthal said: “I can’t comment.”

Blumenthal made the remarks after he spoke to a meeting of the Yale College Democrats held at Branford College.

[...]

He said he had not made a decision one way or the other on asking Obama, who came once to Connecticut to campaign for Dodd, as did Vice President Joseph Biden.

When you're a winner, everyone wants you on their team. When you're a loser (*cough*New Jersey*Virginia*Massachusetts*cough*), maybe it would be better if you kept your distance.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:15 AM | Comments (35)
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The abortion provider seems to have run afoul of a couple different laws involving parental consent and mandatory reporting of sexual abuse. The probation lasts one year, but new revelations of the number of under-age abortions provided have fueled calls to go ahead and revoke Planned Parenthood's license now:

After the tape was released last year, state health inspectors reviewed clinic records and found that nine minors, ages 13-15, had received abortions without proper verification of parental consent since November 2008.

In one case, health officials said, a 15-year-old received an abortion even though the person claiming to be her mother did not appear to be and presented questionable records, including an expired Alabama driverÂ’s license. Inspectors said Alabama birth records show a different person as the girlÂ’s parent.

There were also concerns about reporting child abuse. One of the 13-year-olds who received an abortion reported starting having sex at age 12 and having three partners in the previous year. She was back at the clinic for another abortion four months later and said she had now had four sexual partners in her life.

Planned Parenthood of Alabama's troubles started when a student journalist posed as a pregnant 14 year-old trying to procure a "secret abortion."

More: And while we're on this rare subject, why not really push some buttons. A series of billboards in Georgia have raised objections from, well, I'm not sure. But they sure are controversial: more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:00 AM | Comments (33)
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The International Ice Hockey Federation is insisting that U.S. ice hockey goalie Jonathan Quick remove or obscure a "Support Our Troops" sticker on his helmet. They say the Olympic rules ban political propaganda.

Ryan Miller has also been told to remove the slogan “Miller Time” from his helmet while the third American netminder Tim Thomas had already placed a sticker over a slogan on his mask for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

IOC rules forbid political propoganda or advertisements being placed on equipment. “If the players don’t agree with the interpretation they can ask the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) to petition the IOC.”

Miller said he had agreed to remove “Miller Time”, which is also a popular beer company slogan, but might fight to keep “Matt Man”, a tribute to a dead friend from being taken off his helmet.

Some confusion about the political propaganda ban, though, is leading to grumbles from the players and fans. While insisting that "Support Our Troops" is impermissible, the IIHF has been mum so far on some traditional symbols of American propaganda, which will remain on the sides of Miller's helmet ("Miller Time" was on the back):

Apparently, players and the team are still discussing what to do or whether to appeal the instruction from IIHF. U.S. hockey's first game is against Switzerland later today.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:18 AM | Comments (132)
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G'morning.

Getting promoted out of the sidebar:

Indiana Democrat Tamyra DÂ’Ippolito told FOX and Friends that she has enough signatures to file for Bayh's old seat. Don't know if it's true or not, so if you got one of those petition forms printed and signed, you still might want to turn it in before noon.

If she has the signatures, the Democrats won't be able to pick a candidate more to their liking. D'Ippolito is so fringe, she has no chance of winning.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:34 AM | Comments (104)
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