Is It Safe?

One thing that's been drilled into my head since I was a small child is gun safety. When I say I grew up with guns in the house, I mean there was at least one in every room. They were usually loaded or had full magazines. And trigger locks? Puh-leeze.

Things are different these days. The People's Republic of Massachusetts requires you to keep your guns locked up at home, but even before I lived here, I had a wife who enacted that same law once we had kids in the house.

The focus on physically securing firearms is all well and good, but they don't exist to accessorize a room in a gun cabinet or be locked out of sight in a safe. The real fun comes in shooting them, and of course an element of danger comes along with that.

The NRA has three fundamental rules of safe gun handling:

1. ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. This is the primary rule of gun safety. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed so that even if it were to go off it would not cause injury or damage. The key to this rule is to control where the muzzle or front end of the barrel is pointed at all times. Common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on different circumstances.

2. ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
When holding a gun, rest your finger on the trigger guard or along the side of the gun. Until you are actually ready to fire, do not touch the trigger.

3. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use. Whenever you pick up a gun, immediately engage the safety device if possible, and, if the gun has a magazine, remove it before opening the action and looking into the chamber(s) which should be clear of ammunition. If you do not know how to open the action or inspect the chamber(s), leave the gun alone and get help from someone who does.

I'd add a fourth: There is no such thing as an "unloaded gun". The explanation of every gun accident you ever hear of begins. "I didn't know it was loaded ..."

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Posted by: andy at 09:55 AM | Comments (275)
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Yeah. So this happened.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A woman in Sweden has been charged with engaging in sexual activities with a human skeleton and could face jail time for disturbing the peace of the dead, a Swedish prosecutor said.

While you guys all stampede to the Big Vault Of Boner Jokes, I just have to ask; who's the victim, here?

Really.
I mean, in order for it to be necrophilia, doesn't there technically have to be a body?

Thanks to tmi3rd.

Posted by: LauraW at 01:16 PM | Comments (220)
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After noting the obvious -- that the press has given Obama a complete pass because he's a liberal Democrat they root for -- Peter Wehner concludes:

For some journalists, it’s fairly clear as to why: they had a rooting interest in Mr. Obama winning and they carried a deep dislike, even contempt, for Governor Romney. But for many others I think the explanation is more subtle and in some respects more problematic. They appear to be completely blind to their biases and double standards. If you gave them sodium pentothal, they would say they were being objective. Self-examination, it turns out, is harder than self-justification. And of course being surrounded with people who share and reinforce your presuppositions and worldview doesn’t help matters. (A model for today’s reporters is Richard Harwood, a Washington Post reporter who called his editor in Washington, Ben Bradlee, and asked to be taken off the 1968 Robert Kennedy campaign on the day of the California primary because he sensed he was, in the words of RFK biographer Evan Thomas, losing his “newsman’s reserve and … his objectivity.”)

In general, journalists receive critiques like this with indignation. They enjoy holding up public officials, but not themselves, to intense scrutiny. They insist that their personal biases never bleed into their story selection or coverage. But the outstanding ones and the honest ones would admit, though perhaps only to themselves, that the double standard is real and troubling, that it’s injurious to their profession, and that things really do need to change. Perhaps because they still know why they got into journalism in the first place—not for advocacy but to report the news in a relatively even-handed manner, to “speak truth to power,” regardless of the political views of those in power, and to pursue stories in a way that is fair and unafraid.

Today such an attitude sounds almost quaint.

He's correct when he notes how indignantly and angrily and dismissively the press responds to criticisms about their obvious liberal bias.

I think of it like this: If you tell someone who's not an alcoholic that he's drinking too much, he'll take an interest in your statement. He might be incredulous, but he'll ask things like, "Do you really think I'm drinking too much? Have I gotten out of hand?" Your allegation might come as a surprise to him, and he might doubt you, but he'd probably be curious to find out if maybe he does have a problem, or if, at least, he's engaged in behavior suggesting he's got a problem.

He'll actually cast his mind back to nights when he was drinking, trying to remember if he did something embarrassing.

Now, take an alcoholic who knows goddamned well he's an alcoholic and has chosen to continue being an alcoholic and is pretty goddamned sick of people telling him he's an alcoholic because he just wants to keep on drinking at an alcoholic level. Now tell him he's got a problem. He'll tell you "I don't have a problem, you have a problem, now why don't you mind your own business instead of sticking your nose into other people's lack of problems?"

He'll be angry about it because 1, he knows you're right, but 2, he has no intention of ever changing this and just wants you to stop noticing he's an alcoholic.

If You Want To Punk The Media... Call them up claiming to be a black activist, interested in hashing out whether the media has a bias against blacks. You'll find them courteous and apologetic and willing to kick the idea around, to see if it has any merit.

Now call them up claiming to be interested in a probe into whether they have an anti-conservative bias. They will be dismissive and rude.

See, no one's really offended to be accused of a flaw they don't have. They might be amused by the claim, or somewhat bothered, but it doesn't really get at them.

Accuse someone of a sin they do commit and suddenly all defensive machinery of the ego kicks in -- defensiveness, dismissiveness, derision.

Call a fat guy "Big Nose" and you'll just get an eye-roll. Call a fat guy "Fat Guy" and you'll get some angry words.

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (149)
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It's getting kind of late, but there's still time for the store.

Incidentally, it's very easy to make a very low carb pumpkin pie. It's like 3.5 g per slice.

That recipe calls for molasses, which I've never used, and tells you what spices to use. It's easier to just use "Pumpkin Pie Spice" from McCormick, if you have it. The recipe doesn't mention vanilla, which I thought was generally in the recipe (I use it).

I also never bothered with this "2/3 cup of soy milk & 1/3 cup of cream" business. Just do a full cup of cream or half cup cream and half cup Half & Half.

Oh, and I don't get the "food processor" thing. You mix the stuff. It's dead simple. You take a spoon and you mix the stuff for like five minutes. Not that hard.

This pie doesn't have any crust but if you must have a crust you can make one from almond powder, held together by butter, smeared on the tin.

The pie serves 8, or as I call it, "one."

Oh: You can order, online, a splenda syrup from DaVinci in Egg Nog flavor. I've also seen it in some specialty stores. It's fantastic. Throw it in a glass half milk half Half & Half, pour in some egg nog syrup, and you're drinking some lower-carb egg nog.

One thing: Milk has carbs and if you do what I do, which I finish every night with a big glass of Egg Nog or three for a month, you're probably going to notice Atkins has stopped working.

So, don't be me. But you already knew better than that.

There's another flavor that has nothing to do with the holidays in particular but it's good: "Salted Caramel." You may think, "Eh, doesn't grab me." It'll grab ya when you're drinking it.

Stay away from Chocolate. No one can fake Chocolate. The chemistry just isn't there. Fake chocolate is just "Brown Crayon with Sugar and Chemicals."

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Comments (269)
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Crazy.

Jackson had planned on a press conference to announce his resignation but was not able to bring himself to speak about it because of his illness, the source said.

The announcement comes after mounting pressure faced by Jackson as federal investigators appeared to widen their ongoing investigation into the congressmanÂ’s activities.

Jackson offered to raise up to $6 million to buy Obama's abandoned senate seat in 2008 from Rod Blagojevic.

Oh, Jesse Jackson Jr. just won his re-election bid despite conducting it 1) under investigation and 2) under sedation and 3) under observation. So Chicago voters have that going for them.

Remember in Miller's Crossing, when the Italian boss wants the Mayor to appoint his twin cousins, who speak no English, to a high political position (which they'll apparently share, as twins)? And first the Mayor balks but then Tom yells at him a little and he goes along with it?

Yeah, that's Jesse Jackson Jr., that's Chicago. Mob town, Machine town.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (267)
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One of the problems with pre-election war-gaming is that some simulations assume roughly uniform movement in all states based on previous elections and national polling. As you can see in the map below, this is clearly not the case. There are often regional trends, bounces for a candidate's home state, etc.

The first map below shows each state and the direction and intensity that the state moved from the 2008 election to the 2012 election. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 10:48 AM | Comments (136)
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The Large Race and Marxism Collider has produced evidence of the newest "building block of hate."

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday that a letter from nearly 100 House Republicans urging President Obama not to appoint Susan Rice as secretary of State employed racially charged "code words" to make its case.

The letter, signed by 97 House Republicans, says Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi matter" — language Clyburn saw as racially loaded.

"You know, these are code words," Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, told CNN. "We heard them during the campaign — during this recent campaign we heard Sen. Sununu calling our president lazy, incompetent, these kinds of terms that those of us, especially those of us who were grown and raised in the South, we would hear these little words and phrases all of our lives and we'd get insulted by them.

"Susan Rice is as competent as anybody you will find, and just to paste that word on her causes problems with people like [incoming Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman] Marcia Fudge and certainly causes a big problem with me," he added.

In a press conference earlier this week, Rep. Fudge (D-Ohio) said she believed criticism of Rice contained "a clear Â… sexism and racism."

"It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities," Fudge added.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (427)
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From @benk84's headlines, an "earth-shaking" discovery?

The Mars Science Laboratory team has hinted that they might have some big news to share soon. But like good scientists, they are waiting until they verify their results before saying anything definitive. In an interview on NPR today, MSL Principal Investigator John Grotzinger said a recent soil sample test in the SAM instrument (Sample Analysis at Mars) shows something ‘earthshaking.’

“This data is gonna be one for the history books,” he said. “It’s looking really good.”

What could it be?

SAM is designed to investigate the chemical and isotopic composition of the Martian atmosphere and soil. In particular, SAM is looking for organic molecules, which is important in the search for life on Mars. Life as we know it cannot exist without organic molecules; however, they can exist without life.

It should be noted they usually mean "this will shake your world if you are a scientist who's very much up on current theory and can appreciate small bits of evidence about that, and not so much if you're a layman."

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (255)
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I was going to do this on the weekend, but it looks like there's popular demand, so what the heck.

Here's the overall plan for what this post is going to cover. First, if there's firearms/hunting related news, it'll get featured. Big events like Fast & Furious developments warrant their own posts, obviously, but we'll reference them in the weekly posts as well. This will cross into the political at times, for obvious reasons, but it will always be topical.

Second, I got the idea to make this a regular feature a couple of weeks ago when we were discussing what gun was in the picture on Dave's Veteran's Day post. The prize went to 'andycanuck', who identified it as a 1916 French 37mm gun. I like gun trivia like this, and I know lots of the Moron Horde does as well, so I thought we'd do a featured gun of the week and either do a poll for a visual identification trivia contest or just do a profile of a historical piece.

As this is the inaugural thread, throw out other ideas in the comments. Now, on with the show.

Preserving the Second Amendment

Are you a member of the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America or other second amendment-related organization? If not, you should consider it, given that a certain SCOAMF now has "more flexibility" and has already claimed to be running an under the radar campaign for gun control.

Also, there are some very good state second amendment organizations*. I belong to what is arguably the best of them, the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League. They've been fighting the good fight behind enemy lines.

Marksmanship Award

Cam Edwards, who hosts Cam and Company on NRA News web/satellite radio, is a good Twitter follow, and he regularly links heartwarming stories like this:

Hero of the Day - Pennsylvania: Armed robber killed in Millcreek shooting threatened store clerk - goerie.com/article/201211Â… #NRA (via @goerie)

— Cam and Company (@CamAndCompany) November 21, 2012

Gun of the Week

This one's not unique by any stretch of the imagination, but given the upcoming holiday season and the extreme level of joy felt by any kid who's gotten a the only present that comes in a long, skinny box shaped like that, I present the Ruger 10/22:

With about 6 million of these in circulation and every accessory imaginable available, it's hard to go wrong with one of these. I have 2.

Gun Poll

Guns and hunting-related discussion in the comments.

* Link added. Thanks to 'wizardpc' in the comments.

Posted by: andy at 08:10 AM | Comments (494)
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Via Byron York, they weren't even close to being the decisive factor.

For example, in Wisconsin, 3,056,613 votes were cast, of which 4 percent, or 122,264 votes, were cast by Hispanics according to exit polls. Mr. Obama’s margin of victory in Wisconsin was over 200,000 votes — even if all Hispanics had voted for Mr. Romney instead of voting for Mr. Obama by more than two to one, he would have won the state.

Not unexpectedly, the Hispanic vote was also not decisive in Iowa or New Hampshire where Mr. Obama could have carried the states even if he had won none of the Hispanic vote whatsoever.

In Ohio, where the president received an estimated 54 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit poll data, we find he could have won the state with as little as 22 percent of the Hispanic vote, and in Virginia, where he received 64 percent of the Hispanic vote, we find that he could have carried the state with just over 33 percent.

...

With these five swing states, along with the safe Democratic states that Mr. Obama should have carried regardless of the Hispanic vote, the president would have reached 283 electoral votes, winning the Electoral College without needing to win a majority of the Hispanic vote in each state.

So even if Romney equaled W's Holy Grail number from 2004, he still wouldn't have won.

Oh and that 2004 number? Yeah, it was an outlier for the GOP with Hispanics.

1984 66/34 Democrats
1988 70/30 Democrats (this was the first election after the last amnesty when
it should have paid off most for Republicans)
1992 61/25 Democrats (Perot was 16)
1996 72/21 Democrats (Perot was 6)
2000 62/35 Democrats (Buchanan 1, Nader 2)
2004 53/44 Democrats (Nader 2). Bush's support may have been as low as 40%.
2008 67/31 Democrats
2012 71/27 Democrats

If you average those numbers you'll see that the GOP traditionally gets about...31%. So Romney wasn't exactly that far off. Granted, this is a crude way of looking at it given the increase in the percentage of Hispanics, about 2% in 1988 up to 9% this year and lots of other factors, but it gives you a ballpark.

We seem to have this "Help us amnesty, you're our only hope!" conversation every two years and it's always wrong.

Long term the GOP needs to figure out a way to broaden its coalition but making more likely Democratic voters isn't going to do it. Personally, I'd start with toning down the rhetoric. Not making every illegal alien caught doing something terrible the poster child for all illegals seems like a reasonable start. If the price of reaching the "Hispanic" community is amnesty, we've got an unsquarable circle.

More immediately, the pro-amnesty forces are going to keep pushing out crap about how amnesty is the key to the GOP's future. Don't buy it.

There may well be a humanitarian case for regularizing their status but amnesty supporters need to make it and stop making up BS reasons that are easily disprovable.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:00 AM | Comments (430)
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