- Surprise, surprise. Yet another fedgov agency is operating a vast, covert, random surveillance program. Hm. Do they still sell those anti-cam sprays and films for our license plates?
- Gottlieb’s CCRKBA endorses Matt Shea’s bill to repeal I-594. And note the ringing anti-background check language! (She says, rolling her eyes.)
- I’m not linking to this CNN op-ed because it’s brilliant. On the contrary, it’s an astonishingly logic-free defense of Obamacare. I’m linking to it because it may contain one of the single most bizarre
justifications of tyrannyoxymorons ever to occupy the mind of a human being. To wit: “The ACA does not allow government to interfere in our lives; it compels government to keep us as safe and healthy as possible.” Admit it, the ability to hold both those thoughts in the same brain is an admirable feat. - Speaking of admirable, scientists say they’ve figured out how to uncook an egg.
- Data point: not all surrender monkeys are cheese eaters.
- Sweet firearms training story: “Save a life or sneer at an idiot — your choice.” (Actually, though, I don’t know of too many people who would sneer at the woman in this tale. Lots would probably sneer at her firearm, though.)
- “Dear random, shirtless partygoer.” You know those things you always think of saying only after the fact? The ‘Net lets you say them so well.
Deadlining the next couple of days. Entertain each other; you’re very good at that. 🙂
Re eggs:
“It sounds complicated, nonetheless it is more efficient. Usually a process that takes four days, the researchers found a way to do it in just minutes.
This new process can save time and simplify the creation of specific proteins that cancer drugs rely on.”
Why would anyone think to uncook an egg, and what do eggs have to do with cancer drugs? Why not use an uncooked egg in the first place — or another protein source? The article was non-specific re the relationship of how eggs or any protein help create cancer drugs. And four days to process the proteins is not long; very few, if any, cancers need THAT kind of speed [“in just minutes”] for their research.
It’s written to sound good as a news item, but I suspect it’s just a gimmick and doesn’t mean a thing except possibly to the scientist getting funded.
Pat — I had a lot of your same questions. I know eggs are used for some medicinal purposes (though I’m vague on the hows and wherefores), but I agree that the article didn’t explain the whole business very well.
“Admit it, the ability to hold both those thoughts in the same brain is an admirable feat.”
I trust you’re being ironic here. If not, go read “1984.” Closely.
BTW, the statement you cite is actually rather bush-league (pun fully intended) as far as doublethink goes.
Here’s another voice against condescending attitudes regarding firearms: https://www.swatmag.com/articles/view/rehabilitated-gun-snob
I don’t think the uncooking an egg thing actually had to do with eggs, as far as cancer drugs are concerned, but in getting proteins to untangle during the manufacture of some drugs. Just like uncooking an egg. I might be wrong about that.
I wish we had the rest of the story on the young woman with the gun. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to be in her place, and I hope the robbers never came back.
That pistol story sounds like something James Rummel would write. And, point taken. As a friend of mine likes to point out, “Poor people need guns too.” At the price point of a new Jiminez, I’m not sure what you can find in the used market that’d be better, especially given current conditions, but with some patience, yeah, likely better choices, still affordable. But this woman had no-one to help her out, and evaluating used pistols for value and proper function takes some knowledge.
Better the gun you have, than the one you don’t.
i thought the firearms training story read familiar. i had previously read it on greg’s blog here: active response training; worth subscribing to the feed.
Another revealing article on Boehner, which predates his blustery anti-Obama rhetoric. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/boehner-allies-out-for-revenge-114007.html
On that license plate tracking, what is everybody complaining about? After all, libertarian think tanks advocated just this program a few years ago.
Cascade Policy Institute (specifically, John Charles), along with its Michigan twin, started advocating something called “congestion pricing”, a way to increase the expense of commuting during rush hour, thus creating a sort of (supposed) “market” pressure to get people to pay for their use of a limited resource, roads, and increase their efficiency. I wrote to him that it required tracking all vehicles on those roads and told him government would create a database of our movements. He pooh-poohed my concerns; I guess I was being paranoid. Except, looks like I wasn’t…
http://cascadepolicy.org/blog/2009/01/27/conceptual-approaches-to-road-finance-reform/
I just sent him that link you posted, Claire.
[it compels government to keep us as safe and healthy as possible]
Well thank heaven for that! I’ve always wanted to become a well-tended farm animal, and it looks like we are finally there. Moo!
On that “surrender monkey” thing, it strikes me as weird how collectivist “conservatives” become whenever this issue comes up. In fact I wrote a little article about it:
http://strike-the-root.com/xenophobes-bore-me
The reason so many (particularly the conservatives) hate the French is because without them, the American Revolution would likely have failed. That’s what I think, anyway.
Good story about that newbie with a gun. I think the sellers of Hi Points and their ilk should be ashamed, rather than the buyers, who are merely ignorant. I try to steer newbies toward revolvers:
http://strike-the-root.com/handgun-primer-for-liberals
Ref Gottlieib: It’s unfortunate that I-594 is one of those measures that people had to pass in order to find out what was in it.
I’m betting Nancy Pelosi has come to rue the day she first turned that phrase.
Back in the day I was running a NRA Personal Protection class. A lady asked if I would let her use her pistol, and looked like she expected me to turn her down.
It was a truly horrid little piece. Czechoslovakian back before they learned how to make guns. It was marked 6.35MM (.25 ACP), tiny, and I swear the trigger pull was longer than the slide. But it looked safe to shoot, so I said yes. She got to where she could hit the target, if not the bullseye.
After class, trusting me more, she told me the rest of the story. Her husband had bought it before they emigrated. He had recently lost a long battle with cancer, and after medical expenses that little pistol was pretty much all he had left to leave her, which was why she wanted to learn to shoot it.
A realistic take on the GOP Border Bill, by those who would know: http://www.mrctv.org/blog/border-patrol-agents-union-opposes-border-bill-window-dressing
I really can’t fathom what goes on inside the minds of amoral sociopaths such as Pelosi & Co. She may have gotten enough sadistic pleasure by saying it to make everything else trivial to her.
Paul B, your theory that Americans hate the French because of their help with our American Revolution isn’t convincing to me. The reason being most Americans don’t know their history and probably haven’t a clue the French were in the picture. To be honest, I’d be surprised if they knew who we fought for our independence. 😉
“The ACA does not allow government to interfere in our lives; it compels government to keep us as safe and healthy as possible.”
You would have a much better idea just how insane that is if you have spent even a little time in the medical field trying to navigate (survive) the absolute horrors of “laws” and regulations from every level of government, as well as corporate nonsense and far too much of “tradition” gone completely bonkers. There is so much more to this than the Obummercare and insurance boondoggle, which is merely the piss icing on the shit cake… by those in the vast boiling sea of people – government and others – who firmly believe that they own and must control other people, regardless of their supposed good intentions.
Pretty much boils down to something like: we’re going to control everything, all the time, no matter how evil or contradictory… and you’d better like it and go along with it or we’ll kill you… for your own good, of course.
The ACA does not allow …; it compels ….
There is a pearl there, misshapen though it may be. We the voters aren’t letting government take over, too many of us are requiring it to take control.
Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. The task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal tremblingly comes up forward, bowl in hand, and begs Mr. Bumble for gruel with his famous request: “Please, sir, I want some more.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist
Claire,
Thank you for linking to my article about helping the woman at the gun range. I own all your books and am a long-time fan. Keep up the great work.
Greg
Claire, please spread the word on this:
https://www.change.org/p/patrick-paolini-don-t-fire-emily-miller
“The anti-gun “Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” has organized a campaign to have Emily Miller, an award-winning journalist from WTGG, fired from her position because she dares to show the pro-gun position in her articles.”
The link is to the “don’t fire Emily Miller” petition. Honestly, the kind of people behind the CSGV don’t belong in this country. I’m sure they’d all be much happier in North Korea.
Paul, we’ve got “congestion pricing” in the electric utility industry. The whole scheme is nothing less than officially sanctioned robbery but the bought and paid for politicians stacked the deck to get it passed (through a pretend “stakeholder” process, where of course, the “stakeholders” advocating the desired outcome were made the majority).
It’s so absurd that most people I try and explain it to simply don’t believe me. For example, wind generators, since they’re heavily subsided, and cannot physically provide anywhere near 100% of the power demand, can safely bid NEGATIVE prices knowing full well that that will actually get paid the full price bid in by the highest cost thermal generator to make the bid stack (it’s a “clearing price” “market” so no matter what the lower bids are, all the bidders get paid the same price as the highest price bidder to make the bid stack).
And consumers pay for “congestion,” which is entirely imaginary and virtually never actually occurs (the system determines “congestion” based on what would happen if different elements of the system failed, and the cost is assessed on this basis, even though 99% of the time the failure never occurs). IOW, consumers pay for what maybe could happen, not what actually happens. Before “deregulation” we simply made adjustments after the event occurred, and consumers were unaffected.
Teresa Sue, you’re probably right. 😯
I was saying I point newbies at revolvers… That was when you could find police turn-ins, 38 Spl S&W revolvers in good shape for $200. I just had a look at armslist.com and discovered, if you can find any you will pay $450 and up! Wow, talk about inflation.
Well, a Hi Point is better than nothing, I guess. Maybe we should be pointing newbies at Marlin Model 60’s…
So, a fellow dashes panting from a sidewalk cafe to the front of the “Repeal I-594” parade, declaring the Mandate of Heaven. The image that comes to mind is a self-mutilated, yet pompous, castrato, claiming to lead a thousand lean, steel-eyed, fighters. Both nauseating and sad.
Oh, good one, Y.B.! Perfect description. I damn near swallowed my bubblegum when I read that Alan Gottlieb was a leader in the fight against I-594.