Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Which Sci-Fi Crew Should I Belong To?

I followed the link at Heartless Libertarian and took the quiz, and like many others, I suppose, it named the crew of Serenity. No surprises here, either.

But if I got to choose which crew to be a part of there could be only one (well, maybe two, the crew of Farscape wouldn't be bad).

It would have to be the crew of the Lexx.

Sure, it would be really cool to be on a ship that eats planets for fuel, and having an undead assassin watching my back should help keep me from getting killed. But of course of those are not the reasons.

Here's the reason: Xenia Seeberg. Need I say more?

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Good thing it was only a .22

And not a stick of dynamite tied to an arrow or something:
A Massachusetts man was shot while using the outhouse at his family's camp by a boy who was target shooting.

Chris Flanagan, 41, of Holliston, Mass., was standing in the outhouse on Saturday morning when he was hit in the chest by a bullet that came through the door.

He's a hero in my book

Brendan McKown has regained consciousness and has this to say:
'I really don't know what I did, when I did that,' McKown said Monday. 'Because the fact is, he had an AK. Those shots that were firing were thunderously loud.'

McKown said that if he had acted differently, more people might have gotten hurt.

'He was walking by. I could have ducked behind cover and shot him from behind, if he took another shot at somebody,' he said. 'But if I did that, he would have shot at somebody.'
I hope, and sometimes pray, that I am never put in that kind of situation.

I also have decided that I have to revise my carry method. I can't get it out fast enough either.

The Cthulhu Circus

Found this link to The Cthulhu Circus, graphics from The Family Circus comic re-captioned with Lovecraftian phrases. Very humorous for this Lovecraft fan.

I gotta say...

It's still very odd to me to see this blog grouped in amongst "actual" news sources on certain news aggregator websites. I still don't know how or why it keeps happening.

Monday, November 28, 2005

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Toklien, and...George MacDonald?

WorldNetDaily has published a very good article about Christianity and fantasy/sci-fi:
The Christian foundation of the other famous Inkling's work is less blatant, yet almost as obvious to all but the most willfully blind. While there have been a few brave souls foolhardy enough to attempt to deny the self-evident, even those with no discernible Christian agenda freely acknowledge the powerful religious elements integral to 'The Lord of the Rings.' For the Secret Fire of which Gandalf is a servant, as Tolkien explained for the benefit of those too unfamiliar of the book of Acts to recognize the symbolism, is nothing less than the Holy Spirit whose flames were first seen at Pentecost, and in case things were not perfectly clear, the author once described his landmark trilogy as 'a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.'

Thus, it is not the fantasy elements--which are actually not very similar in the particulars--but the Christian themes running through both that tie Lewis' and Tolkien's works together in our minds. Nor are these themes the only relationship. Tolkien, Lewis and Williams were all influenced to varying degrees by the same literary and spiritual mentor, a Scottish minister and prolific author by the name of George MacDonald. MacDonald is largely forgotten now, but he was a well-known author of the late 19th century--among other things, he corresponded regularly with a certain American writer he had befriended by the name of Samuel Clemens. In one letter, Clemens even mentioned to MacDonald how his daughter Susy had worn out her copy of MacDonald's 'At the Back of the North Wind' and requested that MacDonald send her a replacement.
I have to admit, I've never heard of MacDonald. Looks like I have some reading to do.

A couple of notable articles from NRA-ILA

Both of these tnx to NRA-ILA.

First, an opinion piece with some good points from The Sheboygan Press:
Recently, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that the city had recorded 113 homicides, and there are still six weeks to go in the year.

That's a grim statistic in a city of approximately 583,600 residents. So, it might appear understandable that people like Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Democrats in the Legislature and some police officials are not too keen about legislation that would make it possible for Wisconsin citizens to carry concealed handguns.

That is, until one does a quick comparison with another city of roughly the same size and social makeup. Welcome to Seattle, Wash., a city of approximately 571,500 people. At the same time Milwaukee had posted a body count of 113 homicides, Seattle had logged a mere 27.

Aside from the vast disparity in the number of homicides in Milwaukee and Seattle, there is one more big difference. Washington residents can carry concealed handguns, and a lot of them do, more than 230,000 at last count. The Evergreen State has had a concealed carry statute for more than 50 years and a state constitutional right to bear arms that is rock solid. An armed Washington citizen might wonder why Wisconsin's citizens are not allowed the means to defend themselves.
At the risk of sounding like someone else, I might just say--indeed.

Second is this report from The Huntsville Times that State Rep. Albert Hall (D-Gurley) has filed a "no retreat" bill based on, but not the same as, Florida's law:
The Florida law says, "A person does not have a duty to retreat if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be."

The Alabama bill says the person does not have to retreat if they are in a store, or any place used for "public use, lodging or the storage of goods," including boats, tents and cars.
I prefer the Florida wording, myself.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Not this time, Bubba

This time a federal professional in San Antonio gets busted:
A federal agent booked for drunk driving Sunday refused to submit to a breath test because he said a lawyer couldn't win his case with the results, a San Antonio police report said.

[...]

Serna, who told the officer he was a federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security, said he couldn't perform any "walk and turn" sobriety tests because he suffered a leg injury in January, according to the report.

The agent's story about his destination changed several times. Serna finally told the officer he was en route to his girlfriend's home after leaving a nightclub where he said he drank three beers from 11 p.m. until last call, the report said.

Serna advised the officer to let him go but agreed to give him his keys so he couldn't drive intoxicated. He also told the officer he had family who worked for the San Antonio Police Department and that "he was to be released," the report said.

He later asked the officer to charge him with public intoxication so he wouldn't lose his job, the report said. The officer instructed him not to drink and drive. He also ticketed Serna for speeding, no insurance and a driver's license violation.
Maybe they'll still let him drive the golf cart at Walmart, but I wouldn't count on it.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Remember this?


For some reason I was thinking about this old show today. I used to catch reruns of it on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid--they would squeeze one in between Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy--back when they actually showed stuff worth watching on Saturday afternoons. This was one of the greatest TV shows of all time, in my opinion, and certainly one of the really good westerns--possibly the best half-hour western series ever. Unfortunately, according to what I have been able to find online, only the first two seasons are available on DVD, although it ran for six seasons. When people think of old west heroes, many at first think of the Lone Ranger. But for me, the ultimate old west hero was always Paladin. I'm talking, of course, about Have Gun - Will Travel.

However, there were a couple of problems with his gun that I must mention. His revolver was "handcrafted to [his] specifications." Two things, at least, were supposed to set this gun apart.

1) The barrel was rifled--"a rarity in a hand weapon." Rifled barrels were actually the standard by the 1870's. I have never heard of a smoothbore revolver, Colt or otherwise. A revolver without a rifled barrel would certainly be the exception, and be pretty much worthless compared to all the revolvers carried by everyone else.

2) His revolver had a trigger pull of one ounce. To intentionally create a gun with a trigger pull this light would seem to me to be the height of stupidity. To begin with, I think that the trigger itself would weigh at least an ounce, if not more. With a trigger pull this light, it means that if you bundled about 30 paper clips together with a rubber band and tied them to the trigger, it would be enough weight to pull the trigger.

Both of these assertions were obviously the creation of some Hollywood goofball who knew nothing about guns.

It's still one of my favorite shows, and I wish they'd re-run it on the Encore Westerns channel, or TVLand, or somewhere. And with all the bad movies made from old TV shows, this one certainly seems ripe for exploitation.

Here is a link to a good fan site for the show.

Richard Boone, who played Paladin, was also the voice of Smaug in The Hobbit.

Citizens taking over for police in Albania

Apparently the Albanians are so disgusted with the ineptitude of their own police that they no longer call them to report stolen cars. They just handle it themselves:
When a big new Mercedes was stolen at gunpoint earlier this month from a Tirana parking lot, the lot owner immediately called in his friends from the capital and around the country instead of dialing the local police precinct.

Using mobile phones, three cars homed in on the late-model limousine from different directions while an unofficial road block was set up near the northern town of Lezhe.

The car-jackers saw the private roadblock, got out and took off, the Gazeta Shqiptare newspaper said.

The Mercedes owner got his car back so fast he did not believe it had ever been stolen, until the parking lot owners showed him damage to the car radio, it added.
The paper said statistics showed 'you could count on the fingers of one hand' the number of stolen car cases solved by police, while private recovery appeared to be highly effective.
Of course, if this happened here, I'm sure they would all be called "vigilantes" by the press.

Bloglines appears to be down

Bloglines hasn't been aggregating posts since this morning sometime. This is a bummer, because today is also a holiday for me, and I'm simply at home with the kids, and nothing is working.

Oh well. We played outside for several hours today, which was probably more worthwhile. I also burned some brush--a little at a time so as not to cause a fire hazard--sat outside in the coolness of a November morning, read for a while and smoked a few pipes. Not a bad day off, at all.

Unsurprising News from Gary, IN

This should infuriate anyone. In a way, it fills me with rage, but in another way, I am not surprised. It did happen, after all, in Gary, Indiana:
A woman who was robbed at knifepoint while pumping gas into her church's van couldn't believe it when the gas station attendant refused to call police for help.

'I ran, of course, to the nearest place,' Gary resident Rosetta Heffner said, recounting Sunday's robbery.

Her request to call 911 was met with silence from the other side of the Citgo station's counter.

She tried again.

The clerk's response?

'Use your cell phone.'

Heffner couldn't believe it.

'I thought it would be a safe haven, anything could have happened, and he told me to use my cell phone,' Heffner told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.
The gas station's manager said he was sorry about the robbery, but clerks at the station do not make emergency calls from the front counter, fearing retaliation for [sic] criminals.

'We have to be careful,' he said. 'If we call, then there are problems. They can hear. So we use the back phone. We are always helpful to the customer, but we have to protect ourselves.'
When I was a truck driver, I had the extreme misfortune to pass through that godforsaken hellhole a few times, and the place is like a roadside outhouse for criminals to gather. We all hear about crime problems in Chicago, well, Gary is the evil bastard son of Chicago. I have had the opportunity to speak with several people who live in the area, and when I ask them if they'd ever been to Gary, their answer is usually something like "Hell no, I'm not stupid."

The church which this lady attends has stated that they will take their business elsewhere from now on. Good for them. I have no doubt that they are vastly outnumbered by the sub-human scum who have taken over that town, and who will now gladly frequent this Citgo station which has now effectively advertised itself as a safe haven for criminals.

By the way, I have no way of knowing which Citgo station this is. There are twelve such stations listed in Yahoo Yellow Pages. My guess is, it's the one at 2993 W 11th Ave., based on its proximity to the church.

If I were them, I'd boycott them all.

UPDATE: David Codrea has typed up a letter and provided contact information for anyone wanting to notify Citgo of their displeasure over this incident.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Random Rambles

Another Thanksgiving come and gone. I have plenty to be thankful for, but I don't like to talk about it much. My family is kind of like the Sacketts in the Louis L'Amour books. We are spread around some, and we don't see each other very often, but if someone needs help, relatives start showing up that may not have been seen in years. I have very few relatives with whom I can find a common ground anyway. To my actual family, who are used to me, they know that I'm not going to speak often, and when I do it will probably be a fairly off-the-wall observation, or perhaps a clarification with one of those pedantic little factoids that like to stick in my head. With in-laws it's different. Sometimes I think they see me as some sort of alien life form. I'm just agoraphobic enough not to truly enjoy traveling and visiting, unless I'm going to my dad's house, which is only about 4 miles away and I see him all the time anyway. His usual question is something like, "So...what's new in the world of guns?"

I think it was due to a small "Alphecca-lanche" that this week, for a couple of days, I was actually a small, hairy rat in the TTLB Ecosystem. I saved a screenshot for posterity.

The food is always good no matter where I go, no matter if it's at relatives or in-laws. The only unfortunate part is that my German in-laws don't seem to have assimilated as well as my German relations, because the in-laws never have tamales for the holidays. There are certain foods that the holidays just wouldn't be right without: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and tamales. This may sound odd to people in northern climes, but in south Texas, tamales are standard holiday fare.

Back in the olden days, when Germans were coming to this country and settling in Texas, we brought polka music and the accordion. The people of Mexican ancestry who were already here thought this was some great music, so they got their own accordions and started playing polka, except they called it conjunto. In return, they gave us some great food, like tamales and enchiladas, and revealed to us the wonders of the jalapeno, habanero, and the ubiquitous chili petine. Personally, I think we got the better end of the deal.

P.S. I know there is supposed to be a tilde over the "n" in jalapeno. But if I put in the html code for that, Blogger will just mung it up and spit out some odd nonsense characters. So I'm just using a regular "n."

Read this blog

I happened to check the list of sites in the Gunblogs Webring today and saw that a new site has just been added. This blog was begun on Nov 5, and the six posts so far have covered sexual abuse, drug addiction, and overcoming the fear of firearms. I've never just jumped in and recommended a blog like this before (nobody listens to my opinion anyway), but I think this one is very compelling and definitely worth checking out.

Go read Words. And I hope there is much more to come.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Another non-Senator arrested with gun at airport

In Peoria, IL, a man who is a urologist but not, unfortunately for him, a Texas state senator, tried to carry a gun through an airport security checkpoint:
Joseph Banno was arrested shortly before 8 a.m. by airport police as he tried to pass through the security checkpoint on his way to catch a flight to Florida. The gun, a .380-caliber handgun, showed up as his carry-on bag was sent through the X-ray machine.

When called at home later, Banno, a partner in Urological Associates, said he forgot the gun was in his bag.

'It was an honest mistake, and it was not brought there on purpose,' he said.

Mary DeVries, the Airport Authority's interim supervisor, said when confronted about the gun, Banno 'was very cooperative.'

The doctor was booked into the Peoria County Jail on charges of possessing a concealed gun and boarding a plane with a weapon. He was released three hours later after posting $100 bail. A court appearance is set for Dec. 27.

Marshall Stone, a spokesman with the FBI in Springfield, confirmed his office was called to the airport, since it is a federal crime to try to bring a weapon past airport security checkpoints.

The matter remains under investigation, both Stone and DeVries said.
Previous posts (in chronological order) on this subject here, here, here, and here. You might notice that in this instance, as well as in the occurrence in Nebraska, the FBI was also involved, because, you know, it's a federal crime. Unless I missed it, in none of the reports regarding Senator Hinojosa is the FBI even mentioned. So Dr. Banno now has a court date, whereas the good senator walked away because, well, it's just silly to apply the same laws to him as are applied to everyone else. He's a senator, after all.

Bring your tourist dollars to Texas

Five more unilateral proclamations were issued on November 18, granting reciprocation with Washington, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California. Since I've heard pretty much nothing about CCW in Washington, I assume it's not an especially anti-gun state. The other four, however, are just about impossible for any common folk to legally carry concealed. So, why the proclamations?

Is the rest of the state just like San Antonio? I continue to feel quite fortunate that I do not live in that city--I just work there, and when the day is over I get out as fast as possible. But I know that the S.A. city council and various bigwigs will do anything they can, and step on anyone who gets in their way, to further the cause of the almighty "tourist dollar." Somehow they seem to think that tourism is the answer to all woes, and I just don't get it. More tourism means more jobs, they say, but they neglect to mention that those are service industry jobs, almost entirely only part-time, with poor hourly wages and pretty much zero in the way of health insurance or other benefits.

So, are these unilateral proclamations only an honest and unrequited way of somehow furthering Second Amendment rights? My cynical side says no, it's just a way of telling some rich, well-connected snobs to come to Texas, feel free to carry a gun, and leave a bunch of money here.

My apologies to anyone from those states who does have the equivalent of a CHL and who is not a rich, well-connected snob.

Reference: Texas Department of Public Safety - CHL Reciprocity

That's good shootin', Matt!

This Florida police officer claims it was an accident, but I think he is only being modest. I am of the opinion that this is one police officer who knows how to shoot a Taser:
Jeremy Miljour is charged with indecent exposure, resisting an officer and criminal damage.

Police said he was found naked, breaking windows and accosting women. When he didn't stop as ordered by arriving deputies, he was shot with a Taser gun.

Cpl. Matt Chitwood said one of the Taser prongs accidentally hit Miljour in a tender area and got stuck. He said officers are taught to aim for the torso, but that it was difficult to aim because Miljour was moving.
And at a moving target, no less!

tnx to The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

As long as I'm on the subject...

Here's another H&R that I wouldn't mind getting my hands on.

32" barrel
46" OAL
.45-70 Government

The Buffalo Classic Rifle. Yeah.

Monday, November 21, 2005

The "Tactical" Handi-Rifle

First, a disclaimer: I don't own one of these so I can comment on it's performance.

I have a thing for single-shot guns. I grew up dove hunting with a single-shot 16-gauge. I spent a lot of time squirrel (and other varmint) hunting with a single-shot .22. One of my favorite fun guns is a .50 caliber Hawken replica. The idea of making that one shot count has a very strong appeal for me.

I'm sure that most people who read this already know of the Handi-Rifle. An affordable--and from what I've heard about it--accurate, reliable single-shot made by H&R/NEF. Some models have interchangeable barrels, and models are available in just about anything you want from .22 Hornet to .45-70, including shotguns.

I recently learned that Advanced Technology has a system to turn your Handi-Rifle into...well, it's still a Handi-Rifle, but with extras.

What was this...




...can be become this...



I could go deer hunting with that.

Church Sign

I've been seeing these things around for a long time, but a recent post by Xavier made me want to make my own. So here it is: