Obligatory end-of-year post

I will probably be asleep by midnight. I haven't gone out of my way to celebrate the new year in a long time, since about the time a friend of mine was killed in a car accident on New Year's Eve in the mid-80's. No alcohol involved, just a treacherously icy road on his way home from work.

It was just a few days ago that I mentioned it was technically my blogoversary. But it was such a meandering, unfocused, inconsistent thing for so long that I don't really think much of it before March of this year, when I actually became more or less focused and started posting something pretty much every day. It was in April that I noticed someone had actually read this blog, when Lest Darkness Fall linked to this post from April 8.

When I first entered this blog in the infamous Ecosystem, I really was an Insignificant Microbe. I am still usually surprised when some of the other more widely-read blogs link to this one. I know many readers first came here because of my somewhat acerbic comments regarding gun control, but when I stray from that I hope that I will be forgiven.

I have never been one to make New Year's resolutions. The beginning of the year is only another nonsensical, arbitrary boundary in the grand scheme of things anyway, although it does give one a good excuse for reflection on the year past. But I'll try for a couple of resolutions. (By the way, I did not buy a single gun this year, so I think I am due for some).

1. Use the words "eldritch" and "doom" on this blog at least once per month. I'll try to sneak in an "ineffable" now and then as well.

2. Get a new C&R license. I accidentally let mine expire this past March. C&R guns I would like to get: an SKS, a Mauser of some sort, and a CZ-50. And maybe a couple of others I can't think of right now.

3. "Complete" my .357 magnum collection. By "complete" I mean to add a lever-action rifle or carbine and a derringer. These added to my Ruger SP-101 and S&W Model 28 should provide a well-rounded collection of .357 magnum blasting tools. If I could afford one of those semi-auto pistols I would go for that too, but they are way out of my price range.

4. More gun pr0n. I don't have the camera or especially the photographic skills to take really nice pix, and I don't have a huge collection to take pictures of, but I'm going to try and post more "found on the internet" pictures that strike my fancy.

5. Go to the range more often.

So here's some gun pr0n to end the year with. The Desert Eagle .357 magnum.
Can you look at this gun and not want to shoot it? I can't.

I'll play along with this one

Next to Last Samurai has posted a meme which I'll play along with since it doesn't require much thought.

Four jobs you've had in your life: pizza delivery guy, pager repair tech, security guard, truck driver.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Big Trouble in Little China, Dirty Harry, Darkman, Mary Poppins.

Four TV shows you love to watch: Invader Zim ("And now I leave you to your...moosey fate"), King of the Hill ("Don't play lawyer-ball, boy"), The Venture Brothers (But...do I have to kill him?/[sigh] I guess not), Aqua Teen Hunger Force ("But does it play the ultimate song--Boston's More Than A Feeling").

Four places you've been on vacation: Big Bend National Park; Lewistown, MT; Glenwood Springs, CO; Bogalusa, LA.

4 web sites you visit daily: only two. A weather website and Bloglines.

4 places you'd rather be: right now? Nowhere.

4 of your favorite foods: chili, tamales, enchiladas, nachos.

I meant to mention this earlier...

But I forgot. One hundred sixty years ago, on December 29, 1845, the Republic of Texas ceased to be a republic and became a state. I can't think of any reason why this should be a significant post for this blog, but I'll post it anyway.

I also have no idea why Texas needs an official state dinosaur. I suppose other states do as well, but I don't feel like researching it. In any case, the official Texas state dinosaur is the Pleurocoelus.

The Oradour Massacre

Today's installment at Interesting Thing of the Day is an episode from World War II which I had never heard of: The Oradour Massacre. The small French town of Oradour was wiped out by SS in reprisal against Resistance forces operating in the area.

The story of Oradour is known from a handful of people who managed to escape. Two women and one child climbed out of the church through a broken window, though only one woman survived her injuries; five wounded men escaped from one of the barns; and one child ran when he saw the soldiers in town. Other than those seven, the only survivors of Oradour were about 20 people who fled when they saw the approaching troops and residents who were out of town for the day.

The town was never rebuilt, but the ruins were left as a memorial to the people who were killed in the atrocity.

Remember New Orleans

Words to remember at Xavier Thoughts.

The example of New Orleans is going to become the worst fear of those who want to ban guns in the good old U.S.A. Never again can the anti-gunners claim that honest citizens don't need firearms because the police and the government are going to be there to protect you ...

And we've got a good slogan that you're going to hear from one end of the country to the other. And that slogan is: Remember New Orleans ...

The next time anyone says to you: 'Are you just afraid or paranoid?' Look them straight in the eye and say: Remember New Orleans.

If they ask you, 'Why does anyone need to own a gun?' Remember New Orleans.

If they say to you, "Why does anyone need a high-capacity magazine?" Look them straight in the eye and say: Remember New Orleans.

What's wrong with a 15-day waiting period? Remember New Orleans.

What makes you think the government would ever confiscate your gun? Remember New Orleans.

Is the second amendment relevant in the 21st Century? Remember New Orleans.

Is there a t-shirt yet?

Looking for info

I recently received an email with this information:

A backwoods hunter from the Alabama National Guard spotted this guy, complete with suicide bomber vest, inside a compound in the Green Zone in Iraq. He used a well placed 50 cal sniper round to stop him.

Has anyone else seen this? And what's the straight dope on it. I have a habit of not automatically believing everything I see in an email.

I'm not posting the pictures here because they may be considered somewhat gruesome by some. If you want to see them, email me.

One Paranoid Journalist

I've been trying to think of something witty, incisive, or snarky to say about this article. I can't come up with anything. So I'll just point out the article in the Daily Dunklin Democrat of Dunklin County, MO.

This journalist describes in the detail all the hoops that must be jumped through for someone in Missouri to get a concealed handgun license. He even mentions the red tape that one must go through to become an instructor to teach the classes.

But all of that isn't good enough.

Dunklin is a county with a population of about 33,000. There have been 190 permits issued in that county so far. If my calculations are correct, this means that about 1 in 200 173 people in that county have the permit. Here's his problem:

But what about the public's right to know the identity of those who pack concealed weapons?

In Missouri, the state open records law assumes that government documents are public unless they are exempted specifically. Scores of "good reasons for public access to concealed weapons permits leap to mind," the SPJ stated.

For example, a parent wouldn't be able to determine independently if a babysitter carried a concealed weapon, or a homeowner couldn't discover if a bothersome neighbor had a permit, the SPJ maintained.

Also, journalists would have no way to determine if concealed weapons were used in road rage incidents or at school shootings, the site stated.

"It denies the public and press any way of monitoring the issuance of concealed weapons permits," the SPJ indicated.

The "SPJ" is the "Society for Professional Journalists."

As has been pointed out so many times by so many people, and therefore I don't know why I'm bothering saying it again but I will anyway, is that if the public can so easily discover who has this permit, they will also be able to easily discover who does not have the permit. I wonder if Mr. Hankins would really like some thug who did not appreciate him for some reason to be able to remove all doubt that he is one of the other 199 172.

It sucks to be one of the common folk, eh Steve?

By the way, if I learned that my babysitter had jumped through all these hoops to stay legal and bear that extra measure of responsibility, that would be a point in her favor.

UPDATE: Used a calculator for the numbers instead of just estimating it in my head.

I'm sure this will be fair and balanced...

MTV (yeah, that MTV) is going to show a documentary (or something) examining how "guns are changing the lives of four young people in very different ways." Quote:

The program features a convicted felon, a gang member, a hunter and a crime victim who is now an advocate of armed self-defense to present the various sides of the gun debate. Several gun rights advocates immediately challenged MTV's math.

'It's a bit offensive that 50 percent of the people they've chosen to feature as being 'gun owners' are people who are obviously breaking the law and probably acquired their firearms illegally,' Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America said of the gang member and the convict. 'When you look at the statistics, it's only a fraction of 1 percent of the 'gun owners' in the country who ever use firearms in an illegitimate way.'

Oops, basic math already promises an equation that is far from balanced. And I had such high hopes. I think I'll do something more constructive than watching this. I'm sure there will be a rerun of Invader Zim or something on.

UPDATE: I was right. Big Trouble in Little China was on again.

Someone's been watching too many Disney movies

Someone broke into an animal shelter in Victoria, TX and opened up several cages.

The problem with "animal rights activists" like this is that they fail to realize that animals are animals, and are not capable of rational thought. Apparently the activists aren't too strong on rational thought, either.

The "freed" animals attacked each other. The talley: 14 dead cats, one dead dog, and one injured dog.

Way to go, moron.

Wallpaper alert!

Visit Heads Bunker for some absolutely mouth-watering gun wallpaper that Head has created. Beautiful!

I just don't get it

How is it that one can go up two rungs in the infamous Ecosystem when one's link score goes down? Does anyone know?

It's all just good clean fun!

A San Antonio radio station has been, well, I'll just quote it:

In the recurring KROM-Radio segment, callers report sightings of immigration agents.

"Estreo Latino" disc jockeys then alert listeners about the location of limones verdes, or "green limes." The words refer to the dark green Border Patrol uniforms and green-lined SUVs.

[...]

Alex Nogales with the National Hispanic Media Coalition said KROM's segment seems to bring more laughter than harm and the station should not lose its license.

I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like some kind of aiding and abetting, or at least being an accessory to an illegal activity, to me.

Some people are not amused.

More on anti-Christian bigotry

I received by email a link to a very interesting article addressing anti-Christian bigotry specifically, as well as anti-religious bigotry in general. Although this is aimed more at Christians, it is still a must-read for anyone who believes not only in the importance of freedom of religion, but also in the importance of freedom to not believe, if that is your inclination. And where did this article come from? Please visit this link at Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and read the whole thing:

Already, the worm of religious bigotry is eating into the heart of the American consciousness--including the Christian consciousness. Not long ago, I spoke with a man who happened to mention he was Christian. Immediately after telling me that, he apologized for his beliefs. I asked why on earth he should be sorry. He began to mumble that Christians were responsible for slavery and oppression and slaughter of native peoples and bigotry toward other religions. In other words, although he was a Christian himself who had never been guilty of any of those evils, he had completely bought into the current cultural prejudice that his religion was inherently cruel and corrupt--something to feel ashamed of.

[...]

If you are Christian, you should care because the actions described at the top of this article may be only the beginning. One Holocaust survivor observed, "Auschwitz wasn't built with bricks. It was built with words." That's how it begins. When Christ-haters (or G-d haters) learn they can get away with small deeds of discrimination, they move on to larger ones...and more heinous ones. Actions borne of hatred must be chopped off at the roots. Otherwise hatred proliferates.

Yes, we should own Uzis, actually...

Except I think my first choice for an automatic weapon would be a BAR. Anyway, read this article by Vin Suprynowicz: The unlimited power of the sword:

It doesn't matter whether you 'think this is a good idea.' If you want to contend we now have a form of government in which our rulers start with all rights and powers, and allow to the peasantry only those lesser included liberties as they see fit, say so out loud now, please. And tell me when the original Constitution was voided, and by what legal process.

tnx to Of Arms and the Law

Blog Kaboom

I added one line to my sidebar today and my template seemed to sort of implode. So I've been messing with it all day trying to figure out how to get it to look halfway respectable. If you visited and things looked odd, that's why. I've been trying to get it to look okay with both IE and Firefox. They handle the code differently and sometimes it's a trick getting things to look right with both of them (and they never look identical).

I have added a Feedburner feed to the blog in addition to the Atom feed. My Atom feed wasn't working right for a while, so now there's an alternative.

Chicago Bans Pet Pigeons

Chicago has banned pet pigeons. This specifically effects those who are enthusiasts of pigeon racing:

A federal appeals court has upheld the city's ban on pet racing pigeons, rejecting claims by some enthusiasts that the ordinance is unconstitutional.

The ban makes Chicago the only large U.S. city that outlaws pet pigeons, according to the American Racing Pigeon Union.

The pigeons coo excessively and scatter feathers and droppings, proponents of the ban said.

How this has any significance to the thousands of wild free-range pigeons that inhabit the city, I am unable to determine. However, based on their past record in dealing with gun control, I'm sure they know what they are doing.

Survived another Christmas

I haven't said much about the Christmas controversy on this blog because I think it's all moot--except as just one small part of the overall war against Christianity. I probably have what many Christians would consider an odd outlook on Christmas, and probably an outlook that is held by a minority of Christians. I have never celebrated Christmas as the birth of Christ. To me, and to all of my immediate family as well as many of my extended family, it has always just been a day to hang out together and exchange gifts. The reason for this is that the Bible never gives us the day of His birth, nor are we instructed in the Bible to celebrate the day of His birth. We are instructed instead to celebrate the day of His resurrection, which happened on the first day of the week, and is celebrated every first day of the week. I do not go so far as to rail against those who sing songs about his birth during Christmas-time, because He told some of his disciples once something like, "Where two or three are joined together, there am I in their midst." So if some carolers want to sing songs about him during Christmas-time, who am I to say that theirs is not a valid form of worship, and that Jesus is not there in their midst? More power to them. And that's all I have to say about that.

I am thankful for many things during this time of year. I am especially thankful that I am required to see certain relatives and in-laws only rarely, this time of year being one of those occasions. Just about everyone in my family, including my wife, say that I am very hard to buy gifts for. So I have devised a cunning plan, as Baldrick would say. Next year I'm going to tell everyone to just go to Walmart and buy me the first box of ammo they notice behind the shelf at the sports counter. To make it easy on them, I'll tell them to focus on handgun ammo. Whatever they buy, odds are that I'll have a gun that will shoot it. If not, that will be a perfect excuse to buy another gun. I think it's a good plan.

The Festival by H. P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft once wrote a Christmas story, and if you are a fan you probably already know about it. If modern Christmas has got you down, or if it's just too beautiful, bright and sunny at your house to even think of Christmas (just a few clouds, please, so it doesn't look like the middle of summer), maybe this will help.

It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Mine were an old people, and were old even when this land was settled three hundred years before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark furtive folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed fishers. And now they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and the lonely remember.

The Festival is available online, although it may violate copyright. (There is some dispute as to who owns the copyright, or even if it is still copyrightable--for example this story was first published 80 years ago). Anyhow, I'm not hosting it, I'm only showing the way.

And here is a poem inspired by the story.

Yule Fest

Gathered together for the centuried rite;
Across snow-covered ground we walk bleakly t'ward home,
Through archaic Kingsport and streets seldom trodden,
After sunset's last rays have sunk into the gloam.

Only the lonely and poor still remember
Why we have come to this place out of time;
In this strange haunted city where once lived our elders,
With its gambrels and gables all covered with rime.

In the last ancient house at the end of the alley
We are met by the priest in his waxen-faced mask;
From blasphemous books we relearn the rituals,
Through tunnels beneath we descend to our task.

In green-litten caverns we hold dark communion,
Near a subterrene river where ghouls fear to tread.
With wild harmonies and songs cacophonic,
We sing and we laugh as we feast with the dead.

Then beyond the blackness from over the river,
Where the green flame burns bright and the black waters fall,
Come our mounts that are neither a mole nor a buzzard,
But something a sane man could never recall.

Far back in the shades of these gangrenous caverns,
In the depths of this cosmic Tartarean hall;
Are shapes of vile things that somehow are moving:
Vile things that walk but ought only to crawl.

Maddened, we rush down that black, oily river,
Past chaotic cataracts that thunder and boom;
Through caverns infernal on wings gaunt and membranous,
Our steeds flop and fly as we rejoice in our doom.

Yes, only a few of us old ones remember,
Only the cursed and the sad demon-kissed;
And snow fills the footprints that wend through the alley,
And the last ancient house disappears in the mist.

© 1997 Alan Peschke

One more politically incorrect Santa

Santa Claus Reads His Mail by Norman Rockwell