I can just visualize the steam coming out of Harry Reid’s ears . . .
Happy Thoughts
After this week’s Monday blues, we both needed to think some happy thoughts. We were upset with Arnold, political shenanigans in congress, media lies and news suppression and mass hysteria over the climate non-problem. You know – the usual.
Take a deep breath and enjoy these prize-winning phalaenopsis orchids. Woooo-saaaa . . .
Click the pic for big.
Breaking: Terminator Signs Two Anti-Gun Laws
In a giant leap to the left, Arnold TERMINATES legal gun owners’ rights:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an unprecedented law Saturday requiring that certain pistols sold in the state be equipped to mark each cartridge when fired so police can more easily trace the weapons. Another signed measure also opposed by the interest group will ban the use of lead ammunition in the habitat of the endangered California condor.
Arguably his most controversial decision, Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring semiautomatic handguns made and sold in the state to have technology to microstamp each bullet fired from the gun.
Supporters say the micro-stamping requirement, the first in the nation, will help police track down criminals.
Opponents, including the National Rifle Association, argued the technology is unreliable and could be used to implicate innocent people if criminals leave behind stamped cartridges from other guns at crime scenes.
In his signing message, Schwarzenegger said he understands the technology is not perfect, but hopes it would give police a new tool in solving violent crimes.
Under the gun bill, every semiautomatic handgun sold in California will have to “microstamp” each bullet cartridge in two locations whenever it is fired. The stamp would identify the gun’s make, model and serial number. The law will take effect in 2010.
The Governator admitting that “the technology is not perfect,” sets the stage for a court challenge to this insane legislation.
Just in case, we’re putting a couple of .45 ACP pistols on the short term wish list. Damsel wants a Para Ordinance Warthog and I want a Glock 30.
Saint Al of the Ecopalypse
Mark Steyn offers an excellent summary of the Goreacle in his current syndicated article “Doom if Saint Al Loses Carbs.” Some of the excerpted highlights:
- Michael Burton, an English High Court judge and apparently a fine film critic, ruled that Al’s Oscar-winner An Inconvenient Truth was prone to “alarmism and exaggeration” and identified nine major factual errors.
- The so-called scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests rising sea levels across the next century of somewhere between 15cm and 60cm, with about 30cm being most likely. An Inconvenient Truth insouciantly adds a zero to the worst-case scenario.
- [Gore’s movie] fulfills the same role in the schoolhouses of the guilt-ridden developed world that the Koran does in Pakistani madrassas. Gore’s rise is as remorseless as those sea levels. I assumed Gore’s clammy embrace would do for the environmental movement what his belated endorsement had done for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential candidacy: kill it stone dead.
- No matter how you raise the stakes [. . .], Saint Al of the Ecopalypse can raise them higher. Climate change, he says, is the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced. Ever. And not just humankind, but alienkind, too. “We are,” warns Gore, “altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe“.
- [T]he average US household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In 2006, the Gores wolfed down nearly 221,000kWh. 221,000kWh? What’s he doing in there? As his spokesperson explained it, his high energy usage derives from his brave calls for low energy usage. He’s burning up all that electricity by sending out faxes every couple of minutes urging you wastrels to use less electricity. Insofar as he’s made any contribution to global peace, it’s in persuading large swaths of a narcissistic Western world to busy itself with non-solutions to pseudo-crises to such a distracting degree that al-Qa’ida may wind up imposing the global caliphate without having to fire a shot.
Read the entire article.
Gunventory
After the weekly trip to the shooting range, we set up shop on the patio (weather permitting) for cleaning and maintaining the firearms. Regardless of which guns belong to whom, Damsel always cleans the revolvers (shines ’em up good) and I disassemble and clean up the pistols. She cleans up the shotgun barrels and chokes and I clean up the fore-end, breech bolt and receiver. Once every couple of months, I knock out the pins and clean and oil the trigger mechanisms. We each do the part we like and make a good team.
Clockwise from the bottom:
- Smith & Wesson 442 .38 special
- Smith & Wesson 686 .357 magnum
- Smith & Wesson 908s 9mm 8+1
- Glock 26 9mm 10+1
- Remington Express 870 20 ga. youth model 4+1
- Remington Express 870 12 ga. 4+1
- Ithaca 20 ga. single shot (had it for 41 years now)
- Speed loader and pistol magazines in the center
- The 9mm ammo bucket on the right
Click on the image for the big picture.
Look In the Ammo Bucket
. . . to see these beautiful Winchester 9x19mm Luger Parabellum rounds. Parabellum is from an ancient Latin credo – “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” Translated, it means “if you seek peace, prepare for war.”
Damsel took this artistic photo last weekend when we were doing gun maintenance after our weekly target practice. I use the big version for a computer background picture.
What Do These Men Have in Common?
None of them are champions of peace, yet they have all been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Yassir Arafat fomented terrorism in the Middle East for decades before his death. The terror he incited continues to this day.
- Jimmy Carter, the worst U.S. President of the 20th century, made concessions to Iran that allowed radicals in that country to capture U.S. Embassy personnel and hold them hostage for 444 days. Carter did nothing to save the hostages except for a lame attempt at a raid that resulted in the deaths of eight military personnel and the destruction of their helicopter.
- Muhammad ElBaradei ignored the efforts of North Korea and Iran in their respective run-up to nuclear weapons. In his role as chief of the IAEA he consistently gave both rogue nations leeway to continue their efforts.
- Finally, Al Gore has peddled falsehoods in the name of saving the planet from a highly-exaggerated climatological disaster. In his recent testimony before congress, he misrepresented the truth by declaring that “droughts are becoming longer and more intense” which has clearly been disproven by actual science.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been a joke for years. Consider the following with regard to the discretion of the prize award selection committee:
- Why did they award Mikhail Gorbachev the Peace Prize for ending the cold war when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had more to do with it?
- In keeping with their penchant for rewarding cowardice and deceit, why did they not award Bill Clinton for his retreat from Somalia after the Blackhawk Down incident? And for refusing to capture or kill Usama Bin Laden?
They should rename the prize to something like the Nobel Anti-American Prize and be done with it.