That 60 Minutes piece on prosthetic limbs was pretty amazing. I can’t believe they are able to pick up a grape or hold a soda with those. Really incredible.
Watching the piece on guns now.
*** Update ***
Now a puff piece on gambling. Unlike the last couple of shows the past few months, they are talking about Vegas and not Wall Street or the mortgage industry.
BTW- The usual suspects should be quite rich tomorrow, since Angel Cabrera won the Masters and then proceeded to accept the Green Jacket while speaking something other than English.
BettyPageisaBlonde
Have people seen this? Unbelievable. And yet… utterly believable.
#amazonfail indeed.
clone12
This is developed in part by Dean Kaman, the segway guy:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dean_kamen_previews_a_new_prosthetic_arm.html
Karmakin
……
I audibly groaned.
Michael D.
The gun control piece really made me a little scared. All these whackos who own guns?
I honestly feel like I should go out and get one now! Just to protect myself against these OBVIOUS nuts.
Punchy
That gun bit freaked me out. If these fuckers had their way, they’d give every person over the age of 16 an automatic weapon to carry in their backpack to school and work.
I dont think that’s hyperbole.
JK
@John Cole
Any segment with Charlie Rose has to suck because he is one of the worst interviewers in the history of television. He sees every interview as an opportunity to prove to the audience that he knows as much as, if not more than, the interviewee.
mk
As a Virginian, I’m embarrassed by the 60 Minutes gun piece.
Did you notice that all the people at the gun show were Caucasian? Just saying….
Paulie Chestnuts
@Michael D.:
Michael, when I went to visit my cousin in Italy – former soldier and currently a carabiniere in Florence – I asked him to take me to a firing range so I could cut my teeth on firing a gun.
The reason for this is not because I’m afraid of crime in my area but I want to protect myself in case of a wingnut takeover — I won’t let the next Jim Adkisson/Byron Looper wannabe get the drop on me.
I am genuinely more concerned for these types than I am of a liberal fascist government (and based on what I’m seeing lately, I should probably replace ‘genuinely’ with ‘legitimately’).
The Moar You Know
@Punchy: And then we’d have…Somalia! Oddly enough, in spite of Somalia’s extraordinarily
liberalpermissive gun laws, the NRA faithful don’t seem to like that comparison.@mk: If you want to see cognitive dissonance, go to a gun show here in Southern California. We get three types of people at ’em:
1. The crazy Minuteman-type guys.
2. The young Hispanic gangbangers.
3. The occasional weirdo like me who is there to stock up on ammo.
Watching the crackers and the gangbangers trying to coexist under the same roof is fucking hysterical. You have’t lived until you’ve watched some fat old white guy with a bunch of "Build The Fence" bumperstickers try to sell cheap guns to some young Mexicans.
John Cole
Can anyone tell me what the feud involving Dana Houle at DKOS and others is all about? And in under 500 words, pls.
mk
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, that would a sight to see. :-)
Ejoiner
OT but I think this is the place for help:
For my birthday I got a brand new charcoal smoker/grill from Brinkman. I’m a real newbie at doing anything other than straight grilling. I’ve got a small-medium bottom round roast. What should I do to really impress the family but I could handle based on my currently limited knowledge of such high fullutin’ machinery?
demkat620
@John Cole: I don’t know, something about a diary she wrote about not everybody at dkos being a democrat. I thought the whole thing was boring but it spawned a bunch of reaction diaries.
Sometimes it feels like that place has slipped into the success breeds insanity portion of the program.
c u n d gulag
A ‘Furriner’ won OUR Masters?
How can you wear the Green Jacket if you can’t pronounce it? OK, this guy’s Hispanic, so he can get the ‘green’ part right – it’s part of "gringo!" But what’s he going to do to the word ‘jacket?"
Jesus, I can hardly wait for the right wing response tomorrow. It should be fun…
Oh, and let’s look forward to what they say about the First Puppy!
Barney bit a reporter. NOTHING!
If this poor little pup takes a shit on the lawn, or sneezes, it’ll be all over FUCK’S NOISE!!!
John Cole
@Ejoiner: Pork Butt.
And no, that was not a joke.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
They also seem perfectly happy to ignore the example of Iraq. Under Saddam, everyone and their brothers-in-law had AK-47s. Somehow, though, that didn’t do much to prevent exactly the kind of tyranny that the gun nuts claim high powered weaponry is supposed to protect against.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Saw the piece on prosthetics. It would be nice if every vet who needed one could have something like that.
Since I’m mentally unwell I also thought of how much fun you could have with a prosthetic hand if it were on a remote system.
Edit: And that’s a fucking awful pun.
Wile E. Quixote
The new prosthetic technology is truly amazing. The prosthetic leg that Terry Fox ran across Canada with in 1981 was like a tinker toy compared to what I use to get around. But upper limb prosthetics are harder to do, firstly because upper limb loss is rare compared to lower body limb loss (much of which is caused by circulatory insufficiency due to diseases such as diabetes) and secondly because making a prosthetic hand that does what a real hand does is incredibly difficult. A prosthetic leg is difficult to build, especially if the amputation is trans-femoral but a leg is fairly simple compared to a hand. I mean you can just give someone a peg to stand on and they can get around, but making a prosthetic arm that is light, easily used so that it doesn’t tire out the user and that can do all the things your hands can do is orders of magnitude more difficult making a prosthetic leg.
There are also psychological issues around losing a hand that aren’t there when you lose a leg. Think about the expression "I know it like the back of my hand", we learn to use our hands, automatically, at an early age, before we can even speak, and learning to adapt when you’ve lost one or both of them is incredibly difficult. I met a few upper body amputees at the support group I went to after I lost my leg. One woman, who lost her arm at the shoulder in a truly horrific accident, and mind you, this was an accident that was truly horrific by level one trauma center amputee support group standards, was really proud when she came in one day because she had learned to do her hair by herself, with one hand. Learning how to walk with a prosthesis was difficult enough, but I just had to learn how to walk again, and not how to do everything over again.
There’s also a certain amount of unfairness when it comes down to parking permits. I mean from my opinion losing an arm is a Hell of a lot harder than losing a leg, indeed if I had the choice between losing my other leg or losing an arm I’d take the leg any day of the week. So if they whack your leg off you get a handicapped parking permit, which is pretty freakin’ sweet, especially when you have your bike rack on the back of your car, but you don’t get a handicapped placard if you lose an arm. I mean I think that if you lose an arm you should get a handicapped parking permit just because your life has become incredibly harder than it was and if society can make your life easier by making parking easier, well, why not?
Now if we can just get insurance companies to pay for the new technology. This is a huge problem because insurance companies hate paying for prosthetics and either offer ridiculously low amounts of money for them (offering 5k when even a fairly simple prosthetic limb costs around 10k) or only offer to pay for one prosthetic per lifetime (they do wear out) or refusing to cover certain technologies because they’re considered to be too experimental (computerized knee joints).
Bootlegger
A double post, so I’ll report that I too am considering a firearm purchase to protect myself from the rightwing mob.
Bootlegger
@Ejoiner: Slow cook that thing. Either marinade or dry rub, either works and I switch between them. Get a fire going with hardwood charcoal, let it turn to white embers (red at night), then set the meat as far from the heat as possible. If your Brinkman has a thermometer try to keep it between 225-250. A couple hours at this temp until the internal temp is "rare", around 140 degrees, then wrap it in foil and bring it in until the rest of dinner is ready. The hardest part, and what takes the most experience, is keeping a good low burning fire going during the entire cooking process. What type of smoker is it. Water smoker? Firebox on the side?
Lest anyone worry, I ate my find of morel mushrooms today and can definitely report they are as heavenly as their reputation. We had mushroom omelets for Easter brunch, and a mushroom sauce with our dinner. Superb and completely safe.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: She wrote a boring and stupid diary that indulged in a little bit of purity trolling and massive butthurt erupted amongst the commentariat.
In other words, business as usual over at GOS.
kommrade reproductive vigor
People get handicapped stickers if they have a heart condition, you can’t get one if you’re missing an arm.
WTF, over?
Were it not for the past eight years, that could well be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
Ejoiner
Thanks Bootlegger:
It’s got a base pan and charcoal pan and water pan towards the bottom half; nothing on the sides. It’s also got a thermometer but it just reads "warm," "ideal" and "hot". It’s also got a little door on the side to help control the temperature – for your idea should I keep it open or closed (or somewhere in between). Should I put anything besides warm water in the water pan? The directions in the little (pretty useless) manual mentioned marinade.
Sorry to sound like a complete novice at this…but I am.
Wile E. Quixote
@Roger Moore
Dude, that’s because they were furriners, and mooslims. If they were white God-fearing, that’s God as in White Jebus and White Jehovah and the White Twelve Disciples, gun nuts things would be different.
bago
@kommrade reproductive vigor: A hands off approach?
John Cole
@The Moar You Know: I thought Dana Houle was a guy.
Incertus
@demkat620: That’s why I stopped hanging out over there, and I had one of those cherished three digit user numbers. Wasn’t worth the effort.
@BettyPageisaBlonde: Amazon is now claiming it was a glitch and is being fixed, though I’m suspicious of any glitch that targets gays.
Wile E. Quixote
@kommrade reproductive vigor
Well the standard is that you have to have difficulty walking 100 feet. So if you’re a heart patient or have emphysema or are disgustingly obese you get the placard (as well as if you’re missing a limb, or paralyzed). If you’re missing an arm you’re not mobility limited, so no placard.
My first handicapped placard was one of the red, temporary ones. The doctors thought that I was going to be able to leave the hospital after one more surgery and go home and heal and that I’d be walking again in six months or so. So they prepared to discharge me and gave me the paperwork for a temporary parking placard. Unfortunately things went drastically wrong and when they went in for what was supposed to be my final surgery they found that my leg had become infected again and was basically rotting off the bone. So they gave me the bad news and I had it amputated the next day. So anyways I have this paperwork for a temporary parking placard and after I get out of the hospital I figure that I ought to go down and get it and then get a blue, permanent one later on. I walked, well crutched, into the DMV in Bremerton and handed the paperwork to the DMV clerk who looked at it and then looked at my stump, and said "You know, I think that you can get a permanent one."
The Moar You Know
Two folks in the thread have expressed an interest in purchasing firearms.
Please do not make the mistake a lot of gun owners do: don’t buy it and a box of ammo, jam it in the closet and hope that it will all work out when you need it. It won’t. You will probably die horribly in that scenario, and it will likely be by your own hand.
Buying a gun is sort of like deciding to join the world’s weirdest gym. When you’re first starting out, you really need to go to the range every week. After a few months of doing that, you’ll at least have some facility with your own firearm and will be able to load it and not kill or maim yourself.
In order to gain facility with all firearms, which is a laudable goal, you need two things – you need a gun range that rents a variety of guns (most do) and a friend that knows his shit about firearms. Not one that brags about it (braggers almost always don’t know shit) but someone who knows. Cops or other law enforcement types who have to carry on a regular basis are preferable.
Safety is critical.
One more thing – if you persue this as a goal, you will end up meeting and having to deal with a lot of people who are, to put it mildly, of the right-wing persuasion. There are some lunatics at the range, no question. STFU is generally the best advice. Knowing how to nod and smile while someone is earnestly explaining to you how the Jews and niggers are going to kill us all in our beds is very helpful. When you get past the crazy, they will almost always have some damned good knowledge to impart about firearms. They’ve been shooting for generations and they’re better at it than most lefties. You can learn a lot from them.
Library Grape
since there’s no open thread up yet, i just thought i’d let everyone here know that Amazon.com has been purging gay-related books off its search results and book rankings: http://www.librarygrape.com/2009/04/amazon-hides-and-de-lists-hundreds-of.html
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: Truth is, I don’t know. Regardless of gender, he/she is a bit of an asshole.
Wile E. Quixote
@kommrade reproductive vigor
To their credit the VA is doing a good job dealing with amputees who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The prosthetist who built my first two legs went to work for the VA for a few years and told me that when they were building prosthetics for Iraq and and Afghanistan cost was no object. If he decided that someone needed a 50K C-leg for their prosthetic they got it, no questions asked. He said that after dealing with insurance companies it was downright refreshing.
BettyPageisaBlonde
@Incertus: Yeah, but how many glitches have a customer service representative?
sgwhiteinfla
I think you just have to take kos for what it is and for what it isn’t. If you stick to the left side of the site you do pretty well. There is usually a lot of info on the left hand side including the pundit roundup everyday that I make sure to check out and the polling stats. When you go to the right hand side however and have to deal with flame wars, purity trolling, and good diaries being passed over for ones where the author is a favorite of the masses that tends to be a major turnoff. What I have found after quite a bit of frustration is that if I don’t worry about whether or not my diary gets recd or even pay much attention to the rec list then I don’t have any problems. One thing I do keep going back for is Jed Lewison and KosTV. That guy does great things with cutting up different Tee Vee clips to make a point.
Punchy
@Ejoiner: Outback Steakhouse.
Bootlegger
@Ejoiner: You have a water smoker, which was my first smoker as well.
The water will warm no matter what temp you start with, just make sure its full or it will dry up and possibly scorch your meat (the water is the only thing between the fire and the meat).
Those spring-loaded thermostats are close to worthless. Buy yourself an oven thermometer and set it next to your meat. When you check it note the correspondence between the thermometer and that lame word meter. Sometimes "ideal" really is ideal, 225-250, and sometimes it isn’t. Once you know what internal temperatures produce which words (warm, ideal, hot) then you don’t have to check as often. My last water smoker "warm" was actually the ideal.
That door is to give you access to the firebox, or pan in your case. Use this to stir the coals, add charcoal, or if you like extra smokey flavor soak some wood chips and add them through the door (use a steel spoon to do this or you’ll burn yourself). There should be some sliding vents toward the bottom of the unit that allow you to control the flow of air into the smoker. There should also be one in the lid. Use the bottom vents as your primary control and be vigilant. I left them wide open while I ran for beer once and came back to a 500 degree fire (the water pan saved the meat but it cooked too fast). The vent on top should generally be left open to prevent the meat from getting too sooty. The only exception is if the fire flares up and you need to dampen it fast, then slam all the vents shut until the temp drops.
This is all very general advice. Every unit cooks a little bit differently and it seems like every fire is unique too. It will take some time for you to get the hand of it so until you master your pit my best advice is to go slow, "slow and low" as the pitmasters say. You can always cook longer with a low fire, but a hot fire will dry out your meat and there is no way to recover.
AhabTRuler
Yes, I often look to armed, unstable racists for sound advice.
I mean, there is some crazy that I don’t stick around to get past.
sgwhiteinfla
OT
Did anybody watch David Gregory and all his wingnut friends earlier?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9qviaHbSzI
Bootlegger
@The Moar You Know: Actually I plan to store mine in a locker at the range. If things start getting really weird I’ll fetch it home. I’m also taking my kids to gun safety with me and I’m going to teach them how to shoot too. I’ve shot firearms before, hunting and target, and I’m a pretty good shot. But the wife and I don’t want the kids to be an accidental casualty so we’ve kept a "no guns in the house" law. We’re both of us thinking it might not be a bad idea to be prepared and also get the kids some gun safety at the same time.
Bootlegger
@AhabTRuler: I grew up in Texas and live in the south. I know how to handle rednecks without starting a fight.
omen
@sgwhiteinfla:
hey, kraut, what did bush ever accomplish or bring back from these summits?
AhabTRuler
I have more of an issue of learning at the knee of the very reason for buying the gun in the first place. Because certainly, no one who isn’t bigoted or a southerner could have technical knowledge about arms and shooting.
valdivia
@sgwhiteinfla:
I just cannot watch it. Summary? Pretty please?
The Moar You Know
@AhabTRuler: The best pistol drill I ever learned was from a fat racist part-time gun range employee who didn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh (or anyone else) because he didn’t trust "the Jew media".
However, so you all can learn something, I’ll offer it here, minus the black helicopters rhetoric:
Take a spent shotgun shell (already been fired).
Toss it about 7-10 yards onto the range floor.
Hit it with pistol shot (this is really hard, by the way).
Shoot the rolling/flying shotgun shell again before it stops moving (this is far harder).
The goal is to empty your magazine, and hit the randomly moving shell with every round. You will not succeed, but you’ll become a much better shot.
You can learn something from almost anyone if you can keep your mouth shut long enough. You don’t have to accept what they’re saying is true.
Punchy
@Wile E. Quixote: I know you can get one for having CF. Even though well-treated, it poses no real walking/breathing issues. Kinda sweet when my at-the-time CF gf got rock-star parking at concerts and baseball games.
sgwhiteinfla
valdiva
David Gregory, Byron York and Jeffrey Goldberg just spewing right wing talking points about President Obama’s G 20 trip. Including the faux controversy about criticizinig America and also a lot of referring to the Kraut’s column the other day that Joe Klein destroyed. Standard fare for Gregory these days.
PanAmerican
Steven Raichlen does a good primer on all things grill including indirect grilling-smoking.
omen
my grandpa taught me to how shoot when i was young, but i never wanted my own assault weapon or thought to turn it into a barbie accessory.
http://www.time.com/time/today-in-pictures/0,31511,1889745,00.html
Incertus
@BettyPageisaBlonde: You’re right, and there’s something hinky about the glitch explanation. Amanda from Pandagon links to someone who suggests it’s a troll attack/hack, a la Bantown.
AhabTRuler
@The Moar You Know: I don’t care. You wanna hang around with someone who talks about the "Jew media," that’s fine. I don’t.
AnneLaurie
Maybe I’m not alone. I always assumed Charlie Rose had his "sweet spot" show because so many good-liberal upper-middle-class PBS contributors identified with his desperate ‘I’m smarter than anybody about everything’ schtick…
I’d give the people with missing arms placards too. But go a little gentle with the "disgustingly obese" remarks, okay? I have two good friends with placard-worthy pulmonary issues — one of them is on the national heart transplant list — who are forever getting eye-rolls & nasty not-quite-out-of-earshot ‘quips’ from passers-by who assume they’re "just" fat worthless pigs with no self-control. In the first place, a lot of the standard heart medications will make even a genetically low-BMI individual blow up like an inflated condom. In the second place, it ain’t easy to exercise when even sitting & breathing is a challenge.
The Moar You Know
@Bootlegger: That is an excellent plan. In addition to keeping it from the kids (you absolutely should, they will find it and play with it) it prevents it from getting stolen if your home is burglarized, a very real concern.
Mike in NC
I used to regularly go to gun shows in several states back when I collected military stuff. Been a number of years now. Mostly honest dealers but you’d inevitably see a few tables selling KKK t-shirts and $3 bills with Clinton’s picture on it. About 25% of the people you’d rub elbows with were in serious need of a bath, too. Can’t imagine the craziness now, what with the Obama/Osama/Hitler bumper stickers. Real Glenn Beck territory…
valdivia
@sgwhiteinfla:
thanks for the summary. I am surprised at Goldberg, he is a tad more sane than that, or better said–I thought he was saner than that. Guess I was wrong.
Litlebritdifrnt
In case you guys have not joined in the fun yet Oily Titz Webmistress has strayed from the pack, and gone totally off the reservation. Not only has she called out Oily as a liar but she has left the defendourfreedoms website unmoderated. A teeny tiny chink that us Obots have been waiting for to get in. It is a thing of beauty, it really is. Go on over there and have some fun, while you can. Who knows how long thing precious moment will last.
I am wrestling with the idea of sending the wonketters over there but I think it would be too much, I mean really, there is only so much a website can take, the angel on my shoulder is saying no, the devil on my shoulder is saying yes, what the hell should I do?
http://defendourfreedoms.net/2009/04/12/understanding-the-internet-102.aspx?results=1#SurveyResultsChart
I have to admit I am not only easily amused I am greatly amused when the enemy starts to eat each other.
omen
@JK:
charlie rose ruined the interview with juan cole last week. rose asked one questioned, cole framed it another more accurate way and rose was like yeah, yeah, that’s what i meant.
chuck needs to get over himself.
Bootlegger
@AhabTRuler: Um, sure, I wouldn’t dispute that. I was only saying that I can "pass" at a gun range and can even have reasonable conversations if I disagree with someone. The people who taught me to shoot were neither white, redneck or southern. My peeps, Hispanos, are the old families from the first spanish migrations, preceding Plymouth rock. My grandpa was a sniper in WW2, my uncle a miner and life long hunter. They also taught me poker.
Bootlegger
@The Moar You Know: And I’m figuring that the gun classes and time on the range will make "playing" with guns less appealing should they happen upon a loaded one some day.
John Cole
I had all sorts of weapons training in almost ten years in the army, including everything from a 90mm recoilless rifle to a TOW to a 120mm smoothbore m1a1 to even learning how to make fertilizer bombs while at combat engineer reclassification in Devil’s Lake, ND, in the early 90’s, and here is the advice I would give you.
Don’t hang around crazy fucking people who you think might shoot you. Also, the vast majority of people are far safer never having a gun of any kind introduced into their lives. Also, accidental shootings have never occurred in gun-free households.
I am not a gun banner, nor am I all hot and bothered about gun control, but this country has a seriously odd gun fetish that I do not understand. I can’t think of any situation in my life that a gun would make safer, and if I could think of a situation in which I needed a gun, I would change other circumstances so I no longer need one.
AhabTRuler
JFC, I can get along with people that I disagree with, but I can choose not to associate with anyone who feels the need to pop off about how "the Jews and niggers are going to kill us all in our beds," and I don’t care what they know.
Stormfront could have the secret for the flakiest damn pie crust in , and I would still walk on by (the secret is lard and to not overwork the dough, so your welcome, that’s one less Nazi you will have to hang out with).
JK
AnneLaurie,
That was an extremely lame cheap shot. PBS contributors have a much firmer grasp of reality than the clueless neanderthals who worship Fox News Channel.
John's Minions
We’re going to have to go with Moar on this one friends, just yesterday we learned some fascinating tips on securing our apartment from future robberies in between disparaging comments about the "nigras" from a city policeman.
Being an asshole doesn’t make somebody wrong, and hopefully one can have the self-confidence in one’s views to bear up under another’s.
Now, if it came to racial politics.. well, we might have something else to say..
Jen R
The Amazon thing didn’t just start happening; this writer says it’s been going on since at least February.
"Glitch, please!"
omen
@Mike in NC:
wouldn’t equating obama with hitler piss off the white supremacists?
Face
@Litlebritdifrnt: Can somebody translate this please? I understand exactly none of this.
sistermoon
Well said.
Bootlegger
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wow. Just wow. I hate it when I turn over a rock and see crap like that. Of course you realize that by fucking with them you only confirm their paranoia, perhaps driving some to armed desperation. Just ask Beck.
AnneLaurie
The fact that many Fox News ‘worshippers’ are either stupid or insane doesn’t mean that many PBS contributors aren’t really, really annoying. PBS is like the Great Orange Satan — its worthiness is salted with a whole shaker-ful of self-importance and status-obsession by some of its participants.
D-Chance.
Now a puff piece on gambling. Unlike the last couple of shows the past few months, they are talking about Vegas
Any word on whether Obama is overturning that stupid online gambling law that has the FBI monitoring our poker games?
GSD
Rush Limbaugh is so invested in hoping President Obama fails that he was hoping for a brave US ship captain to be killed to prove his point.
-GSD
Halteclere
Where and when I grew up it was rifles and shotguns that everyone had – the guns actually used for hunting. Sure some people kept pistols in their home for protection, but mostly pistols were used to shoot snakes or used in case the felled deer was only wounded and pissed and not really dead.
My father and grandfather taught me how to handle guns and how to shoot. I also took a safety course offered by the State of which I still have the commemorative patch. And I was a pretty good shot with the shotgun I was given when I was 12 or so – one season I averaged a dove for every three shots. I didn’t handle a pistol until I was in high school because I never had a need for one.
But now when someone talks guns it is all pistols, glocks, semi-autos, laser sights, etc. Maybe it’s because I now live in a big city (there are still plenty of people who head out to the country for a weekend each deer season) but no one ever talks about wanting to be a better marksman so that they can hunt turkey with a 22 or only needing a 30-30 to take down a deer at 100yds.
It’s now all about handling the biggest gun for self defense.
Bootlegger
@John Cole: That’s my general feeling too. But then I had to go and read the Turner Diaries and the scene where our hero Turner sees the UCLA faculty hung from an overpass in their academic robes. This was just after Turner blew up a federal building with a truck packed with an oil-fertilizer bomb. Then I read shit like that DEFENDOURFREEDOM.ORG and start thinking I need a fucking M-60 and 50000 rounds of ammo. Instead I’ll settle for a handgun and teaching my kids how to be responsible with firearms.
Ash
Well, presumably John, you’re not one of those good Umurikans who KNOWS that anyone who’s not lily white will take any chance they get to rob your house, shoot you dead, and rape your wife (hypothetically).
Ejoiner
Bootlegger and PanAmerican:
Thanks for the advice and links – if I don’t burn down the house and actually produce an edible meal I’ll lift a toast to your names!
Bootlegger
@AhabTRuler: I think you mistake me for a straw man.
Bootlegger
@AnneLaurie: Bite me. None of the NPR listeners I know match that description. And I’ll take Rose over Hume any day.
AhabTRuler
Today’s modern super-deer generally require APFSDS rounds in order to score a clean kill.
The Moar You Know
@Litlebritdifrnt: Send it everywhere.
That is about 100 different kinds of win, you can let your inner troll run free as a bird.
sgwhiteinfla
Litlebritdifrnt
Man warn me the next time before you link to something like that. I am going to go and wash my eyeballs out now. Such wingnuttery I haven’t seen in a LONGGGGGGGGGG time. Those mofos reject the truth in any form.
omen
the vega story was charlie rose doing a profile of hotel magnate steve wyn. doesn’t this amount to free advertising for the hotel chain?
rose is part of problem in helping to build up ceos to rock star status. chuck is a sycophant. he’s quick to adulate power but slow to point to how their irresponsibility helped wreck the economy.
Bootlegger
@AhabTRuler: It’s the steroids, they’re all on the Juice.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@John Cole:
Smart and lucid comments on guns. These sentiments echo my own opinions on the subject.
The only thing I would add is, I don’t know of another product with the safety history of firearms and ammunition whose producers appear to be free from liability for that product safety, and also free from any regulation of product safety and health regulation. I don’t understand why this should be so, or why fixing it would be a threat to the Second Amendment.
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: Amen to this. Picking up a gun is not for scaring off a mob of right-wingers, putting some sense into the punk that is dating your daughter, or making sure your neighbors don’t fuck with your shrubbery. Picking up a gun means that someone is going to be maimed or die, and has, at best, years-long legal and financial consequences.
@Halteclere: I’m a shitty pistol shot, which is annoying because I’m an exceptionally good long-arm shooter – nothing is more fun than target shooting at distance. A tight pattern on a x-ring makes my day. Which I don’t get with a pistol, not even my really good .22 Ruger. I’m thinking about getting into airguns, but can’t find a local range that will allow them.
JK
AnneLaurie,
Who the hell cares if some PBS viewers are annoying? The programs they air are what counts.
If PBS and C-SPAN disappeared tomorrow, what other channels would take their place to provide quality educational and informational programming?
The depth and breath of quality programming on PBS (long running shows like Nova, American Experience, American Masters, Frontline, The Open Mind, Now, Bill Moyers’ Journal, The Newshour, Worldfocus, Wide Angle, POV, Scientific American Frontiers, Masterpiece, Theater Talk, plus all of the various specials) is unmatched by any other cable channel.
Your assertion about self-importance and status obsession on the part of some PBS viewers is irrelevant. It shouldn’t detract from the quality of PBS programming.
GSD
By the way, it should be noted that the two most recent brave citizen heroes, Captains Sullenberger and Phillips, who have performed with grace and courage under fire are both union members from blue states that are chock full of married or civilly unioned gays.
-GSD
sgwhiteinfla
DanSmoot
I am originally from Memphis and I have been a gun owner for a long time. One of the things I used to laugh my ass off about was that you could get a license to carry a concealed weapon in Memphis but you couldn’t buy fireworks. You literally had to drive down to the state line with Mississippi and buy fire crackers or bottle rockets and you could be locked up if the police caught you with them in the city of Memphis. Yet I could go damn near anywhere I wanted to in the city with my XD 40. Talk about irony.
AhabTRuler
@Bootlegger: No straw man. The exchange was not about tolerating people with different opinions or "passing" in an environment where we might stand out. It was about valuing the weaponry lessons that paranoids & racists have to offer us.
John Cole
@JK: I personally don’t give a shit what people think when they donate to PBS, as long as they do.
Also, Whaddya Know and Mountain Stage and Eclectopia and many many others!
poopsybythebay
This is a little OT, but I wanted you guys to see remarks made by Newt Gingrich on Twitter before and after the Seals saved Captain Phillips:
Let’s see some of the douche’s quotes on twitter about the pirate and the brave Captain Phillips situation prior to noon today:
http://twitter.com/…
As a historian I know that weakness encourages predators and aggressors and strength convinces them to quit.
@rwpeders the navy has plenty of resolve It is the white house that is confused.
@JeffK627 no the right solution is for seals to go in during the night and stop the pirates while saving the hostage
And the douche’s twitters since noon:
Long day Campbell and perry gave cabrera his opportunity and he took it What an excuiing afternoon I hope kathy and paul had a great …
Having failed with tiger and campbell the team at lacAvitas has now picked perry
about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry Having failed with my choice of tiger I am going to leap out and pick campbell as an exciting underdog in the playoff
I am slowly and reluctantly beginning to believe that tiger will not win at augusta THIS YEAR Tune ine next year for new opportunirty
We are having a great easter dinner at alice lacivitas with our friends
Not a freakin word about what happened-NOTHING. The guy is the King of all douchebags.
The Moar You Know
@DanSmoot’sGhost: I suppose because it’s a device designed to kill, animals or humans (I suppose you could kill a plant with one, but shooting a tree you want out of your yard would be grossly inefficient). I’m not sure that there is a way to allow for liability for the safety of a product designed to kill without putting the manufacturer directly out of business.
That being said, I have fired a few substandard firearms in my life and that is enough to know that, at least at the cheap end, there is a lot of work to be done with making guns safer than they are. You shouldn’t be able to drop a firearm and have it go off because it landed on the hammer.
However, the main safety issue with guns has always been the people carrying them – it’s hard to make a case for liability when you were the one who shoved a loaded and cocked pistol into your waistband, pointing straight at your dick.
MikeJ
A shotgun is the best way in the world to harvest mistletoe. If that was the only purpose it would be a bit of overkill.
JK
@omen #80,
Charlie Rose is the quintessential sycophant and bootlicker.
He botches every interview with his overwhelming compulsion to show off his alleged subject expertise while kissing the ring of every guest.
I can’t think of another person with such a nauseating interviewing style.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Yeah, that sounds more like a slogan, or a talking point, than a reasonable statement about product safety.
I think there are more serious issues when a product can be picked up by a six year old and accidentally discharged into the face of his four year old sister. In that case, it isn’t quite as good a subject for snark, not quite as clever. It’s just tragic … and in my view, and speaking of one who has made a gun from scratch, completely fucking unnecessary. And totally a matter that is eligible for product safety and liability attention.
Bootlegger
@AhabTRuler: That may have been in your mind, but what I was referring to was
the first part of Moar’s statement, that one might have to deal with certain types of people "of the right-wing persuasion". Since I won’t humor a flaming racist accept to call him an idiot, I was referring to the remaining right wing droolers who I grew up around, know how to handle, and can even have a decent conversation with. Since I never claimed I would "argue" with a racist, you were in fact making a straw man of my statements.
AhabTRuler
I give up, who? I hope isn’t the paranoid racist dude, because I ain’t listening to him.
The Moar You Know
@DanSmoot’sGhost: I don’t mean to be snarky. Quite a few gun injuries are self-inflicted.
Quite a few of them aren’t, and you are quite correct in asserting that there needs to be some sort of failsafe on a firearm so that kids can’t shoot each other, or even for that matter that you can’t be shot with your own firearm. The NRA nutters will insist that this can’t be done, or will be too expensive, which is ridiculous – we have a pretty adequate failsafe for cars (better than any we have for firearms) it’s called an ignition key, and the whole system, cylinder and key, costs maybe fifty bucks.
I like the idea of an electronic failsafe, with the key as a ring that you wear.
JK
@John Cole,
Are you going to post a compilation of the dumbest comments made tomorrow by the usual suspects (Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, etc) regarding Obama’s handling of the Somali Pirate Crisis?
I can’t bring myself to listen to any of these dirtbags because I don’t think I’d be able to stop throwing up.
Mike in NC
I keeps on sayin’ it: Gingrich/Sanford 2012
Fat WASP male Republicans. Nowhere else to run to. Mind you, the crackpot governor of SC is about as popular as leprosy these days as the state approaches #1 unemployment in the country. Small price to pay for his ego.
Wile E. Quixote
I have one addition to The Moar You Know’s excellent advice on how to learn to shoot; purchase a .22 Ruger pistol as your first pistol. The Ruger .22 is a very accurate, very affordable, very user friendly pistol, it’s the best .22 automatic ever made. You can learn everything you need to know about handling a pistol or a rifle with a .22, and so so cheaply; you can buy 500 rounds of .22 long rifle for about 20 bucks and shoot all day with it. The same 20 bucks will buy you 50 rounds of 9mm or .45. There’s also the recoil issue. Starting off with a 9mm or .45 means you have to get used to the noise and recoil right away. If you’re not used to it it’s startling as Hell.
If you decide, after learning to shoot with the .22 that you’re not interested in owning a gun the Ruger has good resale value.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@AhabTRuler:
Sorry. "As" one who has made a gun from scratch, except for the barrel, which we bought ready made. Too difficult and dangerous to fabricate a barrel in the garage for casual hobbyists. But we made the stock and the mechanical parts. Interesting project.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@The Moar You Know:
Agreed!
AhabTRuler
@DanSmoot’sGhost: ;-)
The Moar You Know
@Wile E. Quixote: As the proud owner of a Ruger 22/45 I heartily endorse this comment. It’s a tossup between the 22/45 and my little Ruger 10/22 rifle for being "best firearm I own".
Get the stainless steel version.
John Cole
@JK: Who knows. There is so much stupid, and it is not confined to the right. I read several DKOS diaries ready to give Obama the medal of honor for doing little more than signing off on ROE and staying out of the way (which, IMHO, is precisely what he should be doing in situations like this). On the other hand, half the right wing blogs seem to think we should have either A.) gone Dr. Strangelove on the entire African continent, B.) Immediately sent in a platoon of marines to board the raft with guns blazing, to hell with the hostage, or C.) both.
So much stupid.
AhabTRuler
Now this I can agree with. Great plinking gun, and .22 rimfire is cheap like water.
JK
@John Cole
"So much stupid" – This is the perfect bumper sticker slogan for Palin/Bachmann 2012
The Moar You Know
@AhabTRuler: I do love the rifle, got that in stainless as well. Put a scope on it, which is a bit like cheating, but a lot of fun.
The ammo is awesome cheap compared to anything else. I bought 500 rounds of Winchester for 13 bucks the other day, just to have some bulk around. I normally shoot CCI’s Stinger ammo but am thinking about trying some of their Green Tag match ammo – if it’s as good as I’ve been told I may switch to that.
GSD
Cole,
Imagine if John McCain were president? We’d have invaded the Barbary Coast.
-GSD
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I attended a gun show.
Once.
"It’s not really paranoia if they’re all out to get you." From the looks I got from plenty of guys at that gun show… paranoia was just good sense.
Speaking of which– I’d like to go to the range, but as someone mentioned, there are a lot of total wingnuts there… and no matter how tightly I keep my mouth shut, there’s no denying I’m black.
How do you deal with that?
AhabTRuler
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: The range I used to go to was extensively patronized by black cops (sometimes on ‘roids) and was located in PG county, which kept the more ‘uppity’ klansmen pretty quiet and in line. Still, you wanted to be very careful transporting your weapons to and from the range.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Oh Christ, do I have to?
The Moar You Know
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Wouldn’t be a problem where I live, but my range is right next to Camp Pendleton (they get a lot of Marines) and gets used by the local cops quite a bit as well. So they’re pretty used to seeing black faces in there. The racists aren’t going to say a word to your face, they’re the kind of people who will only say shit if they are sure there aren’t any black folk around. Afraid of getting their fat asses kicked. If you’re in SoCal I’ll gladly take you to the range.
Elsewhere in this fine nation, I don’t know. Can anybody help Ivan out?
Glocksman
@AhabTRuler:
I had one, but I sold it while keeping my Nylon 66.
Granted, the Nylon 66 had sentimental value because it was the gun my Dad taught me to shoot with back when I was a kid during the mid 1970’s, while the 10/22 didn’t.
That said, if Remington today would make a stainless steel box magazine fed Nylon 66 derivative, I’d gladly pay $250 for it, as it seems that rust is the only thing that can kill a N66.
JK
DanSmoot’sGhost
Better still, imagine if John McCain had become incapacitated for medical reasons, and Sarah (insert an image of Edvard Munch’s painting of The Scream) Palin was calling the shots.
Glocksman
Gladly.
If you’re ever in the southwestern Indiana area, look me up and I’ll take you to a local pistol range.
I’m as white as a sheet (no pun intended) and I’ve never heard any racist comments and have seen plenty of black shooters at the range I go to.
Frankly, I’ve seen race come into play at gun shows instead of the range.
Years ago, it was fascinating watching the 6’4, 300 lbs of muscle white biker dude wearing a ‘The ORIGINAL boyz in da hood’ t-shirt with a Klan night rider on it and the equally large black guy wearing a ‘do-rag’ studiously ignoring each other while looking at guns at the same table.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Please set fire to me.
Johnny Pez
@Face: Orly Taitz is a notably crazy PUMA/Birther (see the Rumproast blog for the gory details). I’m assuming the announcement is that her formerly moderated website is now unmoderated, so if you want to mock Taitz on her own website, now’s your chance.
Wile E. Quixote
@DanSmoot’sGhost
@Moar You Know
So let me see if I have this straight. Stupid people purchase guns. Stupid people leave guns lying around where children can get at them. Children kill themselves or others. Therefore we need more product liability lawsuits or additional product safety or we need to design wonder firearms with safety interlocks that prevent idiots from shooting themselves or being shot with their own pistols. Sorry, but this is stupid, I keep my guns in a gun safe, I know people who have kids in their houses who keep their guns in a safe and who have trigger locks on them. Why should those of us who are responsible gun owners have to deal with the consequences of stupidity on the part of irresponsible gun owners?
As far as Moar’s contention that you could produce some sort of safety interlock on pistols for 50 bucks, that’s nonsense. Firstly the car ignition analogy is a stupid one, a trained car thief can boost a car in about a minute, so much for the security features offered by ignition locks. Secondly any safety system for a firearm is going to have to be a lot smaller than your ignition lock, and a lot more rugged, you don’t have to worry about your ignition lock getting damaged because it was dropped on the ground, or got wet and your ignition system lock doesn’t take the pounding from recoil. Thirdly sometimes if it’s a cold morning the ignition on my car doesn’t work on the first try and I have to turn the key again. That’s OK on a cold morning, but if I were trying to defend myself with a firearm getting a dead click when I pull the trigger could end my life.
As far as the magic ring idea goes this is stupid too. Even if such a thing could be done all it does is add expense and reduce reliability. And for what, to prevent people from behaving stupidly. Well guess what, you can’t cure stupidity with technology. It’s impossible to do so. Magic rings and interlock systems do nothing to properly educate people as to how serious a responsibility owning a gun is and what it means to point a gun at someone. I was taught at a very early age, that if you pointed a gun at someone it was because you wanted to shoot them and that if you wanted to shoot someone it was because you wanted them to die. The Army just reiterated that, we were never taught how to shoot to wound, it was always shoot to kill. Pointing a gun at someone is a deadly serious business, and if you don’t understand this then you shouldn’t own any firearm, even if said firearm is chock full of super-duper technological goodness that will magically prevent it from being used against it’s owner, or prevent little Johnny from shooting his friends with it.
Much has been made of New Jersey’s smart gun law, but police departments in New Jersey are exempted from having to purchase smart guns because cops are more worried about having their guns malfunction and not fire when they need them than they are concerned with the possibility that someone might use their gun against them. So much for their faith in the 50 dollar interlock system that Moar thinks would be so easy to develop.
The fact is that every gun I’ve purchased in the last decade has come with a trigger locking system, either one that fits through the trigger guard and locks the trigger in place or a cable lock that you thread through the magazine well and ejection port and then lock so that the gun can’t be loaded and the slide won’t go forward. Some manufacturers go even further, Taurus pistols and revolvers come with a key that locks the hammer in place so that you can’t fire the pistol. Every pistol or revolver I’ve purchased in the last decade has a safety warning engraved on the slide or barrel and comes with a manual that has a whole bunch of stuff in it in really big letters about how you should make sure that your firearm is stored safely. The gun industry and police departments have given away millions of free trigger locks and if you can’t get one for free you can buy the damned things for less than five bucks. Stupid people don’t read the warnings that are etched on to their guns. Stupid people don’t read the manual and heed the section on safely storing your firearms. Stupid people don’t use trigger locks or lock their guns up where their kids can’t get a hold of them. So apparently, because stupid people are too stupid and too careless to follow simple safety procedures and use incredibly simple safety systems we need to design incredibly complex electronic systems that will add to the cost and complexity of firearms, while reducing their reliability so that stupid people, who don’t understand their responsibilities as a gun owner can keep on leaving locked and loaded firearms around the house.
Sorry, but if someone is too stupid or careless or irresponsible to read the manual, lock up their guns or use a trigger lock then I don’t want to engineer new super duper firearms that are designed for people who don’t read the manual or who don’t want to or can’t follow simple safety procedures. I don’t want those idiots to own guns!
Dennis-SGMM
@AhabTRuler:
My favorite is an old .22 caliber Ruger Target Auto with a 10" bull barrel. I had a trigger job done on it and that sucker can drive tacks as far out as I can see them.
DanSmoot'sGhost
What does that have to do with six year olds accidentally killing each other? Do six year olds steal cars?
Do six year olds decide whether an adult has accidentally left a gun lying around?
Are you telling me that guns can’t be made safer?
You are a goddammed fucking idiot.
"Well guess what, you can’t cure stupidity with technology."
Then I guess you are stuck pretty much the way you are, then.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Then figure out a way to prevent it.
gwangung
Um, I find that an unfortunate use of terms…
Wile E. Quixote
OK, since this is an open thread does anyone have a good French onion soup recipe? I had a bowl of this at the restaurant that I frequent tonight and I had forgotten how good it could be. The stock was a a deep, purple color, almost black and it was just incredible. It made the stuff I used to get at Red Robin (I say "used to get" because I will never go back to it) look like dirty brown water in comparison. OMFG it was good.
I know that there are a lot of recipes online, but a lot of them look like they just produce the brown, dirt-water soup. Has anyone here made this? Is the secret to getting the rich stock using a consomme, or adding red wine? I mean this stuff was so good that I would even build a brick oven in my backyard if that’s what were necessary to make it (although I wouldn’t go to any Glenn Beck gatherings, not even if they guaranteed that at the end of the evening there would be a knock down drag-out, topless fight between a toothless butch lesbian and an asian woman. No soup, regardless of the quality, is worth that price.).
I was thinking of asking for the recipe at the restaurant, I’ve been a regular customer there for six years now, but is that an acceptable thing to do? It kind of seems like a violation of etiquette, unless the restaurant has published a cook book, which this particular restaurant has not.
AhabTRuler
It really depends on the restaurant and the chef. Obviously, some businesses will consider recipes to be proprietary information, while some will emphasize the service and quality over keeping the recipe secret.
However, no one is gonna kick you in the junk for askin’.
PS Due to typo, the sentence originally read "lick you in the junk," which I don’t suppose would happen if you asked for the recipe, either.
Oh, and I have always found that a good stock and a 3.5 shitloads (1 metric fuckload) of onion works really well.
AhabTRuler
Unless you ask that soup Nazi dude. Man, I hate that guy.
kdaug
@ 118 Wile E. Quixote
Let’s try some analogies. I lock my doors every night, but my stupid neighbor leaves his wide open. One night, someone comes in and kills his whole family and steals all his stuff. The police have to come and investigate the crime. But I have to help pay for the cop’s salaries! Why should I have to pay for the stupid actions of my neighbor????
Let’s try another. I don’t smoke, but my stupid neighbor does. One night, he falls asleep and sets his house on fire. The firefighters just barely are able to put the fire out, and the next day they want to dig a trench in MY front yard to put in something called a "fire hydrant". Why should I have to have my yard dug up because of my stupid neighbor????
We live in a community, a society. There are realms within our lives called the "commons" – i.e., the common good (see also, roads). There are certain functions of government that individuals cannot accomplish. This is the essence of – "gasp" – socialism. And when that neighbor is shooting AP rounds out of his AK, and it punches through your wall and blows your HDTV to smithereens, the need for some mutual controls on everyone becomes more evident.
And I, for one, welcome our "socialist" police, doctors and firefighters.
Keith
@Wile E. Quixote:
Look around for Thomas Keller’s onion soup recipe. (note, some links I’ve seen use Gruyere, but Keller’s recipe in "Bouchon" specifies aged Comte or Emmentaler cheese). The keys are that you have to caramelize the onions for 5 hours and use his beef stock recipe (both looooong preparations)
rachel
@Wile E. Quixote: The secret is to use lots and lots of strong, sweet onions sliced pole-to-pole (say, one large onion for each cup of broth) and caramelize and deglaze them at least four times before adding the broth so you build up a nice, rich fond.
Edit: do the last deglazing with dry sherry.
pto892
A quick look at the WISQARS database tells me that unintentional death by firearms for children between the ages of 2 and 18 in the US in the 1999-2005 time period is statistically quite low-it’s number 8 on the list at 1.7% at 1050 deaths. Number one is motor vehicles at 64.5% and 40,123 deaths. "Other land transport" (bicycles? skateboards?) is fifth at 2.8% and 1,744 deaths. I’m not sure what the appeal to make magic safe guns is supposed to do for me if in fact I don’t have children in the house. "It’s for the children" doesn’t work in this case. You would be better off to follow John Cole’s advice and simply not have any guns in the house.
Like it or not, guns are designed to do a potentially very dangerous thing-shoot a metallic projectile at a high velocity once the gun is operated. You can’t get around that fact and the simple rules for safe gun handling are designed to account for just that fact. Guns are also fairly simple mechanical things and haven’t really changed much in basic design or operation for many years. Plus in large part they are ridiculously reliable in operation-most of us would be thrilled to own a car or a computer that is as reliable as even a basic gun design as say the 1911A2 or the Ruger 22/45. These things if properly maintained operate as designed probably about 99.99% of the time-i.e., pull the trigger and the gun fires a bullet. Trying to refit a simple mechanical device with some sort of electrically operated interlock that preserves that reliability is actually quite difficult-why would a gun owner want to reduce the reliability of his/her gun even 1%? If someone can come up with such a thing I’m all for it-but it isn’t easy to do even though there’s been plenty of research on the idea. Other things to consider-there’s millions of guns already out there sitting around in closets and drawers and gun cases. How would one go about getting those guns made "safe"? Why would someone who already owns one of these older guns (which, as noted, are perfectly safe to own and operate if you follow basic rules) want to put some sort of interlock on it? If government mandated, wouldn’t this just create yet another black market where the older guns suddenly are in demand?
bago
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wow. That is industrial grade crazy. After the "I don’t understand DNS" bit…
Dennis-SGMM
@pto892:
You could put 25 safety devices on a gun and the same people who leave them loaded and laying around the house would disable all 25 and leave the gun loaded and laying around the house. These are the same people who will spend hundreds on a firearm and then not spend another hundred on a lockable gun safe to keep it in.
Punchy
Five stars for 1) incredible specificity, 2) ethnicity fetish, 3) all part of a post about soup, of all things.
I laughed so hard I spit pop thru my nose.
Comrade grumpy realist
I seem to remember that part of the process for traditional onion soup is making the stock with roasted beef bones. Suggest going to the library and getting the oldest, hoariest no-nonsense French cookbook you can find.
pto892
@Dennis-SGMM: Yep, I know you’re right. I was just trying to reply to the idea out there that it’s easy to make a "safe" gun with some sort of electrical wizardry. The only safe gun is the one that’s not loaded, has the bolt removed and is locked up in a gun safe to boot. Plus I didn’t even point out the liability issues involved-market a "safe" gun and you know some idiot will beat the safe features, shot someone (preferably themselves), and then sue the manufacturer. Maybe that’s the idea.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
@John Cole:
I think this latest gun-buying spree can be attributed to a number of factors including:
1. The fear-mongering of Wayne La Pierre and his ilk, ably assisted by the Glenn Beck and the rest of the right-wing media. I wouldn’t be surprised if La Pierre, Hannity, Beck et al. bought heavily in Smith and Wesson stock right before after the election and are getting the crazies wound up in order to line their own (already full) pockets.
2. A general "fuck you" attitude towards the majority of the country who voted for Barack Obama and continue to support him.
I fired a number of different weapons when I was in the Navy (though the only one I actually ever had to carry was a .45 automatic). I have no reason at all to own a gun so I don’t. I think the idea of keeping a gun in the house for "home protection" is bullshit. Burglars generally break into a house when the occupants are away–unless a gun is kept in a locked safe, chances are that gun will end up being used in a crime rather than stopping one.
Brachiator
@John Cole:
Amen, brother. Amen.
4jkb4ia
Damn these foreigners! Will an American ever win the Masters again? /s
You could not get more populist than Kenny Perry, either. I hope he can win something before they hustle him into the Senior Tour.
ricky
A number of thoughts on a terrible Master’s tournament.
Was this the year to let fat guys win?
At least they won’t let wimmen who caint speak English play at Augusta National.
Why do Hispanos name their kids after biblical figures and
roast kid?
Is that Japanese golfer the descendant of someone interned
by the Village People during WWII? How would the green jacket look over that pink shirt?
Only in America can the biracial dude lose by hitting a tree he wasn’t aiming at and the Hispanic wins after hitting a tree deliberately and then on a two putt from three feet.
How many automatic weapons can you carry in a golf bag if your caddy is unlicensed.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
I had one situation in my life, a couple of decades ago, where having a gun meant that I did not become a victim. I did not fire a shot.