Oh, Those Silly Hipsters…

I couldn’t help but laugh at this bit from Jim Geraghty today on the May Day protests in California that lead to the destruction of the front of an Urban Outfitters store.

By the way, I cannot tell the difference between the trust-fund radicals who dress in black and try to smash stuff at Urban Outfitters and the tragically hip trust-fund bohemians who actually shop at Urban Outfitters.

He also notes that the Georgetown location actually designed their shop to make it look the window had already been smashed. This used to irritate me to no end. You’re in Georgetown, no one is believing for one second that anyone who shops down there is so full of rage at the man that they took a brick to the window.

Getting You Fired Up This Week

Here’s a video to get you fired up for the upcoming elections. The focus is on the special election for John Murtha’s former seat out in Western Pennsylvania.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrhLRerypg[/youtube]

I swiped it from Jim Geraghty who adds:

But the music and editing is superb; you keep waiting for Paul Giamatti as John Adams to appear and declare that the Continental Congress has approved this message.

If you’re so inspired, you can go lend a (financial) hand to his campaign. He’s got to win this seat twice in 6 months.

Fighting Eddie Eagle

The Virginia Center for Public Safety (formerly Virginians Against Handgun Violence), lead by gun control advocate Andrew Goddard, seems to be upset not so much that children are being taught to stay away from guns in schools, but that the NRA is teaching it. You can see him debate Rachel Parsons, from NRA’s Public Affairs, here on Fox:

This has always been a particularly sad tactic of our opponents. Using gun accidents to push their agenda, then getting bent out of shape when we step up to try to do something about gun accidents. All because they don’t like who the message is coming from.

A Good Problem to Have

It would seem there are lawmakers trying to claim, or imply endorsements or high grades from NRA when endorsements or grades haven’t been issued in their races. This is a dicey thing, because the lawmakers in question probably really are quite good on our issue, but at the same time endorsements and grades are rather politically sensitive, and you can’t exactly have politicians going around claiming what they haven’t yet earned. But in a way, it’s a good problem to have, because it means politicians perceive your grades and endorsements to be important enough to lie about them.

You don’t hear too many politicians bragging about their Brady grade this year, and as we’ve mentioned, it would seem CeaseFire PA will give you a D just for returning their questionnaire, which would indicate they have an issue getting politicians to even do that. But there are no votes and money on their side, and there are both on ours — so it’s no wonder.

Why Does Lenin Greet Capitol Visitors?

During the Right to Keep & Bear Arms Rally in Harrisburg, I tweeted about the mystery of Lenin’s face sculpted into our Capitol doors. Of course, I assumed it wasn’t really Lenin, but damn if it didn’t look just like him.

Doing a bit of VPC-endorsed intensive research, the busts in the door are of people associated with building the Capitol. It doesn’t provide a list, but does mention a few names. One initial possibility was Gov. Samuel Pennypacker, though I didn’t think that they really looked alike. Based on this list, it looks like that was an incorrect guess.

However, if my guess based on that list is correct, the bust is of E.C. Gerwig, the secretary to Governor William Stone. I didn’t find any pictures to compare him to Lenin, though.

On an interesting side note, Sebastian noticed that one bust had a hinge, so we assumed it hid a handle or lock. Sure enough, that bust (no photo, sorry) is of the Capitol’s architect and hides the keyhole.