Best Way to Enjoy the Snow

Take a small brandy snifter, much like this one, and go outside and fill it with snow (white snow only, stay away from the yellow variety). Bring it back inside and slowly fill it with a reasonably good bourbon, in my case Eagle Rare. Mix slowly until no snow is remaining. The end result will be a neat bourbon, slightly chilled. Not bad for a snowed-in winter’s evening.

Proper Spelling of my Pseudonym

In the name of Johann Sebastian Bach, from which I derived my pseudonym, will people please learn the correct spelling of my name. I don’t know if Sebastion is a proper spelling in any language. I can at least accept Sebastard and maybe even Sebasturd (two insults combined into one, what’s not to like?), if you want to go there. But please, for the love of the Brandenburg Concertos, there’s no o in Sebastian!

Snowpocalypse!

If you listen to the news, “AHHH!  Worst! Storm! Ever! We’re all gonna die!” But it’s nearly one in the afternoon and it’s still coming down:

I’m really not looking forward to digging the cars out of this. Strangely enough, DC and points south are getting a lot more snow than we are, and it sounds like Cemetery up in Jersey City isn’t getting any of it.

Oh well, we’re stuck in today. On the agenda today is making some homemade ice cream, finishing up my kind-of-sort-of Belgian Wit. We also have a few movies to watch, and last night decided to stick in HBO’s “John Adams” which I guess we’ll have to finish. I also have a bottle of Eagle Rare, so who needs to go out anyway?

UPDATE: Getting in some pics from an NRA friend on Facebook in DC. My god:

Perhaps both sides in this debate are going to end up buried under the ice like cases of McKinlay. Remember folks, eat the pets first, before you turn on each other! That goes for the Brady folks too. Don’t get any ideas just because his last name is Hamm.

Looks like my dad got a good bit more than us too out near Reading:

Be Sure to Thank Starbucks

They basically told the Brady folks to go eat the yellow snow (of which they should be able to find plenty of today).

“Starbucks does not have a corporate policy regarding customers and weapons; we defer to federal, state and local laws and regulations regarding this issue,”

Naturally, this was very disappointing to our Brady opponents, so horray for Starbucks! I’m more of a tea drinker than coffee drinker, but as soon as I dig myself out from under this mountain of snow, Bitter and I will go get an expresso shot from Starbucks. And yes, I will carry (concealed, however).

Be sure to thank Starbucks, folks, which you can do here.

What do the Bradys Think of Gun Owners?

The Brady Campaign openly endorses this intolerant piece by Mark Morford:

Oh, please do not misunderstand! We are all terribly impressed. It is so very patriotic of you to show off your little popper! Are you in a gang? Are you a drug dealer? Are you going to shoot some scary terrorists, Mr. pallid paranoid Constitution-misquoting videogame-addicted guy? Protect all of us here in the casual neighborhood coffee shop from those crazy liberals and their health care reform and organic pretzels? Thank you so much! But really, I think we’ll be OK without your little display. Enjoy your frappucino, won’t you?

Anyone who’s read this blog has known that I have not been all that supportive of open carry activism, but I find it amazing that a guy like Mark Morford who doesn’t like people shoving their Second Amendment rights in his face, but oh, he has no problems shoving this in the face of San Franciscans (NSFW, don’t say I didn’t warn you), as evidenced by this passage:

That’s right, it’s S&M for charity. It’s S&M for hope and health and progress. Keep your bake sale and your car wash and your telemarketing scams. You want to raise some cash for a cause? Bend over in your buttless leather chaps in a charity spanking booth and let a large hairy sweaty grinning man slap your ass with a leather paddle until it’s the color of a tomato in summer. And sing while he does it. And hand out flowers. And condoms. And smile at the over 300,000 passersby.

Mark Morford would like you to think he’s tolerant, but he’s a piece of intolerant garbage. He’s only tolerant of thinks he believes are enlightened, of things he believes should be tolerated. That’s not tolerance, that’s actually no better than the people he derides as “religious conservatives” trying to “force their morality on everyone else.” Maybe the reason Morford hates them so much is because he has seen the enemy, and it is him.

UPDATE: Apparently my point was lost on the Brady folks, who have updated their post to respond to mine. As someone who supports both gun rights and gay rights, I’m equally sympathetic to both the notion that perhaps we do not advance either respective agenda by shoving guns or assless chaps into anyone’s face who is perhaps less than comfortable wither either. What angers me about people like Morford is they deride and sneer at others for practices that they themselves promote in their own favored cause. Even most open carriers have the consistency to argue that the San Francisco gay rights activists’ flamboyant public displays are equally effective and acceptable. Can’t we expect the same courtesy from someone like Morford to perhaps accept that maybe some gun rights activists are as enthusiastic, and perhaps misguided, as those who would wear assess chaps  for a public flogging at a gay pride fair, believing that they are advancing their cause? If one is OK, so is the other. And one doesn’t have to believe in either banning homosexuality in public or banning guns in public to accept that some people will take it farther than is wise. Morford doesn’t offer us that courtesy, or even accept that we’re honest citizens with legitimate grievances and concerns. Does the Brady Campaign agree with that?

UPDATE2: I guess since we’re both snowed in, it’s a virtual snowball fight with the Brady folk.

Being concerned about lethal weaponry in the hands of people with no law enforcement training inside a coffee shop patronized by families with kids is simply not in the same universe as outlandish behavior at a “gay pride fair”. They aren’t even remotely comparable.

This is really the heart of the pro-carry/anti-carry debate, and where we’ll find no common ground. They defend Morford’s dichotomy by rejecting the comparison to gay rights altogether. I would not argue that the respective causes are precisely similar, but I think most ordinary folks with children would probably not agree that no one is harmed by seeing one man whip another man with assless chaps. Certainly there are many that would rather their child see an openly holstered firearm carried by someone who is not law enforcement. Which act would you rather explain to a young child?

But we’ll find no agreement, because they believe the mere act of carrying a firearm is dangerous, unless you have some magical “law enforcement training” which will naturally make the gun not dangerous. We do not believe the act of carrying a firearm to be inherently dangerous, because a holstered firearm (and unloaded in the case of these California activists) is not a dangerous item. Nearly all other potentially dangerous acts involving firearms in public are crimes which people can be punished for, save for self-defense, and if it comes to that in a public place like Starbucks, you’re probably going to be glad someone was there with a gun, whether they have magical “law enforcement training” or not.

Chicago Picks Its Lawyer

Looks like Alan Gura and Paul Clement will be going up against James Feldman:

A Washington, D.C. solo practitioner with extensive experience before the Supreme Court will argue in defense of the city of Chicago’s strict handgun ordinance in a closely watched Second Amendment case next month.

James Feldman, who argued 45 times before the high court as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, got the nod to argue in what is widely viewed as an uphill battle for gun control advocates. The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago.

He’s going to have a lot of work cut out of him to try to argue such a legally untenable position.

Context Matters?: AR-15 Open Carry in Michigan

SayUncle says that this isn’t helpful. I have to agree with Tam on this one, “Ten out of ten for enthusiasm, but minus several thousand for Thinking Things All The Fucking Way Through.” What I don’t understand is why folks in the comments, who say they generally support open carry, don’t support this. I have to applaud Packetman for at least being consistent. If there’s no problem with people open carrying a pistol, there’s no problem with people open carrying an AR-15. It’s just a matter of degree. Won’t it get people used to the idea of seeing guns in public? If you say no, then you admit that there’s time, place, and other contextual considerations at play here, in which case it’s fair to say that maybe those who think open carry ought to be legal, but perhaps isn’t effective or appropriate anywhere, anytime might have a point.