Looks like we’re talking about trolls on the blogsphere today. Does talking about trolls count as feeding them? I’m not sure. It’s been amazing to me the amount of time people will spend battling off the troll, when passing over the bridge quickly is probably the most prudent course of action. The troll revels in conflict. It is his purpose.
Author: Sebastian
One Step Ahead of You Megan
Megan McArdle notes on gold fever:
I’m going to dispute the notion that gold is a good hedge against the apocalypse. Â In the event that the US economy melts down so far that buying gold was a good alternative to holding US dollars, then buying canned goods, ammunition, and medical supplies was an even better alternative to gold. Â The only scenario I can think of in which it makes sense to stockpile a lot of gold is one where you and your household goods are unexpectedly teleported into the sixteenth century. Â If you worry a lot about this, then by all means, stockpile gold. Â But you should also probably take the precaution of stockpiling antibiotics and how-to books on dentistry.
I currently have no gold holdings, largely because I’ve been worried about it being a bubble. Of course, I’ve been thinking that since 2005, which had I invested all my money in gold then, I would have doubled it. But I’m wary of buying at the top of a bubble. I would never have the courage to hold gold long term.
I’ve never understood the libertarian fascination with the gold standard. Currently our currency is worth money because the government says it is. Libertarians have long wanted money backed up by gold. But what backs up gold? It’s never seemed to be a good idea to have your money supply dependent on something you have to mine from the ground.
Gold may be a good hedge against inflation, perhaps, but my inclination will be to pump my current cash reserves into the primary asset that is my house if inflation takes off. I need a new kitchen, a new shower, a good bit of exterior work, new driveway, and a once over of the yard by a  decent landscaper.
As for preparing for total meltdown? Well, I think I have enough guns and ammunition available for barter to take care of myself pretty well.
Alan Gura a Busy Bee
All from John Richardson:Â Gura is calling out the delaying tactics of New York State in the gun permit case. A federal judge sides with SAF in this one. Gura has also filed a Motion for Summary Judgement in the North Carolina case.
Why Am I Not Surprised …
Dennis Henigan finds this self-congratulatory article appealing? Both sides are guilty of the exact same things they accuse the other side of, they just manifest themselves in different ways. People are, for the most part, irrational emotional beings. As much as some might want to claim their side is full of thoughtful, rational, people, can I promise you if your movement isn’t composed of Vulcans, that’s not the case.
I just realized my blog e-mail has been broken for several days because I had the wrong machine in my MX record. If you sent me an e-mail to which I did not respond, I apologize. Of course, I’m terrible about responding to e-mail to begin with.
Using Tax Dollars to Promote Bad Pizza
Clayton Cramer looks at how the USDA program to promote cheese has used our tax dollars to help make bad pizza worse. We’re not gifted with much in the Philly area, but we were fortunate enough to develop a decent local pizza culture. Pizza here is New York style. Chicago pizza is an abomination in the eyes of God. In our area, there is definitely some mighty bad local pizza, but they don’t measure up to the chains in terms of horribleness. Papa John’s and Dominoes are blah. In fact, they are bad pizza, really. Pizza Hut is the worst. If you’re looking for a good chain pizza, this one is my favorite, and beats much of my local selection. I particularly recommend the Margherita pizza.
I am happy to hear my tax dollars have been contributing to the ruining of pizza across this great country. It gives me one more reason to hate the government.
How Brady Manipulates Its Win Percentage
Howard Nemerov takes a detailed look at how Brady manages to twist the numbers to declare victory even after disastrous elections. The truth is that both sides endorse quite a large number of safe seats each election year. The big difference is NRA took a lot more chances this year than the Brady Campaign did. NRA lost in 50 elections this year, 33 of them Democrats. Only twenty of them constituted any loss for gun owners. And finally:
Five new House Republicans earned NRA grades of C or D, and two were Brady-endorsed. It’s curious that “GOP operatives†complain about the NRA’s lack of loyalty to them, while ignoring their own betrayal of the Second Amendment by supporting anti-rights politicians within the party.
Read the whole thing. Gun control took a beating this election, regardless of what issues may have actually motivated it. The Second Amendment has won this election.
Election Results from NRA’s Perspective
John Richardson takes a look at NRA’s assessment of this past week’s election. They maintained an 85% win percentage in the House. I would note that this was with the incumbent friendly policy. This reflects closely our incumbent re-election rate for 2010, which was, last I checked, about 85%. This is historically quite low. In fact, the last time it was this low was 1970. Even when people are as pissed off as they are now, incumbents still win elections.
Ask Our NRA Lobbyist
On Friday we had some interesting comments in my thread about Castle Doctrine being dead. I spent a few hours at the end of the day on Friday and on Sunday talking to some folks at NRA about how they could communicate better with opinion leaders in this issue. Not wanting to just hurl criticism, I offered to do a Q&A session with John Hohenwarter, NRA’s Pennsylvania Liaison, and they agreed.
The way is will work is I’ll open the comments for readers to ask questions, and I’ll compile the best ones, add a few of my own if need be, and send them to John. My only request is to keep the questions limited towards issues we’re facing in Pennsylvania, rather than federal or general issues. Other than that, the field of questions is wide open. I’ll let this thread go for a few days before compiling the questions.
Twitter Issues Fixed
For those who follow this blog on Twitter, I have finally gotten around to updating the plugin so it works again. Generally speaking I won’t tweet every post, but try to do about three or so a day, in addition to any other things that might come up that I don’t think warrant a whole blog post. If you’d like to follow us on Twitter, the link is on the sidebar.