Bitter – Page 88 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Women Mocking Women

According to the conversation in the Twitter-verse, some on the left have declared that there is an ongoing War on Women because of disagreement over political issues. Amazingly, a column run in a major newspaper mocking a gathering of women who have differing views on issues like the Second Amendment, hunting, and self defense can be run and it is not counted as part of the offensive in this so-called War on Women.

But on April 13 (yes, a Friday), [Ann] Romney, Karen Santorum and Callista Gingrich will join in â€œA Conversation Off The Campaign Trailâ€ for the ladies of the high-powered National Rifle Association. …

The threeâ€”minus Ron Paulâ€™s wife Carol, whose status as an invitee is the subject of some disagreementâ€”will headline a womenâ€™s leadership luncheon at the 2012 NRA convention in St. Louis. …

With the format and talking points of the luncheon still being worked out, we are left to speculate on what the wives might discuss.

As Mitt Romney marches closer to the nomination even as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum refuse to quit, will the wives act as policy surrogates? Will they tackle such hot-button issues as womenâ€™s reproductive rights, the budget, health care and, of course, gun legislation? …

Will the wives keep it light and chatty, how gosh-darn fun and in touch with voters their guys are?

Will they joke about the rigors of campaigning, while offering helpful hints on no-wrinkle travel clothing, hurricane-proof hair products and staying slim while enduring endless rubber chicken banquets and ethno-regional food-fests? (Thank heavens for elegant culinary interludes such as the NRA luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel).

As an added bonusâ€”perhaps playing into the stereotype that women just love to shop, there will also be silent and live auctions.

Yes, shocking that a fundraiser for an organization will feature auctions.

There’s a lightly mocking tone when items are highlighted like the mink fur teddy bear made from damaged pelts and leftovers from recycled garments using eco-friendly materials. I’m sure the author also used the tone to get a good laugh at the folks from Paul Newman’s Camps for Children with Cancer who used the teddy bear to raise funds. Or maybe the bear used to support the San Diego Children’s Hospital got a hearty laugh out of the folks at the Washington Post. As long as they are mocking those who would fundraise with something as outrageous as a fur teddy bear, the WaPo needs to set their sights upon the Epilepsy Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Albany Symphony.

Amazing how the WaPo‘s Annie Groer picks and chooses from the auction catalog to make it sound as though women from the NRA are mindless bimbos mostly interested in non-serious topics like haircare and shopping. She chooses to ignore the other auction items such as the Sabre pepper spray training classes for the winner and 12 friends or the signed copy of SHOOT: Your Guide to Shooting and Competition by top competition shooter Julie Golob. Groer makes mention of the purses designed to hold a concealed firearm, but chooses to ignore that women might take this right to carry seriously with any number of the 15 handguns on the auction block such as the Smith and Wesson Model 638. And of course the WaPo would never take any woman seriously if she actually bid on the 5 day defensive pistol course at Gunsite.

Overall, the column isn’t anything close to the openly misogynistic Eric Heyl who ran anti-woman columns just before last year’s NRA convention. I am curious about why these columns always seem to appear right about this time every year. It’s amazing how the number of women participating in the NRA Annual Meeting makes the absolute worst of the mainstream media come out when they must confront the fact that women can be independent thinkers on issues like self defense without feeling the need to turn to the gossip pages and opinion columns to find out what they are “supposed” to think.

As a side note, I’d be all over the bid sheet for that mink teddy bear if I wasn’t going to be too busy speaking at the Grassroots Workshop at the same time as the women’s luncheon.

Know Your Target

This is just a little reminder that it’s a good idea to actually check your target before you pull the trigger. The drugged up drunk with the red mohawk passed out on your property isn’t really a bird.

Derrill Rockwell told police he grabbed his rifle, the .22-caliber he kept handy to kill rodents around the house, about 5 a.m. Oct. 5 and walked outside to confront it.

The bird. …

It was red, sitting at the top of a hill about 90 feet away from Rockwell.

â€œHis intent was to spook it away,â€ Deputy District Attorney Jason Conley told District Judge Richard Gurley on Friday.

Rockwell shot once but said he didnâ€™t see the bird fly away. Soon after, he heard a womanâ€™s voice, moaning in pain. Rockwell discovered a 23-year-old woman, with a large red mohawk, with a gunshot wound to the head.

The woman lived. In fact, he drove her to the hospital where he left his name and information with the staff. However, he was not a lawful gun owner since he was a prohibited person for a 1995 attempted burglary. While he did try to cover up his involvement at first, he actually confessed against the advice of counsel who pointed out that the police wouldn’t have otherwise known based on the evidence the woman left behind. For his cooperation, and the fact that the drunk druggie with the mohawk took off after the incident, the prosecutor appears to have cut a deal for a guilty plea on being in possession of the firearm. (h/t Wyatt)

Jennifer Granholm “Forgets” Her Past Legislative Achievements to Become a Liberal Darling

Jennifer Granholm has decided that attacking NRA and siding with Media Matters is the way to win viewers to her new show on Al Gore’s Current.

NRA admits to helping draft #StandYourGround law. Are you surprised? http://bit.ly/H1mdVO via @MMFA @GranholmTWR #TheWarRoom

I guess she presumes they will just lap up everything she has to say without question. So far, it seems to be working. Only pro-gun folks have caught on to the fact that Governor Jennifer Granholm gladly signed six bills to make Michigan’s castle doctrine and stand your ground laws stronger. From July 20, 2006:

Today Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law a package of six self-defense bills backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), bringing “Castle Doctrine” protections to law-abiding Michigan citizens. …

The six-bill Castle Doctrine Package passed with bi-partisan, supermajority support in both houses of the Michigan legislature:

SB 1046, sponsored by Sen. Alan Cropsey, outlines rebuttal presumptions for justified use of self-defense. The bill makes it clear that there is no “duty to retreat” if a person is in a place where they have a legal right to be.

SB 1185, sponsored by Sen. Ron Jelinek, allows for the award of court and attorney fees in civil cases where it was determined a person acted in accordance with the Self Defense Act and where civil immunities apply.

HB 5548, sponsored by Rep. Tim Moore, gives civil immunities to persons acting in accordance with the Self Defense Act, preventing criminals and their families from suing law-abiding citizens.

HB 5153, sponsored by Rep. Leslie Mortimer, puts the burden of proof on the prosecutor to show that a person acted unlawfully in the application of force, rather than the person using the force having to prove they acted lawfully.

HB 5142, sponsored by Rep. Tom Casperson, expands the definition of “dwelling” to include a personâ€™s garage, barn, backyard, etc.

HB 5143, sponsored by Rep. Rick Jones, creates the Self Defense Act and specifies that it is not a crime to use force or deadly force to defend oneself if that person is not breaking any laws when defensive force was used. The person must be facing imminent threat of death or great bodily harm.

I guess she doesn’t want to highlight her record working with law-abiding gun owners and instead is embracing darlings of the left like Media Matters and their leaders who have been accused of carrying firearms illegally. (h/t @graycpeterson)

Insulting the Kazakh Shooting Team

Maria Dmitrienko from Kazakhstan deserves a gold medal in restraint and grace in addition to her gold medal in shooting.

Kazakhstan’s shooting team has been left stunned after a comedy national anthem from the film Borat was played at a medal ceremony at championships in Kuwait instead of the real one. …

The song was produced by UK comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for the film, which shows Kazakhs as backward and bigoted.

The gold medalist is clearly not happy while the song plays, but she puts on a smile as soon as the insulting song is over and poses with her fellow competitors. To add to the injury, they zoomed in on Maria’s face while the lyrics talked about having the cleanest prostitutes in the region.

According to the article, the coach reported that the organizers in Kuwait also got Serbia’s anthem wrong during the medal ceremonies.

Bloomberg Targeting Self-Defense Laws

It looks like Bloomberg is putting up the money to fund lawyers to review self-defense laws around the country to challenge or change them.

Regulating Away Private Charity

Is it better to starve or eat something that might be a little salty or a bit heavier on calories than the government would prefer? Well, Bloomberg’s agencies in New York think it’s better for people to go hungry than to eat something they haven’t tested for nutritional value.

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term â€œfood policeâ€ to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the cityâ€™s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS canâ€™t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

The story highlights good samaritans who have been donating food for decades, but who have been turned away and their food turned down because of these new restrictions.

This is the kind of regulation designed to frustrate people into stopping their acts of charity and community work because the government knows best. If the bureaucrats can keep them from getting involved, then the government will be the only source for solving this “problem.” Reliance on government means more government employees who are doing more “good.”

I don’t mean to present this as a tinfoil hat type of conspiracy that the Bloomberg administration is purposefully letting people go hungry in order to create more dependency on the government. But, it is a mindset of many people who think up these regulations. They are the government and they know best. They might acknowledge that the good samaritans mean well, but they don’t care about motivations or even outcomes since clearly a government structure to organize it all is better than people getting involved from the community in a way that they cannot control with perfect certainty. They don’t particularly care that their restrictions may end a tradition of civic engagement because bureaucrats are paid to be engaged, they don’t need volunteers to do that work for them. It’s oddly logical when you’re working within a system that is always growing.

I actually believe that acts of private charity and civic involvement are the best ways to fight the expansion of government. Everyone heard the stories about how private companies and organizations were the first ones into New Orleans when the government workers wouldn’t get around to going in there and getting the goods the city residents needed. Normal folks, when they hear these kinds of stories about NYC turning down private food donations for the homeless, have a gut reaction that the government is going too far. It’s actually by being engaged at this level where small government advocates can pick up the stories and examples of how we don’t need the government to handle it all.

Last Stand Against Pele

You may have seen a brief mention in the news of a Hawaiian house being taken out by lava last week. Even though most of the mainland blurbs didn’t make it sound all that interesting, I have to admit that I think the background story is amazing.

Jack tells me he purchased his first lot there in 1972 on Queens Street in Royal Gardens; relocating to Plumeria Street residence in 1978. The subdivision contained 1500 lots on the Pulama Pali and coastal plains below. Jack likes telling the story about the day he was finishing the cedar house in early January 1983: Having just placed the windows into his upper loft bedroom, when that very night he saw an erie orange glow flashing on the panes– This glow was from huge lava fountains four miles upslope, he says this while waving his hands in the air like fountains, and was the very beginning of the eruption of Pu`u O`o January 3rd, 1983, which continues to this day.

USGSPhotoThompsonHouseDec11 — Click to enlarge to see an ariel view of the isolated house from December 2011.

He was putting that finishing touch on the house the day the eruption started and it took more than 29 years to bring the house down. For the last three years, he’s had to hike in and out. I read in an old article that for a number of years after the roads were cut off, he could still get in with a dirt bike. It’s amazing how much dedication he had staying put, but I can’t blame him. The views he had of a forested hill that overlooked a massive field of cooled lava that drops out into the ocean were nothing short of spectacular. I actually find the views of those fields to be the most beautiful on Hawaii.

According to other sources I’ve read, the first house in the subdivision was taken out by lava on March 20, 1983 – a little more than two months after the flow started. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory gives a clue as to what residents faced in those early years:

…from 1983-1985, `a`a flows fed by lava fountains from Pu`u `O`o overran the upper slopes of the subdivision during 7 eruptive episodes. Residents lived on edge in those years, when every 3-4 weeks towering lava fountains lit up the sky and rattled the windows. Sixteen houses were overrun, and 20 percent of the subdivision was inundated. Streets running straight down the pali formed convenient pathways for the `a`a flows, which filled them to a depth of 5-10 m (16-33 ft).

One former resident says she evacuated about 30 times during the time she tried to live amid the flow. To make matters worse, in 1987, their road to Hilo was cut off. Apparently, several purchased second cars to keep on the outside of the flow. They would drive to the end of the roads in their trapped subdivision, hike a mile, and then continue their drive with the second car to run their errands. A trip to Hilo was now a 120-mile round trip. If the “inside” car was parked too close to the flows, it would get overtaken between their trips outside of the subdivision – something that apparently happened often. Apparently, they would bulldoze access roads for the next 13 years, but those never lasted long. They would be overrun, with the last one being completely taken out in 2000.

Here is footage from Jack Thompson’s friend, a photographer who was with him when they had to evacuate.

Thoughts on Voting, Handguns, & Chimps

As random voter registration drives get underway, I think this is a very well stated argument against mindlessly saying that any random voter participation is a good thing.

Itâ€™s all well and good to encourage eligible citizens to select who will govern them, but what chaps me is that nowhere in this get-out-the-vote fervor â€” which will only increase as November approaches â€” will we hear anyone suggest that before someone tramps to the voting booth, he ought to educate himself.

Educate himself about what? Thereâ€™s plenty for that list. Economics. Public policy. The actual records of the actual candidates. Hell, the actual names of the candidates. All this would be an improvement overÂ whatÂ theÂ averageÂ studentÂ knowsÂ about history, politics, and most important, the principles that undergird freedom and prosperity.

Itâ€™s a curious position, vote-for-votingâ€™s-sake, given that the same voices calling for it tend to favor insuring that students know in exquisite detail every possible birth control option available in the Western hemisphere. They recognize, in other words, that action in ignorance is inherently dangerous.

We were just commenting about this issue locally. In 2008, there was a line outside our polling place for the precincts that held various apartment complexes in the area. It filled the voting room, went down one somewhat short hall, filled a very long hallway, and then still left about 40 people outside. It seemed like the Obama get out the vote efforts were strong in those complexes. However, in any other national election, you’ll only see a short little line coming out of their voting area at the school. In the primaries and local/state-only elections, the room is close to empty. In other words, these aren’t people who are paying attention to elections or issues. They only show up sporadically when told to do so by someone else. We wonder how long the line will be for those precincts this year.

In the linked piece, Tony Woodlief finishes with this thought:

Hereâ€™s a thought experiment: imagine that, statistically speaking, whenever droves of students rushed to the polls, they pulled the lever for the candidate who most favors limited government. Does anyone for a hot half-second doubt that Mr. Sanchez, rather than brainstorming ways to make voting more like ordering a pizza, would instead want to treat it more like buying a handgun?

And thatâ€™s how we should at least to think about it, which is to say that we ought no more encourage someone who doesnâ€™t know what the Constitution is to vote than we ought to give a chimpanzee a shotgun. In either case youâ€™re not exactly sure what weâ€™ll happen, but chances are it wonâ€™t be pretty.

The Shocking News for Super Tuesday

It’s not the fact that Mitt took Ohio. It’s not the fact that Dennis Kucinich finally lost his seat. It’s that in a Democratic primary with no serious challengers, Oklahoma Democrats made clear that they are not too fond of the President right now.

President Barack Obama collected the most votes in the Oklahoma Democratic primary, but lost in 15 counties.

With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, Obama won 55 percent of the vote. Four other candidates combined for 45 percent of the vote… (emphasis added)

In fact, this will result in the first non-Obama delegate to the Democratic convention awarded this year.

Let’s look at that again. These are Democrats. Nearly half of them wanted to vote for random dudes who got on the ballot for kicks than wanted to vote for the incumbent Democratic president. I love my home state. Even Sebastian said, “Yay Oklahoma!”

Ultimately, Obama’s team will ignore this since he will never have a shot at winning Oklahoma in the general. It’s the only state that went more red in 2008 because they didn’t like the guy with no real record back then, either. But, it does say something about the trouble a 50-state strategy could be for Obama this year.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the swing states this year. In 2008, the “excitement” had a damper put on it when Democratic canvassers from New York ripped out and tore up signs for any GOP candidates they recognized in our neighborhood. Considering 2010 drove people who never previously had signs out for elections to post really big signs for Republicans, our neighborhood could require a lot more time to “walk” for those folks.

The M.O.D. Squad

While reading “Against All Odds,” I had to laugh about this:

Buckleyâ€™s rationale for [refusing compensation for confiscation] was simple: â€œWeâ€™ve got a right to get poison out of society.â€ He denounced the Springfield, Mass., handgun manufacturer Smith & Wesson as â€œmerchants of death.â€

Anyone else suddenly inspired to watch a comedy tonight?