Lies, Damned Lies, and Karl Rove

what i found interesting was one or two of the comments (i know, i know)
bush and rove (daryl and daryl) are not Christians are not conservatives, and the christofascists are an easy mark for any con. let’s face it, if you believe in magic, you’ll send a check to benny hinn and vote for any candidate who tells them they’re going to heaven if they send that check or vote republican
my question, how the fuck are there so many of them?
last night i saw some tv news about a school somewhere that had removed god from the pledge, surprise, surprise, surprise, it’s back in.

Jeez this uses the phraseology of a combat memoir.

Seems ironic for some reason.

As for Rove, evil geniuz?

Maths election 2006 killed that. Just a skilled ratfucker.

@ManchuCandidate:
how about the jacket picture? they couldn’t get a shot of him NOT looking evil and retarded?

how ya feelin?

i’ve fought 2 wars with you people, and i love nojo dearly, though he hates me. how is it possible that i’ve been scribbling to you for, what, 2, 3 YEARS exclusively (!) and i have never, not once, gotten a tweet.
my DEAD DOG, on the other hand has gotten one. am i that dull?
i’m going to try harder.
can i have miss congeniality?
oh, this is good weed.

TJ: If guns are outlawed, only gun show peddlers will have guns.

Discuss.

@baked:
Rove defines smug fat prick. Can’t be photoshopped out.

I’m mobile (especially now that I’m not attached to a catheter.) Bowels are feeling better. Standing up more. Hurt more because of it, but that is okay (I think.) Eating more solid food. Exercise a mere 7 weeks away.

As for tweets, well this only the 2nd of mine that made it.

@Nabisco:
Nightmare scenario for law enforcement types. As a reader of bad and not so bad espionage thrillers, it’s been used before.

I suspect that gun show peddlers would be at home on Wall St if they were better connected or had an Ivy League edumakashun.

@ManchuCandidate:
ONLY YOUR SECOND???????
fuck you.

and glad to hear you’re making progress. feel good soon XOXO

@Nabisco:
when i moved to this idyllic island i thought it was charming that guns were outlawed. period. no guns permitted on the island, not even cops.
well, of course bad guys smuggled them in and the only people on the island with guns are bad guys.
then after 8 months in israel, i came to understand that everyone must be armed. i want a gun for my birthday. pearl handled .22 would be nice.

@baked: Man loses a section of his colon, he deserves a Stinque tweet (or is that Sweet Tink?).

@baked: they couldn’t get a shot of him NOT looking evil and retarded?
Even Richard Avedon at the height of his powers wasn’t that good. Sadly, Photoshop doesn’t have a “simple human decency” effect.

@baked: “oh, this is good weed.” gets my tweet vote, esp as it is one of our mottoes.
And don’t get a .22–all that’s going to do is piss your target off. A blinged-out snub-nose .38 could be an attractive accessory. Let our man RML recommend something pretty but deadly.

@Mistress Cynica:
thank you for your vote, mistress tweet a week.
yes, i’m serious about the gun. i tried to edit my comment to tell RML to wake up, but ajax doesn’t like me either. obviously, nojo is behind that.
i’ve carried a blade forever…parking lot in philly at 3 a.m.? yes, i was armed, but it would be an up close and personal attack, just to make sure, and he would bleed. yes he would. remember when the repairman at ROYAL PALM HOTEL ON OCEAN DRIVE IN SOUTH BEACH MIAMI tried to rape me? i was wearing a robe, without my blade, but that poor man got the living shit beat out of him with a coffee carafe and a room service tray. i was a fool to report him though. we sat in a room in the managers office, i looked a little crazy and he was black and blue. if he wasn’t an imbecile, he should have filed charges against ME!
RML…wake up. what do you recommend?

@Mistress Cynica:
i know this happened to you and we haven’t had the chance to discuss!
i don’t know what time zone I’M in half the time.
public apology to you and lefty for drunk dialing both of you a few times at 4a.m.
skype has been fritzy, i shall try again.
btw, this new med is knocking me out. RB loves it…says it makes me STFU for 10 minutes.
i have to go somewhere now to recline. XOXO

I want to say one thing in defense of the lowly .22 — one shot will hurt a person, and quite possibly kill them. Multiple shots will drop most people, and the delightful thing about a .22 is that it doesn’t kick much, so you can easily and unflinchingly put a bunch of shots in your target.

However, I think carrying a gun is asking for trouble. It makes you swagger and take stupid risks unless you have remarkable self-restraint (and a lot of people do, but lots and lots of people don’t). There’s a very good chance that in a violent encounter, your gun will change hands, and might easily be used on you. Bringing a gun into the equation introduces a bunch of legal issues, assuming you survive. In a situation where guns are absolutely outlawed, carrying one automatically makes you an outlaw, no matter what you’re doing, and the slightest carelessness will get you into big trouble, whether it’s legal trouble or the kind where a bad guy assumes you’re a rival bad guy and acts appropriately. I would personally never consider carrying a gun unless I knew of a real and immediate danger to my person that running away couldn’t solve but a gun could.

What I do carry, and think is a fine idea, is pepper spray. It’ll disable an attacker in most situations, for long enough to get your ass out of there. If someone gets it from me and uses it on me, I won’t be happy, but I also won’t be dead, and I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if a criminal gets a $10 ampoule of pepper spray. It’s not absolutely effective, of course, and is much more easily defeated than a bullet, but it also carries little in the way of legal or ethical risks while being quite useful. Pepper spray is also available in a very easily pocketable size, and if it goes off (which has happened to me) your skin will tingle a little bit.

RML will have a different opinion to some extent, and I’m sure he can offer actual opinions on what’s available in handguns to suit your situation. It makes it easier for me to be down on handguns because I find them clumsy and inaccurate in use, and only own a couple of .22 rifles. I wouldn’t consider aiming either of those at another person in any situation I can imagine actually happening. Zombie invasion is, of course, a different question.

@Mistress Cynica: If baked lived in the CONUS and could score ammo at the local WalMart or corner gun shop, I would agree that a medium frame .38/.357 revolver would be the way to go. But being where she’s at, I would go with a 9 mm semi-auto handgun that inserts a round in the chamber automatically after every shot.

Glocks are well-regarded for their accuracy, reliability, ease of operation* and take down for cleaning. Tha Isrealites issue them to various security units. I took my 9mm Glock 19 to the range yesterday and it shot three different kinds of ammo equally well with no hiccups. Evil high capacity 15 round mags are standard equipment except in Cali, where 10 is the limit. I have the compact Glock 19 9mm pistol. I’d like to get a sub compact Glock 26 for carry.

The 9 mm cartridge is a decent cartridge because its powerful enough to take out bad guys with good shot placement using hollow point ammo in standard or +P loads (full metal jacket ammo should only be used at the range), and the shooter can keep the pistol on target due to the 9mm’s relatively low recoil. Of equal importance is that you can find the 9 anywhere on the planet.

As for the snubnosed revolver, it’s an excellent choice with some caveats – availability of ammo where you’re at, increased recoil especially when shooting .357s as I was over the past two days (about 100 rds), lesser accuracy due to the short sight radius (distance between front and rear rights). To mitigate these factors I use .38 or .38 +P ammo in my Ruger SP-101 although it is chambered for .357 mag (it shoots all three cartridges, very versatile that way), and I installed laser grips on it. Basically, the bullet goes where you point the laser, even without using the sights, which is pretty awesome. I’m also going to put a fiber optic sight up front as it is very hard to see against a dark target even in full daylight. I have no problems shooting the .357s out of my full size Ruger GP 100 revolver, a workhorse of a gun I carry hunting and fishing. I sub out all three for home defense except on martini nights, when I can use a chemical fire extinguisher (spray them with the white stuff, hit them with the red can).

I go into the belly of the beast next week when I take my qualification class for a concealed carry license, which I am getting at Mrs RML’s urging. Also, it is a fourth degree felony to tuck a pistol out of view into a fishing vest, as that is can unlawful concealed carry. Should be an interesting experience.

* Insert magazine, rack slide to put first round in chamber, acquire target, shoot. Slide locks back when mag is empty. Release slide, hit mag release, insert new mag, repeat as above.

Women shooting the Glock 19 and Glock 26 9 mm pistolas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR5ZByvx4S8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXh42LtPrc&feature=related

Review of Glock 19 and 26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZUe-B1-vy8&feature=related

@IanJ: As always my esteemed colleague Ian J raises some very important points. I’ve seen a guy shot in the head with a .22 in at the Office of the Medical Investigator, and people do get hurt or killed by them fairly often.

I also have my pepper spray, small flashlight and a blade or two in my pockets or briefcase when I go out, and take a 5 ft hardwood rake handle when walking the dog. Lots of knife point robberies downtown in the summer, and only one gunpoint robbery of a tourist last year although gangsters shot a guy on the walking trail not too far from here a couple of months ago. I’m going to upgrade to a tactical flashlight with a scalloped lens crown and a get a hardwood cane for going out at for dinner or a movie at night.

Flight is always the first option, however, as when I almost got mugged one night in Albuquerque. First blow to the head and I was half a block away in an instant.

@redmanlaw: @IanJ:
very informative. ian, baby jesus KNOWS i don’t ever want to be in a situation where i would have to use it, but interesting that mrs RML is urging this. like it or not, most of the time bad guys are guys and victims are girls/wimmins. and pepper spray is not as effective as you think. from another life, i know this to be true.
reds, i lerve the laser! but you’re absolutely correct, i would only be able to do this in CONUS. my dad has lived in nyc for 50 years. he goes out with keys, wallet, gun. he says you have to be crazy not to.
israel made a tremendous impact on me re guns. do you know that every single teacher from kindergarten on up is armed? columbine, ft. hood, virgina tech etc. etc. couldn’t happen there. and every person over the age of 19 has had serious gun training.
i wish you luck reds on your concealed weapon test. i have changed my mind on this issue 100%. ian, the zombies ARE coming/already here.
and now i will walk into a few more walls to find a place to nap.
and it’s all of your fault. i called the shrink crying over sergio, and show up laughing like a maniac from wanda. ok, another try to find my bed.

TJ / Well, that didn’t take long:

Justice’s wife launches ‘tea party’ group

Anybody recall if Justice Thomas has ever opined on the gay marriage issue? I’d love to see how he reconciles the fact that nearly every argument against it was also used (50ish years ago) against mixed-race marriage – but I’m always a fan of watching conservatives twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels.

@baked: Consider a spear gun. Now that is serious terror infliction. The first round goes through the torso and the attacker is on the ground shrieking his last while you reload and taunt the fucker asking him if he wants the next round in the eye socket or the balls.

@baked: If you decide that a firearm is the only choice, get trained. Many gun ranges offer firearms classes, and a lot offer women-only firearms classes. Training and practice and knowledge are the only way to go. A gun represents the ridiculously low-effort power of life and death, and cannot be treated lightly.

I agree with you that victims are usually women, and pepper spray is far from the most effective choice. I have several reasons I’m willing to depend on it: 1. I’ve never experienced a credible threat against me; 2. I have a low value as a target (being big and imposing looking, but not showing a lot of obvious wealth); 3. All I want is the 10 second break to get the hell away. I guess my thought is that if you’re in a situation where a firearm is necessary, it’s better to absent yourself from the situation than carry a gun and risk having to kill another person. Obviously easier said than done in some cases.

@redmanlaw: You live in a pretty well fucked up place, dude.

Noone is ever mugged, shot, or knifed, hereabouts, except for domestics and illegal business disputes, stranger-on-stranger crime is unheard of, like, getting struck by lightening.

My theory is that ever since the great depression, all the lazy, criminal, and idiotic people in the US have all harbored a dream to move to where its warm, and thus, SoCal, the Southwest, and Florida all have huge amounts of, well, just fucking lowlifes who drifted in over the years.

@Prommie: As a past victim of violence, I have a very high awareness of my surroundings. I also read the the police reports daily in the paper to see what is happening where and at what time. About three or four years ago I noticed a wave of property crime in the southwest part of town that began to spread to the northeast, toward my neighborhood. We had three break ins since them. Trailheads close to town get hit almost every weekend because boneheads leave iPods, wallets, passports, purses, expensive shades, etc in plain view. Gang bangers stab skateboarders downtown. There are a lot of fucking assholes running around this town.

@baked: Also, dress appropriately for the range:

Guess what happens when stubborn girl wearing tank top/sports bra combo focuses on upper body form and locks her left arm while shooting?

A. Her hits are better.

B. Tank top/sports bra combo makes perfect basket for hot brass.

C. There is laughter on video.

D. All of the above.

Correct answer: D.

Open carry guns and open carry alcohol don’t mix.