The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
Because our day just isn’t complete without her brand of commentary.
For your examination, Tam’s comments on the MSM’s hyperventilating on the “armed” White House intruder:
A Spyderco pocket knife… “He’s from Texas, honey,” I yelled at the television, startling the cats, “That’s not ‘armed’, that’s ‘dressed’, you island-dwelling herbivore!”
Jesus, you cud-chewing Eloi, how do you people open packages? With your teeth, like an animal?
Over on the Survival Blog is an article on keeping meds past their expiration date. Good read.
Basically, if it’s pills or capsules, those suckers can last for years past the date on the bottle. Liquid meds are another issue.
So, yeah, get that big bottle of pills from Sam’s/Costco/Amazon.
H/t Unc
Her reasons?
Among the points cited are prior attacks in the United States that the federal government refuses to classify as terrorism, including the Fort Hood attack, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the last week’s Oklahoma City beheading. Morgan has also received death threats in the past for her writing about Islam.
Another incident that weighed heavily in Morgan’s decision was an incident at her firing range several weeks ago, which she relayed to Bearing Arms this morning.
Morgan claims that two Muslim men who spoke only broken English came to her range and requested to rent semi-automatic firearms and ammunition. One of them could not produce any identification showing that he was in the country legally, and the other had a California driver’s license. Neither had any apparent firearms training. She allowed them to rent one firearm, and stood behind them the entire time they were on the range, her hand on or near her holstered Glock 19. All other patrons voluntarily vacated the firing line while they were shooting.
Let’s look at the problems:
How is she going to know who are Muslims? Muslims aren’t all olive-skinned with dark hair. Some are black, some could pass for Captain America. Hell, the largest Muslim nation is freaking Indonesia.
Who’s next? Blacks because of the rioting in Ferguson? Hispanics because of the border crisis? Atheists? Asians? Where does it stop?
As a business owner, you can deny service to anyone, but doing this does two things. First, it will put you out of business as the younger and newer shooters avoid your store like the plague it is. Secondly – and most importantly- you’re hurting the gun rights movement. We are trying to bring more people in, not alienate them.
First up, courtesy of John Richardson, a citizen who was naturalized as a child is suing Boston PD Commissioner for the PD’s refusal to accept a passport as proof of identity for a License to Carry. This is the same BPD Commissioner who has stated his opposition to anyone owning guns in the city.
The second, from Andrew Branca, is that Shaneen Allen is being allowed into pre-trial intervention. This is one of those cases we need to remember when we push for national reciprocity.
DC officials were given 90 days to come up with a concealed carry permitting system. Somewhat predictably, they decided to go with a “may-issue” system.
Of course, the applicant has to have a good reason, like being stalked, under a specific threat, or be politically connected (because if you don’t think those people will get their permits befit the people’s, you’re deluding yourself).
It looks like time for another court case.
Let me make a short opening statement. There are no good guns. There are no bad guns. Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody – except bad people.
Charleston Heston
With the events in Ferguson, Missouri, the public has rightly been discussing the growing militarization of the police forces in this nation. The flip side to that coin has been the increasingly reckless conduct by prosecuting attorneys, both at the state and federal level. Radley Balko, formerly of Reason and HuffPo, and now at WaPo, has done yeoman work documenting cases of prosecutorial misconduct and overreach. Just like the police, prosecutors are protected by qualified immunity and are rarely held to the same professional standards that their civilian* counterparts.
Prosecutorial misconduct is the reason I stopped supporting the death penalty. I can’t trust that the people exercising the ultimate government power are working within the law or even in the interest of justice.
That same reckless conduct led to the overturning of the convictions of police officer convicted for the killing of civilians on the Danziger Bridge during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For those of you who don’t remember this:
From the article:
“The case started as one featuring allegations of brazen abuse of authority, violation of the law, and corruption of the criminal justice system,” [Judge] Engelhardt wrote in his decision alluding to the Danziger prosecution. “Unfortunately, though the focus has switched from the accused to the accusors, it has continued to be about those very issues. After much reflection, the court cannot journey as far as it has in this case only to ironically accept grotesque prosecutorial misconduct in the end.”
This is unacceptable. The War on Nouns has lulled the populace into surrendering their liberty to the police and prosecutors. It’s time that those liberties were taken back and the offenders suffer the consequences.
h/t Ken Ostos, from the Book of Faces
* – Yes, I know that police and prosecutors are also civilians. It was a useful literary tool. It instantly made the dichotomy clear in your mind, didn’t it?
When someone looks at me and says “I know what I saw,” I am fond of replying “No, you don’t.” You have a distorted and constructed memory of a distorted and constructed perception, both of which are subservient to whatever narrative your brain is operating under.
Dr. Steven Novella, neurosurgeon and skepticism advocate
Someone gives you one of those novelty mugs with a pistol grip for a handle, and one of the first things you think is How do I hold this without breaking Rule 1?
I offer my condolences to his family.