“Tensions continue to rise in Connecticut, as the home addresses of the legislators who voted for the [“assault” weapons] ban have been posted on numerous web sites and forums. Many of the legislators are now calling for police protective details, regarding the publication of their home addresses as a threat to their safety.”
This could become a “teaching moment” for pols elsewhere with the same plans to please their anti-gun supporters by disregarding the Constitution.
Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Obamalot, Obsessions, The Culture
Tagged gun control, push back twice as hard
“Take the rocket from Operation Pillar of Defense that hit a home in Rishon Lezion. That rocket destroyed one floor. This warhead would have destroyed the entire building.” —Israel Defense Forces.
While Iran pretends to be standing down its nuclear weapons development, its material support for terrorism continues without pretense.
Read. It. All. Here.
Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obsessions, The War
American history says no, not by a long shot. Even Wormtongue’s constant, tasteless bashing of the “rich” in favor of the “poor” is nothing new. Although I expect when he says rich he really means the upper-middle class which he’d like to tax into oblivion and not the Democrat’s billionaire pal George Soros.
“The clash of rich and poor has been a constant theme of American history since the Revolution, and was integral to the framing of the Constitution. For the Founders, the ‘haves and have-nots’ were the two most important ‘factions’ that in the Constitutional order would check and balance one another so that neither could threaten the freedom of the other…
“Rather than fret over partisan rhetoric, we should focus on restoring the Constitutional vision of limited government so we can slow the growth of the federal Leviathan whose ruinous costs and encroaching power are the real danger.”
From the comments: “What is unique is the near-monopoly which one party has on the traditional news media of the day. That is what is unprecedented in US history—and infinitely more dangerous than any arguments about ideas and principles.”
Two viewpoints you really can’t emphasize too often these days.
Via Instapundit.
The climate-change, wind turbine boys will do absolutely anything to promote their ridiculous, inefficient, high-maintenance product. Comes the latest laugher:
“Offshore wind turbines could weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge.”
Ten thousand of them, to be exact. Not in the Gulf, please. We don’t need thousands of giant turbine blades flying this far inland after a Cat 5 rips into the windmills.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Now that fracking has slain the peak-oil dragon, windmills are facing decreasing government subsidies across the USA and Europe so the prospect of ten thousand “to weaken hurricanes, reduce storm surge” is nil.
A tragedy in Tennessee Monday reminds me how close I came to being crippled or killed back in 2006 when I took on gravity and my 3,000 pound Jeep. Guess who won.
I interposed myself between the Jeep and a Suburban it was slowly rolling towards to save myself (and my insurance record) some extra expense. I was pushing really hard on the Jeep but it wasn’t stopping. Either I thought I was Superman or I was conditioned by the ordinary illusion of effortlessly handling a heavy machine in everyday use. Physics wasn’t impressed.
Instead of being crippled with a crushed leg, I was saved by a passerby who opened the driver’s door, reached in and set the parking brake. I was doubly fortunate in having forgotten to lock the door. That part of my stupidity worked out really well.
I only hobbled around for a few weeks. I still wonder what I was thinking to even try it, and I thank G-d for my good fortune. This poor woman died in her vain attempt to stop her rolling Toyota.
Via Instapundit.
Posted in Blogosphere, Obituaries, Obsessions, Science/Engineering
Tagged gravity is the law, illusion versus physics, Instapundit
I haven’t watched it more than a few minutes at a time on rare occasions. Mrs. Charm watches it religiously and seems not the least perturbed by any of it. She was sad when its season ended Sunday night, but I’m sure she’ll hunt for reruns.
I figure it is basically Upstairs Downstairs in retread, which, indeed, some critics contend. I was surprised to learn that some conservatives consider it offensive, probably for its portrayal of a society without much, if any, middle class—which is where the Democrats seem intent on taking all of us.
Terry at Sullivan’s Travelers thinks the Abbey is nothing to be concerned about:
“The political message is bien-pensant, when it can be detected at all. The way that social norms straightened the lives of women is given far greater emphasis than the way…social norms straightened the lives of men. Lord Grantham is a genuinely good-hearted person. Carson, the chief domestic, is tough, but fair. I was surprised to see the sole gay character, footman Thomas Barrow, presented as a villain (though they made him more likable by the end of season three).”
Like I say I don’t watch it, so I don’t know. I don’t generally watch the rube, anymore, except for Big 12 college football games in the fall and winter.
I remember watching Upstairs Downstairs at my ex-wife’s parents home way back when. They never missed it. They were well enough off to identify with the lords and ladies instead of the help.
Abbey apparently is just a similar soap opera in period clothes.
Posted in Blogosphere, Mrs. Charm, Obsessions, Rancho Roly Poly, The Culture
Tagged Downton Abbey, soap operas, Sullivan's Travelers, Upstairs Downstairs
The black hats—or penguins if you want to be rude—are the ultra-Orthodox of Judaism, mostly found these days in New York and Jerusalem. But a growing number can be seen daily in our hilly neighborhood on the eastern slope of Austin’s northwest plateau. They’re the surface indications of a growing Jewish population and, therefore, Jewish choices hereabouts.
There’s the proximity to the Dell Jewish Community Center half a mile or so up the road from the rancho. It mainly offers a variety of secular, reform, and conservative services. All of which many of the Haredim lump with pagans and gentiles. Although there is at least one orthodox congregation there and an orthodox Chabad-Lubbavitch center a mile or so farther north, as well as the student one a few miles down to the southeast of the neighborhood at the University of Texas.
The kosher meat market tucked into a corner of our local H.E.B is a nicety. And, who knows, the diamond merchants amongst whom the Haredim are said to be proliferating might like to congregate. Confirmed for me by a gentile friend hereabouts who is also in the diamond trade. An unassuming fellow devoid of identifying costume except for his diamond pinky ring and the small, belt-holstered 9mm whose outlines are occasionally visible under his shirt. Hard to imagine the Haredim going armed—they’d need a concealed-carry permit from the state of course—but their permanent choice of black suit jackets would provide appropriate concealment.
Whatever the draw for Jews and their burgeoning choices hereabouts, I find the black hats comforting. I see them every Shabbat escorting their long-skirted, hair-covered wives and young children in their Saturday best, all walking in the general direction of the community center and back home again to the rental duplexes on a street a few blocks east of the rancho. But I have always been among the god obsessed, even in our seemingly secular age.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 