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Do You Use A Harrier Or A Staghound For Fox And Eland?

July 9, 2014 by 7 Comments

I saw two auctions recently that had me wondering how I could rig the PowerBall lottery so as to be the big winner.


The first auction was covered by Wired and features a 1976 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR Mk3 jump jet. The jet, which saw service with the RAF in the Balkans and the Falkland War, comes with a Rolls Royce Pegasus Mk103 engine and its original ejection seat. It is missing some of its avionics but the auctioneer says that it could be made flyable rather easily (if you had the money).

From Silverstone Auction catalog

 The second auction features Jacques M. Littlefield Collection of armored vehicles including tanks, armored cars, personnel carriers, and a SCUD missile launcher (with missile). There are over 200 lots in this auction.

The include a South African Eland wheeled armored vehicle with a 90mm main gun.

If the Eland with a top speed of 53 mph is too slow for you, then how about a British FV721 Fox Armored Car with a 65 mph top speed. In exchange for speed, you do have to give up some firepower. You are trading the 90mm main gun for a 30mm Rarden cannon.

Now the question remains, would you chase after the Eland and Fox with the Harrier or would you use the Staghound shown below? I’m thinking the Harrier might be the better bet.

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Media Bias Or Lazy Reporting – You Make The Call

July 8, 2014 by 2 Comments

The Brady Center has announced that they plan to sue the state of Kansas and Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) over that state’s one-year old Second Amendment Protection Act. That Kansas law exempts firearms manufactured and owned in the state from “federal law, regulation, or authority.” The Brady Center is contending the law is unconstitutional.

Here is where Tim Carpenter of the Topeka Capital-Journal shows either his bias towards gun control and/or is guilty of lazy reporting for taking the description of the Brady Center straight from their press release.

The Brady Center is a nonprofit organization that develops and implements public safety programs and utilizes the courts to reduce gun violence. The center’s Legal Action Project represents victims of gun violence in cases against irresponsible gun sellers and owners.

Let’s parse that description. About the only correct parts of that two sentence description that are accurate are “Brady Center”, “nonprofit organization”, and “utilizes the courts”.

The Brady Center programs do nothing to improve the public’s safety nor to promote the safe handling of firearms. Furthermore, it uses the court system not to reduce “gun violence” (sic) but rather to maintain repressive gun control laws and to attempt to suppress any moves towards an expansion of civil rights. Finally, the Legal Action Project seeks economic retribution against firearms manufacturers, dealers, and owners for the criminal actions of others.

If mainstream journalists wonder why we don’t trust them, you have to look no further than that concluding description of the Brady Center.

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The Anti-Gun Regime In Chicago Is Getting More Expensive

July 7, 2014 by 3 Comments

The more the anti-gun regime of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tries to suppress Second Amendment rights in that city, the more it is costing them as they lose in the courts. The only downside is that it is the people of Chicago having to pay the bill and not Mayor Emanuel and his gaggle of aldermen.

A case in point. The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois just ordered the City of Chicago to reimburse the NRA over $900,000 for their legal fees fighting the ban on gun stores there.

From the NRA’s release announcing the court-ordered award:

The United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois has ordered the City of Chicago to reimburse $940,000 in legal expenses incurred by the NRA. The NRA had challenged Chicago’s ban on gun sales within city limits in Benson v. City of Chicago. The Benson case was consolidated into Illinois Association of Firearm Retailers v. City of Chicago and that case challenged five aspects of Chicago’s law: (1) the ban on any form of carriage; (2) the ban on gun stores; (3) the ban on firing ranges; (4) the ban on self-defense in garages, porches, and yards; and (5) the ban on keeping more than one gun in an operable state.


This is the second time that the City of Chicago has been ordered to reimburse legal fees in a suit sponsored by the NRA. The first was following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago in which Chicago was ordered to reimburse the NRA more than $600,000.

You may remember that the City of Chicago paid the Second Amendment Foundation $399,950 in attorney fees for the McDonald case. The NRA got even more.

I’m not sure what Chicago had to pay when they lose the Ezell case but it can’t be cheap.

And while we are in the state of Illinois, let’s not forget the legal fees that will be paid by the good citizens of Illinois to the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation for their wins in the joint cases of Moore v. Madigan and Shepard v. Madigan. The state of Illinois is trying to be a bit more parsimonious than Chicago given the way they are haggling over fees submitted by Alan Gura.

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“circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy”

July 4, 2014 by 2 Comments

I will admit to being thrilled by the archaic language of the Declaration of Independence. One of my favorite words in the Declaration – beyond that of independence – is the word perfidy.

per·fi·dy[pur-fi-dee]

noun, plural per·fi·dies.
1.
deliberate breach of faith or trust; faithlessness; treachery: perfidy that goes unpunished.
2.
an act or instance of faithlessness or treachery.

Origin:
1585–95; < Latin perfidia faithlessness, equivalent to perfid ( us ) faithless, literally, through (i.e., beyond the limits of) faith ( per- per- + fid ( ēs ) faith + -us adj. suffix) + -ia -y3

From the list of  injuries and usurpations and other sources of aggrievement submitted to a “candid world” comes this one:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat
the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.

Jefferson did have a way with words.

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It Only Makes Sense To Me

July 4, 2014 by 4 Comments

Today is Independence Day and Tuesday, July 1st was Canada Day or, as I still call it, Dominion Day. The former celebrates our birth as a nation and the latter celebrates the British North America Act of 1867 which united the provinces of Canada (Ontario and Quebec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia into the Dominion of Canada within the British Empire.

Roberta X makes the very sensible suggestion of celebrating the days between July 2nd and 3rd, as Co-Dependence Days.

I’ll be excoriated for this, but the inhabitants of U.S. and Canada ought to celebrate July 2 and 3, the days between Canada Day and Independence Day, as “Co-dependence Days,” in which we consider all that we love and loathe about our neighbor. We share the longest border in the world without armies watching one another over it, about 2/3 of a common language and all manner of customs, habits and entertainments — and we share them about the same way fraternal twins between the ages of seven and twelve share the back seat of car over the course of a day-long excursion.

I’ve always liked Canada and Canadians. The country has a spectacular beauty in many places. As to the Canadian people, they are a likeable people with perhaps the sometimes exception of the Francophones in La Belle Province. Perhaps I hold a rosier view of Canadians as my first girlfriend was Canadian.

Still, I could see this joint holiday working.

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Placating The Harpies

July 3, 2014 by 1 Comment

Target released a mush-mouth statement yesterday to placate the harpies at Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors. Their interim CEO John Mulligan who, by the way, has only held the job for less than 2 months, issued a Starbucks-like statement that said, in part:

As you’ve likely seen in the media, there has been a debate about whether guests in communities that permit “open carry” should be allowed to bring firearms into Target stores. Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target – even in communities where it is permitted by law.

That placated the harpies who proclaimed “VICTORY” in a big banner headline on their website.

Later yesterday afternoon, a spokesperson for Target clarified the statement put out by Mulligan saying, “It is not a ban,” she said. “There is no prohibition.” In other words, nothing changes.

It’s time to remember a few things about Target. They really only care about one thing – money. They have seen sales drop for the last six quarters (oops!) and are desperate to regain their footing. They think that by placating the Shannon Watts of the world that sales might rise. What they forget is that these oh-so-trendy “moms” think Walmart is icky and don’t have any other discount chain at which to shop anyway.

The other thing to remember about Target is that they don’t give a damn about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The only parts that they care about is the First Amendment protection for commercial speech and possibly the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The Second, Fourth, and all the rest? While they might not say it out loud especially on the eve of Independence Day, they do not care. They care about the bottom line. It’s time we remember that.

UPDATE: The Stupidity and Hypocrisy of Gun Control Advocates Facebook page nails it here. I read it earlier today and then spent an hour or so looking for it again.  Bob Owens and Tam are not far behind in their snarkiness.

I really do like Bob’s rewrite of the Target statement:

How the heck did we get caught up in this mess? All we want to do is sell cheap foreign-made stuff to hausfraus who feel they’re too good to be “people of Walmart.” We don’t want to be involved in gun rights politics at all.

But thanks to some grandstanding long-gun open carry yahoos in Texas who can’t figure out basic muzzle discipline, and the response of some shrill harpies in Indiana taking orders from a bitter under-sized billionaire in New York, we’re screwed through no fault of our own.

We really don’t want any part of this… so how can we make it all go away, so we can go back to trying to make money for our shareholders?

I know! We’ll send out a non-committal yet carefully crafted press release that sounds like it’s saying something, while we actually change nothing. The little Moms Demanding Action From Illegal Mayors group will claim victory and come back to buy zinfandel and Xanax, and the retards who never passed range safety will stop muzzling each other’s feet in our parking lots and will go back to playing Call of Duty and leave us alone.

Heck, it worked for Starbucks.

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Independence Eve?

July 2, 2014 by 2 Comments

The people who brew Newcastle Brown Ale have some smart Geordies in charge of their ad campaigns. They are pushing July 3rd as a new holiday called “Independence Eve”. They also have a new hashtag campaign called #IfWeWon explaining how things would be different if the Brits had won the American Revolution.

Along with the fake holiday and hashtag campaign, Newcastle Brown Ale is releasing a series of YouTube videos. I particularly like this one contrasting the language differences between American English and British English.

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Armed With Children?

June 30, 2014 by 4 Comments

Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors decided to hold a little protest at a San Antonio, Texas Target store. Jamie Addams, the San Antonio regional ambassador for the gun control group, said “they were armed with clipboards and children” but were still asked to leave.

Armed with children? Isn’t that what warlords in sub-Saharan Africa have been accused of doing with their child soldiers? Hasn’t this become an issue for UNICEF?

Rebels in Mozambique started the use of children in the early 1980s. As the New York Times notes in a story about child soldiers, they are the perfect weapon. Children are “easily manipulated, intensely loyal, fearless and, most important, in endless supply.” Could that be the reason Everytown Moms uses children as “arms”?

The real story here isn’t that the Target store manager told the Everytown Moms to move along which was nice. Rather it is the comments of the Everytown Mom’s “regional ambassador” regarding the organization’s use of children as tools in their war on civil rights. Children should not be used as tools or props or weapons.

UPDATE: The picture below is from an Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors protest outside a Target store in Pennsylvania. I count four “child warriors” in the picture with (what appears to be) a fifth on the way. Tell me that any of those kids is old enough to articulately explain why they are there and why they are protesting Target’s policy of abiding by local laws. While the Catholic Church may consider the “age of reason” to be 6 or 7, I doubt you could extrapolate that to protesting for gun control.

If I had to guess, the woman who is standing second from left is the leader of this little group. I wonder if she is being paid with Bloomberg money. Does anyone know who she is?

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I Can Recommend These

June 29, 2014 by 3 Comments

Blogger and writer Marko Kloos (pronounced “close”) has two of his books featured as part of Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deals. They are Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure. The books are part of his Frontline series. They are $1.99 today. You can see them here.

I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of sci-fi fiction preferring to read history and period mysteries. That said, I enjoyed reading both of these books and would highly recommend them. They feature a dystopian world where the North American Commonwealth has had to colonize space due to over-population and pollution on Earth.

If the name Marko Kloos doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps you might recognize the mythical “Major L. Caudill, USMC (Ret)” who penned the essay “Why The Gun Is Civilization”. They are one and the same. The essay itself has over 200,000 hits on Google. It even has a well-done dramatic reading on YouTube.