Today is Rachel Lucas’ birthday, go to her blog and wish her well.
Projection
Murdoc has an excellent example of anti-gunner’s projection as displayed in “art”.
Projection is a big problem with the anti-gun movement, actually. As part of the recurring theme of people who for gun control being violent and unable to control themselves, they assume that we’re all violent, ignorant, cousin humping rednecks.
Dr. Helen talks about projection as well on her blog today as well.
If you listen to many people who are adamant gun control supporters, they often (mistakenly) believe that people simply shoot others because they are impulsive and angry, and a gun is nearby. My guess is that this is projection. This is what they feel they would do because they do not know how to modulate their own anger.
It’s not to hard on the blogosphere to find examples of anti-gun folk not being able to control themselves and moderate their own negative emotions; even high-level personnel within anti-gun organizations such as American Hunters and Shooters Association can be found making ad homenim attacks on pro-gun bloggers. If you go to Uncle’s blog and search for “why are anti-gunners so violent”, it will literally produce a bevy of hits.
Coffee blogging
You might have noticed that I’ve switched up my advertising again, I’m back to focusing primarily on products from Toddy Coffee; honestly because of the stuff I’ve asked you to buy on this blog, it’s the one I actually use and believe in.
You can check out their store at this link, if you do buy stuff from them I make money, so please, buy away. I’ve blogged about the Toddy Cold-Brewing system in the past, especially with regards to how it makes the best cup of coffee you’ll ever have. One of the things that’s been pointed out to me is that some people might not want to invest in a whole system without first trying out a bit of the product – now you can. You can actually order pre-made cold-brew concentrate, which is the foundation of the Toddy Coffee product by clicking on the banner add above, or on the sidebar.
I promise I’ll keep these shilling posts to an absolute minimum, I don’t like trying to sell stuff to you guys explicitly. Which is why I’ve pretty much switched to a “Toddy Coffee” only ad system, because like I said, if I’m going to sell something to my readers, it should be something that I use every day.
Podcast: Vegas, Baby!
Check out below for today’s podcast, on the pros and cons of having been Vegas for the last 3 months, as well as a little waxing nostalgic for my adopted state of Indiana.
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If the embedded flash player doesn’t play the audio correctly, just hit the link labeled “download” to listen, or you can click this link to download it on iTunes. The embedded flash player doesn’t always like Internet Explorer 6, however audio should play fine in Firefox or Internet Explorer 7.
Gun owners are bitter
Except for the fact that we’re not, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
According to the 2006 General Social Survey, which has tracked gun ownership since 1973, 34% of American homes have guns in them.
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Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.
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Nor are they “bitter.” In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were “very happy,” while 9% were “not too happy.” Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.
In short, we’re just as educated as non gun owners, and apparently we’re much better adjusted mentally. The article comments that it could be because many gun owners have a strong sense of self-reliance, which is one of the keys to feeling “happy” about your situation in life.
It must be getting harder and harder for the Brady Campaign against Gun Ownership to portray us as a bunch of ignorant, cousin-humping rednecks with anger issues when articles like this are published. Thanks to Unc for the link.
Irony
Apparently, Hillary and St. Obama the Hopemonger have been attacking one another during their campaigning in Pennsylvania. What makes this ironic is that they’ve been attacking each other…for being too negative.
Each candidate says the other is unfit to lead the country.
Clinton has attacked Obama for his recent comments about some small-town Americans, his heath care plan and his relative Washington inexperience. Obama has countered by taking aim at Clinton over her acceptance of money from political action committees, her health care plan and her Washington experience.
But the most oft-repeated charge — the one mentioned at virtually every stop — is negative campaigning.
This has been one of the nastiest campaigns that I can remember, period. Not just nasty primary, but a nasty campaign – which does not bode well for the mood of the upcoming general election, although I like that McCain has for the most part been keeping his head out of the Democrat’s little shooting (or lack thereof in Hillary’s case) war.
And I’ll be doing my part to keep their little pissing contest going for as long as possible, because I’m voting for Hillary in the Indiana primary come may. The more time they spend ripping each other apart, the more divided and fractured their party becomes, the better I’ll feel. Because as much as I don’t like McCain, I’d rather see him than either one of these two get elected.
So by all means you two, keep it up. Keep attacking one another, keep up with the negative, nasty campaign, it just makes my guy look that much better.
Wisdom at 0200
1. Boondock Saints edited for TV sucks.
2. The movie loses all credibility when the main characters get off on self-defense early on. I mean come on, it’s set in Boston – no one gets off on self-defense there.
3. There is a midget on a donkey on a different channel, and I’m sobering up.
4. Bad TV gets exponentially better the more beer you consume.
Interesting data
NRA-ILA has taken to asking poll questions lately in each edition of the Grassroot Alerts, which I think is kind of cool. In the most recent edition, the third question was where do you (or I) primarily get our political information; which you had three choices for. Choice one was TV/Radio, choice 2 was print newspapers, and choice 3 was Internet. I chose internet, because that’s my primary source of information for just about everything these days, including political info. So I was somewhat surprised when I saw the resulting graphic of the choices:
Honestly, I was surprised to see the internet number at only 40%, I guess I assumed that it would be around 60% or so got their primary political info from the web. I think that it in part speaks to generational differences, since I’m part of the generation that has literally grown up online, it would stand to reason that I’d go to the internet before TV or print newspapers. I mean, I read the Wall St. Journal every day, and it’s been years since I held a paper copy of it in my hand.
Blame Global Warming
I’m not sure how, but I’m pretty sure nonetheless that the 5.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Indiana this morning is the fault of global warming.
Either that or a yawning fissure into the depths of hell just opened up on the border of Illinois and Indiana, and cacodemons are about to start spilling forth onto the mortal plane, in which case we all better go running for our BFGs and double barreled shotguns, because if there is one thing that hellspawned evil can’t stand, it’s double-ought buckshot.
In all seriousness though, Indiana is actually located on a relatively dormant fault line – it’s not like the San Andreas Fault that I grew up on, but it’s there and apparently does a little shake-and-roll from time to time. I’m kind of sad that I missed it being here in Vegas, just so I could see how Hoosiers react when the planet decides to go a little rodeo.
US Airways firing pilot
The pilot who experienced the accidental discharge when attempting to stow his firearm in the TSA mandated holster is being terminated by US Airways. You know, it’s not often that I saw that a firearm going off is a true accidental discharge and not caused by negligence, but in this case I definitely believe it, especially after seeing this video.
The airline has begun the termination process for Capt. James Langenhahn, said Mike Karn, vice president of the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association.
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Karn said his group, which represents pilots who are federally trained and allowed to carry firearms on flights, will fight the termination.
“This was accidental not intentional,” Karn said. “This is not the way to treat a long-term pilot.”
Once again, I’m stuck on an issue on which I’m torn. On the one hand, I think that US Airways has every right to fire this guy – provided that he violated one of their policies. If he didn’t, then this is wrong, but I’m assuming for the moment that having an AD on a plane does violate company policy. But that being said, I don’t think he should be fired – if anything his situation should spark some kind of policy change at TSA to ensure that they’re not issuing these goofy-assed holsters to people any longer.
I love the FFDO program, and I think it’s unfortunate the TSA saddles their pilots with this ridiculous and dangerous holsters. The equipment and regulations create a safety hazard, because they mandate excessive handling of the firearm, and every time you handle your firearm you increase the odds of something bad happening. I want the FFDO program to continue, but someone at DHS needs to take a long, hard look at some of the dumb rules.