LonelyMachines

It's already begun. Mitt Romney showed up at the NRA convention Friday and gave a keynote address that boiled down to "Obama's going to take your guns, but I'm the guy who's going to fight for you right to keep them!" Nice try, Mitt, but some of us have long memories. We remember who supported the original Assault Weapons Ban in 1993, and we haven't forgotten who signed off on a permanent extension of Massachusetts' state-level equivalent in 2004. Signing up for an NRA life membership two years later doesn't erase that. Frankly, I don't expect the guy to push for the 2nd Amendment if he gets elected. I don't think we can even expect a wizened little shove. The best we'll get is that he stays out of the way of the progress we're making. Is the situation ideal? Nope. But politics isn't about the ideal ; it's about what's practical and achievable. This is something you just can't beat into the Ron Paul zealots. We tak...

As much as I'm enjoying this game, there's one thing that keeps poking in to that whole "suspension of disbelief" thing for me. The entire cast talks like Motörhead roadies. No, really. Half the characters speak in an  accent just like this , and the native people are called the Nords. One of the towns is named Hrothgar, after the Danish king of the Scylding line. Whiterun is ruled by a Jarl , and one of the mead halls is called Jorrvaskur , which basically means "spunky pony." It quickly becomes obvious that Skyrim is little more than a thinly-veiled piece of anti-Scandinavian propaganda and defamation. Brütal Legend was offensive enough, but this just crosses the line. Thanks for the hate crime, Bethesda. Our attorneys will be in contact shortly.

Talk about serendipity. I blame  Manservant Hecubus .

Meet the seasoned operators of Tactial Bodygaurd & Security SVC .  According to their website , TB&S is based out of Montgromery, Alabama. I can't seem to find Montgromery on a map, which leads me to believe that these folks are some serious covert operators. There does appear to be a ninja in some of their pictures. What exactly do these guys do?  We specialize in security for clubs, bars, convenient store, private parties. weather it be a small job or big nothing we cant handle. These folks certainly look professional, which leads me to believe that the rampant typographical errors are some kind of code. Try as I might, I can't seem to crack it.  Good work, guys.

You too can be Irony King (or other monarch) of the week by going here and giving your address.  They send you one of these bumper stickers free.  The site says it'll take 4-6 weeks to ship, but that's still plenty of time before the primaries. In other news, there's a promising verdict from the North Carolina Superior Court (opinion linked at Volokh ) upholding a felon's right to keep and bear arms. Before you flinch at that, bear in mind that one can be punished as a felon for crimes that do little or no real harm to anyone.  Rehabilitation or decades of clean living don't matter:  a felony conviction of any sort is a lifetime ban from owning firearms.  However, if the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental liberty (as the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald ), can felons be denied its exercise forever?  After all, they still have rights to freedom of speech and legal counsel, right?

The whole "zombie" meme in the gun culture is just tired .  The only thing more likely to induce a contemptuous yawn of disinterest might be Punisher grips.  Zombies are totally 2009 .  So are those posters of Obama looking like the Joker, or yelling "this is Sparta!" when you're not in Sparta (or gay).  Times change, and none of that foolishness is novel or witty any more.  It's just embarrassing. Nonetheless, there  still appears to be a profit  in it. We need a new bogeyman, and lately that seems to be flash mobs .  I'm telling you, suburban white folks are terrified of them, and I can see why .  I could use some additional cash flow, and since nobody's offered to load my new cartridge , I figure I'll kill two birds with one stone.

Plenty of obnoxious clichés get thrown around in the gun culture, but the most annoying is, "I carry a .45 because they don't make a .46!" I'm mildly surprised when the simpletons chanting that one manage not to drool on themselves in public. In fact, I am so weary of it that I'm going to rectify the situation. I'm going to make a .46 caliber handgun cartridge. Now, you might say that's a bad idea. Let me tell you something. When George Washington wanted to cross the Potomac and drive the British out of New Jersey, I'm pretty sure some folks told him that was a bad idea. But he proved them wrong, didn't he? He sent them packing all the way back to California. Smelly hippies. Without him, we'd be spelling words like "color" and "flavor" with a "u." I'm telling you, that man was a great American. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I plan on calling the cartridge the .46 Ginormous Action Tactical. A serious load deman...

News comes that politicians in Boston are looking to curb violent crime by restricting the sale of knives . There's some precedent for this across the Atlantic. In the United Kingdom, they responded to a high homicide rate by banning guns. Something had to be done. Then they saw an epidemic of knife crime, so they banned many types of knives. Something had to be done. Then folks started assaulting each other with pint beer glasses, and something had to be done. They considered mandating plastic glasses.   I am not kidding . When folks start beating each other with tire irons, rolling pins, and lawn gnomes, something will have to be done. If  Dihydrogen Monoxide continues to claim as many lives as it currently does, something will have to be done. Of course, they could try looking at the root causes of violence, such as unemployment and alcoholism, and...oh, who am I kidding?  It's easier to just ban stuff. For the wee drunken children and all.

By now, you've likely heard of Attack Watch , a site on which loyal citizens can report their friends, neighbors, politicians, boss, or gardener for spreading "misinformation" about the President and his agenda.  The site is registered to Obama for America, an underdog organization with only about $140,629,243 in capital.  It's not quite the Ministry of Love, but it'll have to do. I got to thinking, and I've been pretty hard on the guy myself.  In fact, I'm positively wracked with guilt.  As such, I've turned myself in to the site.  I advise anyone else who's disagreed with the administration to do so as well.  Consider it a gesture of purgation and reconciliation.  Really, isn't it time we started healing as a country? I've also taken the proactive step of reporting anyone I suspect of not having the moral character to do so themselves.  A short list follows.

We were pretty slow at work this weekend. Apparently, Atlanta is not only hosting a football game, but Dragon*Con and Black Gay Pride as well. It's hard to compete with a lineup that covers that many bases. Given this unprecedented confluence of diversity, one must inevitably wonder: is Lando Calrissian getting the respect he deserves? He could be a major influence for cultural integration and acceptance. Seriously, look at the guy. He's all kinds of fabulous. Now, I'm not implying anything here.  Lando does seem to prefer the company of women , but then there's this: Of course, that doesn't prove much, either. I'm not gay, but I'd let Harrison Ford hug me. I might draw the line at second base, but I could definitely find it in my heart to forgive him for that awful film he made with Ellen Degeneres' ex-wife. In any case, I'd like to declare September 4th National Lando Calrissian Appreciation Day.  The man has the potential to bring us all ...

Nobody knows for sure what made Clippy snap.  Perhaps it was the cocaine.  Maybe it was the way Steve Ballmer would sneak up and grope him when they were alone in the break room.  For all we know, he hit the breaking point when he turned on the television and saw himself being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. All we know is that the 21st century wasn't being kind to Clippy, and he wasn't taking it anymore. One January morning in 2000, he showed up at the Microsoft offices in Redmond with a Glock 19 and a 33-round magazine.  There would be blood.  Oh yes, there would be blood. However, Clippy's rampage was cut mercifully short by the fact that he lacked fingers and was unable to operate the gun.  King County deputies arrested him on weapons charges.  He took an insanity defense, and he's currently getting the help he needs. I wish the same could be said of the Brady Campaign.

Let's just say I know a guy who once knew a guy who once sniffed paint with Julian Assange in college.  He sometimes gets, shall we say, privileged information.  Some of it is highly classified, as is what I'm about to share with you. Seriously, let's not put this all over the internet, people. We all know that the SCAR Mk-16 was recently dropped by SOCOM, and the government claimed they were going back to the M4.  I now have evidence that this is not the case, and that a vast government cover-up is at work.

Who's Captain Tactical now?  Huh?  I can't hear you! That's right, baby.  I am.

Representing yourself in court is rarely a good idea.  Spend a day in traffic court if you want numerous demonstrations.  Some of those folks are incompetent to the point of amusement, but once in a while, someone comes along who is simply epic, for lack of a better word. One of those people is Paul Hupp.  Mr. Hupp is a man of passion and conviction.  He's also quite the amateur litigant.  I say "amateur" because he didn't manage to procure admission to the California bar, then failed to get said denial overturned in court. Feeling that his money was thus wasted on law school, he attempted to get his obligations to student loans discharged.  Failing in this, he tried to sue over the matter.  The result?  Failure . See a pattern to this man's life yet?  It gets better.

Justice Breyer came up with this concept during oral arguments today, and it was too fruity to pass up. Still, I take from what you are saying that -- let's make up an imaginary importance of ordered liberty chart, and we give it to James Madison and the other framers.  And he would say insofar as that right to bear arms is important for the purpose of maintaining the militia, it's high on the ordered liberty chart.  Insofar as the right to bear arms is there to shoot burglars, it's low on the ordered liberty chart. He's obviously going to be writing a dissent in McDonald (he still hasn't gotten over Heller ), and he'll need all the help he can get, so I figured I'd run with his idea and cobble together a handy visual aid.

From a lecture by John Pilger , given at an event called Socialism 2009 ("New Left for a New Era").  Mr. Pilger thinks our current President isn't liberal enough : During his brief period in the Senate, Obama voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He voted for the Patriot Act. He refused to support a bill for single-payer health care. He supported the death penalty. As a presidential candidate he received more corporate backing than John McCain. He promised to close Guantanamo as a priority, but instead he has excused torture, reinstated military commissions, kept the Bush gulag intact, and opposed habeas corpus. Notice the banner advertisement, however.  Brownell's . Somebody's got a sense of humor.

Domino sugar, "now certified Carbonfree."  Spotted in WalMart. I am, of course, compelled to point out that the molecular formula for sucrose is C 12 H 22 O 11.  That's 12 atoms of carbon. According to Domino , what they actually mean is that the "carbon footprint" of the production process is neutral.  Evidently, that was just too clunky of a slogan to put on the label, so they settled for implying that their product is composed only of colorless gases. Hey, whatever makes you feel all self-righteous...

So, a twentyish sort started asking me about AR-15 rifles.  He was interested in starting cheap and building up from there.  Fair enough. Then he asked me which model was more "tactical."  Devoid of any context, that term really doesn't have any meaning, folks. Realizing that I was edging into serious Mall Ninja territory, I chose to throw in some lingo.  I told him that the answer would depend on how he planned on "deploying" the rifle. He responded that, for him, a fiream is "just a fallback, if you know what I mean." I assured him that I didn't know what he meant, and then he said it: "I don't really need a gun.  My hands are registered as lethal weapons." He said this without the slightest hint of irony.  He was serious.

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