I love this song, yes, I do…

here: “I hope you’re enjoyin’ the scenery, I know that it’s pretty out there…we could go hikin’ on Tuesday, with you I’d walk anywhere….California has worn me quite thin, I just can’t wait to see you again, come Monday, it’ll be all right, come Monday, I’ll be holdin’ you tight…”
It seems that when someone mentions Jimmy Buffett to most music fans, invariably his 1977 smash “Margaritaville” comes to mind. I always liked that song, and still do despite the fact that it’s wildly overplayed compared to the rest of his catalog, but “Come Monday” has always been my favorite Buffett tune, from the first time I heard it. I saw this comment from Buffett long ago:
“…A song of mine like ‘Come Monday’ is a direct result of me trying to write a Gordon Lightfoot song.”
I never thought about that before, but it does make a lot of sense.

…but he wasn’t entirely wrong now…

…was he?

CINCINNATI — Republican John McCain quickly denounced the comments of a radio talk show host who while warming up a campaign crowd referred repeatedly to Barack Hussein Obama and called the Democratic presidential candidate a “hack, Chicago-style” politician.

*snip*

“I did not know about these remarks, but I take responsibility for them. I repudiate them,” he said. “My entire campaign I have treated Senator Obama and Senator (Hillary Rodham) Clinton with respect. I will continue to do that throughout this campaign.”

McCain called both Democrats “honorable Americans” and said, “I want to dissociate myself with any disparaging remarks that may have been said about them.”

Asked whether the use of Obama’s middle name — the same as former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — is proper, McCain said: “No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate.”

McCain said he didn’t know who allowed Cunningham to speak but said he was sure it was in coordination with his campaign. He said he didn’t hear the comments and has never met Cunningham, but “I will certainly make sure that nothing like that happens again.”

Later, on his radio show, Cunningham expressed disappointment with McCain’s apology and said he would endorse Clinton as a result.

“Did John McCain repudiate me? When he didn’t hear the remarks at all? He didn’t hear them. He just threw me under the bus to the national media,” Cunningham said on local radio station WLW. “I’ve had it with McCain. I’m going to endorse Hillary Clinton. I’m going to throw my support behind Hillary Clinton.”

Cunningham also disputed McCain’s assertion that the two had never met.

*snip*

Aside from using Obama’s middle name, Cunningham also mocked the Illinois senator’s foreign policy statements about his willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue nations. He said he envisions a future in which “the great prophet from Chicago takes the stand and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing Kumbaya together around the table with Barack Obama.”

Wow, what a lesson in Media Bias 101. Talk-show guy calls out Democratic presidential candidate for what he is, and what does the reporter use as the main thrust of her story? The talk-show host’s use of the candidate’s middle name. I will say that I think Mr. Obama’s middle name really shouldn’t be of any consequence, though. There are plenty of other reasons not to vote for him, many other things to call him out on, not the least of which is the fact that he never met a gun control scheme he didn’t like. (Speaking of that, see more about the latest anti-gun asshattery from the junior senator from Illinois here, here and here.) I guess it just goes to show that skilled writers can skew anything the way they want it to go. And I am a writer myself, but still I have to marvel at that.
As for Cunningham and his astonishment at McCain’s actions after his comments, all I can say is, what the hell did the guy expect? You pick up a snake and you should fully expect to get bitten. And by the same token, if you throw your support behind a craven panderer like McCain, you should expect to be thrown under the bus when McCain sees such an action as politically expedient. If I was someone whose endorsement he had been seeking, that would have been one more reason he would not have gotten it, Party apparatchiks like The Anchoress be damned.

Not a big hit for ole Charlie, but one of my favorites…

…here: “Now, I’m the kind of man that wouldn’t harm a mouse, but if I catch somebody breakin’ in my house, I got a 12-gauge shotgun waitin’ on the other side…so don’t go fightin’ me against my will, I don’t wanna have to fight ya, but I dern sure will, if you don’t want trouble, then ya better just pass me on by…”

You Want Opinions? I Got Opinions!

From Boise, Idaho, “opinions of Ruger P90.”
It’s an awesome gun, perhaps the most underrated non-1911 .45-caliber sidearm on the market. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Ruger P-Series pistols are probably the best value out there if you’re looking for a rugged & reliable personal defensive arm. They’re bulky and top-heavy due to the steel slide and aluminum frame (or polymer for the P95, P97 or P345), but as far as I am concerned those are small concerns when looking at that platform’s virtues. My P89 will even feed empty cases, and I have no doubt the P90 would do the same thing if I ever slipped them in the magazine. After all, they’re pretty much the same gun; from what I’ve read about the P90 it has a different trigger mechanism and the slide’s a little taller & thicker to accommodate the .45 cartridge. I want one in the cartridge it was originally designed for, 10mm. It wouldn’t surprise me the least little bit to find that gun could handle all day long the nuclear loads that by now are legendary among the cartridge’s devotees. C’mon, guys, Colt re-introduced the Delta Elite, another company is rolling out another one of these, that has to be a sign of some sort…

Random Sunday Morning Gun Musings

So I ask 45superman to tell us about his 1911 in the comments to this post, and he says…
“Which 1911?”
Good answer, my friend, good answer. 😉 One will certainly do, but you just don’t know true gun-nut nirvana until you have at least two. I’ve heard good things about the Paras but don’t have any in my safe as of yet. Gonna need at least one more 10mm 1911 in the safe before that, maybe another Dan Wesson Razorback…the RZ I picked up in October was my fifth 1911, and I also have two parkerized Springfield 1911s, a GI and a Loaded, and two Kimbers, a Tactical Ultra II with a 3″ barrel and a 10mm Stainless Target II. And all this gun talk reminds me, I have a box of Blazer 230-grain ball, and it’s a sunny late-winter day here on the Texas Gulf Coast…yes, it’s a good day.

Fine weapon, but I still don’t know…

I’m thinking that for $2900 before tax, this thing had better be able to go downrange and change my targets when I am out shooting it, and detail strip & clean itself when I get it back home. The .50GI is a pretty nifty idea, I reckon, but I don’t know if I’d be willing to trade off that reduced magazine capacity even for that hot 300-grain load listed here. It was quite amusing how they compared that load to a relatively mild .44 Magnum load. Talk about stacking the deck. If I needed something at that level I think I’d just run with my 10mm loaded with something like the Buffalo Bore 200-grain load at 1200 fps. And I guess I’ve missed that “big concussion blast” of the 10mm, but I just can’t fathom how it would be as bad as some people try to make it out to be. Talk about a fable that’s gotten long in the tooth. Can’t be any worse than .357 Magnum out of the Ruger SP101’s 2.25-inch barrel. My hottest 10mm loads have felt like a pussycat compared to those.

Oooooh, haven’t heard this one in YEARS…

here: “Doodle-doo-doo-dooooo, a-doodle-doo-doo-doooo…..Who, is the girl wearing nothing but a smile and a towel in the picture on the billboard in the field, near the big ole highway…rollin’ down the highway in my Jimmy hauling freight from Chicago to St. Louis, Lord, I see her every day…”

Oooh, 12:01 pm, another good one! “Bet it ain’t rainin’ back home, bet your sister’s still on the phone…bet Mama’s in the kitchen, a-cookin’ fried chicken, wishin’ that I hadn’t done wrong…”

…dunno if it’s legal, but I figure it’ll do the job…

From Dallas, a referral, “m1a m14 rifle hog hunt texas“.
No clue as to what the laws are for hunting those here in Texas, but I imagine the M1A would take pretty much any Texas game a hunter wanted to. 150 grains of 0.308-inch goodness at 2600 feet per second, I reckon that’d take care of most wild hogs here or anywhere else. I’ve heard of them being taken with pistols as well, as small as my beloved 10mm if one uses the right ammunition. I always got a bit of a chuckle about the fact that a pistol called the Razorback could be used to hunt razorbacks…

Random observation from a phone conversation

“The next time someone asks me what I’m compensatin’ for, I think I’m gonna tell ’em, ‘The fact that I can’t throw a rock at 1400 feet per second…'”

…do they really think there’s a difference?

From the letters in this morning’s Chronicle:

Way to go, Chronicle! It has endorsed a Democrat for president who doesn’t fully support space exploration and who has no plans to work with the oil and gas industry. The Chronicle is a regional newspaper, yet it completely ignored two incredibly important aspects of our region in order to be part of the so-called “Obama phenomenon.”Well, phenomena come and phenomena go, and when this one has played out, Texas will still need strong energy and space industries. But by then, unless Texas Democrats do the right thing on March 4 and support Hillary Clinton, it could be too late.

Right, because as opposed to no plans to work with the oil & gas industry, Hillary “wants to take those (oil & gas industry) profits.” Which is so much better than leaving the oil companies to their own devices (sarcasm!), but of course I’m betting Senator Obama is going to do the exact same thing. He’ll just probably funnel those profits into some sort of “Hope and Change” initiative instead of those alternative energy programs Hillary says she wants those profits to go to. Which IS better, I suppose, but if there’s money to be made in alternative energy programs, I’d guess the oil companies would pursue them without government aid or coercion and with the added benefit of less government REMFs. But either way, Clinton and Obama are two sides of the same worthless coin. Much like John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani…