Another feminist contradiction

…right here:

I am a 20-year-old college student who has found the man of my dreams. We both believe it is acceptable (and in our case, preferable) for a woman to be a stay-at-home mother and wife.
However, the number of people who have deemed our views “unacceptable” and “disgraceful” is astounding. I was actually spit on by a woman who accused me of being “the problem with women.”

Wow, what does one say to that? It’s as if the feminists say, “You should be free to make your own choices without fear of judgment, as long as you make choices we approve of.” The treatment of Sarah Palin would seem to indicate they do the same thing vis-a-vis abortion, too. It strikes me that feminism really, well, isn’t.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure you could do that.

…or, I Get Referrals, from Irvine, California, “deer hunting with a 338 lapua.”

Oh, I’m sure a .338 Lapua would make a FINE deer rifle, with that 200-grain bullet chugging along at 3340 fps or so and 4950 lb-ft. of energy at the muzzle. Compare that to, say, about 2620 lb-ft. for a 168-grain .308 round at about 2650 fps. If anything a .338 might be overkill, unless you’re making routine shots from 1,000 yards-plus. But hey, as the old saying goes, smoke ’em if you got ’em. I’d hunt with it if I could afford the feeding costs. 😉

Sure, centrism deserves a place…

…but not the kind of centrism Kathleen Parker advocates. I really don’t understand why Bob Inglis’ advocacy of a carbon tax in the middle of a struggling economy makes him a smart, sensible moderate as opposed to another would-be intellectual who completely fails to understand the consequences of such. No doubt Kathleen Parker would call Mark Kirk, for example, another sensible moderate because he wants to ban only semiautomatic rifles as opposed to all guns. Do you ever notice that Parker has never said anything about the libertarian brand of centrism, the one that supports, for example, gun rights AND gay marriage? It’s always, ALWAYS about a little more taxes and spending than the Republicans want and a little less than the Democrats want. As one of the commenters said, “I guess in Kathleen Parker’s world, a ‘moderate’ is a Republican who votes like a liberal Democrat, but conservatives are partisan extremists.”

Huh. Wonder how he got those?

I thought the handgun was the scourge of society, also…

First came the phone calls, which left the 55-year-old woman in a fetal position, sobbing on the floor. Then came the 32-page letter.
Each was a jarring reminder of that July day in 1975 when her mother and a family friend were killed in her West Virginia home by a man who refused to accept the end of their high school romance.
They also served as grim proof that the killer, Thomas Creighton Shrader, had finally tracked her down, despite her family’s 1,200-mile flight to Texas and the passage of time.
…

Shrader, 56, is appealing the stalking conviction, and one delivered in July that found he was a felon in possession of firearms. Agents found two shotguns and a rifle in his Mercer County home after his November 2009 arrest.

Felon in possession of firearms. This guy broke the law! Imagine that!

One more time, friends and neighbors, do you know what Thomas Creighton Shrader is? Thomas Creighton Shrader is another person that the Paul Helmkes, Joanne Petersons of the world think is just fine in free society as long as they can’t lawfully get a firearm. Not only that, but they think they have a mandate to make it harder for Mr. Shrader’s victims to defend themselves. And the woman was also 19 years old when she and Shrader broke up, so the antis among us also would have told you back then that she didn’t deserve to be able to carry a gun to defend herself against that madman because of her age.

So, you take all that, and once again you should see exactly why I think the anti-gunners among us are, if not evil incarnate, the closest thing to it that walks the earth. As I have said before, evil doesn’t always come dressed in armbands and jackboots. Sometimes it comes in just a suit and tie, or a skirt and blouse, defending things like civilian disarmament and calling them “reasonable, common-sense gun laws.”

Layers upon LAYERS of fact-checkers!

That is, of course, what traditional media has over new media!

A .556-caliber Sig? Wow. I wonder what the effective range is with that thing. Wait, I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself here. Why haven’t I heard anything about this gun? Have any of you heard anything? Did somebody sneak out this new caliber in, say, the last couple of days while we were all napping after Thanksgiving dinner?

Life for growing weed?

Really?

With authorities closing in to seize 2,400 marijuana plants on John Robert Boone’s farm two years ago, the legendary Kentucky outlaw vanished like a puff of smoke. The prolific grower has been dodging the law ever since…
…Boone, who’s trying to avoid the life sentence he would get if convicted a third time of growing pot, has plenty of sympathizers in an area where many farmers down on their luck have planted marijuana.
“That’s all he’s ever done, raising pot,” said longtime friend Larry Hawkins, who owns a bar and restaurant called Hawk’s Place. “He never hurt nobody.”

If anything, John Robert Boone set a great example. I hear a lot of people saying that American drug users have blood on their hands because their habits are fueling the violent drug cartel battles south of the border. (I can agree with that to an extent, though I do wonder how far it is from saying that to saying that American gun owners and the NRA have blood on their hands for opposing the tighter gun laws that the Mexican government wants us to enact.) Buying American-grown weed from folks like Boone takes that money and brings it home; of course, with the insane American drug laws, it only fuels the turf wars that take place here. But if we had more people like JRB here, it would at least lessen the potency of the argument that legalizing drugs wouldn’t help matters because the cartels are so powerful now.

Add Pravda-on-Hudson to the list…

…of those who don’t think 18-year-olds should be able to defend themselves. How about another fun game of word substitution?

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that African Americans have a constitutional right to buy weapons and carry them loaded and concealed in public is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that Irishmen who immigrate to America have a constitutional right to buy weapons and carry them loaded and concealed in public is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that young Latinos ages 18 to 20 have a constitutional right to buy weapons and carry them loaded and concealed in public is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

Or how about…

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that young individuals ages 18 to 20 have a constitutional right against self-incrimination is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that young individuals ages 18 to 20 have a constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

“Beyond the dubious legal claims, the idea that young individuals ages 18 to 20 have a constitutional right to free speech is breathtakingly irresponsible.”

We all know they’d rightfully get called out as a gang of bigoted assholes in any of those other instances, yes? Why is the right of self-defense so different?

(h/t David Codrea)

The Party of the United Race?

Wow, talk about racial politics writ large.

Many Latinos have become disgruntled with both political parties…
Now I hear from people in their 20s who, in their disillusionment, are pining for something that had its heyday before they were born: the Raza Unida Party.
…
“The legacy of the Raza Unida Party is the concept of independent thought and that we can speak for ourselves,” (party co-founder Jose Angel Gutierrez) said. “No ventriloquist needed.”…
These days, Gutierrez’s hobbies include tweaking nativists with comments about how Anglos are losing sleep over the browning of the United States.
“They think this is a white country,” he said. “And when someone says the opposite, then that’s the demon.”

Just…wow. How sickening. “When somebody says the opposite, then that’s the demon.” Yes it is. And it’s EXACTLY THE SAME THING when a white person says it too. For the life of me I cannot understand why so many blacks and Latinos in positions of “leadership” within their respective communities think racist statements and actions automatically become race-neutral when said or done by someone who’s the “right” skin color. Maybe Jose Angel Gutierrez and his acolytes don’t have white sheets and hoods in their closets, but that really doesn’t make their racial politics any less odious. It only makes said politics less dangerous, at least over the short term. Over the long term, though, that’s a different story, as has been said here before. We know what they want, even if they don’t come right out and say it — practically open borders, people coming to the United States who don’t know English and have no desire to learn it or to assimilate into American culture, etc., which is going to — as it always does — lead to balkanization and tribal war.

And what about that whole “concept for independent thought” and “speak(ing) for ourselves”? Somehow I don’t think that’s so cut-and-dried, considering the ideology of the folks we’re dealing with here. I would bet that just as with the two major political parties, the party bosses of this Raza Unida party are going to dictate the official positions of the party, and while certain factions might be allowed voices they won’t have any real effect. Honestly, does anyone really think those assimilated Latinos would be allowed to have any say in the policies the party would advocate? It seems to me that such would be contrary to the Raza Unida’s prima facie raison d’etre — to advocate for policies that benefit a certain race, or even a certain other country. (Which makes the whole “independent thought” thing ironic, as it’s not about thinking on an individual level, just a smaller group level — which really isn’t that independent, or thinking for oneself at all.) I suppose that might sound racist to some, but based on my own observations of the political scene I just can’t come to any other conclusion.

Lack of respect, part God only knows.

Somehow I didn’t find this the least bit surprising. Liberals like Al Sharpton and Jay Rockefeller don’t have any respect for the Second Amendment; what makes anyone think they’d have any respect for the First? And Rush should be taken off the air for “perceived” offenses? Somehow I think Sharpton thinks the mere existence of Rush Limbaugh is an offense to minorities. Say what you will about Rush, but at least he never falsely accused anyone of rape. From Nordlinger’s column:

“One of those whom Sharpton and his partners accused (of Tawana Brawley’s rape — ed.) was an assistant district attorney, Steven Pagones, who was, needless to say, innocent (the crime never took place). After he was cleared, he held a press conference, which Sharpton, in his theatrical fashion, attempted to crash. ‘Your accuser has arrived!’ he bellowed. Sharpton had said before, ‘We stated openly that Steven Pagones did it. If we’re lying, sue us, so we can go into court with you and prove you did it. Sue us — sue us right now.’ Oddly enough, Pagones did. He spent a decade of his life pursuing a defamation case against Sharpton and his accomplices, finally winning that case one glorious, cleansing day in July of 1998.”

That was a hell of a lot more than a “perceived offense,” yet Sharpton retained his freedom of speech. Yet he goes off saying that certain people need to be muzzled because of “perceived offenses.” What a thoroughgoing asshole.

(h/t Alphecca)

Missing out on masterpieces. (UPDATED!)

So everybody’s making a big deal out of the Beatles’ catalog being available on iTunes now. As far as that goes vis-a-vis the Beatles, all I can say is, meh. (I always thought that, along with Bruce Springsteen, they were one of the most overrated acts in pop music history. The Rolling Stones always appealed much more to me.)

But there is something about the whole thing that bugs me — the whole downloading-just-one-or-two-songs-per-album phenomenon. For the life of me I can’t understand why any music fan would do this. Whenever you get a group of fans together and a discussion gets rolling, inevitably said discussion is going to turn to “Favorite Unreleased Album Cuts.” And such treasures are going to go undiscovered with this new business model that concentrates on the song instead of the album. I can think of (almost literally) a thousand examples for myself off the top of my head; but just for one example, if I had downloaded what were then my two favorite songs from Iron Maiden’s Powerslave cd — “Aces High” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” — I would have missed out on “Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra),” “Flash of the Blade” and “The Duellists” — as Albatross said of that last one, “Never very popular, yet oh so good.” The title track and “Back In The Village” were also worth the price of the cd even if they didn’t end up being favorites.

And the same could be said for those thousand other examples. I don’t know what this new business model holds for the future of the music industry vis-a-vis its profitability, but as far as creativity goes I don’t think it’s going to be good. What’s the incentive for the artists and labels to spend all that money on recording 8-12 songs if fans are going to buy only two or three of them? And I know every genre’s fans are going to be different, but what of unreleased gems from other genres — like, say, George Strait’s rollicking version of the Del Reeves classic “Good Time Charley’s”? I sure hate to think recordings like that would go unmade or be phased out for more popular downloads. Thoughts, anyone?

UPDATE! Sabra with her comments made me think to Google “B-Side hits,” which yielded this link. Some of my favorites:

“Born on the Bayou,” CCR

“Not Fade Away,” Buddy Holly

“Roadhouse Blues,” The Doors

“Mercedez Benz,” Janis Joplin

“Get Rhythm,” Johnny Cash

“After the Thrill Is Gone,” the Eagles

“Love Is A Rose,” Linda Ronstadt

Now wouldn’t it have been a shame if those songs had gone unrecorded?