January 2007 – Page 10 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Hobo Deer

My friend Andrew brings me this sad but vaguely amusing story from his home town of Helena, MT.

A young mulie buck survived a jump from the I-15 overpass above Helenaâ€™s Sixth Ward train depot onto a boxcar last week, but had to be destroyed after being further injured by a leap from the boxcar to the ground.

This is where it gets amusing:

â€œWe decided that the only way to get him off of it was for it to jump on its own,â€ he noted. â€œWe wanted to give it a chance.â€

Loewen climbed atop the boxcar and the deer took a flying leap.

â€œHe landed on all four feet,â€ Arnold said. â€œBut then we could see that he also had a broken back leg, too.â€

They decided that the buck stopped here, and shot it. The wardens transported the carcass to the wildlife center, where it was fed to the few bears that hadnâ€™t yet gone into hibernation.

Gotta love Montana.

I was going to write about the history of backup quarterbacks winning the Super Bowl, how it relates to what Jeff Garcia is doing now, and why Eagles fans and coaches would be wise to hand the job right back to Donovan McNabb when he is fully healed from his knee injury.

Then I caught this brilliant quote from Eagles President and COO Joe Banner in a story about team owner Jeff Lurie. In describing how fans never really embraced Lurie, Banner said “I have to tell you, that’s personally frustrating to me in a public-relations sense… I know this is controversial, but I don’t think there’s another owner who would have kept this team in Philadelphia for the economic deal we got on our stadium. I’m not trying to belittle public contribution, but as it relates to what other cities did and other offers we had from other cities, I can’t imagine many owners that would have come from someplace else and had the kind of loyalty that he demonstrated to these football fans and to the history of this franchise. I don’t think anybody recognizes that.”

In short, Joe Banner is saying “Eagles fans should be grateful that Jeff Lurie owns the team. We could have moved the team because deal we got on our publicly financed $500,000,000 stadium wasn’t exactly great.” He’s wrong on two counts:

First, publicly financed stadiums are always ever a great deal for owners, so he shouldn’t complain about getting the shaft. The city and state taxpayers subsidize your loan, and you get to pimp the stadium name out to Lincoln Financial. You get to make all of these television and licensing deals and keep all of the profits. And the benefit to the taxpayers? The privilege of paying through the nose to watch the team while eating cold hot dogs and drinking warm beer.

Jeffery Lurie made out like a bandit with this deal. The Eagles are now worth, as estimated by Forbes Magazine, $1 Billion. So, even if Jeff had to dump $500,000,000 of his own money into building the stadium, he gets to make twice that much if he ever sells the team. Where else can you get a 100% return on investment? Sign me up!

The second place where Banner is wrong when he says “No other owner…” Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots found his own financing when building the $320,000,000 Gillette Stadium. Yes, the state ponied up money to make infrastructure improvements like upgrading the roads, constructing parking facilities, and running commuter services to the stadium, but it’s hardly the burden to taxpayers that $320 million would be. Previous owners of the Patriots threatened to move the team to St. Louis, and while Kraft did actually have a deal with the state of Connecticut to finance a new downtown Hartford stadium, he ended up keeping the team in Foxboro, MA. So before Joe Banner holds the all-caring, ever loyal Jeffery Lurie up on a pedestal for all to admire, he should look at an owner who is worthy of an ounce of admiration.

Banner said that he wasn’t trying to belittle the public contribution, but he did anyway. Banner got it backwards. It isn’t the fans that should be glad at the kindness and loyalty displayed by Lurie. He and Lurie should be honored that the city and state were willing to subsidize his arena despite ever-increasing evidence that stadiums never leads to the kind of urban revitalization espoused by proponents.

Despite Banner’s idiotic comment, I still hope the Eagles win on Saturday. May the football gods forgive their COO’s idiocy.

Random Conversations With My Gay Friend Andrew

Andrew: What up Seb?
Sebastian: Not much, I’ve been blogging
Andrew: Havent you been already?
Sebastian: No
Sebastian: Real blogging
Sebastian: Not a LiveJournal blogging, which is wannabe blogging.
Sebastian: I even have a blogger chick helping me pimp my blog
Andrew: So youre like Andrew Sullivan!
Andrew: Are you gonna write a book now?
Sebastian: I’m like Andrew Sullivan, except I’m not a whiny, ficklely opinionated poofter ;)
Andrew: I’d be afraid to blog, I always imagine Bush secretly abducting people who dont like him
Sebastian: That’s what AR-15s are for

Canadian Nature Video

The Canadian Wildlife Service conducts experiments by exposing the common wood spider to various psychoactive substances to see the effect on web building. A must see:

** Video Removed by YouTube **

UPDATE: Link was broken to YouTube. Now fixed.

My Letter to State Representative Chris King

Chris King (D-142), my newly elected state rep who defeated incumbent Matt Wright, is so green he doesn’t even have an e-mail address yet. But when he does, I plan to forward this along to him in regards to the subject of the legislation that Dwight Evans has introduced into the PA house.

Hon. Christopher King
Room 101A East Wing
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2142

Dear Representative King,

First, I would like to congratulate you on winning the seat to be representative of Pennsylvania’s 142nd Legislative District. Winning a seat held by such a long time incumbent is quite an achievement, and I look forward to having you represent us.

I’m writing you today about an article, appearing in the Philadelphia Inquirer on January 11th, revealing Representative Dwight Evans’ intention to reintroduce measures to revise the Commonwealth’s gun laws, considered and defeated in last September’s Committee of the Whole session of the General Assembly. I attended this meeting and had a productive conversation with Representative Wright on the issue, but since Representative Evans has announced his intentions to reintroduce these bills, I wanted to take time to discuss my views on this with you.

As I’m sure you are aware, the Pennsylvania Constitution, which you no doubt have recently taken an oath to uphold, recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms in defense of one’s self and the state. While I share everyone’s concerns about the violence in the City of Philadelphia, as a gun collector and sport shooter, I urge you to oppose any of Representative Evans’ bills which place further burdens on our rights as Pennsylvanians.

While some of the proposals may seem reasonable, such as “one gun per month”, these types of laws do affect collectors, and will do very little or nothing to address the violence we’re seeing in Philadelphia. The City of Reading, which shares the same gun laws that the City of Philadelphia claims to be woefully inadequate, has experienced a sharp drop in violent crime this year after having a record year previously. The City of Pittsburgh, I understand, has also experienced falling crime rates. Philadelphia’s claims that our gun laws are inadequate would not seem to stand up to evidence, and I think The City would be better served focusing on effective solutions, such as putting more police officers on the streets, locking up violent criminals, and aggressively targeting gangs, rather than focusing on symbolic measures which won’t really address the problem.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I am happy to see that you were rated A- by the NRA in the last elections. Reading over your campaign materials, it seems we agree on many issues, so I hope your legislative record will give me cause to support you in future elections.

Sincerely,

Sebastian
Langhorne, PA

I’m sickeningly nice when I want to influence them. I don’t even mind stroking their ego a little. What I won’t mention now, but might, if he starts buying into Evans’ and Rendell’s crap, is that I’ll do everything I can to make sure he’s a one termer if he pisses me off.

Here We Go Again

This one almost flew under my radar screen, but fortunately, David Codrea picked it up before I missed it:

Hoping that the new Democratic state House will be more receptive to gun-control legislation, state Rep. Dwight Evans yesterday said he will reintroduce a series of gun bills that previously failed.

“We have 50 new members in the House who are not entrenched, who can listen to reason,” Evans, a Democratic candidate for mayor, said at a City Hall news conference attended by a crowd of state and local leaders.

“What we want is common-sense gun policies that can stop the flow of illegal guns on our streets,” said Evans.

The package of 13 bills, which he said he’d introduce on Feb. 22, includes proposals to limit gun purchases to one a month, to ban assault weapons statewide and to allow cities to enact their own gun laws.

If the new Democratic house passes any of this shit, you’ll be out so fast your heads will spin. When Evans’ steaming pile of gun control manure came forward last year, culminating in the Committee of the Whole meeting, which I traveled to Harrisburg to attend in September, there was overwhelming opposition to all the measures Evans and his gun control cohorts wanted. Again, Philadelphia politicians are failing to understand that the city has a criminal problem and not a gun problem. Pushing the gun angle is a way to make it look like they are doing something, but it’s a dodge because they have no political courage to actually tell people what the problem is and solve it.I’d really like not to have to travel to Harrisburg again this year, but I will if it becomes necessary. My state rep at the time, who I met in last years session, and was sympathetic to the cause, was unfortunately voted out this fall. My new state rep, who’s part of the new Democratic caucus in the house, got an A rating from the NRA during the campaign, and I will have to write to him to make sure that he lives up to rating. I didn’t vote for Mr. King, but I have nothing against him, and would be willing to become a supporter if he keeps good on his promises.

Lessons in Smaller Government

Bitter, who claims she’ll get me to like Mitt Romney so much I’ll want to kick him in the nuts by the time he hits the campaign trail, has started a new category called Lessons in Smaller Government by Mitt Romney.

I agree that Romney is a lackluster candidate. He has the odor of a rank political opportunist, who will say whatever he feels he needs to say, and take any position he needs to take, in order to get himself elected. Unfortunately, I think I could probably say the same thing about 99% of politicians. Getting me to despise politicians isn’t hard, and they usually do a good job of that on their own, but I can’t quite work up enough nut kicking indignation about the former governor of Massachusetts. But I will certainly give Bitter a fair chance to try.

My other options for 2008 are shaping up to be Rudy Giuliani, who I think was a fantastic mayor of New York, but I have some issues with him, particularly that he hasn’t seen a gun control law he didn’t like. John McCain is, sadly, shaping up to be my preferred choice for 2008, which pisses me off because I already think McCain deserves a kick in the nuts for McCain-Feingold. But I have no idea how Rudy would behave on the national stage, and I’m already suspicious of Romney. Plus, I want some strong leadership for 2008, because I think Bush’s has been pretty abysmal, and I tend to like McCain’s opinions on the war. Casting a vote for McCain will make me feel dirty, but unless someone else comes along, I think he’s the lesser of the three evils. And if Hillary or Obama runs for the Democrats, the Republicans could run Britney Spears and I’d still vote for them.

More XCR Gun Porn

Here’s some more neat footage of the XCR in action.Â I mentioned that it could easily convert from 5.56x45mm to 7.62×39.Â Here’s the procedure:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=blnlk2KzQmU[/youtube]

Firing 7.62x39mm

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Auz_CsV3qzQ[/youtube]

I really want one, but sadly I spent all my money on new Windows for the upstairs.

Give Bruce a Hand

The Ten Ring asks us to help out Bruce of mAss Backwards, who has recently escaped from the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts to Live Free or Die in New Hampshire. He’s looking to raise funds to buy himself an evil black rifle that would make Mayor Mumbles crap his pants. Maybe some of my Massachusetts and formerly Massachusetts readers would like a Live Free or Here T-shirt.

Depending on how well the fund raising goes, I have a great suggestion for a pretty sweet black rifle that I’ve been drooling over for quite some time. Robinson Arms XCR. Note how easy it is to switch from 5.56x45mm to 7.62x39mm. I haven’t shot one, but it looks pretty sweet. Bask in the glory:

Damn, we really need to figure out a way to get rid of The Hughes Amendment. They do make a civilianized semi-auto version though.

The Need to Work Together

SayUncle posts: The fudds are upset because they arenâ€™t fuddy enough. I think we EBR folks need to have a sitdown with the fudds..

For my non gun blogging LiveJournal followers, Fudds are hunters, and EBRs are Evil Black Rifles. Hunters are a big component of the gun-rights movement, but traditionally they’ve been difficult to motivate in comparison to their numbers, and some are quite often willing to accept compromises that leave other types of gun owners hung out to dry.
I’m willing to make the Fudds a deal, that if they’ll go to war with me to help me keep my evil black rifles, I’ll go with them over preserving land use rules to favor hunting. Here’s the things the Fudds need to understand: your numbers are shrinking, and in a few generations there may be very few hunters left. You need us EBR types to fight along with you, but that means you need to fight with us, and not throw us under the bus every time Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein try to assure you they will never take your sniper..err.. I mean hunting rifle. But we EBR types need to understand that we need you too, so we’ll have to agree to fight to preserve hunting, even though that’s not important to us. We’ll also help fight off weenies like PETA. We may not agree on priorities, but we can probably at least agree that PETA deserves a kick in the nuts.
The gun control groups have long had wet and wild dreams about pulling hunters away from the gun rights movement. It’s mostly wishful thinking on their part, but it’s a fact that many hunters are difficult to motivate to care about gun rights. But we can probably seek comfort that the fake pro-gun groups run by the gun control movement will probably find it difficult to motivate the same people.

Month: January 2007