Just when we start to think we Second Amendment Blog Bash attendees are the cool kids, Greg proves us wrong by attending a Special Operations Industry Trade Show. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know there was such a thing, but it sounds like a pretty cool show.
Month: May 2008
Thoughts on The Second Amendment Blog Bash
Bitter decided to do a car interview on the way back from Kentucky, to get my thoughts on how our first Second Amendment Blog Bash went. I talk about the genisis of the idea at least year’s Annual Meeting in St. Louis. The idea that NRA should do something with blogs actually originated with Dave Kopel, and before we could reach out to NRA, they reached out to us.
By the way, Eyeblast.tv has an entire channel dedicated to the Second Amendment Blog Bash, so be sure to stop by an peruse the videos.
E-Mail Evidence
From David Olofson, we have the e-mail that ATF claims proves he purchased M16 parts. I see a lot of talk about M16 magazines, which are identical to AR-15 magazines, and talk about a bolt, which are also identical, AFAIK. But I only see one mention of M16 parts, and I would agree that in the realm of “proof” this isn’t it.
Quote of the Day
And there they were, being blatantly threatened by this gerrymandered race-baiting footsoldier of the class war, this remora on the flank of Leviathan, this vacuous sinkhole of consumption that does nothing but suck in tax dollars and shit out red tape and misery. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t have sat for that. In a just world, they’d have stood as one and walked from that room and let little Maxine foam away at her tinpot Trotskyite fantasies.
Read the whole thing. The only thing that disturbs me more than that Maxine Waters said this was that I’ve heard so much of it from people, I’m frankly getting sick of it. Oil company greed is not responsible for high prices. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of economics can wrap their heads around that. Yet you hear from a lot of people, even people with PhDs, that oil company profits are obscene. Well, we have a shortage of petroleum products, and the profits are a signal to the market that we need more resources put into growing energy supplies. If the politicians remove the profit, what we’ll have is ever rising prices, and if they monkey with that, shortages.
New Banner
I played around for a bit and finally came up with something I could live with. You may have to hit shift-refresh to have it load the new graphic. Of course, if you think you can come up with something better, feel free to give it a try. If I get multiple entries that I like, I might just rotate banners occasionally. I wasn’t able to incorporate a firearm in any way I liked, so I decided to leave it out.
Let me know what you think
Giving Up the First to Exercise the Second?
I’m glad to see that Red’s Trading Post will continue to operate, but it sucks that it appears removing his blog was part of the settlement. Maybe not though, and it just comes down to it being a good will gesture. Either way, we really need to get some momentum going on HR 4900.
UPDATE: According to comments at Joe’s, this was not the case. That doesn’t mean HR 4900 isn’t still important. No doubt this legal fight has cost Ryan a hefty chunk of change.
New Banner Idea
My graphics arts skills leave a lot to be desired. But after thinking a bit about what I wanted, I came up with an idea for a new banner, but I’m not sure I really like it. One of the things I’m trying to achieve is to tie the gun issue in with the graphic, and in with the blog’s title. I originally picked the title of the blog because I was resistant to starting my own blog, despite people telling me I should. So when I started one, it was the proverbial cold day in hell, after my long insistence I had better things to do.
Here’s what I was working on. Let me know what you think. You can tell me it sucks, since I’ll probably agree with you. Anyone is welcome to come up with something better, and if I like it, I’ll owe you some beer.
Attention Ladies
If this is the kind of male fashion you really like, why not just say “f^#k it” and go lesbian? Thankfully we have plenty of real women on the gun blogsphere who like real men, not poofy metrosexuals who put on lipstick. And at what point does a guy decide that putting on lipstick is OK? Really.
Truthers at NRA Annual Meeting
This truther would later be tackled by police and dragged away in handcuffs for getting a bit to aggressive with Oliver North, and getting all “the man is keeping me down” when asked to leave.
I should note, that despite the fact that the guy has a media pass, he was not registered with the Second Amendment Blog Bash. We don’t know who he was or how he got a media pass. That was one of the reason we asked people to pre-register, so that random cranks couldn’t just show up claiming to be bloggers and get passes.