I’m curious if anyone has identified the two men and one woman interviewed by the Daily Show who say that gun owners aren’t allowed in the Democratic Party – nor are business owners or white men. I’d be curious to know what state they each call home.
Month: September 2012
Taking the Fight to the Enemy’s Capital
Spreading the Second Amendment around in Upper Manhattan. Predictably, others freak out and make a stink, but gun rights are coming to New York City. It’s only a matter of time.
What Works in Cheyenne
The Daily Caller is noting that we’re not seeing anymore of “What works in Cheyenne may not necessarily work in Chicago,” in the Democratic gun platform. Why? I’m wondering if the Administration doesn’t want people pointing out that Cheyenne has a much much lower crime rate than Chicago, despite the fact that you can carry a gun there without a license.
A Decade is a Long Time To Blog
SayUncle is ten years old. I’ll be surprised if I can make it that long, at least with the blog in its current form. This has been more of a hobby for me, and to be honest, I think blogging the politics of the gun issue is a bit too audience limiting to grow readership much beyond where it’s at now. The future is probably writing about guns and shooting, especially considering all the people getting into shooting these days.
Final Night of the DNC
There were two things about the conventions that I think were definitely true. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama needs to make the sales pitch speech of their lives. Mitt Romney did, and Barack Obama droned on with the same crap I’ve been hearing for the past four years. He was definitely upstaged by Bill Clinton. Hell, he was upstaged by Joe Biden! Biden actually delivered a much better speech than I thought. Fortunately for the Democrats, when Biden is scripted, he’s good. It’s when he goes off script that all kinds of stupid crap come out of his mouth.
I can remember a co-worker of mine back in 2008, one who is not particularly conservative and did not come from this country, say “That guy is an empty suit, if I ever saw one.” I can remember back to the DNC in 2004, thinking he delivered a great speech to the convention, and wondering why the Democrats were running Kerry instead of this Obama guy. But Obama is an empty suit. His talent is delivering one speech well. Sure, there are variations on that speech, but once you hear a few of them, they all sound the same.
CNET Coverage on 3D Printing Guns
I don’t really read CNET anymore, but I think it’s still popular among some IT people who have been around for a while. So it’s interesting they are covering 3D printing and guns. I’m pleased with that, because the more this gets around, the more people will start talking about gun control as dead letter. It’s simply been obsoleted by technology as a workable concept.
Two Technological Pet Peeves
You know computer pattern recognition has to be getting pretty good, because the latest trend seems to be CAPTCHA that is so convoluted that I can’t read it either. It’s annoying enough that, while I hardly comment on blogs at all anymore, I really am loathe to comment on blogspot blogs, because I usually have to try the CAPTCHA two or three times before I actually get it right. I think the usefulness of CAPTCHA is probably getting close to nearing its end, and we’re going to find some better tests to tell computers from humans.
The second technological pet peeve is with web designers, who always seem to be looking for new an innovative ways to ruin the experience. I find myself saying or thinking “No, I don’t want to download your f**king app, just let me through to your site!” way too often these days. Anyone who does a lot of browsing on mobile devices today likely know exactly what I’m talking about. One of the chief philosophies of the Web was supposed to be platform neutrality, but I suppose since mobile browsing has largely been successful murdering Flash (a self-defense killing if you ask me) there had to be some new way for bad web designers to crap all over things.
Bradys: Trying to be Relevant
The Brady folks must be pretty desperate to try to remain relevant when the DNC has largely been focused on just about every other lefty issue that isn’t theirs, and they are begging the DNC to say something nice about their cause, and reminicing about the Clinton years when they could sit at the cool kids’Â table.
Of course, the lack of attention to the gun issue plays both ways. For instance, I’m covering the conventions because there just isn’t any relevant gun news out there. All that’s coming across my Google Alerts and other sources are the dozen or so armed citizen stories I see per week. You know, the ones the Brady folks claim never happen*. I’ve made an editorial decision not to cover armed citizen stories unless there’s some unusual angle that makes for an interesting post. But I will say, I’d prefer to be on this side of things than theirs, where armed citizen stories are too banal to blog about, rather than begging to be relevant because my issue is as dead as Carrie Nation.
* Just in case the Brady supporters want to say I’m exaggerating about what I pass up. See here, here, here, here, and here. That’s just a few days worth. These gets picked up by local news outlets. You never see it picked up in national news. Doesn’t fit the narrative.
Trying to Undo Campus Carry in Colorado
Looks like the anti-gun folks in Colorado are busy seeking allies in the fight, but it looks like the Boulder City Council is hesitant to get involved. Our experience here in Pennsylvania has taught us that local political bodies are a poor ally in a statewide legislative fight. It hasn’t really helped the anti-gun folks here with their agenda very much. If the anti-gun groups in Colorado are looking to city councils for allies, they are probably having a hard time finding allies to get behind them in this fight. That’s good news for us.
Not Falling for the Bait This Year
That Pennsylvania is a battleground state is a myth. I’ve heard this since 2004, and while 2004 was close, it hasn’t been close since. McCain spent a lot of time and effort on Pennsylvania, only to get clobbered. I doubt you’ll see Pennsylvania go red in a Presidential election again, at least for the foreseeable future. So it’s probably good to see Mitt not taking the bait and fighting for Pennsylvania. There are other states that will swing this election, and it’s not going to be us. Sorry Ohio, you’re going to get it twice as hard this year.
The trend I think is based on two factors. One, Clinton took a lot of the fiscal and economic issues that made the suburbs generally Republican off the table, and fought culture wars instead. George W. Bush just continued that trend. So the ring counties around Philadelphia are a lot more Democratic than they were in a decade ago. The rest of the state has portions which have a very long tradition of voting Democratic, even though their values don’t likely align with the far-left agenda of the Democratic Party. But voting habits are hard to change. With the suburbs shifting, if PA is to ever to go red again, the parts of the state that are not Philadelphia are going to have to vote more like Tennessee than West Virginia. There are signs that’s starting to happen, but while that’s happening, the Philadelphia area is growing while the rest of the state depopulates, and it is becoming more blue. The Republicans are going to have to figure out how to survive here, in the suburbs, if they want a shot at Pennsylvania again.