The Wandering Minstrel

In spite of the soft beauty of Damsel’s photo seen here, something about it reminds me of heavy metal or hard rock.

Hat tip to Damsel for the lovely photo.

Some of our comrades in arms are still hesitant to vote for McCain for a number of reasons. McCain has had an adversarial position from conservatives on quite a few notable events in the Senate, including:

• McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act (passed)
• Participation in the “Gang of 14″ against the nuclear option while the Republicans had control of the Senate
• The McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform Act (failed)

Let’s face it - he pissed a lot of us off when he did those things. I admit that I had him off my list of Presidential Candidates a long time ago. But shit happens and he got the nod. I was a ‘hold your nose and vote for McCain’ voter until he put Palin on the ticket. Now the aroma is a bit better.

Think about this - what happens to the composition of the Supreme Court in an Obama presidency? Obama vocalized the following about conservative Americans:

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them….” — Barack Obama, April 2, 2008

I tell my colleagues and associates who hesitate to vote for McCain-Palin that their votes, whether martyred on Bob Barr or Ron Paul, or withheld altogether, amount (statistically) to ½ vote for the Obama-Biden ticket.

Peter Ferrara, who formerly served in President Reagan’s White House Office of Policy Development, wrote the following about what might happen to the balance of Supreme Court of the United States in each scenario of the election outcome. Excerpt from the American Spectator:

Barack Obama has made it clear – he believes gun owners are dangerous and that guns should be banned. If he is elected President, he could name new Supreme Court Justices who will try to overturn the recent court decision and strip our rights away.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently split down the middle. It has four solidly conservative justices in Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Sam Alito. It has four solidly liberal left Justices in John Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and Stephen Breyer. In the middle is Justice Anthony Kennedy, who goes back and forth between liberal and conservative depending on the case.

Probably the most liberal two Justices on the Court will retire during the next presidential term, Stevens and Ginsburg. Justice Stevens is 88, and Justice Ginsburg (75) is not in good health. If they can be replaced by reasoned, principled justices like the most recently appointed Roberts and Alito, conservatives will finally have achieved what they have been fighting for since the Nixon era, transforming the liberal activist Supreme Court into a reasoned institution of law.

By contrast, if Obama is elected, he will not only be able to replace Ginsburg and Stevens with liberal/left clones. A majority of the current justices are over 70. If Obama serves two terms, he will be able to remake the Court into the most left-wing force for social destruction it has ever been.

McCain has said precisely that he would appoint Justices like Roberts and Alito. Obama has said explicitly he would never appoint justices like those two. He actually voted against the confirmation of Alito and Roberts. Obama has said instead that he would appoint justices like the ultraliberal, left-wing Ginsburg, who was formerly General Counsel of the ACLU, and like the consistently liberal David Souter. McCain said at the Saddleback Church debate he would not appoint justices like Ginsburg or Souter, or Stevens or Breyer for that matter.

Obama has publicly disparaged Clarence Thomas, who has had a far more distinguished legal career than Obama. McCain voted to confirm Thomas in a narrow, highly contested, Senate vote.

These differences could not be greater. This is the most important election for the Supreme Court ever. There will not be another crossroads for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary like this in our lifetimes.

Indeed, not only the Supreme Court is at stake. The entire federal judiciary is on the line. If Obama becomes President, even for just one term, he will appoint not only two Supreme Court Justices, but hundreds of other federal judges as well. If Obama serves two terms, the federal courts will be filled with Obamaniacs replacing the retiring Reagan Bush judges.

My Dad sure wanted one of these as I recall. His cousin and her husband bought one of these new and drove it down to visit us one Sunday. During the visit, Dad asked all kinds of questions about their car, sat in it and took it for a ride around the block. Ahhhh - that new car smell.

We were riding around in a 1937 Packard (which would also be a classic today) when the ‘48 Pontiac came out. Mom and Dad hated driving a car that old. I thought it was neat-o at age 5. I liked the the back seat suicide doors that opened backwards and the “Eisenglas” window shades you could pull down.

Dad finally got a 1951 Pontiac, but it too, was used and several years old - it was a station wagon with a straight eight engine. I learned to drive automatic transmission in the Pontiac and learned stick shift in my brother’s 1949 Mercury Coupe.

American Graffiti and Happy Days - I was there.

(Clickable Photo)

Here’s one reason to keep your SUV clean. Some ‘artist’ decided to decorate the back window of this Ford Explorer I saw in traffic this weekend.

If it were just a matter of running through the car wash when this happens, it would be no big deal. However, the general graffiti problem is nearly everywhere these days. Vandals tag sides of buildings, overpasses on the interstates, railroad cars, billboards and just about any surface that you can spray paint. The cost of this vandalism is millions of dollars per month in my area alone.

Last week, a local called police to alert them to taggers that had climbed up on a billboard. When the police arrived, the taggers fled, but left a car behind. The police traced the vehicle registration to a residence and dispatched a team with a warrant. Police discovered dozens upon dozens of photographs taken of the vandalism. These punks are proud of the shit they do.

I have to laugh when the only punishment these creeps get is that they have to ‘pay restitution’ to the owners of the property they vandalized. Good luck on collecting the 35,000 to 50,000 dollars in damages from these illiterate graduates from the public school system.

For me, this is a pretty good group of 10 rounds of .45 with Fat Man (my Glock 30) at a range of seven yards:

Today, I tried using the Sooper Sekrut Kung Fu grip that’s the current buzz on the gunblogs and it seemed to help.

I forget where I found this on the web the other day, but after I stopped gagging, I downloaded it hoping to share my experience with others . . .

Digging through the old DVD pile is sometimes a lot of fun when you find one that showcases classic firearms. One such flick is “The Quick and the Dead,” starring Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Leonardo Dicaprio, Russell Crowe and Keith David.

The flick delivered on old firearms. I’m not sure the following IMFDB Gunography covers them all, but it’s a good start:

1. Colt 1873 Single Action Army Civilian Model
2. Colt 1873 Single Action Army
3. Winchester 1866
4. Winchester 1873
5. S&W 1875 Schofield
6. Lematt percussion revolver/single shot percussion shotgun

Overall, the plot was highly contrived and the special effects, although spectacular, were probably overdone. For example, consider the size of the hole in Sgt. Clay Cantrell’s head (Keith David). Ostensibly, the projectile came from a .44 or .45 caliber handgun. Where can I find some ammo that can do this?

Given the almost constant gunfights and the outrageous cartoon-like caricatures combined with effects like the one above and all the explosions near the climax, this is a fun flick to watch. I give it a four star (out of five) rating.

I remember ultra-liberal talk show host Jack Parr during the height of the cold war saying “Better red than dead.” Parr, like many on the left, was an apologist for Communism. That is the story behind the title of this post - but my meaning is quite different - the ‘red’ is for ‘meat.’

Yesterday, I read an article by James Taranto he called “Fred Meat.” He, of course, was referring to Fred Thompson’s speech at the RNC - you know, the “only candidate from either party that can properly field dress a moose” speech. There was lots of red meat in Fred’s speech.

The next night, Rudy Giuliani, for all practical purposes, matched Fred’s speech with another plate of red meat, New York style. Rudy delivered his speech like he was Fred’s ‘city cousin.’

And then there was Sarah Palin . . . her speech thrilled and delighted conservatives everywhere when she showed that she could deliver a speech that topped the previous ones. Rudy delivered New York strip and Fred delivered fillet mignon - Sarah took aim and delivered the whole tenderloin.

Cross-posted at CB&D