Secret Photograph of Dick Cheney!

"Civil liberties make me very angry. The Constitution is in my way. I must blow it up.

"Where is my Illudium-238 Explosive Space Modulator?"

Why I Hate Glocks

This is a Glock 23 in .40 S&W:
This is a Colt Government Model in .45 ACP:
These are not mine, but I have owned similar handguns. Now, I'm no expert and I don't try to play one. Anything I say anywhere on this blog and especially when I am writing about firearms is my opinion and only my opinion. If you ever say "but the Earth-Bound Misfit says that", then go look up Bill Engvall and ask him for a sign.

A Glock is the only firearm that I have ever owned or fired that scared the shit out of me.

Both the Glock and the Colt Government Model have similar trigger pulls of roughly 5.5lbs. Scroll up and take a close look at the trigger of the Glock. You can see a little protrusion in the front of the trigger. That is the only user-operated safety device on the gun.

Now compare that to the Colt. Directly behind the top screw on the wooden grip is a safety. If the hammer is cocked on the Colt, you can move that safety lever up and the gun will not fire. Directly behind the safety lever is a grip safety. If you are holding the gun, you are actuating the grip safety.

Glocks have internal devices that lock the striker unless the trigger is depressed. So do Series 80 Colts. Glock counts its internal devices as additional safeties. (Probably sounds good in court.)

Nobody I know of who is in their right mind would carry a Colt automatic with the hammer cocked and the thumb safety off. But that is exactly the carry situation with a Glock. And it scared the hell out of me, which is why I traded it away.

(Updated 5/4/09 to replace the photographs)

Seine Papeiren, Bitte, Mein Herr

Feds seek to ram their national identity card Real ID card down the throats of all Americans.

My initial reaction is this:

With all due respect, Secretary Chertoff:

Go fuck yourself.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Fuck you and your fellow fascists in the Department of Reich Homeland Security.

Fuck you and everybody who looks like you.

Oh, and by the way, the above also applies to all you crypto-totalitarians at the Heritage Foundation. Every last mother-stabbing father-raping one of you.

I may have more to say when I've calmed down a bit.

And if I've screwed up on the German, well, tough shit. You got the point.

"How Many Dead Americans is Saddam Worth?"- Part 2

In 2000, Cheney restated his position that the Bush Administration (the one run by adults) did the right thing in not invading Iraq:

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RUSSERT: Do you regret not taking Saddam out nine years ago?

CHENEY: I don't, Tim. It was--and it's been talked about since then. But the fact of the matter is the only way you could have done that would be to go to Baghdad and occupy Iraq. If we had done that, the U.S. would have been all alone. We would not have had the support of the coalition, especially of the Arab nations that fought alongside us in Kuwait. None of them ever set foot inside Iraq.

In conversations I had with leaders in the region afterwards, they all supported the decision that was made not to go to Baghdad. They were concerned that we not get into a position where we shifted instead of being the leader of an international coalition to roll back Iraqi aggression to one in which we were an imperialist power willy-nilly moving in to capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.

So I think we got it right. So I suppose it's one of those things that will be debated for some time. But I thought the decision was sound at the time, and I do today.

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Too bad Cheney went bloodthirstingly stupid on us and dragged Chimpy McDumbfutz along with him.

Everything that Cheney cited as justifications for not going into Iraq: a messy occupation, a quagmire, being seen as imperialists, being seen as occupiers, has come to pass.

"Painkiller Jane" Takes Two in the Heart and One in the Head

The Sci Fi Channel has canceled the show. I liked the show, but let's face it, a show about a shadowy government agency running around, grabbing people without charges, holding them without due process and busting into places without warrants is going to be a pretty hard show to take in the Age of the Chimperor.

Other than the "neuros" and "painkiller" stuff, I don't know why the show qualified to be on the Sci Fi Channel. It should have been on Fox, so RoboMitt and the rest of the Republican Fascists could praise it as a model for how to destroy protect freedom and liberty.

Where is "Expedited Service" Not So Fast?

When the State Department is in charge.

Now, you have to pay an extra fee to get your passport in roughly the same amount of time that they used to take to process your passport application for the normal fee.

And they seem to think that this is funny.

(By the way, take a look at the photo in the article on MSNBC.com (click the link). Look at the size of those flat-plate monitors. You Tax Dollars At Work.)

Thoroughly Stupid Agency

Just when you may have thought that the Transportation Safety Agency has plumbed the depths of bureaucratic inanity, they manage to find a deeper pit. If you don't act really nice and smile at the airport, they are going to suspect that you are a terrorist. They are looking for facial expressions indicating "fear or disgust".

I hope they have enough room to do secondary screening on everyone, for unless you are flying in your own airplane or a NetJets charter, "fear" and "disgust" pretty much sum up the state of air travel during the Reign of the Chimperor. I know of nobody anymore, other than the criminally insane, who looks upon airline travel as a joy and a treat. The only difference between airline travel and dental work is the airlines usually get you to a different city, but without any Novocaine.

And may God have mercy on your soul if you frequent bookstores, coffeshops or if you have never been in trouble with the law, because the NYPD thinks those are indications that you may be a terrorist.

Ever get the feeling that we are not going to have to wait 500 years for the rise of the idiotocracy?

Gun Safety

Here are Jeff Cooper's Four Rules:

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1. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)

3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.

4. Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.

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I would change the first sentence of #3 to "keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target and you have made the decision to shoot." You may have noticed that Hollywood has adopted that rule and I think it's a fine idea.

For example, look at this promo shot of Kristanna Loken as "Painkiller Jane" on the SciFi Channel (she has a couple of serious .45s, there):



Or this old shot of Peter Sellers (P-38, old school):



Both actors have their fingers off the triggers.

Now, in real life, take a look at this shot from 1981:



That was a high-stress situation, the President had just been shot. And the Secret Service agent with the Uzi has his finger off the trigger.

Guns that are in good repair generally will not fire unless the trigger have been actuated. If you keep your finger off the trigger, you are not going to experience the heart-stopping joy of an accidental discharge.

Target verified, sights on target, decision to fire and then and only then put your finger on the trigger.

Enemy of the State

Remember the Will Smith movies a number of years ago, in which the Feds use satellite reconnaissance to track his character?

Well, it seems that the Constitution-shredders in the Administration thought that was a super idea. So they are going to turn our spy satellites on us.

The Chimperor's minions are turning this nation into a police state. Wiretaps without warrants. Sneak & peek warrants. Spying on people with satellites. And let's not forget the ideas that didn't fly very well: Massive data mining of all citizens and setting up a national "snitch on your neighbor" program.

We're getting to the point that the people who line their hats with tinfoil do not appear to be as crazy as they used to be. And that's pretty sad.

The Cost of Incompetence

So, they tell Americans who want to cross the border by air to Canada or the Carribean that they'll have to get a passport. Well, surprise to the State Department, people applied for passports in great numbers. And surprise to the rest of us, it's going to cost a billion dollars because the State Department was surprised.