Scenes from forgotten war like ghosts from the past

Some long-lost work of one of the pioneers of photojournalism has surfaced, shedding light on one of the long-forgotten wars of the past.

Robert Capa is known as the pioneering war photographer for his work covering the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, which was essentially a tune-up for Hitler to try out his new weapons and give his troops some experience prior to launching World War II.

The strange thing about the Spanish Civil War is that the Communists were considered by the liberal press -- and Capa and his fellow war photographers -- as the good guys in this confrontation with the Nazis who were trying to take over Spain. There were no good guys in that Nazi-vs.-Communist war, unlike WWII which followed. But then liberals seldom get history right.

The long-lost 35mm film that has surfaced are some 4,300 negatives taken by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour during the Spanish Civil War, groundbreaking work that was long thought to be lost but resurfaced several years ago in Mexico City.

The top photo is by Seymour of a Spanish partisan who proudly wears a Nazi swastika on his beret. Next photo is of Taro, who was Capa's co-worker and sweetheart, who was killed in 1937 when run over by a tank.

You can view a slideshow of some of the images here at the New York Times online. The article about the restoration of the photos in the NYT is here.

And though Capa is widely credited with being the first war photographer, I did some research in Photojournalism school at the University of Missouri at Columbia about a far earlier war photographer than Capa, who really was one of the pioneers of the dangerous art.

His name was Timothy O'Sullivan and many of the photos of the American Civil War which were credited to Matthew Brady were actually taken by O'Sullivan on the battlefields. He worked for Brady and sent his glass-plate negatives to Brady in New York, who etched his name on the plates.

O'Sullivan was the first photographer on the scene at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pa., and his images of the war dead are still haunting today.

O'Sullivan was also the first photographer to travel down the Colorado River as part of a mapping expedition in 1871, where he took many beautiful photos of the American west, including the first of the Grand Canyon. He took the below photo in Black Canyon.

Single-Action bug bite may be worse than swine flu

A funny thing has happened again on the way to downsizing my handguns.

I keep getting sidetracked in my plan to downsize from full-size pistols to subcompact, light carry pistols. I nearly gave in to the lure of my first single-action 6-shooter a couple of weeks ago when I took a Hy Hunter Six-Shooter for a test run from the gun shop where I'm working. That's it in the top photo.

The beautiful black-steel single-action with fake pearl grips caught my eye when someone traded it in and with a bit of googling, I discovered it's a copy of the Single Action Army Colt known as the Peacemaker. And the killer is this particular model was made in what was then West Germany in the 1980s by J.P. Sauer & Sohn. In case you're not a gun nut like me, that's the Sauer that merged into Sig Sauer, which IMHO makes some of the finest handguns in the world, bar none, at any price.

So I shot it, which I loved, but I reloaded it very slowly, which I don't love. As I reported at the time, now I know why all the old cowboys are dead. They got killed while they were reloading, one cylinder at a time.

So I thought I was over my single-action pistol desires. And then this week, somebody traded in a Ruger Blackhawk .41 Magnum with a 4-5/8" barrel, second photo. My S&W 29 .44 Magnum has a 4" barrel which I think is just about perfect for balance while shooting as well as ease of carry and quick handling. And the extra 5/8" on the Ruger .41 Magnum barrel feels pretty darn handy, too. I may have to beg the shop owner to let me take the Ruger for a test fire run, too. God help me, I think I'm getting bit by the single-action bug. Again.

I've always wanted a .41 Magnum but never shot one. I love 10mm pistols and .41 Magnum is the revolver equivalent of 10mm in semi-auto pistols. Maybe somebody in the shop or on gunbroker will buy this Ruger before I can find time to scratch this itch. I've already made plans this weekend so I can't make it to the range. But if it's still there next weekend...

Global warming, global freezing, kudzu, swine flu, who's on first?

My favorite pundit, Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden, is an old geezer like me and like me, he's having a bit of trouble keeping up with which Chicken Little is running about.

Global warming, global freezing, poison peanut butter, kudzu, swine flu, who's on first? Pruden updates us on the panic du jour in A pandemic of panic -- are we dead yet?

We were all supposed to be in the graveyard by now, done in by AIDS, SARS, bird flu, poisoned peanut butter, Hong Kong flu, killer tomatoes, global warming and strangulation by kudzu. But here we are, proof that there really is life after death.

Now we learn that we might freeze before the pigs get us. (The chickens failed.) NASA scientists have observed that the solar wind is the weakest since we began keeping such records, that the magnetic axis of the sun is tilted to an unusual degree, and Ol' Sol is the quietest he has been in a century. A chill, say the solar scientists, may be on the way. (Or not.) Worse, says one of them, this could compel reappraisal of the science of global warning. Try as he might, poor old Al Gore just can't keep the cosmos in line.

But this week Ol' Sol has been put in the shade by a new panic du jour. The cable-TV networks and the Internet are bubbling with sunspots, even if the sun isn't. Sample these latest headlines from the Drudge Report: "Two flu cases confirmed in Scotland. Has globalization made us more catastrophe-prone? Swine flu sweeps the globe. Swine flu closes football stadiums. The world must work together against this threat."

We haven't seen a panic quite like this one since the last one...

The director of the World Influenza Center in London says of the outbreak, such as it is so far: "It's difficult to look on the bright side."

No, it's actually not difficult. About 2,000 persons in Mexico are down with flu, and about 150 have died. That's a mortality rate of about 7 percent. Sad, even tragic, but not exactly the most lethal flu virus we've ever seen. There's no mortality rate in the United States because no one has died. Only a few, very few, cases have been reported, and nearly all are described as "mild." You have to give the medical bureaucrats and the media credit for chutzpah to think they can keep such thin soup on the panic menu.

There are no firm estimates or even hopeful guesses of how many Americans are likely to contract flu this spring, but fortunately the ratio of panic to reality is not governed by facts. In the early hours of counting, barely 50 cases had been reported in the United States, and only two in Britain - that's 2, not 2,000 or even 200. About 300,000 to 500,000 cases of flu are reported every year in the United States, where 10 percent to 20 percent of the population comes down with the sore throat, coughing and achy bones of flu. Of those, 30,000 to 40,000 die. What we have so far in the United States is a 50-case panic, caused by a remarkably mild variant of the flu.

The medical researchers say it might mutate. Or it might not. If it does, it might, possibly, maybe, potentially be the worst killer since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Or it might not. Researchers are working on the vaccine, and the media is working on the panic. We may not get a vaccine, but soon there won't be a dry pair of pants on six continents.

And in case you missed it, I was too busy to blog about Pruden's Friday column, when he wrote about the law of unintended consequences in Obama's on-again, off-again, on-again flip-flopping about whether Bush administration lawyers should be jailed for saving the nation after 9/11.

Exacting revenge for unpopular policies is the norm in the third world, heretofore more likely in Barack Obama's ancestral Kenya than in America, more in the tradition of gangland Chicago than in Washington, where we count on cooler heads to prevail when raw emotion threatens to overwhelm sobriety and the undisciplined senses. We recall perceived national mistakes with the sadness of regret and even gratitude for lessons learned, not the frenzied catharsis of a St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Mr. Obama, having won the White House fair and square, is entitled to change any presidential policy he chooses, but the vindication of a national election does not entitle any president to exact mindless revenge...

The loquacious prince of Hyde Park should understand this, having eloquently sounded caution and reason on his inauguration as president, promising as he had during the long campaign to "look forward," not "backward." Rahm Emanuel, once described as the president's alter ego (if indeed such an outsized ego could have an "alter"), said as recently as Sunday that "it's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back in any sense of anger and retribution."

This was in line with what the president had said all last summer when he was campaigning for the White House, what he had said on his inauguration, and in line with his oft-stated goal of restoring bipartisan civility and mutual goodwill to governing the country. Mr. Emanuel's reassurance was regarded in Washington as putting paid to an ugly era, an emphatic determination to "move on" to something close to national unity.

The president hadn't counted on the rage of the jackals on the leftmost fringe of his party, organizations like MoveOn.org, which want only the "unity" of the lynch mob. They demand a hanging and the president promises only to think about it. Ever confident that his golden tongue, with or without the teleprompter, would mesmerize all foes and vanquish all rancor, Mr. Obama then threw George W. Bush's lawyers to the mob.

Perhaps the president imagines that nobody cares much about what happens to lawyers, but he has set in motion something neither he nor anyone else can control. Some of the Democrats in Congress, eager now to join the mob, will regret what they cry for. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, for one, was a member of the House intelligence committee and sat in on super-secret briefings after Sept. 11. She concedes that she heard about waterboarding but she doesn't remember exactly what she heard. Just like Barack Obama sleeping through 20 years of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's rabid sermons, Ms. Pelosi dozed through the briefings. Her colleagues on the intelligence panel say they remember her demanding that the CIA do more to get the "intelligence" to prevent another attack.

Now wouldn't that be sweet justice, if Nancy Pelosi should get snared in the revenge frenzy?

Rookies and Idiots Rule! (And other depressing news)

Been busier than a one-handed paper hanger working at the shop this week, so haven't had time for any blogging since briefly early Wednesday. Plus it's been a week with disaster upon disaster rolling out with great regularity from the bunch of rookies and idiots in charge in Washington, so all the news is bad. I don't know about you, but it's depressing to see what a train wreck this Obama administration is turning out to be.

But I've got a few minutes before I head to work this morning for a concealed-carry class at the gun shop so I just had to post a quote or two from Mike Gallagher's column on Townhall.com.

First, here's a multiple-guess test about the terrible, gruesome practice of waterboarding torture which Gallagher offers.

I watched former New York Times reporter Judith Miller wail about waterboarding on Fox News this week. She complained that she can barely complete reading the released documents because they are so grisly and awful.

I wonder how she compares putting a caterpillar in a cell with a bad guy to taking a knife and slicing off the head of a screaming college kid in front of a rolling video camera?

Rep. Pete Hoeskstra was a guest on my radio show and repeated something that the released documents about interrogation revealed. Do you know how many people our country “waterboarded” over six years ago?

Based on the hysteria we’ve been hearing, surely it’s a big number, right?

Well let’s take a multiple choice test.

How many suspected terrorists have we waterboarded?

A) 500
B) 1200
C) 3
D) 900
The answer, of course, is C.

Three people.

We poured water in the mouths of three stinking, miserable, murderous terrorists. And you’d think we re-enacted the Crusades.

Out of the thousands of terrorists we’ve managed to kill or capture, three people were subjected to waterboarding. And that causes bleeding heart liberals like Judith Miller seem to want to break out in tears and move to France.

It’s positively disgusting.

I have to believe Americans are paying attention. Thousands and thousands of us took to the streets last week in peaceful, spirited demonstrations against the way this country is headed.

And while I'm stealing from Gallagher, here's his summation of recent events about Obama.

Let’s sum up just the past couple of weeks: President Obama goes to Europe and the Middle East, bowing and scraping (literally, just ask King Abdullah) and apologizing for the United States of America.

His Treasury Secretary announces that banks needing “exceptional assistance” under the TARP bail-out could be forced by his administration to make management changes akin to those that occurred with General Motors.

His Homeland Security Secretary sends a memo to law enforcement agencies warning them to be on the lookout for returning veterans and citizens who believe in state’s rights and are against abortion because we’re potentially violent “right-wing extremists.”

Later, this same Homeland Security disaster tells an interviewer that the 9/11 terrorists came across the Canadian border; this, on the heels of her stated position on CNN that sneaking across the border isn’t a crime, it’s a civil matter.

Obama rejects the advice of his own CIA director and decides to release specific details about the interrogation tactics our intelligence community used against some suspected terrorists, demoralizing and humiliating the men and women who are in the unenviable position of trying desperately to keep this country safe from another 9/11.

The president says that he has no intention of fulfilling the Moveon.org crazies’ desire to prosecute members of the Bush Administration who devised harsh interrogation tactics for harsh, murderous terrorists and then, a week later, changes his mind and leaves the door open for going after members of our intelligence community, all while seemingly ignoring the chorus of voices around him that are confirming that the tactics have actually worked.

If George Bush had such a disaster-plagued couple of weeks, I think the editors of the New York Times would be literally storming the White House with pitchforks and torches. First 100 days, indeed.

God help us, the juveniles are in power and our great nation may not survive the chaos.

And speaking of The New York Times, I gotta admit I'm an online subscriber and scan the headlines every morning. Old habits of 30+ years as a journalist are hard to break and the NYT is supposedly the leading newspaper in the country. But mostly these days, I scan the headlines and delete the email without reading a single article in the Gray Lady. They call the paper that because it's never been flashy and avoided color for many years, sticking to black and white.

But in recent years, the Noo Yawk Times has gone so far into left field they've met themselves coming back around a hairpin turn and become a train wreck of journalism transformed into a warmed-version of the Huffington Post or Moveon.org bloggers. Giving away national secrets is their most cherished recent tradition and no terrorist is too vile to be coddled by the Times.

So the news that the NYT is about to go under, at least for the print edition, is sweet justice from the marketplace. There's a reason that Fox News is so far in the lead in ratings that all the other news outlets are fighting for 10th place. Fox really is fair and balanced and after them, there's a host of leftwingnuts masquerading as journalists.

And when the NYT is being kept afloat with loans from a mysterious Mexican benefactor named Carlos Slim, that might be a sign that business is not doing well. Say good night Gracie.

Obama pushes treaty to ban reloading and BB guns

If President Obama could slap us gun-owners with restrictions that could ban reloading and perhaps even BB guns without having to seek Congressional approval, would he do it? According to the Gun Owners of America, he's doing just that with an international treaty he's supporting.

President Obama is determined to eradicate the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens.

In recent meetings with Mexican President Felipe Calderón, the American President promised to urge the U.S. Senate to pass an international arms control treaty.

The treaty, cumbersomely titled the “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials” (known by the acronym CIFTA), was signed by President Bill Clinton, but never ratified by the Senate.

President Obama is hoping to capitalize on an increased Democrat majority and push its quick ratification. The U.S. is one of four nations that have not ratified the treaty.

If ratified and the U.S. is found not to be in compliance with any provisions of the treaty -- such as a provision that would outlaw reloading ammunition without a government license -- President Obama would be empowered to implement regulations without Congressional approval.

This CIFTA treaty would ban "illicit manufacturing of firearms" but what does that mean?

“Illicit manufacturing” of firearms is defined as “assembly of firearms [or] ammunition... without a license...”

Hence, reloading ammunition -- or putting together a lawful firearm from a kit -- is clearly “illicit manufacturing.” Modifying a firearm in any way would surely be “illicit manufacturing.” And, while it would be a stretch, assembling a firearm after cleaning it could, in any plain reading of the words, come within the screwy definition of “illicit manufacturing.”

“Firearm” has a similarly questionable definition. Borrowing from the open-ended definitions in federal law which have continue to vex us (and people like Olofson in Wisconsin), any barreled weapon “which... may be readily converted to expel a bullet” would be a firearm. Even worse, “any other weapon” (a term which is not defined) is a “firearm.” This surely includes BB guns -- and who knows what else.

“Cartridge cases” and “projectiles” are defined as “ammunition.”

How Clintonesque. If Obama can get the Senate to sign the CIFTA treaty, then he gets to define what "illicit manufacturing of firearms" means. Or as Bill Clinton so famously said, it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Are you surprised? I'm not.

If you'd like to write your Senator to oppose CIFTA, go here at Gun Owners of America.

Another .357 Sig is being built for me in the Sig Custom Shop

Top photo is
step two in my new concealed carry campaign. Step one was my new Charter Patriot .327 Fed. Magnum with Crimson Trace Lasergrips. Step two is a special order I placed today through the gun shop where I work for a Sig P229 SAS Gen. 2 Custom Shop pistol with Sig-Anti-Snag carry treatment, Short-Reset Trigger, Night Sights, Stainless Slide, Custom Wood Grips and of course, it's a .357 Sig.

Sig Sauer's website says:

Quote:

The P229® SAS Gen 2, joining the recently updated P239® and P220® Carry versions, features a melt treatment on frame & slide, SRT Trigger System, short trigger, SIGLITE® Night Sights, and black polymer grips. The slide features an engraved SIG SAUER® Custom Shop logo. The Generation 2 SAS is available in a Nitron or Two-Tone version. The P229® SAS Gen 2 comes in 9mm, .357SIG, and .40S&W calibers. This P229 pistol from the SIG SAUER Custom Shop has gone through a radical dehorning process resulting in an ultra smooth, snag free profile that’s ideal for concealed carry.

The Sig rep said he could get the nice wood grips from the now-discontinued SAS Gen 1 shown in the photo above and put them on my order. "To Hell and Back Reliability" and beautiful, too!

Second photo is what I think will be step three of my plan, a Smith & Wesson Night Guard revolver. I'm mulling over three models, .45 ACP, 10mm/.40 S&W or .44 Special.

Third photo is probably an alternate, say step 3A, a S&W 632 Carry Comp Pro Series in .327 Fed. Magnum. I probably won't have the funds to get both the Night Guard and the Carry Comp, so it will end up being one or the other. For now. But before I do any of the above, I gotta sell off at least two and perhaps three of my current pistols.

Understanding Obama's Anti-American Tour of Latin America

If you don't read Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden's twice-weekly columns, you're missing one of the sharpest minds in the news business, though that is faint praise these days. Pruden's analysis today is about Obama's current Anti-American Tour in Latin America, where Pruden says The insults were only for America.

Only Barack Obama knows what's in his heart, but there's the possibility, not heretofore considered by his critics, that the blundering loose tongue he packs with his teleprompter, scorning the dignity and good name of his country for the cheap applause of tin-pot dictators eager to throw rotten bananas at their betters, comes easy and naturally to him.

This wouldn't be one of Dr. Freud's difficult cases. He was born to a mother obsessed with the pursuit of inappropriate men who would treat her badly, abandoned by his father from Kenya, uprooted again from life with a stepfather in Indonesia and ultimately raised by a grandmother he would later publicly scold for her presumed racial bigotry. Why wouldn't he feverishly pursue sanction and esteem, however mindless much of it would be, wherever he could find it?

Only a man with a screwed-up psyche, the likes of which we've probably never had in the White House before, would fly off to foreign shores to campaign against his predecessor and to offer abject apologies to anyone listening for the harm he imagines his country did to others, while carefully excluding himself from any of the criticism.

All for the embrace, physical and otherwise, of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez, of Evo Morales and Danny Ortega. Most of us would say, in word or deed, "insult my country, dude, and you're insulting me, so back off." But this is the kind of fierce pride in home, kith and kin that Barack Obama never knew; he even married a woman who said she never felt love of country until her husband reached the front gate of the White House.

Read the whole thing and perhaps you'll have a better handle on who Obama is and why he does the seemingly incredibly stupid and unpatriotic things he does as President of the United States.

Frankly I gotta say having our first psycopathic president is scaring the heck outa me. Rush Limbaugh essentially says the same thing in this 10-minute interview about Obama's tour.

Economic Lenin-Socialism signals the end of American freedom

I haven't always agreed with George Will, but at present he's one of the few voices crying out in the wilderness while Obama leads our nation into socialist slavery, right over the cliff of freedom.

Will flatly says the Obama administration has "adopted an economic model of Lenin-Socialism" and Sam Donaldson calmly agrees but argues that it's the only way to save our economy. Remember the Vietnam War saga of the village the army had to destroy in order to save it?

As Hillary and Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, have both openly said, they're not going to allow this economic crisis to go to waste. This is the left's chance to take complete control and consolidate their power forever and they're not going to miss it. Marx to Lenin to Obama. It's not a triple-play combo, it's not a game, but the endgame of our free republic. God help our nation.

Pay no attention to those leftwingnut UNC students rioting

Right is wrong and wrong is right. Up is down and down is up. The whole world is backwards and upside down, but that's OK because the leftwingnuts say it's OK.

Got it? Let Mike Adams explain the 10 rules of liberal-think, as he explains why the white students at the University of North Carolina had every right to riot, throw a brick through a window and chase U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo off campus because he dared to make a speech saying our borders should be secured.

Read all 10 rules, but here's the closer, which sums up the previous nine.

10. The law is an instrument of oppression and criminality is a form of expression. Tom Tancredo supports the enforcement of the law. He is an oppressor. The protestors were breaking the law as a form of expression. In the same way, illegal immigration is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment and unaffected by antiquated notions like “citizenship.” Citizenship is oppressive.

Got it? Me neither. Now you know why the Department of Homegrown Stupidity is getting their panties in a wad about veterans, pro-lifers and other right-wing conservatives without even noticing that white students are rioting on campus to chase conservatives out of town.

Bitter, backwoods God and guns lovers threaten DHS

I've been thinking about how to comment on the idiotic Department of Homeland Security report about us dangerous God-and-guns-loving-bitter-backwoods-right-wing-extremists, but just haven't been able to get a round tuit.

And lo and behold (that's a Bible quote in case you missed it, DHS listeners) along comes Doug Giles, who has such a way with words I'll just let him speak for me on that topic. His latest column is about The Department of Homegrown Stupidity.

Let’s see, according to the Whitehouse’s Wizards of Obfuscation, who are the terror threats America needs to be on the lookout for? Is it anti-American douches like Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright? Nope. Is it G20esque smelly-as-a-goat-scrotum eco freaks? Wrong again. Is it Muslim radicals who are sprinkled about our country in both covert sleeper cells and plain as hell death camps? Quit being silly, that’s so yesterday. I know, I know, our cultural Dennis the Menaces are the drug cartels and their rabble that are pouring through our southern borders and kidnapping our kids? No, you lunatic, Pepe ain’t the problem. Quit being so judgmental. Hey-Soos said, “Thou shalt not judge.”

No, serfs of Obamaland, the bad people, the extremists, according to the Department of Homegrown Stupidity are the peaceful millions who love God and the Constitution and are sick of watching the clowns in the Whitehouse drive our country into an economic and moral ditch of which there isn’t a tow truck big enough to winch it out of.

Essentially, the folks everyone in America needs to be on the watch for are . . . themselves, the American soldiers and civilians who don’t do the grinning bobble-head nod when Barack spends our kids’ cash, bows to a Saudi king, trashes our Judeo-Christian heritage and disses the USA on EU soil. Yep, the terrorist threat is now folks like you, me and millions and millions of other peaceful patriots who are waking up to the fact that we are being screwed, glued and tattooed while being utterly ignored.

Don't hold back now Doug. Tell us what you really think about the DHS and BHO's ratpack.

The short (.327 Fed. Mag.) and the long (1894 Marlin .44)

Went to the range again today and shot the shortest gun I have, Charter .327 Federal Magnum 2.5" snubby revolver, and the longest gun I have, Marlin 1984SS .44 Magnum lever-action rifle.

Top photo is the Charter with its new Crimson Trace Lasergrips. First handgun I've owned with CT Lasergrips, and I like it. I see more in my future. The Charter is vastly improved since I had to apply Kentucky elevation for its fixed sights, which aimed about 4" high from the point of impact of most loads. Now I can put the red dot where I want to hit and let 'er fly.

It's also an improvement because my 61-year-old eyes have a hard time seeing short snubby sights in the first place, so now I can forget about the sights and keep my eyes on the target. I'm a bit fuzzy up close without glasses, but I can see crystal clear once I get beyond the length of my arms. So my pistol shooting will improve with the Lasergrips.

First I zeroed it with American Eagle JSP 100-grain loads, then had to zero it again with my carry loads, Speer Gold Dot JHP 110-grain loads. The second photo is the results of my zero work, sitting at bench rest at 21 feet, a reasonable distance for shooting a snubnose revolver.

Third photo is a closeup of the CT Lasergrips beaming brightly from my Charter Patriot .327.

I gotta say it's a real handful sitting at a bench rest. It's a totally different experience than standing offhand with a two-hand grip and sitting down you really appreciate what a nasty round the 327 Federal Magnum really is. I don't wanna get shot with nothing, .22 included, but I'd really hate to get hit with 110-grains of .327 sizzling at 1400 fps. That's .357 Sig or 9mm +P kinda speed, two of my favorite auto pistol rounds. And I read an article this week that FBI-standard gelatin tests are showing 13-14" of penetration and very impressive expansion with either .327 Fed. Mag. load.

I do believe a S&W 632 Carry Comp Pro Series is waiting out there for me in my near future.

When I got the Charter suitably zeroed for carry, I moved on to my new Marlin 1894SS Stainless Steel .44 Magnum lever-action rifle. I brought my sight-tapper to the range and a couple of boxes of .44s, .44 Magnum and .44 Special, both 240-grain. The rifle and ammo is the next photo, followed by a small redman 11x17" target at 20 yards.

The first couple of holes in the redman were shot at 50 yards which confirmed what I found the first time I shot the Marlin, off to the right. So I decided to take the work out of it and move the target in to 20 yards to finish the zero. One little love tap on the dovetailed sight is all it took.

I love this Marlin rifle. It's a tangent from my current plans for carry pistols, but a very nice one.

Krauthammer decodes Obama's Grand Plan for America

It's been said if you give a fool enough rope, he'll eventually hang himself. Or in the case of our wordy resident of the White House, perhaps his egoistical need to hear the sound of his own voice will eventually bring about his downfall when the American public finally hears what he's saying.

Sir Charles Krauthammer is becoming quite adept at decoding Obamaspeak. His latest translation is of Obama's grand plan, which he unveiled in a speech that borrows its title from Jimmy Carter's failed presidency. He names his autobiography by stealing a title from crazy ol' Uncle Jeremiah Wright's sermon and now he steals his grand strategy title from a failed Democrat president? Is he nuts?

You really oughta read the whole thing, which Krauthammer calls The Sting, in Four Parts. As usual with swindles, Obama begins The Sting with an outrageously big lie, a real whopper.

The Whopper: The boast that he had "identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade." It takes audacity to repeat this after it had been so widely exposed as transparently phony. Most of this $2 trillion is conjured up by refraining from spending $180 billion a year for 10 more years of surges in Iraq. Hell, why not make the "deficit reductions" $10 trillion -- the extra $8 trillion coming from refraining from repeating the $787 billion stimulus package annually through 2019.

The Puzzler: He further boasted of his frugality by saying that his budget would reduce domestic discretionary spending as share of GDP to the lowest level ever recorded. Amazing. Squeezing discretionary domestic spending at a time of hugely expanding budgets is merely the baleful residue of out-of-control entitlements and debt service, which will increase astronomically under Obama. To claim these as achievements in fiscal responsibility is testament not to Obama's frugality but to his brazenness.

The Non Sequitur: "To make sure such a crisis (as we have today) never happens again," Obama proposes his radical health care, energy and education reforms, the central pillars of his social democratic agenda. But Obama's own words contradict this assertion. Notes The Washington Post: "But as his admirable summation of recent history made clear, these pursuits have little to do with the economic crisis, and they are not the key to economic recovery." Obama rarely fails to repeat this false connection. A crisis -- and the public's resulting pliability to liberal social engineering -- is a terrible thing to waste.

The Swindle: The Obama administration is spending money like none other in peacetime history. Obama is smart. He knows this is fiscally unsustainable. He has let it be known privately and publicly that he intends to cure the imbalance with entitlement reform.

An excellent strategy. If it takes throwing nearly $1 trillion of "porky" (to quote Sen. Charles Schumer) stimulus spending to soften up a Democratic Congress and make it amenable to real entitlement reform, then fine. Reforming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would save tens of trillions of dollars, and make the current money-from-helicopters spending almost trivial by comparison.

I'm guessing that Krauthammer is Jewish, but not a particularly religious one, judging by some of his off-the-cuff comments, such as when John McCain's campaign came back from the dead and Sir Charles said he was considering changing his belief in the resurrection. I wonder now if he's beginning to feel a bit like a famous Jewish prophet, John the Baptist, who was "a voice crying in the wilderness." Krauthammer is one of the few pointing out The Sting is afoot.

But is anybody listening besides me?

Colt joins the 10mm revival with Delta Elite's rebirth

Reports of the demise of 10mm pistols are greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain said about himself when finding his obituary in his morning newspaper. At right is the new/old Colt Delta Elite 10mm Stainless, an old 10mm pistol newly brought back into production by Colt.

I love my job as a gun store salesman and gunbroker poster for a local gun shop, which is how I came to hold this fine piece of Colt workmanship in my hands and take photos of it for posting. It's up on gunbroker now for a mere $950 if you want one.

(P.S. Too late. The Colt Delta Elite is already sold. It didn't stay on gunbroker but a bit more than 24 hours. That was fast!)

I wrote earlier about the revival under way in 10mm pistols and being a 10mm gun lover, I'm delighted at this market correction. Frankly IMHO there is no finer pistol caliber than 10mm. It offers the size and grain weight that nearly equals the famed one-shot stopper .45 ACP with ballistics that far outstrip that caliber.

In my view, 10mm is the perfect pistol caliber and I'm still perplexed as to why the .40 S&W, which is a shortened 10mm, didn't find a way into my heart. Millions of law enforcement and civilians love .40s, so I expected I would, too. But alas, when I bought my first it turned out to be probably my last also. I bought a Steyr M40-A1, loving Steyr pistols, but I just didn't care for the caliber when it came to actually shooting it.

It's recoil is sort of weird, a slapping kind of torque that twists in my hand and I've got pretty big hands. I love shooting 10mm, .357 Sig, .45 ACP, .44 Magnum, .44 Special and all three flavors of 9mm I've tried, 9x19, 9x23 and 9x25, but I just don't like .40. So I swapped it for a 9x19mm.

But getting back to 10mm, I met a genuine fellow 10mm gun nut the other day in the gun shop. This gentleman has an entire collection of Bren Ten pistols and is one of the early members of the Bren-Ten Forum, where he snatched up the username of SCrockett for Sonny Crockett.

In case you're not an old gun nut like me, Sonny Crockett was the Bren-Ten-carrying detective in Miami Vice, that TV cop show of the olden days, recently revived as a cop movie.

And the Bren Ten, the daddy rabbit of 10mm pistols, is supposedly being revived also by gun manufacturer Vltor under a new name, the Fortis. According to the Vltor blog, its promised arrival in early 2009 has been pushed back a bit due to overwhelming demand for other products, in particular military contracts. I'm looking forward to seeing my first Fortis.

The story untold about the U.S. Navy's Somali pirate rescue

What really happened in the hostage standoff with Somali pirates? One fact is crystal clear, the three U.S. Navy SEAL snipers are the obvious heroes for their life-saving shots that took out the three pirates who were holding their U.S. citizen hostage, commercial Capt. Richard Phillips.

If you believe the Noo Yawk Times (and all the rest of the unanimous praise chorus being spewed out by the so-called mainstream media) the biggest hero is their glorious leader, President Obama, who bravely showed he is master of the universe and not a raw rookie unable to handle an international crisis.

WASHINGTON — President Obama vowed Monday to “halt the rise of piracy” off the coast of Africa following the dramatic rescue of an American merchant captain, foreshadowing a longer and potentially more treacherous struggle ahead as he weighs a series of problematic options.

Of course, nobody in the MSM even reported that Obama vowed to fight "privacy" when he misread his teleprompter. They just corrected his pronunciation and smiled wisely. (Just like they did when President Bush said "nukulur" for nuclear. Not!)

In permitting members of the Navy Seals to shoot the pirates holding the captain, Richard Phillips, Mr. Obama navigated a crisis that played out in full view of the world.

Note the careful phrasing of the NYT writer, Obama permitted Navy SEALS to shoot. Which is true only in the reverse. Our rookie president first forbid the Navy commander on the scene from shooting at the pirates while he tried to micromanage the situation diplomatically from afar. That's what led to the ridiculous scene when Phillips jumped overboard from the lifeboat the first time and the Navy held its fire while the Somali pirates fired on him and recaptured him.

Jeff Emanuel, a special operations military veteran and now a military writer and blogger, gives the whole story of the incident.

After four days of floating at sea on a raft shared with four Somali gunmen, Richard Phillips took matters into his own hands for a second time. With the small inflatable lifeboat in which he was being held captive being towed by the American missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, and Navy Special Warfare (NSWC) snipers on the fantail in position to take their shots at his captors as soon as the command was given, the captive captain of the M.V. Maersk-Alabama took his second leap in three days into the shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean.

This diversion gave the Navy Special Warfare operators all the opening they needed. Snipers immediately took down the three Somali pirates still on board the life raft, SEAL operators hustled down the tow line connecting the two craft to confirm the kills, and a Navy RIB plucked Phillips from the water and sped him to safety aboard the Bainbridge, thus ending the four-day-and-counting hostage situation.

Phillips’ first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean hadn’t worked out as well. With the Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his country’s Navy possible, Phillips threw himself off of his lifeboat prison, enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear shot at his captors — and none was taken. The guidance from National Command Authority — the president of the United States, Barack Obama — had been clear: a peaceful solution was the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless the hostage’s life was in clear, extreme danger.

The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating raft was fired on by the Somali pirates — and again no fire was returned and no pirates killed. This was again due to the cautious stance assumed by Navy personnel thanks to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from Washington and a mandate from the commander in chief’s staff not to act until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a “peaceful solution” would be acceptable.

After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the on-scene commander decided he’d had enough. Keeping his authority to act in the case of a clear and present danger to the hostage’s life and having heard nothing from Washington since yet another request to mount a rescue operation had been denied the day before, the Navy officer — unnamed in all media reports to date — decided the AK-47 one captor had leveled at Phillips’ back was a threat to the hostage’s life and ordered the NSWC team to take their shots.

Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and Phillips was safe.

Emanuel then recaps the aftermath as Obama boldly steps up to take all the credit.

Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put paid to questions of the inexperienced president’s toughness and decisiveness.

Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.

What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship...

However, instead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence. Thus, the administration sent a clear message to all who would threaten U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations — and no real willingness to use military force to resolve them.

So the real hero here -- in addition to the Navy snipers of course -- is not Obama, but the unnamed Navy commander who decided to ignore the stupidly restrictive no-firing rule from our alleged commander-in-chief and told the snipers to do the right thing. If the situation had turned out badly, that Navy officer would now be facing a court-martial and discharge. But since it turned out well, he will remain nameless and the rookie president will stand in the spotlight.

And how's our rookie president doing on those other international crises currently on the table?

Just this morning, the Noo Yawk Times reports Obama is sending signals to Iran they can go ahead with their uranium enrichment program toward building their first atomic weapons while talks continue. God help the nation of Israel because Obama certainly isn't. He's doing exactly what he promised during the campaign, talking with Iran "with no pre-conditions." So far as I've noticed, this is the first campaign promise Obama made that he's actually keeping.

And the NYT also reports North Korea has also decided the Obama administration is toothless.

North Korea said Tuesday it saw talks on ending its nuclear weapons program as "useless" and it planned to restart a plant that makes arms-grade plutonium, state media quoted its Foreign Ministry as saying.

Never thought I'd agree with anything North Korea says, but it's quite true that the talks are useless. Nutjob Kim in North Korea and the nutjobs in charge in Iran have quite accurately assessed the rookie president. They know he's all talk and no action. God save America and the world. The adults are out of power and the children are running amok.

8 Inglorious Basterds kill Nazis behind German lines in WWII

I do love good war movies. The Dogs of War is one of my all-time favorites and I could watch the Guns of Nazarone a dozen times in a row without getting bored. Kelly's Heroes is another classic that comes to mind. John Wayne's In Harm's Way is his best war flick, IMHO.

I liked Brad Pitt as the cocky younger brother in A River Runs Through It and maybe he's old and wrinkled enough now to play a decent warrior. Here's his latest, Inglorious Basterds, a new film by Quentin Taratino, a WWII tale about 8 G.I.'s behind German lines killing Nazis. I have no idea why Tarantino can't spell bastards properly.

Charter Patriot .327 Mag gets an upgrade with Lasergrips

My Charter .327 Federal Magnum got an upgrade today. The gun shop where I work got in a set of Crimson Trace Lasergrips for Charter pistols and it just so happened I had a little surplus built up in the pistol fund.

So the Patriot is now laser-powered. Can't wait for Saturday to take her to the range and zero the fierce little bugger. My only complaint with the Patriot is that she shoots about 3-4" low from point of aim, forcing me to use Kentucky elevation with the fixed sights to hit what I'm aiming at.

The Lasergrips will solve that problem pronto. But with every solution comes another problem. For lo these 61 years I've been using these eyeballs, since the day I first fired a thunderstick, I've been taught to focus on the front sight, not the target. Lasergrips change that to focusing on the target, not the sights.

I've played around with my daughter's .38 Special S&W with CT Lasergrips, but was never serious about learning to shoot it well. Now I gotta get serious and teach an old dog new tricks.

It's a skill that has real-life application. I've never shot anybody in a real face-to-face fight, with the sorta exception of shooting 5-inch naval shells from a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam. But in a real gunfight, I strongly suspect all your focus will be on whoever the threat is, particularly if the threat is shooting at you or threatening your life. So I probably wouldn't see the sights anyway. And if someone isn't threatening your life, you don't want to shoot them anyway.

Three .44s plus .45, 327 Mag and .357 Sig Compact

What's better than shooting holes in stuff? Shooting holes in stuff with friends. I couldn't find anybody to go to the range with on Saturday, so I called up an old buddy from way back and went out to his farm to shoot my new .44 rifle and other assorted pistols. At top is my new Marlin 1984SS, a stainless-steel .44 Magnum/.44 Special lever gun.

And I took two other .44 pistols, a Hy Hunter .44 Magnum single-action I borrowed from the gun shop where I work for a test run and my S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum. Also in that pistol pile is my S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and my Llama IX-C .45 ACP. Not shown is my Charter Arms .327 Federal Magnum, which I was wearing at the time.

I don't have a single-action pistol and was considering whether the Hy Hunter was going to be my first.

The first target, the fullsize Blueman, was shot with the lever gun at 25 yards and the Cowboy pistol at 15 yards. Lever gun was shooting high, which I corrected, but a tad to the right, which I didn't try to correct. Of course I didn't read the manual first, so I found out afterward the rear sight is drift adjustable. I've got a sight pusher, so I'll fiddle with that next time out with the Marlin.

The Hy Hunter didn't need any sight correction, thank God, as I didn't want to even think about what adjusting it would require with its fixed sights. It shoots dead on, as a couple of holes in the center will attest.

With .44 Magnum loads, it's a hand cannon but shoots dead on. With .44 Special loads, it's a pussycat.

It was a lot of fun to shoot, but after slowwwwwwly reloading it a few times, I figured out why all the old cowboys are dead. They got shot while reloading.

I think I've cured my itch for a single-action pistol. This one is beautiful, black steel finish throughout and beautiful pearl grips. Handles well with its 6.5" barrel, great trigger that couldn't be more than about 2 lbs. It's even a good buy at only $350 which is a steal for a well-made carbon-steel pistol. This one was made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn back in the '80s in what was then West Germany. That's the Sauer that has since merged with Sig to create Sig Sauer. Those Germans make fine pistols.

But it's a range toy and I've got enough of those already. Back to the shop it will go. I've finally found a pistol I don't want to buy. Unbelievable I know, but true.

The second target is shot with my S&W 29. Lordy is that one fine-shooting pistol. It makes the single-action .44 seem a century out of date, which it is. I love shooting .44 Specials and I can see with this new lever gun and my Smith 29, I'm gonna have to buy more .44 ammo. A lot more.

My buddy, his wife and I went through more than 100 rds. of .44 Special and about 25 rds. of .44 Magnum. My gun shop is one of the few I've seen that stocks .44 Special ammo so that will be my next objective, stocking up while it's available. We've got several different brands of range ammo and hollow-points to choose from.

Next up after the .44s was a few magazines of .45 ACP for my favorite full-size pistol, my Llama IX-C 1911. I bought some Canadian-made 15-rd. magazines for it and had shot them once and had a jam or two, so I needed more work with them.

Target is a 11x17" Redman shot at 15 yards with four 15-rd. mags shot at center mass and at the head.

The first time I shot the Canadian-made mags, I found they will hold 16 rds. instead of the 15 marked, so I had to try that. One jammed a time or two, the other didn't. So this time I loaded both to only 15 and both of them worked perfectly. Lesson learned. Fifteen rounds is enough, specially when it's .45 ACP.

Next up was my fairly new S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig. I'm now up to about 250 or 300 rounds and have yet to have a bobble. Performance-wise, it's just as reliable as my S&W M&P full-size .357 Sig, which has yet to jam at about 1K round-count. S&W's so-called full-size M&P has a .4.25" barrel, which is compact in every other maker's book, and the M&P "Compact" with it's 3.5" barrel is subcompact size for all other pistol makers.

The small Redman target with the M&P Compact is shot with two 10-rd. mags and two 15-rd. mags. It's nice to have a compact pistol that takes full-size mags.

I've been carrying the compact but the more I shoot it, the higher my confidence grows that it will perform in the clutch when it really counts. And if your self-defense pistol isn't reliable, why carry it?

I'm in the process of down-sizing my pistols from full-size to carry size and so far have sold my full-size .357 Sig, a P226 Sig Sauer, and have my full-size 9mm CZ SP01 Custom and my full-size .45 ACP FEG Browning Hi-Power clone up for sale.

The Llama has earned a permanent job as my car gun, riding on the seat beside me, and I'll let my S&W 29 go right after I auction off one of my grandkids, so both of those are definite keepers.

I've only got one other candidate I'm considering for sale, my Steyr M357-A1. I never thought I'd let it go, but frankly, it's my least-reliable .357 Sig.

That's not to say it's unreliable. But I never had a jam with my P226 and I've never had a jam with either of my two S&W M&P .357 Sigs. I have one every now and then with the M357-A1, maybe one ever 100-200 rds., so that's makes it the least reliable of the four. It's a fine compact carry pistol with 4" barrel, almost identical in size to my so-called full-size M&P .357 Sig. They even share the same holsters. But as good as my Steyr is, and I love it, the M&Ps are more reliable.

And when I compare my M357-A1 to my Steyr M9-A1, it comes in second again. So far I have yet to have any jams with my M9-A1 with somewhere near 1K in its round count. Maybe the lower-powered 9mm rounds just don't create as much stress as .357 Sig and are less jam prone.

I really haven't made a decision on whether the M357-A1 stays or goes, but I'm considering it. I'll wait until after the CZ and the FEG are sold and then make a reassessment once I've added another carry pistol or two as their replacements to see where I'm standing.

The tomb is empty and Jesus is alive and well

Christianity is the world's only religion founded on an empty tomb. Our Savior and Lord is not a dead Jesus, He's the Living Lord of the Universe, dead, buried and resurrected to eternal life.

The long dark hours before Resurrection Morning

This time about 2,000 years ago, the battered, bloody body of a man called Jesus of Nazareth was resting in a borrowed tomb. His terribly beaten and crucified dead body was lain there just before dark as the Jewish Sabbath and the highest holy day celebration of Passover began.

It seemed in those dark hours as He lay in the tomb that Satan and the forces of evil had won. But God had a plan all along. This man from Nazareth is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." His terrible suffering and death was in God's plan all along to redeem a sinful world.

This is the One who when first seen by John the Baptist, he cried out "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

And just as in the Jewish Passover tradition, a lamb was slain, His blood was shed and the sins of the people were covered by His blood as the Death Angel passed over. Today we call it Easter.

Listen to Rich Mullin's great song, Our God Is An Awesome God, and say thanks to the Awesome God who laid His own life down and rose again on the third day to redeem my sins and yours.

Pay no attention to the bowing, just keep applauding

The Obamessiah has returned from his first trip abroad amidst the cheering throngs. And that was just the media. Without even mentioning his deep Muslim bow to the King of Saudi Arabia -- another first for our Rookie President -- Sir Charles Krauthammer sums up the results:

Our president came bearing a basketful of mea culpas. With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world.

And what did he get for this obsessive denigration of his own country? He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed.

He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing.

From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea.

And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, pop. 64 million, will take one prisoner. One! (Sadly, he'll have to leave his swim buddy behind.) The Austrians said they would take none. As Interior Minister Maria Fekter explained with impeccable Germanic logic, if they're not dangerous, why not just keep them in America?

When Austria is mocking you, you're having a bad week. Yet who can blame Frau Fekter, considering the disdain Obama showed his own country while on foreign soil, acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating between his renegade homeland and an otherwise warm and welcoming world?

After all, it was Obama, not some envious anti-American leader, who noted with satisfaction that a new financial order is being created today by 20 countries, rather than by "just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy." And then added: "But that's not the world we live in, and it shouldn't be the world that we live in."

It is passing strange for a world leader to celebrate his own country's decline. A few more such overseas tours, and Obama will have a lot more decline to celebrate.

Retired Marine Major Ollie North isn't so diplomatic as Sir Charles about the infamous "bow."

The president of the United States is back in Washington from his "I like you, you like me" excellent adventure in Europe and "surprise" trip to Baghdad. It was nice of POTUS to thank the troops. He should have bowed to them instead of to King Abdullah.

Members of the O-Team -- recovering from late-night teleprompter edits, grand parties and jet lag -- now deny that the apparently obsequious gesture to the Saudi king was really a "bow." Perhaps it would be better described as a "curtsy."

North agreed with Krauthammer on the unreported (the media is still in full swoon and can't be expected to pay attention) link between Obama's appeasement rhetoric and defense cuts.

The North Koreans defied his warnings of "severe consequences" and test-launched a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile. In Tehran, the ayatollahs ignored his Utopian plea for "the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons" and claim to have turned on 7,000 more centrifuges to refine uranium. Somali pirates "dissed" his "deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world" and hijacked an American-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Aden.

The O-Team was so exercised over the first piracy of an American-flagged merchant vessel since 1866 that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fired off a full rhetorical volley. While the crew was busy retaking the ship, she said that "we're deeply concerned" and "following it closely" and that "the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy."

More telling than the vacuous hot air blowing from London, Prague, Ankara, Baghdad and Washington was the defense budget presented this week. It assures adversaries and allies alike that we will be unprepared to fight a serious adversary in the future. Hollow talk, empty oratory and impossible dreams are now commonplace in American politics, but the O-Team's Euro-expedition may have set a new foreign fantasy record. Actions speak louder than words -- no matter how flowery the rhetoric...

Unfortunately, less than 24 hours after Mr. Obama mentioned the North Korean "provocation" and Iran's "dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons," his defense budget revealed how seriously he takes those and other threats. The O-Team intends to reduce our ability to project power overseas and to protect the American people from nuclear attack.

If the Obama defense budget is approved as submitted, we will increase spending on protecting our troops ashore and fleet at sea from attack by ballistic missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction but cut homeland ballistic missile defense by $1.4 billion. We will increase the number of small "littoral support ships" but reduce our ability to project power from the sea by cutting our carrier fleet from 12 battle groups to 10. We will not modernize ground combat mobility for the Army or the Marines, and POTUS will have to wait a few more years for a new helicopter.

Obama fiddles and bows while America burns and slides into third-world status. And the crowd applauds (and that was just the media, again).

Gun-grabbers, nuke-banners and blind liberals fall in ditch

I love Ann Coulter. Good-looking blonde, smart, shoots guns... what's not to love? Ann nails the liberal mentality of gun grabbers with its logical extension all the way to Ban-the-Bomb Obama.

Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: "The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________."

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

Obama explained that "the United States has a moral responsibility" to lead disarmament efforts because America is "the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon."

So don't go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven't acted up much in the last, say, 64 years ...

Fortunately, our sailors didn't wait around for Obama to save them when Somali pirates boarded their ship this week. Stop right now or I'll ask the U.N. to remind the "international community" that "the U.S. is not at war with Somali pirates."

Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate.

Police -- whom I gather liberals intend to continue having guns -- and intrepid U.N. resolution drafters can't be everywhere, all the time.

If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two -- including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn't stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself.

"The shooter will eventually run out of ammo" strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers.

But it's highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York's restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives.

The Greatest Economic Disaster in Recorded History

While you listen to Bing Crosby sing that classic tune, "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" read the most depressing article I've seen thus far about our current economic mess, written by Porter Stansberry, an investment analyst, The Greatest Economic Disaster in Recorded History.

It's a long, depressing article, so here's Tom Waits doing his version of the classic as you read.

My personal favorite version of this song is by Judy Collins, but I couldn't find a link to it.

Krauthammer explains the ugly truth about North Korea's launch

Sir Charles Krauthammer gives us the unvarnished and ugly truth about Obama's ridiculous "Ban the Bomb!" response to the North Korean launch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. And it's far worse than I feared. Not only is our rookie president doing nothing, worse than that, at the same time his defense budget is cutting drastically into our missile defense program, which is like strangling a baby in the crib. Preliminary tests have shown our first efforts at missile defense will work. But it's like arming our troops with popguns. They need real guns and lots of them to fight a war. And at the scariest time in our history, we have a rookie president who's beating the useless drum for nuclear disarmament like a brain-fried hippy while also cutting our defenses against maniac regimes in North Korea and Iran, just to name two among many, who would love nothing more than to nuke America's homeland.

Our nation barely survived the "hollow army" under President Jimmy Carter's defense cuts during his one term, 1976-80 and the same is true of two terms of President Bill Clinton. At least then, we were enjoying the "peace dividend" of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Communists.

Now we're staring at Armageddon and another liberal Democrat is in power. God help us all.

Triple Dud on the North Korean ICBM and U.S. hostages

As expected, the North Korean ICBM launch turned out to be a triple-dud. Dud one is the launch, which fizzled in the second stage and splashed harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.

Dud two is Obama's "Ban the bomb!" speech, where instead of responding to the North Korean threat, he instead blamed the United States for being a nuclear power ... blah, blah, blah.

And dud three is the milque toast response on the North Koreans holding two American citizens hostage by Susan Rice, Obama's mouthpiece at the useless diplomatic gaggle in New York.

The U.S. envoy to the United Nations said Sunday that the Obama administration hopes two American journalists detained in North Korea will be released swiftly and safely. Still, Ambassador Susan Rice acknowledged there are no guarantees.

Rice said the United States is continuing to work with Swedish diplomats who represent U.S. interests in North Korea to win freedom for Euna Lee and Laura Ling. The journalists work for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture.

Rice said the two are safe, "to the best of our knowledge."

Obama's motto: "Making the world safe for socialism by talking endlessly about nothing."

Speaking of foolish talk, here's the Saturday Night Live translation of Obama's industry plans.

Break out the ND flags and the tie-dyed t-shirts

What would happen if a brain-dead hippy from the "Ban The Bomb!" era got elected President?

PRAGUE – Just hours after North Korea launched a long-range rocket, President Barack Obama called for "a world without nuclear weapons" and said the United States has a “moral responsibility ” to lead the way, as the only nation ever to use them.

Obama’s speech was long planned as the centerpiece of his first presidential trip overseas, but it gained new urgency after North Korea sent a multi-part rocket soaring over the Sea of Japan early Sunday morning.

North Korea insisted the launch was meant to put a satellite into space but the U.S. and other nations believe Pyongyang is trying to develop the capability to launch a nuclear warhead.

The president, who was woken up just after 4:30 a.m. local time by news of the launch, spoke to the authoritarian state in remarks hastily added to his text.

Does Obama even watch or read the news? He didn't know the North Koreans have been planning to launch an ICBM and had to be woke up at 4:30 a.m. and add "remarks hastily" to his speech to make a comment about it? At least we know now what our Rookie President will do when confronted with an international crisis. Make a speech. Boy, that'll show 'em, won't it?

But don't miss the main point of the speech he had to hastily add remarks to about the North Korean ICBM: The U.S. is the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons, in Japan to end WWII, so therefore Obama extends his "Apologize to the World for the Mean Ol' US of A Tour" with this bit of ridiculous blather, "Ban the bomb, blah, blah, blah..." Wonder where wonder boy got the idea the U.S. did something wrong by saving the lives of millions of G.I.s who would have died in the invasion of Japan? Can't you just hear crazy ol' Uncle Jeremiah ranting and spitting?


Uncle Jimbo points out our Dear Leader also pulled out the stops and made a Youtube video to denounce North Korea's ICBM launch. Wow. He really knows how to roll out the heavy artillery with "soft diplomacy," don't he?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Anchoress updates on news you might have missed. Our wonderful Congress passed a national volunteer service act that prohibits worship services. Yep, that's what it says. She says "If this is correct, liberty is almost gone."

One of her commenters, AJ Strata, gives the nitty-gritty details of the dirty, rotten truth.

The Anchoress wished to know if there really were restrictions on personal religion in the bill - yes there are

`SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

“(a) Prohibited Activities.–A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
…
“(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
Actually, the entire list is pretty damn oppressive:

“(1) Attempting to influence legislation.
“(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
“(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.
“(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.
“(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.
“(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.

And there are more. Basically you have to give up all your constitutional rights.

And the Anchoress also adds this update on the Great Depression, brought to us by the friends of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Reps. Maxine Waters and Barney Frank & Co. and Sens. Barack Obama and Chris Dodd & Co.: Fannie and Freddie are giving out $210 Million in bonuses.

Will the last one out please turn off the lights? The party's over and it's time to go home.

Voters rudely awoken on the morning after the night before

Ever done something incredibly stupid, like waking up on the morning after the night before with a hangover, a new tatoo and an incredibly ugly woman snoring in the bed alongside you?

What was I thinking? I suspect that's what voters are beginning to feel like about now. Chris Muir says it far better than mere words with his Day By Day cartoon for this Sunday morning.

Krauthammer nails Obama and wimpy Europeans vs. America

As usual, Sir Charles Krauthammer is one of the very few bold and insightful enough to point out that not only does "Emperor Obama" have no clothes, but comments from the "great orator" during his second victory tour of Europe (his first was pre-election) are "simply disgraceful."

Krauthammer also quotes an interesting turn of phrase by Sen. Charles Grassley about AIG and applies it to Obama's European adulation from a crowd that's been "sucking on America's tit for 60 years." Wow, Charles, don't hold back, tell us what you really think about wimpy Europeans!



Obama's speech in London was so over the top and fumbling, even the UK Guardian -- a major liberal newspaper -- is making fun of the "World's Greatest Orator." If you need a laugh, here's Obama's stumble in a French Town Hall when he loses his place reading the teleprompter.


And because it's so delicious, here's the entire post on The Guardian about Obama's stumbling "oration" in his press conference in London, without teleprompter "help."

Barack Obama, the World's Greatest Orator (™all news organisations), didn't exactly cover himself in glory when the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson asked him a question about who was to blame for the financial crisis. Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes. Here, John Crace decodes what he was really thinking ...

Nick Robinson: "A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?" Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.] Barack Obama: "I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ... here in Great Britain ... pause [SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] ... here in continental Europe ... pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] ... around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er ... pause [I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] ... the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged ... pause [I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW]. So at this point, I'm less interested in ... pause [YOU] ... identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we've taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er ... pause [WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] ... drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we've got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there's a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what's the risk involved, what's the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there. So, I actually think ... pause [FANTASTIC. I'VE LOST EVERYONE, INCLUDING MYSELF] ... there's enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er ... pause [I'M OUTTA HERE. TIME FOR THE USUAL CLOSING BOLLOCKS] ... I'm a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.

Say goodnight Gracie.