AridzonaShooter: Ramblings

This is a test. Is this thing on? Can you hear me in the back?

We're finally back in the RV and temporarily ensconced in AJ. I'm glad the house sitting gig is done with, although the stoopid cat was moderately amusing. last few days have been hectic, but we're now getting our world back in order. Mostly.

So. Happy Merry, Good health and prosperity to all of you and yours.

We're fixin' to be down the road within the next, probably, 48 hours. Access may be intermittent, and will likely be dial-up, so please hold your jokes, .pps and .jpeg funnies, etc.

Thanks for your support.

Via Pournelle:

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2007-03-04-1.html

Long. Requires thought.

http://muzzleflash.net/kahrpm9clipdraw.html

Headed out of Deming this a.m., arrived Van Horn, TX.

Drifting southeasterly. Will resurface within the next few days.

As previously demonstrated, I don't have a handle on the news.

I don't have access to the TV networks or local news, thanks to Mr. Murdock, which leaves only CNN as a source.

Is there an internet news outlet which is reasonably unbiased which covers a fairly wide selection of what is actually going on in the world?

When a person stands up and publicly uses racial or ethnic slurs and epithets, he is, to my mind, demonstrating that he's a bigot.

Can there be any question about how Mel Gibson feels about Jews, his apologies notwithstanding?

So when a person supposedly on "our" side calls a part of the gun-owning public "terrorists," what are we to think about his real beliefs?

Dunno about you folks, but when a fellow calls me a terrorist, he can apologize all over himself, but I'll not accept his weasle-words. Piss on Mr. Zumbo. Unless he's on fire.

Oops. I'm informed that the officer did in fact engage the goblin.

Apparently, however, he missed...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/14/national/ap/main2476179.shtml

Thanks, Jeff.

I haven't looked at news sites, and I don't get network TV, so I may have missed something, but...

I'm doing my normal quick-scan of the Anna Nicole Smith...er, CNN channel and in between sensationalism ("Is your dog psychic?") and commercials, there's a report as part of the follow-on coverage of the Trolley Square shooting in SLC.

Seems a local police officer, off duty, who was shopping at the mall with his wife is being referred to as a "hero." Apparently when he encountered the goblin he identified himself as a police officer, called out for people to "Get down!" and engaged the goblin by hollering at him. Apparently his verbal engagement caused Mr. Goblin to...pause in his application of carnage upon the citizenry.

Nowhere in the story is there any mention of this officer having engaged the goblin with a firearm.

He hollered at the goblin.

Excuse me? While the Salt Lake metropolitan area is one of probably the safest places a person can go about his affairs, surely there is some criminal activity, so surely there are police officers who are armed in the course of their employment. Surely Mr. Off-duty Cop has a gun...

But apparently not with him.

Utah has a reasonably unrestrictive CCW system. Utah has a fairly high percentage of the population who have obtained CCW permits, and a fairly high percentage who own guns. Where were our armed brethren?

Even in the safest of locales, stuff happens. The pistol is a worthless means of protection for oneself and one's family if it's left home in the sock drawer.