As you can tell, it has been rather dry here of late (I, of course, blame global warming, as opposed to… y’know… natural weather cycles), and that little trickle of water was all that was making it over the edge of the “falls” (you can see said precipice at the top of the above picture). So… save yourself the two miles, or wait until it rains.

We did, however, discover something intriguing at the Twin Rocks Overlook – a previously-unknown, but very interesting, species of Lepidoptera. I give you the Limenitis tacticalis:

In other news, the Gearslinger works great.

Ok, so maybe I am a little fascinated by simple things, but considering that within our parents’ timelines, we had neither pizza delivery service, nor the internet, it is still kind of cool.

I honestly cannot say as though I was terribly impressed with Mike Seeklander from his time on Top Shot, either as a shooter or as a person, but he has the kind of military and law enforcement (right here in Knoxville, for that matter) background, and the appropriate awards and certifications, that would lead one to believe that he might have a clue what he is talking about. In any case, the article is a decent read, especially for a non-firearm-related weblog.

Great idea, except, y’know, for the facts:

Not only have the Democrats not fixed the problems they were supposedly “handed”, they have made those problems worse. Remind me why “do it again, only harder” is a good reason to vote for someone, when “it” amounts to nothing more than taking an unfortunate situation and just aggrivating it further?

(Image courtesy of Resistance is Futile.)

It would appear as though the only reasonable response to such suggestions is, “O RLY?“:

My daughter gave her daddy a gun for his birthday. As a law-abiding citizen he went to transfer ownership. Ten days later a letter arrived from the Department of Justice — transfer denied, stated my husband is a felon and he can’t have fire arms. Shock: He knew he was not a felon, had bought and registered guns for years, and now that department states that he is a felon since 1972 and can’t have any guns.

Over the course of one, possibly two months (it is not entirely clear from the letter), the California Department of Justice (what a misnomer) and the husband’s local police department repeatedly and consistently dodged this man’s request for his non-existant criminal record (which must be why they could not find it, right?), ignored his complaints, claimed to have “lost the paperwork”, and told him that if he could not specify the non-existant crime in question, they could not talk about it (yeah, because that makes sense). This proceeded until such time as the husband brought to bear the threat of a lawyer, and then, suddenly, it was sweetness and light, and “you are not really a felon… but we will not send you paperwork documenting that fact”.

The husband was never a felon, but, for that month or two, he was completely incapable of exchanging in lawful commerce that he otherwise would have been legally permitted to do, and if the CADOJ really wanted to make life interesting, they could have showed up on his doorstep with an arrest warrant for him, considering that he, a supposed felon, possessed firearms aside from the one being gifted to him. Of course, were that to happen, something tells me the situation would have been ironed out very quickly, and the DOJ would be facing a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit… which might be exactly why it did not happen.

And all of this is thanks to Kalifornistan’s wonderfully draconian firearm laws.

When someone else’s idiotic clerical error can transform you from “average citizen” to “felon”, with all of the punishments and limitations thereof, we are well past the point of having a “broken” government.

(Courtesy of Say Uncle.)

(Courtesy of Soldier Systems.)

Turns out, not so uber after all.

Well. That is rather disappointing. I guess it was too much to ask for a laser that could ignite squirrels across my yard…

Shiny!

And while the guy who arranged for this did not ask for anything in return, I figured that a little link-whoring might not hurt by way of thanks. In short, CCA offers the only air-conditioned indoor range in the Knoxville area (something I experienced myself); but also handgun carry permit and other training courses; extensive gunsmithing of various firearms, including AR-15s, 1911s, and shotguns; Class III products including suppressors; Boy Scount programs… oh, and an extensive collection of in-stock firearms, to boot.

Really, about the only thing I would significantly change about CCA is their range – I would love to have an indoor, air conditioned, rifle range, but such a thing does not exist in this area, sadly. I wonder how much such backstops would cost…

Anywise, thanks again, Coal Creek Armory! Maybe now my range times will be more frequent than once or twice a month…

(Oh, and do not worry – WizardPC and Shane both received passes as well, though I am not sure how often either will be able to use them.)

If your personal agenda involves completely ridding the planet of human beings, people aren’t likely to listen until you go completely bonkers and take hostages (and even then, you’re still out of your mind and in the minority). That’s the long and short of what happened at The Discovery Channel’s building yesterday, when a whackjob decided that he was tired of the network not meeting his manifesto’s ridiculous demands.

This nutbag (who shall remain nameless at this site, simply because I do not believe in feeding the attention-whoring desires of people like him) firmly believed that humans were a blight upon the world, and wanted the Discovery Channel to start airing shows encouraging people to cut down on the population in any way they can think of. Yeah. Because that makes sense. Look, I do not really understand what motivates the Duggars to have the family they do, and even though Better Half watches the show semi-regularly, I do not really see the attraction… but using their existance and publicization as a springboard for your own whackjob agenda? Yeah, that is a special kind of frakking nuts.

A kind of bugnuts that was apparently “awakened” by the whackjob watching Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”. Huh. Whoops. That kind of dodges the whole “crazy right-winger goes crazy” agenda, does it not? Like Joe says:

Why are liberals so violent?

My hypothesis is that at some level they know that is the only method by which they can achieve their goals. They, almost by definition, believe in the power of government to “do good” no matter what domain they enter into.

[...]

Those who want to expand government, by definition, want to expand the use of force to achieve their goals. It should therefore come as no surprise that liberal individuals and groups are inclined to use violence to further their goals even outside the domain of government.

There is no way on God’s Green Earth (which seems to be puttering along relatively well in light of all those horrific things that environuts like this one claim we have done to it) that the Discovery Network would have even considered this loon’s … er… “suggestions”… if he had presented them in a rational, reasonable manner, so he knew that the only way they stood a snowball’s chance in a fusion reactor of getting any airtime was through force.

And, lo and behold, he did get his airtime… and reduce the overall population of the world at the same time. Win / win, with an extra “win” for the rest of us, what with getting rid of a violent lunatic and all.

On the flip side, Robb has this to say about this whackadoodle’s suicide-by-cop:

Sometimes, crazy is just crazy. It’s a cheap and easy ‘point for your team’ to be able to point out that someone on the other side is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but it’s not necessarily true. Sure, this Darwin Award Winner espoused radical views that find a better home on the left, but to insist that the left ‘claim him as one of their own’ makes as much sense as saying those on the right are equally responsible for McVeigh.

… which brings me to my happy little middle-ground – imagine, for a second, that this particular armed creep publicly proclaimed that he was personally motivated by such individuals as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other decidedly right-leaning voices. Now, imagine what the reaction would be from the “progressives”/”liberals” of America. Hell, you do not really need to imagine, just consider the reaction to late-term abortion doctor George Tiller’s murder – those selfsame, supposedly accepting, tolerant “liberals”/”progressives” were slathering for the blood of Rush, Beck, any right-oriented public speaker, and, hell, anyone who even remotely might be against abortion in any of its various flavors. They were desperately and aggresively trying to spread blame, responsibility, and accountability as far and as wide as they possibly could, regardless of the fact that Tiller’s murderer acted alone, and of his own free will.

Where is the corrresponding outrage against environmentalists, Al Gore, Daniel Quinn, and the other greenies and leftists who apparently inspried this frakwit?

If all pro-life activists are to blame for the unfortunate murder of an abortion doctor, then all environmentalists are to blame for this hostage situation… right?

At any rate, Weer’d said it best:

And one final word, its hard for a nut to take an armed hostage hostage….

But I will add that this armed hostage situation was ended by a lawfully-armed individual. Strange how that is a consistent pattern, is it not?