... courtesy of Battlefield 2142:

Tanks sink.

That is all.

So if I was not at the gunblogging event of... at least the year, then where was I? Well, Better Half and I took something of a short vacation up in the hills of Western North Carolina with her parental units and sister. We rented a nice little three-bedroom cabin on the side of a "mountain" (the locals call them that, but I still abide by the Pacific Northwest definition of a mountain - it has to have no trees at the top, and snow on some portion of it year 'round), and then enjoyed ourselves by poking around the area. Our first and primary stop of the visit was Chimney Rock Park, which is, indeed, something to behold. Unfortunately, the section of the park where Last of the Mohicans was filmed was closed for maintenance... the park was just bought out by the state, so they probably have to get everything up to their standards. Otherwise, we explored a few little towns in the area, picked a metric tonne of apples at a pick-your-own farm (in reality, it was only about 2.5 bushels, but if you have never picked that many before yourself, that is a lot of apples), and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Anywise, below are some pictures I took during the weekend... click to enlarge, though, be aware - the larger files are a bit big.

"I truly believe that people like myself, who are in a position of entertainers in the limelight, should keep their mouth shut on politics," the rap-rock musician, 37, tells CMT Insider.

"Because at the end of the day," he goes on to say, "I'm good at writing songs and singing. What I'm not educated in is the field of political science. And so for me to be sharing my views and influencing people of who I think they should be voting for ... I think would be very irresponsible on my part."

I do not terribly care for his music barring a few exceptions, and I do not really like him as a person... but, damn, Kid Rock hits this one out of the park.

Today I had my first interview... not just the first interview of this current job-hunt, but the first interview of my life. It is funny how going straight into the military from college will shape your life.

That said, the worst part of the interview was something of an odd point. It came before I even left my apartment... I walked in front of my bathroom mirror, dress shirt on, and tie looped over my neck, stood there for a second, and went, "Well, gosse, now what?" The last time I tied on a bib... er... tie was... years ago, and my brain simply could not recall how to do it. Thank God for muscle memory.

Ties need to come with instruction manuals, I tell you what.

11. Just as important as not cutting your fingernails too soon before judo, is actually cutting them. Not only can long fingernails be a problem for you (in that they are liable to catch on things and tear/rip off - an unpleasant experience, to put it simply), but they are almost more of a problem for your partner. Sadly, I realized that my fingernails were a bit on the long side on the way to class, and by then it was too late... Unfortunately, I happened to catch my partner with the corner of my thumbnail, and leave a nice little line on the side of her face - no blood, but very annoyed skin.

Never going to let that happen again.

Today was a day of negatives. I carried my concealed firearm throughout the course of multiple errands, and yet...

I did not shoot the salespeople at Sears for repeatedly coming back and seeing, "If I had any questions," despite me having told them many times before that I did not (I was only there to document what washers and driers they had in stock so I could look them up online at home).

I did not assault the stylist at the hair salon despite her having taken far too long to "get something to eat" and then actually eat it, despite having walked past me and three other customers to do so.

My firearm did not somehow miraculously jump out of its holster in righteous indignation and discharge itself at the Gander Mountain employees in response to their exorbitantly high prices.

I did not kill ... well... the hole where the missing employee at Dick's Sporting Goods should have been behind the counter in their firearms section.

I did not empty a magazine into the SUV of the moron who tried their damnest to side-swipe my poor little Mazda 3.

How did I manage all of this? Easy. I am a responsible citizen, a law-abiding gun owner, a mature concealed carry permit holder, and a grown, accountable, level-headed adult who is a functioning element of society. And yet hoplophobic, anti-rights morons fear, deride, and disparage people like me?

I think that says a lot more about them than me.

Ok, so after a countless number of people have griped at me for my comment registration system and the difficulties it causes for them, I have reactivated "anonymous" commenting, meaning that you no longer have to log in to leave a comment. All you have to do now is provide your email address (which will be kept private, not posted, and not spammed or sold), fill in a screen name, and there you go - providing in a webpage address will get you one visit (me) as well, but that is purely optional. Oh, and you can, indeed, still log in if you feel so inclined.

Sadly, and in the past 12 hours since I reactivated "anonymous" commenting, my spam filters have caught no fewer than 35 spam comments... I certainly was never making that much up. As usual, if anything goes wrong, if you have any issues, or if some portion of my webpage is broken, please drop me a note at "linoge (at) wallsofthecity.net".

(And it does take Movable Type a few seconds to process any comment request... not entirely sure why, but this seems to be "normal".)

I was out of the area for the past weekend (no, I was not privvy to the Blackwater fun all the big-name gun-bloggers were enjoying), so I was not able to write on this sooner... However, now that I have the time, here we go:

Dear wallsofthecity.net,

I have visited your site and think our audiences have a lot in common. Your website already has a link to GunBroker. We would love to help give your readers another resource by linking them to http://GunDigestMagazine.com

I have already placed a link to your site along with a description at http://www.gundigestmagazine.com/our-gun-links. If you want the description of your site modified or if you have any other cross-promotion ideas, let me know.

I would appreciate if you placed a link back to our site: http://www.gundigestmagazine.com/GeneralMenu/

Feel free to craft your own description of our website, or use the info below.

Gun Digest Magazine is the web's best resource for information on current gun news, long guns, hand guns and all firearm related information in the gun market.

Images can be found here: http://www.gundigestmagazine.com/webmaster-links

Best regards,

Gun Digest

http://www.gundigestmagazine.com/

Gun Digest the Magazine 700 E. State St. Iola,WI 54990

After taking a look at their "our gun links", it would seem as though I am placed among the likes of Airborne Combat Engineer, Beretta, Mouseguns, Sniper Country, Survival Blog, and a variety of other webpages... both ones I would qualify as useful to the gun communities and ones that are... dubious. Me, I file my my own webpage under the latter, but I guess a link from another site never hurt anyone, and it is not like it costs me to send a link back their way. Cannot say as though I have ever heard of the webpage, really, but there are enough things like that out there that my ignorance is not terribly unusual.

Still, I find it somewhat interesting they email me as opposed to Say Uncle or Snowflakes in Hell or Days of our Trailers or Alphecca or or any number of other "big" gunblogs. Good for me, at least, right?

Granted, it was at a Kroger, so I would not exactly describe it as a special experience, but my first time came tonight, out running errands with Better Half.

Getting used to the added weight will take some time, as will finding a comfortable position to hang it. Add in the responsibilities and accountabilities that come with it as well, and this is quite a lifestyle change.

At any rate, tonight was my first time legally carrying a concealed firearm out in public. To say it was different would be putting it mildly. More once I have time to process thoughts.

As I promised a few days ago, here is the range report from taking the Walther PPS, Winchester White Box, and Winchester SXZ (both variants) to the range a few days ago.

1. I miss my magazine loader. It is scant more than two little pieces of plastic and a spring, but it saves you so very much thumb pain. And it is worth however little I paid for it.

2. The PPS is a blast to shoot, figuratively and literally. It is well-balanced, and despite having its barrel at an arguably higher offset from your hand than similar firearms, the recoil is more than manageable, making follow-up shots quite easy, even for me. It is kind of annoying to have to reload every seven rounds, but that is what I get for a compact firearm. The grip, however, is very different from both my Baby Eagle and the Beretta 92s / M9s I trained with in the military... just a different way of holding my hand and the grip, and placing the area between my index finger and thumb. Mostly the latter, really - the PPS seems to like you tucking that part of your hand up deep into the area made for it on the grip. Otherwise, I had an annoying left-handed drift on my shooting, but something tells me that will correct with practice and time on the range... now I just need to make the time, and find the funds for the rounds. Oh, and as for the literal aspect of being a blast, the shorter barrel makes the gun a wee bit louder, at least in my limited experience.

3. SXZ is definitely different from White Box. In terms of geometry, mass, and range performance, they seem more or less identical. However, the White Box rounds had a definitive yellow flash on firing, and I am tempted to say the muzzle flash created a six-pointed effect as well. The SXZ, on the other hand, had a very red flash, and it came out as something of a ring. From my naive and uneducated point of view, I would venture a guess that the two different rounds use different powders. The differences between the training and personal protection variants of the SXZ, however, were not noticeable, if there even are any. I was just as accurate with one than the other, and both had the same kick, flash, and everything else (at least as far as my hand dyno (which is about as accurate as my butt dyno) could tell).

4. Boresnakes are gods among cleaning devices. That is all that needs to be said on that topic.

And that is about that. Next up, my holster got here... shiny!

So the picture to the right is not a tremendously good one, but it is a photo of a singularly spectacular sunset that took place here a few days ago. The catch is that I took the picture on my cell phone, a Motorola KRZR. A year ago, that picture would have been trapped on my cell phone, never to see the light of day anywhere else... however, now that my new desktop has integral Bluetooth capabilities, and, coincidentally, so does my phone... Well, magic happens. After a little difficulty with getting the two to actually talk to each other, I finally got the phone to send the picture over to the computer, and there we have it. The only oddity was that the phone said it took the picture at 1280x1024 resolution, but after seeing it on my computer at 640x512, I checked and saw that it was the same, smaller resolution on the phone. Not sure where it screwed up with that, or if making the picture my background on the phone messed it up, but it should (theoretically) be fixed now.

Ain't technology grand? Cell phone cameras may, by and large, still be crappy, but now it is so much easier to share that crappiness with the rest of the 'verse!

You know, it is reading nonsense like this that really make me start to question what kind of place our country has turned into. If this Marine, Sgt. Jose Nazario, committed a crime, he should and would be reactivated, sent to a court martial or military tribunal, appropriately tried, and punished or not as either of those two entities decided. The fact that this "Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act" seems to give civilian courts jurisdiction over military members and their actions during war... That is just scary to the extreme. As if the military was not having enough problems already, now soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are going to worry about how their actions might be perceived and possibly prosecuted when they get home. And, when you get right down to it, what the hell is a civilian court doing trying a military member for military actions executed while on active duty in a military campaign? Does anyone else see a problem with this? Anywise, The Victorious Opposition, Blonde Sagacity, and Hennessy's View have more information about this case, as well a link to the defense fund for Sgt. Jose Nazario and the other Marines involved.

Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website , Blog @ MoreWhat.com , Full Metal Cynic , Rosemary's Thoughts , Mark My Words , A Blog For All , Right Truth , DragonLady's World , Shadowscope , Cao's Blog , Democrat=Socialist , Conservative Cat , Pursuing Holiness , Nuke's , Diary of the Mad Pigeon , Allie is Wired , third world county , Political Byline , McCain Blogs , Woman Honor Thyself , DragonLady's World , The World According to Carl , Pirate's Cove , , The Pink Flamingo , , Dumb Ox Daily News , and Right Voices , thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe .

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows.

...

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was “hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws.”

...

More than 80% “regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year,” the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and “street corners in known drug-trafficking areas.”

...

Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street combat veterans, “claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights,” the study says.

“They practice getting the gun out and using it,” Davis explained. “They shoot for effect.” Or as one of the offenders put it: “[W]e’re not working with no marksmanship….We just putting it in your direction, you know….It don’t matter…as long as it’s gonna hit you…if it’s up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever….Once I squeeze and you fall, then…if I want to execute you, then I could go from there.”

...

“It appeared clear that none of these officers were willing to use deadly force against an offender if other options were available,” the researchers concluded.

The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis said the study team “did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don’t hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant.”

“Offenders typically displayed no moral or ethical restraints in using firearms,” the report states. “In fact, the street combat veterans survived by developing a shoot-first mentality.

(Emphasis added.)

All of these quotes are taken from a five-year study by the FBI on how offenders train with, carry, and deploy their weapons when they attack, as published by the Force Science Research Center.

So, go ahead, all of you anti-rights, anti-self-defense, hoplophobic morons... You keep trying to spread your lies and misinformation and untruths about how "assault weapons/rifles" (a phrase not even mentioned in the study) are killing cops left and right, how the mythical "gun show loophole" is letting so many criminals have easy access to firearms, and how more gun laws will keep criminals from procuring and using firearms... I mean that honestly - keep doing it. Because the more you try to lie, the more you try to mislead, the more you try to distort reality with the American public, the more people like me will be standing behind you, quietly pointing out just how full of crap you really are. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is going to end poorly for you.

On another note, for all of us law-abiding concealed carry permit types out there, this study gives a very interesting view into the skillset and mindset of our counterparts on the other side of the law. In fact, and I hate to admit this, but apparently gang-banging thugs practice more with their firearms than I have averaged over the past few years. Granted, it was kind of hard for me to practice while at sea, but how many of you can honestly say that you go to a range and practice self-defense shooting twice a month? Furthermore, these criminals are stone-cold killers... the kind of people who would off you, and then go out for a Big Mac with their friends. This is why we, as both law-abiding American citizens and law-abiding gun owners, must remain vigilent and do our best to counteract these ruthless and surprisingly well-trained criminals, whether that means calling the police on unlawful activities, legally defending ourselves and our families from assault, rape, murder, or other crimes, or simply being observant and staying out of areas where such activities take place... It is nothing more than our personal and social responsibility.

I spent all evening cleaning my pistol, so no range report yet. I swear, getting used to new hardware, putting things in the right places, having to make do with whatever lube you can turn up... makes things take longer than they have in the past. 'Course, that helps with the learning proces...

Or at least semi-breaking... I am a little behind the curve on this.

At any rate, Virginia no longer has a reciprocity agreement with Tennessee concerning handgun carry permits. They did up until a few days ago, but they do not any more - feel free to check out the Virginia State Police webpage yourself. However, if you check the Tennessee Department of Safety webpage concerning their HCP (Handgun Carry Permit), Virginia is still listed under "States with Reciprocity Agreements". Me... I am going with Virginia saying what is and is not permissable within their borders. According to the folks over at Legally Armed, the Tennessee Department of Safety and the Virginia State Police are in communication over this discrepancy (apparently this entire thing was caused by lost paperwork), but it has not been resolved yet.

As such, fair warning for all people with Tennessee HCPs planning on travelling to Virginia - your permit is NOT (as of 1055 on 19AUG08) honored by that state, and if you do not have a permit that is honored by VA (Virginia, Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, Arizona, Arkansas, Lousiana, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Utah, Minnesota, South Carolina, Washington, and Wyoming if I read their site correctly) you could be faced with some substantial legal problems should your concealment be discovered. I am just thankful I still have my Florida permit, though this sucks no matter how you cut it.

I will update this post as soon as Virginia starts honoring Tennessee permits again, but for intermediate updates, check back with the Legally Armed site.

0941 20AUG08 UPDATE: As of this time and date, Tennessee is being listed as a state that Virginia has a reciprocity agreement with. I guess Tennessee found the paperwork they lost.

Better Half and I were having an interesting chat concerning the upcoming election on the way back from our road trip yesterday, and happened upon a purely perfect idea.

A topic of some substantial discussion of late is who John Sidney McCain III and Barack Hussein Obama will choose as their running mates - after all, they are more or less the candidates of their respective parties at the moment, and they need to start deciding who would be their Vice President should they happen to be elected. Well, Better Half and I have found an answer for the both of them... it integrates the experience of age and the vivacity of youth, it puts a rather durable backbone inside of an amazingly smooth velvet glove, and it allows one man skilled at doing so to make smooth the hard decisions of another man who can make those...

Behold the ticket that answers all the questions:

McCain - Obama.

Hey, at least McCain would probably not have to worry about an untimely, but perfectly natural, demise like he would with Hillary standing behind him...

On a more serious note, I am just hoping that Hillary somehow comes out of the DNC with the nomination... the resulting melt-down of the Democratic Party would be positively amazing.

This weekend I had the pleasure of wasting a little time in a Bass Pro Shop, and came across a few interesting items. Ostensibly, I was there to procure a 9mm boresnake and cleaning liquids for my new PPS (While I did remember to leave my firearms in such a location that we could receive shipment of them before our main household goods shipment, I neglected to leave out any cleaning materials... I have a rod set for 9mm firearms, but no boresnake, so I figured I could rationalize that purchase, as well as the necessary cleaning and lubricating liquids.), but, of course, I tried to waste as much time as possible in the store - I may not be a hunter or really much of an outdoorsman, but it is one hell of a toy store.

At any rate, I turned up some Winchester White Box, and was thoroughly disgusted at the price, and then stumbled across the thing I eventually purchased - a couple of boxes of Winchester SXZ.

The common thought behind practicing for self-defense has been to shoot the ammunition you intend to carry - after all, every made and model of round has different ballistic characteristics, and you bloody well better know how your particular bullet will behave coming out the barrel of your gun. However, this has always struck me, a cheapskate, as something of an expensive proposition, especially considering that some self-defense rounds can sometimes run a dollar a bullet, even for 9mm. Winchester's take with the SXZ line is to offer two identical bullets, one hollow-point and labeled "Personal Protection", and one with a flat nose and labeled "Training". Supposed, the training rounds match the personal protection rounds in feeding, ballistic performance, accuracy, and recoil characteristics... at about 2/3s the price (which, considering that particular Bass was having a 10% off on SXZ, makes it about as expensive as standard WWB). Of course, given that both varieties of the SXZ weigh 115 grains (just the same as WWB) and do not look a whole lot different (as documented below), I guess this equivalent price should come as no surprise to anyone. As for the black stuff, it is advertised as "Lubalox coating" that is supposed to reduce fouling and engraving forces, which sounds like a good thing to me if it behaves as advertised. Both the personal protection and training rounds advertise 1190 fps velocity and 362 ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle, and 1071 fps and 293 ft-lbs at 50 yards (which, by the by, is also perfectly identical to WWB). So, basically, when it comes right down to the nuts and bolts of the "training" round, you save yourself a buck just going with standard WWB, unless you are really, really concerned about the geometry of your bullets and feeding problems (which could be a sizeable argument, I will grant).

Anywise, range report on these and the PPS itself when I get out to the range this week sometime... I figure a hundred or two of the standard WWB, the 50 training rounds I purchased, and a few of the personal protection rounds should put the Walther through its paces and see if there is any difference between the three rounds.

Has anyone else noticed how the occasional theme of these most-recent Olympics bears a striking resemblance to the main theme of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.?

And, yes, I just now noticed this... Honestly, I have not watched the Olympics much at all except for the past few days. *shrug* I prefer the winter ones, since NBC never bothers to really televise fencing.

... and it is only 1000.

Anywise, every gun store needs a full-length mirror. How else are we, the customers, to determine how a firearm, holster, or other accessory is going to look (or not, in the case of concealed items) on us?

10. Blocks should always be executed in such a way that will cause damage to the offending limb... however, just because your body does not take the hit, do not expect the block not to hurt. We did a bit of tae kwon do sparring today in class... the kinds of things I used to do at my old dojo, though this was just for the form of it - no contact, no pads, nothing but the movements. Well, despite all that, I still tend to block, and possibly a little proactively, and one good block just about rendered my left hand inoperable a few hours later. Still, despite all of the bumps, bruises, and missing skin, martial arts continue to be interesting, challenging, engaging, and one doozy of a workout. That, and I might just be a teeny tiny masochist inside...

Maria Bello is no Rachel Weisz (Rachel is actually hot.), but nothing beats a Yeti kicking a field goal... and another calling it.

Every so often, rumors of a “Serenity” sequel pop up, and no matter how many times Joss Whedon says, “No, it’s not happening,” the rumors persist. Are they based on any behind-the-scenes maneuvers? Or if they’re not based on any reality in this ‘verse, why do they persist?

“The rumors are there because people really wish it would happen,” Whedon said.

...

Like Summer, “I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Whedon said, “because I love those people so much.” But that doesn’t change the fact that the rumors are not being circulated “by anyone who owns a studio,” and “nobody’s knocking on our door.”

“There’s been no movement,” he said. “Those rumors are just rumors, and I don’t think they’re going to stop, no matter how many times I say, ‘No, it’s not happening.’ Because somebody will say, ‘He said yes. His eyes said yes. His nose said yes. There was a yes-iness about him.’ Because people want it.”

Granted, MTV is not the best place to get your news, but considering the topic, it is probably valid.

Either way, count me among the many people who "want it", and would be more than willing to drop a few million on top of Whedon's head (and club him with a few more million, if he did not get the point) if he would just make another Serenity. Prequel. Sequel. Subplot. Really, I do not care. I just want more. Gimme my gorramed fix! Ni ta ma de. Tianxia suoyoude ren. Dou gaisi.

*cough*

Sorry 'bout that... Linoge has been... detained... until such time as he stops swearing in Mandarin. We now return you to our regularly-scheduled program... whatever the hell that was.

Hat tip to Whedonesque.

Maybe I should give this little church its own category...

Last week:

Under the same management for over 2000 years.

This week:

You think it is hot here?
- God

Well, thus far my experience with Vista can pretty much be boiled down to:

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

*drooooool*

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

*drooooool*

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

*drooooool*

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure?"

*headdesk*

The thing is a beauty to behold, and more than a little capable... but damn it is annoying for it to keep asking if you really mean to do what you just did. And, knowing me, were I to turn that "feature" off, I would then immediately break something, and have no one to blame but myself. Oh well. I think I can manage to forgive the OS for the sake of having hardware that pretty much defines "screams".

Well, if you like picture-laden weblogs, these past two days have been your lucky days.

In addition to my previous toy, my other recent acquisition has been a Walther PPS - yes, I finally made up my mind. I simply could not pass up the ammunition commonality, the slim size, the fit, and the Walther quality. And while I have my permit, I still lack a holster unfortunately - one should be forthcoming from HBE Leatherworks next week, and I will be sure to document it when it arrives. So off to the good parts we go:

The cases the non-First-Edition models come in is relatively bland, but at least the non-First-Edition varieties do not break with a frightening regularity:

And, once you pop the case open, you get pretty much what you expect:

This is pretty much the important part:

One of the nice things about the PPS is that it has three available magazine sizes (it comes with the two smaller ones) and two backstrap sizes. Here, we have the seven-round magazine with the larger backstrap:

Here is the six-round magazine with the larger backstrap:

And here is the seven-round again with the smaller backstrap:

Here are all the loose bits and pieces that were nestled in the box:

The Walther, like a lot of the half-cocked Tupperware pistols out there, has a cocking indicator on its back end. This is it deactivated:

And this is it when the pistol is in its normal, semi-cocked status:

Both the magazines out loose:

Also, the Walther does come with a loaded chamber indicator... though that is nothing more than a hole cut in the chamber:

And you can look through said hole and see the brass:

Apart from the standard registration, safety, and instruction paperwork included in the package, the box also had a little envelope enclosed. I was a little confused until I cut it open - it is the proofing shot Walther fired through it:

Gratuitous slide-racked-back shot:

The magazine release on the PPS (along with most of the other modern Walthers) is either a love-it or hate-it. Personally, I like it, since it is easily operable by my middle or index finger:

Gratuitous stamping shot:

And as a random, amusing screen-capture, this came from my online product/warrantee registration with Walther. If I was Springfield Armory, I would be annoyed:

Sadly, no range report - yet. I figure I might wait a bit and let my wallet recover from the current spate of expenditures before I go and start throwing money down a narrow hallway. But color me a happy little gunny, regardless.

Slacker? Me? No... 'Ere we go again. The general premise is that you are free to ping this post (and every other post in this category), as long as you link back to it. Consider it free Google PageRank inflation, or something.

This is just cool.

That is all.

Another good addition to your blogroll/RSS aggregator: ObamaGun. Unfortunately, most of the posts are already in place, and are being fleshed-out and developed over time, so you might have to check back occasionally to see how the situation is progressing.

Basically, the author is taking the facts illustrated by the NRA-ILA concerning Barack Hussein Obama and guns, and providing graphical examples, supporting videos, related articles, and further bolstering data - effectively building the composite case against Barack Hussein Obama. I would not say that task would be too difficult, except that Barack Hussein Obama has shown a remarkable capability for couching his words carefully enough that he can support both sides of a given topic... even though those sides would be otherwise mutually exclusive. In any other man, that would be indicative of either a completely flaccid, or otherwise absent, spine, or a considerable mental illness... but given that Barack Hussein Obama is apparently the Second Coming, or somesuch nonsense... I guess his cultists just write that reality disconnect off as one of his deific qualities.

Update: Hah, and I beat Say Uncle to it!

As I probably mentioned in the past, I have been muddling along with a six-year-old Sony COTS computer for... well... the past six years or so. For the first year of its life, that was not so bad, but for the past three years or so, I have not been able to purchase anything even approximating a new game, simply because the machine would laugh its little digital guts out if I tried to install any of them on it. However, with the impending arrival of Starcraft II (assuming Blizzard does not pull a Ghost on us), that simply would not do. I had been willing to wait a while to upgrade my hardware (and, by "upgrade" I mean "completely and utterly replace" - the Sony had already been upgraded as far as it physically could go, and that was still pretty much pathetic), but Tennessee ran one of their nifty sales-tax-free weekends recently, and Better Half and I decided to take advantage of it.

Well, the new toy is here, a little over a week after ordering it, and I thought I would put up a few pictures - hey, this is the first time in a while I have had a drool-worthy computer. Click to enlarge all but the last.

So the box is something of a giveaway, I will grant:

... and its internal quality is honestly a little surprising:

Just the basics - recovery and installation CDs, and a mark 1 mod 0 keyboard and mouse combination (after all, Dell's prices for peripherals are a bit... inflated):

Now we are getting to the good stuff:

There is what I was looking for:

Gotta love that fire engine red trim:

Gratuitous butt shot:

And my computer takes off its... side. I have to admit, getting into it is quite easy - push a slider on the top, and the side pops off. Inside you can probably make out the twin, SLI'd nVidia GeForce 9800 GT cards (cumulative 1024MB of processing RAM), the massive heatsink sitting on top of my quad-core, 2.5Ghz processor, the 4GB of RAM (any word on a fix for 32-bit Vista, by the by?), and all the other goodies tucked away:

Unfortunately, my current set-up is the biggest travesty of them all... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a brand-spanking-new Dell XPS... plugged into a 19-inch CRT of unknown age. Hey, at least it is a Dell monitor! By way of excuse, my LCD monitor is in some storage bin somewhere, waiting for us to tell the moving company we are ready to accept our shipment. Also, thank God the XPS came with a DVI-VGA dumbing-down-dongle:

And for those who are curious about such things, here is the computer's score, as per PerformanceTest by Passmark. I guess that is good?