When you see THIS in the elevator, it’s a ‘reminder’…
Little kid was asking his mom if he pushed it would he cause an earthquake…LOL
In other news, saw one of those funky Range Rovers in hot pink with a license plate surround that said Happiness is polished nails across the top and Shopping for new clothes across the bottom. And the back window was FULL of Neiman Marcus bags…
Glad I’m not married to the blonde driving that thing, I’d be broke in ONE day…
I tried to catch some Fog. I mist.
When chemists die, they barium.
Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
I know a guy who’s addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop anytime.
How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Than it dawned on me.
This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.
I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.
I did a theatrical performance about puns . It was a play on words.
They told me I had type A blood, but it was a Type O.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
PMS jokes aren’t funny. Period.
Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.
Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there’s no pop quiz.
Energizer Bunny arrested: Charged with battery.
I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!
Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because
she couldn’t control her pupils?
When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.
What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back four seconds.
I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!
Broken pencils are pointless.
What do you call a dinosaur with a extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.
England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool .
I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.
I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.
All the toilets in New York ‘s police stations have been stolen.
Police have nothing to go on.
I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.
Velcro – what a rip off!
Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.
Venison for dinner? Oh dear!
Earthquake in Washington obviously government’s fault.
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.
Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.
Sorry, someone sent these to me so I sent same to you!
It’s winter in Michigan
And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 52 below!
Oh, how I love Michigan
When the snow’s up to your butt;
You take a breath of winter air
And your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,
You may think I’m a fool.
I could never leave Michigan
Cause I’m frozen to the stool.
Attended a retirement of an old friend from the Navy on Friday…
For those who have never seen it, it is a very structured ceremony honoring the individual and they family (if present) for their service to the Navy and the country.
“Wreck” was one of those JOs that everybody thought would never make LT, much less make a career of the Navy; he did 10 years active and 20 in the reserves, had command, did well and retired as a Captain on 30…
It was old home week, folks coming out of the woodwork to honor Wreck and his family. “Bubba” was the guest speaker, and regaled not only us but the family with stories from over the years (and some I don’t think Marcia had ever heard to judge from her response). He was formally piped ashore with the requisite 8 sideboys, in this case with two admirals in the eight, and a couple of folks that had a ‘bit’ of trouble fitting into their uniforms since they’d been retired for a while.
Once the official ceremony was over, folks met at the reception in a much more ‘relaxed’ atmosphere and the stories really started flying…
Marcia was still ‘stunned’ that it was finally over, and she told me she just couldn’t believe after 28 years there wouldn’t be any more deployments, calls, road trips, and weekends/weeks with Wreck gone.
And she told us to get him drunk for old times sake… 🙂
Bubba had managed to get a bunch of photos from over the years and put them into a powerpoint that ran on the big screen in the background. Quite a few of the pics brought up comments, memories, flights and missions, odd happenings, det ops, and more sea stories along with memories of folks no longer with us.
We had the requisite toasts, and the last was to Absent Comrades.
On the screen was the following:
Friday our token office liberal was crowing about women being allowed in combat, and how it was a WIN for all women…
Now this is the same one I’ve gone round with a couple of times, but THIS time I got her…
I told her yeah, that’s great, and I hope she likes having her daughter having to register for Selective Service and the draft!
And I turned around and walked off, leaving her looking like Nemo… Gulping and turning various colors… 🙂
And I “DO” hope the start requiring women to register for the Selective Service now that they are allowed into combat. That was always the ‘excuse’ before, that since they were restricted, there was no need for registration…
Let the unintended consequences begin! 😀
One example of a pro-gun argument that doesn’t rely on “It’s in the Constitution!”
In 1996, in Port Arthur, Australia, 35 people were killed and 21 people were wounded when a man with a history of erratic behavior and violence (from early childhood) opened fire with two semi-automatic rifles. He obtained those rifles in an illegal fashion.
Regardless, the Australian government instituted a buyback program that eventually destroyed more than 600,000 firearms. Sadly, in the only province that reported specific details, less than 3% of the buybacks were of the same type of rifle as those committed in the massacre.
To this day, gun control advocates like to show that the homicide rate in Australia has plummeted due to the wide-reaching gun control restrictions. However, a quick look at the rate of homicide in Australia* finds that from 1976 (the first year reported) to the present, the rate varied only between 1.16 and 2.4 per year. Yes, the four most recent years had the lowest rates out of any presented. But the highest rate was in 1988, 9 years before the buyback. Obviously, the drawdown started occurring for a reason other than “most guns were removed from the public’s hands”.
Now, firearm suicides have fallen from about 22% of all suicides in 1992 to 7% of all suicides in 2005.** But there have been concerted efforts in suicide prevention from the time of 1997 – when there was a 10% INCREASE in the suicide rate (in 1997 and 1998). Notice that this increase takes place after the gun buyback program, and so therefore, removing guns from society did not hinder the suicide rate.
The number of guns stolen per year has also fallen. From 1994 (pre-ban) to 2000 (post-ban), there were, on average, more than 4,000 firearms stolen each year. Approximately 3% of those stolen weapons are later connected to an actual crime or found in the possession of a person charged with a serious offence.
Now, looking at the Australian Institute of Criminology’s own page***, we can see that while the rate of robbery, kidnapping, and homicide remain relatively steady since 1996, the rate of assault has gone up. Further reading**** shows that violent crime statistics drawn from police data do not show the large amount of violent crime and victimization that is never disclosed to police (whereas the homicide rate is fairly obvious). In fact, the AIC’s own website admits that there is a high rate of non-disclosure in the various indigenous communities, suggesting that the rate of violent crime is potentially much higher than what they can prove via official record.
On this webpage*****, the following stats are summarized:
= In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
= Sexual assault — Australia’s equivalent term for rape — increased 29.9 percent.
= Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
And while the homicide rate did drop, both Australia and the United States (where there is no appreciable gun-ban) saw a decrease in the murder rate:
= Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
Now compare the previous stats I gave for Australia to the following lines:
= U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
= Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.
Would this constitute a valid pro-gun argument?
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia
*** http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime.html
**** http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/401-420/tandi405.html
***** http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847
I do acknowledge that the first one, in retrospect, is a bit over the top, and these last two DO bring some clarity to the discussion. And I am thankful that we ARE having a civil discussion here.
I also appreciate the readers who have commented both in the post themselves, and those who’ve commented via email.
Thank you all for reading and using facts rather than hyperbole, emotion and fear mongering…
h/t Ron
The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of arms that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. This prohibition would fail constitutional muster under any standard of scrutiny. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is therefore unconstitutional.
Since NY, MD and other states and the Feds have defined “assault rifles” in all these bills. and every bill seeks to ban this “class” of guns, which an overwhelming majority of Americans own for self defense, doesn’t that equal them trying to ban an entire class of arms for said reason and therefore has already been proven to be unconstitutional by DC vs Heller?
The decision saying that trigger locks and having them disassembled etc. in the home should also nullify a few other things in these kooky bills with regard to securing the guns shouldn’t it?
Just asking…
From CBS St. Louis-
Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, has proposed a bill that would create an offense for failing to prevent an illegal firearm possession or for the failure to safely store a firearm. The bill also would require a parent or guardian with a child enrolled in a school to notify the school district — or the governing body of a private or charter school — that the parent or guardian owns a firearm.
“This bill is very important to me because in urban cities across the nation, we experience gun violence every single day and usually our type of gun violence deals with people who live in high poverty areas, areas where there aren’t enough resources,” Chappelle-Nadal said.
Under the bill, an offense would be a Class A misdemeanor unless death or injury results, making the offense a Class D felony.
The offense would be committed if a parent or guardian fails to report the possession of a firearm by a child under the age of 18 or if a parent recklessly stores a firearm allowing the child to acquire it, by not storing it in a secure locked location.
It’s damn near as big as what he used to fly…
Conjecture, but probably something around $20,000 sitting there…
h/t JP