Quote of the Day

 Courtesy of Robb Allen:

The most terrifying thing of 20/21 is all the people gushing over how pretty the gaslight is. Continue Reading

Why I'm Voting for Romney/Ryan

I decided to vote for Romney a while back, even though I voted for Paul in the primary. While, at first glance, Romney seems to be a less-than-ideal candidate, I think he has the potential for a Regan-like Presidency.

Romney draws criticism from the right for things he did as governor, and from the left for things he did at Bain. What some folks seem to miss is that he did the job he was elected/hired to do, and did it well.

As Massachusetts governor, he signed gun control legislation and Romneycare into existence. Folks, it was MASSACHUSETTS fer cryin' out loud! It's how they roll up there. Jay and Bruce can fill you in, if you don't already know.

At Bain, he offshored jobs. Guess what, folks. He was brought on to make the company money, and when taxes, regulations and the associated costs of doing business go too high, that's where the jobs go!

Then there's "he took government money to save the Salt Lake City Olympics" line. Well,duh. The Olympics needed saving, our government didn't want the international embarrassment of a failed Olympics, so there you go. To me, taking government money was perfectly acceptable.

So, there you go. Mitt is my guy. He's done well at every major job he's been put in charge of, I have no reason to think he'll do any different when he's elected.

As for Ryan, Rachel Lucas has all you need to know, along with this QOTD:

Also, I really hope Ryan’s wife Jana is prepared for what’s about to happen to her family. The woman must have guts of steel.

Yep
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QOTD...

... comes via the quote machine Tam:

Complaining that a 1920s firearm may not have been drop safe when you were actively ignoring two or more of the Four Rules of firearm safety is like complaining that you drove your Ford Model A head-on into a brick wall and the airbags didn't deploy.

Yep

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9-11-11

109 Minutes

By Brad Todd
Guest column
(Sept. 16, 2001)

It's been, of course, impossible to get past IT.

Even in a country with the attention span of a gnat, we're all still glued to the tube. The 24-hour news channels have heretofore proven they can make anything boring in short order, but this one drips with emotion so thick even they can't wring it dry.

Yep. We're as stuck on it as we were Tuesday morning.

Grocery store checkout banter is still single-subject. I understand it's the only topic at the manicurist's shop, too. I think even children sense how big IT is. The ones who walk by my front door don't have their normal sing-song cadence. There's no screeching. No laughter. They know something's not right.

What is IT?

Something besides the grief, I think -- although the grief is tormenting.

Something deeper than the shock -- although the shock is overwhelming.

No, I think it's the gut-level fear that for the first time in my generation, we were whipped.

Whipped by our own complacency. Our own comfort. Our own insistence on putting convenience ahead of precaution. Our own arrogance that let us forget that the world is a dangerous place.

And the outcropping of that fear is an angst about the new order. How long before we're not behind again? How much time must we spend off the top of the world? Out of control of our own lives?

This, of course, is the angst that people in most of the rest of the world feel every day. And if we look deep inside, we can probably acknowledge that for all our egalitarian pontifications, this is not the kind of equality and fraternal kinship in which we really believe.

I finally admitted this fear to myself three days after the attack. I wasn't particularly proud of it. It seemed like a shallow thing to fret over when such real suffering was all around me -- my house sits just three miles from the Pentagon, after all.

But there it was.

And the aftertaste of the bitter pill of my character flaw was the sad realization that such angst was Osama's primary objective. Buildings and airplanes and, yes, even 6,000 lives, were just the collateral damage. Despite the metaphoric value of last week's bricks and mortar targets, the real core of the Western economy isn't a skyscraper or a government building. It's the can-do swagger of the American worker. And bin Laden's soldiers cut deep into that swagger.

So he won.

Or did he?

I thought so ... until Friday night.

Friday night I watched a Jane Pauley interview with the family of Jeremy Glick. Jeremy Glick was a 31-year-old who flew as a passenger on commercial airplanes for a living. I describe him that way because right now I'm fairly convinced I'm just a 31 year old who flies planes as a passenger for a living...the other parts of my job having become less noticeable this week.

As the interview unfolded, I realized something I didn't know before: Jeremy Glick and the people on United Flight 93, bound from Newark to San Francisco, knew what was happening on the ground.

At 8:48 a.m. Mohammed Atta took a jet headlong into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Eighteen minutes later and accomplice did the same to the south tower.

When Jeremy Glick called his wife, his first question was an attempt to confirm something another passenger had heard on his spousal call: was the World Trade Center story true?

Lizzy Glick paused, thought for a minute, swallowed hard, and told him the truth. Yes, they had. Moments later, still on the line with her husband, Lizzy Glick saw that another plane had run into the Pentagon. She passed that information on as well to her husband, who relayed it to the other passengers.

Jeremy Glick then told her that the passengers were about to take a vote and decide if they should rush the hijackers and attempt to foul up whatever evil plans they had.

He put down the phone and a commotion was heard by those on the other end of the line. Then nothing. A dead line. An aborted missile launch against the town where I live.

That was 10:37 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11... just 109 minutes after Mohammed Atta rammed the first plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Just 109 minutes after a new form of terrorism -- the most deadly yet invented -- came into use, it was rendered, if not obsolete, at least decidedly less effective.

Deconstructed, unengineered, thwarted, and put into the dust bin of history. By Americans. In 109 minutes.

And in retrospect, they did it in the most American of ways. They used a credit card to rent a fancy cell phone to get information just minutes old, courtesy of the ubiquitous 24-hour news phenomenon. Then they took a vote. When the vote called for sacrifice to protect country and others, there apparently wasn't a shortage of volunteers. Their action was swift. It was decisive. And it was effective.

United Flight 93 did not hit a building. It did not kill anyone on the ground. It did not terrorize a city, despite the best drawn plans of the world's most innovative madmen. Why? Because it had informed Americans on board who'd had 109 minutes to come up with a counteraction.

And the next time a hijacker full of hate pulls the same stunt with a single knife, he'll get the same treatment and meet the same result as those on United Flight 93. Dead, yes. Murderous, yes. But successful? No.

So I think the answer I come to is "yes, but at least not for long."

They did whip us. And maybe those of us who've demanded to be let on airplanes at the last minute fed a culture of convenience that made it possible.

But they only had us on the mat for 109 minutes.

Brad Todd is a political consultant who lives in Alexandria, Virginia.


Never, ever forget.. Continue Reading

Quote of the Day

From QOTD machine Tam:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Complaining about rising prices is like standing on the deck of the Titanic and yelling that the sea level is rising.

It's all about perspective.
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Quote of the Day

This one from Kevin Baker on why most gun haters think of penises when they see a gun:

And what is it with you people and penis size? If you believe that gun owners own guns to compensate for the size of their wedding tackle, does your desire to disarm everyone mean you want yours cut off?

Could be, Kevin, could be.

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Quote of the Day

I keep wondering whether the existence of homosexuality is proof that God hates Fred Phelps.

Sounds good to me. Found at Instapundit.

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Quote of the Day

This from Alterraun Verner, rookie cornerback of the Tennessee Titans:

I believe that through losses, you gain lessons, and from those lessons, you gain growth, and from growth, you find yourself becoming a better person/player.

Yep.
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Quote of the Day

This one from Tam:

People talk about going through life in "Condition Yellow" like it's some kind of paranoia. It's not; it's merely staying aware of the world around you. It's not even necessarily a "tactical" thing, either. Being alert and aware of your surroundings can prevent all kinds of minor mishaps that can make life annoying, painful, expensive, or all three.

Go read the whole thing.

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Quote of the Day

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams

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Quote Of The Day

From the infinitely quotable Tam:

Ignorance, as they say, is no excuse for a law.

But it's usually all that is needed to pass one.

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Quote of the Day

This one comes from Instapundit's father-in-law:

when they want to raise taxes, it’s always for teachers and firemen — but when they actually get the money, it goes to buy leather chairs for guys you’ve never heard of who work downtown.

Yep.
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Quote of the Day

This one comes from SayUncle, and ties in to yesterdays post:

I feel no need to distance myself from a psychopath like McVeigh because I’ve never felt any sort of association with him. So you can just fuck right off.

Yep.

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Quote of the Day

From Unc:

Last year was called “year of the gun” because the legislature spent a whopping 1.8% of their time addressing gun bills that Jimmy Naifeh had spent years killing in committee.

Yep, the year of the gun was actually the six and a half days of the gun.

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Quote of the Day - Titans Edition

From Don Banks:

This is it. Rock bottom. There's nowhere to go but up for the humiliated Titans. And I can tell you this: The sight of a light=hearted Jeff Fisher wearing a Colts jersey two days after his team got its butt handed to it 59-0 in New England went over like a fart in church in Tennessee.

Indeed.

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Picture/Quote of the Day

Courtesy of Oleg Volk:

That's what it's all about.

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Titan Thoughts

Ouch. Losing to the Texans is bad, but scoring 31 points and losing to the Texans is damn near traumatizing.

How did that happen? Simple - for the second week in a row, our pass defense was non-existent. Part of it has to do with the loss of Albert Haynesworth (there, I said it). We simply can't get pressure on the opposing teams quarterback with a four man rush. Without the pressure, their QB has time to find the open receiver.

I still stand by my earlier statement concerning Haynesworth - his loss shouldn't be that much of an impact. The rest of the Defense is the same as last years.

Except the Defensive Coordinator. Don't get me wrong, I think Cecil will turn out to be an excellent D Coordinator. But, right now it looks to me like his reputation for aggressiveness has rubbed off on his players - in a bad way.

Griffin is a prime example of what I'm saying. In an attempt to get a jump on the play, he'll bite on a pump fake or a play action and be out of position when the ball is thrown.

Cecil needs to get his squad settled down.

The upside? Our Offense is pretty damn good. Chris Johnson had a career day. Of course, 91-yard touchdown runs tend to help in that regard.

On a final note, I love me some Music City Miracles, but it looks like they are paying the price for success. Namely, they've gotten themselves some weeny-whiney poo-butt commenters over there who can't handle a loss and have no perspective whatsoever. I'm not going to quote any of them (they know who they are), but I will give a shout out to commenter "guilded" and credit him with the Quote of the Day:

please stop feeding each other heapings of stupid

You got that right.

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9/11 Roundup

Like Curt said, I don't have a lot to say about today that hasn't already been said.

I will be praying for the lost souls and the heroes of that day and I will never forget the selfless sacrifices that so many made.

The Breda Fallacy

I bet I'll have to go into work this morning and remind the library
administrators that they need to lower the flag to half mast, like I did last
year.

I haven't forgotten...and never, ever will.

The Ten Ring has the Pentagon flag picture

At View From the Porch, Tam has a good point:

This should be "Massacre Day" and stir righteous anger, not endless naval-gazing and hair-shirting.

God, Guns and Free Speech has a really good picture of the Towers.

Conservative Scalawag has pictures from all three sites.

The Liberty Sphere says:

I would suggest that all view the informative, riveting, sad, and enraging film
'United 93' in loving memory of those who lost their lives.

Walls of the City has the story of a 9/11 hero, Sergeant Rodney C. Gillis.

I, of course, will post a little bit of 109 Minutes:

United Flight 93 did not hit a building. It did not kill anyone on the ground. It did not terrorize a city, despite the best drawn plans of the world's most innovative madmen. Why? Because it had informed Americans on board who'd had 109 minutes to come up with a counteraction.

....

They did whip us. And maybe those of us who've demanded to be let on airplanes at the last minute fed a culture of convenience that made it possible.

But they only had us on the mat for 109 minutes.

Damn skippy.

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Quote of the Day and Blogroll Addition

Please Welcome A Dixie Carpetbagger to the Mighty Fine blogroll. He's got rules:

3) Never let a non-gunny mess with your ammo supply. They’ll just do something dumb. Like sort your shotgun ammo by color.

LOL

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Quote of the Day

Via Bruce:

If anything represents a threat to traditional marriage, it ain't gays getting hitched. It's women cooking veggie burgers for their husbands on Father's Day.

Amen, brother.

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