The Emperor's New Gun

As a true red blooded American I touched my first gun at a very young age. I think I was in maybe first or second grade when I stumbled upon my father's rifles. I was perplexed somewhat as he never hunted or went shooting and I had no idea they existed until that day. Turns out they were his fathers (or something?) I'm not really sure at this point, I only saw them once or twice afterwards. I'm almost positive he hasn't shot them in my lifetime. Unfortunately, that was pretty much it for my experience with guns until I joined the military.

Fast forward a few years (ok, more than a few!) and here I am today owning a whopping one rifle... which I've never even fired. I know what you're thinking because I think it every day. I fail epically at life. And you're right, I do! I don't hunt so I don't have that excuse to shoot, and I guess I'm kind of lazy about it too. I really enjoy shooting, and I'm not bad at it, I just never do it.

With the shooting in Aurora Colorado being used as the latest politically convenient excuse to bolster the schism in America, I figured I needed a new gun. I had actually been thinking I need to get a pistol for a few years, but a well-armed and unnamed cousin of mine allowed my wife to borrow a pistol while I was away and I just haven't really gotten around to actually getting one. Well, I finally got off my butt, grabbed a gun-nut buddy and went out during lunch with only one goal: To get a pistol!

I had looked at a few the day before and I had somewhat of an idea of what I wanted. I ended up getting a Springfield Armory XDM 45ACP Compact 3.8 which means exactly what you think it means. It shoots bullets. It also is not too small and not too large and with the extended magazine with the grip-flush-maker-thing, it is plenty comfortable to hold. If I want to use it for carry purposes, it's not so big that it is uncomfortable or overly conspicuous. Being able to drop the magazine from either side is nice and if I want to add a light to the end, my finger can reach it with ease without changing my grip.

Unfortunately it seems like I won't get to shoot her until I get home from Virginia, but I guess until then I can cut a gun shaped hole into my hardcover copy of A Dance With Dragons and fit it in there!

Colorado Shooting

I awoke this morning and everything felt like any other day. I showered, dressed, and went to work. I updated a spreadsheet and sent it out.

I then hopped on Twitter.

My stomach dropped and my heart jumped to my throat.

I became numb.

I struggled to grasp properly what I was reading. I jumped on Google to find more.

I read story after story of the events that happened just a few hours ago. A gunman walked in to a movie theater during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, threw smoke/tear gas and opened up with an assault rifle in to the crowd of random, innocent movie goers just excited to see the movie. Excitement may have been the last thing at least 12 of those people felt before the candle of their life was blown out by some... asshole.

Asshole is far too good of a word to describe what this person truly is, but at this point I still lack the mental facility to properly describe him.

I am numb.

I went back on Twitter and saw someone post that they lost their friend, Jessica Redfield to the shooter last night. He linked to her Twitter account and when you click her name you can see that her last tweet was about giving her friend crap about not going to a midnight showing. Her final exclamation: "THE MOVIE DOESN'T START FOR 20 MINUTES" ( https://twitter.com/JessicaRedfield ).

I can't comprehend what her family and friends think when they see that.

I (as far as I know) know no one that was there last night, yet it's such an insane, unimaginable act, it still grabs me by the throat and doesn't let me go. There was a 3 month old who got shot. I try my best to turn my mind towards why a 3 month old was at a midnight movie; to get back to my sarcastic, offensive wit, but I can't. I want to, if only so I can get the gears of my mind turning, but they are stuck.

I want to know. I want to know why. I need to know why. I keep thinking about what the family and friends must be going through. My mind is continuing in a circle, unable to escape. These people were just going out to see a movie. They weren't Soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan looking for bad guys. They weren't police going through a neighborhood looking for a suspect. They weren't even mall security guards making sure no one stole panties from Victoria's Secret. These were just everyday people looking to be entertained for a couple hours and now they are gone.

I am not a theist, so it would be patronizing to say my prayers are with these people, and even if I could, it would grant them little solace. There truly is no magic grease that will help these people move on from this tragedy. All I can offer is my sincere feeling of shared shock and sadness, and promise that with time, the pain will fade and the memories lose their sting.

Hopefully one day, they will at least be able to feel numb.

French - Unbelievable

http://io9.com/5926587/what-may-be-the-worlds-first-cybernetic-hate-crime-unfolds-in-french-mcdonalds

^Read that. Seriously. The French are not only not surrendering, they are actually striking first at the most serious threat to the world since zombie Hitler attacked in 1954 (You didn't think Vietnam was just about communism did you? Rube).

Many people in the media are coming down on the Frenchmen involved but I needs must defend these heroes and their swift action. How many of you would engage a Borg drone in unarmed combat? Very few I  would think! Not only that, but these brave Frenchmen defended humanity on American soil! It wasn't even their jurisdiction, yet they didn't hesitate to do the right thing.

Just say NO to assimilation.

Marine Professor Punch

The above image has passed around emails, Facebook, and Twitter for probably close to a decade in one form or another, and likely for longer than even that.

I feel the need to blog about it for multiple reasons, the most glaring is that it is obviously 100% bullshit. If you repost shit like this, I almost universally would love to punch you in the throat. It takes five fucking seconds to check shit out on Google to see if it's real, don't be a fucking retard.

Anyway, on towards my true beef. The message that this shit sends is about as anti-American as a person can get. People tend to see the buzz words and just assume it is meant to be a patriotic flag-waving which is exactly what this is not.

There are a couple of significant buzz words: (not counting Marine, Iraq and Afghanistan) atheist and ACLU.

These two terms are meant to grab you and separate you. They are used in a way to say that being a patriot and supporting the military means that you must be against atheists and the ACLU.

First, the second buzz word: the ACLU. I agree with you, they are douchebags of the highest order, however, they in their own way are looking out for American's best interest. Past that I can't defend them without puking a little in my mouth. (I admit my bias here).

Atheist is the first buzz word mentioned. It is meant to grab you in the same way. Many of us were raised to believe that Russia was full of "godless commies" and this is no different. Here is where I will ask you to think for a second. What is wrong with this statement?

What is wrong is that it is saying that theism is right, atheism is wrong - period. It leaves you no other choice. It gives you the classic "you are with us, or against us" problem. When you add all world religions together, regardless of their disagreements, they outnumber nonbelievers. The term is used very intentionally to grab the largest number of people.

The next few paragraphs reemphasize the previous statement of grouping believers of "something" against all others. During this reemphasization, it forces patriotism in to the mix making theists and patriots make a choice. They are either with the believer Marine who fought for their freedom, or against the evil, non believing professor. The choice is barely there because 90% of people don't even see a choice given to them. It is worded in such a way that disagreement is bad in the absolute worst way.

I however, am here to give you that choice.

Think again for a second, what you are agreeing with. You are saying that America is for assault and battery on people who believe different than you.

Again, it is saying: America is FOR assault and battery on people who believe different than you.

I ask you, how different does that sound from the dogma spewed to suicide bombers before they blow up in a crowd of civilians? Seriously, what is the difference? The only difference is death. You don't want a suicide bomber coming up to you and blowing up, but would you accept them coming up to you and knocking you out? Because that is what you are agreeing to with the above propaganda.

The end part is just as ludicrous. If you think God exists and he is busy protecting troops fighting the good fight, why are there thousands of new graves in Arlington cemetery? Why are there tens and tens of thousands of new amputees from the wars? Heck, why did "God" make all these theists kill other theists (and atheists) in the first place?

It's just blatantly patronizing to the masses and I, as an honest asshole, am officially calling you people on it. I don't care if you are deeply religious and/or deeply patriotic, punching a man because he believes differently than you is putting yourself on the same fucking level as the savages in the Middle East who are killing these same Marines you claim to love.

I am not proposing you must be tolerant of all belief systems, but violence because of someone not believing the same as you do is exactly what is getting the aforementioned Marines and Soldiers killed and I ask that you pull your head out of your ass and at least pretend you can think for yourself.

2nd Amendment

My beloved friends over at Unapologetically American* posted this link today: http://www.ijreview.com/2012/07/10064-un-small-arms-treaty-barack-obamas-backdoor-gun-control-may-pass/

It is absolutely transparent fear-mongering by the far right with little more than paranoid speculation. It makes me want to vomit, as all politics do. However, it touches on a subject that I feel strongly about which is your basic human rights.

The definition of your basic human rights depends entirely on where in the political spectrum the definer sits. I tend to sit pretty dang close to the middle and I would like to take a stab at defining the specific right in question for you.

The right to bear arms is "guaranteed" to us by the Constitution of the United States of America. That sounds nice and dandy, but as the Supreme Court and Congress like to remind us, the Constitution is a living document which means whatever political party controls the aforementioned entities, gets to interpret it, and change it, however they damn well please to suit their political needs.

So what then defines your right to bear arms?

You do.

If you are willing to fight, to bleed, to kill, or to die for that right, then you truly own it and no one can ever take it away from you.

If someone comes to you and tries to take away your gun, you just tell them you'll give them your gun when they pry it...

*I like them on Facebook, so it's the same thing as being friends right? #Semantics

McChrystal and the Draft

Holy dick on a stick I apologize for almost letting this one slide on by.

General (Ret) Stanley McChrystal said recently that if the country ever goes to war again that America should implement the draft.

I'll let that sink in for a second.

One more, just think about it.

You're confused right? If you're like me, that statement is somewhat hard to comprehend coming from a guy like McChrystal. Regardless of the controversy about him, he was still a four star general who spent many years of his career intimately involved in the Special Operations community. The suggestion of a draft coming from a guy who knows better than most what true professional Soldiers can accomplish is... it's just confusing. Especially with the wars of today becoming more and more unconventional, what good could possibly come from drafting a bunch of occutards in to our military?

When I listened a little longer, he made a semi-valid point. He said that with a draft, the weight of the war would be felt more throughout the entire population of the country, rather than the select, proud few who have chosen to bear this weight upon their shoulders. I find it hard to disagree at first. It does make some sense... until you once again take a second to think about it.

I go back to just a few months after 9/11 when even then we didn't have the political will enough to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora. MONTHS! We had Bin Laden's ass three MONTHS after 9/11 but we refused to do what needed to be done to get him. Not since Pearl Harbor has America been so united, yet we held back. It ended up taking a decade of war and one hell of a political call (aside: I don't care if you've got Republican tattooed on your forehead, Obama deserves a hell of an 'attaboy' for giving that operation a go!) to finally get Bin Laden. If we don't have the will to do what needs to be done in a situation like that, there is truly nothing, and I mean nothing, that you can do that will unify the people ever again and forcing a bunch of kids to go fight will do nothing other than enrage an already heavily divided country.

While I understand his idea that a draft would put America's heart in to the fight, I fail to see how he ignores the gaping fissure of ideals that currently resides in the middle of this country. You simply cannot ignore that and expect your idea to hold any water.

So, I ponder, why would he say such things? Is it some sort of subtle dig at those who he feels spurned him? Is his one meal a day finally catching up to him and his brain is lacking the proper nutrition to think straight? Or am I no better than a civilian when compared to his military knowledge and expertise and I can't comprehend where he is coming from simply because I can't see through his eyes?

In my humble opinion, not only will there never again be a draft, but there should not again be a draft. Though again, maybe I am blinded by my own inability to see the truth.

What do you think?

Let Me Paint™ You A Picture

Say you are the lifeguard depicted above. Your AO is to the left of the yellow line and your employer has told you not to cross it (thereby abandoning your post and opening them up to a potential lawsuit) to save anyone.
You are now made aware that there is an idiot drowning over on the other side of the yellow line. What do you do?
A) Run and save the idiot
B) Let the idiot die, he should have read the warning sign
C) Make other lifeguards aware so they can cover your AO and then run to save the idiot
D) Run in super slow motion because you are a crazy hot chick

Most people would probably pick C, which is what Tomas Lopez did, his employer however still felt the need to fire him over it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57466477/fla-lifeguard-aids-drowning-man-gets-fired/


Yuuup, I'm thinking exactly what you are thinking. That putting option "D" as option D was my subconscious attempt at boob humor.

Fatty McFatfat

The video above is by Jamie Oliver, a British chef who has a reality show about something, I assume cooking. He spoke at a TED conference about why you as an American, are an asshole and I 100% agree with his assessment. (I may have paraphrased...)

I really want to bloviate about how much I agree with his message, but I feel I wouldn't do him justice and will let his 18 minutes speak for themselves. I just find it ironic that half our country gets their panties in a bunch about providing "universal health care" (which we didn't FYI, we just forced insurance companies to insure more people and created a tax on the uninsured) but when faced with the facts about our own fat asses, we seem to do little more than shrug our shoulders.

Enjoy!