31 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in Uncategorized
WARNING: Reporting is somewhat sketchy. However, early reports indicate two men adorned in Christmas or Santa outfits, and armed with rifles, entered a nightclub in Istanbul Turkey and opened fire on the crowd. According to current reporting there were as many as 800 people in the club when the shooting began. Some local media reports […]
31 Saturday Dec 2016
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As we close out 2016, here’s a look back at a few posts from the last 12 months. I’ve done nearly 600 this year alone. Some were excellent. Others were … a little less. Some I thought would be hits, flopped. Some came out of nowhere and surprised me. A little blog history:
January. Half Day Snow Day.
February. The Old Man’s Guide to the Gym.
March. Death at the Academy.
April. A Den of Vipers and Thieves.
May. FDA ASSAULTS CIGAR INDUSTRY.
June. The Battle of Orlando – connected to – My Name is I Pledge of Allegiance…
July. Death of a Facebook Friend. This might have been my highest trafficked article of the year, at least by initial views. And just something I wrote on a whim.
August. Come Out of the Churches, Thou Unclean Spirits.
September. Mapping The Real Vote.
October. The Time I Met Reagan.
November. Ohio State Terrorist Attack Highlights Need For Guns On Campus.
December. Maybe The Russians Are Not THEIR Friends.
And that should be a wrap for 2016.
Next year will be fantastic. See you then.
-P
30 Friday Dec 2016
Posted in Legal/Political Columns
The agency which either allowed hacking of the U.S. State of Georgia or did the hacking (DHS) and the agency that stood by while the ATF sold or gifted 30,000 military weapons to Mexican drug cartels (FBI/DOJ [SIC]) have released a joint report on Russian hacking into the 2016 U.S. election.
Make of this what you will. A truly exciting holiday read.
29 Thursday Dec 2016
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I do not get sick. I beat the crap out of myself in the gym on a regular basis but I never, ever succumb to illness of the bug variety. Never. Ever. Seriously, I have had nothing more than a headache or a sniffle for over 5 years. Until now.
Now I am sick. Given my insane immunity to just about everything, this must be something exotic, something dangerous. Call the CDC.
It started as a running nose with associated cough. Then it rapidly progressed … er … lower. Still, eh, runny…. Anyway, the dread disease is passing. I expect to be right by morning.
Ah, yes! All this brings me to the cigar review. As a cure-all I’m drinking some black coffee and smoking a San Doro Colorado by Villiger. It is very good.
Now, leave me the hell alone. I’m sick.
28 Wednesday Dec 2016
Posted in Other Columns
The Daily Mail reports that now 80% of middle-aged Britons are either overweight or obese. I am confident this reflects on my side of the pond as well.
Britons are so inactive that they do not need nearly as many calories as their parents’ generation, researchers claim. Guidelines suggest an average man requires 2,500 calories a day while an average woman should aim for 2,000.
But these were drawn up around the First World War when adults walked to work and visited friends in person rather than phoning or texting.
Britons are so inactive that they do not need nearly as many calories as their parents¿ generation, researchers claim
Researchers from the London School of Economics who analysed 30 years of data say the modern-day calorie requirements should be slashed.
Dr Joan Costa-Font, whose study is published in the journal Food Policy, said: ‘Typically, life in the 21st century might mean a commute into a desk-based occupation, and three or four meals a day, leading to many people consuming more calories than their lifestyles require.
‘We still eat like our parents did, or worse, but we don’t move around nearly as much as they did. People no longer have to visit each other to hold a face-to-face conversation, they can simply Skype. We jump in the car or the bus or the Tube rather than walking.
‘As lifestyles have slowed down and become more sedate, people haven’t amended their calorie intake accordingly. We should all eat less.
‘The amount of food we eat compared with energy expenditure is simply too much. If people were as active as they were 30 years ago then recommended daily allowances of calories would be fine. It’s very hard to change how you eat from how your parents told you to eat, but we should all eat less today.
I occasionally track various obesity numbers across various demographics. The U.S. in general is north of 70% overweight. 80% is the next natural measure. I once predicted that we are moving towards a virtual 100% score. Four-fifths of the way there, baby.
And I do not want that prediction to become accurate. Let’s us, the U.S., the U.K. and everyone else, use 2017 to reverse the curse. It can be done! Starting very soon I’m going to tell you how. It ain’t easy but it is also not that hard. You’ll thank me.
28 Wednesday Dec 2016
Posted in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes
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Rob Morse put together a compilation of great events for gun owners in 2016. It’s downright inspirational.
January-
-Open carry passed in Missouri. The Missouri State House and Senate overturned their governor’s veto to legalized open carry and concealed carry in schools. The new law also prevents local municipalities from passing laws banning open carry. It lowers the permit to carry age from 21 to 19, and allows specially trained school employees to carry guns while on the job. Welcome to 2016.
-Guns ownership is ordinary and growing- We reported increased gun sales in January, just as we did for every month in 2015. January was busier than January 2015, February of this year saw larger sales than February 2015.. And so on. Anti-gun lobbyists said that only a few of us were buying all those millions of guns, and that there in fact were fewer gun owners than ever before.
It turns out that the anti-gun laws passed in anti-gun states showed that claim to be a lie. Anti-rights states like Massachusetts, California and Illinois require that gun owners register every gun single gun they purchase. The number of licenses to own a gun increased in Massachusetts by 66% since 2010. Other states that register gun owners also show strong increases as well. In Illinois with their firearms owners ID card, the number increased about 75%, from a little over 1 million in 2010, to 1.8 million in 2015. Gun ownership is ordinary and growing.
February
-Gun control cities are violent. The most violent cities in the world, and the most violent cities in the U.S., all embrace gun control. US cities ranked among the 50 most dangerous. St Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit come in at numbers 15, 19, and 28.
Looking at the US cities in more detail, they are each governed by progressive Democrats. And every single one of them has been an enthusiastic member of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Chicago deserves a dis-honorable mention. You can smell the corruption from here.
-A senior State Senator in California was arrested. This wasn’t just any California politician. Democrat Senator Leland Yee had sponsored and supported many anti-rights bill that removed the right of self-defense in California.
Senator Yee’s political career ran from being a member of the San Francisco school board, president of the school board, State Assemblyman, State Senator, and Speaker, pro-tem of the California State Senate. That made him the second most powerful person in the California Senate. Yee was named to the honor roll by the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence.
Yee was arrested in 2014 and convicted in February 2016. Yee was charged with wire fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally importing firearms for sale. He was sentenced to federal prison.
It turned out to be a great year for guns, gun owners, the Second Amendment, and America. 2017 looks bright as well. Oddly enough, it appears that many liberals are now adopting a “can’t beat ’em, so join ’em” attitude towards guns. They’re having fun too.
The true, ardent anti-freedom nuts are still out there and scheming. The best news is that most now see them for what they are. Happy gun year!
Ammo Land.
27 Tuesday Dec 2016
Posted in News and Notes
Today I took my daughter to see Rogue One, a Star Wars Story. I differ only slightly from Alex Jones’s stellar recommendation. The best in decades? I’m not sure. It was very good though it was not your typical Star Wars fare. Then again, it wasn’t typical, modern Disney either. And that was good.
I read some hype that it was an over-the-top PC flick, anti-white even. I read A LOT of stuff though. That’s not at all what I saw. The cast was rather “diverse”. However, there was no discernible agenda of any kind – other than to get the schematics for the Death Star.
Jones is correct in that, with this movie, they have finally mastered the CGI stuff. Amazing without any cartoon detraction. Then there was the digital resurrection of old, even dead characters. If you’re young or never saw the original, then you probably could not pick them out. I did but the technology is scarily convincing.
I wish there had been more Darth Vader kicking butt. He showed up once in the middle (with James Earl Jones showing [sounding] his age). And then he stole the final few minutes with some pure Sith evil. I loved it but it all seemed too easy for him (it was).
They did a great job at the end teeing up for the opening of the original, now called “A New Hope, Episode IV”.
Overall, I liked it. All of it. Very well done. The PC scare-mongering was utterly, laughably unfounded. Everything worked – though differently than we’re used to in that Galaxy. Bravo, Disney.
Then, I got home and found out that Carrie Fisher died shortly before my movie had even started.
20th Century Fox / Lucas / Disney / The Rebellion.
This is my first experience with a childhood crush passing on. And I do not like it.
Every boy and adolescent male (most mature men, I would imagine too) had the hots for the young and daring Princess Leia in 1977. Or they did at least by 1980. If you weren’t a Fisher fan in 1983 (yes, Jabba’s party barge), then there was something seriously wrong with you.
Fisher starred in last year’s Episode VII and will appear in next year’s VIII. She helps provide continuity across the series and the ages.
Young, digital Carrie appears in Rogue One. It’s set immediately before the opening scene of the original. A Rebel officer asks her what’s in the transmission their little ship has received, the information Darth Vader is murderously interested in arresting. She answers that it brings “hope”. That’s the ending of Rogue One.
I hope Fisher’s ending was peaceful. I hope she has eternal rest and happy salvation. I hope to meet her someday (where and when I suppose I’ll have to wait in line to reveal my crush). I hope and I know her memory will now live on virtually forever or, at least as long as the movies endure. Forever the junior Senator from Alderaan is Star Wars royalty.
Goodbye, Princess. Goodbye, Carrie Fisher.
26 Monday Dec 2016
Posted in Uncategorized
This story I originally offered to help beat election mania. It proved popular and I need a re-posting… So now it is for the holiday mania… Either way, a great and true story (I think).
The following I offer as a needed break from tonight’s election mania. You can thank me later.
The year was 1983. I think. We’re going to say it was 1983 and January. Could have been December but January of ’83 sounds about right.
Anyway it was cold. Very cold especially for east-central Mississippi. For the sake of my happy memories let’s also assume this frozen spell closely followed the white Christmas of that age. If you know otherwise, keep it to yourself, Zippy.
Snow began to fall. Actually it was ice. Maybe with freezing rain. Whatever it was that came from the sky the ground was soon completely iced over. Ice on the trees. Ice on the bushes. Ice was everywhere.
It was as beautiful as it was cold. And it was eerie. It all fell for a good long while. The roads became glazed over and utterly impassible. Everything…
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25 Sunday Dec 2016
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My Dear Friends,
…to each and every one of you!
– Perrin
Merry Christmas Photos!
24 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in Other Columns, Uncategorized
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Hey, Buddy the Elf, Santa’s coming.
Help the little one’s track the big man’s every move with NORAD’s Santa Tracking Service. It’s like UPS except it’s Santa and has cool graphics:
Seems St. Nick will be turning towards North America shortly. Get the kids to bed.
If the blog doesn’t reach you tomorrow, Merry Christmas! That will likely be the main posting this Sunday anyway. I’m about to robo-schedule it as I will be wheels up for the beach in the morning.
Have a great night everyone!
