Quote of the Day: Some Atheist Clown.

Meaning no disrespect, in addition to being a magician, raconteur, and strong pro-rights libertarian, Penn Jillette graduated Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1974.

I suppose you could call him an elitist, accredited, fancy-pants atheist clown. But that seems a bit verbose.

On Ace of Spade's Overnight Thread the "ending comment" was a quotation by Mr Jillette on compassion:

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

And those that find great joy in the coercive power of the state? Well they tend to run totalitarian in their impulses and at the very best are merely apologists for despots and other oppressive monsters.

But the idea that naked force is a pure good shows 2 things: 1) That since that coercion is necessary, those you are forcing cannot be convinced to voluntarily comply. and 2) That making them comply will be for their own good.

One can see the aristocratic underpinnings of such thoughts.

The article where Penn writes this passage can be found here.

One a related note is this report by Zombie on how academia grapples with how mush indoctrination is necessary and how overt it should be. Yes, really.

A Large and Moving Torb... Stay Puft 2012... What have I done?

Well, the great and pantsless Robb Allen has found my quote.

As Robb says:

For those of you who do get the reference, that joke has actually changed my mind about voting for (*shudder*) Romney. You see, I can’t fight the Moving Torb. The Torb has too many worshipers and comes from a dimension totally not grounded in our reality. But the StayPuft Marshmallow Man? While backed by an inter-dimensional force, the SPMM is clearly a construct of our reality, composed of sugar, corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, vanilla flavorings, and sometimes coloring, whipped to a spongy consistency, and his followers are less than enthusiastic about supporting him.

In short, I can beat the StayPuft Marshmallow man or at least slow him down. Not so much with the Large and Moving Torb.

My... so don't let anyone tell you that you can't make a difference. Uh... yay?

Seriously though, Robb's next post makes up for it all.

Though my mind is also filled with who is due to come to Maple Street and whether or not Doc Stockton's little basement project will work out.

Bonus points if you can guess those references.

Update: Oh gee... lookit that, a handy link between the Torb and the feelings of "just another match".

Quote of the day... me? II

A comment of mine, garbled grammar included, at Weer'd's made Kevin's quote of the day at Smallest Minority.


Yeah.... I'm not enthused about this election. We've got the guy who would appoint Supreme Court Justice Eric Holder versus the gun grabbing, healthcare mandating, liberal... who would be able to get bipartisan votes for his Statist agenda.

CSGV: Why yes, your social "betters" should have more rights than you.

Yesterday I repeated Mad Saint Jack's find that Bill Cosby thinks he's entitled to carry a gun, while the rest of us proles would only use such powers for murder.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence agrees. You see celebrities should be allowed to carry because they're more likely to need to defend themselves.

Nice to see the anti's explicitly endorsing their aristocratic views. Remember, they don't think your life is worth as much as those of the rich, famous, or powerful. Which is why they like discrecionary issue.

Thirdpower says it succinctly:

So if you're a 'celebrity' (or rich or politically connected), they're A-OK w/ you having a gun or armed bodyguards. For the rest of the 'unwashed masses', they're SOL.

Gun control is discrimination at its core.

Next time you're talking with someone who is ranting about the 1 percent, fat cat bankers, the poor not getting healthcare, or unregulated money strangling free speech... see what their stance is on gun control.

If they're okay with the poor being disarmed then... chances are their bleeding heart for the rest of poverty's problems are either a cruel system of graft or a patronizing paternalism.

And then you have the regulation of Body Armor.

It's a purely defensive technology. The only reason the State would want to restrict armor is to make people easier to kill. You can be generous and say it's just to make criminals less likely to be wearing it, but that goes with the central pitfall of all arms control as it collectivizes punishment.

Via Tam who is close to going "It's a cookbook."

Special Laws For Special People

Bill Cosby doesn't want you proles out there carrying guns, saying that: “When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody.”

Of course, Cosby excuses himself. He thinks he should be able to carry guns.
How do I know this? Well he applied, and successfully got a NYC carry permit. A process that is very expensive, involved, and legally complicated, thus it is not done casually. Mr. Cosby had to have really, really, really wanted to be able to carry a gun.

Also, I'm sure Bill, likes the approval process itself. New York City only issues licences to "the right" people. Can't have the common rabble, those without political connections, and those that are just "the wrong sort" carrying guns, eh Bill?

Irony.

Again, it's not about the guns, it's about the control.

Here, have something cute.

Excited Derpy.

Those of you that know what it is, good.... very good.
Those if you that don't... hehe it's a deep rabbit hole.

More Adventures in Reloading

Well tried my handloads today, including jacketed ammo and handcasts.
For this batch I used the Lee Factory Crimp Die and cranked the crimp a bit further down.

And it worked quite well. For the 1911 had no malfs on either set of ammunition.

For my AR45, I'm continuing to have failure to feed issues, which I think are buffer spring related, but I hwas having the same issues with the factory ammo. That issue is where the bolt will not close fully on a round. This happened after 30 rounds with no malfunctioning. Which is the similar pattern.

I then cast up 111 bullets and had 102 pass inspection (mass, size, and shape). They're now curing with bullet lube and will be ready for loading tomorrow.

Oh yes, Mark's suggestion to talk the cavities worked quite well.