It's official, I'm a retard, but at least a nice one.

A while back I posted about renting my summer home to a convicted felon.

If you bothered to read that, you'd know that I'm living next to him either way. He either lives at his mommy's house for free or he lives in my summer home and I get some free yard work done. My hope was to give him a chance to redeem himself and make a fresh start; something I extend out of a courtesy of greater men than myself.
If I could turn his life around, I would accomplish something his own family failed to do.

I had to try just out of sheer curiousity. I risked nothing I wasn't willing to lose and I also had the foresight to hedge my bets, but that's another post entirely.

Well...everything I was willing to lose has been lost. For all those who tried to warn me, I stand before you now and say, you were scary right. Having said that, I am more focused now than I have ever been. I needed the lesson. The small town I grew up in is different than the small town I live in now. I needed a kick in the pants to wake me up.

He stole my truck...

This truck is the epitome of crap covered garbage. I only bought it to haul lawn debris around on my own property. It had been sitting idle for 8 years in the yard and he offered to get it running again so we could sell it and split the profits.

I agreed and gave him a set of keys.

He did manage to get it running and decided to adopt it as his own personal vehicle to use while I was at work. Last monday was a paid Holiday for me and he thought I wasn't here. He foolishly drove it right past my winter home.

Big mistake.

I called the po-po, and they found it and had it towed back onto my property within 5 hours.

Their true motivation was that he already had 6 outstanding warrants for his arrest. Long story short, he's in jail now and facing some prison time. Longer story shorter, my trust in others has reached a new low.

Except for CoreDi and my family, and those anons on the interweb tubes who I should have listened to.

We are a family, learn from my stupidity, and have some CoreDi friends of your own.

Brady Bunch annual report released

As 2010 winds down to a close, they've finally released their 2009 sack of fluff.

No comment because I haven't read through it yet and not sure if they have copyright on the content, but it should be good for a laugh.

Busy Weekend

I'll be off training counter-revolutionary guerrillas in Northern Elbonia for a few days so enjoy some 'Best of DOOT':

Anti-Math

Suspected Terrorists by the Numbers

Church of the Duke and other Fables

Myth of the Decreasing Gun Owners

Illinois Police Endorse Brady Campaign

Heh, thought that would get your attention. No not the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership but the Bill Brady Campaign for Governor.

Chicago – Pointing to his strong support for public safety, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police today endorsed Bill Brady for Illinois Governor.

“Throughout his political career, Bill Brady has worked to earn the respect of the law enforcement community,” said FOP president Ted Street. “He understands that our peace officers are the frontline of defense in both criminal defense and homeland security.”

And?.....

Combining a discussion of child soldiers in Somalia w/ the violence apparent in US urban youth, Marian Edelman asks "What is it going to take for adults in America to stand up and say enough to the violence that is terrorizing and killing our children?"

That's a good question. One wonders however why she goes on and on about guns when she even uses the statistic "The annual number of firearm deaths of White children and teens decreased by 54 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the deaths of Black children and teens increased by 61 percent."

That's quite a disparity. Just looking at the deaths/injuries to children from firearms in Illinois where the laws are different show that same disparity:

The rate of firearm injury to young adolescents (ages 10 to 14) is
very low in most of Illinois, with numbers generally too low to
compute rates.

The rates of firearm hospitalization and death in Chicago are at least
four times higher than any other region in Illinois (Figure 4).

Jush Sugarmann of the VPC noted this disparity a while back and hinted that his solution would be to disarm African Americans.

So what is Ms. Edelman's solution?

Oh right, she doesn't have one.

Just blame the guns.

Daley Cries "No Maas'

So w/ flagging polls, ridicule from the media, losses in the courts and the Olympics, King Dick "feels it's the right time" to step down.

As SIH notes, none of the potential replacements which my dead grandma will vote for will be any good on firearm rights but one thing they won't have is the level of influence Daley had.

Truncating History

Gun control advocates have a documented history of shortening quotes to take them completely out of their original context, often turning them from a pro-gun claim into an anti-gun one. Usually when they do, I learn a little something new and add a new cite to my library.

Today was no exception. In a discussion on gun control in the 'Wild West', another troll cutnpasted an article from the now near defunct Gun Guys w/ this:

It was the late 1870s, the height of the mythic Wild West, and W.N. Morphy, editor of the Ford County Globe, pondered the presence of guns on Dodge City streets.

“An honest man attending to his own business doesn’t require the constant companionship of a six-shooter to make him feel easy and safe,” he opined on March 5, 1878, referencing a local ban on concealed guns. Indeed, “there is something rotten with a man’s conscience,” he continued, if he must walk the streets with a weapon.

Pretty straightforward, right? This guy opposed the carrying of firearms. But reader and commenter Odin's Eye located the complete statement:

"Some of the "boys"(1) in direct violation of City ordinances, carry firearms on our streets, without being called to account for the same. They do it in such an open manner, that it don't (sic) seem possible that our City officers are ignorant of this fact.

There must be some reason for it. What is it? Is it because they belong to the "gang"(1), or because they intend to harm none but anti-gang men? An honest man attending to his own business, doesn't require the constant companionship of a six-shooter, to make him feel easy and safe. We think there is something rotten with a man's conscience when he parades the streets with an exposed six-shooter, knowing he is violating the law with impunity, simply because he is a friend of the mashal or policeman." -- Ford County Globe, 5 March 1878, as related in "Why the West Was Wild: A Contemporary Look at the Antics of Some Highly Publicized Kansas Cowtown Personalities ", Nyle H. Miller, 2003, p 297

Well now that changes the whole meaning, doesn't it? He's not opposing the carrying of firearms necessarily but more the Good Old Boy system in place in most corrupt towns and cities during the era of the likes of Boss Tweed.

Why do they feel the need to do this? Because as has been shown over and over, history opposes gun control. They know this so have to try and re-invent it in their own image. Thankfully, in today's electronic age, it's harder for them to spread their bullcrap message w/o being called on it.