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John Waters, in the best, most subversive No Smoking theater trailer ever made:

Bless you, Youtube.

I love the little pop! as he finishes off his last drag.

I’ve been wanting to see this again since I first saw it in Houston’s River Oaks Theater, back when it was a repertoire house showing vintage foreign, indie, and flatly off-beat films in back to back two-day runs. They published a monthly schedule sheet which was like the syllabus for a course in Cool. Gods, I miss the old River Oaks. It’s where I first watched Seven Samurai and Casablanca and Citizen Kane, and where I last saw 2001: A Space Odyssey (I cannot tolerate 2001 on tiny TV screens). Killed, I think, by the home video market. Now its balcony has been converted to two tiny auditoriums, and it shows first run foreign and indie films, but no off-beat or vintage stuff.

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Aaugh! Googling around for a photo of the River Oaks, I’m reminded that it’s slated for demolition, to be replaced by a Barnes and Noble bookstore, which will also result in the closing of the nearby Bookstop, itself a renovation/conversion of the old Alabama theater. Damn it, damn it, damn it. I absolutely support the right of the owners to do whatever they want with their property, but I wish they could find a better way than this, or barring that, that some preservation group would pay the asking price and buy it from them.

Gun fearing socialist pussies everywhere, relax: my favorite African-American, Kim du Toit, is closing The Other Side of Kim, having gotten tired of shouting the ugly truth into the faces of people who have an ideological commitment to not hearing it.

When he started, he was one of the few strong advocates for the crazy idea that ordinary American citizens, men and women regardless of creed or color, were competent to run their own affairs, even in matters of life and death. He started the idea of National Buy a Gun Day, as a part of his Nation of Riflemen campaign, aimed at re-arming the militia of which the Second Amendment speaks, the unorganized one.

He has also been a tireless critic of communism, socialism, nannyism,and big government generally.

He was one of my very first daily-read bookmarks when I myself realized that the Second Amendment imposed much the same duty as the first: to actively participate in the nation’s political process in ways far beyond mere voting. (What, you thought the First Amendment was all about Freedom From Religion, and your right to buy, sell, and make child pornography?)

He put his money where his mouth is, nearly suffering financial ruin when his employer discovered he, uh, Spoke Real Truth to Real Power, and fired him. So great was his distress that he actually sold off some of his substantial collection of firearms to make ends meet. (And you may judge the size and value of that arsenal by the fact that selling off only a part of it actually made a difference in the finances of a family, including teenagers, who had recently purchased a new home in Dallas.)

He has also taken dozens of people, men, women, and children, Off to the Range, and taught them how to shoot. Fittingly, one of his last posts today was about one such excursion.

All Americans can be proud that when he escaped from the hell hole of South Africa he chose to come here; all Texans can be proud that when he abandoned Mayor Daley’s fiefdom to its own rot, he came here. He came not for a free handout, but to do his part in holding the line in the world’s Last, Best Hope for Liberty.

He, a foreigner, has been a better American than I, a native; indeed, a far better American than almost all of us, including especially many of those who now hold elective office. He took an oath to become one of us, he meant it, and he’s done his level best to keep it.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Please enjoy having a private life again; you have already done more than your share.

[update]
Beck’s back, and says it was his fault:
“If I were in charge around here, I’d fire me.”

OK, then. Whew.

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One of the most obnoxiously abrasive, rabidly self-righteous, principled and clear-thinking blogs in existence has apparently been hijacked: Billy Beck’s two–four.net now displays a bland, generic advertising portal.

I assume this is ordinary domain squatting and not the beginning of the obamist purge.

I’d say, keep Beck in your thoughts and prayers, but I know he’d just sneer at such magical superstition.

I will say this: whoever it is that’s taken from Billy what’s his is going to regret their mistake — unless it turns that it was, in fact, his mistake, like forgetting to re-up or something, in which case he will politely swallow his medicine, and do whatever he needs to do to get back on the air.

Because, you know, he runs his own life and accepts responsibility for it, up to and including defending himself and his with deadly force.

I hate flow-restricted faucets. I can adjust the faucet myself, thanks, and sometimes I want that pot or bucket to fill up as quickly as possible, please.

But you can’t buy unrestricted aerators anymore. Federal law mandates that you can’t draw more than 2.2 gallons/minute from your tap.

My old kitchen sink aerator got clogged awhile back, and I couldn’t clean it out, so I had to buy a new one, and just tolerate the restricted flow. Then it got clogged, and I took it apart to clean it:

Left to right: Body, housing, screen, bushing, mixer, restrictor, gasket (internal thread), gasket (external thread). [Part names from this diagram.]

Here’s a close up of the key parts:

That flat plate on the right, with the hole in the middle? That’s the flow restricter. All the water must flow through that hole.

Turns out, the aerator works just fine without it. I had thought it was glued in place, but it only snaps in; a small hemostat or needle nose pliers will yank it out presto-change-o.

Take that, bureaucratic scum!

[That part in the middle is the mixer, the thing that does the actual aeration. It goes in pin-down, as shown in the first picture.]

My last attempt to comment on Bryan Miller’s dancing in the blood of an eight year old boy while making fun of his small penis did not make it through moderation.

Here’s another try:

Freedom is not safe.

That said, accidents like this are extremely rare. Fewer than a hundred children a year die from accidents involving guns. (And, yes, this was an “accident”, although negligence was certainly a huge factor.)

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2004 seventy-two children between the ages of 1 and 15 died in “Unintentional Firearm” incidents, ranked at number 14.

What really kills kids? Top three causes in 2004 were: 2479 deaths due to “Unintentional MV traffic”; 739 due to “Unintentional drowning”; and 502 due to “Unintentional Fire/burn”. Next comes 350 “Homicide Firearm”. Note that those last three together are not even two thirds of the total due to cars.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms has already been very substantially infringed by some 20,000 federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Your state, New Jersey, and the state in which this shooting occurred, Massachusetts, heavily regulate gun ownership, yet are not known for their low crime rates.

If, Mr. Miller, you want to further infringe that right, I believe we can reasonably insist that you make a strong case that your infringements will a) substantially reduce gun deaths among children even further, and b) not increase child death (or even adult death) through increased violent crime or increased tyranny.

[I reused part of my last reply, which I will not reproduce here. CDC stats copied from this earlier post.]

Chuck Norris, a.k.a. Walker, Texas Ranger, explains that while he, “a black-belt patriot”, could take out a robber with a roundhouse kick, he’d prefer to use a gun:

[Youtube link]

I am not a Chuck Norris fan, because all too often, his stories involve being a Hero who comes in to help those who won’t, or can’t help themselves.

Here, though, he’s not offering to bring either his gun or his feet to protect you. He’s asking you, you personally, to stand up for your right to protect yourself, by checking the actual voting records of politicians who claim to support the right to keep and bear arms.

Bravo, Chuck! This, not your kick, makes you my hero for the day!

Swiped from Tamara K’s Porch.

On a midnight post-office run (I don’t like to leave Netflix returns in my mailbox; sometimes they get lost) I impulsively stopped for Jack-in-the-Box cheesecake.

Exiting the drive through, I was approached by a panhandler. I shouldn’t have stopped, much less rolled down my window, but I did. He was middle-aged, middle-class, well-kept, well-spoken, and didn’t reek of alcohol or have that gap-toothed meth-head manner to him. (I hate being an easy touch. Dogs, cats, and children pick up on it too.)

“I know you! I’m one of your neighbors, from over there!” — and he points in pretty much the right direction. I hesitate for a moment, thinking, “Well, most of my neighbors are Hispanic, not black…” but I’m more or less sympathetic.

Unfortunately, he runs on:

“Listen, my kid just died, and….”

What? What the fuck? You bring that out, you lay that on me, you damn well better be playing straight.

“What’s the name of the street?” I ask.

His mouth gapes for a moment, then he frowns, and his voice takes on an impatient edge. His middle-class act starts to fray as his script derails.

“I don’t know the name of your street, man! Look, I’m not trying to come across as funny or nothing.” Well, pardon the hell out of me.

“What’s the name of your street, then?”

Long, fumbling pause, then he says a name.

“Never heard of it.” I pull away, and start rolling up the window.

“Hey, man, I got the wrong guy, I’m not trying to come across as funny or nothing…”

On the way back from the post office, there he is, across the street at a filling station, talking to an SUV…

… and pointing in the opposite direction.

You asshole, I think.

You pimp your dead kid to get a fix?

You worthless piece of shit.

Your dead child?

[update: Thanks to David Hardy of Arms and the Law for the link.]

Keep in mind, as you read what follows, that I am not a lawyer, just a citizen trying his best to understand the rules I’m expected to live under.

Mark Bennett, a criminal defense lawyer here in Houston, on his blog Defending People, forwards “notes from the portion of DEA training dealing with the use of deadly force. [My source] tells me that the students would be given certain fact patterns and told to stand up in class and respond with the exact phrases described in the notes to justify a shooting.”

This is life-and-death crucial, but very long, so I’m reproducing the whole thing, with my comments, below the fold: (more…)

Billy Beck demonstrates how it’s supposed to work:

That kid was frightened when I yelled “Hello!” up the road at him.

For years now, people have been hiking and biking up and down Daisy Hollow. It’s really funny: they roll out here from Ithaca or wherever in all their gear. Hikers walking with ski-poles in the summer. You name it, etc. People who live out here think they’re cute. When I go walking, I go up on the hill with a rifle.

The very first time I laid eyes on him, he looked like he was walking out the end of a neighbor’s driveway. He’d made about seventy-five yards up the road by the time I had my boots on and was out the door.

Walking up to him, I could see that he was apprehensive. I said from about fifteen yards away, “I hope you will understand why this is necessary.” I had all his attention, now. I’d say he was in his early twenties.

“You know,” I told him, “We’ve been watching people hike up & down this valley for a long time, but that is the very first time I ever saw what looked like someone coming out of that driveway.”

Read the rest to see how it comes out.

That’s all an armed citizenry is about, folks: people looking out for each other.

[Edit: In comments, Beck clarifies he was not armed for this encounter. I believe the overall point stands.]

As always, Robert Peel’s Policing Principle Seven holds: “…the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

Beck takes a lot of heat for things like not paying taxes, not enlisting, not shouldering his share of the social responsibility.

That right there is Beck doing his share, directly, not subcontracting it to someone in a uniform. He exposed himself to risk, he accepted the potential responsibility of putting someone to death on the spot.

I can’t point to the last time I did that. Can you?

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Moreover, he accepts that burden without setting himself as an Only One who can act with Officially-backed impunity. Like, oh,  Grady County Oklahoma Deputy Sean Knight [Link via Beck, here.]

Oh, man, please don’t tell me I’m gonna have to start watching Boston Legal:

Crap. I’m gonna hafta start watching BL.

I asked ya not to tell me that.

Crap.
[Via Curmudgeonly and Skeptical.]