You Knew This Was Coming

From the reflexively and irrationally anti-gun Roanoke Times editorial playpen:

Guns and alcohol are a bad mix

A Forest man accidentally shot himself in the leg while ordering a beer at a Lynchburg restaurant. Yes, the gun was concealed. Yes, he had a permit to carry the gun concealed. Yes, Virginia law now allows people to carry concealed into bars. No, they aren't allowed to carry and drink, but who's to know -- unless, that is, they do something foolish like reach in their pocket and fire their .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun into their leg.

A woman at the restaurant apparently suffered powder burns, as well.

Lynchburg police have filed three misdemeanor charges, including violating the ban on consuming alcohol in a restaurant while carrying concealed.

We expressed concern that the new law would allow the mixing of guns and booze without anyone knowing until an accident, or worse, occurred. Our critics argued concealed-carry permit holders are the most law-abiding citizens around and would not drink and carry. What do they say now? [link]

I'll speak for the critics. Seven points:

1) Concealed-carry permit holders are still the most law-abiding citizens around.  But just as editorial page editors' marriages sometimes fail, sometimes common sense fails as well.  On rare occasions.  We don't like it but it happens.  Let's not judge all by one.

Think about it.

2) If you can separate out the morons who shouldn't be carrying loaded and chambered handguns in restaurants from the millions of safety-conscious citizens who have the uninfringible right to keep and bear arms, call me.  We'll talk.

3) Earth to moron: A round in the chamber? 

4) "A woman at the restaurant apparently suffered powder burns, as well."  Why the, comma?  just wonderin'.

5) "A woman at the restaurant apparently suffered powder burns, as well."  The dude shot himself in the leg.  What part of her anatomy was down at his crotch?  Just wonderin'.

6) A 2nd Amendment enthusiast almost killed himself.  Shouldn't you guys be cheering?  Just wonderin'.

7) This isolated incident occurred and the Earth didn't stop rotating on its axis?

'The Voters Had Spoken'

A poem for our time and place:

Twas The Weeks Before Election

Twas the weeks before election and all through the district
People were worried, with doubtful economic spirit
Jobs were disappearing and the economy was sour
The folks of the Ninth, felt they had lost all power.
Their congressman in D.C. had long quit listenin’
Boucher tried to distract with gifts that glimmer and glisten.
Twenty-eight years of service, he’d proudly proclaim,
But his influence in congress was really quite lame.
He was under the thumb of Obama and Pelosi,
Followed their rules and did what they told he.
His fears erupted when national healthcare arose,
He begged Nancy to vote no, his district did oppose.
And Nancy twisted and prodded and threatened them all,
So Boucher was off the hook at the final vote call.
You see Boucher had already made a terrible mistake,
Cap and Trade, he worried, would ruin his fate.
A bill that would destroy untold American jobs,
And raise energy and food prices on all us ‘slobs’.
He had lost touch with his district, he thought it no crime
To support liberal leadership ninety-six percent of the time.
And Boucher didn’t fight; he went with their game,
Those he was concerned with, he called them by name:
“Now, Obama, now Pelosi, now Boxer and Reid,
On, Waters! On Rangel, continue with your greed.”
“Whether tax evasion, VIP loan or insider deal
We’ll make our own millions, get our own fill”
An artisan center, he thought, or new hiking trail
I’ll give them gifts and they’ll believe my tall tales.
But the people became wise, they saw through his graft.
They’d no longer fall for his pork barrel handy craft.

They were sick of Obama and Pelosi, just sick of them all
Under their watch America slipped, almost nearly to fall.
And a challenger arose, chosen by the people,
To take on Slick Rick and be more than his equal
Morgan Griffith for the people, he’d carry their voices
And he called Boucher out on his disastrous choices.
In Richmond, Griffith worked to balance state budgets,
“We’ll stop D.C.’s fuzzy math and ability to fudge it.”
“In order to change Washington, you have to change congress,
Get government out of the way, so we can grow prosperous.”
As election drew near, Boucher got nervous
And the people knew now, that he no longer served us.
“Resist everyone, everyone do yet not vote,
I give more doublespeak to keep victory afloat.”
“I’ll give you more handouts, more government cheese,”
Boucher pleaded, but the people he could no longer appease.
Voters had enough of the country’s wrong direction,
They took it into their own hands to make a correction.
To the polls on Election Day the masses did surge,
They’d throw the bums out, clean house in a purge.
The liberals lost control, no longer they can.
Voters put an end to Obama’s Socialist plan.
The voters had spoken, as it should be done.
Of, by, and for, the people had won.

I love this kind of stuff.

Author, a loyal Southwest Virginian, to remain anonymous, for now.

Caption of the Day

From Hot Air:

Perfect.

A Good Question For Barack Obama

From James Taranto:

There is no more Molly," reports Seattle Weekly. Molly Norris, formerly a cartoonist for the alternative paper, has gone into hiding. At the suggestion of the FBI, "she is, as they put it, 'going ghost': moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity."

Why? Because, as the New York Times reports, imam Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Islamic supremacist who is himself in hiding in Yemen, issued a fatwa in July declaring that Norris "should be taken as a prime target of assassination" because of a cartoon she drew two months earlier titled "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day."

Where is President Obama? Last month, speaking to a mostly Muslim audience at the White House, the president strongly defended the right of another imam held up as a moderate to build a mosque adjacent to Ground Zero. The next day, and again at a press conference last week, Obama said he was merely standing up for the First Amendment. As far as we recall, it's the only time Barack Obama has ever stood up for anybody's First Amendment rights.

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?

If only her name were Jameela, maybe he'd pay attention.

Obama Fulfills a Promise

He is bankrupting the coal industry:

Save a mountain, build a windmill, freeze in the dark
By Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner

In April, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced stringent new regulations on the [surface mining] process that effectively mean an end to its use in most cases.

Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), an industry-backed think tank, said the new EPA rule "will bankrupt the coal industry and cause electricity prices to 'necessarily skyrocket,' fulfilling two more promises President Obama made while running for office. The magnitude of this EPA decision on new and renewal permits in Appalachia will cost American jobs and put mom and pop operators out of business."

Pyle was referring to Obama's 2008 statement that his energy and environmental policies would "necessarily skyrocket" consumer costs for energy. [link]

To quote the president:

"The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster."

Was there ever any doubt?

It's'a Crazy World

A lament in this morning's New York Times:

Thousands of Trees Killed by New York Tornadoes

That's a regrettable thing indeed.

But coming from a newspaper that kills thousands of trees every day?

Quote of the Day

On global warming, or whatever they're calling it today, Doug L. Hoffman:

In the meantime, we need to quit taking the counsel of our fears—or at least the fears of warm-mongering climate alarmists. As Davis et al. found, the sources necessary to realize the IPCC's most threatening emissions scenarios have yet to be built. Even if you believe the IPCC's model predictions, and I most assuredly do not, they are based on a future that will likely never arrive. In fact, the entire warmist cause is based on fabricated predictions, generated by inaccurate models, based on a fictitious future. It is time for the climate catastrophists to learn that future CO₂ fiction is less believable than science fiction, mainly because there is so little real science in it.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical.

"Fabricated predictions, generated by inaccurate models, based on a fictitious future."

An epitaph.

'Support Your Local Police'

Most of the time.

But they, other times, make it impossible.

This is troubling in the extreme.

Memo To NFL Commissioner:

Get a life.

"The NFL chastised the New York Jets on Friday for unprofessional conduct ..." relating to the way a TV reporter was treated in the New York Jets locker room recently. She was subjected to "catcalls" by several players, allegedly.

That TV reporter?

Here are a couple of photos taken on that fateful day:

Can we talk about professional behavior?
Photo courtesy of World Correspondents.

The Law Is Whatever Obama Says It Is

Remind us again why the tea party critique of Obama governance is crazy.