winsor

To add to the above statement: Whatever you will consistently carry, since it does no good if you're high end super-pistol has the more stopping power than a Claymore if you never carry it. Rule #1 for a gunfight - have a gun.

This is a completely different animal, but for the combination of punch and concealability the AMT Back Up in .45acp is hard to beat. The Back Up is DAO with a pretty stiff trigger, and its 'sights' consist of a groove in the top of the slide. It is thus an up close and personal bellygun, whose sole purpose is to stop an attack. I have never had a failure to feed or a smokestack, using anything from 230gr lead handloads to 185 gr hollowpoints. The effectiveness of the flying ashtrays is impressive, and a solid hit with most anything out of a .45 tends to change the game plan of an assailant right then and there. As a carry piece, you have the kind of performance combined with reliability that inspires confidence. Add to that the fact that it's a hoot to use as a (short-range) plinker, and the motivation to get competent is there as well. I have rather a few Rugers, but the KelTec .32 has impressed me with its reliability and inobtrusive nature. For really dinky firepower, a NAA .22 Mini Revolver is hard to beat. Unfortunately, one might have to make it go bang to convince a skeptical assailant that it is not a toy. Getting back to the .45, by looking in the mirror I have been impressed that the hole in the front is huge, and that, given the short barrel, one can see the Silvertip waiting to be touched off. It does not leave a lot of doubt on the part of an assailant as to what to expect if they fail to cease and desist. I also have a .380 Back Up, but I prefer the stainless PPK in that role. I can keep it in the black at 50 feet, and it just works. The .22 TPH is also great for getting a Walther in a really small package. The bottom line is that whatever is reliable and you, personally, trust with your life is a good choice. BSBD, Winsor

Now really, is economic masochism what the U.S really want? Cheers! Shc It is unclear that you have even a passing familiarity with that most arcane of subjects, Arithmetic.

Interesting. Cause Ron didn't say American Negroe kid. He said black kid. A Korean proclaiming all the Chinese are dumb is clearly not racist. A Korean proclaiming all white people are dumb is racist. Good point. "Little Black Sambo" was Burmese, not African (if you see a tiger in Africa, it's in a zoo).

What color is he? I forget. The most scathing evaluation of American Negroes I ever heard came from a Nigerian. Of course, he was just being racist. You agree then that ron's 'joke' is racist. Ah, that reading comprehension thing again. No, I was making fun of the idea that my Nigerian colleague was racist for criticizing what he saw of America. The likelihood that I will ever be in agreement with any standpoint you espouse is vanishingly small. I disagree with Ron on a couple of minor issues, but I respect him. I have no confidence that you would ever begin to earn my respect (not that you should value it, one way or another).

The hate is towards those of a different color. What color is he? I forget. The most scathing evaluation of American Negroes I ever heard came from a Nigerian. Of course, he was just being racist.

Way, way wrong. "Jews" are the children of Israel/Jacob, period. Judaism is a tribal identity, purely familial, though it has strong religious traditions. For example, some 96% of self-identified Kohainim were determined to share a common male ancestor (Aaron) - you can not become a Kohain if you are not one by birth. Adherents to the more popular Universal Religions have a tendency to assume that other isms are of the same mold, which is hardly the case. If your mother not Jewish, you are a Gentile unless you convert. Conversion to Judaism is quite unlike conversion to Scientology or Christianity; it is an adoption into the family, to become one of the tribe. The Tribal Council held at a Jewish congregation is precisely that. A Jew can be a Buddhist, an Atheist or whatever, and it has no effect on one's identity as a Jew. In Europe in the 1940s, people who thought of themselves as Christian but had Jewish heritage went into the ovens alongside the Haredim. BSBD, Winsor

So is this. Yo' mama

Equality of outcome http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/13/obama_a_new_vision_of_an_america_which_prosperity_is_shared.html "To each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs!" Where have I heard that before?

The reason I do not patronize Chick-fil-a is the same reason I do not purchase Buck knives. When I worked in a sporting goods store a lifetime ago, I read a flier from the company to the merchants who sold Buck knives. The gist of it was that we were admonished never to sell a Buck knife at anything less than the full retail price, since The Lord God was responsible for their ability to make better knives than anyone else, and that it was nothing short of heresy to sell them for less than the sticker price. Since then I have carried Puma, K-bar, Marbles, Schrade, Gerber, Camillus or some other brand that does not choose to link their religion to their product. John Moses Browning was a Mormon. He did not, however, make a big deal about it, and let his products speak for themselves. I thus have a couple dozen products of his design. Chick-fil-a has linked their product to their system of belief in such a way that it crossed the line on my part a long, long time ago. If someone takes the 'holier than thou' stance, I'm sure they can live without my business. I give to the Salvation Army, since they do not push their views on those they help, and put their money where their mouth is. I buy Kosher food, since Kashrut is on a par with Rheinheitsgebot, and actually assures a higher level of quality. Having said all that, it offends me that various powers that be have decided to oppose the right of the Chick-fil-a people to do business. Even if I find a lot about the business to be repellent, that does not mean I want to live in a society where opposition involves vandalism, official discrimination and the like. I have been places where that was the norm, and such places suck out loud. No matter how disquieting you might find a lawful business, to engage in totalitarian practices to suppress it is not okay. BSBD, Winsor

The Lady of Joy EVEN PROSTITUTION, in the long run, may become more or less respectable profession, as it was in the great days of the Greeks. That quality will surely attach to it if ever it grows quite unnecessary; whatever is unnecessary is always respectable, for example, religion, fashionable clothing, and a knowledge of Latin grammar. The prostitute is disesteemed today, not because her trade involves anything intrinsically degrading or even disagreeable, but because she is currently assumed to have been driven into it by dire necessity, against her dignity and inclination. That this assumption is usually unsound is no objection to it; nearly all the thinking of the world, particularly in the field of morals, is based upon unsound assumption, e.g., that God observes the fall of a sparrow and is shocked by the fall of a Sunday-school superintendent. The truth is that prostitution is one of the most attractive of the occupations practically open to the sort of women who engage in it, and that the prostitute commonly likes her work, and would not exchange places with a shop-girl or a waitress for anything in the world. The notion to the contrary is propagated by unsuccessful prostitutes who fall into the hands of professional reformers, and who assent to the imbecile theories of the latter in order to cultivate their good will, just as convicts in prison, questioned by teetotalers, always ascribe their rascality to alcohol. No prostitute of anything resembling normal intelligence is under the slightest duress; she is perfectly free to abandon her trade and go into a shop or factory or into domestic service whenever the impulse strikes her; all the prevailing gabble about white slave jails and kidnappers comes from pious rogues who make a living by feeding such nonsense to the credulous. So long as the average prostitute is able to make a good living, she is quite content with her lot, and disposed to contrast it egotistically with the slavery of her virtuous sisters. If she complains of it, then you may be sure that her success is below her expectations. A starving lawyer always sees injustice in the courts. A bad physician is a bitter critic of Ehrlich and Pasteur. And when a suburban clergyman is forced out of his cure by a vestry-room revolution he almost invariably concludes that the sinfulness of man is incurable, and sometimes he even begins to doubt some of the typographical errors in Holy Writ. The high value set upon virginity by men, whose esteem of it is based upon a mixture of vanity and voluptuousness, causes many women to guard it in their own persons with a jealousy far beyond their private inclinations and interests. It is their theory that the loss of it would materially impair their chances of marriage. This theory is not supported by the facts. The truth is that the woman who sacrifices her chastity, everything else being equal, stands a much better chance of making a creditable marriage than the woman who remains chaste. This is especially true of women of the lower economic classes. At once they come into contact, hitherto socially difficult and sometimes almost impossible, with men of higher classes, and begin to take on, with the curious facility of their sex, the refinements and tastes and points of view of those classes. The mistress thus gathers charm, and what has begun as a sordid sale of amiability not uncommonly ends with formal marriage. The number of such marriages is enormously greater than appears superficially, for both parties obviously make every effort to conceal the facts. Within the circle of my necessarily limited personal acquaintance I know of scores of men, some of them of wealth and position, who have made such marriages, and who do not seem to regret it. It is an old observation, indeed, that a woman who has previously disposed of her virtue makes a good wife. The common theory is that this is because she is grateful to her husband for rescuing her from social outlawry; the truth is that she makes a good wife because she is a shrewd woman, and has specialized professionally in masculine weakness, and is thus extra-competent at the traditional business of her sex. Such a woman often shows a truly magnificent sagacity. It is very difficult to deceive her logically, and it is impossible to disarm her emotionally. Her revolt against the pruderies and sentimentalities of the world was evidence, to begin with, of her intellectual enterprise and courage, and her success as a rebel is proof of her extraordinary pertinacity, resourcefulness and acumen. Even the most lowly prostitute is better off, in all worldly ways, than the virtuous woman of her own station in life. She has less work to do, it is less monotonous and dispiriting, she meets a far greater variety of men, and they are of classes distinctly beyond her own. Nor is her occupation hazardous and her ultimate fate tragic. A dozen or more years ago I observed a somewhat amusing proof of this last. At that time certain sentimental busybodies of the American city in which I lived undertook an elaborate inquiry into prostitution therein, and some of them came to me in advance, as a practical journalist, for advice as to how to proceed. I found that all of them shared the common superstition that the professional life of the average prostitute is only five years long, and that she invariably ends in the gutter. They were enormously amazed when they unearthed the truth. This truth was to the effect that the average prostitute of that town ended her career, not in the morgue but at the altar of God, and that those who remained unmarried often continued in practice for ten, fifteen and even twenty years, and then retired on competences. It was established, indeed, that fully eighty per cent. married, and that they almost always got husbands who would have been far beyond their reach had they remained virtuous. For one who married a cabman or petty pugilist there were a dozen who married respectable mechanics, policemen, small shopkeepers and minor officials, and at least two or three who married well-to-do tradesmen and professional men. Among the thousands whose careers were studied there was actually one who ended as the wife of the town's richest banker--that is, one who bagged the best catch in the whole community. This woman had begun as a domestic servant, and abandoned that harsh and dreary life to enter a brothel. Her experiences there polished and civilized her, and in her old age she was a grande dame of great dignity. Much of the sympathy wasted upon women of the ancient profession is grounded upon an error as to their own attitude toward it. An educated woman, hearing that a frail sister in a public stew is expected to be amiable to all sorts of bounders, thinks of how she would shrink from such contacts, and so concludes that the actual prostitute suffers acutely. What she overlooks is that these men, however gross and repulsive they may appear to her, are measurably superior to men of the prostitute's own class--say her father and brothers--and that communion with them, far from being disgusting, is often rather romantic. I well remember observing, during my collaboration with the vice-crusaders aforesaid, the delight of a lady of joy who had attracted the notice of a police lieutenant; she was intensely pleased by the idea of having a client of such haughty manners, such brilliant dress, and what seemed to her to be so dignified a profession. It is always forgotten that this weakness is not confined to prostitutes, but runs through the whole female sex. The woman who could not imagine an illicit affair with a wealthy soap manufacturer or even with a lawyer finds it quite easy to imagine herself succumbing to an ambassador or a duke. There are very few exceptions to this rule. In the most reserved of modern societies the women who represent their highest flower are notoriously complaisant to royalty. And royal women, to complete the circuit, not infrequently yield to actors and musicians, i.e., to men radiating a glamour not encountered even in princes. Henry L. Mencken

A good summary of why it should not be legal in terms of actual damage done to the women: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0261.htm It links to a few studies from here: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/ which in turn has studies all over the place, here's a good (long) summary: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdfs/Myths%20&%20Facts%20Legal%20&%20Illegal%20Prostitution%203-09.pdf The gist of it all is that legal prostitution increases crime, legal prostitutes are raped more, have more mental health issues (ptsd, suicide, etc), are still exploited, are still forced into prostituting (4 out of 5 women in legal brothels want out), so on and so forth. On the bare surface, sure, it may look like no one is getting hurt when you legalize it, but research shows that notion couldn't be farther from the truth. Having lived a great deal of my life in locales where prostitution is legal, I am underwhelmed by the arguments against it. Given the "fair and balanced" sources you cite, I am not apt to give much credence to them. I expect as unbiased a treatment of the subject as might be expected of Al Sharpton's dissertation on racism or the DEA's stance on the 'war on drugs.' Do I recommend drugs, alcohol, gambling or prostitution? Not hardly. Is there any reason to think that the proscription of said 'vices' has any net benefit? None whatsoever. As Eric Sevareid said, "the chief cause of problems is solutions," and the never-ending - and universally unsuccessful - attempts to legislate morality are prime examples of this principle. One has the right to be wrong, but I can see no benefit to the vigorous exercise of such a right. BSBD, Winsor

Love is one thing, niknik quite another.

You clearly have me confused with someone else. Or you don't know what demonstrably means. Or you don't know what manichean means. Romney's economic plan is not mathematically sound. That's a much bigger deal than conservatives would like to admit. By golly, you're right! I much prefer the mathematically sound economic plan offered by, uh, lemme think, it's, uh... Come to think of it, P.J. O'Rourke did a pretty good job of it; I think it was at the conclusion of "Parliament of Whores."

Don't sweat the details.

The minimum wage should be increased. No! Chuck Why not? Simply mandate that every job pays at least $100 an hour and EVERYONE is happy! Workers have bunches of money, the tax base is sufficient to cover our expenses - what's the down side?

Not necessarily - by privatizing SS, raiding the cookie jar would become illegal. This is to say that, if a private entity behaved like Congress, it would be a criminal offense. What the Legislature did with the "SS Trust Fund" was right out of Bernie Madoff's play book. Admittedly, Bernie Madoff robbed everyone blind as well, but at least we could lock his ass up when all was said and done. No such luck with the elected goniffs.

he is in fact endorsing Ryan's budget. At least they have one. Why do you need a budget when you can simply say "put it on my tab?" It's worked so far; what could possibly go wrong?

Yes, it does. The functionality of (self-)hypnosis has been researched, so if you want to argue with science, be my guest and be a Christian. All theology is man-made and man-centred. "In the beginning, god created man. Man, being a gentleman, returned the favor." Clarence Darrow

I hate to break it to you, but breeders are hardly role models for responsible lifestyles. I know that comes as a complete surprise, but it's true. I worked for years in a technical department that was at least 50% female, and very few were straight (long story). The women that were FUBAR were all on the straight side of things, and I much preferred to be on assignment with the gay women, since they did not take offense at the fact that I do not date at the office and their level of professionalism was top-notch. The only people with whom I have worked that let their personal lives impact their profession have been straight. One guy who wasn't died of AIDS, but I'm not sure if that counts. All that aside, I am impressed if whiskey works as advertised in your case. It sure as hell did not agree with me, and I foreswore alcohol over a quarter of a century ago. Your dog will eat bananas of any description? I know ferrets love them, but I never had any luck feeding fruit to canines. As far as converting anything goes, to thine own self be true and you should be fine. BSBD, Winsor

False, you need a YouTube video before it becomes Truth. You're right, of course. If there is no video, it didn't happen.

True, the placebo effect can produce an impressive 20-30% response. Kind of demonstrates how we are hard wired to believe in something outside of ourselves. Nice thing about belief in God, He is 100%. ... Wow, since you said it on the Internet, it has to be the truth.

He did. Unfortunately, it was a null set.

Look, they had WMDs and we have the receipts to prove it. Actually, if possession of WMDs constitutes a casus belli, we're screwed. The US of A is WMD Central, and we're the only country that has used Nuclear, Chemical AND Biological agents in practice. If there is anyone who cannot be trusted with WMDs, it's us. Saddam Hussein was a rank amateur. He killed, what, a few thousand people with chemical agents? Hell, we wiped out orders of magnitude more, and acieved a kill rate that was the envy of many an aspiring master of genocide (think Shoshone - 100% kill rate on various tribes by deliberate and methodical infection with smallpox). I recall Pik Botha's reaction to Jimmy Carter's criticism, where he said that following the US' example on treatment of its indiginous population was out of the question, since they couldn't justify killing all those people. Well, the Iraq invasion may have been pointless, but at least it cost a staggering amount of money. "Can we afford it? Sure, just put it on our tab." BSBD, Winsor

After Katrina, there were quite a few displaced New Orleans denizens who found themselves in the Houston area. You can only imagine their indignation when they found out that Texas does not accept the enlightened principle of a "90 day killing." It seems that the general practice back home was to lay low for 90 days after you "capped your homey's ass," after which the case was put into the "unsolved" bin and forgotten. Texas, however, made a point of arresting, trying, convicting and executing people for murders that were just part of doing business - regardless of the passage of time. This was widely viewed as being patently unfair, and there were strong objections raised against the Texas authorities' failure to recognize accepted social norms. One way or another, committing murder in Texas is a singularly bad career move, and staying well clear of people give to such actions is strongly advised. BSBD, Winsor