Every now and then.....

....I get reminded that a place one would consider to be one of the safest places on the planet can, in a moment, turn quite dangerous.

I don't carry my CCW often, and when I do, WifeofAzlib often thinks I'm crazy for doing so. But this event can happen any time in any grocery store, mall or movie theater in America (and frankly, I'm surprised that it hasn't happened more frequently). WifeofAzlib, SonofAzlib, and Dau#1ofAzlib are all old enough to CCW, yet each for their own reasons have chosen to not get their permits. I'm hoping that they each reconsider. SonofAzlib has a nice CCW weapon, a Walther PPS, but he rarely shoots it. Dau#1- and WifeofAzlib each have .380 handguns, but they get to the range even less frequently, and frankly the .380 is a sub-standard caliber anyway. They don't know this yet, but they may be getting something in a 9mm sometime before Christmas.

And I will be carrying my Glock23c more frequently.

BTW, the media are now wondering how a shooter with two handguns could get off so many shots. Its not hard at all. A Glock17 has a standard magazine capacity of 17 rounds, and third-party magazines are available up to 33 rounds. Do this with two handguns and you're at 68 rounds without having to reload....more than enough to kill 11 and injure 31.

Obama in Cairo on Islam....

I confess to not having watched His (sic) speech in its entirety, but I've seen enough to know that I'm not impressed.

Neither is Amir Taheri of the New York Post. A snippet.....

President Obama's "address to the Muslim world" was a masterwork of equivocation and political naiveté.

Lots of commentators have already debunked Zero's acknowlegment of "civilization's debt to Islam"--"the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing." However, what caught my eye was when Zero repeated one of the reliable canards of the Left: "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world."

The war in Iraq was not a "war of choice". We brought the matter to the U.N. and were able to get the U.N. Security Council to vote unanimously that, among other things, "the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations".

The Congress fully debated the question of going to war with Iraq. The Iraq War Authorization passed the House 297-133 (including 82 Democrats voting in favor) and the Senate 77-23. More Democrat Senators voted for the Resolution than voted against it (29 voting for; 21 voting against). Included in those Senators voting for what Zero calls a "war of choice" are his Vice President, who was "perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administration's decision to invade that oil-rich country" and Zero's Secretary of State, who, in her then-capacity as a Senator, also voted for the Resolution.

It is an outrage that Zero would go onto foreign soil (not to mention Islamic foreign soil) and cast the Iraq War as a little-debated question, decided upon rashly, and without adequate consideration for other methods of solving the Iraq problem. The world and this country fully looked at the problem we faced in Iraq, and openly decided on a course of action.

That Zero disageed with that decision, and was in the minority at the time, does not make it now a "War of choice".

Teleprompter Jesus....

...A richly-deserved term for Zero's habit of relying on his teleprompter to tell him what is on his mind, is now morphing into....

President Strawman. Once again, Zero erects the strawman with the implication that "the Bush administration was fighting Islam", and now President Strawman will reverse course and knock that strawman down.

[OK. OK. OK. It's only 8am and I see I've already used up my daily quota of mixed metaphors. Gotta work on that.]

Bhutto Dead...

I can't say I know more than just the simplest facts about Bhutto but the news [Edit]that she has been assassinated is not good. Not at all. [Graphic photos, here. Be forewarned.]

The Islamists will see this as a victory. Murdering a candidate for office...a woman...is a victory for them. Their brutality has no bounds. As things appear to be working in Iraq, we need to keep in mind just who our enemy is.

Seen first at Captain Ed's place (along with his insightful analysis here), but it'll be discussed just about everywhere else on the net too.

Edit: My gold-bug internet acquaintance is saying that this will be the trigger for another World War in the same way that the assignation of Archduke Ferdinand was the trigger for WWI.