Strikeforce Fights Still Sucks Compared to UFC Fights

But sometimes you get a genuinely entertaining AND technical fight

Not Fedor’s last fight, where he forgot that huge punching power and a good leg-lock based game doesn’t beat somebody who’se active guard lets them slap an armbar on you when you follow them to the ground.

Not the fact that they have a female ChuteBoxe monster who doesn’t compare to other female fighters and does what ChuteBoxe fighters did for years in the IVC amd other vale tudo circuits – overwhelm their opponents with physicality, aggression and often way more muscle (Id love to see her fight Erin Toughill but I understand why Erin wanted to leave Strikeforce – it’s a flawed league in many ways). 

Not even the way Nick TRI/IM Diaz clearly intimidated Evangalista Santos (speaking of ChuteBoxe aggression *g*) and soft-boxed him until he also foolishly followed him to the ground and got tapped via armbar by a Cesar Gracie BB. I love watching Nick, but he’s only exciting to the technical followers of MMA.

It’s the Robbie Lawler/Jacare Souza fight. Lawler is a boxer and a damned fine one. Souza (a Henrique Machado BB) is a grappling technician that is a joy to watch. Lawler is one of the bext boxers in MMA, and Souza took him down repeatedly – not easy to do – and then simply moved from position to position until he ended it. It was entertaining.

Or even the fact that Nick Diaz

That Inflammatory Rhetoric Coming From the right

is never, ever mirrored by those on the left. Or so I’m told.

Thank goodness I believe what I see instead.

For those who don’t know, Russell Pearce is the Republican Arizona State Senate President (and Senator from my district) who introduced and pushed SB1070 last year. I haven’t seen him personally building any gas chambers or ovens, but maybe I’m not watching closely enough.

I Weep For The Future of Our Country

Not because this dim bulb makes statements like:

The issue is this: The Bill of Rights and the Constitution were written in an era that we are so far removed from, it is ridiculous that we still abide by the same social norms that were accepted in the mid-18th century….“But Chadwick, it’s in the Constitution, so therefore it’s the American standard.” It’s not. We’re in a different time. Today, we tweet, abuse credit cards, watch “Man v. Food” and smoke marijuana, which my Grandma says “turns your brain into a sponge.”

and:

This is one of those scenarios in American politics where the smartest, most intuitive citizens need to force legislation upon the people, even when it is not the popular choice. The leadership roles that Congress and the President have taken oaths to uphold need to make decisions that are blatantly and obviously the correct ones, which will make for a safer country. A safer country, even when many citizens do not have the intellectual abilities to understand that it is the safest choice for them.

as this are exactly the sort of progressive, intellectual elitist claptrap I expect to hear coming out of our nation’s universities these day. It came as no surprise to me that a study such as this (NB: I have issues with the specific methodology used here) reached the conclusions it did. Working in higher education I am woefully aware of the lack of basic reasoning skills lower-level college students possess, and the lack of critical thinking is appalling.

No, it’s the idea that this junior Woodrow Wilson is actually a SENIOR JOURNALISM STUDENT and Editorial Editor for the school newspaper. His writing style is poor, grammar not so hot, fact-checking abysmal and lack of ability to use either rhetoric or logic in even the vaguest of manners would make Socrates hit himself in the head with a stick overandoverandoverandover…..

I can only be thankful that as a Soc/Journalism major from a third-rate (for those programs at least – CSU as a public Research 1 land-grant institution seems to be OK overall) school there’s not a hope in hell this young man will ever find gainful employment in any field where his opinion can sway anybody outside his immediate social circle. Thank God.

H/T to Kurt

More Free Speech?

Guess who said this?

“Instead of running for governor they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him. ”

(Hint: – it wasn’t a conservative gun blogger)

Our winner is – (now former – yeah!) Representative Paul E. Kanjorski – D, PA, referring to the (now) newly elected FL Governor Rick Scott – R.  That’s right. An elected Democrat Federal official said that about a Republican gubernatorial candidate. I wonder if he has been investigated to determine his fitness to possess firearms yet? Somehow, I doubt it.

I always get told that it is we conservative gun owners who engage in violent rhetoric and intimidation.

H/T to Mike W.

The Whole TJICistan Thing

I’ve not written about it because there has been more than enough coverage (for anyone unfamiliar with it Borepatch has a post up that outlines it pretty well here). I will say this, however – given the reading I’ve been doing the last few days on protected speech and the SCt rulings with regards to what constitutes ‘theatening speech’ or ‘inciting violence’ (I recommend a look at Eugene Volokh’s summary), nothing Travis wrote can be considered to be directly threatening or intended to incite violence.

Do I agree with what he has written at times? Nope. He’s on the fringy edge of us anti-authoritarian small government types and his rhetoric sometimes crosses the line of offensiveness.

Does that mean he should be punished for it? Hell no. The point of the First Amendment is to protect speech that causes no demonstrable harm; ESPECIALLY speech critical of our government (read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers and Constitutiomnal Convention Debates, it’s pretty clear).

This action by the Arlington PD is a capricious abuse of an Unconstitutional (IMO) administrative authority rooted in a vaguely worded and unevenly applied law. Exactly the sort of thing I despise abut most levels of government today – the endless proliferation of rules with little or no necessity for their enactment (and at the Federal level, darned little Constitutional authority – the Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses have been viciously abused by Congress and overly broadly interpreted by the judiciary). It is apalling.

Do I agree with what Travis said? No. Will I defend his right to say what he said? Yes.  

I defended years of ‘Kill George Bush’ signs, Sarah Palin being hung in effigy and groups like Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan reviling our military as their right to free speech. This is no different.

When Seconds Count Pt. 2

Woman waits 35 minutes for LEO response to her 9-1-1 call, man breaks into her house and she has to fight him off with a vacuum cleaner.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – you and only you can be responsible for your own safety. The police are responders, not preventers, and they have no legal obligation to stop you from being harmed.

 

Thanks to JayG for this charming little story.

Criminals Are Stupid, Or Something Like It

Robb has a post up that has got me thinking about much of the discussion regarding more gun control after the tragedy in Tucson this past weekend. The gist of it is: 

If we make X illegal, criminals will have to consider the consequences and thus will limit the number of crimes committed.

Yeah, right….

I saw on aboard I frequent a corollary to this which stated (paraphrasing mine, I’m conflating multiple statements for brevity’s sake):

If we make it that much more difficult for criminals to get (30 round magazines) and they have to do that much more jumping through hoops/planning ahead/training, maybe that will make it too difficult for them and they won’t commit the heinous crimes they were planning.

Yeah, right….

In my experience (which is partially based on having a mis-spent youth that involved fraternizing with what can only be called undesirable types), the numerous stories I read and the many, many stories I’ve heard from various LEO’s – criminals are stupid.

They don’t think through the consequences of their actions. If they did, They Wouldn’t Do The Stupid Things They Do! I could provide dozens of links to stories that illustrate my point, but s simple Google search will turn up all the evidence you need. Or spend some time someplace like Officer.com or another LEO board and you’ll see everything you need to convince you that this premise is correct.

As far as preventing something like the shooting this weekend, the shooter could have simply waited 5 days after he bouthg the Glock he used and bought another handgun. Or trained for all of a couple of hours and learned to do a tactical reload with factory magazines that wouldn’t FTF. Considering that he was willing to stop at multiple stores to obtain ammunition, he clearly was willing to jump through some hoops to accomplish his goal. I don’t think making 30 round magazines illegal would have prevented squat.

Just like making things that are uncommon illegal will prevent them from happening unless there is enforcement (there often isn’t – laws like those are used to add additional charges AFTER someone has already been caught for something else, or as an excuse for LE to slap a charge on someone when they couldn’t find anything else to charge them with);  1,000 foot rule regarding Federal officials and firearms? So I’m not allowed to drive up 16th Street past Missouri without it being a felony? Not just no but HELL no. 

And don’t get me started on making already things illegal-er. That accomplishes nothing whatsoever.

I am for the rule of law, always have been. But the proliferation of what strike me as unnecessary laws in the current political environment worries me more than a little.

More On The CCW-Carrying Citizen Who Did The Right Thing in Tucson

Brad over at The Truth about Guns posted a Fox News interview with Joe Zamudio, one of the 4 citizens who subdued that fellow who with any luck will be meted speedy justice rather than run or wait for LE to arrive. He is clearly a good example of what we here in AZ like to think the typical CCW permit holder to be.

 Joe: “I heard gunshots, I ran outside to help. You know, I was carrying a gun and I would have shot him…I, I almost did.”

Geraldo: “Why didn’t you.”

Joe: “They’d already had a-hold of him, and there was a lot of people around him, and I wasn’t going to cause any more collateral damage or scare anybody any further than they needed to be scared. I felt like  I  could hold him down and wait for police, and it wasn’t my responsibility to end his life.”

He showed courage, judgement and responsibility during the couple of seconds he had to react to a horrific situation. At 24 years old, just 2 years older than the murderous nutjob. I’m impressed and only hope I could do as well (though I hope it is never, ever necessary).

When Seconds Count…

the police are 4 minutes away.

I’m not going to add to everything that has already been written about yesterday’s tragic events. But I do want to point out that during the 4 minutes between the first call to 9-1-1 and the PCSO’s first officer arriving on scene 4 regular citizens managed to disarm and subdue the shooter.

Synopsis here; video interview with 2 of the 4 here and here. Please take note – 1 of them was in a nearby store, heard what he knew were gunshots and went out to intervene anyway, and despite carrying a concealed handgun had the presence of mind no t to simply pull it and wade in.

The point to all this is that you cannot rely on the police to protect you – they can’t be everywhere all the time. And most violent crime can be avoided by simply avoiding places where such things are likely and being sufficiently aware of your surroundings and what is going on, but some of it is either random or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. *This* is why the people I know who carry a gun do so. They know they are responsible for their own safety in the end.  4 minutes is a lifetime when somebody wants to do you harm.

I Can’t Remember The Last Time I Thought About Tom Selleck…

But he does a wonderful job of holding up his end of the Reasoned Discourse ™ that somehow comes *this* close to breaking out on the Rosie O’Donnell show. She, of course, fails to carry her end. I didn’t realize he was doing an ad for the NRA (not an organization whose actions I approve of 100%, but I’m still a member).