Steven Seagal: Pistolero?

March 16th, 2010

You may have noticed the (relatively) new show on A&E (A&E?) called Steven Seagal Lawman, which features his real-life work with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana.


In Full-Bore Squinty Mode

Seagal is an easy person to dislike. As an actor, he’s a fine martial artist, and as a movie martial artist, he’s not 1/10th as engaging as Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris. Plus there was that scathing article in Spy magazine back in the 1990s that basically accused him of being an asshole phony who hung out with mafia figures. And don’t get me started on his music career.

So it’s easy view his job as a part-time police officer as some sort of publicity stunt. On the other hand, Seagal has evidently been doing this for 20 years, which is an absurdly long time to do something just as a publicity stunt, especially since Seagal was a big enough star in the late 80s and early 90s that he probably could have spent the time snorting blow off the backs of hookers instead. So more power to him.

Since Dwight over at Whipped Cream Difficulties has some sort of ironic attachment to Mr. Seagal (it was his fault I ended up watching Urban Justice, and lo it did stink unto the heavens), he insisted that we watch the premier episode of Steven Seagal Lawman, which is basically Cops except duller. But what made me bring it up for the purpose of this blog was the part during the show where Seagal offers some firearms training to a fellow officer, during which Seagal seemed to shoot some nice tight groups.


Dwight made me watch it. Learn from my misfortune.

Since I know noted firearms instructor Karl Rehn (who you may remember from his piece on the Ft. Hood shooter), I thought I would solicit his impressions on Mr. Seagal’s training technique.

Here are Karl’s comments:

Observations:

Seagal appears to be a good shot and does seem to understand the fundamentals.
The grip he uses is “state of the art” circa 1975 – not a bad grip but not as good as what 99% of the schools teach now.
The more upper body and grip strength you have the less technique matters when it comes to grip and stance.

Grip’s not as important as trigger manipulation and that’s basically what he was telling his student, and that’s what they were working on during the session.

You can always teach an accurate shooter to go faster; it’s harder to teach a fast, sloppy shooter to shoot accurately.

Minus a few points for the student not wearing eye protection when shooting – particularly since they were shooting steel plates for some of the drills. You never know with these TV things whether the student chose to wear his sunglasses on his hat instead of on his eyes because the producer told him to, or because he was having trouble seeing the sights through the dark glasses and they didn’t have any clear glasses with them, or nobody thought about it because there are still a lot of folks out there that don’t treat eye protection as mandatory when shooting.

So, in summary: Seagal’s firearms advice may not be state-of-the-art, but you could do worse.

FWIW, here’s another view of Seagal’s pistol prowess, this one from a first-hand perspective.

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Posted in Guns, Media Watch | 4 Comments »

ObamaCare House Scorecard Update: Is Rep. Jason Altmire, PA 04, Flipping to Yes?

March 11th, 2010

Here is an updated list of where Democratic House members stand on ObamaCare, courtesy of Take Back Medicine. All evidence points to Pelosi not having the votes, but that assumes that the Stupak 12 can’t be bought off, and things are very much in flux.

One of the interesting things on that list is that they show three original No votes on ObamaCare flipping to Yes this time:

I hope to examine each in turn, but for now let’s focus on Altmire.

Rep. Jason Altmire

Altmire sounds like less than a firm “Yes” in this Fox News interview, although he does think that the Senate bill plus reconciliation will provide more cost containment than the House bill he voted against. Of course, if the Senate ObamaCare bill passes the House, it can become law without any reconciliation…

He also says he’s waiting on the CBO score.

Tea Party Protesters are targeting his office.

Personal Background

Interestingly, Altmire saw firsthand how the attempt to pass ClintonCare wrecked many congressional careers:

“It was clear [the White House] was trying to do everything all at once, and even I knew at the time that in the districts like the one [Florida Democratic Rep. Pete] Peterson represented, it had no chance of getting political support”

Also interesting is that he worked as “a lobbyist for the Federation of American Hospitals.” They’re one of the Big Medicine backers of ObamaCare.

District Background

Pennsylvania’s 4th Congressional District lies just north of Pittsburgh on the Ohio border, and is competitive-to-leans-conservative. According to these handy figures compiled by folks on the other side, it went for McCain over Obama 55% to 44%, and went for Bush over both Kerry and Gore.

ObamaCare doesn’t seem to be particularly popular among Altmire’s constituents:

PA-4 Jason Altmire
81% worry the health bill will raise their taxes.
93% say it’s very or somewhat likely that his vote will matter in November.
30% favor health bill while 58% oppose.
29% favor use of reconciliation 60% oppose

There are rumors that Pittsburgh Steeler great Lynn Swann, who ran as a Republican for Governor in 2006, may jump into the race against Altmire.

His Backers

According to Open Secrets, three of the top five industries contributing to Altmire’s campaign are related to the health care industry:

Top 5 Industries, 2009-2010, Campaign Cmte
Industry Total Indivs PACs
Health Professionals $74,160 $18,160 $56,000
Mining $53,100 $37,100 $16,000
Lawyers/Law Firms $51,446 $34,246 $17,200
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $50,350 $20,850 $29,500
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $47,421 $9,375 $38,046

A list of his biggest donors. Notice the donations from HealthSouth CEO Jay Grinney.

Also of interest: Joel W. McCleary, who you may remember from his ties to the late John Murtha.

Contact Information

Here’s the contact information from his House website. If you live in PA 04, you might wish to contact the Congressman to let him know of your opposition to ObamaCare:

Main Offices

Please direct all written correspondence to the Aliquippa District Office.

Aliquippa Office
2110 McLean Street
Aliquippa, PA 15001
724-378-0928
724-378-6171 (fax)

Natrona Heights Office
2124 Freeport Road
Natrona Heights, PA 15065
724-226-1304
724-226-1308 (fax)

Washington, D.C. Office
332 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-2565
202-226-2274(fax)

Satellite Offices

Cranberry Township Office

Cranberry Township Municipal Building
2525 Rochester Road
Cranberry Township, PA 16066-6499
1:30 pm to 5:00 pm – First and Third Thursdays of every month

Ellwood City Office

Ellwood City Municipal Building
Lawrence Avenue
Ellwood City, PA 16117
2:00 pm to 6:00pm – 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month

Farrell Office

Farrell City Building
500 Roemer Blvd
Farrell, PA 16121
9 am to 1:00 pm – 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month

Murrysville Office

Murrysville Municipal Building
4100 Sardis Road
Murrysville, PA 15668
2 pm to 4 pm – Second Tuesday of every month
4 pm to 7 pm – Fourth Tuesday of every month

New Castle Office

Lawrence County Government Center
430 Court Street
1st Floor Caucus Room
New Castle, PA 16101
8:00 am to 4:00 pm – Every Wednesday and Friday

Ross Township Office

Ross Township Municipal Building
Recreation Center
1000 Ross Municipal Drive
Pittsburgh,PA 15237
9:00 am to 12:00 pm – First and Third Thursdays of every month

Here’s an email contact form.

Here’s a page to request a personal meeting with Altmire. That page also supplies an email address altmireschedule@mail.house.gov to contact for a personal meeting.

You might also consider trying to contact him through his campaign’s website.

Conclusion

If Altmire does vote in favor of ObamaCare this time around, PA 04 would be a prime target for Republicans to flip in November.

Updated: More protests at Altmire’s offices.

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Posted in Democrats, ObamaCare | 9 Comments »

They’ll Get My Melatonin When They Pry It From My Calm, Well-Rested Fingers!

March 10th, 2010

Just because Nancy Pelosi and company are doing their best to drag Zombie ObamaCare across the finish line doesn’t mean that there aren’t other bad ideas floating around Congress.

One bad idea that thankfully won’t be passing anytime soon was embodied in S. 3002, sponsored by none other than Sen. John McCain until he decided to withdraw it yesterday. It would have empowered the FDA to regulate food supplements, and regulating them would probably have meant banning some, and raising the prices of others in order to satisfy the FDA’s lengthy safety testing requirements.

This would have been a bad thing.

Make no mistake about it: There’s a whole lot of quackery in the health supplement business, with unprovable claims and inexplicable fads (shark cartilage, anyone?), and I’m sure that many health supplements (very possibly including some I take) do nothing more than make expensive urine. And like anything else, you can’t keep idiots from abusing them, which is why I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some dope has managed to give themselves heavy metal poisoning or destroy their kidneys. (Just like those super-geniuses who managed to turn themselves blue ingesting colloidal silver.)

But the purpose of government is not to protect people from themselves, it’s to protect people from others. And my fear is that the FDA might well have started banning supplements left and right so as to respond to pressure from politicians who receive big bucks from the pharmaceutical industry (especially given how cozy the Obama Administration got with them when crafting the backroom deals to buy off their support for ObamaCare). Or maybe just because the employees of supplement makers aren’t members of the SEIU.

In my lifetime, I’ve probably benefited the most from two wonder drugs. One was Claritin, which managed to relieve allergies so well (without making you groggy the way old anti-histamines would) that it was well worth paying the $3 a pill price it went for if you didn’t have insurance just before it was made over-the-counter. (Now it’s more like 5 cents a pill if you buy the generic version at Sam’s.)

The other one was Melatonin. Throughout my 20s, I suffered from moderate chronic insomnia. My brain simply would not shut off when I laid down to go to sleep. And traditional anti-histamines-based sleep aids left me feeling like my skull was stuffed with cotton the next morning. When I was young I could get away with it, but the older I got the tireder I got. Until I tried Melatonin.

The difference was like (ahem) night and day. I take a pill a couple of hours before going to bed, resulting in a full night of REM sleep and no grogginess in the morning.here don’t appear to be any significant negative side effects, and my guess is that tens of millions of Americans are taking it to get a good night’s sleep.

Which is why I was worried that S. 3002 would have lead to a ban on Melatonin, especially since it’s already banned for over-the-counter use in Europe and Canada. Has it looked like it was going to pass, the first thing I was going to do was stock-up on a lifetime supply of the stuff. But why should I have to?

McCain evidently received a boatload of mail opposing the bill from constituents, and decided to actually pay attention to their complaints. (Which puts him one up on Obama, Pelosi and Reid.) So score one for the forces of liberty this time around.

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Posted in ObamaCare, Regulation, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Hurt Locker Beats Dances With Smurfs For The Best Picture Oscar

March 8th, 2010

An outcome I found quite gratifying. (Especially since The Hurt Locker is actually a very good movie.) I’m not the only one to think so.

So let’s see: Every time Hollywood makes a film that shows American soldiers as heroes fighting difficult wars (The Hurt Locker, Black Hawk Down), they make money. Every time Hollywood makes a film depicting U.S. troops as bloodthirsty psychopaths (Redacted, Home of the Brave, etc.), they don’t just lose money, they hemorrhage it.

Is it possible for Hollywood to figure out that left-wing anti-war films with American troops as the villains don’t sell? (At least not unless you put tall blue aliens in as they good guys.) It’s probably too much to ask…

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Posted in Media Watch | No Comments »

Oh no! Not an ad in The New York Times! We’re DOOOOMED!

March 6th, 2010

Via Instapundit comes word that proponents of anthropogenic global warming are getting tired of all that annoying skepticism over tiny little things like “missing data,” “corrupted peer review processes” and “stuff just made up out of thin air.” And they’re not going to stand for it any more! They’re going to hit back at those skeptics hard, real hard! They’re going to (brace yourself for this) take out an ad in The New York Times!

Oh no, not The New York Times! Not that! Just imagine the impact that will have on the 3% of the NYT readership that doesn’t already believe in global warming! It’s like trying to influence the NRA by threatening to take out an ad against them in the local vegetarian newsletter.

But on reflection, a global warming ad isn’t designed to change minds the minds of skeptics any more than a papal encyclical on original sin is designed to sway the mind of Christopher Hitchins. It’s designed to reassure the global warming faithful that the high priests of AGW will fight to maintain the faith, and that unbelievers and heretics will be punished. For that, The New York Times is the perfect vehicle.

They’re not trying to convince the other side. They’re preaching to the chorus.

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Posted in Global Warming, Media Watch | No Comments »

More on Perry’s Victory

March 3rd, 2010

This Michael Barone piece shows Perry beating Hutchison pretty much everywhere, but racking up a particularly large margin in metro-Houston, which would seem to bode well for defeating former Houston Mayor Bill White in November.

Updated: A piece from Kevin Williamson in NRO on Perry’s victory. I think he overstates the Ron Paul component of the Tea Party. (I also think most Paul supporters themselves were less wedded to his fringe isolationist and conspiracy theory views than they were with his populist anger at the GOP establishment that had abandoned conservative principles of fiscal discipline in favor of pork-fueled cronyism.)

Updated 2 From Danny Huddleston at American Thinker: “Note to all Republicans running for office anywhere in America, stick to Reagan conservatism and you will win. Contrary to popular belief independents don’t want moderate candidates, they want authentic candidates with core values.”

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

Instant Analysis: Why Perry Beat Hutchison Like A Rented Mule

March 2nd, 2010

As of now, just after 10 PM, Perry is winning big enough to avoid a run-off, and Hutchison conceded. That was the exact opposite of what most pundits predicted when Hutchison got into the race 18 months ago. After all, Perry was considered by many (including many conservatives) to be, not to put too fine a point on it, an asshole. He built up a reputation for cronyism with the attempted Trans-Texas Corridor land grab and the vaccine fiasco, both of which involved former aides. His love of toll roads (even converting existing, paid-for roads into toll roads) rubbed many Texans the wrong way. His veto of the post-Kelo eminent domain reform HB 2006 pissed off still more people, many of whom view the later 2009 Constitutional Amendments addressing the issue (Proposition 2, Proposition 3) as weak substitutes.

But in the end, none of that mattered. As many commentators noted, Hutchison’s best day was the day she announced, and it’s been downhill ever since. Why? Many reasons, but here are a few of the main ones:

  1. Perry ran a much better campaign, running hard and never letting up. Hutchison expected people to vote for her because she was popular (routinely racking up 65% of the vote in general elections) and wasn’t Rick Perry. Perry asked for people to vote for him because he was conservative.
  2. For all his numerous missteps, Perry has actually gotten the big picture right: keeping the budget balanced, refusing to even consider a state income tax, and generally not screwing up the Texas economy. Even in today’s serious recession, Texas running rings around high-tax states like California. Perry deserves real credit for that.
  3. In a year when outrage against big-spending in Washington is at a rolling boil, Perry was able to successfully paint Hutchison as a Washington insider, a task made easier by Hutchison’s unapologetic defense of earmarking. He was able to do this because, while Hutchison’s voting record is conservative by the standards of the U.S. Senate, it’s not particularly conservative by the standards of Texas. There’s always been a suspicion by many rank and file Texas Republicans that Hutchison is a little bit of a “squishy” conservative, much like George W. Bush, who was dinged by conservatives numerous times for his free-spending ways.
  4. Perry constantly courted Tea Party activists despite the presence of Tea Party favorite Debra Medina in the race. As an energetic and widespread movement, the Tea Party voters he was able to win away from Medina probably put him over the top.

There are many other reasons, but running the best campaign, and as more conservative than Hutchison in a very conservative year, was enough to clinch the deal for Perry.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

Republican Primary on Tuesday, March 2: State Senate District 5, Ogden vs. Bius

March 1st, 2010

The State Senate District 5 race pits incumbent Steve Ogden vs. challenger Ben Bius.

Some news articles on the race:

  • A Statesmen article. Ogden’s semi-slam of the Tea Party movement doesn’t exactly endear himself to me. Yes, I’m sure you can find some Perot and Ron Paul supporters among it’s ranks, but to suggest it’s entirely made up of them is both unwise and politically tone-deaf.
  • The Bryan/College Station Eagle.
  • The Texas Tribune. It seems in the week between the Statesman article and this one, someone gave Odgen a clue-by-four, as he’s reined in his Tea Party criticisms.

I am irritated by the fact that Ogden’s campaign website features no obvious link for “issues” or “positions.” You would think that would be a pretty fundamental requirement when you’re running for office. Maybe Ogden thinks he’s above such things.

Ogden is no liberal; he’s been endorsed by the Young Conservative of Texas, among others. But he has been playing up the “old experienced hand” angle. (“Look at me! I’m an insider!”) He also voted against allowing concealed carry on college campuses, and initially supported Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor boondoggle.

Bius is generally good on the issues, but I don’t like the fact that he brags about his conservative, budget-cutting ways, then turns around and slags Ogden for derailing a retired teacher cost-of-living adjustment. “I’m for controlling spending, except when it costs me votes.” On the other hand, he gets points for making the ending of inter-generational welfare dependency a centerpiece of his campaign.

If the Statesman article is to be believed, Ogden has raised about 100x as much campaign money as Bius, which would suggest he’s a shoe-in. However, it’s a bad year for clueless Republican incumbents to dismiss Tea Party voters. Right now I’m leaning toward Bius as being the more conservative candidate.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »

Republican Primary on Tuesday, March 2nd: House District 52

February 28th, 2010

Another election season is upon us. If you’re anything like me, down-ballot local races don’t get a lot of my attention until the election is nearly upon me. As partial recompense, I’ll try to through up a few links to southern Williamson County races, starting with Texas House District 52.

Here’s an overview of all Williamson County races from the people at Impact News (which provides a surprisingly good free monthly newspaper).

Here are links to the issue pages of the four candidates respective websites:

And here are some resource links on the race:

Quick and Dirty Analysis: Gonzales is probably the closest to an “insider” in the race, having garnered the most endorsements, and he and Gordon (running as the Christian/social conservative “values I learned from my father” candidate) have raised the most money. Alyssa Eacono and Stephen Casey are somewhat policy wonkish longshots. Right now I’m sort of leaning toward Casey, in the full expectation that he’ll get slaughtered in the primary. My guess would be Gonzales either wins outright or goes to a runoff with Gordon. All would be a vast improvement over Democratic incumbent Diana Maldonado.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 2 Comments »

Mark Steyn on The Greek’s Welfare State Tragedy (And Our Own)

February 28th, 2010

I’ve talked about the problems facing countries like Greece and Spain before.

The problem with this Mark Steyn piece isn’t what to quote, but rather what not to quote. It’s filled with the usual Steyn pith, vigor, and remorseless demographic logic.

While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen – because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18.

What’s happening in the developed world today isn’t so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they’ve reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over.

Snippage.

So you can’t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don’t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

Snippage.

When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Which is true enough. But there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. That’s the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people’s response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months’ work – for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?

We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap’s enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest. He’s got his, and to hell with everyone else. People’s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

Read the whole thing.

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Posted in Economics, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | 5 Comments »

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