a dog-eared town

And good for them!

The Concord Monitor, obviously conflicted between a gun toting gay man, has a quick Q&A with Ryan Marvin who is resurrecting the Pink Pistol chapter in New Hampshire.

I think more people should own guns in this country. I think when people take it upon themselves to learn and legally carry weapons we have a better group of citizens. Increased concealed carry does not lead to more “old western” style cities and towns. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can google it and find the studies.

As for gay people, they above a lot of people should know how to defend themselves. It’s a rotten part of life that many people are insecure around gay men and women. And those that are the most insecure tend to lash out against gay men and women. If they knew how to defend themselves they wouldn’t be a statistic. After all, an armed society IS a polite society. And if you never know whether that person is armed, you’re a lot less likely to try and assault someone.

While I’m not quite on the same level as The Professor, where he says “My ideal world, in which, as I’ve said before, happily married gay couples have closets full of assault weapons”, but I’m close to that.

All in all, it’s always a good thing when citizens of New Hampshire learn to defend themselves whether or not they’re gay. Good luck to them. And if you want to get in touch with them, the article says you can email Ryan and they provided the email address.

The Politico has a story that I’m sure republicans on capital hill have read but completely dismiss it as nothing more than a fairy tale.

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

…

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

And in case you think I’m just joking on the delusional congressional critters, here’s one obviously lucid critter.

Although a top House Republican brushed aside Gingrich’s broadside as “hype from a has-been who desperately wants to be a player but can’t anymore,”

Um yeah. Calling the congressional republicans clueless is being generous.

I don’t know if they’ve noticed but McCain, who already has enough votes for the nomination had 26% of republicans vote for someone besides him in North Carolina. It was 22% in Indiana that voted against McCain.

And there’s no one in the leadership that realizes the ship is sinking?

I guess Fergus must just be following the national leadership with his stewardship of the New Hampshire republicans. Nice to see the incompetence is not just at the local level.

Now here’s something you don’t see everyday.

Hey it’s Obi-Wan and Luke skywalker.

“With [Obi-Wan Kenobi], for a European feel I went for a more traditional knight, rather then the Asian samurai robes. I wanted the look of Kenobi’s head to look like a guy who had been hiding out and keeping low. I also wanted it too have the feel of an elderly warrior who put on his old armor for one last adventure. I went for a thinner frame, kind of Don Quixote-esque. I thought the antique armor worked as the Jedi are established as an ancient and dead order. I gave the armor the riveted steampunk feel. I also made it look old, tarnished, and little rusty. With the shoulder pauldrons and waist tunic, I tried to evoke the brown Jedi robes, I also felt they gave the armor a ceremonial feel. The lightsaber is connected to the same power pack as Luke.

But don’t worry, we also have the big bad meany, Vader.

Now that’s pretty cool.

To see some more pictures and some additional characters you can visit the guy who makes these at his website, silof.com.

And so the Concord Monitor asks the question of the decade here in the great state of New Hampshire. And they continue with a little bit of well deserved trashing of the New Hampshire republicans.

Surely the New Hampshire GOP isn’t going to let another gubernatorial election go by without putting up a fight. But time’s a-wasting. There are just six months to go before Election Day and no signs of a credible Republican campaign for governor. Yes, state Sen. Joe Kenney of Wakefield says he’s in, but so far he appears to be getting little attention from even his own party.

And all of this comes to pass because of the poor “leadership” of the republican party of New Hampshire. Granted, not all of this is Fergus’ fault. This problem has been building for awhile. It’s just that the republicans as a political party are in complete and utter dissarray and yet continue to do nothing.

If they continue to do nothing whilst Concord burns, Fergus is going to be remembered as the last of the republicans who could do something and didn’t. And the sad thing is that there are some simple things he could do to stop the slide. The first thing is to make a website that’s, you know, usable. I mean, the top banner is make a donation and the banner below that is, again, a donation button. Hey, any information? Other than the screamingly stupid “blog” that takes up most of the front page? No. No real information. It’s a poorly designed and poorly thought out website that does nothing to engage me as a website user.

And why am I going to give them money?

Anyway, I think I’ll have to create a series on simple usable items the republicans can use to create a viable party again. I suppose the libertarians could follow along but really, they just want to have a debating party and not actually win elections. But that’s just my unlearned two pennies.

I guess my first advice to Fergus would be to fire whoever is running your website. Then go hire a professional designer who knows what a modern website is and how it can benefit you. Sort of like the dems have done with their website.

I know it would be painful acknowledging the dems have a better website and are doing a better job at running a party, but recognizing you’ve hit bottom is a painful process that you have to go through. Your job is to run a party not a social club. Time to get to it.

Ahh working for a public company is such a fun thing, except at the end of the quarter. Then it’s work as much as possible to make wall street happy. Ah well. It could be worse. At least it is only 4 times a year.

And with such fun things to talk about too.

Guess I’ll have to catch up this weekend.

If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.”

– Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 21, 1787)

See Al, hope you don’t mind me calling you Al, but you’re only thinking of a tax on a few items. When the government taxes everything, what are you going to do, not live? Of course not and so the rise of government marches ever onward taking more and more money and freedoms.

And we let it continue.

How sad.

This is a really funny story.

Vendors and presenters from various eco-friendly groups, including Bullfrog Power, CO2 Reduction Edmonton and the local solar energy society, crammed into a lone tent in Hawrelak Park after a blizzard forced them to abandon their original locations.

Ha. Ha ha. That’s funny.

But don’t worry, the soldiers in the movement went on despite the blizzard.

“Obviously we’ll have fewer people than we would have liked, but to cancel an Earth Day event because of weather would kind of be the antithesis of what this is all about,” said organizer Janice Boudreau.

“This isn’t about celebrating just the parts of the Earth that we like, it’s about celebrating all of it.

Yeah. It’s celebrating all of it even if it has been one of the colder and snowier winters in a long time and all that. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s not let facts get in the way of our arguments…lol.

And in related news.

All that April snow this weekend was more than surprising — it was also record-setting.

The flakes that fell across the Vancouver region Friday night and Saturday represent the latest snowfall ever on record.

And in Alaska…

Juneau’s snowfall record for April 17 was buried under more than a half-foot of snow Thursday.

I know, one data point does not make a trend. What bugs me is how people went on and on about the hot summer and really, that was a data point, but it was a data point that helped push their politics and now this sort of evens out that data point but I’m not seeing stories about the coming new ice age.