New Aquisitions

Unfortunately, no pictures. However, 2 new rifles have joined the collection.

Rifle #1 is a very nice Enfield No. 4 Mk.2F, made in 1953. Beautiful wood, lots of finish remaining, and the micrometer sight. Cal. .303 British.

Rifle #2 is the real prize - a Winchester-made M1 Carbine, 1.1 million serial number, and lots of what appear to be original Winchester parts. I'm very excited to find out more about this little beaut.

Now I get to buy some M1 Magazines, a bolt tool, and a trigger spring tool so I can give it a deep cleaning! I love the smell of Hoppes #9!

Sheffield shows his ignorance

In a bit of a departure, I'm going to talk baseball today. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with the game itself, but with the ignorant comments of one of it's players. What makes it even more painful is that the player is one of my beloved Detroit Tigers - Gary Sheffield.

Here are the remarks, from an interview in GQ Magazine:

"I called it years ago. What I called is that you're going to see more black faces, but there ain't no English going to be coming out. … [It's about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do -- being able to control them."

"Where I'm from, you can't control us. You might get a guy to do it that way for a while because he wants to benefit, but in the end, he is going to go back to being who he is. And that's a person that you're going to talk to with respect, you're going to talk to like a man.

"These are the things my race demands. So, if you're equally good as this Latin player, guess who's going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys."

Thus we see the racism that pervades the "Diversity" camp, which teaches us that we must first look at the color of someone's skin and what part of the world them come from to determine how we think about them and how we treat them, rather than treating all with respect and dignity.

Here's a news bulletin, Gary. It's probably a repeat of what your first Little League coach told you, but you were probably too busy thumping your own chest and demanding respect to listen: respect is nothing you can demand from anyone - you must earn it. It isn't automatic And I suspect any respect you were getting from those "Latino" players on your team just went out the window. Why do you want to tear up the clubhouse that has been so good to you, and whose most productive players are "Latino": Ivan Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, Placido Polanco. Not to mention an organization who has had may great players who were not white: Willie Horton, Guillermo (Willie) Hernandez, Aurelio Rodriguez, Ron LeFlore, Gates Brown, Aurelio Lopez. Your ego is getting in the way of your brain, Gary.

Here's another thought for you, Gary. Perhaps these "Latino" guys want it more than you do, and are willing to accept coaching and counsel from those who have been successful before them, so they can be successful too. Perhaps they are more concerned about improving themselves and having the whole team be successful (with the respect that follows) than they are about feeding their own egos first.

I love my Tigers, and I have since I was a little leaguer in the 60's and 70's, but I would rather see them lose 120 games and have a team that represents itself well than to go to the World Series with this kind of player. There is no room for this kind of racism in baseball, and I call on the Tigers and Major League Baseball to deal harshly with Gary Sheffield, for the good of the sport.

Immigration reform

The latest proposal out of Washington has certainly generated a lot of conversation! This supposedly bipartisan plan is by all appearances being fast-tracked through Congress without going through the normal committee hearing process.

Without even going into the details of the plan, I have to ask some questions:

1. If this is such a great plan, why wouldn't the President welcome the Committee process as a chance to get the wonderful details of it into the public eye? Instead, it is a mystery plan that was originally supposed to be voted on without having even been printed up for any sort of study. It seems to me that there were a lot of paranoid people trying to sneak something past us. Now where have we seen that before? Oh yeah - the onerous, so-called "PATRIOT Act". Guess they have a reason to be paranoid, ehh?
   
2. Why does the President say "And my answer to the skeptics is: Give us a chance to fix the problems in a comprehensive way that enforces our border and treats people with decency and respect," the president said. "Give us a chance to fix this problem. Don't try to kill this bill before it gets moving." Why does he think he has any credibility left at all, especially with real conservatives who got him elected but whom he has defecated on at almost every turn?
3. How can he not realize that a solid majority of Americans (over 60 percent, if the polls are to be believed) oppose any sort of amnesty for illegals? I'm not saying that any President should be poll driven, but when poll after poll after poll from all kinds of different sources say the same thing, isn't that a pretty good indicator of what the citizens want?
4. How is it the President can't seem to understand that unless the border is secured and defended, all his other plans are worthless? The flow will increase, not decrease.
5. Oh, by the way - how many miles of that border fence Congress appropriated for and the President signed off on a couple years ago have actually been constructed? Oops, there's that credibility thing again.

This President is not serious about securing the nation. He does a lot of posturing, some speechifying, but it seems that all he is focused on is Iraq. While that is absolutely important, it isn't the only game in town and constitutionally "the common defence" is one of his most important responsibilities, so that we the people might "secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity".