Original caption:  "Soldiers from special force unit 'COE' take part in a military training exercise at the military base, near  Managua, June 13, 2007."

I wonder exactly what kind of background they are supposed to be camouflaged for.  I keep thinking it has something to do with a flour factory that's being used to hide a hoard of gold bullion or something like in the old Scooby Doo Mysteries.

Ron of Reactuate has joined the ranks of the XDers.

Eventually I'm going trade my XD40 for a .45, but I still have a couple hundred rounds of ammo to use up first.

The Total Perspective Vortex.  Another interesting and somewhat pertinent article about mental stability at Damn Interesting:

Studies into clinical depression have yielded similar findings, leading to the development of an intriguing, but still controversial, concept known as depressive realism [emphasis in original--ed.]. This theory puts forward the notion that depressed individuals actually have more realistic perceptions of their own image, importance, and abilities than the average person. While it’s still generally accepted that depressed people can be negatively biased in their interpretation of events and information, depressive realism suggests that they are often merely responding rationally to realities that the average person cheerfully denies.

Those with paranoid disorders can sometimes possess a certain unusual insight as well. It has often been asserted that within every delusional system, there exists a core of truth—and in their pursuit of imagined conspiracies against them, these individuals often show an exceptionally keen eye for the real thing. People who interact with them may be taken aback as they find themselves accused of harboring some negative opinion of the person which, secretly, they actually do hold. Complicating the issue, of course, is the fact that if the supposed aversion didn’t exist before, it likely does after such an unpleasant encounter.

I have spent the last 4 years or so being forced to tolerate a "superior" who, in my opinion, is so irrationally optimistic that he should seek help.  I have been in the top two performers at my former place of employment, and for more than two years now have been doing the job that no one else was willing to do.  Yet, in spite of my job performance and putting myself at greater risk than anyone else, my annual performance evaluation was marked down because I had a "bad attitude."  And almost every paranoid prediction I gave my boss has turned out to be true.

Also, he's one of those who keeps making the same mistakes over and over, but somehow expects a different result every time.  We all know what that means.

So, if I'm depressively realistic, yet evidence supports that I was the one who was actually correct, then who really is mentally imbalanced here?

Gun Owners of America Alert-- June 14, 2007

After all, if there were such a thing as a single issue Member of Congress, it would have to be McCarthy. Rep. McCarthy ran for office to ban guns; Hollywood made a movie about her efforts to ban guns; and she is currently the lead sponsor of a bill that makes the old Clinton gun ban pale by comparison.

Even many Democrats wouldn't go near a McCarthy gun bill. They have learned that supporting gun control is a losing issue. Enter Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the so-called Dean of the House, having served since the Eisenhower administration. Dingell is also a former NRA Board member, and was in that capacity tapped to bring the NRA leadership to the table.

The end result of the negotiations was that this small clique among the NRA leadership gave this bill the support it needed to pass.

But why was it necessary to pass the bill in such an underhanded fashion? If this is such a victory for the Second Amendment, why all the secrecy? Why was a deal forged with the anti-gun Democrat House leadership, keeping most pro-gun representatives in the dark? Why was the bill rammed through on the Suspension Calendar with no recorded vote with which to identify those who are against us?

I don't care how many reassurances I hear from the NRA (pardon me while I sarcastically genuflect for a moment), anything that gets backed up by McCarthy and the Brady Campaign is an automatic NO WAY for me.

And on the topic of these unrecorded votes:  in my opinion they should not exist, because they sidestep the principle of our allegedly representative government.

UPDATE:  Yuri Orlov comments.  Note that the email from the Brady bunch said, "Victory for Gun Control in House. NRA Sees the Light."  That light must be pretty dim, considering where they apparently have their heads.

With all the gimmicky exercise machines that have been invented just so people can simulate activity without actually participating in the activity:  treadmill, skiing machine, rowing machine, etc, why hasn't someone invented a post-hole digging machine?

Talk about a total body workout.

Jared McLaughlin of Fire Like This is posting some informational pamphlets in pdf format that could be useful for educating someone new to or unfamiliar with firearms.  Check out his blog and follow the links.

At KMVT (Twin Falls, Idaho):

As a democracy we respect and honor our constitutional rights and therefore protect them when someone abuses them. Red's Trading Post sees the ATF abusing these rights and wants to show the world their side of the story.

Owner Ryan Horsley says, “I've began speaking out. Other people have refused to speak out in hopes that if they stay quiet, they hope that the ATF will find favor with them or just let them go and not revoke their license. But as we've seen in so many instances -- that's not the case."

For several years now -- the gun shop and the ATF have had their share of battles.

From being given a temporary stay to additional violations – Horsley claimed that beyond all that -- Red's Trading Post’s record is very clean.

He says, "In the 2005 audit they went through 10,000 forms and all they could manage to find were four-percent errors in our record keeping. I remind people that these are not laws nor ordinances. These are policies set up by the ATF and those are policies that continue to change."

The KMVT report also states: "We tried to contact the ATF -- but they couldn't be reached for comment."  I'll bet Mr. Horsely gets some "comments" from them pretty soon.

Via JPFO, which has a web site about the movie at http://www.thegangmovie.com/.

The Texas Citizens Defense League has a new Yahoo forum/discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txopencarry.

TCDL is an organization whose purpose is to promote decriminalization of open carry in the state of Texas.