Monday, December 08, 2008

It's Just a New Toy (O A O)


Announcing: The Wingnuttia Search Engine!


I have added a Google Custom Search box to the sidebar. This tool allows you to do a Google-powered search over a restricted set of sites (instead of the entire Web). I call this set a sampling of Wingnuttia. It's made up of some of the better-known blogs and websites that represent the unhinged Right.


[Added] Wingnuttia Search has its own web page, too.



If you enter a search string into the box and click the Search button, your results should appear in a new tab (or window, I suppose), depending on your browser and how you have it configured. You may see Google-generated ads on the search page. These are Google's, not mine. TANSTAAFL.

As of this moment, the search space comprises 32 33 34 36 37 45 46 47 48 49 52 55 56 57 59 58 59 61 62 63 64 65 66 65 66 69 72 73 74 75 sites. I'll post the full list in the Comments in a few minutes [update: done].

[Update 2 (2008-12-12): the list now appears at the bottom of this post, and will be updated in that place from now on. The earlier versions of the list in the Comments have been deleted, out of some twisted sense of frugality on my part.]

Please feel free to suggest additional sites to be added to the list. Any other questions, comments, or criticisms are of course welcome, too.

Thanks to Twin for suggestions he's already made (and now to Dan Weston and J.A. Baker, too), and to Teh Sadlys, from whom I swiped an image to dress up the search results page, and who do such an inspirational job keeping an eye on the wingnutosphere. And if you're really new to Wingnuttia, Roy Edroso's guide is the best general introduction.

If you like this little toy but don't want to have to come here to use it, you have options:

  1. Click the "Wingnuttia Search" hyperlink above the search box. This takes you to the home page for this particular custom search engine. Bookmark that page.

  2. Click the "+Google" icon below the box. This takes you to a page where you can add this particular gadget to your own iGoogle page.

  3. If you want to grab the code for this gadget to embed it on your own blog or website, click the "Wingnuttia Search" hyperlink and on the new page, click the link labeled "Add this search engine to your blog or webpage." On that next page, click the "Get the Code" button. If you like, you can customize the look of the gadget before you copy and embed the code.

Have fun!

(alt. video link)

Cripes. Is that song really more than a quarter of a century old? Ouch.



Here is the list of sites that make up the Wingnuttia Search space, as of 2010-04-08 22:04.

Notes:

  • Sorting is naively alphabetical, except for a possible leading definite article. Therefore, you'll find both Ann Coulter and Anchoress, The under A.
  • Instapundit is not explicitly listed here. The Ole Perfesser's heh, indeeds are found as part of the search over the Pajamas Media domain. (See?)
  • Similarly for Big Hollywood -- it's under the breitbart.com domain.
  • Gateway Pundit now spews at firstthings.com, so I've added that whole domain to the list. I've left his old site on the list, for historical research purposes, though I'm not sure the old stuff is still there. UPDATE: Looks like he got fired, or got a better offer from Kelsey. He's now at rightnetwork.com. Again, old site left on the list, for the same reason as before. UPDATE: Fired again? No longer at rightnetwork, in any case. This time, just changed the URL for "Gateway Pundit," since the old Blogspot version seems to be gone or at least fully redirected.
  • Interested in a Canada-specific version? See here.
  • NB: (2008-12-17 17:37) Removed Lucianne from the list because Google is currently showing it as a site that may infect your computer with malware. [Site fixed, added back 2008-12-24 05:08]
  • Some search tips below the list
  1. Ace of Spades HQ
  2. Advice Goddess
  3. Althouse
  4. Ann Coulter
  5. American Power
  6. American Thinker
  7. Anchoress, The
  8. Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
  9. Astute Bloggers, The
  10. Atlas Shrugs
  11. Big Government
  12. Big Journalism
  13. Blackfive
  14. Blogs of War
  15. Breitbart
  16. Confederate Yankee
  17. Confluence, The
  18. Conservapedia
  19. Debbie Sclussel
  20. Don Surber
  21. Dr. Helen
  22. Eagle Forum
  23. First Things
  24. Five Feet of Fury
  25. Flopping Aces
  26. Founding Bloggers
  27. Free Republic
  28. FrontPageMag
  29. Gateway Pundit
  30. Heritage Foundation, The
  31. Hot Air
  32. Hugh Hewitt (See also Townhall)
  33. Human Events
  34. JammieWearingFool
  35. Jawa Report, The
  36. Jules Crittenden
  37. Left Coast Rebel
  38. Lileks
  39. Lucianne
  40. Macsmind
  41. Media Research Center
  42. Michelle Malkin
  43. National Review Online
  44. Neal Boortz
  45. NewsBusters
  46. No Quarter
  47. Pajamas Media
  48. Patterico's Pontifications
  49. PoliPundit
  50. Power Line
  51. Protein Wisdom
  52. Puma P.A.C.
  53. QandO
  54. RedState
  55. RenewAmerica
  56. Riehl World View
  57. RightNetwork
  58. Right Wing News
  59. Right Wing Nut House
  60. RS McCain
  61. RS McCain (old site)
  62. Say Anything
  63. Sister Toldjah
  64. Stop The ACLU
  65. Strata-Sphere, The
  66. TigerHawk
  67. Townhall
  68. Uppity Woman
  69. Velociworld
  70. Victor David Hanson
  71. Wake up America
  72. Wake up Black America
  73. Weekly Standard, The
  74. Wizbang
  75. WorldNetDaily

Search tips:

  • I often find that the results for a current hot topic are cluttered by frenzied chatter on Free Republic. To eliminate hits from the Freepers, add -freerepublic.com to the search string. (Note leading hyphen.) You can do this in the initial search or by adding it to the search box on the page of results.

  • To restrict the date range, do the search that you want. Then, on the results page, go up to your browser's location (address) bar, and add a string like this to the end of the URL: &as_qdr=d5. Then press Enter. (Note leading ampersand.)

    This particular example restricts the results to the past five days. You can use another number in place of 5, of course. You can also use, say, &as_qdr=w2 to get results restricted to the last two weeks, &as_qdr=m4 to get results restricted to the last four months, &as_qdr=y1 to get results restricted to the past year, and so on. Here's what it looks like after searching for obama and then appending &as_qdr=d5 to the URL of the results page.

    Note that, because of added comments or other updates to a given page, you may get hits from pages originally posted outside of the date range restriction you specified.

  • These techniques are general to all Google searches.

54 comments:

bjkeefe said...

(note to self) Once this post moves away from the top of the blog's home page, I'll probably move the current list of sites into the body of the post itself.

bjkeefe said...

Added No Quarter to the list.

bjkeefe said...

Added a couple more of the premier "Hillary supporter" sites -- like No Quarter, long since taken over by obvious Republicans, Uppity Woman and Puma P.A.C.

bjkeefe said...

Added FrontPageMag.

bjkeefe said...

Added eight more:

Ann Coulter
Astute Bloggers, The
Eagle Forum
Free Republic
Lucianne
Media Research Center
RenewAmerica
Victor David Hanson

Deleted first comment with old list, new complete list below.

bjkeefe said...

Added The Confluence, another supposed PUMA blog.

Zo Kwe Zo said...

Might I suggest Conservapedia? It's run by Andrew Schlafly, fifth son of the infamous Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum (which you already have on your list).

bjkeefe said...

You're the second to make this suggestion, Dan. I guess I'll think about it some more.

I had considered Conservapedia when I made the first list, but I decided not to include that site, for two reasons. First, I wanted to focus more on the immediacy of blog postings. (I grant that Conservapedia is updated in reaction to current events, though.) Second, and more importantly, I am suspicious that half the stuff on Conservapedia has been put up by stealth liberals.

Could be I'm projecting my own temptations with the latter, admittedly, and there's something more than a little incongruous about considering credibility and the wingnutosphere in the same thought, so …

Ah, what the hell. I guess I'll add it. After all, it's not like the conservatives have never planted an item in an organ of the Liberal Media and then referred to it as "even the NY Times says …"

bjkeefe said...

Added Conservapedia.

bjkeefe said...

Moved list to the bottom of the main post (here), where it will maintained from now on.

Deleted comment with earlier version of the list.

Unknown said...

I am suspicious that half the stuff on Conservapedia has been put up by stealth liberals.

I really have no idea, but my gut tells me that there are few successful stealth liberals on that site. When it was first established, I followed it fairly closely and they were extremely aggressive about patrolling the content and the new members. As in, multiple staff (right up to Schlaffley himself) would review each and every post by new members to ensure they stuck to the established tenets of conservative dogma. Any hint that someone could not be trusted would immediately get them banned and their edits reverted. They may have lightened up since those early days, but I really doubt it. Rather, I'd bet they have a reliable stable of trusted admins who enforce standards aggressively.

Having said that, let me end with the same words I started with: I really have no idea.

bjkeefe said...

Added Dr.Helen. Thanks, Twin.

And I think you're probably right about the paranoia at Conservapedia.

bjkeefe said...

Added The Strata-Sphere.

bjkeefe said...

Added Don Surber, Right Wing Nut House, and The Weekly Standard.

I could have sworn the last was on the original list, but maybe I deleted it inadvertently while cutting and pasting or something.

bjkeefe said...

Added QandO, Macsmind, and Lileks.

bjkeefe said...

Added Sister Toldjah.

Adam said...

I feel so left out. Can you please add Litterblog to Wingnuttia?

bjkeefe said...

Heh. It's kind of a variation on Marx, isn't it? Anyone who asks to be in this club doesn't belong.

I'm sorry. Though you are a conservative and hold views diametrically opposite to mine on a number of issues, you show entirely too much clarity and independence of thought to qualify as a wingnut.

Although the fulminating in this post did come close.

bjkeefe said...

Added Say Anything.

bjkeefe said...

Added Blackfive and TigerHawk.

bjkeefe said...

Removed Lucianne from the list because Google is currently showing it as a site that may infect your computer with malware.

Anonymous said...

Can I request that you add Neal Boortz?

bjkeefe said...

JAB: You may, and I will, er, did:

Added Neal Boortz, that is.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Adam said...

I guess I'm not trying hard enough. I find the post you picked out kind of odd, though; I specifically outlined that I didn't blame Obama for sending his kids to private schools and explained why. It was mostly about how organizations like the NEA are the real reason that the status quo in terrible schools will never go away (as opposed to say, a lack of funding, which is not present in places like New Jersey. Spending per pupil in Newark > the place where I went to high school) and then also describing how race has become a much worse indicator of who deserves a leg-up than socioeconomic status. I didnt think there was anything in there that was that wingnuttish. This post on the other hand...

bjkeefe said...

Adam:

As for the education post, I confess that I did not read the whole thing. Once I saw your lede, my eyes were doing more rolling than scrolling, and I generally find the debate about "what's wrong with our schools and what should we do to fix them?" to be unbearably tedious. It's an important issue, but it just never goes anywhere, and no one wants to implement my two-point plan:

1. Reduce class sizes by at least a factor of two.
2. Make a teacher's salary high enough to attract (more) good people.

Until people are ready to do both of those, I can't really be bothered to hear what else they propose -- it always seems like fiddling at the edges.

Yeah, your gun post was pretty crazy. I don't have any idea what's up with this paranoia about Obama coming to take everyone's gun. Trust me: that's no higher than 9,735,720th on his list of priorities. A guy who invites Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration and who still says his "bitter" remark was his biggest regret of the campaign is not about to pick a fight with the gun owners of America.

After wandering through a few Confederate Yankee posts on this shortly after Election Day, I decided that this was a compensation mechanism -- buying new toys and stocking up on ammo gives those who felt impotent as a consequence of the can of whoop-ass that was opened up on them by Obama found a way to feel like they're "fighting back." Y'all be careful out there, now. Wouldn't want to put out anyone's eye.

bjkeefe said...

Added Velociworld (thanks, Twin) and added back Lucianne.

Adam said...

The thing about gun sales is not that people are afraid that Obama has anywhere near the top of his agenda gun control which, for him to personally go after would be politically retarded. I agree with you that the Obama White House will almost certainly not initiate new gun control legislation in 2009 or even the entire first term.

But...

With it looking like Minnesota is breaking for Franken (and you have no idea how much that pains me that I'm trying to move to a state that elected/nearly elected that clown to the Senate) the Dems are going to be up 59-41 in the Senate and I don't know the exact number in the House but it's huge. Furthermore the regulations that they will want to implement will likely not be more than returning to the Clinton-era regulations which sunsetted in 2004. Specifically: a ban on buying new "assault weapons" and high-magazine clips and a 5-day waiting period for gun purchases.

Now, I don't really know or care if a waiting period makes a big difference. Minnesota already has a 7 day waiting period for sales from gun dealers and I haven't had a gun for 23 years I think I'll live another 7 days. The assault weapons ban is a horse of a different color. I liken the assault weapons ban to Ted Stevens being in charge of net neutrality; you know not of what ye legislate. Just a few facts; the definitions in the 1994 legislation that made a gun an "assault weapon" were both arcane (can you or even better your average Democratic Congressman tell me what or where a barrel shroud or a flash supressor is?) and didn't actually make the gun more dangerous than guns that weren't banned. Both this gun and this gun operate in almost exactly the same way; they have a magazine you pop in and you pull the trigger until all the bullets are gone. The former is not an assault weapon because it looks like a hunting rifle and not scary like the second gun. Both are equally deadly; in fact the hunting rifle is designed to take wider bullets that go slower and tumble when they hit flesh, so the scarier looking weapon is probably less dangerous. And as we saw at VT, where a kid with a backpack full of clips and two absolutely vanilla handguns chambered for 9mm and .22 caliber rimfire ammo killed 32 people, neither high capacity weapons nor assault weapons are required for high casualty killing sprees.

So while the assault weapons ban is inane policy most people don't look into these details and as Barack Obama said "I think it is a scandal that this president did not authorize a renewal of the assault weapons ban." Of course assault-weapon related deaths did not shoot up to any appreciable amount (most of the gun deaths in this country are caused by non-assault weapon handguns in inner cities) but to the public this is a "common sense" piece of regulation that when the Democratic Congress passes Obama won't really have much political capital at risk in not vetoing a bill his own party passed and reverts us back to the legal state we were in from 1994-2004. Hardly a controversial position, and I can't imagine anyone who voted for him will be upset by it.

But it will have a big effect of increasing the market price of assault weapons; after 1994 it was about a 100% increase; this time around since so many people are anticipating I would imagine it'll be a significantly smaller increase. But it's basically a bet that the Democrats will reinstate the assault weapons ban and you will own and be able to sell a gun that cannot be legally acquired from a gun store, new, for the foreseeable future. People aren't going out and stocking up on cheap small caliber pistols out of fear that all guns will be banned; they are specifically buying "assault weapons" and high capacity magazines as defined in the 1994 ban in anticipation that these items will become impossible to purchase new in the near future. It's completely rational and unfortunately for Obama highly ironic that his being voted into office is going to drastically increase the number of "assault weapons" in circulation.

Adam said...

As far as your concerns w/ regard to education: I haven't been totally persuaded that class sizes of 10 are so much better than those of 20, but in overcrowded urban schools where there are classes of 40 or more kids, then, yes, reducing class size is critically important.

And also, I agree with you that being able to raise teacher pay is important but I doubt we agree on how that would work. I want increased pay to be one of a few incentives that teachers have; like any other job I want fear of being fired for gross incompetence to be a part of being a teacher. I would also support increased compensation for increased performance (measured by standardized testing) as opposed to seniority.

I hear a lot of lame excuses about how "teaching to the test" stifles children's creativity and whatnot. I don't buy it for one fucking second. At least through say 5th grade there is a core set of skills that children must learn for later education to be in any way meaningful. Having kids who couldn't read or write try to read Shakespeare in the 9th grade is futile as is trying to teach algebra to kids who never learned their multiplication tables. These seem like things that could be measured by standardized testing and if it means that teachers of younger children have to spend almost all their time "teaching to the test" in order to get them to be able to read and write competently and do basic math, then so be it.

As I see it, the main force that stands in the way of any major change to the status quo is the NEA and other teachers' unions. I assume we disagree on this. But to me the evidence is obvious; we have the highest median income of any large country (I think we loose to Luxembourg) and yet on metrics of primary education our children have similar scores to much poorer developing nations. So the status quo is inadequate instruction in basic skills. I don't think that increasing the number of incompetent teachers will do much to change that. And I believe that necessary changes, like carrots in the form of good pay (up to $100k or so) for a very effective teacher of any age and sticks of no raises or being fired for ineffective teachers, would be be met with bitter opposition from the NEA. Since the Democratic Party and the NEA have held the same stances on education as long as I've been alive (throw more money at the problem... don't let people have choices about where their kids go to school... force them go their local public school) I have no reason to think Obama will oppose the NEA and therefore there is no chance of meaningful education reform in his administration and until Republicans or at least Democrats less beholden to the NEA are the majority in Congress.

bjkeefe said...

I freely admit that I know little about firearm specifics, although I do know that a flash suppressor is intended to keep the shooter from being temporarily blinded, and not to somehow make the weapon magically stealthy.

In general, I agree that knowledgeable people could find no end of things to ridicule the definitions included in a piece of legislation designed to ban or limit "assault weapons." I also agree/take your word about handguns being the most frequent style of gun involved in gun deaths.

All that said, I still have trouble seeing what's "rational" about wanting to own a gun that, loosely, is an assault weapon and/or that has a high capacity magazine. However, as I think I've said before, when John Sanford used powerful personal computers as an analogy -- he imagines Mothers Against Computers saying "Only professional engineers need all that capacity and processing speed" -- I came to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of gun enthusiasts are not the problem, and shouldn't be held accountable for what the few others do.

I do think that we could stand some better restrictions on who gets to own a gun and better regulations concerning ownership. I continue to think there ought to be a process and a paper trail equivalent to what's involved with owning a car. Also, I'd really like to see some requirements that make it easier to trace guns and ammunition.

But, it's all moot at this point. Even if your worries about Congress are correct, I wouldn't expect anything more than a token piece of legislation, and that only if the Dems feel like they need to toss a bone to part of their base. For one thing, a lot of Dems in Congress like guns themselves. For another thing, almost all of them are frightened of the blowback from the NRA.

Moving on: of course I do not share your view of Al Franken. You want to talk clowns, talk Norm Coleman. I think I remember that you liked Jesse Ventura as a governor, so I fail to see why you're so adamantly opposed to another slightly loose cannon. I grant that you probably disagree with him on any number of policy issues, but I don't see why he should provoke special ire. Or maybe you're just looking for something to fling at him, because you don't want another left-leaning person in Congress.

Looking to move to MN, huh? I'm sorry NYC isn't to your liking. I have to say that I would not choose to live there, either. Good luck in finding a way to make it work.

bjkeefe said...

Oops. Looks like I was just about to post my response to your gun-related comment when your education-related one went up, too.

To the latter: We're not really much in disagreement. I probably couldn't make a detailed case off the top of my head if challenged, but I do have a sense that the teachers' unions and NEA are part of the problem. For the time being, though, I'm inclined not to look to blame them, because I see them more as a consequence of a system that does not want to spend money sufficient to make being a teacher a highly attractive job. Yes, there are no doubt bad teachers that should be fired, but for teachers overall, I see the situation as a bunch of highly non-powerful people who would be even more taken advantage of than they are already, were it not for the political clout of their unions. It's more a symptom than a primary cause, I think.

I disagree with your dismissal of the problem of "teaching to the test." I certainly accept the need for a solid grounding in fundamentals, and sure, in places, a standardized test is fine. Basic computational skills in arithmetic is one such place. There are also areas where the necessary first step is mastering a vocabulary -- English and other languages, and most sciences, for sure, and here again, you could "teach to the test" without it being a problem.

However, there is a lot of stifling that goes on if the lessons are always geared towards rote learning. Not only do students not develop critical thinking skills and the ability to work independently on more complex problems as well as they might via other approaches, they also plain get bored. They often do not get any sense of why a particular field might be interesting, exciting even, and worth thinking about outside of the classroom or after the test.

BTW, one of the best English teachers that my school system ever had -- by virtually unanimous consensus -- was a woman who taught Shakespeare to 7th graders, by putting on full plays with the students playing all the roles. Also, I observed my niece at about age 11 being far more capable than I of understanding the dialog at a professional production. She had, in fact, memorized a number of Shakespearean putdowns and could deliver them flawlessly. It's true that basic reading skills were a prerequisite, but there's a whole 'nother hugely important piece here -- the children who got the most out of Shakespeare learned it by ear and by having fun with it, and not by being compelled to read it and answer multiple choice questions about it.

Anyway, as I said, I don't much like debating education policy. I just refuse to believe that the best way to fix the problems that you and I can agree exist is by the approach that NCLB seems to have encouraged.

Adam said...

"All that said, I still have trouble seeing what's "rational" about wanting to own a gun that, loosely, is an assault weapon and/or that has a high capacity magazine."

You fail to see the rationality of buying something today that you think you will be able to sell for significantly more money in the future if the government enacts a law you see as likely to be enacted?

Adam said...

I applied to this program at UMN and if I get in I would buy my grandfather's house in Nordeast Minneapolis (he's still alive but he's got Alzheimer's, congestive heart failure, diabetes and the tough old bastard is still alive, although in a nursing facility obviously) which would be cool b/c it'd be 2 blocks from a couple cousins of mine and I know a bunch of people who live either in Minneapolis or the suburbs around there. And yea, I'm fucking sick of NYC.

bjkeefe said...

Sounds like a plan. Good luck!

When do you expect to hear?

Adam said...

Well, sure, there are people like my cousin Matt who's thinking about buying one of these with his Xmas money. He sleeps w/ a double barrel "porch gun" and a bandoleer full of shotgun shells under his bed, though, and has hollowpoint ammunition scattered all over the end tables and coffee tables in his house, so I'm not sure if you'd call him "rational." Also he lives w/ his brother Paul who when he was still living w/ his folks kept a fucking Glock 17 with a round in the chamber in a shoebox under his bed (Glocks don't have any external safety mechanism so this was a "hot" firearm that would go off if you pulled the trigger) and he's looking to buy an assault rifle too (something that he might try to get a ATF stamp to convert to a class III-- full auto-- since he's got a good paying job and no living expenses as a nurse now).

So yea, there are guys like them buying these guns for fun, but I'm sure Matt would have no problem parting w/ his new Sig that he pays $2500 for this coming January if he gets offered $4000 for it 2 years from now.

Adam said...

I'll know if I'm a "top candidate" sometime in late Jan. or early Feb. since they pay to fly out top candidates either the second to last or last weekend of Feb. The last interview weekend ends on March 1. And then they make their final decisions by "early March" so I'd assume in this time of budget crises they aren't flying in too many people who they're not going to offer positions to, so I'll have a good idea if I made the cut in a month or so and then a final answer a bit more than a month after that.

bjkeefe said...

I wouldn't say your cousin Matt is irrational just from what you describe, but certainly, that behavior sounds irrational.

One measure of Matt's rationality in this department would be whether he was willing to sell his Sig, for double what he paid for it, if he knew he could not get another.

Of course, one can be irrational without being bad-crazy -- we all have our irrational likes and dislikes, and some people would not understand, say, why I might think it's worth spending for one meal what would pay for a week's worth of groceries.

I did not know Glocks have no external safety mechanism. Why do you suppose this is? Glock seeking to remove a possible source of jamming? Going for streamlining? Trying to make the gun seem more bad-ass?

On UM: again, good luck. Have you applied to any similar programs? (Is there such a thing as a "safety school" when going for a Ph.D.?) If not, and UM screws up and doesn't take you, will you look for another way to get yourself to Minnesota?

Would you go if it meant taking a job as Sen. Franken's Science Advisor?

;^)

Adam said...

Uhh... I don't think Franken is going to have any place in his administration for me if they do a thorough vetting.

To be blunt... a panel of state schools that are less prestigious than, say, California (UCSF, UCSD and UCLA are all very good for biology) or Michigan, like Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, etc. would be "safety" schools. I'm kind of doing it ass-backwards though since I really want to live in Minnesota even if UMN's program is not the most prestigious or best in the country.

The problem is that the elite schools are all in places I don't want to go... either in the inner city and much more ghetto than where I am now (Penn) or still in Manhattan (Rockefeller, Columbia) or just in regions I don't want to live in (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the UC schools). I dunno, I'll figure out some set of 8 or 9 schools to apply to a year from now if Minnesota doesn't pan out... if I don't get in I've still got a job and an apartment here in NYC. But if I can't get into the PhD program at UMN Twin Cities I'm not gunna try for like Rochester (Minnesota) which also has a good program (affiliated with the Mayo Clinic) since that's about an hour southeast of the Twin Cities and I dunno anybody down there or some biotech job that only requires a BA... you kind of need a PhD to have any power to shape what research you do.

As to Matt's rationality he (and I, and most of my male cousins and their friends) have an irrational love for guns and explosions and shit. I love shooting off fireworks (real fireworks, not sparklers or bottle rockets) and shooting guns and when my cousin Andy built his dream log-cabin he had it built around a 3000 lb gun safe that had to be brought down into the basement immediately after they finished laying the foundation and basement floor. They do some sport shooting (my uncle's a big hunter and my cousins all hunt and shoot trap/skeet occasionally) and just target practice more often. They keep guns as hobbyists and collectors. I think that whether that's rational or not is a matter of taste; to me firing an exotic gun is a more desirable experience than sky-diving or drinking an exquisite wine, or eating a fine meal. While collecting and shooting guns is more dangerous than eating, it's probably roughly equally dangerous to things like... hard core mountain bike riding, sky-diving, car racing, etc. And to answer your question, yes, I'm petty sure Matt would sell the Sig he's planning on buying before Obama is inaugurated for $4k after a new assault weapons ban just to pocket the $1500. He seems to have a different set of guns every time I visit him so he's always kind of wheeling and dealing.

As for the Glock having no external safety that's not 100% precisely correct. There is a safety on the Glock... it just happens to be integrated with the trigger so that pulling the trigger hard enough de-activates the safety. You might then ask what the hell is the point... the point is that if you drop a loaded Glock it's much less likely to go off than if it didn't have the safety. But as a weapon initially designed as a military and police side-arm there was no need for, say, the thumb safety you have on a 1911.

Adam said...

BTW here's a list of rankings of biology PhD graduate programs form U.S. News and Wold Report. Minnesota is a good school (tied w/ a bunch of others at 34th) but clearly a tier below top flight schools like Stanford or Harvard (where my sister is doing her PhD in neuroscience) but still a good school. Hopefully things will work out and I'll be Minnesota bound in a couple months.

bjkeefe said...

Adam:

Not up for responding in full at the moment, but here's a cartoon I thought you might like.

bjkeefe said...

Added The Heritage Foundation's website to the list (heritage.org), mostly to catch the wingnuttery on their blog, the Foundery or Floundery or whatever it's called.

Thanks, Twin.

bjkeefe said...

Added a couple of search tips, right below the list at the bottom of the post itself, that may be of some use.

bjkeefe said...

Added Wake up Black America.

Thanks, Twin.

bjkeefe said...

Added Human Events.

bjkeefe said...

Added Five Feet of Fury.

bjkeefe said...

Added Right Wing News.

bjkeefe said...

Something that should have been done long ago, but, reminded by this, I have removed Little Green Footballs from the list of sites to search.

bjkeefe said...

Added firsthings.com to the list, mostly to capture Hateway Pundit's new blatherings.

bjkeefe said...

Added Big Government, Big Journalism, and Breitbart, which includes Big Hollywood as a subdomain.

(The wingnutosphere is turning into the Breitbartosphere, isn't it?)

bjkeefe said...

Added RS McCain (new and old site) and Hugh Hewitt's site (previously only had what he published on Townhall).

Thanks for the suggestions, TS.

MasFina said...

left coast rebel is a fairly out there blog to add. . .

bjkeefe said...

Done. Thanks for the suggestion.

bjkeefe said...

Added Founding Bloggers.

bjkeefe said...

Added RightNetwork to catch the new ravings of Jim Hoft, the Hateway Pundit.

bjkeefe said...

Another new URL for Hateway Pundit.

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