My brothers, uncle and I met up with my friend Andy over the weekend. It was his birthday, so we decided to stay at his place on Staurday night and meet up Sunday to go shoot machineguns (he's got a Browning as well). They all shot flawlessly, which was something I'd wondered about. (You have to figure that these are hand-made, custom guns. A lot can go wrong.) I'm really happy with it. (Well, I had to file down the T&E a little so it would fit on the traverse bar, but that wasn't a big deal.)
My brother showed Andy the video he took on our last trip to the Big Sandy MG shoot in October. Andy was on the fence about going, and ended up staying home. While watching Shawn's video, he gained a new appreciation for the scope of the event. He just stood there watching it saying things like "No way..." and "Right on!". After it was over, he turned around and said "OK, we're going to need a shitload of ammo..."
We all put in our orders and he went to the store Monday. Took two hand trucks two trips to get it all out to his car:
Each one of those cans holds 400 rounds of .308 ammunition, and there are 23 of them. I think that ought to about do it.
Someone decided to take the time to plot the president's approval rating over the course of the presidency. It's sad, in a "why did we bother with Iraq (again)" or "Isn't Iraq kinda looking like Vietnam 2 Electric Bugaloo, Mr. Cheney" kind of way.
But what I'm really curious about when looking at that graph is who the 30% are who approve of what he's done. Are they straight right-edge jingoists? War mongers? Those bumpkins with "Nuke Iraq" stickers on their trucks? I know plenty of gun-toting, died-in-the-wool republicans who are digusted at this nonsense Bush has dragged us into. And this chart is telling me that if I rounded up 1024 Americans, I'd find at least 300 who say they think he's doing a great job? What has he done that one would approve of? I can't think of anything, honestly.
Maybe it's the 8.7 trillion dollar deficit they think is fine. Or there's a large group of folks who think sending another 25,000 soldiers "surging" into a pointless war (something even Nixon couldn't bring himself to do) is a good thing? They like his policy of relegating the US to the backwaters of stem cell research? His efforts to tie our government to one kind of religion? They think he's a great public speaker? They like C students leading them? What is it?
What do the 300 people I talk to approve of exactly? Seriously, how, exactly, has he made our country a better place then before he was elected? What has he done that was good? What is he now doing that will leave us in better hands?
I just don't get it, and have yet to find anyone that can give me any examples of why he is in any way a good leader. Beyond the idiotic "I vote the party" horseshit, I mean. And he was elected (well, uh, you know, kinda-sorta) twice! It's just sad that we'd do that to ourselves.