Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and I’m sure those two are going to grow up to be productive members of society. *ahem*

As for the grenade launcher place, you can find them at 2103 North Division Street in Spokane, WA. Their number is (509) 370-1553 and their site appears to be axelraven.com‎. We talked with them for quite a while, and they were good to go.

I didn’t actually see any grenade launchers, but the Barrett M82 was $10k. I can’t has. :(

I think the shooting has stopped, but they’re looking for the suspect(s). I think the description was of two males, one in a blue sweatshirt with a white hood? They had the highway shut down out there but it sounds like it’s reopened. We’re listening to the scanner on the iPhone. I love this thing.

More as I hear it.

You know who doesn’t? FLORIDA OR TEXAS.

I mean, are you kidding me? FLORIDA POTATOES!? TEXAS POTATOES!? SHUT UP!

I think Lay’s owes us an apology.

The above picture caused one of The Inconvenience’s Marine friends to reply, and I do quote, “holy freaking shit that is so cute it caused my head to explode into a cloud of rainbows and glitter.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Pros:
1. Women shoot free, ‘cept for the $10 range fee (per day). Last I checked, I qualify for that.
2. I’d like to shoot an Appleseed not with a behemoth .308. Furthermore,
3. I’d like to shoot an Appleseed with my carbine. It would be a good bonding experience.
4. SHOOTY GOODNESS! Lord, I am so overdue.
5. I can drag The Sister along; she’s never been. Never mind, she says she won’t miss the below-referenced football game.

Cons:
1. It’s probably gonna be cold, and possibly rainy. (Don’t give me that look!)
2. I have out-of-town guests visiting for T-Day, and I’d have to bail before they left Saturday morning, probably. (Unless they want to Appleseed it up as well? Eh, eh, E&B?)
3. I’d miss the last home Vandal game of the season.
4. I can’t guarantee the Girl Child will tolerate it well.
5. I’m perpetually ammo-broke in the 5.56 department. I could take our Remington 597 (I guess .22s are being encouraged, anyway) but our mags are a) scarce and b) finicky. I know, you can technically shoot an Appleseed with a bolt rifle, but – ugh, what a PITA.

My pros list sounds significantly more substantial than my cons list, doesn’t it?

Hmmmmm…

Any of you local yokels plan to go, or care to be convinced?

It appears our councilmen will be Timothy Brown, Susan Scott and my good buddy Walter Steed. (Brown at least said he would have opposed the smoking ban.)

Here’s where it gets amusing: The unofficial results have John Weber (2,055) losing to Nancy Chaney (2,095). Assuming those numbers hold…

That’s a difference of 40 votes.

~12.5% of the votes Weber needed to bridge the gap can be accounted for just in people who were in my house today. People who would have voted for him if he hadn’t behaved like a little tyrant on the city council. People who didn’t vote for Nancy Chaney.

What’s more, we’re political activists and would have gladly campaigned for a pro-liberty candidate (especially against Nancy Chaney), and could have easily drummed up those other 36 votes, and then some. I absolutely guarantee it – The Inconvenience and I just came up with about ten names in twenty seconds, and those are just friends, several of whom would have also campaigned. If each of us recruited just two or three strangers, John Weber would be mayor of Moscow.

Oh, how satisfying this is. The election I didn’t even vote in is the election I’ve inadvertently impacted most.

EDIT: A friend on Facebook made the point that it’s possible Weber would have lost votes had he not voted in favor of the smoking ban, which is true.

Here’s a breakdown, though: Anti-ban Timothy Brown won his seat with 51 fewer votes than Weber received for the mayoral position, and pro-ban Walter Steed won his with eight fewer votes than Weber.

So, pro-ban and anti-ban candidates with otherwise fairly similar platforms wound up in a ~50 vote range of one another. Even if you assume every vote separating Timothy Brown from Steed or Weber was due to his difference of opinion on the smoking ban, and thus assume they are all votes Weber would have lost had he voted differently, you’re still talking about a less than 100 vote loss to Chaney.

And, I again maintain that 5-10 dedicated campaign volunteers (especially ones capable of getting out the vote on campus, which is a majorly untapped voter pool in municipal elections) could have easily secured that many votes for Weber.

I shrugged and said, “Don’t vote.”

He said, “But… it doesn’t feel right! I have to vote! It’s just… It’s what I do! YOU VOTE!”

“Not today, I don’t,” I replied. Then, I read a quote from a buddy (slawson01 over on LiveJournal):

Congratulations on not voting. You have succeeded in refraining from selecting someone to use force on your behalf, and robbed the thug who does win from having your sanction. They always claim a mandate to do whatever it is they do. When voter turn out is 15 total, they will know they do not have it.

I’m not saying I’ve retired from voting. But, when there was literally not a single person on the ballot I could vote for, and I knew my write-ins (i.e. The Inconvenience) wouldn’t even be counted, I was not about to legitimize this election by upping the voter turnout numbers.

I think, perhaps, that will be my new voting policy. As long as there is at least one candidate or issue on the ballot I can actually pull the lever for, I’ll vote, and ignore or write-in for the others. If there is a write-in candidate with a chance of garnering enough votes to win, or at least making a statement, I’ll vote.

If the election is a complete farce, like today’s, then I’ll take slawson01’s advice and deny my +1 closer to a mandate.

Oh, and that friend who dropped by went home without voting, either.

Mr. Weber,

I feel it’s important to let candidates know both when they have my support and when they do not.

Allow me to preface this with: I am no fan of Nancy Chaney. I was truly hoping she’d have an opponent I could support, because I think she’s horrible for Moscow. In addition to her reprehensible stance on economic growth, her position on gun rights flies in the face of everything I believe in as an Idahoan. She certainly will not have my vote today.

That said, neither will you, because yours was among the unanimous votes for the Moscow smoking ban, as well as among the five votes for the revised noise ordinance.

Let me be clear: I am not a smoker. I generally abhor smoking and do my best to avoid those who smoke. Given the option, I will choose a (voluntarily!) smoke-free establishment over those that permit it. Furthermore, I live in a quiet neighborhood and have certainly been annoyed by noisy neighbors in the past.

But, stronger than my dislike for smoking or inconsiderate neighbors is my belief in private property rights and keeping police power to a minimum. Your vote forcing Moscow establishments to prohibit smoking was a flagrant violation of private property rights. It’s amusing that someone who professes a concern for economic development in Moscow, on one hand, would turn around and tread on free enterprise the way you did. And, to grant police the ability to be a complainant in a noise violation – why? If the noise isn’t bothering anyone enough to complain to the police, why give them that power?

I noticed the Greater Moscow Alliance says you are in “complete agreement” with their stated values of “advance[ing] quality of life and economic prosperity by supporting free market enterprise, private property rights,
stewardship of natural resources and responsible government” – yet your voting record shows the complete opposite on at least two of those issues. Ironically, on the very same page as your stance on the GMA’s values is your assertion you’d vote for the smoking ban all over again!

Though Heinlein’s razor states I ought not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, when it comes to politicians, I can’t really come to any other conclusion than: You’re a liar.

In the future, I hope you consider freedom more important than going along with the cause(s) du jour.

Laurel mylastname

I was really trying to be tactful, honest-to-Pete, but then I found the GMA’s voting guide and my diplomacy went out the window.

I hate liars. I mean, I realize the term is more or less synonymous with “politicians,” but still.

I think, for the first time since I became eligible, I’m just not voting. Or maybe I’ll go write in The Inconvenience. Or Thomas Jefferson.

Autry White counts Dear Leader among his heroes, so, no thanks.

And honestly? I don’t even care enough to track down Deccio to find out where he stands. Given the pattern, here, he most likely sucks, too. If you’re not going to exert even a modicum of effort to make your positions available, then… come on. Setting up a website is not hard, these days.

So. Consider me officially jaded.

Philosophically, I don’t know where to go from here. If I don’t believe an office should even exist, what is the right approach? Vote for the least of the evils? Abstain in protest? Draft my own candidate, or run, myself? I can’t run for everything all the time, nor do I have any interest in doing so, so that really can’t be the answer for every piddly little office I protest.

Not to mention, my entire platform would pretty much be, “No on everything.”

Heh – maybe I WILL create a “Laurel for Everything” campaign – I will not run, but if elected by write-in, I will serve only to diminish the importance of my office to the greatest extent possible.

I’ll resurrect the Do-Nothing concept as a superlative rather than an insult.

Okay. Now I’m just feeling angsty.