My Own Side

Another year gone by, and another Woodinville Basset Bash is in the can.  This was a contestant in the “Longest Ears” category. Yes, I am serious.

My first thoughts are of sorrow for the students and families most directly affected by this horrible act. Most decent people would pause out of respect for the families.

Unfortunately, across the world many in the press couldn’t wait to start blaming America first for the act of one sick person. Here and here are some roundups of the international reactions to the shootings. There have been many paragraphs written about it, but it can all be summed up as “The Americans Had It Coming.” Reading the articles, it is depressing to see the perpetuation of the bigoted stereotype of the American as a foul, brash cowboy shooting up the saloon.

The communist controlled state media in China was particularly enthusiastic about the virtues of a disarmed populace. Do I really need to spell out why?

The Virginia Tech campus had been declared off limits to all guns. The end result of this was that all law-abiding citizens with concealed carry permits were disarmed when on that campus. The politically correct term for this is a “Gun Free Zone”. Perhaps a more accurate term would be a “Defense Free Zone”. Or maybe just a “Killing Field”. You read the heart-rending stories of some of the survivors and a common theme is the terror of realizing that they were utterly defenseless, and could do nothing but wait for their turn to be killed.

As misguided gun control advocates try to exploit this tragedy as an excuse to further disarm law abiding citizens and render them defenseless like the students and faculty at Virginia Tech were, we should remember something that Ronald Reagan said.

It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun control laws. I happen to know this from personal experience.

Karl Rove spoke yesterday at the 2007 King County Republicans Lincoln Day Dinner, and the usual suspects showed up to protest. It was somewhat of a bust, sadly. I counted less than 50 protestors at it’s peak.

There were the usual classless scatological references.

And the obligatory Bush=Hitler reference.

And of course, at least one 911 “Truther” was there. I’ll let you find his sign in the full gallery below.

However, there’s no question that the Bush Chain Gang stole the show.

All in all, fairly calm. There were no rocks thrown at Karl’s car, the bullhorn was used sparingly, and only two people were ejected from the meeting. One seemed to be trying to preach, and the other was “Seattle-Jew”, who blogs about it here. The only other trouble I saw was when a policewoman assaulted poor Karl after he ran across the street trying to escape.

This man wanted to “Stop Republican Voter Suppression”. I wonder if he means that crazy Republican insistence that all voters still have a pulse? Or that all votes have voters? Or something. Any other ideas out there?

Despite everything that WAS there, there was something that was not, and it was nagging at my mind. Something was wrong and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It wasn’t just the car next to mine with the Howard Dean bumber sticker and these odd wires hanging from beneath it (I was extra careful not to bump it as I left, just in case.)

It wasn’t until late that night that it finally hit me. There were no drums! These things ALWAYS have drums! Come on Seattle lefties, you’re slacking.

You can see the full gallery of pictures here.