Call me Ahab

posted by Caleb on Dec 31

Stolen shamelessly from Marko, the game is that you pick one blogger from your blogroll and imagine what their action figure would look like.  So from my blogroll, I present you the LawDog action figure, with Fierce Law Enforcement Grip.

The LawDog action figure is wearing his “Sunday Finest”, pressed trousers, button down shirt, bolo tie, with a custom 1911 with ivory grips carried in a brown leather holster, complete with floral pattern.  Ready for Court or a Bar-B-que, the LawDog action figure also comes with Long Arm of the Law gripping action, capable of subduing the rowdiest of drunks with a witty barb.  GET YOURS NOW!

posted by Caleb on Dec 31

Following up my NFL Preview from many moons ago, I present Ahab’s Playoff Preview for the NFL.  First off, a review of my picks.

AFC East: I picked the Pats, and I was right.  I didn’t know how right.

AFC South: I picked the Colts, right again.

AFC West: Chargers, also right.

AFC North: I picked the Steelers, making me 4 for 4 on AFC Division winners.

AFC Wildcards: I didn’t do so well here, picking Cincinnati and Denver to win Wildcards; the actual wild card teams are Jacksonville and Tennessee.

NFC West: I picked San Francisco.  So sue me, it’s my one loyalty pick.  The actual winner was Seattle.

NFC East: I picked the Eagles - also wrong.  I had no idea that Tony Romo and the (spit) Cowboys would be so damn good this year.

NFC North: I picked Chicago, wrong as well.  Honestly, I don’t think anyone outside of Wisconsin picked the Packers to win their division this year.

NFC South: I picked the Saints.  This (and Chicago) were supposed to be my “safety” picks, the easy ones.  The Saints struggles coupled with a resurgent Tampa Bay (wtf) sort of put me in my place.

NFC Wildcards: Really wrong here.  Although my Detroit pick was looking genius in the first 6 weeks, they flattened out midway through the season.  And Arizona pretty much stank it up all over the place.  The actual NFC Wildcards are the Giants and the Redskins.

Anyway, on to the matchups and predictions for the playoffs!

Wild Card Round

Jaguars at Steelers: The Steelers have limped into the playoffs, not looking sharp and missing their star running back, Willie Parker.  Meanwhile, the Jags have pretty much flown under everyone’s radar while rolling up an 11-5 record in the toughest division in the NFL (the AFC South).  Seriously, when you have to play the Colts and the Titans twice each, you are not in a cupcake division.  I’m picking the Jags, 23-17.  I think they’re stronger in the run, and have a real fire this year.

Titans at Chargers: The Titans made the playoffs by beating the Colts last night; admittedly it was a Colts team resting pretty much all it’s starters after the first half.  I like the Titans, I think they’re scrappy and tough, but I don’t think they can overcome the Chargers’ home field advantage, or LT.  Chargers win 31-20.

Redskins at Seahawks: My mom is going to hate me for this, but I think the ‘Skins are going to win this game.  Seattle has really seemed to lack a sense of urgency on the field this season, and that’s going to carry into the postseason.  Meanwhile, for the first time in years, the Redskins are playing with guts and courage.  This one is pretty close, but I’ll give the edge to the Skins, 14-13.

Giants at Bucs: If you had asked me who would win this game before I saw the Giants/Patriots game, I would have told you the Bucs, hands down.  Now I’m not so sure.  Eli looked better than he had all season against the Pats, throwing the ball very well and looking very sharp.  That being said, the Bucs are going to have Jeff Garcia back and healthy, and are at home.  This is possibly the toughest game to call, because I don’t think that either of these teams has demonstrated the ability to straight blow the other out of the water.  I’m going with my boy Jeff Garcia - he’s a winner.  Bucs win with a late field goal, 24-21.

Division Round

My picks for the Division round are based off my picks for the Wild Card round - I’ll offer revised picks for any that I mess up.

Jaguars at Patriots: This is the match-up I want to see.  Despite my love for Tom Brady and the Pats, I think a team like the Jags is exactly the kind of team that could go into Massachusetts in the winter and win.  The Jags run the ball well, play tough defense, and don’t make a lot of mistakes.  They’re built to play tough, smashmouth football.  The same strategy that you use against the Colts (keep the ball out of Peyton Manning’s hands) applies to the Patriots and Tom Brady.  If we get this match-up, this would be a fantastic game.  I think that Pats will pull a win out of it, but not a by a lot.  Call it 14-10.

Chargers at Colts: I don’t even have to think about this one.  The Colts are the defending champs, and in the dome against the Chargers, I think this is a pretty lopsided game.  Marvin Harrison should be back just in time to whomp the Chargers, and the Colts win in a rout, 38-21.

Redskins at Cowboys: As much as I hate them, the Cowboys win this one.  They weren’t really playing for anything last night, and I think they come out firing and tear the Redskins apart.  There’s not a lot of commentary to make here, the Cowboys are flat better than the Redskins.  31-20.

Buccaneers at Green Bay: This is the game the Bucs don’t want, at Green Bay in the winter.  A rested and ready Packers team at Lambeau Field is not a team you to play, especially if you’re from Florida.  The Packers will lay a beating on the Bucs, 24-7.

Conference Championships

AFC Championship: Oh look, I’ve predicted a Colts vs. Patriots championship game.  What a surprise.  You know, it’s funny.  The Pats from this year look like the Colts from two seasons ago, that Colts team that lost to the Steelers.  Meanwhile, the Colts run the ball and play tough defense…and they kind of look like the Pats from their last championship season.  You could argue this one back and forth for hours, but despite all my desire to see the Pats go 19-0 and shut up the ‘72 Dolphins, I think the Colts win this one, with a last second field goal by Vinatieri; partly because I love irony.  Final Score 31-30.

NFC Championship: I think I went with the easy pick here, the Packers at Dallas.  I’m picking the Packers.  My hatred of the Cowboys prevents me from even being close to rational when it comes to the thrice damned team from Dallas.  Packers win in a close game, 26-23.

Super Bowl

Packers and Colts - this is a sportswriter’s wet dream.  Brett Favre vs. Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl.  You could write columns and columns about the matchup of two of the greatest all time quaterbacks, blah blah blah.  It would go on and on forever, until I got to the point where I just wanted them to play the game so I didn’t have to listen to it.  Admittedly, I would LOVE this game, because I really do like Brett Favre, and I really like Peyton.  I think the Colts would win, they’re a better team than the Pack.  Peyton gets his second ring and solidifies his standing as one of the all time best, 30-24.

Let’s see how right I am.

posted by Caleb on Dec 30

I am going to take some heat from my Indy readers (and my Mom) when I say this, but I really want the Pats to go undefeated for the whole boat.  19-0 with a Superbowl championship.  Obviously, I want this because I’m a fan of the team, but there is an ulterior motive as well.

I want the ‘72 Dolphins to shut the hell up.  Admittedly, Don Shula and Bob Griese have been pretty classy about this whole thing, but the rest of the team has left a lot to be desired.

The whole popping champagne when the last unbeaten team of the year drops ritual was old and lame the first season I knew what they doing; to me it always seemed like a display of poor sportsmanship.  And of course, plenty of members of the ‘72 Dolphins are being cry-babies about the Pats unbeaten season right now.

“I do not believe they’ll go 19-0,” said 1972 guard Bob Kuechenberg, noting they still have three postseason games to win. Among the teams they may have to beat are the reigning Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts and the NFC champion in the Super Bowl.

“If the Patriots can do all that, my hat is off to them,” Kuechenberg said. “They will have earned the right to join us in the ranks of the immortals.”

“The immortals”?  You won 17 games before the Free-Agency era.  Whoopee do.  Of course, there’s always Mercury Morris’ comments, which are usually the best of the lot:

Morris said: “It doesn’t matter to me whether or not they win them all because it doesn’t affect anything we’ve done. When all the dust clears, the best they can do is to stand beside us, and in the end, that’s not a bad thing. I will welcome them to the neighborhood with my Mr. Rogers sweater on, but first they have to get to the neighborhood.”

I understand that the Fins are proud of their accomplishment.  That’s fine, pride is a perfectly good thing to have, especially when you did something that not a lot of other people have done.  But be classy about it; and when your accomplishment is bested (which it has been) then you should be gracious and acknowledge that fact.  Don’t be a petulant child, because that’s what it look like.  Props to Bob Griese (displaying his Boilermaker class) and Don Shula for being gracious about this.

Ultimately, the rest of the ‘72 Dolphins needs to come to terms with the fact that winning 16 straight regular season games in today’s NFL is a significantly greater accomplishment than doing it in ‘72.  The players are better, the games are tougher, and the league is more competitive now.  We live in an NFL where even a bad team can put it together and challenge a great team.  Free agency and the condition of athletes now has done much to level the playing field.

Congratulations to Tom Brady and the entire Patriots organization.  In 10-20 years when someone is getting ready to run the table, don’t make me regret typing this.  Be classy about it - don’t be like the Fins.

posted by Caleb on Dec 28

“Global Warming will save America from the Right…Eventually”

You probably think I’m kidding, but I’m not.  Thanks to a link from Les I see this column in the Baltimore Chronicle, where Dave Lindorff actually has the testicular fortitude to say some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.

There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city…

There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can’t have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again….

It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, “Shut up. We told you this would happen.”

I snipped some of the more choice quotes from there, and of course I’m going to offer some commentary on them.  Aside from the complete and utter scientific ignorance displayed by Dave when it comes to the effect a rising sea would actually have; he also makes it completely an abundantly clear that if you don’t believe, you aren’t welcome.

Ironically, he also completely ignores what would happen to the rest of world if global warming “wiped out” the red states.  To make it perfectly clear, in that doomsday scenario, billions (that with a “b”) of people around the world would die.  Billions.  But that’s okay to Dave Lindorff, because among those billions would be a lot of conservatives, or so he imagines.

Let me repeat myself.  Humorous or not, Dave Lindorff just said on the public record that he doesn’t mind billions dying, as long as you and I and the other “troglodytes” die with them.

We could talk at length about what a rising sea level would actually do to the midwest, and we could talk for an even longer amount of time about the accuracy of the tidal models used to calculate a rising sea level.  That isn’t the issue here.  Obviously, Dave Lindorff tossed all scientific credibility out the window - what I’m focusing on is his tremendous arrogance and disregard for human life.  I don’t want to say that it’s emblematic of the global warming death cult group, but it’s pretty close.

It also goes as further evidence that global warming extremism (as opposed to rational, scientific analysis of global climate change which is something I am in favor of) really is a religion.  What could be more religious than hoping for a Great Flood to wipe the unbelievers from the earth?

posted by Caleb on Dec 28

Since we’re getting ready to wrap up 2007, here’s a brief list of cool things we can expect to see in 2008 from Call me Ahab.

• Indy Area gun shop coverage - we go to the shops and give you the real scoop on what’s going on there.
• Clothes - shirts, polos, maybe even some hoodies and other stuff.  I’m currently soliciting designs from a few people for a logo suitable for a shirt.
• More gun stuff -  I want to get into some cool C&R guns that I’ve seen out there, I’m also planning a where I go to a gun school with some very “un-gun-school” guns.
• Revolvers revolvers revolvers - duh
• Exclusive content you won’t find in the media - I started with my interview with Shirley Katz, and I plan on continuing.  Just because you didn’t hear about it from the MSM doesn’t mean it’s not news.

There’s a lot more planned, and let me know what you’d like to see in the comments section.
There’s a lot more planned as well, if you’ve got anything you’d like to see from

posted by Caleb on Dec 28

You might be a gunnie if:

• The Pyrodex residue on your boots sets off the “bomb swab” detector thing at the airport.
• When packing, you decide to use your range bag as a carry-on.
• When emptying said range bag, you find two loaded speedloaders in a side pocket. and have the reaction “that’s where those were!”
• On your way to the airport, you remember that you stuck a live .22 LR round in your change pocket as you were cleaning out your range bag, and have to leave it in the car.
• You’re a little surprised when your carry-on makes it through security without triggering any alarms, as over the past week it’s had 1 lb of Pyrodex and about 500 rounds of ammo in and out of it.

I’m sure that there are plenty more travel gunnie stories, especially ones involving actually trying to check guns through security.  I’ve only had to do that a couple of times, back when I was traveling with the Academy’s pistol team.  Truth be told, a bunch of guys in uniforms checking about 20 pistols didn’t really raise a flap back then; although it might now.

posted by Caleb on Dec 28

Uncle rightly points out that a lot of people here aren’t going to understand why the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan is going to make the planet a less safe, slightly more nasty place.

Aside from the fact that it now seems that Al-Qaeda was behind her assassination; to truly understand the political ramifications of this you have to go back to the 1980’s.  Before 1988, Pakistan hadn’t had a national election in more than a decade, and people who advocated for democracy had a tendency to wind up dead, as they so often do in totalitarian regimes.  Among the people who were calling for democracy and were then elected was Ms. Bhutto’s father.  In 1984, Ms. Bhutto became the leader-in-exile of the Pakistan People’s Party, which while center-left and kind of socialist certainly beats the crap out of a fundamentalist Islamic state.

In ‘88, when she returned to Pakistan, the PPP won the largest number of seats in Pakistan’s first election in over a decade, and Bhutto became the first woman to become head of state of a Muslim state.  It only lasted for two years, as she was dismissed under corruption charges.  In ‘93, she was elected again, and then dismissed again in ‘96 under more corruption charges.

Now, the corruption charges are under some significant debate, as Bhutto and her family have always maintained that said charges were the fabrication of extremist elements within the Pakistani government who wished to see her disgraced.  Whether or not they will continue to investigate beyond her death remains to be seen.

The reason why this assassination is bad tidings especially now must be viewed in light of the political turmoil under which Pakistan is currently embroiled.  Bhutto has constantly been pushing for, you guessed it, more democracy.  Her party was able to maneuver a deal with Musharraf to get amnesty for Bhutto, which allowed her to return to Pakistan this October.  Since that team, she’s been heavily involved in the turmoil surrounding Musharraf and the Pakistani presidency, again advocating for a more democratic system of government.

As you can imagine, being a woman calling for democracy in Pakistan can make someone somewhat unpopular; Ms. Bhutto contracted with several foreign security firms to provide for her safety (they seem to have dropped the ball here - ed.), as she had been receiving a near constant stream of death threats from hardline elements.

I don’t think Ms. Bhutto was perfect, far from it.  But what she did represent was a voice for more open government in one of our erstwhile allies.  It’s extremely disheartening to see that she’s been murdered, especially be elements of Al-Qaeda.  What it means in a political sense is that Pakistan is in for a long dark road, and as our primary ally in that region, it’s going to have a profound effect on our national security policy.  While I doubt that it could lead to an all out war in the region (although it’s possible for other reasons); the continued targeting of moderate elements attempting to bring reform to Pakistan will only lead to a further destabilized middle east.  Remember, Pakistan has nuclear technology, and the last thing the West wants is that kind of tech in the hands of a fundamental government.

posted by Caleb on Dec 27

Is it just me, or has Remington sort of been on the surge lately?  First their very own black rifle, now they’re acquiring Marlin:

Remington Arms Company, Inc. (”Remington” or “the Company”) the only manufacturer of both firearms and ammunition for Hunting, Law Enforcement/Security, Government & Military applications in the United States, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Marlin Firearms Company, Inc. (”Marlin”). The transaction is expected to close by the end of January 2008.

Now, since Marlin owns H&R, the makers of my beloved single shot rifles, I wonder what affect, if any, Remington’s purchase is going to have on the cost of said rifles.  My noted preference for single shot break opens not withstanding, one wonders if this part of a greater trend for Connecticut firearms manufacturers.  First Winchester, now Marlin, who’s next?

posted by Caleb on Dec 27

She’s right.

Watch out for that. When evil comes, it won’t be easily identifiable, with a hunched back and a crazed glint in its eye; it will be nicely dressed, sound reasonable, and have a great team of policy wonks and spin doctors to explain exactly why you need to climb into the cattle car, please.

posted by Caleb on Dec 27

Getting slowly caught back up to to speed.  Taking nearly a week off can take something of a toll on a fellow’s sarcasm-drive.

With that in mind though, how about them Boilers?  51-48, over 1,000 total yards of offense between both team?  Fantastic game.