Author: hsoi

Lessons from NTI

/ hsoi

John Farnam writes on his experience at the National Tactical Invitational.

Some take-home points:

  • Capacity is good.
    • Carry a reload. Even a back-up gun (BUG).
  • Keep moving.
  • Keep your head up, always looking for threats.
  • All situations don’t always require or necessitate using a gun.
  • Practice shooting your handgun at longer distances (e.g. 25 yards, 35 yards, 50 yards)
  • Just because someone has a gun doesn’t mean they’re a threat. Be sure of your target before shooting it.
    • Corollary: be mindful that someone else might see your gun and think you are a threat.
  •  If you get involved in a fight (fists, guns, knives, whatever), expect to get hurt. Keep fighting anyways.
  • Be alert! The sooner you get into the loop, the better choices you are going to make.
  • Hit first and hit fast.
  • There is no substitute to personal competence and practiced weapons skills.
  • Indecisive ditherers have no chance.

Good stuff.

Gun buy-backs exposed

/ hsoi

You know the drill… gun “buy-back” programs, where you trade in a gun and in return get something (e.g. a gift card). It’s all an effort to get guns off the streets and keep children safe.

Want to know the truth?

Basically, it’s worthless. Sure it collects a lot of guns, but almost all the guns collected are junk, inoperable, rusted out buckets of worthlessness. That is, it cost the collectors (ultimately you, the taxpayer) a lot of money to dish out these gift cards, and in return nothing of use was done. It makes someone in the PR department feel good, but that’s all we are now… about feeling good, not about actually accomplishing anything.

I also find it highly amusing. What do they think they’re going to get? Do they really thing the drug dealers and the gang members are going to go “Golly! I can trade in my gun and get a $100 gift card. Gee, Beav, what a deal! I think I’ll go do that right now! Golly!”

An Open Letter to President Obama

/ hsoi

 
The author, Lou Pritchett, is a well-known public speaker who retired after a successful 36-year career as the VP World Sales for Proctor and Gamble.

Lou Pritchett
Foremost Leader in Change Management

Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America ‘s true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world’s highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as “partnering.” Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me..

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don’t understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and ‘class’, always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the ‘blame America ‘ crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector..

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer ‘wind mills’ to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use ‘extortion’ tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do..

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O’Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

And apparently, it’s legit.

Low powered rifle

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

While reading this article over at SailorCurt’s, it hit me.

We don’t see many “low powered rifles” … not many “medium powered rifles”. How about “extra-high powered”?  “medium-high powered”? “medium-low”? “extreme high powered”?

Of course, would the main-stream-media and hoplophobes know the difference?

Kimbo to UFC, sorta

/ hsoi

So Kimbo Slice is going to go to the UFC, by way of their The Ultimate Fighter TV show.

I think this is great!

Kimbo is an interesting phenomenon. You’ve got this huge, muscled, tough, big black dude. He does bare-knuckle brawling in backyards. Gets video taped. Tapes put on the Internet. The buzz builds about this guy. Next thing you know, he’s a star. I watched some of Kimbo’s fights before he hit it big and I was impressed with the guy. He came off rough and crude, but effective at least in his element. But I also noticed in the videos that he was a sportsman about things; he may have been aggressive and mean in his attitude, but you could tell under it all this was just sport to him.

So he hits it big. The short-lived EliteXC promotion basically builds a promotion around him, but the fights aren’t that great and really show how weak Kimbo is going up against even modest pro fighters. The first 2 fights Kimbo fought were wins, and certainly Kimbo could hit like a freight train (Tank didn’t look too good). But the 3rd fight against James Thompson really demonstrated Kimbo’s weaknesses, only winning due to the freak rupturing of Thompson’s cauliflower ear (which was mighty gross). 

I will give Kimbo some credit. He does appear to want to learn. He does appear to want to get better and become more of a “legit” fighter. So I’ll give him credit for that. Going on TUF furthers that notion that he’s willing to learn, he’s willing to work his way up. And hey, he’s also willing to take the payday. The man certainly knows how to work his fame into fortune, and I can’t blame him for that either. And Dana White well knows this will make a lot of money for him as well. TUF has been floundering a bit, and this will certainly be a ratings draw. If Kimbo happens to win it, it’s going to really be a big story and big money. So really, this is a win-win situation for both parties, and should bring some spice and drama to the pro MMA scene.

Our TV’s await….

Working the heavy bag

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Boxers know it. The heavy bag is a great training tool.

Unfortunately I do not have a true heavy bag at home because I don’t have a means for mounting one. However, I do have a Wavemaster XXL, which is better than nothing.

I use the bag every so often in my workouts because striking something gives far more feedback than just “air striking”. But the past couple weeks I’ve been almost exclusively focusing on bag training in my at-home workouts. It’s been quite a workout too, and a welcome bit of variety.

The heavy bag isn’t just about working on your striking, but it can also help with your footwork and even defensive skills. This is where the floor-mounted bag like the Wavemaster is at a disadvantage, since the swinging of a true heavy bag is really needed to work these. Nevertheless, I still try to keep moving and do the best I can with what I have.

Check out rossboxing.com’s heavy bag training routines. Doing 3 x 3-minute rounds of skills, 4 x 1-minute rounds of power, followed by 5 x 30-seconds of speed is just killer. Another routine from Ross. 

An overview/intro to bag workouts from bodybuilding.com.

Work the bag into your workout routine. If nothing else, sometimes hitting something is just great stress relief. 🙂

Guarding against good intentions

/ hsoi

It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

— Daniel Webster

Remember, Hell is paved with good intentions.