Gerber and the NRA Respond to Zumbo

Gerber's (the knife maker, not the baby food company) first response to Zumbo was rather wishy-washy. Now, via Arfcom, we get a better reply:

For Immediate Release Contact: Jason Kintzler
Phone: 307.857.4700
JKintzler@GerberGear.com
Gerber Cuts Ties with Jim Zumbo

Portland, OR, February 21, 2007: Gerber Legendary Blades reacted to Jim Zumbo's recent public statements moving to sever all sponsorship ties with the long-time outdoor writer and hunter, effective immediately. "After careful evaluation and consideration, we have made the decision to discontinue our relationship with Jim Zumbo," said Brendon Weaver, Director of Brand Management at Gerber. "At Gerber, we value the hunting heritage and cherish our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms."

While we respect the opinions of sponsored professionals, customers and end users of our products, Mr. Zumbo's recent statements are not consistent with Gerber's culture and ideals as advocates of the hunting industry.

For more information please email Jason Kintzler at
JKintzler@GerberGear.com

And this morning I received this email from the NRA, in response to my message to them on Sunday:

Dear Mr. Markowitz:

Everyone at NRA Publications is angered and confused by the thoughts expressed by Jim Zumbo. We all know him well; he has been a periodic contributor to our magazines and a staunch supporter of the NRA for many years. But we cannot understand what led him to believe or write such things. Of course he's entitled to his opinion, but his opinion is certainly not one shared by the NRA staff. All semi-automatic firearms are just that: semi-automatic. There can be no differentiation between them simply based on external appearance. Mr. Zumbo has never been an employee of the NRA, and we have no plans to publish any articles by him in the future. Contributions by him to NRA media are hereby suspended, effective immediately.

Please know that your support and interest in our publications are deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,
John Zent
Editorial Director
NRA Publications

Good.

Cabela's Reaction to Jim Zumbo's Rant

The following email was posted on Arfcom by member "USPcompact":

Dear Mr. XXXXXXX,

Thanks for your comments. While Cabela’s believes everyone has the right to express their own opinions, we strongly disagree with Jim Zumbo’s February 16 posting on his Hunting with Jim Zumbo blog on Outdoor Life’s Web site.

Throughout our 46-year history, Cabela’s has firmly supported all aspects of shooting sports. We strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the right of every U.S. citizen to purchase, own and enjoy any legal firearm of their choosing.

While we fully support Mr. Zumbo’s First Amendment right of free speech, we believe his opinions on this matter are counter to those shared by Cabela’s and many of our customers. Cabela’s Legal Department is currently reviewing contractual obligations and commitments regarding our sponsorship of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show.

Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Brent

While Cabela's is probably best known as a hunting and fishing store, they sell a lot of guns, including many black rifles. I imagine they are pretty POed right now.

It's Official, Zumbo Canned by Remington

From Remington's website:

Remington to Sever Sponsorship Ties with Jim Zumbo

Madison, North Carolina – As a result of comments made by Mr. Jim Zumbo in recent postings on his blog site, Remington Arms Company, Inc., has severed all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo effective immediately. While Mr. Zumbo is entitled to his opinions and has the constitutional right to freely express those options, these comments are solely his, and do not reflect the views of Remington.

“Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars defending our Second Amendment rights to privately own and possess firearms and we will continue to vigorously fight to protect these rights,” commented Tommy Millner, Remington’s CEO and President. “As hunters and shooters of all interest levels, we should strive to utilize this unfortunate occurrence to unite as a whole in support of our Second Amendment rights.”

We regret having to terminate our long-standing relationship with Mr. Zumbo, who is a well-respected writer and life-long hunter.

Link.

Remington Cans Zumbo

David Codrea got confirmation from Tommy Milner that Remington has severed ties with Jim Zumbo. Remington is to be commended for their quick action, especially on a Sunday of a three-day weekend.

Go buy a box of Remington ammo, or something. :)

Remington Reply to Zumbo

Via Arfcom:

ALL - Jim Zumbo in NO WAY speaks for Remington! His opinions are his own. We at Remington take our 2nd Ammendment Rights extremely seriously and ourselves market and manufacturer a AR based 308 rifle. Remington Arms supports the lawful use of all firearms by thier owners in whatever legal manner they choose. We at Remington feel that it is the diversity of our tastes and uses of fireaems that should also be the binding element that assists us all in defending the rights granted to us by our fore fathers.

Rest assured that remington not only does not support jim's view, we totally disagree! I have no explaination for his perspective.

I proudly own AR's and support everyones right to do so!

What makes me sick is how quickly people on the internet have called to boycott Remington. All Jim said was he was hunting with our people! This is normal course in our industry. How else do people think we field test? with writers.

Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars to defend your rights and how quickly the thanks is threat and boycott! Please feel Free to post that remington does not agree with Zumbo in any way shape or form and we will assess our relationship with him accordingly.

Tommy Millner
CEO and President

I'm hoping that "assess our relationship with him accordingly" means "terminate our sponsorship."

Zumbo Apologizes

Having started an unexpected shitstorm with his anti-semiauto rifle post, Jim Zumbo has now apologized. Too bad it's one of the lamest apologies I've ever seen.

Let's see, he completely avoids the issue of having called AR-15 owners terrorists, fails to retract his statement calling for banning AR-15s in the hunting field, and then wraps himself in the flag.

The cat is out of the bag. We now know what Jim Zumbo really thinks. Screw him.

Email to the NRA

I sent this to publications@nrahq.com:

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to express my outrage at Jim Zumbo's vitriolic antigun comments on his blog at . In his blog he equates owners of semiautomaitc military-style rifles -- singling out AR-15 owners -- as terrorists. After reading Zumbo's blog entry anyone can tell that this was no offhand remark. It's what he really thinks. It is my understanding that Zumbo also writes for the NRA magazine Shooting Illustrated.

Mr. Zumbo has the right to his opinion. But in a time when our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is under assault, when the Congress and the Senate are dominated by antigun Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, antigun rhetoric from someone supposedly on our side, on a hunting website, is especially damaging to our cause.

I am an NRA Life Member and Second Amendment activist. Whenever I make an online purchase from vendors like MidwayUSA or Natchez Shooter's Supply, I always participate in the NRA Round-Up program. (This occurs once a month or more, by the way.) If the NRA doesn't show Mr. Zumbo the door then I'll give my hard-earned dollars to other gun rights organizations.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

David S. Markowitz

Letter to Remington

Feel free to copy as you see fit:

February 18, 2007

Mr. Tommy Millner
President & CEO
Remington Arms Company, Inc.
870 Remington Drive, P.O. Box 700
Madison, NC 27025-0700

Re: Jim Zumbo's Antigun Comments on the Internet

Dear Mr. Millner:

I am writing to you to express my outrage at comments made by Jim Zumbo on his blog. As I'm sure you're aware, Remington is a sponsor of Mr. Zumbo's blog.

In his entry entitled “Assault Rifles for Hunters” dated 2/16/07 , Mr. Zumbo equates owners of semiautomatic military-styled rifles with terrorists, and expresses his displeasure at seeing them in the hunting fields.

Mr. Zumbo has the right to his opinion. However, as you noted in your CEO's Message on Remington's website , we are in a hostile political climate with the new Democrat-controlled Congress. Zumbo's corrosive, elitist, arrogant, and ignorant comments read like a press release from the Violence Policy Center.

Benjamin Franklin said, "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately." His advice is especially true for gun owners and sportsmen today. Antigunners have beaten their drum so loudly for so long that there is no such thing as a politically correct firearm. Mr. Zumbo may not be aware, but the wood-stocked bolt actions that he feels should be used for hunting are going to be vilified as “high power sniper rifles” next if the antis get their way. There isn't too much difference between a Remington Model 700 Varmint model and a 700 PSS, after all.

In the past two months I have purchased 200 rounds of Remington .30-30 170 grain ammunition, as well as 500 rounds of Remington-UMC .30 Carbine. If Remington continues to sponsor Zumbo, I will make sure to spend my money with your competitors who do not provide the antigun agenda with financial support.

I would appreciate it if you would post a reply on Remington's website so that the pro-Second Amendment community knows where your company stands on this issue.

Sincerely,



David S. Markowitz

Fuming

Long-time gun writer Jim Zumbo has an entry on his blog that should make any concerned Second Amendment activist fume. He basically equates owners of AR-15s and other black rifles with terrorists. The response I posted in comments is as follows:

Are you really that stupid or just trolling? I find it appalling that in 2007 with a newly-elected Democratic Congress in power that a well-known gun writer would post what amounts to a press release for the Brady Bunch.

Now more than ever, "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."

Benjamin Franklin said that, by the way, in case your knowledge of history is as deficient as it is of the current political climate.

You are entitled to your opinion. I hope that in the future before you shoot your mouth off you'll consider the potential damage you do to our side by expressing it, however. Next time you circle the wagons, point your guns out, not in.

I intend to express my displeasure to Remington, a sponsor of Zumbo's blog. I just bought 500 rounds of Remington-UMC .30 Carbine but if they don't drop their sponsorship that'll be the last money they'll see from me.

MS Office 2004 11.3.4 Update

I just installed the 11.3.4 Update for Microsoft Office 2004 on my MacBook Pro running OS 10.4.8 and took it for a quick test drive. I opened Entourage, which seems the same, plus Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Word 2004 is definitely faster for long docs and when multiple files are accessed on my iDisk. Previously, Word has been very slow and not all that stable on this machine.

Ditto for Excel, which was having major problems with one particular spreadsheet with macros in it. It now seems to be faster with multiple files open.

I only opened two small presentations simultaneously in PowerPoint, but it seemed to work OK.

I'll need to work with it more to see if there are any "gotchas," however.

Keystone State Lawyer Blog

Over on my new Keystone State Lawyer Blog, I have a post "Hold Off on Windows Vista."

I will be using the KSL Blog for posts related to legal topics, concentrating on Internet law and law practice management issues. I hope you'll check it out.

Psychiatric Study Results

A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of man a woman finds attractive can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.

For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with a spear lodged in his chest and tape over his mouth while he is on fire.

No further studies are planned.





;-)

New Look

I'm taking advantage of some Blogger features, which required me to adopt a new template. A lot of the sidebar stuff will need to be rebuilt, so as I do that things will (seemingly) appear, vanish, or move around.

Please pardon things while I'm redoing this place and watch your head. :-D

Motorola RAZR V3m with iSync

My Verizon cell phone plan includes a "free" new phone every two years, so I got a Motorola RAZR V3m over the weekend. It's a nice phone but isn't officially supported by iSync (the V3c is supported by iSync, but not the V3m). I found a free downloadable plugin which allows iSync to synchronize your contacts with the V3m over Bluetooth. It's available here. Very handy.

As far as I can tell, if you want to sync contacts, calendars, and files with a V3m on a Mac you'll need to purchase the Datapilot sync software and use a USB cable, not Bluetooth. That's available for sale here.

I'm annoyed that Verizon locks down the RAZR because I'd like to be able to sync my calendar without shelling out for the Datapilot software, since I already have iSync. Aside from that I like the phone. It's slim, light, and is hardly noticeable in my front pocket. Sound quality seems good.

I just wish I hadn't left it in my truck at the train station this morning. :-/

Geektool

Today I've been playing around with Geektool, an open source addition to the Mac OS X Preference Pane which allows you to display files, the output of UNIX commands, or graphics fectched from the Internet on your Mac's desktop. Here's a screenshot, click for a larger view:




In the upper left we see the console log, in the middle the output of netstat, and down below on the left is a weather radar map that I've set to update every two minutes. (I found my wallpaper via Dan Seto's post on Monday 2/5/07.)

Pretty neat.

OmniOutliner 3

For the past couple of days I have been using OmniOutliner 3. It's part of the software bundle that came with my MacBook Pro. I haven't been this impressed with an application in a long time. Description from the Omni Group's website:

You can use OmniOutliner's document structure to create hierarchies of main headings and subpoints that can be expanded and collapsed, which are immensely useful when it comes to brainstorming new ideas, drilling out specifics, and lining up steps needed to get everything done. But you aren't limited to outlines - you've got multiple columns, smart checkboxes, customizable popup lists, and an über-innovative styles system at your disposal.

I currently have three outlines that I crafted in OmniOutliner:

1. IT goals for my main client.
2. A white paper about Metro Ethernet.
3. Outline of Wendell Odom's book CCNA Intro Exam Certification Guide.
   

I've done outlining before using Word and OpenOffice and compared to OmniOutliner, both of them are clunky. OmniOutliner makes it very easy to insert new columns, attach files (e.g., PDFs) to particular items in the outline list, and to add notes to outline items.

Outlines can be exported to a variety of formats including HTML, RTF, and RTFD, so sharing them with others is easy.

OmniOutliner 3 also runs a lot better on my Intel Mac than Word 2004, which is proving to be a bit sluggish running in Rosetta. (Strangely enough, Entourage seems to run fine. I haven't worked with Excel under Rosetta yet.)

OmniOutliner Pro offers some increased functionality over OmniOutliner Standard, and I'm giving serious thought to upgrading. I'll work with the standard version for a little while before doing so, however.

OmniOutliner is a Universal Binary, so you can run it if you have either a PowerPC or an Intel Mac. Trial licenses are available, and the Omni Group has some sample documents available for download so you can get a better idea of what can be done with it.