That'll teach him to call the cops next time.

Apparently this guy had some armed goblins bust up into his house, actually bust caps at him, and he repelled boarders with his shotgun.

When the cops finally arrived at the scene, what did they do? Ticketed him for discharging a firearm inside city limits, since

"there is no self-defense exception in Garner’s gun ordinance. Only a law enforcement officer may fire a weapon within town limits according to the local code."

You have got to be kidding me.

Well, they don't call North Carolina "The California of the South" for nothing...

(H/T to Borepatch.)

This confuses me.

Okay, so some folks are holding a mock funeral for Internet Exploder* 6. Normally, this wouldn't rate an iota of attention from me because A) I haven't used any version of Exploder for at least five years and B) Going to a funeral for a web browser is about the most depressing and sad, yet marginally social, thing a nerd could do. However in reading the article, a purported factoid caught my eye:

IE8 commanded 22.5 percent of the browser market last month, according to NetMarketShare, an analytics firm. Despite its age, IE6 still held on to 19.8 percent of the market in February -- more than IE7. Overall, Internet Explorer remains by far the most commonly used Web browser, ahead of Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Huh?

I checked VFTP's SiteMeter:

Granted, that's just the last hundred visitors, and so it can be skewed pretty easily, like by that one person using IE6. So let's try a larger sample; Google Analytics can toss out the data for the last umpty-whatever users. The default setting is for the last month, and according to them, VFTP visitors have been browsing thusly:


Which again doesn't add up to a dominating share for IE. So what's up? Are y'all just that much more savvy than the 'net populace in general, or what?



PS: Although here's an interesting demographic nugget:


Note that people who come here from SurvivalBlog are using the browser that came in the box by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Mr. Rawles needs to get Borepatch to do a sermon on 'net security.


_________________________________________
*Normally I frown on clever spellings like "Windoze" or "Shrubya" or "Obambi" or whatever. I am guilty of a few myself, though: I've been calling it "Device Mangler" since Win 3.x, and "Exploder" for as long as there's been one. Heck, I refer to a certain AR-15 manufacturer as "Bushhamster" so often that I've accidentally written it that way in the Bound Book at least once. Mea maxima culpa.

Kind of like flying, but with all the fun sucked out.

Borepatch reminds me of the good ol' days, when I used to go out to Hartsfield to watch the planes taxi around from a comfy, air-conditioned perch in Concourse E.

And he reminds me of the bad new days, when the only way flying could be more degrading is if they actually shackled you to a U.S. Marshal, instead of just treating you as though you were shackled to one.

I'll bet shipping myself as "Live Caged Monkey! Handle With Care!" via a FedEx cargo jet would be a somewhat more pleasant and streamlined travel experience.

All coiled up and ready to go.

Seen at Borepatch's place:



Yup. That's a working Gauss pistol. More or less.

Do want!

Dueling Weltanschauungs.

It's a tag team cage match!

In this corner, wearing guarded optimism and faint hope, The Comeback Kids!

Borepatch:

The only conclusion we can reach is that the Long March Through The Institutions has effectively destroyed the Institutions.
...
Gramsci was wrong, at least for America. We don't care about Intellectualism, and never have. All the dreaming and wishing that America "becomes more like Europe" is empty. Not happening, at least on this side of the Atlantic.

...and LabRat:

It’s the usual collection of Republican fauna, but I HAVE noticed one very interesting thing, which is that they are all alike in very distinct fashion: they are doing their damndest to court the Tea Partiers, or at least going well out of their way to not piss them off. There’s even a distinctly… dare I use the word… libertarian flavor to their campaigning, up to and including calling each other out for their respective establishment backgrounds. They’re practically shoving each other out of the way to be the one to say most loudly “government is based in the consent of the governed” and similar such things.

Meanwhile, in this corner, wearing cynicism and bitter experience, the Won't Get Fooled Agains!

Scooteroi:

My thought was:

“None of this is going to end well.”

Not a bit of it. The economies, the governments, the factions of people and beliefs. It’s beginning to feel as inevitable as gravity, decay or entropy and I find it aggravating and disturbing…it seems to be moving at a disturbingly increasing rate and there are still a lot of people who seem to think that some magical pixie is going to show up, wave a enchanted wand and make it all better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for magical pixies, most especially the ones you see after consuming a good deal of vodka. However, I don’t believe that one is actually doing to show up and wave away a thirteen trillion dollar national debt or swat Kim Jong Illin’, Ahmadinejad or Bin Laden off to Neverland.

...and Billy Beck:

There are many alive today who satisfy themselves as "Americans" even as they remain ignorant of things that were being lost before they were born -- "free spirits" who were tattooed with federal numbers on traditional paperwork and who have never worked a day in their lives without accounting their very existence in dollars to the law. Their grandfathers could build houses if and where they wanted to once they had accrued the moral authority (that's "money", kids) to do it: these people can barely un-flatpack a bookshelf, but at least they wouldn't have to beg zoning permits for that.

All four are wicked smart, some of the best writers I've found on the tubes, and each of those four posts is worth reading in its entirety.

You should do so.

Kilted To Kick Cancer 2014...

...is winding up in about a week and I haven't thrown the official, albeit diminished, VFTP Endorsement & Support to anybody yet. I've usually eschewed traditional juggernauts like Team JayG because "rooting for the New York Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel" and picked the underdogs of Team Atomic Nerds, however Stingray has thrown his support to the also fairly juggernautish Team Ambulance Driver this year.

Since Team Borepatch is performing strongly without needing my help, I'm going to split the official endorsement between Team McThag and Team Guns & Coffee this year. Go Team(s)!
.

Nothing new under the sun...

Borepatch has discovered the Evans rifle. I should have bought that one I once saw at a gun show for, like, $499. I bet the guy would have taken four and a half to not have to carry it home with him.

When the Calico carbine came out with its helical magazine behind the action, antique collectors just looked at it and thought "Huh. Just like an ol' Evans." (Similarly, the new Boberg XR-9's exotic shell elevator loading system? Webley Mars.)

There is very little new under the sun when it comes to firearms. Since, oh, probably the 1930s, the only advances have been in materials and construction techniques. Armies today are still using gas-operated, rotating bolt, brass-cased smokeless powder self-loaders, just like they were 75 years ago. The machine pistol has come and gone.

This is a very mature technology.

Famous Landmarks...

Borepatch has a pic on his blog of that Milliarium Aureum of my youth, the Big Chicken, or as snooty denizens of East Cobb could refer to it, le poulet gran.

For instance, to get to the Field Museum in Chicago, you go down Roswell Road until you get to the Big Chicken, and hang a right, then keep going a long ways... (Cobb Parkway and Lake Shore Drive are both U.S. Hwy 41.)
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Someone else's ruminations...

...on Ahmadinejad's sudden reversal in the popularity department: The guy has gone from euro-charmer to kryptonite almost overnight, and it seems like only Hugo "Pugsley" Chavez hasn't mailed back his BFF bracelet.

I'm not 100% sold, but it's interesting speculation.

(H/T to Borepatch.)

TSA, go away, don't come back another day...

Borepatch muses on security theater and offers up a Hail Mary scenario that might work, if the right person were to pull it off:

There is a solution, that I modestly offer here. A bold (read: media whoring) Governor should federalize airport security in his state. He should send in the State Police and arrest any TSA agent that engages in sexual assault. He can have the security outsourced to a company that will actually be responsive to the market.

The TSA, of course, will have a cow. They will threaten legal action. Andrew Jackson's dictum will prove popular: The Supreme Court has made its ruling. Now let it enforce it. It's unlikely that this visible battle royal will make the Governor less popular; on the contrary, the TSA is at best ignored and at worst despised by most of the country. Our Governor will be seen as a hero by many registered voters.

And that's just the opening gambit: RTWT.
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Gotta get down to the big antiwar protest...

...but while I'm waiting for the new mocha-hued repaint job on my giant papier-mâché George Bush head to dry (luckily the big ears were easily repurposed) I'd like to leave you with this charming open letter to the Principled Antiwar Left, which snarks pretty much everything I wanted to snark, and gets in a last boot to the ribs with

P.S. Also, there’s no proof that Qaddafi had anything to do with 9/11.

*snerk!*

Meanwhile, apparently Kha... Qa... Gaddafi has rolled out footage of gurneys full of dead human shields, which the media vampires (who, let's not forget, "Remember the Maine!"-ed us into this in the first place) are gleefully rebroadcasting, since Libyan State Propaganda TV doesn't have the signal strength to get its message out unaided. Thanks to advanced seeker technology, our bombs seem to home in unerringly on women, children, and Imam O'Flanagan from the Needy Orphans' Ministry.

Hey, CNN, since this war was half your idea in the first place, can't you at least go 72 hours before switching sides?


(H/T to Borepatch.)

Target marketing...

When I moved to Indianapolis, I discovered something of whose existence I'd been hitherto unaware: commercials for farming stuff. Ads for seed and such from Monsanto or DeKalb just didn't have enough potential buyers in the broadcast markets of Atlanta or Knoxville.

I wonder if this video ad, via Borepatch, plays during halftime in the Icelandic Mixed Doubles Cod Juggling Championship?

QotD: Not At All Optimistic Edition...

Borepatch is noting a distinct downturn in Sunshine 'n' Kittens futures, recommends taking a short position:

This Republic has strong bonds holding it together, but those bonds will take only so much stress.  There are those in both parties who are reckless of the costs of their regaining committee chairmanships.  The force that is increasing the stress on the Res Publica are entirely the increased size of government - for government is power, and that attracts those who would wield it.

Go and RTWT.

Miscellany...

• My new weekend morning guilty pleasure? An hour or so of Al's Current TV, the place where Olbermann washed up after he was deemed too much of a kneejerk bleeding heart pinko for msnbc. It's fun to MST3K their hand-wringing documentaries.


• If there's one common bond that unites soldiers of all nations, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, it's piss-poor handgun training.


• I have to agree that Michelle Bachmann went full retard, there. Of course she's going to balk at fundamental, structural tax code reforms! She admitted to being a tax attorney right there on live TV! That's like asking David Ortiz what he thinks about doing away with the designated hitter rule.
  
  She's a self-confessed tax lawyer and a known congresscritter; at least hookers and dope dealers return value for money in a free and voluntary exchange, all elected officials do is eat tax money and shit out red tape and misery.


• It was a '74 Ford Gran Torino, Borepatch.
  

If you liked $THIS, you'll love $THAT!

So, via some roundabout linkage through Borepatch, I wound up at a blog called The Worst Things For Sale, which takes a look at some of the truly stupid, weird, or awful things being hawked on the internet today.

Bobbi spun her chair around and we scrolled through a full six pages of the awful, like driving slowly past a car wreck, and I had actually clicked on a couple of the Amazon links to see the awfulness in all its [click to enlarge] glory. It wasn't until I found myself looking at the Drink And Food Energizer Orgone that I realized what I'd done to my Amazon browsing history...

Me: "Oh, gawd! I've clicked on a whale dildo, a spandex santa gimp suit, and some kind of crystal magic thing to put positive waves in my food! Based on my recent browsing history, Amazon is going to suggest items appropriate for a retarded pervert!"

If you'll pardon me, I have a bunch of "do not use this item for recommendations" boxes to go click.
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Your morning laugh.

White Wedding: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Found this at Borepatch and laughed so hard I cried.

The Marriott Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine is run by unpatriotic jerks.

And if you don't believe me, you can read all about it here.

EDITED TO ADD: In comments at Borepatch's post, commenter genedunn wrote

"Wait a minute... I thought selective enforcement of laws (rules) was the first sign of tyranny?"

To which I replied

"A sole proprietorship IS a tyranny. All he may choose is what kind of tyrant to be: The benevolent kind or the douche-y kind.

This one did not choose wisely."

.

QotD: Tell You What To Do Edition

Borepatch made me LOL.

Seems there's some new "scientific" study that says that people are too dumb to govern themselves.

You'll be shocked to find that the scientists are from an Ivy League university. Who would have seen that coming?

How cute! I must have missed the part where I agreed to give a damn about their opinions.
.

So much for me being Smart.

I took the Smart People test at RWCG. I are not Smart. Especially because my answer to number six ("What's there to do in K-town?") was "Go to a Vols game."


(H/T to Borepatch.)

Tab Clearing...

• Borepatch on encryption. I type my emails in lemon juice now; you have to hold your monitor over a candle to read them.


• These leaks are bad leaks because they didn't come from inside the administration.


• Apple coughs up numbers of the times the .gov has asked it to cough up data.


• Chinese media in an uproar over Snowden's claims that the US .gov hacked Chinese computers: There is apparently no word for "irony" in Mandarin.


• Why you shouldn't lap up those sweet, sweet puddles of antifreeze.