Daily Low

The heat wave is definitely here.

Just before sunrise this morning it was 77℉ and 90% humidity and I'm afraid that's as good as it's going to get today.

I'm gonna try and dip over to the outdoor range just after nine, as soon as morning rush hour's over, to get my shooting in before it gets too swamp-ass hot out there to bother.

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Meme Dump!

Incredibly Bad Idea

Using Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, they made bets on the fires — how they would grow, how long they would last and how much they would destroy.

Using online prediction markets to place bets on wildfires is basically incentivizing arson. This is like the literal definition of a moral hazard.

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Automotif DCXXX...

A 2019-2024 Bentley Continental GTC. This is the lesser model, with the 542 horsepower twin turbo 4.0L V-8 and not the 6.0L twin turbo W12, which puts out a whopping 650 ponies.

Shot with a Nikon D4 and a 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VR zoom lens.

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The Dumbest Timeline...

The Sunday morning political talking head shows were abuzz with the latest rounds of high explosive tag in the Persian Gulf: Iran drones some ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the US retaliates by striking targeting radars and missile & drone storage facilities, then Iran launches missiles at US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, and we launch more airstrikes on Iran...

Then suddenly this morning, before sunup, the story breaks on the Wall Street Journal's site: "U.S. and Iran Agree to Halt Days of Fighting Over Strait" and it's all over the teewee news this morning.

The vibe here is so obviously "Quick! Before the markets open!" because Wall Street traders have the object permanence of a toddler playing peek-a-boo. "Where'd mommy go? Oh no! Mommy's gone forever!", except in this case mommy is the Iranian ability to interdict traffic in the Strait.

We are entering a new phase of the war where fighting will primarily occur between Friday evening and Monday morning EDT.

Memes for Monday!

Air You Can Wear

Went for my walk around the block this morning just minutes before local sunrise.

Air temperature was 74℉ and the dew point was also 74℉. In other words, the humidity was over 95%.

Rather sticky feeling.

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"I didn't get a harrumph from that guy!"

Happy one hundredth birthday to a true national treasure, Mel Brooks!

Meme Dump!

Tab Clearing...

• If your laptop or phone is getting long in the tooth, the best time to upgrade is three months ago: How the AI boom is driving an inflationary surge in consumer electronic prices.


• The guys with the Roman statue PFPs don't know jack about the classics they claim to love.


• War Films and the Experience of War.

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Meme Dump!

Expired...

So after nine years one of the two batteries (the smaller of the two) on the cordless lawnmower gave up the ghost.

The label said "Poulan" but it wasn't. It was a relabeled... well, WORX and Greenworks are the electric lawn appliances still in circulation from those days.

I think we definitely got our money's worth out of it (and it still works, it's just the smaller of the two battery packs crapped out) so we're taking advantage of Prime Day and buying a replacement. The old one can stay as a backup unit.

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Tab Clearing...

• Russian frigate sent to watch over "shadow fleet" tankers moving through the English Channel is now itself low on fuel and drifting.


• Russia, feeling the stress of Ukrainian counterattacks, believed to be preparing "provocation" in Baltic nations or Poland to test NATO resolve.


• New Jersey residents have to keep cool road sign greased up to prevent theft.

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End-Of-Week Memes!

Meme Dump!

*headdesk*

Me: *spends literal decades on the internet trying to explain to people that there’s not a dial labeled ”GAS PRICES” on the Resolute desk*

POTUS, yesterday:

Current Reading...

I'm just wrapping up reading Murphy's Law: My Journey from Army Ranger and Green Beret to Investigative Journalist, and found it quite enjoyable.

It's not often that a guy with experience in the Rangers and Special Forces forgoes the usual vetbro career track and instead takes on serious journalism as well as working as a war correspondent.

Worth the read.

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Wednesday Memes!

It’s all a “you problem”.

Is there a claimed issue with a type of pistol action… whether DA/SA, DAO, cocked and locked single action, or safetyless striker fired …that isn’t actually just a lack of training and practice on the part of the end user?

The Longest Day...

Happy summer solstice!

Sunset in Indianapolis today is at 9:17 and some seconds. While it will be a little later tomorrow, sunrise will too, as the days begin contracting again.

Meme Dump!

Automotif DCXXIX...

Here's a sexy ride you don't see very often. It's a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S. The color is not factory and the extremely ready-to-party backbeat throbbing from the exhaust said that whatever's going on under the hood isn't either.

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Meme Dump!

Midweek Memes!

Meme Dump!

Hey, Look!

"To fully trace the origin story of the Daniel Defense H9 Compact, you’d have to go back to the late 1990s, as online firearm forums were gradually supplanting the old rec.guns newsgroup on Usenet.

Step into the General Firearms Discussion section of any forum not dedicated to a specific brand and you were stepping into a war zone dominated by two feuding camps: the Glock Fanboys and the 1911 Acolytes were the Jets and the Sharks of these online war zones."

My full review is available online.

Panopticon Update...

Meta's pervert goggles are getting face recognition to make stalking random strangers you run across in public even easier.

"Rank One, whose board includes a former CIA deputy director and a former FBI science chief, supplied face recognition to Meta for internal development of its smart glasses app."

Well, there's nothing creeptastic about that at all.

This meme remains undefeated:

"Is It Monday Again Already?" Memes!

Tab Clearing...

• The goons who keep an eye on the crews of the "shadow fleet" tankers that are the Russian economy's increasingly tenuous financial lifeline.


• The paid influencers who hype Polymarket to the rubes.


• Pokémon Go location data sold for use in training military drones. No wonder people are starting to hate everything about Big Tech.

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Meme Dump!

Homemade Meme Dump!

Automotif DCXXVIII...

Absolutely drop-dead gorgeous 1960 'Vette, photographed using a Canon EOS R and RF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

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Travel Day Yesterday...

Woke up in a hotel in the middle of Nebraska yesterday after a two-day carbine class/match at Heartland Public Shooting Park just outside Grand Island.

Left the hotel at 0600 local for a ride to Lincoln, a flight to Denver, and then... after my connecting flight wound up delayed by over two hours ...a flight home to Indy. I arrived home around 9PM EDT.

Included in the day was the experience of looking out the airplane window at 6PM and seeing Grand Island below, the place from which I had departed twelve hours prior. Ah, the magic of hub-and-spoke air travel.

After a full day of tours on the concrete floors of the various Hornady plants in Grand Island, two days on the range, and then an absolute Hell Day of travel, I am officially whupped.