Idaho: Famous for mountains, potatoes, and wookies.

While Barry is still feverishly stumping for the My Great Big Legacy Health Care Act of '10, most recently by holding hands with Dennis "The Red Menace" Kucinich, the Idaho state legislature has beaten Congress to the punch with the "Get Bent, D.C." Act of '10, which the governor of the Gem State has already signed into law.

"[E]very person within the state of Idaho is and shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services without penalty or threat of penalty."

Hard not to see where that one's aimed.

Meanwhile, apparently running over a list of federal installations in their state and finding that not one of them is named "Sumter", the Idaho legislature returned to the paper front and is now mulling the passage of HB 633, a "measure that would allow Idaho citizens to pay their state taxes with an official state silver medallion."

When I read stuff like this, I've half a mind to pack up my wookie suit and head for the Bitterroots.



(h/t for the latter story to SurvivalBlog.)

Jogger vs. Wild.

No this isn't about a Californian getting eaten by a puma or a Canadian folk singer getting killed by coyotes...

This time it's about an Alaskan getting eaten by wolves.

Colleagues said Candice Berner was determined to experience Alaska

Well, sounds like she experienced it, alright; all up close and personal-like.

What I want to know is how come the same person who would never walk alone through a dark alley in New York City will go and "experience" the wilderness by themselves without so much as a dull butter knife to their name. I've got news for you, hippie: If you live in the backwoods of Alaska, once you step out your front door, you are no longer the top link on the food chain.

The money quote on the whole "X-Games Culture meets Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" phenomenon comes from Chas Clifton:

No one goes to the gym expecting to be eaten.

Nature is not "red in tooth and claw" because of the Nerf padding.

Help a brother out...

Robb Allen wants to use his code-writing powers for good. Even better would be to use his powers for good and turning a profit at the same time, although he'd consider that just an added bonus. He needs ideas, though, so go help him out:

Any ideas for software that would improve your life as a gunnie? Consider this a brainstorming session – no idea is stupid or too far out there. I just need to get ideas going. Doesn't have to be a money maker though.

This could be your chance to have somebody program that shooty app you've always wanted!

Welcome to the future.

So the local news was running a blurb on the travel warnings for spring breakers in Mexico this morning, warning them to stay within one block of the beach, while camera footage showed an Acapulco swarming with grim-eyed, black-uniformed men with slung German assault rifles.

Wow.

If you had told me when I was in high school that, in order to take spring break in Mexico, we would have to remove our shoes before boarding the plane, walk through a machine that used fancy rays to let an hourly-wage security guard examine our crotchal areas in black & white 3-D, get frisked to make sure we weren't carrying anything as dangerous as a plastic spork onto the plane; that once on the plane they would charge us to use a blanket and we could only get up and pee at designated times under penalty of law; and that when we got to Cancun or Acapulco, there would be so many HK-toting Federales standing on street corners to protect tourists from the ongoing war with the narcotraficantes that it looked like Mardi Gras at Checkpoint Charlie, I'd have asked you who won the Cold War.

We're living in the dystopian future of a Bruce Sterling novel.

Spy photo:

This just in from my undercover mole:

According to a little birdie, Tiger McKee, who was a padawan learner under Clint Smith before setting off on his own and starting Shootrite Firearms Academy, is collaborating with Red Jacket Firearms of Louisiana on a special AR carbine with the Tiger McKee stamp o' approval.

It allegedly has a Sabre Defense lower, Les Baer upper, A1 buttstock, pencil barrel, Daniel Defense fixed rear BUIS, and a carbon-fiber handguard with a single stubby chunk of rail at the for'd 11 o'clock position, rather than a whole rail farm, since you don't need twenty-nine-and-a-half linear feet of picatinny rail to put a flashlight on your heater. Rumor has it that the gun is also sans the mostly useless "forward assist" and sports an all-up weight of less than six pounds.

My mole snapped a blurry closeup of the receiver:


I'm not entirely certain why my mole didn't snap a picture of the whole gun, but I am not complaining.

You will note that, in true firearms industry fashion, the gun is not named the "Snugglebunny Cuddlekins" or the "Family Protector", but rather the "KATANA". Oh well. You can always put electrical tape over the name if it makes you feel like an anime dork, 'cause otherwise the specs sound pretty schweet.

Not my fault...

If my productivity is shot, it's all the fault of the reader who hit my Amazon wish list and sent me a copy of Working IX to V: Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World. I laid into that and it gave me a hankering to lose myself in the giant multi-century metaphor that is Rome.

So when I finished it, I dug through the attic looking for my copies of Lindsey Davis' wonderful Marcus Didius Falco novels (think "Sam Spade in a toga"...) I couldn't find the first one, Silver Pigs, so I tucked into #2: Shadows in Bronze. Davis spins some of the most compelling historical fiction, stuff that puts you right on the streets of the Eternal City during the reign of my favorite emperor, Vespasian. It doesn't hurt that her characters are compelling and the ongoing love story between her protagonist and his senatorial crush, Helena Justina, is handled with a deftness not often found in fiction. (That, by the way, is the definition of good fiction to me: A fun story can only partially redeem cardboard characters, but three-dimensional characters for whom the author can make me really care? I'll come back just to read a book about them doing laundry together.)

Having finished that, I held off on the third book in the series and instead went to Half Price Books and picked up a copy of Justinian's Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire, which I'd been meaning to read for a couple of years now.

So, uh, regular blogging should resume later this afternoon, when I tear my nose out of the book...

Awesome quote of the day:

From Denise McCluggage, who was racing professionally while Shirley Muldowney was still in bobby socks:

Her favorite car is a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta in which she won the 1961 Sebring GTIII.

"It was not only my only car; it was my only thing. I had a Ferrari, and that was it," she said.

That's frickin' awesome; walking the Earth like Kane from Kung Fu, but with a Ferrari.

Death From Above...

Wow, just when I thought "Torn Apart By A Killer Whale In The Middle Of An Amusement Park" was going to be a strong front runner for Bizarrest Death of '10, along comes one that knocks it into a cocked hat.

Apparently a guy was flying his Lancair, a small low-wing single-engine plane, back north from Orlando when he started having engine problems. And by "engine problems", I mean the kind that sprayed oil all over his windscreen and caused the propeller to land somewhat earlier than the rest of the aircraft.

Now at the helm of a somewhat ungainly 3,500lb glider, he called an emergency and began looking for somewhere to set down. Upon realizing that his glide angle wasn't going to get him to Hilton Head airport, he settled for the next best thing: A strip of Hilton Head Beach.

Meanwhile, one Mr. Jones, taking his vacation in Hilton Head, SC, was jogging down the beach with earphones in. I'm not sure what he was listening to, maybe Johnny Winters doing "Bad Luck Blues" or "Bad Luck" by Social Distortion... Anyway, what he was listening to isn't important. See, I don't think the earphones were a big factor, because a plane with a missing prop and a seized engine doesn't make a lot of noise as it comes gliding out of the sky and lands on your head from behind.

I'd say he's got the award for most unusual checkout of the year pretty much sewed up unless someone manages to get tied up and bludgeoned to death with hard salamis by circus midgets between now and December 31st.


(via email.)

The cycle of the seasons.

Primitive societies mark the turnings of the year with special festivals: planting, harvest, the returning of the birds from wherever they went to for the winter.

We should have modern equivalents, festivals celebrating the last lawn mowing, the first running of the air conditioner, that sort of thing... Today, for instance, would have been the Festival of The First Time The Top Went Down On The Convertible This Year.

Overheard in the Dining Room:

RX: "What is a 'Flexitarian'?"

Me: "Somebody who thinks that vegetarianism is all cool and hip and green and trendy, and wants to be part of that club, but doesn't actually want to quit eating meat. So they eat lots of vegetables and a little meat..."

RX: "In most countries do you know what they call someone who eats lots of vegetables and a little meat? Poor."

Life, Liberty, and High-Speed Porn.

Like a photographer without a camera, or a mechanic who doesn't own a car, Kelli Fields is a webmaster without high-speed Internet access.

By day, the 42-year-old uses a broadband connection at work to update a university's Web site, which she built and codes from scratch.

But when she goes home at night, the rural Midwesterner struggles with a dial-up Internet connection so slow, she does chores to pass the time while Web sites load. Her high school-age son is so fed up with the glacial pace of their Internet connection that he asks his mom to update his Facebook page from the office.

So naturally I'm expected to pony up and cover her piss-poor planning. Cue Sally Struthers: "Poor Kelli only has a 56k internet connection, but for just eighty cents a day, you could provide her with clean running broadband. We'll send you a picture of your webmistress..."

Rather than her using some good old-fashioned American gumption and initiative and moving to a new home where she can actually do her intertubes work or her springing for a satellite service, I'm expected to reach into your children's future paychecks to finance her lack of judgment and motivation.

I hope she doesn't decide to become a swimming instructor, or I'll wind up having to buy her a frickin' pool.

(And her kid can just piss off, okay? Most of the world is surviving just fine without a Facebook page. Eat your broccoli, do your homework, shut your piehole, and get offa my lawn.)

Look, running broadband to Two Mules, Montana is not profitable at this time.

Do you know how I know this? Because, were it possible to make money running broadband to Two Mules, someone would have already done so.

So if we do run .gov-mandated broadband to Two Mules, it will therefore be a constant little hemorrhage of red ink from now until the heat death of the universe, because once it's there, it will become a Right. And fifty years from now, when we're all downloading satellite signals into our modem implants, the Last Citizen of Two Mules, 96-y.o. Kelli Krabapple, is still going to have her old-fashiond fiber cable so that she can forward awful glurge email spam to her relatives, and our grandkids will be stuck with the squillion-dollar a year maintenance tab to keep her antique cable modem running out on the lone prairie.

Today In History: That's Mister Little Boots to you!

On this date in 37AD the increasingly weird and reclusive Tiberius, Rome's second emperor, choked on his last cookie. Officially the death was of natural causes, however there was a young man present who had enough means, motive, and opportunity to keep people speculating for millennia.

The young man in question had been fairly constantly humiliated by the paranoid, syphilitic codger. His mother and brothers had been imprisoned, exiled, and died from the old coot's creeping paranoia. He had spent six years as a virtual hostage in the hermit emperor's bolthole on Capreae, witness to enough bizarre stuff that Gore Vidal and Bob Guccioni would gross people out with it on the big screen in the hedonistic 1970s. He was named as joint successor in the emperor's will. Oh, yeah, he had motive and to spare...

The young man in question was Tiberius' grand-nephew, son of the rock-star general Germanicus: young Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus. An army brat, the nickname hung on him as a child by his dad's soldiers has stuck with him to this day: Caligula. He reportedly hated it.

Keeping things in balance...

The Yang: Rode my bicycle to the grocery store...

The Yin: ...for a couple pints of gelato.

QotD: Mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore...

Joe Huffman on why gun owners have a right to be angry:

Constantly lying about the law, firearms, and gun owners has a tendency to make gun owners angry. If they don't want us to be angry they should stop lying.

Word.

Of course I agree, but then, since I'm an uncivilized, ignorant, illiterate, pickup-driving, bible-thumpin', backwoods-dwelling Republican bumpkin who engages in unlicensed loophole transactions of unregistered assault weapons at gun shows with my fellow neo-Nazis, you'd expect me to.

How is a whale like a canary?

So I finally went and read the article about the sushi bar that got raided for serving up fillet o' Moby Dick. I made it about four paragraphs in before I nearly had a cerebral event...

Prosecutors charged Typhoon Restaurant Inc., the parent company of The Hump, and one of its chefs -- Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45 -- with the illegal sale of a marine mammal product for an unauthorized purpose.

While it is considered a delicacy in Japan and some other countries, meat from whale -- an endangered species -- is illegal to consume in the United States.

The misdemeanor charge carries a federal prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $200,000 for the company, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

There is just so much wrong there that I don't even know where to begin.

1. The only hook the feds have on which to hang their hat here, assuming they still gave a rat's ass about the Constitution, is the commerce clause. Since the whale had presumably been involved in commerce with a foreign nation, it could have been contraband since I'd assume that no duties or tariffs had been paid for Willy.
2. Illegal to consume? Illegal to consume? You point out to me where in the Constitution that the federal government thinks it has any business telling people what they can or cannot "consume". Even during Prohibition it wasn't illegal to drink alcohol, you overreaching petty tyrants, and they at least had the common courtesy to amend the founding contract rather than just pull some BS new law out of their butts. What any citizen of this great nation chooses to stick in any orifice of their bodies is not even the slightest legitimate concern of the federal government. Mind your own business, you pin-headed pack of jumped-up Chamber of Commerce boosters and refugees from the back cover of the phone book. We sent you people to Washington to get you out of our hair, not to tell us what to put in our mouths.
3. A Federal misdemeanor? Really? You mean in between its legitimate functions like declaring war, signing treaties, hanging pirates, and establishing post roads, the Federal government has time to throw individual citizens of the sovereign states in the pokey for misdemeanors? And this makes sense to someone?

Jesus, what a mess we've made of this thing. It was such a neat little setup for a country we had and we have effed it up so thoroughly that the Federal government can put people in jail for eating meat from the wrong species. Jimmy, Alex, Ben, George, we broke it; we're sorry.


CORRECTION: Looks like I nearly had a cerebral hemorrhage this morning for nothing. Apparently neither the heavily fact-checked reporter nor their layers of editorial oversight at CNN has access to Google. The relevant portion of the U.S. Code is here: 16 U.S.C. § 1372. No mention of misdemeanors or eating. Given how ignorant they are about firearms and firearms law, I don't know why I expect them to be any better informed about any other topic.

Vacation, all I've ever wanted...

So roomie was on vacation last week, leading to a couple of observations:

• Vacationitis is apparently contagious. I found myself sleeping in a lot, too.
• Coffee consumption at Roseholme Cottage doubles during vacation.
• The only thing harder than going from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time is going straight from Vacation Time to DST. Bobbi, like me, appears to be quasi-nocturnal by nature; left to my own devices, my day would run from noon to 4AM or so. It felt like the alarm clock went off at 0300 this morning.

Try to remember not to forget...

(Graphic stolen from Bobbi.)

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Be there!

Also, it's fun show weekend. Anybody else planning on attending the Indy 1500?

Considering making a sale...

Would anybody be interested in an ultra-rare S&W Performance Center 627 V-Comp with a 3" tube? So rare that its particular SKU isn't even listed in the SCSW3E?

These pre-lock V-Comps were supposedly designed with input from Jerry Miculek; they were sold with a special serial number prefix, and the gun in question is #0001.

I'm not dead set on selling it, but it's kinda become the odd duck out in my collection and the right offer would make me turn it loose.

E pluribus queror.

So the Texas Board of Education voted 10-5 to teach history instead of a textbook full of free-floating multi-culti anti-American self-loathing guilt.

Naturally, this displeased a lot of people, especially those in the booming free-floating multi-culti anti-American self-loathing guilt industry. They were quick to fling accusations of the "C-word"* and issue condemnations of the new syllabus:

Board member Rick Agosto, a Democrat, said the contributions of Hispanics and other minorities were shortchanged, and he graded the new standards "one jalapeño out of five."

Incidentally, he also graded them one-and-a-half bowls of collard greens out of five, two tubes of lipstick out of five, three kielbasas out of five, three-and-a-half matzoh balls out of five, and four pints of Guinness out of five.

What an amazing tool.



_______________________
* "Conservatism". Duh!

Paging Orson Welles...

Bad broadcasting idea in Georgia (the one with satsivi, not the one with grits):

On Saturday night, the pro-government Imedi TV in Georgia broadcast what it called a "simulation" of what a fresh invasion would look like. And the broadcast ended with a note that the events in it were not real.

However, the show did not run any on-screen notes during the half-hour broadcast to alert viewers that what they were watching was not real.

Viewers were alarmed.

I'll say.

I mean, if local TV were to do the same thing, broadcasting, say, a two hour special bulletin on an ongoing invasion from Illinois, I'd be throwing an entrenching tool and a rifle into the car to go dig in along the Wabash and help turn back the hordes from the Land of Lincoln before the second commercial break.

I know it makes me lose Hoosier street cred...

...but I like Daylight Savings Time.

For one thing, it shuts my winter blahs off like a switch. I know that it's just a bit of horological legerdemain, that we're sawing an hour off one end and gluing it to the other, but six thirty is just a damned depressing time for the sun to be setting and somehow calling that time "seven thirty" instead makes everything better.

Flashback: Half a prophet...

My post from 9/07: Right scam, wrong scammer...

Now look at that Clinton, that's the way you do it
You play the class war on the ol' tv
That ain't campaignin', that's the way you do it
Health care for nothin' and your docs for free
Now that ain't campaignin', that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya that gal ain't dumb
Maybe look righteous waggin' a finger
Sure to get a vote from some bum.

We gotta worry 'bout Middle East countries
Immigration and trade treaties
We gotta balance the fed'ral budget
And that don't play on soundbite tv.

See the little Clinton with the earrings and the makeup
Yeah buddy that ain't her own dough
Givin' away other people's money
Always makes for a real good show.

We gotta worry 'bout Middle East countries
Immigration and trade treaties
We gotta balance the fed'ral budget
And that don't play on soundbite tv.

I shoulda learned to play th' Class War
I shoulda learned to court them bums
Look at that mama, she gonna promise free insurance
Votes? That's gonna get some.
And she's up there, whats that? Socialist noises?
Bangin' on the wealthy like Noam Chomsky
That ain't campaignin', that's the way you do it
Health care for nothin' and your docs for free.

We gotta worry 'bout Middle East countries
Immigration and trade treaties
We gotta balance the fed'ral budget
And that don't play on soundbite tv.

Now that ain't campaignin', that's the way you do it
You play the class war on the ol' tv
That ain't campaignin', that's the way you do it
Health care for nothin' and your docs for free
Health care for nothin' and docs for free.

Who'd have thought Barry would beat Ms. Inevitable way back then?

What's playing on WTAM...

Just because I haven't done it in a while, here's the current top 10 most frequently played tunes in my iPod...

1. "Viva la Vida" Coldplay
2. "The Great Destroyer" Nine Inch Nails
3. "New Dawn Fades" Joy Division
4. "Left To My Own Devices" Pet Shop Boys
5. "Galileo" Indigo Girls
6. "Bleed It Out" Linkin Park
7. "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" Smashing Pumpkins
8. "Get In The Ring" Guns N' Roses
9. "No More Tears" Ozzy Osbourne
10. "The Card Cheat" The Clash

What pattern there is here, I have not a clue.

Hahahaha... ow.

A sadly un-strained metaphor:

A congressman and his constituent were walking in the woods when they came upon a metaphorical bear...

Click on the above to read the whole thing. Brian J. Noggle has encapsulated the entire problem in a nutshell.

We need mandatory expiration dates. Or a House of Repeal. Something.

Just this morning, sometime conservative Charles Krauthammer inadvertently put his finger on it (or his foot in it) in his column "Hail the change of chiefs":

True, the rotation of power inevitably results in stops and starts and policy zigzags. Yet for all its inefficiency, it in the end creates a near miraculous social stability by setting down layers of legitimacy every time the opposition adopts some of its predecessor's reforms -- while at the same time allowing challenges to fundamental assumptions before they become fossilized.

No, you thimble-headed gherkin! That is exactly the problem! Look, I understand how a GOP loyalist like yourself is all sad right now, and you're thinking that when life gives you lemons, you should try and make lemonade, but when life hands you turds, you don't sit down to a steaming bowl of dog crap soup with a smile on your face, okay?

The Republicans come to power by railing against the excesses of the Democrats. Then when they get in, they let the status quo remain ante rather than risk upsetting any applecarts. In turn they create their own excesses, which the Democrats rail about to get themselves elected, but then never repeal, instead letting the status... Are you getting the 'lather, rinse, repeat' picture here?

It's government by sedimentation, each new election cycle depositing a fresh layer of laws to be upheld and bureaucratic fiefdoms to be protected atop the structure already existing. Unless someone brings a dredge through, this river's going to silt up completely.

This isn't a pendulum, it's a ratchet, and it's going to continue getting tighter 'til something gives.

I wonder if she's kin to Lawdog?

The police blotter from Unalaska, AK, written by a Sgt. Shockley, makes for some pretty droll reading:

Suspicious Person/Activity – Officer attempted to resolve a complicated situation involving several people in two different states, a vehicle that may have been stolen three years ago and then sold several months ago, and a vehicle title that had never changed hands. Resolution pending additional information.
...
Ambulance Request – EMS personnel offered medical care to a trembling, drunken man with a bloody nose and the word “LOSER” written on his head. The inebriate refused care.
...
Assault – A man who was demonstrating how to properly position and drive a knife in order to achieve a fatal stab wound was kicked in his knife hand by an onlooker. When he confronted the kicker about the dangers of such actions, the kicker began punching him about the head and torso. Witnesses confirmed the victim’s story. David Aaron Meeks, 39 yoa, was arrested for Assault IV.

(vie email.)

Light my way.

When I first started carrying a flashlight, I found it was a handy thing to have around. I mean, sure, I liked the whole "fanged ninja flashlight of tactical doom" that was my Surefire Z2 with its GG&G "Tactical Impact Device", but what I used it for was the things for which you'd usually use a flashlight: illuminating darkened pathways, not stepping in doggie land mines in the pasture, finding stuff that had rolled under my car seat...

The problem is that it was like using a howitzer to hunt rabbits. Eleventeen jillion eye-searing xenon-fueled candlepower was a bit of overkill for a lot of applications, and that bulb would suck the electrons out of those expensive lithium batteries like a shop vac in a Dixie cup. So I started keeping a second flashlight in my turse or a vest pocket; a little Streamlight TwinTask 1L.

Brighter than the little light on my keychain, but not bright enough to leave me blinking with its glare in the dark, it's nice and small and best of all, it uses the same CR123 cells as my big light. I've been using it for five years now, as recently as about an hour ago (to go look at the downspouts), and haven't managed to break it yet. I couldn't be happier with it.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe...

I was reading a post over at New Paltz Journal which referenced Chris Hedges. Now, Hedges is one of those people whose name rings a bell, but whose oeuvre and my regular reading don't make for much of a Venn Diagram. So I Googled him. And was instantly transported to Bizarro World...

Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying.

Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, feminists, Jews, Muslims, union leaders and those defined as “liberals.” They will be condemned as anti-American and blamed for our decline. The economic collapse, which remains mysterious and enigmatic to most Americans, will be pinned by demagogues and hatemongers on these hapless scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, which are already leaping up around the fringes of American society, will justify harsh measures of internal control that will snuff out the final vestiges of our democracy.

Wow.

I wonder what color the sky is in his world?

Is there something seductive about feeling persecuted? I remember sitting in the Baptist church I attended in my youth, listening to Chick Tract "Last Generation" stuff and feeling all righteously persecuted, and never stopping to think that there was hardly a place on this planet where I was less likely to be persecuted for Christianity than the northern 'burbs of Atlanta.

You might be a jerk if...

Caught in the act at his local Walmart on Wednesday night, Ralph Conone admitted that for months he'd been punching children on the backs of their heads with his keys in his fist, Columbus police said yesterday.

The 68-year-old grandfather also told them why, police said: He got a kick out of it.

What kind of wiring fault does it take to cause you get your jollies rabbit-punching random toddlers at the Walmart? I mean, seriously...

Ruth Conone said that her ex-husband, who is retired from the Ohio Department of Development, has no history of this behavior, but she said he needs help with mental-health issues.

Ma'am, that is a strong front-runner for Understatement of the Year.


(H/T to Unc.)

Big Hit Movie.

Complete with Big Hit Movie Trailer.

Simply brilliant.

Dreams...

I had the strangest dream last night:



We were sitting under the awning of the sidewalk cafe across from the airfield when we heard the big jet on final. Despite having been built to satisfy imperial ambitions years ago, the weed-straggling airport here hadn't seen much of anything bigger than a puddle jumper in a long time, and the sound was unexpected enough to cause me to bang my shotgun against the cafe's rusty wrought iron railing as I leaned awkwardly out to see what was making the roar.

It was one of those Soviet Airbus knockoffs, and not an Aeroflot one, either, as the mottled gray paint and the pods under the wings for flares and chaff made abundantly clear. And it was obviously about to land here.

It was moderately unsettling. I mean, we had as much right to be here as the Russkies did, of course, but despite our blue passports, my partner and I were here pretty much on our own hook, and that was definitely a Very Official Soviet plane.

It landed hard and short, reversing thrust and piling on the braking, and then, rather than taxiing off, it turned a one-eighty and, with flaps still dropped, powered down. That was weird.

The plane might as well have been invisible to the locals, the adults at least, inured as they were to the comings and goings of the various pawns and rooks of the great game, but a few of the younger ones ran across the dusty street and pressed their faces to the chain link. My partner was staring at the Airbuski, stroking his chin in thought, and I kept one eye on the plane myself as I went back to my tea.

By the time we were ready to leave some fifteen minutes later, the plane was still sitting silent and alone in the middle of the uncontrolled field's runway, which was decidedly odd. Most of the urchins had wandered off as we strolled out onto the street ourselves...

Another jet. Loud. Looking up, we could see a second Russian heavy, flaps and gear down, suddenly adding power and veering off as it saw its twin parked smack in the middle of the tarmac. A pair of MiGs, tiny in comparison, jinked to avoid the plane they'd I guess been escorting as it rose and proceeded to orbit the field absurdly low. There was still no sign of life from the freighter on the strip. Its mate passed one last time over our heads, low enough that we could see the dirt and grime on its underbelly, and then, trailing the fighter planes like chicks behind their momma, it turned back north.

"What was that all about?" I wondered aloud.

"Beats hell outta me," muttered my partner.

With the sky once again empty, the Airbuski suddenly popped its forward cabin door open, and a rope ladder unspooled to span the long drop to the ground. Then nothing again for what seemed like a long... Wait, a noise. A single, muffled... was that a gunshot?

My partner walked over to the gate in the fence without another word, pushed it open, and moved out at a trot toward the plane. Given a choice between standing like an idiot by myself or running across a couple hundred yards of open field like an idiot with someone else, I opted for the latter. The company was better.

As we got to the bottom of the ladder, we could hear what sounded like wailing from inside the open hatch. It sounded like someone was giving a housecat a rough time of it up there. My partner was reaching for the ladder, but I got a hand on it first.

I swarmed up it, not knowing what to expect, and feeling kind of idiotic. My head was almost level with the hatch before I realized that climbing into a foreign military aircraft, even one in apparent distress, with an ugly short-barreled shotgun slung over my back was not likely to make me look like the Welcome Wagon. I was too high up to ditch it now, though, especially with my partner halfway up the ladder below me.

If I didn't know better, that sound was babies crying. On a Commie cargo jet?

I risked a peek over the lip of the hatch and, sure enough, right there inside it were two blanket-swaddled shapes lying on the cargo floor and howling their little lungs out. The plane looked otherwise empty, its webbing seats stowed against the sides of the fuselage.

I clambered through the hatch and looked towards the cockpit door, which was ajar. I could smell gunpowder. And blood. Unslinging my shotgun, I nosed through the door as my partner entered the plane.

There was just one guy in the pilot's seat, wearing a colonel's uniform. He was dressed for a day at the office, not for the flight line, and he was deader than Elvis. The Krink he'd used to put a bullet in his own chest lay between his feet.

He'd wanted to get his kids out so bad that he took the first chance he had. Knowing they'd come after him for what was in his head, he decided to put a stop to that the only way he could.

We picked up the kids and split before the cavalry could return...

Do your homework.

So there's been a lot of nattering on the gunblogs about the Department of Education's purchase of 14" Remington 870s, complete with wild speculations about their intended use.

The Dept. of Education, like all the other federal agencies that pour the slop into the trough, dispenses squillions of dollars of loot. Wherever there is federal loot, there is fraud and corruption and, like all federal agencies, the Dept. of Education carries out fraud investigations on its own patch. This means it serves warrants, and when it serves warrants, it brings its own cops and, like all federal agencies, they come loaded for bear. The 14" Remington is pretty much the standard entry gun across the entire broad spectrum of federal law enforcement, since it's a lot easier to get in and out of vehicles and through doorways with the shorter tube.

Now, my objections to the very existence of a federal department of education aside, the proliferation of raid teams in every federal agency is not as much alarming as it is ridiculous. It's empire-building, plain and simple. If the guys at the DEA get a SWAT team, then ATF wants one, and if ATF has one, then the Bureau of Land Management wants one, and so on down the line. Once upon a time, even the FBI served mostly investigative functions and relied on local authorities for muscle; now the Department of Education has its own in-house door kickers, its own slice of FLETC pie.

Don't we have a Marshal's Service? To say nothing of a bewildering variety of state and local agencies, some of whose SWAT teams are so unneeded that they're being used for low-level narcotics arrests? How about letting them do the heavy lifting for the Department of Education when it comes time to go through the door? It'd save me the cost of 27 shotguns, for starters.

Wow.

Your daily dose of Dada.




(H/T to Breda.)

"There's nothing we can't do."

Hey, remember when liberals were so all-fired “concerned” about illegitimate rule by Executive Order, circumventing the usual legislative process in favor of despotic mandates from On High? Nah, me neither.

Like fishing? Tough.

Dislike bland food? Tough.

This is the Unconstrained Vision in action.

Caution: Contents Perishable.

I'm a moderately active pistol shooter. In the last two years I've taken two three-day handgun courses, one with Todd Jarrett at Blackwater and one with Louis Awerbuck here in Indiana. Over that time I've participated in maybe as many as a dozen bowling pin matches. I get to the range once a week and, given the confines of the range rules, attempt to maintain proficiency with basic skills, such as strong- and weak-hand only drills, reloads, and suchlike.

However, this stuff needs to stay current. Due to a confluence of events, I only hit the range once between the middle of January and last weekend's range trip with Caleb. It showed. Especially on the draw; you can practice the motions of the drawstroke "dry" 'til the cows come home (and I do need to get more use out of my blue gun...) but it's not the same as shooting from leather with live ammo, which I hadn't done since the Awerbuck course last summer. Time spent with .22 trainers is valuable for sight alignment and trigger control, but it doesn't simulate recoil control with the full-size pistol, which is a major component of rapid-fire shooting.

I seriously need to make a point of trying to get out to Wildcat Valley with Shootin' Buddy at least once a month, or else get a membership at MCF&G here in town. Or both.

Standing in a booth in an indoor shooting range is training for a pistol fight the way sitting in your garage and moving your car's shift lever around with the engine off is training for Le Mans.

Major victory for ironclad airport security!

Haisong Jiang, a PhD candidate who moved to America from China, perhaps to get away from a paranoid, control-freak government, has plead guilty to "Defiant Trespass" for stepping under a velvet rope at an airport and setting off a Keystone Kops carnival of terminal closings and flight delays.

Jiang will have to pay a $500 fine and court fees and costs of $158, as part of a plea deal reached with prosecutors, Bruce said. He also will have to perform 100 hours of community service.

Which would indicate that "Defiant Trespass" rates somewhere between jaywalking and passing a stopped school bus at 10 miles-per over the limit, the latter offense of which will score you Double Secret Probation in many states.

To whom it may concern:

If the authorities are reading this, I want them to know that I am not at all disgruntled. I am as gruntled as gruntled can be. If ever I feel my gruntle ebbing, even the slightest little bit, I promise I will seek help and not act out, okay?



(Okay, look, if somebody's obviously gearing up to take their lunch hour atop a clock tower, it may be a good idea to keep an eye on them. But there had better be more meat to this story than "He was fired and he owned guns," because if that was all it took, they could throw half of Elkhart, Indiana in the back of a paddy wagon.)

Rooneymags.

The EMA Tactical CountDown mag: If I've got time to look at my magazine and check its little gas gauge, I'm thinking I've probably got time to just prophylactically reload.

The Cammenga EasyMag: Because I was looking at my magazines the other day and thinking "What these things really need are more moving parts."

'Ware the First.

With all eyes on McDonald v. Chicago and its implications for our Second Amendment rights, it's interesting to note that the Supremes have just granted cert to Snyder v. Phelps, a case with equally important overtones for the First: To wit, does the right to free speech extend only to nice speech? Can you say unpopular things as well as popular ones? Is there a right to not be offended?

As much as I loathe Phred Phelps, and would probably drink a toast were he to choke on his last cookie tonight, he has the right to be as big a rude, annoying jerk as he wants to be so long as he keeps his hands to himself and minds the No Trespassing signs, just like every other rude and annoying jerk in America.

If he can't say "God Hates Fags" on his signs, then how long before I can't say "I Hate Jeezo Nazis" on my blog?

Was Thor's hammer really less than a third of an inch across?

The Department of Fish & Game won't let you shoot Bambi with full metal jacketed 7.62x51mm M80 ball because it would be inhumane.

The Hague Accords won't let you use .308 Winchester 150gr. Ballistic Silvertips on enemy personnel because it would be inhumane.

Discuss.

Today In History: Great Moments In Real Estate History

On this date in 1804, the French flag was lowered in St. Louis, soon-to-be-MO, and the U.S. flag was raised.

The Spanish lieutenant governor for French northern Louisiana handed the keys over to Amos Stoddard, acting as the proxy for the French government, who then handed them to himself, since he was also the newly-appointed U.S. military commander of the territory.

Napoleonic-era geopolitics were nothing if not interesting. See, France had lost the territory to Spain in a war, but Napoleon got it back in exchange for a promise not to kick Spain's ass. However, the deal was all hush-hush, and so the French left the Spanish administration in place so that nobody would suspect anything. Then they went and sold the house with the renters still in it, so to speak. This led to a business boom for surveyors and an honest-to-Spooner strip of ungoverned No-Man's-Land for the next 20 years, as Madrid and Washington argued about on whose side of the property line the hedge was planted.

Postcards from Babylon...

A bad economy only slightly deterred Americans from flocking to cosmetic procedures last year.

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery released figures Tuesday: Almost 10 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2009. Despite the recession, Americans shelled out almost $10.5 billion to get pretty.

Compared with the previous year, there was a 2 percent decrease in the total number of procedures.

...

Fleming said even the unemployed shell out the bucks to get cosmetic procedures.

Because when you're feeling all glum about owing $20k more than your gypsum-board tract home is worth and you're worried about whether Congress is going to extend your unemployment benefits again, what better for a little pick-me-up than raiding the retirement fund for a tummy tuck or some botox injections? I mean, it's important to have our priorities!

Of course, this is the land where television commercials tout all manner of medical alternatives to self-discipline, so I shouldn't act all surprised. "Hmmm... Should I skip dessert and go for a walk around the block, or should I get my guts tied in a sheepshank? Tough call..." Only in America do people spend their entire lives so far up Maslow's pyramid that they have time to ponder such dilemmas.

Pedal power.

Another 5+ miles on the bicycles today, running an errand and grabbing a bite at Panera Bread for lunch. (Riding a bicycle to eat at Panera; does it get more stereotypically Broad Riparian than that?)

Gotta pedal off my winter flab...

More on National ID...

Hypnagogue in comments here:

The problem with biometric ID cards is that they can be forged. Without strong encryption, this is folly. With strong encryption this is tyranny.

The problem is that the .gov acts like there was strong encryption on the Constitution and they don't have the right key to read it.

More on the topic from Anothergunchick.

Are they looking for a hill to die on?

As Frank James points out, biometric National Identification cards are about as sure a way to flip out a plurality of the population as I can think of. From privacy advocates to Left Behind fans, this would just pour kerosene on the opposition fire.

Go 'head, y'all! I think you should push for this one really, really hard.

I'm a Happy Hoosier.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the standard for a Terry frisk is whether the officer reasonably suspects the person is “armed and dangerous.” “Armed” alone shouldn’t be enough...

Shootin' Buddy, sometimes known as "The Rosa Parks of Broad Ripple" for his run-in with the local Five-Oh over the dangerous crime of open-carrying a firearm in a coffee house, is no doubt pleased at this latest ruling from the Indiana Court of Appeals.

If merely having a visible firearm is probable cause to stop, demand papers, and pat down your pockets, then merely driving down the road is probable cause to pull you over, demand your operating license, and look in your trunk. In neither instance is there prima facie evidence of a crime being committed.

Xtreme training!!!1!!one!

One well-known trainer has opined that, with the increasing popularity of "tactical training", it seems like half everybody who's been 'in the sandbox' and has access to some acreage with a berm is going to set up a shooting school. As time goes on, I am increasingly believing this prediction. Exhibit A: Somebody tell me which school this is so that I never make the mistake of attending.

Obviously, somebody is making their money by selling tacticool to wannabes. Speaking as a tactical poser myself, I've both observed and participated in a reasonable amount of training; if I saw any of that happy mall ninja S&M horseplay going on on the line, I would leave without asking for a refund.

Any student that would take that class a second time would probably be happier if the instructors were wearing leather and chains and used riding crops.

Signs that a fad has jumped the shark:

When you can get your tramp stamp in the mall, twenty feet away from the people buying Snuggies and ShamWows, it's a sign that the fad has passed the fat point of the cool curve.

Press on regardless.

I have done some hare-brained things on motorcycles before in my life, many of them at Warp Factor 9, but these guys are lunatics. My palms broke into a sweat just watching the video...



(H/T to Nate.)

Pedal to the metal.

With the mercury flirting with the 60 degree mark today, Roomie and I saddled up the bicycles and took a leisurely ride to the grocery store; about a five mile round trip. My poor bike had spent the last two-plus months gathering cobwebs, so it was pleasant to get out on the road again.

I had forgotten how much I liked my shoot-me vest as a cycling garment; liberally festooned with pockets, I could keep a stupid amount of gear and knickknacks ready to hand without having to toss anything in the basket or carry a messenger bag. It's like a purse you wear!

Bobbi occasionally held the bars with one hand while waving her digicam about with the other, so pictures of one sort or another may get posted. (EDIT: Here are some now.)

Secret Sharer...

I've had the weirdest little hit-and-run troll pop up in my comments section.

I don't get a lot of 'em, but this one's a doozy. Weirdly cyclical, too.

He's a pottymouth, so don't click if you're easily offended: My Pet Troll.

Ain't he cute?

Bowdler, Grundy, Comstock, and Levco.

The Hoosier prosecutor who wanted to run the evil DVD dispensing machines out of Vanderburgh County, Indiana has backed off.

Maybe somebody pointed out to him that in order for the tots to get their hands on a copy of Saw XLVI or American Pie: Sorority Sisters from one of the automated kiosks, they'd need to have already boosted mommy or daddy's credit card, and their morals were therefore already far enough gone in lying and stealing that a simulated traumatic amputation or sorority shower scene was unlikely to damage them any further.

No word as to whether Reverend Moore is going to relent and let Vanderburgh County youth engage in dancing and rock music listening at this year's prom.

The malf controls.

There are two controls on the M1911 semiautomatic pistol that are designed to make it malfunction: One causes the slide to be frozen in its rearmost position and the other causes the pistol to vomit its magazine onto the ground. And yet every year people spend untold thousands of dollars trying to make these controls easier for their fingers to touch without leaving the normal firing position.

Weird, huh?

Yes, but what's it for?

Every now and again I mention my ownership of a carbine-length AR and immediately receive comments on the superiority of rifle-length 20" A2's for everything from shooting guys on distant hillsides in Afghanistan to winning DCM matches.

You know, I have no intention of competing in any high power matches with this carbine.

Nor either am I likely to find myself in Afghanistan with it.

Fantasy scenarios about roaming the zombie-infested wasteland with a colander strapped to your face and Ol' Bess attached to your bicep with a DCM-approved loop sling are all fun and fine, but they're not exactly the most plausible situations in the world. Apocalyptic idylls aside, that's not how I'm ever going to be using my long gun.

The most plausible scenario for me to need a long gun is somebody breaking into my house with enough warning for me to fetch a gun, in which case I'm going to grab a long gun and not a pistol (since a pistol is for come-as-you-are gunfights; if one has time to dress for the affair, one should perhaps consider something with a shoulder stock.) I'm not going to need to sling up or worry about flatter trajectory and wind values at 300 yards, since the longest possible shot in Roseholme Cottage is closer to ten yards, and is likely to be a lot closer than that. I'll be more worried about sight offset than trajectory.

The other possible scenario where I might need a long gun would be some type of Katrina-level natural disaster or urban unrest. Look, I live in a moderately-wooded, flat-as-a-pancake, urban area. There's hardly a structure over two stories within a mile of where I'm sitting. The only way I could even see over a hundred yards in a straight line is if I stood in the middle of the street, which is something I would not be doing. The other thing I wouldn't be doing is going looking for trouble; I'll be sticking right here and keeping an eye on my own patch and helping the neighbors.

So, while I appreciate your concerns, my carbine is just fine for my needs. Your needs may differ.

They report this like it's news.

Wow! Mahmoud's a Troofer! Who knew?

Must have been a slow news day.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, an earthquake.

These tremors are somehow America's fault, and can only be fixed by giving lots of money to Third World dictators so they can reupholster the presidential Bentley with fresh ocelot skins.

Since I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath...

...I shot Marksman on the classifier yesterday.

I'm sure I could have shaved a little bit of time by using the slide stop on reloads, and the "tactical reload" technique of trapping the old mag with your pinkie is molasses slow compared to ripping out the old one before fishing up a new one, but I was overall happy with my performance.

Oddly I don't think I really shaved any time by using the LTC 9 over a .45ACP. Sure it's a 9mm, but it's an alloy Commander-size gun, which means you're not really gaining much of anything in the muzzle flip department over a 5" steel Government model. That fiber optic front sight was good for a couple tenths on the 20-yard strings, maybe.

Overheard in the Office:

RX: "You're missing the Oscars!"

Me: "Not really, no."

And oddly, I am not burning with curiosity over who won Best Best Boy, either.

I don't get the fuss over these types of award ceremonies. I already know what I thought the best movies of last year were; what do I care what other people, people I don't even know, thought?

Besides, there's no award for "Most Machine Guns and Dead Nazis".

"Handgun Shotgun Rifle" meme...

Not too long back, Jay at Firing Pin Journal asked:

One Handgun, One Rifle, One Shotgun. You are able to choose just one of each for self defense with NO modifications.

My answer was:

Handgun: The pistol on my hip. (Springfield Professional)
Shotgun: I’m not really shotgun kind of people.
Rifle: The carbine behind the door. (16″ M4gery on an RRA lower.)

Of course, the idea of one of each makes me nervous, as two or three identical copies are better. Guns break; at least they do if you're shooting enough. When one does, it's nice to be able to fill the holster with its identical twin while the other is off getting fixed.

This is why I'll feel a lot better when I get that second M4gery built. Suppose I go take a three-day carbine course this summer like I hope to and my weapon goes Tango Uniform halfway through day one? How silly will I feel if I can't yank a second one out and drive on?

I'm also a little confused by the "no modifications" thing. For example, my CCW pistol is a Springfield and its backup is an old Colt that was modified to feel exactly the same as much as possible (checkering, flat mainspring housing, long trigger, beavertail, 3-dot sights, same VZ Gatorback grips...) My carbine was built from a stripped lower; is that modified?

Bang bang shoot shoot.

Getting ready to go shooting with Caleb; I've let him talk me into running through an IDPA classifier to see how bad I really am. I'll be tickled if I score better than whatever comes below "Helen Keller".

I'll be shooting my Para LTC9, partly because it's got good sights and is ridiculously easy to shoot well, and partly because I'm a lot better stocked with 9mm ammo than .45ACP at the moment.

Patterns.

How come Lotus has made an "Esprit", an "Elan", an "Exige", a "Europa", an "Elite", but never an "Eater"?

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.

Ow.

My head hurts.

I'm strongly considering writing off this whole "getting out of bed" thing as a bad idea and just try again tomorrow.

Is that a gun in your trunk, or are you just happy to work here?

The "guns-in-parking-lots" bill has passed the legislature and is bound for the governor's desk; it's all on my man Mitch now. The prez of the IN Chamber of Commerce is all sad clown about it.

Speaking of my man Mitch...

If it's just a game, why keep score?

Pistol competition is important. Unless they go to gun school, the local action pistol match is the only chance a lot of people will have to shoot from the holster, or on the move, or at moving targets, or under any kind of competitive or time pressure. Back in, oh, '94 or so, I was peripherally associated with a bunch of folks who had set up their own casual pistol matches. Intended as an alternative to the USPSA scene, which even at that time was increasingly dominated by expensive hardware, these matches were casual affairs oriented towards the kind of pistols most folks actually carried.

Stages were set up so that they could be cleared with a five-shot revolver, if you didn't mind reloading, and the only hard and fast gun rules were "No optics, no porting, no comps." Other than that, you only had to worry about everybody looking askance at your heater and accusing you of being a gamer. There weren't any "classes", nor any prizes, and while score was kept in a desultory fashion, everybody knew who the best handful of shooters were, and most folks were out to have fun rather than to "win".

Coincidentally, about that time, there was another group of shooters that wanted a more practical, CCW-oriented alternative to USPSA. Only they ruined it all with "classes" and "prizes" and vague, shadowy rulings. "No silly gamer stuff" only works as a rule when you have fifteen or twenty people who all know each other in real life and are pretty much on the same page regarding what does and doesn't qualify as "silly gamer stuff". That's a lot harder to do with a national organization, especially once there are prizes involved. Prizes lead to rulebooks, rulebooks lead to rules lawyers, and you wind up discouraging people from getting out there and getting involved.

Free Ice Cream at Marko's place!

If you like military-themed SF, Marko has a short story up for your reading enjoyment: "Lucky Thirteen."

Protip: How to cut down on high-profile killings.

The gunman was John Patrick Bedell...

You know, we could cut this thing out altogether if we'd just pass a law banning middle names.

Today In History: Please Mr. Custer...

Despite the fact that the land beyond the Euphrates had been swallowing up Roman armies at least since Crassus and 30,000 of his closest army buddies went walkabout and never came back, Roman emperors couldn't resist meddling in Persian politics.

On this day in 363AD, the Roman emperor Julian, his military reputation still surfing on the spankings he'd handed the Alamanni along the Rhine, marched his troops out of Antioch and into Sassanid Persia. It didn't really appear to be a "plan" kind of operation, as the army wandered around and dished out some random punitive damage to the Sassanid army and infrastructure before winding up camped outside of the capital at Ctesiphon.

Deciding against a lengthy siege, Julian decided to get all Xenophonic and march north, rather than back the way they'd come. He wound up taking a javelin through the liver during one of the innumerable skirmishes along the way, and the army was left in the hands of Jovian, a Serbian general who was no Alexander, if you know what I mean, and who some sources say was acclaimed emperor by accident. Shapur II soon brought the inept and harried Jovian to bay, and he signed away five provinces, three border forts, and a client kingdom to be named at a later date in order to be allowed to return to Roman territory and not take up a new career as Shapur's furniture.

The moral of the story? If you get a job working as a Roman emperor, stay on this side of the Euphrates.

Welcome to the (electric, folding, high-tech-looking) future.

In via email: It's not exactly a flying car, but it's still way futuristic-looking. Kinda like if Batman had a Segway.

Still, it's stupid expensive for something that's too slow for the street and too motorized for the Monon Trail. Do want, but only in a very abstract gadget-lust sort of way.

Officer, arrest that man!

Finally, three shadowy conspiracies laid to rest in one petulant outburst:

We assassinated President John F. Kennedy. We assassinated Martin Luther King. And we assassinated Robert F. Kennedy — and we’re proud of that.

Well, now we know who was on that grassy knoll. This deranged individual obviously should not be walking free.


(H/T to Unc.)

Off the shelf...

Currently rereading The Barbarian Princess by Florence King, writing pseudonymously as "Laura Buchanan".

It's really at its best if you've already read of how Miss King came to be writing a 5th Century bodice-ripper she originally wanted to title Sex and the Saxon Churl, the tale of which can be found starting on page 57 of The Florence King Reader:

My editor called as soon as he read it. "Go easy on the Latin. Sweet-savage readers can't handle that. You can have her scream desiste when she gets raped, though."

By page 59, I'm usually shrieking with laughter, and this from lines I darn near have memorized.

"Desistite!" (gang rape takes the plural)

This is great stuff. Just thinking of lonely housewives getting their introductions to Honorius, Alaric, and Hypatia as extras in a steamy romance novel makes me smile.

Eco-Friendly War.

Having received word that hang-glider-equipped terrorists might be about to attack, Indian security forces can load up their armor-plated golf carts and brace to repel boarders. No word if the Indian ground troops will attempt to bring down the gliders with lead-free ammunition, or whether the tangoes will be using bombs made from the newer biodegradable non-toxic plastique.

Indian 4-EnergyStar General Gupta said his troops are "...at standby, but can be powered up at the twitch of a mouse."

Don't go near the water?

What gun for jellyfish?

And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

So, some two-bit votesucker has floated the idea of putting Reagan's face on the $50 bill.

While I have no strong opinion on the matter one way or the other, I'll note that it would remove the face of the nepotistic scandal-ridden incompetent drunk that currently resides there, and that wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Why U.S. Grant's face is printed on banknotes in the first place has always confused me.

Speaking of confusing, other than playing slap-tickle with Marilyn Monroe and getting shot while still young and handsome, what did Kennedy do to get his mug on coinage?

Like a fever dream come true...

Tactical Golf Cart? How did I miss this?

No word as to whether the elite Food Court Team 6 at Mall of America will get to trial those babies in prototype form. (Although, even with their current Cushmans, they can be deployed at a “skater in progress” call anywhere in the mall in less than 20 minutes.)

Chicken and egg.

Certain subsets of the population seem to have a rather skewed view of who started the whole recent Starbucks thing.

Of course, it's probably no coincidence that these are the same people who get all confused about that "victim/perpetrator" terminology when a mugger gets shot.

Nothing to prove.

In my early years in the gun biz, I was pretty easy to talk into firing nearly anything. Between feeling like I needed to prove myself to the boys and the fact that some guys find it the height of humor to hand the li'l lady the Magnaboomer Loudenthumper and then giggle behind their hands like mischievous schoolboys as she steps to the line and flicks the safety off, I've found myself behind all manner of hard-recoiling beasts. I've shot assorted 10 gauge shotguns and a few .50BMG rifles, as well as less common ones, like .416 Rigby Ruger No.1s with heavy handloads; what was I supposed to do when someone asked "What's wrong? Chicken?"

After a few years of this, I finally stopped treating it like a dare. "No, I don't really want to fire your new .416 Weatherby," or "Thanks, I've shot plenty of .500 S&W already; I don't have anything to prove."

All through that time, I'd been bolstered by belief that "It's just loud and uncomfortable; the recoil can't physically hurt you." Except, as someone else with nothing to prove points out, over the years it most certainly can.

The Feel-Good Family Hit of the Summer!

In my sophomore year in high school I had one picture hanging in my locker. It was a black & white, postcard-sized photo of a skinny English guy behind a mic. Not Simon Le Bon or Sting, but an author. With that archness that comes so naturally to high school students, I'd completed the picture by scrawling in the corner "All the best in the new year, Eric. XXOO." Hardly anybody got it.

I still have the same tattered paperback copy of 1984 I had then, and it occurred to me that I hadn't read it since moving to Indy, so I pulled it out yesterday. It's one of a double-handful of books I generally reread every year or so, but letting it lie fallow an extra couple seasons has me looking at it in a different light yet again.

For some reason, this time 'round the egalitarian socialist Orwell's stifling class consciousness and intellectual snobbery is actually amusing enough to lift the overall tone of the book for me. In the scene where Winston walks past the proles huddled around a newspaper and talking animatedly, only to find that they're arguing over lottery numbers, my mind couldn't help but insert "Oh, Christ! Here comes one o' them Party wankers. Make like we're arguin' over nonsense!" The proles come and go as they please, buy what they can afford, and yet are portrayed as unfeeling animals simply because the author himself couldn't go into a pub or locker room without getting pantsed.

I'm tempted to write a bit of fanfic told from the point of one of the proles seen with the newspaper, having his path brush past poor emo Winston's here and there. God knows that various nameless, faceless proles are used more or less as movable scenery in the book; Winston would never notice if one of the ones in the cell was one of the ones from the pub was one of the ones from the street or the tube. Except they'd never cross paths in Mr. Charrington's junk shop; the reason that place was always empty except for Winston is that every prole on the block knew Charrington was a narc.

Rock and roll never forgets.

Why, Alex! What a coincidence! We were just talking about you...

Pants on fire.

Some people are so opposed to the Guns In Parking Lots bill currently stuck in the sausage grinder down at the statehouse that they're willing to lie about it in black and white.

Today In History: Kids these days.

On this date in 986AD began the reign of the last Carolingian king of France: The dynasty that started out with guys nicknamed "The Hammer" and "The Great" went out with a whimper under the one-year reign of a kid known as "the Do-Nothing".

Oddly, Miss Manners never covered this one.

What's the polite and considerate way to say "Eww, ick!"?

Waning Moonbeam.

Speaking of the non-smoking section of the Hindenburg, Jerry Brown is making noises about running for governor again.

Meanwhile, in the non-smoking section of the Hindenburg...

Apparently having gotten all the deck chairs lined up neatly and therefore with nothing better to do for a few minutes, the California state legislature took the time to pass a resolution declaring the first week of March "Cuss Free Week".

You have got to be shitting me.

Well, at least that was five minutes they didn't spend legislating.



(H/T to Billy Beck.)

Spider-Man laid off!

Spider-Man's alter ego cannot escape the harsh realities of the current economic times and will lose his job in an issue of the Amazing Spider-Man hitting stores this week.

Peter Parker, official photographer of the mayor by day and New York City crime fighter by night, is going to face new challenges, including unemployment.

That's okay; given the politics at Marvel, I'm sure that everyone's new favorite superhero, Barack-Man, will bail out the Daily Bugle. It's too big to fail!

Nice work, goober.

Showing all the finely-honed judgment of a likkered-up college student, one Alexander Brill pulled his heater in a Bloomington, IN watering hole.

Brill faces felony charges of battery and intimidation with a deadly weapon and pointing a firearm.

(21-year-old glands + booze + gat) - a good grasp of consequences = This Is Going In Your Permanent Record.

Reply hazy, ask again later.

Someone's crystal ball was on the fritz that day:

Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping--just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? -Clifford Stoll, making bold intarw3bz predictions in '95.

Of course, he probably also thought that DOS 6.22 was the bomb diggity shizznit. I especially like the way he brings up the mall; I think it's been at least six months since I set foot in one of those.

Incidentally, this was about the time that the office in which I worked received new Pentiums with Windows 95, replacing our DOS boxes running proprietary software. It was my first experience with an always-on, fat pipe internet connection. I helped our IT manager set them up, since I was at the height of my gamer geek grrl days. As we booted up the one on my desk, I noticed the Exploder icon and double-clicked it.

"Um, do you realize that this thing is live? I mean, I just clicked Exploder and I'm surfing and... Damn! This thing is fast!"

"Yes, it's just the standard install."

I blinked. "You mean all the machines in the office have a browser icon on the desktop?"

"Yes," she replied.

"And a fat pipe right to the Web?"

"Uh-huh."

"And this seems like a good idea to you?"

How innocent we were in those days...



(H/T to Neatorama.)

Corn spotted in Nebraska!

Glocks spotted in movies!

As anybody who has ever sat down in a movie theater knows, the Glock (there's only the one model) is the third most common handgun on the planet. The second most common is the Beretta 92. The Deagle Fifty is hands down the most ubiquitous; most people carry two in a double shoulder rig.

(Incidentally, the HK G36 is the most widely-issued rifle, and the T-6 Texan was used in combat by both sides in all theaters of WWII.)



(H/T to Unc.)

Brand loyalty.

CNNMoney.com has a piece up wondering how Toyota's latest PR woes will affect the rest of Japan's automakers. Me, I've never really understood how non auto enthusiasts figure out their strange perceptions of which automakers are "reliable" and which aren't.

Then again, "reliable" is another one of those vague words, like "peppy", that get used a lot and leave me puzzled. Do they mean "reliable" as in "will start and run forever with minimal maintenance" or do they mean "reliable" as in "I followed the manufacturer's service schedule religiously and the cruise still works after three years"?

There's different kinds of reliable. When I was dirt poor and needed a "bridge" car to last me until I could get something better, I bought an '84 Pontiac Trans Am. I did not buy it necessarily because it was a Trans Am, but because it was the newest car I found on short notice with a carburetted Chevy small-block V-8 and a GM Turbo Hydramatic transmission; a combination that will run like crap longer than most cars will run at all*, can be repaired by anybody, and every junkyard in America is full to the brim with spare parts. Plus, you know... hey, Trans Am? Anyway, it was reliable in the 'start up and run' sense, but it was also a mid-'80s GM car, which meant that somewhere around 75k or so miles, bits begin to fall off and subsystems start checking out, but you don't really need cruise control, AM/FM cassette, the dome light, or various small interior trim bits to get to and from work.

Same thing with applying "reliability" as a constant across an entire brand. BMW's E36 platform is the automotive equivalent of the cockroach; they're still everywhere on the roads and the newest one you see is twelve years old; they'll often go a quarter million miles without using anything but gas, tires, and oil. Conversely, a 750iL won't make it across a parking lot without breaking down. Most any little Japanese sedan from the '70s was reliable as all getout; they'd run 'til the body rusted off... if it had a manual transmission. Meanwhile, Japanese slushboxes of the time were purely awful; fragile, fussy little things.

So how will this latest Toyota thing affect the perceptions of the general consumer? I haven't a clue; you'll have to go ask a general consumer.



_____________________________
* To be technical, the "LG9 5.0L V8 engine/ THM 700R4 4-speed automatic transmission". To be untechnical: "The engine and/or transmission used in, not only the '84 Trans Am, but also in pretty much half every taxicab, pickup, Corvette, station wagon, police car, Camaro, and SUV sold by GM for over a decade." In other words, dirt is slightly less common.

Her lips must have been moving...

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."
"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

I think you meant "on", not "for", Madame Speaker.