Laconic.

I just finished re-reading Gates of Fire for the first time in several years. The most-remembered highlights of the book are the one-liners delivered by Spartans the likes of Dienekes and Leonidas.

This Veteran's Day, go read an interview with a real hero, Silver Star recipient MSgt Robert Blanton, who answers the question "Give us a rundown of the event in which you earned the Silver Star?" thus:

Clearing houses, got ambushed, rammed my vehicle through the house to get one of my team leaders out, got attacked by a suicide bomber, captured a guy and we killed 12.

I believe I get more wound up describing a trip to the grocery store than this man does recounting smashing the gates of hell open with the front bumper of his Humvee.
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Zombie cars...

I don't see much on this list to disagree with. Certainly old RWD Volvos and diesel Benzes are capable of prodigious feats of odometer heroics.

An interesting point is raised by the very first car on the list, the old A-body Cutlass Ciera. There are still an awful lot of Buick Centuries and Olds Cieras tooling around long after most of their more numerous and mechanically-identical Chevy Celebrity and Pontiac 6000 stablemates have gone to that Great Scrap Heap In Shanghai, which should speak reams about the longevity value of spending the first decade of your existence always being garaged, promptly serviced, and never exceeding 30mph on the way to the bingo game.

I will admit that, when it comes to superannuated automobiles, to having strong (not necessarily rational) negative biases about 4WD or RWD. Differentials and CV joints are expensive to replace, and so the fewer of them the car has, reasons my hindbrain, the better off my finances will be down the road.

But we already have an emergency alert system.

My roomie, who works on a starship and therefore knows a little bit about how the the little bits of pictures and sound fly through the air and stick to antennas, breaks down yesterday's FEMA test of the nation's Emergency Alert System, the results of which ranged from "Okey-Dokey" to "Complete Goat Rope", depending on your locale.

She also raises a good point:

You might take some comfort that on 11 September 2001, when a national-level emergency did take place, the news was disseminated rapidly. Not by the government but by the various companies that run for-profit networks all day, every day: ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/CNN etc. all jumped on the story as it happened -- and even pushed their scheduled commercials aside to do it. There wasn't any question of the message making it to you; it had been reaching you 24/7/365 to hawk soap flakes and cornflakes already and when the stakes suddenly got much higher, it was already in place, working.

It's almost like the invisible hand had grabbed your remote, no?
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Today In History: Happy Birthday, Devil Dogs!

On this day in 1775, in Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the very first U.S. Marine made his mark on the dotted line, laid the pen down, turned and looked behind him at the second guy in line and said

"Things were different in the old Corps."

Happy birthday, USMC!

EDITED TO ADD:

Hat tip to Caleb for finding this video, which you should really, really, really not watch if hilariously gratuitous F-bombs will make you or anybody else in the room cry, but which captures the deep, sensitive inner soul of the Shock Trooper Devil Dog Blood-Sucking War Machines of the USMC perfectly.


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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."

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How not to answer the phone...

When I first got the portable magic elf box, I was playing with it in the waiting room of the hospital while Bobbi was attending to her mother. I discovered that the phone had pre-programmed "excuse messages" that could be sent to callers if you couldn't answer the phone, stuff like "I will contact you as soon as I'm out of this meeting" and things like that, so I reprogrammed them to say the kind of things I found funny at 0300 on a Sunday, stuff more along the lines of "I can't talk right now; there's a badger gnawing on my leg," and "I am unable to answer the phone at the moment. I think a dingo ate my baby." I haven't used any of them since. Until...

Last night, Bobbi and I had gone out for a bite to eat and then stopped at a coffee house afterward for a cuppa joe before heading home. The music was a little loud, I was in line for a refill, chatting with the Baristess or whatever you call her, and my phone buzzed. It was Shootin' Buddy. I noticed the little "Excuse Message" tab and thought "Huh. I've never used one of those new-fangled excuse messages before," and selected one blindly, at random, figuring I'd step out on the patio and call him back as soon as I got my refill.

Protip: Do not send a lawyer an excuse message text that reads:

I will contact you as soon as I shoot this guy.

No sooner had the screen lit up with my accidental response than I was bolting for the patio door. Sure enough, the phone was buzzing urgently before my hand hit the knob.

Note to self: To avoid panicking people who care about me, use the one about being chewed on by a badger.

A really crappy law.

Are you familiar with the Guano Islands Act of 1856?

Apparently, when a US citizen sets foot on an island rich in bird crap deposits, and the island is not claimed by anybody else, the island may, at the discretion of the president, be annexed by the USA. Further, should you be the unlucky citizen who washes ashore on this avian outhouse, you have some responsibilities, too, apparently:

The discoverer shall, as soon as practicable, give notice verified by affidavit, to the Department of State, of such discovery, occupation, and possession, describing the island, rock, or key, and the latitude and longitude thereof, as near as may be, and showing that such possession was taken in the name of the United States; and shall furnish satisfactory evidence to the State Department that such island, rock, or key was not, at the time of the discovery thereof, or of the taking possession and occupation thereof by the claimants, in the possession or occupation of any other government or of the citizens of any other government, before the same shall be considered as appertaining to the United States.

Which is a bummer, because suppose I wanted to claim it for the greater glory of myself? The best I could hope for, according to §1414, would be an exclusive right to the guano concession for myself and my heirs or assigns, but I could only sell the guano to the US. Which, if your lifelong goal has been to be the robber baron governor of a colonial feces farm, would be pretty swell, I guess.

Oh, one of the islands claimed under the Guano Act is causing us a little minor border squabble with New Zealand. And they had an American queen.

Oh, well, if Peak Phosphorus really happens, we'll be glad our elder statesmen had such foresight! Or something.

Or you'll what?

I'm sure everybody's seen this annoying Arby's commercial:



Here's my question: When the bank robber says "Do as I say, and nobody gets hurt," what does he have to back up that threat?

"Nobody gets hurt"? Hurt with what, Mr. Bank Robber? You're completely unarmed! The Arby's spokes-goofball at least could throw his chicken sandwich at you.

What kind of fruity California ad agency bank robber crashes through a door on a motorcycle and issues grim threats in a German accent without being armed with so much as a Nerf gun?

Overheard in the Office:

RX: "Have you seen this?"

Me: "Wow! That looks gloriously dangerous!"

RX: "Actually, it's apparently very stable."

Me: "Yeah, but can you imagine? You clip the trees, tumble forward out of the seat and into that maelstrom of whirling blades of death! Splatter!"

RX: "Tam, those are electric motors and little composite fan blades, they can't..."

Me: "What? Why aren't they chainsaw motors with steel blades? Or titanium!"

RX: [walking toward the kitchen] "In fact... I'd put a seat-belt interlock on it so the motors couldn't run unless you were safely harnessed in..."

Me: [yelling after her] "You're treading on my dreams!"

(H/T to Lyle.)

You keep using that word...

...I do not think it means what you think it means.

Weer'd quotes gun-banner Joan Peterson as writing

I don’t make deals on this blog as you know. It’s clear that you guys are not interested in compromising. I am seeking that from others who are more reasonable.

You hear those words a lot whenever gun control is being discussed: "reasonable" and "compromise".

Now, the way I understand it, a 'compromise' is where I give up something I want, and you give up something you want, and we reach a solution that is not perfect but that we can both live with.

A hypothetical compromise would be something like:

"Okay, you can have your Firearm Owner's ID Card law, but there can't be any kind of test; it has to be 'shall issue' to anybody with a pulse and a clean background check. In turn, we can use it to buy any gun we want, regardless of barrel length or bore diameter or rate of fire or across state lines or whatever..."

That would be a compromise. Or

"Okay, we'll give up folding stocks and bayonet lugs if that makes you happy, but in turn, you have to move suppressors to Title I or, better yet, to blister packs next to the ear muffs, instead of making people file paperwork and pay a $200 federal tax for what is a basic piece of safety equipment like the one on your car or lawnmower."

That, too, would be a compromise. See how that works?

So, yeah, Joan, it's easy for me to be uncompromising, since you've never actually offered me anything on which to compromise. It's why I don't read or comment on you people's blogs. If all you're going to do is stick your fingers in your ears and "Lalalalalalalalalala! I can't hear you!" well, two can play at that game.

What are you willing to give up, Joan? Where's your reasonable compromise? You're making it awful easy for me to just yell "Shall not be infringed!" right back at you.

Audience Participation.

• If you are an Indianapolis resident and would like to take part in today's electoral festivities, here's a handy link to the official voter information website. Roomie has links to some wookie-approved candidates.


• If you are a Hoosier and do not belong to our state rifle & pistol association, why not? Operating on a shoestring budget, with a membership that wouldn't fill a high school stadium and three volunteer part-time lobbyists, they went six-for-six at the statehouse this past session, and they're already gearing up for next season. Imagine what they could do with real resources.

Overheard in the Office:

RX: "Huh. I'd never heard of such a thing."

Me: "Never heard of what such a thing?"

RX: "A zipper machine."

Me: "Oh, one of those things that moves Jersey barriers! Those are pretty cool. I wonder which would win in a battle between one of those and a Zamboni?"

RX: "Oh, the Zamboni would get its butt kicked. Definitely."

Really, Taurus? Really?

I once had an idea to enhance range safety. When you saw somebody doing something gooberish at the range, you would offer them a free hat or t-shirt that said "I'm A Moron! Watch My Muzzle!"

The plan fizzled because, despite being free, nobody wanted the merchandise.

Now Taurus has figured out a way to charge hundreds of dollars for essentially the same thing, a big, shiny goober indicator, and people will gobble them up like mushrooms at a Phish concert.

(H/T to Unc.)

Magazine issues.

Og has his evil black rifle all put together and is lacking only time to get it to the range.

A discussion in his comments section brought up some good points about AR magazines.

I know I harp on this constantly, but magazines are wear items. Further, they are the weakest link of any weapon that feeds from detachable mags, if only because they are easier to drop and lose than the rest of the gun, so it's only common sense to have a bunch of 'em.

Until a few years ago, if your rifle was an AR-15 (or other type that ate out of STANAG magazines), the easiest way to do this was to buy a bunch of GI surplus aluminum mags. It's still a pretty inexpensive solution to the magazine problem, but it can have its downsides.

Left fully loaded for extended periods of time, the spring will push the column of ammunition against the feed lips, gradually spreading them apart. Your first indication that this has occurred will be the occasional double feed. If these are ignored and the magazine left in service, you may get a chance to see a "volcano", as the lips get spread enough to allow the magazine to regurgitate three, five, or even a whole magazine's worth of cartridges into the upper receiver.

Also, GI magazines have been loaded by GIs, who are given stripper clips of ten rounds and a handy little adapter to get them from the clip into the mag. If the GI is a lazy GI, he might have braced the top round in the clip against the edge of a handy table and the magazine baseplate against his tummy and leaned against it to "ZZZIP!" load ten rounds really quick-like, apparently without considering that this then allows the feed lips of the aluminum magazine to crash into the edge of the table with his body weight behind them.

While this will give him a splendid chance to practice his "SPORTS" malfunction clearance drills, it will likely not make you happy when you purchase the surplus magazine he has borked.

This can be totally avoided by buying new magazines. (And not doing these things yourself, of course...)

Overheard in the Office:

Me: "God, what a mayoral race. You've got one candidate getting get-out-the-vote endorsement calls by Bill Clinton, and the other getting 'em from Rudy Giuliani. And they both think that's a good thing!"

RX: "Well, they're robocalls..."

Me: "Of course they're robocalls! Can you imagine how that would go down live? 'Hey, Mrs. Goldstein. This here's Bill Clinton. How you doin'?'"

RX: "'...what're you wearin'?'"

Stepping boldly into 2006.

It's been a good five years since LED flashlights pretty much took over the "tactical" light market, but I've been carrying the same old xenon-bulb Surefire Z2 "Combatlight" for eons. It has an adjustable wrist lanyard on it and a narrow, flat-sided section in the middle that, along with the rubber collar behind it, makes it easy to use one handed, even wearing gloves, even if I have a pistol in the other hand.

Of course, the downside is that the xenon bulb sucked the electrons out of those expensive lithium batteries like a shop vac in a Dixie cup.

Last gun show, I finally got around to upgrading to the LED version, the Z2S, which is not only brighter and has a longer run time, but also has a strobe function, whose utility I am not entirely sold on.

I thought about just upgrading the lamp assembly, but while it would have been about a third cheaper, this way I can take the older flashlight and keep it in the car for emergencies and suchlike.

(Staying with the same model of flashlight also allowed me to move my GG&G T.I.D. over to the new one. I can't think of any possible situation where I will ever hit somebody with a pocket flashlight, but it looks cool and I got it on sale, so what the heck.)

Cats do the funniest things.

As I have mentioned before, Huck does this little somersault trick, where he presses his forehead against the basement door in the kitchen, presses forward, tucks his chin, and somersaults so that he is lying on his back, tail end against the door and head in the middle of the kitchen floor, looking up expectantly.

He is looking up expectantly because this is the point where I coo "Ohhhh! Did himums do a sommysault? Did himums do a sommysault? Good boys who do sommysaults get treats! Yes they do!"*

And then I open the cabinet and get him a treat, and Rannie, who heard all the fussing and the opening of the cabinet door and the rustling of the treat bag comes in, and I give her one too, which neatly illustrates the Free Rider problem. (Which isn't much of a problem, since Huck got his treat and doesn't seem to mind if others got some, too.)

This morning, I'm standing in the kitchen, talking to Bobbi about various breakfast possibilities, when there is a thump, soon followed by another, and soon a steady thumping noise is coming from the basement door. Out of the corner of my eye, it is apparent that Huck had done his food-producing trick and, when nobody noticed, just started doing it over and over again because, hey, we were standing right there and sooner or later somebody would get him a cat treat, right?

*If you tell anybody I coo baby talk at Bobbi's cat, you'd better start wearing kevlar knee guards, and that's all I have to say about that.

Overheard in Roomie's Bedroom:

TeeWee Announcer: "The New York City Marathon is one of the biggest, and toughest, races in the world."

Me: "Wait, what? Why is a marathon tougher in New York? 'Cause of all the hills? Or you might get mugged right in the middle of the race? They probably jog right through some rough neighborhoods. Is a New York City mile longer than a regular mile?"

RX: "It's because they don't stop the traffic for them."

Me: "Awesome! 'Come to the Big Apple for the 26th Annual Running of the Taxicabs!' I'd go watch that."

There's a reason for that, actually.

"It's legal to carry a concealed weapon in a restaurant! Somebody help me! But it is illegal to carry a gun in the state legislature!" -Mayor Coleman, of Columbus, OH

Well, Mr. Mayor, that's because we can trust waitresses to rarely do things that make people want to shoot them.

Same planet, different worlds...

My roomie made mention of a story about a crack in an Antarctic glacier yesterday, so this morning I decided to google the story.

Paging through the first three links left me confused, however...

• "Nothing to see here," assured the Torygraph.


• "The calving is normal, but the glacier does seem to be thinning at an increased rate," said the Discovery Channel.


• "ZOMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! #OCCUPY_ANTARCTICA! STOP THE 1% FROM DROWNING BANGLADESH!" said the Daily Kos.

Maybe these people are talking about different glaciers? Nope, on a second reading, they're all referring to a "Pine Island Glacier" in Antarctica.

Well, maybe it's different Antarcticas, then. Like, maybe one of them is in my universe, another is in the universe where those time-travelers gave the Confederates AK-47s, and the third one is in that universe where Spock has a beard.

I figure if I add those stories up and divide by three, I should be getting closer to the truth...