...pretty soon you're talking about real money.

re: the proposed FDIC bailout...

$100B here and $100B there and pretty soon you're talking about over 1% of the deficit.

Color me skeptical.

RideFast claims to have watched a National Geographic special on "Guns In America" (pronounced "Gun Control Now!")

I'm not sure I believe him, since he doesn't indicate that they claimed guns cause Global Warming.

It's turning into a meme...

More on the Obama-Lada.

One tingles with excitement, wondering which industry the Dear Leader will reform next.

Protecting your money by taking your cash.

"If you’re not mad about the FDIC’s shameful conduct in the banking meltdown it’s because you’re not paying attention." -Les Jones

Let me get this straight: You want to take my money so that you'll have money to give me when the bank that my money is in, which didn't give you any money, goes toes up?

I guess you have to be in banking or Congress for that to make a lick of sense.

...and that's why they call it "the morgue".

Joanna of Ready, Fire, Aim, Apologize on the ongoing death of the newspaper, which is turning into a grade school Mercutio's exit scene:

"[H]e lamented the demise of the newspaper because without it, there would be no one to speak for freedom and democracy and no one to champion the people's cause. Which is all fine and good except, you know, we can kind of do that ourselves now."

Every year on the school field trip, we'd laugh on cue when our tour guide showed us "...the morgue. But don't worry, kids, it's not where we keep dead bodies; it's where we keep old stories."

Pretty soon you'll be able to keep the whole paper there.

You might be are a redneck if...

You think that this is a classy way to display your unpretentious yet impertinent little Modesto green-apple flavored white from that famous vintage, the second week of January:



(Detailed! Hand Painted!)

Mythbusters...

How many times have you boxed your own ears in annoyance at hearing some newsdroid, who barely knows from which end the bullet emerges, mouth the words "easily converted" in relation to semiautomatic weapons?

(That is, of course, when they even bother to make the distinction between your Paw-paw's deer rifle and Ol' Painless.)


EDITED TO ADD EVEN MORE MYTHBUSTING: Well, actually it's more "meme-busting", but you should read Don Gwinn's post on the Mexican Gun Canard and why it sounds so familiar.

I haven't laughed so hard in years...

The picture of the guy in chainmail chucking rocks at a therapod is just made of win.

If you actually believe there were tyrannosaurs roaming loose in Europe or the Near East in historical times, please send me your debit card number and PIN code, because I need them for a very important research project.



(H/T to Nathan Brindle.)

Talk to the Invisible Hand.

Staghounds on what General Motors' actual function is:

So what else is GM other than a car maker and lender of money?

Its value IS to be "bailed out". I say this in all seriousness.

It's a huge interface with millions of voters- and their livelihoods, savings, pensions, debts, mobility, their health...

The only thing that makes GM valuable at this price is that it is a ready made conduit, all set up. What for?

Delivering loyalty payments from "the government" to reliable voters.

But I read it on the internet!

Caleb linked to The Firearm Blog who linked to Defense Review on this plastic Russkie cop gun.

Defense Review, long known for its accurate reporting on the gun front, had another head scratcher:

The GSh-18 also apparently utilizes double-column magazine that transitions to single-column feed at the top for more reliable feeding, just like the P7 M13 mag.

No, no, no, no.

A double column magazine that narrows to a single column at the top is less reliable than one that feeds left-right-left-right because the spring is having to squeeze two stacks of cartridges through one hole. The spring has to be stronger and the magazine is more sensitive to dirt and debris. The advantage you gain is that you can use a single feed ramp and don't need to make your pistol's slide as wide as, say, an Uzi to accommodate the double feed ramps. This is why weapons where narrowness is not important, like rifles and machine pistols, do not have magazines that narrow to a single column on top.

Remember: Pat Rogers calls it the "Errornet" for a reason.

The Minister of Heavy Industry says...

...not to worry, the government will back the warranty on your GAZ or Lada.

They may not be so hot at running a brothel, but apparently they're great at transmission rebuilds.

Get offa my lawn!

How they say "Keep Off The Grass" in Fowler, IN.

The Graves of Academe.

“…and then he tried to convince me that it’s pronounced ‘ver-sai,’ when it’s clearly ‘versallies!’ I mean, what kind of dumbasses do they hire to teach here, anyways? There’s, like, L’s in the middle of the freaking WORD!”

I am daily reminded that a bachelor's degree these days doesn't even certify the ability to color inside the lines.

At some point in the history of this great nation it was decided that a college degree was the birthright of every American. As a consequence, people who have a hard time mastering the intricacies of the No. 2 pencil, much less the watered-down SAT they use it to answer, wind up going for a BA in order to prove their worthiness to be the night shift manager at the local Domino's.

In the meantime, the internet is full of blatherskite that has been hunt-'n'-pecked by people who have allegedly gained a postgraduate degree without ever successfully remaining awake through a single English class. This has got to stop before we get to the point that a meaningless PhD is required for a job operating the slicer at Blimpie's.

Funny, really...

Watching Rick Wagoner's auto da fé, I'm reminded that the SS General Motors hit the iceberg sometime back between the Vega and the Cimarron, back before he was even Junior Purser's Assistant, 3rd Class of the ship.

Now the senior officer left aboard, he's being criticized for the placement of the deck chairs.

The Wasteland.

If you live in Flint, Michigan, it's apparently permissible to strap a colander to your face and play "Lord of the Wasteland" now:

Temporary Mayor Michael Brown made the off-the-cuff suggestion Friday in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Flint luncheon about the thousands of empty houses in Flint.

Brown said that as more people abandon homes, eating away at the city's tax base and creating more blight, the city might need to examine "shutting down quadrants of the city where we (wouldn't) provide services."

He did not define what that could mean -- bulldozing abandoned areas, simply leaving the vacant homes to rot or some other idea entirely.Really, what do you do when the people go away and don't come back?

Can two taxpayers on a block pay for enough cop cars to protect them from the vagrants and crackheads using the other ten houses as temporary hideouts; places to steal pipe, or hit on one? What about when somebody drops their lighter while crackin' down in one of those abandoned houses? Can the two taxpayers left on the block cover the tab for the fire department?

How do you tell somebody "Sorry, civilization is retreating, and unless you want to be left outside the fence, you need to move."

Overheard in the office...

RX: "...also, I have popcorn in my bra. God that itches."

Me: *click* *typetypetype*




Some things just need to go up on the 'web immediately and don't need a ton of editorial commentary to be hilarious.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

The Sunday Smith is up.

Miscellenia...

I'm still not up to generating the post about how awesome my pseudo-instructor experience was at the range yesterday (HINT: If you want all the RO's to come over and tell you what an awesome instructor you are, pick Annie Oakley for a student. It makes you look good.)

Also, the Sunday Smif will be along shortly.

In the meantime, strange heretical thoughts have been wandering through my mind about converting my 1911's into K-frame Smiths. I don't know what it says about me that, years into this game, if I was going to pick up one of my guns and make the bazillion-dollar shot cold, it would be with a Smith revolver, shooting double-action, and not one of my kilobuck custom 1911's.

Anyhow...

Getting ready to go to teh blogmeet at the Brewpub. More later.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #50: Miscellaneous Rugers...

Some stuff from back when I still owned single-action Rugers...


L to R: A dual-cylinder Vaquero in .38-40 and 10mm Auto (aka the "Space Cowboy"), a .44 Magnum Bisley Vaquero, a .32 H&R Magnum Single Six, an Old Model Bearcat, and an Old Model Single Six with both cylinders.

Today In History: An unlucky star.

On this date in 364AD, the none-too-distinguished son of a nouveau riche Pannonian rope salesman who had made it big in the army got his own shot at the brass ring.

His older brother, who had been conveniently present at the death of the previous emperor, had been proclaimed Augustus and, deciding that he needed help running the empire, now he appointed Valens as his co-emperor in the east.

Nominally governing from Constantinople, Valens mostly spent the next 14 years gallivanting about the Near East, racing from crisis to crisis. From a usurper in Constantinople to uppity Persians to playing politics in Armenia, he probably got all of five minutes' rest in the next fourteen years.

He is, of course, best known for losing both the battle and his head to marauding migratory Goths in the rolling fields outside Adrianople, marking what many consider the beginning of the end of the Western Empire.