Dylanttantes.

So as maybe the last person in the blogosphere to actually read the David Brooks column that's caused all the hooraw these last couple days, I just have to make mention of the part that caused me to giggle the most:

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise.

As the "indoctrinated educated class" should know from their anthem back in the days when they were still being educated, it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Good Tam! Have a cookie!

I hiked to the Fresh Market for some diet sodas and some bacon for tomorrow's breakfast. To reward myself for the schlep through the snow, I also bought a delicious crème brûlée while I was there.

I mean, the applewood-smoked bacon's a pretty nice reward in itself, but tomorrow morning's a long way off, so... mm-mmmm... crème brûlée.

This is why we can't have nice things...

"Oh, Tamara, you're always being such a gun snob! Always talking about not buying cheap-ass guns and not carrying guns loose in your pocket without a holster and getting some good training! Why are you always pouring the Haterade?"

Because some yahoo's cheap gun (I don't know, but if I had to guess, I'd wager it was a derringer,) falls out of his frickin' pocket at the grocery store, drills a bag boy and then this happens. Nice work, Hopalong.

I don't believe in prior restraint or collective punishment, but generations of Americans have grown up hearing "You'll ruin it for everybody!" and think of that as a valid operating instruction at the voting booth. You know that guy that's going to give them a suitably tragic incident on which to hang their ad campaign? Don't be that guy.

(H/T to Unc.)

Ha!

Found here.

The mass un-shooting you un-heard about...

...because it un-happened.

Rolled Tide.

Apparently the Alabama football squadron took first prize in the Doritos Sheet Metal Bowl last night. Gunsmith Bob should be happy. Today would probably be a good day to get your heater 'smithed, as I imagine he's whistling while he works.

It's like the mutant offspring of Dickens and Orwell...

In the grip of a foot or more of Global Warmening, pensioners in the UK are apparently burning books because coal's so expensive.

Jonathan Stearn, energy expert for Consumer Focus, said: ‘If pensioners are taking such desperate measures to heat their homes it is shocking. With low wholesale prices and increasing profit margins, there is clearly room for energy companies to make price cuts immediately.’

I knew it! This is all George Bush's fault, somehow!

Can't be long now before the old codgers start eating each other, like in that science fiction movie we watched last night, the one where that food products company had that great PR slogan about how they were really just people.

Fundamentally unserious...

The wife of the man who wore Semtex underoos into what our President leaked was a CIA facility is reportedly proud of her husband's martyrdom:

The wife of an alleged suicide bomber who killed eight people at a U.S. base in Afghanistan last week says she is shocked by his actions but "proud" of what he did.

Defne Bayrak, the Turkish wife of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi -- a Jordanian doctor identified as the attacker -- said she doubted accusations her husband had been an intelligence agent, but was satisfied he did not die in vain.

No doubt that he was driven to his actions by desperate poverty and grinding social inequality, being a doctor and all...

Meanwhile, the Al-Qaeda operative disguised as a civilian air traveler who livened up flying for everybody after Christmas is going to be appearing in court today, perhaps on charges of attempted littering and conspiracy to commit the dumping of petroleum products and medical waste in federally-protected wetlands.

But, hey, we caught that dastardly Michael Yon trying to sneak into the country. The system worked!

Gates of Vienna...

Polish winged hussars... "March of Cambreadth"... Two great tastes that taste great together.



(H/T to Dad's Deadpool Blog.)

Wasn't that a Dead Milkmen album?

Big Lizard In My Back Seat?

Fun Nature Facts:

The Portuguese Man o' War has a gas-filled bladder that keeps its central structure semi-rigid.

This is so that you can distinguish a large, ocean-going jellyfish from the GOP, which has plenty of gas-filled bladders, but is utterly devoid of anything like rigidity.

Lies and the lying liars who tell them.

In this morning's Indianapolis Parakeet Primer we read this amazing bit of twaddle:

As Straub's predecessor, Scott Newman, has pointed out, Indiana's lack of limits on the number of guns that can be legally bought at one time has made the state a prime source for illicit resale by "straw purchasers." Bad guys come here from other states to load up.

If the ignoramus who typed this had used his layers of oversight with which he'd been blessed upon graduation from J-school, he would discovered that most states bordering Indiana have no limit on how many guns can be purchased at once, either. (I'm not entirely sure how Michigan's handgun permit works, but I know you can buy as many long guns as you want there.) In fact, only a couple of states have any kind of limit on how many handguns you could buy at once, so why these lackwits think criminals would drive all the way to Indiana to do what they could do in their own back yard is beyond me.

But hey, why let the truth interfere with your point?

And these idiots wonder why they're circling the drain...


UPDATE: Bobbi educates the Professional Fact-Checked Journalist on a little thing called the "ATF Form 3310.4".

The transitive property of sluggishness...

My roomie is on vacation, which has led to late nights and late mornings and excessive pyjama-wearing at Roseholme Cottage, because apparently i'monvacationitis is highly contagious.

Trying new stuff...

One thing for which I've been using my AR carbine blue gun is experimenting with the forward support hand hold that has emerged from 3-gun competitions. It does indeed seem to allow for a steadier front sight while moving. This differs from the Modern Technique/Gunsite/Pat Rogers school where the support hand is further aft, perhaps even gripping the mag well.

If you look at the photo of the guys doing VBSS training in the Force Recon article at Wikipedia, you'll notice that the VFG's on their carbines are way aft; as close to the mag well as you can get it without fouling mag changes. In the footage in the alleged SFOD-Delta video here, note that most of the guys have their VFGs way out at the far end, a la the VFG on Todd Jarrett's three-gun carbine. (If you are using a VFG, which is totally optional and not there to look cool, and you have it somewhere in the middle of the handguards where it interferes with moving your support hand around on the weapon, you're doing it wrong.)

A lot of newer material, such as the Magpul training stuff I've seen and the book Green Eyes and Black Rifles, teach the forward hold. I've been airgunning it steadily for a couple weeks now, and need to get out and start trying it side-by-side with what I have been doing, which was parking my support hand on the magwell. I need to get a rimfire adaptor for my carbine, because I know where there are some plate racks and the only way to find out how well this works for shooting on the move is to, well, actually go shoot on the move.

Zing!

Seen at Cold Fury:

They’ve slashed funding for our most modern fighter, the F-22. Obama will not even be photographed with one, unless it sneaks into a State Dinner with a lady in a red dress.

I think someone got a spanking.

Item: Indy mayor Greg Ballard is unambiguous enough on 2nd Amendment issues as to actually get a table at the local gun show to press flesh with voters that own guns shooters.

Item: New hiree, public safety director Frank Straub, opined that "...we have way too many guns on the street and way too many people that own guns."

Item: There was a bit of a stink.

Item: Frank Straub was backpedalling furiously on page A1 of today's Indianapolis Cat Box Liner, saying "Uh, I meant illegal guns."

For some reason I'm getting these mental images involving Ballard saying, in a Slim Pickens voice, "What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is a'goin' on here? I hired you to be the public safety director, not to piss off the NRA!" I'll bet Frank's still having difficulty sitting down.

Strange native customs.

Have you ever noticed in gun stores that people always want to open the box to look at the ammo? I don't get it, and yet I've caught myself doing it too on a few occasions.

They'll open the box, slide out the tray, and hold up that round of Winchester White Box 9mm FMJ and scrutinize it briefly, as though it were going to be somehow different from every other round of 9x19 FMJ on the planet. Then, the round having apparently passed inspection for its forty-nine siblings still in the box, it is returned to the tray with a satisfied grunt, and the box is closed and purchased.

The steps seem as formalized as a Japanese tea ceremony, and I've always found this particular little behavioral tic fascinating...

I've been giggling all morning.

I thought the TV voiceover said that there had been a missile attack in Braziristan.

Oh, it's like Christmas all over again!

What a thing to wake up to:

Sen. Dodd to retire, sources tell CNN

I do believe in magic! I do! I do!

Ohhh yeahhh!

"In a world growing ever hotter..." ...pretty much every city in the US is running ahead of schedule for annual snowfall, some by significant amounts.

When Jonestown happened, I was in fifth grade and I wondered how all those people could believe enough to drink the koolaid.