I hate Remington Golden Bullets...

...or at least this particular lot.

I picked up a carton at the last gun show, just tickled pink to find reasonably-priced plated .22LR at all, even if it was Remington.

I should have got a discount for all the duds; so far it's been running almost 1-in-10.

I miss the days when ammunition was plentiful and cheap enough that I could afford to turn up my nose at Remington's crap rimfire offerings, but Mini Mags and Stingers are scarce these days and priced at darn near what you'd pay for CCI Blazer 9mm FMJ when I started this blog.

Pravda means Truth.

I'm going to fink on Shootin' Buddy: He listens to NPR in his truck a lot. Which means that, when I'm in his truck, I listen to the news from The Land Through The Looking Glass, too.

It's sort of like an auditory version of HuffPo, for those of you who don't indulge. The news is interspersed with entertainment programs where liberals will sit around and feel better than other people, which is apparently a big source of comedy for collectivists; I guess because it feels risque after a hard week of struggling for social justice with other people's money. And then there's this one where some deadly dull guy from frickin' Minnesota comes on and tells stories about paint drying and grass growing, which triggers laughter in the studio audience, for some reason, I guess because they all secretly wish they were in New York.

Anyway, back to the news on NPR: Thanks to a commenter in this post, I was led to this editorial in the Lincoln JournalStar, which seems to be decrying a certain even more TASS-like turn at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Your tax dollars at work, comrades!

Driving the culture.

Michael Bane has some interesting thoughts on where the gun culture has been and where it's going. His key point:

The gun culture has morphed from a hobbyist culture focused largely on hunting and somewhat on formal competition (back in the 1960s and earlier) into a more coherent culture built around self-defense, concealed carry, RKBA issues, training, competition and some hunting.

This describes me pretty well.

I mean, I'd say that guns are probably my biggest single hobby/interest; I write about them; I have worked in the firearms industry for most of my adult life.

I CCW. I shoot a lot, but little of it is in any formal setting. The last time I participated in competition under the umbrella of a major sanctioning body was shooting 3-position smallbore in college. Since then it's all been fairly informal action-pistol-style or bowling pin matches.

I've picked up a bit of a gun school habit. One class two years ago turned into a class and an Appleseed clinic last year, and I'm already booked for two classes later this year.

Yet I can count the number of times I've been in the woods with the intention of shooting a critter without having to pull a mitten off one hand. And my demographic is growing, while some types of hunting are worried about dying out. The industry needs to note this.

The devil made me do it...

So, thanks to the media crossing the Tiger & Jessie streams, I've been bombarded with all manner of crap about cheating on CNN. The newest blurbs have really caught my eye, however:


Notice what all this has in common? It's all painted as somehow involuntary. "Are you going to cheat? Check your fingers!" Not your conscience or your commitment or your intellect, but your genes are entirely at fault, here, apparently. The devil made me do it!

Hey, the heart's an involuntary muscle, but your fingers and hands are under purely conscious control. I have never spontaneously dropped trou because my digits accidentally unbuckled my belt of their own volition. It seems like taking responsibility for one's actions is terribly out of vogue these days.

This ties in interestingly with the book I just finished reading, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass. In it, the author recounts numerous cases of the incredible lack of blame attached to wrongdoing among his patients. Here's a snippet from a conversation with a patient who had OD'ed after her boyfriend roughed her up:

"He doesn't do it all the time, doctor." This is the universal extenuation offered.

"And, of course, he apologizes afterward and tells you it won't happen again. And you believe him."

"Yes. I think he really needs help, doctor."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, when he does it, he changes completely; he becomes another person; his eyes stare; it's like he has a fit. I really think he can't help it; he's got no control over it."

"Would he do it in front of me, here, now, in this room?"

"No, of course not."

"Then he can help it, can't he?"

The devil made me do it.

It's self-gratification with no thought of consequences until you get caught, and then sympathy-seeking and attention-craving when you eventually are.

The devil made me do it.

I'm addicted. It's society's fault. It's my genes. I can't help it. Give me a pill to make me better. Feel sorry for me. I'm the victim here. Me and my problem. Pay attention to me.

Society is suffering from Munchausen's-by-Proxy.

Bicycle grocery shopping, part 2...

So, in a previous post, several commenters made helpful suggestions about bicycle trailers. Which are kinda cool and all, but I'll probably never use one for shopping. (It might not hurt to have one on hand for "just-in-case" purposes, although it'll probably be hard to get enough air to pedal through the post-EMPocalyptic wilderness with a colander on my face.)

I like my bicycle so much, not for the exercise or for the massive cloud of smug it emits to blanket the Prii and clapped out Volvo 240 diesels with their ass ends plastered in "Free Tibet!" stickers in the grocery store parking lot, but for the convenience.

Those who live in the 'burbs or the country will find this hard to believe, but it's probably just as quick, and less hassle, to use the bike to run to the store when you have two grocery stores less than a mile from the house. It's like this:

• Car: Get in car. Start car. Open garage door. Fiddle with stereo or iPod controls. Back out. Close garage door. Fasten belt. Diddle with HVAC controls while inching down cratered gravel/mud alley to street. Do I take the main street, which involves pulling into traffic and some traffic lights and possibly congestion at the far end, or the side street that involves alertly dodging potholes and stopping every tenth of a mile at a 4-way? Find parking space. Et cetera...
• Bike: Open garage door, hop on bike, and close garage door. Pedal a mile on flat, shaded side streets. Lock bike to rack at store.

Seriously, unless it's raining or experiencing some godawful temperature extreme it's probably just as fast and just as comfortable to take the bike; thanks to stop signs and road conditions the car never makes up in speed what the bike has in hop-on-and-hop-off convenience at both ends (although if you add another half-mile or two, that changes.) Adding a trailer to the equation would really put a dent in the whole "convenience" factor of the bike and I might as well just take the car. Is this making sense?

The .gov wants price increases at WalMart?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm lost at this level of the finance game, but:

1) A steeper Yuan would be a kick in the gut to WalMart, Harbor Freight, Best Buy, and all the other mass-market retail chains whose very existence is predicated on dirt-cheap Chicom consumer goods.

2) There is nothing currently to replace those goods. It's not like Americans are going to suddenly start buying American-made sneakers and toys and cheap electronics, because there aren't any, and even if there were, they'd likely be made by people steeped in generations of the BS union entitlement mindset. The cost of paying a guy $50k a year for the rest of his life to stand there and push a button 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for 20 years is going to be reflected in the price of the goods, and I'm not ready for a $200 pair of Keds.

3) The only American car company that makes money in China is the Buick division of GAZ Autograd, although I think the Jeep division of ZiL is popular over there, too.

4) The Chinese hold a bunch of our debt, but we're the primary market for all their stuff. Right now they're really scary, but I think I've seen this movie before.

What dramatic implications am I missing?

Triviata:

According to Google Analytics, over the last month twelve souls have arrived at VFTP having searched for "midget screaming verboten on tricycle". Obviously there exists an untapped market segment.

Sure is noisy out there.

Music is blaring from various parties spilling into yards and driveways up and down the street. I can hear fireworks in the distance. I think the sporting team from here beat the sporting team from the other place. If they do it again on Monday, I predict pandemonium in Broad Ripple...

How to get shot by the cops.

One sure way to get shot by the cops is, when asked for your ID by Johnny Law, to reply by yelling "You want to see my ID? Here's my ID," and whipping out a gat.

Romero was pronounced dead on arrival at Lutheran Hospital. In his backpack, police found a loaded .44 revolver, a gallon-size bag of marijuana, and two wallets that belonged to other people, stuffed with cash. Police sources say he has 10 prior arrests, including seven felonies, on his record.

Somebody should have told that guy that guns are illegal in NYC.

If everything went down as reported in the article, then mad props to Officers Kelleher and Hayes. That's some fast thinking to tie up a revolver's hammer at bad breath distance, and equally quick thinking on the part of Hayes to move to where she had a clear line-of-fire before shooting the goblin. Apparently she fired only one round, scored a vital hit, and didn't perforate any scenery or innocent bystanders. Nice shootin', Tex.

Psst! Kid! Wanna buy a fish?

In the place where Great Britain used to be, a silver-haired granny didn't card the purchaser of a goldfish and as a result was fined fifteen hundred bucks and tagged like a migrating seal.

It's a good thing the bobbies are cracking down on this, using elaborate undercover stings to catch underage goldfish sales. I mean, if you let grannies sell goldfish to just anyone, next thing you know there'll be riots in the streets! It'd be a madhouse!

Besides, it's a known fact that goldfish are a "gateway pet" and that most everyone who keeps a rabid Bengal tiger started off with one of these seemingly-harmless fishies.


(H/T to SurvivalBlog.)

13 hours that didn't shake the world.

So Vlad the Terrible was down in Caracas yesterday, promising to help Pugsley and his oil-wealthy nation develop peaceful nuclear energy. And a space program!

Raise your hand if this makes you feel all cuddly inside.

Yeah, me neither.

I can see the connection!

You know, now that Rev. Cantalamessa has pointed it out, I can totally see how being skeptical of an organization's willingness to deal properly with child buggerers is just like herding Jews into gas chambers. I don't know why I never noticed the similarities before.

With the Reverend's obviously divine gift for good public relations moves, Michael Steele should make him a job offer. It would be interesting to see to just what historical injustice he compared Ma and Pa Redstate's indignation at picking up the tab for lesbian bondage peep shows.

Reuben Report:

Good Morning Mama's on 54th Street serves a good-sized Reuben. I'm told they make their own corned beef, too. The sammich is on delicious crusty rye and comes with a pickle. You can get fries, slaw or tater salad, but that's extra. Dee-lish and filling for $6.95, and for another $1.95 they'll bury the plate in big, straight fries that show every evidence of having been a whole potato quite recently.

I got there probably just shy of 2:00PM, and I'd say that the joint was probably 80% full, which is good to see. I was curious to see what kind of business they were doing for lunch; I knew that for breakfast on weekends they usually have a line out the door like they're giving dollar bills away.

Chicks can hold their smoke.

Word.

:)

Bicycle shortcomings...

As much as I like riding my bike for simple errands, it's not much for the kind of grocery trips when the shopping list starts out:

• Paper towels
• TP
• Cat Food
• " Litter

By comparison with the basket on my Trek, the Zed Drei's trunk is downright capacious...

Hommina-hommina-ha-wa!

Back in my wild club kid days in Atlanta, my then-roommate introduced me to his VHS recordings (ask your parents, kids,) of the animated TeeWee series Duckman.

Now, Matt Groening, Mike Judge, and Matt & Trey have done a funny cartoon or two, but for absolutely hilarious every-other-line-cracks-me-up funny, none of them can kick my gigglebox over like Duckman.

Cornfed: "Duckman, you were not given the adrenal gland of famous stuntman Vile Kyle. You received the adrenal gland of an accountant who is dyslexic."

Duckman: "Bulltish!"

I don't know if it's the way it cycles back and forth constantly between highbrow beatnik-esque wit and lowbrow potty humor or whether its the deadpan delivery of Duckman's sidekick, a pig named Cornfed, but it's aimed right for my sense of humor. I mean, this wasn't just funny, it was snarky. And it was absolutely unavailable on DVD until just recently.

The entire four season boxed set arrived on my front porch yesterday, thanks to the magic of Amazon. I'm in a state of cartoon bliss.

Rejoice, Comrades! The Five Year Plan has been met!

The nomenklatura will be receiving the first electro-ZiLs from Autograd soon!

The first customer for the upcoming Chevrolet Volt also happens to be its largest investor: the Obama administration.

The White House said Wednesday that the government will "purchase the first 100 plug-in electric vehicles to roll off American assembly lines" before the end of the year. The Volt, which GM describes as an extended range electric vehicle, is the only model fitting that description.

Should a member of the lumpenproletariat wish to hamper himself with one of these drab people-movers, however, he's still sierra oscar lima; there's no firm word as to when regular "civilian sales" will commence, so we're stuck with our old-fashioned rear-wheel-drive gasoline burners for now. Bummer.

Lunch postscript.

I went to Northside News Cafe, since Good Morning Mama's shuts their lunch service down at 2:30.

Northside News is looking pretty grim these days. When I moved up here in early '08, it was a newsstand with a few shelves of used books, and a sandwich joint located next door with a pass-through between the two. The lunch counter was known for its Cubans, but served a good variety of deli sammiches.

Early last year the newsstand portion went toes up because the magazine distributor they worked through had gone under and neither of the other local distributors was willing to deal with such a trifling account at a discount that would be profitable. It was kinda sad, because they stocked Reason magazine and my brand of smokes just for me.

The lunch counter half has tried to soldier on, but their business has tailed off. They were never more than half-hearted about keeping cigs in stock when that facet of the business passed to their control, and I noticed today that the cooler where they kept their beer was empty, so I'm supposing the on-premises alcohol permit has gone away since the last time I was in.

There were only a couple other customers in there while I munched on my Reuben, and that doesn't bode well for their future. Too bad; they made a good Cuban.

There's an owie empty hurtie feeling in my tummy...

...that can only be filled with a Reuben.

However, like a donkey starving to death between two full mangers, I have a half-dozen places that serve a decent Reuben in a one-mile radius of where I sit and a bicycle in the garage. Alternately, I have half the fixins on hand and could get the rest from the Fresh Market.

I'm probably going to sit here and dither until I pass out from hunger...

All ninja'ed up and nowhere to go.

Unc linked to a pic of an NYPD cop in full ninja garb on the New York subway, apparently a response to the self-immolating goatherds in the Moscow Metro.

I don't know what a dude with a carbine is supposed to do in that situation, except maybe make the taxpayers feel better by getting blown up along with them in a show of solidarity.

I'm also kind of curious just how many hours of training the guy has and how much time he spends a day with a carbine in his hands. A lot of things like muzzle discipline come down to ingrained rote familiarity, which is something you're just not going to get when you draw a carbine from the arms room once every ninety days. A crowded subway car is maybe the trickiest place I can think of to safely lug a longarm, much less deploy it effectively.