Violence doesn't solve everything...

...but the things that it does solve are generally things that can't be solved any other way.

I'm put in mind of the shirt Greg Ellifritz was wearing this past weekend...

Nikon D700 & 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G

Health of Nations?

Americans, as a people, aren't really a people. We're persons. Individualism is the defining American trait. Chris Arnade thinks that's unhealthy.

When you travel enough, especially to places that are seen as “under developed” you get a glimpse of how unhealthy a nation we are, despite our immense wealth, despite our first world (but two tiered) medical system. We care more about ourselves than our community.

It is a reminder that a healthy nation isn’t just about how much stuff you have, but if you work together as a whole, not as a collection of self-absorbed individuals who fight over everything. Including the symbolic stuff.

Sounds kinda collectivist to me.

.

Pegging my BS meter.

Either Laura is dumb as a stump or she thinks you are.
How replacing anti-2A Breyer with anti-2A Jackson is going to "turn your 2nd Amendment rights upside down" on the 6-3 SCOTUS is an exercise best left to those skilled at DoubleThink or the feeble-minded. https://t.co/DFyfmoaxi1

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) March 30, 2022

I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose the nominee, but that isn't one of 'em, you manipulative cretin. That's just bullshit kneejerk manipulation of the gun vote the way the Sharptons of the world do to the Black vote. 

That is literally the gun rights equivalent of "George Bush will take away your right to vote and put you back on the plantation"; trying to frighten people into supporting you with nonsense scenarios. 

Sharpen your damn arguments and don't treat me like an imbecile, Laura.

.

Home Again...

It was exactly this time a week ago that I was gassing up the Bimmer in a cold spitting rain and fixing to head west. I spent last Wednesday night in a Holiday Inn in Joplin, then headed out in the morning for Dallas.

Inexplicably, I'd entered the wrong Holiday Inn as my destination in the Big D and therefore had to backtrack... in Dallas traffic which I dearly hate ...another fifteen minutes to get to my actual end point, the Holiday Inn Express in Plano, where I laid my weary head to rest the next four nights before departing homeward on Monday morning.

Monday night was spent at the Holiday Inn in Springfield, Missouri (worth a post in its own right) and yesterday was spent driving eighty miles an hour through six-ish hours of cold rain in a noisy, leaky convertible to get back to Broad Ripple before things got all rush hour-y here in the Circle City. Other than a bit of cursing on 38th Street, I mostly made it, hitting the garage at Roseholme Cottage at ten minutes to five, local.

I know a 25 inch monitor is smallish by modern standards, but it looks like a damned billboard after a week spent playing PhotoShop on a 13" MacBook Air.

.

The Special Hell...

So by the time I registered for TacCon, all the discount rooms at the hotel the conference was using had been booked. Cool, cool, no problem, I'll just grab a room at the nearest Holiday Inn Express in Plano and save up some IHG reward points for a discount on my next trip to Alliance, Ohio.

The HIX in question had been remodeled, but it must have been at the start of the current remodeling cycle, because it was already looking down at the heels again.

Monday morning I got up bright and early to head home, had all my stuff packed up after a four-night stay, headed down to the lobby...and all three baggage carts were gone.

I loitered around the lobby for ten minutes or so before turning and asking an elderly couple sitting in the breakfast area with one of the three baggage carts pulled up next to their table if they were using it.

"Oh, oh yes!" said Peepaw, grabbing the cart and heading for the elevator, while Meemaw threw away their breakfast plates.

Five minutes after they left, I began to despair of any carts reappearing in a timely fashion, and so I started running up the stairs to my room and grabbing gear two bags at a time to transport to the car.

On my last trip, I ran into Meemaw & Peepaw in the elevator again, and he told me "Oh, we're almost done with the cart!"

I told him that I didn't need it anymore, but thanks anyway.

I've discovered a type of person I dislike more than the turdmuffins who leave shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot.

This was on the way there. I had one more camera bag on the way home.

Splattergun...

USPSA GM and 1911-shooting star Tim Herron slid into the shotgun clinic that the guys from 360 Performance Shooting were putting on, which was a solid four hour block of primo instruction on the tubular repeating claymore.

I keep saying it, but how can you tell a good teacher? They're always learning...

Herron has strong t-shirt game...

On the Range...

Tim Herron teaching a four-hour block of instruction at Tac-Con called "Shot Calling and Throttle Control".

Mas Ayoob taking Tim's class. You know how you can tell a good instructor? They're always a student.

.

Time Enough for... Oh, Heinlein, no!

Few Heinlein books are as hard to characterize as Time Enough for Love. While labeled a novel, it's essentially several novellas and vignettes structured as the memories and adventures of the oldest man in the universe.

Woodrow Wilson Smith, aka Lazarus Long, was the protagonist of the 1958 novel Methuselah's Children, which was set in Heinlein's "Future History" universe. This novel bridges that universe into his later novels by focusing on the efforts to convince a superannuated Lazarus to accept rejuvenation treatments.

Its highlights are some of my favorite bits of Heinleinia: a look at pioneering on a low tech colony and time travel to pre-World War One America. It's marred by Heinlein's habit of nerding out in multipage deep dives into things like orbital mechanics or (in this case) genetics. It's also marred by the protagonist going all oedipal on his mom in 1917; just when you want the viewpoint character to continue looking around the early 20th Century U.S.A., he gets scope-locked by a crush on his own mother.

All in all, it's worth the read, but there are definitely parts you can skip on a re-read.

.

Automotif CCLXXXIV...

A 1957 Dodge Sierra station wagon sitting on what I'm fairly certain are not the factory rims...

.

Kibble Monster

Anyone younger than their mid-Fifties is young enough to have grown up with Sesame Street. That means that at least once in your life you have frustrated your mother by grabbing some Chips Ahoy and trying to emulate Cookie Monster, snarfing wildly at the cookies while crumbs fly.

I think of this during Holden's morning feedings, as he stuffs his face into his little bowl with such gusto that kibble is scattered across a six inch radius. (Never fear, though, he cleans up that mess very thoroughly. Not a bit of kibble is wasted.)

.

Grateful

Much thanks to those who hit the tip jar. This trip will be a lot less nerve-wracking and I'll probably do the common sense thing and get a motel at the halfway point rather than trying to drive straight through.

.

Concealed History

If you want a reminder of how concealed carry got outlawed in the first place... and it happened longer ago in the US than most people realize ...may I again recommend Prof. Yamane's book Concealed Carry Revolution?

A lot of common wisdom held by people on both sides of the debate isn't entirely true.

.

Constitutional Carry in Indiana

Finally, after a dozen years of trying during which it died in House or Senate committees time and time again, constitutional carry legislation was signed into law by Governor Eric Holcomb yesterday.

The permit repeal, called "constitutional carry" by gun-rights supporters in reference to the Second Amendment, was criticized by major law enforcement groups who argued eliminating the permit system would endanger officers by stripping them of a screening tool for quickly identifying dangerous people who shouldn't have guns.

Twenty-one other states already allow residents to carry handguns without permit — and Ohio's Republican governor signed a similar bill last week.

Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter joined leaders of the state's Fraternal Order of Police, police chiefs association and county prosecutors association in speaking out against the change.

Carter, wearing his state police uniform, stood in the back of the Senate chamber as the bill was being debated. He said after the vote that approval of the measure "does not support law enforcement — period."

That bit of performative BS from Superintendent Carter was just gratuitous. "Bad guys might carry a gun without a permit!" is just an idiotic argument. Bad guys already carry guns without permits, because they're bad guys. They don't care about gun carry permits any more than they care about robbery or murder permits. That's how you know they're the bad guys. The permit process, no matter how streamlined, is only an impediment to lawful citizens who'd like a chance to shoot back.

With Ohio and Alabama having passed constitutional carry laws this year as well, that brings the total number of states with permitless carry to twenty-four, just one shy of half the country. Remember when it was just "Vermont Carry"? Heck, when this blog was started back in 2005 there was just Vermont and Alaska; Arizona didn't become the third state until 2010, and that's when the floodgates really opened.

Soon you'll be able to drive from Mobile to Coeur d'Alene, Cleveland to Brownsville, Tucson to Bismark, or Harpers Ferry to El Paso, all with no permission slip for your blaster.

Automotif CCLXXXIII...

A '66 or '67 Chevy II sedan painted in an eye-catching metallic blue... well, it caught my eye, at least.

The full moons are a nice touch.

Over the Horizon

I cordially detest e-begging, but with an 1800-mile round trip looming this weekend in an increasingly aged car, and gas prices being what they are, I am breaking tradition to mention that I sure would be grateful for anything that hit the tip jar in the next couple days. 

A bit of fiscal cushion always makes a trip like that less stressful, knowing that an extra night in a motel on the road or a tire blowing out won't be a financial catastrophe on a freelance writer's budget.

Thanks!

.

Appalachian NIMBYs and a Hillbilly Bitcoin Mine

It sounds like a subplot from an early William Gibson novel, but it's a story in the Washington Post, actually...

“We couldn’t have people over to gather in our front yard because we could hardly hear one another talking,” said Preston Holley, whose home sits across the street from the mine.

Appalachia, with its cheap electricity from coal, natural gas and hydro, was already attractive to bitcoin miners when China, which dominated world production, cracked down on such operations last summer, worried about the volatility of digital currencies.

Companies forced out of China began scouting new locations across rural America. Appalachia, more accustomed to coal-caked helmeted workers than tech-savvy blockchain enthusiasts, saw an influx of miners.

But while supporters tout economic benefits such as an expanded tax base and job creation, residents in areas that initially welcomed crypto mining are now experiencing buyer’s remorse.

I think I passed through Limestone, TN on Route 321 maybe once, the time I drove up to the Tri-Cities from K-town via the scenic route. It's not like the setting of Justified or anything; it's just a pleasant wide spot in the road between Greeneville and Johnson City. Not the sort of place I'd look for a server farm, that's for sure.

.

Wingman

Pupper in a sidecar on a Honda spotted on College Avenue today, snapped with a Canon EOS 7D & EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM.

.

Manual Override

I like manual transmissions. Both my cars have classic three-pedal five-speed setups. So did the Subie Forester I had there for a while. In fact, most every car I've had since the late '80s except for three ('84 Trans Am, '86 Fiero, and that godawful K-car) had a traditional manual transmission, as did all my motorcycles of course.

That being said, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that the traditional manual ceased being the high performance option in most cars a long time ago. Various paddle-shifted twin-clutch semiautomatic transmissions or whatever have exceeded them; they fire off the shifts much faster and without risk of a miss and often these days you can skip most manual shifting and the robot will do just fine. Certainly in raw straight-line acceleration, the human is the weakest link.

Related, there's a certain siren song that attaches to running the camera in manual. Go on a photography forum and the guys who've been shooting since the film days will curl their lip and sneer at novices who don't lock the dial in "M".

So they're telling me to take a camera with enormously sophisticated metering abilities and just ignore them and either wing it using the "sunny 16" rule or bust out a separate light meter.

While I got to where I can do that, and it's necessary with the old Leica IIIb or the Zorki, it's just not necessary. "Program mode", which debuted on Canon's A-1 back in 1978, uses the camera's built-in light meter and the user's input of the film speed or selected ISO setting for the sensor to determine the optimal exposure for what it "sees" through the lens.

On a modern camera interface, you can "shift the program" by twirling the command dial and it will rotate through a range of aperture and shutter speed combinations that will give you the same exposure result*, in case you need to prioritize depth of field or action-freezing shutter speed. Combine this ability with the fact that you can set the camera's light meter to just measure the center spot, measure the whole scene but favor the center, or do complex "evaluative" or "matrix" metering of the whole scene.

The robot is better at this than you are. (And if you absolutely need a specific depth of field or shutter speed, there's always Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority.)

I'm pretty much coming around to the opinion that ninety percent of the time if you're shooting in M, you're wasting time spinning dials just because you can. And that's okay, I'm not the fun police!

*As an example, I just picked up the Nikon D3 and pointed it out the kitchen window, set at its base ISO of 200. The camera wanted to do 1/100th at f/5. Thumbing the rear command dial one click left shifted that to 1/80th at f/5.6, and one click right gave 1/125th at f/4.5.

Dissatisfaction Index

From a tab I've had open too long:

The United States is different, though. While Europeans have turned toward experts, Americans' support for expert authority has significantly declined since 2020. Paradoxically, Americans are also less supportive of a strong leader and more likely to say that democracy is a bad system of government. We're not dissatisfied with the status quo compared to a specific alternative. We're just dissatisfied.

Everybody's mad at something, but everybody's not mad at the same thing. On the whole, we're just mad. That's never good a good signal.

Weaponized Animation

This morning's cartoons featured a couple of 1940s-vintage Popeye shorts. There was The Mighty Navy, which was released in October of '41, making it the last pre-war Popeye cartoon and the first to feature Popeye in U.S. Navy whites...

This was followed by Fleets of Stren'th, from March of 1942, in which a spinach-fueled Popeye does more damage to the IJN's carrier arm than the USN yet had, although it provided nice foreshadowing for the smackdowns looming in the near future for the Chrysanthemum Fleet.

The YouTube versions are excerpts, since they aren't in the public domain. Foreign bootleg uploads pop up on DailyMotion, or you can tune in to MeTV at 0700 Eastern on Saturday mornings, or they're available on DVD or for downloaded via Amazon Prime.

.