Well, one forecast says we'll break freezing on Tuesday, another says we won't.  I'll have to wait until after 5:30 Tuesday morning before I find out if I have to work that day or not.  It rained all day today and never broke 50 degrees.

I put some little link buttons up on the lower left sidebar if anyone ever wants one.

During my time not-blogging lately I have actually been working on a piece of satire that I started a long time ago.  I got about halfway through it--maybe a year ago, a long time anyway--and hit a wall.  In the last week I dug it out and finished it.  It also has some graphics with it that I was having trouble getting to look right, but my gimp-fu has improved so much since the last time I messed with them that I fixed them the way I wanted in just a few minutes once I took another look at them.  I was going to post it tomorrow morning but I think I'll wait until I hit another dry spell so I'll have something to post when I can't think of anything else.  Also I want the announcement about the webring to stay higher on the page for a day or two.  The satire piece is Cthulhu-related.  Maybe it isn't satire.  Maybe it's parody.  Or both.  I think it will be another one of those things that draws a lot of traffic once it gets indexed by the search engines and the Lovecraftians start finding it.

I can already tell I'm going to run out of bandwidth before the end of the month again.  Amazing.

One new site has already been added to the webring.

I threw the dregs of my last Bayou Night in with the souped-up Haunted Bookshop.  This random mix turned out to be very good, and completely unreproduceable.

At the top right you will notice something new.  David Codrea of The War On Guns suggested someone start up a webring that people could join to show their support for Wayne Fincher.  So I volunteered.

This is my first time doing this kind of thing, but it doesn't look too difficult after the initial setup and a slight learning curve.

If you have been following the news regarding Mr. Fincher and you would like to take this small measure to show your support, go to Free Wayne Webring Homepage to sign up.

Further information, mostly about how to install code and use graphics (for anyone who needs help), will be posted there as necessary and as time permits.  I'll probably cross-post here also.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate site dedicated to the webring rather than try to make this site the homepage.

Alphecca debunks the recent Harvard study that alleged to show that states with higher gun ownership have higher homicide rates.

As many others have pointed out, this study was funded by the Joyce Foundation.  They are often behind such anti-gun "studies" and organizations.

Northwest Arkansas Morning News reports: 

The defense tried to make the case an issue of the Constitution versus federal gun laws. The government tried to make the case as simple as possible for jurors — Fincher had the machine guns and they weren’t registered as required by federal law.

Wrong, actually.  The defense was not allowed to make such a case, because the "judge" decided that the Second Amendment of the Constitution had no place in a court of "law."

David Codrea makes the same point about a different article from AP.

This is just weird.  A CBC report that the U.S. Department of Defense says that they've found something like RFIDs in some Canadian coins.

Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence.

Security experts believe the miniature devices could be used to track the movements of defence industry personnel dealing in sensitive military technology.

"You might want to know where the individual is going, what meetings the individual might be having and, above all, with whom," said David Harris, a former CSIS officer who consults on security matters.

"The more covert or clandestine the activity in which somebody might be involved, the more significant this kind of information could be."

It doesn't seem like a very effective way to spy on someone.

The likely need for such a reading device means the doctored coins could be used to track people only in a controlled setting, not over long distances, said Chris Mathers, a security consultant and former undercover RCMP officer.

"From a technology perspective, it makes no sense," he said. "To me it's very strange."

Then there's the obvious problem: what if the coin holder plunks the device into a pop machine?

"You give the guy something with a transmitter that he's going to spend — I mean, he might have it for an hour," Mathers said with a chuckle.

I could understand if Canada was just trying to track their coins through their country to see how they move, but a coin changes hands so much I don't see what other purpose this could serve.

So it appears that Ronson, now known primarily for its lighter fluid and little else, once made and sold pipes.  This is another gimmick pipe in the pattern of the Falcon, by which I mean it had a metal body with interchangeable screw-on briar bowls.  The only Falcon I ever had didn't use any filters, however.

But the real gimmick here is the "labyrinth of passages" in the stem which were supposed to duplicate the length of a nine-inch churchwarden and thereby produce a cooler smoker.  Did it really work?  I have no way of knowing, but I'd guess it's more gimmick than real effect.  The metal rod attachment that's part of the bit looks very much like the Kirsten design, so I don't know exactly how the "labyrinth" worked, but anything with a "labyrinth of passages" in the stem sounds to me like it would be very difficult to clean.  Although I suppose it could be cleaned pretty well using a pipe retort.

I have a pipe retort which I use for rejuvenating badly gunked estate pipes.  You stuff a couple of cotton balls in the bowl to keep any alcohol from bubbling up out of the bowl and damaging the finish of the briar, and you have a test tube with some surgical rubber attached that fits over the bit and over the top of the test tube.  You put alcohol in the tube and boil it so that it all percolates up into the stem and the bottom of the bowl, then you remove the flame and as it cools all the alcohol and a lot of gunk contracts back into the test tube.  Replace the alcohol afresh and repeat as necessary until the alcohol comes back clean.

With a normal pipe, the wood doesn't get too hot to hold with bare hands.  With a pipe like this, you'd have to use gloves or a pot holder or something.

The Kirsten has no such "labyrinth," and is a snap to clean in the field with a little tissue paper.

Yeah, right.  The Boston Globe would so have us believe.

He will never get my vote.

This article rings with gun bigotry and ignorance.  First, he refers to the SHOT show as a huge gun show but he never points out that it is a special show for manufacturers to show new wares to representatives of the gun trade industry and is not open to the general public.

At one point the writer of this piece claims that Romney's suit is out of place in a "sea of camouflage."  Take a look at the article.  There's a photo at the top.  Do you see any camouflage anywhere in that photo?  I don't.  I know, a single photo is not evidence of a lack of camo, but if the writer is going to make this kind of bigoted remark he could try to take a photo that doesn't show almost everyone around wearing suits, blazers, ties, and button-down dress shirts.

By the way, Mitt.  I don't give a rat's ass if you do a token hunt once a year to prove how gun-friendly you are.  You are an enemy of freedom and your hollow attempt to lie to us about it disgusts me.

This isn't a "retreat," it's a sham.  Don't believe it for a second.

UPDATE:  Related news.  Romney has joined up with Mel Sembler to lead his fundraising efforts.  Don't miss this post at The Agitator for some interesting background on Sembler.

UPDATE 2:  The Pistolero has some comments.