At Slashdot.

They have, of course, failed to realize that when R'lyeh rises, voting will be irrelevant.

Although...I think that Gore would make even Mighty Cthulhu a little gassy.

Last night my son saw some books on a shelf that he hadn't looked at yet.  So I took down volume one of USAAF Fighters of World War Two.  I didn't try to read it to him, but they have lots and lots of pictures that completely fascinated him.  We came across one plane that was fitted with pontoons, which I explained to him.  I told him that meant it could go on land or water.  "Then it's a amphibian airplane?" he said.  He was mighty proud of himself for figuring that out.

He kept asking to see his favorite, so I had to get down volume two to see "the one with the shark face on it."


Makes me nostalgic for the old days when I spent untold hours playing Aces of the Pacific and Aces Over Europe.  Sometimes I want to hunt down an old native DOS machine just so I can play Aces again.  I tried running it in DOXBox once, but it didn't work.  I couldn't get any sound.

I also had the AotP 1946 add-on.  The 1946 disk had the game continue under the premise that the two atomic bombs were never used, and Japan had to be invaded conventionally.  It had several new planes in it that were still under development when the war ended, and so never saw combat during WWII.  Some of them were still around during the Korean War, though.  There were a few extremely powerful kamikaze interceptors that I really liked.  I also tinkered with some of the settings just for fun.  Like I changed the P-51 so that instead of being armed with six 50-cal machine guns, it was armed with two 50-cals and two 20mm cannon.

Right at the very end of the 1946 campaign you got to fly a P-80 Shooting Star, but I never could get used to it.  It just moved too fast.

I think my favorite plane from the game was the P-38 Lightning.  I always seemed to be much more effective in it than in any of the others.  But then I also really liked the P47 Thunderbolt.

The good old days, when my biggest decision was if I should play Aces or Doom.  Sigh...

I don't know.  It's just a little surrealism to cheer myself up on a Thursday night.

Read about it at Boing Boing.

Via Reformed Chicks Blabbing.

Previous:  The beast belches and grumbles in its sleep

Someone has reposted an older article by David Kopel at Packing.org:  Does God believe in Gun Control?.  Excellent article, and worth bookmarking for future reference.

Chicago Priest Calls for Murder of Gun Shop Owner:

"Certainly Fr. Pfleger has offered Absolution to a murderer or two during his tenure as a priest," commented ISRA Executive Director, Richard Pearson. "That's why it's shocking to hear him actually advocate the murder of a gun shop owner who has never committed a crime in his life. He then compounds the problem by calling for the murder of legislators who disagree with his personal political views -- something I suspect is a felony in this state. Pfleger's comments were disgusting and dangerous. And, I seem to remember that the Fifth Commandment frowns on murdering one's neighbor."

A priest.  This is so disgusting and repugnant, I am almost speechless.  And his call for murder is for people who have committed no crimes at all.  He just disagrees with them.

Lots of others are blogging this.  This is something that needs widespread dissemination.  I guess we could call him "unhinged," but the big "gun" (no pun intended, well maybe a little) who uses that word all the time probably has it copyrighted or something.

Count on the big bloggers to ignore this one, since it doesn't have anything to do with Islamism.

UPDATE:  David Codrea points out quite comprehensively something I didn't even think of.  Pfleger is obviously guilty of systematically violating his 501(c)(3) privileges.

I'm sure I could come up with something suitably sarcastic to say about this, but she looks so stupid already that I don't think there's much point in it.

I might have to p-shop this before I'm finished with it, though.

UPDATE:  Maybe she should have a little chat with these ladies.  (Tnx to Conservative Scalawag).

Shooter at parallax adjustment has posted an exercise described as, "tell why someone should let you into their survival retreat. Be sure to list any and all applicable skill sets, equipment carried (100 pounds or less), and any injury, allergy, illness, etc. that would make you a liability to the camp."

I have never considered myself as being especially skilled in such matters.  But this is something I've been thinking about since I read his post a few days ago, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Like Shooter, I am an amateur radio operator so I have some skills in that area.  My license is of the old (now deleted) Advanced Class.  So I have knowledge of Morse Code as well, and though it is somewhat rusty right now I'm confident that it would come back very quickly if I started using it again.  I think that Code skill would be important.  When conditions are poor, code communications can get through when voice can't.  There are some other more sophisticated digital communications that can also get through during poor conditions, but they are mostly computer-based and computers require additional electricity and maintenance.  I can also build serviceable wire antennas from scratch, and I know how to scrounge up a makeshift code key if required.  I have equipment that would allow me to get on the air in several different modes, and of course I already have a code key.

Hunting/fishing.  Yep.  I also have bow hunting equipment although I have never used it for anything other than targets.  I used to be a very good tracker, although that's another thing I haven't had to do in a long time so I might be a little rusty.  I also know a thing or two about trapping.

Shooter says, "Give me a blade and I can sharpen it."  I guess it betrays some of my naiveté in that I thought this was something everyone can do, but maybe not.  I do vaguely remember my dad teaching me how to sharpen a knife, but I was so young that I don't remember exactly when.

I have some basic knowledge of electronics and am quite handy with a soldering tool.

I've also been wondering if people who could teach something, or people who just know a lot about something, would be worthwhile.  Will people eventually want anything beyond basic survival, or is this going too far?  I know that I could teach basic music theory including composition in four-part harmony.  Like I said, I know this isn't necessary for survival, and am just wondering if it's something that might still be considered valuable anyway.  You know, "for the children."

Would there be anyone who might want to hold worship services?  I have many old gospel hymns memorized, or nearly so, and I know that I could reconstruct the harmony on paper for numerous old songs if I needed to.

Besides, I think I could find room in my stash for at least one hymnal.

By the way, I've been wanting to write up some posts of the subject of hymns and hymnals, but so far all I've been doing is try to figure out how to start on it.  I'm sure that most readers of this blog wouldn't really be all that interested in it, anyway.

Man.  The things some people have to deal with.  Man in Underwear Pins Leopard for 20 Minutes:

The 49-year-old nature guide was fast asleep Monday, his family and pet cat dozing beside him, when a larger feline hopped in his bed for a latenight visit - a wild leopard, to be exact.

Du Mosch, 49, a nature guide, didn't flinch. Clad only in underwear and a T-shirt, he lunged at the leopard, grabbed it around the neck, then pinned it down for 20 minutes - until park rangers arrived on the scene.

"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," he said, plainly. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted."

He admits that he was successful only because the leopard was weak and not in the best of health, but still.

Something really odd about the report is this line:  "His young daughter had been in the room at the time because a mosquito in her own bedroom had frightened her, he said."  Maybe next time she'll just swat the mosquito.

I know lager isn't ale.  But it's only humor.  Used GIMP to add the extra caption on this one.

From the land of coming-of-age TV sitcoms comes this:  Bill Requiring Background Check For Private Gun Sales To Be Introduced Tuesday:

"The person that bought the guns that killed our sons, he bought the gun in a tavern, the same tavern that he killed our sons at," said Beverly Anderson, the mother of one of the shooting victims.

When their son's killer brought [sic] that gun, the tavern didn't do a background check. It didn't have to. Private gun sales in Wisconsin do not have to go through the background check process.

For three years, these woman [sic] have worked with state Sen. Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee) to close, what they call, a loophole in the law.

1.  As far as I know, "taverns" aren't in the business of selling guns.  I don't see how the tavern owner could be responsible for something that happens in a shadowy corner of his place where it looks like two people are just having something to drink.  The next step, of course, will be to prosecute the property owner on which such a thing took place without his knowledge or consent.

2.  Criminals--gang members, conspiring murderers--will of course not be affected by this law (the criminal loophole).  If they are planning on committing murder with the gun, why would they worry about how they buy it?  I realize this is a fact that is pointed out time and time again with little effect to the gun grabbers, but that doesn't make it any less of a cold, hard, ugly truth.

3.  One of the major backers for this new exercise in tyranny is Mick Beatovic, "a lifelong member of the NRA" and owner of Badger Ammo.  When this law is passed, as it undoubtedly will be in such a freedom-loving place as Milwaukee, those gun owners who do wish to follow the law will then be required to execute the transaction through the medium of a government-sanctioned "licensed dealer" such as Mick.  Mick will then, of course, charge a fee for this encroachment on their liberty.  No conflict of interest there, is there, Mick?

P.S.  What "authorized journalist" wrote this?  It's full of spelling errors, misused words and extraneous commas.  My high school English teacher would have ridiculed me in front the entire class if I had turned in an assignment that looked like this.

Dreamers

Soldiers are citizens of death’s grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

--Siegfried Sassoon

Oscar Poppa has another excellent poem that I hadn't seen before.

Via Say Uncle I found Foxit, which is a pdf reader.  I have always disliked how Adobe Reader bogged down my machine (Uncle called it "bloatware").  So now I have been able to get rid of that beached whale of a program and use Foxit.  It's way faster, and way smaller.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's a Firefox plug-in for it yet, so as far as I can tell it can't be used to display a pdf within the browser.  I never do this anyway, because it always bogged down Firefox for so long that I've always just downloaded the pdf and then displayed it outside of Firefox.

The other one I recently found is called MWSnap.  This one is for taking screen captures, and can save in a variety of formats including bmp and png.  Much better than the old one I was using that saved only in an extremely lossy jpg.

Both are freeware.

I noticed a reference to my site just a little while ago from a site called GunBloggers.  It's an offshoot of Liberty News.

Here's the announcement about gunbloggers.com from March 1.  "This is similar to the TTLB GunBlogs community, except that it works."  Heh heh.

It works fast, too.  A post of mine appeared there within only a few minutes of its posting.

It's new to me.  So is Liberty News.  Gunbloggers.com isn't as pretty as TTLB, but like he said, it works.  So you might want to check it out.

Also, it looks like if you are in the TTLB Gunblogger Community, you are automatically in GunBloggers.

"Happy" only because the good guy isn't going to be prosecuted for defending himself, and can't be taken to civil court either because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law.

At The Smallest Minority.

Note that this is another case in which the victim got the gun away from his attacker.

Note also that the 3-day waiting period very nearly got this person--and possibly his wife--killed.

Note also the "baggy pants syndrome."

I remember several years ago I read a newspaper account in San Antonio of a burglar who was being chased by cops.  The burglar was wearing "baggy pants."  He tripped over them, fell and broke his femur.

When will they ever learn?  Live by the pants, die by the pants.

Sometimes I am so easily amused.

More fun at Brewtopia.

I found a couple of new (to me) pix of the character Togusa wielding his Mateba 357 Magnum from Ghost in the Shell.


This one doesn't show any really good detail, but it's fairly clear that his revolver is different.


This one shows a great view of how different the Mateba is.

My favorite episode of GITS is called, I think, "One Angry Man."  The rest of Section 9 carry semi-auto handguns in 5.7mm.  Togusa is the only one who uses an archaic weapon:  the Mateba auto-revolver, which in the time frame of the story, is considered obsolete.  In "One Angry Man," Togusa comes across a full prosthetic man (basically a human brain in an android body) attacking a woman.  Togusa shoots the attacker six times, then reloads and shoots him again, trying to disable his prosthetic body without killing him.  Although the man is badly damaged, he still manages to shoot and kill the woman he was originally attacking.

Then a lawyer tries to show that Togusa was at fault for the woman's death--not her real attacker, but Togusa--because he was using an old, obsolete weapon instead of something more modern that was capable of more rapid fire and that could fire more rounds before requiring reloading.  I've always thought that that was exactly the kind of insane argument that could actually happen in today's screwed-up world.

Misty moon-clouds fly--
This is where coyotes sing,
Drawing down the night.

Created with this.

Thanks to One Monkey's Typewriter.

This looks like something I could have a lot more fun with.  Maybe also figure out a good way to clean up the background.

UPDATE:  Improved the graphic a little.

CafePress is ending their whatever-it's-called thing that I had in the left sidebar, so it's now gone.  Maybe I'll come up with something else to put there so the sidebars are balanced.

I've moved a few blogs from the "Other Worthy Blogs" list to the "Regular Reads" list, deleted a few that have gone silent for too long and two that I couldn't in good conscience provide links to anymore.

The post I was having trouble with was the one about Hogzilla.  For some reason it just wouldn't post.  I had to retype the whole thing manually instead of copying and pasting.  Very odd, but at least I finally got it to go through.

Been trying to think up some t-shirt ideas or something.  I have one, but am having trouble executing it.

It's still threatening to rain, but only threatening.

In all the furor over the most recent giant hog killing, most people seem to have overlooked the fact that there was already a feral hog bigger than the fabled Hogzilla.  I blogged about it last January.

No need to post the photo of the most recent specimen here, it's been all over the place already.  I want to talk about the person who shot this beast.

Jamison Stone is 11 years old.  He stands 5 feet, 5 inches high.  He took this huge hog with a 500 Smith & Wesson Magnum.  Jamison and his dad tracked this hog for more than three hours.  During this time, Jamison fired 16 rounds.

So the next time you hear someone complain about a 357 Magnum having "too much recoil," make sure they know about Jamison Stone and his 500 S&W Magnum.

Well, it seems there's something about a certain post that Eponym doesn't like.  I can't get it to post.  I'll try again later, and see if this one works.

We are waiting for the severe weather that is supposed to be heading this way, and the kids are outside playing in the mud from yesterday's rain.  Not really mud.  We don't get mud in the sandhills, we just get wet sand.  Although I suppose there might be some real mud on the patch of red clay in the driveway.

And I am enjoying some Don't Tread On Me from the recent tobacco shipment.


Smoking it in the old Kaywoodie author, which is a pipe that I have been bound and determined to figure out.  It has an unusually wide bowl mouth, which means it has to be smoked and lit a little more carefully than most of my pipes.  It has a good shape, though, very elegant bowl design and just enough bend to be comfortable without being pretentious.  It also took me a while to figure out what to smoke in it.  I've said before, but will say again, that not every pipe can smoke every tobacco.  Certain tobaccos just won't taste the same in certain pipes.  Some tobaccos will smoke hot in one pipe and not hot in another.  Estate pipes, like this one, are especially tricky because you don't have any idea what the previous owner used to smoke in it, and a pipe can become "seasoned" toward a particular flavor.  I learned pretty quickly that the author is not a Latakia pipe.  However, it most definitely can smoke this stuff.  Man, this is good.  Here's an old pic of the author that I took by laying the pipe on my scanner.


I heard on the news a few weeks ago, after that last rainy period, that we are seven inches above our normal average rainfall for this time of year.  My dad hasn't even had to water his garden this year, and as I mentioned before, he has a surplus of pinto beans.  The beans we picked a couple of weeks ago are so good, I am amazed (or perhaps, re-amazed) at how good garden fresh beans are.  They are so sweet, they are almost like eating candy.

Gardens are hard to grow in the sandhills.  The topsoil here has no nutrients at all.  When I was a kid, we spent several weekends one summer hauling pickup loads of chicken manure from my uncle's farm in Poth (long "o") and spreading it on what would be our future garden.  One of my summer chores, as a kid, was to shovel cow manure from our cow pens into a wheel barrow and roll it to the garden and spread it out.  It took years to get some decent garden-growing topsoil established there.  I might also mention that my dad's "garden" covers about two acres.  So that was a whole bunch of wheel barrows.

Quote from Christopher Buckley, as seen at John Lott's Website:

There are two political parties: the stupid party and the evil party. I am a member of the stupid party. Every once in a while we get bipartisan legislation where we are able to obtain legislation that is simultaneously stupid and evil.

I've been having trouble posting.  Some very short test posts were okay, but longer posts aren't going through.  We'll see if this one works.

As others have already mentioned, Texas handgun license records are now sealed:

The names of people licensed to carry concealed handguns in Texas are no longer available to the public.

Gov. Rick Perry announced Thursday that he signed into law House Bill 991, which seals state records showing who is allowed to carry a gun in public. Only law enforcement agencies will have access to the information.

The law took effect immediately upon its signing Wednesday.

Nothing like a little personal motivation to get a law changed.

So...up yours, Express-News.

I suppose it's no coincidence that none of these guys have any hair.

Something, er...interesting at Damn Interesting: 

The strikingly realistic robot has since been met largely with wonder and admiration, which could mark success for Ishiguro in more ways than the obvious. Although Ishiguro's earlier android projects were only a little less realistic, they tended to disturb viewers. This is consistent with a 1970 hypothesis by Dr. Masahiro Mori, another Japanese roboticist. Although not yet well-investigated by science, Mori's "Uncanny Valley" theory holds that as a simulation of a human being's appearance and/or motion becomes increasingly accurate, there is very suddenly a point at which humans' interest in the creation turns into utter repulsion.

Ishiguro was inspired to develop a mechanical double after becoming tired of his long commute from the little town of Keihanna to a teaching position at Osaka University. He sees the android double as an improvement on videoconferencing, allowing not just the speaker's image and voice to be transmitted but also his or her presence. In stark contrast with the Western fear that androids could become strong enough to overpower human beings, the Japanese forsee a future in which humans and androids work together amicably and productively.

However, the Uncanny Valley effect may prove to be an impediment to human-android interactions as androids come to resemble humans more and more closely. It's an issue that Ishiguro wants to help resolve. One of his early robots was based on casts of his four-year-old daughter. It was capable of only basic movements, and thus was not quite lifelike. Ishiguro's daughter was so terrified by it that she refused to set foot in Ishiguro's lab after seeing it. Later on, Ishiguro made a robot copy of newscaster Ayako Fujii; despite being equipped with a much more intricate system of motion, it was still described as "creepy". Ishiguro's double is even more of an improvement, and most observers have been amazed and intrigued rather than unnerved. This may indicate that he has found the level of detail necessary to cross the Valley.

I remember this concept being explored in a Doctor Who adventure from the 70s (the Tom Baker era).  And back then the "robots" in the story didn't look human at all, except in the most general sense.  But then, they didn't have the budget or the technology to do anything better, I suppose.I'm pretty sure I would find androids to be "creepy," at least.  Because I don't even like ventriloquist dummies.

Follow the link above for some "creepy" androids.

Now if they come up with something that looks like this:


I might be more interested and less creepified.  Yes, interested.  That's the word.

Say Uncle linked to this chart at Right Wing Nation.

As usual when one of these things come up, there was a comment like this:

I don’t understand Texas. I thought they prided themselves on independence and machismo and the like. You think maybe they’re like WV and just carry without permits?

Now, this is only my opinion, but I think there's a good explanation.  Or two.

1.  There are several high-density urban areas (Austin, Dallas, Houston) where there is a typical anti-self defense mentality and this drags the numbers down.  No offense to non-sheep who live in these cities.  Also Austin is where we stick all the hippies.

2.  Many people in rural areas still drive around with a rifle behind the seat of their truck and they don't feel that they need to carry a handgun.  I know I used to, before I started working in San Antonio.

I would have just left a comment there but I can't bring up the comment form for some reason.

I watched this show for the first time yesterday.  He was spending a week in the desert in Arizona.  I thought it was somewhat informative.  Somewhat.  The parts that especially interested me were all the stuff he found to eat.  I was almost ready to try roasting some grasshoppers.  And I certainly will try some mesquite beans the next time I come across some nice fresh green ones.  But someone needs to clue him in on a few things.

1.  Javelinas absolutely do not under any normal circumstances attack humans on sight.  Like many wild animals, they will attempt to defend themselves if cornered and/or provoked.  Climbing a tree and speaking in hushed tones to avoid being attacked by one poor little javelina was just stupid.

2.  Javelinas are not "a kind of wild boar."  They are only very distantly related to pigs and cannot even interbreed with pigs.

3.  The word is "javelina," with an "a" on the end that is pronounced (but at least he got the "j" right).  It's not pronounced "haveleen."  But what can you expect from a guy who says "sahntimeter."

I have a lot of things I could enumerate about stuff I hate regarding my job.  I don't do that here because I would only end up smashing my computer, and I can't afford a new one right now.  Sometimes odd and/or funny things happen.

I was delivering cut-off notices today.  I had a bunch (about 25) all at one apartment complex.  Instead of driving from apartment to apartment, I just walked the whole thing.

There was a small stray but friendly dog wandering around, and it began following me.  This is actually not an uncommon occurrence when we are meter-reading.  I've had friendly strays follow me for a couple of hours at a time.  We call them mascots.

Anyhoo, from the other end of the parking lot, some woman yells at me.

"You need to put your dog on a leash!"

I looked at her.  Her demand was so unexpected, although I understood the words, I still couldn't process it.  So instead of saying something intelligent, I yelled back, "What?!"

"Your dog!" she yelled again.  "You need to put it on a leash!"

"It's not my dog!"  I answered this time.

She was walking toward me.  She yelled again.  "Your dog!!!  Leash!!!!"

"Ma'am," I yelled back again.  "It's not my dog!"

She was closer to me and yelled again, although not as loudly, "Is that your dog?"

"No, ma'am," I yelled at her again.

So she gave me this exasperated look as if it was somehow my fault that the dog didn't belong to me.


For a minute I thought maybe I had sidestepped into some kind of alternate Inspector Clousseau dimension.  It's too bad she didn't ask me, "Does your dog bite?"  That would have been even funnier.  And weirder too, I guess.

At FT.com:

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

The race to accumulate the most comprehensive database of individual information has become the new battleground for search engines as it will allow the industry to offer far more personalised advertisements. These are the holy grail for the search industry, as such advertising would command higher rates.

Mr Schmidt told journalists in London: “We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

The last line gets the Ambiguous Quote of the Day Award:  "Mr Schmidt said this year that the company was working on technology to reduce [privacy] concerns."

Such as a socket at the base of the skull, I suppose.

Via Claire Wolfe.

Three pounds of pipe tobacco came in today--enough to last me a good long while.  Good thing, too, because I mixed the last of my Haunted Bookshop with some straight Perique today and was down to only a few bowls of the good stuff before I had to fall back on some reserve vanilla stuff (gack).

One pound of Bayou Night, one of Bayou Morning, and one of my own Don't Tread On Me, already mixed by the blender so I don't have to hand-mix it myself.  Yippee!

I think I should get some Shiner Bock tomorrow after work so I'll have some good libation to go with the pipe.

Saturday I'll be vacuum-sealing all that bulk tobacco into smaller 4-ounce packages.  Maybe this time I'll even cellar some away to let it age.

Via The War on Guns.

If we could only harness the energy of Rudy flip-flopping!

Check the list.  If you aren't yet, you will be soon.


Join the club.

UPDATE:  Looks like maybe GOA is full of it this time.

From Gun Owners of America:

In Section 205, for example, all it takes for the employees of a gun shop (of five or more persons) to become a "criminal gang" is:

* For them to commit two or more violations of ANY federal felony gun offense -- which includes virtually all gun offenses, including paperwork violations; and

* For the anti-gunners to find that violating gun laws was a "primary purpose" of the group.

So let's say your local gun store sells two or three firearms to Mayor Bloomberg's thuggish agents under New York City's extraterritorial "sting" operations. Your gun shop is now a "criminal gang."

This provision could even be used against a family of five who drives by two schools on the way to a movie with a gun in the glove compartment. Certainly under a Hillary administration, it would not be surprising to see them treat this infraction as a "felony" under the weird language of Gun Free School Zones Act. Thus, you and your family would become a "criminal gang."

As if we need any more reasons.

Sometimes I think John Titor wasn't wrong, he was just off by a few years.

At (of course) FOXNews.com:

Several activists have called for him to be purged from the Republican Party (given what the GOP stands for these days, perhaps that's not such a bad idea). One former staffer declared Paul an "embarrassment" and announced he'd challenge Paul for his seat in Congress.

This is all patently absurd. Actually, it's offensive. No one knows precisely what morbid formula inspired the Sept. 11 attacks. Most likely, it was some mix of U.S. foreign policy exacerbating radical Islamists' already deep-seeded contempt for Western values.

But to suggest that we shouldn't even consider that our actions overseas might have unintended consequences is, frankly, just ignorant. And to attempt to silence anyone who says otherwise as outside the bounds of civilized debate is doubly ignorant.

If you get stung by a hornet, it makes sense to see if there's a hornets' nest near your home and, if there is, to exterminate it. It doesn't make sense to forge out looking for hornets' nests anywhere you can find them, smacking them with sticks. You're bound to get stung again.

It also makes sense to see if there's something you're doing that's attracting hornets, like perhaps storing perfume by a window. None of this suggests you deserved to be stung; it only means you're rationally looking at what caused you to be stung in the first place and trying to prevent it from happening again.

Those who find Rep. Paul's foreign policy vision fringe-like or crazy would do well to read what other libertarian non-interventionists were saying before the Iraq war began. They were remarkably prescient. Some even predicted a Sept. 11-like attack years before it happened. For example:

— The Cato Institute's Gene Healy: "After our quick victory, and after the "Arab street" fails to rise, you're going to hear a lot of self-congratulation from the hawks. But the fallout from this war is likely to be long-term, in the form of a protracted and messy occupation, and an enhanced terrorist recruitment base."

— Ted Galen Carpenter, also of Cato: "The inevitable U.S. military victory would not be the end of America's troubles in Iraq. Indeed, it would mark the start of a new round of headaches. Ousting Saddam would make Washington responsible for Iraq's political future and entangle the United States in an endless nation-building mission beset by intractable problems."

Gotta add the closing statement of the article:  "The people who were wrong were rewarded. And they go right on mocking the people who were right."

'Twas ever thus.

Well, there are a lot of things, mostly having to do with how people treat other people.  But this is about how people treat some animals.

Now, I realize that parts of San Antonio have varmint problems.  Squirrels are everywhere, Olmos Park is completely overrun with raccoons, and then there's possums and skunks.  I've seen coyotes up in the northwest off Tezel Road..  I understand the need to control these critters.  Furthermore, I have nothing against trapping as a means of control.  Heck, when I was younger I made lots of money from trapping fur-bearing varmints and taking the pelts to the furrier who came to town every other Friday during fur season.

People like to use cage traps because, I guess, they think steel traps are inhumane.  Maybe they are.  Something else that's inhumane is leaving an animal in a cage trap until it dies of dehydration.  I guess people are too wimpy to dispose of a pest swiftly and humanely, so they just leave it in the trap until it dies, and then throw it in the trash.  Disgusting.  Have the 'nads to finish it off so it doesn't suffer through three or four days of ravenous thirst before it finally dies.

One other thing:  when I find a trapped animal in someone's backyard, I release it.  Those animals are not caught during the daytime (except for squirrels).  They are nocturnal and are trapped during the night.  If you have traps set, you check them first thing in the morning and dispatch any varmint that was caught.  Check them before you leave for work, before you take your morning shower.  Turn on the coffee pot and go check the trap.  Finish that poor beast off so it doesn't have to suffer.  You don't leave them in there until you think they're dead enough to throw out four or five days later.

I have found far too many animals dead in an allegedly "humane" cage trap.  Including squirrels.  That's why I release them.  If you don't have the guts to take care of them quickly, leave them alone.

Also, if you are going to set a steel trap, a word advice.  You aren't going to catch anything with a steel trap set in the wide open, on top of the ground, without any bait in sight.  The 'coons are just going sit on your fence and laugh at you all night long.  All you're going to do is piss off the meter reader when he climbs down off your fence and nearly steps in it.  And you're liable to discover that your steel trap has mysteriously been sprung and hung from a rafter on your back porch.

Here:  Domestic Terrorist T-Shirt.

Via War On Guns.

I've been reading Malkin for a long time because I considered her a decent source of information, even if she did seem a little too shrilly Republican.

But listen, her recent remark about the "libertarian fever swamp of the blogosphere" was just too much.  Her derisive, dismissive context was exactly the kind of tactic used so often by the mainstream media that she decries so often.  What sad irony that she doesn't even realize she has jumped the shark and become one of them.

Like the rest of the MSM, she attacks Ron Paul because he isn't one of the media darlings, and she has lumped everyone with a distrust of government into the lunatic fringe camp.  And as far as I know, she hasn't made a peep about the Guiliani/Fox News conflicts of interest.

I'll be honest.  I'm going to continue reading Malkin's blog regularly because I still value the information she distributes.  But for now at least, she's gone from my public blogroll.  I realize that this won't make a whit's difference in the grand scheme of things--I'm doing it anyway.

And just to make sure everyone knows where I stand, there's a new graphic at top right which will be linked to this post as soon as I post it and can see the permalink.  If anyone wants to snag it, feel free.  If anyone wants to take the idea and make a better graphic, feel free again.  I used the cottonmouth because it's a sort of swamp snake and I thought this picture had a nice Gadsden tone.

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

---

Got a hit this week for "poe acrostics" so I thought it would be a good time to post some Saturday Night Poetry.  For my own attempt in this vein, check out The Ghost On the Beach.

Cartoon Network is going to start showing the run of the Trinity Blood anime again starting tonight.  That is all.

Finally got around to watching all the Outdoor Channel gun shows that I tape on Wednesday. I hit the fast-forward button quite a lot this time because a lot of that stuff just doesn't thrill me.  I mean, watching a shooting match on TV is about the same as watching someone fish.

I do always get a kick out of the torture tests they've been doing on Guns & Ammo Television.  This time they grilled an XD9 (not loaded, of course) on a charcoal grill while also grilling some chicken.  They gave the gun four minutes on each side.  This one was a little more interesting than usual, since I own an XD40.

The only apparent damage was from the actual contact points of the polymer with the grill.  Otherwise the heated air inside the grill didn't seem to have much effect.  The most noticeable damage was that the magazine would no longer stay seated.  They had to tape it across the bottom to keep it in place.  They also taped the grip safety and vised it down to shoot with a string on the trigger.  Everything still worked.

Some people might hate them for doing these things to perfectly good guns, but it's not like someone else is being deprived.  And this time at least, it was only a 9, so...

Now online at Free Constitution.

The button that inserts a link in comments isn't working again.  I don't know what did it this time.  But I guess I'll have to work on it again.  The really annoying thing is, last time its malfunction was caused by something that didn't have anything to do with html links or the comments.  So I don't expect the problem to make sense this time, either.

UPDATE:  Been tinkering.  It's almost certainly the Flooble expandable content scripts.  I knew it wouldn't make any sense.

UPDATE 2:  Fixed.  Had to get rid of the Flooble scripts and go back to the small scrolling windows for the blogrolls.  I guess there's just certain things you can't do with the base template without whacking out that button.

UPDATE 3:  I also updated the blogroll today, more or less.  A few that seem to have gone silent a long time ago were deleted, some were just marked "private" so they don't show up on the public list until I can decide if I want to delete them completely or not.  So if you disappeared and you still consider yourself active, let me know.

Wayne LaPierre, May 1, 1999:

First, we believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period...with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel.

Wayne LaPierre, May 18, 2007:

You don't decide the Second Amendment doesn't exist, you don't deprive Americans of their right to keep and bear arms, and you better not think you can get away with it if you try.

In a way, I feel sorry for ol' Wayne.  He must have a mighty sore crotch from riding the fence like that.

Some insights by J. Shaftoe.  Via JPFO.

Think about it this way. If you worked at the post office, and someone said “We don't need mail anymore. We've got email now. It's faster, cheaper, and easier.” How would you feel? How would you respond to someone who told you that they can do your job better than you can, and that they don't need you anymore?

Now imagine that instead of delivering mail, you deliver security. Or, at least, you think you do. And now someone is telling you that they don't need your elaborate machinery of justice, because they have the right and the ability to deal justly with their attackers themselves. Your entire career, which you pursued at great expense, has been declared second-rate compared to three pounds of forged steel and springs.

Makes you a little afraid, doesn't it?

Read the whole thing, of course.  I've held this belief for many years.  There are people like Shaftoe describes, then there are those who do it for power, not just to protect their miserable livelihoods.

And what about those who are of good conscience but are simply misguided?  They don't exist.  Never have.  If they were truly of good conscience they would see the truth and cease to willfully spread lies to get their way.

Found some nice pix of the Mateba auto revolver.  I did not know that there was a .454 Casull version.  Alucard would approve, I'm sure.

UPDATE:  For the benefit of readers who aren't particularly familiar with guns, or with this gun anyway.  There must be at least one of you.

Most revolvers are not "automatic" in any way.  With a single-action revolver, the cylinder is rotated to a fresh chamber when the hammer is pulled back, then the trigger is pulled to fire it.  With a double-action revolver, pulling the trigger first rotates the cylinder and then fires it.  The Mateba auto-revolver uses the recoil of firing to rotate the cylinder to a fresh chamber.  The first shot must be double-action, but the recoil action also cocks the hammer so following shots are single-action.

Another thing that sets it apart from traditional revolvers is that it fires from the bottom chamber of the cylinder rather than the top (check the pictures to see what I'm talking about).  This must give it a very different kind of recoil from traditional revolvers.

And needless to say, I would really like to get my hands on one.