So I know I'm posting while offline, but what the hey, they'll show up when the blog comes back.  Here's one Google that actually made me chortle aloud:  "stun guns on alligators."

I wouldn't try it.

Rayguns by Lockwasher. Made from junk. Pretty cool.  And they're annotated.

Via Weirdomatic.

The blog should go offline tomorrow morning due to bandwidth restrictions.  As usual, it will be back on the 1st.

There's not going to be anything going on here anyway.  I was sicker than a dog last night and could barely drag myself out of bed this morning.

For Cowboy Blob.

P.S.  Drat!  I forgot to sign it again.  Oh well, Cowboy Blob did it for me.

A somewhat Larsonesque caption, I think.

Today was the easiest day of work this whole week, but I was still ready for a nap after I got home and had something to eat.

Then my daughter woke me up from my nap.

She had been snooping, and she had found a something that looked like a big rolled-up poster.  At first I wondered if she had found my life-sized Jim Morrison poster (where did that thing go?), but it was the wrong color.  Then she unrolled it.

It was the standard silhouette target as used for the Texas CHL proficiency test.  One ragged fist-sized hole in the center of the 5-zone, with a few scattered shots around it, and two more holes, for some reason, down in the 4-zone.  My 248-score test from my original CHL class, several years ago.

Now if she could only find my life-sized Jim Morrison poster.

I'm somebody!


Sad.  They're not only using IE, they're using an old version of IE.

My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com

Seen at Shooting The Messenger.

UPDATE:  FYI.  The graphic at the top is from the manga Trinity Blood.  The character pictured is a battle android named Tres (I think), but also called Gunslinger.  He was made to kill vampires.

However, the ground is still so wet that I was completely soaked from the knees down, anyway.

I heard on the radio this morning that the drought has been officially declared over.

There was also some guy saying that the torrential rains are because of global warming.  The radio guy mentioned that last year the drought was due to global warming.  The other guy said, "Well, we don't know if global warming is going to cause excessive rains or droughts, but whatever weather it causes is going to be extreme."

It was CYA as usual on NPR.

Eponym's in-house RSS feed seems to have stopped working several days ago.  Of course, if you are one of the 12 people subscribed to it, it's likely you won't get this information until it starts working again.

The Feedburner feed is still working just fine.

Not much activity here this week, but I have been working long days and haven't been up to much after I get home.  I am thinking about a certain topic, but right now I am just kind of Mozarting it.  After I think it through more thoroughly I'll write it down.

I also have to work Saturday this week, but maybe I can get some blogging stuff done Saturday night.

I almost didn't get rained on today.  We had a big meeting this morning that put us about 2 hours behind.  If it hadn't been for that, I'd have been finished by 2:00.  A little shower hit during the last 30 minutes or so.

I've been watching referral hits more closely this week, and although there have been no hits from BATF, there have been a lot of interesting stuff.  There are some regular visitors who apparently check in from their place of employment.

One very interesting (to me) hit was someone from the National Archives and Records Administration, who came here after Googling "lovecraft old west."

Nyx of One Monkey's Typewriter has bestowed upon me that Blogger Reflection Award that's been going around.  I'm supposed to post what she said about me and then tag five other bloggers.  So here's the first part:

AlanDP of Blogonomicon has always made me think, "This is what it would have been like if my grandfather had blogged." My grandfather was a reader, a gun collector, a pipe smoker, and seemed to have grown fond of Monty Python over the years. He didn't say a lot, kept most things short and sweet, but everything he did say was worth hearing. He was one of the greatest men I've ever known, and I mean it as a very sincere compliment when I say Alan reminds me of him.

Everyone likes getting a little recognition, even if it's from one of these meme things, and I'm no exception.

However, it goes against my personal philosophy to tag others with memes, so I'm not going to do that part.  I don't add other blogs to my blogroll unless I think that person's work is worth spending time reading.  In fact I have several that I'm evaluating right now.  Oh yes.  Most blogs that I add go through an indeterminate evaluation period before I decide one way or the other.  I don't just throw things on there haphazardly.  So peruse the blogroll.  There's lots of good stuff there.

Red's Trading Post talks about how BATF/DOJ hits are appearing in the hit stats of some blogs as a scare tactic.  Also check out Red's about how BATF calls it "harassment" when an old man takes pictures of them actually harassing the employees at Red's.

Many of my supporters have commented that when they have ran a story or blog about us on their website that they have received several hits from the Department of Justice. Their IP address is very clear that it is from the DOJ, which the ATF falls under the umbrella of. One supporter noted that he thought that they would be a little more discreet about spending so much time on websites. The point is not to be covert, it is to let you know that they are watching. This is an attempt to "mark their territory".

I have not noticed any such hits here, but then I'm pretty much small potatoes in the blogosphere.

I haven't really gone out of my way to keep my opinion of them a secret, so their lack of attention is actually kind of disappointing.

I had a very long day at work and I'm just going to take a shower and go straight to bed.  I'm totally exhausted.  I'll catch up on blog stuff later.

Or, Hobbit Houses, by Simon Dale.


At Dark Roasted Blend.

A what now?

They uncovered a pistol, a buoy knife, whisky flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade from a set of sheep shears.

I see. So it floats, I guess. Interesting little article, however, about archaeologists who are digging up an old outhouse. "But it's not that bad," he said.

---

Don't tell me not to squeeze the Charmin.

A police officer was shot with his own Taser by a woman visiting his home, authorities said. Officer Charles Jeffers told investigators he'd stopped to use the restroom at his home Sunday night while on his way to investigate a burglary. He let a woman he knew into the house, leading to her accidentally shooting the Taser, according to a police report.

---

Sometimes these things just happen.

A hunk of metal that crashed through the roof of a home has NASA, Federal Aviation Administration and New Jersey Transit officials scratching their heads.

The man who lives in the house was watching television Tuesday when he heard a crash and saw a cloud of dust. In the next room, he found a hunk of gray metal, 3 1/2 inches by 5 inches, with two hexagonal holes in it.

Experts say it's manmade, but nobody can say where it might have come from.

---

Classic: "but there was something amiss."

Firefighters drove to a vacant house on Tuesday, cut holes in the roof and walls, and broke windows to test their tools and their proficiency.

The problem? It was the wrong house.

They were supposed to be two blocks away at a house slated for demolition.

---

In Beaufort, South Carolina, we have a case of self defense and bad timing.

A 19-year-old man picked the wrong time to shoot at two brothers, opening fire just as they got ready to do some target practice, police said. Antoine Robinson was shot once in the arm during the shootout around 4:15 p.m. Monday, Beaufort County deputies said.

Robinson pulled up to the Beaufort home, got out of his car and started firing at brothers Rodmond Singleton, 24, and Titus Singleton, 18, authorities said.

The brothers said they were getting ready to shoot target practice and grabbed their guns and fired back, hitting Robinson once, deputies said.

"Licensed to fire the guns"?

---

And finally, yet another fox rampage, this time at a Salisbury, Maryland steakhouse.

A bizarre fox attack at a Salisbury steak house had patrons and employees jumping and scrambling for cover.

The attack happened near closing time Thursday, when customers encountered a wild fox in the parking lot. Feeling threatened, they ran inside the slow-release door at Chef Fred's Chesapeake Steakhouse, Bar & Grill. The fox followed them inside.

Now that I got the heavy post out of the way for today, I can concentrate on the important stuff like guns in anime.  Snagged this selection from Samurai Deeper Kyo.  It was the only one I could find of this interesting weapon.  A three-barrel pepperbox design, single action.  When the hammer is cocked, the entire barrel assembly rotates.  Muzzle-loader, obviously.  Looks bigger than .50 caliber.

Anyhow, I also GIMPed the finger, but I'm not as good at that as some people.

I was catching up on blogs this morning and came across this brief post by Claire Wolfe which pointed to an excellent essay called "Deliberative Democracy" Dementia at the Foundation for Economic Freedom.  I must admit that I had not heard the term "deliberative democracy" before, but after I started reading about it I realized it's just the Official Name for a phenomenon I've been aware of for a long time.  I would consider the link above as essential reading, and is so full of good quotes it's hard to choose (also I want everyone to go read the whole thing), but here's a good one:

Being permitted to talk about politics is no substitute for being free.

I don't want to give link credit to such a group, but if you search the term you will find a link to the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.  One quote:

At the beginning of the 21st Century, democracy is in the midst of a particularly major shift in its development. All kinds of leaders are realizing that the traditionally distant relationship between citizens and government is inadequate for solving public problems. They are recognizing that the usual formats for decision-making often waste public resources, create unproductive conflict, and fail to tap citizen potential. They are attempting many different civic experiments -- some successful, some not -- to help citizens and governments work together more democratically and more effectively.

Trying to solve a problem by exploiting the problem never works.  I don't agree that there should even exist a dichotomy between the citizenry and government.  I admit that this is currently not the case (although it may be in some areas on a strictly local level) but I believe that it should be.

Public deliberation can have many benefits within society. Among the most common claims are that public deliberation results in better policies, superior public education, increased public trust, and reduced conflict when policy moves to implementation.

There's another quote from the same site.  Note that it says nothing about protecting fundamental rights or increasing personal liberty.  It's all about hoodwinking the masses into believing that further infringements are just fine because we all got to discuss them first.

I was surprised at the candor of the Wikipedia entry for "deliberative democracy."

Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.

The most influential scholars of deliberative democracy have each described deliberative democracy in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of business, labour unions, churches or political parties. Deliberative democracy regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cult, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party state, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics.

I wonder how long it will be before someone changes it.

An underpinning of this concept seems to be that everyone has an opinion that's worth listening to, and that everyone deserves respect.  If someone is dedicated to stripping me of my rights, infringing on what little liberty I have managed to garner for myself, why should I bother listening to them?  Why should I waste even a single minute listening to their reasons for why I will be better off by submitting to the mob consensus?

UPDATE:  I was thinking about a follow-up to this post, but there's no point.  Just go read this exchange of comments at Random Ramblings of a Republitarian.

Also, congrats to rlubensky for being the first to refer to me as a libertarian.  All of you people who kept calling me a conservative were starting to get on my nerves.

It's not that I place a great emphasis on labels.  I don't.  I believe that most people use convenient labels as a substitute for thinking.  "He said what?  Oh, that means he's a so-and-so."  Eyes glaze over, all thinking stops.  It's just that sometimes I don't particularly appreciate a label that's used by some politicians and their supporters who I know good and well are not looking out for my best interest.  Who are, in fact, whole-heartedly trying to figure out yet another way to screw us all out of a little more freedom.

Just checked road conditions at TXDoT:



Which means we are cut off from Highway 87.  My wife got off work early enough last night to make it across before the road flooded.  She was going to go to her family reunion today, but now it doesn't look possible.  Theoretically there are still a couple of very long, circuitous routes out of here, but of course they could be flooded as well.

Bexar County has no flood conditions yet, which is promising (and surprising), but with the two closures above it would take a long time to get anywhere from here.  If some local spot-floods on county roads didn't also stop us.

More pagans offended:

The Sussex Archaeological Society has apologised to protesters after they allowed a controversial stunt by ITV to give the Long Man of Wilmington a sex change.

ITV and the archaeological society caused fury among Pagans and other protesters when they allowed fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah to add breasts and pigtails to the figure many believe is sacred.

As part of the programme, Trinny and Susannah Undress, ITV asked woman dressed in white to lie on the figure to create the transformation.

Chief Executive Office of the organisation, John Manley, said: 'The Sussex Archaeological Society would like to apologise to representatives of the Pagan community, or any other individual or groups, who might have been offended by recent television filming on the Long Man of Wilmington.

'It was not the society's intention to cause offence.

'The society is proud of its curation of the Long Man.

'In future the society will consult representatives of the Pagan community and other interested parties before sanctioning any significant activities.'

Newell Fisher was one of the protesters against the stunt and has now helped form a campaign group, Guardians of the Long Man.

As archaeological liaison officer of that group Mr Fisher said: 'We look forward to working with the Sussex Archaeological Society to help ensure the future welfare of the site.

'Our confidence in their custodianship has been restored.'

He said the protesters would continue their fight to stop the footage of the stunt being aired.

He said: 'We are absolutely determined this footage should not be shown as we feel it will encourage anti-social behaviour on the site.

'We heard people say they were going up there directly after the filming as the activities seem to make people think it is ok an we are extremely concerned about this.'

"Druids" (cough) gathered at Wilmington in an unrelated photo.  Note the close attention to authentic dress, especially the guy third from the left.  No doubt these "pagans" would be naught but tree food, were they to encounter any real druids.  The one on the far left must be one of those half-elven druids we keep hearing about.

Today we have no real knowledge of the druids, except that they existed and held various aspects of nature as sacred.  Their knowledge was apparently entirely oral in tradition, and not a prayer, song, verse, or folk legend has survived.  Anyone today who tries calling him/herself a druid is just being silly.

And this apparent flare-up of misogyny among the neo-pagans of Britain is kind of surprising, really.  I suppose as long as artists keep producing wonders like "P*ss Christ" everything is cool.  As long as they don't commit a temporary sex change on the long man.

Bloglines has been having a problem for a long time.  Some blogs just weren't updating at all.  Yesterday someone at Bloglines must have applied the cyber Ex-Lax.  Hooray.  Mr. Volk's feed is working again for the first time in about three months.

I was raised to be thankful for every drop of rain we can get, but I am now officially tired of rain.  I could go without another drop for, oh, at least two weeks.  The rain gauge was full when I went outside to feed the dogs a little while ago.  It had 2 1/2 inches in it yesterday, and that was the accumulation of about a week.  So that means it rained at least 3 1/2 inches here today alone.  Maybe more, I can't tell since the gauge was full to the brim.  Several of the small farm roads around here have flooded, but none of the roads we need to use, so we're still mobile.  In the flood of '98 we were stuck at home for three days before the roads opened.

It's been one of those days when you feel like having some Escudo but all you can find is Half & Half.

At least tomorrow is Friday.

June 30, 2005:

Zimbabwe police have ordered all civilians to surrender firearms in what insiders said was a precautionary measure in a charged country after the government demolished thousands of homes and informal businesses in a controversial urban clean-up exercise. Police at the weekend said they were revoking licences for all automatic rifles and some types of pistols and said civilians owning such weapons had until today to surrender them. The law enforcement agency did not give reasons for the action but warned Zimbabweans that they could be prosecuted for failing to hand in their guns. A statement issued by the police read in part: "Police would like to advise members of the public that firearm licences of the following self-loading weapon: G3, FN 7.62mm rifles and scorpion pistols have since been revoked in terms of Sub-Section 7 of Section 6 of the Firearms Act (Chapter) 10: 09) . . . possession of the above-listed firearms is now unlawful." Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, in charge of the police, could not be reached for comment on the matter yesterday.

But sources at police headquarters in Harare said the move was just precautionary to ensure such weapons could not be used by civilians should tension gripping Zimbabwe in the wake of the government’s clean-up exercise erupt into public violence. "The ban is targeted at all automatic weapons which the government fears could pose a security threat in the country should the civil strife in Zimbabwe turn violent," said a source, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation. This is not the first time that the government has cancelled firearm licences. At the peak of its chaotic and often violent farm seizure programme in 2000, the government issued a decree compelling civilians to surrender their guns. The move was targeted at white commercial farmers who at that time held a number of assault guns for self-protection. Zimbabwe’s security forces have been on high alert since the government launched a "clean-up" campaign last month that has left close to a million people without shelter after their shanty homes were demolished.

July 7, 2007:

I went to one almost empty supermarket and stopped near a young policeman in a pick up truck without number plates that was loaded to the hilt with 'slashed price' goods. It was a bitterly cold morning and a barefoot and slightly retarded man was sitting on the tar shaking and shivering with cold. He stretched his hands up to the policeman and said: "Chingwa" (Bread). The policeman ignored him and turned away, calling out cheerfully to another young policeman, also in uniform, who was staggering out with more booty. Again the shivering and barefoot man asked for bread but they both ignored him. I could not stop tears filling my eyes and although I had virtually nothing left I bent down and folded a note into his hand; he clapped his hands in thanks and as I stood up I caught the eye of the young policeman. There was no compassion or empathy there, just arrogance. For a moment I remembered how it felt after the farmers and their workers had been thrown off and someone had helped me when I was utterly desperate. He had said to me: There but for the grace of God go I. Now there are so many more in that place of need.

All week as the situation has deteriorated people have been comparing what is happening now to shops and businesses with what happened to farms. A huge crisis seems just a few days or perhaps a couple of weeks away, as stocks dwindle, warehouses empty and we simply run out of food. As I write this letter the government are continuing to applaud the price cuts and say they will take over the businesses that close down.

Via JPFO and Cathy Buckle.

San Antonio:

Police said Wednesday that dozens of law enforcement uniforms and thousands of dollars in police equipment were stolen from inside a trailer.

Officers said someone broke the pad lock on the trailer and took 40 sets of police uniforms and a SWAT shield in the 15000 block of Knoll Circle.

The thefts took place sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday, police said.

The uniforms were made by Nardis, a police supply company.

Well, golly gee, we have the name of the uniform manufacturer.  Big flippin' deal.  What I'd like to know is why the Only Ones (special SWAT Only Ones, at that) left a trailer full of gear parked overnight in a tiny residential cul-de-sac way out in the relative boonies of northeastern Bexar County.

"Police equipment," eh?

Via Strange in San Antonio.

I had an easy day at work today.  I have been threatening for some time to try and write something again.  I discovered I had some extra time, and although I prefer to write late at night with a pipe and silence, I managed to churn out something without a pipe, in the daytime, with the surrounding noise of two young children.

I don't know how I did it.

And another blogger who I read regularly did some creative writing.  So I had to quit procrastinating and do something.

I've added a new section to my other blog project called "Fragmentary Fiction."  It's for fragments and works in progress.  Nothing under that section should be considered permanent--it's all subject to major revision or even complete scrapping.

For a long time I have wanted to try to write either a series of connected short stories or perhaps a novella sort of thing set in a world similar to the Old West but incorporated with elements of fantasy and horror.  So here's a link and a teaser.

Prelude: The Weird

The stranger had come through last autumn. He had passed not far from her house, a pair of mules hitched to a peddler’s wagon, traveling in silence. She felt him coming when the sun was still low in the morning sky, and by noon she had walked out to meet him as he rode past. He said nothing, merely looked at her. His glance had sent prickles up the back of her neck, and she had shivered in the noonday sun. She did not try even to speak to him, only strode as quickly back to her cabin as her old bones would move, shuttering the single window and staring into the shadows. Listening to the world move, and seeing what creaked. It was something her own grandmother had taught her, when both she and the world seemed young.

Why now? There had once been a time when she could conjure fire with little more than a snap of her fingers and a wisp of her own red hair. Now her hair was as gray as the morning fog, and she could kindle a flame far more easily with flint and tinder. The powers she had once aspired to as a young girl, had even commanded for a time, had long since faded behind the passing years.

British pagans are outraged and offended.  And they're going to do a rain dance to try and wash it away.

Thank goodness they didn't portray Homer without his undies.  That would be really offensive.

UPDATE:  Nyx has found a hilarious animated version.

For some reason I found this article very interesting.  The giant lion-eating chimps of the magic forest:

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla.

Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range is deep in impenetrable forest.

But despite the difficulties, a handful of scientists have succeeded in studying the animals. Early speculation that the apes may be some yeti-like new species or a chimp/gorilla hybrid proved unfounded, but the truth has turned out to be in many ways even more fascinating. They are actually a population of super-sized chimps with a unique culture - and it seems, a taste for big cat flesh.

They use tools, they aren't afraid of humans, and though they haven't been seen actually killing a big cat, they have been seen eating big cats.  They also aren't afraid to sleep on the ground.  Interesting and strange.

The Which Ancient Language Are You Test written by imipak on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Ah but you only think I am dead.  I live on in goofy new-age fortune-telling gimmicks.

Via Reformed Chicks Blabbing.

At FOXNews.com:

"He was well done."

That's what one woman said Monday after helping her son apprehend an alleged child rapist using her barbecue meat fork.

"I stuck him in his butt!" Linda Rhodes told MyFOXdfw.com, explaining how she and her son John Jennings apprehended the 17-year-old suspect Friday night in Garland, Texas.

Jennings was barbecuing chicken when he heard a 7-year-old boy calling for help. He said he saw the suspect, Deshaun Ridge, on top of the child, allegedly raping the boy.

"He stood up, and I just punched him right in the face," Jennings said. "He put his hands up and I grabbed him, and we went fighting."

Rhodes called police and then jumped into the fight to help her son apprehend the suspect. They held Ridge until police arrived.

"They were citizens that jumped in, most definitely, and did a good deed," Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department, told MyFOXdfw.com. "These people are heroes."

Shooting The Messenger reports:

A South Korean tourist has filed a formal complaint against a monkey he says stole his reading glasses during his visit to the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in northern India.

Well, at least it didn't steal the keys to his BMW.

(If someone, somewhere doesn't get this, I'm going to be so disappointed).

Via NRA-ILA:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it will significantly revise a recent proposal for new “explosives safety” regulations that caused serious concern among gun owners. OSHA had originally set out to update workplace safety regulations, but the proposed rules included restrictions that very few gun shops, sporting goods stores, shippers, or ammunition dealers could comply with.

Full details at the link.

An interesting aside is that even locals who aren't internet active knew about this, and were severely agitated.  OSHA stepped in a fire ant hill with this one.

DCist: Fenty to Appeal Handgun Ruling:

This morning Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that he would appeal a March ruling that found that the District's handgun law was unconstitutional to the U.S. Supreme Court. His decision sets up the first major battle in decades over whether the Second Amendment confers an individual or collective right to own a handgun. Moreover, it could have a profound effect on gun regulations across the country should the Supreme Court side with the lower court.

Profound effect, indeed.

Via The War On Guns and Say Uncle.

David Freddoso writes on the recent claims that "Ron Paul warns of staged terror attack":

My first reaction to the Politico headline — most people’s reaction, I’m sure — was that Paul should not be elected or defeated, but institutionalized. Then I read what is actually posted there, and I saw no quote from Paul about a “staged terrorist attack.” I did see a summary by Politico blogger Dan Reilly that says Paul “clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support.”

So I listened to the interview, trying to find what Reilly describes. And I listened to it again. And again. And I heard nothing of the sort.

Look, Paul doesn't have a chance of winning.  But he has a lot of important things to say.  And, since he is not an obvious "mainstream candidate" he must be silenced by those who have better chances of winning.  Many  bloggers who really should know better (no links, think for yourself) are dismissing Paul out of hand and even sometimes looking for reasons to call him a crackpot because he is actually a libertarian who only called himself a Republican.  And why did he do that in the first place?  Because the two-party system has become such a hallowed institution that anyone who doesn't want to play that game is automatically shunned and outcast.

Libertarians:  the political lepers of America.

Read both articles linked above.  I'll leave you with Freddoso's conclusion:

Paul is a barely relevant figure who has no chance in the election anyway, but you don’t need to like him to see the danger of this kind of sloppy headline-writing and summarizing. Careless reporters caused riots in the Middle East when they did a similar number on Pope Benedict XVI and his citation of Emperor Paleologus. The pope had actually given a very thoughtful and academic speech about Islamic-Christian relations, but thanks to the journalists, all hell broke loose. Other examples of this dangerous silliness abound.

The media has other problems besides its liberal bias, such as the need for quick sound-bites, inaccurate summaries, and headlines that often come at the expense of getting things right.

Via John Lott.

After a very long hiatus, The Truth About Gun Control has some new posts.  I always thought there was some great stuff on this blog, and I kept it in my "other worthy blogs" list just in case Porcupine Nine decided to come back.

Recent posts are on the topic of the VA Tech mass murder and how the media seem to think some deaths are less important than others.

Here's hoping PN keeps up the activity.

Not much going on here.  This time of the year isn't all that good for me.  Working in the heat so much makes me very tired, and I spend most of my weekends just resting and recovering.  This post is just to create some activity on the blog.

I finally put up the gate today, using my dad's old brace & bit to drill holes for the hinge bolts so I wouldn't have to go and buy a drill bit of the right size just to make the holes.  I was surprised at how easy it was to drill holes manually, no power drill, but I wouldn't want to do it all day.

The newest batch of Bayou Night from Cornell & Diehl seems different.  Maybe he used a different kind of latakia, or maybe I've been sticking with non-latakia blends so much that I've become more sensitive to it.  It's still good, but the latakia seems much more prominent than usual.

I ripped a bunch of CDs today, and yet again went and looked up some lyrics for one of my favorite songs.

I try to get nearer,
But as it gets clearer
There's something appears in the way,
It's a plank in me eye,

With a camel
Who's trying to get through it,
Am I doing it?
Can I have it all now?

I pull out the plank and say
"Thank you for yanking me back
To the fact that there's
Always something to distract."

But sometimes it's hard
To know if I'm doing it right.
Can I have it all?
Can I have it all now?
We can't have it all.

Kate Bush is one of my favorite musicians, and this song has always haunted me since I first heard it.


I really like the newest incarnation of the Doctor.  I'm sure some of the old-school fans don't like the introduction of the sexual tension in the newest version, one-sided though it is.  But hey, he's been alone for 900 years so he deserves a little walk on the wild side.


I always thought he should have tried to make a move on Leela, but then maybe he decided it was too dangerous.  Yesterday my son was running around with some little toy of his, making "bzzzt bzzzt" noises.  I asked him what he was doing.  "It's my sonic screwdriver!"  Heh heh.  I've created a new Whovian.  Leela, pictured above, is actually blue-eyed.  They originally thought that she wouldn't look "savage" enough with blue eyes, so she had to wear brown contacts, like in the photo above.  They bothered her so much that they later wrote an excuse into the story to make her eyes change color, so she could quit wearing the contacts.

Today I whipped up a couple of new items for my languishing Cafe Press shop.  Both caps.  The link is in the left sidebar.

War On Guns is back in action.  David Codrea has escaped the PRK and is now in Ohio.

I've noticed a few new links on my referrals via StatCounter, and that I've even made it into a new blogroll or two.  So thank you to everyone who thinks this blog is worth reading, especially Syd of Front Sight, Press and his list of gun blogs.  Also a special thanks to Jared McLaughlin of Fire Like This for a little bit of an ego boost.

There has been a spate of alleged crypto-critter sightings in the area of Basra, Iraq.  The creature is supposed to attack people at night.  Cryptomundo covered it here, and later followed up here.  It's called "Garta," or "the muncher," and conspiracy theories are abounding through the area that U.S. or British troops have concocted this creature in their super-secret crypto-critter laboratories, only to release them around Iraq and cause general terror and mayhem.

(Cough).

However, the good people of Iraq can rest easy.  Major Mike Shearer (a U.K. military spokesman), has stated (with what must certainly be the quote of the week):

We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.

Well. Isn't that a relief.

Second Amendment Foundation Press Release:

The founder of the Second Amendment Foundation today said he will supply Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke with documentation on the “text book case” from Missouri that helped convince that state’s legislature to pass a “Stand-Your-Ground” law to protect citizens from criminal or civil prosecution when they shoot in self-defense.

In a series of debates with SAF founder Alan Gottlieb last week, Helmke told MSNBC viewers that he has been unable to identify anybody who has ever been sued and suffered financially for shooting in self-defense.

“Helmke is sadly uninformed, and we’re going to educate him,” Gottlieb said. “The case of a Carroll County man who was charged in December 1992 for shooting a burglar and subsequently acquitted, but then was sued almost immediately in civil court for $250,000 by the burglar’s family, is exactly the kind of outrage this law, and similar statutes in other states, is designed to prevent.”

Helmke is not sadly uninformed, in my opinion. He is a liar.  This is just another of his lies.

Strange in San Antonio reports that a cougar was recently spotted in the San Antonio area.  Many years ago, cougars ranged widely over this whole area, but this is the only sighting I know of in recent times.

I blogged about my own cougar sighting before.  You can read it here, if you want.

Very interesting article at Wired. Top Secret: We're Wiretapping You:

It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil. Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked "top secret." And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls.

You read it and ponder it and wonder what it all means. Then, two months later, the FBI shows up at your door, demands the document back and orders you to forget you ever saw it.

By all accounts, that's what happened to Washington D.C. attorney Wendell Belew in August 2004. And it happened at a time when no one outside a small group of high-ranking officials and workaday spooks knew the National Security Agency was listening in on Americans' phone calls without warrants. Belew didn't know what to make of the episode. But now, thanks to that government gaffe, he and a colleague have the distinction of being the only Americans who can prove they were specifically eavesdropped upon by the NSA's surveillance program.

No one else has been able to challenge the legality of unwarranted wiretaps because the only evidence that it happened is in the hands of the organization committing the crime:  the NSA.

And all they say is, "Neener neener neener!"

So what?  They're busting terrorists, so they should be able to skirt the law, right?

It depends on how you define "terrorist," now doesn't it?

Via EFF.

Why do I get trackback spam that references the main page of either Google or Yahoo?  Is this someone maliciously trying to trick me into blocking them?  I don't get it.

When they become available, that is.

Its rock-hard surface can take a full-on assault from a baseball bat, yet remains flexible enough to allow you to kick, leap and roll with perfect ease. Crafted from cutting-edge science, its unique molecular structure means that while providing armoured protection against crude concrete and even barbed wire, it remains light enough to allow you to run at high speed.

This story in the Sunday Herald is about Richard Palmer, who invented something truly marvelous and was ignored by polymer industry bigwigs because what he did was impossible.

And yet it wasn't.

In 1999 Palmer sold his house and car, moved into a friend's spare bedroom and did it himself. Providing funding out of his own pocket, he kick-started the process in a garage lab, calling in academic help from friends where needed and pushing d3o to the point where it was ready for production.

Today the material they said couldn't happen is fast becoming a common component of cutting-edge protective equipment, with the d3o brand beginning to feature in a range of winter and motor sports products worldwide. It has been adopted enthusiastically by the likes of US Olympic ski team, the four-times Everest climber Kenton Cool and Olympic cyclist Craig McClean. Industry observers predict the miracle cloth could be earning annual global revenues of $2 billion within five years.

Since you are reading this blog, I can guess what you might be pondering.  I was pondering it, too.

While he intends to continue developing and enhancing his revolutionary new material, Palmer's Brighton-based development lab team has already produced a range of other products. They include a rigid Frisbee that folds like a soft handkerchief when you catch it, and the world's first bullet-proof wallpaper, a lightweight protective covering that absorbs and contains the deadly shrapnel generated when a projectile pierces most buildings.

At last, my dreams of a folding frisbee are answered.  But seriously, this brief article is a story of an outsider who almost didn't make it because he wasn't part of an industrial establishment.

And a Batman suit is no longer fiction.  Imagine that.

Or so I thought.  There is a place on the farm road near my house where the forest is quite dense on both sides of the road, and the creek is not too far away.  Consequently, wild animals use this area to cross the road quite frequently.  It is there that wild hogs cause plenty of night-time car collisions.  It's also not at all unusual to see deer, turkeys, and coyotes dash across the road.  Yesterday on the way home from work something that looked like a large cat without much of a tail bounded across the road in front of me.


"What the...???"  I thought.  "That was a bobcat!"

Today I mentioned it to my dad.  His ear is closer to the ground than mine, at least locally, and when I told him about it he was not surprised at all.  Turns out there have been lots of bobcat sightings in this area.  He even predicted that they are going to get "as bad as the wild hogs" if people don't start hunting them.

So I had my first real live bobcat sighting.  Cool.

Man says something stupid.  Man is arrested.  Man is not charged, and is released.  District Attorney permanently ruins his life:

Police talked with Chardo about charging the man. Chardo said what the man said would not qualify as a terroristic threat because there has to be an intent to terrorize another person.

"Because of the statement I was greatly concerned about this fellow," Chardo said. "I contacted the sheriff and had his license to carry a firearm revoked. And I asked police to commit him under Section 302 of the mental health procedures act and that was done. He is now ineligible to possess firearms because he was committed involuntarily."

No charge. No trial.  No jury.  No due process.  Just a metaphorically trigger-happy DA who used his position to permanently stop this man from having recourse to legal self defense.

Is that incremental enough for you yet, Chris?

Via Wisdom and Liberty.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership points out an interesting connection found in the new Proposed Rule on Explosives:

Significant changes in the proposed rule include: updating the definition of explosives so it is consistent with the Department of Transportation (DOT) definition; incorporating the DOT/United Nations-based classification system in the explosives definition; updating references to DOT regulations; requiring package labels to be in accordance with OSHA's Hazard Communication standard and to use the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS); eliminating storage magazine requirements because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has adopted and enforces such regulations; and adding provisions to ensure that employees are properly trained in hazard recognition and safe work practices.

Emphasis mine.

The amount of jackbooted thuggery in that one paragraph just takes my breath away.