I think I'm jealous

The Atlantic reports with slightly amused horror that the government of  Zimbabwe is down to its last $217.

Okay, but if that's a real $217, in some sort of hardish money, aren't they  at least $217 better off than Uncle Sam?

A handful of heresy

When I was in the church this morning, saying so long to a long-time acquaintance, I wasn't attending to the official eulogy too closely. I quietly picked up a pew Bible and refreshed my memory of some notable political leaders. David was said to be brave, and Solomon was  deemed wise.

They made me think of modern leaders who were either valiant or wise or both. The man currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue never crossed my mind.

Until later, that is. Then I heard the instant analysis of His Ineptness's Latino vote-purchase plan. (He calls it immigration reform, a dream pact for hustling politicians as U.S. demographics become  swarthier.)

The consensus opinion is that the inept White House plan differs from the inept senate plan in one major way:  His Ineptness doesn't plan to "secure the borders,"
essentially because, he says, we can't.

Now I'm confused. The full might of our Republic is too flaccid to to keep some ragtag crossers in their own country and out of ours. Yet the same commander -- backed by the same force -- comfortably advises every ayatollah and used-camel hustler turned Islamic president within a thousand miles of Suez on all matters under the sun -- administrative, moral, and military. And he expects to be taken seriously.

I was lucky enough not to think of our departing secretary of state, still being lauded as one of the most brilliant foreign policy thinkers in history. You know, Hillary, the lady who did such a good job carrying advice from His Ineptness to Egypt where things are going so swimmingly. You're just a disrespectful smart-alec If you giggle and say her final directive from Foggy Bottom might well read, "Uhh, it's a little hairy over there and you guys better keep your white  infidel  asses out of Cairo these days."

I mean, What Difference Does It Make?

Chip 'em, Dan-O

Did I just hear Senator Schumer say we will use a "social security card biometric identifier?"

And you thought I was just kidding around when I said that for ease of administration the administrators think biometric ID is a really fun idea.

A little research takes some of the fun out of  mocking this because, so far, Senators Schumer and McCain are stopping short of the ultimate step. They're not quite ready to herd 320 million American citizens into the veterinary clinics for outpatient surgery. Vets? Sure. Who has more experience in slipping neat little computers/RF transmitters into flesh? Guernsey, Lhasa apso, citizen, what the Hell. Meat's meat.

The vote whores, or  immigration reformers if you insist, say for the time being  they can settle for a Social Security card that records your fingerprints or your digitized face. It will be a while before they announce that people are losing their cards and hiring top geeks to modify them and generally not playing nice.  And if you can chip a baboon for 80 bucks, max, why 80 times 320 million is only...



---

The 1985 libertarian argument was: Want to reduce the illegal immigration problem? Start reducing the free stuff inherent in merely metabolizing in this country.   It  is also a good 2013 argument.

I see by the news that a bunch of U.S. Senators is to introduce a new immigration reform plan this afternoon.

Point One of said plan is that all is  "Contingent on securing the borders."

Making points Two through Infinity moot.

Actually securing the border is popular only among adult white heterosexuals  who have a pickup, three or more firearms, and a job  -- a political loser in other words.

H.L. Mencken on Gun (and everything else) Control

Each year about this time,  the Moon of the Shrunken Scrotum, I tend to stay  in my lodge,  near the fire, and spend time with the old writings. I owe these authors. Without them I would be someone else.

This morning it is H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), one of my primary sources on 21st Century politics. Here he discloses one of the reasons we veer so close to post-constitutional government and pixie dust economics.

He is discussing American literature as it existed in the earliest years of the 20th  Century. It was ponderous stuff requiring close attention and patience, but Mencken thought it was important. Or would have been if enough people paid attention. He wasn't optimistic about that.

"In the arts, as in the concerns of every day, the  American seeks escape from the insoluble  by pretending it is solved. A comfortable phrase is what he craves beyond all things...".

Gun Control and Language Control

Another parallelism, further demonstrating the increasing uselessness of the English language as a tool for expressing logical thought processes:

Semi-automatic assault weapon

Horse-drawn automobile
'

Feinstein in black and white

Here is the text of Barbara's bill banning some guns that look like assault weapons:


http://www.scribd.com/doc/122212105/S-150

it isn't as long as it first appears. Most of its bulk is a list of guns which the government will permit you to own. (Think about that for a minute or two.)

For instance, if you want a replica of a .50-70 Sharps, why, that's just fine with Babs.

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Edit: Blogger won't accept this as a hot link. Cut and paste works.

In case you've been camping on Planet Whezix, we're price-rationing ammunition lately. And what a price.

Able's is one of the large sellers, and a search of "available products only"  for .22 long rifle gives you ten choices. No bulk packages, and the most economical 50-round box is Fiocchi subsonic at $12.95. Or 25-point-9 cents per round. Plus S and H.

It's the market at work, and the market will correct itself. It may take a while.  And Mr. Ammo Mill might get a friendly whisper from Mommy Dotgov that increasing the supply will be considered an unfriendly and even antisocial act. Then it will take longer.

The onsite stash of bunny rounds is reasonably healthy, and  no one living around here is about to buy much .22 at prevailing prices.  One fella, though, is on his way to WalMart to see if econopacks of 12 gauge are still on the shelves at no more than 1 1/2 x  the October price. If so he'll pick up a few more. If he does he'll write  Joe "Shotgun" Biden in hopes of getting a nice attaboy letter back.

My right to be Joe Namath

I was a disabled kid in high school, not quite big enough to play tackle, not quite quick enough to pull out of line from guard position.   Coach Eyefergit didn't exactly cut me, but he made it plain that I'd be spending a season on the cold, hard bench. So I became a debater. Nerdsville. My psyche still hasn't recovered.

Little did I know Coach was violating my rights. Washington was slow on this one, but now they've fixed it.

"... the new directive from the Education Department's civil rights division explicitly tells schools and colleges that access to interscholastic, intramural and intercollegiate athletics is a right."

Anyone who doesn't try to make life better for disabled people is a despicable human. Any bureaucrat who assigns a special category of varsity victimhood to kids who already have enough troubles is a fool.

---

If you RTWT you'll probably get a vision of thousands of local schools scratching their heads and wondering how the Hell you implement something like this, and at what cost.

Maybe I'll be back later today, but right now I need to read the Constitution again. I must have missed the part that says the U.S. Department of Education has the authority to decree rights.

If it does, why doesn't it decree that that young folks have the right to be taught to read?

The TMR as TV Guide

Reluctant to go do real work, I return to the teevee, still on C-Span 3. The scene shifts to Dr. Rhona Mahony in Dublin. She's a big cog in the Irish medical machine. She is talking to Irish lawmakers about abortion laws.

Relax, I'm done commenting on complicated political issues for the morning. I simply wish to illustrate that there are exceptions to P.J. O'Rourke's dicta on women of the Emerald Isle: "You don't want to see an Irish girl in a bikini."

Besides, there's a certain comfort in knowing that frustration with legiscritters is not exclusive to my country. Across the world, apparently, such people require that information be presented to them slowly, in short words, brief sentences, and, preferably, accompanied by stick-figure pictures.

Ayn Rand on gun control

"Emotions are not tools of cognition."

If she ever wrote a more important sentence,  I missed it.

Time-sensitive material enclosed!

If you aren't  doing something more important or pleasurable --like cleaning and lubing your weapons -- go immediately to your electric teevee room and tune the telescreen to C-Span 3. The caring aristocrats of the public tit are there,  telling you why you're such a terrorist thug, because Newtown among other things.

So far, the performances are noteworthy for emotional grave dancing. And error.

Representative McCarthy, as you'll recall, lost a child  husband to a gun shot and re-informs us of the fact each time the red light goes on. While we empathize with her grief and continuing sorrow, we might question them as the bases for making high public policy. She of course has no evidence to demonstrate that the Feinstein bill will do much to prevent violence, so takes refuge in the rhetorical device of assumed ethos. Because she is a victim of personal tragedy, she is an expert on tragedy prevention. To wit: "Some on the other side say it can't be done... I know with all my heart and soul it can be done." QED.

Senator Schumer again demonstrates his dependable lack of information. His voice achieved tremolo as he railed against the AR-15 and its "hundred-round magazine." You know, the one held in place by a thingie that goes up, or sideways, or some way, anyway.

Hillary in the dock

I want to be perfectly fair. There's a situation in my neighborhood so I saw only the briefest snippets of Hillary explaining the greatest significance of four dead Americans -- her employees -- in Benghazi. (That is, they primarily illustrate the need for the blameless Hillary to take over from His Ineptness in 2017.)

Responding to McCain, she played into some unfortunate stereotypes and set the women's equality movement back about 30 years. If she has to testify again she should be given a door to slam.

Simple foot-stomping didn't seem to be enough for her to make her point.

This is why we all love Brigid:

As  kid I thought about being a medical doctor  I loved science, had no problems dissecting Mr. Toad (though the teacher did NOT buy in on the slightly eaten lemon drop placed in the abdominal cavity as a "new organ!"). 

Mali: The next great American adventure

Reuters drops the big secret this morning. If France wants to send some French  soldiers adventuring in Mali, it calls Uncle Sam.

"PARIS (Reuters) - The United States has started transporting French soldiers and equipment to Mali as part of its logistical aid to French forces fighting Islamist militants in the north of the country, a U.S. official said on Tuesday."

Two points:

This can send a fellow's mind skittering across the past 99 years of American history. He's thinking of all the wars, beginning with Black Jack Pershing's anti-Kaiser campaign and continuing through our "lend-lease" to Churchill, to Vietnam, and the various bloody Sand Box errors. You try to think of U.S. overseas wars which did not begin with benign "logistical aid."  Not many. "It's only money folks. We ain't agonna put even one American boy in harm's way." *

And because our client this time is la Belle France, the same fellow is likely to recall a certain arrogance of late  20th Century Paris. "F--k no you can't fly your evil, imperialistic planes through our air space."

---

*There a difference this time. In most of the other crusades we owned the money we gave away. Here in 2013, we'll need to secure an increase in our MasterCard limit. Call Peking.

Lifting hair at the gun shows

A mega-gun show happened in Phoenix this weekend, and my friend John of the GMA attended, noting prices with a glazed amazement.

John can reduce complexity to its essentials -- make six words worth 10,000 pictures.

"Somebody needs to get a grip."

.

...and the Travis McGee Reader covers the inauguration

At the the top of the news on this historic morning...

--Valerie Jarrett. No one seems to know exactly what she does for a living. All seems to hinge on one achievement. When Val was a Chicago lawyer, she hired the pre-Obama Michelle. Since then she's been a celebrity and an "advisor" to His Ineptness. So I suppose it's best to think of her as America's First Nanny.

That's good enough for MSNBC.  Joe and Mika pointed the camera at her this morning and wondered about the Second Inept Term.  She recited the litany, immigration gun debt fair middle class balanced approach all in this together. But: "He can't do it alone."

To which one seasoned observer replied: "And for that we may thank our God and all the angels."

--In a related development, the electrical teevee says President Obama is the first two-termer to take his oath of office four times. Last time around the judge bungled the wording, so they had a do-over, just to make sure. This time he had to do it once on Sunday, the Constitutionally mandated official day. He'll do it again today as a extra photo-op.

Leading one cockeyed optimist to speculate: "Look, dammit. This guy has sworn to defend the Constitution four times. Four times, count 'em.  Four, dammit!  Maybe that's enough so he gets the general idea." 

Usually reliable sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the TMR, "You're outta your damned gourd." 

More news as developments warrant. Keep it right here.

Travis McGee at the Inauguration

Nothing short of new dance routine by Chookie McCall could have lured Trav to The Dubliner on any day of any year -- particularly this morning  when his gnarled elbows would have brushed a gaggle of self-styled journalists. MSNBC chose to, ahem, "cover" the inauguration from the place.

Wouldn't they just.

How they love high-polish hip and the beautiful people who make it glitter, especially in a contrived ethnic atmosphere, in this case Irish. My ass. It's as Irish as lutefisk.

I grant The Dubliner one point. It's five o'clock girl flock tends toward sleek young loveliness whose chatter sounds -- from a distance --  enchanting. Closer, you learn that it concerns shopping.  Let it pass. Step away, sigh at the waste, and recall your Bierce; ...all too human to impute unlikely virtues to the cute.

The men, so to speak, put you in mind of a 10-year fraternity reunion attended by Countess Mara neckties attached to those alumni whose MasterCard's would still bear the expense.

---

Did you ever notice that Travis didn't often use vulgar words?

Thrust into that crowd, I think he would have made an exception. Four letters, maybe 11. Then he'd have backed out the door, turned, and walked no more than 15 strides to the next-door Irish Times.

Hugh's place is a little seedy, but its political ops and hustlers tend to have honest Irish surnames and, often enough, fresh brogues. Among the still sober, conversation is generally a witty and bipartisan exploration of why things are still so FUBAR. The unsober (due to fairly priced Guinness and Jamison) tend to say hardly anything, at most a cynical grunt. That's a rhetorical approach a guy can quickly learn to love.

Besides, The Irish Times often features semi-talented (at worst) live Irish performers. They do rebel music with a loud flourish suggesting that disdain for the goddam English usurpers is alive and well. So tell me Sean O'Farrell where the gatherin is to be .. with me PIKE upon me shoulder at the RISIN' of the MOON.

The other place gives you something like a tape of  Mel Torme singing Danny Boy. I'll bet Mika swoons.

Enhancing my cowboy wall

A couple of neat Christmas gifts are finally in place. The tin Winchester and  S&W signs come courtesy of two fine young men who have finally discovered that Gramps is essentially a 10-year-old kid who just got home from Roy Rogers picture show.

Milspeak

We're sending a company of National Guard troops to Afghanistan. A helpful public relations officer told us what they'll be doing there. Unfortunately, some members of the public are not well-versed in the dialect spoken by the military literati. As a public service the TMR offers a translation of  "A release from the Iowa National Guard (which) states the company’s mission is... 

-- to  “increase the combat effectiveness of United States and coalition forces (usual cant, either obvious or meaningless)

--  by removing physical obstacles, (Bulldozing stuff down while in the vicinity of armed people who hate you.)

-- identifying and reducing minefields and explosive devices  (Shitting pants while in possession of a metal detector in the vicinity of armed people who hate you.)

-- executing mobility missions, (Driving to the PX through crowds containing armed people who hate you.)

-- emplacing barriers (Piling up dirt between you and some of the armed people who hate you.)

--constructing protective positions (Digging fox holes)

--and performing infantry missions (Shooting at armed people who hate you with the strong suspicion that they will shoot back.) 

---

Good luck ladies and gentlemen. Stay safe.  I mean it.

Well, at least that's settled

I'm indebted to my MSM pal Hans for a final resolution to "What's an assault rifle?"

The AR15, usually black and always ugly, is leading in all the polls that measure assaultiveness. Hans isn't buying, and neither is our mutual MSM pal Dave who raised the subject on Facebook. Each has had it up to  >here< with cant about "assault rifles."

They agree, as do most of us, that assaultiveness is a matter of purpose, not tools. Which is to say that my Remington 514 becomes an assault rifle the moment I get to feeling a little assaultory.

Hans modestly suggests that the nomenclature problem goes away with good intent-recognition software. A guy could legally run around with an AR15 (or Bazooka or tactical nuke) as long as the program cleared him of assaultitarian motives.

Course, the system would have to incorporate an active RF transmitter and be permanently attached to the toter. No problem these days. His Ineptness just  executively orders the chips implanted in our innards. You know, like they do on Guernseys and Lhasa Apsos.

The Rocky Obama Picture Show

The AP previews His Ineptness's imminent dog and pony extravaganza to erase guns, the primary object of which is to demonstrate that he rilly, rilly,cares:

Obama was to announce the measures Wednesday at a White House event that will bring together law enforcement officials, lawmakers and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting of 20 young students and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

I know. Politicians do this sort of thespian crap all the time. But can Providence forgive -- and perhaps even assist -- those of us who quaintly believe that the job of high-policy maker is to engage our intellect rather than our emotions?

The children will be cuter than Hell, and that's what the electric teevee will focus on.

And if that ain't James Madison's own sweet truth I'll kiss Mayor Bloomburg's  arse at the Bushmaster factory gate and let you invite Rachael Maddow to do the commentary. 

Alarums and diversions

Side notes on gun control, Obama style:

--See? He meant it when he told the Russian he would have more flexibility in his second reign. And some guys thought we were being silly and mean and partisan to mention it.

--I just found my first loophole in the New York law limiting handgun magazine capacity   A Hi-Standard Sentinel holds nine "bullets" -- two over the limit.  And what is a double action revolver if it is not a semi-automatic with a slightly awkward trigger pull? Alert Mayor Bloomburg.

-- And speaking of loopholes, perhaps the neatest one in the country is down on the corner of 68th and Halstead in Chicago -- the neighborhood organized by His Ineptness when he was still at the low end of the government pay scale.  The dealer counts your cash but doesn't ask impertinent questions. (If you're on a tight thuggery budget, the same entrepreneur will rent you a piece.)


(h/t for title to Mr. Thurber)

Confiscating your guns and other shooty stuff

What I'm watching for today:

Since I don't think His Ineptness  is politically stupid, I doubt he'll take the supreme political risk of demanding confiscation of all of your guns which might look like assault weapons to, for instance, Governor Cuomo.

If I'm wrong, I suspect it he'll lipstick the pig, making it a "soft "confiscation. A mandatory buyback or some such scheme to get the stuff out of citizens' hands and into the vaults of the Only Ones.*

Magazines are another matter, and he might well look at the fresh New York state  confiscation scheme -- complete with lipstick. Empire staters have a year to sell their high-caps to an officially approved buyer. In 366 days they (a) become subject to government seizure and (b) turn the owners into criminals.

In any case, I think type and degree of what ever confiscation proposals he might make will be a pretty decent guide to how the debate will progress. It would take a very different congress to approve gun confiscation. To a lesser extent, the same is true of magazine seizures.

If the president opts for the most draconian rape of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, we'll have most of the evidence we need that he's rather careless about Newtown and other violent horrors -- that he's just play-acting in search of political cover and liberal-base pandering.

---

*Please stop fretting about the buyback cost. It can easily be handled if the Bank of China develops a payday loan office. Alternatively, Attorney General Holder might actually make it profitable, capitalizing on his experience in filling the arsenals of  Mexican drug warlords.

New York: New gun law text

It is here, and, Cowboy, it swings a wide loop. The state senate passed it yesterday, and by the time you read this it may have cleared the Albany house.

I read it from the enacting clause to the final word,* but I confess a degree of eye-glaze and some confusion. Much of the language modifies other laws which are referred to only by statute number. It is quite unnecessarily wordy. I understood as much as I did only because of career experience in extracting actual meaning from political gobbledygook.

The standout quality is its impact on subjects other than firearms control. It affects the mental health system, family law, education laws, and a variety of other criminal and tort procedures. A cursory reading suggests that this is a useful guide to what the United States will be when the extreme Left and the neocon Right finally achieve their post-constitutional America . This is true even if you eliminate the bill's actual gun-control  provisions.

For just one -- there are several others -- example: There is a one-day procedure for declaring an upset  spouse a "protected party" and imposing a variety of restrictions on his or her mate.There are complicated administrative and judicial reliefs written into the law, but for most real-life purposes, for many or most people, they are permanent.  And this occurs before any finding of legal guilt.

---

The actual firearms restrictions tend strongly toward the the Pelosi/Feinstein solution to violence. Another coat of pancake makeup.

Thumb-hole stocks become illegal on semi-automatic long guns. So do barrel shrouds.  So do "pistol grips" if they are "conspicuous."

Seven rounds becomes the legal capacity limit for nearly all detachable magazines. (Someone is going to make money with new seven-rounders for millions of Colt Woodsmans, Ruger Standards et. seq., Browning Nomads,  Hi-Standard HDs. And so forth.)

Higher capacity magazines already possessed are legal to own, but not use, for one year, after which they must be sold for out-of-state use. The alternative is confiscation and a criminal charge. (New York doesn't mind the horror of murder  via the eighth round in a magazine provided, of course, that the victim is shot in a place other than New York. Federalism at work.)

There much more, and at the risk of inviting you devote a lot of time to a tedious chore, I suggest you read the bill. It is almost certainly the sort of frightening nonsense which our president lusts for.

---

*How many of the lawmakers did before voting, I wonder  (C.f. Nancy Pelosi's "pass it to know what is in it" theory of making law.)

Obama speaks, so to speak

I used to think His Ineptness was only a little more inept than Bush. Wrong. He  is much worse.

I listened as carefully as I could this morning and can not credit this guy with a single syllogism. Not a damn one; not even a credible stab at one.

For the first time in history voters have chosen a man who speaks only in sound bites. We might as well have elected Rick Perry.

---

Vote for me come 2016.  I promise to bullshit around with you only for purposes sof mutual entertainment.

Parallelism

The urgency to get new gun-control before the Newtown emotion wears off.

-0-

The urgency to get the girl to a room before the roofie wears off.
.

I think it's reasonably sexy

Seeing our British cousins in a funk always saddens me, and it's worse when they seem ready to riot in Piccadilly over high matters of state. So I performed a research study in hopes of offering wise counsel from the Colonies.

That is, I carried a copy of the portrait around, all over the length and width of Camp J country. I enquired of every chap I know, "Would  you (a) kiss this woman and (b) willingly have her on your arm in the A-list haunts of local society such as the American Legion Club?"

To a man, nearly,  it was "Yep" or "Damned Straightt" or "You Bet."  The single exception was my very youngest interviewee who hesitated, shrugged, then brightly added, "But my dad sure the heck would."

It exactly the result I predicted and verifies my suspicion that the English aren't really all that upset about the picture. They are just in one of their periodic states of  national ennui when any excitement, any controversy at all, is embraced as a welcome relief from the boredom of being in Britain.

Personally, I don't think the Kate picture dustup has legs. There just isn't enough emo content in the "poortrait"  argument to excite even an East Ender for very long. What the Sceptred Isle really needs is a good old-fashion war crisis, what with muskets and cannon and brave leftenants waving swords as they lead their companies into into wog hordes.

To that end, and out of pure motives -- a shot of Red Bull injected directly into John Bull's national arteries -- I've dispatched a courier to Buenos Aires suggesting that now would be a compassionate time for a new move against the Falklands. The last one was was such sport, eh wot?

Travis McGee, economist

I can't recall which adventure, but in one of them Travis and Meyer have rescued a beautiful young widow from villainous clutches and recovered some of her money. They discuss how to invest it for her. (In those days it was well understood that the little gals shouldn't bother their pretty heads about such stately matters.)

Travis remarked that the portfolio should carry some equities which might ameliorate the inflation bite against the day "when a new Chevy costs $40,000." 

And we all giggled and snorted at John D. MacDonald's wild imagination and sense of the ridiculous.  I was as guilty as anyone, having in that era purchased a brand new Plymouth Volare station wagon for about $4,700. (Excuse: wife, two kids, dog, long commute, scuba tanks. I was such a damned Republican.)

---

Of course the trillion dollar coin would be absolutely and precisely identical to pixie dust.  So what? What the Hell do we think that hundred-dollar bill we keep stuffed in our wallet's secret compartment represents?

The diversity cliff

Good gawd. I think my electric teevee -- like Tam's car radio -- has been hijacked by a transmitter from Planet Zongo.

Because I've learned from  CNN and MSNBC that National Problem Number One is that we are doomed because His Ineptness, the partially black president, is a racist for appointing adult white males to his cabinet. A diversity cliff.

Among the wailers is Congressman Charlie Rangel who makes Page One by calling the latest cabinet picks "embarrassing as hell."  No, Charlie. The  national  embarrassment is that you still occupy a plush congressional seat instead of the cell next door to  Roddy Blagojevich.

I think Obama did it on purpose. If folks spend all their time thinking about the APL* and the dangle/dimple ratio in high bureaucratic circles, they'll be less likely to stumble across the notion that the trillion-dollar coin may become an everyday necessity for making small purchases.

---

*Average Pigmentation Level

"I own a gun!"

So says New York's hysterical Governor Cuomo who fleshes it out with "I've hunted...I own a Remington shotgun...You don't need ten bullets to kill a deer."

1. I wonder how many of those background checks lately have been on gun-grabbing politicians who don't want to get caught lying when they trot out the obligatory  "I own a gun, but...".

2. When the gun arrives do they call in a gun consultant who begins, quite necessarily, with  "Now, Governor, you hold on to the wooden parts and point the metal parts at the deer. Try hard not to get  that part  mixed up."

3. Your Remington shotgun, Governor, is likely a Model 870 or variant and hence one of the world's deadliest assault weapons at close range -- such as from one end of a classroom to the other.  While it holds only six bullets, each one of them may legally contain eight or nine littler bullets, each as big around as a medium pistol bullet. So you're slinging an offensive weapon capable of firing 48 to 54 bullets without reloading! Why, that's  almost twice as bad as having two 30-round magazines cuz after first one runs out of bullets  you have to reload, giving the hall monitor time to knock you out with  a Dixon No. 2.

---

I think you're a little out of your league here, Sir, both in knowledge of your chosen subject matter and in demagogic skills. You might be better off to study the technique of the governor just up the coast from you. Governor Malloy has it down pat. When  faced with a serious policy issue, call in the teevee cameras and cry.

Got a second, Your Ineptness?

Thank you.

There was this other leader, old guy named Churchill.

May, 1940. He and his countrymen look across the channel and notice quite a lot of Nazis suddenly appearing in places where they weren't supposed to be. That gets them thinking about their own cottages in the face of Hun power. And that gets Mr. Churchill thinking about Brit civilians with those awful, nasty guns. And smiling.

"The swift fate of Holland was in all our minds. Mr. Eden had already proposed to the War Cabinet the formation of Local Defense Volunteers, and this plan was energetically pressed. All over the country, in every town and village,  bands of determined men came together armed with shotguns, sporting rifles, clubs and spears."

I mean,  just for whatever the thought is worth to you, Sir, recognizing of course that it could never happen here.

---

"The Battle of Britain," the Bantam reprint, pp 48-49

Depends on whether you like your girls with guns

Or prefer a greater order of submissiveness

Just like Milton and Mrs. Friedman, TMR endorses your right to choose.

And this the last post about constitutional government and economic freedom I intend to write this morning.

Makes me sick

The electrical teevee news on CNN and MSNBC was drearier and more banal than usual this morning. So I flipped over to the Fox thigh fest. The theory was that if a guy is going to kill brain cells he might as well try to stir his hormones in compensation. It didn't work very well.  So I shut it all off, got out the check book, and started paying bills, first the health insurance premium.

Now, extreme self-revelation is well and good. Hell, it almost a staple of bloggery, but I'm uncomfortable with it. Readers already know the most intimate facts of  my life -- retired wire service man, political operative, semi-skilled handy man,  a devourer of books with an unhealthy interest in firearms, water sports, and women who manage knees-together allure with bits and pieces of fabric giving a decent scope to a man's imagination.

So I offer my invasion of my own privacy here reluctantly and only in service of larger truth.

 Here's what I spent on health care last year:

About 200 Federal Reserve Cartoons, all out-of-pocket. Broken down, that represents one uninsured prescription renewal, perhaps 30 generic ibuprofen and aspirin tablets, a  partial box of bi-carb,  a few pair of one-dollar reading glasses (1.25 and 1.5 diopters if you must know),  and a modest number of band aids.  Disregarding a spendy surgery -- only partially insured -- to ameliorate a hearing problem years ago, that's a reasonably typical year.

I report this only to claim that I am not a frequent defiler of  the venal healing industry -- either that part of it representing American socialism or its near-relative, my "private" insurance.

My reward? An 18 per cent increase in the already back-breaking premium which has more than doubled in six  years. And if you go by the news, I'm luckier than most.

I talked this over with an insurance expert, an old friend. He said it's complicated (No shit, Sam Spade?) but that if you're looking for a one-word reason, "Obamacare" is accurate. Surprise, isn't it? Who would have thought that free or cheap doctoring for x million more people might require a little extra from people who pay for it?

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Al Capp used to get big laughs at the expense of ATT when it held a government-protected monopoly on telephone service.  Ma Bell's ambitions were modest, he admitted. She would happily settle for owning all the wealth in the country. And if you want to draw comparisons between that and His Ineptness's new death grip on you, your doctor, and your insurance company, why, it's okay by me.



  

It doesn't bother me much that fresh-hatched Senator Tammy Baldwin is gay, purportedly the first and only openly gay U.S. senator.

It is annoying, however, that she embraces the rhetorical style technically referred to as "flibbertigibbet."  She brings nonsense -- and, more important, noncommunication -- to an oratorical height we've missed ever since Teddy Kennedy went away.

"Revenue is hugely important, spending cuts are hugely important, but the way you approach spending cuts, we have to make sure that we don’t you know, cut off our nose despite our face, that we don't impede economic growth and prosperity for American families."

Well, first off, Tammy,  if you're actually intending to, you know, vote for one budget choice or another, it would really help us to know which of the two choices is hugelier.  If they are hugely equal, there's no point in choosing between them, is there?  So  you might as well go back to Madison to protest something and have a sit down strike or something, right?

Second, about our noses and faces. You will still be in the senate during my first administration and, unless you improve, be placed on the list of lawmakers who should be suspended until they have demonstrated competence in the use of idiom as it is practiced by native speakers of English.

Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso

I knew El Paso pretty well in my more youthful years, even though I did not fall in love there with a Mexican girl.* My West Texas memories are of hot, dry semi-desert, a fine place for hiking and casual shooting in a landscape so deserted that you barely worried about where your bullets fell to earth.

But a blizzard? I know it happens once in a while, but it's still disorienting. Blizzards happen in places like Iowa and South Dakota, not down in the Sombrero provinces.

Anyway, Texas authorities are asking folks to kinda avoid Interstate 10 in the area until they get things sorted out. Texas authorities, being what they are, seem to have asked nicely instead of issuing decrees and threats as do our Road Masters** up here in in the Ethanol regions. And Texas citizens, being what they are, think it over and come to a friendly conclusion. "Yep, Roy, I think them highway cops got it about right, so we'll wait a day or two and not go over there gettin' in their way."

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Yes, I rather like Texas and Texans.  Always have. Taken as a whole, they are no more full of shit than us Yankees, and their lies tend to be quite a little more entertaining than ours.

In fact, I'll shortly  announcing my appointment of a certain Texan to be secretary of defense in my first administration.  He'll be fine, although I'll have to remind him every once in a while that Texas is not permitted to conduct its own foreign policy.

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*Not with Ciudad Jaurez so close, but that's another post.

**Make up your own Buick pun.

Duuuhhhhhh Darwin nomination

Hi guys. Any convicted felons out there?

Okay, you fellas with your hands up. This is for you. Until you get your full pardons, I recommend against appearing in public with AR-15s. But if you must do so, make every effort to avoid getting your shooting session taped for You Tube.

My hat is in the ring

Haven't meant to seem standoffish lately. Forgive me. My decision-making process to run for president required long and prayerful consideration. So did my platform which begins with the carefully researched and elegantly worded

TMR ANTI-PISSAWAY PACT.

Plank 1:  No tax money for bike trails. Not one f--king cent. Savings: $85 million per year at the federal level and God knows how much more extorted by subordinate commissars.

Observation:  $85 million would pay for at least 850 professional armed security guards to protect our innocent children in the nation's schools. (N.B. -- If said guards are also required to protect guilty children, the added cost is to be a local responsibility.)

My campaign motto: There Is Some Shit We Can't Afford.