The Tactical Elastical

Okay, so I have a little weakness for  cheese cake, but there's a journalistic reason for inviting your attention to this because,  a while back, someone was jerking gunchick chains about  tactical undies --presumably mythical --  for concealed carry.

What you lewdies are looking for is toward the end of the pictures, but on the way you'll find some funny  tactical concepts.

H/T  to Tam.

Breakfast

May I invite your attention to bacon?  Particularly a very nice apple wood smoked bacon? At $1.389 per pound?

It is not the money savings. It is that the five-pound, $6.99,  box of  "ends and pieces"  has vastly more lean meat than any other bacon I can buy -- including even the excellent slab in the fresh meat case at my Fareway.  This judgement comes after using four boxes.

This stuff is excellent, and you can forget the usual  rationalization  that it's for salads and  crumbled pork recipes. Most  of it looks fine on a platter.

I don't know how widely it is distributed,  but if you are anywhere in the Midwest  look for a plain white cardboard box from Webster City Custom Meats, Inc. of Webster City, Iowa.

I am not a paid endorser, and,  no,  it is not available in a tactical container or  in bandoleer  battle packs.

For the record, Caesar was rendered unto before the dreaded midnight hour. Rendering him down to something useful would have been more rewarding.

A Constitutional Response to the Census

Some thought went into the decision to fill in part of the census form. The citizen at this address will report his name and the fact that no others reside here permanently. This meets the need for congressional apportionment data.

Everything else smacks of bureaucratic meddling, such as wondering if I own it or rent it and whether I owe money on it or not. because:

"Asked since 1890. Homeownership rates serve as an indicator of the nation's economy. The data are also used to administer housing programs and to inform planning decisions."

Thank you very much, but my housing program was to save up some money and buy one, or rent one, or whatever, making the details none of your business, President Obama. And I plan to continue planning to make my own planning decisions. And the economy sucks even if you happen to find out I'm in decent enough shape.

The government also wants my sex because:

"...many federal programs must differentiate between males and females for funding, implementing and evaluating their programs. For instance, laws promoting equal employment opportunity for women require census data on sex. Also, sociologists, economists, and other researchers who analyze social and economic trends use the data."

Sociologists, economists and other researchers can ask for my sex in person if they really want it, and I reserve the right to say "yes," "no," or "You can whistle, can't you?"

I also won't say whether I'm Hispanic or not because it's none of Joe Biden's business and because how the Hell do I know if Great-Great-Grandma Grove dallied with a Mexican lad behind the barn then quick like a flash married my great-great grandpa?Same with the next question, on race.

The government closes out its queries by wondering if I sometimes stay somewhere else. Why all the creepy curiosity about who I sleep with?

Jealousy

The Broad Ripple lady and her roomie are a couple of teases, what with their tropical bicycle riding pictures and all.

We have a certain amount of snow remaining, even in the sun-drenched areas -- about two feet as of Saturday when the old bridge was snapped on canal hike a few hundred yards from my quarters. There's a little less today, but getting across the field from the house to the water is still snow shoe work.

(No, you can't shoot there. It's inside the village limits and a game preserve to boot. I still carry a belt gun in deference to the cougar rumors.)

There oughtta be a law!

Observing the fractured logic and simpleton appeals of politicians and lobbyists for and against a new agency to "protect" consumers in the financial markets, it occurs to me that Congress should pass the following law. Do you agree?

(The last paragraph is especially cuddlesome to a libertarian soul.)

(1)

Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which--

(A)

is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or

(B)

in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.

(2)

As used in this subsection, the term "any person" includes any State, instrumentality of a State or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity. Any State, and any such instrumentality, officer, or employee, shall be subject to the provisions of this Act in the same manner and to the same extent as any nongovernmental entity.

----

After we get this one passed, we just need a companion piece, almost identically worded, which criminalizes the acts mentioned.

The Tea Party Folks

They are a great public blessing. I think of them as a backfire shielding the citizenry from the grossest manifestations of current government stupidity and tyrannical intent.

I also hope I am being realistic in hoping the movement has a grounding in the Constitution and an informed dedication to repairing the abuses against it. Would these folks fight for ending no-knock entry? Civil confiscation of property? Traffic checkpoints? Would they reject substituting "reasonable suspicion" for "probable cause" in Fourth Amendment matters?

I purposely omit mention of gun control, abortion, classroom prayer, gay marriage and similar three-alarm issues.

Discussing the lower-temperature matters first might lead to greater clarity on where they stand on the crucial point: Government by laws which do not offend the Constitution and which are administered by men and women who take their oath of office seriously and literally.

Detesting the works of President Barack Obama and most of our current legislators is an admirable stance and a good start. But it is not a substitute for policy.

The Cash Culture Dooms America

Nothing threatens orderly government and citizen safety like the great wads of cash increasingly carried by largely untrained Americans. Wouldn't it be a fine public service for the Bloomington (Indiana) Herald Times to identify dangerous persons who surreptitiously carry dozens of unregistered bills -- some of them valued at fifty dollars, some even more?

All authorities agree unregistered cash facilitates crime, from prostitution to drugs to tax evasion to moronic instant gratification. It should be reserved for trained experts, bankers, mortgage brokers, and members of the Congress of the United States.

I mention the Bloomington newspaper because, as Caleb reports, it has shown bold leadership in publishing the whereabouts of dangerous citizens, and I foresee much good if it expands it effort to those who refuse to limit themselves to credit cards, debit cards, and a few emergency coins for the pay toilets.

Imagine, a map of Bloomington blocks with several of those scuzzy little google-map location icons marking the vicinity of houses known to harbor folks who keep the most cash around.

The Roadworthy Travis McGee

Janine: "Oh how I hate that goddam car. That goddam stinking car. How I hate it!"

Travis: "Janine had nailed it. People hate their cars. Daddy doesn't come proudly home with a new one any more. ... We hate our cars, Detroit. Those of us who can possibly get along without them do so very happily. ... they are expensive, murderous machines, and they manage to look glassily contemptuous of of the people who own them. A (broken) car is something that (made Janine) whomp (her) youngest kid too hard and then feel ashamed...".

This McGeeism is available in its insightful entirety in Pale Gray for Guilt, p. 15 of the Fawcett printings.

Missing Smokey Joe

I'm not much for  ain't-that -nice nostalgia  but in this age of  the Regal Obama  I liked ths one:

"When Dave Beckwith was in fourth grade, he delivered newspapers to businesses and the government housing near the airport in Pierre, South Dakota. One afternoon he was pedaling toward the airport when he hit a pot hole, crashed his bike and spilled the newspapers all over the highway. 

Embarrassed but not hurt, he got up and started gathering the newspapers when a black limousine slowed to a stop, and a man got out of the back seat to help.

"Are you OK?" He asked as he began assisting Dave. The kind man stayed long enough to help Dave pick up the papers and make certain that he was OK.

Dave couldn't help but notice his license plate number when he drove away: "1." South Dakota Governor Joe Foss...".

(Who flew Mustangs, not Unicorns.)

Financial Management

Writing that latest post reminded me that it is cheaper these days to drill a hole in a penny (and sometimes a nickle)  than it is to buy a flat washer. I believe that will answer whatever other questions you may have about the American economy.

Damn the torpedos

Sixty years ago this month a crotchety misantrope name Ernest J. King had his career resurrected.  Eyeing war clouds, the Navy plucked him from a dead-end job, made him a three-star admiral and told him on the QT  to get ready to run the whole show.

About that time he remarked in public: "When the shooting starts, they call for the sons of bitches."  His daughter called him "the most even-tempered man in the Navy, always in a rage." Roosevelt declared he "shaved with a blow torch" then asked him nicely to go forth and win World War Two asea.

Admiral King's unpopularity  may have stemmed  from a tendency to candor.  In 1932, at the Naval War college, he wrote a paper: 

"...it is traditional and habitual for us to be inadequately prepared. Thus is the combined result of a number factors, the character of which is only indicated: democracy, which tends to make everyone believe that he knows it all; the preponderance ...  of people whose real interest is in their own welfare as individuals; the glorification of our own victories in war and the corresponding ignorance of our defeats ... and of their basic causes; the inability of the average individual (the man in the street) to understand the cause and effect not only in foreign but domestic affairs, as well as his lack of interest in such matters. Added to these elements is the manner in which our representative (republican) form of government has developed as to put a premium on mediocrity and to emphasise the defects of the electorate already mentioned."

It's easy to condemn the implied statism, but the good admiral nailed salient points -- the short-sighted selfishness of Mr. and Mrs. Voter, general ignorance, and the power-lust of demagogues.

Too bad he's not still around. He'd be a useful counterweight to Touchy-Feely Washington in the  super-spun Age of Obama. 

One more (Girls Galore)

A reader from the arid regions has been nagging on the subject, so here's Breda, a librarian with carrying tendencies. 

Librarians are okay. They work in places full of books that give people funny ideas and stuff, but I guess everybody's gotta make a living.

Need a Gun Safe?

How about the Big Bopper's casket? 

Coming on EBay

Too macabre for me. 

A Luddite's Delight

Avoiding the 21st Century at every opportunity is a good idea.* Yesterday another reason why occurred to me as I restocked the indoor wood bin. 

My Leaders have not figured out a way to tax the split oak and maple. That's pleasant  to think about while  lounging around the 80-degree cabin in a tee shirt, idly glancing out the window once in a while to confirm the massive failure of global warming.

*The 20th wasn't much either, but it nearly redeemed itself with  John M. Browning, Kim Novak, and the Twinkie.

Passing Mention

 "Call-in-gay" day  limped in and out without much notice.   I hear They are trying to broaden their demographics. Stand by for call-in-fey day.