Delayed spring

At 43.30 north, the ice persists, and the Kiwanis Club car hasn't broken through yet. (This is a plea for sympathy from readers in milder climes.)

The Associated Press Wins

All criticism of AP is hereby suspended until further notice because of Richard

Alonso-Zalvidar and his editor who report this morning that His Obamness' pants are on fire, or at least smoldering badly. For wonderment, the news in in the lead:

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.

In the nicest possible way the story details what we all know: The President is slinging bullshit, counting on the euphony of his practiced sound bites to trump his inattention to fact. It is a recommended read.

----

If I ever get around to writing my bodice ripper, I will, of course, portray the noble but misunderstood privateer captain as myself. My most faithful ally will be a gentleman of Castille, cast out of all Iberia for thoughtcrime against the Church and the Crowns. His name shall be Ricardo Alonso-Zalvidar. No other culture can match the Spanish for creating male names which march so nobly across the tongue.

Together we will sweep the seas of James Taggart's robber ships and, in the end, march ashore to destroy the looters. With victory in our hands, our second matter of civil priority will be to install John Galt as the first President (Provisional) of the Reorganized Republic of Latter Day Objectivists of the United States of America. (Our first order of business, obviously, will be official reinstatement of the Constitution of 1787. )

Creating the female lead has been troublesome. I first looked to the armed libertarian blog world due to the comeliness of its lasses. But could I motivate suspension of disbelief with Abby or Brigid or Johanna or Roberta or Tam in the obligatory scene the fair damsel swooning on the deck of of a Taggert frigate, tattered and trembling in agony at the thought of virtue about to be lost to the to the oily Commodore Wesley Mouch of The People's Naval Squadron?

I fear not. I fear that before I could leap from my quarterdeck to to the rescue, Mouch and all his henchmen would be draped bloodily across stancions, his would-be victim cooly fanning away the smoke from her flintlock. That would make the incomparable me quite superfluous, and that is simply unthinkable.

St. Patrick's Day, 2010

May every reader possess a lorica, spiritual and secular.

When toilets are outlawed...

Most of us are suspicious of laws destroying a citizen's Second Amendment rights for domestic spats petty enough to draw only a misdemeanor charge. For one thing, any motivated evildoer can find all the weapons she needs right around the house.

I was taken, however, with the creativity shown by one Ms. Johnson of Iowa City who is charged with domestic assault and interference with official acts.

"Johnson's sister and her sister's husband told police that Johnson, who had been living with them for the past two months, removed the toilet tank lid and struck her sister during an altercation."