All politics is local,

not to mention bloated.

The census snoopers credit  Smugleye on Lake with 341 residents as of last summer.

My SOL neighbors and I are supervised by 21 local officials, elected and appointed. That's one superintendent for every 16.23 citizens. It works out to something like  five houses per regulator, so  they could check us all every day,  just to make sure we aren't feeding the stray cat  or replacing windows without a building permit.

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*This doesn't count cops. We  pay the county sherf to hold down crime in Smugleye.

Fancy that: Merchant of Death to Advise Obama

A veteran Ruger executive is about to join the Obama team.

The Ruger news release:


Kim Pritula, Director of Export/ATF Compliance & Security, has been appointed to the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration (PECSEA).  


Sounds okay to me. She's been with Sturm Ruger some 30 years, helping the bosses navigate the Kafka novels which make up ATF and other Washington rules about who can sell what to whom. But maybe it would have been better if the Ruger flack had ended the release right there, because:

“Kim has a very unique talent and passion for export regulation and plays a critical role in the Sturm, Ruger organization,” said Ruger President and CEO Mike Fifer. 


Well, I'm pleased for you, too, Kim. It is a personal achievement. However the quote your PR guy made for President Fifer begs a point some of us find important. Is it actually a good thing to hold  "a passion for export regulation?"   We libertarian scallywags tend to think of regulation as, at best, a sometimes necessary evil to be treated about like a spitting cobra sharing your howdah.

It would be picky these less-literate days to sigh over your "very" unique talent and passion.  Better we should spend our effort finding another word to mean the only one in the world -- a new one that will serve until  public relations guys and advertising copywriters start loading it up with modifiers until it, too, deteriorates  to just another word for "somewhat unusual."

Anyway, it's nice to know someone from the firearms industry is functioning in high councils of government, so congratulations.

(My spies tell me the Tune-In is still the most pleasant bar on Capitol Hill.)

And, speaking of morons

Roberta takes some of that class of vertebrates to task, specifically His Obamness with his plans to give us all free high-speed wireless internet. To make it happen,  Washington will need to  enact a new law of physics requiring five-pound pots to contain ten pounds of  (euphemism). Otherwise it will be only sorta free.

If you liked him as Trapper John,

you'll love him as a businessman and occasional commenter on the way in which we permit ourselves to be misgoverned.

...(Wayne) Rogers laments the lack of credit available to small- and medium-sized businesses for which he blames the "infinite stupidity" of policymakers in Washington D.C.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the "morons" in Congress crafted a financial reform bill Rogers says isn't worth the paper it's printed on. He's also extremely critical of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for helping the "too big to fail" banks, which are now bigger than ever and control a greater portion of the nation's assets vs. before the crisis.

Somebody should send him a "Klinger for President" tee shirt. He'd probably wear it.