Why I am not (quite) broke yet

Too much time yesterday was spent in trying to work up enough rage to  cremate a Keystone Pipeline story in the Washington Post. I'll get to it, but the mood this morning remains too mellow.  It's probably the creature comforts as raw weather sets in.

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Years ago a friend gave me a shirt, a thick, bright red mixture of wool and coal-tar derivatives, and it is still the treasured wardrobe king from October through March. It is just out of summer storage.

I sadly observed that it is missing a button. I regretted that I had no appropriate replacement in the button locker. I declined to drive to town to purchase a card of usable buttons for $x.99. So I called up my econometrical spread sheet on my electric computer and computed a viable alternative.

Even allowing for electrical costs; even carefully considering wear and depreciation of the drill press and bit,  it is an optimal fiscal solution. Thank you,  Mr. Bernanke.

N.B. Should the chosen cent bear a date earlier than 1982, the AlGorerithms  are significantly altered and you should go to town and buy a button.

Recommended

Kurt is doing especially well the past few days. There's a poll on which you can vote for Dr. Paul.  He does a very clean dissection of Mittens Romney.  He has a good report on another TSA act of FUBAR which I missed.  (Grandma hassled for bracelet charm.)

Go read, if you please.
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The S&W 645 makes me feel so tactical

I almost wish I lived close to a mall so I could dress up ninja and impress some girls wearing tattoos and chewing gum.

The SW is home, admired, and tested.

I expected one magazine and got four -- plus one of those high-fashion black nylon pouches that holds two spares back and forth instead of up and down. Tacticool.

I already had the tactically-tooled leather holster --  made it decades ago to a "speed scabbard" pattern for GI .45s. . It holds the Smith nicely but will benefit from a small  sight cutout. I needed to do that anyway for the GI here that carries adjustable Micros.

The field test:

-- Functioning was perfect with everything I tried, including semi-wadcutters. (The 645 is said to be a garbage disposal unit -- if your junk ammo won't work in anything else, shoot it in the Smith.)

--Excuse-wise, this gun hasn't been shot enough to wear off the proprietary Smith and Wesson burrs. It's rough, especially the DA trigger. The SA pull is nothing to brag about either.

--I am pleased no one witnessed this tryout session.

-- I consider the  hood of a pickup a bench rest analogue. So lean across, get a good two-hand hold, squeeze off factory loads carefully. Gotta see where the gun shoots, don't we?

--In my hands, all over the damned place, that's where. At 50 feet a string of five scattered low left over a good seven inches. I can fix the impact point. I can't even identify yet how to fix myself. Flinch? Jerk? Total cognitive breakdown? Motor skills eloped with O'Reilley's daughter?

--Repeating the hoody position with a load of home made 200-grain SWCs at a peppy 850 fps or so,  the results were better by about half an inch. It isn't the gun, nor the ammunition.

--Switching to the combat mode,  I moved in to 30 feet, took a Weaverish stance and banged off eight as quickly as I could reacquire the target -- a sheet of typing paper. Three in the kill zone,  two possibles, two that would have made him mad, and one clean miss. A couple of repeat strings had similar results.

Excuses: New gun. Very windy (the flimsy target holder moved a little).  Distracted by cows mooing in the nearby pasture. Libby emphasizing that I was making entirely too much noise. Lost concentration worrying about CERN failure to find Higgs Boson.

Proper reaction to excuses: Bull Roar, James. Go practice.

Crime in the Capital? Not a chance.

I lived in Washington-on-Potomac when Mayor Barry was in control, so I am shocked that Vincent Gray, current mayor of our federal city,  is under suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.

After all, the government of the District of Columbia is under the ultimate oversight of the United States Congress which, like the district itself, is heir to a two-century  tradition of truth, justice, and selfless public service.

As to former Mayor Barry, he seems to be doing right well for himself, having been fully  rehabilitated in federal prison. The later accusations of drunk driving, stalking,   tax cheating, official corruption as a city council member, and  a few other peccadilloes are undoubtedly the work racist liars in the Tea Party.