Woke up about 3:30. Followed usual pre-dawn routine anyway. Scan the AP and Reuters reports. Pour a cup of coffee. Plug in teevee just in time to catch the intro to "Way too Early."
Barnicle (subbing for Annoyingly Smiley Kid Willie) all excited about the seas off Iran where Dinner Jacket's patrol boat passes close to U.S. war ship. Worries about accidental war. Teases that MSNBC will report later from the "deck of one of the battle ships" there in the gulf.
Battle ship turns out to be either a carrier or a tin can. Too bad. For a brief moment I thought maybe we had recommissioned the Iowa. No such luck, just teevee doing what it does best -- phucking up phacts
I know. Battle ships are so 1940s, and they cost like Hell. So what? Romance is worth something. Like Amos (Andy?) said, "It's just the yo ho ho of the thing." The price of admiralty. Great White Fleet. Murder's Row. All that.
---
About "accidental" war as a result of opposing ships playing chicken. I urge one and all to refamiliarize him-or-herself with that accidental Gulf of Tonkin deal. It's pretty disheartening.
But at least we can be thankful that we don't have an LBJ top-kicking our armed forces any more. We're blessed in this era with a commander-in-chief far too moral to consider that a spot of election-year war might divert voter attention from --ohhh, I dunno -- Solyndra, the flat national wallet, record number of folks on food stamps, his flip-flop on super PACs and subsidized contraception. Stuff like that.
Thank you for your kind attention. I am returning to my bed. Foetally. Thumb in mouth. Whimpering.
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 14, 2012
Let's go to the mall and be somebody
Travis McGee: A man with a credit card is a man in hock to his self-image.
Mine enemy grows older
The Commonwealth of Virginia is on the verge of repealing its one-pistol-a-month law, and the Washington Post is dribbling in its didies.
But to tell the truth, I'm disappointed in the Post. Once upon a time, any favorable mention of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment gave it a fat oaken erection, and you had an exhilarating fight on your hands to stave off hoplophobic rape.
Today, not so much. When an editorial resorts to a lame and frankly hysterical question to make its point, you know the Cialis has worn off and your once-feared enemy has become a pansy, hardly worth your attention.
Does the Second Amendment guarantee a right to purchase dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of deadly weapons each month?
Why, yes, in fact it does. If it were otherwise, Amendment One could easily be interpreted to limit insipid editorials to one a month. Useful, perhaps, but unconstitutional and therefore out of the question.
As to this business of "hundreds or thousands" of illegal handguns per month, simple economics refutes the possibility. No private thug could afford it -- or find it a profitable venture. (Cf. any respectable supply/demand treatise.)
In fact, the only major multiple-purchase thuggery we've heard much about these past few decades is that of Eric Holder, gun runner to the Mexican drug lords.
But to tell the truth, I'm disappointed in the Post. Once upon a time, any favorable mention of rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment gave it a fat oaken erection, and you had an exhilarating fight on your hands to stave off hoplophobic rape.
Today, not so much. When an editorial resorts to a lame and frankly hysterical question to make its point, you know the Cialis has worn off and your once-feared enemy has become a pansy, hardly worth your attention.
Does the Second Amendment guarantee a right to purchase dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of deadly weapons each month?
Why, yes, in fact it does. If it were otherwise, Amendment One could easily be interpreted to limit insipid editorials to one a month. Useful, perhaps, but unconstitutional and therefore out of the question.
As to this business of "hundreds or thousands" of illegal handguns per month, simple economics refutes the possibility. No private thug could afford it -- or find it a profitable venture. (Cf. any respectable supply/demand treatise.)
In fact, the only major multiple-purchase thuggery we've heard much about these past few decades is that of Eric Holder, gun runner to the Mexican drug lords.
Feb 13, 2012
Gun room Monday
It's shaping up to be a .30-06 kind of day. Thank the windy snow. It makes a warm gun room seem like a logical place to while away a few late-winter hours, fooling with rifles that shoot the only really necessary center-fire caliber.
I'll just wipe down the knockabout Stevens 110. The long-neglected 1903 makeover will advance with a bit of final polishing and fitting the Redfield peep so it will be ready for Jeff's bluing tanks.
Then on to the no-longer-a-mystery gun, the 1979 or 1980 Western Auto Revelation, a Mossy RM7 which followed me home from Minnesota a few weeks ago posing as an obscure Marlin turnbolt. (The mystery story, complete with gun porn, is here.)
It's already been fitted with a set of QDs and a nice cow-derived sling, leaving only the scope installation to be done and ready for my next grizzly hunt or TEOTWAWKI, which ever comes first.
There's a small quandary here. The Camp J arsenal has about four loose scopes on hand, and one of them is a NIB Revelation 4x32 from Rising Sun, Inc., a vintage piece which would give me a matched set, Revelation rifle, Revelation optics. Blecch, too cute, like mother-daughter matching pinafores. Besides, it could well be a piece of crap.
Then there's the stainless Simmons 4 x 32 from the Chinese paddies. Naah. A two-tone gun? Who wants to present himself as a gangsta mall ninja? Besides, the Simmons is almost assuredly a piece of crap. (Customary whine about the days when the Simmons marque meant something omitted.)
Leaving two possibles: A new Tasco 3x9x40 and a clean old Weaver K4. Decisions decisions. The Weaver is the tougher and more patriotic choice, of course, but I'll probably mount the variable. At 600 yards, nine power could be just what a fellow needs to distinguish between a turbaned terrorist and an odoriferous but otherwise harmless hippie in a do-rag.
I'll just wipe down the knockabout Stevens 110. The long-neglected 1903 makeover will advance with a bit of final polishing and fitting the Redfield peep so it will be ready for Jeff's bluing tanks.
Then on to the no-longer-a-mystery gun, the 1979 or 1980 Western Auto Revelation, a Mossy RM7 which followed me home from Minnesota a few weeks ago posing as an obscure Marlin turnbolt. (The mystery story, complete with gun porn, is here.)
It's already been fitted with a set of QDs and a nice cow-derived sling, leaving only the scope installation to be done and ready for my next grizzly hunt or TEOTWAWKI, which ever comes first.
There's a small quandary here. The Camp J arsenal has about four loose scopes on hand, and one of them is a NIB Revelation 4x32 from Rising Sun, Inc., a vintage piece which would give me a matched set, Revelation rifle, Revelation optics. Blecch, too cute, like mother-daughter matching pinafores. Besides, it could well be a piece of crap.
Then there's the stainless Simmons 4 x 32 from the Chinese paddies. Naah. A two-tone gun? Who wants to present himself as a gangsta mall ninja? Besides, the Simmons is almost assuredly a piece of crap. (Customary whine about the days when the Simmons marque meant something omitted.)
Leaving two possibles: A new Tasco 3x9x40 and a clean old Weaver K4. Decisions decisions. The Weaver is the tougher and more patriotic choice, of course, but I'll probably mount the variable. At 600 yards, nine power could be just what a fellow needs to distinguish between a turbaned terrorist and an odoriferous but otherwise harmless hippie in a do-rag.
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