Joel finds himself somewhat worried about new FAA regulations which could arm every Barney Fife in the nation with his own sky spy surveillance system -- straight optical, thermal, and, when the technology is ripe, x-ray for seeing through your bedroom curtains.**
Me too, but it may be an opportunity for some tech-savvy lad to start working on a new, affordable, man-portable air defense system. I'm thinking along the lines of a smart .22LR, 36-grain hollow point. With the proper digital internals -- fire and forget -- it would be just the thing for neutralizing cop-snoop-robots with a takeoff weight of six ounces, including the camera. I claim naming rights: The TMR Fourth Amendment Special. (C'mon. It isn't that much more linguistically awkward than, say, the .22/.30-30 Ackley Improved.)
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*Objectionably young readers may not get this. It's from the 1970s era of the national 55 miles per hour speed limit. which (a) turned every driver in America into a criminal and (b) almost single-handedly created the CB radio industry. "Breaker breaker one-nine, Bear in the air mile post 69 makin' eights." It meant a cop in a Cessna 150 was up there, timing you. It sounds best drawled out in Tennessean.
**Rick Santorum would love this X-ray bit. Seems the weather in Joel's desert empire is miserable, giving him time to point out gaspers like this. Rick proposes to use this presidency to improve your sex life, apparently by making sure you get less.
Feb 15, 2012
Way too Early Squirrley
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.
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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.
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 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.
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