Mar 12, 2012

Afghanistan -- Editors note

An incomplete post got away from me a little bit ago. I pulled it from the blog but it may appear in some RSS etc. feeds. It's now finished but isn't quite "right," so it's tucked away for revision. Nevertheless,  the posts on which it is based rate mention.  Must-reads, if you ask me.

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Tam dissects our domestic bed-wetting in the wake of the Afghan killings. Because a staff sergeant snapped,  our longstanding wise and productive diplomacy in Afghhanistan is imperiled.

Roberta adds essential background. Brutally condensed, it suggests that the Great Western Powers have done bully work in restoring the spirit of the Dark Ages west of the Khyber Pass.

Wells Loophole AAR

My local gang of loopholers totalled six, spread out over three generations.  The youngest came home with a tactical pocket knife and a nicely carved sling shot, featuring a bear's head fashioned from a nub where the forks joined.  The poor kid had to listen to the grandpas tease him about taking them to school for show and tell like we used to do.

Perhaps a stainless steel object which could have been -- but wasn't -- fitted with a shoulder thingy that goes up might have found its way into a certain vehicle.  (My, don't we get weasel wordy in these days when we suspect the gendarmery trolls the internet,  tirelessly alert for words suggesting badthink among the proles.)

Anyway, us older proles settled for non-bangables. In the trove is an early-1940s book co-written by Melvin Johnson (yep, that Johnson). It's a detailed guide to ammunition of the world as it existed before John F. Kennedy was (allegedly) suspected of balling a German spy and sent off to wreck PT boats in the Solomons. The book went to a comrade, and I am jealous...

...Jealous but content, satisfied with seeing old acquaintances, having a few laughs, and scoring exactly $10 worth parts which solved a cursing, hair-pulling problem.  I recently wrote a bit  here about scoping that Mossberg/Varberger .30-06. I'd have sworn I had the correct parts on hand, so I screwed them on. Lovely except for the bolt making minute contact with the scope. Teeth gnashed, and I was frustrated enough to consider dragging out the angle grinder and butchering the offending 1/16th inch from the bolt handle. Or, Hell, maybe the scope. I had a tot of Tullamore  Dew instead.

That rare, correct judgement was rewarded in Wells. A dealer's junk box yielded a ring and base set which looked right, and was. That helped pass an internet-free day yesterday, and I happily report the Mossy is now reliably scoped and  bore-sighted. Just in time for spring gopher season. Always use enough gun.

Mar 10, 2012

Check Point Charlie

We leave Hawkeye free soil on Highway 86, about 10 miles south of thriving Lakefield in the Minnesota SSR. There, we either disarm ourselves or become felons.

While we honor Minnesota carry permits, they scorn ours. So we must go barehanded to the big Wells loophole-in-the-school, at the mercy of any Ole-and-Lena biker gang bent on robbery and murder to finance their lutefisk habit. Pray for us.

Mar 9, 2012

Good morning, America

1. The day of glory arrives. It is a moveable feast. Let history record that on March 9, 2012 C.E. the  Master of Camp J, having read prophets in the Book of Aerology, ceremonially unplugs the heat tape.

2. Attention Willie Geist: It's none of your damned business why I'm up so early. I know. The marketing psychologists told you the way to maintain viewership is to get your audience *involved" with your show. Make them *part* of it by giving them an *ownership stake.*  Look, son, I don't want to own your program. I don't want to participate in any manner at all. I don't care to be your buddy. I want you to sit your eflin butt down behind a desk and read me the news off your teleprompter.  I don't need your clever exchange with the weather guy or your guesses about basketball games. (One concession. If you want to have some papers to shuffle on your desk so as to look more like a really studious and concerned journalist, why, I guess that's okay.)

3. The news this morning seems to be that  the Glory that was Greece is back.. Works like this: You loaned Athens a hundred bucks. Athens promised to pay it back. Athens then decided payback would be inconvenient. So you had your Travis McGee conundrum -- settle for half or take a dead loss. More technically, you had to trade your hundred-dollar IOU for a 50 dollar IOU, backed by colllateral identical to the original: the integrity and competence of Greek politicians.

4. Actually, we get two glory days in a row. Tomorrow is the big loophole in Wells, Minnesota. We may or may not loophole anything lethal, but it's always a pleasant pilgrimmage. Imagine. Hundreds of tables of death insturments in many calibers, most of them capable of bringing down a J3 Cub.  And they're all on display in a school. True, this travesty explains Wells' reputation for rivers of blood and streets of gore, but you can't have everything.