A Moment of Moderation

She shuffled around in in the road, eyeballing both my cabins, copying the  number of my single mail  box, and generally looking too interested in the  acre that is Camp J. Finally she came to the door to ask my address. Public information, so I told her. Then she asked the address of the other cabin. "The same, why do you ask?"

"I'm with the government. I'm mapping for the census." She showed me a badge-like gizmo.

I nodded, gave it some thought, and permitted her to leave uninjured., badge, data, authoritarian demeanor and all.

Back to the Future, Part 3

You should go meet Xavier if you haven't already. There are simply too few humans of such  impeccable taste and sensitivity.

Item:  He understands the sublime qualities of the 1911 (and the closer to JMB's original the better).  Not too uncommon among the bangnoscenti, but still praiseworthy. 

Item:  More important, he is installing a what he calls a "split prism" focusing screen in his electrical Nikon. In my day we called it a split-image screen, but who can get  hair-splittingly picky about minor matters of nomenclature when a certified  technocratic competent decides he will, by gawd, sometimes focus his  nukey image zapper MANUALLY!?

There is hope for America.

This paean was partially  conceived as an excuse for me to tell you all about the glorious Nikon F, but a couple of posts down from his split-image entry, X  already did that. He omitted only the truth that the Nikon F,  loaded  with Tri-X, marked the point at which photographic technology could have stopped dead  without the slightest disadvantage to the visual arts and sciences. And if that ain't solid-gold truth I'll kiss your butt  in front of   George Eastman's statue and give you an hour to conjure up the ghost of  Weegee. 

 

The Language of Leadership

His Obamaness says this morning: "...the threat of spreading swine flu infections is matter of concern but 'not a cause for alarm.' (AP)

Taking us back to the Clintonian conundrum of the meaning of "is."

Plastic Dreams

His Presidency is  meeting with credit card  titans -- the black hearted, child-eating pisspots spawned in the in fetid swamp and  nurtured  by the undead priests of the Spanish Inquisition. I think Obama actually believes something like that about them. Funny, so do I.

The Obamaness, however,  is about to screw things up again by pandering to what his constituents really want -- Plastic with unlimited credit; a Visa whose repayment terms are, "When ever you get around to it, ol' Buddy."  They really think it's possible.

A little history lesson is useful here. Perhaps 30 or 40  years ago a small Midwest state was enduring one of those periodical plagues of high populism.  So the moonbat governor and his leftie  legislature  wrote an excruciatingly detailed law about what credit card issuers could and could not do in the state.  Within months consumer credit all but dried up, and if you wanted a Diner's Club card you had to move to  Illinois or Minnesota  or some such hellhole.

The law was quickly (and all but unanimously)  repealed,  and once again rubes could make their  own decisions about how to use credit.

I don't suppose, though, that His Hopefulness will pay much attention to things like that. After all, he's giving us a New Beginning. 

(There are ways for Joe Sixpack  to beat the credit card bastards at their own game, and the  results are  better than anything Barney Frank could dream up to enstatuate. )