Breakfast

May I invite your attention to bacon?  Particularly a very nice apple wood smoked bacon? At $1.389 per pound?

It is not the money savings. It is that the five-pound, $6.99,  box of  "ends and pieces"  has vastly more lean meat than any other bacon I can buy -- including even the excellent slab in the fresh meat case at my Fareway.  This judgement comes after using four boxes.

This stuff is excellent, and you can forget the usual  rationalization  that it's for salads and  crumbled pork recipes. Most  of it looks fine on a platter.

I don't know how widely it is distributed,  but if you are anywhere in the Midwest  look for a plain white cardboard box from Webster City Custom Meats, Inc. of Webster City, Iowa.

I am not a paid endorser, and,  no,  it is not available in a tactical container or  in bandoleer  battle packs.

Fear and Loathing in Chicago

The Chicago Tribune hasn't  yet been able to get Boss Daley's latest opinion on the mercy killing of his cherished  gun ban.*

But the Trib is on the streets with a fairly straightforward report of McDonald. Deliciously,  it reports Justice Alito's reference to legislative calls for the National Guard to be summoned to fight  Chicago criminals since Daley's mob  has obviously failed. The  paper also notes Alito's reference to the number of Chicago homicides this year which just happen to equal the number of American military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan for the same period. Then:




"If (the) safety of . . . law abiding members of the community would be enhanced by the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense, then the Second Amendment right protects the rights of minorities and other residents of high-crime areas whose needs are not being met by elected public officials, (Alito wrote.) "


This is beginning to sound like a mirror image of Arizona and Fremont, Nebraska.
They took local action against crime  because the federal government couldn't or wouldn't do its job.   In McDonald,  the federal judiciary justified federal  action  -- however indirect -- against local crime because  Chicago politicians had buggered the job. I know the parallel is strained, but the irony makes it worthwhile.


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*As a matter of reality, the ban applied exclusively to Daley's  law-abiding subjects.


   

McDonald -- got it

No surprises in the decision. Amendment Two applies to you where ever you are on American soil.

Just a passing note while we await the details. Mark Sherman of The Associated Press informs us:

"In doing so, the justices, by a narrow 5-4 margin, signaled that less severe restrictions could survive legal challenges. "


This saves us from the error of believing that it was a wide five-to-four decision, or a massive one, or a landslide.

It also reminds of of how many great minds still believe firearms should be reserved for the military, the cops, and the violent criminal class.

McDonald today?

The wires are reporting that McDonald will probably  come down from the Supreme Court his morning.  No surprise, of course.

Everyone and his horse predicts McDonald will rein in Chicago and all other state and local jurisdictions. It would formally extend the Heller principle  --  that the  Second Amendment   guarantees the individual right to armed self-defense -- to the entire nation. If it goes any other way we are well and truly augered.

One of the interesting speculations is whether the court will have taken note of D.C. attempts to  all but nullify Heller. Will the justices  offer some guidance on  where "reasonableness" ends as hoplophobic local governments try to maximize their power to  disarm the honest segment of the population?