Funny sorta day...

The clouds blew out of here - temporarily, from the looks of things - around eleven. And I do mean blew.

I've often said that our little patch of paradise only has four kinds of weather:

*Too damn cold
*Too damn windy
*Too damn hot
*Too damn wet

Not that it has to be only one of those at any given time. This morning, as is often the case when it's cloudy overnight, the temperature was quite moderate. But when the wind started howling, the reading on a thermometer really stopped mattering. I went over to Landlady's this morning to wash some clothes, and by the time I finished a load the notion of hanging it on a line outside was ridiculous. I need those clothes, and don't want to donate them to Wyoming. I had trouble just getting it out of the washer intact.

I once saw wind so strong that it blew a car down the street, without benefit of driver. Of course that was at the height of a Florida hurricane. I'm assuming it was a manual and the poor schmuck forgot to set the brake. I was just a little kid, and at the time I was impressed. This morning, from a clear blue sky, the wind sent a gallon gasoline jug flying across my yard. While it was full of gas. What's the drag coefficient on a plastic gasoline jug? I'm guessing not that high. It knocked over a wheelbarrow of firewood - okay, they're pretty unstable anyway. It knocked over both burn barrels. My little cabin is smoky, because the smoke can't always make it up the pipe. The Secret Lair is framed with 2X6 lumber on concrete pilings - occasional gusts make it shake. And I'm down in a hollow. On top of Landlady's ridge, actual property damage is not unusual when the wind gets to acting up.

Not even Ghost wants to go outside today.

Post fast!

Cloudy morning. Inverter's crying like a little girl. Maybe later, but gotta go now.

Just a couple of quick things...

I was in a hurry yesterday, 'cause M and Landlady wanted to go to town and there was Mexican food involved, which meant I wanted to go to town. But I want to thank Donkey Buster and Claire for the great care packages. DB, the boys asked me to especially thank you.

Also, yesterday was a great (followed quickly by not so great, but never mind) day for M AKA Ian, because...

He finally got the letter from the principal permitting him to keep and bear this fine piece of WWI British engineering right here. Yup, his first gun with a giggle switch. He happy.

Unfortunately before LL and I got to play, he also suffered his first ever case mouth separation and we didn't have an extractor between us. So (sob) back to the city it goes. But it did go bang in a satisfyingly rapid manner, for a disappointingly short time.

Look what I got!

Claire just sent me this, courtesy of a reader who has her email addy and not mine.

Thanks, MJR! This is going on the sidebar somewhere, fer shur.

UPDATE: And another...

And look what the Landlady Express brought me today! (Thanks, Claire! I'm making a signpost for this.)

Did you ever notice...

...that when somebody describes himself as a "law-abiding citizen" there's always this tone of pride? I'd go so far as to call it smug. You can hear the "I don't have anything to hide, so I don't have anything to fear" subtext.

Yeah. How'd that work out for you, Mark?

On December 15, 2011 at approximately 5:15 a.m., I was at LaGuardia International airport preparing to check in for a flight out of the city. During a routine check-in, I requested a firearms declaration form from the ticket agent. It was my intent to declare and check my unloaded firearm.

I purchased this firearm legally, and I have a valid concealed carry permit for it issued in California. The unloaded gun was locked inside a TSA-approved travel case, and the case was locked inside my checked luggage. I carry the firearm for my personal safety, having received numerous threats due to my role in the Tea Party Patriots. I have checked this firearm at airports dozens of times before, all across the country.

As I traveled through LaGuardia that morning, I passed TSA signs telling me I had the right to check this unloaded firearm in my luggage, and that I am required by law to declare the firearm to the ticketing agent. This is exactly what I did.

Aaaand that's when he learned what handcuffs feel like.

And I know I should be more sympathetic. No, he didn't do anything wrong. Yes, he was abused. In addition to the time, expense, humiliation and fear, he probably lost a nice handgun. I don't know anything about him, but can't quite picture him tooling around the country with a Hi-Point. Don't write and tell me I should be more sympathetic, because I know that.

But at LaGuardia? in NYC? Seriously? You walked up to a counter and announced "I have a gun?"

Seriously?

Mark, welcome to America. Where've you been all this time?

Friday the Thirteenth gets off to a good start...

Got freakin' cold last night. For the first time since we moved into the Lair the temperature on the ground floor was in the thirties. High thirties, but still. Oddly, the Lair's water didn't freeze. Took forever for the fire to get the ground floor temp into a decent place, which is why I've developed the habit of reading in the loft in the morning.

LB went out on his cable and promptly got very excited about something desperately in need of chasing down the wash. Ghost went to look and clearly saw nothing. LB, per tradition, wrapped his cable around a tree. Later he settled down, or seemed to. I unclipped the cable from him, he headfaked toward the cabin door, then lit afterburners and disappeared down the wash, Ghost right behind. I got suckered.

Yeah, I went and looked for them but their tracks disappeared into the brush. It's been half an hour and I haven't seen or heard a sign of them. Hopefully they'll come back. Second prize, I get a call from D&L. Booby prize, my worst fears come true and I never see them again.

Sometimes I feel bad about keeping LB confined all the time. Then he takes the first momentary opportunity to remind me why I do. I do not beat that dog enough.

UPDATE: Well, that's an improvement. Got them back and it didn't even involve phone calls. Ghost came home alone, which isn't too unusual - he always remembers where he lives. He attacked the water bowl and then wanted right back out. Sometimes he narcs on Little Bear, so I paid attention to what he was paying attention to. He went haring off in what turned out to be a random direction, though, and after I followed him for ten or fifteen minutes LB came lumbering up from behind me. Figures.

From the looks of his hairy ass, which is now browner than black, LB had another of his, er, intestinal incidents so maybe I'm glad he took care of that out in the boonies. That dog can really mess up a yard.

Now I can get on with shit-shoveling and (hopefully, if the ground thaws just a little bit) clean up the awful mess LB made of Gitmo before Landlady comes this weekend.

Okay, now I'm scared.

I don't completely mind waking up with ridiculously dated songs in my head. The really bad ones are kind of entertaining. I wonder about the dreams I can't remember, though - something's putting these things in my head.

But, see, now I've got a problem. A couple of days ago I pissed off Catholic readers with one ill-chosen word. After this, what are the gays gonna want to do to me?

Mother and Son, a portrait.

I just need to put this tattoo on your arm. Don't worry, it's for your privacy.

Stop worrying, you stupid privacy freaks. The commerce department isn't even part of the government.

Seriously.

STANFORD, Calif.--President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

Really? You think that's going to reassure anybody?

Oh, it gets better.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system.

Mr. Locke, either you fell on your head as a child or you think everybody else did. The government is "centralizing efforts" to enhance our privacy by ending it, to create an ID system which is "not a national ID card" because cards won't be involved, and "we are not talking about a government-controlled system" because, um ...

And of course...

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential, if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

File that with all the promises our grandparents heard about the income tax.

"There's no chance that 'a centralized database will emerge,'..." Fixed it for you, there, Schmidt. You're right about one thing, though: "...anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet." You bet your ass it will. That ship has sailed. Nobody trusts you, or the horse you rode in on.

H/T to KurtP.

The kid is all right.

He's gonna flunk the fifth grade, but he's all right.

by Daphne

A question on my fifth grader’s math worksheet.

The Jones family ate dinner out last Sunday. The bill was $25.50. Mr. Jones left a 50% tip. Do you think this is too much? Explain your answer,

His complete answer.

I honestly don’t care how much he paid.

Precisely.

H/T to John Venlet

CSGV has hurt and offended me. I'm a VICTIM!!

Aww! Diddums get your candles laughed at?

It seems the Coalition to Promote Victim Disarmament doesn't like gunbloggers' reaction to their candlelight photo opportunities. Missing the point entirely, they named the names of those bad, bad people.

And missed mine, which pisses me off. Not that I did more than link the original work of others, but still - isn't it the thought that counts? Hey, CSGV! Where's the hate? I'm evil, too!

H/T to Sebastian.

Songs I kinda think I shouldn't like, but do...

Today over at WRSA I saw a clip of that scene in Casa Blanca where, to drown out a bunch of evil vicious singing Nazis, the band and all the patrons of Rick's Café Américain break out into La Marseillaise.

And that got me to thinking about the song, which is one of those things that always get me right in the liberté, égalité, fraternité muscle, even though I'm not remotely French.



Makes me want to rush right out with my musket, form regiments and slaughter me some Prussians sans culottes, y'know? And I don't even particularly dislike Prussians*. I've always felt kinda like I'm betraying some principle every time I get a tear in my eye over it, since somehow the poor thing managed to become a sort of commie anthem, and I'm pretty sure I'm not remotely commie, either - I even heard it in China once. But I still like it.

Another example of this is Ave Maria, which is just damned near the most beautiful song I ever heard and I'd be surprised to learn I've had any Catholic ancestors since my Irish ones swam across the pond. And even if I were Catholic I'd probably still feel a little squeamish about Mariolotry, which (sorry, my Catholic friends) makes no sense at all in the context of Christianity.

But still...wow...



Guess I just ain't got no philosophical purity. After I betray the revolution and set myself up as President-for-Life, I'll have myself shot.

---
*This could possibly have to do with my never having met one. Pre-1947 I'm sure they were properly despicable, one and all. Even the little baby ones.

Well, they are good questions...

I won't hold my breath for the answers, though...



H/T to Codrea.

And yet, they defend it...

Hey, remember the TSA cupcake kerfuffle from a few weeks ago? No, of course you don't - there've probably been a thousand real outrages since then.

Yeah, but you cynical TSA-bashers should all be ashamed of yourselves. Ashamed, I say! Now that they've explained it, it's all so simple!

Just shut up, remove your shoes, belt, clothing, cupcakes and integument, drop them in the bin, and step through the Magic Irradiation Device.

This is done purely for the safety of everyone traveling.

"Modicum," perhaps?

See, this is why I don't miss TV, right here...

Naturally they'll still be available to representatives and senators...

Schumer says answer to armed robberies in pharmacies is to ban new painkillers.

No, I didn't entirely make that up.

ALBANY, N.Y. – Following fatal shootings in two New York pharmacy robberies, a U.S. senator is warning that a new batch of "super painkillers" now under review could force repeats of recent violent robberies that left six people dead.

"It's tremendously concerning that at the same time policymakers and law enforcement professionals are waging a war on the growing prescription drug crisis, new super-drugs could well be on their way, flooding the market," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The FDA needs to grab the reins and slow down the stampede to introduce these powerful narcotics."

What can you even say? They keep re-electing the schmoe.

Makes perfect sense to me.

"Candles Don't Stop Violence."

Hee. "The Brady Campaign ... has created too many victims."

I don't happen to have a candle, but...

Here you go, Weer'd.

I can go with that...

Now that the activists have pretty much killed concealed carry bans (even in the current PC "law-abiding citizen" version requiring CCW licenses) and are doing so well that "constitutional carry" is not only not an absurd idea but actually a reality in a growing number of states, let's start agitating for a stake driven through the heart of NFA34!

I wanna shoot guns like Oleg Volk's when I grow up!



H/T to Linoge.