Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).
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7:30PM, Dole Institute of Politics, KU Campus, Lawrence, KS - be there or be square. Since they're giving me a free dinner - I have chosen not to wear MU colors...
Politics - (Not related to the Dole bit above). I survey the political landscape and I wonder whothehelk am I going to support, much less vote for. As I've stated earlier, I'm leery of people as President whose only executive experience is their legislative office. A President has to make decisions in a manner that overall is a synthesis of personal leadership, communal deliberation (the legislative process) and the antithesis of that deliberation: "I gotta choose this minute, on minimal data, what to do." The latter really doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's usually a critical choice. More often, that choice is "I have to decide quickly, and still on inadequate information." And Presidents bear the responsibility for those decisions without the "group liability" escape that being a legislator offers. Heh. They get blamed for the results of bad policy-making thrust on them by those legislators, in ways that legislators never do - and they can't duck it, even if the legislation was imposed over a veto. No one in the current environment really speaks to me - but I admit, this bit from last month by Theo Caldwell in the Canadian National Post struck a nerve:
An obvious choice can be unnerving. When the apparent perfection of one option or the unspeakable awfulness of another makes a decision seem too easy, it is human nature to become suspicious.
This instinct intensifies as the stakes of the given choice are raised. American voters know no greater responsibility to their country and to the world than to select their president wisely. While we do not yet know who the Democrat and Republican nominees will be, any combination of the leading candidates from either party will make for the most obvious choice put to American voters in a generation. To wit, none of the Democrats has any business being president.
This pronouncement has less to do with any apparent perfection among the Republican candidates than with the intellectual and experiential paucity evinced by the Democratic field. "Not ready for prime time," goes the vernacular, but this does not suffice to describe how bad things are. Alongside Hillary Clinton, add Barack Obama's kindergarten essays to an already confused conversation about Dennis Kucinich's UFO sightings, dueling celebrity endorsements and who can be quickest to retreat from America's global conflict and raise taxes on the American people, and it becomes clear that these are profoundly unserious individuals.
It's an op-ed, so of course it reads with a touch of bombast, but... it touches a nerve.
Because who we pick does matter, a lot, and not just to us. Ask the Iraqis and Afghans, Serbs and Kosovars, and the entire world economy... Sigh. H/t, Mike L. -the Armorer
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Gunner would like a word with you guys...
Hiya! Hiya! Hiya! I just wanna let ya know that I really am fine after my big acting job adventure where I made the Big Hairy Tribble the Big Lump in the Lounger flounder through the snow and rescue me from that prop mean ol' trap! But thanks for caring! Really! Honest! Honest! Honest! Ooo - izzat a squirrel? Gotta run! Gotta run! Gotta run! - Gunner
Heh. Boys. -Kiki
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Frequent commenter and fellow gun-blogger Rivrdog has been having some trouble sleeping, which has been causing him to ruminate on the 2nd Amendment, resulting in this post on the topic. Discuss. -the Armorer
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American Thinker has a toothsome chewy bit on how the glut of information provided by the Internet (and sites like this one... and American Thinker) can actually drown out truth and fact. Good stuff to exercise your brain with. H/t, Cannoneer #4, who's becoming a provider of that stuff, too... One thought about trying to compete with Wikipedia, which does have credibility issues, especially on "hot topics" (and it's from all sides of the spectrum) is how do more conventional encyclopedia producers compete on the 'net with free info? And who fact-checks them? Good stuff to noodle on. -the Amorer
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
*Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone."
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