First up - Congress passes a law, screws troops to the wall. Of course, since it involves tobacco, many of them will just be pleased with this unintentional [one hopes] result. Of course, it was "for the children." It always is.
Update: Dang those unintended consequences...
Captain H sent along two fun ones.
New Toyz at Eurosatory Arms Show.
And Old Toyz (and the men who used them in WWI) at Big Foto. There are some glitches with some of the pics, and the captions don't always match - but I like the guy riding his bicycle at the train station with his Mauser broomhandle out and with the holster-butt attached. Don't hit a bump, bubba! Of course, he pretty much has to be an officer...
Read the rest here at Military.com.The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009 quietly took effect June 29. It cut off those care packages by effectively requiring that tobacco be sent with one particular kind of U.S. Postal Service shipping that requires a signature for delivery but does not deliver to most overseas military addresses.
Update: Dang those unintended consequences...
Lynn Becker, a spokeswoman for the bill's sponsor, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the law did not intend to restrict mailing tobacco to troops.
"Sen. Kohl's counsel is working with the legal office at USPS to determine whether there is an alternative to Express Mail that could be used to reach troops overseas," Becker said. "He's also working on a legislative fix to ensure that service members overseas can receive care packages that include tobacco products."
Kohl sent a letter to the Postmaster General asking him to change the regulations, because the bill also expressly permits the shipping of tobacco from adult to adult, including to military addresses.
Captain H sent along two fun ones.
New Toyz at Eurosatory Arms Show.
And Old Toyz (and the men who used them in WWI) at Big Foto. There are some glitches with some of the pics, and the captions don't always match - but I like the guy riding his bicycle at the train station with his Mauser broomhandle out and with the holster-butt attached. Don't hit a bump, bubba! Of course, he pretty much has to be an officer...
*yawn*
Latecomers. AAFES already does that.
The Iraqi pilots who come up here from Taji keep asking me why the PX/BX here "charges so much" -- they can buy the same cigs in the AAFES exchanges in Baghdad for five bucks *less* per carton. I have some guesses, but they're only guesses.
Tommy knows.
Do the Powers That Be really want to tempt some Uptonian Caesar-like person to cross whatever amounts to our Rubicon these days, with some right grumpy Legionaries who are very cranky due to nicotine withdrawal? Snork! (but kinda-sorta a little bit serious)
I assure you, I had some smart remarks and silly comments ready to go for the one with the good-looking gal and the tank.
Probably for the best.
MCart - if we're talking the same picture - the Broomhandle's magazine is integral, unless that's the "Schnellfeuer" version of the pistol.
JTG - It's not arbitrary, it's how Boq is doing his posts. I have an app that closes comments after 5 days in order to control comment spam. Boq has a tendency to pre-load several posts and sets them to publish at a later date. The comment cleaner app reads the "created on" date, not the "published on" date. I've submitted a suggestion to the guy who wrote the app to see if he could change that in the next version.
*places fingers on keyboard.....sees boot-shaped shadow looming overhead*
Ummm......nevermind.
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Signs up for remedial weapons identification.