Unintended Consequences, Part MCVII

Oh, the irony here is so delicious!

Animal Rights Activist Refuses to Let Bow Hunter Retrieve Dead Deer (L.A. Times)

After shooting the deer, the hunter tracked it onto private property. He knocked on the front door and asked permission to retrieve the deer. The property owner, Lynn Gorfinkle, who is CEO of the Animal Rights Alliance, refused. Here's my favorite part:

So the carcass remains in the Gorfinkles' yard, where it has been since Oct. 2. Lynn hopes that other animals will eat it because it is too big to bury.

"If someone's going to eat that deer, I want it to be natural predators, not some hunter," she said.

Her actions, meanwhile, may mean the death of another deer. "Since the hunter did not recover the deer, he did not need to tag it and it doesn't count toward his bag limit," [DEP spokesman] Dennis Schain told Outposts.

h/t Snowflakes In Hell.

Dogs And Cats Living Together ...

... human sacrifice! Mass hysteria!

I missed this report from 2007 - NRA teams up with ACLU:

In a report issued in February, the Texas affiliate of the National Rifle Association joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition “to spotlight unlawful, unnecessary governmental encroachment on average law-abiding citizens.”

The report, “Above the Law: How Texas prosecutors are placing their own judgment over that of the Legislature and the law of the land,” found that district and county attorneys had instructed police officers to “unnecessarily” interrogate drivers and arrest them or take their weapons, “even if they are legally carrying the gun.”

“It’s all the self-interest of the job,” said Scott Henson, a civil liberties advocate and blogger who wrote the report. Mr. Henson contends that police officers are opposed to citizens’ carrying guns and that prosecutors depend on gun charges to strengthen weak cases and prompt plea bargains.

Great Ride

Today was a perfect biking day. High 69 degrees, winds calm, clear sky. I rode out to milepost 26 and back, a round trip of 60 miles. Took six hours, plus an hour for lunch. I probably burned close to 3,000 calories.


As usual, Sheba the Queen of Milepost 13 was on patrol.


A happy cat and a warm spot of sunlight.

Ahhhhhh!

World's Youngest Terrorist

She's on the No-Fly List. She's four years old.

h/t The Volokh Conspiracy.

A Unique M1 Garand

Well, possibly.
The photo caption says:

Garand Mle 1936
Mounting in English beech of 1942.
The weapon was parachuted has the resistance "of Glières", close to Annecy, in 1943
It does not have markings of American property.
Photos send by "Alain"

If verified that would be outstanding. Unfortunately, there is no close-up photo of the receiver.

La Glorieuse Pipe Gun

Those Belgians have all the fun! This one fires .22 - the tiny pin in the stem is the trigger.

More hidden guns.

h/t Say Uncle.

Heller, Miller and the Coen Brothers

I was looking at some of the comments to the Heller decision, and I got linked back to the Volokh Conspiracy thread about the case. Here's one I missed, from commenter Letalis Maximus, Esq.:

The ultimate fate of the Miller case is a good example of why the federal public defender system is such a good idea. If Miller and Layton had been represented by a public defender, they would have had a brief filed on their behalf at the Supreme Court, and the public defender would have carried on the fight back at the district court after remand. As it was, the government basically got a default judgment and after remand Miller was already dead and, as far as I have been able to learn, Layton had R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

Mixing Miller and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Excellent!

Slow Day For News

Noted Toy Collector Dies

Fifteen Manliest Smells

Very interesting and fun! From "The Art Of Manliness".

The first fifteen are from the article and the rest are from the comments section. I bolded the smells that really remind me of my dad or my grandfathers:

1. Hardware Store
2. Shoe Polish
3. Cut Grass
4. Sawdust
5. Scotch whiskey
6. Gunpowder and fireworks
7. Original Old Spice aftershave
8. Campfire
9. Barbershop
10. Pipe smoke
11. Leather
12. Your Grandpa's chair
13. Gun Cleaning solvent
14. Charcoal
15. Bowling Alley
16. A construction site
17. Hot solder and vacuum tubes
18. A warmed-up Lionel transformer
19. Burning autumn leaves
20. Bondo
21. Cement mixed in a wheelbarrow
22. Coffee
23. Outboard motor exhaust
24. Old books
25. Bacon
26. The interior of a wooden sailboat (rope, sail, varnish, stale air)
27. Grandpa's garage: gasoline, oil, mown grass and sawdust
28. Gunk (lanolin-scented hand degreaser)

h/t Better and Better.

Re-Examining My Investment Portfolio

They say that every investor should put his portfolio into order about once a year. For me that's easy! Here's my investment portfolio before:



And here it is after:

Everything I will need for a quarter-century of comfortable retirement, all in one convenient spot!

Not shown: coffee and ammo - neither will fit in picture without wide-angle lens.

The Appleseed Project

As soon as I no longer have to work every weekend, I'm going to do an Appleseed shoot. It sounds like great fun with a lot of like-minded people.

I was perusing their schedule and I was delighted to discover that they have scheduled over a dozen events next weekend alone! From Maine to California, and from Wabash to El Paso.

The Appleseed Project.

Funny Political Ad

They wouldn't be running an ad like this if their research didn't show that Mayor Bloomberg was widely disliked all over Virginia. The ad doesn't even mention McDonnell's opponent. You'd think that McDonnell was running against Bloomberg; that's how strong the antipathy is.

All Hail Sheba, Queen Of The Jungle!

Each and every time I pass through Falls Church on the W&OD bike path, there is this black cat who is patiently patrolling a 100-yard-long area to keep it free of field mice and other vermin. She deigned to pose for this portrait:

Here's a brief kinetoscope of life on the trail:

Torpedoes And Cloisonné

I spent an hour wandering the Torpedo Factory this afternoon. They made torpedoes here until just after WWII. Here's one; it's about twenty feet long:


Now the building is an art center, with painters, sculptors, potters, weavers, photographers and jewelers. The pottery gallery next to the big green torpedo is called, what else, "Fire One":


This sculptor works with tin cans. This is "The Center Of The Known Universe":


It's about seven feet in diameter.


I woulda bought it but it won't fit in my car.


I passed by an artist using dozens of little plastic spoons. He explained that he was making cloisonné.


The spoons contain pigments that he is selecting for the process. He is making oval cameos. He starts with a solid silver sheet and cuts an oval from it for the base. Using gold ribbon, he builds a design on the base. The gold ribbon will separate the pigments.


He is working on the gray panel in this picture. The colored beads show him what the pigments will look like after they are fired.


There are also big fish:


And landscapes:


The Torpedo Factory is located on the mighty Potomac. Here's a view out the rear window:


This is a view across the street from the main entrance. Suitably funky, don't you think?

81-Year-Old Man Kills Masked Burglar

From the Mobile, Alabama Press-Register:

By Connie Baggett
October 13, 2009, 6:15AM

BREWTON -- An 81-year-old man shot and killed a masked gunman during a home invasion early this morning at a residence north of Brewton, Escambia County Sheriff Grover Smith said.

The sheriff said the robber had been released from a Nebraska jail just two days before he was killed.

...

The shooting will be presented to the grand jury, Smith said, but the sheriff said he doubted the homeowner would face any charges.

"The man was in his home, in bed with his wife, and he acted in self-defense," Smith said. "And as far as the wife, she had armed herself with a shotgun by the time I got there."

h/t Say Uncle.

"The Only Trouble Is..."

"...you gave me the missiles before I gave you the sanctions. And that's not good business. So off you go."

Hillary and Barack get body-slammed by the Kremlin. Reminds me of the classic Monty Python sketch about the charity worker (Terry Jones) trying to get a donation from a rich banker (John Cleese):

Jones: Would you like to contribute to the orphans' home, sir?

Cleese: Orphans' Home, is it? Jolly good! We here at Slater-Darcy have been rather keen to get into orphans – growing market and all that. What sort of amount did you have in mind?

Jones: Well, you are a very rich man, sir.

Cleese: Quite right! I am a rich man. Very, very, very, very, very very rich. What a bright little fellow! Yes, I do own the most startling quantities of cash.

Jones: [rattling cup] Well, how about a pound, sir?

Cleese: A pound? I see. And this loan would be secured by a ....

Jones: [interrupting] It's not a loan, sir.

Cleese: It's what?

Jones: It's not a loan, sir, it's a gift.

Cleese: A what?

Jones: A gift. [holding out “I Gave” button] You get one of these.

Cleese: [examining it] Bit small for a shares certificate, isn't it? Look, I wonder if I could just run this over to our Legal Department and if you could possibly pop back in on Friday...

Jones: Oh, sir, couldn't you just give me the money now?

Cleese: Yes, but, you see, I have to know what the money is for.

Jones: Well, you give me the pound, and then I go and give it to the orphans.

Cleese: Oh, I see! A tax dodge!

Jones: No, sir. It's not a tax dodge.

Cleese: Look, I don't want to seem stupid, but it seems like I'm a pound down on the whole deal.

Jones: You are, sir!

Cleese: Then what is my incentive to give you the money?

Jones: It's to make the orphans happy.

Cleese: Happy? [long pause] Look, are you sure you've got this right?

Jones: Sure, lots of people give me money.

Cleese: Hmmm. I don't suppose you have a list of their names and addresses, do you?

Jones: No, sir, I just go up to them on the street and ask.

Cleese: Good Lord! That's the most exciting new idea I've heard in years! Why it's...it's so simple it's brilliant! If that's not worth a pound I'd like to know what is!

Jones: Thank you, sir! [holds out cup]

Cleese: The only problem is, you gave me the idea before I'd given you the pound, and that's not good business.

Jones: It's not?

Cleese: No. So off you go! [opens trapdoor under Jones]

You don't make concessions and then go to the negotiating table! You make concessions at the negotiating table!

Too much education and not enough experience.

The Big Five-Oh!

Went for a fifty-mile bike trip today. It took about six hours, five if you only include the actual biking, 'cause I stopped for an hour for lunch.

Here's a look at the vehicle:
The rear pannier bag carried an MRE, thermos of hot coffee, water bottle and rain poncho. In the front handlebar bag is a first aid kit, pepper spray, tire pump, ID and CHL, keys, phone and $20 bill. The tool kit has a spare tube, patch kits and tire tools, tire gauge and the usual things. The front pannier rack is held to the front fork by six homemade clamps. First gear is a real "stump-puller" that allows the rider to climb hills so steep that you have to lean sharply forward so that the bike won't topple over backwards.

No, I do not wear those goofy tight bike pants. I need pants with a belt.

Is this an impossibly-blue sky, or what?



Let's see if I can imbed a GPS map here:




Hey, it worked! The blue line represents my trip home, except for a 3/4-mile GPS failure (yellow line).

Great Acceptance Speech

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman fantasizes that Pres. Obama travels to Oslo on Dec. 10th to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. He steps up to the lectern... and declines the honor. Then he adds:

"But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century - the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

"I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.

"I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin..."

Read the whole thing! Unusual stuff for the NYT. I'll have a link when I get home later this morning.

Update: here's the link.

I Only Read It For The Interviews

The last issue I bought had an interview with Abbie Hoffman.

Fewer Americans Want Stricter Gun Laws

Support for stricter gun laws has declined from 78% in 1990 to 44% in 2009. And that includes a 5% drop just in the last year. Just guesswork on my part, but I would say that the 5% drop was due to the millions of Americans who went into a gunshop in the last year to buy their first gun, and found out just what hurdles an honest, law-abiding citizen faces to purchase a handgun. Two forms of identification, two long affidavits (one federal, one state) plus a call to the FBI? Surely that should be sufficient?

h/t Alphecca.

The Classy Thing To Do...

...would be to decline it.


I swear I thought this was The Onion. I kept blinking my eyes, but it wouldn't change!

I have mixed feelings about the guy. He has great personal charm, but he's waaaaayy to the left. And it's a good thing that we have the first African-American President. Even if he did not come out of the mainstream African-American experience, i.e. neither parent descended from ex-slaves, and he grew up in a white household. But his election does jab a pointy stick into the collective eye of America's effete critics overseas, and I like that!

And he's hardly done anything yet, except promise to print money in the future.

Lots of money.

Big Mac, II

MacDonald v. Chicago, that is.

Wonderful cartoon from Townhall.com.

h/t Say Uncle.

Go, Rockets!

I have been testing a new IWB holster with a thumb-break retention strap on my bike outings. I'm wearing it in this picture, on my right hip. On my left hip is a spare magazine of 7 rounds of .45 ACP.

This was taken at a very weathered picnic table at milepost 16 on the W&OD trail.

The Letterman Scandal

Best comment came from his former girlfriend, Merrill Markoe, who said,

As you can imagine, this has been a very emotional moment for me because Dave promised me many times that I was the only woman he would ever cheat on.

She is the author of "It's My F***ing Birthday!" and "The Psycho Ex Game", both very funny and highly regarded here in Turonistan.

No Country For Old Men

Penelope Crux and Javier Bardem are engaged.

Maybe it was the shotgun silencer...

N.Y. Daily News.

Late Summer Colors

Some snapshots from my bicycle trips along the Washington and Old Dominion bike trail last week.

Molon Lave!

That's Greek for "Come and wash me."

Search Engine Fun

Close-up:
I stole this idea from Tam.
What? Only 88,000 hits?

Big Mac

Quotes from McDonald v. Chicago:

“It’s going to be very difficult for Chicago not to have to make the adjustments D.C. had to make,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign against Gun Violence.
- Chicago Sun-Times

State and local politicians should be on notice: the Second Amendment is a normal part of the Bill of Rights, and it is coming to your town.
- Alan Gura, September 30, 2009 (press release)

It's hard to think of a compelling reason that the court would say states don't have to respect the right to keep and bear arms. Law professor Ronald Rotunda of Chapman University told me that he gives the Chicago law only a one in five chance of surviving.
- Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman

“A year from now there will not be a Chicago handgun ban,” said Alan Gura, the attorney representing the gun owners fighting the ban.
- Chicago Sun-Times