The Fellowship Of The Ping!

I cracked open a case of Greek .30-06 and headed to the NRA range this evening.

But I spent the first hour wandering the NRA museum. Here's the Star Model B used by William Holden in The Wild Bunch.

Here's the H&K pistol used by Tom Cruise in Collateral.

And the gun used by the mysterious Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects.

But the highlight was the Peterson collection, just added to the museum. Check out this Holland and Holland double rifle in .700 H&H:

You would think that the recoil from one of those monster rounds would loosen the gold inlays!

There were THREE Fabbri shotguns, the most incredible shotguns in the world. This one featured bulino engraving of nudes and peacock feathers, visible through the magnifier:

When I got to the range, I tried to get a recording of the Garand. It is loud!

And ahhhh! the fragrance of 41-year-old military gunpowder! I fired forty rounds and no problems. This Garand was made in May, 1945 and has an unrelieved op-rod, but I am loathe to have it altered. The rifle fired about 3" to the right at 150 feet, which is the fault of the front sight being out of adjustment. It was caked with cosmoline when I got it from the CMP. I'm not complaining!

The NRA Range has new target gadgets with touch-screen controls, very high-tech. Now they need an iPhone app.

This is a Borchardt pistol, but what's that little wood-grained thingie in the lower left, that looks a bit like a magazine?

Supreme Court Declines Case

Greg Revell, flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pennsylvania, was stranded at the Newark, NJ airport with his unloaded, locked, cased, licensed (Utah CHL) handgun in his checked baggage. He spent the night in a hotel but when he went to the airport the next morning to catch the next flight out he was arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm. Revell pointed out that he was legal at home and legal at his destination and that the gun was unloaded and locked up. The cops said that because Revell had the key to the lockbox (as required by TSA) he was "in possession" of the gun. He spent ten days in jail before he could post bond. Charges were eventually dropped and three years later his gun was returned.

Revell was seeking permission to file a civil suit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He lost every step of the way and today the U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition.

Pity. But there will be other battles.

Yahoo News.

Rooms Packed With Books

Boing-boing.

First, The Good News

The good news is that insurance giant AIG announced today that it will be able to pay back the federal government bail-out in full.

The bad news is that my children will work their whole lives to pay back their part of the federal debt.

Range Time

I went to Sharp Shooters pistol range (formerly Gilbert's Small Arms) on Monday with three or four objectives in mind. One, to test three new Wilson Combat magazines for the little Kimber .45 - they worked great.

Two, to get some trigger time for the Springfield 1911 9mm and the Papoose. No problems.

And three, to do more testing with the iPhone shot timer. This didn't work out so well.

The first thing to do is calibrate the unit's shot-sound threshold for each caliber, like this:


S = Start and E = End. The PPK is a .32ACP, by the way.

There were too many other shooters and the din was incredible. The unit couldn't pick out my .22 from the .357's blasting all around me.

They're Playin' My Song!

A flat-screen TV cosy.

Sadly, not a commercial product.

Damn!

Han Solo Visits Firefly

See it?

More here.

See also: Carbonisierter Han Solo in jeder Folge von Firefly

The New Travails of Huckleberry Finn

Hilarious! And fully OSHA-compliant!

via boing-boing.

Two Mysteries

The first one is fictitious. This is Miles Archer, about to get plugged by a Webley-Fosbery semi-automatic revolver in The Maltese Falcon. But who shot him?

And this is Eleanor Roosevelt, practicing with her revolver. The consensus seems to be that it's a Colt Police Positive. Any comments?

Bandsaw Magic

Watch carefully! His fingers never leave his hands!

Sexy Sci-fi Covers

From boing-boing.

Dude, Where's My Urchin Diver?

From a restaurant review in the NYT:

Willows Inn, on the tiny San Juan island of Lummi, is about two hours from Seattle by car and ferry. Yet it is about to become a destination restaurant, thanks to its new chef, Blaine Wetzel. The 24-year-old, formerly the protégé of Rene Redzepi at Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant that was ranked the “best restaurant in the world” for 2010 by S. Pellegrino, took over the kitchen at Willows last year. The restaurant itself reopens in February; expect a menu with an obsessive focus on local ingredients, in the style of Noma. Since he was hired, Mr. Wetzel has been working with a farmer and an urchin diver who work solely for him.

Top Ten Bookstore Cats

This is #6, Asimov. He lives at Seek Books in West Roxbury, Mass. The store specializes in science fiction, fantasy and horror.

Mentalfloss via Neatorama.

Tom-Tom For iPhone 4

I've been using this app for iPhone 4 for about a month now. For the last two years I have been using Garmin Navigator on a Blackberry, which I really liked, in spite of its shortcomings.

In terms of the user interface, there's no comparison: the Tom-Tom screen is nearly triple the size of the Garmin, and sharper, too. The voice directions from the iPhone are better, too; much, much better. The Blackberry/Garmin voice directions are often punctuated with bursts of digital static, but the iPhone/TomTom voice directions are exceptionally good.

Note in the image above, in the upper left corner, the music symbol. This is the gateway to your iTunes player in your iPhone. If music is playing when the Tom-Tom speaks, it will gently dip the audio level while it reads the directions, then gently raise it back.

On the other hand, note the destination: Starbucks Woodbridge. The street address is 2447 Prince William Parkway. My location is indicated by the blue triangle and the checkered flag is my destination. And note that the Tom-Tom is directing me to take a sharp left turn, thru the guardrail, from the cloverleaf to the Starbucks. This is not good.

The Tom-Tom stores all of its maps inside the iPhone, so even if there is no phone coverage, there should be map coverage; I haven't tried it yet, but I will. Tom-Tom updates its maps pretty often, and you can select whether you want to download updates automatically, manually, or on a schedule. I've had it about a month and I've downloaded updates (maps and programs) three times.

The trip planning feature is great. It allows you to select alternatives by (among other things) avoiding certain roads; hint: avoid US270 and US68 to get from northern Virginia to Indianapolis without going thru Maryland - or, at least, avoiding it as much as possible.

Tom-Tom uses automatic reports from users to calculate real-time road speeds on highways and spot traffic jams: if the users on that road are consistently traveling at 15 mph, in spite of a speed limit of 55 or higher, Tom-Tom routes other users around that slowdown. On my way home from Indy, the Tom-Tom suddenly came alive and predicted a 50-minute delay and proposed an alternative; I pressed "Yes" and Tom-Tom directed me to take the next exit. Immediately, the two trucks in front of me began flashing their right-turn signals and got off at the same exit. I have no idea if they had Tom-Toms, but it sure looked likely to me.

Amazing Shot

During the solar eclipse on January 4th, a photographer caught this unusual image:

The big yellow ball is the sun, of course, and the black disk is the moon. In the lower right is a sunspot. But what's the speck in the upper left? Look closely. Resembles a TIE Fighter from Star Wars, no? It's actually the international space station, whooshing by at 17,000 mph at an altitude of 300 miles. Click on the pic for a much larger version, and details on how the shot was made.

via Neatorama.

Books And Bullets

Libraries And Bars

They're bars with books! LOTS of books!

Via Neatorama.

Winter Tour

The Star Theater in Berkeley, West Virginia

I drove to Indy in two days, overnighting in (*shudder*) Zanesville, Ohio. I chose a route that takes me through as little of Maryland as possible: basically Maryland is the width of the Potomac River at that point, and you're out of West Virginia and into Pennsylvania in less than two minutes. Maryland doesn't even have a "Welcome To..." sign there, 'cause there's no place to stop.

A storefront in Berkeley, WV

The upside of the route is that it passes through Berkeley Springs, WV, a delightful little mountain town with some good local restaurants.

Arriving in Indianapolis, Tam showed me a great little gunshop in Brownsburg: Premiere Arms. And it's a pity that I didn't have my C&R updated with my new address, or I would've returned with something, I'm sure.

I was introduced to Huck The Cat, Roseholme's newest resident. What a character! The world's largest kitten.

New Year's Eve it was my privilege to escort the lovely Roberta X (airship privateer, TV techie and now, published author) to dinner at Morton's. We had the traditional champagne cocktails...worth waiting a year for!

I can report that I was favorably impressed with the new version of True Grit with Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper and little Hailee Steinfeld.

Roberta, Tam, Brigid and I visited Artisano's Spices. You've GOT to at least sample some of their balsamic vinegars and spiced olive oils.

And speaking of spices, I was even allowed to sample the legendary Roseholme Hash! Spoiler alert: the secret is in the scissors.

The drive back was uneventful but scenic: the Tom Tom GPS unit reported heavy traffic on Rt 70 in Pennsylvania and re-directed me to state Route 30, a beautiful, winding rural highway. Then back through the same Hole In The Wall from Pennsylvania to West Virginia.

Stopping again at Berkeley Springs, I had lunch at Tari's Cafe. I ordered the special of the day, a Mediterranean Wrap. I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. Chicken, basmati rice (or maybe it was risotto?), artichoke hearts and secret ingredients, wrapped in a tortilla that is then toasted (or maybe it's baked). Wow! Highest recommendation.

The new embassy staff car, a 2002 Crown Victoria, performed beautifully. Preparing for the worst, I had mounted Michelin X-Ice snow tires on all four corners, and stocked the trunk with three MRE's (and chem-heaters for same), water, boots, socks, shovel, etc., etc. And the weather was some of the mildest I have ever encountered at this time of year. Murphy's Law, I guess!

Titanic Big-End Bearing

At the Indiana State Museum, a recovered bearing from the Titanic. The inner diameter is about five feet. Roberta X also shown.

Happy New Year!

A pair of champagne cocktails, please, bartender.

Throw Another Mongolian On The Barbie!

Fine dining at bd's in Indy.

Huck The Cat

Of Roseholme Cottage.

Artisano's Spices, Indianapolis

Berkley Springs, West Virginia

Stopped here at noon for lunch. Interesting town!

Sent from my iPhone

Where Do The Richest Americans Live?

One guess:

Merry Christmas

Light snowfall on Connecticut Avenue, looking towards Dupont Circle.

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena

I just saw her. She's about eighty years old, and she's driving a beautiful gold 1966 or '67 Ford Mustang down U.S. 1 in Alexandria.

Still turning all the boys' heads!

Sent from my iPhone

Black Swan Eggs

Black swan eggs were the secret ingredient in Ovaltine until the late 1960's.

Boing-boing.

Cool Wheels

Weird and unearthly motorcycles.

Dark Roasted Blend.

The Caganer

In Spain, in Catalonia to be precise, it has long been a Christmas tradition to decorate your nativity scene with a caganer. Loosely translated, it means "the defecator".

Is that a
dipped chocolate caganer?

They even sell caganers depicting famous people. Here's one:


Nothing is sacred:This is "Bob Esponja"

Of course they have a website!

From the BBC.

Retirement Planning Using Time Travel

Neatorama.

Do Cell Phones Cause Pregnancy?

Correlation vs. causation. Interesting.

Boing-boing.

Commodore 64 Returns

I had one of these, many years ago. Now, boing-boing reports:

Whomever currently owns the much-passed-around "Commodore USA" corporate trademarks is shipping a modern Commodore 64 clone ("It's back... and better than ever!") The new Commodore 64 is a modern functional PC as close to the original in design as humanly possible. It houses a modern mini-ITX PC motherboard featuring a Dual Core 525 Atom processor and the latest Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset.

Sent from my iPhone

That Mexican Drone

Tam links to a humorous discussion of the somewhat mysterious crash of a drone aircraft in a residential neighborhood of El Paso, Texas, just a couple of blocks over the border.

Commenter 'TheOtherLarry' adds:

I'm betting they bought it at one of those pesky US air shows, using the air show loophole. You know those drone dealers will sell drones to anyone.

Sent from my iPhone

Broccoli And Exercise

A CNN pundit, Ilya Shapiro, just said:

Studies consistently show that diet and exercise are more closely correlated with positive medical outcomes than health insurance. So Congress should pass a law to require Americans to join gyms and buy broccoli rather than to buy health insurance.

Ha!

Can Congress Force You To Be Healthy?

Or eat your vegetables? Or exercise every day?

Good article in the New York Times.

NASA Scientists Plan To Approach Girl By 2018

Girl said to be "not cold or lifeless".


NASA Scientists Plan To Approach Girl By 2018


The Onion.

Easy Street

Future banner for Turonistan, due to the recent relocation of our embassy.

Charts And Graphs

Very cool! One of the most effective graphical displays of highly complex data I have ever seen.

And look what happens to the life expectancy of Japan from 1940 to 1945 (@ 2:10). Wow!

h/t Og the Neanderpundit

A Healthy Constitution

A federal judge in Virginia ruled today that the ObamaCare mandate that all Americans must purchase health insurance violates the U.S. Constitution. According to CNN, Federal District Judge Henry Hudson said,

"An individual's personal decision to purchase -- or decline purchase -- (of) health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the U.S. Constitution," Hudson wrote. "No specifically constitutional authority exists to mandate the purchase of health insurance."

"Despite the laudable intentions of Congress in enacting a comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds," Hudson added. "Salutatory goals and creative drafting have never been sufficient to offset an absence of enumerated powers."

"Enumerated powers? Whuzzat?" responded the New York Times,

The case centers on whether Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause to compel citizens to buy a commercial product – namely health insurance – in the name of regulating an interstate economic market. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue there effectively would be no limits on federal power, and that the government could force people to buy American cars or, as Judge Hudson remarked at one hearing, “to eat asparagus.”

Asparagus?

Well, presumably if Congress could make a good case that the interstate market for asparagus was unsettled, they actually would pass a law to make us all eat asparagus. But does anybody else feel that the Times's reporter's use of the asparagus reference is pejorative? Intended to make the judge seem like a feeble-minded old rustic?

Our Intrepid Reporters

Concerning the recent episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska with Kate Gosselin sharing a camping trip with Sarah Palin, the Washington Post's blog, Compost, had this to say:

Last night's episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska was an exercise in perspective. Move the lens even a bit, and I'm sure the picture would change. From Kate Gosselin's perspective, the afternoon of Fun 'n Campin' 'n Roughin' It With the Palins, Alaska-style, probably becomes a nightmarish affair of dampness and numbness and danger. The closest analogue I can come up with is the time James Joyce and Marcel Proust shared a taxi.

Or the time that Curtis LeMay and Jean-Paul Sartre were stuck in an elevator for nearly an hour.

They Saw A Niche...

And they filled it.

So to speak.

Cthulhu-shaped sex toys.

Boing-boing.

Proofing Black Powder

I just spotted this thing on the What Is It blog. It seems to be a device for measuring the power of a sample of black powder.

What Is It?

I don't know what it is, but the T&A just ordered 5,000 of 'em.

Lots of other cool old implementa at the What Is It blog.

Skin-Covered Machine Gun

Ick! I don't like it.

Boing-Boing.

The Eighth-Largest Army In The World

...is comprised of the 600,000 deer hunters in Wisconsin.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan’s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

h/t Say Uncle.

Catz

Roseholme Cottage has a new cat and this started me thinking about our long-departed Maine Coon named Zoom. Look at those ear-tufts! His tail was nearly the same diameter as the rest of him.

Bacon Tuxedo

Just in time for Christmas!

The 'Right' To Govern

There I was, minding my own business, reading a Washington Post column about people's obsession with Sarah Palin, when it leaped out at me:

The left, you see, has long thought that there ought to be some connection between intelligence or learning and the right to govern.

"...the right to govern."

Wow. Just....wow.

Obama Restores Felon's Gun Rights

Stranger Than Truth!

Then, in 2005, he applied for a gun permit and found out for the first time he had a felony conviction. He applied for a presidential pardon, which was officially granted Friday, in the first round of pardons during Obama's administration.

CNN.

Harley-Davidson Got Fed Bailout Money

So did Verizon, Toyota, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), Barclays Bank (UK), Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and General Electric.

WaPo

Three-Strikes Challenger Is Charged With Four Murders

John Wesley Ewell, whose criminal record stretches back decades, was arraigned Tuesday in Los Angeles on four counts of murder with special circumstances, robbery and receiving stolen property.

LOS ANGELES — A multiple felon who campaigned against California’s three-strikes law and was free after managing four times to escape its harsh sentencing guidelines has been charged with murdering four people in home-invasion robberies here this year.

NYT.

The Iranian Worm

Experts dissecting the computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran’s nuclear program have determined that it was precisely calibrated in a way that could send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control.

Nice work, whoever you are.

NYT

Oprah Invites Hundreds Of Lucky Fans To Be Buried With Her In Massive Tomb

Oprah Invites Hundreds Of Lucky Fans To Be Buried With Her In Massive Tomb

Early This Morning

Standing in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue at 3:27 this morning.

Hot Wheels

Spotted downtown: