Tragic Boating Accident

of all time:

Weird Al Yankovic: White and Nerdy

The bubble wrap part gets me every time.

So I’m listening to this public service announcement warning me to avoid committing a “gun crime.” I’m thinking, hmm, I’m not gonna commit a gun crime, I know not to put that TAPCO stock on a Mauser, I don’t need no education.

When I was in college, I had some other geeky friends who were really into astronomy. On clear weekend nights, we’d take our homebuilt telescopes out to the (dark) countryside, set up in the corner of some farmer’s field and look at the sky. We always had a good time observing, but we’d get bored after about an hour and we’d have impromptu talent contests. One guy could quote paragraphs from Justine by the Marquis de Sade; another guy could do whole sections from Hitler’s crazy speeches. In German. Loudly. Another guy had a whole repertoire of Latin mass selections.

You are a madman! When you stole that cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow… I want to party with you, cowboy.

My shtick was that I could sing this entire song: Heartbeat, by Don Johnson. Picture this skinny 20-year-old guy, in the dark next to a big telescope, singing to the cows:

I don’t care what you say,
You can give it away,
Your money don’t mean much to me…

I hereby present the greatest possible music video, full of win and ROFL.

The Arizona-based firearms shop / maker Cavalry Arms was raided by the fed gov yesterday for as-yet unclear reasons. Notably, SWAT Magazine is mentioned in the story.

A photo at the above link of what may be an after-raid press display shows the usual long table full-o-guns (DUH, it’s a business that makes and sells GUNS…); the photo bears this caption:

TAKING INVENTORY: Members of the ATF and a contractor branch, Forfeiture Support Associates, sort through piles of arms seized from Cavalry Arms Corp. in Gilbert on Wednesday.

Emphasis added. The emphasized language leaves me speechless. There is a .gov contractor now for doing firearms seizures?

Forfeiture Support Associates, coming to a gun store (or home) near you.

ETA: Oh, this just gets better.

[Nearby] [b]usiness Owner Brandon Hepworth said, “They had to done something. I mean there’s got to be something going on. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t be seizing the guns. It’s just crazy.”

My head is, really and for true, going to explode.

Well, this looks pretty preliminary to me, but it may be that last year’s cold spell has some statistical significance.

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

The blog at the link offers a disclaimer about the source article’s interpretation of the data, and indeed it’s just data; its interpretation is going to be the interesting part. Speaking of interesting: this is fascinating. I have never read anything about this sort of thing in the mainstream media. A significant “ultra-micro-climate” change around a thermometer is highly relevant to a claim of a rise in temperature over time based on that thermometer’s measurements, yes?

Damask Rose by Vangelis.

I’m guessing, just guessing mind you, that none of my local AM or FM stations are playing that.

On Skunk’s page right now:

As of February 19, 2008, the dividend amount for REI member number xxxxxxx is: $207.56.

In my in-box:

As of February 19, 2008, the dividend amount for REI member number xxxxxxx is: $9.83.

So I’m going to get a Clif bar and he’s going to get a canoe or something. Sucks to be me.

William Buckley died today at age 82.

Each of the few really great writers I have known greatly admired Buckley for his eloquent prose; even those whose personal philosophy differed markedly from WFB’s respected his ability with words. He was a giant among conservatives, and I fear that, like Jeff Cooper, we will never see his like again. R.I.P., sir.

anonymity gets in the way of a good story. I have a wonderful picture of a friend of mine at a recent conference pointing a finger at, and getting a big laugh out of, one of nine people who are going to light up the blogosphere this year when they address a certain issue near to all of our hearts. It screams to be captioned “You are going to let us keep a .38 and a .22, right?”

Sorry, can’t share.

Fried catfish is like a religion here in north Louisiana; everybody has their favorite place and people defend their favorites like the Gospel. My favorite-since-childhood fried catfish place, Cypress Inn, burned* to the ground six years ago and its owners did not rebuild / reopen. However, the owners’ child has now decided to reopen the restaurant with the old recipes.

If the new place is anything like the old place, it will be one of the best Deep South-style restaurants in Louisiana - and that is high praise indeed. Sigh. I was just getting used to these 34″ waist pants, too.

*The old place also had a pretty impressive video arcade in its cavernous waiting room, and an original Williams Stargate (i.e., Defender II) machine was destroyed in the fire along with everything else. Stargate = best coin-op game ever. I must have put $500 in quarters into that thing over the years.