20030319

Maybe one floor can be mocked up as an aircraft cabin
WUTT joins the contest to propose a new purpose for the UN Headquarters should they become vacant in the near future: lease several floors out to Gunsite, LFI, Marksman's Enterprise, Thunder Ranch, and other fine dynamic conflict resolution schools, for indoor ranges and funhouses. The highrise looks like it has hallways about 200 meters long.
It's been done before
Rachel Lucas is piqued to no end about a fellow being tried for having an unregistered defensive tool. The prosecutors reduced the charge to a lesser offense so they could try him without a jury.
Tell it to Laura Kriho. They did that to her too. Her offense, by the way? Go read the links.
At times like this I wish Liberty magazine's online presence were, um, present. There was a wonderful article on how to prepare yourself for the examination to be put on a jury, so you can still render a verdict within your conscience but hopefully protect yourself from what happened to Laura Kriho. Vin Suprynowicz wrote something similar, reprinted in Send In the Waco Killers.
Maybe time to drop PayPal
Aubrey Turner discusses PayPal's change of policy to prohibit the use of its service for legal commerce in modern firearms. This merely puts PayPal's policy in line with that of their owner, eBay. The only time I ever used eBay was to try to replace a collectible that my son destroyed on a visit to a friend's house. I like the concept of eBay but I did not enjoy the experience of being sniped out of some POS knicknack.

I wonder, to what extent are these policies an attempt to avoid litigation, like the suits being brought by cities against the gun industry? Is there actuarial basis for companies to exclude activities like firearm transactions on the part of their clients because the companies' part in those activities exposes them to gun lawsuits? These don't sound like inspirations of a goo-goo dot-com executive, but policies influenced or even initiated by corporate counsel.

In any case, if they continue this policy, I will drop them and tell them why. Just like I'm about to do to the Denver Post.
Carnival of the Vanities
Wylie hosts Carnival 26 this week.
Quote of the day (from yesterday, actually)
People who get shafted have long memories.

Jonathan Gewirtz at ChicagoBoyz

20030318

Quote of the day (from last October)
One of the minor casualties of 9/11 was patience for listening to privileged Americans complain, in distinctly Anti-American terms, about their privileged American lives.

Catherine Seipp, You've Lost Your Way, Baby in Reason, 10.02.
Snow day, slow day
Blogging from the hotel today at 28k8.
It would be a bad idea

. . . for the Dixie Slitches to try to kiss up to their former listeners by doing concerts for deployed servicemen.
Get your finger out of that G-d-damned triggerguard!
Fox News Channel is interviewing Specialist Roberto Jimenez about his fighting load. As he was describing his service rifle, his magazine was seated, and his finger was in the triggerguard. The ejection port cover was down so nobody knows whether the bolt was in battery or his chamber was clear.

This stuff does indeed chap my ass. At least he was pointing his muzzle into the floor.
... balloon man whistles far ... and ... whee
The latino man approached our table at the Pancake Place, sensing an opportunity to entertain Firstborn, Middlechild, and Boy with his balloon art.
"Hello, would jour children enyoy balloons?"
"Of course."
"Jour boy, he would like a sword?"
"He really likes airplanes," offered Barbaloot. Boy's winged LarryMobile already needs a new purple paint job. His little wooden JayJay has lost both of its engines. His aircraft get a lot of attention and a lot of wear.
But the sword was already done, and handed to Boy after a final squeaky twist. His syrupy hand seized it and he lost all interest in pancakes.
It was Middlechild's turn. "I want a cat, please."
"How about a hommingbord?"
"Please may you make me a cat." The terminal "t" was distinct.
"Hmmmm, what color chall I make this hommingbord?" Squeak squeak.
He drew big lunatic walled eyes on the head with a permanent marker.
"I wanted a cat." Softly, humbly. With disappointment.
"Here is jour hommingbord."
Firstborn is far less inhibited. "I want a puppy" she shouted, before he even reached to his belt for the inflating pump. A puppy she got, though it was improvised from the giraffe page of the Big Balloon Art Handbook.
The "head" of this gir-puppy sprang out, then popped and sagged in pink tatters, moments after she received it and its creator was tipped by her grandparents. Firstborn sobbed.

One week later, off again to Pancake Place after Mass. As we are seated, I scan the crowd for balloon artists. Noticing none, I take a seat and open the menu. Only then I see balloon swords in boys' hands at a nearby table. Behind the clink of flatware and the clatter of plates, the rubbery squeaks and pump hisses are faint but certain.

After our order is taken, he approaches. He makes eye contact with me, recognizes me. It must be my expressive face.
"Ohhhh, this is the family who wants balloons only after the children are done eating." He smiles, twinkles his eyes. "I will come back soon," then he turns to the other end of the Pancake Place.

Firstborn and Middlechild finished a ten-inch chocolate-chipped pancake between them without distraction. Boy cared only for link sausage.

The balloon man did not come back.