pdb

Stingray said there’d be DRAGONS! Flying out of CERN! From, like, Swiss black holes or some shit!

I gotta sight in my M14. It’s like +5 against Dragons.

I know it’s late prof, but can I still get credit for it?

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123.
3. Find the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Walter Lippmann, serving as an ambassador for America’s liberal elite, told FDR in a private meeting at warm Springs, “The situation is critical, Franklin. You may have no alternative but to assume dictatorial powers.” Eleanor Roosevelt, too, believed that a “benelovent dictator” might be the only answer for America. And it was hardly lost on the liberal intellectuals swirling around the Roosevelt administration that the enormously popular Benito Mussolini had used the same methods to whip the unruly Italians into shape.”

From the most important political book in recent memory, of course.

Tag your own damn selves, I’m tired.

GREENSBORO — Two skateboarders said they were robbed early Thursday morning by three gunmen dressed head to toe in black.

Greensboro police said two people were skateboarding in the parking lot of a shopping mall at 3718 Battleground Ave. at 1:39 a.m. Thursday when they were approached by three suspects. The skateboarders said they had to give up their cell phones, debit cards and a video camera. Police did not release the names, ages or gender of the skateboarders.

Police said all three suspects are black men armed with handguns. All three wore black hooded sweatshirts, black jeans and black masks with the eyes, nose and mouth cut out.

Ha ha!

I generally don’t like full sized revolvers for carry, but I wouldn’t mind picking up a snubbie.

But it damn sure won’t be a S&W:

Details here.

I’ll never own a gun with a lock on it.

Having not considered the possibility before, I suppose that, hypothetically speaking, people could be allowed to not enjoy reading John Ringo’s books. Like cooking a steak past medium, carrying a pistol that’s not a Glock 19, owning an Italian car or buying DVDs in fullscreen format, it’s a decision that, while dubious, is fully yours to make and would be morally questionable to outlaw.

Still, if you’re going to proclaim your lack of balls to the world, you should probably do it like THIS GUY, who points out that he dislikes John Ringo so much that he can’t stop buying and reading his books.

While correlation does not always indicate causation, I would like to point out that before reading every goddamn thing that Ringo wrote, I was an unemployed, depressed and directionless geek. After reading his books, I bought and ran my own video game store, repaired my credit, grew a goatee, doubled my net worth in firearms, earned a high paying job, and I got my wife pregnant after many years of trying.

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

The scene: Mrs pdb is changing Jackson’s diaper in the munchkin room while pdb is in the kitchen, washing bottles for the 24th time this week. pdb can hear the Mrs winding up the African animal mobile and demonstrating the animals for Jackson.

“This is an alligator! Alligators go ’snap! snap!’ And this is a lion! Lions go ‘rooooooar’! This is a giraffe! Giraffes go, well, ’step step step’, because they’re kind of quiet. And they eat leaves!”

pdb brings an armful of now clean bottles past the bedroom.

“And lions eat giraffes!”

“No they don’t! Lions eat … grass,” the Mrs states, aghast.

Time passes.

“What?”

“Lions and elephants and zebras and alligators and giraffes all eat grass and live together in peaceful harmony on the grass. Stop scaring our son.”

“Kid, your mother’s full of crap.”

“She is not. She grew up in Africa, she knows.”

“So what do lions need all those big sharp teeth for?”

“Chewing long grass.”

“Son, I’m really sorry.”

“Let’s wear our frog shirt! Shall we be a frog today?”

“And what do frogs eat?”

“They eat mosquitoes and flies. But not ladybugs.”

“Really.”

“That’s right.”

“So basically, all the animals of world eat either grass or ugly bugs.”

“That’s right! We all eat grass or bugs and we all play together on the grass!” The Mrs tickles the munchkin, who gives her a smile.

“Jackson, your mom is full of it. We eat steak, which comes from cows.”

“No, steak comes from the grocery store in plastic-wrapped styrofoam trays. We don’t eat cows.”

“Yes, we do eat cows. Cows are delicious! From cows we get hamburgers, steak, roasts and ribs!”

“That’s a lie.”

“So why do ranchers keep thousands and thousands of cows standing around in their fields?”

“For milk!” the Mrs proclaims, lofting the child for emphasis.

“Son, when you’re older, we’ll go see Uncle Jedi and get some venison! From deers! Yummy deers!”

“Jackson, venison is a lie. We don’t eat deers.”

“Jackson, your mother is filling your head with nonsense. Don’t listen to her.”

“Jackson, your father is simply crazy. We try not to talk about it in front of him. But he’s cra-zeee!”

pdb sighs. “City girls.”

…with the growing storm of idiocy around Expelled, I’m expecting a higher than normal incidence of retards publicly failing to understand science.

The theory of evolution predicts an increase in allele frequency over time. If you understand these words, we can discuss this subject intelligently. Otherwise, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Thank you, that is all.

Here we see art in the making, as a substance abusing Tennessee hillbilly guides a bunch of substance abusing limeys through making a good song for once:

Cutest baby ever?

Cutest baby ever.

Since you’re not reading anything here, I thought I’d suggest some offline stuff to read.

Robert D Kaplan’s Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The sequel and companion piece to Imperial Grunts, is a loving and awe filled yet sober tour of the forward deployed modern American military. From green berets training Algerian special forces, to banging his head in a SSN, to riding a B-2, his straightforward and unpretentious descriptions of rough men (and women!) in harms way are thrilling and humbling. Being a product of the mainstream journalism industry, he reflexively throws in a few gratuitous barbs at the GWB administration, but even that fails to drag down the book. 8/10. Buy it on sale or wait for the paperback.

Martin Pegler’s Sniper: History Of The US Marksman: This book was way too short. In all fairness, it could’ve been a multivolume tome and I still would have hungrily ate it up and wanted more. It makes the common mistake of telling too much about the tools and not enough about the weapons, the actual meatbags wielding the rifles. Also light on operational details. This is understandable for modern operational security, but I would love to read more detail about early sniper doctrine and deployment. Still an indispensable look at our history of marksmanship. 7/10. Buy it used, or new if you have an interest.

Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: A sweeping, fascinating, compelling and ultimately maddening yarn of recent political history. Goldberg’s arguments are meticulously researched and nitpick proof. I felt the chapters on the 60s and recent culture were weak… until I reread them. If leftists actually, you know, read, this would end forever the eyerolling habit of referring to conservatives (in the modern American sense) as fascists. Hint: A person advocating limits to government cannot be a fascist. The person advocating government interference in every facet of your personal life from your diet to your home’s energy consumption to how your children are raised may not be a fascist, but they sure as hell has a lot more in common with them than conservatives do. 9/10. Buy it at full price and feel happy and enlightened.

John Ringo’s The Last Centurion: Ringo takes a break from big scary aliens, swaggering ex-SEAL mercenaries and dragons ‘n swords fantasy to tell us a story about a bird flu epidemic in the near future. Told in a light, conversational style, it reads a lot like discovering an awesome new-to-you blog and reading it from the beginning. While the foreign policy bits are fanciful (yet Incredibly Awesome(tm)), preparedness minded readers will recognize the domestic side of the story as NOT being fiction. 10/10. Buy the eARC, buy it again in hardcover to read when the power grid goes dark, and buy it again in paperback to hand out to your friends.

Eric Flint and David Drake’s Belisarius Series: Incredibly Awesome(tm) alt-history where the finest general of the Roman empire and his hot slutty wife get gunpowder, ironclads, telegraphs, artillery and machine guns to fight evil human sacrificing Indians with tanks that are being controlled by an evil computer from the future. You can read them for free. What the hell else do you need to know? 8/10.

John Bolton’s Surrender Is Not An Option: Somewhat dry read that is a simply nauseating view into the heroic skulduggery required to get the United States State Department to act in the interest of the United States. If John Bolton were to run for president, I would quit my job and volunteer for his campaign. 6/10, buy it used.

While that result is merely an amusing confuence of keywords, it does refer nicely to one of my favorite posts from my blog-city days, the story of my poor 1911.

One day I’ll get it fixed. One day.

Cute shoes, cute doggie, cute new revolver, and hooker-red lipstick. A gal could have a pretty good time in Vegas with all that stuff!

An open letter to despondent libertarians:

Above all, remember that history is never made by the majority. The march of liberty has always been advanced by a statistically insignificant cadre of disparate individualists with unreasonable expectations who refused to lose.

Also try to understand that Mr Perfect is very rarely on the presidential ballot and nobody gets everything that they want. Everybody gets boned to some degree, and threatening to hold your breath until you get your pony will only get you a long time without O2.

Limited government is a lot like religion, in that theists are atheists about every god — save their own. Likewise, apartment dwellers would favor losing the mortgage deduction. Younger voters would vote for ending the Social Security Ponzi scheme. Cockless cowards would approve of eliminating the CMP. Other examples will occur to you. This incompatible factionalization is the essential problem facing the limited government movement, not the lack of charismatic leaders. Find a way to fix this, and the battle is won.

Finally, the test of a good system is not how well it performs under ideal conditions, but under load. Our more perfect union has survived Abraham Lenin, Der Fuhrer Wilson, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, 8 years of BJ Clinton and will survive Senator Queeg or Evita Clinton or Obama. Given that, why not select the better of the two candidates, even though the difference may seem small? Waiting for a perfect candidate that will never come makes no sense to me.

I shall choose the candidate that will not: unconditionally surrender Mesopotamia to the Jihadis, nationalize one sixth of our nation’s economy, end free trade, increase the regulatory compliance burden, increase taxes, increase spending and further infest our institutions with the loathsome lackeys of the left.

I’m (reluctantly) with Col. Tigh.

Lil’ Hickory has been a bundle of surprises. So far:

• Once his needs are met, he is quiet! I expected a never-ending caterwaul, but once he gets what he’s looking for, the Master Caution lite goes out and all is well for another couple hours.
• Not only do the doggies luv the new member of the pack, they get seriously upset when he starts crying. They come running from all parts of the house and start nosing at him and licking him. If they’re outside when he starts hollerin’, they’ll bark and paw at the door until they’re let in. Of course, they may not be expressing sympathy as much as trying to get me to shut the damn thing off.
• Kitties are surprisingly nonplussed.
• Despite being only 21″ long, he belches like a drunk Viking.

I had more, but sleep deprivation is starting to overcome the caffeine.

Thanks so much for all the encouragement; be it verbal, liquid or baked. More pictures shortly.

Continue Reading »

I am simply insulted that our doc did not get that joke. She also didn’t appreciate “Ziff! Whooff! Ziff! Whiff!” either. This is what we get for allowing women into medicine.

The Mrs has been granted a 30 minute break from pushing. I’ve been granted a 30 minute break from holding her leg up like a trussed turkey and wiping a wet washcloth across her forehead. The docs still anticipate a fair shot at squeezin’ the youngling out like Mother Nature intended, but the possibility for a C-section and a baybee with a Charlie Brown head still loom.

Oh yeah, epidurals are wondrous things. I think all the natural childbirth advocacy is a load of crap.

Updates as time allows.

So here’s what the Mrs has done for the last 6 hours:

• Occupied a room and a highly uncomfortable bed.
• Eaten some appalling hospital food (not as bad as Olive Garden, tho)
• Napped as best as she could for being roused every hour on the hour
• Repeatedly medicated in an indescribably intimate way with no results to show for it yet.

The only bright spots have been the steady stream of well-wishing phone calls and emails, and when my parents brought us some real damn food.

So far my involvement has been highly peripheral. Maybe I’ll go downstairs and see if there’s some good junk food available.

Apparently the docs want to kick things off a week early. We’re at the hospital waiting for labor to be induced. We’re at baby defcon one here, folks.

Updates as time allows.

“No dangblamnit, I said the Sheriff is a nig-” DONG!!

Barak Obama can have my cynicism when he pries it from my cold, dead hands.

Just got back from the ultrasound machine, where we determined that all is well with the youngin’, and unlike the RNC leadership, he is still in possession of all of his manparts. Munchkin arrival has been downgraded from “imminent” to “pending”. Mom ‘n Dad ‘n Grandparents and a Great-Grand-Parent were given a useful dry run to prep for the main event. The Mrs’ knee remains unsteady but stronger. Referring to her as “pegleg” only resulted in minor injuries. We should be heading home shortly.

So. Uh. What’s new with y’all?

Baybee still delayed. Doctors still clueless and unable to supply straight answers. Mrs still bedridden and lightly medicated. Ankle and knee still unable to support weight. Verbs still optional this style of post.

I also woke up from my 2 hour nap with a bunch of cute female nurse students giggling at me. Haven’t had that happen since college.

Updates when time allows.

Did you know that slipping and falling on an icy parking lot can induce contractions in a 38 week pregnant woman at the expense of a sprained ankle and torn knee tendons? Now you do!

The munchkin has been playing “will he or won’t he?” for damn near 16 hours and still won’t commit. At first the contractions were barely noticeable on the … contractometer thingey and the Docs started planning on sending her home. Then they went to OMFG! and baybee was immiment! Now it’s 2am and they’re back down to background noise.

Did I mention that I’m operating on about 3 hours sleep in the last 48?

NO SLEEP TILL BAYBEE!

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