This is going to be short, since for the next twelve weeks or so, I’ll be decontaminating, packing and moving a few megabucks worth of analytical equipment to a new cleanroom, while not reducing my fab support capability. It’s demands like this that make me feel zero guilt about fucking around reading Glibertarians.com when I’m not required to be panicking over generating good data.
Unambiguous good news: For Taurus-folk (Taurans? Tauroids?) this week is going to be awesome. We have both geocentric and heliocentric indicators pointing to the same outcome. With the change-driving effects of Mercury being made positive by the effects of the Sun, you have good luck. By having a Four-light alignment also in your sign, you have better luck. By having those four lights being the most important ones in the sky, you have even better luck. By having one of those four lights being Jupiter (even retrograde), well, let’s just say you’re gonna have a good time.
Relationships continue to be unstable (Mercury-Venus-Sol) but without last week’s good luck effects, this week’s might be a bit less pleasant. You were using protection, right?
In non-lovin’ news, there are indicators that martial belligerence will lead to good things. Also, this is a good week to bet on buzkashi.
This week’s money-maker
In more astrology-vindicating news, world-renowned sciencey star-person Neil Degrasse Tyson is so made of science that he can be duplicated by a computer program! Science! Astrology is just as much Science as IFLS leader NdGT!
Astrology music (not the right time of year, but oh well):
Let me be self indulgent and say a few words about my mom. She had a rather tough life, growing up poor, having buried three husbands, and raising a family with my dad, a free-thinking, creative, and hyperintelligent fellow who could barely scrape up a living as an artist. In a house of chaos and creative destruction, she was the island of relative sanity and common sense and still managed to turn two kids into reasonably successful adults. Today my mom will spend her day chowing on Publix roast chicken, since we’re too far away to take her to the (((deli))), and in reality, that’s what she’d rather do anyway. She’s not a person who cares about frippery and ceremony, she’s never had even a hint of pretense, and a simple and comfortable life these days is her reward for all she had to put up with. Though she has never understood me, she’s always stood by me. My mom is the greatest.
The UK shows itself again to be a bastion of freedom. Well, no, not really. But, as usual, it’s for the children.
The cards will cost around £10 and could can also be used to purchase other age restricted products such as alcohol and knives. However, shopkeepers could still ask to see documents, such as a passport or driving licence, before selling the 16-digit online access code. It comes after a recent report showed how a total of 1.4 million children clicked on pornographic websites in a single month – half aged six to 14.
I’m sure you all have already gotten your cards and codes. I’m more interested in the children.
“Data is itself valuable, and people give it in exchange for services,” said Alec Burnside, a lawyer at the Dechert law firm in Brussels who has taken part in antitrust complaints against Google. “I think they are wrong in believing that data must have all the characteristics of cash.”
Old Guy Music, of course, has only one possibility today. And check out the guitar work here.
Easter weekend is also the weekend of KinkFest. KinkFest is one of the largest west coast gatherings of people into Kink, BDSM, and related sadomasochistic pursuits. In some ways, KinkFest is like any other convention. A large group of people in a giant hall, attending lectures, perusing vendor booths, and socializing. Where it departs, obviously, is the subject matter. The classes usually involve demonstrations that can get you arrested in some places or are interactive and intended to teach a new skill. And the socializing involves leather and latex and cross-dressers and rope and beatings and all kinds of fun, fucked-up shit. Well, not literal shit. The dungeon doesn’t allow scat, thankfully, nor piss play or Roman play.
This year was KinkFest XX. The Portland Leather Alliance has been putting on the event for 20 years. It’s grown to 1500 people attending and takes up the largest space at the Expo Center in Portland, OR. It’s an all-volunteer run effort. And we bring in presenters from around the country and even internationally. It’s 3 days of debauchery, education, and friendship, and I kind of look forward to it every year. Sorry, no actual pictures as cameras aren’t allowed during the event, and the official photos haven’t been posted yet. I’ve included a few shots I’ve taken that are relevant but hopefully SFW.
Education
One of the fun things about KinkFest is that you have attendees who are new and jumping feet first into the deep end and old heads like myself who’ve been involved for decades. The classes cover a wide range. From the relatively vanilla-like classes on anal sex, giving head, or having multiple partners, to basic kink-related things like flogging and how to process pain, to more advanced topics like full-time total power exchange, medical play, and other types of edge play. Here’s the worskshop list from this year.
Edge play is usually play that carries with it higher risks or is pushing close to the limits of the players involved. What that entails varies by kinkster, and it is like Justice Stewart’s definition of porn: you know it when you see it. Some of the more common types are play using knives, needles, and increasingly race and misogyny play.
Backside of a takate kote chest harness. Jute rope
The Kink scene has always fetishized consent for a couple-few reasons. The first is that knowing that all parties directly involved are consenting is the difference between play time and abuse. It may also be the only difference between getting your rocks off and going to prison. In some jurisdictions, even that wouldn’t help, so trust is paramount when you’re doing some of the things we do. Having trust in your partner to stop when you use your safe word, to not push too far, or not take advantage when you are helpless means that negotiations and consent are important. Third, because we are playing with things that are dangerous and carries physical, emotional, and psychological risks, having some security by emphasizing discussion and agreement is important to people in the scene. There is a focus from the older crowd on autonomy, and the idea that you can’t exchange power if you don’t have power to start with, where negotiations are the means for doing so.
This does lead to some entryism by SJW types. But most people aren’t much impressed by them. Part of the point of kink is risk and ambiguity and playing with those things. People do need to learn etiquette around a dungeon. The rules are different. In some ways they are looser than in a nightclub or normal situation. You’re going to see people doing and wearing (or not wearing) things you’d never see in public. In other ways they are more stringent. The biggest one is don’t touch other people or their things (which may mean other people) without asking or being invited to do so. There are other protocols like not talking to people at a play station who are having a scene or standing too close. Generally speaking, people into kink recognize individual autonomy and have developed etiquette around supporting it.
Vendors
Violet wand for shockingly good times.
Like any other con, there are vendors at KinkFest. Vendors selling leather vests and outfits and cuffs and collars. Toys for impact from wooden paddles to acrylic canes. Electro play toys like violet wands and tasers. And of course, rope, rope, rope for bondage and suspensions. There are floggers and whips and latex outfits. Oh, and dildos. Every shape, size and description you can think of. There’s even one vendor called InHerTube that makes special dildos and harnesses that attach to the thigh, or the end of your boot. The vendor hall makes a good spot to wander around, people watch, and socialize with friends. Or to arrange a scene that night in the dungeon, featuring the toys one just purchased. Some of the vendors are truly talented at the things they make.
Dungeon
The dungeon at KinkFest may be the best in the country. To start off with, it is 36,000 sq ft. That space is divided into individual 10′ by 10′ play stations. Each station has some sort of furniture in it: St. Andrews Cross, spanking benches, bondage chairs, massage tables, pagodas, cages, medical tables or simply thick floor mats. The center piece this year was a giant truss structure laid out in four squares with hard points for doing rope bondage. It covered, by my estimation, about 2500 sq ft of space. The whole dungeon has a professional sound and light setup to help set the mood. And it honestly looks like something out of a movie. Some of the extras maybe weren’t as telegenic.
There were some amazing scenes that took place. My favorite was probably an alien probing scene. At least from a spectator’s perspective. There was also the car wash. A couple of nubile young ladies in transparent latex with sponges and water who would wriggle all over their subject and give them a washing. Whip alley is always fun. It’s a 40′ by 20′ section closed off by chain link that has space for two whip scenes. Hearing the bullwhips crack and pop over the sounds of the crowd and music can be startling to some, but it’s part of the atmosphere to me. It goes nicely with the screams, and surprisingly the more common laughter.
And that’s what brings me to the libertarian bit in this piece. It isn’t all just titty-lation (hi Q!). The Kink scene can be a microcosm of spontaneous order, self-policing, private property, and self-ownership. The entire KinkFest phenomenon refutes the ideas people have about why small government couldn’t work. It absolutely works.
The entire affair is organized by volunteers. The core staff put in 20+ hour weeks for 9 months and don’t get paid a dime. They perceive a need and they do it because they want to see it happen. It is a direct counter-argument to the idea that feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless wouldn’t happen without government. People donate so that shit gets done. This includes people spending hours to build dungeon furniture then giving it to the organization. Or specialized skills like professional riggers who donate their time to get things done. Same for the promotion and lining up vendors.
Impact toys, Rope bondage, and the beginnings of some bruises on a bottom.
The volunteers, usually younger members of the community, who help carry it all off give up part of their time enjoying the convention in exchange for free admission. This is a fair exchange of value for those who couldn’t pay the entry fees that are used to pay for the bits that aren’t done by volunteers. Nonetheless, the volunteers earn their keep. It’s also interesting in that if someone volunteers, gets in free, but doesn’t keep up their end of the bargain, they get banned from next year. This deals effectively with the freeloader problem.
Risky things happen in the dungeon. People wear their bruises and welts and even lacerations with pride. Yet the policing is done by a volunteer crew whose focus is on making sure the rules are followed and people are having a good time. The Dungeon Monitors are a model for private police. They are mostly focused on facilitating play in a way that reduces risk as much as possible. They only interfere when called on, or when there is a genuine threat to life and limb. And even then, they are trained in de-escalation and using their words instead of violence. Despite 1500 people all doing fucked-up shit, they rarely must intervene. They wind up offering council or telling people where supplies are like cleaning stuff, first aid, etc. They occasionally must do some dispute resolution over who has dibs on a piece of equipment. But even that’s rare. Because people police themselves.
People and their property are also sacrosanct. Despite all the degeneracy on display, asking first is ingrained and important. Yes, there are yahoos that are new that don’t understand and make mistakes. They are usually quickly identified and corrected. And yes, there are predatory types that look for vulnerable victims to assault, but by and large, those people stay away from the organized group events. Because, again, they get identified. I’d wager one is less likely to be made uncomfortable by a stranger groping you or trying to corner you or to wind up having unwanted violence done to you at a kink event than at a normal bar or concert. It isn’t perfect, but it puts the lie to the idea that without government you can’t have people getting along peacefully or that corporate action requires coercion.
Rope and knife
Another note on property. Most players who have been at it a while have large toy bags. This can be anything from a backpack to rolling suitcases stuffed with stuff. To keep from turning the dungeon into an airport, large shelves are setup near the entrance. People leave their stuff unattended for long stretches of time while playing voyeur or looking for just the right playmate. And return to find their toys unmolested. Some of those toy bags have thousands of dollars in equipment in them. My rope kit alone is probably close to a thousand bucks worth of jute and hardware. Toys rarely go missing. And on the few occasions where they have, it’s usually a case of someone picking up what they thought was their own toy but was someone else’s and it is promptly returned.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems with SJWs, as mentioned. There are, especially online, a contingent of the usual intersectional feminists who want to make any accusation of violating someone’s consent an automatic blackballing of the accused. They use all the language SJWs use in campus kangaroo courts and make big posts on Fetlife, the kink equivalent of Facebook. But fortunately, they don’t have much power in the flesh and blood world. Even more interesting, the vocal ones are learning a hard lesson that the #metoo movement is learning: experienced tops with the more exotic and in demand skills are being much more selective in who they play with for the simple expedient of wanting to guard their reputations. The gender and pronoun thing is something of a big deal. But my experience is that most of those folks are polite in requesting you use their name and pronouns. Those that would like to be able to force you, power is so decentralized, it is hard to coerce people.
One of the saddest things to me is that so many kinksters don’t see that. In their private lives they live and play by libertarian ideas. But they can’t make the leap to seeing it as a strong basis for politics. The left politics are almost reflexive and without thought. I think because many people into kink have negative experience with religious and political conservatives they lean the opposite direction in politics. And there’s a larger contingent than the general population of people who are dysfunctional and therefore want their gimmedats. I try to talk to people about it, and I’ve made some inroads with a few. But cutting through all the accumulated derp is slow going. There are some things you can’t beat out of people.
Impact toys: Carbon fiber cain, hawaiian hardwood hairbrush paddle, rope fist baton, rubber paddle (for vegan play partners), tigerwood paddle, riding crop, small acrylic cane, three floggers.My dungeon/playspace. Instead of typical furniture I have hardpoints for suspension.Diamond Pattern chest harness in jute.One of my first suspensions. Four point side suspension with hemp rope.
I’m not one to back down so easily so I went ahead and sent the Old Man a bottle of beer that would suit his, shall we say, more refined palate. This is my review of New Belgium Le Terrior 2016, from their Lips of Faith Series.
The term “Beer Drinker” often brings up a different mental image than when one says, “Wine Drinker.” I’m not going to speculate as to why those connotations exist, but I will discuss what they are. I don’t blame the Old Man for wanting to be associated with the beer people, after all we’re a bit more fun. Its what you drink when you go to a festival, or a ball game. You toss a few back with your friends and then challenge each other to a drag race or a boxing match.
In short, beer drinkers are often just fun to be around. Case in point:
This is not to say that wine drinkers can’t be good people. I assume some of them are, its just that their parties have a tendency to be a lot more…tame:
“The hormones are really helping my beard come it.” “You know, I am standing right here, Jacob.” “I told you to stay focused, we need him to invest in our lesbian co-op grocery.” “Sorry about that.”
I’m not trying to offend people here–I’m just explaining what we associate with the terms. The Old Man has the unique ability to mingle with both crowds, but when it comes right down to it, he probably has a preference to the people he associates himself with.
MS: You’re doing to now? I’m at Lowe’s man…
OMWC: I can wait until you’re home, there’s plenty of lawn left. I know it’s early there, but Cinco de Mayo, achaver!
MS: Alright. Serve at 55 in a wide bodied glass. I’ll have a few queries later
MS: So…what did you think?
OMWC: Haven’t opened it yet. I’m going to do some migas later this afternoon and crack it with them, I think. Unless you have yours open now and we can compare notes…
MS: I’m doing a little work at the moment. I’ll have it for lunch. In an hour or so. I need to take a pic of it.
MS: Its, um….sour and woody.
OMWC: It’s sour for sure. SP thinks it’s a lot more like a cider than a beer.
MS: What glass did you use?
OMWC: Widemouth. I may try a wine glass to see if that changes it.
OMWC: This beer is not pepper and peaches. In a wine glass, I get more of the woodiness.
OMWC: This beer is actively hostile.
MS: Yes. I hate it. I’m sure of it
OMWC: OK, it’s not just me.
This is Sour Ale. This one in particular was aged in oak barrels–like many wines. I sent this to the Old Man because sour ales are of course, sour, but many have a subtle fruitiness that counteracts the tartness. Something that you often fine in sweeter varieties of wine. IF you happen to like sour ales, this one is well done. It was made in 2016 though, so finding it will not only be difficult, it will cost you. I’m sure of it; I hate it. New Belgium Le Terrior 2016: 1.5/5
“Confess, don’t be boring! Confess, don’t be dull!”
Ultimately, the Old Man is set in his ways, and as a another wise man once said, you just can’t Torquemada anything.
Finally, I want to plug the Glibertarians Spring Beer it Forward once more! The beer I promised one lucky Glib is still up for grabs, so if you think you might want a well-made bock made in the mountains of Northern Arizona sent to your house, you only need to apply. To apply, send an email to its proprietor, Nephilium, at his handle name at google mail and tell him you want to sign up.
My apologies for my rather slender participation the last few days- I was at a technical conference, and I spent far too much of it getting explosively angry. The focus was talk about new regulations, new compliance requirements, new paperwork burdens, new needs for expensive consultants to navigate the legal minefields, and rapidly increasing uncertainty as to what it’s going to take to stay out of jail if you want to improve people’s lives with new technologies and products. No value-added to any of this, just government burdens. If there’s significant deregulation going on, it sure wan’t evident. I felt like an outcast presenting a paper that actually dealt with science…
And thus my extreme case of shpilkies. It would not be a good career move to start yelling, “WHO DO WE HAVE TO KILL TO END THIS BULLSHIT????” during the presentations.
Feh, enough about me. Let’s start with history. Many significant birthdays, most notably George Carlin, Stevie Winwood, and Katherine Hepburn. But there was something else… SP and I were planning on a day trip to Postville, Iowa, a town that at one time had the distinction of having the highest per capita concentration of rabbis in the world. I figured to take some photos and talk with some people there for a Jewsday feature. But we found out that today is the tenth anniversary of the Postville Raids and that there were planned events that would not be particularly Jew-friendly. So another day, perhaps.
History aside, let’s see what’s happening in the world today.
Dozens of Palestinian youths set fire to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the only point where goods enter Gaza from Israel. Gas pipelines at the crossing, bringing fuel into the coastal enclave, were damaged, the army said.
Old Man music, this time another song my band used to cover. The lyrics are trite, but it’s a good tune and the chords lay out beautifully. I don’t think these guys ever got the musical respect they deserved. Ah well.
Hello boils and ghouls, it’s your old pal the Cryptkeeper here…no wait, that’s not my name. Sorry, sometimes I get caught up in the moment.
Though I gave up the regular movie review beat, I still thought I’d bang out an article like I did last year on our experiences at TFW. To celebrate, one of the below links will go to a hardcore porn site – the rest are safe. This is your NSFW warning. You’ll never know which one it is until you try. C’mon, don’t be a pussy.
This one will be a bit different in content, since many of you would have already read my post on this from last year, and thus are already familiar with the context. For those of you who are new to the site within the past year, or didn’t read my previous write-up, in brief, TFW is the southwest’s largest horror convention, and my wife & I spend the weekend there every year.
Like last year, I’ll have a few images in the text, but most all the photos will be at the bottom of the article. It’s mostly just pics of costumes & the stuff we bought, because almost all the celebrities this year charged extra for photos with them, and the few times I tried a creepshot, it came out terribly. The other photos are mostly terrible as well due to the fact that this is literally the only time of the year I ever take photos of anything, so please understand and forgive. The only ones I really regret it on are two cosplay photos of Tippi Hedren & Spawn, which were both good costumes but when I reviewed the pics afterward, you can barely see them due to bad backlighting. It was too crowded during the main hours to take shots, so I tried to snag a lot of them in the hotel lobby. Also as before, I had trouble formatting them into a row, so you’ll have to forgive me & simply scroll down the photos in a line at the end.
The guest lineup this year was fabulous. They had all of the original cenobites (minus the chick from the first film, because she never does any conventions, ever – so the guest in her place was the chick from the second movie, which was still a good horror film). To round that group out, we had a *very* special treat – Mr. Clive Barker. He doesn’t do a lot of these kinds of things, so we were overjoyed. In addition to his prolific painting and film work, if you haven’t read any of his fiction, I highly recommend it. His Books of Blood is one of my favorite collected works of short stories ever. If you dig fantasy/horror short fiction, check it out, seriously.
Also making appearances were Ron Perlman, Adrienne Barbeau, Billy Zane, Phil Fondacaro, Tommy Flanagan, Brad Dourif, Tom Savini, Matthew Lillard, all the kids from the new IT movie, Charles Band and a shit-load of people from the various Friday the 13th films. The Friday night party was themed Camp Crystal Lake, so they were heavy on those guests (as this is the 13th year of TFW). Since I’m honestly not crazy about that film series outside of the first two movies & a few creative kills, I didn’t much care about their presence. If you don’t recognize the names of anyone just listed, check the links – I promise you’ll recognize them or at least have heard of their work.
The weekend got started off right, with Adrienne Barbeau flying in Thurs. night to attend a screening of Escape from New York at the Texas Theater, and do a Q&A afterward. The print they used was fantastic, better than my dvd, and Adrienne was an engaging speaker. She said she has done so much voicework that she has frankly forgotten most of it, and only recalls that she took some particular job once every year when some check shows up for $0.96 and has “Judge Dredd” written on the memo line (she was uncredited as the voice of the computer in that film). She tossed that out as the example, but said she just gets checks for tiny amounts every day for random old things she did. I thought this must be a strange thing, to go to your mailbox every day and be like, “Huh, I got 8 checks in the mail totaling $5.72.”
So the next day the spousal unit & I took a half-day off of work & rolled into the convention in mid afternoon, though it doesn’t open until 6. On the plus side, in their fruit-infused water jug up front, the fruit was cut into the shape of skulls.
Skull-melons“White people are fucking weird”. Also, wood.Stupid
Also amusingly, the little cute Asian girls they have working there had to wear wound makeup and have silly horror accessories, like this photo of an attractive young lady with scissors sticking out of her head. I’ve often wondered what they think about that, because the racial breakdown of the con attendees is about 70% white, 25% hispanic, and the rest is miscellaneous. Like seriously, my wife is one of maybe 20 Asian people there actually attending, and I can always count the numbers of black folks on my fingers. I have no idea why that is, but it’s true. Less amusing was the eyeroll-inducing naming of the food on the menu. I mean come on, Trembling Turkey? Blood-Dripping Buffalo Wings? And what the fuck happened to the Southwest Shrimp Cocktail, didn’t warrant a new name because it’s already so awful?
The convention started off poorly – it was so fucking crowded that Friday night, I panicked. This thing frankly outgrew the convention space last year, and this year was worse. We try to do signature hunting on Fri. night & Sun., when it’s less crowded. Well we spent an hour in line for Clive Barker, only to be told that he was leaving to do his scheduled photo shoot & wouldn’t return to the signature line that night due to feeling poorly.
Yay
So the first hour was a waste, but it kind of worked out. If you recall last year, we purchased a crocheted Count Orlock. Well the same vendor was there and she had a big crocheted xenomorph, but only one of them. She told us it had been a right bitch to make, and she was never going to make another one, so we pounced on it. If we hadn’t been forced to do a little browsing on Friday evening, I’m certain someone else would have bought it & then I’d have had to have killed my wife and myself, and possibly my extended family as well.
5 of the 6 sides are now signed – four cenobites & Clive Barker
We did get the rest of the cenobites, Adrienne, and Billy Zane that night. A few anecdotes – the cenobites, despite being English and therefore you’d think reserved, will talk your ear off, even if you’re actively trying to exit the conversation. Nicholas Vince, who played Chatterer, was dressed in nice proper business-formal attire, except for some weird Pinhead Hello Kitty cufflinks, and to his delight my wife was the first to notice them that evening. Of course it’s because she’s fucking Asian, so she saw the Hello Kitty shit immediately somehow. Also, Barbie Wilde, the female cenobite, was selling her horror fiction books, and apparently is a very nasty-minded girl. Everything was a sexual innuendo or reference, and we all had a good laugh when, midway through our conversation, we could hear someone in another row (a worker, we believe, trying to repair something in a guest’s booth) said, “Damnit, I thought sitting in this chair would make it easier, but I think I was having more success on my knees.” Barbie, my wife and I all just looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing. The photo you see is of the nice mahogany & etched brass puzzlebox we purchased to collect all their signatures on.
Also true fact: Billy Zane was just a leeeetle-bit of a dick. The best line in Zoolander pertains to him; “You should listen to your friend Billy Zane – he’s a cool dude”. Well we purposefully waited until there wasn’t anyone in his line, so that we wouldn’t be holding anybody up, and I asked him, “Hey, I know this is a bit unorthodox, but could you possibly sign this, ‘You should listen to me – I’m a cool dude’?” He smiled and kind of laughingly said, “Absolutely not”, then just stared at us. We thought he was joking for a second, because he said it kind of jovially, but then he said, “So…you just want me to make this out to the two of you or what?” So we said sure, and that was that. I mean hey, celebrities don’t owe me anything, I know that. But perhaps a, “Sorry man I don’t do personalizations to that extent” could be used instead of, “Hahaha NO”. Anyway he seemed nice enough in every other way, so maybe he’s just sick of that request. He was in a tracksuit & cowboy hat, and so looked kind of like a Russian gangster.
Phil Fondacaro’s line was short enough I was able to chat with him a bit. I asked him if it was just an outsider’s perception, or if there really were fewer opportunities for physically different actors like himself & Warwick Davis, with the advent of digital effects. He said absolutely, but it’s something of a mixed blessing because as he’s gotten older, and especially for someone who is physically limited to begin with, it’s a relief to not have to wear all the latex and costuming that he used to. A lot of the stuff that’s added in post now were the most cumbersome things to wear and act in, so the digital revolution isn’t all bad from his perspective. Of course the photo I got signed was of him as Vohnkar! And if you don’t get that reference, you’re no true child of the 80s.
Saturday was given to drinking, shopping, and making merry. It still sucked, because I had to wake my ass up at 7:30 to get in line for Clive Barker. Keep in mind the convention didn’t open until 11. So over three hours I sat there, but was 10th in line and so assured a chance to meet the great artist. Still, it left me a bit depleted for the remainder of the day.
We learned our lesson from previous years, and brought some beers, a bottle of bourbon (Larceny, which was very good for being as affordable as it was), and a bottle of Fireball. The hotel doesn’t care as long as you don’t get belligerently drunk – like David Arquette from a few years back. We were there and we saw bizarre things from a man still supposedly on the wagon. At least he drunkenly bought me a beer while we were both waiting at the bar. Anyway I attached a bunch of photos of all the shit we bought below, and some of the costumes we encountered.
That evening we spent a bit of time in the karaoke party, & went to a screening of Takashi Miike‘s live action adaptation of the manga, As the Gods Will. Now granted I wasn’t exactly sober, or anything even really resembling sober, by the time I saw this thing, but I still have no fucking clue what was going on. A weird doll was playing red-light, green-light with a class of students, and when it caught them moving their heads exploded, then the survivors went to their gym & dressed as mice and a giant maneki-neko was eating them, and it just got stranger from there. We finished out the night hanging out with all our friends on the patio, and there was a dude giving away free cigars for some reason, so that went well with the last of my bourbon (yes, the bottle was killed, with the able assistance of a couple of our friends).
Sunday was recovery day, so we went to the Ron Perlman panel. He’s a fun speaker – extremely foul-mouthed and self-deprecating. We snagged his signature and called it a weekend. As of the time of my writing this (Monday evening), yesterday was the saddest day of our year. This is our biggest event, and we get to spend it with a lot of great friends, and get a lot of great merchandise and add to our already ludicrous collection of autographs. Monsters everywhere, blood and guts, toys, movies, games, it just doesn’t get any better for the dedicated horror fan. And now it’s a whole other year until it comes around again. Oh well, less than six months to Halloween.
Love this shirt. I put this in just to trigger Old Man With Candy. “You all know me, know how I earn a living.” Great scene.This film stars a resident of Bronson, Missouri.Good costume tandem.I had no idea what the fuck this midget/child was dressed as.Sadly, they just don’t make movies like this anymore.This was sitting next to the coffee at the breakfast buffet.American Werewolf in London. Fucking awesome.A good group effortThis is some monster from an anime I don’t watch, but he did a good job with it.Oddly enough we were in the market for a new shower curtain, so we picked this up.I purchased this shirt to use as evidence because it has an unauthorized use of my likeness.A Game of Thrones Super Friends print. The Wonder Twins are Jaime & Cersei. Check out how their Wonder Twin powers activate.A bunch of little Aliens figurines we boughtMy wife bought this shirt. I was so pleased with her, I gave her the gift of the penis that very night.Remember Mad Balls? I remember Mad Balls. Now they’ve come back in the general wave of nostalgia, and there are Aliens Mad Balls.Great Spawn costume. You can’t see it well, but the eyes do glow bright green.For some fucking reason, there was a ton of Halloween III merch everywhere. I have no idea why, nobody likes that movie. Or I guess it’s trendy to claim to like it.The maid from the first season of American Horror Story. Also, wood.Of course I bought this shirt.A pretty good female Pennywise. Also, wood.Sloth loves inkAndrew Lincoln stealthily infiltrated the conventionHottie Ash. Also, wood.I liked this shirt.Creepy random guy. It’d be great if he just showed up like that and didn’t know there was a horror convention going on.Oh you *know* I bought this movie.Succubus. Also, wood.I liked how the only part of her costume that glows is one little strip right beneath her eyes. Wood knot, however.Well she normally wouldn’t have bought a denim vest, but the damned thing fit like it had been tailor made for her, so fuck it, the wife picked this up.Mutilated Disney princesses. Wood knot, to both.It’s really a shame you can’t see this properly, because she really does have like four or five birds attached to this thing attacking her. Wood knot.This was a great heavenly Pinhead costume. The insert glowing heart really sold it. Kudos to this guy.The whole Game of Thrones Super Friends.Sadly, did not buy this movie.If you can tell what that creature with the one large yellow eye is at the bottom of the poster, I’ll buy you a cookie if we ever meet. *HINT* It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.It’s like the fuckers are purpose-designing posters to try and get me to leave my current job and apply with them.I appreciated that he did the whole costume head from the first movie. Very few Captain Spauldings go through that extra effort.Hard to see, but she has a super realistic werewolf baby. Wood knot.I have no fucking clue what this is supposed to be.Mexican Deadpool being eaten by a guy in a big inflatable dinosaur skeleton costume. I should have also gotten a head shot of Mexican Deadpool for you – he had a sombrero & a big mustache. Such problematic, so appropriation.What the fuck is this I can’t evenOh look, The Shining. Wood knot.A representative from Dark Hour Haunted House in Plano, TX.Loved this idea – it’s Jason as he appeared in the NES game. Clever. Sadly, I had no rocks to throw at him, to keep try and act out the game.I liked the work this guy did on his head piece.A kid dressed as something from Five Nights At Freddy’s.Don’t know what the character is from, butt wood.Some anime, I’m sure. Wood.I thought this to be a clever way to do something different from the dozen bloody-soaked Carries walking around.The less said about this, the better.Wood knot.Silent Hill. Respectively, from the left, wood, knot knot knot.Star Trek…spiders? WTF is this even…?I thought about buying this for those days I feel like identifying as female.Great shirt – I had to zoom a lot to get it, so if you can’t tell, it’s our two protagonists from “They Live”. If you haven’t seen that movie, you’re a disgrace of a human being.There were a lot of IT costumes about. This was one of like, fifty.Hmm – from the left: wood knot, knot, wood, knot.It seems strange and grimly hilarious to me that a horror convention chooses depression as it’s charity of choice.The family that slays together…And of course you can’t even go to a fucking FFA convention anymore without there being multiple Deadpools.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. WORK HAS STARTED TO WEAR ON ZARDOZ…DELIVER GRAIN TO THE VORTEX, DELIVER GRAIN FROM THE CO-OP TO ADM, DELIVER GUNS TO THE BRUTAL EXTERMINATORS. WORK, WORK, WORK. BUT ZARDOZ HAS NOT FORGOTTEN HIS CHOSEN ONES! FOR ZARDOZ HAS LIFTED YOU FROM BRUTALITY, TO SNARK AT THE BRUTALS WHO ARE LEGION. SO ZARDOZ FIGURES THE LEAST HE CAN DO IS DROP A FEW LINKS FOR THE CHOSEN ONES TO SNARK OVER. ZARDOZ WOULD STAY AND BANTER WITH THE CHOSEN ONES, BUT MUST INSTEAD HAUL CORN TO SOME MISBEGOTTEN PLACE….DECATUR, ILLINOIS. ZARDOZ WOULD SHOUT OUT TO THE CHOSEN ONE, “GORDILOCKS” FOR HIS TRANSPORT WISDOM, PREVIOUSLY SHARED ON THIS SITE.
NOT QUITE SO EFFICIENT TRANSPORT
BUT THE CHOSEN ONES HAVE NOT COME TO HEAR ZARDOZ SPEAK OF GRAIN HAULING…THEY HAVE COME FOR LINKS. THEREFOR, GO FORTH AND SNARK!
ZARDOZ CANNOT SEE ANYTHING THAT COULD BE ABUSED HERE. NOPE. THE TABERNACLE IS WATCHING… AND REMEMBER THE PUNISHMENT FOR WRONGTHINK!
WE SAW YOUR INSTAGRAM POST ABOUT THE CITY MANAGER’S BAD HAIRCUT!
WERE ZARDOZ CAPABLE OF TEARS, ZARDOZ WOULD SHED THEM FOR THIS BRUTAL. WELL, ACTUALLY NOT. INSTEAD ZARDOZ WOULD SEE HER SENT TO THE GRAIN FIELDS FOR THE FEW REMAINING YEARS OF HER SHORT, BRUTAL LIFE.
HOW MANY YEARS OF RENT CONTROL?
ZARDOZ IS DISAPPOINT. THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH FORGIVING, AND NOT ENOUGH CLEANSING GOING ON IN MALAYSIA.
ZARDOZ IS TALKING TO YOU, KING SULTAN MUHAMMAD V!
BEFORE YOU ASK, NO, THERE ARE NOT PICS….REALLY, CHOSEN ONES. CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER, THE PENIS IS EVIL! ZARDOZ WILL NOT CONDONE ANY OF THIS NAKED HAZING!
The shooting world has been largely overtaken with the Tacticool craze.
That’s OK and probably inevitable to some degree. Why? Because these kinds of trends have always taken hold in the shooting world. Prior to World War I, the hunting and outdoor rifle trade was dominated by lever-actions. Following that Great War, thousands of returning doughboys found they had become accustomed to their 1903 Springfield and Pattern 17 Enfield bolt guns, and so the manufacturers responded to their new preferences with great pieces like the Winchester 54 and the Remington 720/722.
Now our military uses arms crafted of aluminum and black plastic, with detachable magazines, pistol grips and the other “evil” accoutrements of the modern “assault rifle.” The shooting community likewise largely prefer these types of arms, and in truth I have a couple of AR-15s myself. They are versatile and a hell of a lot of fun.
But my first love remains with walnut and blued steel. Holding a Curio & Relics (C&R) license allows me to buy arms over 50 years in age and have them shipped to me directly, and I have made heavy use of that license over the last decade or so. Well cared for, a gun can easily last over a century, and there are many, many fine old arms on the various auction sites. Some are high-priced collector’s pieces, but others are slightly worn or refinished guns that won’t excite hardcore collectors but will still give first-rate service and many can be had at bargain prices.
I’ve been shooting and hunting for about forty-five years now. Over those years, I’ve played with a lot of older firearms, most but not all now being C&R eligible. So, while the Tacticool craze continues, in this article we’ll set the black plastic aside for a while and instead, examine some of these fine old examples of the gunmaker’s craft.
Rifles
I can tell you about an interesting… well, intersectionality, in this category. My very favorite hunting rifle crosses the gap between C&R and Tacticool. Sort of.
Thunder Speaker on the bench
Thunder Speaker (yes, I name my favorite guns) was built on a 1908 DWM 98 Mauser action, qualifying it as a C&R arm. But that’s due to the legal definition of a firearm’s action as the defining, serialized portion of the total piece regulated as “firearm,” as that action is the only piece of Thunder Speaker that isn’t modern. Why? Because it’s a hunting rifle. That 100+ year old action wears a Douglas heavy sporter barrel in .338 Win Mag. My philosophy in such matters being that you can shoot little stuff with a big gun but you can’t shoot big stuff with a little gun, and Thunder Speaker will let daylight in both ends of a moose, the long way. The rifle also has a Bell & Carlson Kevlar stock and a Simmons Aetec scope. It’s a good, solid rifle–accurate, powerful, and bank-vault tough. So why choose a century-old 98 Mauser action for this rifle when the rest of it is as modern as next week?
Thunder Speaker at work
Because of the nature of the older Mausers. These older guns are made of relatively soft, mild steel, which is case-hardened. This results in a slightly softer action with a hardened “shell.” Modern rifles are manufactured of hard, high-carbon steels, and the structure of that steel is homogeneous throughout. There are advantages to this. Modifying the action doesn’t result in dangerous weakening unless minimum specs are invaded. Also, the tolerances of the machine work in newer guns is typically better.
In older Mausers, modifying the action, say to open the feed ramp to allow for longer magnum cartridges, can break the case-hardening and dangerously weaken the action. However, the older actions have two advantages, both seen in the event of a failure of the gun in an overpressure situation: a case-hardened action has a lower yield strength but a higher ultimate strength, and in the event of a catastrophic failure will split or balloon rather than explode. In a hunting rifle, where there is always the slight but ever-present chance your barrel may become obstructed without you noticing, that’s an important point.
But mostly, I use old Mauser actions because I love them. Back in the 1990s, there were huge carload lots of surplus Mausers being imported from the newly liberated eastern European nations, and a lot of them were the tough, desirable 98 actions. You could pick up one of these guns for a hundred bucks or so. Lots of them were converted into affordable, reliable, powerful sporters.
And for a few more bucks (OK, quite a few more), you can get the ultimate expression of the Mauser design, a pre-64 Winchester Model 70. The ubiquitous Remington 700 is another great bolt-action gun, but run the serial number before buying. The best Remington guns were made when the company was still owned by DuPont, which means prior to 1993.
But enough about bolt guns. Are lever actions your thing? There are tens of thousands of old Winchester 94s out there. This John Browning design is the rifle that predated the AR-15 as America’s Rifle; find yourself a pre-64 gun, with the beautiful old Winchester deep blue finish and a hand-fitted walnut stock, and you’ve got yourself a true American icon. If something more unusual appeals, there are tons of old Savage 99s out there, typically at lower prices than the Winchesters. The Savage 99 is a neat old piece, a hammerless, streamlined lever gun firing powerful cartridges like the .250-3000 and .300 Savage. The Savage has a rotary magazine and older examples have a neat little magazine cartridge counter in a window on the left-hand side of the frame, so you always know how many rounds you have available. The Marlin 336 is also a great piece and affordable but again caution is in order; find yourself an old New Haven gun, built when Marlin was still Marlin (prior to 2007) and, preferably, before the addition of the idiotic cross-bolt safety.
How about semi-autos? The scary-looking tacticools aren’t the only game in town. The great old Winchester 100 is functionally identical to an AR-10, right down to the detachable magazine (although the Winchester’s capacity is 5 rounds), but the pre-64 guns are, again, nicely appointed with fine walnut and polished blued steel. The post-64 guns are a little rougher, with rolled basket-weave patterns on the stock instead of cut checkering and slightly lower quality finish, but they are still good solid arms. The Remington 742 is another vintage semi-auto, this one available in long, full-power rounds like the .30-06, and there are even old Remington 81 Woodsmasters, the old “Piano Legs” around, although those command pretty high prices if they are in good shape.
I could go on about rifles at considerable length, but let’s move on to…
Shotguns
If there is such a thing as history’s most versatile firearm, it’s probably a 12-gauge pump shotgun. If you can only afford one gun, you could do a lot worse than to buy a 12-gauge pump shotgun. With light shot, they are great for quail; with slugs, they’ll kill a bear. Fortunately, there are a lot of good old used guns available. These fine old used pump-guns fall into four broad categories: 1) Winchester Model 12, 2) Remington 870, 3) Mossberg 500, and 4) everything else.
Top: 1944 Browning Auto-5. Bottom: 1940 Winchester Model 12
If you’re considering an 870 (or, indeed, any Remington) again, run the serial number before buying. You want a pre-1993 gun if possible. There are plenty of 870s available that meet this standard.
As for Mossbergs, there doesn’t seem to be a cutoff date. Mossberg remains as it has been, the oldest family-owned firearms manufacturer in American history, and that’s not the worst reason to choose a Mossberg shotgun if you’re looking to buy new.
But when it comes to fine old guns, you just can’t beat the pre-64 Winchester Model 12. It’s the gold standard against which all other pump shotguns are measured. Based on the John Browning-designed Winchester 1897 pump-gun, the Model 12 saw almost ninety years of production in one form or another, ending with the Browning-built carriage trade guns. Field-grade guns may be had for reasonable prices, but there are a few cautionary notes with the Model 12: the very early nickel-steel guns are safe to shoot but are not easy to refinish if restoration is your goal, and some of the very early 16-gauge guns still have 2 9/16” chambers, which could cause problems with modern ammo.
I have two Model 12s in the rack, a 1940 12 gauge and a 1941 16 gauge, both field grade guns with solid ribs, both bought as project guns, refinished and cut for choke tubes (Briley or GTFO). They are great, solid, reliable guns, either on the trap range or in the field; the lighter 16 gauge is my favorite gun for mountain grouse.
If semi-auto shotguns are your preference, again, there is an iconic piece of gunwork that stands out and, again, it’s a product of John Browning, the DaVinci of firearms – the Browning Auto-5. Not the new “A-5,” but the long-recoil original. Examples of the Auto-5 abound, and, with a few exceptions, don’t command huge prices; the Belgian-made guns run a little higher and, for some reasons, Belgian-made Sweet Sixteens can’t be had for under a grand. During WW2, the Auto-5 was made by Remington as the FN plant in Belgium was occupied by the Germans, and those American Brownings for some reason sell for lower prices. Ditto for the Remington 11 and the Savage 720, both American-made Auto-5 clones made under license.
Don’t investigate the Auto-5 if you’re worried about weight, though, as 12-gauge examples run nine pounds unloaded, with the Sweet Sixteen and it’s 20-gauge counterpart running almost a pound lighter. Again, I have two examples of this gun in the rack: a WW2 American 12 gauge and a Belgian Sweet Sixteen made in 1964. I love them both, weight and all.
There are other options. The excellent Remington 1100 was made for a long time, and there are many available at reasonable prices – again, you’ll want a pre-1993 gun. There are many, many others. Look around!
Prefer doubles? There are so many varieties of C&R-eligible double guns out there it isn’t funny. A Winchester 21 will run you no less than five figures, while an old Savage/Stevens 311 can be had for a couple hundred bucks. Surf any of the online gun auction sites and you’ll find tons of double guns at every level in between these extremes. Over-and-unders tend to be a little costlier than side-by-sides, until you get to the top-end guns, then the rule reverses for reasons I’ve never been able to ascertain.
Break-open single shots can be had for under a hundred bucks; some years back I bought an old H&R Topper 12-gauge single for $75, whacked the barrel off at 18” and stuck a fiberglass stock on it. Now named the Ditch Witch, it generally resides behind the seat of my pickup when I’m bumming around in the mountains. If someone were to want a gun for shooting rabbits out of the truck window… Well, I’m not saying I’d do such a thing, but if I were, I’d have the gun for it.
Speaking of light and handy weapons, let’s move on to…
Sidearms
My thoughts on sidearms are something of a mixed bag. I prefer modern semi-auto pistols for concealed carry, almost always relying on a Glock 36 for that role; although, I occasionally tote a full-size 1911 or sometimes a Walther PPK in .380ACP. So, modern stuff for that task; but for target shooting, woods-bumming and general outdoor stuff, I’m a wheelgun guy. Since concealed carry is a topic unto itself, I’ll talk about recreational and holster guns here.
Left to right: 1979 Ruger Security Six, 1974 S&W 25-5, 2012 Ruger Vaquero
A holster gun should meet three criteria: it should be light enough to carry easily holstered on a trouser belt or gun belt all day, short enough to clear leather quickly if you need it in a hurry, and powerful enough to handle any serious task you might undertake. Most major-caliber handgun rounds will do this, but personally, I’m a fan of the .45 Colt. My favored load, a 255-grain Keith-style hard cast semi-wadcutter over 8 grains of Unique, will blast a fist-sized chunk of wood out of the far side of a railroad tie and will lengthwise a cow elk. That’s plenty of power. Not surprisingly, it was a gun in that caliber that was one of the first real combat magnums.
Most shooters know of the old story of the U.S. Army in the Philippines and the genesis of the Colt/Browning 1911 and the .45ACP, which replaced the anemic .38 Long Colt in service sidearms. But what a lot of folks don’t know is that stocks of the old 1873 Colts weren’t sufficient for deployed troops, so the Army hurriedly contracted with Colt for a run of their New Service double-action revolver in .45 Colt for issue to the troops until the new automatic could be fielded. This gave us the 1909 Army Colt, a big, heavy revolver that packed a pretty good wallop. Smith & Wesson wasn’t slacking off in this time frame either; in 1908 they brought out the .44 First Model Hand Ejector, the famous “Triple Lock,” again a big, heavy revolver chambered for the .44 Special.
These two guns changed the way the shooting world looked at sidearms. None other than Elmer Keith described the Triple Lock as the finest revolver ever made, and samples of both the 1909 Colt and the Triple Lock command high prices today. But fortunately, there are other options.
My personal woods-bumming sidearms are a 1974-vintage Smith & Wesson 25-5 in .45 Colt, with a 4” barrel. Those guns run around a grand, but my other is a new-purchase (2012) Ruger Vaquero in .45 Colt with the 4 ¾” barrel, and those guns can be had new for about five hundred bucks. Mrs. Animal’s outdoor sidearm is a 1979 Ruger Security-Six, which is unique in having the smallest grip frame I’ve ever seen in a .357 Magnum, perfect for her tiny hand. Security-Sixes run about four hundred and their fixed-sight counterpart, the Speed-Six, a tad less.
Whatever caliber you fancy, there are plenty of old wheelguns available. The single-action Ruger Blackhawks have been in production for a good long time and available in rounds ranging from the .30 Carbine to the .44 Magnum. In double-actions, there are lots of K, L and N-frame Smiths in various calibers. You can even find good used Colt Detective Specials showing some holster wear at good prices, and that’s still a damn fine CCW piece.
If you prefer autos, 1911s are great but there are occasional prizes such as the Smith & Wesson 39, a solid, reliable 9mm auto that goes for around three hundred, when you can find them. The ultimate design of John Browning, the 9mm Hi-Power, still commands a fair price but there are plenty of them available; a military surplus example with some holster wear can be had at a good price, and they are still good reliable guns.
Bargains are where you find them – and while we are on the topic of bargains, let’s move on to…
Rimfires
I put these in a category of their own, mostly because rimfire rifles and handguns are uniquely useful for low-cost practice shooting, plinking and small game hunting. And the options here are, very nearly, without limit.
When I was a kid, I almost never went anywhere without a .22 rifle in hand. I learned to shoot with the old .22 Mossberg auto that my Mom bought my Dad for their 3rd anniversary in 1950 (and I still have it), but when I was about 13, I used a good chunk of a summer’s haying and de-tasseling money to buy a Marlin 783 in .22 WMR. I proceeded to use it to kill a small mountain of squirrels, crows and woodchucks around the Old Man’s place over the next few years. The old Marlin is still in the gun rack and it still shoots as good as ever. Growing up in Allamakee County, Iowa, was awesome. I wandered the woods all summer, hunted in the fall, and ran a trapline in the winter–and that old Marlin was my constant companion.
Marlin 783 and 50-yard groups.
Bolt-action Marlins, Mossbergs and various other makes of rimfire rifles in this vintage typically sell for between a hundred and two hundred bucks. Lever guns such as the Marlin 39 and the 9422 Winchester command higher prices but can be had for under a grand. The semi-auto Marlin 60 may be the most popular rimfire firearm ever made, with over eleven million produced to date, and you can get these used for around a hundred bucks if you shop around.
Listing all the .22 rimfire rifles available would burn up more bandwidth than I can afford in this article, but whether you like bolt guns, autos, levers, or anything else, there are nice old C&R-eligible guns out there. Want a lightweight old single-shot? Find an old Stevens Favorite. Serious target rifle? Decent old Winchester 52s can be had for under a grand. Plinker? The Marlin 60 or the reliable Ruger 10-22 are available by the thousand.
And don’t overlook rimfire handguns. Brand-spanking new Ruger Single Sixes run under five hundred bucks, and you can get a vintage model with a better trigger for around three. The original Ruger Standard Auto has moved into C&R territory now. I have one, a 6” version the Old Man bought mail order (!) around 1960. I’ve run a lot of rounds through that and my other .22 sidearm, a 1930s-vintage Colt Officer’s Target. Great guns, cheap and easy to shoot, reliable and solid.
Top: 1930s Colt Officers Target. Bottom: 1960 Ruger Standard Auto.
As with rifles, there are too many types of rimfire handguns around to list. You couldn’t go wrong with Smith & Wesson K-22 or the smaller J-frame Kit Gun. The old Rugers are great but don’t pass up a High Standard auto; they are in big demand as target guns but there are many available. The Colt Diamondback was available in .22LR, as was the old Ruger SP-101, if double-action revolvers are your preference. The old Harrington & Richardson break-top revolvers in .22LR were made in the thousands and can be had for a couple hundred bucks.
Shop around! The possibilities are nearly endless.
Now, if they would just bring back the .25 Stevens rimfire…
Conclusion
The world of fine old guns is so great, I couldn’t possibly list even a fraction of them in the space the Glibertarian editors would allow me. I could write an entire article on old shotguns, another on big-game rifles, one on centerfire sidearms. But in this segment, I necessarily gave you all the broad strokes, leavened with my lengthy experience in the shooting world.
The Tacticool world will always be with us now, and that’s fine. But I suspect there are plenty of folks who still appreciate walnut and blued steel. If you are one of them, great! My advice is this: get a C&R license. Make note of all the various auction sites. Drop in to your local gun dealer and even pawn shops on occasion; you never know where you’ll find a prize. Try the unusual old guns.
And remember this: antiques, guns made before 1898, are exempt from even the C&R regulation, and can be bought, sold, traded and shipped directly with no paperwork.
Hey, whaddaya know, I made it home to sleep in my own bed on a school night for a change. Too bad it never seems to last. Oh well, it could be worse. I could be a player on the Nashville Predators. They probably didn’t sleep too well last night after getting throttled by the J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets last night at home in the determining game of their Campbell Conference Semifinal. The Jets will take on Army/Vegas in a conference final that will be so fast we may need the old Fox puck tracker system to watch. My prediction: Vegas in 7. Meanwhile, in the Wales Conference, the finals kick off tonight in what will likely be a much slower, much more physical affair. The Capitals finally took down their nemesis, so I’m curious to see how they do in a round of the playoffs that probably feels unfamiliar to most of the guys on the team. My pick: Tampa Bay in 6.
You can play 18 holes in the morning. And then catch that business meeting in the afternoon…because you missed the cut by 10, not because of your shirt.
At the Players Championship this week, there’s a slew of players at -6, a bunch within 3 of the lead and one guy (hello, Phil) played in what appeared to be a dress shirt gone wrong. Seriously, that was awful.
Across the pond, we’re down to the nub in the EPL, as all but a couple things are decided. Swansea need a miracle to stay up and Chelsea need a lot of help to get into the UCL #4 slot. Sunday will be boring for results, but I bet there are a lot of goals and a lot of fun, albeit meaningless, games to watch.
You want birthdays? I’ll give you birthdays. Today’s belongs to composer/songwriter Irving Berlin, weird bastard/artist Salvador Dali, hilarious/underrated comedian Phil Silvers, racist/racist Louis Farrakhan, hurler Milt Pappas, and “alt-right” “leader” Richard Spencer. Also happening on this date: The Third Crusade kicked off when 100,000 crusaders left Regensburg under HRE Frederick Barbarossa, Christopher Columbus began his last voyage, Benjamin Franklin opened the Pennsylvania Hospital, J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded, Walter Hagen won the British Open, Faulkner’s “Go Down, Moses” is published, Asshole Eichmann was captured, And perhaps most importantly of all, Monty Python was formed 49 years ago to the day.
Hoo-boy. For a weak set of birthdays, this date had a lot going for it historically. But enough of that. Let’s get to…the links!
Wait a damn minute. You mean to tell me that two Chicago Police officers that have been charged with stealing cash and drugs have a long history of misconduct complaints that the department did jack shit with? Why, I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell ya, to hear that they didn’t already get these guys off the force. (::SMDH at why anyone would live in that Corruptocracy::)
In other Texas school news, Katy ISD has decided to offer financial support to defend its superintendent against accusations of bullying…from when he was in middle and high school. It also will defend him against claims that he permits cyberbullying of current students. You know, because a public school should be telling kids that aren’t allowed to exert their 1A rights rather than telling kids if they don’t want to get “bullied” on the internet, they merely need to turn their devices off.
If you think I’m happy I was able to do the links at least once this week, you got that right.
Have a great Friday and a better weekend, friends.
Good afternoon. Here is the news for people that don’t speak American.
CNN discussed policy details with candidates for President of Colombia. Evidently one of the recurring themes was….environmental stewardship? I’m only showing the first one they interviewed because they didn’t appear to be in any kind of logical order, so I assume this guy is who they are trying to turn into the winner:
Les preguntamos a nuestros usuarios en Colombia qué temas son su mayor preocupación de cara a las próximas elecciones. Los temas más recurrentes fueron corrupción y transparencia, desarrollo agrícola, cuidado del medio ambiente y emprendimiento.
La primera vuelta presidencial en Colombia será el 28 de mayo. Esto es lo que proponen los cinco candidatos a la presidencia de Colombia.
Gustavo Petro
– Los corruptos que hayan robado dinero al Estado irán a la cárcel y deberán devolver los dineros.
– Elegir por concurso público de méritos a los representantes de los órganos de control para que no actúen bajo la influencia de los poderes Ejecutivo y Legislativo.
– Crear la Procuraduría delegada para la protección de los derechos políticos y de la oposición
– Sancionar a quienes infrinjan las normas electorales y coarten, manipulen o constriñan el derecho al elegir y ser elegido.
We asked our users in Colombia what issues are their biggest concern in the upcoming elections. The most recurrent themes were corruption and transparency, agricultural development, care for the environment and entrepreneurship.
The first presidential round in Colombia will be on May 28. This is what the five candidates for the presidency of Colombia propose.
Gustavo Petro
– The corrupt who have stolen money from the State will go to jail and must return the money.
– To elect by public contest of merits the representatives of the control bodies so that they do not act under the influence of the Executive and Legislative powers.
– Create the Delegate Attorney for the protection of political and opposition rights
– Punish those who violate the electoral norms and restrict, manipulate or constrain the right to elect and be elected.
“Ya no habrá clases o grupos de personas exentos”, dejó claro la secretaria del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, Kirstjen Nielsen, el martes ante el Senado. “Si cruzas la frontera ilegalmente, quebrantas la ley y tenemos que procesarte”, añadió, admitiendo eso sí que es una cuestión “difícil”. Y lo es porque, con esta política de “tolerancia cero” anunciada el 6 de abril por el fiscal general, Jeff Sessions, los agentes de inmigración entregarán tanto a las mujeres embarazadas como a los padres que intenten cruzar la frontera ilegalmente con sus hijos a la justicia para que sean procesados. En este último caso, supone separarlos de sus niños por un tiempo indeterminado.
“There will no longer be classes or groups of exempt people,” the Secretary of the Department of National Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, made clear on Tuesday before the Senate. “If you cross the border illegally, you break the law and we have to prosecute you,” he added, admitting that it is a “difficult” issue. And it is because, with this policy of “zero tolerance” announced on April 6 by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, immigration agents will give both pregnant women and parents who try to cross the border illegally with their children to justice for them to be prosecuted. In the latter case, it means separating them from their children for an indeterminate time.
Cualquier nueva vivienda o edificio de pocos pisos que sea construido a partir del año 2020 en California deberá tener paneles solares como parte de las nuevas reglas aprobadas este viernes por la Comisión de Energía del estado para ahorrar energía producida por fuentes tradicionales.
La medida, que ahora pasa a la Comisión sobre Estándares de Edificación -donde se espera una ratificación del plan- no solo busca ahorrar energía y bajar el costo de la factura eléctrica de los californianos, sino que además mantendrá con temperatura estable los hogares de millones de personas en medio de olas de calor y reducirá considerablemente la contaminación atmosférica que producen las viviendas de alto consumo energético al multiplicar la actividad de las centrales termoeléctricas en todo el estado.
California, que hace pocos días convirtió en la quinta economía del mundo, desplazando de ese lugar a Reino Unido, proyecta que durante el año 2020 se construirán 100,000 viviendas unifamiliares y 50,000 multifamiliares con esos nuevos estándares.
Sin embargo, la inclusión de paneles solares elevará el costo de cada unidad familiar unos 10,000 dólares, pero la Comisión de Energía de California estima que los ahorros sobrepasarán ese costo inicial durante la vida útil del sistema de paneles antes de tener que ser reemplazado en el largo plazo.
Any new housing or low-rise building that will be built as of 2020 in California should have solar panels as part of the new rules approved this Friday by the State Energy Commission to save energy produced by traditional sources.
The measure, which now passes to the Commission on Building Standards – where a plan’s ratification is expected – not only seeks to save energy and lower the cost of the electricity bill for Californians, but will also keep the homes of millions at a stable temperature. of people in the midst of heat waves and will significantly reduce the air pollution produced by high energy consumption homes by multiplying the activity of thermoelectric plants throughout the state.
California, which a few days ago became the fifth largest economy in the world, displacing the United Kingdom from that location, projects that by 2020, 100,000 single-family homes and 50,000 multifamily homes will be built with these new standards.
However, the inclusion of solar panels will raise the cost of each family unit by about $ 10,000, but the California Energy Commission estimates that the savings will exceed that initial cost over the life of the panel system before it has to be replaced in the future.
I like how they think it matters how large of an economy California is by itself.
Translation services one again are available by the Alpha Beta Corporation. Who question whether you ought to be channeling your rage at this particular boogeyman. After all, Starbucks probably just did something else to piss you off.
