Guns, Guns, Guns

First off: I am not an anti-gun extremeist. I don't think that we ought not to have the right to own guns. I do think that there is no reason not to have restrictions, especially when it comes to the larger military-style weapons. (No one needs hand grenades or anti-personnel mines, or assault weapons, for that matter, or if they do, it's probably for some basically very bad reasons.) But, for good or ill, this is what it says:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

It says we are to have the right to keep and bear arms in order to serve as our state's militia. Boom. Like that. That's it. That's all. It does not say that we have the right to keep guns in our homes for defense against fellow Americans. It simply doesn't say that. In order to make it say that you have to read it thusly:

" . . . the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Notice the missing comma? Sorry. In order for this to be a literal right to own guns, the comma has to go. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise.

What we need is a new amendment. (Full disclosure: this is my wife's suggestion.) Something that spells out, in no uncertain terms, what our gun rights are, up to and including when we lose them. (Like after violent felony convictions. Or after shooting your neighbor's tires out. That sort of thing.) I don't really want to own a gun. Mainly I want something that will make it less likely for me to want to say, six to twelve times a year (depending on political cycles), "Sorry, asshole. You're wrong."

Let's just try that once more, with feeling

@#$%ing Blogger.

Just ignore the other post, the one that's just a title and nothing more. Blogger decided I didn't need the text or the picture.

Craftsmanship! @#$%ing Blogger.

So anyways, the Wifey and I are slated to go to a Sci-Fi event this weekend, the annual showing of the movie Serenity, of the Firefly ilk. To that end, she asked me to make her a fake knife to go with her costume. (She is going as a kind of generic browncaot. She was going to go as Zoe. I am going to put on a Hawaiian shirt, and if anyone asks, I'll say I'm Wash. You either got all of that, or else I might as well be speaking French.)

I am really rather impressed with the results! The construction is aluminum foil and duct tape on compound-weight cardboard.

Craftsmanship!

SoundClick Widgets

Nostalgiamizing

Remember back when you were younger, high school, maybe in your early 20's, when you and your friends were working crappy part time or entry level jobs, and you'd each stop by the gas station at some point and put five dollars in the tank of your crappy car? "That ought to last me the week," you'd say. Remember?

That figure is now 20 bucks.

20 bucks, and I got almost 3/4 of a tank!

That ought to last me a week.

Man Bites Dog

AWHILE back I was digging around for something or other and I discovered a cache of old poetry. This next piece was amongst the cache. It dates to ooooohhhh, I'd guess 1986? 1987? I don't recall what specifically what was going on in the Middle East at the time, but this kind of sums up what I saw going on in the area in general at the time. It's probably every bit as valid (or faulty) now as it was then. Enjoy!

ONE NATION UNDER

Crazed StLukeStPeterStJohn
Streaks and rages across lands
Of blazing sands
And burning brooks
God is envious of the world he created
And now He wants it back
The Dealer looking to make the lucky black bet
To strike the five-streak
House rules, play again
House odds, how strange?
The house wins.

Somewhere outside Jerusalem
In a bar on the backside on the street
The old beard tires of counting lost bets
And spills open a box of matches
On the counter
And sits
Waiting for one of them to ignite.

Pressure of triggertofinger
Spills open a fresh clip across the desert
Waiting for one of them to strike a compromise
Between mankind and miracle
Khakis in the jungle
Camo in the desert
Surplus gasmask and DowChem supplies
On blazing sands and burning brush

Looking to exchange DowChem for gray pinstripe
Looking to strike the five-streak
Looking to change future to past
Looking out for Number One, the Great Dealer
The Big Man, the Great Healer
Slicing and shredding His way across the Third World
Looking out for Number One
Looking up to Gray Pinstripe
And the almighty Positive Cash Flow
Screw the missionaries, we have our own God now
Raise the odds
Take the stakes
And God Damn the state lottery
The old beard shrieks INJUSTICE FOR INJUSTICE
The young beard spits out holy DowChem and brimstone
One God For All
And all gods to one end
In the burning sands of the holy land
And fire and ice and fire and ice
Over and over forever and ever amen
Unto the next holy dark age
Until the dealer lights the next five-streak.