A Nice Place To Keep Sodas

While perusing America’s Second Freedom, I’ve often encountered an ad from Browning touting its gun safes. How does it do so? By presenting the testimonial of Inmate #8390027, a.k.a. “Sledge”: “When I get out, I’m getting a Browning safe.”

Text of the ad indicates:

Sledge is currently serving a seven to 15-year [sic] sentence for his fifth conviction for breaking and entering an occupied dwelling (he has plea bargained away over 20 other “B & Es” and admits that he has done more than he could count in his 13-year criminal career). In a letter to Browning written from his cell, Sledge freely admits, “My partner and I broke into hundreds of houses, many with so-called gun safes, and after we tried to get into a Browning gun safe, it was the last thing we ever wanted to see.”

In his letter, Sledge cites a previous advertisement for Browning gun safes under the headline, “The Competition Hates Our Guts.” He responds, “Now that I see what goes into your safe, I see why I could never open one. The competition isn’t the only one who hates your guts!” Sledge can’t stay locked away forever. Isn’t it nice to know your valuables can?

While I see Browning’s goal with this article, which is to say a convicted burglar/home invader knows a Browning gun safe is a good gun safe, but let’s reiterate the eye-catching headline:

“WHEN I GET OUT, I’M GETTING A BROWNING SAFE.”

Class, discuss the reasons that Mr. Sledge would own a gun safe. Would it be:

  • A safe place in which he, a convicted felon, could store weapons that he possessed illegally since he is prohibited from owning guns.
  • A good way to practice breaking into Browning gun safes.
  • A cool, dry place to store sodas.

Apparently Browning must think it was the last option.

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Protecting The Children from, Well, The Children

In a story certain to not shock anyone with the faintest memory of being young and hormonal and not suffering from the slightest repressed-guilt-turned-into-outrage, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

A group of 15-year-olds from a St. Peters high school who made a video showing two girls kissing and a naked girl being touched by two boys are facing child pornography charges.

All consensual among the fifteen year olds, but guess what? They’re facing child pornography charges! Of course. They’d be safe from statutatory rape charges if they’d limited themselves to copulation, but record it and wham! It’s a crime.

So they’re doing what curious and, let’s face it, unconstrained (whether by parents or morals) digital kids do, which is namely a little I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours, with the optional “see-like-a-blind-person” rule in effect.

Three have been referrred to juvenile court on charges of promoting child pornography, furnishing pornographic materials to a minor and promoting a sexual performance by a child. The other four are still underinvestigation and may be charged, police say.

“They did the act, they knew what they were doing, and they knew it was wrong,” said St. Peters Sgt. David Kuppler. “You can’t film a 15-year-old child nude no matter what age you are. It’s the same standard we would hold an adult to, it’s just the juvenile justice standard.”

Now the system’s going to brand them as sexual offenders, put their names on the Internet for the rest of their lives, and some suburban prosecutor will be one heroic step closer to governorship. That will protect and serve no one but… well, the government and its bit players hoping for named roles (instead of Municipal Assistant District Attorney #2, I will be David Justice, Avenger of the Oppressed!).

The kids all need a good swatting, without the cameras rolling, thank you. A good talking to, and a maybe bit of “Hold on for three years and you’ll be a Vivid superstar, but from here out, you’re wearing burlap.” But jail time (reform school time, I mean, not as bad as jail except it is)?

It’s a continuing shame that parents cannot discipline and their children and hence cannot trust other parents to discipline or train their own children. As part of this abdictation, the only alternative lazy or immoral parents can turn to is the heavy hand of Government, whose spanking hand is numb and unfeeling from overuse and whom the punishment is not hurting as much as it is hurting us.

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More Signs You’re Getting Old

Here’s a list of more signs you’re getting old.

I have to wonder the real age of the person who wrote this, though, because it seems hollow, as though it was compiled by a damn kid writing for us old people.

Some points:

  • Your computer’s ready-mode was a black screen with a single cursor.
    There’s still just a single curser sitting at my computer. Me. Actually, my first computer’s ready screen was blue and grey. Viva la Commodore!
  • And you thought it [the Pong arcade game] had the most advanced graphics imaginable.
    Look here, boy, Pong did have the most advanced graphics.

  • AOL was just another start-up online service that could easily have lost out to rivals called Compuserve and Prodigy.
    Son, back in the day, we had Quantum Link, Delphi, and bulletin boards. AOL is a 1990s late bloomer.

  • A 1-gig hard drive seemed as big as a warehouse. (Today, most are 40-times that.)
    Back in the day, the Lt. Kernal 1 Meg hard drive cost $1000, werd. I never had one.

  • Even though there are plenty of LPs in antiques stores, you still have 400 in your attic, because deep down, you still think the format will come back.
    Dude, you cannot sell records for any decent money. Last time I tried to sell an LP or 45 was in the early 1990s, and the used music shop wouldn’t take them off my hands. So they’re up there because they’re worth more for the memories than the money. And who knows, one of these days we might find a working record player again, and when we do, it’s gonna be a party!. Albeit a party where one has to pause the beer-drinkng every couple of minutes to change or flip the record.

Now get offa my lawn!

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The Kangaroo Has A Master Plan At Work

The wise Tim Blair says:

Kangaroos are friendly. Not like wombats; a wombat will leave you for dead every time.

Of course, he’s linking to a story about a kangaroo tugging the Lassie grift and drawing attention to a farmer who’d been knocked senseless. The kangaroo might just have saved the farmer’s life.

However, we here at RooWatch Central have covered this ground already. Beware the kangaroos.

Obviously, this Lulu character is up to something. Now Lulu is being lauded by Australians. Suddenly, she starts amassing wealth and then uses her popularity as a springboard for replacing John Howard, and suddenly, it’s just like On The Beach (well, in that it’s the end of the world, and it’s set in Australia).

Someone better take care of Lulu before she gets access to Australia’s nuclear arsenal or the Collingwood Magpies is all I am saying. Once she has the Bomb or a standing army, there will be no stopping her.

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A Politician or a Leader?

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune knows the difference (but he’ll only share it with you if you register, which you should):

So the best thing the president could have done, politically, would have been to leave it all to the United Nations, to walk away while loudly declaring victory. That would have been the shrewd move.

You, Heather, and El Guapo, Cagey, and the Meatriarchy guy, go read the whole thing.

Show the Chicago Tribune Web servers what a musingtrickle feels like!

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Aren’t They Cute?

Mrs. du Toit has put up a picture of she and Mr. du Toit’s “children.”

Sweet. Perhaps I’ll have to interrupt my too-frequent, too-boring book reviewing schedule to put up a couple of photos of my double-stacked bookshelves for you all to ooh and ah over.

Three things the next house must have:

  • A library
  • A bar / video game room
  • A weight room

Living rooms and bedrooms? Optional!

Update: For means of comparison.

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Dr. Guapo and Dr. Noggle to Emergency, Please

Drudge links to a story wherein Germany faces its breweries getting sold to multinationals who promise to retain the good German name even if they water down the contents to bolster multinational profit.

Hey, I am from Milwaukee. I know how that feels.

The article also says that German beer consumption is declining. Emergency, El Guapo! We must redouble our efforts to support the industry! Only Harfestivus can save them now!

Although I must admit I find most German beers to salty for my taste. I will, however, continue to prop up American, Irish, British, and Canadian brewers to the best of my ability.

You have my word on that.

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Thank You for the Head’s Up

Alert reader “Martin Simmons” (I assume he’s a reader, since I got this message in my Hotmail box which I make available for you, gentle readers) sends me this warning:

From : “Martin Simmons”
To : stlbrianj@hotmail.com
Subject : Stlbrian j – Porn found on YOUR computer!
Date : Sun, 21 Sep 2003 03:43:36

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: from ([67.167.16.201]) by mc5-f10.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Sun, 21 Sep 2003 03:38:39 -0700
X-Message-Info: JGTYoYF78jEmAVs0XODqK3fTx/8P7QHe
X-Message-Info: ALYqAGt3oIELxgQxtYO3XDTcnoQ7gxpN1lk7V

X-Message-Info: lcOMLY2qAGOtx3wIEXLgQ5tcYa3DTnQ5gzpl1A5
Message-Id: <20030921433636.hD5lb9HMWuZjMe@>
Return-Path: gpdqzcl@canada.com
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Sep 2003 10:38:39.0772 (UTC) FILETIME=[852CADC0:01C3802C]

zvEach web site you SEE is STORED ON YOUR COMPUTER!pgsgt
mchkvCleaning Cache or History DOES NOT stop snooping!snx
syjxsPROTECT YOUR PC – DO IT INSTANTLYpcnbj

Thanks for the warning, buddy. I’m sorry I didn’t reproduce your link for my readers, where undoubtedly they could click to replace their porn with your Trojan Horse, but you’ll probably get enough zombies out of your mailing to make it worth your time without any of us.

Also, please note that I don’t want to get rid of the porn on my computer. It’s taken me a long time to collect what I have, and it’s schnucking hard to find good hot girl-dressed-as-a-clown-on-cypress photos anyway. Who knows when I would get a chance to replace them?

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Splurging Glurge

MSNBC is running a story entitled “What $87 Billion Buys: Instead of a war in Iraq, here’s what America could be getting for its money”. In this remarkable (as I am remarking on’t, werd) piece (of something), the author puts together a list of bullet points that describe things the government could do with $87 billion dollars instead of spending it rebuilding Iraq. In between lists, he inserts some snarky quotes by grabby people who haven’t quite gotten their hands full of your money on their pet projects yet.

Basically, Jonathan Darman, author of this Web Exclusive! says the United States Government could, and should, take that $87 billion dollars and:

  • Hire millions more bureaucrats which would then need $87 billion dollars plus cost of living adjustments every
    year from this day forward
    , or

  • Pour millions into the budgets of petty bureaucracies, who know they have to spend the money if they want to get
    it next year, which again means $87 billion dollars a year plus 8- or 10-percent annual increases forever.

The author of the piece obviously attended the remedial mathematical classes required to get a Poli-Sci degree along with our distinguished Congresspeople who have the motto if we have a dollar, we should rent something that costs a dollar a month forever.

(Link seen on Little Green Footballs.)

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It’s Called Synergy

At first it might look of accidental chocolate in the peanut butter, but I think Centene Corporation is onto something here. I mean, it’s a fringe benefit to the employees that the Centene will take care of their children while the employees work, Centene reduces mail distribution costs by using child labor, and the children learn that life is drudgerous work punctuated by meals and cadaverous sleep to almost refresh one’s self for another day of futile, Sisyphean endeavours. No matter how much mail you sort for distribution, the mailman postal carrier’s going to bring more tomorrow.

Win-win-win!

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Book Review: Britain’s Kings and Queens: 63 Reigns in 1100 Years
by Sir George Bellew, K.C.V.O.

Well, friends, I have stooped to a new low, lower than the previous new low and probably not quite as low as what I shall attain tomorrow, but nevertheless, I am going to review a schnucking pamphlet for you today. The title of the pamphlet is Britain’s Kings and Queens: 63 Reigns in 1100 Years by Sir George Bellew, K.C.V.O. It’s a pamphlet because it’s 32 pages long, and I snuck it into my reading as a nonfiction entry while I slog through Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in an omnibus paperback that includes two other short-but-tedious Russian novels (although they beat the regular-sized-but-tedious Russian novels). So pity me whatever affliction I have that drives me to read Dostoyevsky without an impending final, and just hear what I have to say about the short book I did read.

The edition I read, in its unknown softcover binding, was published in 1968, 15 years after Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne, but the whole thing’s an explication of the line of royalty in Britain, who they were, and why Liz II was going to be a great ruler.

All right, I shouldn’t go dumping royalty in the harbor with the tea, but the tone of the book is adulatory. It seeks to connect Elizabeth II with her ancestors and to shine a light on, or perhaps reflect the monarch’s own light, upon the history that legitimized the monarch.

After a brief forward, the book goes into brief capsules of monarchs starting with Egbert and on through the Saxon kings, William the Conqueror, the Tudors, the Stuarts, and on and on. Each monarch gets a couple of paragraphs, more if they’re remembered fondly.

They have to be brief. After all, only the even pages contain the biographies. The odd pages contain asides, photographs of Elizabeth II’s coronation, royal portraits, and other sundry trivia. You’ve heard the expression The Crown Jewels, haven’t you? Well, I know all four pieces of the regalia because they’re listed on page 7. I won’t mention them here because it will ruin the impact when I suddenly uncork that bit of trivia in a conversation.

So it’s not a bad little treatise. For its size, it makes a handy reference guide for those who might someday write something about a monarch. Hey, Shakespeare wrote his body of plays with a similar, albeit more fleshed out, history. So if you can nab one of those two dollar copies on an auction site, it might be worth it for you.

It’ll be more than worth it if you can correct me at some future date about the order of English monarchs or the dates of their reigns.

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Fad? It’s a Life Style!

This evening, I proved my contemporary nature to impress my wife by participating in a faddish flash mob.

Tonight, at 5:24 pm, I joined a group of strangers whom I have never met before, and we came together on Interstate 270 just north of Dougherty Ferry Road in St. Louis County, and together we stopped our cars for no reason and sat there listening to the radio.

After two minutes of immobility, for no reason whatsoever, we started driving again.

I am hep, dig?

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First One’s Kinda Bad, But The Rest Taste Better

Electric Venom’s got a post on caffeinated sausages in Germany. To sum up:

But “How does it taste?” you ask?

Dude, it keeps you awake longer so you can have more beer. Does it matter how it tastes?

But it’s more German beer.

Tonight I am drinking Peroni, whose very literature reminds us that it’s beer made by American ally. Werd. And you know, after a couple, they don’t taste too bad.

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Gratuitous Linking Is Not Working

Undoubtedly, some of you have noticed how I have often linked, often gratuitously, to Instapundit in my posts. For no apparent reason, some posts include the www.instapundit.com URL in them.

I admit I was trying to use you, dear reader, in my own foolish drive for recognition, or at least a perfunctory glance from Professor Reynolds. You see, I hoped you might see that link and click it, which would put my own URL briefly in the referrer logs at Instapundit.

If enough you visited that site, perhaps He would see my URL in the referrer logs and would pop by. Maybe He would link to me, or maybe The Professor and I would become fast friends. Maybe He would let me drive his Mazda, and I would let him play Arkanoid.

But my ruse has become transparent to you, discriminating reader, for the frequency of links to Instapundit are almost as frequent as links to Amazon, Internet Movie Database, and my beautiful wife. I won’t bother you any more with the gratuitous links to Instapundit anymore, because I know you’ll see through them, and I don’t want to lose any more of your respect.

Besides, I realize that those of you who frequent blogs have already read Instapundit before you show up here.

However, I hope you will forgive me if I link to something The Professor says, perhaps excerpted and followed by a simple “Heh.” or “Indeed.” Please understand this is not gratuitous linking or even pale imitating, but rather homage and fair use.

Thank you.

Were I not so discouraged, I would try to follow some of Wizbang’s advice for triggering an Instalanche. But I am too discouraged.

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