>Sportwriter FAIL

>I don’t follow the sports news, not even a little; the headline caught my eye nevertheless, something about an AK-47 and a baseball player….

It seems Evan Longoria and a couple of teammates rented a house together. While they were out doing whatever it is baseball players do at Spring Training, young go-getters were getting into the house and got away a TV set, a laptop, Xboxes, iPads, fancy watches…and Longoria’s rifle.

The latter item, sportswriter Dan Brown treats as if the ownership of is evidence of awfulness and as for not having stored the gun as though it was a radioactive escaped child-strangler, why, Mr. Brown is simply horrified it was there at all, lecturing readers that, “Longoria wouldn’t want word to get out that he was careless and irresponsible enough to store an unsecured deadly weapon in a rented home that had little or no apparent security system and would frequently be unoccupied.” I guess because we should all just assume our houses will be burgled?

The fun comes in the comments, about 19 in 20 criticizing the sports writer for his anti-gun attitude.

Yes, we’d all like to see guns stored safely when they’re not being carried* — but just as it is his choice to leave a costly watch on his nightstand instead of locked in a box in a drawer with his socks, it is the owner’s choice how to store firearms. An overwhelming majority of random Internet commenters grasp this obvious truth; sportswriters, not so much. (Meanwhile, the player’s local paper manages to cover the issue without frothing at the mouth).
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* My reason for going to greater lengths to lock them up than, say, rare telegraph keys or the big-screen TV is because I don’t want to walk in on some yahoo who will proceed to shoot me (or more likely, club me) with my own gun, not because they’re so especially special-bad.

>Grooming Cats

>Tonight was cat manicure night, at least for their front paws. Miss Rannie (Random Numbers) Wu loathes the idea; she never had it done before she met me. She usually barely tolerates the procedure and tonight, she grumbled, complained and when we got the the very last one — her right thumbnail, sharp, long and almost grown back to the pad — she’d had enough. She struggled and wailed!

Huck sat on the floor and watched in fascination. She was way more riled than he ever manages! He scampered away when I let Rannie go and told him his turn was next, but I caught up with him in my bedroom, when his attention was captured by contemplation of the ascent of the North face of my clothes hamper.

Poor little guy, he squeaked in outrage and had a go at biting me. He only had a few sharp ones, though, so it was over soon.

…Which brought us to treat time! He loves being hand-fed, and will stand up and grab your hand very gently, with nary a hint of claw. I located Rannie under the dining room table, and fed her treats at arm’s length; she growled the first couple until she figured out it was a pretty good deal. She’s on my desk as I type, handy to my right hand for petting but she’s got the mouse well trapped and complains when I have to move it.

Despite all the commotion, they seem to have weathered their terrible claw-trimming ordeal yet again. Especially the treats part at the end.

>Unhappy Anniversary

>The TV reminds me that on this date, lunatic John W. Hinckley, Jr. took potshots at President Ronald Reagan, seriously injuring Press Secretary James Brady.

In the wake of this tragedy, Mr. Brady’s wife had a choice; she could blame the crazy guy who pulled the trigger, and work to improve detection and treatment of such person, or she could blame the gun in his hand.

A logical, reasonable person might point out that a gun without John W. Hinckley, Jr. at the trigger is just a collection of inert parts, while Hinckley without a gun can still carry a stiletto or a can of hairspray and a lighter, or a flask of sarin.

Sarah and James didn’t see it that way.

So much for “common sense.”

>Anything George Could Do, He Can Do Better

>…Or at least even more of.

Since I’m already earworming readers with well-known Broadway tunes, why not something from a different “Annie?”

Sadly, the subject of this morning’s disquisition isn’t as lighthearted: seems Our President, who as a candidate proclaimed that honoring the Rule of Law demanded that terror suspects be Mirandized, now tells us, no, no, noo, and he’s urging Feds to go all Jack Bauer on terror suspects, especially if they suspect an immediate threat to public safety.

I’m sure many readers will tell me Mr. Obama has finally seen the light, but it bothers me; it’s much too vague and flexible. At a time when Authorities are already tagging mainstream, freedom-friendly/gun friendly organizations as “terrorists” (and when gun-grabbing nutjobs go even farther) , I don’t think this is a blunt instrument we should be letting the Federal Gummint wield unquestioned.

And I’m really wondering where all those Democrat activists who issued dire warnings about Federal overreach during the most recent Mr. Bush’s tenure have scuttled off to. Guess it’s okay when their guy is in charge of Room 101, then?

(This is posted on a delay, I have an eye doctor appointment early as you read it. Sure hope they can make lenses for my new frames; I may even splurge on contacts again.)

>It’s Called "Exercise?"

>Day Three or Four (day two in a row, the cold having put a stop to my efforts for a week) of Ride A Mile Every Evening. The temperature has been in the low-mid 40s, which sounds pretty chilly but once you get the bike up to a decent turn of speed, you’re generating plenty of heat.

Once I can do the mile in top gear, I’ll start increasing the distance. I’ve got a ways to go before I get back to where I was last summer; I knew I should have set up the stationary bicycle kit this winter but I kept finding excuses not to.

Still getting over my cold, too, but hey, ten minutes or so of deep-breathing exercises have to be going more good than harm, right?

>It Is The Way Of Cats

>Huck snuck into the basement behind me this morning when I headed laundryward in search of a warmer top. I learned this when I heard him say, quite distinctly, “Ew!” and turned around to find him peering intently down the floor drain, which still has its cover off pending a serious wirebrush-and-repaint effort. He had his lip curled and looked disgusted; then he turned and trotted towards the stairs.

I was poignantly reminded of Miss Slinky, who once walked into the washroom while I was taking a bath, took a nice long look down the heat vent, announced, “Oh, no!” and departed in haste. I never did figure out what that was about.

>The Sun’ll Come Out, To-morrow…

>Tam tells me today is the centennial of the adoption of the 1911 by the U.S. Army. I had this sudden image of the pore little Orphan 1911, sitting all lonely in the orphanage with only its dog 45ACP* for company ’til General Warbucks came along and adopted it, but she says that’s not how it went.

(Title is not a comment on the muzzle velocity of the venerable cartridge, honest. “The shot’ll get there, to-morrow, you c’n betcher bottom dol-lar…” Heheheh.)
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* It only says one thing: “Bang!”

>Legislative Walkouts: The Real Price

>Yes, the Indiana House Democrats are back — not even Illinois would have them, I guess — and both sides of the aisle are trumpeting compromise on the several bills over which they’d walked out. (Other than Right-To-Work, which was killed outright).

And if not having a law is better than having a law, then a watered-down law must only be half-bad, I suppose, though you have to wonder at sharply limiting the number f participants in a school voucher program that could have given low-income kids a shot at attending private schools and look askance likewise at capping a bill meant to save money on big construction projects in a way that means Indiana can only do so on smallish projects….

But hey, give them that; let’s say the whole thing is a happy, happy win. We — citizens of Indiana, not one party or another — still lose: the legislature’s now got one month to finish everything that sat piled on desks while the Democrats sulked in IL.

If the weasels’d sat out the entire session, I’d’ve cheered: nothing would have got done. If they’d been hauled back over the border by an ISP infiltration team after a few days of playing hooky, I would have been shocked but hey, they’d have been busy as little bees.

But what we have now is a prescription for sleight-of-hand, double-dealing, sneaky language and insufficient debate. We are going to have to watch these boys and girls like hungry hawks over a mouse nest, and I mean both parties of them; they are going to be in a hurry and they’re still fair seething over the walkout and/or issues that led up to it. Even with the best will in the world, mistakes will be made — and make no mistake, there’s not all that much goodwill in the House.

I think I’d rather watch sausage being made than laws: you can be pretty sure that the end result of the first process will only go to those who want it and don’t mind paying the price.

>Songs That Should Not Have Lyrics

>”You Can’t Catch It From A Doorknob”

“‘E’s Got A Loverly #2 Pencil”

“Torch Song Of The Tax Accountants”

Theme from “The Men From I.T.”

“Hail Colombia” (AKA “A Heartbeat Away”)

>Danger! Warning!

>I didn’t mention the most random item yesterday — I sat down and fired up my amateur radio transmitter and a few characters in, I heard something start to beep. When I stopped, it eventually stopped. When I started up again, it began to beep after a few seconds…!

Finally tracked it down to the (obnoxiously loud) gas/CO detector in the dining room. It’s about 20 feet from the open-wire balanced line (it looks like a rope ladder for the Wee Folk) that connects to my antenna, and it does not like shortwave energy, not one little bit. So it got a little vacation.

The sound is oddly nondirectional; while it is loud enough to get one’s attention, it does not localize well. Tam was on the porch while I was hunting the beep and remarked, “Oh, was that in the house? It sounded like it was across the street or something.” That’s kind of an alarm fail, if you ask me.