Weapons Man

In the medieval period, philosophers imagined a division between the seven Liberal Arts, and the seven Mechanical Arts. To give you an idea of the weight they put on the two domains of knowledge, the Mechanical Arts were also known as the Servile Arts or Vulgar Arts.

Which is good, which is edifying, but which is not getting meaningful posts up on the blog. For which we express regret.

The NRA’s blogger Mark Keefe is red-hot on the Remington R51 situation, which we’ll confess not to have followed, in part because the gun itself is extremely uninteresting. Ugly, bulky, brutally carved with coarse details and crude features, the 51 boasts a complicated, unnecessary lock, and any engineer will tell you that adding weight and complications to anything you can avoid doing that to, is more a mortal than a venial engineering sin. (The lock of the original Model 51 allowed a relatively powerful cartridge to be tamed in a slender, light firearm with delightful, delicate details. Unlike the complication in the new gun, the lock was there for a reason).

But we might have been wrong. The latest poster child for How Not to Open Carry is a doctor and director of a neuroengineering program. From the fine jihadis at al-Reuters:

The victim: Apollo, age 16 months.

In an election year, in which the Veterans Administration has been exposed as, at best, incompetent and negligent, and at worst, malicious towards its charges, no politican wants to be seen as opposing “reform.”

Well, we goys PFO thought we’d throw our cousins of the 12 Tribes a bone here and publicize their auction. They’re selling a shotgun that JPFO founder Aaron Zelman had made many years ago. Not our cup of tea around here, but if you like it, go forth and bid.

For the sheer OCD of it:

Jesse Ventura says he sued Chris, and then after Chris’s death, Taya, Kyle to protect his reputation. Two words: “Streisand Effect.” Even if Kyle’s story wasn’t true (and the testimony was certainly contradictory), it was probably better for him to be known as Glass Jaw Janos than to get the grief he’s getting now, as SOF guys and SEALS pile on him and make him out to be the King of the Blue Falcons. Here’s one image rocketing around the net:

This morning’s Springfield post triggered a way overdue follow-up. Way back in January 2012, we wrote, apropos of Springfield rifles:

The US model 1903 Springfield rifle was made in five major versions. New entrents to collecting American martial arms sometimes struggle to tell these very similar rifles apart, but actually it’s pretty easy. Here’s a Springfield cheat sheet to take with you to the fun show:

Walker from his arrest mugshot. For him, the nightmare is over. 

With increasing frequency, news sites are hiding their news stories behind an intrusive question. Most of them ask about consumer preferences or personal matters (such as political preferences). This is one of the mildest, which asks about whether you will be making a business decision about purchasing certain technology:

There are things everyone ought to know not to do. Like, pull a gun on the cops. Doing that is generally an indicator you’re committing Suicide By Cop, or otherwise are tired of living. No help if it’s a toy gun: by the time the PC Plod figures it out, numerous new orifices in your epidermis will be letting air in, and blood out.

According to the Billings, Montana, Gazette, political appointees at the Department of Defense have taken control of the investigation in the War College paper of appointed Senator John Walsh. The bulk of the thesis, including all of its conclusions, previously appeared in other publications under other bylines; not to put too fine a point on it, “Dishonest John” Walsh’s submission, for which he was granted a Master of Science in Strategic Studies degree, was fundamentally not his work. But Dishonest John is an important political ally for the Administration and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. So Hagel has stepped in and seized...

So, we saw this at Miguel’s, which led us to Fox News, which led us to the Washington Times, which still didn’t give up the primary source document. We wanted the primary source document because the numbers in the Times’s story didn’t add up.

When he was clean-shaven, and had a career (30 years ago).

Florida has different demographics depending on where in the state you are. The East Coast is pushy, abrasive New Yorker boomers. The West Coast, the same. The Southern tip is occupied by whatever Latin American caudillos survived their ouster, and their former retainers. The Panhandle is Where Alabama Meets the Sea®. And the dank, gator-rich and citrus-producing center of the peninsula? It’s Alabama, too, but circa 1960.

Two crooked Philadelphia judges were acquitted of all charges, and four even more crooked judges were acquitted of some charges, on Wednesday.

Ladies and gentlemen, the hottest thing smoking in Kurdistan, at least, music wise. We give you, Helly Luv. (We have a sneaking suspicion it’s not her real name).