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Tight Times

The Gun Thing

No, I’m not referring to that Girl Scout Parking Lot Incident of 1975 (and she looked way older than 15, anyway), I’m talking about the Great Ammo Shortage Of 2020.

Right now, there’s no end in sight to this tight market.
“We’ve been talking with major manufacturers, for example, Magtech, which is one of the big ammo producers in the country. They’re telling us that they are on backorder throughout the rest of the year, throughout the rest of 2020,” Phelps said.

FFS, if Magtech ammo is in short supply, we’re all doomed.  But to continue:

Usually, that only applies to personal protection ammo, but right now, even hunting ammunition could be impacted.
“Usually shotgun shells are around, they’re plentiful, but we had another manufacturer telling us it’s the parts to make the ammunition … the primers are on a one-year backorder,” Phelps said.

Here’s the kicker:

South Dakota Game Fish and Parks says they’re not too worried about the ammo shortage impacting this year’s hunting season because most hunters are already well-stocked.

As should be all experienced shooters.  Personally, I start getting “shortage fear” when I’m down to my last 1,000 rounds (in any caliber except .22 LR, when it’s 10,000), so right now  I can afford to wait awhile till the shortage eases, as I think I have enough to last me a couple of years (lifetimes, according to the Son&Heir, who usually has to help me move the stuff from one house to another).

And they said National Ammo Day was a foolish invention…

Looks like it’s going to be a little more difficult to get that 100 round-minimum this year.  I can’t decide whether that’s a Good- or Bad Thing.

Wah Wah Wah

Eco-Crap, Media Assholes

I love reading articles like this one:

The Trump administration is seeking to fast track environmental reviews of dozens of major energy and infrastructure projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, including oil and gas drilling, hazardous fuel pipelines, wind farms and highway projects in multiple states, according to documents provided to The Associated Press.
…
More than 60 projects targeted for expedited environmental reviews were detailed in an attachment to a July 15 letter from Assistant Interior Secretary Katherine MacGregor to White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow.

That’s actually quite restrained (for the AP), but they soon start squealing butthurt:

Environmentalist Brett Hartl said the move to expedite major projects represents a “giveaway” to industries that curried favor with Trump.
“Building an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant is not going to solve the problem that’s happening in the country,” said Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is where we’re potentially going to see environmental harm down the road, because they are skipping steps in the process.”

…as opposed to all the long-term problems caused by Green policies (e.g. banning controlled burns, eventually causing wildfires), but nemmind.  To continue:

Interior Department officials did not answer questions from the AP on how the environmental reviews are being expedited and whether any rules were being waived. The bid to speed up reviews is in line with the Trump administration’s greater emphasis on reduced regulatory burdens for corporations.
…
“For far too long, critically important infrastructure, energy and other economic development projects have been needlessly paralyzed by federal red tape,” spokesman Conner Swanson said.

But my favorite part comes towards the end:

The president’s June order directed federal officials to pursue emergency workarounds of bedrock environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, to hasten completion of infrastructure projects to speed economic recovery.

Yeah… those “bedrock environmental laws” have been used for far too long to prevent or otherwise delay much-needed development — but the Trump administration is walking around or else blowing straight through the bullshit to get things done, and the Greens (as well as their lickspittles in, say, the Associated Press) are horrified.

I love the fact that for the Left, laws they don’t agree with (e.g. parts of the U.S. Constitution) can be ignored or overturned, but all their laws (most of which are, of course, un-Constitutional) are “bedrock law” and immune from change or even scrutiny.

Fuck ’em.

News Roundup

Bad News

Very pithy, like a pregnant woman out for a walk. — and yeah, it’s Labor Day, so just the one post today.

This will be a light-hearted news review, because I’m sick of gloom and Democratic-Socialists.  That said:


…too busy giggling like a schoolgirl to make a comment, sorry.


…okay, that’s funny right there.  May not be so funny if the outcome is similar, however.


…wait:  Australian is now a race?  (To the bottom, maybe.)


…I can see why some people just can’t wait for that “Back To School” time.


…stupid tourists, or germ of truth?  I report, you decide.


…ah, the dreaded “wanker’s rash”, scourge of so many teenage boys.


…it took me about three minutes just to decipher the headline.  Parallel thought:  do they have transgender men in China?


…not that I wouldn’t mind erasing some women I’ve been involved with in the past.


…and gawd forbid we should make unhappy people more unhappy.


…all that fragile Scandi furniture and ancient rotting flooring, you know.  And finally:


…errrr it’s not exactly her abs that she’s showing off.  Pictorial evidence:

Saturday Listening

Music

I remember the Kennedy Awards ceremony honoring Led Zeppelin, and in their introduction Jack Black made reference to the “Led Zeppelin Haj”  — listening to the entire Zep oeuvre  in chronological order of album release (which I’ve done, maybe too often).

There’s another such haj, of course, this one involving the peerless Steely Dan, which I followed earlier this week.

As longtime Readers are well aware, I am by no means a fan of jazz music, having repeated the various knocks against the genre time and time again.  (“A bunch of guys all playing at the same time”,  “Five musicians in one room, all hunting for a tune” and so on.)

But Steely Dan aren’t like that.  Their songs feature tightly-structured, complex chord structures and (to many) obscure and inexplicable lyrics about a stranger variety of topics, all delivered with remarkabe skill and, let it be said, massive doses of irony.

I was late to the Dan-train;  I’d heard a couple of their songs on the radio (Reeling In The Years, etc.), but it was only when I got The Royal Scam  as a birthday present, and played it on a long solo car trip — over and over and over — that I realized just how good these guys were.  Later on, our Army band Hogwash covered just about the entire album — and what a thrill that was.

I have the boxed CD set, although it was released in 1994, I think, thus missing their last two albums.

So if you feel like doing the Steely Dan haj  over the weekend, be my guest.  (Given the nature of YooToob, some of the links may have changed, but give it a go anyway.)

Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)
Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
Pretzel Logic (1974)
Katy Lied (1975)
The Royal Scam (1976)
Aja (1977)
Gaucho (1980)
Two Against Nature (2000)
Everything Must Go (2003)

Oh, and R.I.P. Walter Becker.

Recommendation

The Gun Thing

Longtime Reader And Total Gun Nut PatrickS was all butthurt that I didn’t include any of his works on my bookshelf backdrop — although, as I pointed out to him in my email replay, I didn’t even include one of my own books on the list.

That said, Patrick’s stuff has been a constant companion of mine over the past decade or so, and it requires a HUGE endorsement from this website, so get the hell over and buy a couple (ignore the first listing, that’s some other guy).

And Patrick:  if you have an old paperback copy of the 1911 book lying around somewhere… (the Son&Heir stole mine).