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Dog Ate My Homework

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

A little while ago, my website’s server had a hiccup (confirmed by Tech Support II) and ate the post that was supposed to be here.

Of course, this happened mid-writing, so it all went bye-bye into the Great Digital Black Hole (no relation to Maxine Waters).

When I get my temper under control, you can read all about my trip to the Third World this past Wednesday.  In the meantime, here’s a gratuitous gun pic of a Mauser C96:

Other than as an historical artifact (e.g. as used by Winston Churchill against various fuzzy-wuzzies), I don’t know why people have a thing for this gun.  I’ve fired fired one in its original 7.63 Mauser chambering, and it’s almost uncontrollable:  that “broomhandle” grip turns in your hand even in when shooting two-handed;  gawd knows what it’s like when shooting it old-style:

 

I bet you couldn’t hit the inside of a barn with the thing, let alone a deserving fuzzy-wuzzy.

No Kidding

Health

Another great moment in !Science!, announcing the obvious yet again:

Masturbation helps you sleep

Of course, I was triggered (once I’d stopped laughing) by the rest of the statement, because the followup suggestion is to use a sex toy — a solution so obviously gyno-centric that it shows once again the dangers we men face from the Matriarchal-Industrial Complex.

So to balance the thing, a little old-fashioned male-chauvinistic piggery:

(From Longtime Friend Knob.)

Old-Time Favorite

Entertainment

Here’s a poll result which does not surprise me in the least:

World War II police drama Foyle’s War tops list of 21st Century TV shows that Britons want to see back onscreen, ahead of Downton Abbey, Life on Mars, and Spooks

Of all the TV shows I’ve watched over the past decade or so, none has given me as much pleasure as Foyle’s War, and not just because I’m a history buff.  I love the glimpse into wartime England, of course, and the gentle, almost leisurely pacing of the plots, but I also love the understated performance of the brilliant Michael Kitchen as DCS Foyle.  Compared at least to the other shows listed above — even Life on Mars — it’s in a different league.

And yes, I have the entire series on DVD.  There are dozens of worse ways to spend $80.

Finally, when I grow up, I want to dress like DCS Foyle:

…and drive around southern England in his 1936 Wolseley 14/56:

Exceptional

Patriotism

Can American exceptionalism be revived?  At City Journal, Alan C. Guelzo gives a cogent reasons why we can, after a look at our history and the three legs of its foundation:  political, economic and diplomatic.

I believe that the American experiment, based on the Declaration and embodied in the Constitution, belongs to an exceptional moment in human history, and remains exceptional. I believe that the U.S. economy is flexible enough to recover its mobility and astonish the world with its capacity to disrupt artificial barriers. And I believe that we can repair the deviations we have sustained from an overconfident mission-mentality without needing to accommodate ourselves to the mores of globalization.

Read it all (it’s long, but very worthwhile).  However, there’s a whole ‘nother essay brewing in his final analysis:

Can this, realistically, be done? Can we disentangle our public life from the grasp of the new hierarchy of bureaucrats and, overseas, pull back from foreign-policy crusades? Can we, in short, recur successfully to our first principles?
Well, we did it once before.  [emphasis added]

And it’s getting to the point, I think, where we may have to do it the same way as the Founders did it.  As the man said: