Friend Rob Reed has a new anthology out. 

In addition to Rob, there are a couple more of my friends in it, so if you’d like to throw some money at them, I’d take it as a kindness.

LawDog

… are certainly coming to a middle.

Yesterdays rant concerning the tyranny of good intentions managed to generate the following comment from a Nony Mouse: 

 “And then there were the soldiers during WW I who got up on their high horses about being told what to do, and refused to wear their gas masks…..”

I actually had to read that one twice, and I probably need a logic check, but it sure looks to me like Nony there is making a case that COVID19 is the equivalent of WEAPONISED PHOSGENE GAS; and that a square of cotton t-shirt fabric is the equivalent of a WW1 Small Box Respirator.

Blink.

If we go with the most pessimistic mortality rate (found here), and using the age range for World War 1 soldiers — we’ll call it “15 to 34” — looks like a 0.6% fatality rate, or about 6 men out of a thousand.

Oh, yeah. Just like weaponised phosgene.

“Ve vill use gas on the Allies!”

“Ok!”

“500 of zhem vill never even notice it!”

“Wait, what?”

“Maybe as many as 700!”

“Are you serious?”

“Of the remaining three hundred or so, most will have mild to moderate symptoms!”

“That’s it?”

“And ze symptoms vill be ameliorated if zhey tie undt handkerchief or dishrag to zere face!”

“… !”

“Undt vun to six might die!”

“”We’re going to gas this Allied battalion of a thousand soldiers, and half of them will never notice it, while the rest will have ‘mild to moderate’ symptoms, and a hand-full ‘might’ die, leaving the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-five with symptoms ranging from ‘hay-fever’ to ‘a cold’?”

“Jawhol!”

“Which sodding side are you on again?”

Juuussttt like phosgene.

Sigh.

This wanton hysteria — and comparing COVID19 to phosgene gas IS absolutely wanton, wallowing hysteria — isn’t doing US Public Health any favours, and quite honestly, has left “Little Boy Crying Wolf” in the dust.

COVID19 isn’t ‘just like phosgene’, it isn’t ‘like typhoid’, or ‘pneumonic plague’. 

It’s a nasty Influenza-Like Illness with a 99% survival rate, and the majority of deaths clustered in the elderly with comorbidities.

And like I said previously, most (83%) of those vulnerable elders with comorbidities are already in facilities that are under stringent new health rules and quarantine laws, so you screeching that I’m imperiling your grandmother still doesn’t hold water.

LawDog

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

~ C.S. Lewis

I see little difference between “Omnipotent moral busybodies” and “moral busybodies with the Mandate of Heaven”, or to quote another noted philosopher:

“There’s nothing worse than a monster who thinks he’s right with God.”

~ Malcolm Reynolds

According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, only about 17% of adult children in the United States care for their elderly parents “at some point during their lives”.

Think about that: of every 100 people you meet at the restaurant, the grocery store, or the park, 17 of them are taking care of, will take care of, or have taken care of, their elderly parents.

The other 83% of the people you meet at the hardware store, the church, or the beach are letting Grandma be taken care of by home health aides, independent living facilities, assisted living facilities, long-term care facilities, nursing homes, or hospitals.

For the elderly living at their own homes, and being taken care of by home health aides — if they aren’t self-isolating and protecting themselves … that’s on them, not me.

For those elderly in some kind of facility — the government is mandating some kind of protection for these folks … again, that’s on someone else, not me.

To stand in a parking lot, a beach, a boat-ramp, or a restaurant and scream that a random stranger whom you’ve never met and will likely not ever meet again is endangering your grandmother by not wearing a mask is not only a lie, rude, and a misdemeanor Breach of the Peace, but it is also tyranny.

If you’re one of the 17 who are taking care of your elderly patient (we’ll ignore the part of that 17% who “will take care of in the future” and the part that “took care of in the past” and just assume that all 17 have an elderly parent at home), gods bless you, and if you’re that worried — stay home.

If you’re one of the 83 that are relying on Decubitus Acres Nursing Home, or God’s Waiting Room Assisted Living Centre to took care of Grandma — the State government has rules to protect them.

It is tyranny to demand that I change my ways and habits to provide “protection” to independent people who should be taking care of that themselves, or to provide “protection” to people whom the government is already going overboard to protect.

And if you want to scream at me, and spit, you’re about to have a quick lesson in the reality of droplet protection provided by your floral silk mask using OC droplets for the demonstration.

Given that OC droplets are considerably bigger than the droplets your mask is allegedly protecting your from, you’re liable to be somewhat disappointed in your mask.

Matter-of-fact, it should even be a lesson to learn from.

Just saying.

Do not bloody shriek at me.

LawDog

Herself has been teaching courses at a Liberal Arts university in near-by Little Big City, and despite being in Texas, the university is rather Non-Permissive when it comes to defending yourself.

Big on “Thoughts, Prayers, and Action Committees”, short on anything — you know — effective.

So, when I heard that our friend Ben over at Bjorn Bladeworks was making a run of his Murder Needles, I ordered a set in Jade for her.

These little jewels are fairly simple:  about 3/4 of an ounce of G10, about 9 inches in length, and a diamond cross-section about half an inch thick at its widest.

And the narrow end ground to the wickedest little needle point you can put on a stick of high-pressure fibreglass and resin composite.

The execution is simple elegance:  it goes in your hair. Unless you’re Toshiro Mifune (and he doesn’t need a hair stabbie), this limits it somewhat to the distaff side of the species — and I’m okay with this.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, G10 is a material used in knife and pistol grips for decades.  It is high-strength (for a fibreglass/resin laminate) and doesn’t absorb moisture, or — important here — hair oil.

Hair sticks are used by the ladies to hold and/or decorate hairbuns, pony-tails, and other hair-dos, and go completely unnoticed by 99% of everyone. I guarantee you’ve walked by a woman with pencils, knitting needles, pens, dowel rods, or stainless-steel straws stuck through a bun — and never gave it a second thought.

Yes, LawDog, but how does it work?

Well, I’m glad you asked. When I ordered the ones for Herself, Ben contacted me and asked if I would like one for testing? 

Hell, yes.

So.

In my backyard is a heavy bag that I’ve modified over the years. Currently the inside is a couple of rolls of carpet, a metric butt-ton of sand, and a polymer centre core. I wandered out there, and under the supervision of Chuy the Wonder Chiweenie, gave it a flat-footed WTF? stab:

Five inches.

Rather impressed, I gave it a full fencing lunge:

Turns out the polymer core in my heavy bag is about 7 inches in.

Deep breath, and I went full Monkey With A Screwdriver:

Not sure how deep I went during the cycles, but I hit my thumb and index knuckles on the bag most of the time, so 4 – 6 inches?

Yes. These will do nicely.

Now, don’t get me wrong — these are last-ditch, one-incident-use tools for places where the Light Of Your Life isn’t allowed to carry anything more substantial. 

Are they as good as a real knife or a firearm? Of course not, but they’re a damned sight better than fingernails and harsh language.

By “One-incident-use tools” I mean exactly that. If your Best Beloved has to pin-cushion Joe Critter or Abdul the Moderately Rabid, these little darlings are going to wind up in a evidence bag, an Operating Room floor, or the rubbish bin.

They’re $30, plus shipping. If the surgeon winds up pulling her old ones out of her Personal Chew Toy, buy her another set. Ben’s email (if you don’t like Facebook) is:

bjornbladeworks@gmail.com

These little jewels get the LawDog Paw of Approval.

LawDog

Edit:

Ben has asked me to post a link to the FaceBook Murderneedles page.

LawDog

Edit 2: 

Blogger borked the photos. Should be working now.

LawDog

I have concerns about the whole “vote-by-mail” idea for this November.

It’s not so much the idea that “vote-by-mail” is more susceptible to fraud — although it is. Not as fraught with fraud as the doom-sayers are complaining, but it’s damned sure not “negligible”, either.

No, my primary concern is with human nature, and the current state of our Nation.

We are a divided house. This upcoming election, and the results there-of, has a pretty good potential to be rather festive — and needs to be as clear-cut and unambiguous as possible.

I realize that in the current socio-political climate “clear-cut and unambiguous” is difficult, but as many variables that can be controlled, need to be controlled regarding this election.

Mail-in ballots have a nasty habit of being sent, or arriving, past the deadline for being counted — just ask the military in any election since Carter.

I am concerned that a significant number of ballots this November will be past the deadline. And that will be bad.

When that happens — and it will happen — somebody is immediately going to sue to allow those ballots to be counted. And someone else will — correctly — counter-sue for them not to be counted.

And the Supreme Court will wind up having to make a decision on who gets to be POTUS.

Do you see what’s making me concerned?

If the side that argues from a moral standpoint that all votes — even late ones — should be counted, is the losing side … this election is tainted.

If the side that argues from a legal standpoint that deadlines are there for a reason is the losing side … this election is tainted.

This is not the time in our Nation’s history for a tainted election. Way too many people have their identities wrapped up politics. Way too many people are treating politics like a religion. When one side regards the other side as heretics … well, religion excuses — if not glorifies — a lot of bad acts.

I’m not happy about mail-in voting this year, and I don’t think anyone else should be, either.

LawDog

Dr Travis Lee Clark is a friend of ours, and a genuinely nice guy.

More than that, he’s a gifted teacher with a true passion for his subject, a passion which shines through, and drags the listener along.

His subject is Art History, and he has recently launched a YouTube channel of lectures on that subject. 

I would take it as a kindness if my Gentle Readers would have a click on his videos (they’re free, they’re fascinating, and they’re educational!), and get the YouTube algorithms to give him some love.

Thank you.

LawDog

By way of Larry Correia, we find this article.

The money quote is this one (R-rated):

“I’m seeing African American Federal Protective Service inspectors, 20 year’s [a] law enforcement officer, being called the N-word to their face for the first time in their careers, by a scrawny, pasty white booger-eating communist shithead.” 

What I find amusing is that these exact same crotch-dumplings who are calling African-Americans “niggers” — we’re not sugar-coating this one, folks — have a case of the hips at the President for being racist.

Let that one sink in.

They’re mad at the President for being racist, and during their hissy-fit, they apparently freely use what has become the most vile epithet towards African-Americans possible … towards African-Americans.

Y’all have lost the moral high-ground here, children. Not that you’ve ever actually had the moral high-ground, but boy, howdy, did y’all reverse-4-1/2-somersault-in-the-pike-position yourselves into the very septic tank that you revile the President for.

I give the Portland schmucks 9 out of ten for hypocrisy; but 0 out of ten for self-awareness.

LawDog