Hunh

I might have failed to tell you that on neighboring Farflung Silos AFB, the base exchange has installed a firearms counter and does land-office business in blasters.  Not just yer plain-jane duck-hunting NEF break-open shotguns and bolt .22's either.  They seem to lean hard on pocket blasters and Black rifles.  Quite good prices on everything Springer.  And I never knew how pretty a Ruger 77/44 was until I saw one there. 

I walked past that counter the other day with FrankenBoy in tow, and noticed a family crowded up to the counter.  Dad talking to the dealer, one or two offspring units in a stroller, and Momma in faux-stretch-leather pants handling a S&W M&P. 

Double-take:  she was slowly, deliberately turning the pistol and looking straight down the barrel. 

words that I wish were more common

I heard a guest on a radio talk show last week use a word that I wish I heard more often:  'whence.'

Which is proper usage:  "let it go back from whence it came" or "let it go back whence it came"? 

Other words that should stage a comeback: 

• disabuse

Commenters, by all means chime in. 

Invisible War and PPACA

Today we watched the film Invisible War, which detailed the problem of sexual assault in Uncle Sugar's services, and how assaults persist in spite of the sexual assault prevention programs Uncle has launched against it.  This film is not for weak stomachs.

My takeaways:

• the typical sexual predator claims 300 victims in a career.  I'm torn on the idea of trying to treat this as if it were a public health problem, using motivational posters and briefings.  In fact, this film brutally rips the current SAPR/BIT/SHARP programs as ineffective at best, or PR distractions at worst. 

• the film's showcase assault survivors bear the scars of the assault, but even worse scars from the coverups and declined or bungled investigations after the fact.  It's worth asking whether these survivors would have recovered and continued purposeful lives and successful military careers if the commanders had investigated and prosecuted the assaults more vigorously.  What do we know about  survivors whose perpetrators have been prosecuted fully?  The film shows that most perps get weak punishment, assuming that the perps were guilty.  I will not support abandonment of presumed innocence. 

• the survivors had peers, both male and female, who supported them and encouraged them to report the assaults and seek justice, as well as peers who tried to persuade them to stay silent.  The latter will always bend in the direction of the wind.  Commanders and enforcers make the coverup possible, thus making future assaults inevitable. 

• something is genuinely dicked up with the Feres doctrine.  There's a reason I'm not a lawyer and the preceding sentence shows it. 

I don't want to rob this film of its power, but much of the film shows one of the assault survivors battling the Veteran's Administration for coverage of injuries from the assault.  Watch just these passages if you want to see what your life will be like when Obamacare is fully implemented.  That's what they want for all of us. 

Why do feminists assert nonsense that intimacy is terrifying to men?

When all you have is a lack of options, the world looks like a mandate.

Roissy

teledildonics

when I send a text to the wife telling her to check the batteries in the butterfly, I mean check the batteries in the remote, too. 

Has anyone fielded a Bluetooth-enabled toy that can be controlled through a smartphone?  I wonder. 

Self-reassurance, or affirmation statement?

About a year ago, a new family moved in across the street.  A divorced head of household, her son with a girlfriend, and a daughter with two sons of her own, the elder of whom is bright, energetic, and over here with our two sons every day.  Others appear, or stop appearing, randomly. 

The said head of household has been revamping the landscaping and cleaning up trees and so forth.  She visited the other day, asking to borrow tools for the effort.  Sainted wife offered our stepladder and a telescoping pruner. 

At one point during a lull in the conversation, she said, "I don't need a man."  That struck me as rather queer.  Did she mean she didn't need a man to handle the landscaping that has utterly dominated her spare time for the entire summer?  She said it at a moment that I thought my sainted wife might not have heard it, almost that it was calculated so.  In retrospect, I found it somewhat offensive. 

I said, "well, you don't need a man until you need a man," meaning that it's easy for a woman to say she doesn't need a man, when she can borrow the things that tend to be available through a man from someone else's man. 

Since then I 've been thinking of about better  comebacks I should have offered, so she didn't think I was trying to hit on her, for example.  "None was offered," for example.  Please suggest your own comebacks in the comments. 

"Not until you need a ladder from one." 

"Is that an affirmation statement, or a self-reassurance?"

"Is that why you don't keep one around?" 

"'How's that working for you?" 

"Of course not, the world's your oyster, Toots." 

Eric Hoffer: where to start?

Due to recent reviews of the Longshoreman Philosopher's biographies in American Spectator and Reason, I've now got a yearning to read him.  Which would be best as a first read, one that has the most relevance for today's situation? I have to make a good first cut, considering other demands on my time. 

Amazon reviews are positive for The True Believer.