So I’ve never been a good shopper, so I went to Turner’s and bought 100 rounds each of handgun, long gun and shotgun ammo.
I haven’t done anything with a shotgun in a while; time for some skeet and sporting clays…

So I went to Comdex, the big computer trade show in Las Vegas with some young guys who are working on a project with me.
The show was disappointing; small and poorly attended, which worries me as it is a sign of economic health (or lack thereof). We had our scheduled meetings, went around and looked for the people we’d targeted to meet, and made two laps of the show floor by 2:30 on Monday afternoon. We’d planned to spend Tuesday as well, but didn’t see the point.
I mentioned the Leonid showers, and suggested that we leave around midnight, and drive back the back way, past Death Valley via Pahrumph and Baker, and spend some time in the desert looking at the meteor shower; they bought into the idea, and headed to the tables, with a plan to meet for a late movie and head out.
It felt like I was breaking curfew somehow to do this … somehow wonderfully un-adult and kind of irresponsible (believe me, I’m feeling it today).
We saw ‘8 Mile’ (more comments on this later), and hit the road at 2:00 a.m. On the 160 over to Pahrumph, we saw some large fireballs, as well as smaller streaks.
By 3:00, we were literally in the middle of nowhere…ten or fifteen miles south of Pahrumph (which looks like it is growing pretty quickly, considering that as far as I know, it consists of gas stations, fireworks stands, two or three bordellos, and an auto and motorcycle race track. Can someone give me any idea why people live there?? Other than to be close to Art Bell??).
And when we stopped, it was wonderful. Once the car (the mighty Odyssey minivan) quit cooling off, there was no noise except the wind. The moon was full and lit the haze brightly enough that we were casting distinct shadows, sadly obscuring all but the brightest meteors; we saw maybe ten or so in the time we could stand outside without chattering teeth (Death Valley is cold on winter nights).
Then we had the perfect moment … just as we couldn’t stand the cold any more, the haze broke up, leaving traces in the sky and a ring around the moon, and we had one brilliant meteor that framed the composition perfectly. We wanted to go “oooh” like you do at a fireworks finale.
Then we had a few minutes of dark sky, as the illuminated haze blew away, and I was reminded of the immensity and depth of the sky. It’s a wonderful feeling, and at the same time frightening.
I realize that those stars don’t care if we are happy or if we live or if there is peace anywhere on Earth; they will continue in their paths regardless. So we’d better care.
Then we drove home, re-entered ‘reality’, and were trapped in traffic on the 10 from Ontario to Santa Monica for three hours. I don’t know how people do that every day …

Here’s an old post on this. I’m aware ofthe Grameen Bank stuff commented on in the comments below, and I’m a huge fan…

I’ve already complimented the Bitch Girls, but had to point out two awesome posts here and here on shooting…

On CNN.com today, I read an interview with Jimmy Carter:

People around the world perceive the United States as “too arrogant” and “too self-centered” because the country doesn’t do enough to alleviate poverty and other social ills in the developing world, former President Jimmy Carter said in an interview to air Friday.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was asked by CNN’s Larry King why he believes so many people in the rest of the world hate the country he once led.

The United States is in an interesting situation. We have to solve two problems at the same time.
On one hand, we live in a world full of people who are pissed off at us. Many of them have made their hatred the center of their lives, and they have demonstrated their willingness to act on that hate.
On the other hand, the things which we can and probably should do to defend ourselves may defend us in the short run … and very possibly create more people who are pissed off at us.
But if we don’t do them, we will continue to be attacked in ways that we will find it very hard to defend against.
So what’s the answer? Carter believes that we need to give more away:

Carter, who will receive a the Nobel prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway, also noted that the United States gives only one one-thousandth of its gross national product for international assistance, while the average European country gives four times as much.
“For every time an American gives a dollar, a citizen of Norway gives $17,” he said. “Foreign aid in this country has a bad name, but in other countries, it’s a right thing for the government to do. And that’s where we at the Carter Center quite often have to turn.”

In the intermediate and long run, something has to be done to help the rest of the world out of the downward spiral. But first, we have to find a way to give aid that isn’t recycled into Swiss bank accounts, or sold in Europe, like discount AIDS drugs.
And we have to find a way to combine helping the rest of the world with defending ourselves.

Lots to blog about, no time to do it.
Think good thoughts about the brave kids demonstrating over in Iran today. They have to worry about being arrested and killed, not just pepper-sprayed and dragged out of the streets. They are brave as hell, and I hope we’re smart enough to figure out how to get them on our side.
Note these articles about the UK, where self-defense was made illegal, crime went up, and so the government now has to abolish some basic rights.
I’m off to Las Vegas; I assume there will be Internet connectivity at Comdex, so I’ll be doing some light bloggage from there.
Try not to kill each other or blow shit up while I‘m away.

I’ve had some correspondence with Instapundit over the whole Burk thing; as noted below, I think he’s off-base, and that he’s not acknowledging a whole history of right-wing satire of leftists (which I don’t have time to research just now, dammit). In my view, that makes his points on Burk kinda meretricious, and as I told him privately, he’s not a moron so he can’t just wave that stuff off.
Now he’s comparing the controversial ‘suicide-bomber self-portrait’ with the Burk article, and here I’ll go back to the point above, which is that the painting is romanticizing violence and death, while the article was satirizing reproductive politics. One != the other.
But there’s another point (surprise!!) that’s more urgent. I think Lileks (scroll to the bottom) and Reynolds are missing the more serious issue, which is the connection the painting makes between romanticism, Romanticism (as I’ve talked about endlessly) and cathartic violence.
I think that the Beltway shooters may have had an ideological framework that made their violence OK, or a plan to bury an act of domestic violence in a mass murder. But I also think they were acting out of an impulse to cathartic violence which is legitimized by modern philosophers, in the modern arts world, and in the mass media.
One issue (unfair satire) is a cold. The other (romantic violence) is the plague. Let’s not get distracted by sniffles.

From Field & Stream; an article on the nature of meat and our relationship to it.
Tenacious G points out that Frazz disagrees:

Ann writes:

I have some things to clear up with Armed Liberal that I’d prefer to do behind the scenes because I think once we actually get a chance to talk, we’ll end up on the same page.