The Arizona Rifleman

SayUncle recently posted a link to Exploding Blog, which has lots of explosions.

Sure, it’s cool, but Explosions and Boobs is a bit more fun.

I came across an online ad that stood out to me today: it was an ad for ADT, and consisted of the text “Feel safe for only $1 a day”, referring to the cost of their monitoring service.

Personally, I think it’s rather silly. I can “feel safe” by simply ignoring any potential threats, and this costs me nothing. Of course, that’s rather foolish.

This also reminds me of the absurd ADT commercial where a burglar attempts to break in while the helpless family is at home, the alarm sounds, and the burglar flees. The police are notified, and presumably arrive at some point in the future. Of course, they never mentioned what would happen if the burglar didn’t flee…

By having a means to defend myself — rather than relying on others — I can not only feel safer, but I can be safer.

That said, a burglar alarm is a useful when one isn’t at home, as it can notify the police if someone is breaking into one’s house. $30/month still seems a bit excessive; I wonder if there’s some sort of lower-cost (or free?) internet-based monitoring, or perhaps even self-monitoring? I’ll need to look into that.

While perusing the intertubes today, I noticed an advertisement: “Beat Any Martial Arts Master” it claimed.

The advertised site then proclaimed that one could, after an exchange of money, become so skilled at this particular martial art that one could defeat anyone in close combat.

Now, what happens if someone who has completed this program were to get involved in a fight with someone else who has completed the program? I suspect some sort of world-shattering kaboom would ensue.

I have no idea how I managed to seriously scuff up my wedding band, being made out of extremely hard tungsten carbide that is supposedly unscratchable, in a bit over a month of married life, but I have. Now, to see if the jeweler will replace it.

I promise I’ve not been trying to gnaw it off, honey.

Me: “Honey?”
She Who Must Be Obeyed: “Yes?”
Me: “Have you seen my pistol?”
SWMBO: “Which one?”
Me: “The Springfield XD-45. Looks like the Glock, but bigger and uglier, if such a thing was possible…”
SWMBO: “Nope. Haven’t seen it around.”
Me: “In most houses, people run around looking for keys they’ve misplaced. In this house, we do it with pistols…”

Turns out I had left the pistol in its case, which is still boxed up somewhere in the house, but I had temporarily forgotten where I had placed it.

Like many others, I’ve been following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with some interest. So far, it seems like those working to stop the flow from the damaged well are pulling out every trick in the book; I’m honestly impressed that they’ve been able to attempt what they’ve done considering the remoteness of the wellhead and the unprecedented nature of an oil leak at this depth. Hopefully they get the leak stopped and things cleaned up as soon as they can.

Along those lines, I’ve also been impressed by BP’s efforts to compensate those who’ve suffered economic losses from the spill. Fishermen, for example, need only provide proof of residence, a commercial fishing license, and tax records from previous years to demonstrate their income. I’ve been highly amused by the fact that not a small number of fishermen and other workers in the area don’t bother with paying taxes, and so are hosed. As a fellow human, I have some sympathy for their plight, but as an honest taxpayer, there’s a definite feeling of schadenfreude. The words “live by the sword, die by the sword” come to mind.

An example of the type of fail I’m referring to:

“I worked for an uncle last year who paid me in cash,” said a crab fisherman who asked to remain anonymous. “The BP guy wanted my tax statements, but how can I pay taxes if everything I earned was in cash?”

Cash income is taxable. You should have reported it on the appropriate form.

Another man…said he worried BP would turn over records to the Internal Revenue Service.

“That puts you in the system,” he said. “If the numbers don’t add up, people who have not been paying taxes are going to regret it.”

Uh, yeah. You’re supposed to pay taxes. If you don’t, I feel no sympathy when the IRS drops the hammer on you.

Even more disturbingly, some government representatives are supporting those tax cheats:

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser agreed. “The question I’m asking BP to consider is this: What are you going to do to make sure the guy who helps unload boats for tips, or the elderly lady who sells shrimp at the corner for a few bucks, gets adequately compensated?”

Short answer: If they can’t prove they earned the income (e.g. by providing tax records or other suitable documentation, which BP said they’d consider), then BP is under no obligation to compensate them at all.

“This woman in the line next to me told the BP processor she earned $800 a week — in cash — as a deckhand,” he recalled. “When he asked her for tax statements, she said she had not filed a federal income tax form since 2000. Then she said, ‘I need a check from you so that I can pay back taxes and then show you the tax records.’”

It doesn’t work that way. Sorry. What’s to prevent that woman from running off with the money, never to return?

“Trouble is, people around here live differently — always have,” [marina owner Michael Turgeau] added. “If BP is really interested in helping us out, they should identify everyone who has had a commercial fishing license for at least two or three years, then close their eyes, don’t ask questions and just pay them for their losses.”

Uh, no. If by “live differently”, you mean “skimp out of paying your taxes”, then you’ve been hoist on your own petard. Yes, it sucks to be you, but you’ve been cheating on your taxes and, without those records, BP owes you nothing.

Wayne Landry, council chairman for St. Bernard Parish, which includes Delacroix, would not go that far. But he also worried that an undetermined number of people from fishing outposts would be overlooked because BP and “the bean counters in the Internal Revenue Service do not deal with culture or heritage; they deal with numbers.”

Shocking, I know. The rest of us have to pay taxes…why do these people think they don’t have to?

This comic copyright by D. Shepherd, used with permission.

The government recently released a report with recommendations for planning a response to a nuclear weapon being detonated in a US city.

On page 20, they describe the “no-go” zone — the region most directly affected by the nuclear blast and radiation — as follows: “The [no-go] zone might be depicted as a large concrete rubble area (with a very large hole in the middle)”

Seems like a pretty apt description to me…