The end of an era

If you've been around radio scanners and scanning for long, you know all about Police Call. Police Call is the source for frequency information.

Well, Wired is reporting that Gene Hughes, the man who started and has published Police Call since 1964, is retiring. Worse yet, the 2005 edition will be the last. Gene thinks that the Internet has effectively replaced the printed book as a resource.

Gene, don't do it! Retire if you like, but please pass Police Call along to someone to continue. There are still things in your books that the Internet doesn't know about or get right.

This is too important a resource to loose.

Tax reform?

(Via Drudge)

Not in our lifetimes, apparently. Bloomberg is reporting that the President's tax panel is looking at curbing various tax benefits and maybe doing away with the Alternative Minimum Tax *spit*, but that there be no, I repeat, NO fundamental changes in the tax system at the Federal level.

Well isn't that just precious? Mr. President, thank you so f'ing much for selling us down the river--AGAIN! You bring shame to your party, which we fools thought stood for smaller and less intrusive government. I hope the shade of Ronald Reagan dogs you for the rest of your life.

Memo to the Republican Party: I quit!

First the Democrats leave me. Now it appears the Republicans have left me as well. The Libertarians don't represent a real alternative as far as I'm concerned. Socialists are only useful for target practice. Where do I go?

Bring on the collapse of "civilization". At least our lying, traitorous politicians will be out of our lives.

You go for days with nothing much to blog

and then there is all sorts of stuff out there you want to comment on. Due to a lack of time I'll have to keep it brief.

Found on CNET's News.com:

• The US may finally be thinking about data privacy standards. Of course, by the time our ever-efficient lawmakers get done with it, it'll be useless/worthless, but hey--it keeps them from meddling with the tax structure.
• Yahoo decides that it must do the blog search thing too. Hey, competition is good.
• The Real (Stupid) ID act is running into technological and other issues. Now there's a surprise....
  

On Drudge, I note:

• The New York subway bomb plot was a hoax on the part of the "normally reliable" informant. I've been wondering if we'd ever wake up and see that the terrorists can cause us to incur tremendous costs just by saying "Hey, we're going to bomb X." Shades of high school bomb threats, huh?
• We're getting a new James Bond. Big whoop--we haven't had a decent Bond since Roger Moore. The new Bonds have all been about half-castrated by their PC story lines. Better to read the books at this point.
• In news of the asinine, Laura Bush says "it was possible some critics were being sexist in their opposition to Harriet Miers." Spare me--no one (well, no one that's worth listening to) gives a rat's posterior that she's a woman. The thing that concerns everyone are the questions about her views and her qualifications. I, for one, simply refuse to believe that out of all the possible candidates, the Prez's White House counsel just happened to be the best qualified for the current SCOTUS vacancy.
  

From various sources on the Internet:

• I note that survivors of the Pakistani earthquake say their government is being too slow with aid. Now where have I heard that criticism lately?
• In the "about f-ing time" category, SCOTUS is going to examine whether or not the EPA has the authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate wetlands (and by extension, a lot of other things). While I have hope that there will finally be some limits put on the Commerce Clause, given the court's last few decisions that touched on the subject, I'm not going to bet on it.
  

Interesting notes from other bloggers:

• The Capitalist Lion has two (1 and 2 ) very good posts on the UN's latest temper tantrum--they want to control the root DNS servers for the Internet. I don't think so. Let them go screw up a relief mission somewhere.
• GeekWithA.45 has the best take on the drink can in the NY subway fiasco. You know, I may just have to watch Caddy Shack tonight.
• Obnoxious Droppings has identified the next big thing. They ought to go over real big during the next election cycle.
• Says Uncle brings us the latest in Homeland InSecurity/Zero Intelligence Tolerance news. Yo, Uncle! Some permalinks, please?
  

Well, that will have to do. Lunch time is over--it's back to the salt mines.

Edited 10/11/2005 @ 9:32. Uncle points out his permalinks are the post title. I shal refrain from comment. :-)

Is this a great country or what?

Despite the fact that I get really disgusted with the US on a fairly regular basis, you have to love a country where you can get a $30 license and then have guns and ammo delivered to your door via Big Brown Santa. Case (cases, perhaps?) in point:

Yes boys and girls, that is an e-e-evil Yugoslavian 59/66 SKS rifle (known to gun fearing wimps far and wide as a "horrible, high capacity assault rifle that can only used to shoot innocent children" {smirk}), complete with evil bayonet and even eviler grenade launcher (grenades not included).

Also included for extra evil are 2 980 round cases of South African 7.62x51, an 800 round case of Polish 7.62x54R and a 384 round can of Korean 30-06.

This is my first purchase on my C&R (Curio and Relic) license, which allows gun nuts the country over to buy obsolete military guns, with which we proceed to terrorize countless paper targets, helpless skeets, hapless golfballs, 2 liter bottles of water and other sundry objects.

Oh wow! Bonus evil! The SKS's new home:


Those thuds you hear are gun-fearing wimps passing out.

Your weekly Carnival of Cordite Fix

The Carnival is up at Resistance is Futile!--#33 in the series. Plenty of gun-based goodies to keep you occupied in your time away from the range.

Mom is home

and seems to be doing well. We'll hear more next Monday when she returns to the doctor. Keep your fingers crossed.