I happened across the following quote the other day, not long after my Appleseed posts:

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” -Thomas Paine

Fitting, I thought, both for that topic and my whole philosophy on blogging in general.

Thanks, friend. When I finish funding that dedicated .22LR upper, I think I shall call it the TomareUtsuZo Special.

;)

I think I’m going to be dinking around with blog monetization again. I’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible, because I don’t like heavy advertising.

But, I’m saving my pennies for more than just Gunsite (I really want a dedicated .22LR upper, now – THANKS BARRY, you crack dealer) so I might as well rack up a few here, if possible.

Feel free to comment/email with tips or suggestions, and bear with me if it takes me a bit to sort out a configuration I like.

I got this from Sean waaaaay back in September, but am just cleaning out my PGB inbox and had to post it:

Cops pay visit to Bungie over “AK-47″

Go look. No, really, go look - especially if you’re a Halo fan. I hope you laugh as hard as I did.

——————

In other news, my PGB inbox is officially empty, and the award for Worst Email Responder In The History Of Al Gore’s Internets is MINE.

If you’ve emailed me and haven’t received a response – well, I screwed something up. Or, if it’s really old, it probably went *poof* with the last trip to AppleCare. Forgive me and write again, please!

And, just for the record, I read everything as it comes in. Nine times out of ten it’s not that I don’t care or am blowing you off – it’s that I think, “Oh, I should take a minute to compose an actual thoughtful response to that!” and then a minute turns into, um, three months.

Sorry ’bout that.

No, unfortunately, I didn’t have one. If you guys knew how long it has been since I’ve had a legitimate range day, you’d kick me off teh intarwebs and ban my IP from accessing Uncle. Seriously.

But, I was invited to check out DayAtTheRange.com, which is a relatively new range report/review blog set up with the intention of giving realistic, unbiased reports on weapons. (Unlike those always-sunny reviews in most of the gun magazines, for example.)

Anyway, I perused and liked what I saw, so I figured I’d throw them a shout-out as I added them to the blogroll. Keep up the good work, guys!

Sorry about the PGB outage. PSA: If you switch your web hosting to monthly billing, they tend to appreciate if you, you know, pay them monthly. Ahem.

As an aside, I need to give a plug for Dreamhost. For whatever reason, the web panel didn’t like me much when I was trying to log in to re-up my account, so I emailed for help. I received a reply in less than ten minutes, sent them the information they needed, and received a second reply within ten minutes. First email to problem solved: 18 minutes. Quite impressive.

The Girl Child and I are back in Idaho, swine-flu free (thus far anyway). Thanks for all your well-wishes. Regarding the masks-on-the-airplane thing: I was aware of the airborne nature of the flu, but figured I’d a) give myself a barrier between stray sneezes/coughs and b) protect myself from myself, because I’m HORRIBLE about touching my face all the time. It’s a moot point, though, because I forgot I had the stupid thing. I did wash my hands A LOT.

Anyway, Feliz Cinco de Quatro. I am so glad we have a president soooooooooo much smarter than GWB, aren’t you?

So. My due date – at 40 weeks gestation – is January 10th. White, western, first-time mothers tend to average eight days past their due date – which would put us at January 18th. A “normal” pregnancy will usually last between 37 and 42 weeks – which means a range up to January 24th. A full week post-term (43 weeks) would put us at January 31st.

My point? I am almost certainly giving birth sometime this month. If I’m still pregnant come February 1st… Well, you won’t have to visit PGB to know it – the wailing and gnashing of teeth will likely be audible from sea to shining sea.

Anyway, a January birth is almost certain, and that means January posts on PGB are going to be scarce. I’m not terribly busy right now, but I am trying to sleep as much as possible, discover that “nesting” instict people keep swearing I should have, and come to terms with the fact there’s now a flipping carseat in my vehicle. I definitely intend to announce the birth whenever it happens, but I’ll probably be very scarce for a little while after that. I just wanted to address this so y’all didn’t worry/take me off your blogrolls/send hate mail.

Now, for some fun: I think you should all comment with your birth predictions. You know – date, time, sex (nope, we didn’t find out), weight, length… and anything else you feel like adding.

Warning: The smartass who thinks it’s funny to predict a 12lb/23in baby born on February 10th after 42 hours of labor will be hunted down and killed.

If you aren’t reading SayUncle, why the hell not?

It’s definitely my favorite roundup of guns and politics news. I usually read the RSS feed and after realizing EVERY DAY I click on at least 50% of the entries and think “I should re-post this…” it occurred to me I ought to just point y’all straight at him.

So, consider yourself commanded: Add Uncle to your blogrolls or RSS or however you get your daily blog goodies!

*composes self*

Via Kit: LOOK!

Special Events :: Community Event
Justice Antonin Scalia: “Constitutional Interpretation”
2:00 PM University of Montana

Description:

The Judge William B. Jones and Judge Edaward A. Tamm Judicial Lecture presented by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.

Free and open to the public.

You better bet yer ass we’re going!

SCALIA!!!

In case you haven’t heard, Ron Paul endorsed… well, anybody but the major party candidates:

Earlier, Paul called the presidential elections a charade and said voters are faced with the “lesser of two evils.”

The majority of Americans, about 60 percent, are unhappy with their choices in the race, Paul said. He urged the three third-party candidates to bring all their supporters together to vote against the “establishment candidates.”

Mike just came in and pointed out something totally obvious that hadn’t yet occurred to me in this context: While Ron Paul may be pretty fringe-y, HE IS A FRIGGIN’ REPUBLICAN!

Obviously RP wouldn’t have been an “establishment candidate” had he won the (R) nomination, but it is a little ridiculous that he’s been playing the GOP game all this time and is now temper-tantruming against the two-party system.

Sorry, Ron. This is one time I can safely say you’re part of the problem.