Whatever it was...

 ..it wasn't a coup. 

Not even an attempted coup.

Mises Wire: The Capitol Riot Wasn’t a Coup. It Wasn't Even Close.

What Is a Coup?

A gang of disorganized, powerless mechanics, janitors, and insurance agents running through the Capitol isn’t a coup. And if it was a coup attempt, it was so far from anything that might hope to succeed as a coup that it should not be taken seriously as such.

So how do we know a coup when we see one?

In their article “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010: A New Dataset,” authors Jonathan M. Powell and Clayton L. Thyne provide a definition:

A coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.

There are two key components of this definition. The first is that it is illegal. Powell and Thyne note that this “illegal” qualifier is important to include "because it differentiates coups from political pressure, which is common whenever people have freedom to organize."

In other words, protests, or threats of protest don’t count as coups. Neither do legal efforts such as a vote of no confidence or an impeachment. 

But an even more critical aspect of Powell and Thyne’s definition is that it requires the involvement of elites.

Flash Back!

A little way into the Korean Basic, once we had gotten to the point that we could manage more advanced grammar, we had a lesson in which "Dad" came home from work to find his sons brawling, and yelled "POK DONG AH! SSA-OOH JI MA!"; colloquially translated, "What is this riot?! Stop fighting!" 

Only we thought he was calling one of his sons "Pok Dong" -- riot or civil disturbance -- and did not quite grasp yet the nuances of Korean grammar; in this case, the imperative forms indicated by the "AH/MA" verbs endings.

(Confession digression: I are grammaring goodly in English, written or spoken, but if you require me to diagram a sentence, I'm heading for the door. I still have a hard time telling the difference between an adverb and an adjective, and I'm not clear on what a gerund is.)

So several years later I'm in Korea on my second tour, my first at the Second Infantry Division, and one weekend I scored a day pass to head down to Seoul. Maybe I was Christmas shopping, I don't recall, but I don't remember it as being particularly cold, so may not. 

Anyway, the bus route went by several universities, including Yeon Sei Dae Hak ("tae hak" = university; commonly referred to as "Yeon Dae", which, confusingly, is also the word for "regiment".)

The student body was participating in their favorite intramural activity, loudly proclaiming their opinions on various and sundry matters of great concern, featuring a variety of special effects and training aids by both said student body and their critics, to wit: bricks, rocks, fire bombs, and tear gas.

In other words, rioting.*

I caught a whiff of said tear gas, leaving me a bit hoarse for a day or two. When a Korean acquaintance asked if I was well, I explained that I had gotten too close to the "pok dong" near Yeon Dai.

And was promptly corrected: "Not a pok dong, it was a demo!"

And that, boys and girls was my first exposure to the concept that, if the cause is exalted enough, any amount of riotous, destructive, behavior can be excused by the simple process of designating it a "demonstration" or "peaceful protest."

*See P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious essay "Seoul Man" from Rolling Stone, reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell.

 

Pandemic Panic Ponders

Haven't posted as much as I might, for a variety of reasons.

For one thing Bobbi and the guys at Powerline are tracking my thoughts pretty closely, and probably more eloquently than I could.

When it comes to science, I have found Spin, Strangeness, Charm and Watts Up With That? to be excellent sources; the former, especially, posts daily (if not more often) on news reports put of Europe, translated into English, with clear explanations of the science and medicine involved, with a minimum of hysteria.


OldNFO published this meme yesterday:

There is a lot we still don't know about SARS-CoV2 and COVID19. A lot of that gets lost in the squabbling surrounding it.

How virulent is it? What simple countermeasures are effective? Are the asymptomatic contagious? are there risk factors beyond the obvious?

If you find yourself hoping people die because they identify it as coming from China, then you're an idiot and I don't care for your opinion. If you screeched because the president shut down air travel from China and then kept screeching that he was overreacting, and pivoted immediately to he wasn't doing enough then you're an idiot and I don't care what your opinion is.

It is my opinion that after a 2 or 3 week lockdown we could have started re-opening with precautions, and we would be a lot better off, because people would still be working, the economy wouldn't be tanking, and, based on the experience in certain places that did not go full "Stay in your homes or else" mode, the disease "profile" would look little different.

I am not an epidemiologist. I admit I could be wrong. But when you look into the backgrounds of the "experts", there's a lot to question there.

The Brit that claimed the USA would have 2,000,000 deaths  was not only grossly mistaken, but he was responsible for several past public health related over-reactions on the part of Her Majesty's Government. (Not to mention having his married lover visit him from across town after publicly scolding Brits to stay indoors...)

Several years ago Dr Fauci responded to legislation banning certain virological research by funneling money to... a Chinese lab in Wuhan China. (I can actually follow the reasoning here. The research involved testing certain mutations to viruses to study responses. and treatments, so the research was important. But...)

As for government reaction...

Releasing felons from prison and arresting law abiding citizens for going outside? No wonder they want 100% mail-in ballots!

"On RUMINT"

Tamara has an excellent post (cross-post, I guess) up titled "On RUMINT".

As a former secret-squirrel type, I cannot recommend this highly enough. 

In the SIGINT world, we used to indicate phrases we weren't sure of in our gist by indicating the validity of a word or phrase by writing "(%A VAL)" or "(%B VAL)" after it.

Most of the rumors I'm hearing these days amount to about a %Q VAL.

No, the Stafford Act does not give the president the authority to declare martial law.

No, the National Guard is not being Federalized and mobilized to enforce lock down nation-wide. 

If you heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend... it's probably BS.

GDPR Statment

I keep getting told the Euro-Weenies say I have to make a statement about Euro-Weenie privacy. (The first syllable of which is probably supposed to rhyme with "privy.")

Randall Munroe of XKCD.com has done a masterful job of summing the situation up, I believe:

©2018 Randall Munroe, XKCD,com
"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License."

Seriously, the only data I could be considered to be keeping is if you leave a comment here, and the fact is I delete most comments I get as spam.

What Google, Blogger, and/or Blogspot (assuming there's a difference, which I doubt) may do with incidental data they scoop up as you surf blogs, I can't say. Ask them.

Happy Cultural Appropriation Day! (EDIT)

Not a topic I thought I'd be citing CNN for, but...
Cinco de Mayo: What it is, and what it isn't - CNN
Includes this fact-bomb:

When was the Cinco de Mayo war?

There was no Cinco de Mayo war.

The holiday celebrates Mexico's victory over France in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It was a relatively minor battle -- the French reclaimed Puebla a year later -- but a symbolic one because a small Mexican army defeated a larger occupying force. By 1867, Mexican troops had driven France from the country.

Many Americans assume Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day. It's not. That holiday falls on September 16 and commemorates the Grito de Dolores, a priest's ringing of a church bell in the town of Dolores in 1810 that triggered Mexico's War of Independence from Spain.

This is a slightly less face-palmingly stupid question, what with a commercial currently running for a Mexican cerveza that refers to "The Battle of Cinco de Mayo." Complete with footage of a bartender polishing glasses in the middle of the battle. (If there was a bartender at the Battle of Puebla, he was a French quartermaster doling out the vin ordinaire ration to les soldats.)

EDIT:
Ugh. I've been making fun of people that think Cinco de Mayo is a huge Mexican holiday for years.

The fun has gone out of that,though, now that I've discovered that the Southern Poverty Law Center (which has precious little to do with either poverty or the law, mostly seeming interested in accusing conservative institutions of being hotbeds of racist terrorism) has condemned Cinco de Mayo as cultural appropriation.

Damned progressives, always ruining everybody's fun...

Note to Everybody

Inspired by Tam's post Copypasta from my Bookface wall...

Go ahead and unfriend me.

The only way I am going back to Facebook is if they change their rules to let one post using a pseudonym with your "legal ID" not publicly available, and not searchable, without a warrant.

I'd even be willing to pay a double sawbuck (that's a Jackson for you kids, AKA an Irony Note, until Harriet replaces Andy, at which time it will be a Freedom Note, I guess) per annum for the service.

Facebook can be a useful way to stay in touch with family and friends; people evacuating from Hurricane Harvey only need a couple of minutes to post to their wall "Safe in Dallas, more later" and everyone will know they made it out OK.

Google+ could do that much, too, and anyone who has an Android phone has a Google+ account by virtue of having an Android, AKA GMail, AKA Google, account. And Google+ does not demand you post your legal ID anywhere. (Ask me how I know...)

But Zuckerberg et. al. are more interested in making piles of money and in manipulating society than in providing a simple service that people would actually like.

So feel no guilt at all about trimming your friends list by one there.

BTW, I'm still on Twitter, as of this week. Not real active, compared to some, but posting a link to the blog posts will (or used to) cross-post to Facebook, and occasionally some SJW does or says something stupid...

Still Siggy with it.

While I was at work today, Sig posted the details of the Voluntary P320 Upgrade. (See previous post, "Damnit, man, this is the Internet!")

Got home and submitted all of ours for the program; process took maybe 5 minutes, and that included getting pistols out of the safe, and a separate submission for each of them.

No further action is required from you at this time.

You will receive an email from SIG SAUER at a later date that will include a prepaid shipping label and instructions to return your P320 pistol and any P320 caliber exchange kits that you have. It may take many weeks for you to receive this next communication, but we won’t forget about you (SIG will not begin the upgrade process for a few weeks as we prepare to make this upgrade). Once your P320 is shipped and received at SIG SAUER, the turnaround time will be approximately 4 – 6 weeks. This lengthy process is due to the high volume of pistols in the marketplace. Transit times may vary depending on your geographic location and receipt of your returned pistol. In the meantime, your SIG SAUER pistol is safe to carry and use as originally configured from the factory.

 Obviously, the 4-6 weeks to get the pistols back after the undetermined wait to ship them off is less than appealing. (The most common number I've heard for P320 sales is ≈500,000. Not sure how accurate that is, but I can see how that would be a significant number of pistols to process...)

The fact that the entire process will be free of charge to us goes a ways to alleviating that.

FAQs about the program are at the bottom of the page linked above.

BTW, if you have caliber exchange kits in addition to one or more P320s, they recommend sending in the slides, as well, as

the striker(s) will be replaced, and the slide(s) will need the disconnector cut.

I'm honestly not too concerned about toting the P320 Sub Compact in the meantime, as I don't plan on dropping it multiple times in just the right orientation to cause an ND.

Don't really care whether the hysteria brigade thinks I'm overly optimistic or a fool.

"Damnit, man, this is the Internet!"

"Gentlemen, you can't reason here! This is the Internet!"

So, you may recall over several previous posts that I (and Ms. Drang, on my advice) have switched over the Sig P320s as out primary sidearms.

You may also be aware that the entire Gunternet is having a collective meltdown over recent "revelations" regarding the Sig P320.

The American Rifleman's The Keefe Report has published a review of the situation.

This post has few links; they'll be easy to find on your own. There is so much pants shitting hysteria over this issue that I am giving myself a time out from most gun-specific fora.

Many of my fellow bloggers, over in the right sidebar, have addressed this situation, as has The Gun Feed.. The issue has been beaten to death so thoroughly at Pistol-Forum.com that the horse is not only dead, but they had to bring in a new dead horse because the first one had been reduced to a pile of rancid jelly.

To review, for any who have not been following:

• A few weeks ago a video popped up in YouTube, on a channel with only that one video and no other content, purporting to demonstrating that, when dropped in a specific orientation, the Sip P320 would fire.
• The video had no commentary at all, including a description of how many tries it took to get this to happen, or how they reached the conclusion that dropping this pistol such that it struck the ground at a specific angle would cause it to fire.
• After a week or so, during which time people generally held to be In The Know arrived at the conclusion that the circumstances surrounding the video were so flaky as to render it suspect, at best; shortly thereafter, it disappeared.
• At approximately the same time, however, it was noted that there was language in the Sig P320 manual stating that the pistol could fire if dropped, and one should take care. 
• Note that this is standard lawyerese in most if not all firearms manuals, along with "use only quality, factory-loaded ammunition", and "modifications will void the warranty."
• Also at approximately the same time, the Dallas, TX, Police Department issued a safety warning regarding the Sig P320, due to the fact that "it might fire if dropped."  (The P320 is not issued by the department, but is authorized as a personal purchase.)
• Note that, contrary to rumors, no Dallas police officer has had a P320 fire accidentally.
• Sig released a statement which pointed out that the P320 had passed all industry standard safety testing, including all industry standard drop testing; IOW, no one ever thought they had to test a gun dropped at this specific angle before.
• Just as the furor over the original video and the verbiage in the manual was dying down, other videos popped up. These were better produced, and did seem to explain what happened better.
• Note, however, that these all built on the original video, which means that they started with the knowledge that the pistol dropped in this specific orientation could or would fire.
• Then... people started claiming that this previously unsuspected flaw applied to the M17 and M18 pistols, the Army having just awarded the contract for the Modular Handgun System to Sig for variants of the P320...
• ...despite the fact that the M17 and M18 use different internal components which avoid this issue...
• ...and which it turns out, Sig had already planned to offer as a voluntary upgrade to the P320. Details to be available the day after tomorrow. (That is, Monday, August 14th, 2017.)

 Of course, this latter fact gets reported to the effect of "What did Sig know and when did they know it?"

Notes for those who have been following along:

1. I left out the lawsuit by a Connecticut police officer who alleges he was injured when his P320 unintentionally discharged, which came to light about when this was happening, on purpose. Claim is made that his holstered pistol went off. The lead time on a lawsuit is such that the timing may or may not be suspicious, and the description of what happened is still unproven.
2. I am also not addressing the fact that one or more highly regarded personages came out and said that the P320 was as safe as any other gun, and questioned the original video, leading to their character and integrity being called into question when the full feeding frenzy hit.
3. Seriously, Gunternet-wide the knicker-twisting approached Bernie Sanders rally proportions...

Tamara's take (more or less) here: View From The Porch: Absolutely unprecedented!

Note that she is not commenting on the allegations or sequence of events, just that this is not the first time we've seen the "blood-in-the-water" effect of a new, successful pistol design which might have a weakness.

And as Mr. Keefe says in his article referenced above, this whole thing has gone beyond "blood in the water" into full-on Sharknado. (Naturally, the first comment on that article claims Sig bought the NRA's compliance...)

Mr. Keefe also references a report from Soldier Systems Daily: SIG SAUER Acknowledges P320 Trigger Issues With -30deg Drop, M17 MHS Unaffected, Announces Voluntary P320 Upgrade. 

Although SIG was already working toward introducing the MHS-inspired Enhanced Trigger to the P320, this -30deg drop issue has hastened their effort. They have lightened the Trigger, Striker and Sear by about 30% overall and added a Disconnect (commercial only, not MHS). The trigger pull weight is unaffected, but rather the trigger part actually weighs less. The reason they lightened those parts is to mitigate the momentum gained by the heavier parts during a drop.

Taylor laid it out, “There is a vulnerability with the P320 at the -30deg drop.” They plan to incorporate the trigger enhancements for the M17 into the P320. They’d been working on them, but implementation wasn’t imminent. Based on what they’ve found, that has been accelerated. Details on their voluntary upgrade program will follow soon.

I want to put this perspective. Since it’s introduction in 2014, they’ve sold around 500,000 P320s. There are three recorded cases of unintended discharges in LE channels . There is one additional commercial incident which I am familiar with but was not formally reported to SIG. That’s four known incidents from 500,000 weapons, many of which are used on a daily basis. Additionally, those incidents have all been within the last year.

This report concludes with the following paragraph:

My take is that despite building their pistols to industry standards, SIG has acknowledged the issue and is taking steps to fix it. They didn’t waste any time. They’ve stopped commercial production of the P320 and are concentrating on the upgrade. It’s going to be more than just swapping parts. The slide and frame will need some work as well so the pistol will need to go back to SIG. Details will soon follow on how to participate in the voluntary upgrade program.

 As I noted earlier, details of the upgrade will be available Monday.

Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about the idea of sending our guns to New Hampshire to be upgraded, but expect to be doing so, if only to ensure parts compatibility down the road.

This whole series of events has left me disgusted with a large swathe of humanity, though.

Fer Pete's Sake

So, Tamara has this song she wrote, a pastiche on "A Few Of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. Tamara's is commonly referred to as "The Fun Show Song", and it's about the joys of going to gun shows.

Ambulance Driver and Squeaky made a music video of it as a Christmas Present for Tamara, which she posted here.

The notorious plagiarists at a certain site noteworthy for their unintentionally ironic use of the word "truth" in the title posted it without attribution; Bobbi has some details at Stop, Thief!. Be it noted that I have no idea about the whole Dead Hooker magazine thing, but since Tamara makes a living as a writer, and a writer owns copyright on the words she puts into certain order, and Dan Zimmerman and that website have infringed copyright before, I think we can certainly state that Dan Zimmerman is an intellectual property thief.

Look, it's all too easy to embed an image or video without attribution. When the copyright holder says "Hey, I own that" you should either replace the embedded code with a link, or (at least) add the proper attribution.

Linoge has a history of the infringements at the truth about the truth about guns and robert farago | walls of the city.

Overheard In The Salt Mines

"Operations"

"I'd like to report a suspicious object."

"Please describe the nature and location of the object." {Thinking: "Rattrap or fire extinguisher?"}

"It's round and a pale yellow in color, and it's emitting a blinding light and some heat. It's located about 40 degrees above the horizon due east of the Salt Mines."

"..."

"Hello?"

"Sir, that's the sun."

"The sun? Is that what it looks like? I'd heard of it... Look, my  minions on the Public Level are complaining, can you get hold of Safety or Logistics or someone and get them some dark glass... Hello? Hello?

"Sorry guys, guess you'd better just squint."

QOTD, 08/01/2015

I actually saw this yesterday, but I already had a QOTD for yesterday, so it got deferred to today.

At what Tamara likes to refer to as "An away game", and while discussing the Cecil The Lion "scandal", which in the way of these things devolved into a free range discussion of hunting, and what was Right And Proper and Pure, and What Was Evil and Wrong And Bad, David S. observed

How is it that so many of us in the gun community, who distrust the "liberal media," are so willing to accept this story at face value?

I've never been on an African "Safari"¹. If I had the money for same, I'd probably invest half and spend the rest on an Alaska hunt instead.

So here's what I know from talking about it with people who have been on Shikar²:

• You pays your money, you hires the Professional Hunter and his staff.
• The PH takes you around, and tells you when and where and which animal to shoot.
• That makes you the sport, not the, or a, "hunter."
• You have the option of paying "trophy fees" and getting a mount of the head.
• The meat is distributed among local communities.
• Hunting is controversial, especially among those whose knowledge of actual ecology ended at viewing Bambi at a young age.
• Hunting different from the way you/I do it is also controversial. 
• Mid-Westerners who "stalk"with a rifle or shotgun are liable to view those who hunt from a stand as some kind of barbarian, regardless of whether hunting from the ground there is practical, or even legal.
• People who have a scope on their shootin' 'arn feel the same about those without, and vice versa, ditto regarding legality.
• (EDITED TO ADD:) That goes double for weird styles of hunting involving strings and pointy sticks, guns that load from the front, or guns that look... icky.
• Also, some idiots are so much more concerned about the fate of a wild (well, semi-wild) animal than the facts that the "sport" in this case has received death threats, and the enlightened government of Zimbabwe (!) is demanding that said "sport" be extradited.
• Cecil was 13 years old. 
• The Average Life Span Of A Lion in the wild is 10-14 years.

Clearly, it's time to move to a cave in the mountains with a pile of "dead tree" books and give up on the human race.

***

1. Safari: A long overland trip, usually for diplomatic or trading purposes.
2. Shikar: Hunt, hunting.
This pretty much exhausts my knowledge of Swahili.

ATTENTION, EURO-WEENIES!

After hitting "Publish" on my previous post, I noticed on the "Dashboard" that Google has the following advisory:

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.

The only cookies I know anything about are the ones my wife bakes, or, under extreme duress, we purchase at the store.

If any cookies end up on your computer (or whatever you call it in Euro-speak) they were put there without my knowledge.

Especially since that apparently means you're too stupid to block cookies and the like. Sheesh, it's the Twenty-First Century, people! 

I deny any responsibility for anything that may happen to you or your devices while visiting my subversive, pro-liberty, anti-authoritarian blog.

Unless you start agitating for your country to ditch the EU and EC, and start organizing on libertarian principles.  I'm all over taking credit for that.

And Google can go take a flying leap, too. Paying Word Press is looking better every day.

What He Said

Screw The Facebooks... - The Minuteman

So. This makes three. Does that make it enemy action?

Once is happenstance...

...Twice is coincidence: SayUncle » And speaking of the internet of things.

One need be neither a trained Intelligence Analyst nor a raving paranoid conspiracy theorist to wonder if there will be a third* gun blogger told to upload photo ID to continue accessing Facebook.


*The full quote is "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

Why we can't have nice things

Or: Sometimes the Jackassery is on our side.

So, big rally in Olympia yesterday against I594, as mentioned here and here. We did not attend because of the creeping crud, and also because Mrs. Drang needs to concentrate on her job search.

But.

Anette and Barron were there and I am sure will have posts up soon, if they're not up even as I type. Much material has been posted on Facespace, and in the press.
Hundreds at Capitol protest new gun-purchase background checks | Politics Northwest | Seattle Times

Links to AP File Story and photographs from same after the page break.

Illigitimati Nil Carborundum...

Takes on a whole new meaning in light of recent events in the City of Light...

23 Heartbreaking Cartoons From Artists Responding To The Charlie Hebdo Shooting - BuzzFeed News
A couple of my favorites:

"Died For The Freedom of Expression"

Commie, please

Because Black Friday isn't already stressful enough for anyone who can't just stay at home, the folks who gave us this:

From VFTP: The Protocols of the Elders of WTF?
That's right, I'm outside of Seattle embedding a photo about idiots here from a blogpost written in Indianapolis.

also brought us this:Police: Seattle protester had cache of weapons in car, in which it was revealed that one of the Social Justice Warriors had a Taurus and a cheap Chicom knife on him, and a shotgun and semi-automatic rifle in his car. (But no carry permit.) Also a barbecue lighter and "powerful fireworks."  And some granola bars.

I'm surprised they didn't say he had an arsenal cached in his car, but I digress.

Today, we got this: Ferguson demonstrators march in Seattle | Seattle Times, in which it is revealed that the local Social Justice Warriors honored the memory of a young, um, urban entrepreneur, by assaulting police officers at the lighting of the Christmas Tree at Westlake Center, an upscale mall  in downtown Seattle*. Which also houses the northernmost station of the Link Light Rail, so, not only did they screw up folks' Christmas Shopping, they made it so they couldn't get home, because the mall and rail station were closed early.

This just capped off the day, as it seems that the protesters were using pepper spray and throwing fireworks in response to the SPD's use of pepperballs and flash bangs.  (Not sure about the efficacy of flash-bangs as a crowd control tool in daylight, but what do I know?)  Also, one or more other SJWs were arrested for assaulting a police officer, and at one point they chained the doors to another downtown mall shut, which I am sure violates the fire code, at the least.

Bu then there's this: Black Friday gets a little less frenzied, which had the un-ironic subtitle "Black Friday seemed a little less crazy this year."

*And site of the Gordon Biersch brewpub, where I had lunch with Barron and Janelle Barnett and Boyd Kneeland and Phil Murray after the No on I594 rally, and which is totally cool with Open Carry but"You might want to cover up because Mall Security was talking about barring anyone who was armed."

Feelin' like I lost a friend

So I came home from work yesterday to read on Facebook Tamara of View From The Porch fame announcing that she was fed up and quitting.

???

VFTP is now shut down. Accessible "By invitation only". No archives, nothing.

I feel like a kid whose best friend at school is moving with his family to some country he never heard of, where they don't have roads or mail.

All because some creeper stalker Would. Not. Let. Her. Alone.

This is why she went from "Prove you're a human" word verification to "Owner Approval" on comments, by the way. A lot of us knew of the shitstain's existence, but we'd just chuckle to ourselves and ask "What kind of an idiot would stalk Tamara, for Christ's sake?" Because, not only does she have guns and know how to use them, but she is the reigning Queen of Snark, with an encyclopedic knowledge of history and technology, and her blog is read by everybody.

I can't even begin to explain how much I have learned from Tam about firearms and history and technology, nor can I describe the way she routinely humbles me with the breadth and depth of her knowledge. In all modesty, people come to me with questions about guns and history and technology -- when Drang speaks (about some things) people listen --  but I feel like the merest, newest Padawan next to her...

Some bloggers speak of the "Blogfather".  I won't say that Tamara is my "Blogmother", but if there was one blogger whose example I tried to follow, it was her. And, in the 6 years or so I've been blogging, I've managed a couple of Instalanches, a Dailylanche, and a couple of Tamalanches.  I got more hits off a single Tamalanche than the other 'lanches combined. This is not to brag, exactly -- my usual post has fewer hits than her occasional "Not up to it, come back later." Rather, it's a comment on her influence.

The US Concealed Carry Association?  I kept getting their emails, and ignored them, until I learned that she has a monthly column. (Light on the snark, though.)

I have to wonder if JTC of Sebring, FL, knows just how many people he has pissed off. Many if not most if not all gun bloggers.  Many if not most if not all gun blog readers. Larry Correia, which means all of the Monster Hunter Nation.  Chris Muir of the Day by Day web comic.

So then, today (yesterday when you see this, almost certainly) I get home and see a Facebook post by her that says more-or-less "REDACTED, it's been fixed", but the comments make it sound like she's going to unfriend anyone she has not met IRL. And I can't help remember how it made me feel when she accepted my friend request, because maybe now I could be one of the Cool Kids, except that now I might be permanently black listed, and it almost makes me want to cry.

Which is pathetic at my age.

(At this point, I want to explain that all this is in a distinctly non-creepy, nothing-to-get-jealous-about, honey, type of admiration...)

(And as for Facebook friendage, I wonder if "One degree of separation" will do?  'Cuz I know True Blue Sam, and Engineering Johnson, and Ray Carter, and Chance, and...)

Sigh.

Look, hobby bloggers have been saying all along "I do this for my entertainment, not yours, so if you don't like what I write, sorryaboutthat."

And "If it stops being fun, stop doing it."

So, if it has become more of a chore than Tamara wants to put up with, she should, indeed, pull the plug.

Many of us mourn.

That moment when...

...you see that a new comment was posted on your low-traffic blog, and you think "Oh, boy, someone visited!" and it turns out to be a spammer who leaked past the blocker...