Nicole W. was the first of several readers to send this piece: US farmers fear the return of the Dust Bowl: For years the Ogallala Aquifer, the world’s largest underground body of fresh water, has irrigated thousands of square miles of American farmland. Now it is running dry [1]
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Chad S. sent this piece datelined Worchester, Massachusetts: 2,000 rounds of ammo found during traffic stop [2]. Oh, my goodness! They nailed this bad man with “…four counts of possession of a large capacity feeding device, and possession of ammunition without a Firearm Identification Card.” Cue the wailing, teeth-gnashing, and hand-wringing. I wish that hoplophobes would get real about guns and ammunition. They are obviously from an alternate universe. (The one where Earth’s axis is located at a university campus in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.) I’ve determined that it is not just the ownership of guns by their neighbors that bothers gun haters–it is the numbers. The last time I checked, it was impossible for an individual to shoot more than two guns at a time. (Inaccurately, at that, without lots of practice.) So what difference does it make if someone owns two guns, or two hundred? Does owning a dozen boom sticks somehow make someone evil? (More evil? “Eviler?”) And since when did a small gun collection become an “arms cache”, and a moderate-size gun collection–or anything more than an armload of ammunition–become an “arsenal”? If you include all of the .22 rimfire my kids go through, 2,000 rounds of ammo represents just a two or three week supply for my family or perhaps enough for a three-day weekend. And I’ve been known to buy twice that much ammo in just one gun show trip. Its a good thing that the Taxachussetts officials don’t have any jurisdiction here in The Un-Named Western State (TUWS [3]). If they pulled me over they might suffer a fit of apoplexy and brand me as a one-man crime wave.
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Meanwhile, ‘Ol Remus [4] spotted this news headline of abject horror from Across The Pond: .22 bullet found in Fossgate, York [5]. (Here in TUWS, nobody would blink any eye unless the ammo was .50 BMG, or larger. And even then, after picking it up, the first question asked would be: “Now where am I going to find a gun to shoot this?”)
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Reader N.R.V. sent a link to an alarming video about the Islamazation of France, produced in 2010 [6].
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Millions Without Food, Water, Power After Quake Ravages Japan. [7] (Thanks to M.E.W. for the link.)