• LabRat lists out some new scents that she’s trying.  All of them sound intriguing, but she’s right, a perfume or cologne can smell absolutely different when applied to different people.  I prefer to have to be dancing cheek to cheek with a lady before I can smell her perfume.  But a woman who smells like a cinnamon roll would get me to sit up and take notice.
• Over at The Agitator, a former member of the DEA and current member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition introduces himself and does an excellent job articulating a position that supports ending the War on Drugs.
• Borepatch points out that the sleeping giant is waking up, and we’re pissed.  Hopefully the current political class realizes that the way things have always been done is ending and accepts oblivion gracefully.  I know, I’m a starry-eyed optimist.
• Robb Allen wins the Internetz with his attempt to hold the Great Ecumenical Gun Get Together.  The comments are as good as the post.
• Wirecutter is back, and the blogosphere is a better place for it.  He also relates a story about how good things happen to good people, and that we take care of our own.
• Oleg Volk has one of the most beautiful photographs I’ve ever seen.
• Pissed owes me a new monitor.  And yeah, don’t get between me and my cubs, and Thor help you if you make one of them squeal.

• Fred over at Guns and Coffee is heading out on deployment. He’s opening a new blog to chronicle his time away from home.  Go on over and wish him luck.
• Joe Huffman has a great discussion that reminds me of something I wrote a while back:  Sometimes you have to be at the bottom of a well to see the light.
• Brigid has an excellent post on the insanity of gun free zones and anti-gun cities.
• OldNFO has a run-in with a “clinical hoplophobe”, a term that will be going into my toolbag.
• LawDog observed insectoid union organizing.  If the insects are getting their union together, we are so boned.
• Via Peter, I hear that Michael is offering up a program for us to fund some of his excellent holsters for deployed troops.  I’m in.  Who’s with me?
• Borepatch brings us our semi-regular helping of doom.  If you need me, I’ll be down stairs unplugging my cable modem.

• Zercool shows us the fruits of his labors.  Definitely better than pink, coyote brown, olive green, or flat black.
• BlackFive takes the words right out of my mouth.  Could Syria be the pre-election surprise that Obama is looking for?  He’d certainly be able to point to the NATO charter as justification, whether or not NATO is still worthy of our attention.
• Matthew makes an excellent case for eschewing the tacticool plastic rifles in favor of a lever action.  The reasons a lever action made sense on a horse are still valid for carrying them around in an iron horse.  Speaking of which, there’s a 1950’s production lever action rifle singing sweet verses to me at the gun store.  I must resist.
• ET has made it to unoccupied territory.  I’ll have to look him up.
• Borepatch gives an excellent overview of his time at Appleseed.
• Auntie J is trying to do a good thing.  I’m chipping in.  Call it paying back for all the people who helped us out when the apartment building Little Bear and Girlie Bear were living in burned down a few years ago.

• Jay is having trouble figuring out a problem I wish I had.  As the supply of affordable old guns that don’t need restoration dwindles and we get down to restored barreled receivers for Garands, M-1 Carbines, and 1903’s, I’m guessing that a lot of “Restore it to semi-original state or put modern accessories on it?” questions will be asked.  
• Robb has some excellent news!  There’s nothing worse than having a sick child, and I’m glad Robb’s daughter is doing better.  Here’s hoping she continues to improve.
• LabRat is re-learning a skill I never mastered in the first place.  Honestly, outgrowing all of the rental skates at the rink by the time I was 13 made roller skating one of those things that I just never got around to learning.
• Cool Tools highlights a book that I really need.  I spend more time remind myself that a 2×4 isn’t 2 by 4 anymore.
• John Lilyea sums up my feelings exactly.  I saw two guys in my career get busted and busted hard for doing stupid crap, and they never acted as inappropriately as with Johnson did. He ought to have been busted to the lowest enlisted grade and made to clean field latrines at Fort Polk for a few summers.
• Uncle Jay is my new hero.  

Ambulance Driver does an excellent job explaining what can happen when you threaten to harm yourself and he gets called.

MaddMedic shows us something that looks very intriguing as the base for a steampunk gun.

Brigid continues her one-woman quest to ruin my diet.

Radley Balko points to one of the reasons I have second thoughts about capital punishment.

Christina LMT got some great news!

Robb shows me yet another thing I need for my Nerf guns.

Reverand Paul gets me nodding my head in agreement.

• Nancy R. has an excellent idea.  I started Girlie Bear off with an official Red Ryder carbine action range model air rifle.
• Donald Sensing gives an excellent analysis of the sinking of the Lusitania, and calms the waters for those who fret that she sank because of the ammunition she was carrying.
• Calvin’s Mom demonstrates once again why some teachers aren’t paid nearly enough.  My kids’ teachers always seem amazed when I come to a conference to find out what we can do differently in the future instead of being there to throw a tantrum about a grade.
• Mamma Bear is all abuzz about her new honey factories.
• Og makes an excellent point.  It’s not that the shepherd loves the sheep because they love him.  He loves them in spite of the fact that they act like sheep.
• If you’ve been in the military, you’ll get this one from Castle Argghhh!

• JayG and Ambulance Driver have excellent roundups of the NRA Annual Meeting.
• Frank James shares his view of the speech that Mitt Romney gave in St. Louis.
• NavyOne has an excellent conversation with a retired Marine Sergeant Major who’s seen a whole herd of elephants.
• Cracked has an excellent commentary on some of the Hollywood gun myths, and even throws in a shout out to Rule 5.
• LabRat has yet more of the advice that I need to be giving to my kids.  I’m starting to think I ought to print off a bunch of her stuff just so I have to give to my children as they grow up.
• Peter has started an excellent series of posts on racism and xenophobia.  Definitely suggested reading.
• Weerd has some thought provoking comments on how some firearms might be being superseded in their traditional roles.  I tend to agree that intermediate caliber rifles are just as useful as shotguns in self-defense, but most shotguns are just downright idiot proof enough for even me to use properly.

And that’s what I’ve found while reading through about 1/4 of the posts that were waiting for me in my reader after I got home.  More to come later, same bat time, same bat station.

• Mama Bear has me smacking my forehead and wondering “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Update – She has pictures of the finished product too!
• Bob Owens at Pajamas Media has a great rundown on an Appleseed event.  I need to get Girlie Bear and myself signed up for one of those.
• Roberta X gets my Irish up about the lack of good choices in presidential politics since about 1984.
• Peter owes me big time for all the hot coffee I snorted out through my nasal passages while reading his latest anecdote.
• NavyOne brings us a story about an American who gave his life so that an Afghan child could live.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  Where do we get such men?

Updates for posts I stumbled across after I hit “Publish”

• Whitecoat brings us a story that has some of the best visual pictures I’ve had in a long time.
•  Badass of the Week has a profile of someone I could see using as a model for my life. (Language Warning)

• What he said
• Laura has a new sidekick.  Very shiny!
• Mamma-Bear (No relation) is bringing the cute with KFC on the hoof.
• I wonder if he had an armorer for the frickin’ laser beams?
• Uncle Jimbo tells the hard, hard truth.  I always had a hard time convincing people I worked with in the Army that our job was to make it possible for other people to put warheads on foreheads, not keep paper, printer toner, and shredder companies in business.
• LabRat shows us a very neat way to train L&D specialists that should also be used to train young men and women.  Kind of a scared celibate, I mean straight program.

• Laura gives me a much needed giggle snort.
• Coop gives evidence that he and his wife are a good pairing.
• Christmas comes early over at Notes From the Bunker
• The Firearms Blog shows some new pyrotechnic shotgun rounds that I simply must try.  Or maybe I’ll just shoot a Mosin carbine.  
• The Best Defense has a report of new hardware for the Navy.
• Defense Tech posts about something that makes my non-flying self ask “Is that a bad thing?”.
• Castle Argghh! posts up a video of things that civilians say to veterans.  Yes, I’ve either been asked all these things, or been present when they’re asked of someone else. As a side note, I’ve been asked “Did you ever kill someone?” in job interviews. Oh, and kids, I’ve heard the “military intelligence / oxymoron” joke enough for one lifetime, OK?