Two Down, Lots To Go

Just thought I’d point out that today is New Wife’s second (!) wedding anniversary with Yours Truly.  All commentary about the burden she has to bear and her saintlike patience will be passed on.  (She doesn’t visit this place more than once or so a week, because she’s not interested in guns or politics.)

I am a lucky man.

Efficient

My old Dad always used to say, “If you want a job done quickly and efficiently, ask a lazy man to do the job.”  I bet this guy’s real lazy.

Kentucky man drinking a beer, smoking a cigar and wearing a bath robe uses a flamethrower to clear snow from his driveway

The pictures are priceless.

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings

And just in time for Christmas, from the great state of Texas comes this excellent news:

The caller told 911 dispatch that her ex-boyfriend was breaking into her home, Officer Haley Morrow said. Then she fired a gun and hit the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, she said.
Jefferson County Precinct One Justice of the Peace Ben Collins, Sr. said the man had a gunshot wound to the chest and was from Georgia. He said the homeowner fired one shot which struck the man in the chest and he has ordered an autopsy.

A one-shot kill?  Let’s hear it for the lady:

Wish we could be told the details, i.e. what gun, what caliber, what kind of boolet, etc.  But let’s not quibble too much.

And Yet Again

As I’ve said in the past, here and here, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet was a conundrum.  Others, it seems, are even more positive than I am:

Almost nobody is more reviled by the international intelligentsia and media than the late Augusto Pinochet, the late 20th -century Chilean dictator. He holds a prominent position in the political left’s “rogues’ gallery” comprised of those who stood in opposition to their goals.
His supposed “crimes” included conducting a military coup to illegitimately grab control of the Chilean government from a popularly elected president, rounding up and torturing huge numbers of innocent citizens (killing as many as 80,000 in the process) and corruptly stealing vast sums of money while ruling as a dictator.
But many of those claims are either false or exaggerated — most credible estimates of those killed are below 5,000 — or they must be viewed in context. More important, if we raise the examination of Pinochet from the bitter soil of leftist ressentiment to the question of human flourishing, he appears as one of recent history’s shining lights.

Read the whole thing — and my earlier posts on the topic too, if you haven’t seen them before.

I will never forget two things about my visit to Chile:  the sight of old women placing flowers on the sidewalk outside Pinochet’s modest private home (now a museum) in Valparaiso, and at a formal dinner one night, one of the toasts was:  “To General Augusto Pinochet, savior of Chile.”

It was delivered without irony, well received and supported by all the guests, and even more telling, it was said in English — no doubt for our benefit, and to make a point.

Interesting stuff.