Happy April Fool’s Day!

April 1st, 2026

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives quietly published a new guidance document Tuesday morning titled Clarification of Terms Related to Firearms, Firearm Accessories, Firearm Components, Firearm-Adjacent Items, and Other Items Which May or May Not Be Firearms Depending on Circumstances and Configurations, and before you ask, yes, that’s the actual title.

…

Page 39 introduces the concept of a “firearm-adjacent device,” which the document declines to define, but notes that such devices “may be subject to future rulemaking.”
The document also helpfully clarifies that forced reset triggers are not machine guns, except when they are.

My brother sent this over. It is an oldie, but a good one.

By way of Revolver Guy, the NAA Plug:

The NAA Plug is built around a detachable, AR-style pistol grip that’s been modified to accept the small, single-action rimfire when it’s folded into a recess in the front strap of the grip.

I can’t tell if this is an April Fool’s joke or not: Smith and Wesson is giving away third-generation autopistols. (Explained.)

Not gun related, but I do find today’s XKCD kind of clever, if theologically unsound. (Who would be there to ask for dark mode support? Humanity wasn’t created until the sixth day.)

Posted in Guns, Religion, Smith and Wesson | No Comments »

Your loser update: April 1, 2026.

April 1st, 2026

MLB teams that have a chance to go 0-162:

None.

There are currently five 1-4 teams (and one 1-3 team) as I write this:

Boston
Minnesota
White Sox
City Unknown Athletics
Colorado
San Diego

Is there any team likely to set a new record this year? Reply hazy, ask again later. I feel like it is too early in the season. But right now, I’m watching Colorado and the White Sox.

Posted in Loser, Sports | No Comments »

Obit watch: March 30, 2026.

March 30th, 2026

Dr. Henry C. Lee, forensic scientist. He may have been most famous for testifying at the OJ trial.

Dr. Lee testified for the defense, saying that there was “something wrong” with the way the Los Angeles Police Department had handled the blood that was collected as evidence.
His testimony supported the defense team’s suggestion that the evidence could have been tampered with and that officers might have planted Mr. Simpson’s blood at the crime scene.

…

In the mid-1980s, in the so-called preppy murder case, Dr. Lee was hired by the team defending Robert E. Chambers Jr., who was accused of murdering Jennifer Levin in Central Park. Dr. Lee was never called to testify because he told Mr. Chambers’s lawyer, Jack Litman, that his client was “guilty as hell.” Mr. Chambers pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 1988.

…

In 2007, the judge in the murder trial of Mr. Spector ruled that Dr. Lee, a consultant for the defense, had removed something from the crime scene and hidden it from the prosecution.
Prosecutors contended that it was a piece of fingernail that would have shown that the actress Lana Clarkson had resisted having a gun placed in her mouth before being shot at Mr. Spector’s California home. The defense claimed that she had shot herself.
The judge did not hold Dr. Lee in contempt, and Dr. Lee denied taking anything from the crime scene. After the first trial ended in a hung jury, Mr. Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009.
In 2023, Connecticut’s attorney general agreed to a $25 million settlement with two men who had spent three decades in jail after being convicted of murder. Those convictions, which were overturned in 2020, had been based in part on testimony by Dr. Lee regarding the supposed presence of blood on a towel. A federal judge ruled that Dr. Lee had fabricated the evidence, saying that there was no corroboration that he had conducted any blood tests on the towel.
Dr. Lee defended himself in a statement, saying, “I have no motive nor reason to fabricate evidence.”

Mary Beth Hurt. Other credits include “Law & Order”, “Law & Order:SVU”, and “Lady in the Water”.

James Tolkan. Other credits include “They Might Be Giants”, “Bone Tomahawk”, “Serpico”, “Prince of the City”, and “The Hat Squad”.

Letizia Mowinckel, historical footnote. She bought clothes for Jacqueline Kennedy.

Impressed by her friend’s style and thrift, Mrs. Kennedy enlisted Mrs. Mowinckel to obtain clothes discreetly from French designers and send them to the White House. During the election, the press had criticized the chic Mrs. Kennedy for favoring foreign designers. She chose the American designer Oleg Cassini, long known for his work with Hollywood stars, as her personal couturier during her husband’s presidency, but her taste for Parisian fashions was unabated.

Among the clothes she bought: the pink Chanel suit.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One just before it returned to Washington, and Mrs. Kennedy, who stood next to Mr. Johnson, refused to remove the suit. Mrs. Johnson recalled, “Then with something — if you can say a person that gentle, that dignified, had an element of fierceness — she said, ‘I want them to see what they have done to Jack.’”

Posted in History, Law, Movies, Obits, Science, TV | No Comments »

Can you cache a small Czech?

March 28th, 2026

Thanks to a tip from FotB pigpen51, we have learned that J&G Sales also has CZ 82 pistols for $199.95. Or about four cents cheaper than PSA before they raised the price in my cart. For an extra $30 (or about $10 more than PSA’s increased price) J&G will “hand select” one with a nicer finish for you.

Comes with a package of one 12rd magazine, a leather mag pouch, and a holster (may be belt or shoulder style).

And it looks like they allow you to provide your own C&R license at checkout, too.

It’s too late for me, though they also have spare magazines (and I plan to order a couple) but if you’re interested in a CZ-82, I’d recommend shopping J&G.

Posted in Consumer, Guns | 3 Comments »

Your loser update: March 27, 2026.

March 27th, 2026

MLB teams that have a chance to go 0-162:

Toronto
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
Minnesota
White Sox
City Unknown Athletics
Houston
Texas
Seattle
Miami
Atlanta
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Cubs
Colorado
Arizona
San Francisco
San Diego

In other news, the Houston Astros lost to the Los Angeles Angels 3-0 at Daikin Park yesterday. As we all know, that means the Astros won’t be able to sell beer there for the rest of the season…

…because they lost the home opener.

(Thank you. I’ll be here all season. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.)

Posted in Firings, Loser, Sports | 3 Comments »

Do as I say, not as I do. (PSA update)

March 26th, 2026

I can be very stubborn sometimes. Especially when someone is trying to frustrate me.

So even though I said, “Don’t do business with Palmetto State Armory” (and I stand by that, for reasons that I’ll get into below) I continued pursuing the CZ82.

I resubmitted my C&R FFL…and finally got an answer back, asking me what SKU I wanted to purchase. I provided all the information and PSA got back to me saying it was approved for C&R purchase. In order to do that, though, I had to:

  • place the order
  • select a FFL from their list when I placed the order
  • once I placed the order, I had to email PSA back with my order number, and then they would replace the FFL I had selected with my C&R FFL

This seems to me like a convoluted and stupid way of doing things. When I ordered a C&R gun from Collector’s Firearms in Houston, I specified in the order notes that I had a C&R FFL: Collector’s contacted me in a day or two, gave me the email address I could send the FFL to, and shipped the gun with no problems. Even ordering non-C&R guns from GunBroker is smoother than this.

But, anyway, I did the dance. And, by the way, PSA raised the price of the gun in my cart by $20 since I had started the process. PSA sent me an order confirmation with the number, I provided the order number to the appropriate people at PSA, they subbed in my C&R FFL, and sent me an order confirmation with a tracking number.

Shortly after I got the tracking number, I got another email from PSA’s “Compliance Department”:

In an ongoing effort to protect our customers and our business, we systematically evaluate every order that is placed. Your order has been flagged our internal assessment system. This is a comprehensive process that covers multiple data points so we are contacting you to confirm you placed order (#########) on (##/##/####).

I replied to the email. Never got any acknowledgment. Called PSA customer service again the next day (and, I’m pretty sure, talked to the same person I talked to last time). She said the order had been approved and shipped and I didn’t need to worry about the compliance department…

…and the final punchline to this is that the gun did arrive yesterday. It looks pretty nice: I think “very good”. PSA threw in what looks like a cheap generic nylon holster, but I only got one magazine. I need to get a couple more CZ82 mags. And some 9×18 ammo: none of my local gun stores seem to have any.

Would I go through this again? No. I’m sorry, but PSA seems disorganized, and I resent they jacked up the price of the gun in my cart $20. After all this frustration, I can’t see dealing with them again, no matter how attractive the offer is.

Posted in Consumer, Guns | 2 Comments »

Firings watch.

March 25th, 2026

Hubert Davis out as men’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina.

He was 125-54 in five seasons, and went to the NCAA Tournament four times. But the consistent theme seems to be: he couldn’t produce results. (Does that sound familiar to anybody? Lawrence?)

Including this season, half of North Carolina’s all-time first-round NCAA Tournament losses have come in the past two years.

UNC lost to VCU in the first round this year, and blew a 19 point lead while doing so.

ESPN.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: March 25, 2026.

March 25th, 2026

Tracy Kidder, author.

I read The Soul of A New Machine, but in a Reader’s Digest condensed version, back in the day. I should really pick up a copy and read the real book.

When The Detroit Free Press offered Mr. Kidder a reporting job, he told Mr. [Richard] Todd [his editor – DB], “Maybe I can get a Pulitzer if I work really hard.” Mr. Todd responded, “You can get a Pulitzer staying here in Western Massachusetts and writing books.”

(For those who may not know, Soul did win a Pulitzer.)

Mr. Kidder wrote in endless drafts. “Tracy throws up on the page and cleans up afterward,” said Jonathan Harr, author of the best-selling book “A Civil Action.” “He was absolutely indefatigable in the writing.”

Posted in Books, Obits | No Comments »

Obit watch: March 24, 2026.

March 24th, 2026

For the record: NYT obits for Valerie Perrine and Brian Doherty.

Burning in Hell watch: Kermit Gosnell. I have my own opinions about abortion, which I’m not going to impose on anyone here. But the Gosnell case, as I recall, made even people who were pro-abortion sit up and say, “Hey, wait a minute, this is going too far.”

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Obit watch: March 23, 2026.

March 23rd, 2026

Valerie Perrine, actress. Other credits include “Homicide: Life on the Street”, “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and “W.C. Fields and Me”.

For the historical record: Robert S. Mueller III. WP.

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, Politics, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: March 20, 2026.

March 20th, 2026

Chuck Norris. THR. “The World Bows: Remembering Chuck Norris 1940-2026” from Black Belt.

Other credits include the bad “Hawaii Five-0”, “Sons of Thunder”, and “Firewalker“.

Ed Bernard, actor. Other credits include “Hardcastle and McCormick”, “Shaft” (the movie), “Cool Million”…

…and “Mannix”. (“A Question of Murder”, season 7, episode 22. He was “Bull Evans”.)

Jane Lapotaire, British actress.

For the historical record: NYT obit for Alvin Greene. (Previously on WCD.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre, TV | No Comments »

Peeves petted. Axes ground.

March 18th, 2026

This is not a shot at Dr. Christopher A. Sims. I never met the man. For all I know, he helped old ladies across the street, nursed sick puppies, and fed feral cats.

But:

Christopher A. Sims, 83, Dies; Won Nobel on Ways to Steer the Economy

…

Christopher A. Sims, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who devised statistical models to guide central bankers and other policymakers in their attempts to steer the economy, died on Saturday at his home in Minneapolis. He was 83.

As the NYT acknowledges in paragraph four of the obit, the prize is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. This prize was created in 1968, 72 years after Alfred Nobel’s death. It is not a Nobel prize, and it is wrong and misleading to state that it is one. The only real Nobel prizes are in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.

Yes, I know this is a small thing. But it is one of my pet peeves.

Posted in Obits | No Comments »

Vatican Justice!

March 17th, 2026

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, former chief of staff to Pope Francis, was convicted by the Vatican’s criminal court in 2023 of various financial crimes.

Today, his conviction was overturned on appeal.

The NYT article is mostly bullet points:

Most charges related to a London real estate deal that cost the Vatican millions of euros.

In 2023, Cardinal Becciu and others were convicted on some charges and acquitted on others. Defendants included former Vatican staff, financiers, consultants and an intelligence expert. All appealed.

In a 16-page ruling, the appeals court said that Vatican prosecutors committed procedural errors that warranted a new trial.
The court ruled that the prosecutors had unfairly withheld evidence.
One of Pope Francis’s secret law changes let prosecutors act without judicial oversight. The appeals court said the defendants should have known of the change.

The NYPost also has a story that is less bullet-pointy and more sensational.

Defense lawyers said such a ruling was enormously significant if not historic, since it amounted to a Vatican court declaring that an act of the pope had no effect.

…

The case had as its main focus the Vatican’s investment of $413 million in a London property. Prosecutors alleged brokers and Vatican monsignors fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions to acquire the property, and then extorted the Holy See for $16.5 million to cede control of it.
The original investigation spawned two main tangents involving Becciu, once a leading Vatican cardinal and future papal contender. He was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5½ years in prison. The tribunal convicted eight other defendants of embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and other charges and imposed tens of millions of dollars in restitution to the Holy See.

This whole thing seems kind of crazy. And I’m looking forward to the true crime book.

By the way: Catholic Answers explains papal infallibility for you.

Posted in Law, Religion | No Comments »

Obit watch: March 17, 2026.

March 17th, 2026

Len Deighton, one of the great British spy writers. NYT (share link). He was 97.

He wrote “The IPCRESS File” to amuse himself during a vacation. The story of a secret agent confronted with duplicity and bureaucracy from his own side while investigating a Soviet kidnap ring, it was published in 1962 and went on to sell millions of copies.
The novel was adapted into a 1965 film, with Caine in a star-making performance as Deighton’s protagonist, a sardonic working-class sophisticate with a love of gourmet food. The character is unnamed in the book, though Caine’s character was given the name Harry Palmer.

…

Another passion was food. Deighton was food correspondent for The Observer newspaper in the 1960s and wrote several cookbooks aimed at men — a then-novel idea — including “Len Deighton’s Action Cook Book” (1965), with recipes illustrated like comic strips.

Judy Pace, actress. Other credits include “Cotton Comes to Harlem”, “O’Hara, U.S. Treasury”, “Shaft” (the TV series), and “The Thomas Crown Affair” (the original).

Matt Clark, actor. Other credits include “Hardcastle and McCormick”, “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”, “The Laughing Policeman”, and “T.H.E. Cat”.

John Bengtson. No, you probably haven’t heard of him, unless you have a lot in common with the Saturday Night Movie Group.

For more than 30 years, he captured images of them from silent films and then matched them with archival photos, aerial maps and postcards to pinpoint where Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd performed their slapstick shenanigans.
In identifying hundreds of locations in Hollywood, San Francisco and New York that those geniuses of silent comedy used in movies like “The Kid” (1921), “Cops” (1922) and “Safety Last!” (1923), Mr. Bengtson inadvertently uncovered a visual record of vanished cityscapes.
“When you watch a silent movie,” he said, “you’re not only being entertained by the story, but you’re experiencing time travel.”

…

His most remarkable revelation centered on a T-shaped alley in Hollywood, between Cahuenga Boulevard and Cosmo Street. Triangulating frame-by-frame stills with his go-to research materials, Mr. Bengtson discovered that the alley had been used in more than a dozen films in the early 1920s, including Keaton’s “Cops,” Chaplin’s “The Kid” and Lloyd’s “Safety Last!”
The location’s ubiquity made sense to Mr. Bengtson. At the time, Hollywood was mostly a neighborhood of open fields and vacant lots. Because the alley was close to the filmmakers’ studios, they could go there for quick urban shots instead of lugging their equipment to downtown Los Angeles.
“I can absolutely guarantee you that there is no place anywhere that has three of the biggest stars and three of their most important movies in one spot,” Mr. Bengtson told Atlas Obscura, a travel website, in 2021, the year a commemorative plaque he advocated for was placed at the alley. “This is absolutely two or three strata above anything else I’ve ever found.”

He did three books: Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton, Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd, and Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin.

I burned a share link on this because I’d like for folks to look at the header of the NYT obit, which partially reproduces an extra on the Criterion Collection disc, showing how they did the clock stunt in Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last!”. Mr. Bengtson sounds like a really cool guy who it would have been a pleasure to know. ALS got him at 68.

Posted in Books, Movies, Obits | No Comments »

Obit watch: March 16, 2026.

March 16th, 2026

Brian Doherty, writer for Reason magazine and author. Reason describes him as “the leading historian of the libertarian movement”.

He was 57, and died as the result of a fall.

Paul R. Ehrlich, of The Population Bomb fame. McThag.

As a young professor of biology at Stanford University in the mid-1960s, Dr. Ehrlich was known for his absorbing lectures on evolution, in which he described what plants and animals faced on a planet stressed by industrial pollution and rapid population growth. He distilled those lectures into an article published in December 1967 in New Scientist magazine.
Six months later, encouraged by David Brower, the executive director of the environmental group the Sierra Club, to write a book on the subject, Dr. Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb.” In 233 pages, he asserted that the planet’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the 1950s, when the rate of population growth exceeded the increase in food production — or, as he put it, when “the stork passed the plow.” He called on couples to limit their families to one or two children.

…

Such bold predictions, some of which turned out to be premature or in error, prompted rivals in business and academia to question the validity of his claims. In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, challenged Dr. Ehrlich and two of his colleagues with what Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, called “one of the great revelatory bets.”
Convinced that the growing population would make natural resources ever more scarce and thus drive up costs, Dr. Ehrlich accepted Mr. Simon’s challenge, betting that the prices of five key metals would rise in the 1980s. Mr. Simon believed that innovation would drive prices down.
In 1990, Dr. Ehrlich and his colleagues conceded defeat and sent Mr. Simon a check for $576.07 — an amount that represented the decline in the metals’ prices after accounting for inflation.

For the record: NYT obit for Dan Simmons.

Posted in Books, Obits | No Comments »

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