09:15 – Every once in a great while I’m really surprised. That happened yesterday when I read an article about Charles Barkley’s comments on the Ferguson situation. Until then, I thought of him as just another professional athlete. I was wrong. He’s smart, sensible, and wants to run for governor of Alabama. He has a very low opinion of both the Democrat Party and Republican Party. He supports same-sex marriage, saying it’s no one’s business but the people involved. I emailed him and said that if he ever decides to move to North Carolina, he has my vote if he runs for governor.
My kitchen cabinet–those who comment regularly here–have convinced me to change my mind. I still have a very high opinion of those $3.44 UltraFire flashlights, and I will continue to recommend them as general-purpose lights. (I have two of them on my person at the moment.) But I will recommend using name-brand lights as tactical lights–for mounting on shotgun barrels and so on–on the assumption (and it is merely an assumption) that the more expensive lights will be at least marginally more reliable under recoil.
14:31 – It’s that time of year again. I got two begging emails this morning from WikiPedia. Although I don’t depend on WikiPedia to be authoritative, I do use it nearly every day, as I suspect do most or all of my readers. So I’ll encourage all of you to contribute as I just did. Even $20 will help them a lot.