perfidy

Can you guess which of the ministers might have been responsible for this gem of succinct, trenchant commentary?

If I pooped on a sheet of paper and used my finger to smear it into ones and zeroes, I would have written a better Windows browser than Safari.

Just saying.

And this follow-up, for those who might have thought the first comment wasn't ambiguous?

if I may be succinct:

ass browser.

First person to guess correctly gets, free, the URL from which they can download Apple's Safari browser.

Aside from "My name is Al Sharpton" (which I take at face value to be the truth), this:

"Our position has nothing to do with whether the person using the language is black or white, rich or poor, friend or foe," Sharpton said on Saturday, reiterating what he has been saying since the trial ended. "We cannot have different standards for sexism or racism."

*tap tap* Is this thing on?

Greetings and salutations, Faithful Readers! Or breathings and salivations as the case may be (if you're an asthmatic zombie).

I am Minister EDog, and this is my first Perfidious Post about All Things Dark, Evil, and Twisted (those things in particular cause the riding up of certain kinds of underwear). To celebrate this momentous event, I feel it my duty to do what I've done for a couple years now via email to other ministers - that of pointing you towards some of the oddities I've discovered in this magical digital world we've created. And barring that, just show you some Pretty Weird Shit. Being as my nickname is EDog, I thought I'd fire off some cannons of canine-ical canon. And if you're still reading after that fusillade, then we'll get along just fine.

Unlike certain other Ministers here, I am a carnivore, and cheerfully indulge in All Things Meat, whether seared, broiled, boiled, fried, braised, baked, spoken to in anger, or given a dirty look. I'll admit that one of my favorite breakfast foods is the Gas Station Hot Dog, a taste I developed back in The Day when I managed a 7-Eleven. Now you don't have to go to a gas station any more to experience that wonderfully creative flavor of not-quite-grade-A-meat product. You can get it delivered right to your door!

Many are those of us who have canine companions. I myself have a lovely Australian Cattle Dog with a penchant for breaking out of the house through screens when frightened by approaching storms. Yes, I know. Dog logic. But here we cook and clean for our dogs - at least, some of us do - and take care of nearly their every need except one. Sure, you've probably neutered your male dog, because you've seen the Public Service Announcements. But if you haven't because, say, you intend to breed the animal, you have to deal with certain, ah, libidinous instincts. Someone has finally come up with a solution for the problem of the horndog.

And last but not least, if your dog is still of a mind to sow his wild oats, don't pray for crop failure. Instead, learn to help him practice safe sexual recreation with a time-tested method with approximately a 98% rate of effectiveness.

I know you're out there...I can hear you breathing.

There are three ways that I never imagined I would begin a Ministry post:

“After the first time I docked my yacht in Barbados, I vowed it would be the last.”

“This is my cock. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

“I ditched my .45 for a 9mm.”

I don’t own a yacht, and my emergency plan to convert my wheelbarrow into a small boat will not yield a seaworthy vessel. I do have a wang, yet prefer not to write about it- for everybody’s sake- whenever possible.

But I did get rid of my .45. For a 9.

Before anyone gets all goofy on me, hear me out. Losing a red-meat, by-gar Amurrican round like the .45 ACP in favor of something European was not a decision I undertook lightly. But it was the right choice, and I think you’ll agree.

My first handgun was a S&W 686P, a 7-shot, .38(+P)/.357 with a snub 2.5” barrel. Really sweet, smooth as silk. It was rated for the +P and heavier rounds (200grain+), but I found that lighter .38 loads were ideal. Anyway, I got rid of it because I needed some dough, but didn’t miss it (much) because it was too fat and chunky to carry concealed anyway. It was a fine weapon, just not ideal for me.

A quick aside about concealed carry in the Bay State: strictly speaking, open carry is *not* illegal in MA, but this white boy isn't gonna be the test case. I have never, ever seen anybody walk around with a visible weapon on his hip (barring a uniformed person with a duty rig). Ev-ar. And since agents of the state hereabouts are not above making up gun laws as they go, it's better for everyone to just keep your shit under wraps. So concealed carry was foremost in my mind, a weapon I could carry wherever I was permitted to do so.

Next in line was a S&W 4006, a full sized auto in .40. As a lefty, I liked the ambidextrous controls, I liked the size and weight, but it was a touch too big to carry concealed- I bought it as a duty weapon when I was moonlighting at ArmCo- and frankly I wasn’t keen on the cartridge. I felt .40 had a little too much snap to it; it seemed to flip the front sight more than I could control. I’m sure I could have trained to greater proficiency, and would have if it was the last weapon on Earth- there’s just too much choice though to settle for good enough.

I moved up to a .45 when I traded the 4006 for a SiG-Sauer P220. At first I found the furniture a little awkward for the southpaw, but got myself together in fairly short order- still plenty of room for improvement, mind you. The round gave a solid thump in the palm when fired, and I never felt the weapon to be quite as light in the muzzle as the .40 was. Terrific duty weapon, good round, all was well.

Except that I couldn’t do a thing with it off the clock. Yes I *could* carry it concealed, inasmuch as I could physically put it on my hip and wear a low coat over it. Kinda like the way you can transport a canned ham by stuffing it down the front of your shirt- no one’s real sure what’s in there, and no one’s gonna ask, but it’s obvious there’s something going on in there. That’s what it felt like trying to conceal the P220.

In time that brought me back to my friendly local purveyor of deadly machines, and a choice between a 9mm Sig P239, a compact Glock in .40 (I forget the model now), or a NIB Smith M&P compact also in .40.

I went with the Sig.

But all told I think my reasoning is valid. I ended up with a weapon I can actually leave the house with. Ammo is cheap and plentiful. The weapon design is familiar, as it’s basically a cut-down P220, and is robust- probably overbuilt for the round. It fits my hand well, and feels OK in an IWB holster.

None of my sound reasoning of course will deter those of you who want to jack me up for going Euro. To you I say this: the zombies will not care what size projectile is tunneling through their cerebellum.

While I was checking out the wayback machine to find some old perfidy, I also found some old perfidy. Apparently just months before we acquired the perfidy.org domain, it was inhabited by someone from Singapore. For most of its tenure, it looked like this:

But it seems that he got tired of that, and it changed to this:

And then he got real tired of that, and it changed to this:

And shortly after that the domain lapsed and like a cave bear claiming an empty, ah, cave, we took over. Strange things you find on the internets.

The more attentive readers will have noticed that there have been a couple changes to the Ministry of late. Not least among them is the entirely new design. In the dark days of nearly a month ago, it was brought to our attention that there was a small problem with the comment function – readers wanting to comment were invited to type the magic word, but yet there was no word. This left many confused, hurt, and stymied. We at the Ministry are not ones for half-assed measures. (To be sure, there is a category entitled “Fake Blogging” which some might think indicative of half-assedness. They would be wrong, however – when the Ministry goofs off, we do it right and we don’t try to pass it off as real blogging.) So when we were presented this problem, we took steps.

We redesigned the entire site with a new content management system and relocated it to servers half the country away. Extreme? Perhaps. But that problem is solved. Some among you will be aware that this is the fourth incarnation of the ineffable spirit of the Ministry since it first took form almost half a decade ago. The first, proto-Ministry blog was Johnny Two-Cents, and the Ministers were Johno, Buckethead and Minister Emeritus Iron City Mike.

Here’s what it looked like – click on the picture to go to the wayback machine’s copy:

The next incarnation was the first officially-branded, Ministry of Minor Perfidy blog. We lost Minister Mike about the time of the switch, but we soon picked up a couple more – Geeklethal and the stealthy and nigh on to invisible Ross. The design was still primitive, but pMachine was about ten orders of magnitude better than blogger. Again, clicky on the picture to get taken to the wayback machine.

The third incarnation is the one most of you are most familiar with, it’s the one we had yesterday. It can still be viewed at old.perfidy.org – we didn’t want to bother importing thousands of posts, so we just mirrored the site and preserved it like a tick in amber. And so, here we are at the latest, most hip, up-to-the-minute, and generally swell version of the Ministry to date. We have eschewed the normal blog format, mostly because, well, we want to be special. Rather than scroll, scroll, scroll like most blogs, this one is click, click, click. The archives are accessible both in the nav bar above, and in the sidebar below. The two most recent substantive posts will always be displayed on the front page. If you click the “open sesame” button, it will magically reveal more links. On the left are the asides, which we plan on using for quick links to things we find interesting. They won’t show on the main page, or in the list on the right, which will show the seven most recent posts after the two on the front page. It shouldn’t take you more than two clicks to get just about anywhere on the site from the front page. And, it loads quicker than the old perfidy. We’ve loaded the last month’s posts to get you started, and click around to see what’s here. There's plenty of changes, large and small.

The Carnival of the Recipes, cocktail party edition, is now up!

I wish I’d’a remembered to submit something. I have some good cocktail recipes.

Just reading the quotes for “Red Dawn” on the IMDB makes me want to punch a commie in the face. I don’t think I could be trusted to keep things playful at the event in question.

I can’t make it, but I hope anyone who is dresses appopriately.

Flyer below the fold:

Ok, sorry- the image was too big to re-size nicely here. Here’s the link instead to the kickass flyer.

What the crying hell is wrong with England?

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.

And we’re all worried about al Qaeda. How droll.

So, humanity has been working on making things fly like insects and birds for - what? - millennia? And working toward that endeavor seriously since Galileo.

It’s a crazy dream of humanity for thousands and thousands of years, and now I see the damn solution to the problem - a toy that mimics the flight of a dragonfly - on a commercial on a basic cable station during, appropriately enough, an airing of the new series of Doctor Who.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future is here.