It’s satire, but it’s also very, very realistic.

1. He is not a sitting president yet.

2. He was not a sitting president when the offenses occurred in 2016, either, when he had yet to be elected. Even if the “presidential immunity” ruling could somehow be twisted to apply to this as if it were an official act, he was in no way shape or form president at that time.

Some people are apparently incapable of learning anything except by rote. To them, every problem or situation has one solution, and they have no answer for any situation that has not previously been explicitly spelled out to them and the solution memorized, and failing that they not only won’t know what to do but they flat out won’t even try. There is no such thing as figuring out a new solution to anything based on logic or deduction. In any process, they will refuse to understand how the result is actually derived from the actions taken, nor what each step does or why it is done.

I’ve had to work with several people like this over the years and it’s both exhausting and infuriating.

In my line of work I have also been forced to interact with people, mostly clients, who cannot understand hypotheticals. Any abstract or non-concrete concept is completely lost on them and worse, usually exposing them to one will make them irrationally angry in response – which they will immediately direct at you, you nerd.

These people are not only allowed to vote, but also drive cars, own firearms, and have children. It’s shocking.

Here’s the problem with that, though. It’s not going to be like there will be roving goon squads going from door to door snatching away your wives and daughters or anything. Even the MAGA-heads are just barely clever enough not to form themselves into any kind of entity that you could physically fight.

Instead, they’re going to chip away at everybody with asinine laws and legislation, selective enforcement and remote harassment, by filing mountains of frivolous lawsuits, etc. They’ll seize property. They’ll get you fired from your job. They’ll kick you off of your health insurance and freeze your bank accounts. Those responsible are never going to actually expose themselves in any capacity in which they can get got, because they’re cowards; they’re going to hide behind their desks and layers of security and fences and metal detectors and cops and the secret service. If it turns to outright violence vis-a-vis war in our own cities, it would be monumentally stupid for them to send troops marching down the street, and they won’t. They’ll just remotely bombard an entire city block and blame all the collateral damage on “leftists” or “wokeism” or whatever. And idiots will believe it, and then blame the victims.

“That’s ridiculous,” you say. “The government would never bomb anyone on US soil.”

You want to bet?

I am ashamed that to this day I own zero “normal” Spydercos anymore. I only have one that’s a balisong, and one that’s made out of wood. And a Ganzo that looks like a Spyderco, but isn’t. I should probably rectify that one of these years.

Seems like someone spent a little too much time studying the blade.

I think that’s entirely up to interpretation, and you can rotate the screw in place so it’ll appear right side up either with the knife open and edge downwards, or closed with the spine downwards. I went with the former.

I did the disassembly on this knife before taking any of the other photos. In light of that, let’s see if anyone notices that I reassembled it just slightly incorrectly and subsequently it’s that way in all the other pictures save one.

…Actually, I probably could have gotten away with it if I hadn’t just told you.

Anyway, here is your quasi-regular reminder that I have a Patreon. Them as are amused by this sort of thing can support the continuation of my ridiculous behavior if they so desire. This post is there, with the full resolution images.

Uh.

Does anyone currently know James May’s whereabouts now that Andy Wilman is presumably no longer keeping tabs on him?

CIVIVI knives are generally pretty legit. Trust me, I can go much more mall ninja if you like.

This leaps to mind.

Knives are prohibited

Tru fax, I am never working where you do, ever, so long as I live. I’d melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, I’m sure.

Gee, for the same money… a digital brontosaurus for Orc Game that you need to pay a recurring subscription to actually use, can be taken away from you at any time, or one day the servers may simply be turned off erasing not only your “investments” but also your years of “work.” Or, I don’t know, a CIVIVI Hyperpulse with a groovy pattern welded blade that also happens to be a physical object you can actually hold in your hands and keep forever. Just to pick something out of a hat.

What a tough choice!

You can just send 'em back and buy something else. Amazon will take any damn fool thing back.

We could only hope.

Shout out to B&H. I bought my drone from them, and they offered the same model bundle at a slightly lower price than Amazon and also offered next-day shipping for no charge.

They also have a physical retail store and real live people you can call if you have a question, unlike either winding up talking to a chatbot or being redirected to Mumbai after a 45 minute hold.

I don’t know these guys from a hole in the ground other than that, but they beat Amazon and that was good enough for me.

The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America.

I was going to mention exactly this, but it seems the article already beat me to it.

You can wash with soap and water, sure. Bear in mind that this will probably remove any lubricant in the pivots in addition to any oils on the blade which are acting as corrosion inhibitors.

440C steel, which is what that knife is made out of, is corrosion resistant all on its own but not magically so. You don’t have to go crazy with or about the re-oiling, but it’s not a bad idea. Mineral oil is generally food safe. Mineral oil itself will also remove a pretty decent variety of crud that may be stuck to your blade.

I don’t usually use any of my folders for food prep so I clean them with naptha (!) and oil them with the same synthetic silicone oil I use on my airguns, 3D printer, etc., etc.

You could always get one of those prepaid debit cards and load it with as close to the total purchase price as possible. Then if some sketchy site rips you off or sells your credit card data to the Russians, or whatever, the most you can possibly be out is the piddling sum you had on that card.

The advice I’ll give you for a camp knife that others have not already covered is to keep it clean. That’s not to say wipe it off after every single cut, but when you’re done using it or you get home from the woods or whatever, remember to grab a paper towel and some WD-40 or whatever your libation of choice is and get all the tree sap and other crud off of the blade. Despite them all being called “stainless,” no stainless steel is truly rust proof and being exposed to moisture and especially acidic organic crap can corrode, discolor, or eventually pit your blade. This is especially important if the thing is going to live at the bottom of your backpack the rest of the time and never see the light of day otherwise.

Part and parcel of owning a knife is to git gud at sharpening, which is an inevitable task you’ll eventually have to undertake. It may surprise you to learn that I’m not one of those leather-ivy-cap-and-beard-wax motherfuckers who absolutely insists that every single knife must be sharpened freehand on an exotic oilstone and if you don’t make the lifelong investment to learn to do the same perfectly everything you do is automatically invalid. Rather the opposite. I pretty much always use some kind of guided sharpening jig even if it is just a wedge block on a stone because A) I have a lot of knives to cover and who has the time, and B) I generally can’t be arsed anyway.

For the purpose of an inexpensive and highly versatile little sharpening doohickey that’s easy for a newbie to figure out without fucking things up too badly, I always recommend the Work Sharp Field Sharpener, one of which lives in my laptop bag full time. It’s 20 degree wedges result in a 40 degree overall edge angle which I think is pretty close to optimal for a knife made of not terribly fancy steel that will be used for utilitarian purposes.

I always recommend having a pair of the diamond stones on hand because otherwise the two ceramic ones it comes with are so fine it can take a month of Sundays if you ever need to rework some blade or other into either of the Sharpmaker’s two built in angles. It can take a lot of time but if you finish with the white stones it comes with you can make things ridiculously sharp with it.

Yes, I’ve been downscaling my pictures to 1000px wide for pretty much exactly that reason. The full resolution everything eventually winds up on my Patreon.