The typical peace of Oslo was recently shattered by one of my favorite wedding traditions: the Chechens’ enthusiasm for turning vehicular processions into demolition derbies, as participants jockey for the exalted slot just behind the bride and groom’s car. (More examples here.) Lives are occasionally lost in such a manner, which is why various governments […]
There is now a whole sub-genre of literature that deals exclusively with the lives of snipers. The public fascination with these lethal technicians is easy to understand: We see them almost as warrior monks, able to hush their thoughts so as to withstand the sheer boredom of their task. And there is something almost Zen […]
Tags:Adela Jusic·art·Bosnia·Bosnian War·firearms·snipers·Yugoslavia
Growing up in Los Angeles, we were annually subjected to a series of PSAs cautioning against celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Eve. In fact, we distinctly remember a police officer visiting our elementary school one year before the holiday break, in order to caution us against going outside in the initial minutes after they calendar’s […]
Had Corvette Summer been blessed with a better casting director, perhaps it would have escaped the ignominy of our weekly Bad Movie Friday slot. But no—they just had to cast the 27-year-old Mark Hamill as a high-school student, and noted character actress Annie Potts as a Vegas sexpot (a far cry from her ideal role […]
Tags:Annie Potts·Bad Movie Friday·Corvette Summer·firearms·Mark Hamill·movies·Star Wars
In the course of learning about contemporary cattle raiding in Sudan, we found ourselves sifting through a recent edition of the annual Small Arms Survey. It’s an informative publication, no doubt, but also mind-numbingly dense; our eyes glazed over midway through Chapter Three, during the extended exploration of “security enhancement projects.” Thankfully, the survey’s authors […]
Tags:AK-47·arms trade·firearms·Small Arms Survey·Somalia·Sudan·weapons
Longtime readers know that Microkhan has a curious obsession with suicide. (We blame Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads.) So we couldn’t help but notice the fact that Montana has by far the highest suicide rate in the U.S., at 22 cases per 100,000 residents. That leaves even Nevada and its legions of busted, coked-out gamblers […]
