I can't abide putting nice guns in ugly holsters.  Ugly guns, sure.  Stick a Glock in whatever works, but my Smiths aren't just tools, they're my constant companions.  I take a certain amount of pride in their workmanship and aesthetics, and they deserve the proper treatment, so to speak.

While there have been some marvelous improvements in holster design over the last century, but one of the most enduring was the brainchild of Lee Trimble and Tom Threepersons.  Now simply called the Tom Threepersons design, it was first marketed in the 1920s by the famous S.D. Myres (now merged with El Paso).

More gorgeous custom wood from Kim Ahrends.  The wood is cocobolo, the gun is a S&W Model 67.

Wow, it's really tanked since the 1990s. Apparently Saturday Night Live was struggling for viewership, so they jumped at the chance to bring former cast member Tina Fey back into the fold, in which she did cameo appearances impersonating Sarah Palin.

Her performance was marvelous, bordering on the uncanny.  I found it absolutely hilarious.  Apparently, it helped the folks at SNL, who saw a 50% increase in audience share.  Fey did another skit lampooning the Vice Presidential debate, and tonight, the real Sarah Palin was invited to appear.

The High Road is back up and running on a new server.  All of the old moderators are back, including those who were banned.  User profiles and posts have been preserved, which means Oleg got ahold of the database.  The whois database shows that the domain is in Oleg's hands, where it belongs.

Basically, it's the same site, but with a different domain suffix.  It appears Derek still has ownership and registration of the old address.

At the moment, it's running a bit slow, but that could be a result of all of us flooding into it at once.

Oh, that was McGovern.  Oops.  I'd much rather vote McGivern anyhow.

From Oleg Volk:

At the start of this week, I asked Derek to make the database of armedpolitesociety.com available to my designates for backing it up to other servers. He dragged his feet but promised to make it available on Thursday. That didn't happen.

When I called him, he said that he was busy. It's the same claim he made to THR staff. Asked when he would make APS database available, he said: "I talked to a couple of moderators on THR and I think it should be part of the whole settlement with THR. I won't release it."

Feel free to publicize this event.

I own armedpolitesociety.com domain name, so I can move the forum. I would prefer to move it with the current content intact. My lawyer will be in contact with his.

I really wanted to believe that there were two sides to this issue.  Experience has shown me that disagreements that seem cut-and-dried rarely are, so I was willing to solicit input on the situation from both sides.  I tried to keep an open mind and assume that Derek was acting under some aegis of logic or commitment.

I was obviously wrong.

In 1899, Smith & Wesson introduced the .38 Military & Police 1st Model Revolver.  It first saw service in the Philippine Insurrection in .38 Long Colt, and in the stateside market, it was chambered in .38 Smith & Wesson Special.  The .38 Special, as it came to be known, is possibly the most widespread and important handgun cartridge of the 20th Century.

If her performance in tonight's Vice Presidential debate was any indication, Sarah Palin's going to be one heck of a VP, doggone it.

Only one thing bothers me, and it's like fingernails being raked down a chalkboard.  She pronounces "nuclear" as "noo-kyu-ler."  I know many of the Silent Generation folks enunciated it that way, but I'll cut them some slack.  Even the sitting President has a problem with it.

But for someone only a few years older than me, it's not really acceptable.  I mean, it's not like there's a silent "p" or anything: the word's …