TSM 2011 Year in Review

I've done this annual review post  each January 1 since 2007 - I guess that makes it a tradition. According to Blogger, I wrote 453 posts in 2011, down a bit from 2010. Down a bit more from 2009. Down a bit more from 2008, the peak year here. I kinda wonder if I'm running out of things to say. Or the urge to say them. I do find myself repeating a lot, referencing older posts. Even more, I find myself using other people's words rather than my own.  Anyway, let's do this one more time:

January started off with a tragedy - the spree shooting here in Tucson that claimed the lives of six people and left twelve others wounded, including the primary target of the shooting, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Among the dead, nine year-old Christina Taylor Green, who had been born on September 11, 2001 - a life book-ended by tragedies, as her father put it. He had some other words that should not be forgotten.

In the aftermath of the shooting, with lots of blame cast about in the media, we got an example of how exercising your First Amendment rights could cost you your Second Amendment rights.

February was a light month for posts here. After the sh!tstorm of January, I was suffering a bit of ennui. There were a lot of QotD posts, and one link to a fascinating TED talk about how computers and the internet can be used by children to learn on their own, with adults merely providing guidance and support. If you missed it, I urge you to watch.

March got an überpost, Our Economic Titanic. Actually, I worked on that one most of February, and it was the cause of that ennui.

I didn't post much in April, either, but despite our economic Titanic, I bought a 2011 Mustang. If we're going to hell, I decided, I was going to enjoy the ride. April also brought me a comment that reminded me why I do this blogging thing.

May was a banner month, with 51 posts! Just trying to keep up with events. Osama Bin Laden assumed room temperature. I quoted Christopher Hitchens for a QotD. The blog turned eight years old (that's like, 90 in human years). I went to BulletFest 2011 in Knoxville courtesy of LuckyGunner.com and plane tickets provided by U.S. Citizen. (Thanks again!) And I reminded everyone of one of the other wonderful things about the interwebs, the ability to produce truly excellent writing that otherwise no one would ever produce and no one would ever be able to read. If you missed the three-part Perspectives stories, by all means, read them now. Larry Correia isn't the only talented writer in our midst by a long shot.

I guess I suffered some burnout after May, as June was another light month for posting. I did, however, respond to Jennifer's question and cranked out a post on How I Became a Gun Nut. Then I took another hiatus. Two weeks this time.

July started off with a bang, though. July 1, I posted Lend Me Your Ears!, with apologies to The Bard. On the Fourth I put up the überpost TL;DR. I did a few other posts that month, but nothing all that exciting.

In August there were riots in (formerly) Great Britain. How far they have fallen; from the Tottenham Outrage of 1909 to the Tottenham Rampage of 2011. Suddenly many Brits found themselves in a situation where being disarmed in the face of face of violence was no longer a theoretical situation, and many decided that they didn't like the odds. Still, the traditional "stiff upper lip" and understated eloquence was in evidence. My long exchanges with Australian blogger Tim Lambert on the topic paid off; I got a post out of a comment I left at SayUncle on the legality of self-defense in the UK.

Finally, my mother underwent open-heart surgery and had two valves replaced. She still hasn't fully recovered as of yet, but she hasn't lost a bit of her fiestyness.

I started off September with a prediction: I predict that the 2012 election season will be the ugliest, dirtiest, nastiest thing anyone living has ever seen. September brought us the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and I had something to say about how we as a nation have handled that, too. Actually, Mark Steyn said it. I just quoted him. September also brought Gun Blogger Rendezvous v 6.0. Much fun was had by all. GBR VII is now scheduled. You really ought to make plans to attend.

I don't know who said this, really, but it was too good not to make QotD. And here was another.

I changed jobs in September, leaving the Consulting/Specifying Engineer role to return to the retail end of electrical engineering. At the time, it didn't look like such a smart move. While I love what I'm doing now, it still looks like it might not have been such a smart move. Of course, if when econo-geddon does come, it really won't matter much what job I have.

The week after GBR VI they held the Reno Air Races. There was a crash, and one pilot and several spectators were killed. The nannies were immediately up-in-arms over the crash. Bill Whittle responded.

Expanding on using other people's words when they say it better than I can, I have started taking excerpts from fiction when I find them particularly apropos. October brought one such selection from the Sci-Fi novel Road to Damascus.  

Operation Fast and Furious was in the news (finally), and spawned one of the best Downfall bunker-scene parodies I've ever watched.

Not exactly an überpost, but I wore out my fingers with CTRL-C and CTRL-V producing a post of 90% other people's words in True Believers and the Machinery of Freedom and Oppression. Please read that one if you missed it the first time.

I spent a lot of October driving places. It gave me time to think. One result of that thinking was a multimedia post, The Selfish Gene.

I moved into my new office space, and once again experience the reality that Dilbert isn't a cartoon strip, it's a documentary.

October ended with some sage words from Robb Allen. Too good to quote from, I just linked.

I finally purchased a firearm in 2011, a Smith & Wesson 327 TRR8 revolver. One gun is well down from my normal three a year, but I'm pretty well stocked with lead delivery systems.  I spent quite a bit of money this year feeding them.  And Mustang payments.

In November I posted a QotD that echoes October's True Believers and the Machinery of Freedom and Oppression post: And This is Why the Party's Over. You might also want to read System failure on a global scale by Alan Caruba. Econo-geddon. Then again, you might not.

In December I didn't have much to say, but I strongly recommend you read The Corruption of America by Porter Stansberry.

And that concludes The Smallest Minority Year in Review. What have I learned from this exercise? I don't do a lot of deep, thoughtful posts anymore. I quote others extensively. I do a lot of linking. I'm deeply pessimistic.

Expect more (or perhaps less) of the same in 2012.

Happy friggin' New Year.