The 1911 is perhaps the most famous weapon designed by perhaps the most famous firearm designer ever, John Moses Browning. (As a side note, I have a theory that to design great firearms, you must be named John. In defense of this theory, I present John Browning, John Pederson, and John Garand.) As of March 29 of next year, the 1911 will not only reach 100 years old, but will have the honor of being in widespread use throughout the entire 100 years.

Image from http://thepaulkfamily.com/gunweb/PW9108LP.htm

First, I love this handgun on an aesthetic level. The proportions are beautiful, the thin frame and the subtle curves produce elegant lines that say, "sure, I'm designed to kill Polynesians on PCP, but I do it with style." This pistol is what boys are genetically predisposed to think of when they hear ".45"

I love this handgun on an ergonomic level. The thin frame makes this the most comfortable .45 caliber firearm I have ever held. The grip is long enough that all of my fingers grip metal and not air, the backstrap contour fits my palm like a glove, and the trigger lines itself up nicely with my finger. Interestingly enough, it has been my experience that this pistol fits small- and large-handed shooters equally well, something that cannot be said of my previous Beretta 92FS or even my Springfield XD.

I love this handgun on a functional level. Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, a well-maintained 1911 can be disassembled using nothing but your hands. With a drift punch and a .45 case the mainspring and trigger can be disassembled, and the grip panels removed. The 1911 also eats any ammunition I throw at it, from Wolf, to the most extreme hollow-points, every time I pull the trigger, the gun goes bang.

I love that this handgun is made entirely of steel. As Boris succinctly, if not accurately said, "heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can always hit them with it." I know on an intellectual level that modern polymers can be just as reliable as traditional metal, but I love the steel. I love that when I slide the 1911 into my IWB carry holster, its a little cold. I love that my carry pistol has wear marks where the steel shows through the finish.

I love that this handgun shoots the .45 ACP--a bullet that comes out of the barrel a diameter that 9mm hollow-points only aspire to be. I love that I can mix a small martini in the tip of my Winchester PDX1s. I love that the .45 is the ballistic equivalent of throwing a brick at someone's head.

Most of all, I love that, even at 100 years old, I can walk into any decent gun shop and find at least 7 high-quality examples of modern 1911s for sale.

It is an interesting social convention to celebrate this event, which has no biological significance, especially because today has no real association with that day except for, by an act of providence, to have the same markings on a particular calendar. Due to the peculiarities of our "modern" Gregorian calendar, there have actually been 27 years, 7 days and 13 seconds (if you consider a year to be a 365-day period, and a day to be 86,400 seconds) between that point and the same time today. On a purely celestial scale, the Earth has orbited the sun 27 times plus about 7/100 of a degree, while the Moon has waxed and waned almost 334 times, or 27.8299 lunar years.

Leaving all this out, some incredibly (as expected) awesome things have happened throughout history on this date:

• Soldiers of the First Crusade starve themselves and walk barefoot around Jerusalem so that nine days later they can claim it was God's will that they wade in their enemies blood "up to their ankles," ironically, bled from Jews and Muslims alike.
• Vasco da Gama set out on the first ever direct journey from Europe to India, which is probably the only reason modern American schoolchildren know of the Cape of Good Hope. Unlike Columbus, he actually arrives.
• The first confirmed tornado death in America happens in Cambridge, MA. Remains the only tornado not to target a trailer park.
• The Second Continental Congress adopts the Olive Branch Petition, promising to resolve differences with the crown peacefully, which is basically a footnote in history because a year later...
• The Declaration of Independence is given its first public read in Philadelphia, the (third) Liberty Bell is rung, and the United States begins its first war (and wins).
• Commodore Perry sails into Tokyo harbor on his "black ship" and initiates trading relations between the Empire and the U.S. under the threat of military force, setting an ironically accurate tone for the rest of history.
• The newly-formed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (then the North-West Mounted Police) begin their first assignment: march West to force drunk Americans to respect their authority. Canada still considered to be "America's Hat."
• The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published, beginning its illustrious career as a status symbol for pretentious snobs everywhere.
• Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin is born, later perfects navigable lighter-than-air transport, and, like all pre-1940 German engineering advances, is forgotten by the world, which continues to be surprised with the craftsmanship of a BMW.
• The first reports of aliens in Roswell, NM are broadcast. Alien hats go on sale a few hours later.
• John D. Rockefeller is born, who would later become an evil rich white oil baron and setup the modern, targeted philanthropic structure, fight racial segregation, improve public health and directly or indirectly fund 23 Nobel laureates. He continues to confuse hippies to this day.
• The IBM CICS software is released, still in use by 90% of fortune 500 companies 40 years later.

I hope you now know more than you ever wanted to about this date, and can now resolve the inferiority you feel in my presence by way of fate.

It's simple really, warfare and media have taken a serious turn, and no one in this country seems to care, or even notice. As an aside, it is scary how often those two topics, warfare and media, follow each other.

On the warfare front, I believe we are seeing one of the first examples of true cyber-strategy during conflict, which in the near future will simply be called war. The Iranian government has taken great steps to block or limit the passage of electronic data in and out of the country. Social networking sites news organizations have been cut off, and a BBC satellite has even been jammed.

Our nation's military has historically been very unwilling to adopt or adapt to new technology. The air supiriority we flaunt to the rest of the world was a gift from the Japanese; if they hadn't incapacitated our battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, we never would have relied on aircraft carriers. Submarine warfare was taught to us through a brutal series of lessons by the German U-Boats. And (unless we're uncharacteristically careful) the necessity to be able to wage offensive and defensive battles on the information front will be learned only after serious casualties to our technology infrastructure. China spends so much time hacking our networks that its not a far fetched notion that it stems from some sort of cyber boot-camp.

Some lip service has been given to the creation of a "Cyber Czar," a scary doublespeak title that will amount to little. No one seems able even to decide who he will report to. This position is important enough that it should almost be a fifth branch of the military, if that part of our government had even a chance of being able to support it.

Another interesting outcome of the "Iranian issue" is that old media is most assuredly dead. When the US State Department asks Twitter to postpone their scheduled maintenance because they're the only news outlet from Iran, newspaper editors, radio producers and TV network execs. should be jumping out of their windows. Add to this the fact that one of the few "traditional" reporters active in Iran works for a show that airs on a comedy channel, and you have a clear message that your parent's media is dead.

I've been trying to follow the activities over there as best I can, and the two resources I've relied on the most are Fark and Twitter. Hardly considered equals of the "hard reporting" provided by CNN and the NYT, but in the information age, an age completely ignored by traditional media, their past weaknesses have become their current advantages.

So its official. I will no longer be watching, listening to or reading the news, I'll be browsing and tweeting it, and at the earliest opportunity, I will be augmeting my "end-of-the-world" bag with some cyber weapons. Rest assured, however, that the 36″ titanium Halligan is still around.