Posts
All Comments
Remember when we didn't need to read the 2,400 page Obamacare bill and would have to wait for it to pass to see what's in it?
Now a 940 page reconciliation bill needs to be read in whole so...
They're emphasizing how big this bill is and forgetting the multi-thousand page monstrosities they shoved through in the past.
R and D operate to different standards.
The "No Tax On Tips" bill excludes independent contractors.
Most strippers are independent contractors.
This is fundamentally unfair!
Whether you like it or not.
The Schoolhouse Rock vid in the post below explains why they exist.
The usual suspects, in their shrill attempts to blur gender pronouns created a position where they wish to use no pronouns.
And I used two pronouns in that sentence to talk about them... Did it again!
Pronouns are inescapable if you're still speaking English.
I find it very odd that someone whose job is writing doesn't understand English this hard.
But it's possible that as a game designer, they (<--pronoun!) think that all the rules are mutable because they certainly are when you're designing a game.
Tonight I made Harvey stop talking for a second so I could parse the tempo of the bangs to decide if it's gunfire or fireworks.
I realized I've been doing it for years, but this is the first time I was consciously aware I was doing it.
Steve Jackson Games hires the lead designer from Possum Creek Games, Jay Dragon.
Possum Creek Games becomes an imprint of SJ Games.
All of the new game announcements are for old Possum Creek IP.
Who could have predicted this?
PS: Jay Dragon doesn't use pronouns. So if you have to talk about Jay Dragon, I guess you have to use the full noun.
PPS: Here's a simple lesson in WHY we fucking use pronouns, Jay Dragon.
D-P-355a refers to a set of drawings.
Rock Island Arsenal last updated them in 1960.
This is some OLD SCHOOL drafting! They don't make drawings like this any more. They didn't make drawings like this when I was still drafting.
Of note is the use of geometric tolerancing. That was state of the art in 1960.
I'd suspect (guess) that Rock Island was told to take the 1928 prints that all M1911A1's were made to and get them up to current engineering standards in case war were declared.
Now, this print tells you WHAT to make, not how to make it. The processes of how to make this part to this print is called a "technical data package".
Colt, historically, has been VERY reluctant to part with that documentation. In WW2 they basically had to be forced to give it up. Even so, Remington Rand lost almost a year's production of parts that were nominally to the print, but wouldn't interchange with other makers guns.
I remember talking with New Jovian Thunderbolt when he took a 1911 armorer's class and his talking about fitting parts to a gun.
I was reminded of:
D-P-355a 3.3.2 states, "Interchangeability. Unless otherwise specified on the drawings, all parts shall be interchangeable. Pistols and repair parts shall be capable of meeting the interchangeability tests specified in 4.3.3.4 and 4.4.4 (In normal assembly operations there shall be no objections interposed to preferential assembly of parts provided that all parts are dimensionally acceptable.)"
One thing, in particular stuck out and that was the ejector. It's retained by a notch in the ejector by a pin in the frame.
He described all the careful measuring to properly locate and align that notch in a virgin ejector.
In the Army TM the procedure was to secure the frame in a drill press, install the ejector and drill it in place; effectively using the existing hole in the frame as a fixture.
I am often curious about parts interchange among all the 1911 clones out there.
I know I've watched a lot of vids about how to fit a safety because I'm considering changing the style on my .38 Super. The safety is one of the drop-in parts on a mil-spec M1911A1.
Software Janitor has spoken of fitting a barrel to a slide once or twice.
We don't have an unlimited plan for our cell phones.
When three out of the four phones on the plan go out of state, we use up our data.
We know how much the overages cost and we brace for it.
But the phone company keeps telling me I'm over and it's $20 a gig and I should change to an unlimited plan...
Which would be a whopping $20 a month more for all four lines.
The thing is, we only go over like once every five years.
So $160 or so every five years or $240 a year for the same five years? (That's $1,200 for you liberal arts majors).
Thanks, but we got this.
The Senate parlimentarian squished our hopes at sneaking the removal of suppressors and short guns from the NFA.
I am not shocked at all.
Every single time I've mentioned the CMP is selling M1911s, someone just has to mention you can buy a new one for what the CMP wants.
It's an odd psychological compulsion.
I should have finished my degree and gotten a job in academia to get a grant to study it.
It happens with cars quite often as well.
Lifetime limit is increased to two.
Prices are in the link, repeated below:
Service Grade $1300. Pistol may exhibit minor pitting and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips are complete with no cracks. Pistol is in issuable condition. Pistols may contain commercial parts.
Field Grade $1200. Pistol may exhibit minor rust, pitting, and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips are complete with no cracks. Pistol is in issuable condition. Pistols may contain commercial parts.
Rack Grade $1100. Pistol will exhibit rust, pitting, and wear on exterior surfaces and friction surfaces. Grips may be incomplete and exhibit cracks. Pistol requires minor work to return to issuable condition but is functional. Pistols may contain commercial parts.
SOLD OUT – Range Grade – $1150. These are 1911 pistols for those that want a part of history and a shooter, not a collectable. These are 1911s that have been modified in some way, and may have some commercial parts. No two (2) pistols are alike, the modifications / parts could be any of the following: Night Sights, extended Beaver Tail, Rubber Grips, Barrels, Oversized Slide Release, Target Triggers, Adjustable Rear Sights, Tactical Match Hammer, Competition Grip Safety, Sight Rib, Slides, Checkered Front Strap, Ambidextrous Safety, Different Finishes. Some of the manufactures of these parts are: Bar-Sto, Wilson, Ed Brown, Pachmayer, Hogue, Caspian and Bomar.
Auction Grade (Sales will to be determined by auctioning the pistol). The condition of the auction pistol will be described when posted for auction. Click here to view our CMP Auction page.
All pistols are inspected and test fired by the CMP. The shipping cost is included in the price.
Prices are a bit higher than when I ordered.
If I am going to piss on all these graves of gun control pricks who've I've outlasted, I need to hydrate better.
Carolyn McCarthy has entered Hell.
Good!
Do you lock up your guns so that your choice is limited to the gun you assigned home defense duty?
So that if you do need to defend your house you're not dithering about which gun to use?
Just me?
Again?
I am making no progress on some gaming fronts and it hit me why.
I'm not going to get to use what I've figured out.
The incentive to finish it is gone knowing that there's no players.
Not even players I've never met running a game with a GM that isn't me.
Doing it in GURPS means that 99.9% of TTRPG people reject it immediately.
The group I played with before I moved to Florida abandoned GURPS pretty much as soon as my taillights were hidden by terrain.
My hand has hovered over the "delete" button on my gaming folder on the hard drive more than once.
I like playing around with it, but it's become random here and there.
FuzzyGeff doesn't even seem interested in talking about it anymore.
He's moved on to Pathfinder.
C'est La Vie.
Maybe I'm too much of a car guy, but depreciation and resale value has not once entered into my decision process for buying a car.
I either think it's cool and want it for that or I need a box to take me where I need to go.
My cars aren't investments.
I care more about them lasting than retaining value.
Moxie is Iowa rusty, but she runs. That's enough reason to keep her.
There are no longer any 24-hour Krispy Kreme Donut locations in Florida.
Dunkin Donuts 24-hour locations rarely make the donuts at that location and are frequently out. Never mind that if you do find one open, it's drive-thru only and 95% of the experience of getting donuts is looking at what they have on the rack.
I want my America back.
Snag yourself a way to watch The Park Is Mine with Tommy Lee Jones.
It was originally a made-for-HBO film, but don't let that dissuade you.
Student loan forgiveness is back on Facebook!
"Not paying back a loan made with someone else's money isn't forgiveness, it's THEFT!"
The implication that the person who's in default is the thief.
However, that's not true.
Making a loan with someone else's money is theft.
The borrower didn't steal from you, the loaner did!
So, what I want to see, since this matters so much to you: Where are your objections to federally guaranteed student loans. Make sure it has a date stamp that precedes the "student loan crisis."
Because if you were fine with them as long as they were being paid back, you're fine with the stealing of your money.
If you were fine with the loans and them being paid back, then you also have to get OK with the idea that there will be defaults. There will be circumstances where there will be massive defaults (happens with housing too). There will be defaults massive enough that the best financial decision for the lender is to erase the loan balances.
"Wait! No! That's different!"
No. It really isn't. What's different is a degree isn't repossessed or foreclosed.
You've been led astray and you're blaming the wrong people for the problem.
It's the universities still stuck in the paradigm where having a four year degree, ANY four year degree, led to a decent, white-collar, job.
If the content of your education didn't matter then students were free to pursue anything that interested them and universities were incentivized to provide degrees in those subjects.
I remember when a degree in black lesbian studies led to employment in an office.
A job, by the way, that used to require a high school education.
But that's a topic for a different post.
Shadow, it would seem, likes scotch.
I'd finished my drink and she dipped her paw into my glass and licked her paw clean.
Then she returned for three more dips.
The Balvenie Caribbean Cask is very tasty, so I cannot fault her.
I'm just surprised that she likes it!
When I was we wee lad, I got interested in dinosaurs, sharks and mosquitos.
In 1975 there were exactly zero movies about dinosaurs and mosquitos.
But there sure was a movie about sharks!
I did not practically beg my dad to take me to see it. I LITERALLY begged.
So we went on opening day.
It was not what my 6.5 year old ass was prepared for at all.
It scared me a lot and I think I watched more of my seat back hiding my eyes than I did the movie.
But I had an AWESOME time!
It's fun being scared by a movie.
It also shines as a positive memory about my father.
I remember, vividly, September 12, 2001.
People were PISSED.
W was able to talk America down and get us aimed at Iraq and Afghanistan.
I am not so sure America will do that, this time, if Iran starts blowing shit up with sleeper cells.
America scared is terrifying.
We're a, "kill them all, let God sort it out," people.
Yes, we will feel bad about the injustices committed and innocents killed along the way; but we won't do anything about it really.
Get America good and pissed and unrestrained...
I'm scared of that. Glad I'm not down range.
That's a great tag line, isn't it?
No more forever wars.
What's your basis for a war ending?
Not having to do it again in about a generation? The Great War World War One fails that.
Bringing the troops home? World War Two fails that. The Cold War fails that. Korea fails that.
Vietnam, widely regarded as a loss succeeds at both of those metrics. The troops are home and we haven't felt the need to go back...
The enemy doesn't want to go again is prolly the best indicator of winning.
Despite the agitation of groups like the American Indian Movement, The Indian Wars are won.
WW2 is really a win, despite the troops still being there because we started The Cold War almost the same day that Doenitz signed the surrender instrument.
I still feel like we won The Cold War too. Sun Tzu would applaud how the win was obtained too!
To play World Police, we need forward bases and we already had them in place in Europe and Asia.
But the war on Terra Tara Terror... We're not attacking the root causes, just responding to their attacks. In essence, a purely defensive war. Ask the Confederacy how a defensive war works out. Or France.
Curtis LeMay understood.
Sometimes you have to fight and if you're going to fight, fight to fucking win!
That will mean killing people.
That will mean destroying things.
But you need to take the war to the bad guys and defeat them on their home turf. You have to eliminate that home turf, even if it's in a "neutral" nation. Pakistan should have been a lot more afraid of Bin Laden getting caught is all I'm going to say about safe haven nations like that. Heck, I still think we owe them for that.
While blowing up Iran's labs is great, it's not going to end the conflict.
We're going to be blowing up their labs again unless they do a change in leadership.
Changing that leadership is not something the US has EVER been good at. Just look at our attempts in banana republics. South America has every right to resent our attempts!
I endorse an approach that leads to Iran being our friend. It's been clear since 1979 what is in the way.
By the way, speaking of 1979 and nations providing safe haven for the problem makers. France was instrumental in allowing Khomeini to take power in Iran.
Where were the calls from the Democrats to impeach Barak Obama in 2011 when he ordered air strikes on Libya?
I'm looking at you Bernie.
A local weatherman posted a bar graph showing how much hotter the Gulf of Mexico America was than the average.
Average? Do the mean the mean? Mode? Median? They don't say.
But I happen to know something about math and a bit about statistics.
This is cherry picking.
The average they used is arbitrary and suspect that it's not near so bad if you calculated the mean temp from 1878 to present.
But why stop at 1878?
I happen to know a bit about The Old West too. We had some record cold going on in the 19th century. Like the year without a summer, 1816? Four of the worst seven years for cold are in the 1800's and another is 1978 which is used in their determination for their mean.
You don't think they would have picked an average that's cooler than normal and then picked a start point that's also colder than average to make the current temperatures seem abnormally high, would they?
I got accused of having Dunning Krueger.
But Thag know this math.
The GBU-57A/B is the only weapon capable of getting at facilities like Fordow.
The MOP can only be carried by a B-2A.
The B-2A is only used by the USAF.
I figured we'd send a couple over sooner or later just to make sure the place got taken out.
I've long thought that our response to our embassy being attacked should have been a lot more dynamic than President Carter's actions.
I guess he was busy with fucking Rhodesia and couldn't spare the time?
I was always surprised that Operation Preying Mantis didn't go further than it did or that we didn't find some excuse to hit them during the reflagged tanker period.
Iran has repeatedly acted like there was a state of war between them and the US.
I always think it's strange they're surprised whenever the US response has been, "OK! War it is!"
And they keep being surprised that all of our weapons do what we claim they do. You'd think people would learn that we can't keep a secret from 60 Minutes so we don't really bother hiding the capabilities all that much.
Does the media really not know this joke?
It was endemic with every engineering place I ever worked.
"How long until project X is done?"
"Two weeks!"
And it was always two weeks even if we were making prints to send to the shop. Even if we'd just started a multi-year job.
Two weeks!
But since there's a number in it, that makes it math and something not covered in journalism school.
More than once with food processing and construction I've read about when ICE shows up and arrests the workforce, there's a line of Americans around the block applying for the jobs that Americans won't do...
That sure seems to me that the employers froze Americans out of their workplace and that makes them complicit in hiring illegal labor.
I'm sure they have their weasel words ready and proof they're not technically liable, but...
I have to admit, I am bit torn.
I definitely don't want a nation that has "Death to America" rallies to have a nuclear device.
But, for as long as they've been at it, you'd think that Iran would have come up with something by now. Something includes a power plant, by the way.
It took less than three years from theory to Trinity. With 1940's tech.
On the other hand, it does feel like if they weren't up to something, we wouldn't keep finding out about secret nuclear research labs.
Which brings us to the recent statement by the IAEA chief that Iran isn't intending to build a bomb. Considering how often a new, secret, facility that the IAEA had no knowledge of is found... Forgive me for being skeptical of their analysis.
Looking at things, I've been hearing about how close Iran is to making a nuke for close to 30 years and there's, proven, timelines to get there that are far shorter.
Which does make me wonder just how bad the post-Shah brain drain was.
Was everyone smart enough to make a nuke also smart enough to escape?
Happy Summer Solstice!
Not for about 12ish hours, really. The actual moment of the solstice is at 10:42 pm EDT.
I get 13 hours 56 minutes of daylight today!
If we were still on standard time we'd only get 12 hours 116 minutes of daylight.
Every once and a while a scent will trigger a memory.
Ammonia will trigger memories of tank gunnery.
We were not unhappy with the rotten, old duct work.
Yes, they leaked cold air into the attic.
Yes, they weren't insulated against the hot attic.
But they worked just fine.
Set the thermostat for whatever and you got that.
The new ducts...
One room is hot.
One bathroom can be used to hang meat.
This is not what I asked for, this is not what I wanted.
But I got told, repeatedly, how much better it was going to be.
When I complained that I didn't get what I wanted, to be told that I could spend more money to get it...
Let's just say the fucker is lucky that Harvey wasn't home.
The next problem of the day was finally getting the AC company out to hear the complaint I had on the very first day of our new ducts.
There is insufficient flow into the main bedroom.
It needs more flow than the rest of the house because it takes a direct hit from the sun from an hour past local noon to sunset. The Eastern faces have trees so that side of the house doesn't need near so much flow.
They're taking the position that they explained to me things that they never mentioned.
Harvey was there too, and she corroborates my recollection.
On the plus side, they did give me a tip that we had the vents set all wrong.
I admit that it's better with the vents angled correctly.
The big problem, at least as far as the kittens are concerned, is the bedroom door MUST remain open during the day.
That means that Shadow and Beeper must finally settle their differences.
The door has been open since before noon and Beeper hasn't even stirred from under the bed and Shadow has wandered in a couple of times without a fight starting.
Fingers crossed!
The Boy clogged the toilet.
He did a good job cleaning up, and the toilet appeared to flush, so I wasn't too worried.
But then I saw water all over the garage.
When we washed the towels used in the clean-up, when the washer drained it hit the blockage and overflowed from the shower drain in the garage bathroom.
I plunged at a few points, got things so they didn't back up instantly and put some Drayno™ down.
Ran some hot water for a while.
Second load of laundry didn't back up, so tentative success!
The biggest land dinosaur compared with the largest land mammal.
But this is what they did say:
With inflation, though, $99 billion becomes $1,020,618,556,701.03 today, according to this site. $182.16 billion becomes $1,877,938,144,329.90.
The $1.88 trillion accounts for both inflation and population growth.
But the meme says revenue was $4.05 trillion! That just more than twice the revenue we'd expect to collect if nothing but population and inflation had changed since 1962.
This is REVENUE, not spending. Revenue is taxes collected and has nothing to do with the size of the government.
Revenue, is only increasing at 215.7% faster than the population, by the way.
The 1031% inflation since 1962 is more concerning, but that's not what they were trying to say.
Learn some business math, kids.
That way you can check their numbers and see if they're trying to trick you.
PS: A population increase from 180 million to 330 million is an 83.33% increase, not 184%. (Fixed! Thanks FuzzyGeff!) They even rounded wrong.
One of the shop owners is absolutely correct about the manufacturers not making a French version of the box just for them when a much larger market segment in Brazil is being dumped over the costs of making Portuguese language versions of the games.
And Brazil is a proven market of people who actually buy the items in question, not a nebulous "they might buy it if it were only labeled in French."
For paints it makes even less sense. You're either buying the color because you want the color you see in the jar or you're following the directions which has the English name for that color...
I've seen this personally. I bought "panzer gelb" not tank yellow.
The US Senate appears to have put the Short Act verbiage back into the Big Beautiful Bill®.
If this makes it, intact, to the president's desk that means that I wasted $800 in tax stamps.
Darn.
No more NFA for suppressors, short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns.
I've always wanted a DOE 9mm AR, but the pistol brace looked off.
H&R would be able sell it to me as a rifle, with the correct stock.
H&R would also be adding a lot of XM177 content to their catalog.
"Neither side eats bacon. Not our fight."
Someone on a forum thread discussing the Israel - Iran war.
