Hey! He's Right!

Jay, http://stuckinmassachusetts.blogspot.com/2009/08/and-another-thing.html has noticed something odd.

Until he mentioned it, I had not considered it.

Why aren't they protesting at Kennedy's grave? It's still got enough traffic that they'd get press.

Or is it because at Arlington the Old Guard might just do something, quietly. Can't say the Old Guard doesn't know how to dig graves and remain silent when conditions warrant it.

Observation

I've been touchy about politics of late. Probably too touchy.

Something I have noticed about the people attempting to engage me in political discussion is their amazing inability to spell, punctuate, capitalize or use grammar.

I think that, from now on, my replies to their posts will consist chiefly of correcting their spelling and grammar. I wish to have an educated, adult, conversation on politics. If my "opponent" cannot demonstrate they they have completed grade school usage of the language, then I maintain they have not attained a grade school understanding of civics and are therefore not able to have an educated, adult, conversation on politics.

There! the bar is set, and none to high.

Never Say Never

I will not say that American journalism cannot get any worse.

I will say that it should seriously consider getting better, which would be a welcome reversal of the trend.

Just A Reminder

When President Bush (43) took a week off, they press crucified him for skipping out on all the hard work the President is supposed to be doing.

When President Obama extends his vacation he is applauded because the job is so stressful and his vacation was interrupted twice.

But there is no double standard, the media is not biased?

Anglave Suggested I Write... This Is Modred

Grenade! I scramble wildly trying to move away but all I manage to do is kick it around a bit before it went off. "Great," I think, "I survive Kalisz and Warsaw just to get bumped off by some New American fanatic's home-made hand grenade..."

BANG

DISCONTINUITY

I had not expected to have another thought, but... The ruined building appeared much the same, but it was more like the old half timber buildings like in Poland than the farm houses in the Allegheny mountains. Even the air was subtly wrong, the burnt plastic smell that was in the air since '97 was missing.

I crawled over to a crack in the wall and peered out. The small courtyard looked more like Europe and was definitely not the back yard of the farm I we had taken cover in.

The light shining through the crack was not from the sun, but rather from a very tall, very beautiful person dressed all in white. White robes and bird's wings, like an angel. Had NA started using LSD grenades or something?

It was talking to some...thing. It was as ugly as the "angel" was beautiful. It held something that looked like it was made out of old wire coat hangers and tin-foil. There was something hanging in the mess of bent wire that was pointing straight at me. The angel looked down the pointer and then into my eyes...

Love! I love Him and must obey. Do whatever He commands! Wait! Why do I feel this way? I shook my head, and the love fades suddenly and my thoughts returned to my command.

Sighing, the angel points into the ruined building I am hiding in and orders the "thing" to do something. It unslings a rifle...

I don't wait. I run...

An Exchange

"Do you stand with them or with me?" I asked.

He replied, "With them, I guess."

"Do you believe in all that they stand for?"

He looked embarrassed, "Not everything, but much of it makes sense much of the time."

"Their history is written in the blood of innocents, the paths to their monuments paved in tiny, toothless, skulls. Later, when I stand against you, remember that you chose; and why."

I shook his hand, turned, and strode away hoping that we would not meet again.

There Goes Another One

I am, in my own way, a deeply religious person. You may notice that you don't read much about it.

Think. About. That. For. A. Second.

Thinking about it at all would have done nicely.

I'm touchy about it and not in the mood to have your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, and your opinion about the inclusion of mention of a deity in an optional, non-binding pledge on a place where I have stated repeatedly that I don't want to read about politics.

I will be down to zero contacts on Facebook and damn few here if it keeps up.

Interesting Read

The parent site requests you "right click-save as"

http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/Rutan.AGWdataAnalysis%20v11.pdf

http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/ConsensusOrConJob.pdf


Discuss.

WTF?

"The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others."

Barack H Obama talking about 9/11.

Today's most misquoted statement. Presented out of context, just like everyone else. Seems like he's got his head on straight, doesn't it?

Well...

He goes on to basically blame the US for creating the circumstances that lead to the murderers losing their empathy.

Nope, Barry, wrong again.

Just For FuzzyGeff

http://citrussoldier.com/comic-282.html

Arthur Frommer Is Boycotting Arizona

WHO?

If I have to look you up on Wikipedia to find out who you are, announcing you are having a boycott is meaningless.

I also think you are an idiot for such a boycott. When there's a mass shooting at a gun show, I think you'll be on firmer ground.

Twilight 2000

Revamping my GURPS 4e conversion.

To get the alternate history depicted in the original game we need the Soviet Union to hang in there long enough to have a war with China in the early 90's.

I figure that electing Dukakis in '88 instead of Bush encourages Moscow to hang in there and keeps us out of the Gulf War.

I don't see Mike being a two term president, and wonder if electing Pat Robertson in '92 puts us well on our way to the war depicted since he'd be conservative enough to encourage the New America people and domestically focused enough to have the neglected military shown in T2K.

It's definitely a "road not travelled" kind of alt, but...

Thoughts?

Politics Of The Possible

One frequent point of departure between me and friends politically is that I oppose things that make tyranny possible.

I do not care how improbable the tyranny is, if it's possible I don't want what they propose.

My main example is guns. Registration makes it possible for them to come seize everything on the registration list. More likely is an inspection demanding to see all of the firearms I have registered. In places with registration I would be in as much trouble for not having a gun I have registered as I would if I had more guns than I had registered. Without registration, currently, all the government has is the Form 4473 of the guns I bought from a dealer. If they show up here demanding to see those guns I can tell them that they are all sold. Heck, I can actually sell them without needing to get any government official involved. What this boils down to is that it is impossible for the government to know where all the guns are.

I object to the clever fingers of government into my bank account too. This is my main objection to income taxes. For them to know we are all paying our share, they have to know how much money we make and to make sure we aren't lying about how much we make they also need to see how much money we have. They also use this information to see if we've been making money selling things they don't think we should.

Recently I heard that the Health Care bill included verbage that would allow the government to make deposits and withdrawls from my account. I oppose this. I oppose this to the point of closing all my bank accounts if it passes.

Twice in my life have I been the victim of the government overpaying me some benefit. The both times I was unaware that my eligibility had ended. Both times the government admitted it was their mistake, not mine, and I would have to pay the money back, with penalties and interest. Gee, what do you think they will do if they mistakenly cleared out my entire account? Wanna bet they never return the funds? Or that it takes so long to get my money back that it amounts to the same thing as never getting it back?

Government is not something to be trusted. There are things we need done that it does better than any other entity we've tried. There are also things that are best kept from government, because government cannot be trusted!

Joe Huffman came up with a simple barometer for some of this: http://www.joehuffman.org/Freedom/JewsInTheAttic.htm

For Everyone Who Thinks I'm Hot Headed

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=2&f=282&t=171075

Religion

I think I might have figured something out.

There's a lot of talk about how the right wing is inundated with fundamentalist Christians.

I wonder (but do not know), did they get their foothold in the party because the government kept trying to force them to do or fund something contraindicated by their God?

I know I didn't much notice or care what the feds were up to until they dicked with something I gave two shits about.

A Modest Revenue Proposal

Repeal the "Hughes Amendment" from the 1986 Firearms Owner's Protection Act.

This would allow civilian ownership of machineguns manufactured after May 19, 1986. It would also allow the manufacture of new machineguns for sale to civilians. With the skyrocketing popularity of the AR-15, this is a no brainer for increasing tax revenues.

At $200 a gun per transfer (on top of the 11% excise tax) that could end up being a lot of money. Even more free tax money is generated on out of state sales. You have to do a transfer from one dealer to another and most of time that means an additional $200 for the government on one sale!

Something we could put into the repeal is changing the BATFE's focus on machineguns from arrests to making sure everyone had paid their $200. Imagine how much more compliance there would be if they caught you with machineguns and fined you $100 plus the tax instead of hauling you to jail?

It's win-win for everyone! I'd be more than willing to pony up $200 more on the SBR to get a fun switch, and likely another $400 for Kaylee and Dottie. $600 of revenue for no expenditure on the part of the federal government.

A Modest Proposal

I am not a fan of the 17th Amendment. I have read the history of its passage and I understand why it was done.

I cannot but help but think that what we got undermined the founder's intent with a bicameral congress. They intended the senate to be selected in a radically different manner than the house.

I have a modest proposal.

For the Senate, primaries pick the candidates as they do now; but the vote is national. For example: Hillary Clinton lives in New York. The people of New York decide in their primary to put her up for election then the voters from the entire nation get to say yes or no.

The unintended consequences are huge. We'd get nationally known people moving around to vacant or vulnerable seats. The states would feel like they'd been disenfranchised...

OK. Tie this in with a "Must have been a resident of the state in question for at least 10 years." Then someone from New York, or had at least lived there long enough to have a stake in things, would be presented to the nation as the person who might represent New York.

With these two rule changes in place, I don't think we would have gotten Hillary as a senator. I also think that we'd have been rid of McCain by now. He's only really popular in Arizona... Or was...

Edit
I would like to proudly point out that Florida never ratified the 17th and never took up the proposed 16th amendment.

A Warning

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GOP-thinks-the-unthinkable-Victory-in-2010-8103193-53174842.html (DEAD LINK)

Just as the 2006 and 2008 elections were not shining endorsements of the Democratic party, the 2010 election, should the GOP win, should not be taking to mean that we want the Republicans of 1996-2006 back.

I doubt that they will listen, again.

In 1994, the voters were pissed at what the Dems were up to. They did something about it, only to end up with the same kind of politician the Dems had put in office prior to Clinton. And then slowly bled seats until they were back in the minority.

In 2008 people were getting fed up with Bush's piss poor job of explaining WHY we were doing what we were doing in the war and a growing realization that he was spending money like a drunken sailor in Hong Kong who'd discovered he'd accidently gotten the Captain's wallet from the laundry.

I have a prescription for the GOP should they win in 2010. LEAD. You won big in 1994 and sat on your asses and let the Dems and the media tell you what you were going to do next. Do not worry that you don't have filibuster or veto proof majorities. Pass repeal, after repeal on simple majorities. Force them to actually filibuster to stop votes. Let them explain to their constituents why they are standing in the way of bills rather than you explaining why you are not doing what you were elected to do. Let the president veto whatever passes. Blame him for stopping the good work you are doing. Then go and pass the same law he vetoed.

And to both parties. Give us candidates we want! Stop giving us choices between the lesser of two evils. I want elections where I am choosing between the greater of two goods!

On Clipping Friends

I am definitely chasing my friends down to zero.

I have told several of them to piss off and don't talk to me anymore.

They are not being replaced.

I have a couple who have stopped bothering to contact me.

While I miss them, I understand. I don't wanna be around me either, but I don't get a choice.

Again, no new people have entered my life to replace those who have left.

Very soon, at this rate, I will be friendless.

The really sad thing is, the pain of being alone is less than the pain of dealing with the ones who I told off. The understanding of what a jerk I am nullifies the pain from the friends who gave up on me.

Except for being bored, I don't think having no friends will be too big a deal for me. As long as Harvey can manage to have friends of her own and get out of the house so I can be alone.

Things I Only Recently Found Out About That Everyone Else Already Knew

Odds in gambling are calculated to get people to bet both sides of the outcome so that the house breaks even no matter what.

The odds are to generate funds for the winners by taking from the losers and not the house.

Quantification

I've heard three times this week alone that President Obama is a million times better than former President Bush (43).

Quantify that.

Is it because Obama pushed for and got the repeal of the PATRIOT act?

Is it because Obama closed the prison at Gitmo?

Is it because he withdrew our troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan?

I am sure there are other things he's stopped doing that I've heard Bush condemned for.

I have also heard that Bush sat around looking for ways to screw us. Such as? I want to hear how a law he signed or and executive order he penned affected YOU PERSONALLY. Not how it affected a friend or someone you heard about or something you read about, HOW IT DIRECTLY SCREWED YOU PERSONALLY!!

I know how I got screwed by every president who did it. I can name it. President Reagan signed a bill into law that has made machineguns stupid expensive by cutting off new manufacture for civilians. Presidents Bush (41), Clinton and Bush (43) have all issued executive orders preventing the importation of firearms, firearms parts and ammunition that increase the cost of my hobby. President Clinton signed both the Brady Act and the Assault Weapons Ban. President Bush signed that damnable PATRIOT act.

The president's impact on my life pales compared to the impact that Congress has. By signing these abysmal things into law he is merely an accomplice after the fact. I've said that we needed a constitutional amendment that forbids Congress from passing more than one line item at a time since 1988! If we'd had to debate every provision of every huge bill I doubt we'd have gotten the MG ban, most of the Patriot Act, the incumbent protection act, either of the stimulus packages and we'd have read the cap-n-tax and Healthenampt bills before they went to vote.

Things Are Percolating

Lenny said something that didn't set well with me in our parting.

He said that the Republicans were in the pockets of rich people and big businesses.

Rich people like George Soros? How about rich actors and actresses?

Big businesses like the Joyce Foundation? All of the big media companies are quite large, none are a small business.

How about large, well funded organizations like unions?

Somehow I don't think reality fits the narrative. Again.

What. The. Frack?

Over on Facebook a friend posted a poll asking "Would you like to see Obama removed from office?"

I replied, "Depends on how he would be removed. Losing the next election? I'm fine with that, that's how our system is supposed to work. Impeached? Depends on the charge, but it would have to be pretty damn compelling. Removed over the BS about the birth certificate he's spent an inordinate amount of money keeping from showing? No. I wanna hear why he's spent so much to prevent showing it, but I don't think it shows he's not naturally born. My personal evil theory is that it says his dad is a different guy than the Kenyan dude. That's embarrassing and doesn't affect his citizenship."

She replied, "well i guess my point (other then the fact that i like him) would b that we spend 8 years with the evil of bush... obama isnt evil isnt an embarrassment and he doing something not just sitting there thinking of more ways to screw us all lol"

I tell you, that's the most well thought out and reasoned reply I have ever read. I cut and pasted it so all the words would remain spelled correctly and the punctuation would be retained in its correct place.

WTF?

Where the hell did I bring up Bush? Where did I say Obama was evil? For fuck's sake, I agreed with her! What would she have said if I had said that I think that all traitors should be hanged from the nearest yard arm?

Welcome Brunhilda

I have cleaned out the parts bin!

03AUG09
All I needed to make a whole gun was a lower receiver, lower parts kit, bolt carrier group and charging handle.

The birdcage flash suppressor was left over from making Bubba's AR. The barrel was the take-off from when Kaylee got her M4 profile. The handguards are Israeli surplus that were purchased in case I could find no other 6-hole handguards for the SBR project. The upper was bought to obtain a period correct ejection port cover. The ejection port cover here is another security purchase for the SBR. The bolt carrier group is Kaylee's old one, she's got an M&A sourced BCG now and there's an LMT BCG for the SBR on the way. The lower is a new Anvil Arms unit, as is the lower parts kit. The receiver extension (aka buffer tube) is a mil-spec one we damaged playing musical stocks trying to find one that worked with Marv's stock; I touched up the threads and it's working well. The stock is from getting an undamaged 2-position tube for the SBR. Even the sling was a left-over from deciding what Harvey preferred.

Close-up of the Izzy handguards.

20 rounds, 25m, 10 seconds. This barrel did not perform this well on Kaylee. I think that I had the slip-over flash-hider over-torqued and that was distorting the muzzle thread area making it inconsistent. Harmonics matter!

Edit: I would like to add that the funding of this was from the Obama Stimulus Package that handed every disabled veteran a whole $250! My aching leg, which will ache forever, appreciates the gesture.

13AUG09
I have put the slip-over flash-hider back on this barrel and returned to the A1 pistol grip; just for looks. Brunhilda is now doing an imitation of a GAU-5A/A (R630). She also tips the scale at 7.5 lbs where she was 7.2 with the birdcage hider. For reference, Kaylee was 8.0 lbs with this barrel configuration and is 7.2 now with the M4 profile barrel and M16A2 flash-hider.

Brunhilda now has the flash-hider, barrel, and bolt carrier group that Kaylee started out with.

UPDATE:

18AUG09
Bollocks to the slip over! Damn thing is too heavy, it unbalances the gun. I had it right the first time through! I added a rubber butt pad to the stock and that helps the balance a lot. 7.4 lbs now.

Space

I just watched a BBC doc, "James May on the Moon".

The Apollo program and the moon landings are emotional for me.

I am proud that those are my countrymen, and that the flag of my nation is on the vehicle.

I tear up.

Then I get mad.

We have not been past low earth orbit since.

When I think all we had to do was let all those worthless fucks on welfare starve to achieve Mars or the asteroids, I cannot help but feel robbed because those fucks would not have starved. They would have gotten jobs. It's a falsifiable hypothesis. Cut off welfare and watch them kill illegal Mexicans for the jobs. Win win if you ask me.

Harvey's Birthday Present

Her name is Cherri.




It's an EMF Hartford 1892 Saddle Ring Carbine. 20" barrel, 10 shot, .357 Magnum.

The lever action used to be the most common rifle type in the United States. The AR is definitely one of the the most popular now. Admittedly, the most common lever action was (perhaps is) the Winchester 1894 in .30-30; not an 1892 in .357, but the other marks of Winchester meant 'rifle' for nearly a century.

Here they are together.

This gift was a lot of fun for me. Harvey loves .357s. Her very first gun was a S&W in .357 SIG. She's been into .357 Magnum since she got a Ruger Blackhawk and a S&W 640. She was excited by the idea of a rifle in .357 when she heard that such were available.

I hit gunbroker and located several lever actions in her caliber and we looked at pictures and she decided what model and configuration she liked best. I then, secretly, bought it for her and sat on it for months. Like since November last year. She'd made me promise to not get any more guns until she had her .357 and I had apparently broken that promise a couple of times. Tee hee! I hadn't, but I couldn't tell her that!

Happy Nagasaki Day

64 years ago today the last atomic bomb used in anger was detonated.

I honestly don't think that any other nation could have restrained themselves from using one a third time once they'd popped their cherry.

I also believe that the other nations of the world have restrained themselves from their first use out of fear of triggering our third.

And Another Thing

Another aspect of the agreeing to disagree and maintain silence for the greater tranquility is a third party invariably brings the topic up and asks my opinion.

Do I answer, and break the debate ban or tell them I promised not to talk about this when in then company of second party?

Fed Up

I am sick of this "agreeing to disagree" bullshit.

What it has meant in the past is, "You agree to not bring this up and I will wait a while, rest up, and beat you over the head about it later when you're not expecting it."

I have far too many acquaintances that I have to not talk about just about anything deeper than the color of the ceiling because we've agreed to disagree. Sure cuts socializing down to about nothing, doesn't it? I was going to say "talk about the weather" but with Global Warming even that's a politically charged topic.

I am sick of being told I don't know what I am talking about on topics where I very much do know what I am talking about.

I am sick of listening to others talk about things that they know nothing about as if they were experts.

I will no longer pretend that I am interested in why you want socialism. It doesn't matter. Socialism is evil and it should be legal to shoot its proponents in self defense. I also do not care why a rapist raped.

Quite honestly, I am fed up with listening to these people talk about how much they hate America. You can leave. Please leave. Do not come back. Ever. You hate it here so much and think that [insert nation here] is so much better because of [insert socialist / statist program here] then go there. America will not be lessened by your departure, in fact it will be improved.

Happy Hiroshima Day

64 years ago today "Little Boy" became the first atomic bomb dropped in anger.

It is important to remember what can happen when the American people become both angry and united.

See you in three days for Nagasaki Day.

Thagwin's Law

In any comparison between Republican and Democrat policies the first person to mention Sarah Palin (while she isn't a candidate) loses the argument and announces they are a fucking moron.

Kaylee Modernization

I changed out the barrel on Kaylee with the express purpose of making her lighter. I succeeded, but... Her all-up weight ended up being more than Brunhilda.

While my new barrel is lighter, the late M4 stock is heavier. The slip-over muzzle device is also adds mass where I don't want it, 0.39 lbs. more. So I have changed over to an M16A2 flash-hider.

It ruins my "what-if" story a little bit, but makes her so much handier.

Books And Things

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
Make a separate post. Put an 'x' next to those you have read. Tag book nerds.

[] 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
[X] 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
[] 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
[X] 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
[X] 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
[X] 6 The Bible - God (the whole thing)
[] 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
[X] 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwel
[] 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
[] 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Total: 5

[] 11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
[] 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
[X] 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
[X] 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
[] 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
[X] 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
[] 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
[X] 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
[] 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[] 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

Total: 4

[X] 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchel
[X] 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
[] 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
[X] 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
[X] 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
[] 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[X] 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
[X] 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
[X] 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Total: 7

[] 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
[X] 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
[X] 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
[] 34 Emma - Jane Austen
[] 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
[X] 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
[] 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
[] 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
[X] 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[X] 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

Total: 5

[X] 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
[] 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
[] 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[] 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
[] 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
[] 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
[] 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
[X] 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
[X] 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
[] 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

Total: 3

[] 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
[X] 52 Dune - Frank Herbert
[] 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
[] 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
[] 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
[] 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[] 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
[] 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
[] 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
[] 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Total: 1

[X] 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
[] 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
[] 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
[] 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
[X] 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
[] 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
[] 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[] 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
[] 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
[X] 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Total:3

[X] 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
[X] 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
[] 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
[] 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
[] 75 Ulysses - James Joyce
[X] 76 The Inferno - Dante
[] 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
[] 78 Germinal - Emile Zola
[] 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
[] 80 Possession - AS Byatt

Total: 3

[X] 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
[] 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
[X] 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
[] 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
[] 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
[] 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mxistry
[X] 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
[] 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
[] 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
[] 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

Total: 3


[X] 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
[] 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
[] 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
[X] 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
[] 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
[] 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
[X] 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
[X] 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare --
[X] 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
[X] 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Total: 6

40 is respectable. Most of those were assigned reading. A good sized hunk are a slog to get through, language drift and bad translations abound.

War and Peace should count for two.
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is _PART_ of The Chronicles of Narnia, so that shouldn't count twice; how many spotted that?
Hamlet is also part of The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Oh, snobby BBC, where's "Of Mice and Men", "Last of the Mohicans" or anything by Mark Twain?

Now That Is Cool

Cheap Reptile Sex

Literally.

QC? What QC?

A guy bought a Colt model 6920 with that level of QC on the lower. Colt's command a higher asking price because of the brand, so you'd think you would be getting more for your money.

Here's a pic, from the same guy, of a Colt that's not messed up:



The Arfcom thread is here: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=118&t=452686
19 pages and climbing.

UPDATE: A picture of a "non top tier" maker's product in the same area. In this case, Anvil Arms, who has shown consistently outstanding quality on all of my non-retro builds. The retro builds are Nodak-Spud lowers, also pictured.

Anvil Arms:

Nodak Spud:

The Cool-Aid drinkers have taken the position that this will not affect function and that anyone who places any stock in cosmetics is something less of a person for it.

One question I have not seen asked: "Is it SUPPOSED to look like that?" Please note, I am NOT asking, "Is it allowed to look like that?" or "Is this level of finish still within spec?"

Towards page 19, someone speculated that Colt is having problems making spec on commercial guns because of the labor costs and that it could not produce commercial product at all without the huge law enforcement and military contracts it currently enjoys. The assembly workers at Colt are UAW, and that's not a group known for being low cost.

It was pointed out, correctly, that Winchester could not economically make the controlled feed version of the Model 70 with today's realities. Winchester was using the same UAW at their plant and it was labor costs that drove them into the ground. Interestingly, when told that Winchester could not support the costs the UAW refused to make concessions. Fabrique National bought Winchester and closed that plant. Go unions!

The core issue that forced Winchester into bankruptcy over labor costs was a rider in the UAW contract that stipulated that certain models would all be made in a particular plant. Winchester could not move production where the labor was cheaper or hire less expensive labor.

Another example of forgetting that jobs are the side effect of a successful business. Make a business unsuccessful and you will eliminate the jobs.