27 December 2009

Quote Of The Random Interval

From Tam: "The Qutbists decry the West as soulless, impersonal, mechanized: they would do well to remember that, along with animal husbandry, shoe-making and porno movies, another field the West has turned soulless, impersonal, and mechanized is genocide."

http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2009/12/farce-is-strong-in-this-one.html

Unintended Controversy

On my Facebook page I posted this picture:


I went off on my mini rant about the proper name for .45 Colt is not, and has never been, .45 Long Colt.

Ravenclaw Eric had never heard of an Anaconda in .45 Colt. Sadly, the Anaconda is no longer in production in either .45 Colt or .44 Magnum.

Here are some better pictures of some of the details:

Barrel Markings:


Loaded cylinder; note the headstamps.


25 December 2009

Well Isn't This Just Odd?

I've owned this book for several years.


I seem to be so influenced by the cover that I have made...

This:


And this:


And this:


Reduce My Health Care By $2,500 A Year?

I don't have insurance and plan on dying if I get really sick. I don't go to the doctor. Period. The only way they can "reduce" my health care costs $2,500 a year is to MAIL ME A CHECK!

Wanna bet that their little plan will cost me money since they will require I have a plan at all now?

Gunnies, this should be a trip-wire issue.

I'll bet not a shot is fired. The threepers can kindly shut the fuck up any time now.

Quote Of The Moment

"First off, if Reid wasn't shoving this force-backed, tyrannical wealth-redistributing, power-grabbing, non-Constitutionally-delegated monstrosity down our throats, we wouldn't "need no stinking" exception clause. This, to me, is like a rapist assuring us he'll use lubrication."

From: http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d20-Does-Reid-amendment-allay-gun-owner-fears-over-health-care-bill (Dead Link)

It's A Christmas Miracle



I dipped my toe into an old debate over the superiority of the cast vs forged receivers on the M1A and managed to add something new. I had not even been following the debate that closely.

I feel like I just won the internet!

24 December 2009

Ravenclaw Eric's Post About Scrooge Got Me To Thinking

Welfare.

It should not provide luxuries. Basic food, shelter and nothing else.

"But the poor have a right to be comfortable too!" I will not disagree. And they are free to get a job and garner those luxuries.

Someone on welfare should not be living better than someone paying taxes. Full stop.

Welfare should be something you want to get off of because working is better, not take a lifestyle hit because you got a job. A job should be a step up from welfare, not down.

Of course, the people we kick off welfare are sure going to vote against us next time, so we should make sure it's an amendment or something equally hard to repeal.

21 December 2009

It Bears Repeating


This is not a "military-style semi-automatic weapon". This is a MILITARY ISSUE semi-automatic weapon. The real thing. Not neutered or down graded.

18 December 2009

Consider

What would happen if we stop caring how our enemies feel about our enmity?

How would we conduct the war when we didn't worry if they were offended by our actions?

What would the world say when CAIR insists that we are offending moslems if we insist that we asked Scott Helvenston if he is offended; and insist upon waiting for his answer before addressing their claim.

What if we just said, "Tough shit. You offend us too."

What if we started following the Geneva and Hague conventions to the letter about the treatment of those found under arms and out of uniform?

What if?

16 December 2009

Read The Whole Thing

http://neanderpundit.com/?p=3387

It's basically what I want to scream at Libtard Lenny. I am a firm believer that once someone has said it correctly, then I should stop trying to find new words to say it.

Ramming It Down

The Dems are prepared to sacrifice seats in congress to ram the health care bill down our throats.

It's actually a great long term strategy for them. Look at 1994 when their gun control agenda cost them congress for 12 years. The Republicans didn't repeal a single thing, so why not lose some seats for a while and take a slowing of the agenda?

If they ram this down and there's a '94esque bloodletting, I want it to be known to the dumbass stupid party; we expect an repeal as part of the first day's business. And we expect repeal to be a rider in every bill passed until it's gone. None of this pussy-assed kneeling on the ball shit and waiting around for it to expire like the AWB; which didn't really get us gunnies much because Brady is still law.

15 December 2009

If This Is A B+ What Does An F Look Like

Guys, look at the polls and the likelihood that you will lose your majority in 2010. That's an indication that you are not even pulling a C (Satisfactory).

14 December 2009

Anvil Arms

The lower receivers I've been using for my AR15s were made by a company out of Lakeland, Florida called Anvil Arms. They are no more. The product was excellent and the service friendly; but that was not enough to keep them in business

They appear to have been foreclosed on and there are several irate customers on www.ar15.com who are posting quite vocally about it. I don't think it was malice that caused Anvil to take their money and leave them hanging, I think it was optimism coupled with denial. I'll bet they honestly believed that they would turn the corner on their profit/loss "real soon now" and all would be better... Alas. The classic grew too fast, bit off more than they could chew business failure.

Some of these irate people are attempting to figure out where the owner of the company lives or works to make an attempt to get their money back. Jon Kruger, the person, legally, owes them nothing. Anvil Arms, the company, does. Anvil Arms was liquidated and auctioned off to pay creditors; very rarely is there anything left over for customers who've paid and not received product.

Yes, it sucks for those who lost money; but this is how incorporation and limited liability work. The very title, "limited liability" should tell them something.

10 December 2009

I Don't Care

John Lennon has been dead for 29 years and two days, I still don't care.

Elvis Presley has been dead even longer, and I still don't care.

Neither artist's death brought a "damn, no more new music from them, that sucks" response from me.

29 November 2009

Problem Fixed

Sabrina's flash-hider was askew.

The crush washer I was using was not deforming evenly, so it was not parallel or concentric with the bore. I replaced it with my last spare.

Suddenly I understand why suppressor manufacturers require the use of peel-washers.

It's odd how I went from having spares to being out of them. I used two on The Lovely Harvey's carbines. I've used two on Sabrina now. I used one on Kaylee when I ditched the slip-over. They are cheap parts, but shipping is almost always more than the parts so you wait until you have an order for something else.

Something You're Going To Have To Get Used To

I've read some condemnations of the shooting of those 4 police because they were cops.

What the hell do you think the Threepers are talking about when they talk about their tripwires?

Shooting the neighbors?

If it comes to armed insurrection here in the USA, the police will be wearing the uniform of the enemy. Now, before it starts, is when a policeman should be deciding to take it off or begin vocally opposing the laws that are triggering the anger that the congresses are asking him to enforce.

Police organizations should be talking about constitutional issues and discussing strategies publicly for methods to not bother enforcing unconstitutional laws.

They need to establish themselves on our side of the line before the shooting starts, or be counted as part of the government we'd be trying to overthrow.

Just an example. Everyone's most hated police organization, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is really just a police organization. They are just doing what Congress has told them they want them to do. It's a bit of a chicken and egg conundrum, but Congress could fix BATFE tomorrow. ATF has no real power over congress.

AR Stuff That Baffles Me

There is a camp of people who are dedicated to the 1:7 twist in the AR.

This was actually the second choice for the twist in the 5.56x45mm NATO development, the original being 1:9.

1:9 did not stabilize the NATO tracer round when tested in "arctic" conditions. Winter, in Alaska.

If your argument for 1:7 is that you can shoot surplus NATO ammo, will you be shooting tracers in the winter in Alaska? If not, 1:9 is actually optimal for NATO ball ammo.

28 November 2009

What Makes It Science...

Is publishing your data and methodology so that anyone, ANYONE, can duplicate your experiment.

If they know enough about the field, then their repetition of the experiment will either confirm or contradict the original findings.

If it contradicts, then real scientists sit down and say, "That's odd, what did we do different from each other that yielded these differing results?" Real scientists want to find out why the results varied.

This cycle repeats until nobody bothers doing the experiment anymore because EVERYONE is getting the same results. The reason there is no debate about what happens when I apply flame to hydrogen gas in Earth's atmosphere is that ANYONE can do the experiment and it ALWAYS comes out the same. To replicate some of these experiments, one needs a lot more education than I have, but those people do exist and they are trying to replicate the experiments.

What you do not do, if you are a scientist, is censure the work of those who have come up with results that differ from yours. You do not hide the data. You do not hide your methodology. You do not manipulate the editorial board of the magazines that publish the peer-reviews in your field. If you do all of that you are no longer a scientist, you are an ideologue. This is the tactic of religion, not science.

If two scientists working with the same data and methodology get different results, then something is not accounted for. In the recent CRU scandal, what was not accounted for was the original researchers were lying. They literally made up the data and adjusted the methodology to fit their conclusion; one should not be shocked when honest researchers took what the CRU SAID was their data and methods and got different results. The key change here is HONEST.

It turns out that I was overestimating (link down the memory hole) the scientific integrity of the East Anglia Climate "Research" Unit. And I say that having already compared them, unfavorably I remind you, to the hoaxers behind Piltdown Man.
As the linked article demonstrates, the CRU is simply unable to respond to requests for their raw data. Because that data no longer exists. How could such a thing be possible, you may ask. Suddenly obsolete file formats? Fire in the archives? An idiot with an electromagnet? No, nothing so innocent. The real reason is that they deliberately threw it in the garbage, sometime in the 1980s.




27 November 2009

By The Way...

If I am supposed to give Mr Obama a pass because he is black; that's racist. Real racist, not the crap the media screams is racism whenever they get half a chance.

26 November 2009

So That's It Then

To the President, Congress and Supreme Court of the United States, their subsidiary offices and directories:

Charging those SEALs with assault will result in no more captures.

They are not stupid men, they will notice very quickly that a corpse cannot complain about a split lip and start shooting them instead of capturing them.

Try to charge them for that and they can, justly, hide behind the Geneva Convention and its treatment of combatants who refuse to wear uniforms. Before you say, "No they cannot!" remember that we did not bring a single Nazi up on charges for how they dealt with partizans in the Balkans. Not failed to convict, but refused to charge.

Make the attempt to change the military around that point and you will rapidly discover you don't have much of a military left. Do it just right and you may find more and more soldiers looking really hard at the "and domestic" portion of their service oaths. They swore to defend the nation and the constitution, not the sitting government.

25 November 2009

Spread The Word

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_fix_is_in_99280.html

Notable quote: "Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing."

FuzzyGeff commented at 1325 26NOV09:

Smoking gun? Try mushroom cloud.
This incident shows such shameless violations of basic scientific ethics that some people have started referring to the conspirator Michael Mann as "Piltdown" Mann. I must protest that unfair characterization: the Piltdown Man hoaxers never tried to suppress dissent by threatening journal editors.

20 November 2009

File Under "Shit I Had No Idea I NEEDED"

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=27504/Product/M1_GARAND_EN_BLOC_CLIP_POUCHES?mc_ID=4031

A grab and go bag for a Garand. How have I owned a Garand for months and not known about this?

Christmas is just around the corner for you employed folks wondering what poor McThag needs.

Wow!

Wings Over Vietnam (Strike Fighters 2) looks absolutely fabulous in 1920x1200!

The Mac Pro has enough smoke to run it under unlimited details too.

We are glad.

UPDATE: Some screen shots below the fold.

17 November 2009

Bootcamp!

I have installed Windows XP Professional on my spare drive on my Mac Pro.

The same copy of Windows XP Professional also runs using Parallels Desktop.

Microsoft took the activation and registration painlessly.

Tomorrow we do the drivers for the joysticks.

If I get brave, I will install Microsoft Flight Simulator X Gold Edition and/or IL2. I am hoping that my install of IL2 and Wings Over Vietnam can be simply moved off the old C: drive from the old computer.

I will not install anything but my games over there. I have the OSX 10.5.8 on the Mac side of things for all other computer needs.

16 November 2009

Someone Needs To Say It

I think that Og and Roberta X were talking past each other in their little spat. I hate when that happens.

She's right, we cannot sacrifice the bill of rights because we don't like the teachings of a religion.

He's right, we cannot allow a religion to attempt to take over the nation. The bill of rights is not just a prohibition of the Government declaring a state religion, but a prohibition of a religion BECOMING the state religion.

The thing that the radical Moslems are not getting is, here in America, what power the rules and laws your religion has over a member is entirely up to the member and if they wish to leave, you must let them go. Full stop. We do not accept that you get to kill them for leaving because your "good book" says so.

We don't allow human sacrifice either.

Something a lot of people do not want to admit when we talk about the Islam "problem" is that we are at war with Islam.

"No we're not," I keep hearing. Yes we are. Islam is most certainly at war with Western Civilization and it's an existential war. By refusing to acknowledge the fight and refusing to fight back, we are letting them win; but we are not "not at war" because we are refusing to accept the declaration from the other side.

The rounding up of Japanese-Americans in WW2 gets cited a lot as doing it wrong. It was wrong. I have yet to hear a rational call to round up the Moslems. Since we are at war, I suggest we stop letting new people from those nations controlled by Islam come here for the duration of the war.

I am also of the opinion that we don't allow anyone who's not actively trying to become a citizen to stay longer than 90 days a year for any reason. And if they fail to become one in the proscribed time, back home they go, forever.

15 November 2009

Fun With Cameras Timers And Tripods

...or, "Git off my lawn!"


With Marv's super duper flash you can see up the barrel and look at the bolt face! And see that we do not have a round chambered.


It Has To Work For Everyone Or No One

Roberta X is in the center of quite the raging debate about Islam, its intent, what we should do about it, what we can do about it and whether what we can and should do about it is contraindicated by the 1st Amendment.

Neanderpundit has weighed in on it as well.

Lemme see if I can add a bit of clarity.

Moslems are setting up little enclaves where non-moslems are not welcome to live, and sometimes not even visit or shop. They have their own legal code (Sharia) they apply and don't use the local laws. From these enclaves, they expand by moving into adjacent areas and do more of the same.

For purposes of debate we shall say that the above is OK and protected by the 1st Amendment's Religious Freedom Clause.

There's a BUT here.

Whites are setting up little enclaves where non-whites are not welcome to live, and sometimes not even visit or shop. They have their own legal code they apply and don't use the local laws. From these enclaves, they expand by moving into adjacent areas and do more of the same.

Is this protected?

Gun-owners are setting up little enclaves where non-gun-owners are not welcome to live, and sometimes not even visit or shop. They have their own legal code (The Constitution) they apply and don't use the local laws. From these enclaves, they expand by moving into adjacent areas and do more of the same.

How about that?

Blacks are setting up little enclaves where non-blacks are not welcome to live, and sometimes not even visit or shop. They have their own legal code they apply and don't use the local laws. From these enclaves, they expand by moving into adjacent areas and do more of the same.

Or this?

I cannot use religious reasons to make an all white neighborhood. I cannot use religious reasons to not hire women. I cannot use religious reasons to not hire homosexuals.

But I can use religious reasons to create all Moslem neighborhoods with businesses that don't hire women or homosexuals?

Either I can exclude anyone on the basis of religion and those equality laws are invalid; or the laws are valid and religious freedom, like all rights, is tempered with responsibility. If the 1st Amendment is a catch-all that lets me ignore the local legal system at my whim because God says; then Gawd says I must have a Machinegun and it is a sin to pay $200 to register it and I must kill anyone who tries to take it away from me.

How much you wanna bet that I would be left alone and allowed to keep my MG on religious grounds? Me neither.

13 November 2009

Who Reminds Him To Breathe

“Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that uh we see devastation on a daily basis. You don’t blame a group.”
Richard M Daley, Mayor of Chicago; said while blaming a group: gunowners.

10 November 2009

It's That Time Again

And the hull broke open and they all drowned like rats as their lung filled with...WAH TUHR!

03 November 2009

Air Superiority

One reason the UAVs like the Predator and Reaper are so effective (read able to operate at all) is total air superiority.

They are not stealthy, they are not fast, they are not maneuverable. They ARE unopposed, at present.

If we fight a war where the airspace is contested, and we skimp on things like fighters we are not going to be able to fly UAVs with the impunity we currently employ.

Cutting funding for F-22A and clipping the orders for F-35 by 50% is exactly skimping on fighters.

By the way, if you are going to use the argument that the A-10C and F-15E are "good enough" so we don't need so many of the new two, then you are going to have to start buying the older designs as well because they are wearing out.

This doesn't even really address the whole picture. The Navy and Marines need planes too and the way they use them wears them out faster.

02 November 2009

Thanks!

I got the maquette on the left in the mail today.


It's Shelly Wahnee from the webcomic, Wapsi Square. The one on the right is Monica Villarreal from the same comic. I bought Monica. Shelly just showed up.

Who was generous? There was no note.

30 October 2009

Quote Of The Moment

"Second, they described the victim as a "folk singer" and, really, who hasn't wanted to see one of those torn apart by wild dogs at some time in their life?"
Tam

29 October 2009

Why 6.8?


Revelations 6:8 is "I looked, and there was a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death. Hell followed him. They were given power over one-fourth of the earth to kill people using wars, famines, plagues, and the wild animals on the earth."

Revelations 6:5 is: "When the lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Go!" I looked, and there was a black horse, and its rider held a scale."

You wanna be a lamb or Death?

Never Be Accused Of Not Bringing Enough Gun


Of course the 1911 is an outdated design. It came from an era when weapons were designed to win fights, not to avoid product liability lawsuits. It came from an era where it was the norm to learn how your weapon operated and to practice that operation until it became second nature, not to design the piece to the lowest common denominator. It came from an era in which our country tried to supply its fighting men with the best tools possible, unlike today, when our fighting men and women are issued hardware that was adopted because of international deal-making or the fact that the factory is in some well-connected congressman's district. Yes, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the 1911 IS an outdated design... and that's exactly what I love about it.
Rosco S. Benson.

Weer'd started a meme based on this post!  http://weerdbeard.livejournal.com/577728.html

28 October 2009

My Retros Baffle Me

I built Charlotte as a late production R604; when I got all the parts for Sabrina, I had an errant desire to make Sabrina as a GAU-5A/A. I took the slick-side upper from Charlotte and used that on Sabrina and used the A1 upper I had for Sabrina on Charlotte making her an M16A1 clone.

When I took them to be zeroed, Charlotte required no adjustments.

That stood for about a week and I decided that I really wanted an XM177E2 instead of a GAU-5A/A. So the uppers were swapped, returning Charlotte to her original configuration. Both barrel nuts ended up perfectly aligned with the initial torque-loosen-torque-loosen-torque. That never happens, let alone to two at the same session!

Today I zeroed them.

Sabrina needed no adjustments. Charlotte just three clicks down and two left.

My bafflement is passed on to the guy in the next lane. He was not having any luck getting his ACOG zeroed, or his irons or his laser. I was shooting with Sabrina at 100 yards and getting better groups than he was at 25. I helped him with his settings and he got all three things hitting about the same place.

27 October 2009

Quote Of The Moment On The Republican Leadership

"Taking lessons in how to win elections from these guys is a lot like attending a seminar on how to win the World Series by the management of the Chicago Cubs." Mike at Cold Fury.

http://coldfury.com/wp/wp-trackback.php?p=19009

Rifle Cartridges


From L to R: .22 Long Rifle (1887); .357 Magnum (1934); 5.56x45mm (1963); 6.8x43mm SPC (2002); .303 British (1889/1910); .243 Winchester (1955); 7.62x54mmR (1891); 7.62x51mm NATO (1954); .30-06 (1906).

Literally spanning the entire history of rifle cartridge development.

Get off my lawn, indeed.

22 October 2009

Zoon

Just cause you don't understand what's going on don't mean it don't make no sense
And just cause you don't like it, don't mean it ain't no good
And let me tell you something;

Before you go taking a walk in my world
You better take a look at the real world
Cause this ain't no Mister Roger's Neighborhood

Can you say "feel like shit"?
Yea maybe sometimes I do feel like shit
I ain't happy 'bout it, but I'd rather feel like shit than be full of shit!

And if I offended you, oh I'm sorry...
But maybe you need to be offended
But here's my apology and one more thing...fuck you!

On "Don't Ask Don't Tell"

I am not addressing the entire can of worms.

One clear objection a straight man can level against openly serving homosexual men is pretty much the same objection a straight female has with her straight male colleagues: "Don't wanna bunk with someone who wants to fuck me when I don't want to fuck them."

And we don't make straight male and female personnel bunk together, do we?

So, do we have the gay guys bunk with the straight girls? Now the gay guys have an objection, some of those girls are going to want them. And bunking the gay guys with the girls doesn't solve the gay guys wanting each other, or not. By the way, when I was 19 and was joining the Army, if they recruiter had told me I could bunk and shower with the girls, all I had to do was say I was gay, I would have put on a lisp and signed! Solve that problem Mr/Mrs/Ms/?? LGBT advocate!

The best bunking arrangement is where everyone in the bay doesn't want to have nookie with the others. At present, the only way to get that is sex segregation of heterosexuals.

P.S.
Openly gay men in the military has one huge advantage over mixed straight male/female troops: no pregnancy.
Excluding females from the ranks would be cheaper in a lot of ways, only one set of facilities, no worries about troops getting pregnant... But cheaper is not always better.

The Soviets had a simple solution for females getting preggers in a mixed unit, BANG!

21 October 2009

SUCCESS!

I finally got the windage and range knobs on the Aimpoint 1000 free and working.

Took Dee to the range and got her zeroed in at 25 yards.

This is the confirmation target. All are ten shot groups, slow fire aimed at the center of each of the six squares. Notice the center left square.


Vanity shot!


If Orca Shitheel could see this, I'll bet he wishes he'd bought a gun cabinet...

The Lovely Harvey says, "Requiring him to have a gun cabinet that isn't glass and locks was not a big request with kids in the house. Doesn't matter anyway his wife won't have guns in the house. If you like guns why would you marry time after time women who despise them and forbid you to have one?"

Idle Hands Are STILL The Devil's Gunsmithy

Sabrina is now the XM177E2 clone I originally set out to make. I swapped uppers with Charlotte.


Charlotte is returned to her original configuration as an R604 (Late) Clone.


I have now made a stereotypical gun from each of the 4 services. Sabrina being an Army XM177E2, Charlotte being an Air Force M16, Alice being a Marine M16A2 and Bubba's being a Navy M16A1. OK, I am reaching, but it's kinda neat anyway.

19 October 2009

I Am Curious

Is there anything that the Southern Poverty Law Center disapproves of that they think is not caused by racism?

Ravenclaw Eric Commented Thus:

Not really, unless you count "anti-Semitism" as different. Basically, they're a money-making scheme that depends heavily on scaring rich, slightly aged, rather out-of-touch liberals with scary stories about the Klan, Neo-Nazis, skinheads and other eeeville racists marching down their street tomorrow...if you don't give generously!
It's one of the richest "charities" in the country, and specializes in going after people who can't really fight back---Tom Metzger of WAR, for example. Compared to the kind of legal talent that SPLC can deploy, almost any leader of a group they've targeted is seriously outgunned.

Even a lot of liberals have started having second thoughts about SPLC---the legal precedents they've set could easily be used against groups they like, and the way they blitzkrieg people who have no real effective way to fight back does not always set well, no matter how unpleasant SPLC's targets are.

18 October 2009

This Is Getting To Be Bullshit

The H&K suit against GSG and ATI reminded me of something that's being abused.

Trademarks.

H&K's suit against GSG is essentially, "They make a gun that LOOKS like our gun!" and since you can now trademark the appearance, apparently, you can sue.

Companies have been trying for centuries to get permanent patents. Trademarking is allowing them to do so.

The GSG-5 looks a great deal like an H&K MP5, but in .22 LR instead of 9x19mm. The patents on the MP5 expired years ago. So, I can make a gun that works exactly like an MP5 as long as it doesn't look like one, but since form follows function, we end up with expired patents being forever because the design influences form.

Colt tried this on the M4 and failed. Their permanent patent loophole is their contract with the government for M16 sales, signed in 1967 with no closure date. Anyone making an M16 and selling to the USA has to give Colt money. They have to pay even more to use the Colt Technical Data Package, which if you wanna sell to Uncle Sugar, you have to have to meet specs.

The aviation/defense industry has been suing plastic model kit makers and flight sim designers over their trademarked designs for a long time. It's especially galling since the most egregious suer here is Grummann, and they don't even own the design they got famous for suing about, the TBF Avenger. The Navy hired them to design a torpedo bomber and held all rights to the manufacturing. Most Avengers were actually made by General Motors (TBM). I love the legal brief about how letting a flight sim include a flyable version of an Avenger would negatively impact future Grummann sales.

Future sales of a WW2 torpedo bomber?!?!

This shit has gotten out of hand.

16 October 2009

Quote Of The Random Interval

"The [HK] USP is the best $500 pistol you can get for $800." SayUncle.

13 October 2009

In Keeping With A Theme

Brunhilda gets the ugly, worn, but still functional, parts that are sort of left-over...

Like this pistol grip.


And this slick-side upper receiver.

Same Shit Different Day

"Look me in the eye and tell me I am less of a person than you are," Christine Quinn, the first openly lesbian speaker of the New York City Council, said yesterday.

You are less of a person than I am.

If you were equal to me, you would not demand special legislation to be elevated above me. You would be the same as me.

I ask again, are you a people?

We are not equal if we are not equal under the law.

I support equal rights, not special protections.

10 October 2009

I Just Got A Survey

The "Republican National Committee; 2009 Obama Agenda Survey"

It's a multiple choice deal: I am given Yes / No / No Opinion to choose from for my answers. My answer will appear and comments in parenthesis.

1. Do you agree with Barack Obama's budget plan that will lead to a $23.1 trillion defict over the next ten years?

No.

2. Do you believe that the federal government has gone too far in bailing out failing banks, insurance companies and the auto industry?

Yes. (I also don't think that this is purely a Democrat or Obama issue.)

3. Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?

No. (I also extend the welcome mat for any and all legal immigrants.)

4. Should English be the official language of the United States?

Yes. (Duplication of paperwork savings would be immense. It would also encourage immigrants into assimilating into our culture.)

5. Are you in favor of granting retroactive Social Security eligibility to illegal immigrants who gain U.S. citizenship through an amnesty program?

No. (I don't want them to be citizens in the first place!)

6. Are you in favor of the expanded welfare benefits and unlimited eligibility (no time, education or work requirements) that Democrats in Congress are puching to pass?
No. (I'm of the opinion that welfare is breaking our bank, expanding it will accelerate the process.)

7. Do you beleive that Barack Obama's nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestionably approved for their lifetime appointments by the U.S. Senate?

No. (The process should be the same regardless of who is president. If you are going to go through a nominee's life with a nit-comb, we do it to all nominees. If we rubber stamp, we rubber stamp for all.)

8. Do you believe that the best way to increase the quality and effectiveness of public education in the U.S. is to rapidly expand federal funding while eliminating performance standards and accountability?

No. (I want the feds out of education. What performance standards and accountability? I want k12 to be deunionized too!)

9. Do you support the creation of a national health insurance plan that would be administered by bureaucrats in Washington D.C.?

No. (Nor would I want a state health insurance plan that would be administered by bureaucrats in Tallahassee. Private would be just fine, and eliminate the state border as a barrier to competition between insurance companies.)

10. Do you believe that the quality and availability of healthcare will increase if the federal government dictates pricing to doctors and hospitals?
No. (More but harder does not work.)

11. Are you confident that new medicines and medical treatments will continue to be developed in the federal government controls prescription drug prices and sets profit margins for research and pharmaceutical companies?

No. (Socialism is dangerous. Fascism is dangerous. This is both.)

12. Are you in favor of creating a government funded "Citizen Volunteer Corps" that would pay young people to do work now done by churches and charities, earning Corps Members the same pay and benefits given to military veterans?

No. (When you hire them, they stop being volunteers. I don't like how they linked this to parity with veterans. Separate issue.)

13. Are you in favor of reinstituting the military draft, as Democrats in Congress have proposed?

No. (The all volunteer military we have now is far superior to the draft armies we used to have; for many reasons.)

14. Do you believe that the federal government should allow the unionization of Department of Homeland Security employees who serve in positions critical to the safety and security of our nation?

No. (I don't think any government employee at any level should be allowed to be in a union. Ever. Period.)

15. Do you support Democrat's drive to eliminate worker's right to a private ballot when considering unionization of their place of employment?

No. (The entire point of a private ballot is so the employee can vote their conscious without worry of retribution or sanction from the union organization or fellow employees!)

Comments Were Thus

09 October 2009

The US Is Too Racist To Be Socialist?

WOW!

I never thought that someone would come up with an argument for joining the Klan that I could get behind.

Being a racist stops socialism? That might end up as a positive in the cost/benefit analysis (because I am not a minority).

Nope.

They are both evil and we can be egalitarian while rejecting socialism. Adopting one evil, just to be rid of another is not a plan I can endorse. Evil is evil.

Presented In Its Entirety

From here: http://www.bookwormroom.com/2009/10/04/the-difference-between-conservatives-and-liberals/ The comments have additions.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn`t buy one.
If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn`t eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he’s in labor and then sues.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended”.

08 October 2009

From Tam

"6.5 does indeed have marginally better ballistics in many engagement envelopes, but its fans are such a bunch of goddam furries, trolling the 'nets for any mention of "6.8SPC" so they can start a caliber war, that I wouldn't be caught dead with a 6.5 upper even if it was a frickin' death ray. ;)"

In comments to her own post here: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=15907727&postID=6646615511555070084&isPopup=true

05 October 2009

File Under "Why Are You Thinking About This"

Tam has posted about assault.

She is making an entirely different point, but she raises an idea that had never occurred to me (with good damn reason) and that my mind is fascinated with.

Justifiable Rape, Self Defense.

Self defense is allowed in other forms of assault like battery and homicide.

Tonight's thought exercise, the circumstances where one could use self defense as a justification for rape. I assume we would need Rop'r'rian levels of "givens".

04 October 2009

Harvey Has Been Bit By The Retro Bug

Cheyenne was originally inspired by the carbine carried by Tom Berringer's character Sgt Barnes in Platoon.

We started out with what we thought we wanted...

...along the way we tried out some more modern parts...

...but today she is a relatively faithful clone of an R653 carbine.

I love working on them so Harvey's experimentation has been a lot of fun for me.

Sabrina Is Completed

From a sad collection of parts.


To a complete carbine. 6.5 lbs loaded with 20 rounds. 33 5/16" long with the stock extended and 30 1/8" retracted.


A lot shorter than when I mocked it up in June, huh?

Pictures of the assembly.

11.5" barrel.

Being installed.


Adding the gas tube.

The beginning and the end:


UPDATE: Range report:
25m Zero.


25m Zero Confirmation. I was aiming at the top '8'.


100m Confirmation. I think I screwed up when I used the short range aperture for the zero. I will have to take her out again and check with it zeroed on the 'L' aperture.


Charlotte Is Changed

She started as a 1969ish M16 (R604).


She's now a later pattern M16A1, just like the one I first fired in Basic.


This led to a shot of the recreations of the rifles I served with.


The pristine slick-side upper is going to be part of Sabrina now. The more beat-up slick side is now back on Brunhilda.


30 September 2009

McDonald vs Chicago Has Been Granted Cert

SCOTUS is poised to hear a second amendment case based on 14th amendment grounds.

I'm all tingly.

29 September 2009

Kim Du Toit Is Back?

Oh joy.

I do not understand the fans. He said some things that I agreed with, and said it very well. But when I didn't agree, he was 180 off. That was running at about an 80% disagree ratio at the end when he "retired".

I speculated that he would not be gone long; and look, he's coming back.

Pardon me if I don't get all giddy, but except for the guns he just doesn't speak for me.

Weer'd Beard commented thusly at 1423 29Sep09:

I stopped reading him a few months before his last "retirement". So much blather about hanging journalists and politicians and all that just gets me rolling my eyes.
He reminds me of the Threepers saying "If you infringe on our rights we will start a revolution"....but happily waiting for the NICS transfer of their 14" BBL M4Gery with the ATF approved pinned flash hider to make that BBL the required 16"....and looking idly by as I'm not allowed to buy that gun because Mass still has the AWB among other shitty laws.
look either you're going to start a revolution or your all talk. Kim is a well spoken and wise man, and has also written many a great post that I enjoyed....but frankly when a fat man sitting in his home with his gout foot put up prattling on about "revolution" OVER and OVER again, I get a little sick of the shit.
And that's before he starts talking down to the women shooters!
Yeah I won't bother with him anymore, but I wish him and Connie the best of luck.

28 September 2009

On The Murdered US Census Worker

I am afraid I have the same callous response to this as to the police complaining that their job is dangerous.

Bill Sparkman was not murdered for any of the laundry list of exemplary things he'd done before accepting the job with the Census.

Ponder on that for a moment.

The stain of participation in administering the census ERASED the good works he'd done to that point and he was murdered for that association.

The questions being put forth in the current census are beyond the scope intended by the Constitution. Since it's a crime to refuse to answer the questions, you've backed some people into a corner about breaking the law. Murder is breaking the law and there's a good chance of not getting caught; refusing to answer the census taker's questions has 100% of being caught since the agent of the state is at your house and talking to you.

Unintended consequences indeed.

I am sorry you were murdered Mr. Sparkman. I am even more sorry that the people who murdered you were not angry at you in particular, but some faceless government official in a distant office.

Just like a police officer, the anger is fomented by the legislatures and aimed at the executive branch's lowest rungs. Just like a police officer, you need to appraise yourself of this situation and weigh the risk. If you accept the job, you do not get to use the "following orders" defense.

There may well come a time when the bottom level functionaries, the people who have to deal with the common citizen, will have to refuse to carry out the orders of their superiors or be killed with them. It may even come to pass that the functionaries will have to have resigned long before the shooting starts to be spared.

It would be far better for the people responsible for this mess to fix things while there is still time to stop it. I desperately hope the soap and ballot boxes have the power left in them.

UPDATE
Or he's just another victim of our war on some drugs and refusal to secure the damn border with Mexico and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In which case, the motives for killing him were entirely different and my position is less valid about this case.

P.S.
Notice that this post is not gone down memory hole when new facts are presented. Truth is there is not a lot of solid evidence about this case in the public yet and the speculation that some right wing group did it to avoid participating in the census had great traction. I need to find my hook-remover...

P.P.S.

Hrrrmmmmm....

John F. Kennedy was the first President of the United States who was also Catholic. A great deal was made of it at the time.

John F. Kennedy is also the last Catholic to hold that office.

Barack H. Obama is the first President of the United States who is also black. A great deal is being made of it.

Will history repeat in other interesting ways?

This One's For You Robb

I am officiating a friend's wedding.

By only renting the tuxedo top, shirt, vest and tie I am saving $50 over other members of the wedding who have chosen to wear pants.

27 September 2009

Gun Pr0n? You Want Gun Pr0n?

12" Seacoast Mortar: Model 1890 M-1 at Ft Desoto.

The guns were made in the Watervleit Arsenal in Watervleit, New York and the mounts were made by the American Hoist and Derrick Company of St. Paul, Minnesota. 


Here's the breech end. The recoil mechanisms on all four guns have been removed and the gun is being held up by the recuperation springs. Minimum depression is 45˚ and maximum is 75˚, the gun recoiled down into a pit under the mount (which has been covered in deck-plate).


The breech blocks are also missing.


These are not small guns.


At one point there were 8 of these mortars at Ft Desoto. In 1917 4 of them were moved to Ft Rosecrans in California. The four at Ft Desoto are now the only ones remaining in the United States. There are four others on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines.

http://ww2panorama.org/panos/1fung_mortars.html (Quicktime panorama)