The Deadline Looms

The semi-automatic rifle ban amendment doesn't appear to have gotten the traction that BAWN had hoped.

As of 30Jan20, it sits at 144,646 according to Ballotpedia.

It also looks like the ballot initiative to make these things more difficult is going to make it.

Already passing muster are ballots that increase automation minimum wage to $15 an hour, banning non citizens from voting and a top-two open primary.

The top two open primary is the really dangerous thing.  It's a democrats win forever system of eliminating good Republican candidates.

Exploded For Sendarius

This is p/n 24236106 all blowed up.

#7 is the front bearing and it lives in the very front of the tube (to the left).

#19 are the rear bearings and they sit entirely inside #24 at the opposite end.

#14 is about 4' long and is unsupported but there's a rubber snubber in the middle to keep flexing from getting out of hand.

I Had Coffee

It has been said that diet is "die with tea".

Thanks to my mass reduction program I now know that my bagel and cream-cheese is 270 calories.

This is less than my fried egg sandwich's 446.

I am kind of upset that I know this.

I am also kind of shocked to see how fast one hits that "we'd like to see you around 1,500 to 1,700 calories a day."

Tricked The System

The complete torque tube assembly for The Shitbox Precious is p/n 24236106.

GM Parts Giant lists it for $1,102.58.  They show the retail price as $1,727.10.

There's a seller on ebay who has a new one for $1,186.97 shipped.

One could swap out a torque tube over a weekend with only a moderate level of thrashing.

The p/n 19132932 is just the tube.

What is interesting is the $1,102.58...

This is items 2-28 on the diagram.

Item 4 is the tube listed above.  $689.84.

Item 7 is the bearing I think has gone bad.   12456210, $78.65.

Item 8 is the splined input shaft.  89060061, $499.45.

Item 12 are the two rubber couplings that connect the input and outputs to the driveshaft.  88894026, $130.11 each.

Item 14 is the actual drive shaft.  89060059, $918.50.

Item 17 is the output flange.  89060063, $204.09.

Item 19 are the other two bearings.  12456221, $74.30 each.

Just those parts, which are included in the assembly, total: $2,799.35.  I feel like I did when I discovered you could buy a pallet of 4 Impala SS rims with center caps for less than the price of one rim shipped.

The three bearings and two couplers I need are $487.47.  Then figure out the disassembly and reassembly.

There's some parts needed to rebuild it that have been discontinued.  That's a problem.  The three o-rings probably aren't a problem, but the slinger might be.

Just 2.43 times more than the parts to rebuild, I could have the whole thing.

I must think on this.

Deleted The App Today

Service at the closest Chick-fil-A was so bad today I cancelled my mobile order once all three outside order takers ignored me.

Service at the Mitchell Ranch location has been getting steadily worse to the point where the juice is no longer worth the squeeze.

While good, they're not worth driving any farther than that location and the service used to be one of the reasons I'd go there, as opposed to other fast food assembly lines.

Your Cell Phone Has A Camera Good Enough

Dear all the car parts businesses, new and used,

Take a fucking picture of the part from several angles.

Post those fucking pictures in your ad.

That way when a potential customer is trying to figure out if it's part of the assembly they need or the actual assembly they can see it.

Today's example GM 19132932 which may also be AC/Delco 24236106.

But since nobody seems to want to post a picture, I can't tell if those are the part numbers for an empty torque tube or the complete assembly with bearings, shafts, and etc.

Ebay ads think those are complete assemblies, but that could be because they're reading the sticker.  That sticker sometimes lies about the part number of assemblies.

Moron Camera

Should that be moron has more on cameras?

I know just enough about photography and cameras to know that I don't know shit about cameras and photography.

This is a place where my falling out with Tam hurts because she's prolly forgotten more than I'll ever learn about the subject.  Perhaps she's reading this right now and thinking, "HA! I knew that idiot would regret it!"

I have what I call a minimum feature set for whatever camera I select.

Foremost is an articulated screen that can be used to take pictures and not just review them.  This feature is now common.

I want a mirrorless camera because with the live view screen, it seems better to ditch the mechanical complexity of the mirror box.

It turns out this is still being debated.

Cost, as always, is a big factor but saving money on the body essentially just means a discount on the first lens.  Sucking it up and getting a better body from the get-go sounds like the better plan.

Which makes me wonder if I should be saving much longer and getting a high-end EOS R (body only) for $1,800 instead of an entry level like like the EOS M50 (with a lens) for $600.

Both have adapters for the common EF/EF-S lenses...

Considering that I'm struggling with the idea of buying a $600 camera, it's prolly out of the question for me to drop triple that.

It's bothersome that if I get the M50 and decide that I want a more capable camera, and wish to stay mirrorless, then all the M series lenses will be useless for the RF series that the EOS R uses; though I would be able to keep any EF-S lenses I'd accumulated.

I just don't know.  I might not like a swapable lens camera as much as I think I will.

Adding To The Want List

I also need want two 16", mid-length gas, pencil-weight barrels.

One to finish up Lavender Linda who was raided for parts at least twice.

One to convert Valentine from 6.8 to 5.56.

Plus all the minor bits associated.

Priority

While I don't need it...

I want a new camera way more than I want a Ruger PC-9.

I've got my sights set on a Canon M50.

It's $600 that could easily be put towards any number of other things.

"Want" does not care about "need".

I need a quote on my torque tube bearings.

I need to get the patio roof fixed.

We're getting there.

Damn You Magpul!

Ever since Marv got his Kel-Tec Sub-2000 I've had a mild hankering for a pistol caliber carbine of my own.

An SBR Colt AR 9mm leading the wish list for no solid technical reason.

Ruger's PC-9 has some appeal because I already stock Glock 17 magazines for the Glock 17 and 45.

It was simply too damn ugly to commit to.

Magpul has announced a back-packer stock set for the PC-9 which helps a lot in the looks department and lets you stow your barrel in the buttstock.

TFB article on that.

It's the silly 50 round drum that's giving the lust particles an extra shove.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

There's things I need more than a PCC and need before it.

If I say it enough, will it work?

Success

The Boston butt came out great, and is nearly gone...

I'm liking this Instant Pot thing.

Interesting

Both Palmetto State Armory and Century Arms announced an AK-74 clone at SHOT.

Makes one wonder if 5.45 is going to be a lot more available than it's been recently.

Branching Out

I noticed that my Instant Pot has a slow cook button.

Citrus Boston butt cooking right now.

Too Soon?

What did Kobe Bryant know about Hillary Clinton?

That's as moving a eulogy as you're going to get out of me for any sportsball player.

Instypotting

Giving this recipe a try.

Fingers crossed.

Instant Pot is the Apple of cookware.  Very limited instructions to go with lots of capability.

Age Of Wonders

Reading Si Graybeard's post.

We live in an age of wonders.

My late 1968 birthdate saved me.  I was over two months premature.

The only way to save a baby who came out that early was to put them in an oxygen tent just a few months before the new procedures used on me were invented.

An ex-girlfriend of mine is blind from that oxygen tent and she's barely a year older.

My mother in law has a messed up leg from polio.  That contributed to her fall last year and a shattered knee and shoulder we're still scheduling surgeries to fix.

That we can schedule surgeries to fix her shoulder and knee are part of this age of wonders.

100 years ago, if you were a woman it depended on where you lived whether you got to vote.

200 years ago, if you were a woman, it was unlikely you could own real property.

50 years ago a 436 horsepower car could be purchased.  They still exist and we would not call them "driveable" today.  Their brakes are very weak because the cam required with the displacement needed adds up to little or no vacuum to help the pedal.  They use carburetors to mix the fuel with the air and get atrocious mileage.  If you're foolish enough to run the air condition in temperatures that warrant using air conditioning when the traffic is stop and go, you'll overheat the engine.  With depressing regularity you had to adjust the points on the mechanical distributor or your mechanical advance would stop working correctly.

Even if all this is working as designed, the way carbs mix the air and fuel caused the oil to be washed off the side of the cylinder walls and if an engine lived to see 50,000 miles it was a miracle.

Today, 436 horses runs in Florida with the AC at full blast, gets 20 miles per gallon with stop and go traffic, doesn't overheat and doesn't even need tuned for over 200k miles!  You will have to replace the spark plugs at 100k or so...

That fuel wash-down thing I mentioned?  That meant the piston rings needed to be looser in the bores, so there was a lot more blow-by from the power stroke and you needed to change the oil every 3,000 miles if driving in town, and 5,000 if doing nothing but highway miles.

Using full synthetic oils means you can go up to 15,000 miles between changes.

I like this age of wonder.  I won't go back even to when I was born!

Discounted Advice

Just like not consulting France when asking "how do you defeat Germany?", I think we can discount advice from people living where gun rights are virtually non-existent as to how to fight the battles to secure our rights.

Discount, not ignore.

Because if the advice is, "here's what we tried that didn't work," that's useful.

But if they're advising you to do the same thing they did that failed...  They're really anti-gun and you should treat them as agents of our opponents and not the allies they claim to be.

Likewise, ignore people from your own geography parroting the same advice.

I Blame Open Carry

The outbreak of novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China has 1,422 confirmed infections and 42 deaths.

While that seems scary, that's just 3% fatality and it's hardly anyone has caught it.

Compare this with Spanish Flu that had a 10-20% fatality rate or Ebola which averages 50%.

For a wonder, it looks like China is actually sealing up the areas where the infection is concentrated.

I don't think we need to panic yet.

T-Shirt Idea

Picture of a cricket.

"Official Mascot of WWIII 2020"

Holster Drama

I wandered over to Tam's to see what she's up to.

She's fisking Aesop over his affection to the drop-leg holster, especially for in the car.

The topic of IWB holsters and pinching and binding came up.

Dude.

NEVER tell someone who wears a bra about pinching and binding being something that's never acceptable.

I'm reliably informed there's just not any form of carry that's less comfortable than a bra.

But...

For the car.

I think I agree that a drop leg is going to slam my elbow into the seat back with the gun half drawn.  I'd like to add that something hanging on my leg and hitting the center console would get old fast.  Plus, it's open carry and not suitable for Florida at this time.

I don't IWB on the strong side because Chevy didn't leave room for anything between my ass and the center console but the seatbelt latch.

I don't appendix carry because my gut is a massive retention device.  I really should fix that.

I do carry in a shoulder holster when it's cool enough to do so.  Florida's heat limits when you can get away with wearing enough to cover such a rig.

I have a brilliant IWB cross draw holster that I carry from time to time.  The good belt that held it well died and I simply haven't replaced it.  This is fine with a t-shirt in full Florida summer and for some damn reason Chevy left lots of room for a gun between my ass and the door's arm-rest.

I pocket carry (in a pocket holster) in the summer a lot too.

More Mixmaster

Went through Marv's M1911A1 today and ID'd all the components.

1944 Remington-Rand Frame
1943+ Remington-Rand Slide
Type 1 wide Colt 1911 hammer (1911 to 1914)
44-45 Remington-Rand mainspring housing
Colt M1911A1 safety
High Standard barrel
Coltwood 1 left grip
Keyes Fiber 5564063 right grip
Late, punched spring plug
Late spring guide
Rev-6 rear sight
43-45 Remington-Rand stamped trigger
Post WW2 grip safety
Type-3 magazine release
43-45 Remington-Rand slide stop

My ID session is here, for comparison.

How's This For Nostalgia

I had a "I can't believe I saved these!" moment.

Right before we turned in our M1911A1's there was an attempt made to get all of them running with what resources could be applied at the battalion level.

Old 1164935 got new stocks as a part of this.  For some reason I pocketed the old ones.

For some reason, I hung onto them for the past 30 years.

While looking for something completely unrelated to guns I stumbled across them.

On a lark, I've put them on my CMP M1911A1.

That, there, is genuine wear from a main battle tank's hatch coaming!

Happy JMB Day!

Happy 165th birthday, Mr Browning!

I know I've gotten a lot of enjoyment from your inventions.

Out of respect for your Mormon beliefs, I will restrain from toasting you with an adult beverage and sip some water.

OCD It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore

Drawn in AutoCAD, exported to pdf, screenshotted for here.

FuzzyGeff has the best quote, "Not nearly as artsy as the book map, but far more useable as a, you know, map."

Part of the artsy map I augmented and replaced...

It's fuzzy in the original pdf too.  We spent too much time squinting and zooming with this included map; so I made a clearer version.

Old hands will recognize I reverted back to the LBB system of showing the worlds.

It's clear.  Why wouldn't you want clear?

Gun LARPing No Longer OK

Yeah, it's just black people who're allowed to carry their AR openly.

Everyone else is now part of "The Derp Brigade".

Oh. Well.

It didn't take long for him to revert back to form.

Gun LARPing Now OK

Some folks who're openly packing AR's in Richmond yesterday have been lauded by a blogger who formerly described the practice as "idiotic gun LARPing".

While the optimist in me hopes this is a change in his position on the topic...

The pessimist suspects that it's either far enough from his backyard it doesn't affect him OR that the people he was lauding were black.

If it's the latter, that's racist.

He can't even take a, "well it's different when minorities do it," stance because the individual is the smallest minority.

Glutton For Punishment

The map that came with Interstellar Wars contains most of the Sol Sector, aka The Solomani Rim.

The subsectors coreward and trailing were omitted.

Lord knows I have the world locations for them.

But while the physical world will be the same, it IS almost 3,500 years from the date of the ISW campaign to the normal LBB Traveller era.

Things will have changed.

Look how much England has changed since -1500!

It's a double whammy.

I have to convert from Traveller, sometimes between versions of Traveller, to get the numbers in a digestible format; then convert them to the ISW format.

It's a slog.

I'm also going to the effort of changing the name from those applied during the Rule of Man and generating Vilani for them.

AND I am making a map with AutoCAD because the one included in the game is just not big enough and the stupid background makes it hard to read.

LBB rocked for clarity.

Jinxing It

So far, so good.

No violence at the Richmond rally and what news I've caught is not calling us names.

They sure sound disappointed that there hasn't been violence and there aren't "white nationalists" to focus on.

They are mentioning the death in Charlottesville two and some years ago every chance they get, but that's from their hate, not from our actions or anyone who showed up.

There's people open carrying lawfully, which means they are carefully outside the exclusion zone.

All the photos of them so far have them being smiling and friendly.

While the day ain't over yet, I am cautiously optimistic that we're not going to have the riot that several "pro-gun" people predicted.

So far, I haven't seen the guaranteed slander they predicted either.

Fingers crossed.

Update:

Looking outside my normal news haunts and find that CBS post about the rally went live at 0737 this morning under the headline, "Credible threats of violence as pro-gun rally is held in Richmond, FBI says."

It got an update at 0758 and that's all CBS has to say about it today.

What they wanted didn't happen.

Travel(ler) Mug

If you're a Traveller fan, you know what's on my beer glass.

That's "The Other West Coast" hazy IPA from Escape Brewing just up the road in Trinity.

Get Your Manipulators Off Me You Damn Greasy Bot

Beans points out that in LBB Book 8: Robots, it specifically mentions robots being used as navigators.

Mentioned almost in passing as they explain that some robots don't need any kind of motive system because they're built into a ship.

There's a 'navigate' application which allows a robot to perform the task.

Because we'd been playing almost ten years by the time Book 8 came out, we kind of ignored robots.

I think were kind of trying to avoid making our Traveller game Star Wars and didn't want C-3PO and R2-D2 to take over the game.

As we got older and science fiction changed, we were also dodging the "why no cyberwear" question too, and if the robots are sufficiently sophisticated, then cyberwear just naturally makes sense.

LBB jump:

Someone (or something) with Navigate skill reads the sensors and instruments then inputs data into the Generate program.  This creates a flight plan.

The Navigation program is run and the flight plan is inputted.

The Jump program is run alongside the Navigation program and the jump takes place.

It's probably it's 1977 roots showing as to why the instrument and sensor readings are being performed manually by a crewman rather than being automatically fed into the computer using the Generate program.

In effect, bolting a robot with the navigate application unto the navigator's station does automate the inputs to Generate, but it's still using the interface that a human would use.

But it's 2020, not 1977 (or 1986) now...

Computers no longer take up rooms.  If a complex task can be automated, it will be.

I needed a reason for there to be a crewed position doing the navigation job that wasn't just cultural, because all the major races have manned navigation stations.  Even the Hiver.

Come to think on it, why is there a meat pilot for most of the trip?  Even today there's very little for a pilot to do in space launches, everything is computer controlled and automated.

In effect, the ship should be a huge robot.

I might be making some paradigm shifts in the required skills to operate things for my GURPS 4e Traveller: Interstellar Wars.

Computer Operation/TL9 or TL10 is what you'd need to generate a flight plan and make jump calculations.  The ship's computer would then execute those calculations to fly to the jump point and make the jump.

Piloting/TL9 or TL10 (High-Performance Spacecraft) would be manually flying the ship.  There's rarely a need to do this.  I can see a cultural attachment to having a qualified pilot for routine work.  What if something goes wrong?  Even if that something happens so rarely that books and films get made about it because of its rarity.

The Hiver would abandon meat operation wherever possible.

Navigation/TL9 or TL10 (Hyperspace) would be the skill to manually calculate the jump using sensor readings and reading instruments.  Measuring star angles and looking up planet positions in a database and such.

I've a bit to think about.

Precision

"That's impossible, even for a computer!"

Turns out, it IS impossible for a computer, though a navigation computer is an essential part of hyperspace navigation in Traveller.

No matter the tech level, a navigator is required to roll against their navigation skill.

In GURPS: Traveller (3e) this is Astrogation.
In Traveller: Interstellar Wars (4e) this is Navigation/TL (Hyperspace).
In LBB Traveller it was Navigation.

All three versions mention the programs needed to be loaded into the computer to make a jump.

The question is: Why does there need to be meat in the loop?

GURPS has Computer Operation/TL for operating a computer, but doesn't call for this skill to run the navigation program.

The pilot is not called on to make a roll with any penalties, so it must be simple and easy to get the ship where it needs to be and pointed in the right direction.

In my Traveller universes, it's because the nav-comp is actually a psionic device.

A jump is a mechanical process.  You align the ship very precisely to be pointed at the destination system.  If there is no mass large enough to precipitate the ship out of jump-space along the line the ship is pointed at the distance the drive is set for... you spend a week in jump-space and go nowhere.

Space is big and a 100 diameter sphere around a star is small, very small.

Because jump travel is routine and reliable... and the precision needed to aim mechanically is very high...  Something besides mechanical aiming must be going on.

That's the nav-comp.  The navigator uses the main computer to generate a flight plan and the navigation program uses this, positional data and sensor data to calculate the jump which is fed into the nav-comp.

The nav-comp is actually part of the jump drive.  It's reading what the navigator meant and that adds precision to the jump that's not evident in the precision of aiming the ship.

What this implies is there are disadvantages which preclude someone from using the nav-comp, or even learning the requisite skills.

Fallacy

Stating that something existed in a lesser form before something else makes it worse does not invalidate the argument that something made it worse.

There's probably a named debate fallacy for this.  What's the name for, "You're wrong because of a reason that doesn't actually prove you wrong"?

Example from a deleted comment (paraphrased):

Because the mafia existed before prohibition, prohibition did not make them larger and more powerful.

Because some euphoric drugs were illegal before prohibition or the war on drugs, the small gangs did not grow into large cartels.

Making drunk driving illegal changed people's behavior, therefore prohibition must have been effective.

These three "arguments" were contained in a multi-paragraph meander that didn't actually refute what I had posted, but did manage to tangent but hard.

What do the rules say about going off on a tangent?

Ballot Initiative Not Doing Well

To make the ballot, a constitutional initiative must cross two barriers.

It needs valid signatures that number more than 8% of the number of people who voted last election statewide.

AND

At least 14 of the 27 congressional districts must also get more than 8% of their voters to sign off on it.

The Ban Assault Weapons Now initiative is not clearing either bar.

In the 53 weeks it's been gathering signatures, it stands at 138,467 of the 766,200 signatures needed with a mere two weeks to go...

Passing that law to reduce signature collection fraud seems to have worked!

So far only three of the MANY proposed amendments have made the ballot, that's a huge change from last election and it shows how few of these things have been pushed from local demands.

100+

100 years ago, yesterday, Prohibition went into effect.

It marks one of the first national attempts to ban something to get people to change their behavior.

Like most roads to Hell, it was paved in good intentions.

Not only did it even slow down people's drinking, it changed local gangsters into regional, and in some cases, national criminals.

Criminals who would murder each other to obtain and maintain market share.  Criminals who, in the course of their conflicts, inflicted massive collateral damage on anyone in the area.

When it became clear that prohibition's unintended consequences were too large and worse than the drinking (which was unaffected by it) they repealed prohibition...

But the monster they created in the Mafia remained.

Slow clap.

The parallels with the war on drugs are many.

Local criminals are now multinational cartels.

Multinational cartels who will retain the wealth and power they accumulated thanks to the creation of a lucrative black market.

By the way, drug use is largely unaffected by its being illegal.

Gee, Don, Ya Think

Trump says Second Amendment is 'under very serious attack' in Virginia ahead of gun-rights rally

Let's file this under, "no shit, Sherlock!"

Where the fuck have you been the past... my entire life, Don?

More specifically, what have you done for gun rights since you were elected?

I'm racking my wee little brain for something you've done for us and I'm not finding anything.

Related:

Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!

Except, Don, we tried that here in Florida.  Supermajority both houses, governor...  Got more gun control.

Then there's what you did "for" us with bump-stocks.

Little Things

It's the small things that drive one nuts from time to time.

Lego 75153 is an AT-ST from Rogue One.

Lego 75254 is an AT-ST from The Mandalorian.

When I put them side by side, it was obvious that 75254 was closer to the "real deal" in stance and structure.

The problem with using 75254 to represent an Imperial AT-ST was it being "Mad-Maxed" by Klatooinian raiders, so there'd have to be a LOT of finding of the correct color parts to convert the kit back to Imperial Army gray.

Lego 75201 is a partially destroyed AT-ST from The Last Jedi.

75201 has almost the same legs as 75254, but in the desired light gray!

Alas!  75201 has a stance problem as well, but it's easily fixed.  Substitute a couple of bricks from the bin and move the rear leg attachment point back half a stud and viola!

Now I have a more correct Imperial AT-ST from kit-bashing the legs from 75201 with the turret/head from 75153.

75254 on the left, kit bash on right.

The difference in angle is slight, but very noticeable with it fully assembled.

You And Your Emergency Vacc Suit

A real spacer is going to be wearing their skin-tight and their only concern in an emergency decompression is where their helmet is.

If they're surprised, they're going to pull their flexible space helmet from the pocket dedicated for it.

They're also going to dive for that skin-tight should they be caught in the shower or something.

But not everyone is a spacer, let alone a real spacer.

They let their guard down and wear just clothes aboard ship.

In the event of a real surprise explosive decompression, there's the rescue bubbles (see Ultra-Tech p.77)... but you can't do much more than wait for rescue from inside one.

An emergency vacc suit is halfway between a skin-suit and a rescue bubble.

They're closely related to what's, derisively, referred to as a tourist suit.

It's a baggy coverall until you add power.  Then its liner compresses and it becomes a counter-pressure vacc suit.  It stays fitted to the wearer until power is applied again, so a dead battery doesn't doom you.

It's the equivalent to a TL9 or 10 civilian vacc suit, but lacks almost all of the controls a spacer expects.  Temperature?  Preset.  Mixture?  Preset.  Pressure?  Preset.

It's not a working suit.

It's to save your life, or to keep a tourist from fiddling with the controls and killing themselves.

It's less flexible and more cumbersome than a normal civilian suit.  -1 to DX and DX based skills.

Both the tourist and emergency suits comes with a bubble helmet at TL9, with the emergency suit getting a flexible space helmet at TL10 (see Ultra-Tech p.180).  Both include the appropriate TL small air tank (see Ultra-Tech p.176).

TL9 tourist or emergency suit is DR 4* $7,000, 37 lb. running on 2C for 24 hours.  4 hours of air.
TL10 tourist suit is DR 4* $7,000, 37 lb. running on 2C for 24 hours.  6 hours of air.
TL10 emergency suit is DR 4* $5,500, 32.5 lb. running on 2C for 24 hours.  6 hours of air.

It's Vice But

This is potentially good news.

Antifa is one of the groups I was most worried about starting shit with VCDL.

If they're actually joining the protest against the laws...

That's something.

Eyes crossed.

What Could Go Wrong

Found an animation for taking apart the FN/Browning 1903 aka Husqvarna m/07.



Seems easy enough to get the slide and frame stripped down for rust removal and conservation.

Keeping track of the pieces while it's apart...  That should be simple too.

Cities WIll Burn

They will?

All we got to do to get our opposition to burn where they live is to vote like we were going to vote anyway?

Don't throw me in the briar patch Brer Eric.

Fake News

Virginia Dems drop AR-15 Confiscation.

Wasn't the "pro-gun" blogosphere just talking about the only thing that could result from showing up at the capitol was being called racists?

Didn't they say it was certain that the media would only report on the Klan robes and Nazi flags?

Didn't they say to not go to the capitol because of that?

Hmmmmmm.

Almost as if they were completely wrong.

Just remember how wrong they were when you read their opening paragraphs insulting everyone who did show up and got something accomplished.

Alright Who Open Carried And Wore A Klan Robe

Or... barring that open carry causes all gun control and there wasn't a rally where every gun owner was reported to be a card-carrying Nazi...

Who's a rent-boy for Mike Bloomberg?

Bill Galvano?

I want you to note that even without a rally where racists show up and the press focus on them, white nationalism gets mentioned with the gun control bill.

To the media, they are identical.

Cowering from the media will not change that.

I guess the good news is barely 200 of over 3,000 bills ever make it through Florida's legislative process and The Florida House has not yet bothered making a companion bill.

Also of note: the "we're fucked for sure, no doubt, no escape" constitutional amendment ballot initiative that will ban every semi-auto barely has 1/6th the total number of signatures, and is missing most of the districts, needed to get on the ballot.

Gun control isn't popular.

Gun control, however, has big money for politicians; and money makes the world go 'round.

Repeat after me:  It's the money, not people open carrying.  It's the money, not that there's racists out there.  It's the money.

That money makes it very hard to get the word out, because it buys radio and tv stations.  It buys the places on the internet where we can talk and keeps our voices from going past our own screens.

What good does it do to preach if only the choir can hear?

Bad Drivers

The Snowbirds are, by and large, careful drivers.

Let's face it, they're old and want to hang out in the waiting room a bit longer before realizing their life of avarice and sin did not lead to Heaven.

Being careful among the normal Florida driver makes you screw up the flow.

Florida drivers are, by and large, not good drivers.

My recent post about how DamnYankee Mainers thinking being called a Yankee was a compliment wasn't an endorsement of the typical Florida driver, but rather frustration at being able to scream an appropriately insulting obscenity at the offender.

If we're going to talk about shitty drivers with an utter lack of awareness and ability to participate in traffic flow and navigate while driving...

Seattle, Minneapolis and Atlanta (in order from worst to "best") take the cake, hands down, from my experience.  I even say this after being able to read all of The Lord of the Rings in six sittings in the back of a cab going from my per diem hotel to a CIA vault near DC.

The worst of the Snowbird drivers here are from Canada.  We have a lot of them from Quebec and Ontario.  It seems like nobody tells them that the traffic laws are completely different here than back home; like the US is a different country, or something, with its own laws and customs.

Christmas Is Just Around The Corner

Not sure where I'd put it...

Unfair Line Of Questioning

The nurse at the VA always asks if I've had suicidal thoughts or wondered if the world would be better off without me.

It's patently unfair to ask that question around Christmas!

EVERYONE wonders if the world would be better off without them with Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life and Scrooged running in near constant rotation!

Research

If you leave your Husqvarna m/07 in an unsealed plastic "ammo can", in its holster, outside in Florida humidity...

You get a rusted Husqvarna m/07.

Dammit!

The guilty party has been chastised for their actions.

So I am doing the research to find out how to detail disassemble it and conserve it.

C&Rsenal's sub-channel Anvil is guiding the way.

It looks like, once you get it apart, you wire brush off the big chunks of rust, boil all the oils out of the part, hang it in a steam bath to convert the remaining rust from one kind of iron oxide to another, coat in a rust bluing solution, put it in a hot swamp box, steam bath again then take a carding wheel to it.

Simple!

It looks straight forward enough.

I'm going to give it a try.

It Doth Cut On The Return Stroke As Well

At the end of the day, in Florida, 2nd Amendment sanctuaries will be declared null and void because they're local gun laws and the state has a preemption on such.

The preemption law is successful in keeping local law from being worse than the state laws, but it also means that you can't make your local laws better than state law.

Preemption cuts both ways, but this might be the first time I've seen it cut against the pro-gun side.

Of course, the sanctuary being nullified by Tallahassee doesn't mean that the local sheriff or police chief is going to go out and enforce those laws they find abhorrent...

There's a preemption from the state capitol over illegal immigrant sanctuaries too that's being flagrantly ignored.

They Think It's A Compliment

So, you've got the top off and are enjoying the 82˚ weather in balmy Florida in January when this fucking snowbird slings across two lanes of traffic to get in front of you to be fifteen under...

You start to curse their DamnYankee ass when you see that Maine plate.

You now experience the frustration of using more conventional insults because someone from Maine has no idea that being a Yankee is something to be ashamed of.

Even the Massholes know this one... but not Mainers.

Break One Thing...

I mentioned that I hurt my back lifting the other day.

Today I go to put on my shoes and noticed that I didn't have to lift my leg with my hand, like I've been doing for a few months.

My left hip has been sore for a while and range of motion had been reduced at least as far as lifting my leg under its own power was concerned.

Now that I've hurt my back, my muscles can lift it again?

Another explanation is the elimination of fried food and polyunsaturated fat from my diet has reduced my girth a little bit and just enough to clear the hip problem.

I don't own a scale, so I can't check.

It's Because They Hate Us

"There is no cause so righteous that one cannot find a fool following it."

"There is no cause so foolish that one cannot find the righteous following it."

I've been reading that people shouldn't show up to protest Virginia's impending legislative session because there might be racists there who will be depicted as mainstream gun owners.

As if we aren't already?

Being afraid of this means you're afraid of the press.

They hate us.  They aren't going to depict us any differently than if the racists stay home.

Face it and stop worrying about what they think about you and what they say about you.

And for fuck's sake, start standing up to the pricks.

Come to think of it, start standing up to the fucking racists who show up to hijack the event.

After hearing about the Klan robes and Nazi flags that were at a Tea Party rally I actually attended; I am coming to doubt that the racists even show up.  Despite the media reporting, there were no overt racists seen or heard at the rally.

The media lies about it and thus has gained control over your actions with the lie.

I've read that the local rallies are where to do this, but why is a local rally immune to being hijacked but a state capitol rally guaranteed to be misreported and skewed?

Doing the local and state level thing is not mutually exclusive.  Hold ALL of your elected official's feet to the fire.

Never mind that it's not the media or the people who mindlessly get their opinions from them we are attempting to reach.

It's to plant a tiny seed in the minds of the legislature and governor.

"Holy fuck!  What if they came with guns with no intention of being peaceful?"

To demonstrate, in person, enough people to overwhelm their meager security can and will show up.

Show them that their liars cannot frighten you away.

Stop worrying about what might happen, and start dealing with what does happen.

Because if you don't bother showing up, they can safely ignore you.  They will have a secure datum that the threat of misreporting of racism can make you quit and stay home.

Why should they worry about people so easily swayed?

PS: Also consider that overt racists showing up to give the press something to look at, don't even have to be actual members of the purported groups.  Their regalia is well known and easily made or acquired.  This is another reason to stand up to them and whenever a camera is pointed at the overt racists, there's also someone from our team confronting them and demanding they leave.

PPS: Opening up your posts by savagely insulting anyone and everyone who would dare try to attend a rally at the state capitol didn't convince anyone to listen to you.  It made them more determined to go, just to spite you.  It's how you get called "pro-gun" because you keep driving a wedge between people who are otherwise like-minded, but are using different methods to achieve the goals.  Sometimes I think you don't care about the goals as long as everyone is in ISO:9000 compliance with your process.

PPPS: Make up your fucking minds "pro-gunners", you've been whinging for years that nobody bothers to show up to the rallies at the capitols and now that it looks like people might show up in numbers you're advocating staying home?

I Think We've Found A Post

Marv and I poked our noses into the local American Legion post.

Very busy, very friendly.

Now to lure Bubba into visiting and rejoining.

He needs some people his age to hang out with.

Florida Off To A Slow Start

The 2nd Amendment Sanctuary Movement is taking root in Florida too!

Red for counties with passed resolutions.

Hope to see more added to this list.

Ineffective

What's an ineffective law?

Defining it as something which fails to eliminate a crime is deciding to fail.

There are people who will commit a given crime regardless of their likelihood of being caught and being punished.

There are people whom will commit a crime even when being caught is certain, because they don't fear the sentence which will be imposed.

That they are breaking the law is irrelevant to them.

Does this mean a law is ineffective because there are still people who will perform the crime?

I don't think so.

To me, an effective law is one which reduces the incidence of a given crime because most people don't want to be punished for committing it.

BUT!

I don't think that any crime that lacks a victim should be a crime at all.

I don't think that any law that's supposed to influence criminal behavior but puts all the burden on the law-abiding should be a law.

To put it in a gun owning context:

Who is victimized if I cut the barrel of a shotgun down to less than 18" and the stock to make it shorter than 26"?

How is a criminal burdened by making me fill out a 4473 when the damn background check only needs my name and address?  Never mind, how is a criminal burdened by making ME pass a background check?

We law abiding folks are definitely deterred from cutting down our shotguns by this law.  We even submit to the kabuki theatre of further background checks and expenditures to remain law abiding when we feel we cannot live without a short barreled shotgun.

We expose ourselves to prosecution for "lying on an official document" from checking the wrong box on a form (or forgetting to answer one).

These things do not burden the criminal.  They interfere in the lives of everyday citizens and are doing so in an ever increasingly intrusive manner.

So far the only beneficiaries are the people collecting our wages as taxes and spending them to make sure we're properly controlled.

It's also stupefying to realize that we're extremely unregulated and free even when compared to other "free" nations.

There's still time to let the soap and ballot boxes work, but we must decide we want to be more free and have more liberty.

It will mean giving up the power to interfere with so many things in others lives from what they eat, to who they fuck to how they raise their kids.

For a long time, we didn't care as a matter of law what everyone else did.  But once you can force your whims about one thing, there's a temptation to go for more, and other will follow your example.

Ever notice how many people chose to live where there's no homeowners association?

Government is like an HOA you cannot move away from and didn't agree to live under.

Prohibited People

How many years have felons been prohibited from possessing firearms under Federal law?

Almost 52.

Most people think it's a lot longer.

Because the list of whom was prohibited was made illegal again under Brady in 1993, some people think it was a lot less than 51 years.

But what good has it done?

Has it really prevented firearms from falling into the hands of the people who are forbidden to own them?

How is a person convicted of felony tax evasion more of a danger with a firearm than someone who's paid their taxes?

It seems routine to hear the news mention that someone who's just shot someone was not only a felon in possession, but their previous conviction(s) contain felonious violence.

I know we've said it before:  Maybe it's time to figure out a means of "if you're not actively institutionalized, you can own a gun," and, "if you're unsafe with a gun, or any weapon for that matter, you should be institutionalized until you ARE safe."

What we have now is an infringement on honest, every day law abiding citizens and worse, it's doing no good.

Heck, we should really be focusing on the repeal of every obsolete or ineffective law.

For example, when was the last time you heard about a mobster getting charged with RICO?

I Love A Happy Ending

Home invader brings home owner a gun to shoot them with.

By the time the cops found the perp, he'd bled out.

Obey the law kids.  You'll live longer.

Remember, a criminal is three times as likely to be shot with their own gun.*

*   Totally not a made up "fact"!  I researched this!  Both cats agree.**
** OK I totally made it up, just like the line I was basing it on.

Hurry Up And Wait

Called the VA about my back pain.

I expressed urgency, but not emergency.

I am not eager to test the "you went to a non-VA emergency room" system.

It's Not All Negative

The local law enforcement does a shit ton correctly and would do Robert Peel proud.

The Boy triggered a training program to deal with people like him.

His second interaction with them was far better handled than his first.

The sheriff was attentive and proactive about what needed to be done with regards to this special segment of the population.

The deputies who arrested me were nice about it.  I am sure my being dazed and cooperative helped with that.

So far there's only been a couple of messed up things with our SWAT team, but I don't think the sheriff's office made it worse.  It's just messed up that the cops come out because someone is threatening to kill themselves and the situation can be forced so the cops kill them.

Ain't much to do about that, unless you want to test that expensive body armor.

There haven't been any no-knock searches with the current sheriff.  They've adopted the "they have to come out sometime" method and have been serving warrants when the suspect isn't barricaded.

Crime is actually pretty low in Pasco.

It's Become Amusing

The cops don't use the spot reserved for them.

They don't have to.

It's better they don't, in fact.

The spot should be given back to the customers.

Demonitized

C&Rsenel has been demonitized by YouTube.

They've also discovered at least one old video has been removed.

I think they're on their way to being deplatformed.

This is an example of the hate I mentioned earlier.

We're never going to get them to not hate us.

The best we can hope for is to get enough power to keep them from silencing us.

We've entered a world where we can be censored because the public square is no longer publicly owned.

"See! It's not the government shutting you up and perfectly legal!"

It's often said as if it's OK.

Wrapped In The Mantle

Dear First Responders:

You play the hero card a lot.

You rarely do anything heroic.

While heroism is exhibited and virtue displayed by some exceptional officers.

How many times have you dodged the expectations of your communities in the name of "officer safety".

How many citizens are dead because of those two words?

A profession with some shreds of decency and honor would never have gone to court to create a ruling that they had no obligation to do the job that The People want done.

Yes, I am bitter about this.

What you get paid is a matter of record, I can go look it up.

Pasco pays $39 to $41 thousand a year for a deputy sheriff, the lowest rank.  That doesn't seem like much, does it?

Full medical, zero out of pocket.  The value of this is jello with a nail in it.  This is, on average, a $40k a year benefit.

No employee contribution pension plan which will pay the full salary and medical upon retirement in as few as 15 years.  This is a near $100k a year benefit if you try matching it with doing the same with a 401k.

So our hapless deputy is really making $179 to $181 thousand a year.

Pasco is also well known for "grossly underpaying" the officers compared to the two counties to the south and has a retention problem because of it.

As far as the dangers of the job go, since its founding in 1887, the Pasco County Sheriff's Department has suffered FIVE deaths in the line of duty.  That's nearly 0.04 deaths per year!

Not Just Tariffs

"Tariffs are a tax on consumers."

All taxes levied on businesses are taxes on consumers.  There is no way of assigning increased costs to a supplier of goods that cannot be passed on to the consumer and end user.

Tariffs are just a tax on imported goods.

Buy domestic and you avoid the tariff.

The founders were very keen on them, in fact.

Steep tariffs on imported goods and virtually none on domestic business encouraged business to make all the goods that the nation needed without reliance on a foreign nation's goodwill towards ours.

We're already seeing the wisdom of such self sufficiency with gas prices barely nudging up when Iran got stroppy.

Lower corporate taxes would, likewise, make it more profitable to make stuff here.  Fixing labor and environmental laws would help too.

And It Was Constantly Predicted

It seems like all of the issues that liberals sell always, ultimately, end up at the most extreme version of whatever the topic is.

Abortion has gotten all the way to killing a child where there's just not much disagreement that it's a child now.

Treating homosexuals like the people they are is becoming the groundwork to normalize child molestation.

Helping people out with their medical bills is leading to the complete elimination of any choices about your health at all.

Wanting people to be safe with their firearms is always moving towards a complete ban.

There are countless other examples.

And they have the temerity to tell us that slippery slopes are fallacies?

WTF?

And lest we get too haughty as conservatives clucking at the excesses of liberals.

I remember when you could make anonymous deposits into anyone's account.  Thanks drug war!

The puritanical streak that comes from currying favor with religious conservatives is ever present.

You Know A Gun Is A Ranged Weapon Right?

I swear I could write an entire series of posts on people who insist that a gun must only be used at knife-fight ranges.

The entire point of ranged weapons is to keep out of range of bigger and stronger assailants.

There are several videos of Krav Maga experts taking out an assailant with a handgun.  Range weapon fail.  Don't get into hand to hand distance with your gun!

Don't let the assailant get that close!

Some of these people who're engaged in health-shaming the old and broken are in for one hell of a surprise someday.

Age does not let anyone escape.

I've a list of friends who were big exercise buffs, working out and keeping fit.  Over and over the story is the same; "I was at the gym and 'something' popped!"  After that pop, they were never able to get back to the level they were at before the popping.  Trying to often led to more "pops".

Now they're just like me!

Also note that when you stop doing a workout that requires 6k calories a day, you need to stop eating 6k calories or you get fat fast.

I'd also like to mention that I'm the culmination of millions of years of evolution that selected for tool using.  To revert to tooth and claw in a fight after becoming a tool-using species is just being stupid.

Thanks to a relatively rough upbringing I've seen lots of fights.  They never go like the person selling the martial arts training says.

Starting Place

I will admit that I am bitter about the ruling that the police are under no obligation to actually do what most of us expect them to do.

Maybe that's where this conversation should start.

What do I, the citizen, expect of the police/sheriff/law enforcement?

First thing I want to make clear.  Law enforcement agencies in the USA are, and must be, the creation of the citizenry.  This may not be true of other nations, but it's certainly true of the US.

The US was supposed to be a bottom-up entity and that was supposed to be at every level on down.

Ironically it's a Brit who coined the core of this for us, and long after the founding.

To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
--Policing Principles #7

In how many places are the public now forbidden by law from assuming their, rightful, duty?

There's a Libertarian concept that applies to the police, because the police are a creation of and employees of The People.

"If it is illegal, immoral or unethical for me to do something, it is likewise illegal, immoral or unethical to hire someone else to do it for me."

Because law enforcement is a delegation of civic power to these full time employees, it means the power comes from The People.  Delegate is not the same word as abdicate.  We did not abdicate this power, we delegated it.

A founding principle of The USA is that the government cannot have any powers that its citizens don't have as individuals.

Why would I delegate my arrest power to an employee of The State?  That employee might be better at it.  That doesn't mean I no longer possess that power.

Word Of Mouth

The reason I went with a shift ball from Twisted ShifterZ rather than the RPI brand model is strongly related to the experience of a friend.

Both companies use a rubber o-ring to provide friction to keep the trim-ring at the top of the shift boot from rotating out of the groove at the top and falling down.

Twisted uses a 2-1/8" ball. Nakid/RPI a 2-1/4".

This might not seem critical, but it makes a huge clearance difference where the trim-ring meets the ball. The smaller ball leaves a bit more space for "squish" of the o-ring and allows the groove to be closer to the ball.

Both companies use the same sized, cheap and readily available o-rings.

The larger ball has to put the ring a little lower, and that changes the relationship of the ball to the ring enough that different size o-rings should be specified.

It also seems apparent that Nakid/RPI is failing to account for tolerances and where a single customer is having an issue and many others aren't: that means they made one wrong. The solution is to exchange it cheerfully and promptly. Business 101.

Insisting that the customer is missing something when the product isn't working... Well, I guess there's a reason that RPI was able to purchase Nakid, huh?

After such a horrible experience with Nakid, I don't think I'd easily risk the near $100 for an RPI knob without a return label and money back guarantee in the box with the second attempt.

They should also take note that the bad experience they describe on the forum caused me to look for a different vendor. Now they're out two sales from one bad part. Possibly more. I certainly wouldn't recommend RPI.

Their experience also got me looking for other dissatisfied customers, and spontaneous fall-apart is a recurring RPI knob problem in the C6. Something I would relay to anyone asking me about after-market knobs for the car.

Because They Will Never Like Us

The picture from this post is why open carry should be legal everywhere.

I noticed the "compliance" with NY's SAFE act in that picture too.

"Oh noes!  We're going to scare people!"  In the case of that photo, scaring people is the entire point.

Deterrence is another way to say "scare someone into inaction".

The thing is:

The anti-gun people will never ever like us.  No matter how low we lay.  No matter how polite we are.  No matter how well we dress.

They will hate us forever.

The Jewish folks in that picture are also dealing with such perpetual hate.

An older hate, but still hate.

It's still astonishing to me how hate consistently gains power.

Hate gives power too.  Gives it away to those who hate better and more fully.

Low Value

"He might not be the most worthless person I've ever met, but he's a child pornography conviction away from tying for the title."

Lest I Be Misunderstood

I am NOT itching for a fight with the powers that be.

What the powers that be, and many on our side, refused to do for far too long was to listen to anyone outside their made-up-their-mind-zone.

Our side avoided the conversation for two main reasons.

First was a hope that if we didn't appear to be extremists, we could open a dialog with the powers and get them to back off and listen.

Second was to not stir up the actual extremists by encouraging them.

The powers that be refused to listen because they don't believe it's ever going to be more than talk.

Well.

I think its time that talk happened because I don't think it was just talk.

Overdone

After we got home from bike practice the soreness in my left hip changed into full blown stabbing pain.

It's radiating from my lower back just below my belt-line and going at a 35 degree angle to the outside of my hip on the leg.

It's most prominent when walking or lifting my left leg into the car.

I'm slathered in my topical pain gel and two drinks into self meds.

If it's just a pulled muscle from moving heavy boxes and doing two doors, this should subside soon if I keep somewhat active.

The joint appears to have no problems moving, so I don't think its the ball and socket.

Brought To You By Your Generousity

This is The Boy's first practice with the trike with the trike that Damocles bought for him.

He's now lapping a girl whom used to proceed at the same pace with his old trike.

He's very pleased with it!

Once again, THANKS! Damocles!

Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwuuuuuuuu

Willard: I'm off to use the men's room.

Me: The women's room is probably cleaner.

FuzzyGeff: What else is new?

Me: Well, he could fix the disparity in cleanliness...

FuzzyGeff: Ick!

Idle Speculation

Is the Liberal problem with fundamental rights entirely because they're called "rights" and not "lefts"?

Impossibility

That is a Stanley brand 3/8 drive, 12 point, 10mm socket.

10mm sockets are ONLY lost!  10mm sockets are never found!

Yet... FuzzyGeff found this one in the street.

I'm not going to say it was aliens; but it was aliens.

A Fracking Dime

The threat of war in the Persian Gulf with Iran has raised the price of gas...

10¢.

One thin dime.

Thanksgiving's travel demand increase did more to the prices than Iran threatening war does.

I don't remember where I read it, "Once our foreign policy hinged on being able to keep the Straits of Hormuz open; now we only have to be able to keep them closed."

I also have to say that after reading about only 11 of 15 missiles even hitting the zip code of an American base and killing only Iraqis...  Iran's mullahs saying they will stop retaliating if we stop retaliating sounds impotent as fuck.

I'm not too worried about war with Iran, we've been at war with them (rather they've been at war with us) since November 4, 1979.

We spanked them decently for Operation Preying Mantis and that was with ordinance that had an alarming tendency to drop off the aircraft and act like a rock.

Their capability to reply has not substantially improved in the past 32 years.

Sure, they can resort to terrorism, but they can ask Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein how that worked out for them once we got moved to do something about their bullshit.

Moar Door

Now our back patio has a door!

It keeps out Marvyns.

 It keeps in Dingus'!

This is another "much harder than it should have been" job.

It's entirely to blame on the standard door size not actually being standard.

My door is a nominal 36" wide, 81" tall.

One standard defines that as 35-7/8" to 36" openings.

Another defines that as 35-1/2" to 36-1/4".

My opening is 35-5/8"

Lowe's does not carry doors for my opening.  Home Depot does.

Go figure.

Bought a different door from Home Depot because the Lowe's model didn't fit my opening.

Very frustrating and time consuming thing.  It's printed on the boxes, in small print that need the reading portion of my glasses to see, and positioned so I can't really get my neck bent that far.

Easy to miss unless you're aware of the issue and are looking for it.

Busy Busy

Everything is taking longer than expected.

During our Road-Kill emulation segment, there was a trailer left behind by a friend who's since passed on.

We had to force entry into the trailer and inventory the contents for distribution and sale.

Florida is hard on things which have no climate control.

Ian had thousands of dollars in precision measuring equipment, carefully arranged in plastic bins.

Now there's a couple dollars of scrap metal because of rust.

It's very sad.

Ian was, apparently, unaware of the concept of a sunk cost fallacy.

Many of his power tools, while fine quality and fully functional... aren't usable in the USA because they're made for British power.  Everything has a BS1363 plug and is rated for their 230v 50hz instead of the (obviously) far superior 120v 60hz power.

Unloading this stuff and making piles of keep, pawn and toss took far longer than expected...

This constant repeating myself does nothing to speed the endeavor.

Are We Really Still Debating This?

There's a thread on Arfcom where someone asked why did we replace the M1911A1 with the M9 and if it was really necessary.

It's going on 30 pages now.

It's simple, really.

The very last M1911A1 left the factory in 1945.

In 1954 the military tried to replace them (S&W's model 39 dates from this) with a 9mm for NATO standardization and because they were already showing some signs of being long in the tooth.  Never mind that Korea had expended a noticeable number of the, once, huge supply.

Vietnam, likewise, also depleted the stocks of serviceable pistol.

It was only the "happy" circumstance of the military downsizing that allowed the remaining guns to fill demand.

President Reagan reversed that trend and suddenly, with more demand, there would not be enough pistols left to issue one to everyone who was supposed to have one according to the TO&E.

In the early 1980's a new M1911A1 would not have been a cheap gun to manufacture.  Keeping on with the M1911A1 would have meant paying for processes specified in the milspec that were no longer being practiced by anyone still making them.

The M1911A1 is a product of an era where labor was cheap and machinery was expensive.

That had inverted by the time the pistol trials which resulted in the Beretta M9 were held.

Simply, getting new .45's would have cost a great deal more than any 9mm and would also come at the cost of continuing to flaunt NATO standardization in a time period where we'd just shoved 5.56 down Europe's throats after already forcing them to eat 7.62x51mm.

It should also be remembered that the M9 and SIG-Sauer's M11 did not just replace the M1911A1.

They replace ALL the pistols and revolvers in all the services from top to bottom.

In many cases, the M1911A1 wasn't replaced here because it was already found to be unsuitable for the role decades before.

Bull Headed Determination

Bridged the gap with a 1x4 and much shims.

The in-laws now have a new storm door!

This fought all the way to the end, and we prevailed!

Dinner at a new place for FuzzyGeff and Marv, Craft Street Kitchen, and celebratory beers at Escape Brewing!

From Facebook

The Lovely Harvey relays:

Iran now has an opening for a general.

You have to hand it to Trump, he's even creating jobs in Iran!

Every Single Project

The In-Laws need a new storm door.

Screen and storm doors are simple work, so Marv and I set out to install the chosen door.

A problem occurred in that we couldn't get accurate measurements of the opening with the existing door in place.

They have a 40" door on their place, not the standard 36".

In the no stated dimension is the actual measurement world of carpentry, the 4" difference means the opening for the storm door is 1-1/8" too wide for a normal, everyday 36" storm door.

So we have to fill that gap with something...

Wood seems so obvious.

Except there's not a stick of lumber that's 1-1/8" in any dimension.  Nor is there any combination of stacking boards that gets us where we need to be.

And it's not just THIS project.

Every thing I touch of late goes into this pear shaped valley with some oddity that takes far too long to solve.

Gonna Be Like An Episode Of Road-Kill

Motor Trend had a YouTube channel called Road-Kill.

Two magazine writers traveled the country looking for dead cars to resurrect to make a road trip.

It rarely went well.

On Monday, we're going to make our own version with a late '90's Accord.

Wish us luck!

Warwere Declared

FN/Browning 1910 with a C&Rsenal Shirt!

Living In Florida

FuzzyGeff and I are hanging out back on the porch... effectively outside.

We're both enjoying the idea that we can do this comfortably in January.

Caught the moon:

Never In The History

Chuckie is upset that Cocaine Mitch isn't going to let The Speaker of the House be in charge of The Senate's portion of the impeachment process.

Chuck has even intoned the phrase, "never before in the history of impeachment, has The Senate been forbidden to call witnesses."

In the entire two previous times?

Chuck, you make it seem like this happens everyday rather than once a century or so.

But I can play this game too!

Never before in the history of impeachment has The House not accused The President of an actual crime.

But, Chuck, Nancy, what you're complaining about is akin to "never in the history of legislation has The Senate been forbidden to pass a bill."  Because it was this self-same upper chamber which voted to disallow witnesses.

Or are we no longer for democracy again this year?  I have trouble keeping track you guys waffle on the value of the democratic process so much.

Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms

Tampa version:

Registered SBR M4gery I made myself, S&W M&P 9, Big Top Brewing Big Life tropical lager, Arturo Fuente Hemingway.  Local brewery glassware and hat!

Cuba version:

Sportified Springfield M1893 rifle, Armi San Marco New Dakota, Siesta Key Distiller's Reserve (Batch 6), Arturo Fuente Hemingway and my old "Cavalry" hat.

This is officially a meme, so play along on your own blog and or Facebook!

Torque Tube Bearing

The Precious has a buzz coming from the "clutch area" when it's cold.

With the clutch out, in neutral, buzz with the rpm.

With the clutch out, in gear, buzz with speed.

With the clutch in, in neutral, no buzz.

With the clutch in, in gear, buzzes with the speed.

Following this page:  It's an input shaft bearing.  There's, in effect, four of them on a C6.

One at the input end of the torque tube, two at the output end and one at the input side of the transmission.

The sound appears to be coming from the front bearing.

Unfortunately, it requires nearly all the steps to change the clutch to get at the damn things.

I can't find a reliable listing for the parts I need either.  I hate asking the dealer for part numbers.

Virginia Isn't An Anomoly?

While checking to see if an openly carried AR with a USGI 30-rounder was illegal in New York, I stumbled across this picutre:

That looks remarkably like Virginia's map:

This is exactly why The Founders had The Senate divided by geography rather than population; so that the less populous parts of the nation would get some effective representation.

This is also exactly why the Democrats and liberals (did I repeat myself) are so Hell Bent on eliminating the Electoral College.

Update:

Add Kentucky.

Thanks to Tim in the comments.

Otherwise

Why do I put cheese, butter and sour cream on my baked potato?

Because, otherwise, it'd be vegan.

I think I just put my finger on why I loathe Facebook so damn much.

In meatspace, if a friend of a friend is a prick to me; my friend will intervene and tell their friend to back off or have them apologize.

On Facebook, they tacitly endorse the attack with silence. In effect, joining in on being a prick by saying nothing.

Same Wal Mart

Nobody in the special, reserved for their law enforcement partners, parking space.

But mere yards away...

At least they cleared the carts out of the space so our deputy could park someplace else.