Might Not Be Here For A Bit

Book 9 of The Expanse series just hit my Kindle.

Might just be busy reading it rather than attending to the blog.

Chat among yourselves while I read my book.

No Red Bucket No Irritating Bell

Buying groceries at the local Winn Dixie and I noticed that the Salvation Army bell-ringer and their red bucket were missing.  Edit: To be clear, they were there last week.

I wonder if they were getting an earful over the white guilt bullshit.

I see they've withdrawn the request for white people to apologize, but I think the damage might be done.

Phil Probably Has A Car That Uses These

 

Does anyone know what these glass domes are for in the dash of a Bentley Blower?

I feel like I used to know what those things did...

It'd be amusing to find that they're just lights.

Oh, read about the car they're from here.

Ce N'est Pas Rétro.

Watching this video:

And I am struck.

No flat-top is retro.  An A2 upper is not retro.

Retro ends with the fixed carry handle with a rear sight you need tools to adjust the windage on.

Retro:

 Retro:

Retro:

Retro:

Retro:

The battle was fought and the A2 and later were deemed to not be Retro.

Even if you mount a Trijicon reflex on a detachable carry-handle on your otherwise A4 clone.

We WERE Joking

While discussing the alternatives to using cream of mushroom soup to make green bean casserole, we all speculated about cream of bacon.

Campbell's already makes it and Publix lists it as a normal stocking item.

We're going to the store tomorrow!

As Good As The St Crispin's Day Speech

 

Bill could write, you have to give him that.

Nobody Does Coriolanus

She does a great job with the works of Shakespeare.

Worth a watch for the LOLs.

Fuck It Let's Nuke South Africa

We're shutting down air travel from Africa for a disease that presents with the same severity as jet-lag.

"It presents mild disease with symptoms being sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two not feeling well," Coetzee explained. "So far, we have detected that those infected do not suffer the loss of taste or smell. They might have a slight cough. There are no prominent symptoms. Of those infected some are currently being treated at home."

Coetzee reported around two dozen of her patients that tested positive for the coronavirus and displayed these new symptoms. She alerted officials to the possibility of a new variant, which the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday designated the omicron variant.

Most of the patients were men who reported "feeling so tired," and half of them were unvaccinated. The patients comprised a range of ages and ethnicities. 

Jesus Fucking Christ can we end this hoax now?

Oh noes!  I might feel run down for a couple days!  The horror!

Wu Ping Cough is following the classic trend of corona viruses and getting easier to catch and less severe as it mutates.

I wish some scientist had done groundbreaking research on this (almost two) decades ago...

Oh, wait.

A paper that basically explains that there's really no need to get a vaccine running because the disease you're trying to prevent will, in essence, cease to exist by the time you're ready for production and what remains will be, essentially, harmless.

It also mentions that the super-high mutation rate lets it get around therapies and immunities.  That worries me that the mRNA therapy we're passing off as a vaccine is making an incubator for variations which are better at infecting people and make them sicker.  It'd definitely be a case where leaving it to run its course would have been the best decision.

It's not an easy read for the layman.  Hard enough that I worry I cited the same paper I read ten years ago...  If I got the wrong one, lemme know I'll look harder for the right one.

Cleaning Up The Sidebar

Many of the blogs on the sidebar have gone silent or dark.

I've moved them down to "Blogs That Used To Entertain".

Anyone who hasn't posted in a year gets moved there.

It's a sad annual task.

Many of those blogs I looked forward to seeing new content from.

What remains is often very much worth wading through the archives.

It Wasn't Skipped

They didn't skip Ξ.

ALL the Wu Ping Cough variants are Xi!

Now I want a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a ΞΞΞ fraternity shirt!  Thanks Marv!

COVID-19 Omicron

Hey, fucksticks, shouldn't that be something more like COVID-21 Delta?

But using the accepted systems of naming these things would mean explaining it to people, wouldn't it?

And explaining things like you do, tends to lead to doubts about your competence, don't it?

Something I am definitely not seeing with regards to this new variation is any mention of lethality.

Did anyone else notice the shift in the reporting going from people dying to just being infected?

I'm thinking that Wu Ping Cough is doing what corona viruses do as they age and mutate.

Get more infectious and less lethal.

Otherwise we'd be hearing about how many dead there are.

The media is definitely unaware that we've been observing their methods for a while now.

Information You Needed To Know

 

The Secret

The Lovely Harvey, noting that we love, for the most part, completely different foods; wondered how it was we stuck together so long.

"You don't take my food, I don't take yours.  We're not competing for the same resources."

This is the secret.

Don't take the other's food.

Donate generously to the right, you're welcome.

The Battle of the Rosebud

George Crook made it within 30 miles of the location of the Little Bighorn battle.

About a week before Custer got to the location of his demise...

Crook's column was combat ineffective after this and they turned around.

They were still close enough to the Custer massacre to see the smoke from the wildfires started by the fight.

It gets forgotten that the Indians were concentrating in that area and looking to fight.

They were, in part, being driven together by being pressed between Crook and Terry's columns with Custer's supposed to link up as the other two came together.

Notice that Custer was a week behind getting there than Crook.  This is despite leaving anything using a wheel behind as it would be slowing him down.  I am thinking, the more I study this, is Custer got a late start and was looking to make up time by leaving the wagons and Gatling guns back at Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Major Reno had even scouted the Sioux encampment on the Rosebud two days before Crook's column was engaged.

So close...

I wonder if Reno's reconnoiter had resulted in turning Custer towards the Rosebud and linking up with Crook would have had an entirely different outcome for both Crook and Custer.

I also speculate that Custer not acting on this intelligence might not have been a deliberate attempt to avoid sharing credit with another commander and thus diminishing his chances at a post-service political career.

Custer had a reputation of leaving others out to dry if it conflicted with his goals.

El Presidente

Forget your Judges and Governors!

Chamber a revolver in .38-90 Winchester Express and you win!

Taurus, Keltec, you can just mail me checks for the idea.

Rifle Sniper 155mm

The US military might seem to have struggled in getting a sniper rifle to the field when you look at the whole history of the M21 program.

The XM21 did well in Vietnam and the "production" M21 was also fine.

What developed is aging rifles weren't field serviceable because of the special bedding the action got.

By the late 80's this was getting to be a serious problem with the rifle.

But the US Army had never really considered a moderately wide issue of sniper guns.

Why?

Because artillery.

Why drop $1.50 worth of .30 caliber on someone when $300 of 155 HE-quick will do?  Especially since anyone with a radio and a map can do the latter!

The traditional US response to sniper fire is mortars and flattening the suspected area.

It's not an infantry problem, it's a specialist problem.

I am not saying that snipers have no use, but it's a specialist role.

The M21 is also a program that can be compared to the M60 machine gun.

Did you know that The Pig was the greatest automatic weapon ever fielded?  Did you also know that it's the biggest piece of shit ever made?

Those two diametrically opposed views happen when the people talking are literally talking about the same gun.  Not the same model of gun, the SAME gun.

When it was new, in Vietnam, it was a reliable workhorse.  Twenty-five years later in Germany... not so much.

The XM21 and M21 in the inventory were very long in the tooth in 1989 when some general complained about them being unserviceable in the field.

Oh Most Didn't

In writing about the effects of .38 Long Colt on a juramentado, it should be noted that the berserker Moro that got to bolo range is the exception rather than the rule.

Most of them died well short of machete range well ventilated by .30-40 rounds from the infantry.

The scale of the firepower brought to bear was actually astounding by the standards of the day.

That's It I'm Out

I have finished watching the first season of Apple TV's Foundation.

It is emphatically not the Foundation I read in high school.

Worse.  It's just not that good.

It's very pretty, of course, but every time they show the sky over Terminus I scream, "IS THERE NO ROCHE LIMIT IN THIS UNIVERSE!?!"

I gutted it out to the end of the season and I don't think I will be returning for the second.

I don't care about the two main characters.

It's not because they're black women.

Did you know they're black women?  Entertainment media sure wants to make sure you do know that.

It's because they're not interesting characters.

I like the bit about the Emperors, but even that is getting old by the end.  An empire ruled by such petulant bitches deserves to die in a fire.

I was kind of excited to see them get to The Mule, but they've fucked it so hard so far that they can fuck up The Mule without me watching them do it.

Zoon

J Kb at Miggy's says, 

That was the whole point of the Rittenhouse trial and why so many were invested in i

That was the whole point.

The state had to convict Rittenhouse to protect their unofficial Brownshirt thugs in Antifa.

The people needed him acquitted so that Antifa knew we could defend ourselves from them.

The people won and Antifa is shitting itself.

Good.

The Left wanted us to have to cower in fear of Antifa.

The Rittenhouse verdict defies that.

I hope every time some Antifa thug assaults someone they get blasted.

In reply to Andy Ngo's:

I would suggest to Antifa that if you don't want to get shot, stop being violent thugs.

But I notice the tone is more along the lines of upping the violence rather than taking the hint.

A hint they should heed, because they're not in the majority and there's way more red pills out there than they have people.  People are waking up to the idea that mobs need to be opposed.

Buffalo Farts

In 1850 there were more American bison in North America than there is cattle today.

I don't think that cow farts are a significant contributor to climate change because we didn't have a massive drop in global temperature in 1890 after we'd essentially wiped the bison out.

Wisconsin Is A Happening Place Lately

 Racine County Files Charges Against State Election Officials

I Have Questions

The FBI says that a gun was missing from Laundrie's parent's home.

"When Brian Laundrie’s parents reported him missing in mid-September following the strangulation of his former fiancée Gabby Petito, they turned over all of the firearms in their home to the FBI – but one was missing, sources close to the investigation tell Fox News Digital."

They don't mention how they know that one was missing.

Did the parents notice at the time they turned over their guns?

Did the FBI know how many guns were there before they took the guns?

Why did the parents have to hand over their firearms in the first place?

Well I Am Awake Now

As I was on my way to get a glass of water, I heard the front door knob being turned.

Just as I was about to ask Harvey why she was at the door, she says, "who's at the door?"

Mission to get water, cancelled.

AR fetched, round chambered, front light on.

All I can see is the top of a head through the peephole.

"Who are you?"

"Unintelligible..."

She looked up at the peep now, a drunk appearing woman.

"You have the wrong house, go away."

"OK, unintelligible..."

Probably a genuine drunk lady, but I've read stories about people opening the door for the poor vulnerable drunk girl to be snowplowed by her associates.

I'd have been happy to call the cops for her, if she'd asked.

Aquavit

 

The dill did not come in as strong as hoped.

The cloves are very strong.

It is aquavit.

And far cheaper than Linie.

A happy experiment.

Next batch I will skip the cloves.

The Elk Can Tell

Technomad is upset at the vast array of cartridges available out there.

He indicates that he nearly bought a box of 9mm Largo for a 9mm Parabellum gun, but a fast thinking gun shop employee caught it in time.

That raises the question, "just how many 9mm rounds are there?"

A fuck-ton. A metric fuck-ton.

9mm Action Express
9mm Largo aka 9x23mm, 9mm Bergmann-Bayard, 9mm Bayard Long
9mm Browning Long
9mm Federal
9mm Glisinti
9mm Luger aka 9mm Parabellum, 9x19mm, 9x19mm NATO
9mm Mauser
9mm Steyr
9mm Ultra 

9mm Winchester Magnum 

9x17mm aka .380 Auto, 9mm Browning, 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9mm Short, and 9mm Browning Court

9x18mm Makarov
9x21mm
9x25 Dillion
9x56mm Mannlicher
9x57mm Mauser
9x57mmR Mauser
9x63mm
9x70mmR Mauser
9x71mm Peterlongo 

Normally I would say, "Check what's inscribed on your gun," but too often older guns just say 9mm on them.

Spanish guns in particular don't make a distinction between 9mm Largo, 9mm Parabellum and 9mm Browning Long.  They just say 9mm!

That means that if you're going to be buying old pistols, you need to do some research and find out what calibers it was chambered in and double check before buying ammo or going shooting.

It will save you money and could save your life.

But that's just 9mm.

There's a seemingly endless list of cartridges that don't have a real distinction between them except that they don't interchange and what model gun chambered them.

This leads to Uncle Robert on Mom's side eating Christmas dinner with us and Uncle Bob on Dad's side eating with us on Christmas Eve.  As far as the deer can tell, there's not a hair's breadth difference in terminal performance between .30-06 and .280 Remington.  I bought a rifle in .270 Winchester just to stoke the fires of that fight.

There's literally no difference downrange between .30 Remington and .30-30.  The difference is the case.  .30 Remington works in the semi-auto Model 8 and 81.

The deer likely wouldn't be able to tell if it was killed with either of those or .300 Savage.  Or .30-40 or .30-06 or .308 Winchester.

Jeff Cooper used to go after new rounds which duplicated the performance of existing rounds all the time.  He took the position that a bolt gun was a bolt gun and there's no need for new rounds in them that are identical in performance to the older round.

And that's not even the beginning of why there's so many rounds.

Everyone who sits down to make a new cartridge thinks they're breaking new ground or finding an improvement over something that exists.

Don't worry about it.

Buy what you like, make sure you can identify and find the ammo for it.  Go shooting and have fun!

Ideally, you will not need to know about more than five or six cartridges.

Me?  I love to play with all sorts of actions and designs.  That leads to a plethora of different cartridges here in many different kinds of gun.

I have a sorting system and I use it.

I learned the hard way that a box marked .30 Government can mean .30-40 AND .30-06.  Happily, I knew someone with a Krag who was perfectly willing to trade round for round.

Oh, none of this touches on the rounds which can be fired from the same gun despite being different cartridges; like .38 Special and .357 Magnum (and others).

Non Peer

The US Army has not often faced a peer or near peer opponent.

Most of the time it's facing irregulars and rabble.

It was a surprising realization.

The Indian campaigns.

Philippine insurrections.

20th Century trips to Mexico.

Haiti. 

Some of Vietnam.

Afghanistan.

Latter half of Iraq.

You'd think we'd be better at it.

Because of my research for Sabers and Sorcery, I have been reading a lot about the Philippines.  I can even spell Philippines correctly on the first try most of the time because of it!

How America fights insurrections is to find a pocket of resistance, put overwhelming firepower on it, put out the fires started, bury some bodies and leave the area.

...And let the pocket get all resisty again.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

In most cases we quit before the resistance is completely crushed and dead.

The Indian campaigns being the giant exception here.

I'm getting history lessons on this too.

Something that needs to be said loudly and a lot more often about the American Indian and their clashes with the United States is there was going to be a war between these people one way or another.

One people or the other was going to win that war.

The specifics of how the war started and why it was fought don't really matter as it was going to be something, sooner or later, so why not what actually happened?

It's a conflict that seems entirely too brutal to modern eyes.  What with our Geneva and Hague Conventions and rules of war and such.  It was not exceptionally bloody by the standards of the day.  In fact, the constant willingness to accept a surrender and create the reservations was considered very compassionate.

Eradication was how war would have been fought just a couple hundred years prior; and that manner of warfare was key in why the Sioux were so far west when what we think of as the Indian Wars were going on after the US Civil War.

But Is It Easier To Find

Is your Astra 400 marked like this on the barrel?

This means your Astra is chambered for both 9mm Largo and .38 ACP.

It is important to not get .38 ACP and .38 Super confused here.

If you handload, .38 Super brass is readily available...  But keep those rounds segregated!

Though everyone is out of stock, .38 ACP is cheaper than 9mm Largo at places that still list them.

Let Them Walk

You didn't even have to pay much attention to what I've written to get the idea that I think the McMichael's and Bryan are culpable in the death of Mr Aubery.

But now there is a threat of violence if the "correct" verdict is not made.

Now I want them to be let off.  Judge dismissing with prejudice and saying, "you threaten a riot over a verdict and the defendant is innocent."

The New Black Panther Party and BLM75 are no different in their behavior than a mob of KKK members outside a court building demanding that a black man accused of...

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THEY ARE ACCUSED OF!

It's mob justice.  In the KKK example, a literal lynch mob.

The rule of law finds this sort of threat repugnant.

The proper response to these mobs, all of these mobs, is belt fed and water cooled.

I don't care what color the racists and bigots are.

Watching A Tree Grow

I have lived where I live for an unusually long time for me.

Even when I lived in Ames I would change address every couple of years.

So I never got to see something like this before:

September 2012, plus a bonus pic of my tubby ass.

August 2015.

January 2017.

May 2017.

November 2021.

When I moved in we had an orange tree just to the left of where the palm is now.  That tree died and the palm grew from a seed that ended up in our yard however such seeds end up in yards.

We've been doing our amateurish best at keeping it groomed.

Wow

The crop of pansy dancing monkeys we have these days...

[Oliver] Reed died from a heart attack during a break from filming Gladiator in Valletta, Malta, on the afternoon of 2 May 1999. According to witnesses, he drank eight pints of German lager, a dozen shots of rum, half a bottle of whiskey and a few shots of Hennessy cognac, in a drinking match against a group of sailors on shore leave from HMS Cumberland at a local pub. His bar bill totalled a little over 270 Maltese lira (almost 450 GBP; about 590 USD). After beating five much younger Royal Navy sailors at arm-wrestling, Reed suddenly collapsed, dying while en route to hospital in an ambulance.

One wonders if those sailors were brought to the masthead and flogged.

"One old man out drank the five of you?  The honor of Her Majesty's Ship Cumberland has been stained!"

From SEALs To Sci Fi

I just noticed that security chief Michael Garabaldi in Babylon 5 has a S&W Model 15 in the season 3 episode "Gray 17 is Missing".

 

It was his grandmother's when she worked the Boston PD.

Any Time You Wanna Say You're Sorry Is Fine Miggy

You were a firm opponent to open carry when you lived in Florida.

But now that Hogg agrees with you, you flip flop?

Welcome to the party of supporting OCW.

Go ahead and comment with a "I'm sorry."

Fucking People

I've had to interact with two people this evening that I seriously worried would be sporting 9mm holes in them.

The first was at Wal Mart and this really twitchy nervous guy kept edging closer every time I tried to look for the elusive funnel.

If I looked right at him for a few seconds he'd back off, but as soon as I wasn't looking right at him he'd start closing in again.

I did remember to keep an eye out for someone in the other direction.  Pats self on back.

Finally I exited stage left to see if there were other places Wal Mart hid funnels.

Eventually I ended up back were Mr Twitcher was and he started sidling towards me again.

So I said, "I think you need to get away from me.  Now!"

He looked like I'd slapped him across the face, but depart he did.

That left me time to find the funnel.  And see the shoplifter...

Looking back, I wonder if loss prevention was so quick because they were watching twitcher.

The second time is at the liquor store.

Just your basic panhandler.

He was accosting a different customer in their car when I arrived, but was loitering nearby when I came out.

After pointedly keeping my car between him and I by going down the passenger side instead of the driver's side it appeared that he was going to ignore me.  But as soon as I had deposited the IPA in the hatch and opened the driver's door he started over.

"Go away!" I said in my best Sargent's voice.  That worked like a charm.

But some people are pushing the boundaries lately.

Keep your head on a swivel and your wits about you.

But I'm An Irredemable Bigot Because I Am White

I have news for BLM.

Nearly all of "us" support black suspects getting the same defense and acquittal that Kyle Rittenhouse got.

Nearly all of "us" are horrified by the behavior of the prosecution and wonder how often their malfeasance went without note because the media wasn't trying to crucify the defendant which attracted an uncommon amount of funding for the defense.

"We" don't want innocent people going to jail.

I'll happily support you getting that in place.

But YOU have to stop doing crime to make your point.

You're attacking the innocent as surely as the corrupt DA is.

YOU need to cull your ranks of criminals.

If you really are a grassroots organization with wide support, then we shouldn't have had four out of four assailants of Mr Rittenhouse turn out to have criminal records.

It is not your goal that "we" oppose, but your methods.

You might also want to consider holding off on the protests and riots and waiting to see if the person the cops shot is someone worthy of such a response.

I notice that when a white shitheel criminal gets dirt-napped by the cops white people don't riot.

But we have protested when innocent white people get killed.  It does happen.  Where were YOU when we were protesting police violence?

More Violence In Wisconsin

Apparently someone decided to run their SUV through a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

There's video of gunfire coming from the truck as it speeds away.  Update: The gunfire was the police trying to stop him.

There's a person of interest in custody, and not a peep about them.

That's normally an indicator that the perp is not a law abiding straight white man.

Too soon, at this point, to know for sure.

I have a feeling of dread about this being RoP, BLM or Antifa.

Update:

No word in being straight, but not a law abiding white guy.

Civilize Them With A Krag

Starting at the same 10 yards as with the pistol, our corporal fires his M1896 at the charging juramentado.

As with the revolvers, shot placement matters.

Bad rolls will fuck you here.

Assuming we're aimed at the beginning of our turn at 10 yards, we fire at +2 to skill for a 14 to hit the torso and 11 to hit the vitals.

If they don't drop or you miss, 11 for the torso at 5 yards then 13 at contact.

Going for the vitals hit normally drops them dead right there with a single shot.

Getting two torso shots normally almost gets to the berserker stopping -5x HP.

Three torso hits occasionally fails to stop them right at your feet.

Funnel

The nearest Bed Bath and Beyond has gone tits up.

Target had no funnels at all.

I was forced to enter Wal Mart the same week as Thanksgiving to find any funnels at all.

Happily, they have the size I was after.

The lack of funnels made me wonder if aging scotch is more popular than ever.

The shoplifters are out in force.  I had my phone out trying to see if there was an alternative to the funnel I was considering and someone started pocketing shit right in front of me.

Loss prevention was on them like stink on shit though.

No, Ms Teacher-Lady, I will not support an increase in teacher salaries.

I was repeatedly promised by your unions and yourself that increasing your pay would improve student scores and increased graduation rates.

I was repeatedly promised by your unions and yourself that increasing school funding would improve student scores and increased graduation rates.

I was repeatedly promised by your unions and yourself that decreasing class sizes would improve student scores and increased graduation rates.

I held up my end of the bargain, and you've gotten more pay, higher budgets and fewer students per teacher for the two decades I've lived in Florida.

What I don't have is increased scores and improved graduation rates.

All that extra money and staffing did was cost more for the same outcome.

I'd kind of accepted it as a status quo thing... until...

Until you petulantly refused to work after Wu Ping Cough had been shown to not be a real problem.

Until you pressed for useless mask mandates.

Until you demanded that students be forced to be immunized against Wu Ping Cough, but fought be exempted yourselves.

"FUCK YOU!" is as delicately as I can put it.

I am thinking that we need to return to the model where school is in walking distance and that's as far away as the funding and control comes from.  This model pares things down to JUST the 3R's and doesn't have time for all the indoctrination.  Plus, should time for politics be found, the people who control the school only have to walk over and express their displeasure and fire the offending employee.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

GASP

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Taking castle doctrine to the next level when the castle defends itself!

He won't do that again!  Even our aspiring rap stars are Florida Men.

The Potential

S&W has just released the M&P in 10mm.

I have a case of kinda-wants.

But an alternative that's just as alluring to me has occurred.

.38 Super.

It needs a pistol that takes the longer overall length that .45 ACP and 10mm have.

L -> R: .45 ACP, .38 Super, 10mm Auto

Glock and S&W both make a .45/10mm versions of their plastic fantastic pistols now.

There's no reason that they don't make a .38 Super variation except a perceived lack of interest.  Really just need a new barrel and magazine.

I think I shall write a letter or an email.

I think a .38 Super M&P would be delightful as the .45 version fits my hand well.

Mixed Feelings

Andrew Coffee IV was acquitted of the charges of trying to murder three cops who busted into his house in a no-knock search.

These same cops, guns-a-blazin' shot his girlfriend, Alteria Woods, dead.

But, because he's a felon in possession, he's been convicted of that and will likely still be going to prison for a lengthy stay.

Why mixed feelings?

Because felon in possession is hardly ever pursued.  If it were, there'd be lots more repeat offenders in prison.

Because I object to the idea of felon in possession in the first place because I'm a believer that if you're too dangerous to be allowed a firearm, you're too dangerous to be allowed among normal people.

Because too fucking many things are felonies to begin with.  The punishments don't fit the crimes too often, and look it's our old friend Warren Drugs who caused that.

But I am thrilled that he proved that you can, indeed, shoot back at the cops when they're the ones in the wrong and prevail.

No-knock searches need to be illegal.

The cops need to be better, not worse or as good as, Domino's in getting the address correct.

The cops need to have a much higher standard for getting a warrant than the word of someone trying to weasel their way to a lighter sentence (or someone looking to put a competing criminal out of business).

Hey, those are Warren Drugs too!

Now, when do the three cops who ventilated poor Ms Woods get their murder trials?  Because if they were so far in the wrong that a felon in possession was found innocent of shooting at them, they were VERY far in the wrong.

I demand justice!

The Evil Lord Of Evil Speaks

 

To the handful of liberals who haven't blocked me. This is for you.

In the aftermath of the Rittenhouse trial progs have all glommed onto the "If Rittenhouse had been black he would have been convicted" narrative.

Possibly. They might even be right, but only on accident, and in the stupidest self-own way possible.

The left means this as a zing against the right.

Except if Rittenhouse had been black, the right still would have cheered for him, because honestly the vast majority of us don't give a shit about race, and the losers who do (half the country is a big tent) hate lefty stormtrooper rioters far more. The fact you can't grasp this basic fundamental fact about your enemy says a whole lot more about you than it does about them.

(Seriously, I'm not blowing smoke. Every study and poll shows that even the most old school, country club, super white republicans would rather hang out with a black republican than a white liberal. And for the overwhelming majority of us born after the 1960s, we truly don't give a shit, but go on believing your dumb ass propaganda)

The real zing is that if Black Rittenhouse would have been convicted it would only have been because of the profoundly dishonest actions of the DEMOCRAT prosecutors. Sort of like most of the other unfair prosecutions of black men that you guys like to complain about.

Binger and Kruise did some sleazy shit and got away with it. And that is what they did during a trial with massive media attention. You think this was their first time? Do you think there aren't others like them out there?

The only reason this trial got massive media attention was because the news media is in bed with the DNC, and the angry mob violence is a useful tool in the DNC's tool box. The media can't allow regular people to get the idea that they can get uppity against their mobs and get away with it. Regular people need to be too terrified of the system to act.

Democrats caused the problems you are supposedly upset about. Then democrats make them worse, and profit.

Back during the Great Fiery Temper Tantrum of 2020, nearly all of the cases BLM was upset about took place in cities entirely run by democrats. With democrat judges, democrat prosecutors, democrat mayors, and democrat police chiefs. And these cities have been this way for 40 or 80 years.

So obviously the solution is to elect more democrats to these same positions of authority. Then blame the republicans, who haven't held an elected office in your deep blue city in a generation. Because apparently even distant republicans cause all your local democrats to be corrupt assholes through the magical power of their white supremacy waves.

Progs are now acting all smug with their hypotheticals that if this was flipped, and this riot had happened in a red state, and a black teenager had shot 3 white rioters, we'd be outraged and instantly toss him in prison.

Progs love to make up imaginary scenarios to argue over, because they suck at real life, and their imaginary ones always play out exactly how they want.

Problem is, most red areas don't tolerate that level of out of control street violence to begin with. And the only places you see that sort of behavior in red states are... drum roll please... the deep blue cities. Which see above, have democrat mayors and democrat police chiefs running things. The further you get from that, the less stupid it gets.

But personally, even then, if Black Rittenhouse had driven from Ogden to Salt Lake City, and several rioters had attacked him and gotten ventilated in the process, I'd gladly donate to his defense fund.

Except, if that had happened (and this gets back to the left's self-own) because that doesn't fit the left's narrative that case would get zero national media attention. (kinda like how the news always crop out any pictures of black people defending their businesses with guns, or they chop the heads off of the black gun owners at marches). If it doesn't fit the lefty narrative, the truth gets a bullet to the back of the neck.

When that case gets no national attention, Black Rittenhouse does not get crowd funding to pay for lawyers, and instead gets a scrape the bottom of the barrel public defender. And that public defender was also working 16 other cases at the time. (honestly, the problems you guys bitch about in our legal system aren't race issues, they are class issues).

Then armed with the lowest form of legal counsel available, while the world isn't watching, assholes like Littlefinger and Fatlock would do their thing and not get caught. (seriously, they were that shitty with hundreds of thousands of us were live streaming it, how bad do you think they usually act?)

And then you dumb fuckers reelect everyone involved.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, as you are crying about self-defense laws all being racist, if you'd actually get your news from some place other than blue check mark twitter pundits you'd see that there are a couple of other cases this week involving black defendants and victims that have gone wildly different than your predictions.

But yeah, black men do get prosecuted and sentenced unfairly, all the time... usually by democrats. In areas that democrats have turned to shit for decades. And the democrat media only talks about local legal cases when there is something to be gained for their national party. They pay lip service to caring, while they use and abuse people for their personal gain.

Despite all your whining about this last year, at the end you still elected an old racist segregationist, and a legendarily corrupt prosecutor. Way to go.

Quit being a sucker.

 

--L. Correia

.38 Long Colt VS .45 Colt

While dropping the .38 Long Colt model of 1892 for the proven .45 Colt model of 1873 against the Moro and the juramentado made the men feel better.

It was likely that the slower rate of fire and reload time of the older gun forced the shooter to pay more attention to the fundamentals and get better shot placement.

FuzzyGeff and I ran several combinations of a juramentado charging an Army lieutenant with every issue handgun from the period and the M1911.

It came down to die rolls more often than not.

But one thing was certain, taking your time to get a vitals shot was far more effective than plugging the Moro in the torso.

The extra damage from the .45 Colt didn't come to bear as much against the berserk disad of the juramentado as you might think.

3x 2d-1 pi is more than 1x 2d+2 pi+ (18 vs 13) after all.  IF YOU ACTUALLY HIT! And panic firing double action the full RoF of 3 every turn leaves you with an empty gun and a Moro close enough to smell.

Update: If the juramentado gets into spear/bolo range the soldier loses.  We had to tweak the scenario several times to give the guy with a gun a better chance against the berserker.

It's Getting To Be The Holidays After All

And the holidays call for aquavit!

Turns out to be as simple as adding dill, fennel, caraway and cloves to vodka.

It steeps for four days, shaking daily.  Then I filter out the chunks.

Fire In A Crowded Theater

The provable falsehoods being spun by the media trying to get the BLM and Antifa types to start rioting again SHOULD fall under the doctrine of crying fire in crowded theater and not let them hide behind The First Amendment.

Inciting a riot is illegal in most places.

Crossing state lines to commit a felony is a Federal crime in and of itself.

Figuring out how to keep the press from spinning harmful narratives without totally fucking free speech is a very difficult nut to crack.  A dangerously difficult nut to crack.

The Other Side Of The Coin

Now that Rittenhouse has been found innocent, I got reminded of another "self-defense" trial going on.

The three guys involved in shooting Ahmaud Arbery didn't have legal grounds to brandish at him, let alone fire a shot.  They probably didn't even have grounds to detain him.

Mr Arbery shouldn't have tried for the shotgun.  In the video I saw it looked like his pulling on the barrel is what caused the shot, because McMichael the Younger was violating Rule #3.

I am thinking that all three of them are going to be doing some time over this death.

And I say this while understanding the frustration of being rendered impotent to stop crime you are aware is happening, but don't have proof enough to act upon.

The general ambivalence of the police to respond to property crimes doesn't help at all.

And we haven't even gotten to what appears to be a cover up by the local DA!

Though, if we're going to be condemning the Brunswick District Attorney's Office for telling the cops to not make an arrest, we've got to be condemning all the various DA's offices whom declined to charge BLM and Antifa rioters too.

And I do.

I eagerly await the McMichaels and Bryan being convicted and watching the MSM try to reconcile it against Rittenhouse being found innocent because racism.

Las Drogas de la GURPS

The effect of drugs in GURPS 4e is simply looking up the real effects and assigning advantages and disadvantages that match them.

Looking up what the Moro were chewing on before charging the US troops now...

Justice

It would appear that the jury finally saw what we've seen for over a year.

Now Lefty and Dropkick should be arrested for their crimes that forced Mr Rittenhouse to fire at them as this verdict properly places him as the victim in all of this!

Doing Society A Favor

As the criminal histories of Kyle Rittenhouse's assailants comes to light, I am struck with the realization that just pumping rounds into the mob would be a net good for society.

Yes, that would be illegal.

Yes, you would probably go to jail.

No, you should not actually do that.

But I no longer think that someone shooting up one of these mobs is morally wrong.

Illegal, yes.  Immoral, no.

What moral high ground the Black Lives Matter people held has been discarded by aligning themselves with wanton criminals who care nothing for the supposed goals of reducing police violence on innocent blacks.

There wasn't much high ground to cede because they kept championing criminals caught in the act...

Which Military Standard?

I have recently read that the M&P series of pistols are inferior to the Beretta M9 because the M9 met a military standard.

Ugh!

I hate this line of thinking.

Did you know that the time tested and proven Glock 17 does not measure up to the M9 standard?

Shocking!  I know!

You see, the M9 standard requires a second strike capability should you get a click when you pull the trigger.  That means it had to be a double action.  The Glock 17 isn't double action.

It's amusing to use a military standard to justify the merits of a design here because the Glock 17 was adopted by Austria in 1980 as the P.80.  I should wonder if the Beretta was submitted to the Austrian army trials and failed...

Likewise, the M9 which met the standard in 1985 doesn't meet the standard for the M17.

So, why tout the standard?

Does a failure to meet the M9 specification mean a pistol is bad?

Probably not.

Does meeting a military specification make a pistol better?

Not necessarily.

Some specifications are tailored very narrowly.  Some so narrow that only a single specific item meets the specification.

Lawsuits are filed over this kind of thing.

Shotty

For years, my 870 Express looked like this:

Originally it was a 28" vent-rib Remchoke gun I got from Bett's Hardware in Des Moines.  I hired Jacobson's Gun Center in Story City, Iowa to put a cylinder bore 20" barrel and the Sage ghost-ring sights on her.  I did the magazine extension.

It did yeoman's work as a trap and field gun in addition to checking off the "you should own a shotgun" box on the "guns you're supposed to own" list.

I'm much more a rifle shooter.

While mostly reliable, my 870 would bind up because that forend would swell with humidity changes.

Happily, Magpul made weather independent plastic furniture for it!

Still, something was missing.

A place to put my bayonet!

S&J Hardware in Canada hooked me up.

I've probably mentioned all of this before, but I found that old pic of her...

CM-11

I really don't keep up with military technology like I used to when Twlight: 2000 was speculative fiction rather than alternate history.

But, occasionally, when I'm double checking something for my GURPS conversion I find something interesting.

Taiwan has an M60A3 tank hull sporting an M48A3 turret with an M1 Abrams fire-control in it.

This made a record scritching noise when I read it.

Why not put the M1 fire-control in the M60A3 turret that came with the hull?

Nobody is answering this question in their write-ups about the thing.

It's probably a simple explanation too.

Click

There are several places which have a very high percentage of their populations fully vaccinated.

They are experiencing surges in Wu Ping Cough that are similar to when there wasn't any mRNA treatment.

It suddenly occurred to me that if this "vaccine" worked at all then any surge in the disease must be much smaller because the vaccinated should be immune and there should be many fewer people who are susceptible to the disease to catch and spread it.

That's how smallpox and polio worked.  More people immune, fewer people catching and spreading until; poof!  No more smallpox or polio except in labs and biowarfare facilities.  Every successive wave of the disease was smaller than the one that preceded it.

Now there's a report from Israel that suggests that more people died of the mRNA treatment than would have died of the disease.  I definitely wanna see that data!

DR-200

I bought this gun new in 1995.  It had an atrocious thumbhole stock on it, but I fixed that with an Ace Ltd. fixed stock and pistol grip.  The lack of bayonet lug was solved with a clamp-on unit I originally bought for my L1A1.

This pic was snapped some time before April 21, 2007, but the old Kodak DC3200 recorded every picture with the date of 31DEC99.

Not once in the 12 years I owned it did it fail to function.  It even worked with the worn out USGI surplus magazines that failed to work in Kaylee.  People look to Israel for weapons that work, but I think that South Korea might be a better arbiter.  Their situation is just as existential, but their potential foes are far more serious about the craft.

It had its down sides, though.

The front sight was WIDE and occluded far too much of the target at anything beyond 50m.

The main reason I soured on it was the utter lack of parts support when Kimber of Clackamas, Oregon went tits up.

I lived in fear of something breaking and having no way of fixing it.

So, being a good hot-rodder, I traded it to a buddy for a cat-back exhaust system for my '91 Biscayne!

My buddy traded it to Mark Serbu for a Super-Shorty shotgun.

Everyone wins! 

Every once and a while I check to see what a Daewoo is running.  They're damn rich for my blood.

Nice To See Them Finally Admit It

Link

The gun control people have been claiming for decades that the National Guard is the militia, and therefore we unwashed peasants don't have any right to own a firearm.

But there it is.

From a government source no less.

It All Started In 2016...

I bought a passel of Gen2 PMAGs in foliage green to match the foliage green furniture.

Up until that point I'd been using the bog standard aluminum 30-rounders.

The only problems I've ever had was with some old Center Industries mags I got from a friend who was in the Iowa National Guard.  I suspect they were in the discard bin and he liberated them.

They wouldn't feed the last three rounds in an AR, but were fine in my Daewoo DR-200.

New springs and Magpul anti-tilt followers and they're back in service.

Those five mags were my ONLY mags for quite a while.

I liked the combination so well I bought some from Bravo Company.

I still maintain that there's nothing inherently wrong with the USGI 30-rounder once the light green follower shows up, as long as the spring isn't worn and the feed lips aren't cracked or distorted.

I decided to give PMAGs a try because I kept hearing stories about how well they were working.

But what made me buy a shitload of them was a mention of those feed lips.

Aluminum can bend past its elastic limit and show no sign of doing so.  That will leave the lips out of spec and cause the magazine to be unreliable.

The plastic that PMAGs are made from will break before they deform past their elastic limit.  So if they're out of spec, it's visible as cracks.

But bonus!  There are several reports of badly cracked PMAGs still feeding fine.  The 2 and 3 gunners swear by them.  That's an endorsement, because they abuse their shit worse than a crunchie.

So far no other model has lifted my skirt.

Hmmmmm

I can't believe I never tried this.

Game a charging Moro against various handguns from the era with GURPS.

I wonder if I'll get the anecdotal results and have the Moro drop like his strings were cut with a .45 but be able to kill the shooter with a .38.

Who STILL Makes A Crappy AR Mag?

The comments on crappy AR mags is digging up some real "gems" from the past.

SHUDDER

Kids these days won't remember the dark times.

I am wondering if this is the silver lining of the dark cloud of the 94 ban on cosmetic features.

It killed the companies making the shitty magazines.

What I really want is an unredacted copy of the USMC Aberdeen test that got the PMAG to be standard issue.

Rumor is that Lancer did very poorly, but I'd like to see for myself.

But You're Not Law Enforcement

Dude, you're an everyday citizen without the special immunities of a King's Man.

You don't get to justify your actions using their language.

The attempt just proves to the jury that you think you are a Sworn King's Man doing the King's Work.

You will be forcibly put in your place.

Not saying you should be, but pucker up.

Who Makes A Crappy AR Magazine?

I can remember the days of Orlite and Canadian surplus Thermold magazines.

Who else rememebers USA brand magazines?  Those were very hit and miss.

I sit here wondering if there's a truly horrible AR magazine made any more.

Wait... Lemme start over.

A truly horrible standard capacity magazine.  Marv has an atrocious 100 round double drum from KCI.

I'm totally in the dark except for reading people complain on the internet.  There's lots of lists that haven't been updated in years.

I bought a lot of USGI magazines and PMAG M3's and because they've been working, never looked for other alternatives.

The only magazine outside those two forms we've snagged is a Hexmag to color match Marv's Behind Every Blade of Grass carbine.

I've read several places that like Lancers.

Who's had a good or bad experience with an AR mag lately?

It's A Promise Not A Demand

The protestors chanting, "No justice!  No peace!" aren't saying that there will be no peace until there is justice.

Judging from their actions they're saying there will never be justice or peace as long as they are around.

Mencken was an optimist.

Too Easy?

I do so love listening to some 25 year old who ETS'd with a 70% service connected disability that was upgraded to 100% at their first board complaining that VA disability is too easy to get.

I'm at 10% with all my doctors agreeing that the service connected condition is the cause of my deteriorating mobility and no joy on even getting that board.

Grumble.

The Cloud Means Someone Else's Computer

In the process of backing up my data I noticed that barely 1,000 of the 11,000+ songs I have were still available to download or play from iTunes.

While much of that library comes from ripping from my pile of CD's, a decent sized chunk of it was purchased from iTunes.

And if I hadn't downloaded it and saved it... the music I paid for would be gone.

If you're not allowed a local copy, you are renting the media.  At best.

Even worse if you're locked into a proprietary format that only runs on their player.  Like movies and TV shows from iTunes.

Quote Of The Day

"The last place you want to find yourself in a self-defense situation is one controlled by blue politicians.  Ironically, these are also the places where you're most likely end up in a self-defense situation."

I keep looking at what the cops and district attorneys in places where BLM and Antifa have been destroying things do.

The savages are let to run free and anyone who tries to stop them is arrested and charged.

No savages are charged if they happen to be arrested.

In effect, burn, loot and riot is legal in these areas.

My only worry is containment.

Keeping this in the blue areas.

The problem is the "sensible" people who move out of these areas can't see themselves as part of the reason that these areas have this problem and they (innocently?) attempt to recreate the conditions where it happens.

Lawfare

If Rittenhouse is convicted, I can certainly see someone like him in the future who's beset by the mob and forced to defend themselves to say, "In for a penny, in for a pound!" and rather than keep running towards the cops to spit on their hands, raise the black flag and wade into the mob firing.

If there's no path that leads to exoneration, what have they to lose?

This will inch towards a feeling that, "if that's the case, then preemptive strike is preferable."

This is fire being played with live on court TV.

Change For Change's Sake?

Dottie is heavy.  She always has been, and Magpul furniture is heavier than USGI stuff.

I am wondering if I should change over to the black stuff I have in the bin from the OD Green that she's wearing now.

It's not like I can't change her back!

A Superior Greek

I've a quote from Heraclitus over there on the right.

Here's another good one, considering my bout with an inferior Greek poet:

“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way.”
― Heraclitus

Some Lessons Stick

I feel no shame about the idea that we dropped two atomic weapons on Japan in 1945.

In fact, I kinda brag on it every year.

Dropping those bombs meant that Operation Downfall was never implemented.

That saved countless American lives.

It also saved countless Japanese lives.

The invasion of Japan would hardly have been unopposed and the resistance met during the island hopping campaign led US planners to think that casualties would be extremely severe.

The atomic bombs disrupted the hold the Japanese Army had on the reins of government, and allowed a surrender to be made that didn't lead to another war in a generation or two.  I note that in the intervening 76 years we haven't had to drop another nuke on Japan.

The alternate history theory that the military controlled government was on the verge of petitioning for an end to the war, if true, would have led to conditions that would have guaranteed a fresh war with Japan in much the same way Germany started a second war in the late '30's.

This war would have been with atomic weapons on both sides because Japan wasn't really all that far behind us in the research.  Giving them 20-30 years to finish that research would have meant they would have the bomb come WW3.

How many lives have been saved from that never happening?

This is actually just a long form way of saying, Nikole Hannah-Jones doesn't know shit about history.

Nobody Tell Roberta X

It appears that if you've caught Wu Ping Cough and survived you've no reason to get vaccinated because you're not going to catch it or transmit it to others.

Utopia

Being a Right Honorable Traveller Grognard, I tend to be dismissive of the Space Opera of Star Trek.

Traveller has its space opera components, but is solid, crunchy, science fiction nonetheless.

Star Trek doesn't let it's technology be solidified far enough to allow any conclusions follow to their natural end.

How many problems would be solved should any of several transporter malfunctions be researched and reproduced reliably?

The main problem with Star Trek is that it's a utopia.  The technology is so miraculous that many conflicts and motivations shouldn't be present.  We could ignore that, but they've shown us the tech that solves the problem.  This is far more evident in Next Generation than the OG series.

Traveller, on the other hand, assumed that humanity would remain human even five thousand years from now and the conflicts we carry would remain.  There's no magic technology that solves human nature or eliminates supply and demand in a way that allows Marxism to be realistic.

And I am a snob about it!

BUT NSN Doesn't Always Mean Issue

While every issue piece of equipment has an NSN (NATO Stock Number), not every item with an NSN is an issue item.

Some items with an NSN are foreign issue items, but are standardized for NATO, like the Magpul EMAG for the UK L85A2 and a black-windowed PMAG M3.

Other NSN items are for items that a unit can purchase with their own funds, but aren't in the supply system.

It's sometimes hard to sort them out, especially since lots of non "USGI" plastic magazines have an NSN.

Veteran ≠ Expert

Plastic magazines ARE USGI issue.

NSN 1005-01-659-7086 is the number for a medium coyote tan 30-round PMAG M3.

This is also the magazine the USMC issues as standard now that you cannot get the gray-bodied, tan-follower NSN 1005-00-561-7200.

The Army has accepted it as a standard magazine as well alongside the NSN 1005-01-630-9508 tan-bodied enhanced performance magazine.

I think the idea that the Army doesn't use plastic magazines as issue should be discarded.

It's not 2015 any more.

Save The Wave

Got my first wave from a C8 driver today!

The people in the newest generation of Vette, especially if it's their first Vette, often don't know about "The Wave".

Just as Porsche owners flash their lights and Jeep owners leave ducks under the wipers, Corvette owners wave.

Some generations are more likely to wave than others.

C1 and C2 owners typically don't return the wave to C4 and newer.  They will not initiate the wave to C3 and newer.  They're a dour lot.

C3 and C4 owners wave enthusiastically, especially if returning the wave from a C6 or newer! 

C5 owners are the exemplar of wavers.  No prejudice up or down in generation.

C6 and C7 owners are tentative wavers.  This is because there are a lot of second owners in this population as the original owners transition to the C8.

The generation one removed from the newest typically won't wave at the newest.

The newest often doesn't wave at all, as detailed above.

But We Don't Have A J43600

Charging the AC system on a C6 Corvette the traditional way has an oddity.

With the conventional gauges and the temperature/pressure tables in hand, we set out to add R134a to replace that which was vented overboard because he had to replace his radiator.

I learned this the hard way once too.

The oddity is you attach the gauges, add some freon R134a then fire up the car with the AC set to its lowest setting with the windows down and the blower running full tilt.

Just about when the low pressure side is nearing the desired range, the high side starts heading for the stratosphere.  Often rising far enough that the high-side pressure cut-off kicks in.

"That's odd," we always say.

Shut off the car, let it cool down a bit, restart and check the pressures and they've fallen off a lot.

Add more R134a as normal and both pressures climb right up where they belong and cold air blasts from the vents.

We've come to call it "burping" the system.

My car did it, my buddy's car has done it and we're starting to think it's normal if you're not using the very expensive automatic AC charging cart the dealer will have.

Why Magazine Disconnect?

When playing with C&R guns I've noticed a few Browning designs which initially did not have a magazine disconnect and grew one in later production.

I've long wondered why and there doesn't seem to be a definitive, or authoritative answer.

I speculate that some people got shot with the, then, new fangled semi-automatic firearms because they thought that taking the magazine out completely unloaded the pistol.

The addition of magazine disconnects to existing designs happens almost all at once in the early 1920's.

Magazine disconnects aren't really common, but they aren't uncommon either.

Most of the time they appear on guns destined for military or police use, so I think that their presence was mandated by the buyer's request for proposals.

Other times, I am not so sure.  S&W's 39/59 series of guns likely has the disconnect from being proposals to the Army, but there was a lot of changing done to the X100 to make the 39, and omitting the disconnect would have been a simplification if they'd wanted to do it.  I think that someone in 1950's S&W liked the feature and included it.  Then it became a distinctive feature of the line-up and remained until the third generation ended production in the very early 21st century.

California's absolutely idiotic laws have driven its inclusion in several modern designs.

I'm on the dislike of the feature side of things.  I tend to avoid designs with it or remove it from them where I can.

Model 459 Magazine Disconnect Removal

First you take out the rear sight assembly.

There's two plunger pins for the elevation access, you push them in and angle the sight so they don't pop right back into the holes, then lift the rear of the sight up to clear the cut-out and slide it out to the rear.

There are three spring loaded plungers to keep track of, be careful!

Then you remove the screw that nominally retains the rear sight ears.

Then the rear sight ears just slide out of the dovetail in the slide.

Yeah right.

Archimedes to the rescue!

The direction Marv pushed it out unmasked the firing pin block first.

Except for leaving out the plastic plunger and its spring, assembly is the reverse of the disassembly.

What If

There's a lot of people condemning Kyle Rittenhouse for being there that night.

Being there at all, regardless of his being armed or not.

What if he'd never shown up to help?

What if he'd not had the rifle?

Both are presented in terms of nothing bad would have happened if he wasn't there and armed (other than the riots, looting and arson, I guess).

I have a what if.

What if the police weren't derelict in their duty to protect the community?

I am aware that the supreme court has given them permission to be derelict, but that doesn't change the question, does it?

What if the district attorneys in Kenosha had prosecuted the few rioters arrested aggressively and harshly?

The government of Kenosha left its citizens to their own devices against a violent mob and has the audacity to blame someone else for their failure?

If riots and lawlessness didn't spread so, I'd be tempted to say, "we don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn."

What Is It With My Hard Drives All Of A Sudden

Not too long ago, I had to replace the main storage inside the Mac.

Now the Drobo went tits up.

Because I do back up my important stuff all I lost were movies and TV shows.

I was considering deleting a lot of them anyway, so it's easy to be philosophical about the loss.

The Guns They've Stopped

This very moment, 103 years ago, the guns stopped.

In France it is the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

In most of the Anglo-Sphere today is Remembrance Day, their version of Memorial Day.

They wear a poppy in their lapel and remember the fallen.

Accidental Art

 

I was being considerate and using a flashlight instead of the kitchen light to pour a drink and the way the light illuminated the glass tickled my fancy.

Veteran's Day!

Today, in the USA, it's Veteran's Day.

A day set aside for those who went in and came out.

It seems odd to have to say it, but today is not for the fallen in the USA; that's Memorial Day.

It isn't for those whom are still serving; that's Armed Forces Day.

If you know a vet, buy them a beer, take them out to dinner, get them laid.

Remind them of all the freebies available!

When you hit the places giving out freebies, be gracious and buy something that's got big margins (like a beer) because it wasn't so long ago that nobody but us and the post office remembered Veteran's Day at all.

How Did Willard Miss This?

He's got an extensive Star collection.

He's got an extensive pile of .45 ACP handguns.

But he doesn't have a Star Megastar?

Now THAT is a Horse Pistol™!

Also Of Note

It would appear that Volkspolizei Lugers which have forced-matched serial numbers on the parts are not hit near so hard in value as the more common mix-master parts guns.

That's because the renumbering was done by real armorers as a factory-level repair/refurbishment and not gunsmiths making a mismatched pile of parts into a gun.

The functional end result is often the same, but apparently this matters to collectors.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 246 you fucking jar-heads!

Have some cake and a beer.

That Didn't Work

Marv and I were going to take a series of pics showing how to remove the magazine disconnect from a 459 with the target sights.

We were unable to get the rear sight protector to move in its dovetail.

Rather than force it and possibly break something, we've abandoned the attempt.

And before someone explains to us to remove the screw that's hiding under the rear sight, we did.

It's just tight and we don't wanna resort to bigger hammer unless Marv really wants to disable the magazine disconnect.

I Have A Suggestion Then

Steve Phelps, NASCAR's president, said Friday the top motorsports series in the United States does not want to be associated with politics “on the left or the right.”

OK, Mr Phelps, but if you don't want to be associated with politics, you're going to have to stop doing the politics of the left with your constant woke bullshit.

That will mean standing up to Bubba Wallace and telling him to stop being political in everything he does.  He's hurting your brand and you're helping him.

It will mean just ignoring what the fans are chanting in the stands.  You've no real control over them anyway, so you shouldn't be trying.  The attempt to silence them just places you in the political position you're claiming you don't want to be associated with.

You long ago ejected your core fan base by trying to cater to demographics which proved to just be sampling the idea of watching round-dee-round racing.  The constant rules changes to appeal to a non-core audience critically damaged your brand; perhaps irreparably.

Volkspolitzei Ost-Berlin

The Mauser Luger had a couple of proofmarks that I didn't even think about, but finally got around to looking up.

Them's East German Volkspolitzei (or VoPo) acceptance marks.

Still chasing the flower marking on the frontstrap.

Update: Berlin police marking for East Berlin Sector One with is the Mitte borough.

Map showing the numbered sectors:

 

Berlin districts (1945-1990):
West Berlin    American Sector I    Kreuzberg II   Neukölln III   Tempelhof IV Schöneberg V  Steglitz VI  Zehlendorf    British Sector A  Tiergarten B  Charlottenburg C  Wilmersdorf D  Spandau    French Sector a  Reinickendorf b  Wedding	East Berlin    Soviet Sector 1   Mitte 2   Prenzlauer Berg 3   Friedrichshain 4   Pankow 5   Weissensee 6   Hohenschönhausen (from 1985) 7   Lichtenberg 8   Marzahn (from 1979) 9   Hellersdorf (from 1986) 10 Treptow 11 Köpenick

Cops On Set?

Alec Baldwin wants cops to replace professional armorers?

Do we all remember where the term "only one" came from?

Um, yeah.  Let's let cops replace the armorers.

Never mind how many times we've seen the absolute worst gun handler at the range turn out to be a cop.

Never mind that most cops don't do more than the minimum required to keep carrying their service weapon, and don't understand anything gun related outside that extremely easy and simple regimen.

Replacing an armorer with a cop isn't going to solve what happened with Alec Baldwin.

The first thing that has to happen is to crush the idea that the actor isn't responsible for what they do with the gun on set.  Then back our way up to standardizing training and procedures for Hollywood to follow when handling guns on set.

What follows from that is a professional association of armorers who maintain that standard and provide credentials for their members and assurance that such standards will be adhered to on set.  To the point where you can't film a firearm without one.

But a badge will not give any of that, nor guarantee that some retard who can memorize lines and pretend to be someone else won't fire a live round if you hand them a loaded gun.

Conviction By Jury Intimidation?

I am old enough to remember when lynch mobs were wrong.

But, OK.

Fine.

Mob justice?

OK.

I want to remind y'all that 'vendetta' is an Italian word.

That Appalachia's "feuds" descend from Scotland's version of vendetta.

But, go right ahead and kick that hornet's nest.

Threaten that jury into voting to convict someone who's innocent of the charges.

When you prove that the cops and the courts don't work, where are we?

Lemme be more specific about "we".

We the majority.

You know, folks who outnumber you by a lot?

We who actually know a bit about this shit you're stirring up?

Wanna bet the average deer hunter can get packed up and relocated before you even hear the shot that gets the person you're confused just collapsed?

You're very vocal and easy to find when you're doing your terror routine and seem oblivious to the idea that someone else might abandon the law as fully as you have.

Go ahead.  Flick the switch to "kill motherfucking everyone" from "obey the law".

Western Civ is good at this.  The American Indian is the only group that can answer, "what happens when?"  Victoria's compassion no longer lives in the heart of Western Civ, so don't count on there being Liberal Reservations.

Nazi's and Commies will go, "HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT ESCALATED FAST!"

We'll feel guilty afterwards, but you won't be here for it.

Will you heed the warning?

Happy Birthday Lex

Jameson for courage.

Guinness for strength.

We miss you, Sir.

That Face When

Rittenhouse's Lawyer: "That's a photo of you, yes?"

Lefty: "That looks like my bicep being vaporized"

Rittenhouse's Lawyer: "And it's being vaporized because you're point your gun directly at him, yes?"

Lefty: "Yes"

Rittenhouse's Lawyer: "It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him, that he fired?"

Lefty: "That's correct"

 DA's response to the above quoted segment.

TL7 VS TL8

MecGar's 17 round magazine replaces the 14 round magazine that came with the pistol in 1975.

How?

The spring windings are completely different (MecGar on top).

The MecGar body is slightly longer.

The MecGar also gets a little extra length inside because the floorplate attaches around the outside of the body instead of being inside.

Three extra rounds for just 1/4" more magazine length.