Gun Free Victim Zone AGAIN?

Bearing Arms reports that the bowling alley the Maine shooter shot up was marked as a gun-free zone.

Character MG

I was going to make a couple of characters with a GPMG or LMG when I realized...

I'm probably going to be the GM, so the character would be an NPC, thus negating the entire point of making a PC with an MG.

Remember The SIG XM5?

The XM5 is now the XM7.

Something about not wanting to step on a Colt model name.

Which brings me back a familiar rant...

If you're not going to use a designation system, why have one?

Oh Noes

Supporting Israel vs Gaza could cost Democrats the Muslim vote, says Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa-7).

Oh no!

Whatever will they do without 1.1% of the total population of America?

Well, supporting that 1.1% means alienating 2.2% of the population which is Jewish and traditionally Democrat in support.

Or has the recent rhetoric already driven them away?

As Beans pointed out, there's a lot of Americans who're fed up with this 1.1% demographic.  Can the Dems afford to lose them too just to keep the Muslim vote?

Doesn't seem like a good plan.

Halloween Is Our Christmas

 

Harvey and I got matching tats to express our love for Halloween.

Kim DuToit most affected.

She Just Won't Relax

 

The other cats are still figuring out the pecking order with the new addition, so we're keeping her sequestered in a carrier and only letting her out with close supervision.

E0

I've put three tanks of Wa Wa 89 octane ethanol free gas through The Beast now.

Last night I went for a drive to Bradenton.

About 200 miles.  Religiously at the speed limit.

Average fuel economy was 25 miles per gallon.

I'm happy with that because it beats the EPA highway number by a whole mile per gallon!  It's also close to what The Precious would do.

Skip To The End

If you're sitting there with your gun and contemplating murdering a bunch of people...

Then killing yourself.

Skip to the end.

Take a camera to where you were going to shoot everyone, and shoot their picture!

Post to the internet those pics with your suicide note with verbiage to the effect of, "I could have killed all these folks, but I was really mad at myself, so I only killed me."

I will gladly post your name and praise your decision.

Crazy Cat People Limit

We are now back to three cats.

A neighborhood stray kitten was getting increasingly bold and plaintive.

We started by leaving out some food and seeing if it came back.

The food and water disappeared.

This went on a couple of days without seeing it.

But then, while we were watching Hockey on the back patio she (for we got a good look) came back and complained about the service.

I went outside with a bowl of food and she would come to eat within arms reach.  She'd scamper away if I tried to reach for her, but she stayed on the back patio.

No sign of her Friday because we weren't out there.

But tonight she came back and was being playful when I tried to pet her.

Plus she was walking up, almost to petting range then scampering away.

She WANTED to trust us.

Eventually I got a pet in.

She decided she liked it and shortly submitted to being picked up.

And she'd let me pick her up again after being put down.

Shortly, we had her on the back porch and she fell asleep in the crook of my arm.

We now have her in a carrier so the other two can get used to the idea, though they'd exchanged words through the screen several times already.

Things appear to be going well, so far.

Keine Nazi?

As the extent of antisemitism within and among the Democrats and liberals is revealed; I am almost surprised.

The reason I am not really surprised is I remember which party has consistently done things to suppress minorities.

They're old hands at it.

Abraham Lincoln wasn't Democrat.

It wasn't a Republican administration that turned MS St Louis away from our shores.

It wasn't a Republican administration that built concentration internment camps.

It wasn't a Republican administration that savagely broke having strong nuclear families for blacks.

It wasn't Republicans what promulgated the red line/green line scheme to keep blacks concentrated in ever smaller, more urban areas while their family structure was being gutted.

It's not conservatives who are going for speech codes, silencing and cancelling people who don't march lock-step with them.

It's not conservatives who fervently try to ban firearms.

On the whole, I can see which side of the political divide is willing to let me be and which one wants to meddle.

Let's Go Poachin' Now

Everybody's learnin' how

C'mon and kill deer with me!

Will it GURPS?

The American Whitetail Hoofrat has 10 HP and no DR with a HT of 12.

.22LR from a rifle does 1d+2 pi-.

.22 Long from a rifle does 1d+1 pi-

.22 WMR from a rifle does 3d-1 pi-; but you'd use hollow points to get 3d-1(0.5) pi.

Aiming for the skull:

.22 LR will do 3-8 points of raw damage, 2 DR for the bone, 1-6 penetrates x4 for the brain hit: 4-24 points of damage.  The average roll will see 3 penetrate for 12 points of damage.  So a roll of 5 or 6 has a chance to kill it right there.

.22 Long will do 2-7 points of raw damage, 2 DR, 0-5 penetrates and 0-20 points of damage.  Average roll sees 2 penetrate for 8 points of damage.  You need to roll a 6 for a chance to kill.

.22 WMR will do 2-17 points of raw damage, double DR because hollow points, 0-13 penetrates for 0-52 points of damage.  The average roll of 10 will see 6 penetrate and do 24 points of damage.  Any roll of 9 or higher has a chance to kill.

Aiming for vitals.

.22 LR, same 3-8 raw damage, no DR, 3-8 penetrates x3 for the vitals hit: 9-24 points of damage.  Average roll will be 5 for 15 delivered.  Any roll of 7 or higher has a chance to kill.

.22 Long, same 2-7 raw damage, no DR, 2-7 penetrates, 6-21 points of damage.  Average roll will be 4 for 12 delivered.  Again, you need to roll max damage to get a chance of killing it.

.22 WMR, same 2-17 raw damage, 1-16 penetrates because no DR is 1 DR for hollow points, 3-48 points of damage.  Average will have 9 penetrate for 27 damage.  Any roll of 8 or higher has a chance to kill.

Aiming for the body:

.22 LR will get 3-8 points to penetrate, but small piercing is halved for 1-4 points of damage.

.22 Long will get 2-7 points to penetrate and get it halved to 1-3 points of damage.

.22 WMR will get 1-16 to penetrate for 1-16 points of damage.

Aiming for the eyes:

.22 LR will get 3-8 to penetrate because no skull DR on an eye hit for 12-32 points of damage.

.22 Long will get 2-7 to penetrate for 8-28 points of damage.

.22 WMR will get 1-16 to penetrate for 4-64 points of damage.

If the deer is wearing a bullet proof vest, no rimfire .22 can hurt it.

It could happen.

Why else do we need AR-15s for?

But a good shot and some luck with the damage shows that you can shoot a deer with a rimfire 22 and make it venison.

Boom Head Shot

Bella Twin used a .22 Long from a single shot Cooey Ace 1 to kill a record big grizzly bear.

That should be a 1d+1 pi- shot to the skull of the bear.

Grizzlies have 19 hit points.

This is not an easy shot.

The story says that she used her expert knowledge of the bear's anatomy to hit it where its skull was thinnest.

I don't have official rules for this, but I'd allow a roll against an appropriate skill to know of a place on an animal that bypasses the extra skull DR.

I'd also give it a penalty to hit similar to hitting the eye.

Max damage of 7 to the skull will become 20 damage done. 

That's enough to knock the bear unconscious, just barely, if it rolls poorly, and Bella Twin put another six in basically the same spot once it was down to make sure it stayed down.

This shoot will GURPS.

What Happened To The Red Flag Law

The alleged shooter has a history of mental illness.

Maine has a red flag law.

I was assured that such laws would keep this from happening.

Was I lied to again?

The Beast VS...

 Way back when...

The Beast has 112 cubic feet of passenger compartment and 17.4 cubic feet of trunk space. 

It's just a little less roomy than the 91-96 B-Body, but it's arranged better.

For one, the spare tire is completely below the trunk, where the B-Body had the spare occupying much of the available space.

Via Min Max

When you do historically based gaming, you start looking for trends to get better weapons.

Here's something I noticed:

For more than a century in the US, the trend was for higher capacity, faster shooting firearms.

The revolver is a development to increase the rate of fire when the state of the art was a single shot muzzle loader.

Wait.  We have to go farther back.

A pepper box was the actual development to increase the rate of fire.  The revolver was to make it handier.

Metallic cartridges come about to increase the rate of fire by making it faster to reload.

Break open and swing out cylinders in revolvers are to increase the rate of fire.

Semi-automatics and box magazines exist to increase the rate of fire.

AND THIS IS JUST HANDGUNS!

Rifles got a significant increase in capacity and rate of fire with tube magazines.

Later box magazines and stripper clips speed the reload time when combined with the developed-for-the-military bolt action becomes dominant.

The semi-automatic Garand increases the rate of fire.

Notice we haven't even mentioned a machine gun yet?

Yeah.

Holy Shit It's Not A Leftist In A Deep Blue Gun Free Zone

Apparently some fuck nut has gone nuts in Maine.

It's noteworthy because the person they've named isn't your typical far left nutcase and Maine has what most of us would consider good gun laws.

This is a first!

I guess it had to happen eventually.

Bet the media will be making hay on this one, because they sure couldn't do so with the last... um... every mass shooting.

Simulation Fail

A lot of the "will it GURPS" style posts are checking to see how realistic, or not, stuff is in the game.

That you can kill someone with a .22 in GURPS puts it above a lot of TTRPGs.

Even so, it's not very realistic.

Rather, it's realistic not real.

Cinematic is a good way to put it.

The wounding system is broken by design to make the game more entertaining and playable.

Getting injured is not entertaining.

Some examples of GURPS failing the reality test:

Skull hits do 4x damage once you get past the DR.  This is a hit to your CPU.

Even a bb can be lethal instantly here in the real world.

Any hit that does enough to do a point (4 in this case) is not going to heal up on its own and leave the victim unaffected.

The vitals do 3x damage.  This is central nervous system, heart and large blood vessels in the torso.

In the game, it does damage when the injury occurs and...  generally speaking if you take no new injuries, you're not going die from blood loss.

In the real world, poking holes in this stuff means you're going to bleed to death if the hole is not repaired.

GURPS has nothing for a severed radial or femoral artery.  The bleeding rules don't work fast enough to simulate it.

.22 LR

Another "Will It GURPS" adventure!

A rifle does 1d+2 pi- with 80/1,400 for range.

Pistols do 1d+1 pi- with 70/1,400 for range.

Because .22LR is light and cheap, I envisioned a character who used guns in this caliber in a post-apocalypse scenario.

Shot placement is what you're going to need with this round.

That means dropping some serious points into your Guns/TL Pistol and Rifle skill.

Since the skull is DR 2, a hit to the brain is handicapped from the get-go.

The rifle will get 1-6 penetrating and that gets 4-24 points of damage.  The pistol gets 0-5 penetrating and 0-20 points of damage.

Pretty much have to roll max damage to get a death roll.

On average you're getting 12 with the rifle and 8 with the pistol.  Don't count on the one-shot-stop.

Vitals doesn't have inherent DR...  plus they're +4 easier to hit!

The rifle will get 3-8 penetrating for 9 to 24 points of damage, with an average of 15.  Again, don't count on the one shot stop.

A pistol does 2-7 penetrating for 6-21 points and an average of 12.

Easy to get the target to start rolling to stay awake, but unlikely to get them dead right there.

But I thought that .22 WMR for the rifle might do better.

The ammo you can actually buy does 3d-1(0.5) pi.

To the skull that will do 0-13 penetrating for 0-52 damage (averaging 22).  Vitals will do 1-16 penetrating for 3-48 damage (averaging 25).

Far better.

Perhaps pack a 9mm handgun because it's common.

Wher-A-Boo

I think every gamer has been there.

There's a lot of WW2 German kit that informed modern kit.

That means you can get modern capabilities at an earlier TL point than modern...

ON PAPER the FG.42 is amazing stuff.

The MKb/MP/StG guns are just like AK's!

Well...

The FG.42, especially in the first widely issued version, is just barely handling the load of firing the 7.92x57mm round.  They're also kinda fragile.

The 10 lb. Garand will sling full power .30-06 all day long with a reliability that rivals Maxim guns.

The later versions are more robust, but still not as great as they appear on paper.  They're also thirteen pounds loaded.  The modern gun it most closely resembled is the FAL, which is a "mere" eleven pounds.

The FAL has far better ergonomics.  Especially with the location of the magazine.

That DOES matter.

What about the Sturmgewher?

7.92x33mm and 7.92x39mm are very close in performance.

But an AKM is 8.7 lb. and the StG.44 is 13.2 lb.!  Even the original, milled, AK-47 is lighter at 11.3 lb.

The semi-auto G.43 was never as good as the Garand.

But what about tanks?

Everyone mentions tanks!

The gigantic advantage the M4 Sherman has over the Tiger and Panther isn't numbers.

It starts every time.  It runs all day.

The crew just has to do their part and do the PMCS.

Tiger and Panther will break even if the crew is proactive about PMCS.

They do have epically good guns and excellent aiming systems.

But:  That aiming system only works if the tank commander can talk the gunner into getting the sight's soda-straw field of view on the, likely moving, target.

The Sherman's gunner has a panoramic view through a periscope in the roof of the turret.  You can even use it to aim the gun, but it's coarse.  What this gets you is you can put the crosshair on the target, then change to the main sight alongside the gun.  This has more magnification and finer aiming.

It means the TC can say, get that tank to the left and the gunner can do most of the work of getting the gun aligned himself.  That frees the TC to maintain situational awareness.

THAT is why a Sherman could kill a Panther or a Tiger, despite the better guns of the German tanks. 

Plus, never discount the advantage of being able to recover knocked out vehicles.  When the Germans lost a tank, it was gone forever because the Allies owned the ground.  Any Shermans knocked out in the same battle could be taken to depot and fixed (or scavenged for parts).

Jamming Your Blaster

Traveller has something called a "nuclear damper".  It's a beam that enhances the strong nuclear force to prevent nukes from going off.

A throw-away line in an episode of Farscape, "they're jamming pulse weapons, so grab a spear!" got me wondering.

Will there be a field of electronic warfare aimed at disabling energy weapons?

Defying The Rules As Written

Douglas Cole has noted that the 1/2D range in GURPS might be wrong for some cartridges before.

He finds that .22LR should have more than three times the 70 yards given in the rules.

If that holds for .25 ACP, then the shot that Paw Paw was talking about will GURPS again!

All it needs to work, aside from a miraculous series of rolls on the part of Dindu's player, is for the 1/2D number to be 125 yards or longer.

It's 90 in the rules as written, so not too much of a stretch where .22 is 1/3 of its calculated distance.

Mr Cole did the math for us.

I've Met Them

Getting caught up in Islamophobia is pretty easy when there's savages murdering people and claiming Islam as their justification for doing so.

The urge to cry, "kill them all and let God know his own!" is pretty compelling.

There's a bit of an issue.

Islam is not a monolithic thing.

There are moderate Muslims.

There are very secular Muslims.

More than a few live here in the USA to escape the more radical, savage, interpretation of their religion.

Many branches of Islam still advocate death to heretics and apostates and in their native lands, they do kill those whom wish to trod a more moderate path.

The problem, here in the US, is determining one from the other when deciding if we're going to let them move here.

Worse, while they might be fine; too often their children prove vulnerable to being radicalized.

No, I don't have a solution, just making an observation.

Too often Islam is not compatible with the norms of Western Civilization, but it's a friction point that could be lubricated; but it requires something of a reformation from Islam and making the moderate and more secular version to become the mainstream.

That will be intolerable to the radical versions, it's literally an affront to God to depart from their interpretation of their scriptures.

Another wrinkle is Islam being the state religion of several nations.  That means there will be a State sanctioned version of the Holy Text and other versions will be illegal.

This has hampered research and archaeology.  Just like the Bible and Torah, there have been finds of different versions of the Quran.  Some of these have just disappeared and scientists expelled or censored.

A huge thing that the more radical versions of Islam in America need to get is we're serious about religious freedom.  A huge thing about that is there's no punishment from The State for deciding you don't want to be a member of any given religion anymore and that some religions punishment for doing so is illegal.  Your kid decides they want to be an atheist, you can disown them, but you can't kill them.

Knowing that there are Muslims who handle this just fine is great.  It means there's hope that the murdering might stop without one side being completely scoured from the earth.

Sadly, the nature of terrorism means that a small number of people can do vast damage.

Does It GURPS

Paw Paw shares a charming story of love and .25 ACP.

125 yard head shot.  Dead right there.

A Raven does 1d pi- and has 90/950 for range.

That's past the 1/2d distance and will be a -11 to hit.

Apparently, Dindu's player made some amazing die rolls.

Pretty much has to be a critical success to hit at all with the typical exhibited skill of the average Dindu.

Then he rolled another 3 to hit the skull.

Then he rolled an 18 to get, "The blow does triple damage."

Then he rolled a 6 for damage which gets halved to 3 and 1 penetrates that does 12x damage.

We'll be charitable and assume that Gonorea has a 10 HT and 10 HP.

12 points of damage is just barely enough to get a consciousness roll, so...

If they rolled a 3 on the critical head blow table, then no DR from the skull and all 3 penetrate.  That becomes 12 as well...

No, this shoot does not GURPS.

If it were slightly closer, the 6 damage would be 4 penetrated and 48 damage.  That'll do it. 

This is why we don't use GURPS to do real world planning about what guns really work.

Best Case

Watching Christine and I realized that it's pretty much the best case scenario for owning an old MOPAR.

This Could Get Interesting

Puty Baby appears to have had a heart attack.

Is there a clear successor?

Skating Dangerously Close To The Line

Anti-Semitism is hewing close to the line where hostis humani generis lives on the other side.

Western civ has done this to a select group of people who wouldn't be civilized unless you started just killing them on sight.

Come to think of it...  "The shores of Tripoli" refers to one of the most recent times such a declaration was made and to the same stripe of folks currently involved.

Of course, we're going to have to have another Operation Eagle Claw level disaster and a change of presidents before we can really enforce such a decree.

Something that needs mentioned is that most Americans really dislike anti-Semitism.

There's a core of people who learned about The Holocaust and think that "never again" meant NEVER and don't care for someone having another go and such attempts puts them on the hostis humani generis side of the line.

Just For The Record

I did not get my Colt Gov't Model in .38 Super because of its competition lineage.

I got it because I was researching the Prohibition Era and I like 1911's!

I think this explains why.

Not In Second Edition

My pseudo-dragon might have been ageless in AD&D, but he wouldn't have been in AD&D 2e.

It specifically states in the Monstrous Manual they average 15 years before succumbing to old age.

AD&D 4e, like OG AD&D doesn't specify a lifespan.

OG edition had a Dragon article that said they aged liked dragons, who don't die from old age.

The GURPS 4e conversion I made:

Pseudo Dragon (AD&D Monster Manual p.79)

124 Points

Attribute Modifiers: ST-8 [-80]; DX+4 (No Fine Manipulators -40%) [48]; HT+4 [40].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: SM-4.

Advantages: Affliction 1 (Magic Resistance 4, no hindrance +20%; Melee Attack -30%; Aura +80%) [17]; DR 6 (Cannot Wear Armor, -40%) [18]; Enhanced Move 1 (Air Speed 28) [20]; Innate Attack (Fatigue) 2d (Cyclic, 1 hour, 10 cycles, resistible, +90%; Follow-Up, Tail Striker, +0%; Resistible, HT-2, -20%) [34]; Flight (Winged, -25%) [30]; Impaling Striker (Tail) [8]; Invisibility (Mana Sensitive -10%) [36]; Magic Resistance 4 [8]; Mind Reading (Mana Sensitive -10%, Universal +50%, Telecommunication -20%) [36]; Nictitating Membrane 1 [1]; Reduced Consumption 2 [4]; See Invisible (Magical; Mana Sensitive -10%) [14]; Sharp Teeth [1]; Telesend (Mana Sensitive -10%, Sensory +20%, Universal +50%) [48]; Unaging [15].

Disadvantages: Cannot Speak [-15]; Dependency (Mana, Very Common, Constant) [-25]; Quadruped [-35] Social Stigma (Wild Animal) [-10].

Features:

Racial Skills: Brawling (E) DX [1]-14; Stealth (A) DX [2]-14; Tracking (A) Per+1 [4]-11.

I included unaging.  So there!

I love how the ability to give your companion the magic resistance is an affliction...

If you want to conform to the AD&D 2e stats change the Unaging [15] to 2 levels of Short Lifespan [-20] and the point total to 89 points.

PS: They have four legs and two wings.  Like all correctly depicted dragons.

It's Actually Constitutional This Time (Well Some Of It)

Larry Vickers has this indictment.

He's plead guilty to some other charges as well, notably:

Vickers also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against a foreign firearms manufacturer between July 2014 and March 2021, in the Southern District of Florida.

The firearms charges, prolly unconstitutional.

Sanctions violations?  Import sanctions are constitutional.

Even sanctions on gun parts or laser printer cartridges.

The roe at Arfcom over this keeps missing that point.

But some of the details that thread are revealing...

For someone who did what he did in the military for so long, you'd think he'd have internalized some fucking OPSEC and COMSEC.

There's emails between him and the sheriff's where they're talking about how they're doing an end-run on the laws openly.

At a time when ATF has been cracking down on this not-really-a-loophole in the FOPA restriction on new MG manufacture and transfers.

Yes, if you're the right kind of FFL/SOT, you can get brand new machineguns imported with an LEO letter.

Yes, if you're the right kind of FFL/SOT, you can make brand new machineguns with an LEO letter.

Yes, if you're the right kind of FFL/SOT, once they are done doing their testing and evaluation, you can keep the test article and play with it like you owned it.

But it's all about intent.

The agency writing the letter has to intend to test and evaluate the gun in question.

The FFL/SOT has to acquire the gun in question with the sole intention of providing it to the LEO agency for their testing and evaluation.

So when you write your buddy, the sheriff, and say, "write me a letter for a c.2022 Gigablaster, because I want one," and the sheriff does and you buy one with the intention of getting it to play with like you owned it and with no intention from you or the LEO to test or evaluate it for the LEO...

You broke the law.

An unconstitutional law, in my opinion, but it's still on the books and being actively enforced.

And you openly discussed it on an unsecure channel!

That was stupid.

Scratch Out

It's OK to write your logins and passwords down.

Just make sure your little pad of logins is secure.

But if you change your login and password, make a note in your book that you've done so!

We spent an hour with my mother in law's computer and google fighting three password changes and recoveries before we figured out the correct password...

Because Google told us we couldn't change the password to the current one.

Ugh.

Wanna Try Something?

We just tried this recipe!

I substituted a jar of Tostito's Chili con Queso for the Cheez Whiz, but the effect is the same. 

 The cheese flavor is not up front, it's in the back and subtle.

Pairs well with chili!

Hoard

A character I once had in one of Standing Bear's D&D worlds was a pseudo-dragon.

He was rather liberal with letting us run monsters as characters, and my pseudo-dragon was classed as a fighter-thief.

He was not very powerful.

But one day, that all changed.

The big-dogs of the campaign decided they needed to "run off" some time.

Us small fry didn't have the votes to prevent it, so everyone got 100 years older and got to submit a "what did you do during the break?" homework.

They'd secured their immortality, so it was no big deal to run off that long.  Pseudo-dragons are ageless, like real dragons.

Most everyone else was making a new character.

I asked about the local baron's vault.

It turns out it was not rat proof.  If a rat can get in, so can a pseudo-dragon.

Remember me being classed as a thief?

In Bear's world a thief got one experience point per gold piece stolen.

So I stole one per day from the vault.  For one hundred years.

Admittedly, this only moved me from 3rd level to 7th level; but my HP was based on that level now, instead of the racial hit dice!

I was a tough-ass pseudo-dragon!

The theft was small enough that no real investigation was conducted, though I remember an exchequer or two were hanged for their accounting failures...

When I later acquired a ring of teleportation and a ring of regeneration, coupled with the natural chameleon abilities...  I was an essential part of the group.

Plus, I never voted against running off time, the big boys appreciated that.

Respect

Twitter X Link.

This is Shlomo Ron. When Hamas terrorists invaded his home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, this 85-year-old frail man had a plan. He left his wife, daughters and grandson in the shelter, and went to sit in his living room, waiting for his death. He figured that when terrorists break in they will see him, execute the lonely old man, and move on. He was right. He’s a hero who sacrificed himself for the people he loves. May be rest in peace.

 

It's Not 2005

I remember when Katrina rolled over NOLA and cops were imported from all over the country to "maintain the peace."

Which they did by confiscating guns from law abiding people who'd survived the storm and were prepared to sit tight until services were restored.

Many people never saw their guns again because the burden of proof was put on the owner to show they owned it, rather than on the police to keep track of where the gun had come from and return it.

Most states subject to hurricanes now have laws forbidding such confiscations, now.

But this shit comes up again with red flag laws.

You've got to prove it's your gun, despite the cops taking it straight from you.

This is on top of being required to come to where they have your gun stored, rather than them bringing it back.

I think it's high time that the burden be put where it belongs:  On government.

If they seize something that needs to be returned, it should be returned to the owner.

Ownership should not be in question.  The police know where the item came from and whom they took it from.  All you should need show is that you're the person in question.

Not provide a receipt or bill of sale.

I think I will suggest this to my normally useless state legislators on Monday.

Another Convert

Changed the Mother in Law's Lenovo T420 from Win7 to Ubuntu 22 today.

Harvey checked to make sure all her Facebook games still worked and we got her bookmarks restored.

Should be all-good now!

It's astonishing how much faster the machine runs on Linux than Windows.

Fingers crossed she's happy with the change, there will be something of a learning curve because things are different shaped and in different places.

Also...

C&Rsenal is on Playeur too.

Their 2 factor authorization pisses me off on so many levels.

I just want to login and watch vids.

Not open the page, hit the login button, go to a different tab, login to my email, get the code, go back to the first page and enter a code...

Every single time I open the site.

They can't remember me?

C&Rsenal Most Affected

Well, YouTube has given me a three video countdown to blocking me from viewing unless I accept their odious level of advertising.

Othias, May, if I can't watch, I'm afraid I will have to end my Subscribestar contribution too.

I'd been blocking ads to send a message to Google that if they didn't monetize channels, I would not let their ads reach me.

YouTube is fucking the creators, again, not the viewers.

We'll find something else to do with the time.

Old Skinny And Fast

 Old NFO touches on the Government Model.

You don't have to accept slow and fat.

.38 Super works just fine.

If you want fat, but don't want slow, you can always get a 10mm ACP version.  You can.  I can't.  Those things are NOT in the budget at La Casa de McThag.

I reiterate something I've long said about the "1911" and that there's nothing wrong with the M1911.

There's lots wrong with the clones of the M1911 that have tarnished the reputation of this revolutionary design.

I've talked about that too.

Many clones are trying to make the design something it was not intended to be.

The M1911 is a combat pistol, it's a sidearm.

It is not a target pistol.

But too many clones are making target pistols and that compromises the design.

Then people get surprised when it doesn't run right.

Yet they'd understand that while both things are cars, you don't use a Formula 1 car for a road trip and you don't enter a minivan at Monaco.

Gun writers have failed to educate their readers expectations.

Dealers

A hint to the UAW that they don't have the power they think they do:

The dealerships are not screaming for the strike to end.

The average dealer has too much inventory and this strike has meant they don't have to accept new inventory they are having trouble moving.

The threat of shutting down plants that make parts and that affecting warranty servicing is being answered with, "we're still waiting on transmission solenoids from before the strike, how is this different?"

Dorman doesn't use union labor and their solenoids appear to be working where the union made OEM part is failing under warranty...  To the point that Ford approved the use of Dorman for warranty repairs before the strike.

The average person never hears these stories.

If you're wrenching on your own car, you do.

You Are Not The Only Workers

Back when I was a drafter for a company that designed and made vending machines...

(If you've ever seen a "LIVE BAIT" machine outside a Wal Mart, that's one of mine)

Our production plants were UAW.

When contract time would roll around they'd start making strike noises and demanding "their share" of the profits.

It was always them and management they referred to.

I always found that odd.

I was not a UAW worker.

I was not management.

But if the company needed to lay someone off because they couldn't lay-off the union workers...  Guess who got shown the door!

They were constantly fucking the people who worked in design, engineering, testing, and sales.

The contracts never account for bad years; so everyone but them have to tighten their belts.

Their raises are astronomical, and I suspect, the reason that everybody else's wages have been so stagnant is the drag that union shops put on the economy.  I strongly suspect that they are the only ones whom are getting raises that keep up with their favorite party's effect on inflation.

But they got theirs, fuck the rest of us.

Except I can't afford a new car.  Where will you be when the labor costs of a new car drive it up so far that only UAW workers can buy one?  You're simply not a large enough market to support the manufacturing rate.

Don't expect sympathy when it happens to you.

You've done it to me more than once.

Bone Domes

The quest for an M1 pot to take a picture of got me shopping for other issue helmets.

There's several ACH's on ebay for about $150 in various degrees of condition and completeness.

That's the issue NIJ IIIA DR 12.  More stylish and comfortable than the PASGT, but it offers no more protection.

The aftermarket is really confused about the NIJ ratings.

This maker says this one is IIIA, but the description conforms to what III would be.  III is DR 25.

This one is III, but the description is closer to IIIA.

Same price!  The one advertised as III is more expensive, normally, which makes me suspect that the descriptions are wrong...

For a bit more you can move up to NIJ IV and DR 35; but your ears are exposed.

Just the thing for hurricane prep!

California's AWB Declared Unconstitutional

St Benitez has struck again.

Now we stand by for what shennanigans the 9th Circus pulls keeping the law in force for as long as possible.

It's another rough one for the antis.

They can take the loss and just have the California assault weapon ban be nuked, or they can appeal.

If they appeal, they risk nuking all the 9th Circuit AWBs.

That, in turn creates a risk of nuking ALL the AWBs if it hits the current lineup at SCOTUS.

The magazine ban is currently on such a trajectory.

Not Player Popular

I've made several weird historical worlds over the years.

Many, or most, have been in places where the open display of full-on military weapons is, if not encouraged, absolutely OK.

Hardly any player takes a sub-machine gun.

Never has a player taken a machine gun without external forces being applied to them.

Machine guns are heavy and expensive in GURPS, so players instinctively avoid them.  3e's shitty cumbersome rules for applying them to an area target mask their utility.

Plus, some machine guns don't even have a lot of shots before needing reloading.

But sub-machine guns kinda confused me for a while.

The rock-and-roll is offset by the lack of damage and, unless you applied all the buck-fever, bullet-shyness and flinch mods, 3e encouraged aimed single shot fire.

If you could make one die roll and get a 7d hit to the vitals, why waste most of the bullets for a couple of 3d-1 hits to the body?

Oh, and WW1 and WW2 era sub guns are as heavy or heavier than full-power bolt-actions.

Then, after a certain history point, a battle or assault rifle lets you have your cake and eat it too.

4e has replaced the beaten zone rules with suppressing fire.  It's much simpler and smoother running.

Unfortunately, I have a lack of 4e playing time to lure an unsuspecting player to hump the pig.

Non-Essential

YouTube, you do realize that if you block me from watching your vids because I'm opting out of seeing the same three ads on every video...

I will just stop going to your site.

Then where will you be?

It might even save me money when I cancel the subscribestar donations to a couple of creators.

I already know they don't see a dime from the ads, that's why many of us started running an adblocker in the first place.

A protest of sorts.

Considering how big Google is, they could definitely create an ad support system where an advertiser could pull their ads from content they don't wish to support rather than nuking the content completely.

They could also, definitely, start taking ads from advertisers who LIKE that content.

But there's political agendas involved here.

I will miss YouTube when it's gone.

Hell, I will miss Blogger when it's gone too.

I will live, though.

Thag Want Machine OBEY

One of the oft recurring irritations about putting a computer in everything is they do what they're programmed to do, not what the controls say.

When we had the house opened up, we set the HVAC fan to 'on' to help circulate that glorious fresh air.

Well, it's a lot cooler today and we'd forgotten to set the fan back to 'auto'.

With the AC set to 78° and the inside temp at 75°, you'd think that the fan would shut off that instant, no?

Nope.

It's got to keep going for another five minutes.

Blasting cold air down my neck after I commanded "no more!"

It's the same damn thing as running everything through a bus and body-control-module instead of terminated switches.

The thing that pisses me off most about the BCM shit is the switches are all still there.  They're just duplicated someplace else with relays.

Before:  Door opens, switch closes, circuit completed, domelight turns on.

Now: Door opens, switch closes, completed circuit is a signal to BCM, a transistor changes state, that trips the coil on a relay, circuit completed, domelight turns on.

Rube Goldberg to the white courtesy phone.

Pot

Remember when steel pots were nearly free?

Then they were really cheap?

Well, they've gone to really fucking expensive.

I just want one for a picture.

Do you have one gathering dust in your attic or garage?

Wanna give or loan it to me?

Mean Tweets Were Worse Than All This Right?

Leaders are blowing off Brandon.

We got protests in front of our embassies in Arab nations.

Feels like Carter again.

You can almost TASTE the malaise.

Of note is the protests at the embassy in Iraq.

Remember how I often have said that if you fuck up so bad we have to come break shit and kill people where you live, we own it when we're done?

If we'd conquered Iraq and made it a territory, the idiotic war that's about to start would have had competent leadership on our side because it would have happened 20 years ago.

First Chili Of The Season

Made my first batch of chili in honor of the cooler weather we're getting for a couple of days!

Unlike the idiots in Texas, my chili has both meat and beans.

Man Skirt

Someone on Facebook is asserting that if a kilt isn't in a tartan, then it's just a "man skirt."

What, exactly, does he think a kilt is?

It's a fucking skirt.  Worn by men.

Even if it's your family tartan.

Perhaps, especially so.

Pictures

I am not a photographer.

I take pictures, but I don't call myself a photographer.

All I need to do is check what Oleg or Tam are doing with their cameras and I happily concede that I don't know near as much about getting the best shot.

I like to think I have an eye for composition.

But I don't know what I don't know much of the time.

But I have fun!

With all that said...

In a couple of picture threads on some forums; Holy shit, I'm a photographer!

I realized that while I don't know as much as I'd like and I can't do what I want sometimes, I have managed to learn something about how to take pictures and am getting better results than my early work.

 

Better cameras help!  But even that will not compensate for framing the subject from too far away...

Still, I am an egg.

I'm still learning and still having fun.

Dead Hats

When you're bald, the sweat just runs in your eyes.

Often, a hat will keep that from happening.

My favorite boonie hat just died.

It was made by Eotac.

They don't make the A104 boonie hats any more.

Pity, that.

Finding a good boonie hat is a trial and error process.

There are so many shitty versions out there.

They're all genuine Chinese, so...

I took a chance on Gloryfire.

They're affordable, and available.

The 7-3/4 size says "fits most" and it does, indeed, fit.

The Boy, promptly stole it.

Replacement is on order.

I Need A Watermelon

It's a thought I had back when I was learning kenjitsu.

A thrust where the edge of the blade slides down the side of the target, like the ribs or neck, is more of a cutting attack than an impaling one.

Should be the same with any point and edge sword.

Now I want to check it on a melon to see if it works at all, or if it's brutally ineffective.

Measure Countermeasure

Dear YouTube, your cute little pop-up telling me that adblockers aren't allowed on YouTube while whatever plug-in I've installed still blocks the ads...

It's telling me that you have been stymied on how to get around what I'm using.

Perhaps if parent company Google could figure out from their vast, intrusive, personal information gathering tentacles what products and services I'm actually interested in...

I'd not feel like blocking four minutes of advertising for every six minutes of video.

Perhaps if there were more than five distinct ads.

I'd not feel like blocking four minutes of advertising for every six minutes of video.

Perhaps if the ads were entertaining enough to watch more than once.

I'd not feel like blocking four minutes of advertising for every six minutes of video.

Perhaps if the ratio of ads to video wasn't four minutes of advertising for every six minutes of video.

I'd not feel like blocking four minutes of advertising for every six minutes of video.

I tolerated the ads for a really long time before installing the plug in I'm using.

It was getting to the point that I was considering not bothering watching anything on YouTube at all.

Consider that, YouTube.

You provide nothing that I cannot live without.

If you ruin the entertainment value with the disproportionate ratio of ad to content; I will go be entertained elsewhere.

59% Obscured

 

This is as much sun as will be blocked this eclipse here where I live.

It's obviously dimmer than it should be and the sun angle is wrong for this level of light.

It's disconcerting, even though I know what's going on.

Seek Moar Dakka

Not-Weaponsman asks, "Can 9mm kill a bear?"

Well?

How does 9x19mm do on a bear?

The typical, full-size, 9mm will do 2d+2 pi.

A black bear has 14 HP and DR 2.

A max damage roll against the body will get 12 points in.  That will slow it down, but it's going to keep coming.

Going for the vitals will deliver 36 points.  That'll get a 2 death rolls on a 13 HT.  So, probably not killing it.

Remember, this is a MAX roll.

An average hit will get 7 past the DR to the body and 21 to the vitals.  21 will just get a consciousness roll.

What about the brain?

The skull gets an extra 2 DR.  That gets a mere 5 through the DR and that becomes 20 damage.  Same as vitals, really.

If you're a really good shot and can hit it in the eye... you do 36 damage.  Just enough to get two death rolls.

That's just a wee little black bear.

Grizzlies have 19 HP and polar bears have 20.

So, no, don't use 9mm on a bear.

What about something heavier?  Like 10mm ACP?

10mm does 3d-1 pi+.

The average hit will do 9 raw damage, 7 will get past the DR and do 10 to the body and 21 to the vitals.

Not much better than the 9mm, actually.

It'll do 20 to the skull and 36 to the eye...  That sounds familiar.

What about the legendary .44 Magnum?

3d+1 pi+!

Average hit will do 11 raw damage, 9 will get past the DR and do 13 to the body and 27 to the vitals.  Better, but no death rolls.

The skull gets 28 delivered and the eye 44.  1 death roll and 4 death rolls respectively.

Pretty marginal.

How's about a shotgun?

A 12ga 2-3/4" rifled slug does 5d pi++.

Average raw damage is 17 points, 15 penetrates for 30 to the body and 45 to vitals.  1 death roll to the body and 4 death rolls to the vitals.

Hitting the skull will get 52 damage delivered, 68 through the eye socket.  5 death rolls from the skull and 9 from the eye.

Pistols are not what you want.

Time And Research

Have you ever noticed that the crate The Ark of the Covenant is in is too big for any hatch on a Type VII U-Boat?

The Ark, without the crate, is also too big.

It's A Perfectly Cromulent Word

The founder of Springfield from The Simpsons has a quote with a made-up word.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."

I did not get the joke until very recently.

It's a play on Thomas Jefferson's coining the word, "belittle."

There was some damn subtle stuff in the older episodes.

Combo

My Caprice PPV is dubbed "The Beast".

Harvey has latched onto the idea and has equated it with Hank "The Beast" McCoy from X-Men.

 

Therefore, The Beast must be blue.

But what blue?

I decided yesterday.

The same blue as the Ames Police Department used for decades!

I'm an ex-Ames resident and it's an ex-cop car, after all.

The color in question appears to be Ford's Twilight Blue.

No budget to do anything about it for the foreseeable future, but at least a decision has been made.

A Breif History

I found this on the internet, but a quick skim of Wikipedia seems to match up:

-Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.

-Before the British Mandate existed the Ottoman Empire, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Mamlyuk Islamic State of Egypt, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Islamic State of Mamlyuk of Egypt, the Empire of Ayubid existed, not the Palestinian State. Goffrey IV of Bulonsky, known as Godfrey de Bouillon, conquered Jerusalem in 1099

-Before the Empire of Ayubid, there existed the French and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the empires of Omeyad and Fatimid existed, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the empires of the Omeyad and Fatimid, there was the Byzantine Empire, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonees State, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Hasmoneysk state, it was the Selevkid state, not the Palestinian state.

-Before the Selevkid Empire, there existed the Empire of Alexander of Macedonia, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Empire of Alexander of Macedonia, there was the Persian Empire, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylon Empire, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Babylon Empire, there existed the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, the Kingdom of Israel existed, not the Palestinian State.

-Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was a theocracy of the twelve knees of Israel, not the Palestinian state.

-Before the twelve generations of Israel's theocracy, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaan cities-empires, not the Palestinian state.

Palestine has always been a region, not a nation.  But this isn't what the debate is about, and never was.

No Real Difference

A long while ago Marv bought some filters for his S5 IS that I inherited.

This x0.5 filter is supposed to help with Macro shots.

Here's a shot with the filter:

f/6.3; 45mm, 1/8", ISO 12,800

Here's a shot without:

f/6.3; 45mm, 1/8", ISO 12,800

Not much of a difference that I can see.

Maybe a little closer, but not a great deal.

Sunshine On A Cloudy Day

I made me a 58mm solar filter from the leftover film FuzzyGeff sent.

I noticed I already had a 58mm filter I'd made from a different kind of film FuzzyGeff sent.

Let's compare!

This is the older filter, original and cropped.  No chance at a clear picture because of the high level haze lingering from the front that moved through.

New filter, original and cropped.

Just a little bit clearer than the older one.

Not bad for home-made!

I'll do another comparison if we get some clearer skies.  Hopefully we'll get them Saturday for what we can see of the annular eclipse.

Hard To Miss

We're having some sporty weather here on Florida's Suncoast.

Last night, we even got a tornado warning!

The emergency alert tone blasted out of Harvey's phone, then she got a text message and finally a robocall from the sheriff's office.

I'll give them credit for being thorough.

My phone didn't make a peep.

I have all those alerts disabled because I got sick of the near constant amber alerts from the distant corners of the state.

I sometimes wonder if that's wise, but Harvey is still getting them.

Owning The Black

The reason for the Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and Pax Americana is to allow for the free flow of goods from the periphery to the capitol.

Everyone else enjoys this peace, and doesn't pay for it.

Generally speaking, we're getting more from the peace we're enforcing than it costs to maintain it, but we are being taken advantage of by certain actors.

In Traveller, the 3rd Imperium controls the space between worlds, not the worlds themselves.

What would a Pax Americana Oceanus look like?

"Gee, that looks like a land war, not our problem."

"That's our ship you interfered with, problem."

I rather like the idea of using the Atlantic and Pacific as moats.

I also rather like the idea of being a lot less imperial in our international politics unless we actually become Imperial.

At least Rome and Britain were keeping the trade routes open to someplace they owned.  We're not even renting the places we're protecting.

We Could Say 'OK'

There once was a man named Manuel Noriega.

One afternoon he said there was a state of war between Panama, the nation he was "military ruler" of, and the USA.

George Bush Sr said, "OK."

And shortly thereafter we invaded Panama and dragged Mr Noriega back to the US to be tried for several crimes.

I seem to recall that Iran has, at least once, said that they were at war with the US.

I can't find a specific instance.

If I'm remembering correctly, we could just say, "OK," and have at it.

Our military is all messed up at present, but we're definitely in better shape than we were in 1979.

I dare say we're in better shape than we were for Operation Preying Mantis in '88.

They could ask Saddam Hussein how getting us riled up worked.

Oh.  Wait.  He's unavailable for comment.

When Neil Armstrong Assassinated Kennedy From The Moon Landing Set

Children.

Not everything that happens is a false flag/black swan conspiracy.

Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be.

Even if the press is reporting things are what they appear to be.

In this case, though, the raw imagery of what was going on preceded the media's reporting and much of it was relayed by people who've been rattling their Ritalin bottle looking for fake or out of context images.

Yes, there have been some, but the majority of what we're seeing is genuine and from the current Hamas attack.

It's barbarity.

Every time I see this kind of barbarity I keep thinking that we need not reply as we would to a civilized opponent.

I keep thinking that it might just be time to show the world what the word genocide really means.

Oh, Apartheid doesn't mean what you think it means either.

Also, also, if agents of Hezbollah have walked across the sieve of a border we have and attack US citizens here in the states:

I think it would be good to remember how very close the American people were to demanding blood from ALL of Islam after 9/11.  I don't think that Biden is as capable of selling such restraint as GWB was.  This was good, because there were a lot of INNOCENT Muslims out there.  Still are.

Do not dare Western Civ to test the Zero to Jackboot time. 

Also, also, also:  There's a couple of domestic terror organizations who've already declared solidarity with the barbarians.  Prolly shouldn't have made that declaration if Hezbollah starts the FAFO cycle.  People were fed up BEFORE.  Don't be looking to add straw to an overburdened camel.

Separating

Granted that the mainstream medial lies through their teeth all the time...

It's dangerous to assume they like about everything every time.

Yes, if they say the sky is blue, you go check; but don't just sit there and proclaim that the sky is not blue because the MSM said it was.

More often than you'd like to believe, they ARE simply reporting events as they're happening.

Hockey Night!

Tonight was the season opener for the Tampa Lightning.

They won!

Harvey and I watched the next game in the queue and then she turned in.

I'm posting to my blog rather than watch the Kraken and Knights go at it.

When Does A Gun Get Soul?

It's widely accepted that the 1911 has soul, and the Glock 17 doesn't.

Is it because one is metal and the other plastic?

A Beretta M9 is metal, but I don't think it has soul.

It's not because aluminum vs steel.

The S&W Model 59 has soul and an aluminum frame.

It can't be because of mass production because they made a shit-ton of M1911A1's between 1941 and 1945.

It's not caliber, there's many 9mm's with soul.

I think it's the plastic.

Though my M&P 2.0 Compact is hitting very close to having soul from how magically good it works for me.

Far closer than it's full sized predecessor.

They're Not Indigenous Either

Humanity did not spring forth from the Americas.

It got here from someplace else.

All of us.

Some of our ancestors walked over the Bering Straight Land Bridge, some of our ancestors came over by ship.  Some of us came willingly.  Some came grudgingly.  Some were forced.

But we're all here now!

So, Happy Columbus Day!

The Lovely Harvey, a non-Dawes Blackfoot, rolls her eyes at "Indigenous People's Day" so hard that the click scares the cats.

Sealed The Ceiling

The front porch now has a contiguous cover under the rafters.

Harvey is giddy because plywood can take the little hooks that hold our Halloween decorations up far better than the ancient gypsum board that was falling down on its own.

Next item will be removing the flashing and putting a new facing on the eave.

Then we can get a wind mitigation inspection so we can keep our insurance.

The joys of home ownership!

A Fine Day!

Che Guevara has been pushing up daisies for 56 years.

That's a long time to be a Good Communist.

Many can't do it in their lifetime.

Che couldn't.

Special thanks to Carbine Williams for the assist.

Fucking A

 

Another Forgotten Book

Long ago, a friend loaned me a book.  I think it was new in '96 or 97.

It was a science-historical-fantasy novel about a Viking kid.

Things I remember:

There was a bad guy who had had his arms and legs cut off by the Vikings.

The symbol for the kid's god was a ladder.

And a scene where they "christen" a ship by running it over captives on the runners so the blood would sanctify the launch.

There's a scene where they get visions from drinking some icky concoction then again when they drink the piss from that...

And that is about it.

It was apparently the first book of a trilogy.

Never Again Part 2?

I am thinking that Hamas might have miscalculated a bit.

For years they've had to carefully not antagonize Israel to the point where Israel would say, "you know, fuck this shit."

Israel has had to worry about what the rest of the world would do and had to carefully balance their responses to belligerence against these concerns.

But I think we might be past the "fuck this shit" horizon this time.

Fuck this shit includes replying to the rest of the world with a, "You know, we don't really fucking care what you fucking think."

I remember, always, "May you live in interesting times," is a curse.

A Far Cry

Looking at compression ratios for my cars...

The engine that came with the '91 Caprice Classic (later transmogrified to Biscayne SS) was a 305 cubic inch L03 V-8 with a 9.3:1 compression.

87 octane was its fodder and it ran no different if you gave it the more premium blends.

10 to 1 was unheard of in street engines from the OEMs back when I was coming up.

Guys did it.

Older cars from before the dark times had it, but...

The magazines had dire warnings about compression ratio and octane.

Now?

This is one place I really like computers in cars.

I like electronic fuel injection.  I like sequential multi-port injection.

Motors that last past 100k miles are nice and ditching carburetors (and throttle body injection) was a key factor in increasing engine longevity.

Marv and I were marveling at engine builders getting power from 325 ci (5.3l) engines that needed 400 plus cubes just not all that long ago.

OK... it was a LONG time ago, but I'm old and it seems closer than it is.

But I remember when 1 hp per cubic inch was a worthy goal and took some doing to achieve.

That LO3 sure didn't.  170 horsepower.

The 350 cubes in The Biscayne's LT1 didn't.  260 ponies.

The 350 I swiped from a pickup and put into my old '79 Camaro didn't.  I "made do" with 300.

Now it's nearly routine.

The L77 does fall a little short.  362 hp from 364 cubes.  But still...

Higher Energy Density

The local WaWa has ethanol-free gasoline.

I'm running an experiment with The Beast to see if there's any effect on miles per gallon.

Two tanks later and I can report that yes, there's been an effect.

I've gone from 16.5 mpg in mixed driving to 18.8 mpg.

That's noticeable.

The 10.4:1 compression seems to like the change from 87 to 89 octane too.

The Precious had a 10.7:1 ratio and "needed" 93 octane.  It ran fine on 87, but the programming would really back out the timing.

The '95 LT1 from The Biscayne SS was 10.5:1...  It, too, ran fine on 87, but really woke up with the (expensive) premium fuel and 93 octane.

I think I will continue this experiment.

No Tail Fins Though

One of the joys of a large American Australian car is POWER.

Holden was a very American company, let's be honest.

But it's really fun to do a u-turn and tromp it and be able to be at the same speed as oncoming traffic in the other lane before they can catch up.

The Most Wonderful Time Of Year

When the temperature swings are enough that you get to use the AC during the day and heat at night.

Only lasts a week or two, each side of winter.

Getting Warm In Here

While I was yapping on the phone, I noticed that it was a tad warm in the house.

I tend to pace while I chat, so I initially thought it was just from the limited exercise, but then saw the thermostat reading 80° and the "AC is running" indicator was on.

Target temp is 78°...  And the air handler and compressor weren't running.

UGH!  Always on a Friday evening!

The two most common reasons for a compressor to not run are the drain line getting clogged and the starter capacitor failing.

Blowing out the drain line appears to have cured it.

This is the second time I've had to do that because it's stopped running.

Gathering Dust

One of the reasons that the 6.8 gun sits in the corner gathering dust is when it dropped out of the mainstream, ammo got a lot more expensive.

It costs as much per round as .308 Win.

But it's important to remember that every AR maker, except Colt, had a 6.8 in their lineup at one time.

It was that close to making it and sticking.

It's a shame, because it's a damn fine shooting round.

I cannot bring myself to get a .300 Blackout because I am the kind of idiot who'd get my magazines confused and try to fire a .300 out a 5.56 bore.  Lots of ka-booms from that.

One place that 6.8 and 6.5 are way better than .300 is, even with a weak crimp, you're not going to accidentally misfeed the wrong round.

State Of The Alternates

I've been tracking the availability of 6.8 Remington SPC, 6.5 Grendel and .300 Blackout for a while based on what Midway USA carries.

6.8 SPC

16 loadings from 7 manufacturers.  2 available, 5 temporarily unavailable, 5 out of stock - no backorder, 3 unavailable - limited production and 1 coming soon.

6.5 Grendel

13 loadings from 6 manufacturers.  5 available, 1 temporarily unavailable, 5 out of stock - no backorder, and 2 unavailable - limited production.

.300 Blackout

59 loadings from 19 manufacturers.  39 available, 2 out of stock - backorder OK, 11 temporarily unavailable, 8 out of stock - no backorder, 4 unavailable - limited production, and 2 coming soon.

But But But

I remember the last time a US president tried to build a wall on the southern border.

Wasn't that a sign of fascism or something?

Twitch Twitch

Technomad, in the comments mentioned .308 NATO.

While I know what he meant, it's yet another gun terminology thing that makes me twitch.

There's no such thing as .308 NATO.

.308 Winchester exists.

7.62x51mm NATO exists.

7.62 Winchester doesn't exist.

7.62x51mm NATO and .308 Win are basically the same thing.

Yes they are.

So saying .308 NATO isn't unclear at all.

It just makes me twitch.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Mopar

Husband of one of Harvey's friends has a no crank no start condition on his 2005 4.7 Dodge RAM.

Husband figured it was the battery, so I offered him a ride to the parts store for a replacement.

This was plausible, Florida heat is hard on batteries.

Nope.  Battery tests fine.

When he puts the truck in 'run' the fuel pump relay starts buzzing and there's a turn-signal-like clicking from under the dash.

There is no continuity from the positive battery cable to the alternator.

There is no continuity between the battery cables.  There must be some pathway that's working, because some parts of the truck are powering up.

Mystery Mopar Electrical!  Again.

It's why Harvey no longer owns her, dearly loved, '85 Ram 1500.  Those electrical gremlins drove us batty and it had a carburetor!

Mopar is the only American maker that gives Lucas a run for its money as the Prince of Darkness.

The internet is pretty confident that it's a bad ground (possibly internally in the starter) or a bad PCM.

The PCM is $900 and will take a week to get here.

Did I mention these are the same people I mentioned in this post?  They don't have two dimes to rub together.

I wanna help, but I also don't want to own this problem.

My circus has enough monkeys already.

Faves

Most of us have many guns.

Even in the larger collections, we have favorites.

Brenda surprised me.

She's an experiment and a response to how appallingly expensive the WWSD and KE Arms Civil Defense rifles were.

I said to myself, "Self, you can make just as serviceable a rifle without breaking the bank on boutique widgets."

And I did!

Seems to shoot well and has been unfailingly reliable.  The performance I'm getting matches what James Reeves, of TFBTV, says he got from his Civil Defense rifle on his YouTube channel.

She gets shot a lot, because something surprising happened.

I really like this gun!

She's plastic and fantastic and the most comfortable AR I own.

What are some of your favorites?

I Did Not Get The Message

While my phone was screaming with everyone else's, it went unnoticed because we were working on the front porch.

We now have four of the five panels replaced.

The last one will need more measuring because of the light.

We're considering adding another electrical outlet for Halloween decorations while we're up there too.

Today Is A Big Day

A big 10-4!

I'm here all night, try the veal.

I Added It All Up

A couple of years ago I took inventory of the firearms I gave my characters across all TLs in GURPS for both 3eR and 4e.

I've only given one character a Glock 17.

Two got a Glock 22.

Eight carried a Glock 21.

One has a Glock 45.

I remember taking a Glock on a lot of Twilight: 2000 character sheets...  Moar dakka dontcha know.

And I cannot, for the life of me, remember ever have a character actually use a pistol if it was carried as a secondary or backup gun.

But I would often have that pistol.

I often take bayonets for rifles that can mount them, and I can only remember a couple of times when I bothered to fix bayonets; and never used one.  With ONE exception.

The FGMP-15 my Imperial Marine was carrying in Bear's world had a variable bayonet modeled on Niven's variable sword.  I used that to kill a bunch of orcs once to make the fight kinda fair.

Come to think on it, we rarely had to use a backup weapon of any kind.

If I made a character who used a spear and shield, he'd have a sword too, but...

This Is A Big Part Of The Problem

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau's very existence.

It was formed in 2011.

It's been doing its thing for 12 years.

12 years from formation to USSC and probably another year until a ruling.

So thirteen years of something being (potentially) unconstitutional before anything is done about it.

In the mean time, people change what they do and suffer the costs of those changes for more than a decade until...  It all changes back and we suffer the costs of changing to the start state.

The system is too fucking ponderous and slow.

FFS, the 14th amendment is has not, yet, fully incorporated all ten of the Bill of Rights because this system is so ponderous.

That one is pushing 200 years when it could have been handled in one ruling.

But we had to incorporate emanations and penumbras and we got Slaughterhouse instead.

And most people are clueless.

They don't understand the basic premise of The Constitution and that it's intended to be read as a plain text.  Further, they've been indoctrinated to misunderstand what enumerating document means.

If we had a proper understanding of it, they'd Grok in its fullness that if it's not specifically authorized in the document and its amendments, then it is forbidden to the government(s).

Michele Evermore and I went back and forth on that.  But she worked for a senator and I was just an unwashed citizen.  What did I know?

Forty-Three Minutes And Twelve Seconds That Anglave WIll Not Watch

This globull warmering bullshit and whether it was really a problem ended my friendship with one Anglave.

He was an expert at finding what the choir was singing, but not receptive at all to looking for dissenting opinions.

I once followed the citations from his several links to a single paper's author.

An author whom refused to share his data so that others could replicate their work.  <-- That's a red flag.

He dismissed the behavior of East Anglia's "scientists" and their malfeasance with deleting their data to keep others from duplicating their work.

That's not science.  That's anathema to the scientific method.

Notice that Dr. Curry sought more data to confirm her original conclusion when confronted with potential errors.  Also notice that when the people confronting her conclusions had a point, she concedes when she was wrong.

That's how science and scientists are supposed to behave.

Punt

Got the wood, forgot I needed to paint the side we're hiding forever as extra protection from moisture infiltration.

So paint today instead of install.

Further, the In-Law's mailbox got taken out by a car, so we're making a new post for the mailbox.

Seems like a wasted day, but slow progress is still progress.

Criminal Charges Are In Order

I think that Jamaal Bowman deserves some criminal charges.

Why?

Because congress creatures of his ilk have been screaming about how wrong it is to yell, "fire," in a crowded theater for decades.

He, literally, did that very thing in a crowded Congress when he pulled the fire alarm.

There was no fire, and thus endangered everyone with his actions, and therefore should be severely punished!

Shut The Fuck Up

Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, sure has a lot of opinions about how we Americans should run our lives and government.

Seeing as he's not a US citizen, I invite him to no longer darken our shores with his presence.

I further invite him, and all foreign nationals who happen to be famous and rich to do likewise and be silent about our domestic politics.

If he'd been bitching about something Trump had done to Eire, I'd let him rant, it affects his home country.

But, no, he complains like he belongs here.

Which, since he has not bothered to get naturalized, he does not.

PS: I did not even bother to check to see if his opinions agree with mine.  His opinion on these matters are irrelevant and will not be used to support or discourage my arguments.

No Upper

When I decommissioned Dottie and put her upper on Olive, that left me with a complete lower without an upper.

I am uncertain about what I want to do about that, besides get an upper...

It's what sort of upper do I want?

Presently it's got an A1 style trap-door stock and a rifle recoil system.

I'm fine with that.

Lots of choices for an upper that would pair well with that.

Not that there's any gun money in the budget.

Porch Repairs Continue Apace

The gypsum board is all down.

All the nails sticking out of the rafters have been removed.

Now I just need three more sheets of plywood, some help and time to get the ceiling part done.

The facing across the front will take more work, but it's looking to be simple.

Gotta pull down the aluminum covers and get some new wood there.

Simple, especially since I'm going for segmented rather than a curve there.

Autumn

While the afternoons are still a bit spicy, the evenings are becoming quite comfortable.

Mornings are chilly, but who still gets up for that?

Fall is when I think that grilling season begins in Florida, so the grill got thoroughly cleaned today.