That's Gotta Be A Record

I've been reading Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series since it first came out in 1983.

I'd missed "The Road Home" (1995) when it was published and have only purchased and read it recently.

However, I did purchase the next book, "Not Exactly the Three Musketeers," in 2000 when it hit the shelves in paperback.

I just finished reading it for the first time last night.

It took me almost 30 years to get around to reading the last book in the series with the original cast and I owned the next book in the setting for almost 25 years before reading it!

Wow.  Just wow.

GM Never Stop Being You

 

These four speakers are identical.

Holden assigned each one a different part number based on where it will be mounted in the car.

Is it any wonder they went bankrupt?

Of note: the paper speakers from GM are 4Ω, 20w.  That's probably peak wattage too.  They were replaced by 4Ω, 540w peak, 180w RMS.

Holden did not brag about the power of their stereo in their sales literature.

So You've Woken Up Undead

In the GURPS: Technomancer setting, being a lich or vampire means you're legally dead.

You don't have niceties like rights.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for a lich, you can't accidentally become one of those.  It's a choice and it comes with doing some nasty things to remain unalive.

But vampirism is a contagious disease.  A vampire could be the victim.

Legally, a murder victim.  "The victim testifies that..."

And once you've fully cooperated with the prosecution to convict destroy the vampire who created you; you get destroyed as well.

That led to some mind games.

If you wake up a vampire, you don't want to die (again?).  But you're not a bad person.

Can you run a moral vampire?

There's no dodging the human blood thing in this setting.  You need to get your sustenance from a sentient host.

There's nothing that says you need to drain someone completely.

But the contagion is carried by the vampire's saliva.  So to keep from infecting your supplier, you'd need to extract the blood mechanically.  It's not defined in the rules or the setting if this is OK.  The GM would have to decide how the Uncontrollable Appetite works.  The vampire might have to take the blood directly for it to sate them.

That'd make it nearly impossible to a moral vampire, because every meal leads to the chance of "birthing" another vampire.

But the survival instinct is strong...

Let There Be Tunes

Old, paper, speakers out:

New, polypropylene cone material and nitrile butadiene rubber surrounds with a silk tweeter, speakers in!

Loaded up The Lovely Harvey and The Boy for a test drive and they report a big difference in the sound.

"Coooool!" quote The Boy.

I think the adding a speaker to the center channel makes the most difference.

They're Democrats They Will Find A Way

FEC is looking hard at the $96 million the Biden campaign has on hand and if it can be moved over to Harris.

First glance says, "no," but we're talking about Democrats.

First glance says that just $2,000 can be moved directly to Harris' campaign and the remainder can be donated to the DNC, where it will be used just like it was hers.

That's Where You Get The Bad Guys For Your Story

This isn't just about bad guys.

A world where you can put your adult mind in a child's body is going to have a different kind of porn and kinks than our own.

If I was GM'ing, they'd be the creeper bad guys the players were trying to stop.

Let them decide if they're doing it for moral or legal reasons.

The Duncanites in Transhuman Space, particularly the Red faction would be where you'd go to participate or purchase such pornography and it's the obvious destination for someone looking to put a stop to it.

The sky is the limit on what kind of bot or bioroid you put a mind into.  Some places don't recognize you as a person anymore and there are varying degrees of rights a person who's moved their ghost has.

Furries are going to be actual furry creatures, not just suits.

But what's "fun" about talking about some of this technology are people who've already made a decision about their personal morality as if it was current rather than speculative tech.

Traveller, in the Interstellar Wars era, already has the medical technology for full, down to the genetic level, sex changes.  Gender dysphoria as a medical/psychological condition is fully treatable with a cure!  Multiple cures, actually.  The sex change makes the body match what the mind sees.  There's also stuff to make the mind see their body as it is.

There's folks who've made up their mind that one solution or the other is wrong and anyone seeking the wrong cure should be punished somehow.

In the game too.

Oh Ick

Something that occurs to me when I'm reading any of several science fiction settings, but in particular Ghost in the Shell and Transhuman Space, is the opportunity to change bodies.

There is no technological or physical limitation, most of the time, what form that new body takes.

Which makes me think there's going to be pedoroids.

A completely of-age ghost inside an undeniably child body.

There's some moral problems with this, of course, but does this society have enough of a problem with that to prohibit it?

There's some "libertarian" belter nations in Transhuman that would be fine with it.  After all, the person inside the toddler body is a fully informed adult.

And some of these artificial bodies are 100% biological.  That means fully informed adult in child body can do porn.  They can put that porn up for sale.  Possession of that porn isn't, technically, child-porn; but, also, it most certainly is.

Will it be illegal in your setting?

Ofharvey Serves

Honey do project:  Hang new curtain rods.

Mission accomplished!

Cookin'

The Lovely Harvey gave me a block of instruction on how to make tenderloins.

First, you gotta tenderize the pork-loin.

Then you grind down an entire box of crackers to a coarse meal.  I used a plastic mixing bowl as a mortar and a soup bowl as a pestle.  It works faster than lots of methods, but it's still tedious.

Dredge the meat in beaten egg then shake in a bag of cracker meal.

Give it a swim in boiling peanut oil and...

Iowa delicacy!  Comfort food level 10.

Schrodinger's President

There is a house in Delaware that might, or might not, house a living US President.

It cannot be determined until someone opens the house to make observations.

200 Watts!

I have added a speaker to the center of the dash in The Beast!

The Aussie radio has been set up for it since the day I bought it, I was just dragging my feet getting one in there.  The default Australian setup is a center speaker in the dash, tweeters in the outside corners of the dash and a speaker in each door.  The front doors and tweeters are driven by the same channels.  There was an option for rear deck subwoofers.

I'm going with a coaxial in the center dash and coaxials in all four doors.

There were no wires from the connector to the speaker, so I had to buy the terminals for the connector and run wires from the box to the speaker hole.

That means removing the passenger shin-airbag and glove box.  I'm getting better at it, but still needed to look up where the last two of seven screws holding the box in were.

The Lovely Harvey says she can hear a big difference.  To my bad ears, it's simply noticeable.

But noticeable in a good way.

It's a 200w, and 70w RMS.  Being run by a 30w radio.  The radio that came with the car was just 15w, so there's that!  The door speakers will be 540w/180w RMS).

The NVX brand NSP speakers are well liked by the Caprice PPV community, and the Aussie silverbox will never overpower them.

Speakers for the doors finally came off back-order and should be here Friday.

Preference Falsification

Borepatch is calling it a "preference cascade" but that term is a blurring of information cascade and preference falsification.

They're really intertwined concepts.

I've been hoping for whatever we're going to call it to hurry up and happen already.

I think we came tantalizingly close with the Tea Party, but we fucked up and let it be mainstreamed by the same people who were the other side of the coin of those we wanted removed from meddling with our lives.

I don't think we're vulnerable to that this time around.

I don't think he's wrong either.

Something shifted.  It's almost palpable.

It Never Ends

Moxie has decided that she needs both front brake lines to match.

The passenger side got replaced a while ago.

The driver's side announced it was done today.

The things I do to keep the unrivaled power of that flat-plane crank and all wheel drive.

But Can I?

They say to never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.

They say to not stop your enemies from destroying themselves.

They are silent on popping popcorn.

I need a ruling here.

Say Hi To Dianne In Hell

Sheila Jackson Lee is dead.

Good.

Supply And Demand That's It

The Beast is a relatively rare car.

The parts supply comes from just as rare a car that didn't make it this far.

There are a few people who have the means to purchase several parts cars and are selling those parts.

They're being accused of being scalpers.

Nope.  Just businessmen.

They are also being acclaimed as being helpers.

Nope.  Just businessmen.

They're not really part of the community of enthusiasts keeping these things running.  Essential, but at an overlap of the Venn diagram rather than being within it.

The truth that I keep having to explain, over and over, is something is only worth what someone will pay for it.

It comes up when someone doesn't want to pay what everyone else is paying for something.

It comes up when someone is upset that nobody wants to pay what they're asking for something.

There's a lot of butt-hurt out there.

Suitable For Home Defense

Brenda with the D-60.  10.2 lb. as shown.

D-60 Deets

I took apart the D-60 to see the guts!

Simple to take apart and put back together.  It needs periodic cleaning.

I also timed loading the thing.

With strippers and an UpLULA: 3 minutes 33 seconds.

With loose rounds and an UpLULA: 2 minutes 22 seconds.

With loose rounds only: 4 minutes 55 seconds and a VERY sore thumb.

For some reason the strippers will stop with two rounds left and the ratchet won't drop the stack so you end up fiddling around and wasting seconds.

Standard 30-round PMAG Gen M3:

With strippers and an UpLULA: 20 seconds.

With loose rounds and an UpLULA: 1 minute 20 seconds.

With loose rounds only: 52 seconds.

Delousing

The cats have been given their wormers and a fresh application of flea stuff.

Linens is washed.

Surfaces are cleaned.

Fingers crossed.

Without A Thought In Its Pretty Little Brain

Despite being much larger than us, a T-Rex's brain is about the same size as ours. 

The average person takes the average 7.62 round to the CPU, we're dead right there.

10 HP, 24 points of damage to the skill, 22 penetrate and 88 points of damage is done for a clear auto-death.

But a Rex is a 53 HP monster.  The same 24 hit only gets 20 to penetrate and 80 points isn't even enough for a death roll!

I need to dig into the rules and find the disadvantage that makes them more vulnerable to a brain-hit because 80 points is enough to liquefy a brain this size.  They're not cetaceans with brains in proportion to their scale.  Or pachyderms.

Packing

I just noticed that I got my first Florida carry permit back in 2005.

Wow.

Turns out to have been a life changing thing.

Partying

The raison d'etre for political parties is to find, and nominate, a candidate who most represents your personal political views.

The theory being that a given party will consistently reflect the mores of the people who get together and support it.

I've seen a lot of commentary about changing from closed to open primaries to select candidates.

It's a double edged sword.

A closed primary means that only people who took the time to register as a member of that party can vote to choose a candidate.  It also means they give up the opportunity to chose a candidate from the another party.  Commitment.

An open primary lets anyone vote for any candidate.

In practice, open primaries have not gotten us better candidates, what they've done is eliminate decent candidates by supporting candidates who couldn't beat the other team.  The spoiler effect in full force.  It's a formalized version of how Bernie Sanders keeps getting elected.

You don't get the best conservative candidate by letting liberals choose who gets to be the conservative candidate.  You get the conservative least able to compete with the liberal candidate.

But none of this matters when we have the problem described in this video:

Note: The author of that vid has a solution (in a different video) he likes that I don't think will work better.  First past the post is the worst way of doing an election; except for all of the other ways.

Libertarians, take note, you need to take over a party to win and you need to take over one of the big two.  Socialists captured, gutted and killed the Democrat party; libertarians should do the same to the Republican party.

35 Miles Per Gallon

35 mpg now!

35 mpg tomorrow!

35 mpg forever!

(How's that for an inflammatory way to say it?)

Now that Chevron Deference is nuked, let's do the EPA.

Did you know that the fleet average fuel economy, as defined by law, is 35 miles per gallon for model years 2010 through 2020?

For 2021 through 2030 it's the maximum feasible fuel economy.

No definition beyond that.

So Biden's economy killing EPA standards have no definition in black letter law.

Without the power of Chevron, the lawyers for the automakers are going to have a field day saying that going past the current rating is infeasible.

Fingers crossed!

Parasites

Flea season is bad this year.

While our cats aren't outdoor kitties, they do have the, screened in, back porch.

It would appear that fleas can get through the screen.

With the fleas it seems came tapeworms.

Both are fairly easy to cure, but the double whammy sucks.

As does the scouring of the house and cleaning of the bedding all at once.

Good thing I fixed the washer, huh?

Quote

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill them with a terrible resolve.

-DEI

I Should Whine Like A Bitch And Rage

On my mortgage, I paid Primary Mortgage Insurance until we'd paid 20% of the note.

That's because property values were pretty flat when we were doing it.

Turns out a lot of folks are getting their PMI nuked because they own a lot more of their property than they expected thanks to property values going up.

This is where I'm supposed to condemn the people who benefit from something I don't and paid for.

Nope.

I am happy for them to have gotten over.

PS:

In case you're curious how this works...

You borrowed on a $90k house that's now valued at $180k, you own 50%.

The Picture Is Coalescing

It's an interesting vid on what might have been going on.

 

 

Tiny Shift

I was a little too excited to change out my lug nuts, apparently.

I removed all five lugs from the wheel before installing the new ones with the car flat on the ground.

The cone seat of the lug doesn't have the ass to lift the car and recenter the wheel, which will shift a little even if you don't see or hear it.

So I jacked up each corner and removed and reinstalled the new lugs with the wheel off the ground this time.

The vibration from the slight off center is now gone and I'm back to the tiny vibration from two tires being a tiny amount out of round.

Axel F

We watched Axel F the other night.

We enjoyed it a lot.

It's nostalgia based, but the call backs were lots of fun and we enjoyed them immensely.

We missed Ronny Cox, but all the other regulars were there.

Dunno The ROE

That picture of the counter-sniper team is showing them looking at the shooter.

Apparently the crowd had been yelling for law enforcement to come look at the shooter they'd spotted getting into position.

A police officer might have climbed up the shooter's ladder and got a good look down a muzzle before he dropped back under cover and got on the radio.

That gave the counter sniper team his rough location and it appears that they were forced to wait until something happened to shoot.  Which is probably why the shooter got taken out so quickly.

But it makes you wonder why the Secret Service wasn't already tackling Mr Trump as soon as the word got out that someone very suspicious was on that roof.

Pictures

Blogger has changed the interface for inserting photos using a hotlink.  The trick for solving it for Firefox appears to be allowing Blogger and Google to run their cookies.
 

So you get a picture from Fort DeSoto and one of the 12" Seacoast Model 1890 M1 mortars.

Sloped Roof?

You're really picking this excuse?

REALLY?

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” 

-K. Cheatle

You mean like THIS sloped roof?

For fuck's sake.

No really.  FOR FUCK'S SAKE! 

It's not like that photo didn't get seen by nearly everyone who's heard about the shooting.

Mag List Availability

 Looks like I check every four years.

Amend2 30-round: Palmetto State Armory $10.99

ASC USGI Aluminum: GunMagWarehouse $12.99.

Brownells USGI Aluminum: Brownells $11.99.

C-Products Defense SS: Palmetto State Armory $14.99.
CAA MAG, CDMAG, MAG17: CAA Gear Up $9.00. <- Deeply discounted sold out in black.
Daniel Defense DD Magazine 32-round: Brownells $23.00.
D&H Tactical Aluminum: Bravo Company USA $12.95.
Elite Tactical Systems ETS Gen 2 30-round: GunMagWarehouse $13.49 with coupler, $8.99 without.
FAB Defense E-Lander:
FAB Defense Ultimag 30R: FAB Defense USA $19.99.
FN SCAR-16 magazine: Brownells $34.99.
Hera Arms H3 Gen 2: Midway $11.90.
Hexmag HX Series 2: Midway $11.99.
Hexmag HX CFC Series 2: Midway $15.99.
H&K High Reliability: GunMagWarehouse $51.99
H&K 5.56mm Polymer:
Lancer L5 AWM: Midway $16.99 for opaque $4.99 for smoke and $10.74 for clear. <- Big sale!
Magpul D-60 Drum: Midway $108.97.
Magpul PMAG M2 MOE: Midway $9.99.
Magpul PMAG Gen M3: Brownells $12.07.
Mission First Tactical MFT Standard Cap.: Palmetto State Armory $9.99.
Mission First Tactical MFT Extreme Duty Window: Palmetto State Armory $15.99.
MWG IK-510, IK-520:
Okay Surefeed:
Okay Surefeed E2:
ProMag PM-30 Roller-Mag: Palmetto State Armory $15.99.
SureFire MAG5-60 60-round:
Tango Down ARC 30-round:
Troy Battlemag: Midway $13.04
X-Products X-15 Drum:

 

That's surprising how many companies products are flat unavailable now.

Or is it?

It's a tight market.

I'll Just Say It

The sudden outpouring of "political violence has no place in our democracy" might just stem from the realization that at 130 yards the typical conservative American gun owner wouldn't have grazed an ear.

Remember, we were mocking the DC freeway shooter and the laughably short ranges.

Not that we're likely to do any assassinations.

We're not wired that way, and they kind of know that.

They're also aware of just how hard they're pressing and they're starting to realize that the Rheostat v Switch analogy is VERY apt.

D-60 Loading

Loading 60 rounds into a D-60 takes about 4 minutes using a StripLULA and loose rounds.  That includes taking pics.  I take about 2 minutes with stripper clips.  It's important to not force things and to make sure the little flapper is set to retain the last round of ten from the StripLULA.

It's a lot slower than loading a normal 30-rounder.

The D-60 is a windowed magazine.

From 10 to 39 rounds you see this:

From 40 to 59 rounds you see this:

With a full load of 60 you see this:

Unloading, using the StripLULA is easy.  There's surprisingly little pressure on the round and it slides right out.

I Think They Pop

The change from the factory lug nut to proper chrome plated is subtle, but significant.

Any car guy will spot it right away.

Google Broke It

Inserting pics into blogger just got more irritating.

They changed the interface for linking a url and it's broke in Firefox.

Works in Chromium.

Grrrrrrrr.

Lug Nut Day

Replaced the lug nuts on The Beast.

Before:

After:

Harvey says she can't tell the difference, but I can.

Taking Bets

Who wants to bet the shooter is aligned with Antifa or an adjacent organization that's been spewing hate the past 8+ years.

Think we can even get odds?

The media hid that it was a Bernie Bro as fast as they could at the Congressional Baseball Shooting; I expect more of the same.

Pipe In The Conservatory

Someone has already said that it was an AR.

I reiterate:  Wasn't me, didn't do it.

What makes me worry about this is when I was wanting to watch Air Force One land in Des Moines with President Clinton, I noticed all the likely places to be shooting at the president were already taken by the secret service.

That included all the good places to watch the plane land, so I didn't get to see it until after it was parked.

It really makes me wonder whom was the shooter, I haven't found any news about that yet.  I note that they're being reported as dead.  I'm going to assume their social media and any manifestos are long gone by this point.

Switched

New lid switch installed and the washer ran a full cycle without drama.

No leaks.

It's fixed!

Happy dance!

Better Eat Your Wheaties

Valentine is, officially, the heaviest AR that I, or anyone I know, owns.

As pictured, she is 13.6 lb.

Yeah, I don't wanna lug that very far.

What happened to the light, handy, M16A1 I remember?  It's 9.6 lb. with that D-60 in it.

Oddly this might be an excellent configuration for post-hurricane defense where social distances are extended a little bit.

Not my first choice for home defense because it's ungainly inside.

Update: Olga is only 11.7 lb. as shown (she'd be 13.4 lb. with a D-60):

 

I guess now is a good time to talk about the D-60.

It's 2.8 lb. for 60-rounds.  A normal PMAG GenM3 is 1.1 for 30 and 2.2 for 60.

The normal PMAGs package better for carry too.

You can also buy about 8 normal PMAGs for the price of a single D-60.

Why would I want one past "it's neat!"?

If it's the initial magazine in the gun when the fight starts, you get to save some seconds reloading.  That's probably valuable.

Low-Speed High-Drag

When assessing the wisdom of going after someone who's low-speed and high-drag remember this:

The Warthog and BUFF are both such.

It's Genetic

I have the Scottish resistance to getting into fights.

The Italian reluctance to take the fight to blood.

And the Japanese delicacy about how to treat an opponent once the game is afoot.

Plan accordingly.

Can We Talk About Prosecutorial Incompetence Now

Or is it simple corruption?

Alec Baldwin walks because the prosecution suppressed evidence.

I'm no fan of his, but... Good!

When the government lies, the accused should walk even if caught red handed.

Justice should be an unimpeachable neutral party in every case.

The accused should be putting all the weight needed on the scales, no additional thumbs necessary.

It Never Ends

Mission:  Find out why the washing machine was pissing like a drunk racehorse.

My first theory was the spring that centered the drum was broken loose from the cabinet and the spout was dumping water outside the drum.

It was.

With Marv precariously balancing the thing, I drilled a new hole for the spring and that was that!

Nope.

The fill hose, a nylon thing looking like a giant flexie soda straw was split.

$5 got an upgraded rubber version.

All fixed!

Nope.

It filled just fine without leaking, but it wouldn't agitate.

Lid switch thinks it's open at all times.

New switch will be here tomorrow.

Splash Of Red

Marv has painted his calipers!

 

Colored calipers are a time honored hot-rodder tradition.

And if you have rims where they can be seen, a flash of color really sets off the car.

All Better

The locksmith got me into the car where I finished programming the RFA module and got all four of my fobs working.

Then I went a couple rounds figuring out why the remote start was not working and found that there's a setting in the dash to change under Security.

The results:

Keyfob Program

When you enable the remote start with OBDSynch, it resets all your keyfobs and the tire pressure system.

Two of my fobs will program through the normal procedure.  Two, including the new one with the remote start button, will not.  One of the two that isn't programming used to work.

There's a way to program them with the OBDSynch software, but I found that the module I'd just used to enable remote start was no longer accepting my purchase.

When I successfully programmed the first two fobs, it locked the doors.

When you close the door to get around it to log in to complain to the maker of the OBDSynch software...

When you had all the keys and fobs on the center console...

You are locked out of your car.

The sad thing is I'd read about people doing this.

I am now one of them.

AAA is on the case.

Wheels

Marv's new 9C3 has new shoes.

His are the other base Camaro wheel.

Like me, he got a scorching good deal.

While I'm giving him crap over how small his calipers are, the rotors on the front are the same diameter.

A splash of red paint will make those pop!

Mine, for comparison purposes:

 I need to get lug nuts more in keeping with the upgrade.

Know When To Eject

The guy I bought The Beast from is the same person whom I sold the Biscayne SS to.

From the litany of issues he's had since...

I got out from under that car just in time.

I feel bad for him, but I didn't misrepresent what he was getting and I've tried to help as much as I can with the "why did you do it this way?" questions from his mechanic.

BUT!

His current run of bad luck ain't my fault!

He replaced the drum brake rear axle for a disc brake unit and has had serial problems with the calipers falling off.

Last night his issue was the fourth of four tires of a particular brand blowing up.  I'd be looking at different brand and model tire after two of them bulged out.

Rebuttal

I don't think he's intending to rebut John Stossel directly, but this article does the job of explaining why tariffs aren't unalloyed badness.

The globalism that Stossel is championing is the same centralization process that Wilder Wealthy and Wise is talking about.

Watch the vid then read the article at the link.

Rig For Red

 

The Beast all cleaned up and shiny for the car club meeting!

She's a pretty nice ten-footer.

Blaming The Wrong Party

Another Boeing plane has lost a wheel on take-off.

The news is sure focusing on it being Boeing too.

The two incidents have something else in common: United Airlines.

I'm thinking it's more likely that UAL needs to have a lugnut-day than Boeing screwed up the design of the wheels.

Throw It Away?

Some egg product was mislabeled.  It contains dairy, but the label doesn't say so.

They say to throw it away.

I says to make note that it has dairy and use it.

If you don't have a dairy allergy, it's fine.

Throwing away perfectly good food because a small percentage of people can't eat it is fucking stupid.

Yes, that small percentage could have died if they'd gotten the mislabeled product; but for everyone else this is still perfectly edible.

Now that we're aware of the problem, we make sure that it doesn't go to the people who can't eat it and let those who can go ahead and scarf.

There has to be some needy person who could use it.

No I Think Not

MRS Biden will be in town today to convince us veterans that we need to vote for the only thing about her that matters: Keeping her husband in office so she retains access to the perks of being Mrs The President.

Nah.

I rather like my chances with the felon.

Having to deal with the VA for three years of COVID bullshit in a state that only did it for about five months guaranteed that I'd not be voting Biden.

We vets didn't get good care from the Wu Ping Cough era and I, for one, remember.

Lego Star Wars Bounty Hunters

Because my Kenner action figure collection was missing 4-LOM and Zuckuss I was thrilled when they became available in LEGO.

L->R Top row:

Dengar, Bossk, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, IG-88, Din Jarin (original) Din Djarin (beskar), Boba Fett (BoBF), IG-11.

L->R Bottom row:

Jango Fett, Boba Fett (AotC), Boba Fett (ESB), Cad Bane, Todo 360, Fennec Shand, spare Din Djarins from other points in the story.

Is It Time For You To Try A 20 Year Old TTRPG System?

Obviously, I say yes.  What are you waiting for?

Memba Dis

I am old enough to remember when 922(r) compliance was simply to use an American made receiver.

Inch pattern FAL kit?  American made with an Entrèprise receiver!

This was because ATF ruled that, since the registered component was the firearm, the origin of the receiver determined if the gun was domestic or imported.

With the proliferation of AK parts kits flooding the market, ATF promulgated the idea that, to be domestically made it had to have a certain percentage of US made parts, and just a majority of named components.  They made a list and you picked and chose from the list to make sure your parts kit was domestic enough to own.

The serialized part is the gun doesn't appear in law.

The list of components that count towards domesticity doesn't appear in law.

922(r) can be read to mean that you can't use ANY foreign made parts to make a gun that wouldn't be possible to import like that.

We're in an awkward place.

Because I Keep My Toe Dipped In The Hobby

Decent 7.5/10 rant.

Something Hasbro and a lot of pundits are forgetting is, unlike a video game, when the new version comes out it doesn't cripple or disable the previous version.

I can play 47 year old OG Little Black Book Traveller tomorrow.  It still works just like it did in 1977 despite there being four succeeding editions and versions by other companies.

Same same AD&D.

Even more fun, you don't even have to own the books right now!

DriveThruRPG has you covered!

The situation is somewhat underscored by my love of GURPS.  The 4th Edition I prefer came out in 2004.  There is no 5th edition.

The 3rd Edition (Revised) came out in 1994; and there is still a large community of people who've refused to move to 4e.

So many that Steve Jackson Games rebranded 3e(r) as GURPS Classic and they still publish nearly the entire 3e lineup in pdf format.

When my 47, 30 and 20 year old books still work; I don't need these companies to stay in business to play.

We should remind them of that.

Without Cheveron

922(r) compliance is going to get sporty.

The law says:

(r) It shall be unlawful for any person to assemble from imported parts any semiautomatic rifle or any shotgun which is identical to any rifle or shotgun prohibited from importation under section 925(d)(3) of this chapter as not being particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes except that this subsection shall not apply to—

(1) the assembly of any such rifle or shotgun for sale or distribution by a licensed manufacturer to the United States or any department or agency thereof or to any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or

(2) the assembly of any such rifle or shotgun for the purposes of testing or experimentation authorized by the Attorney General.

 I don't see a list of parts or a minimum domestic content that changes it to American made instead of foreign made.

Asking For A Friend?

An estranged friend texted me asking for advice on what kind of ammo to buy.

I gave the advice and then asked their SO what had prompted the sudden interest in ammo.

She's worried about politics.

Fair enough, but knowing her, she's worried about people like me and not people like her.

We know about Antifa and BLM being violent and burning shit down.

Is there something similar on the right side of the aisle?

Even threats of doing violence?

Real threats, not the normal blowhard kooks.

That Will Be Strange

For the first time in over seventy years people will be able to vote for an individual presidential candidate for a third time.

The most people have, normally, gotten was twice.  Election and immediate reelection.

Candidates that lost, typically, do not run again regardless of it being their first try or failing to be reelected.

If Trump wins, he's going to be just the second person to win a non-consecutive term in the White House; after Grover Cleveland.

That's Not Good

CMP has suspended sales of M1911A1's and this appears to be why:

If you recently got a smoking deal on a USGI M1911A1...  You might wanna give them a call.

And, once again, stupid fucking law enforcement wonks:  You're looking for 98 specific stolen guns, serial numbers would go a long ways for someone who'd innocently bought one to get you closer to the thief.

And we know you know the serial numbers or you wouldn't know any were missing.

Lost On Me

I have significant hearing loss.

I have tinnitus.

I am upgrading the speakers in The Beast.

Despite my disabilities, I can hear the difference to a degree.  Cleaner sound is cleaner sound.

But something about this journey makes me laugh.

Videos of "how to" in my car with before and after results.

They do sound different.

Through my hearing loss.

Through my tinnitus.

Through the tinny little speakers on my laptop...

From the crappy little mic on their cell phone they're using to record the video for YouTube.

Through the sound compression from uploading to YouTube.

There's no way you're getting the full impression of what's changed, you just get that it sounds different.

I am not dissuaded.  The 3.5" coax speaker for the center channel should arrive today.

I'll order the other 4 in pairs here and there.  I'm in no rush.

99% Of Facebook Car Group "Help Needed" Posts

"My car is doing something.  What's wrong?"

Kids, we need more information than that.

Most of the groups I'm in are cars that have significant diagnostic ability and a cheap, simple, scan-tool will tell us what trouble codes the engine is throwing.

More expensive scanners will also tell us what's wrong in other systems too.

Without those codes on a fully computer managed engine, we cannot help you.

Thanks in advance.

Not An Official Act

The President is likely not immune if they have SEAL Team Six snuff the Supreme Court.

He's only immune while performing official acts.

Acts that are sanctioned by the Constitution.

Commentators are getting absolute and presumed immunity confused.

Presumed is used the same way as "presumed innocent" here.

Happy Independence Day!

I'm getting as sick of people saying, "Happy Fourth of July" as I am of "Happy Holidays!"

It's Independence Day.

Saying "Happy Fourth of July" is like saying "Happy Eleventh of November!" or "Happy First Monday in September!"

It's not the name of the Gorram holiday.

So, be a rebel, call it Independence Day.

Two Years And Some Change

I wondered how long it would take before Glock switches would change the semi-auto pistols into readily restored machine guns.

Cam Edwards speculates too.

AR15 News mentions Mr Edwards article in the attached video.

Though I think that "restored" requires that it had to have once been made as a machine gun and isn't any more.  Without Chevron to let them lawyerize the word "restored" to mean "converted" we might just skate.

I think that "once a machine gun always a machine gun" is very vulnerable now since they pulled that right out of their asses.

It's Not LIKE They Cannot Read

They really can't read.

The Democrat floating the theory that the president could order a SEAL hit on the supreme court and be immune is missing something very important.

Impeachment.  Impeachment can carry more punishment than simply removing them from office.

Wiping out an entire branch of the government would seem to meet the "high crime" section of the prerequisites, no?

One might also hope for the SEAL team to say, "These are unlawful orders, aren't they?"

Even if El Presidente is immune from criminal proceedings for ordering a hit on SCOTUS, the SEAL team is not.

It's definitely a constitutional crisis level of speculation.

All of the above ignores an important factor.

If the president orders a hit on the supremes and it is carried out; immunity from prosecution is likely the least of their worries because it will be a signal that "it is on."

Break out the Hawaiian shirts and cue the "Boogaloo It Is" soundtrack.

Kitty Détente

Shadow does not flee at the mere sight of Beeper being carried past her now.

She did seek the place she sleeps as a shelter when Beeper was placed on the other side of a glass door, though.

Once she'd sheltered there, I opened the door and Beeper is roaming the house with all the doors open.

I expect some fur to still fly, but this is feeling more like normal kitty politics than the "You will DIE!" stuff we had for a while.

Beeper is very neurotic about Shadow.

We theorize that she was kicked out of her previous home because she couldn't adapt to a new pet and she's still carrying the trauma of being abandoned.

Bear?  The Bear abides.

When Beeper and Shadow get too serious, he will utter a growl that sounds like a GAU-8 and the girls STOP.

Bear does not want justice.  Bear wants peace.

The Plot Thickens

That air carried Standard SM-6 I mentioned a month ago?

It's got a designation.  AIM-174B.  That's an air-to-air missile.  The one pictured is inert, no warhead, no motor; you can tell from the blue bands.  I think this one is for separation testing.

The War Zone has a whole article on it.

Phoenix 2.0?

Primed

Stumbled across this link in a debate about .45-55 being a rimfire round.

The internal primer just makes them look like rimfire rounds.

But read that link, it's fascinating.

We Fear Change

Basic poverty keeps me from being an early adopter.

This has saved me from a thing or three.

Occasionally, I'm just late to the party.

I'd have bought a Colt 2000 or a Remington R51 the day they hit the shelves if I'd had any money at the time.

Happily...

Well, the gun rags are all a quiver about this new Rost Martin RM1C.

It's a plastic framed striker fired 9mm.

Again.

How many is it now?

It looks like a screaming deal with a sub-$500 MSRP.

But so's a S&W SD9 2.0, it's sub $400.

I'm jaded.

I've watched the new hotness come and go too many times.

I got a S&W M&P because they were the hotness, just in time for all the gunwriters to switch back to Glocks.

Nothing wrong with either.

There's prolly nothing wrong with the RM1C.

But I can also remember when the P320 was teh hawtness.  Then they started going off on their own.  Bet the Army is happy they skipped field trials, huh?

But I want this new gun to make it.  We need more successful American companies, not fewer.

We don't need American companies importing rebranded foreign guns neither.

Unnecessary Tech

I spent far too long trying to figure out why the shutter sound on my phone's camera wasn't working.

There's a switch for shutter sound that did nothing.

In the Multi-Volume tab there's a switch for "Auto-Mute" which "automatically mutes apps based on usage patterns."

What fucking usage pattern indicates that I want the shutter sound off when I have selected it to be on in the camera app?

I hate this trend of putting the settings for a single thing in 15 places.

Practical

Going from regulation to law is going to make some interesting practical changes.

The law says that the FFL cannot sell to a prohibited person.

The law says that a prohibited person cannot purchase or possess a firearm.

The law says that NICS has to be done 922(t).

The laws don't say what information has to be collected from the buyer.

The law would be satisfied with attesting that, "I am not a prohibited person," and submitting to NICS.

Here's where the wheels come off.

The law doesn't tell us how to tell one person from another when we submit to NICS.

Congress punted this to the regulatory agencies to figure out.

Now that punt is invalid.

They've got some work to do if they wanna keep their intrusive threads in the purchase of firearms.

Deregulated

With Chevron repealed and the wave of lawsuits coming...

It removes a lot of power from being concentrated in and around DC.

I wonder if this will cause the people snuggled up to the Federal teat to seek other centers of power.

It'd warm the cockles of my heart to see them get real jobs.

I'm Old Enough

I am old enough to remember the attacks against President Reagan because of his age and presumed mental decline.

Accusations that Nancy was really in charge.  Or VP Bush.

Where are these voices now concerning President Biden?  Where are the accusations against Jill?  Or Kamala?

I can see them here and there, but they're different voices.

They are not skits on Saturday Night Live.

They are not full page editorials in Newspapers.

They are not given significant air time on shows like 20/20 or 60 Minutes (are those shows even still on?).

Never mind that Ronnie's decline happened after he left office, it didn't happen noticeably while he was still president.

I had my doubts about Joe back in 2020, but footage of him talking then compared to now is stark.

A case could be made that the people putting him forward to run are committing abuse of the elderly and infirm.  A felony in Florida.

It staggers the mind.

Good!

"Against this backdrop, our coequal branches will be surprised to learn that the rule they thought long settled, and which remained unchallenged for half a century, is one that, according to the majority and the concurrence, my dissent just announced today. Unfortunately, that mistaken view means that the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress."

-S. Sotomayor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America

Allow me to concur.

And dissent.

The Constitutionality of hundreds of statutes SHOULD be in peril.  It's been obvious to a lot of us for a long time, and we're not even lawyers.

I've talked before about how it shouldn't be possible for regulations to have the power of law because the executive branch is granted no legislative power.  Without that power, they cannot create what are laws in all but name.

Congress has no authority to grant these powers to the executive branch.

So any law that says to let the agency sort it out is unconstitutional.

I think we're going to see a lot of that sentence in the coming years.

I Only Just Put It Together

The heart of our increasingly Orewellian government is the administrative state.

The administrative state drew most of its power from the Chevron Deference decision.

In 1984.

Someone has a sense of humor.

Doing The Maintenance

Gotta take 'em apart and give 'em some love every once and a while.

Doing Willard's Model 69 .44 Combat Magnum because I have the tools and a "clean" workspace.

Also done was the bear slayer, 329PD.

WARNING Light Is Indicated - Life Support

It's amazing how much difference 3 degrees makes in comfort.

AC is set to 76 and I woke up thinking, "it's a little warm in here."

Thermostat says 79 and the compressor is on.

Uh oh.

Check the drain line.  Clear.

Check the capacitor.  Good.

FUCK!

Call in The Man.

He gets here and checks the fuse panel.

We'd lost a fuse.

I should have checked that myself, dammit.

Beep Beep

 

I enabled the beep on lock feature with my OBDSync software today!

It's something I felt the car was missing for a long time and I'd gotten accustomed with from the Civic, The Precious, Moxie...

Next stop, remote start?  Handy in Florida's heat.

Dear ATF

Now that Chevron is repealed, what does the law say about that 4473?

Or "once a machine gun always a machine gun?"

Is "redesigned" still synonymous with "repurposed?"

Is 5.45mm now smaller than .22 caliber?

Green Scam

I noticed that The Beast has SPID code FE9 and Marv's has NE1.

These are the codes for the emissions.

FE9 is Federal emissions standards. 

NE1 is basically the Northeast states that have adopted California's emissions standards.

YF5 is actual California emissions standards.

So I tried looking up what parts were different to conform to the California but not California states.

It's not PPV specific, but it sums up what I found succinctly.

As noted, all Corvettes are mechanically the same and meet 50 state federal emissions from the factory. However, that is not good enough for a new car registration in California. It must be ordered to meet California emissions and reflect that on the RPO codes. While it is ridiculous and simply bureaucratic red tape, it is what it is.

If your car does not have YF5 you will have a long, up hill battle to register a new car in California. If it is a used car and has more than 7,500 miles on it, it can be registered but will have to pass a smog check.

Emission Ordering Options:

FE9 FEDERAL EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in all states except California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

YF5 CALIFORNIA EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in California.

NE1 CT/MA/ME/NY/PA/RI/VT EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island or Vermont.

The decal that people are referring to in the above posts looks like the one pictured below. This is a NE1 decal used for cars to be registered in the New England states. Notice that it specifically states California compliance on it as the New England states have adopted California emissions.

Yes, you're reading that right.  There's no actual differences in emissions between a Federal standards car and a California car. 

What that means is CARB is setting the national standard!

That's bullshit!

Road Trip!

Drove down near Miami to let Marv join the PPV Cult

(One of us!  One of us!  One of us!  One of us!  One of us!)

It was my first time down Alligator Alley and the nav tab on my driver's information center even showed it!

The mission was successful and this lovely creature followed Marv home.

The Beast is a '12 Caprice PPV 9C1.  Marv's is an '11 Caprice PPV 9C3.

What that means is he has a less, um, industrial interior.  He has carpet instead of rubber flooring and his shifter is straight out of a civilian car.  There are several, small, detail differences between '11 and '12-'13 too.

Trip deets:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I'm having trouble with watching "news" on YouTube.

I click on the video based on the headline.

By the time they get to talking about the headlined information, I've zoned out and completely miss what I'd clicked on the video to see.

Never mind that, at least, 1/3 of the video is embedded advertising.

Remember When

Way back when...

I had a Springfield Armory USGI M1911A1.

I toyed with replacing the locking mainspring housing with a genuine USGI one because they were cheap and available.

They were still widely available when I started looking for a serrated, arched in blue for my .38 Super.

I had to settle for the plastic Colt housing for a long time before I found EGW's offering with a lanyard ring.

In the mean time, the parkerized USGI mainspring housings have evaporated.

Willard and I prefer the arched housing.  Manufacturers and gunwriters prefered flat, checkered housings.

So you're left hunting for a replacement.

You can now get serrated or checkered in matte or polished, blued or stainless.  Sometimes even with a lanyard ring.

But parkerized?  Nope.

Even Gunbroker is devoid.

Speaking Of Shower Improvements

 

When a shower curtain becomes unserviceable, I put Harvey on the case.

My only requirement is they be "fun."

My shower is in the garage, so it's not like we're having high-society seeing it when they visit.

Luxury Appointments

The accumulation of hard water deposits finally killed my shower head.

So I decided to try something different.

This is an experiment to see if I like the "rainfall" style.  This is a high pressure variation of the idea.

I've never had a butt washer wand before.

$30 from Amazon.

They Should Teach That In School

There's two subjects that need to be mandatory in K-12 schooling.

And not just teaching it, but they need to be passed before the student advances a grade or graduates.

The first is civics.  Civics isn't even difficult, but the reason it's not taught is so the politicians can lead voters by the nose and convince them that it's not the citizens who're supposed to be running the show and not the government.

The second is basic finance.

That will also mean teaching them old fashioned math again too.

If every student entering college already had a 200 level understanding of personal finance, the student loan process would not catch so many unawares.

Plus, we could definitely state that the student understood what they were signing by pointing to their passing grade in high-school.

I'm even of the opinion that K-12 students have to show strong competency in the Three-R's BEFORE we teach them anything else.

Another thing that'd be great to see taught is critical thinking.  But no government run entity wants their subjects knowing that!

Let The Hate Flow Through You

I applied for and received a discharge of my student loan.

Contrary to the conservative narrative it was not a Biden policy initiative that granted the discharge.

It's a long running program for the victims of school based fraud to not be held accountable for the crimes of the institution.

A Reagan era program.

If your school was shut down by the Department of Education for cause, then you're eligible to have your loans discharged too.  You might even get back what you've already paid if you meet certain other requirements that I don't.

I'd paid a pittance to keep the loan out of delinquency; so this doesn't help the day to day finances much, but I do hope that the sudden shift in my debt to income ratio will cause my credit score to improve enough to make insurance cheaper.

Comment moderation is on full steam because people hate that these programs exist.

Tell your congress creatures, not me.

A-B-O-R-TION In The Summer Sun

The Dems are pulling out all the stops to scare teh wimmins about abortion bans if Trump is elected.

In lots of places, it's now much harder to get one.  Even a couple of near complete bans.

In other places it's just as easy as it ever was.

How did this happen?

When the Supreme Court nuked Roe v Wade they booted it back to the states to decide for themselves and they have been.

Democracy in action!

Actual democracy, not "Our Democracy," as the Democrats define it.

I don't see Trump toeing the religious fundamental line that is the underlying fuel for banning abortions.

It should also be noted, for Republican run states that have made it a lot harder, abortion bans aren't near as important or popular as you might think.  Likewise, abortion isn't as popular as Democrats think.

But the narrative being spun by the Democrats is effective and sways voters.

Neither side is all that interested in the middle ground that most people are thinking when they think about when an abortion should be legal.

This large group doesn't have a voice, and they're noticing.

Could lead to some interesting politics.

The Party

Something that the AD&D rules did well that GURPS never did at all was clearly define the roles for the party.

A dungeon crawl needed a cleric, fighter, magic-user and a thief.

Skipping one left a huge gap in capabilities and made everything far more difficult in a dungeon crawl.

If one recognizes the need for these roles to be filled, you can certainly make a GURPS character to fill them.

For some reason, getting the players to actually do it is like herding cats.  Being unconstrained by the rules to conform to the class norms tends to lead to characters that can do a little of each of the four required roles without being good enough at any of them to be of much use.

Jack of all trades master of none.

This problem comes up less in GURPS when the setting defines the roles; and aren't fantasy.

Space settings have no problem with one person being captain, navigator, security, gunner... etc.  Except the ship's engineer.  For some reason anyone who makes the engineer will play once and never bless the table again.

Military settings only have trouble with the officers and NCO's needing to spend points on rank and the associated skills.

Steampunk, Cliffhangers, Pirates... no problems with roles.

Fantasy where they need to emulate the D&D template... Chaos.

Even in throw-together multi-dimensional nexus worlds there's no problem with getting them to specialize.

It's a mystery.

It's Over For Another Year

If the hometown team didn't make it, we're willing to accept the other team in the state did.

Congratulations to the Florida Panthers and winning their very first Stanley Cup!

Rooting for the natural rivals to the hometown team is hard for lots of people.

Especially with uneven officiating and the Panthers being a rather dirty team using that lopsided application of the rules to eliminate the hometown team.

Still...

It wasn't the fucking Stars.  I ain't got a lot of forgiveness for how that team came about.

Then Do It

Marv has caught the PPV bug from me.

We went an looked at a 2011 example today and the dealer was asking $10,300 and would come down to $10,000.

We started detailing all the little flaws and Marv offered $8,500.

They countered that they could fix those flaws and get $14k.

At this point I feigned a need to return home and since I was Marv's ride, he needed to come with.

I had two things to offer.  First was a different 9C3 for what he offered that just needs a back seat.

Second was, it would cost us a lot more than $4,000 to fix all the flaws;  Tell them you'll take it at $14k if they fix everything we find wrong.  I'll bet they balk.

He's still on the hunt.

Oh No! Anyway...

Local rapper Julio Foolio was murdered in Tampa.

Apparently he was a member of a gang and they are at war with another gang.

It's a statistic, not a tragedy.

It is statistically unlikely that his killer looked much different from him.  Well, aside from the hair.

It wasn't a cop that killed him.

It wasn't a member of the KKK.

It was another black man.

Yet, we're going to be hearing about disarming everyone with a gun who wasn't there and didn't do it; aren't we?

That Kind Of Fan

I'm drinking blue milk and eating light-side Oreo cookies and I still won't watch The Acolyte.

Fight me, Disney.

One D&D

6th Edition is going to be called One D&D?

I guess 7th will be D&D 360.

8th will be D&D Series X then 9th edition will be D&D Series S.

I have never been prouder of never playing past 2nd Edition and only reading 3-5 (in disbelief).

1939

The first commercially viable automatic transmission, the Hydra-Matic went on the market in 1939 in the Oldsmobile Series 60.

The first torque converter Dynaflow went out the door in a Buick in 1949.

The well loved Powerglide was introduced to Chevys in 1950.

So, yes, Anonymous Commenter, there were automatic transmissions in 1958 and they were available for the Stovebolt Six powered Biscayne.  For extra money.

But an auto got you a wide brake pedal instead of square brake and similar clutch pedals.

Yelling At The Screen

And neither team is mine...

The Florida Panthers have gone from a 3-0 lead in the series to a 3-3 tie that will get settled on Monday night.

The Edmonton Oilers have done themselves well recovering from that deficit.

It's odd that I'm cheering the Panthers on when I'm a Lightning fan...

Disappointed Not Surprised

US v Rahimi came to the conclusion that I expected.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect your right to a weapon if you're under a domestic violence restraining order.

I'm OK with the idea that dangerous people should be barred the possession of arms.

However, most domestic violence restraining orders are issued in a manner that doesn't encompass what the founders were thinking about when they were talking about due process.

Same goes for red flag laws.

Both are guilty until proven innocent punishments and are entirely too subject to malicious actors.

I think there's a 5th and 14th amendment case against the entire idea of restraining orders and red flag laws.

Much of the problem with them is the refusal of the person who called in the law to actually press charges on the person they called about.

Frustrated police and advocacy groups then came up with things to punish the accused that didn't need the victim's assent.  In some ways this is smart, many victims don't understand the end-game of letting the accused off the hook.

But smart and constitutional aren't always aligned.  There's a process to align them, but our representatives keep thinking they can pass law rather than amend.

Slammed

I love the look of a car that's lowered down to the deck.

But just for looking at.

Owning one and dealing with it isn't for me.

The Precious was quite low and it was getting old.  The air dam hit every small rise and the bottom of the nose showed the scars of steep driveways and tall speed bumps.

She wasn't even as low as many people take it.

The Beast could stand to be about an inch lower for looks.  The problem is finding springs that do that.

Stock G8 GXP springs do it, but nobody upgrading to coil-overs or a lowering kit seems to have saved theirs.

The 2-2.5" lowering for a G8 is 3.5-4" on my car.  Too low for the tires and wheels I have, and I'm not super wide on the tires.

I'm still researching.

Glaring Omission

Maybe I should say, "kids these days," too.

On page 38 of the June 2024 issue of Shooting Illustrated there's an article talking about guns that were, "released to much fanfare and market curiosity, only to crash and burn and end up in the dustbin of history."

It covers the Hudson H9, Remington R51 and CCF Raceframes.

There's nothing wrong with this list, except being at least one too short.

Where's the Colt 2000?

Virtually everything you could say about the R51 applies to the 2000.  Most especially the gunwriters getting examples that worked great and production models sucking harder than Kamala Harris vying for a promotion.

Perhaps the author is a little too young to remember?

I Am Not A Lawyer

I keep re-reading section 230 and I can't help but think we've already solved this problem; but lawyers broke the clear meaning and text of the law.

230 is supposed to hold the internet provider harmless from content published by their customers.

The way I read that is as long as you don't interfere with what the customer is publishing, you're a provider and not responsible for the content.

With what YouTube and others are doing with restrictions on publication, they're becoming editors and editors are part of publishing; so they have become liable through their actions.

Let's get this on!

Enforcing 230 like I've outlined would bring back a first amendment-like public square to the internet.

Within this framework one can even create space for content that children should not look at.

Negative Waves Have Prevailed

Donald Sutherland passed on.

88 is a good run.

Why Can't I Celebrate?

There's black people who're saying they don't want us white people celebrating Juneteenth.

Why can't we?

If I were bitter and cynical I'd say:

We did all the fucking work.

We won the war.  If we hadn't, the troops wouldn't have made it to the far reaches of Texas by June 19th, or any other day.  Freedom would never have come.

We passed three Constitutional amendments to make sure the victory stuck.

But I'm merely disappointed.

This is really OUR day to celebrate.

I want you to prosper with your freedom and be happy.

So stop looking for shit to be pissed about and get to prospering already.

Bleeding

Normally you work your way from the caliper farthest from the master cylinder to the nearest.

The Beast goes from farthest from the ABS module to nearest.

RR inner

RR outer

LF inner

LF outer

LR inner

LR outer

RF inner

RF outer

Probably because the Zeta platform is primarily right hand drive and the abs module was next to the master down-under.

Oh, and notice that inner and outer?  I've never had fixed calipers before.  Normal floating calipers just have one bleeder.

Up Up Down Down Up Up Down Down

Flushed out Marv's brake lines on his Impala SS the old fashioned way!

We'd have used the pressure bleeder that JT generously loaned us, but...

Round fitting on a rectangular brake reservoir.

So I did a leg work out and Marv opened and closed the bleeder screws repeatedly until the fluid changed from nasty to clear.

What started this was Marv swapping a new rear into the car and the rear brakes being completely dry from the transfer.

To completely flush the system takes just more than a quart of DOT 4.

He reports that the pedal feels much better than before.  We put our heads together and we think he last did this... many years ago.  Too long really.  It's something that's easy to forget to do.

I think I might just do it on my cars before we return the bleeder.  I think I have a round cap on my reservoirs.

Mercedes With A Temp Tag

There's been a murder near Tampa.

The deceased was driving a nearly new Mercedes.

I will speculate about motive.

Mercedes and New Tampa?

He was driving like an asshole and cut off the wrong person.

Don't make it right, but I can totally see it happening.

He Wanted It Known It Was His

 I bought this book as a group of six Andre Norton books.

I last read this book when I was in 9th grade, but that's not why I bothered posting about it.

Steve Wylie put his name in it in several places.

 

Steve made sure that, even if you ripped off the cover, there was still proof that it was HIS book.

Update:  Could it be THIS Steve Wylie?  That'd be kinda cool.

I Guess It Depends On How Observant Huh

The think that stood out to me about Chuck Schumer's little Father's Day grilling photo op wasn't the temperature of the meat, but the cheese on it.

I thought Chuck was Jewish.

I thought that Jews weren't supposed to mix meat and dairy.

Chuck doesn't strike me as being all that orthodox, so prolly OK for his sub-branch of his religion.

Still.

However

"Foreigners committed 77% of solved rape cases in Paris in 2023, according to data from the Paris Police."

-Visegrad 24 on X

The way this is phrased, though, it could just mean that foreigners are bad at not getting caught and the native French are.

That's not 77% of rapes, but 77% of SOLVED rapes.

Now I want to see how many unsolved rapes Paris has and what percentage of them this 77% solved fits into.

Age

How do you figure the age of your car?

By some metrics, the oldest car in my fleet is also the youngest.

Moxie has the fewest miles on her, but is the oldest by model year.

Which is more important?  Miles or years?

16 Years

It's been 16 years since I last spoke to my father.

He called to tell me that his mom, my grandma, had passed on.  A week after the funeral.

He did, however, let everyone in the family think that I'd refused to come.  That was nice.

Two years ago I did send him a birthday card for his 80th.

The ball really is in his court, but the pattern it's following is familiar.

Once he got a family with Wife #2, he didn't need family from Wife #1.

Reminding him we exist bugs him and pisses off Wife #2.

C'est la vie.

They've Never Driven It

Facebook Marketplace has the same search engine as Amazon for giving you results that are only tangentially related to what you're looking for.

A search for Caprice PPV yielded a hit on a 1958 Chevy Biscayne.

In decent shape with a bog standard 235 ci Stovebolt Six.

 

The ad said it had an automatic transmission.

The picture showed too many pedals for that.

 

I'm guessing that the three-on-the-tree is throwing them and they've never even started the motor.

Tree shifters look like column shifters to someone raised on automatics only.

It looked to be in decent shape for a good price.

Maybe Pepperidge Farms

Remember when June was Men's Mental Health Awareness Month?

Oh It Makes Sense Now

I was sitting here trying to figure out how being a nut case conspiracy theorist amounted to defamation.

Finally read up on Mr Jones' case.  Read up meaning skimming news stories without exulting headlines.

He probably would have been exonerated if he'd listened to what the court ordered him to do.

Yeah, you don't blow off the judge repeatedly and expect to win.

He basically handed the plaintiffs a win by default and it wasn't the overwhelmingly strong case they'd filed under.

I did not subscribe to his theories about Sandy Hook, but would never have sought to silence him.  That kind of shit is best actively ignored.

Now a different group of prick has money and they're wearing the skins of their dead children to advance an anti-gun agenda.

Yay!

Those assholes have been running so many ads I can't skip on YouTube that I'm to the point of replying to the screen, "Good!" when they say, "my beloved baby died at Sandy Hook."

I was sad for them until the blamed me for their tragic loss.

The murderer (who isn't me or someone I hired) could have killed everyone he killed with a Sharps falling-block with the time given him by the police response.

The same sort of response that allowed Parkland to proceed until that shooter decided they were thirsty and head for McDonald's for a shake.

The same sort of response that kept help from getting unto the Ft Lauderdale airport to stop that shooter.

The same sort of response that listened to children being murdered in Uvalde, Texas.

The same sort of response that let the murderer in the Pulse nightclub to run themselves dry.

Nashville PD has the right of it when it come to responding.

But you can't sue the cops.  Yet, you have to sue someone.

Alex Jones is primarily guilty of having deep pockets and being foolish enough to ignore the instructions coming from the bench.  But he didn't kill those kids.

Even if he claimed that those kids didn't die and it was all a conspiracy to promote gun control.

Which after seeing how many wacky conspiracy theories have turned out to be true in the wake of Wu Ping Cough, Russian disinformation and Schrodinger's laptop...  Saying that any shooting might be a false flag to get gun control rolling again doesn't sound unreasonable even if have have to swing Occam's Razor HARD at it.