Then I WIll Think Of Them No More

It's interesting that I can insult someone and say directly that they are engaged in inbreeding and all that matters to them is if I have a job.

Well, if they could read (and they've shown no ability to do so) they've have long since noticed that my job is to be a husband and father.

We're a single income family, as was traditional for decades.

Where we break tradition is Harvey is the breadwinner.

If they could read, they'd find that we are servicing our student loans.

We don't think it's fair that we're being burdened with them because our situation resembles being a victim of fraud far more than the typical mooch depicted in student loan forgiveness.

The school we attended was dissolved for committing fraud.

My degree (bachelors in business admin) became useless the moment that happened.  Harvey got lucky that she'd gotten some experience before the gavel fell, but her MBA is not worth as much as it should have been.

The people who committed the fraud went around the country buying up small, for profit, schools with good reputations.  They then changed the accreditation the schools were using so that students wouldn't be able to transfer their credits to a different school, or even use their undergraduate degree to enter graduate studies, without extreme difficulty.

The schools were consolidated into ever larger companies and accreditation was changed at each consolidation.

Many of us were quite close to graduating when the investigations began.

Many of us graduated before they were concluded.

Few of us noticed that the solid college we'd entered had been so devalued until the job search began.

Complicit in this fraud is the US Department of Education.  You know, the people who are supposed to regulate the education system?

They approved every sale, every merger, every consolidation, every accrediting body.

Thanks for nothing, guys!

We think we're allowed to be unhappy with the situation.  It's not the bill of goods we're paying for.

And?

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka said, “From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” per a Japanese media outlet. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

The atomic bombs were used to save the lives of Americans.  You are correct.

Curtis LeMay, again, had the right of it.

Paraphrased, "War is killing and if you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." 

It should probably be pointed out that they fucking worked.

The war was over within days of dropping them.

That had a secondary, unintended, effect of saving Japanese lives too.

There's no compelling evidence that Japan was going to surrender any time soon before we dropped those two weapons.

Typing VS Clicking

It takes your sister fucking ass several moments to type a response that you think is getting under my skin.

It takes two clicks to delete it as I giggle.

Your repeated statements prove that you didn't read the linked posts.

I am not a Greek poet, even if one links here.

Have someone read this to you.

M48A6

Teledyne offered a light tank in the early 80's which lost to what would become the M8 Buford.

The turret lived on to be mounted on the Stryker MGS.

Interestingly, they offered the turret for retrofit into the M60 and Centurion.

The M60 and M48 share a turret ring.

For Twilight: 2000, the M48A6 is an M48A5 with the Teledyne turret.

Takes a lot of weight off the vehicle and lowers the silhouette significantly.

This Doesn't Happen To Smart People!

The US State Department has said, "Don't travel to Haiti."

So what does this guy do?

Cue laugh track!

Escape To Kalisz

The Lovely Harvey got me this fun gun case.

While not airline approved, it does lock.

Inside is a weekend fun kit!

I'm very amused!

Helpful Hint

Do you have a Canon Eos M50?

Did you know that if you stab the INFO button when its in image review, it will change what's displayed with the reviewed image?

I did not.

But I'd accidentally hit the button somehow and got a LOT of information I didn't want.

This is not mentioned in the manual at all, as far as I can tell.

It tells you that you can change the information on the shooting screen, but not the review screen.

I hope this helps you.

I Didn't Have To Use My AK

I gotta admit, it was a good Friday.

I'm not Catholic, so it's just another Friday to me.

Easter, likewise.

Though, the film Risen is well worth a watch.

RIP

Louis Gossett Jr has shuffled off.

87 years old.

I am at a loss to think of a role he played that was poorly done.

He clearly wasn't afraid to take on challenges.

Normally you wouldn't see an actor from something like Enemy Mine in something like An Officer and a Gentleman.

Econ 101

If you have to pass a law, issue an edict or create a regulation to make people purchase a good or service:

THERE IS NO REAL DEMAND FOR THAT GOOD OR SERVICE!

I say again:  When the market decides that it needs something, someone will provide it.

This is the invisible hand.

Government mandating that something be purchased isn't the market.

It disrupts the market and causes problems that radiate out like the tsunami from a volcanic explosion.

Found A Reference!

Back when, I was talking about punching the belly of a National Socialist (never forget they were socialists!) panzer with .50 BMG ammo and I couldn't find the reference for belt composition.

I was watching a YouTube vid talking about what Masters of the Air gets right and what they get wrong and they show a table with the ammo loadouts!

USAAF fighters early on carried 4 AP, 1 Tracer.  That mix was changed to 2 AP, 2 API, 1 tracer (also called 2-n-1) until October 1943.  From then to the end of the war it was 100% API.

There's A Process

Something I'm a bit sick of is how many rights issues become suicide pacts if taken to a lawyer's logical conclusion but are glaringly not that way from most normal people's perspective.

It's by far most common with libertarians than liberals, though there are plenty there too.

The inherent rights argument and illegal aliens is something that's got a lot of national and societal suicide built into it.

If anyone who manages to claw their way over the imaginary line that's our border has all the same rights as a naturally born citizen; then what distinguishes the citizen from anyone else?

Since these rights are inherent...

Somehow, I don't think that's what the founders were meaning, but they didn't leave us much in the way of notes.

On one hand, the US has survived mass, unchecked, immigrations more than once.

On the other hand, those immigrants were treated brutally, one might even say in a racist manner, until they assimilated into American culture.

On the gripping hand, they WANTED to be Americans.  While they loved their mother countries, they also saw that it was better here.

The melting pot is a crucible.

E Pluribus Unum is an apt motto.

Coming here to become an American is good, you can totally keep your motherland's customs and stuff as long as they're secondary to being American.

Italians did it.

Irish did it (TWICE!).

Cubans do it.  There's some VERY American Cubans living just a couple miles away from me, in fact.

Chinese did it.

Not insubstantial numbers of Indians are doing it.

Former slaves had done it, until it was undone by Mr Great Society.

It's not complicated.

But they have to want to, and there needs to be some pressure to cause those who don't to not want to remain.

It's Dusty In Here

One of my relatives has posted a bunch of home movies to YouTube.

It's very strange to see my mom as a young women.

I never knew her as this woman because she was Mom.

Technological Mix

I just learned about the Tollense Valley Battle.

What's interesting to me is the evidence of bronze and flint weapons at the battle.

Right at the cusp betwixt TL0 and TL1.

Rights

Been watching lawyers debate whether illegal aliens have rights.

The obvious answer is, yes they do.

The more subtle answer is, until they broke the law.

Even more subtle is the question of if we can just start shooting them without regard to whatever rights they might have had before they broke the law without convicting them of it?

That whole innocent until proven guilty thing makes me think that we accord anyone we suspect of being here illegally all of the rights a citizen or legal alien has right up until they're convicted.

After all, if they're innocent of being an illegal alien, they've never broken the law and therefore didn't surrender their rights when they crossed the frontier.

Something I do want to see more of from the government is sending the convicts back to where they came from even if the crime of being here is merely a misdemeanor.

The problem would solve itself if a couple of, small, things were done.

First:  Make proving your legal status a prerequisite for receiving any and all government aid.  I had to provide such proof to get Real ID to keep my driver's license and carry permit.  To demand less of non-citizens seems unequal protection under the law.

Second:  Tax remittances at an extortionate rate.  They've no real rights, and it's nothing that citizens are doing...  Bonus, this will also discourage things like H1B visa seekers form hitting our shores and displacing citizens for the same job.

That's really it.  Stop crime from paying and criminals tend to stop.  It's an age old solution.

Putting a fine on businesses who have employees who cannot prove they are here legally also works.  We will then find out if there really are jobs Americans won't do or if they're just unwelcome to apply as long as there's a supply of illegals to do them.

Challenge

If you're a stupid enough fuck on Facebook to call me ignorant, then read all of these posts.

Then cut your dick off with a pencil so it hurts more and you stop contaminating the world with your, sure to be, just as stupid fuck progeny.

Leave your balls.  That way you still get horny, but won't be able to do anything about it.

Too harsh?

Well, I am sick of the sanctimonious bullshit from people who wouldn't walk an inch in my shoes, let alone a mile.

When you're done lecturing me on student loans, be sure to tell me about what a lucky deal I got from the VA.

There's Such A Thing?

Russian VIP transport tank seen in Ukraine.

That beats a stretch limo, I'd say.

Danger UXB

Watching the old BBC show "Danger UXB" from 1979.

It holds up very well.

I am once again reminded about booby traps and gaming.

Any sort of trap, really.

The Type 17 fuse on the Luftwaffe bombs is a great example.

It's a time delay fuse and the Germans used several anti-tamper devices to make sure it was difficult to disarm once it was dropped.

If I let the clock run out while the player's character is next to it, I'll get accused of not giving them a chance.

Same for if they pull the fuse and the anti-tamper goes off.

Especially since there's no way to tell, from the outside, if the clock is close to running out or to see the anti-tamper device.

An SC250 does 6dx35[6dx3] cr ex.  No bueno for standing next to when it goes all angry like.

NIMBY?

I'm reading about the massive negative effects of having a single port closed in the US will have on the economy and it makes me wonder why.

The obvious answer is that all US ports operate at 100% capacity all the time and there's no slack to allow for traffic from a closure to be rerouted.

If that's the answer, then I want to know why more capacity hasn't been added.

For some ports, like Tampa, there's infrastructure preventing the entrance of the large ships.  I'd love to see Skyway III built so that the really big ships could get in.

But lots of other places the reason is lack of political will to spend the money to expand capacity.

There's gobs of blame to spread around, but it's the usual suspects when it comes down to it.

Our national transportation infrastructure should not be so brittle that losing a single node causes collapse.  Inconvenience, sure, but not collapse.

It's especially galling in that I know we had plans for several of our ports to be hit with nukes and to be back into shipping armies and materiel to Europe mere days after the attack.

What the fuck happened?

Sadly, "the usual suspects" is the answer, yet again.

Forgot Where It Was

Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key bridge...

Living here in Florida we forget about government that doesn't just roll up its sleeves and get to work.

That there's places where the reality is what the press estimates for how long it will take to rebuild, if it ever happens at all.

Florida had a similar bridge disaster in 1980.

The current Sunshine Skyway bridge was built from 1983 to 1987 and the undamaged half of the old Skyway bridge was demolished in 1990.

Shipping traffic was restored before the end of 1980.

I am reminded about the estimates to restore a single tiny bridge after Hurricane Ian being in the ten year range.

That bridge had traffic on it in a couple of months.  What's keeping things from being fixed down there, now, is endless delays from insurance companies trying to avoid paying out.

I contrast that to Katrina...  It's my understanding there's still places around NOLA that are untouched since that day and unlikely to ever be fixed.

Sad.

Back to the FSK Bridge.

Did you know it was supposed to be a tunnel?

Did you know that this exact disaster was predicted before it was built?

Did you know, after the Skyway collapse, studies were done about putting in protective measures to prevent such a collapse?

Let's see what they do.

There's a part of me that thinks that America is still great and mere engineering problems are not problems to our indomitable spirit; get out of our way for a moment and watch us do grand things!

There's another part that just knows that getting in the way of American exceptionalism is the fucking goal of too many people.

Don't Skip The Cheese

To use the entire can of soup, I made a double batch.

1 can of cream of (favorite)

1 can & 2 cups of water

Both flavor packets from two packs of Ramen

Boil

Add noodles, boil for three minutes.

Add a fistful of cheese.

NOM!

Just A Couple

 Back in 2012 I'd found that my little blog was banned in Iran.

Today I noticed, in addition to lots of hits from Hong Kong, I have 2 unique visitors from Iran.

Makes me wonder whom in Iran is reading the blog.

Hopefully someone without nefarious intent who is learning the finer points of Traveller and GURPS.

Surprised

 After the 1980 disaster of the Skyway bridge down here, I'd kind of assumed that everyone would add the underwater protections that were added to the new bridge to prevent a ship from hitting the pylon and collapsing the bridge.

You know what they say about assumptions...

The Francis Scott Key bridge clearly lacked the dolphins and barriers the Skyway has.

The new bridge will almost certainly have them, hindsight being damnedly clear.

Twofer

Today is National Medal of Honor Day and National Whiskey Day.

So you can have a shot of whisky and toast those who earned that itty bitty ribbon.

To My Eternal Shame

I forgot Earth Hour.

Normally I have all the cars idling and every light on.

Sadly, I was just tooling around in my V-8 powered Beast while Harvey was home with just MOST of the lights on.

I will do better next year.

Sigh

The Tuskegee Airmen have been the subject of several movies.

The 1995 version is one of the better ones.

I don't think they needed to be shoehorned into a movie about the 8th Air Force and 100th Bomb Group.

I Bought Their Car

 

My 2012 Caprice PPV, as a former police car, has a distinct lack of tracking and remote cut-offs.

God's forbid the King's Men be subjected to tracking via OnStar or XM Radio.

The gubmint is going to have to track me the old fashioned way!  By tracking my smart phone.

Go All In(sane)

Customizable!

4" wide, 3" long, 3" deep.

A momentary/off/momentary switch is available which would be dandy for the tap-up/tap-down command.

It's just appallingly expensive for a two-switch panel, but it's cool as all get-out.

Shift Resistance

The $300 shift box and cupholder is just $100 if you skip the cupholders.

You get an on-off switch and two momentary switches.

If you had the 9C3 RPO, you wouldn't need this box because the shifter has it from the factory.

To the right of 'D' is a detent you can move the shifter into and that puts the trans in "sport mode".  Pushing the shifter forwards and back manually shifts the trans up and down...

No.  Not quite.

Pushing the shifter forward and back sends a request to the Body Control Module (BCM) to send a command to the Transmission Control Module (TCM) to shift up or down.

One pin from the BCM sends 12v up to the shifter and another receives a voltage signal back to a different pin.

13 to 11v and the TCM runs the transmission automatically.

3.1 to 2.7v and it's in sport/manual mode.

2.3 to 1.9v is a tap-up signal.

1.56 to 1.15v is a tap-down signal.

We've seen this paradigm of doing things before in how the cruise control operates.  Steering wheel controls as well.

Pushing the switch routes the current through a resistor and the voltage drop tells the controller what you asked for.

Marv's calculating the resistance values the box is probably using.

I would not be shocked to find that GM uses the same values on all of its cars.

The shift box taps into the 12v wire that's already on my BCM and adds a wire to an empty pin; plus a separate ground that's not present in the factory diagram.  The factory circuit grounds through a resistor in the BCM on the same pin the shift box is adding a wire to.

Because Harvey wants cupholders, we're going to end up with the $300 box.  But we're going to be measuring resistances and voltage drops when it gets here!

It's Odd

Whenever a bigot stops in and gets their comment wiped, I have a huge uptick in traffic from Aesop's place.

Because I don't recall Aesop being a bigot.

A tiresome jerk in my comment section, but not a bigot. 

Update:

I've checked Aesop's place to see what might be driving traffic.  It's nothing he's said about me.

I suspect that he's got some anti-Semitic bigots lurking there reading who can't stand the thought that Israel might win for real for a change.

Bigots Make Me Learn

I've got one for you.

Palestinians already control Israel.

I'm reading about the Mandate of Palestine and the partitioning plans.

"Palestinian Jew," and, "Palestinian Arab," keeps coming up.

Distinct from groups like Beersheba Bedouin, by the way.

Some Arab populations are called out separately; everyone else is called some kind of "Palestinian."

No side in this fight can claim the moral high ground from about 1937 on.

Not the Jews, not the Arabs, not Muslims, not The British Empire, and most especially not The UN.

Except for the several small Arab populations mentioned as distinct from Palestinian Arabs everyone involved wanted everyone else's land.

When partition started to look like a real thing, they started a civil war over it.

England, who had been saddled with the place since the Ottomans left wanted out and didn't particularly care how they left it once bombs and bullets started flying.

The outcome of that civil war is the establishment of Israel, just in case you're not following, by 1/3 of the Palestinian population which had won the right by force of arms.

All that follows is the refusal of the losers of that fight to accept the loss and the neighbors being upset about it because the new state has the wrong religion.

One can choose to nurse a grievance for generations, or accept things have changed.

There's a not insignificant Arab population in Israel that accepted it and are now citizens, with rights and everything.

Not Your Soapbox

Dear bigots:

You don't get to comment here.

Most especially you don't get to regurgitate propaganda as if it was historical fact.

Links to gab or X are not sources.

By Jingo

I am not against immigration, per se.

What I am against is being colonized.

America is a pretty cool place and has a culture.

A culture assembled from the parts and spare bits of the peoples who immigrated here over a couple hundred years; but a culture nonetheless!

What we're courting is being colonized by Mexico and South America because most of these immigrants come here and remain Mexican/South American.  They don't want to be US of Americans, they just want the benefits of being here without becoming part of us.  That includes a job they cannot get at home.

If we were forcing them to become Americans, there wouldn't be an objection from me.

The reason I don't want them to remain their nationality is, well, where they came from.

I don't want to live where they came from.

I don't want where I live to become where they're fleeing.

We're a couple of bad court decisions away from them being able vote for making here like there.

I object to that! 

And this is independent from the non-zero number of people who are coming here to do direct harm to the nation...

The Latin-Americans coming here for work and opportunity don't worry me near so much as the military age middle easterners we're encountering here and there.

Again, if they were coming here to become Americans, it wouldn't be a problem.

The problem is they're not.

Yet Another Reason

The number of reasons I want a time machine keeps growing.

I want to drag someone from 1816 to 1824 here to testify about the benefits of global warming.

1816 is also known as "The Year Without A Summer."

These years are definitely included in the "global warming" calculus, but the medieval warm period isn't.

If you're going to talk about climate you have to use all the data, not just the cherries.

Don't Really Care

Events in the late 18th century mean that I don't really care about what's going on with King Chuck's daughter-in-law.

I don't understand the obsession with the goings on with the relatives of the royal family of England when we kicked them to the curb 200 and some odd years ago.

I don't wish her ill, but I don't know why we should give a fuck.

Murder Or Kidnapping

Finally getting around to really reading GURPS: Transhuman Space.

A chapter opening vignette talks about a suspect being found to have the mind of another person uploaded into them; thus making the mind found there guilty of murder.

The original person's mind being discarded during the upload.

If they'd downloaded that person's mind before uploading their own; would it just be kidnapping?

I can see why FuzzyGeff, a huge fan of this setting, never set to GM it.  There's a lot going on to account for.

Settings that have this much going on demand a certain level of commitment from the players to learn the setting and not to just sit back and take it in as the GM describes the events surrounding their characters.

That might work in a generic fantasy setting, it doesn't fly once the setting gets past a certain density.

It's the same barrier to entry that makes many Traveller campaigns go stillborn.

Beads

I always get an odd feeling when I see water beaded up on my car.

It means that the wax I applied is still working and the finish is protected.

This was not true of many of my cars over the years because appearance was tertiary, at best.

Now that I'm fully aware of what paint costs, I'm more proactive about putting a coat of wax on them.

That Means It's Working

Justice Jackson has noticed that the 1st Amendment hamstrings the government.

You'd think that she'd have tripped over that notion someplace between enrolling in law school and being appointed to the Supreme Court.

It's a forgotten notion in many circles, including conservatives.

The Constitution was supposed to be an empowering document for the Federal government, and if it's not mentioned therein, it was forbidden.

The Bill of Rights was supposed to be further restrictions on the Federal government.  Before anyone jumps the gun here, the 14th amendment was supposed to rein in the states and apply the Bill of Rights to them as well... fucking morons on SCOTUS is not a new thing as we can see in Slaughterhouse.

Power is addictive in a way that heroin can only dream of, so the idea of going around the restrictions really took hold hard.

We really need to be rolling back laws that were passed outside of living memory by the so-called greatest generation and heavily reinforced by the baby boomers.

They were voting in the scoundrels long before most of us were allowed anywhere near a voting booth.

Outlawed

It is my position that illegal aliens and persons on expired visas are outlaws in the traditional English common law sense.

Outside the law and fair game to anyone who wishes to deal with it.

We accord them 4th and 5th amendment protections on the off chance that they prove to be legally present within our borders.

To do otherwise risks violating the rights of a citizen.

We do not do this because illegals actually have said rights and we should stop pretending they do.

The outlawed have no inherent rights.  Through their own actions they have surrendered them.

Update: Congress was wrong to make being an illegal alien so light a charge as misdemeanors and civil fines.

It's All About Perspective

Every dictator for life is a single term executive...

It's Not Even Leather!

The nifty shift controller and cup holder is $300.

I have a strong inclination to figure out the wiring and make me an stl file for the rest.

Some of these custom items assume no skills or ambition on the customer's part when they price the item.

When The War Ends

To all the folks that want the war in Gaza to end:

Hamas started a war they didn't have the wherewithal to fight and for it to end, they're going to have to surrender.

I say this because it sure doesn't look like Israel is falling for the old "do the same thing and expect different results" ploy being demanded by anti-Semites all over the world.

To those same anti-Semites:

Hamas and Gaza HAD peace, but they chose to go murdering and when you're a state-like-entity and go murdering in a neighboring state it's called "an act of war" and war is what you get in reply.

If you start a war with someone way more capable than you, you will be at war until they get bored or you're gone.

Note:  So far, only America has consistently shown the tendency to get bored and go home rather than eliminate the enemy completely.

Still Pi-

.327 Federal Magnum does 3d+1 pi- out to 290/2,300.

While this is an improvement over .32 S&W Long's 1d+2 pi-, 120/1,300 and .32 S&W's 1d+1 pi-, 120/1,300; how does that compare to 9mm from a subcompact?

3d+1 pi- will average 5 points of damage on an unarmored opponent.

Hollow points changes it to 3d+1(0.5) pi and will get an average hit of 10 on an unarmored person.

Ball 9mm is running 8 on average and 2d+1(0.5) pi+ hollow point's get 10 as well!

Not too bad, for a change.  .30 Super Carry gets screwed by that pi-, ball only averages 4 and HP gets 8.

But you're still limited to six shots and the much slower reload that comes with a revolver and just a little lighter than a Sheild Plus.

Illegal Alien Rights

Obama appointee in Illinois says that illegal aliens have a right to a firearm because 2nd Amendment. 

Obama appointee and Illinois are generally hallmarks of "wrong about guns."

They forgot "fugitive from justice" when creating this right for people here illegally. While not convicted or even arrested, they are fugitives by their very presence inside the country. 

It should also be said that a core idea of the nation-state model that worked successfully for centuries is that aliens don't have the same rights as the citizenry. A valid visa was how a foreigner gained, temporary, rights. But we lost the entire idea of outlawed somewhere. Right about when hostis humani generis went out of style, I am sure. 

I'd agree that someone who entered the nation legally has a right to a firearm while they're here, I disagree with the idea that a fugitive from justice does until tried, exonerated and released; this proving they were not here illegally at all.

The 14th says that citizens have privileges and immunities. That implies that non-citizens shouldn't have them. What are they? What distinguishes the citizen from the non-citizen from the alien? Anything at all?  If there is no advantage to having the citizenship, or being law abiding about entering the nation, what's the use?  Why even have a nation or government?

Don't Forget Your Hat

 Playback seems busted, try this link --> https://youtu.be/T9ZnHpLqGNQ?list=FLaXLX1pC51EtGouC9-SMGZQ

 

Language Is Retarded Sometimes

"Kamikaze Drone" is the new hotness.

Hmmmmm.  A pilotless, self-guided vehicle that either crashes into or explodes near a target?

Didn't we already have a word for this?

I believe it was "missile."

A pilotless, remote-controlled vehicle that either crashes into or explodes near a target?

That used to be called a guided bomb/missile.

Does this mean the old Bullpup, HOBOS and Walleye need to be redesignated?

Sickle

I know where the mispronunciation of cyclic comes from.

Bicycle.

The most common way to say it is, "bye sickle."

You just don't hear people say cycle as sickle anywhere else except for some regional places where it's motorsickle.  These regions are not regarded as particularly well educated, smart or having relationships outside ones siblings.

Stereotypes be stereotypical, and shit.

Tankers Be Chill

 

 

It's the music that makes the scene funny the way he shows it.

Supporting the infantry is one of a tank's most important jobs.  Being immune to small arms in a mobile pillbox is a handy tool.

Just like being able to see and hear all around you is a handy tool the crunchies have when they're supporting the tank.

It's mutual support.

We scratch their backs, they scratch ours.

Son It's Faster Horses Younger Women Older Whiskey More Money

Better cup holders too!

There's a guy who makes a box for the PPV that allows you to manually shift it like you had the more than $1,000 G8 console and shifter in it.

Lokar makes a shifter for $650 that will do the same thing.

He's around $150 for the little box.

I found out today that he makes this:

The cup holders in the Denno console that came with the car are teh suxxor.

This unit replaces my big flat area with the shifter controls and adds two cup holders, a 12v port and a USB port!  I'm liking it.

Caprice of Shift doesn't have a website, just a Facebook page.  To find out how much, you must message them.

If the 3D printing holds up, this looks like how I wanna go.

First They Came For Pornhub

We're having a Niemöller moment.

Texas, Utah and Virginia have passed laws that require government issued proof of age be used to access porn sites.

Pornhub has been responding by shutting down access from IP addresses in the aforementioned states.

Once again the puritans are being short sighted.

This will be twisted.

Firearms and alcohol companies sell a product where you need government issue proof of age to purchase.  You have to be an adult to buy the product, therefore, you need to an adult to access the content of those web pages.

YouTube, I see you have gun and alcohol content; remove it.

YouTube has been looking for an excuse for a long time to outright ban gun content and you stupid puritan idiots have just handed them the method.

This "for the children" shit always leads to some kind of tyrannical bullshit and makes it even harder to pass good law that's genuinely for protecting children from harm.

Fully Semi Automatic

Another "ackshually" firearms terminology moment spurred by Ian's recent video and Battleswarm's comments on it.

As Ian says; 'automatic' at one point meant self-loading.  The gun loaded the next round automatically.

Automatic becomes the term for when machine guns get developed because the gun does everything automatically and self-loaders become semi-automatic.

All is now well and good.  For all time.

But, wait, there's more!

Today we're calling automatic "fully automatic" but even that term isn't clear because there were a couple of machine guns with rate reducers and a selector that said "slow" and "full".  Full-auto on a BAR is the unreduced rate of fire.

And then there's burst modes.

Burst is it's own thing and isn't fully automatic in the same way that semi-automatic isn't.  It's just between full rate and self-loading.

LEGALLY burst modes are machine gun.

Just like "assault rifle" is a technical term for something, the legal terminology is creeping into the technical language. 

We should really fight that.

And we should learn to say "cyclic" correctly.  It's "sigh-click" not "sick-lick".

Why Nothing Changes

It's an epiphany of sorts.

Ever notice that every single fucking homeowners association is the same?

Run by the same person with eager helpers and they all come to the same conclusions as every other HOA?

And despite only being a tiny minority of the homeowners, they get their way and the rest of the people have to heed to their demands?

Why is this?

Because to effect change, the homeowners as a whole have to make time to actually attend, vote and take control back from the Karens.

It's actual work.

Normal people don't want a second (perhaps third) job keeping Karen at bay.  For the most part they have better things to do.

But how does Karen keep taking control?

For them, it is NOT work.  It's a hobby.  It's a leisure activity.  It's fun!

They don't have anything better to do because this is what they WANT to do.

Now.

Scale that up to the county level.  State.  Federal.

This is why one side thinks that violence is a rheostat and the other thinks it's a switch.

Karen always pushes it too far and gets kicked out... for a while.

They just wait until we decide we want more time to do things we prefer to do and think we're going to get left alone this time.

We're always wrong.

I Did A Thing

The way modern cars do their door handles causes the paint underneath to get scratched.

The Lovely Harvey found some protectors that should prevent further damage and hide existing damage.

I think it makes the handles pop!

This is my second try at this post.  The text was teeny when I tried from my phone.

Green Beer And Anniversaries

My inlaws celebrated 50 years of togetherness yesterday.

That makes for a slow-blog day.

We ate like pigs!

Then off to have St Paddy's Day green beer and Irishish food.

Plus watching the local hockey team win against the other Florida team when they were definitely the underdog in the matchup.  Go Bolts!

Alignment

Wu Ping Cough is something making a lot of people go, "they were lying to me, right to my face!"

As time passes, we're seeing that the conspiracy theorists and cranks were correct and that the lock-step march of government, media and government funded science was, not wrong, but lying about being right.

I don't recall seeing it mentioned, but there's a lot of correlation between how government and media treat gun control and climate crisis to how they handled Wu Ping Cough.

I'd start doubting the Earth was round if I couldn't confirm it with my own measurements.

You should too!

Great

Looks like we're going to have a third world Hellhole on both borders soon.

Toronto cops say to leave car keys where the crooks can readily access them.

Yet another entry in the list of "why you never give up your arms."

Did you know that dead perps have a 0% recidivism rate?

I suspect that's a lesson that's going to get taught again soon as more and more police forces effectively give up trying to do anything.

It will be interesting to see "defund the police" coming from "fuck it I'll do this my self." people.

I mean, they have no duty to come help, and they aren't helping...  Why keep them on the payroll?

Especially since what they do manage to do is effectively nada when the DA undercharges or doesn't file on the criminal who is free to return to crimining faster than the insurance company can pay you 38% of the value of the thing stolen.

But no cops at all means criminal will get dead stealing sooner rather than later because the person they're stealing from knows they won't get in trouble for owning the gun and shooting the thief.

Shooting thieves should be legal.

"Property isn't worth someone's life," should be a stark warning.

It's not worth dying over, so don't steal it!

I despise the notion that someone else has decided that my property isn't worth defending because they value it so low as to make it illegal to do so.

Update:

I am not the only one thinking along these lines...

More Questions Than Answers

This article asks more questions than it answers, but it raises real doubts about the governmental consensus.

I love the line about the only measurable effect of the extra CO2 has been increased crop yields.

If The Doors wrote Enter Sandman

Skaven

Skaven (WFRP 1e p.226)

9 Points

Attribute Modifiers: HT+1 [10].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Will-2 [-10]; SM 0.

Advantages: Damage Resistance +1 (Tough Skin, -40%) [3]; Night Vision +5 [5]; Sharp Teeth [1].

Disadvantages:

Features: Fur, Tail.

Talents:

This is how far I've gotten the races for the GURPS conversion of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (1e).

This is the bog-standard Skaven.  Shamen and chaos-mutated versions to come later.

A sticking point was how to stat out their filthy bites.

They point out that there's a chance that you'll get an infection from being bitten.

I was stressing what this would be in terms of afflictions when I noticed that this chance of causing an infection after a bite is mentioned with several run of the mill animals.

No need to give stats on something normal and everyday that a common dog has.

Not finding any actual rules for what disease you'd catch in Warhammer led to FuzzyGeff's remembrance of the lack of rules and violet fungi.

Something About The Quantity Of Guns And The Effect On Crime

More guns, less crime seems to be proving to be true again.

Correlation isn't causality, but...

How many times does the trend have to align that less restrictions have a chilling effect on criminals before the anti side packs it in?

Trick question.  The answer is they will never pack it in because crime is just their justification for disarmament to grease the way for tyranny.

Tyranny is their goal, not less crime.

Someone Was Naughty

 

Contrary to the instructions given her by the vet, Shadow chewed at her surgery site.

Now she's got new sutures and must wear the cone of shame.

Less than pleased is how I would characterize her response to these events.

Not A Principled Stand

Neil Young returns to Spotify.

Money quote:

“My decision comes as other music services, Apple, Amazon, Qobuz, Tidal, all high res, have started serving the same disinformation podcast I had opposed at Spotify,”

N Young

Translation, "to actually stand by principles, it would cost me something, so I am caving in so that I keep making money." 

Good job, Neil.

I'll Know I've Succeeded When...

 

I Remember Being In The SCA

I am not shocked by this story.

The SCA was great fun as long as I kept myself to a very superficial level.

I learned a lot from some really great amateur historians (and a couple of professionals).

But the organization, the corporation...

Even at my tender young age I could see how liberally biased they were.

It really got laid bare when I got interested in firearms and noticed that there were many black-powder arms that were within the period the SCA allows.

They banned a static display of period firearms like a handgonne.

For safety reasons.

A hundred people wandering around with live steel and they're worried about a cannon lock firearm that takes more than a minute get get going from zero.

A cannon lock firearm that was wired to a wooden board...

So, discovering that they did nothing to protect someone with a differing opinion and, in fact, punished them for it:

I am not shocked.

Clarity

I figured out how to say it!

It's not that Morgan and Morgan isn't spending money on advertising through clever accounting.

The costs to a multi-billion dollar law firm here don't matter and I shouldn't have side tracked into it.

The "we bought guns with that ad money" defense is the problem.

Morgan and Morgan was going to spend that money advertising, no matter who they hired.

So, yes, Admin and Donut are getting over, somewhat, in spending an anti-gunner's money on something their employer would be happy to see banned.

The problem is if their ad gets someone to hire Morgan and Morgan and the pittance spent at the guntubers results in a winning case for the law firm.

The law firm's cut of these judgements is significant.  Far more than they spent on ads.

If they then turn around and use that money to fund the election campaign of a district attorney who rapes gun owners every chance they get...

Sure are nice guns aren't they?  But, hey, you got yours, right?

I'm old enough to remember when we called out dancing monkeys for their hypocrisy when they owned guns and shilled for anti-gun politicians.

I can even remember people being critical of places like Taran Tactical for training dancing monkeys who shill for anti-gun politicians.

But ex-cops shilling for anti-gun lawyers?

Cool?

MaxMin

Character conception is important.

When you play a game like GURPS, where you have to design the character from scratch, it's paramount.

There are many things you can do to maximize the capabilities of your character while spending the fewest points.

There are other times when being inefficient with the points is part of good character design.

Ambidexterity is 5 points.  It eliminates the -4 penalty when using your off-hand.

Eliminating the -4 penalty with the Off-Hand Weapon Training technique also costs 5 points, but the character still has the -4 penalty with other off-handed tasks.

It costs 5 points for each weapon skill.

So being just as good with both hands with a pistol and a rifle would cost 10 points if the character isn't ambidextrous.

You have to make a decision which fits the character.

I've been practicing with my left hand, and left eye.

I'm getting pretty good.

I am NOT ambidextrous.

A "me" character shouldn't have the 5-point advantage.  I should plunk the 10 for the techniques.

где твой проклятый пластырь?

I am getting sick of science fiction where a small puncture is a death sentence for the person in the vacc suit.

Even worse in settings where they're doing industrial work where wearing one is necessary.

I've had patch kits in the rules of just about every space RPG I've ever played.

OK Now What

FuzzyGeff pointed out something he'd noticed about AD&D a long while ago.

Violet fungus does: "The excretion from these branches rots flesh in but one melee round unless a saving throw versus poison is made or a cure disease is used."

That's all well and good, but what is the game effect of that?

Here is the complete quote from both the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide:

"                                                                                             "

Yup, nada.

Although the DMG calls the attack "rotting poison" and under poisons on page 20 it says,

"The poison of monsters, regardless of its pluses or minuses to the victim’s saving throw, is an all-or-nothing affair. That is, either they do no damage, or they kill the victim within a minute or so. Poison potions generally do the same, although you may optionally elect to have any given one be slow-acting, so that the victim will notice nothing for 1-10 hours after quaffing it."

Surely they fixed this for second edition, right?

"The excretion from these branches rots flesh in one round unless a successful saving throw vs. poison is rolled or a cure disease spell is used."

What do the rules say?

Nada.  But there are rules for "rotting touch" from a mummy.

4th edition doesn't appear to even HAVE violet fungus.

5th edition says, "Multiattack. The fungus makes 1d4 Rotting Touch attacks.  Rotting Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 10ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d8) necrotic damage.

Now we're getting somplace!

What's necrotic damage?

The 5e Player's Handbook says, "Necrotic. Necrotic damage. dealt by certain undead and a spell such as chill touch. withers matter and even the soul."

Damage is damage in 5th edition, unless you're immune to a type; then it's harmless.

Play Dead Games

Sick of being lectured and shamed because of your race and gender?

Tired of sending people who hate you because of your race and gender money?

Play role playing games that are out of print or have been effectively abandoned by their publishers.

If you have even a little imagination, all of those old games still work just fine.

You don't need the newer edition.

Really!

Even better, you're probably going to be buying the books from someone who can't play anymore and could use the bucks.

Fates

The cars I've owned list...

Some came to bad fates.

The Passat was the battalion floater that was officially owned by some long forgotten soldier who'd bought it new and handed the keys to the next guy when he ETS'd.

The despised Lynx was sold to a dealer to haunt the dreams of some unsuspecting new owner.

The Rust Monster succumbed to the rust.

The Silver Bullet got sold to someone who promptly parked it under the tree to spawn a new Rust Monster.  It was still there last time I was in Iowa.

The 86 Honda got traded to help lower the bill on The Bicayne SS back when she was a Caprice Classic.

The Biscayne SS is still running.  A friend redubbed her Capricious and is doing a rat-rod thing with her.

The Precious got eaten by a tree.

Flossie is in the hands of a ricer kid.  She's looking happy with rims and a loud exhaust.

Maybe Going To Be Dead Soon

Reading the posts at the Rott's backup site sure looks like the guy running it is ready to quit and that Misha isn't interested in doing the simple things needed to keep the old site running.

That'd be a bummer.

Practical (Upated)

Doing some online comparisons of me and my friend's cars.

My Timeline...

The car I learned to drive on was a '76 Vega "Kammback," with 29.4 cu-ft of cargo space and 81.2 cu-ft of passenger space with the seats up.  Seats down changes it to 52.8 cu-ft of cargo and 57.8 cu-ft of people space.

The first car I owned was a '73 VW Passat B1 Wagon.  46.6 cu-ft of cargo space with the seats down and 16.7 with them up.  Passenger space was 139.1 cu-ft with all four seats and 109.2 cu-ft with max stowage.

The despised '83 Mercury Lynx 17 cu-ft in the back with the seats up and 26.4 with them down.  Passenger space was 83.3 cu-ft with four seats and 73.9 with two (tiny back seat!).

The Rust Monster a 76 Camaro Type LT trunk was 6.4 cu-ft (3 of it consumed by the spare) with 85.1 cu-ft for the cabin.

The Silver bullet 79 Camaro Berlinetta trunk was 7.11 cu-ft (3 of it consumed by the spare) with 83.4 cu-ft for the cabin.

The oft-lamented soul-crushingly underpowered '86 Civic hatchback managed 15 cu-ft of cargo with 70 cu-ft of interior.

The Biscayne SS a '91 Caprice Classic had 20 cu-ft of stowage with a cavernous 114 cu-ft for you and five of your friends.  Marv's Impala SS has identical dimensions.  It should be noted that the spare tire takes up about 3.3 cu-ft of trunk space.

Flossie the 2002 Civic sedan had 13 cu-ft of cargo and 91 cu-ft of passengers.

The Precious a 2008 Corvette had 22.4 cu-ft of cargo space and 52 cu-ft of passenger space.

Moxie a 2010 Equinox has 31.4 cu-ft with the back seats up and 63.7 cu-ft with them flat.  Passengers get 104.6 cu-ft with the back seats up.  Doing the math, passengers get 72.3 cu-ft with the seats down.

The Beast a 2012 Caprice PPV has 17.4 cu-ft of trunk space and 112 cu-ft in the passenger compartment.

FuzzyGeff is rocking 12 cu-ft in back and a mere 84 cu-ft up front, the price you pay for the lower roof-line of that two-door '08 Civic.

Marv's noticeably smaller '96 Corvette has a mere 12.6 cu-ft for the junk and 48.7 cu-ft for the people.

JT's 2003 Corvette has 25 cu-ft under the hatch and 51.8 cu-ft in the passenger compartment.

His '08 CTS trunk is 13.6 cu-ft with 96.4 cu-ft for the people.

All of the cars listed, except the Biscayne, Beast, and Camaros can have cargo intrude into the passenger space because there's some form of pass-through from the cargo area to the passenger area.

All of the cars listed, except the Corvettes, can stuff overflow into the back seat.

907.9% Inflation

US Inflation Calculator says that the $27.95 M1917 in 1963 dollars is the equivalent of $281.71 today.

They're worth a bit more than that today.

Gunbroker is saying about $1,500.

But don't sell until the court case about whether a single sale makes you a dealer is settled!

Did Exxon Make It Rain Today

Interesting essay.

Long and dense four parter. 

Again, the person I really wish would read it no longer stops by here as far as I know.

Like Clearcoat Over Primer

Article on why there's a distinct lack of color in new cars.

You get the colors that the dealer has, so I doubt that this is customer driven.

When I ordered The Precious in late 2007 I wanted a dark blue.  Dark blue was not on offer, so I settled for black.

The customer might want different tints, but the manufacturers don't offer them.

Considering the price of painting a car correctly, people are unlikely to change from the dealer's offerings.

Who Has A Time Machine I Can Borrow?

I'll stop and throw some of your money at Apple and Microsoft on my way home for you in exchange for letting me use it!

Perhaps Some Explaning Is Due

"We're so clever taking Morgan and Morgan's money to buy guns hur dur hur!"

Yes, you can spend that money on guns despite their backing hard core anti-gun politicians.

You might be telling yourself that you've cost them something.

You have not.

Advertising is a business expense.

It's written off.

Net cost to Morgan and Morgan: $0.

If you, after buying your guns, manage to convince even one person to hire Morgan and Morgan and that leads to a win in court or a settlement, you just made the people who support banning you owning that gun a profit.

Aid and comfort to the enemy.

That Was Stupid

The GunTuber Administrative Results has snagged sponsorship from Morgan and Morgan.

Considering that John Morgan has dropped millions on anti-gun Democrats, I don't think I can continue watching this YouTube channel.

Not even ironically.

Update: As is the norm for the people who do stupid things like this, they're defending it with, "I'm so clever taking his money to buy more guns."  May your chains rest lightly...

No More Rott?

Emperor Misha's Anti-Idiotan Rottweiler has been down for me the past few times I've gone to visit.

At one time it was a daily read, but I've let it slide to a monthly or less.

Now, it appears to have died. 

Update: An unsigned anonymous comment says that Hosting Matters no longer supports WordPress and that's why it's down.  There's a back-up site running, https://nicedoggie.blog/

It Is Now Noon

"Noon?" you ask, "but it's 1:41pm where you are."

By noon I mean local noon, the sun is at zenith.

Almost two hours past clock noon.

Daylight Saving Time is a crock of shit.

Scheduling Problem

Got the time right, put in the wrong day.

The software did what I told it, not what I wanted.

GIGO.

Good Luck

Replying to yet another deleted comment...

"Good luck with your blog" and "You can turn off anonymous comments"

First, I've been at this for 18 years, I'm past the luck stage and moving into dogged determination in the face of relentless opposition.

Second, I know that can restrict the comments to just google account holders.  I've known that for more than a decade.  There's three or four great people who'd lose the ability to comment if I did.  They're smart enough to sign their work and not get petulant about it.

Third, if you're unhappy with the service provided, simply return the unused portion for a full refund.

Hint

The first thing I check on a comment that's from an anonymous sender is if they signed it.

If it's longer than a paragraph, I don't go further before I nuke it most of the time.  But sometimes I read them.

If there's a flurry of long comments that are unsigned, I just check to see if they're signed before I nuke them.

It falls under the, "This is my soapbox, not yours." rule.  Clearly stated, both in the sidebar to the right and in the paragraph where you're making your soon-to-be-deleted comment.

Operation Red Wings

A neat analysis of the movie and book "Lone Survivor".

The story has stunk for a while, this is interesting.

Gonna Eyeball It

The character stats from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay do not coalesce into anything you can directly convert to GURPS.

The more I read the rules and compare, the more "Kentucky windage" the adaptations get.

Going for feel rather than mathematical precision.

But It's Not

"It's not culture, it's genetics, just look at where the (insert race here) live and see how they are!"

That there is racist.

It's exactly the the lead in that the Klan will give you while they're feeling you out to see if you're a good prospect to join.

The thing is, it is culture.

Indians on reservations fail to thrive because of their culture.  This is despite getting the same education the kids a mile away in the United States get.  Their culture, the reservation culture, dictates they do nothing with the information and stay put where they're not going to have an opportunity to thrive.

I know lots of Indians who have assimilated into the American culture and they're doing great!

I married one, in fact.

Next time you wanna impugn that it's genes, leave an address for Harvey to harangue you at.

Same same for blacks in the ghetto culture.  Same same for hispanics in the bario culture.  Same same for whites in the backwoods hollah culture.  Same same for most anyone who puts getting high/drunk over the basic essentials of life, like a roof over your head.

Emphatically so for the never-left-the-tribal-culture-behind places in Africa.

But it's not consistent enough for it to be genes.  Not like the commenter seems to have thought, anyways.

But I'll offer a "sexist" and "racist" thing for you to chew on.

Why are white men most successful in American culture?

Because only white men are allowed to completely fail.

Wanna add an extra layer?  A Jewish man is allowed utterly fail.

There's not much of safety net or support system enshrined in practice, so they have to swim or drown.

When the choice is so stark, one tends to learn to swim.

But this isn't white men being racist or sexist; it's a response to racism and sexism that says, "you got this, you don't need help; and you're not going to get any help."

Think on it.

"Ever Since The Beginning Of Time"

"Mankind has dreamed of destroying the sun!"  M. Burns

I spent a couple hours replacing string and thong with wire today on a couple of items of decoration that The Lovely Harvey loves.

The sun had done e't 'em.

The sun will have a harder time with 17ga solid aluminum.

No!

I keep hearing about sacred lands and Indian burial grounds and seeing this used to stop development.

Something I am starting to develop is recognizing the style of stone tools thanks to trying to learn what sets stone-age Neanderthal apart from stone-age American Indian.

The stone tools in these "Indian" burial grounds are a lot more primitive than the tools used by the plains Indians.

Because they're stone, they might have been sitting there for thousands of years.  Maybe even tens of thousands.

The tribes claiming these "Indian" burial grounds are very reluctant to allow any scientific testing of the stone tools or checking the genetics of any bodies uncovered.

The burial grounds are often, literal burials and not in alignment with the practices of the tribes claiming the ground to block development.

In other words, it's bullshit to try and control land they don't own.

Land that they could have purchased, but didn't when they could have afforded it; before the potential development made it valuable.

I'll say the quiet part out loud:  You lost the war, and thus, all claims to the lands being contested in that war.  I don't care who started it; I know who won.

It's a measure of Victorian era restraint and charity that win didn't proceed to the normal genocide that clashes between civilizations happened before.

What Day Is It?

 

It's 3-08!

Because there's no 62nd of July.

Dune Part Two

Went to the late show at the less fashionable theater.

It's not bad at all.

It ends very abruptly, clearly leading us to want Dune Messiah.

The complete absence of the spacing guild stands out.

As does their keeping the greening of the southern hemisphere a secret...

Been A Problem For A While

I'm really hoping that the suit against Hawaii over the effects of climate change is a landmark case that drags state power back inside state borders.

I remember a dragging case here in Florida where New York was attempting to apply their laws to things that happened here.

Eventually they got told to stop and that a legal sale in Florida is still a legal sale even if the gun ended up at a New York Fucking City crime scene.

No laws were broken until the legal purchaser took said gun into the state of New York.

It took forever for that to run its course.

Then there's California and all of their bullshit crap.  Too damn long to list even a summary, but you've all seen their Prop 65 cancer warning.

They're trying to dictate how our food is grown and how our electricity is produced because said food or energy might someday be brought into their state.

The sensible response from producers should be, "this is the product for sale, if it doesn't meet your standards, don't buy it."  The courts should take a position that California has no standing to force an out of state entity to change anything about how they do business.

They're rapidly chasing everyone who can make anything out of their state, for putting these dumb restrictions on everything.

It's Not The Weather

I'm something of a history buff.

I also love warships.

This makes me love museum ships.

You'd think that this combination would make me want to head to Pearl Harbor and check out the alpha and omega of the US Pacific theater:  Arizona and Missouri.

It does.

The problem is, and has been, that Pearl Harbor is in Hawaii.

Hawaii doesn't let me carry.

For a long time, that was sufficient for me to stay away.

For an equally long time, Hawaii has been actively making it less enticing.

Now I won't go there even if I can open carry an AR; and I don't even think I need to open carry an AR there.

But it wasn't the oil companies and globull warmering that made me decide to spend my tourist dollars on something else.

It was anti-gun other liberal bullshit.  Never mind a subculture that blames me for shit that other people did in regards to The Sandwich Islands no longer being a sovereign nation.  Wasn't me, didn't do it are never a defense to racists.

I avoid places that have de facto institutionalized racism.

So, Hawaii and City of Honolulu; it's not climate change that keeps me away; it's you.

Now you know who you should really be suing instead of Sunoco.

Perot Two Point Oh

It looks like Candice Owens has gone off her rocker.

Darn it.

She showed so much promise too.

But like Ross, she apparently was nuts and hiding it well.

Alone

At the time of this writing, I believe that Florida is the only state with "constitutional carry" which also bans open carry.

Odd that.

I wonder how the other 27 states are keeping the blood from flooding the streets and how the cops manage to function with open carry making their jobs harder.

Isn't It Ironic

Humans had been on North America for about 11,000 years and not reached past the stone age, barely domesticating dogs.

The Native American culture so worshipped by the liberals only exists because the Spanish, both intentionally and accidentally, released horses into the wild.

The plains Indian only exists in the historical form because of the act of the colonizing White man.

And they chucked, entire, whatever they were using for culture for their new, mobile, horse-based one as fast as they could accumulate and tame breeding stock.

Horses were currency and wealth.

And they wouldn't have them except for the White man.

It's like a black fly in my chardonnay.

The Day The Unbearable Lightness Went Out

Guinness for STRENGTH!

Jameson for courage.

We miss you Lex.

Y+12

More Proof It's Intentional

Man arrested for bringing in some harmless R12.

We can stop him, but we can't stop the millions of illegals from elsewhere?

Pull the other one it's got bells.

The R12 ban is a recurring sore spot for me.

We went from discovering the ozone hole, to deciding that HFC's caused it to banning HFC's with unseemly speed.

They don't know if the hole was there from before the common usage of refrigerants.  Look it up.  They don't know how long that hole had been there.

Then there's the problems of reproducing the ozone depleting catalytic reaction in anything approaching conditions found in the ozone layer.

Plus the highly suspicious "finding" that a heavier than air gas that readily breaks down in sunlight manages to get up there and stay up there where there's even more UV than where it might leak from your car.

But They Are Generating Money

I cannot remember the financial bigwig who made a video talking about how every employee must generate more for the company than their salary and benefits consume.

It's expressed rather directly and that caused a YouTuber I can remember to not get it.

Tim at Timcast.

He cited that he has people working for him that don't generate any revenue; so he concludes that the bigwig must be wrong.

But...

You see, Tim, what that assistant is doing is freeing up someone else to focus on generating revenue.

If having a helper means that the revenue generator brings in more money than they and the helper consume in salary and benefits, then it's worth it and the bigwig is correct.  Especially if the revenue generating employee brings in substantially more when freed of the tasks performed by the assistant.

Being Petty

I tend to use the communication method that gets the fastest response from someone.

If I get chewed out, or even chided, for using that method I also tend to just stop using any method of communication.

Sorry for talking to you, won't happen again.

So You Don't Have To

I watched a couple of videos in the "what happened to (insert reality car show)?" genre.

You will not have to watch them because I will reveal what happened in a short sentence.

The stopped focusing on the car stuff and focused more on the interpersonal conflicts in the shop until the people in the shop said "fuck this shit" and left.

There.  Now you're all up to speed.

Never mind that for a lot of hot rodders the shows were offensive.

"Car spinning" is the same thing as "house flipping."

Buying something, fixing it up a bit and selling it for more than you paid.

If that was how the show was sold, then it wouldn't have offended.

The weekly pitch always starts with "what a cool car, I want it!" then, "Let's fix MY car up and it will be even cooler!" and finally, "I have a buyer, I'm selling it."

You had a buyer from before you spotted the cool car and an agreement to fix it up for them.

This pattern repeated week after week and most of the hobbyists were long gone before the change in format to all-drama-all-the-time.

China Moves To The Right Wing

They're copying a Nazi innovation here, after all.

Happy, friendly, mobile execution center.

I still "love" how people keep trying to make distinctions between socialists, communists and nazis like there's any real difference.

I Beg To Differ

It was a writer from Peterson Publishing way back that spilled the beans.

Everything in that car rag was an ad of some kind.

If they got paid for six paragraphs talking about forged pistons, and how they came to be, it was being paid for by sponsors hoping to sell pistons.

If they didn't get told what to say, you can be damn sure the sponsor also sold cast pistons.

Produce awareness is advertising, it's just more subtle.  It gives the illusion of impartiality to the writer and still lets the public believe that the article is simply information being neutrally presented.

It's true of all hobby magazines.

Divided Court Issues Vague Ruling

Unanimous rulings on contentious issues are rare from The US Supreme Court.

The other states citing section 3 of the 14th Amendment should take note.

Yes But Did It Work

Marv found a video of someone doing a torture test of a PSA upper in full auto.

At 6,000 rounds of doing triple mag dumps and letting it cool down is where the accuracy lets loose.

They complain about visible machining marks in the bolt carrier and chamber.

OK.

But did that impede function?

No mention of it not firing or cycling in this torture test.

Mox nix.

Apparently they did mention that once you've shot your barrel out, PSA will warranty it.

I am amused that the rate of fire they did is far in excess of what the military expects their rifles to sustain.

I Voted

 

I took Biggus Macus' and Ammoland's recommendations.

Phil Journey, Dennis Fusaro, Jeff Knox, & Rocky Marshall and "Yes" on the bylaws question.

Let's see if this does any good.

I sure hope it does.

I Noticed Some Of This Myself

My research for Sabers and... had me trodding some of the same ground as this article.

Take-away quote: "Those who scoff cynically at such explanations as self-serving are often uncritically trusting of oral histories of native societies, swallowing whole such sentimental ideas as their being egalitarian and Edenic, pacific and unspoiled."

De Jure 1781 To 1865

Recently a black dancing monkey tried to get out of paying taxes because it was racist to expect the descendants of slaves to owe taxes because of the 400 years that black people had been subjected to slavery in America.

Mr Howard, the United States of America only had the institution of slavery from June 21, 1788 to December 18, 1865.  76 and a half years, or so.

But we should also count the period under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union from March 1, 1781; bringing us to 84-3/4 years.  Slavery has been over in the US for 159 years, almost twice as long as we had it.  No living person was such a slave, no living person owned such a slave.

Prior to that, slavery in the 13 American colonies was English.  1585 at the earliest, 196 years of British slavery plus 85ish years of US is... 281 years.  We're 119 short of 400 here.

Prior to THAT, slavery in the Americas was...  the indigenous people had slavery when Columbus showed up, but you're blaming Europeans for the problem so I guess we'll blame Spain.

If we go from when Columbus showed up to the 13th Amendment, we're still short of 400 by 27 years.  And Columbus didn't start right in on taking slaves.  It was right behind him, but that makes us even shorter from 400.

However, I think it's very important for anyone who wants to blame America for slavery to remember a couple of time periods and dates.

April 12, 1861 to May 26, 1865 is an important time period.

This is the American Civil War.  A war damn near literally about the issue of "will there still be slavery in the United States?"  There's a bit of nuance, but it was a war about slavery.

Mr Howard, make note that the side opposed to slavery won that war and gifted your ancestors freedom.

365,000, predominantly white, predominantly men, died to to free your ancestors.

December 18, 1865 is the day that slavery is banned by Constitutional Amendment in the USA.  You probably didn't know that date after getting Juneteenth shoved at you.

But all of that is a round about way of saying, "The war is over, our side won, you're free now and free citizens of the USA pay their taxes regardless of our ancestry, ethnicity and creed."

Also of note: Being a descendant of slaves is not a unique to African-Americans in the US and CS experience.  Plenty of us white people are descended of slaves.  Particularly Italian immigrants to the US, because we're the folks the Romans enslaved and had shitty prospects in Italy because of the stigma of having once been Rome's slaves.  Look it up.

Then being prejudiced against is also not unique to being black in America.  Chinese, Irish and Italians were subject to everything black people went through right up to living memory.

Maybe it's time to stop feeling sorry for yourselves and making excuses.

It's definitely time for you to stop rewarding the people who insist you're not as good as me.  I call them race-baiters and they've got you convinced they're on your side.

They're not.

If it weren't for them, we'd be past all the past and we'd all be better off.

Perhaps your tax burden would be far smaller, Mr Howard.

PS:  Mr Howard, while you spew that racism and bigotry are keeping you down and causing you to owe a million in taxes...  At the highest tax rate that means you owe taxes on nearly three million dollars in income.  My lily white ass doesn't make that much in my entire working life.  Must be all that white privilege I'm doing.

Ha Ha Very Droll

I'm getting sick of a lot of memes.

The Republican candidate/president is LITERALLY Hitler is the tippy top of memes I'm sick of.

No, you fucking idiots, only Hitler is literally Hitler.

It's right up there, though, with "the Nazis weren't socialists" except if you read their founding materials and...  IT'S RIGHT IN THE FUCKING NAME OF THE PARTY!!!  National Socialist German Worker's Party (original German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei).

I'm still baffled that Nazis are "far right" when they're barely right of the communists.

But then, one would have to read and not have been subjected to the socialist takeover of the universities and, perhaps most importantly, not be European.

Europe has the problem of trying to explain how their socialists are distinct from communism and the nazis so that they can remain in power.

The truth of the matter is that both communism and national socialism (and fascism) are variations of socialism.  Almost all literally "Marx was so very close, but we fixed his mistake and this is REAL socialism!"  Almost all...

Trying to distance socialism and Nazis by declaring the former "left wing" and the latter "far right wing" is splitting hairs over the implementation of the evil and not really acknowledging the evil.

Considering the reaction from the left wing about doing an honest, representative, republic; I think being accused of being ultra right wing is a badge of honor.

The right steals less, gets us into fewer wars and FREED THE SLAVES.  The left side of the aisle...  not so much.

Got My NRA Ballot

I am at a loss as to whom to vote for.

Anyone got a favorite?

I am loathe to vote in the same dickheads who got us where we are now.

GURPS Mind Flayer

Mind Flayer (Illithid) (OG AD&D Monster Manual p.70)

729 Points

Attribute Modifiers: IQ+6 [120].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: FP+2 [6]; HP+1 [2]; SM 0.

Advantages: Astral Projection (Jumper-World, Limited Access, Astral Plane -20%, Projection, Psionic -10%) [70]; Blunt Claws [3]; Mind Blast (Affliction 4, Incapacitation-Paralysis +150%, 5 yard wide Cone +100%, Will Based +20%, Telepathic -10%) [104]; Probability Travel (Jumper-World, Link +10%, New Worlds +50%, Psionic -10%) (Affliction 1 (Jumper-World +1600%, Aura +80%, Cosmic-No Resistance +300%, Link +10%, Melee Attack -30%, Psionic -10%) [345]; Extra Arms (4 Tentacles) (Extra-Flexible +50%, Short -50%) [40]; Flight (Psychokinetic -10%) [36]; Magic Resistance 10 [20]; Mind Control (Telepathic -10%, 2 FP -10%) [40]; Mind Reading (Universal +50%, Telepathic -10%) [42]; Sharp Beak [1].

Disadvantages: Dependency (Fresh Brains, Sentient Only, not more than one minute old, monthly) [-10]; Intolerance [-10]; Odious Racial Habit (Eat Humanoid Brains) [-15]; Reputation -4 [-20]; Selfish (12) [-5].

Racial Skills:

 
Many of the monsters in OG AD&D are actually races, Mind Flayers are such.

I think I managed to convert the critter's effects into GURPS correctly, but a second set of eyes would be welcome. But how many people are familiar with both games?

I did this a long time ago, and I'm warming up for racial conversions for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e.

I think I'll do the Skaven first.  I like those chaotic fuzzy rat dudes.

Fixed Cars Get Washed

 

The Beast is actually white!  Heron White for those scoring at home.

She was getting pretty bad.  Very dark gray in places, but the wax was holding...

Success

Shadow is home and resting from being spayed.

She's loopy as heck still, but the operation went as it should.

Mature

One way to tell you've matured as a wrencher is remembering to buy something before you need it.

Full maturity comes when you have a spare for when you run out...

Baby steps.

Please Allow Me To Gush

The Beast is like a whole new car with the front end all replaced, aligned and tires balanced.

I guess I will have to break down and give her a bath now, huh?