And Another Thing

If you're blaming me for someone else being a racist because I look like that racist...

You're a racist too.

Wasn't me, didn't do it.

Blaming the group for individual crimes is the core of bigotry.

It's a seductive trap and easy to fall into.

Interestingly, noticing that groups of people have something in common is not racist or sexist if the observation happens to be true.

You wouldn't be able to recognize them as a group otherwise.

And sometimes the differences between groups are insurmountable and they should live with some space between them.  But not as often as many bigots would have you believe. 

May The Fourth Be With You

Because today is May the Fourth Be With You and tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo...

I give you Obi Juan Kenobi!

Not A Comment On The Metric System

I object to the Universal Metric Cartridge Naming System because there are too many duplicates, not because it uses metric.

Using inches would have the same problems.

8x50mmR would still need to have "Lebel" or "Siamese" after 0.321x1.98"-R.

For the record, we went to the moon using the metric system.  Look it up.

Gauges and instruments were labeled in Imperial because of familiarity to the operators, but the math was done in metric. 

Hitting The Wall

Actually, hitting the paper.

Harvey has hit the proverbial wall in becoming a better pistol shot.

She is also frustrated by me being so much better than her in a casually effortless way.

I don't even think I'm that good, I'm OK.

And it took many long years to get to it.

She was very depressed and down on herself so I said, "let's sit here on the stools behind the range on the other side of the glass."

We sat for a while watching the other people shoot and I say, "you're already better than half the people here."

And she is.

She's getting all her shots on paper.  Nearly all of them in the -1 ring of a 75% sized IDPA target at 7 yards.

With an epic flinch while she jerks the trigger no less!

She tends to string vertically with a low bias.

We're working on it.  But it doesn't help that she cannot feel her pinkie on her right hand and often cannot feel her ring finger thanks to something pinching in her right elbow.

Her eyes/glasses combination isn't helping.  Our last trip to the eye doctor did NOT get us glasses we're happy with at all. 

Mutter Mutter

Posting pics has, once again, become unreliable at Blogger.

If they'd just stop breaking the "Insert Image by URL" feature, I'd be fine.

Copy-pasting the image to the page as a work around started working erratically, and was making hot-links to the URL I wanted to insert anyway rather than actually dropping the image.  Those links die for some reason. 

Uploading the image to Blogger has never failed, but there's reasons to not use that; not least of which is the limited space provided.

I pay flickr for unlimited space, I'm not going to pay someone else too. 

Wait I've Heard This One Before

There's a video making the rounds of a Muslim woman complaining about the lack of Halal choices in Japan.

She, apparently, spent a month there and ended up eating...

Well the pics she posted looked yummy to me.

But Japan loves pork.

One would think you'd check that out before committing to a month there.

But I have seen this meme before there was a word, "meme."

The Ugly American.

You know the person, they go to a foreign and exotic land and demand that everything be made just like home for them.  It's an American stereotype.

So she went to Japan and is demanding they have Halal food at every eatery because SHE is there.

Yeah.

Well, I gotta love one response I found from someone in Japan, "So I can buta no shogayaki at every restaurant in Riyadh?"

I mean every place MUST conform to the ideals of their visitors, right?

I'm actually surprised there's been push back against her little rant.

The Case Against Universal Metric Cartridge Designation

The first example of how Universal Metric fails against simply naming the rounds is the number of 8x50mmR rounds where you end up naming them anyways.  Austrian, Lebel, Siamese...

But where it really rankles me is .22 Long and .22 Long Rifle.

UM is based on caliber x case length.

.22 Long and .22 Long Rifle are identical if you use UM.  5.6x16mmR.  This is because they use the exact same case.  .22LR uses a longer, heavier, bullet and more powder.  They're not the same.

Wrong Designation

While I was restricting myself to things that were plausible for Twilight, I'd missed that the hoary old M577 stopped being M577.

Neatly sidestepping becoming the Mobile Command Post of Theseus the M577A2 was extensively upgraded and modernized to become the M1068.

A similar upgrade makes the M577A3 into the M1068A3.

Still looks the same on the outside and you'd be forgiven if you mistook one for another.

The M1068 is due to be replaced by the Bradley based M1286.

I once had a player group in one of my first conversions of T2K to GURPS select the M577A1 CP because it had air conditioning. 

Just A Couple Years Late

Twilight: 2000 had a few variations of the M2 Bradley which were projected to enter service, but never did.

It was a logical progression that the Brad would be modified as the M113 had and would have as many specialized variants.

Well...  No.  Especially with the Berlin Wall falling and ruining the chances we'd have full on nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Ruskies.  It also makes T2K an alt-history instead of a speculative future.

Darn.

It does turn out that the M113 is obsolete and not viable for frontline operations any more and that we needed something to replace all of its numerous variations.

Which we started to do in 2018 with the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program. 

T2K's M18 mortar carrier is the real world's M1287.

The world only took 32 years to catch up to a game... 

I'll Help!

There seems to be some confusion out there.

Here's a handy way of looking at things that will help.

If you do something because of race, it is racism.

If you increase the voting power of Black people because they are Black, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of White people because they are White, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Asian people because they are Asian, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Hispanic people because they are Hispanic, you are doing a racist thing.

Update:* Swapping the races doesn't make it not racist.  If it's racist for White people to do it, it's racist for Black people to do it:  Regardless of how often or how long White people did it!  Two wrongs don't make a right. 

See how that works?

If the voting power of a given people is decreased because it increases the power of one political party over another it is not necessarily racist.

If the voting power of one political party is always increased when the voting power of a given race is increased it is racist.

If the voting power of a given race is disproportionate to their population, it is racist.

The majority will always have more voting power than the minority.  That there are more White people than Black people is incidental to argument. 

I hope this clear things up.  But it doesn't. 

Which brings us to Florida and how the new district map increases the power of Whitey™.

Florida was 51.5% White as of the 2020 census.  It was 14.5% Black and 26.5% Hispanic.

The distribution of race is not even in Florida.  There are no real concentrations of Black people where they're the majority unless you get really creative with drawing the lines and the map suddenly looks a lot like Illinois.  Essentially you'd have to pinpoint every Black person you can find, connect the dots and that's your district with a majority Black population.

This district will utterly disenfranchise anyone who is not Black and, historically, it was drawn across places that were, historically, majority Hispanic.  Oddly, never up along the Alabama border were it made more sense...

Yet, somehow, this increases White Power®?  Never mind there's a distinct population of "Black" people who'd say, "¡Soy cubano!"  Does moving the lines increase or decrease their voting power?

The final thought I leave you with: There is no way to draw the lines that is completely fair.  It is impossible.  The best you can do is to maximize fairness, but someone will always be left out. 

*Thanks SiGraybeard!

More Anarchotyranny

If you call the cops for the same thing too many times, you will be fined for it.

The most common version of this tale is a false alarm of your security system.

The cops come out when your alarm goes off, find nothing, and after a certain number of calls order you to fix your alarm or be fined.

So you call the alarm company and discover that there's nothing wrong with your system.

But the alarm keeps being triggered.

So the cops fine you.

This does not sit well with the average business owner at all.

What's happening?

The burglars know the police response time and how they operate.  They trigger the alarm and disappear.  They know that the most common end response of the business owner is to shut the alarm off rather than face the fine.

Then they can burgle at their own pace.

The crowning moment is when the place gets cleaned out and the owner calls the cops in the morning they say, "you should have had an alarm."  They will then proceed to do a cursory investigation and the crime will never be solved no matter how obvious it is to everyone in the neighborhood whom the criminals are.

Oh, and don't you dare figure out what the thieves are up to and sit inside your business waiting for them to break in.  There's no defending mere property allowed.

And THAT is how you end up with a law making it legal to shoot burglars.

And by the bye, if you don't make it legal to shoot burglars, you eventually get cops getting shot by citizens because the cops are only getting in the way of justice and things have progressed to the point where the only path to justice is unlawful.

Remember:  The deal is we give up the right to vendetta and The State catches and punishes criminals.  If The State reneges on this deal, we get our vendetta back.

We don't want our vendetta back.  It really is better if the professionals catch and punish criminals, it's one of the things that allows for a high-trust society. 

Still The Goldilocks

The center group is the M&P 2.0 9 Compact.  The other two groups are the Shield Plus.

I then decided to so some Mozambique drills with the Compact.

While I keep hearing about how great the Gen 6 Glocks are, they'd have to really be great to replace my Smith.

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 

Poproszę o przedmioty z byłego państwa komunistycznego – takie, których nie można było posiadać, gdy było ono jeszcze państwem komunistycznym – za 1000 dolarów.

Today is international fuck communism day.

The official food of today is "no food."

Half price helicopter rides if you show your Communist Party ID when checking in at the gate. 

Silly Magazines

A Marlin Camp Carbine in 9x19mm uses the same magazines as a S&W 59 series pistol.

10 (ick), 15, 17 and 20 round magazines are available from Mec-Gar, assuming you can get their web page to work, which it wasn't at the time I tried to check on this.

It seems silly that the 20 rounder is so much longer than the 17 and only holds three more rounds.

Looks like 5 more rounds, at least, would fit, no?

 

They're built very differently internally.

The 17 rounder has a shorter follower and the top of the spring is designed to telescope inside itself; that's how it gets 17 rounds where S&W designed 15 to go.

The 20 rounder reminds me more of the S&W 15 rounder they introduced with the 3rd gen.  Tall follower, normal spring geometry, it just eats the space up inside.

 

 

The original Model 59 magazines only held 14, but S&W changed the baseplate from metal to plastic and let it sit a little outside the gun giving just enough more space for a 15th round.  When the 59 was introduced, it was a selling point to have one more round than the competition, the Browning Hi-Power.  By the time the 3rd generation guns came out, the competition was the Beretta 92 and they needed to have at least as many rounds as them.

I think Mec-Gar figured out the additional two rounds to have parity with Glock. 

Devil's Advocate

Is it possible that the reason that Illinois' map is gerrymandered so that every representative can have an office in Chicago and has nothing to do with race or party affiliation?

I'm here all night, try the veal and don't forget to tip your server.
 

Oh That's Why

There's so many creative people I've stopped watching since 2016...  November 2016 come to think of it.

Europeans really don't get us.

The more I see them explain my motives for things without asking me, I also understand why they don't understand.  They don't want to.

They think we're like them and when we, repeatedly, demonstrate different they get petulant.

Scandinavia vs the World is the first place it really hit home for me.

Lazer Pig is the most recent.

He really supports Ukraine.  Everything side tracks to how the US isn't doing our part to support what he wants.

Our part?  Why the fuck is any of this our problem?  And if it's our problem, then you're blaming the wrong president and political party, fucktard.

And if you don't support Ukraine he has a huge video that explains why you're wrong and evil and fell for propaganda...  But if you look hard at what he's saying and how he's saying it, then if you DO support Ukraine then you're wrong, and evil and fell for propaganda but it's OK this time because it's HIS propaganda.  FuzzyGeff was unable to finish the video.

I took a break from him, and History of Everything, about here. 

And he gets around to blaming the wrong president and political party by name in what is supposedly a video about the Challenger II tank.

The asides about Russia getting Trump elected by a supposed historian...  then I realized something.  Lazer Pig is a gay man.

Trump is literally Hitler to the LGBTQSS.

Click.

Got it.

Good News

The Firearms Policy Coalition has posted this list to their Facebook account.

FPC LEGAL ALERT
The ATF has posted summaries of the new regulations, which include:
1) Repeal Biden's pistol brace rule
2) Revising "engaged in the business" rule
3) Revising machine gun definition in response to Cargill decision
4) Remove requirement for FFLs to post info about Youth Handgun Safety Act
5) Revising 4473 form, including allowing electronic forms and increase the time NICS checks remain valid
6) Allow FFLs to keep electronic records
7) Replace indefinite retention of 4473s with definite time periods of 20 or 30 years
Allow “Non-Over-the-Counter” firearm sales by FFLs to residents of the same state
9) Repeal interstate NFA transport notice requirement for trips under 365 days, with all others no longer requiring approval before transport
10) Joint NFA registration for married couples
11) Remove NFA CLEO notification
12) Clarify that "common, reasonably necessary activities during travel" are covered by FOPA transportation protection
13) Allow import of dual-use frames, receivers, and barrels
14) Clarify that "training rounds" are not ammunition
15) Eliminate engraving requirement for people making NFA firearms out of existing serialized guns
16) "Clarify that a person receiving assistance in only one functional area (such as financial management) would not, on that basis alone, be considered prohibited" under mental health disqualifier
17) Requiring biological sex on ATF Forms
18) Clarify when a transaction is a straw purchase
19) Formally define "willfully" for firearms violations.
20) "Remove the list of former Soviet countries from which ATF currently denies applications to permanently import most firearms and ammunition, retaining only the Russian Federation"

Nearly all good as far as I can see.  The Devil will be in the details, of course.

Obviously, we want all their stupid shit deleted and the "The Lord giveth and the The Lord taketh away," nature of ATF regulation be eliminated; but we fucking marched to where we are since 1934; stopping and doing some baby steps backwards is a huge deal.

Lego Delivery

When the Death Star collapsed in Marv's back seat, we had thought we'd gotten it all in the back for Adam.

Marv, however, found a stray the other day.

Today, I ran up to Ocala to give Adam his parts.

The Beast is made for the open road!

The lack of AC is a bit tedious, but it wasn't too bad, really.  I grew up without AC at all and it was a bit nostalgic to drive with the windows down.

1 Of 57 Um 50

Tennessee did a solid for the law-abiding and passed a bill making it legal to defend property with deadly force.

While it might only be stuff, it's MY stuff.

It's not a case of me valuing my stuff over someone's life.  It's them not valuing their life over my stuff.

It wasn't that long ago we put the heads of thieves on pikes to warn others of the price of stealing.

That's extremely unsanitary, but it underscores that Western Civilization didn't always condemn the idea of defending hearth and home by any and all means at hand.

Perhaps if the police embraced Peelian principles more, it would not have come to this, but they appear to have reneged on the deal that they would handle thieves if we surrendered shooting them in the back when they were fleeing with our property.

Well, Officers, how many burglaries have you solved?

Does your state have a "good faith" clause that lets pawn shops out of being charged with dealing in stolen goods?

If the answer to that first question is, "not many," or, "a very small percentage of burglaries reported;" and the answer to the second question is, "yes." then it's time to let the honest citizen waste some criminals.

Remember, a dead criminal has a 0% recidivism rate.  Also, liberal judges and district attorneys can't release a dead criminal to commit more crimes while they fail to appear for trial, no matter how much money George Soros spends on electing them!

Being able to legally shoot criminals is a solid win for society!

Wanna know a secret?

I doubt we're going to see more than a handful of criminals shot stealing from a home.

For the same reasons that conceal carry liberalization had a chilling effect on assault, rape and robbery.

Thieves don't want to get shot committing crimes.

It Shoots

For some reason I'm better with the Gen 1 Classic than the P80 Classic.

Two mags at 7 yards.

The factory Glock sights still suck for me trying to go fast on a 3x3 set of rings though.  Lack of practice, I am sure.

The Gen 1 Classic's slide doesn't scrape the top of my hand like the P80 Classic.  Odd.

Retention

Lots of gunwriters extol the virtues of pistol retention and gush about holsters that will help with the task.

But I appear to be the only pro-gun advocate even talking about lanyards.

Strange

Facebook is far more likely to suggest someone I know in meatspace from long ago under my blog name than it is under my real name.

That's very odd.

Also interesting is a search for those suggested "friends" from my realname account often gives no results.  That means those folks have blocked me under my real name.

I didn't think they remembered me, but it seems that they regarded me poorly enough to preemptively make sure I wouldn't find them.

I guess I should feel bad about that, but it wasn't until Facebook recommended them to my blogname account that I even remembered them. 

Who Has To Die?

There was a story that went around the gun sphere a while ago where someone asked a Glock rep at a convention, "Who has to die to get a single stack Glock?"

The reply was, "Gaston."

IYKYK

Glock has recently recognized that metal magazines without a plastic sheath are durable enough for everyday use after... um... more than a century.

Apparently they have contracted with MecGar for new magazines for the 43x and 48 which ups the round count from 10 to 15.

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords.

Panzer Guy, in the comments, asked for my thoughts about it and I think that it's Glock finally admitting that the customers deserve a vote about what Glock should make because the customers decide what they are going to buy.

If Glock fails to make something they want to purchase, they will buy from a vendor that does.

Someone like S&W and their Shield Plus that packs 13 rounds in about the same profile as Glock pack 10...

The new all metal magazines pack 15 in the space that used to hold 10 and that's 2 more than Smith...  That's a good look.

I also think the Gen6 guns are a response to customer feedback that's been accumulating since Gen3.  I also note that Gaston Glock did, indeed, die between Gen3 and Gen6 (he died after Gen5 came out).

Personally I've felt that every generation of Glock has been a good progression since the beginning, except for the finger bulges on 3 and 4.  I have to admit wanting the bulges when they came out and later deciding they were for someone else's hand.

Not every generation has had a smooth rollout.  I remember when the 4th gen hit and people were wondering where the reliability had gone.  Quickly fixed, but a hiccup.

I've no hands-on experience with the Gen6, but have been hearing good things.

Marv needs a Gen6 Glock 19, I think. 

The Story ™ That's In The Regimental History

I keep telling this story and then losing where I put it so I can't link to it when I say, "I've told this story before!"

My unit had a bit of a hiccup in the supply lines.

We'd turned in our M1911A1's and all the .45 ACP and drawn 9mm in anticipation of being issued new M9's.  Except the M9 was having some sort of production stoppage and there were no pistols to issue us.

Normally that'd mean we'd just wait, without pistols, until it was sorted out.

We were scheduled to leave for the West German-Czech border, "any moment now," to cover a unit there that was going to Graf for training.

We got permission to hit the rod-and-gun club's gun shop and order, "anything that shoots 9mm," I remember that we were supposed to be compensated for the purchase up to some amount I don't recall.  I don't think we ever were.  We were also allowed to purchase if we were under 21 (like me) and accompanied by a senior NCO.  If you were under 21, you could only visit your purchase under the same conditions as an issue weapon.  Over 21 could sign them out almost at will.

I bought a Glock 17.  My first gun! 

I chose it because it held 17 rounds, that's more than a Beretta so better!

Someplace in here is where I learned 17+1 too.

Pistol qualification was hilarious with, seemingly, no two guns alike.  Thinking back, most of us snagged either a Beretta 92 or a S&W x39 or x59.  One guy even snagged an H&K94!

I was still 20 when I injured myself in a fall from a tank and had to sell the gun before returning home, had to be 21 to bring a handgun back with you from Germany in those days.  Technically I WAS 21 when I ETS'd, but there were painkillers and alcohol involved in my disorderly medical separation from service.

Just To Be Complete

Most of my service with tanks, I carried an M1911A1, not a Glock 17.

When we got back from the Czech border, we finally got our M9's to go with our 9x19mm ammo.

But I never carried my Beretta like this:

We had the Bianchi M13 shoulder holsters based on the UM-84.  Those things sucked.  Lots of guys used their old M7 holsters as I have pictured above.

It Makes A Slight Difference

A Glock 17 Gen 1 Classic loaded with 17 rounds of S&B 115gr FMJ weighs 1 lb. 15.9 oz.

A Glock 17 Gen 1 Classic loaded with 17 rounds of Hornady 135gr Critical Duty JHP weighs 2 lb. 0.6 oz.

Both of which round to 2 lb. for GURPS.

The loaded magazines are 9.8 oz. for the ball ammo and 10.5 oz. for the hollow-points.

0.6 lb. and 0.7 lb. when you get done rounding.

So you can take a 0.1 lb. heavier magazine and not change the weight of the pistol!

Remember pi is 3.00 in GURPS...

I tend to not bother accounting for the heavier ammo and just use the ammo table exemplar for all rounds; though I do have different weights listed for .223 Rem and 5.56x45mm NATO...  Because they have two listings on the ammo table!

They Keep Breaking This Feature

Blogger keeps breaking the post picture by URL feature and I have now idea what could be the cause.

It's not because the URL is broken, because if you manually enter the html for the hot linked pic, it appears correctly.

It's their interface that's busted and keeps getting busted after they fix it.

Feedback has been sent to whomever keeps track of such things and it will prolly start working again tomorrow for a few weeks. 

Nostalgia Rig

How I toted on the Czech-West German border.

If I had not disregarded the future collectors, this picture would be impossible for lack of a lanyard.

Hunting Over Bait

While entrapment is illegal, arresting people for breaking the law in response to someone else being arrested is not.

If we had a properly function justice system, any protests that fell to being a riot would result in scads and scads of people being arrested and the fomenters who changed it from a protest to a riot would suffer heavy charges.

Without bail.

Someone who (allegedly) instigates a riot is clearly a threat to the community and too dangerous to be at large while their innocence is proven.  Though if they're at the center of a second riot because of their arrest...  What a great piece of damning evidence!

For example, (Only) Black Lives Matter protests that turned to violence, destruction and arson because a career criminal's life long arc led to it's logical conclusion to police gun fire should be welcomed as probable cause to get professional agitators locked away for a good long time.

Florida has a good example of doing it right, actually.

Saint Petersburg had a race riot in 1996.

"What do we do next time?" loomed big in everyone's mind.

That the cops came up with was:

1. Identify the leaders.

2. Swiftly arrest them.

3. Hold them incommunicado for as long as the law allows.  24 hours.

4. Hold them for the maximum amount of time allowed without charging them.  30 days, 40 with good cause.

5.Turn them loose, uncharged.

Number three derails the third parties who provide bail money.  In 24 hours the momentum for most riots dissipates without these leaders.

Number four, once a threat to the community is expressed by the arresting department, means they get to stew and be ineffective at foment.

Number 5 kills their ability to use their incarceration as a form of martyrdom.

It works!

It worked in St Pete while Minneapolis burned.

Easy Fix

The Father In Law's tailgate refused to open today.

Troubleshooting was complicated by a tonneau cover.

We could tell that the passenger side was unlatching, but the driver's wasn't.

Happily we figured out how to get past the cover and get it out the way without breaking anything.

Four screws to get the latch plate off and get at the guts.

What had failed was the little plastic retainer that holds the latch-rod to the latch, allowing said rod to fall off and not be actuated by the latch.

Marv had donated a spare latch back when he had the same model truck, so we swiped a retainer from that latch to replace the broken one and all is now well.

Half the time working with The FiL's truck I come back in cussing and Harvey was very confused that I was back in the house ten minutes after starting the project and all done without even screaming.

I think you can buy the little plastic retainers at AutoZone, but I've tasked Bubba to do it.

Détente

I keep Shadow and Beeper separated because Beeper is VERY aggressive towards Shadow and Shadow is very meek.

Today they showed no signs of wanting to swap out of the bedroom, but Beeper had zonked out in a sunbeam on the back porch.

So I, gently, grabbed Shadow and took her back there.

She was tense when she spotted Beeper, but stayed in my lap for a while, slowly relaxing.

Then she hopped down and did her normal rounds of exploring the porch while Beeper continued to sleep.

Eventually, though, Beeper became aware of Shadow and she started to try to start something, which I prevented by blocking her.

Shadow walked back into the house instead of slinking and Beeper did a fairly prompt, "out of sight, out of mind," bit and went back to her sunbeam.

It's progress.

In the past once Shadow had become aware that Beeper had spotted her would have been hours under the bed in the bedroom.

Today she was in the bedroom window watching the birds.

That's progress too!

At Every Brewery

The mouth breathing morons were standing in rapt attention watching the National Felon League select their newest players this evening.

That this "needed" to be televised is extremely confusing to me.

Hockey manages to have a draft every year and you can read about it on the NHL web page if you care, without forcing anyone who doesn't to endure it.

Hockey is so much better than Football in so many ways.

By the way, the NHL is currently running their playoffs, it's more important than who might be playing football months from now and I am getting sick of the NFL stepping on other sports.

That Was A Near Thing

The Boy has a stuffed animal, Mr Sloth.

Mr Sloth is his constant companion and he helps keep The Boy calm.

The special needs kids group did a sunset cruise to see the dolphins...

Mr Sloth went overboard while The Boy was helping him dance to the music they were piping in.

Happily, "SLOTH OVERBOARD!" is a valid cry to the crew of the boat (who had warned people that they would NOT be turning back for lost glasses or hats).

Mr Sloth was recovered, soaked through and smelling of The Sea®.

What he required is what we call a "Spa Day."

A spa day could be as simple as tossing him in the washer and treating him like laundry.

Often it means gutting him and replacing his stuffing.

Occasionally, we replace him with a different Mr Sloth.  This time he's been replaced with a spare from the attic.

If The Boy is aware we're doing this, he isn't letting on.

They were originally available from Wal Mart, and we bought several.  We bought all we could find one year.  We still have a few.

You can find them on ebay.  LINK TO AN EXAMPLE.

Classic Glock 17

The P80 Classic did not fill the void.

So I've kept hunting for either a real steal on an actual Gen1 or a decent deal on a Gen 1 Classic.

I found the Classic because the seller listed it as a real Gen1 and that wouldn't attract someone who wanted a Classic.

Without regards to future collectors, I decided to make it a clone of my actual first Glock 17.

This means I can put the lanyard on it!

The hole for the lanyard is not on the initial issue of the P80 or G17, and it appears erratically in production until all guns after a certain point have it.  The one I bought at the Patch Rod and Gun Club had the hole, as did the one I bought later at Jacobson's Gun Center.  The gun I bought stateside also had adjustable sights for ATF import points.

Here's what's wrong with the P80:

And here's why the Gen 1 Classic is acceptable:

And except for the serial number range, that's all the differences between them!

 I think I, very quietly, crossed the line to being a Glock collector without noticing.

FedExSux

In my locale, there is no worse shipper than FedEx.

Especially if it's gun stuff.

Even DHL is better around here.

Read that again.

I've even had to threaten to call ATF on them because they claimed it was delivered on the web page and the driver had not even gotten within a mile of my house yet.

That was a fun call while they claimed they couldn't contact the driver and had no way of knowing exactly where he was.  Yet, ten minutes after issuing my threat the driver screeched to a halt in front of my house and a driver with a "I just got my ass chewed but good," look on their face delivered my return from S&W. 

Today I am watching a tracking number that left Tampa at 0720 with an expected delivery between 1045 and 1445.

It is now 1530 and expected delivery has changed to "before 1700" to a business that closes at 1700...

I loathe FedEx so much. 

Progressive

The road from high-trust to low-trust societies follows a predictable path.

One of the first steps is the entities that have been entrusted with keeping order, refusing to do so or being selective about what order they keep.

Anarchotyranny is the result.

The classic example is a homeowner who has suffered through repeated thefts and burglaries and receiving no justice who decides enough is enough and administers some on their own.

The people who are supposed to be investigating the crimes that led to this, enforcing the law and meting out punishment...  Come down hard on the homeowner.

The homeowner did, assuredly, break the law; but the motives matter.

What was the government doing to keep them from losing their property?

Had they arrested anyone?

Had they secured a conviction?

Did they even bother to actually investigate past taking a vague description or logging the video of the crime?

The government and police have failed in their duties and since they are given powers delegated from The People, it is the right of The People to reclaim those powers from the government and police.

But there's a simple solution:  Just make it legal to shoot burglars and thieves in the act of stealing AND/OR running from the scene of the crime.

Fuck 'em.

Because if the cops don't start arresting people and the district attorney doesn't start getting convictions:  People are going to start killing criminals on their own and will shortly thereafter start shooting the police who try to stop them.

It's a place we, as a society, do not want to be; but the first step back from the brink is the hardest and it's on Leviathan to make it. 

Signal Strength

We've been watching hockey via one of the secondary broadcast channels on the back porch.

Which is fine as long as the weather cooperates.

Lately, though, reception has been a bit choppy and we have neighbors who turn up their music too loud.

So I ordered a bigger antenna!

I clamped it to the mount that used to hold our abandoned in place Dish Network dish.

There was some bother with aiming because my phone's compass wasn't calibrated properly.  I was off like 13° south of where the transmitters were!

Bonus: since we were using abandoned Dish Network stuff anyways, we now have broadcast TV in the living room too!

It just took me a bit to find which of the coax cables in the attic led to the wall-jack nearest to the TV.

I owe Marv dinner for his help.
 

Good Timing

Remember a couple days back when I talked about replacing the Amazon Basics UPS with a unit I'd put a new battery in?

Yesterday the clock on the microwave said 0:00 for the time and the garage clock was short a few hours.

The power had gone out while I was sleeping and there was nothing else to make us notice.

It cannot have been out for very long because the coffee pot's clock was still right.  It'll recover after a short outage because unplugging it briefly is how you reset the "clean the pot" notice. 

Like Um Wow Man

Today is pot culture day.  Toke 'em if you got 'em.

Hitler's brain, in a jar in the Nazi moonbase on the far side of the Moon, is 137.

Wednesday will be Urf Dae.  I would burn some waste oil, but we're under a burn ban from our near-record drought. 

G Loading

Crispy decided that having a functioning 'G' key was too much today.

If there wasn't a 'g' in the password to unlock the screen, that would have been OK...

Fortunately, the keyboard on a Lenovo T420S is easily replaced and I had a spare already.  It's the same keyboard as the T410 The Boy rocks, so we laid spares in deep against his inadvertent destruction.  A cover membrane has prevented his eating over the board from taking one out for a long while...  Eyes crossed. 

Ineffective

Study finds that cannabis ineffective in the treatment of PTSD.

I think these kind of studies are looking to see if they cure the disease or lead to a lessening of symptoms over time.

Booze is also ineffective in the treatment of PTSD, but that has not stopped veterans from self-medicating with it for... as long as I can remember being around veterans.

What booze and weed let you do is not give a fuck about it for a while.

Addressing a symptom while ignoring the cause. 

Self medication leads to lots of worse problems, so getting at the cause is a better plan. 

Yesterday's News

"Boston Herald" - Todd Peterson

BREAKING NEWS: Seventy-Two Killed Resisting Gun Confiscation In Massachusetts. 

A National Guard task-force detailed to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault-style weapons, was ambushed by elements of an anti-Government, para-military extremist faction. 

Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “treasonous criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault-style weapons.  Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”  Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition.  However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.

During a tense standoff in the Lexington town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right-wing extremists. Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.

Ironically, the local citizenry blamed the government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the National Guard units. Colonel Smith, finding his forces over matched by the armed mob, ordered a retreat.

Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government troops.
Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as “ringleaders” of the extremist faction, remain at large.

And this fellow Americans, is exactly how the American Revolution began, April 19, 1775. 

History. Learn it, or repeat it.

I found the above on Facebook, posted by Todd Peterson. 

This is also pretty much how it would be reported today too. 

Unremarkable

Got my results, by mail, of my 24 hour heart monitor.

"Unremarkable."

Excellent news.

I remain suspiciously healthy for a man of my lifestyle.

Aside

A standard, everyday, FAL is 10.9 lb. loaded.  No optics, no lasers, no suppressor.

With a 100 round basic load it's 17.3 lb.

The, strangely, beloved M14 is the same.

If we upped the spare magazine count from four to six, like the M7, we get 140 rounds and that increases the load to 20.5 lb.

0.7 lb. lighter than the M7 with it's basic load and without the capabilities of the optics, lasers and suppressor.

The thing is, it was nearly universally agreed that the 7.62 battle rifles were too heavy and you got insufficient dakka.

The "amusing" thing is we could add a 5.56 calibrated M157 optic to a suppressed M4A1+ and have a loadout of 17.1 lb.  Saves 4.2 lb. and has 50% more shots.  We'd be sacrificing the theoretical benefit of the 6.8x51mm round.

If only someone had written a book 76 years ago explaining how piling on pound after pound on the troops was a bad plan...

Remember, the folks lugging an FAL or M14 around weren't also encumbered with body armor past a steel helmet.

Gaming The Optics

The Aimpoint M4 aka M68 Close Combat Optic is a Collimating Sight (HT p. 156).  It gives a +1 to Guns/TL skill out to 300 yards and cancels up to -3 in darkness penalties.  $1,100; 0.8 lb.

The Trijicon TA31RCO is a 4 power Telescopic Sight (HT p. 155) with an Illuminated Reticule (HT p. 155).  It gives, up to, +2 to Accuracy and cancels up to -3 in darkness penalties.  $1,300; 0.9 lb.

The Elcan M145 is a fixed 3.4 power Telescopic Sight (HT p. 155) with an Illuminated Reticule (HT p. 155).  It gives +1 to Accuracy and cancels up to -3 in darkness penalties.  $1,450; 1.5 lb.

The Vortex Optics M157 is a TL8 Computer Sight (HT p. 157) giving a +1 to Guns/TL skill and a +3 to hit with an aimed attack out to 4,000 yards using the laser rangefinder, but without the Night Vision or Infravision in the description; however it has both a visible and IR Integral Targeting Laser (Shoulder Arm) (HT p. 156-157). It is also a 1 to 8 power Telescopic Sight (High Tech, p. 155) that gives up to +3 to Accuracy with an Illuminated Reticle, which cancels up to -3 in darkness penalties (High Tech, p. 155).  $5,400; 1.9 lb.

"Whoopty doo, Basil, what does it all mean?"  A Powers IMMoM

The M4 is simplest.  If you're inside 300 yards, you get a +1 to your skill.  In the real world, we'd call it "aiming" but GURPS doesn't think of using the sights as "aiming."

Telescopic sights require a turn of the aiming action per point of bonus.  So to get your +2 bonus with the ACOG, you have to spend 2 actions aiming.  The variable power of the M157 means you take a second to dial it to the bonus you want then spend the requisite number of actions aiming, zero to three.

If you spend an action using the laser rangefinder, it gives a +3 to the built-in +1 for a total of +4...  Spending an additional three second aiming gets a total of +7 with it dialed to 8x!

Getting All Modern?

The USMC has declined to participate in the M7 and XM8 programs.  They stuck to their M27 IAR.

I just found out that the 27 comes from the first unit to field them and isn't in sequence with ANY of the nomenclature systems the military has ever used.  The stubby M38 version is, likewise, named after the first unit that used it.

Is this a good plan?

Let's add up the weights!

Loaded M16A4 (30 rounds) 9.1 lb.

With ACOG 10 lb.

Add an AN/PEQ-16 10.6 lb.

Plus basic load 16.6 lb.

Loaded M27 (30 rounds) 9 lb.

With ACOG 9.9 lb.

Add an AN/PEQ-16 10.5 lb.

Add a NT4 QDSS suppressor 11.9 lb.

Plus basic load 18.5 lb.

Loaded M4A1+ (with the heavier SOCCOM style barrel) (30 rounds) 7.8 lb.

With M68 8.6 lb.

Add an AN/PEQ-16 9.2 lb.

Add a NT4 QDSS suppressor 10.6 lb.

Plust basic load 16.6 lb.

Loaded M7 (20 rounds) 9.8 lb.

With M157 optic 11.7 lb.

Add the proprietary suppressor 13.2 lb.

Plus basic load 21.2 lb.

Loaded XM8 (25 rounds) 8.9 lb.

With M157 optic 10.8 lb.

Add the proprietary suppressor 12.1 lb.

Plus basic load 21.1 lb.

I think less mass is better than more if you're lugging it around.

I think that more beans is better than fewer.

I think the Marines got a shorter barreled version of the M16A4 for just 0.1 lb. of weight savings and lose the shorter length by adding a suppressor.

They're still at 210 rounds combat load compared to 140 for the M7 and save 1.3 lb.  They're only ahead of the XM8 by 0.2 lb. but the 175 round basic load still looms large.

There's a distinct lack of reporting on if the problems with the M157 have been fixed.

I still think it's VERY telling that SIG proposed the XM8 so soon after the M7 was accepted and complaints started rolling in about various features.

Compare those "plus basic load" weights.  More weight, fewer beans...  No sir, I don't like it.

I still don't really see what the Marines are getting for the extra mass on their gun compared to the M4A1+.

Capitalism For The Win

Watch this:

If you're skeptical, remember that the plastics industry is the result of finding a use for the crud left over from refining oil into fuel.

If allowed to do so, Humanity is good at solving problems.

A Moment

Yesterday, doing the test loop that has all the speeds I needed to check for vibration, I had a moment at a stop light.

The sun was just in the right spot.  The music was on point.

I was happy and it felt like cruising did back when I had the '79 Camaro.

It was kinda like deja vu.

Harvey, driving around somewhere else, with a friend, felt the same feeling.

It was neat.

Measure Once Cut Twice!

Or is it cut then measure?

At any rate, I keep cutting and it's still too short.

GRIN

Just to be paranoid, I checked the torque of the lug nuts.

Still at 140 ft-lb.

That's an insane value, but that's what the book says.

I didn't go that far on Moxie once and ended up with finger loose lugs and clunking coming from a wheel.

Coming home from the grocery store today sure underscored how "accustomed" to the vibration I'd become.  I goosed it to 45 and was already bracing... for something that didn't happen.

I think I have PTSD.

Better

I am not saying I would be good at it.

I don't think I would do a good job at all. 

What I am saying I would be better at it than the people currently doing it. 

This is why shit's fucked up. 

Low Maintenance Rifle

Ian has long had the manual and some of the story about the 5.56 version of the TRW LMR on his site.

He recently posted about the 5.6x44mm flechette version.

The 5.6x44mm XM216 round is a refugee from the SPIW program.

66.9mm

The hub-centric rings arrived today!

I learned two things.

First, my hubs are definitely 66.9mm.

Second, my rims have a 66.9mm center bore.

The place I'd measured 2-7/8" was a generous taper down to the requisite 66.9mm and not a bore of 73.1mm.

The centric rings did not fit at all, so I popped off the center cap, torqued the lug nuts and stuck a feeler gauge down there between the bore and the hub.  Just barely a race-fit!

With the front right foot in the air I checked to see if there was a high spot.  Nope.

It's been the damn tires all along and procrastinators are people who are WAY more ambitious than me about fixing things.

Again, I was able to put it off for so long by sticking to the back roads and not going very far from home.

I am so damned happy with the car now, it's indescribable!
 

Lug Nut Day Take Two

In July, 2024 I replaced the factory lug nuts with fancy chrome ones.

A trip to Daytona in August that year convinced me there was something wrong with them because the car was shaking violently at interstate speeds.

I commented to Harvey that something was definitely wrong, maybe tires...

Changing the lug nuts back to the factory version seemed to fix much of the problem.

I discovered that by rotating a wheel by a lug would cause the vibration to lessen significantly.

Knowing I had two tires out of round, that meant I'd managed to get them in phase with each other.

Well, new tires has eliminated the vibration, so I decided to see if the chrome lug nuts would change anything for the worse.

Please excuse the brake dust, I'm doing an experiment with the pads.

A quick jaunt, with The Boy, proves the lug nuts had nothing to do with the vibration two years ago!

Huzzah! 

 

Something To Consider

How would Spain, France or Germany know we'd overflown their countries with our B-2's?

Think about it. 

There's No Reason It's Just Our Policy

In Florida, a "permanent" handicapped parking permit is good for three years.  This requires your doctor to fill out the paperwork every three years to renew your "permanent" permit.

If your placard is lost or destroyed, you need the same paperwork from your doctor to get a permit that expires on the same date as the lost or destroyed one.

They cite abuse of the system by people who aren't handicapped as the reason for making the honest people jump through additional hoops.

I am getting sick of this paradigm.

I think the people who should be most affected by laws are the people breaking them and not additional burdens on the law abiding.

How's this one for size:  Unlawful use of a handicapped permit results in loss of license for 10 years and seizure of the vehicle used.  Forfeit of said vehicle if the owner used the permit illegally.  Hefty fine for the owner to recover their vehicle if they loaned it to the violator.

I want deterrence, by the gods! 

Humanitarian Daily Ration

Marv ordered some MRE's and got HDR's.

He gave me one and I started trying it today.

There are two entrees.  Lentil stew and pasta in tomato sauce. 

The lentil stew is BLAND even with the entire packet of red chili peppers added.

The crackers are unsalted.

The thing that sounds like it's a pop tart from the description is literally an unfrosted Pop-Tart!

There's nothing in it that I've tried that's horrible. 

I have not tried the pasta, yet, because the lentils were very filling.  I worry about how bland they're going to be based on the lentils, but I haven't used the salt and pepper packets yet.

There's a shortbread cookie, fig bars, peanut butter and strawberry jam yet to try! 

Oh Yeah The Tires

I must say that the new tires are MUCH smoother than the old tires.

It'd be a shock if they weren't, to be honest.

I did a loop of the greater area which included all the various legal limits and I cruised at all of them.  Even a couple of jaunts 10 over to check for vibrations.

Nada.

I am happy!

The tire guy says that I'd benefit from a set of hub-centric rings.  I hadn't thought of getting a set because The Beast's hubs are 66.9mm; just like a Camaro.

The rims on her are stock Camaro rims...  Yet they appear to have a center-bore of 73.1mm.

WTF?

So I ordered a set of rings that should be here tomorrow.  We'll see how they work.  Will they make any difference at all?  Who knows?

I Totally Need This!

Goodyear sent out a van to change my tires in my driveway.

I need one.

Tire machine in the back, balancer amidships.

Compressor for your air tools.

Four tanks for different grade oils and a pump to move used oil into a waste tank.

Decent amount of storage space for the tires you're bringing to your customer.

I wonder if one could make money driving such a thing behind the Hot Rod Power Tour.

It was totally cool and I spent some time geeking out about it. 

False Memory

There's a seller on GunBroker selling a lot of 15 large-round forward assist buttons.

I've long wanted one because I remembered the tank's issue M16A2 having this feature.

Before I spent the money on having 14 extra forward assists, I decided to see if anyone had bothered to document the serial number range for this early feature.

S/N 860,000 to 1,200,000 is the expected range according to the AI helper on the search engine.

My M16A2's serial number was 6,300,574, apparently, well past when they changed to the current small-round forward assist.

HOWEVER!

The first M16A2's start at 6,000,000!

Others have found that the large round lasted to 6,280,000; which also places my rifle just outside the range of the early feature.

The last colt M16A2 (or XM4) is (approximately) 6,590,478.

FN M16A2's run is 7,000,000 to 7,429,766.

At least for US Property marked guns.  Other serial number ranges for M16A2 are around for export usage. 

End Of Regular Season

The local Hockey team, The Lightning, made it to the playoffs and clinched their position a while ago.

Their last game was embarrassing.

All year they've been having trouble beating teams in the cellar.

The go into the playoffs against a team that they've been having trouble beating since everyone came back from the Olympics.

Even if they defeat the Canadiens, they will go on to face the Buffalo Sabers because Boston is only there on a fluke wildcard.

They have been utterly unable to beat them all season.

Out in round 2, at best, I think. 

History On Repeat

Just like De Gaulle liberated Paris...

Peak Macron.

France will lead a European coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz...after the U.S. has secured the Strait of Hormuz.

They won't invite the U.S. to the party. They will ask permission from Iran.

For now, they will hold a Zoom meeting. https://t.co/Uw65NUwQsp pic.twitter.com/V7juDTRoV2

— Michael Lucci (@Michael7ucci) April 14, 2026

This is what I know the French militarily for.

Claiming credit for someone else's hard work. 

Finally A Car That's Not An Import

Alice, was made in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Moxie and Noxious, like many 2nd generation Equinoxes were made in the CAMI plant Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.

The Beast, like all WM Caprice PPV's was made in the Holden Elizabeth Plant, South Australia, Australia.

The Precious, a 6th generation Corvette, was made in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Flossie, a 7th generation Honda Civic sedan was made in East Liberty, Ohio!  My import was domestic!

The Biscayne SS left Willow Run Assembly in Ypsilanti, Michigan as a 4th generation Caprice Classic.

Both of Harvey's Dodge Ram D150's came from Warren, Michigan.

Her Caprice 9C1 was made in Arlington, Texas.

That's all the Florida cars.

The Camaros were from Van Nuys, California and Norwood, Ohio.

My '86 Civic hatchback came from Suzuka, Japan.

The '82 Linx was made in the USA, but I don't remember which plant.

The Passat was, obviously, made in Germany, but it wasn't an import where I owned it.

I guess I buy American more often than I remember.

I Think We're Doing Everything We HAVE to do...

The United States should be doing everything I can to destroy South Africa as a functioning nation. If they are going to do these racist things, let them bleed.

— Damon Alan (@DamonAlan) April 13, 2026

I think if we do nothing South Africa will cease to be a functioning nation within my lifetime.

I can remember when it was considered a peer to 1st World status.

A Feature I Miss

The first five years of this blog was LiveJournal.

One thing they had was a place to note what music I was listening to at the time I posted.

While I could just put a note on any post I make here, it's not the same.

But at the moment I'm listening to "The Sickness" album by Disturbed.

It's Kinda Nice

Wanna know one of the best things about not being a Catholic?

When the dude in the stupid hat says stupid shit, I don't have to listen.

But I have noticed that there's a shit ton of Catholics who are going to be in direct conflict with what the Vatican is putting out of late.

Don't fret, it won't be the first time such a schism has happened.

The Orthodox folks left before it was even called Catholicism.

The Church of England happened because the leader of a nation wanted to ignore the Pope.

I wonder what the Church of America is going to look like.

Where will the CoA's version of the Vatican be?

Can't wait to see what American Bishops do about the hunk of the money and property they will be claiming over the Vatican being the false Church and thus not entitled to it any more.  If only they'd return to the fold...

Me?  What religion I might have leans to spirits in the machines.  I don't care what my friends' invisible friend says let alone some dude in a funny hat in Italy says his invisible friend said.

Actually, I think I'd have more respect if the Pope actually cited their invisible friend and not just Church dogma.

Also, remember, the deal made way back when was God stayed out of politics and politics would stay out of the church.

Every once and a while one side or the other has to start this pissing match again.

We've been here before and we're going to be here again.

Is It Doing Anything Good?

I keep wondering if there's anything positive to the citizenry from any kind of registry of firearms, legal or not.

We keep getting told that it helps solve crimes.

If that were true, I'd think there'd be ample bragging about it.

It doesn't even get stolen guns recovered from thieves back to their rightful owners because many jurisdictions simply destroy any firearms they find at crime scenes.

If this story is correct, an illegal, and useless for anything good, registry will soon be a thing of the past.

Not that we can trust them to have actually destroyed ALL copies of it... 

It Would Have Been Better

The local brewery had the WNBA draft on the TV last night.

I looked over at Marv and said, "We could be watching Golf."

He agreed that watching the draft was, indeed, worse than watching Golf.

Happily, there was a ring of condensation on the bar from our beer we could watch drying. 

Out Of Round

Some things move slowly at Casa McThag.

Take tires for The Beast; I originally got them back in April 2022, almost 32 thousand miles ago.  I tossed four, apparently, good tires because I had a bad vibration at interstate speeds.  I blamed the balance and the previous owner's notorious tendency to buy cheap tires.

It was not the tires.

I spent the next two years and 16 thousand miles replacing front suspension parts in the most commonly to be the problem to least likely to be the problem.  It was the left front control arms.  The design of the control arms makes diagnosing them difficult because they don't get hand-wobbly when they're loaded-wobbly.

One reason that it took so long to fix is that the vibration didn't really happen at speeds around town, and I don't really go on long trips much any more.  Vibration at interstate speeds?  Stay off the interstate!  Problem successfully ignored!

Oh, and drive Moxie more...

I discovered, sadly, that replacing the offending suspension components did not completely cure the vibration in the steering wheel, but now it was cyclic.  Every minute or so on the interstate it'd shake and every minute or so would stop.

When I got the Camaro rims, the road-force balancing discovered two of my tires were out of round.

That made sense.  The suspension shake was rather violent, it could have damaged the tires.  Another clue is I can mitigate the cycle somewhat by rotating a wheel a lug or two.

Here's hoping that new tires cures this! 

UPS Batteries

The main UPS is a CyberPower 1,500w unit I bought from Wal Mart right before Milton came through in October 2024.

I replaced the APC 600w unit in the garage with a CyberPower 425w in September 2025.

I bought new batteries for the dead APC 1,500w in September 2025, it's in storage.  I don't remember when I purchased it originally, but this might be the second set of batteries.

I replaced the battery in the dead APC 600w (originally purchased in September 2020) in September 2025 and it was in storage until tonight when I finally admitted the Amazon Basics 400w UPS from February 2023 wasn't surviving even minor power interruptions.

This is me putting this information in one place so I can, hopefully, find it later.

That's A Decent Deal

USAA has membership perks.

I normally ignore the emails reminding of them because they trend towards vacation packages at places I can't afford.

But I clicked to see this time and saw they have a 25% off on Goodyear tires.

That's a four tires for the price of three!

The Beast is needing tires, so we plunked down for some Eagle F1 All Seasons.

Something else new is the mobile installer.

That's kinda cool.

I have not been rolling on Goodyears since the Eagle GT II's I had on The Biscayne SS in 2004 when I replaced the 15" rims with Impala SS 17" rims.

I used to buy Goodyear exclusively before then.

I guess, technically, I was running Goodyears when I bought The Precious, but I chucked the run-flats at 16k miles because they really rode poorly. 

This is the second time I've been offered a deal on Goodyears, and the first time I've taken advantage of it.  A while back, one of you generous readers gave me a code for your employee discount that I promptly forgot about until today.  I still appreciated that, even if we didn't use it. 

I Did Note They Are Different Words

Unintended and unexpected are not the same word.

Most, if not all, unintended consequences from socialist "planning" seem to come with the expected consequences.

Most, if not all, unintended consequences are predicted before the "planning" can be implemented.

What's amazing is how many people are still surprised when the Gods of the Copybook Headings, with terror and slaughter, return. 

California has become the latest state to notice that upping the minimum wage to a stupidly high level doesn't result in comfortable lifestyles for the people earning that wage.

The best case was inflation eating up all the gains in income, and they are not getting the best case.  When the one-time costs of automation are cheaper than the ongoing expenses of keeping an employee, the bot gets the job.

If the cost of employing people makes a business unprofitable, then it closes.

In both cases, the minimum wage worker will be getting the true minimum wage. 

Discouraging

In so many ways watching YouTube will make me curl up in a ball and ask Harvey to sell my tools.

Mike Finnegan is making a drag and drive Cadillac and...

The stuff they just casually do and all of the tools and expertise on display!

Yeah.

That's not me.

I don't have the money to get the entry level versions of those tools to begin to cultivate the skills; let alone the gigantic space needed to have all of those tools.

I can't do what they're doing and I never will be able to do it, so let's just drop the facade and get a Honda?

He's not inspiring me, he's making me feel inadequate.

The one channel that was making me feel like working on my junk was Saturday Garage. 

He went out and got a job!  Now he's too busy to make videos.

Plus I am recovering from Moxie going unreliable and replacing Harvey's car. 

Adventure Action Boredom

I just hit me why the sequels to The Curse of the Black Pearl fell flat for me.

The complicated fight sequence is a pause in the plot.  The longer that runs, the longer I have to wait before the story starts moving again.

Especially since the story doesn't depend on that fight being there.

Especially since it's obvious that the fight with deadly weapons will not result in any bloodshed, let alone a death, because all of the principals are essential to the plot.

A plot on hold while they have their flashy little tiff. 

Perfection

There is no perfect hot-rod.

This is because what makes such a thing is entirely subjective.

Marv and I have been comparing our "what if we won the lottery" builds and we don't agree on very much at all.

He's thinking first generation Firebird.

I'm thinking early to mid 1960's full size.

We tend to agree about LS engines and 6+ gear slush boxes.

But I wanna car that cruises all day and am willing to accept some performance sacrifices to be comfortable for 12 hours on the road.

Marv wants exceptional skid-pad performance and an impressive 1/4 mile time.

We both want modern climate control and electronic fuel injection.

We're both aiming at something where the body control module doesn't get a veto.

But neither of us is screaming the other is wrong!

His vision is awesome.  I hope he wins the lottery and makes his dream Firebird.

It's a really cool car!

A car that I think we'd both be miserable in if we tried to take it on the Hot Rod Power Tour.

Contrariwise,  my vision is awesome at things like the Power Tour and will not carve the corners or win any drive and drag events.

We both want something that's reliable, though.  Being miserable or losing an event doesn't mean we wanna be on the side of the road fixing it.

Hot Rodding is best when you can not agree about what to build, but be totally excited about someone realizing a vision you don't share. 

Relationship Advice

Make them happy.

That is all.

If they aren't happy, then they will make damn sure you're not happy either.

It doesn't even have to be diamonds!

An order of boneless chicken wings will suffice when you promised to check on seeing if the local brewery's food truck had them.

Pay attention and it pays dividends! 

Worst MRE Of All Time

Being of moderately high mileage, my only experience with MRE's is the OG brown bag ones with the original 12 menus.

Wikipedia says these were from 1981 to 1987 and are MRE I to VII.

To me, the absolute worst thing in those 12 selections was the Beef Stew.  It's a holdover from the MCI rations (erroneously called C-rats) and, apparently, lima beans were more popular with Boomers than us GenX motherfuckers.

Despite my service dates being from 1987 to 1990, I never saw anything from the MRE VIII to XII (1988 to 1992) menu.

I liked several things that others hated, so I was a happy trooper.

I like Vienna sausages, and the "four fingers of death," to me, were four giant Vienna sausages and not hot-dogs.  If you look at it from my perspective, it's good.  If you wanted hot-dogs, it's bad.

The dehydrated meat patties were fine eaten dry as far as I was concerned.  Same for the dehydrated fruits.  Something with a non-mush texture with some flavor?  I'm in!

But looking at the 12 choices, it's clear that I never had a couple.  Beef slices in BBQ sauce and ground beef in spiced sauce I remember seeing, but not eating.

My willingness to eat the dehydrated patties meant trade opportunities.  People would offer desserts to take the pork patty if I'd give them the BBQ slices.

Crumbled up beef patty soaked in the chicken-a-la-king and heated was decent. 

Which reminds me of something I rarely dealt with.

Eating them cold.

Avco-Lycoming was kind enough to develop an MRE heater and Chrysler was kind enough to include it in every M1 Abrams.

When you have a back-deck bar and grill, you never have eat a cold MRE. 

While I Get It

I understand that sending Artemis up and around the moon was something that needed to be done to confirm that the equipment worked...

It's the same mission that Apollo 8 did.

All the "ground breaking" is 58 years old.

We're retracing our old steps, and I'm OK with doing it, but I refuse to act like it's never been done before.

We have done it before.

Do we even have a vehicle for the Apollo 9 and 10 analogs?

Do we have a lander for those mission analogs?

Are we even going to use this same capsule past the next Artemis launch?

There's only one more SLS stack, right?

I am excited we're going back to the moon, but...

There's only one instance of Kitty Hawk.  There's just one Blériot flight that matters.  There's just one Spirit of St Louis flight that crossed the Atlantic.  There's just one Apollo 8...

The firsts matter.

Who made the second powered flight?

Who was the second person to cross the English channel in the air?

Who was the second person to make a trans-Atlantic flight?

Hell, who was the crew of Apollo 8?  Because their absolutely essential mission to prove the gear pales to insignificance against the Apollo 11 mission.

Nobody was watching the Apollo 13 mission until everything went wrong.

I have the newspaper clippings for Apollo 17...  It's not first page news.

I want to participate in the hype, but I worry that if we don't get back to the Moon before Trump leaves office, we're not getting there until SpaceX ignores the FAA and launches his mission that doesn't come back; but establishes a base.

So, goody for the crew of Artemis II and I wish the program all the luck in the world.

But we need to get on with it and stop with dead ends like SLS.

Kinda Want

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of Special Forces.

But I know what The People's Republic of Pineland is...

Linky.

But Marinara Is Simple

I guess if your grand parents never taught you to cook, then you have to resort to cans...

Even resorting to cans, I'm not using any of the above choices.  Cooking tomatoes down to sauce is a pain, so using a can of tomato sauce is acceptable.

But marinara is essentially just tomato sauce with some spices tossed in, for fuck's sake.

Not that I make marinara very often.  I make a variation of Bolognese sauce with Italian sausage; just like great-grandma taught us!

We never used it to make Ragu Bolognese though, it was just spaghetti sauce to us.

GASP!

Coming up for air from getting all of the ammo-tables from the various GURPS High-Tech books into one spot.

I did this with the guns too, once upon a time, and it really helps when making handouts for the player.

It's not difficult, just tedious.

Especially since their pet gun nerd, Hans-Christian Vorstich, defaults to Universal Metric or the common name for a round in the EU today.

The US will call a round something else entirely and he catches it most of the time, but he screws up what a Brit would call it because of his preference for the Universal Metric designations.

That makes checking on the introduction dates tiresome because 1.65" Hotchkiss comes right up and 42x235mmR doesn't.

Then there's Wikipedia that's scoured the articles on individual rounds and lumped them into caliber.  Thus, they no longer tell me when 20x102mm is introduced.  I didn't remember if it predates the Vulcan or not.  It does.  It's also not the same round as 20x110mm USN.  Yes, it matters!

For Fuck's Sake

Let's worry about tattoos as if they haven't been around for centuries!

If tattoos were a significant health risk, we'd have seen significant numbers of people being unhealthy from them over the entirety of human history.

Tattoos predate history.

I have a lot of old friends who've passed on, both with and without ink who died of similar things.

You know, typical old age things.

But, I guess we gotta worry about everything now.

Dissonance

The Real History of the American Indian, with Matt Walsh.

I have not checked anything he says, but I've seen excerpts that agree with stuff I've already found for Sabers and...

State Of The Alternates

Last Year.

Using availability at Midway as a proxy for popularity.

6.5 Grendel.

21 loadings from 11 manufacturers.  20 available, 1 you can back-order.

6.8 SPC

16 loadings from 9 manufacturers.  9 available, 3 you can back-order.

.300 AAC Blackout.

86 loadings from 25 manufacturers.  48 available, 15 you can back-order, 3 coming soon.

22 ARC

5 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  5 available.

6mm ARC

15 loadings from 8 manufacturers.  10 available, 4 you can back-order. 

.30 AR

1 loading from 1 manufacturer.  1 unavailable.

Oh Sweet Innocent AI

Oh, you sweet, innocent, thing.

I don't need you to tell me why the press isn't saying they're sorry.

It's because they are proud of what they've done. 

I Coulda Told Him That Would Happen

Apparently, allegedly, the Trump administration tried to get some small arms to the people of Iran so they could more effectively rebel against the theocracy.

Also, apparently and allegedly, they used Kurds as intermediaries to move the guns.

Apparently and allegedly, these same Kurds kept the guns for themselves.

Um.

Duh.

They've no reason to believe that the people of Iran, once the theocracy is deposed,  will be any different than the Ottomans about letting them have an independent existence.

But I can see them trying to secede once the theocracy is weak enough. 

Slow Your Roll

Harvey found me sloth themed dice!

They're absolutely the cutest!

Mixed Feelings

First off, she's lying, they are not banning classic cars with this bill.  Bad way to start.

What they are changing is the issuance and usage of cars with the special classic car license plate.

Near as I can tell, if you register your hot-rod normal like, you are not constrained by the new rules.

At the moment you pay $13.50 for a rear plate or, optionally, $15.50 for front and rear plates; plus $150 for sales tax and $25 one-time registration.  It's always been the law that you can't use it for "general transportation purposes."  So $178.50 and your car is registered forever in Minnesota.

General transportation purposes is not actually defined.

The proposed bill really defines, and limits, what you can do with your special, lifetime, registered car.

I am not that shocked that they went very restricted.

But you takes the tax break, you takes what restrictions come with it.

This is not going to destroy the hobby and most people who actually qualify for the plate as it was originally intended have the money to register and insure their cars with normal plates and can drive as much as they like, anywhere they like.

Betcha that there's a lot of shitboxes that are 2006 and older that have a "Collector's Vehicle, collector plate" who are doing it to avoid the 10% of original MSRP plus 1.575% of current value.

For reference a '69 Chevelle's MSRP is in the $2,600 ballpark.  Current value is VERY subjective, so let's say $50k because that's what Autotempest says.  So $1,047.50 a year to register your '69 Chevelle in Minnesota.  That's steep.

A 2006 Toyota Corolla ran $14,725 sticker price and is worth $6,500 today.  $1,574.88 a year.

See the incentive to call your shitbox a collector car?

The Rat Rod people have also made it difficult to make a, "is this a collector car?" decision on condition.

Club memberships don't really help either, there's scads of Ricer clubs that will include that Corolla.

Considering that I paid $250 total for three cars in Florida, I can see that the real problem isn't the definition of "Hot Rod" but a rapacious and greedy Democrat controlled government.

You Have A Right To _Say_ It Not *DO* It

I have said before that you have every right to be a hateful racist.  You have no right to act on your hate.

I prefer bigots to be open and honest about it so that I can avoid them better.

Them being open and honest about it also means that when they act on their hate, it becomes a sentence enhancer.

Case in point.

Calling someone a filthy Jew is being very rude and obnoxious; but it's probably protected speech.

Assaulting someone after calling them a filthy Jew is a hate crime.

And, yes, you don't have to actually touch someone to commit assault!

Once you've articulated an actionable threat that appears to be imminent, you're assaulting.

And you're lucky if your chosen victim is armed and declines to shoot you.

It's noteworthy that this happened in Florida and the actual victim is home, safe, with their family and the (alleged) perpetrator is behind bars without bail. 

We're The Ones Who Got Ozymandius Motherfucker

 

https://x.com/Arrogance_0024/status/2040700125882859864

I am shocked that a Frenchman can't understand it.

French gives us the ultimate explanation in one short sentence, "Tous pour un et un pour tous!"

Heinlein explained it in Starship Troopers.

"Are a thousand unreleased prisoners sufficient reason to start or resume a war? Bear in mind that millions of innocent people may die, almost certainly will die, if war is started or resumed."

I didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir! More than enough reason."

"'More than enough.' Very well, is one prisoner unreleased by the enemy, enough reason to start or resume a war?"

I hesitated. I knew the M.I. answer -- but I didn't think that was the one he wanted. He said sharply, "Come, come, Mister! We have an upper limit of one thousand; I invited you to consider a lower limit of one. But you can't pay a promissory note which reads 'somewhere between one and one thousand pounds' -- and starting a war is much more serious than paying a trifle of money. Wouldn't it be criminal to endanger a country -- two countries, in fact -- to save one man? Especially as he may not deserve it? Or may die in the meantime? Thousands of people get killed every day in accidents ... so why hesitate over one man? Answer! Answer yes, or answer no -- you're holding up the class."

He got my goat. I gave him the cap trooper's answer. "Yes, sir!"

"'Yes' what?"

"It doesn't matter if it's a thousand -- or just one, sir. You fight."

"Aha! The number of prisoners is irrelevant. Good. Now prove your answer."

I was stuck. I knew it was the right answer. But I didn't know why. He kept hounding me. "Speak up, Mr. Rico. This is an exact science. You have made a mathematical statement; you must give proof. Someone may claim that you have asserted, by analogy, that one potato is worth the same price, no more, no less, as a thousand potatoes. No?"

"No, sir!"

"Why not? Prove it."

"Men are not potatoes." 

I still say our policy about ANY American, ANYWHERE, is that it should be safer to eat white arsenic than to harm our citizens. 

Does This Mean Veterans Too?

My service connected disability gets me a gate pass to go to the commissary on post.

Does Hegseth's lifting of the gun free zone apply to everyone allowed on post or just active duty?

I haven't seen it clearly stated one way or the other (or I'm missing where it was). 

Even if I am still barred from carry on post, it's a great step forward.