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Let us never forget 2011 when she fucked us on open and campus carry.
Despite her denials, she withheld NRA support until it was poison pilled by amendments that had been removed in committee.
Well, she just got her golden parachute taken away.
As others have said, if I had made as much as she was making for as long as she was making it, I wouldn't be worried about making it to the end.
I do worry about the cats.
The DVD drive in the Mac Pro decided to make whirring noises rather than play the disk.
Happily, I had a spare drive in a bin in the garage!
Which is good because this ancient thing uses IDE for the optical drives.
Remember IDE?
For earth day today I have all the windows open and the AC set to 65.
The Beast is idling in the drive.
I should burn a tire.
What!?!
It's not like I'm composting my girlfriend.
Just watched Sound of Freedom.
Considering the implications of what is said at the end about how much slavery and how many slaves are children in the world...
African American race baiters demanding reparations over something that didn't even happen to them sounds like being bitches.
So, bitches, what are you doing to stop slavery?
I know what one white dude did.
I don't have a single character who is sporting a PASGT helmet or vest!
My revision of T2K and the 4e updates of the characters all have ACH and ESAPI.
The PASGT stuff was a staple of so many characters before more information became available via the internet.
I do have a Technomancer version of me who should have the helmet because I have one.
I think I'll make a small revision.
"Sarge, I forgot my helmet!"
2d+2 cr against an unarmored skull still gets DR 2 from the bone, like a small mace or the hammer side of a martel de fer.
An average two-handed hit from a ST 14 dude will, on average, deliver 9 points of raw damage.
Minus 2 for the bones.
Times 4 for hitting the brain.
28 points of damage.
Two death rolls for a HT 10 mook and almost halfway to auto death.
A max damage roll would get 12 past the skill for 48 points of damage and 4 death rolls.
The typical 12 HP PC would fare a bit better.
The average roll will just barely get a death roll.
Max will get three death rolls.
In both cases they're major wounds to the head and bonuses to being knocked over and penalties to not losing consciousness apply.
Kids, remember, wear your helmet!
Update:
If my much smaller, and weaker, ass swung it one handed at an unprotected noggin...
1d+2 cr will do 3-8 points of raw damage with an average of 5 This will get 4-24, average 12, points against the HP of the target. On average the victim is looking to roll for consciousness, but not in danger of dying unless they fail that roll. Getting a death roll is possible, but I'd have to roll well.
Two handed changes the raw damage by just a point, delivering 8-28, average 16.
Kentucky Ballistics wonders how medieval weapons perform against modern armor.
Will it GURPS?
Scott looks like he's running a ST 14. That's got a thrust damage of 1d and swing damage of 2d.
His helmet appears to be NIJ IIIA rated. That's DR 12.
The first weapon is a small mace. He'll do 2d+2 cr with it, averaging 9 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
The next weapon is a mace. He'll do 3d-1 cr with it, averaging 9 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
Then the pick. He'll do 2d+1 imp with it averaging 8 damage. It shouldn't penetrate.
Using two hands, as he does, is good for an extra point of damage. Averages are 10, 10 and 9; so they shouldn't penetrate on average.
BUT!
Maximum damage with each weapon, two handed, is 15 cr, 17 cr and 14 imp. Penetration is possible, and, maybe, he got a good roll with the second hit with the pick.
This GURPS!
He didn't tell us what kind of vest it is. It looks like NIJ II soft armor. DR 10/5* (higher DR vs pi and cut).
The sword should do 2d-1 imp for thrusts and 2d+1 cut for swings. Average hits should be 6 imp and 8 cut respectively.
The DR 10 stops the cut handily, even if the armor takes some damage. The DR 5 stops the thrust, and his poor technique probably explains a below average damage roll.
The pick, doing 9 impaling with his two-handed swing gets 4 into the dummy.
This GURPS!
I'm not going to bother with the ahistorical morningstars or the idiotically long $1,500 not-so-great sword. But if I did the morningstar it'd do 3d cr swung two-handed for an average of 10. It shouldn't get through the helmet, but should get through the vest. I think it did, but he didn't really show the effects.
His spear should do 2d-1 imp when thrown. Average of 6 damage. That should penetrate, and it did, slightly.
Two-handed stabbing with it should do the same damage.
This GURPS!
I don't know how fast he was going on the scooter, so I can't calculate the damage bonus.
Willard noticed that the Luger P.08 is slightly bigger in every dimension than the M1911A1.
The Luger looks so much slimmer in profile you don't notice it by itself.
Some of the descendants of slaves in the United States claim to still be suffering under the repercussions of their ancestors once being enslaved.
8 generations.
I find that odd.
There's historical examples of nations being conquered, the once free citizens being enslaved and their grandkids being citizens of the conquering nation.
Seems that those folks had a bigger grudge than African Americans, yet...
Two generations to members of society.
Perhaps it was the shorter time of enslavement?
Well, there's a caveat to that two generations deal. Enslaved grandfather needed to behave, free, but second class subject father needed to behave and free and citizen son needed to behave or right back to slavery because enslavement was a punishment for some crimes.
Some families never did manage to get out of being slaves because grampa never got with the idea that if he toed the line, his descendants would be free. Or worse, decided that if HE couldn't be free, then NOBODY would!
I wonder if we're seeing some of this psychology at play with race relations today.
I do want to point out that African-Americans had sorted themselves out after the Civil War and, for the most part, had been becoming Americans.
It's true!
There were many places where racist bullshit kept them from completing the task. This is also true.
There were also many places where there wasn't such bullshit and they settled into the same nuclear American family model that everyone else used. The experience of a black family was no different from an Irish or Italian one in these places.
But then we put racist bullshit back on the menu.
Redline districts and welfare did more to kill the solid nuclear family than anything Jim Crow conceived of.
Destroyed with "love" as it were.
And it's kept them from succeeding as the little enclaves get more and more isolated from mainstream American culture and norms.
The thing that stands out, from my observations, is every African American I know who's rejected the enclave and the subculture that thrives there to adopt "normal" American culture is successful.
They've jobs, mortgage, family, friends... And them being black is no more noteworthy than me being Scots/Italian.
In many ways they emigrated from the enclave to America!
It's classic melting pot stuff.
The echoes of other cultures doing this are still there. Little Italys and Chinatowns are where the Italian and Chinese ghettos used to be. The places where, if you wanted to skip being an American, you stayed. Want out? Adopt our ways and welcome, citizen!
But there's some very rich, racist, bastards with a stake in the status quo of preventing Blacks from being full members of society. Bastards of every color, but racist nonetheless.
In GURPS, .270 Win does 7d pi. .30-06 does 7d+1 pi.
Essentially identical, with a very slim edge to '06.
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What I remember most about the first time I saw this movie was all my friends staring at me and whispering, "Oh, that's exactly how Angus is going to respond to this shit someday."
Do you have a pick with a hammer face?
I do!
2.2 lb. of 1055 steel and American straight grain hickory... Sold by Midway, marketed by Cold Steel, made by an American Tomahawk Co. manufactured in Taiwan... It doesn't appear to be THE American Tomahawk Co. either.
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| Not ATC's logo... |
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| If I had a nickel for every California cancer warning about nickel... |
The langettes are sheet metal and installation is DIY. The included screws are cheap as all fuck. Pilot holes are your friend.
It's fun, though. Especially since it was on sale for almost 43% off. I can feature a $46 mertel de fer, I can't feature an $80 one.
A couple of whacks on our chopping stump shows that it works. The hammer face leaves an impression, the pick side gets stuck, like it's supposed...
If I have statted myself correctly with a ST of 11... It should do 1d+2 imp on the pick side and 1d+2 cr on the hammer side.
Love bug season has been surprisingly light this year.
Good!
There were reports a few years ago that some species of dragonfly had adapted to handle eating the acidic things, that could explain a lot of their absence because they're clearly unused to predation.
The XM214 is a gun from Twilight: 2000 that turned out to be a solution in search of a problem.
Seems an ideal PC weapon, though.
OG T2K included it, but my GURPS conversion doesn't. But I couldn't resist making the stats.
When the M14 being a disaster comes up, someone always says that the M1 Garand could akshually fire faster.
Does it GURPS?
Both are semi-automatic. One by design, one by modification.
The Garand has a magazine capacity of 8 and reload time of 3 (grab, load, ready). Basic load 104 rounds. 3 seconds of shooting, then 3 seconds of reloading. 3x13 for the shooting and 3x12 for the reloading. 75 seconds.
The M14 has a magazine capacity of 20+1 and a reload time of 3. Basic load 100 rounds. 7 seconds of shooting, then 3 seconds of reloading. 7x5 for the shooting and 3x4 for the reloading. 47 seconds.
GURPS busted!
Even if we say that the M14's reload time should be longer because you have to drop the magazine before reloading it only adds 4 seconds to the time. 51 is still shorter than 75 seconds.
Reading about the reaction to the video and it's clear that so many people didn't watch it before they commented.
Regurgitated is the common refrain that they know someone who carried one in 'Nam and they loved it!
Watch the vid! Ian covers that. The issue isn't that the M14 that was issued to the troops was a bad gun. The issue is only 2/3 of the guns made actually passed inspection to be issued and that all three contractors making them were losing money making them to spec.
It's astonishing that Winchester and H&R both made Garands which are thought of as better than the Springfield made guns.
The design changed enough from the M1 that new processes had to be implemented to make the M14, contrary to what Springfield told the DOD.
It's still embarrassing that Italy and Beretta did what Springfield claimed they'd done, made a 7.62x51mm NATO rifle derived from the Garand that used tooling and processes from the original gun.
Humiliating is they did it in two years, not 17 and did it for far less money.
The BM59 is a better gun in many, perhaps most, ways than the M14.
Another thing that keeps coming up is defenders of the M14 citing their M1A. They're not the same gun at all. The detail differences add up fast and do a great deal to explain how Springfield Armory (no relation) can economically make them.
Second City Cop asks, where's the outrage? Here too.
If you're going to have any chance of convincing us that black lives matter, then you're going to have to start acting like they actually matter.
At present, it seems they only matter if they were career criminals who finally came to a predictable end by the hands of an officer attempting to arrest them.
Then we recount all the wonderful things they might have been if they had not been prevented from turning their lives around... by getting killed resisting arrest.
So, race baiters, why don't you get pissed off at a birthday party being sprayed with gunfire and innocent children being murdered?
I'll suggest a real reason, just in case they have a justification to ignore the violence unless it's cops.
Criminals committing violence doesn't lead to a payout to the families of the victims or the race baiters. Likewise, stopping criminals from committing violence reduces the power the race baiter wields rather than enhancing it.
Much the same way equal rights and meritocracy is anathema to them.
We have a mock-up of the shift box.
LED to show that it's on.
Momentary switch to turn it on.
Momentary on-off-on switch to change gears. Up for upshift, down for downshift.
We have a preliminary wiring diagram.
I have parts on the way to measure to make a box that has a useful cupholder in it that will also be able to hold the switches.
Marv and I are researching what it takes to add tap-up/down shifting to The Beast.
We could buy one of three nearly plug-and-play boxes, but they're all the same format and I don't care for how they did it.
In a word, cheaply.
Maybe $15 of components for $125 to $150.
I have the factory service manual and can see how the wiring for the shifter SHOULD run.
These shift box vendors have proven the BCM already has the programming to respond to the inputs once you run a wire between X1-17 and X1-20 on the BCM.
X1-20 shows a voltage drop from X1-17's 12v and that tells the BCM to ask the TCM to shift up or down.
What we've been trying to find is if X1-17 was hot all the time or just when the ignition is on. We want the shift box we're making to open the switch when the ignition is off. The factory shifter can't be in manual when you start the car because the switch can't be closed when the car is in Park or Neutral. The aftermarket boxes are a simple switch you can forget in the 'on' position. While nobody is reporting any problems, I don't like sending a "I'm in gear AND in park" signal to the, expensive to replace, BCM.
X1-17 also provides 12v to the cruise control switch which sends a voltage drop back to X1-3.
That sentence above took way longer to find than it should have because the table of contents and index don't include the words, "cruise control."
Happily, GM is a creature of habit and my other service manuals show that cruise control troubleshooting is at the beginning of section 9. The Caprice, Impala SS, Custom Cruiser and Corvette manuals all have "cruise control" in their indices.
Grrrrrrrr.
Got me a new travel tumbler!
16oz, but it's held a 20oz coffee already. Kept it warm until it was gone.
If the 32oz had come with a red cap, I might have upsized.
The lid does something I've never had in a travel tumbler. It seals.
Good job Mission First! Amusing and functional!
Australia, famously, put heavy restrictions on who could own and carry a gun and what types of guns could be carried and owned.
Good thing, otherwise someone might have been killed in a massacre in a mall.
Oh... wait...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's the crazy (or evil) more than the guns what causes shit like this, especially since it was crazy (or evil) with a knife.
It's a pretty beefy limb to say that, if this had happened in Tampa, the stabber would have been ventilated much faster and long before a cop arrived. With many fewer injuries and deaths.
Have you missed out on the four previous rounds of M1911 sales from CMP?
Are you pleased with the gun you'd gotten in one of the first three rounds and want another?
It appears that good news is on the horizon!
M1911 Pistol Options: A couple of months ago, we received the fiscal year 2024 tranche of surplus M1911s from the Department of the Army – 10,000 of them, which is fantastic. In terms of orders and availability, we are still in the process of filling M1911 orders for Round 4. We expect to announce Round Five this fall, once Round 4 starts winding down. And, I’ll give you a status update on that in October in my next update. While we are still assessing the pistols we just received, it looks like the quality is pretty good.
I've got my single example, but I know of a couple of people who didn't already and might just be swayed to get one this time.
May I continue to gush at the effects of modern gun cleaning chemicals and tools?
It's in distinct contrast to the stuff I had to deal back in the Army.
We got paper towels, Break-Free CLP, a well worn toothbrush and a bore brush.
Something I noticed was we needed to clean the guns several times and it was primarily because Break-Free CLP was really good at loosening things up once it had sat, but sucked for immediate effect.
I think we should have soaked them down with the stuff and come back in a few days.
But that's unthinkable to the Army, so we had to clean off all we could, then do it again when they were no longer clean thanks to the CLP dissolving stuff from unseen areas.
The amusing thing is I'm not really using much different equipment, just different chemicals.
My toothbrush gets replaced regularly.
I'm still loving Boresnakes.
Shooter's Choice (or Hoppe's) has an immediate effect on the crud and I sacrifice t-shirts to the cleaning. Most of the time I use cloth patches to apply the solvent.
There's probably better stuff out there, but I'm happy with what I have.
The pistol I'm least likely to shoot is the one that's in my pocket all the time.
Ironic, isn't it.
The range rules prevent me from pulling it out of my pocket to shoot it, so it tends to stay there, lest I be unarmed to and from the range.
Today I planned better and packed different heat.
Two 13-round and one 10-round magazine at seven yards.
I am reminded that the Shield Plus is louder than the 9-Compact.
It's a little harder to control and shoot fast, but I think that's a decent minute of bad-guy group.
Even better, it fired just fine caked in pocket lint.
Queue AC/DC
I had a black Fencer and Mk IV in my big box. The Mk I and Mk II came with an earlybird special of a Mk III and Mk V.
With an M1A1 for scale.
I'd intended to do them all in glow-in-the-dark, but SJGames didn't offer I, II and VI in anything but black.
I have a black III and V.
I have a glow in the dark Fencer, but a black Dopplesnolder.
I watched all five of the body cam videos of the officers involved in the shooting of Mr Reed.
Just two reloaded. One was done shooting when they noticed they were slide locked and put in a fresh magazine.
One officer never fired a shot because he'd dropped his pistol when he reacted to being shot.
Four officers shooting. One firing more than one magazine's worth.
Assuming the full load of 16 at the start and another 15 in the reload who kept firing.
79 shots, max.
If 96 rounds were fired, 17 belong to Mr Reed.
Two officers spend much of the fight running around not doing much constructive. One of these is the reload after noticing slide lock after the fight.
The officer who reloaded and kept firing seems most focused on being in the fight.
The fourth firing officer spends a portion of the fight noticing he's down range from his partners, so loses some shooting time deconflicting.
It's likely less than 79 shots fired. Especially since many cops I've talked to don't top up after chambering a round. 15 in the magazine, drop the slide, 1 in the pipe, 14 in the hole.
We're probably talking 50 shots. I suppose I could go back and count.
Update:
Hey, there's reports in that big dump CPD put out. Not the 15+1 Glock 22's that Not-The-Bee says.
Officer 1: Glock 17, 12 shots fired. 17+1 capacity.
Officer 2: Glock 19, 16 shots fired. 15+1 capacity. This is the slide lock reloader, the video shows the 15 shot magazine clearly during the reload.
Officer 3: Glock 45, 34 shots fired. 17+1 capacity.
Officer 4: Glock 17, 17 shots fired. 17+1 capacity.
Officer 5 (the injured one): No shots fired.
79 rounds! Yet every single media report is saying 96 rounds.
