Easter!

Cooking a turkey and having some friends over.

Easter has always been a friends and family day.

I just realized a bit of strangeness about my family though.

Great Grampa and Gramma were Catholic, pretty normal for Italians.  The only time I ever saw Grampa in church was when he was in his casket.  My Mom and aunt were/are atheists.  I thought The Church never let anyone out, like the mafia. ;)

I sometimes think that after all of the horrors of the run-up to Mussolini and what happened to cause GGramps to flee to America that his faith was shaken too much to pass it down to his children.  Especially when three of them disappeared without a trace.

However, Easter has always been a "get together" day.  A happy day.

Even if The Lovely Harvey cooks turkey and mashed potatoes instead of the more appropriate spaghetti.  She doesn't get the Chinese for Christmas tradition either.

E85 Revisit

Remember when I posted this?  E85

It's a recycle of a post back from my LiveJournal days and it generated a LOT of comment there.

Well, independent confirmation from Edmunds.

PS: That was also the post that got me to thinking I needed to have a comment policy.  You may notice that you cannot post a comment here anonymously.  That E85 post from LJ is why.

Whom?

Who is Erik Waxler and why is it so fucking important to him that I join him on Twitter?

Uncommunicative

I ordered the purple stock set on the 19th.

I guess they weren't kidding with the warning that things could take two to three weeks to process.

I hate waiting.

Meh Friday

Took the dog to the vet.

Double whammy.

He's been chewing his fur off.  Normally that means it's flea season and we forgot to give him his stuff.

Well, we hadn't forgotten this time.

Turns out he's become allergic to his normal K9 advantix® II _AND_ our local fleas find the bouquet to be piquant and fruity.

The vet says that fleas carry other diseases in a seasonal manner and what Shi Shu has managed to catch while the flea meds inflamed his skin is a nice bacteria under his skin.

Now he's got an oral flea slayer and is on antibiotics for a while.

Manual NPP

NPP is the RPO code from GM for the dual mode exhaust on a sixth generation Corvette.

There are butterfly valves in the mufflers that, in stock form, open at about 3,000 rpm allowing the exhaust to bypass the muffler.

This gives a small horsepower boost over the base exhaust, six horsepower.

With the valves closed it's as loud as a Cadillac.

I thought this was a performance car!

So I put a push switch in my dead pedal.

Now you can hear the 436hp of American Canadian LS3 at idle!

Training Day

That Makes Sense

The .38 Super Government Model from Colt is noticeably more accurate than the .45 ACP GI Model from Springfield Armory.

I had attributed it entirely to the trigger and the round.

Today I read about "riding the link".

The barrel of the Springfield has a lot of slop in battery.  The Colt, none.

What that means is the Colt's barrel is in the same position, relative to the sights, after every shot.  That helps a lot.

I Don't Wanna Jynx It

But...

I listed a couple of FAL parts I don't want on Gunbroker.

No reserve, with a buy it now about $15 below everyone else new MSRP and starting bid about half the buy it now.

They both sold for the buy it now price on the first day.

WTF?

I am not complaining, I am confused.

And I'm quite pleased.

Stay In School Kids

Jim Carrey points out that over a million people have been killed by firearms since John Lennon was murdered.

By gum, he's right.

But he's skipping over some of it.  A bit more than half are suicides.  No matter how you slice it, someone who uses a gun to check-out is serious and when a gun isn't available will use other means.

But in the past 32.4 years since the death of Mr Lennon, over a million people have been killed by a firearm in the USA.  Just a bit under 31 thousand a year.

Well, Jim, got some news for you...

In the whopping 12 years of the Third Reich, they managed to off some 12 million people (and most of them in the last four years of it).  It will take us 388 years to catch up Hitler.

In four years Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge managed to at least tie our "score" and might have doubled or tripled it (unlike the NSDAP they didn't keep good records).

36 years of Stalin killed more than 40 million people in the Soviet Union.  I think we'd have to use nukes on ourselves to catch up not just rely on small arms.

Chairman Mao snuffed about 35 million people and did it in about five years.  He's got us stomped for rate.

Why do I bring up these four dictatorships, Jim?

You'll never guess what they all did before they started murdering their own people.

They took away all of the guns from the everyday citizenry.

Michael Bloomberg (A Known Jew)

We really have become the Soviet Union, haven't we?

Or we at least have a Media SSR resident among us.

Gun owners are not angry at Bloomberg because he's a Jew, it's because he's a gun grabber.

We'd be just as upset with him if he were a Baptist.

This brings up something, again, that I cannot fathom.

I cannot figure out why so many prominent Jews in politics are so gung-ho about gun control.  Of all the peoples on this earth you'd think they'd be the ones with an entire deck of Godwin cards to play whenever anything the NSDAP did comes up, right down to highway funding because Hitler is the guy who broke ground on the first stretch of the Autobahn.

I dunno, it's like black folks wearing white sheets and burning crosses without a hint of irony.

Soup!

From my mom's recipe printed in this handy cookbook.

Available from:

Amazon on Kindle or Paperback

It's Beautiful!

Correlation Again

Reading this.

They point out that the percentage of murders committed with a firearm is increasing.  Still, the overall rate is down.  Five murders with a gun, ten with a knife in 2010 vs four murders with a gun, seven with a knife in 2011; there's still four fewer murders! (numbers pulled from my ass for comparison purposes).

They are literally citing the "gun death" that Weer'd points out all the time.

There were fewer murders this year, including fewer with guns, than last year. 

But a higher percentage of those murder were with guns!

Nope, not a compelling argument Mr Grabber.

They, correctly, state that there's not much evidence that more guns is causing the reduction in murders and crime overall.

What they are all missing is that there's a lot more guns out there in both numbers and percentages than ever before in Florida history.  YET THE CRIME RATE IS GOING DOWN!  What that most definitely indicates is more guns does not correlate to more murder or other crimes.  It MIGHT indicate that better armed citizens make criminals more reluctant to prey on them as well.

h/t Angrymike

Spec

Getting Tabitha ready for the arrival of the purple stock set from Cavalry Manufacturing.

CavMan is the least communicative and slowest shipping gun parts company I have ever dealt with, by the way.

Cav doesn't offer the purple stocks in mil-spec.  I had two commercial-spec carbine receiver extensions (aka buffer tubes) from Del-Ton in the parts bin, but they're far too long.  Additionally most commercial extensions have a slanted back end.

Note the angle.

So I ordered a replacement extension from Brownells.  High Standard brand.  The Q&A section indicated an OA length of 7.2" so the "way too long" would be taken care of.  Well...  As you can see in the above picture, it's closer to 7.75" OA.  Proper mil-spec is 7.188" long.  It's also identical to the Del-Ton tubes it's meant to replace.

So I enquired of Arfcom's Retro Section.

The UTG-TLU004 fits the bill I was looking for.  Except for diameter and materials it's a mil-spec buffer tube.  Mil-Spec should be Ø1.15" and made from 7075-T6 aluminum.  Commercial is Ø1.17 and is normally made from 6061-T6 aluminum.

Top, UTG.  Bottom, BCM.

Top, UTG.  Bottom, Del-Ton.

Mounted with a spare slider from Del-Ton.

Now, if Cavalry Manufacturing will get off their butts and ship the "we have plenty in stock" purple stock set my readers were generous enough to pay for, we're golden.  Or purple.  Or something.

Rant Tag

Posts marked with the "rant" tag aren't necessarily well researched or thought out.

They are venting.

Almost literally ranting and raving.

That there may be a kernel of truth or wisdom in them is happenstance.

More

Child vaccinations have killed as many or more people than guns?

Are you fucking high?

Really you stupid dancing monkey: Are.  You.  Fucking.  High?

Two words I know you didn't hear every year during YOUR childhood: Polio Season.

Know, personally, anyone who's died from smallpox?

I know you didn't and don't because those diseases were eradicated vaccinations.

You mention 3 cases of autism against a body of 5000.  Check your statistics book, oh wait you probably cannot because you didn't finish high school.  I'll help.  That's 0.06%.  That's quite small.  I am willing to bet that if the real incidence of autism to the vaccination you're condemning was 0.06% we'd have a shit-ton more cases of autism than we do.  For 2009 that would be around 2,500 cases of autism out of 4.1 million children.  It really sucks to be one of the 2,500 but I think I prefer that to a epidemic of the diseases that we're immunizing for.

It's proving a negative, but how many children are alive because of those shots?  How many others didn't die from a child carrying the disease around because of those shots?

That whole correlation and causation thing keeps rearing its ugly head.  You allude to it when you mention that the drug companies have an interest in keeping those products on the market.  You compare it to tobacco.

Wanna know something?  There's not a single unbiased study on tobacco here in the US.  Every single one of them was funded either by the tobacco companies or by an anti-tobacco organization.  There is now so much misinformation about it, that it's impossible to make a meaningful decision.  Dammit.

One thing I know about actual science is when the data contradicts the conclusion, the conclusion is discarded.  Show me a tobacco study that didn't find what it was expecting, then we'll call your comparison apt.

Wanna know something else the drug companies have a vested interest in?  Healthy, happy customers! It means repeat business.  It means longer term profits.

When starting this rant I did some googling.  Want to know who else I found involved in the immunization schedule?  The government.  Not once in your tirade did I hear you ask if the vaccinations administered are the products the companies recommend or if they are the product that works at all and is mandated by law.

Uneducated dancing monkeys can shut up any time now.

Low Information

Want to know something?

It's far better to become informed on a topic BEFORE the media or politicians get ahold of it than to form your opinions afterwards.

That way when they begin to get things wrong, you know right away, perhaps in time for your voice to matter.

If you wait until they're debating at the capitol before pull out your smart phone and Google it, you will almost assuredly be getting a lot of hits intended to sway you rather than inform.

Of course that will mean putting down the endless distractions of entertainment and actually studying up on topics...

Sunday Funny

Gone Shootin

Dropped a precious box of ammo through the .38 Super and part of a box through the Anaconda.

.45 Colt is super light shooting in a gun with a six inch barrel designed for .44 Magnum.

Again I am just amazed at how good Colt can do with a trigger when they want to.

However, this is a story about the neighboring lane.

At 7 yards I was making one large hole with either gun.

My neighbor was all over her torso target.  She was clearly, and vocally, becoming frustrated that she was not printing nice tight groups.

I almost offered to help but...  I think my groups are what began the frustration.  I get the impression her buddy wasn't much better than she was and my shooting proved that it was possible to do much better.

Her shooting buddy was trying to help, but what he was telling her wasn't registering.  I dunno; he wasn't offering bad advice, I just think that she didn't understand what he was saying.  She definitely wanted to learn, and was angry that she wasn't.

I feel like I should have stepped in and paraphrased what he was saying to see if it helped.

The best news about her was she kept excellent muzzle discipline and was a very safe shooter.  She just needs to figure out how to be more accurate.

She also didn't seem like she was frustrated to the point of giving up.  I think she'll keep coming back until she gets it sorted.

Dozens

Dozens demand that the Pasco County Commission close the gun show "loophole".

WHAT GUN SHOWS?

For that matter, what gun crime?

I know I've asked before, but really...

Pasco has two gun shows a year.  I should say we have that many scheduled when you check here, but quite often those shows are cancelled.  The Knights of Columbus show will likely be cancelled leaving just the Fairgrounds show.

Being a bedroom community extends to many things.  We go elsewhere to work, we go elsewhere to hit the gun show.

Something that burns about that news article.

That old codger they're interviewing who used to live in Newtown?  Bast's Filthy Catbox! I am sick and fucking tired of there being no effective means to strip the Gorram Yankee from the people who move down here from the frigid wastelands.

Connecticut, by the way, has closed the "loophole" for handguns.

California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island all have universal background checks at gun shows.  I notice that one of those states was in the news recently concerning a mass shooting at a theater...  Another of those states is in the news because one of its cities has a rather startling murder rate...  Three of those states are not noted for their pastoral lack of serious crime.

If we're going to do something, shall we do something that does something?

I won't even get into how the screaming of "dozens" should override the rights of nearly half a million.

Do Not Mock Happy Fun Tank Crew

Lubricant Sought

Squeaky is in need of some funding for medical experiments treatment.

Hop on over and help out if you can.

She says she's got enough for the docs, but...

The Boy

The Boy is retarded.  In the old fashioned sense of the word.  His cognitive processes don't function, for the most part, at a normal level nor do they work in any coordinated manner.  He's got an effective IQ of around 40.  The emotional development of a 3 year old with the patience of a typical teenager.

For some things, he's actually past normal.  Puzzles are easy for him.

He can be violent.  The triggers to outbursts are not consistent to us, but probably are to him. If he is focused on something he's fully intent and the world ceases to exist outside that.

He has no concept of cause and effect.  When he wants, he wants now and brooks no delay.

He is strong, but not coordinated.

When he experiences his emotions, he experiences them all the way.  Nobody loves more fully, or hates more completely.  He can shift between them in a heart beat.

Although it's got some outward similarity to autism, it is not.  We've done twenty years of testing to find that out.  In fact, it is not anything you've ever heard of.  The same twenty years of testing have verified that too.

It's "The Boy Syndrome".  It combines a lot of other symptoms, but omits others, making it his alone.

It's a hard road being a parent of such a child.

People do not understand.

People shy away like he's contagious, he is not.

We feel so very alone dealing with him.

Sometimes we are reminded that we are not and that many are willing to help.

We thank you for extending that help!  Even if it is for something as silly as purple plastic parts for an AR.

How Dare You Wear That Hat While In Uniform

It's SPRING sir!

Rename

You might notice that Chevy doesn't make the Vega any more.  Nor the Chevette.  Nor the Cavalier.

Brand names of products that are unliked get changed to that the negative associations with them don't carry on to the *NEW* *IMPROVED* replacement in the line up.

You might notice that Chevy still makes the Suburban and Ford still makes the F-150.  They don't feel that the newer models need to disassociate themselves from the prior offerings.

The National Rifle Association has held that same name since 1871.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (2001) used to be Handgun Control Incorporated (1980) which used to be the National Council to Control Handguns (1974).  Popular things don't need to change their name to disassociate themselves from the negative perceptions of their prospective customers.

Operation RESET

Operation Reset is the plot of the Twilight 2000 module, Free City of Krakow.

It purports to be a device that can emulate just about any processor via a kind of giant cube of wires.

The author of the module didn't know near as much about how computers work as my players and suspension of disbelief kept them from really accepting the adventure hooks.

I realized, years later, that the MacGuffin doesn't have to be plausible.

That the thing depicted in Operation Reset doesn't work is irrelevant to the plot.  That something wired like a telephone switch board with drop wires cannot work like a microprocessor is even less relevant.

The explanation is the DIA couldn't afford to ignore such a device even if it was very unlikely to work, so an operation would be mounted to obtain it.  The materials in question would be sought until someone who was an expert could say, "WTF is this BS?"

Still, even that doesn't matter.

All the players need to know is that someone wants this stuff and they'll pay for it.

If I ever get a chance to run T2K again, I will remember this.

By the way, T2K works much better in GURPS than it ever did in its native system.  The module The Black Madonna failed utterly with the original rules.  GURPS has fright checks, and mechanics to force the atmosphere onto the players.  That enhances the effect rather than getting in its way.

Wow!

DL.  Thank you!

And of course you can shoot it when you're in town.  It might even hook you on 6.8.

PS: The Lovely Harvey, with tears in her eyes, thanks you and everyone who's responded, (AT and MK in particular).

New Location

Looks like MagPul is moving.

Where to?

Anyone know how big they are in sq-ft?

I gather that Colt abandoned plans to move into a 1,600 sq-ft facility in Kissimmee recently.

I am sure Florida would love to have them.

Just Me?

Is it just me or when someone calls something "bullet proof" you want to shoot it to see if it's true?

Donate Button Added

Should you be feeling generous and have Paypal.

Min Max

Learning about guns can give an advantage in some role playing universes.

More than a couple of times we'd made characters for a time period that was more advanced than the one we found ourselves.

I've got a whole list of when cartridges were introduced and more modern guns that fire them.

Such as an Anaconda in .45 Colt.

If I was willing to have custom ammo loaded, the .38 Super 1911 would be useful almost thirty years before its introduction because it shares brass with .38 ACP.

What I Did Today

Broke my toe.

Or at least jammed it but good.

It's been throbbing all day.

Bleg

Personal time.

My son is pretty severely retarded.

Basically the emotional development of a two year old in a 19 year old body.

This means that we're a single income family because someone has to stay home to tend to him.

Life is a challenge.  I'm rising to the challenge most of the time, but it's difficult.

We're doing OK on most things, but luxuries are a bit scanty.

Not asking for pity, like I said, we're doing OK.

A while ago I reported a challenge.  If someone were to buy me the purple stock set from Cav Arms, I'd put it on Tabitha.

He's found out about the challenge.  He said, "Me do for Daddy!"

Cue sad music and start the tears.

He doesn't have the money.  I'm out of horse trades to get them.

What I am asking the readers at large is for donations to the cause and to let him think he made it happen.  Which, I guess he will have since I'm relaying his wishes.

Email me at mcthag at gmail dot com to get information on how to contribute.

1911 Versus 1911A1

Just for FuzzyGeff.

Notice how the brand-new Government Model in .38 Super combines the features of both.

Saudi America

It occurs to me that it would not be a very long war to conquer Saudi Arabia and make it a US territory and start the process of making it a state.

The main objection I hear when I mention doing so is the entire Islamic world would then hate us.

"Then hate us?"

If we take over Saudi, Islam will not hate us any more than they do today.  They are already all in on hatin' themselves some 'Merkians.

Besides, the attacks from Saudi's neighbors will provide the excuses we need to take about a few more dictatorships whom hate us already.

Who will stop us?

Europe?  With what?

Russia?  We take the gulf states out of the oil to Europe business to devour it for our consumption, it just makes their oil more marketable.  It's a win for them too.

China?  Tell them if we don't do this, we'll have no choice but to default on those loans.

Anyone left who's more than a speed bump?

Besides, I seem to recall that in 1941 we went to war to eliminate exactly this sort of totalitarian threat to the world.  The people who made that call (Democrats no less) and who fought it are now known as the "Greatest Generation".

Rule of Thumb

Before eating someplace, check out the restroom.

The same people who clean there, clean the kitchen.

Rand Paul Throws 2016 Presidential Election

Story.

If there's one thing I know about pro-life candidates is that they do not have national appeal.

A candidate that says he will ban abortions will not be more than state senator.

Time and time again the voters make their voice heard on this, especially women.

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And by the way, Rand, the moment it's human is very much a religious question, you know, First Amendment territory.  Congress shall make no law... stuff.

And before anyone goes off on me about this, make sure that God's not involved in your decision process concerning the moment the zygotes become people.

I will not accept religious based arguments on this because I don't believe in your Gods.

I remain open minded enough to be swayed by a convincing and compelling argument, though.

I think that I mentioned, more than once, that I am not very conservative except on guns and economics.

I'll start.

It is a human being when the collection of cells can live in the atmosphere and process nourishment through its digestive tract.  Before that it's just human tissue.  Example, a heart is definitely human tissue, is it a person?

As long as people are getting pregnant when they don't want kids you're going to have abortions.  The procedure is literally medieval.  Just like banning guns will not eliminate guns, banning abortion doesn't stop it.  There's the pragmatic position.

The only way you're not risking having a kid is to not have sex with another person.  There a lots of ways to mitigate against it, but the exact same people who are so damn passionate about banning abortions are the people who also don't want any pubescent to learn about sex except as a DIY kit.  Biology wins here.  To override biology you need to present a compelling case as to why.  You may note that a woman who's getting an abortion has found such a reason.

I'll admit, it's a stupid form of birth control, but is your position helping or hurting?

Carry

Roberta X has started a meme with me at any rate.

A $20 is as "fat stacks" as I roll.

Watch?  My timepiece is more than a mere watch.

The Colt is immaculate because a) it's still pretty dang new and b) I take exceptionally good care of my guns.  Even the Springfield it replaces is barely showing wear on the edges and I carried that for most of six years.

The knife shows less wear than it has in this shot.

Fraud

I ordered a rock from McDonald's.

It was a sham.