Waco D+ 30 years

30 years ago agents of the ATF decided it'd be a good idea to assault David Koresh's place near Waco, Texas.

It did not go as scripted as "plan" reverted to its primary definition, "a list of things that doesn't happen."

It ended in a fire and many deaths.

The date of that fire led to more deaths two years later when the Alfred P Murrah federal building was truck-bombed by Timothy McVeigh.

To this day there are questions unanswered about the 28Feb93 raid.  There is speculation that spins into tinfoil hat conspiracy land...

But after Wu Ping Cough, conspiracies are sounding a lot more reasonable than they did thirty years ago.

I Actually Knew This One

The tachi was the primary combat sword of the Samurai until the 15th century.

The tachi and o-katana are even different enough from a katana to get different stats in GURPS.

"Katana" in Low-Tech is actually a tachi or o-katana.

"Late-Katana" is the shorter side-arm sword, or a true katana.

That's A Lot Of Hate

Scott Adams is in hot water for noticing something we're not supposed to notice.

In a Rasmussen poll some African Americans were asked, "Is it OK to be white?"

While 53% responded that it was...  26% said that it wasn't and 21% said they weren't sure.

Rasmussen is saying this represents how African Americans feel about white people with a ±3% margin of error.

So on the outside 23% of black people in America don't think it's OK to be white.

That's 10.3 million people who don't think it's OK to be white.

Almost 1 in 4 black people, demonstrably, hate white people.

Scott Adams said to get away from black people because, as a whole, they've become a hate group.

The numbers Rasmussen has published supports this conjecture.

Maybe there's more context, polls do a horrible job of actually getting people's true feelings about things.

But it's a data point that shouldn't be ignored just because the data is unpleasant.

By the way, the KKK has, maybe, 8 thousand members.  And I say maybe because it's rife with undercover agents trying to bust them.

The fucking Klan is considered a threat worth keeping full of undercover cops, but 10+ million people isn't?

The times sure be interestin' ain't they?

Vague

 

I was curious as to why the selector on Brenda was soft and vague, but the one on Olive was crisp and precise.

My first thought it was something about the selectors, but swapping them showed it was something else.

It's the detent.

The one on the left is from Olive and is the KE-Arms sourced one.  The one on the right is a standard detent from a Palmetto State Armory kit.

It's long been known that the spring pocket in the KP-15 is deeper than a normal AR lower and pistol grip.  The KE-Arms version makes up for that extra depth.

WHY the pocket is deeper... dunno why.

Good Idea

A nuclear power plant is identical to a fossil fuel plant from the steam lines to the generators.

The difference is how the steam is made.

That means that any coal or natural gas plant is already a 2/3 complete nuclear power plant.

I know it will work because the power plant North of here used to be nuclear and the powerhouse was converted to use steam from natural gas when Duke fucked up a refueling and cracked the containment doing maintenance when it was offline.

The turbines don't care what boiled the water.

The big barrier to adding a reactor and such to an existing plant is not technical.

It's political.

It's an embedded bureaucracy that's intended to make the construction so expensive that a profit will likely never be realized.

If I was president, I'd simply declare it a national defense item and start putting the same reactors as the Navy is using in subs and carriers (whichever design is appropriate) and have the damn Navy run them and slip around a couple of EPA regs because the DOD is exempt.

Only through super-human restraint would I not invite protesters to participate in protecting the environment from radiation personally.  I guess they could volunteer, I would make sure the seats were VERY comfy.

Don't Get Entitled Fuckstick

Dear President Zelinsky;

We're not really underwriting the defense of your nation for you.

We're doing it for nations we actually care about.

Like Poland.

Russia doing their "we need to utterly control all the nations on our borders to feel safe" thing, logically extends into invading Poland.

An invasion of Poland, as per NATO rules, demands a more active response from the US than an invasion of Ukraine.

What we're doing for Ukraine is also a lot cheaper than what we'd have to do in Poland.

So, we're fighting the invasion of Poland before it happens on the cheap.

It also means that we're not spending a penny more than we think we need to spend, so getting all demanding about it will just turn the American taxpayer completely against this limited support.

Keep in mind that the American taxpayer isn't all that thrilled about this in the first place.

Being a bitch about it and going all entitled could leave you begging Putin for terms.

Merging

I've tossed magic into historical settings a couple of times.

However, I tend to avoid moments where magic would have made a big difference in history, or put a handwave explanation as to why magic didn't make history come out different.

But...

What if the GURPS magic system was in place for the French Revolution?

Or even AD&D's system.

Resurrection is possible, if you've enough money and access to the appropriate spellcasters.

Changes The Scarlet Pimpernel a bit, don't it?

Confirmed My Bias

There's hardly a thing on YouTube that's worth wasting more than 40 minutes with.

Especially what amounts to a podcast of two or more Youtubers (a form of dancing monkey to be sure) babbling about whatever they're on about.  Even more so if it's a live stream.

Even, or perhaps especially, if they put out good content alone.

I feel like I've listened to enough of them now to just skip over.

Test Embed

 

Benign Neglect

It's a bad plan, but I tend to not shoot the gun I carry all the time because I'm carrying it...

I need not have worried overmuch because it shoots just fine.

I put 100 rounds through the Sheild Plus today in "right out of pocket" condition.

Only three malfunctions.

Two failures to lock to the rear on the 10-round magazine.  One fail to go bang.

The fail to go bang is ammo, because there was a normal indentation in the primer.  A second try with that round went bang.

I am thinking that the failure to lock is a magazine problem because the 13-rounders work just fine.

This 10 rounder has done this off and on every time I get more than 50 rounds through her.

Not the worst kind of malfunction to have.

Groups with the Tula Maxx ammo was... Meh.

It shoots much tighter with Winchester White Box.  Worth the extra money, I says.

Remember What I Said About The Melting Pot?

There's a plan afoot to move people of a particular skin tone from the places where they are now to the suburbs.

The confusion between correlation and causation here is that living in the suburbs causes people to be more successful.

I think the causal relationship is actually that people who earn their way to the burbs are successful and it's the choice of successful people to live there.

Moving someone who couldn't earn their way there doesn't necessarily mean they will thrive in the new environment because they have not adopted the culture needed to succeed there.

It's not skin tone scaring people in the burbs, but culture conflict.

Forcing these cultures into the same proximity will cause conflict and traditional Americans are getting very close to not caring what the world thinks of them when the decide the conflict is existential.

I have a local example.

Two doors down and across the street I watched a dark complexioned neighbor dress down his daughter for her choice of a gangsta type boyfriend.  The shouting amounted to, "I did not move away from that shit for YOU to bring it home with you!"

He's a very good neighbor.

But he bought the house on his own, it wasn't leveraged to make some white liberal, who lives in a decidedly urban (and probably gentrified) neighborhood, feel better about themselves.

I wonder if the real drive to move black people out into the burbs has more to do with getting access to new places to gentrify so as to make their urban dreams more pleasant.  Why should the way THEY vote cause THEM to have problems when they can shove the problem they've carefully nurtured to fruition onto someone else.

I'm Not Fat

It's not a gut, it's an organic AIWB retention device!

(Spoiler: I'm fat)

It's Good News

The IP lawsuit by GWACS vs KE Arms et al has been dismissed!

That's excellent news for the entire 2A community!

Mundanities

The recliner in my room, which was the only place I could sleep when healing from me killing The Precious tends to get covered in...  Whatever.

Today, I dug it out.

I have a chair again!

I promptly put a shirt in it.

SIGH.

Some things are meant to be catch-alls.

A Distraction

 

I just enjoyed this song from the movie.

It's a lot flatter on YouTube than the soundtrack.  Worth the $1.29 for the mp3, I think.

I like finding songs like this which are hard as fuck, but don't contain a single electrical instrument.

Let's Hear It For Servo Focus

 

In this little pic you might not be able to see, but I caught the prop-tip vortex spirals!

Link to full size.

Also in this shot.

 

Full size link.

Shut Down And Touch And Go

Here's Diamond Lil shutting starting to shut down.  Not sure why they ran #2 longer than the other three.

The Coast Guard was doing touch and goes while we were waiting in line to get inside.  Since we were, practically, standing at the end of the runway I had a really good angle for it.

Then there was a Beech SNB selling rides.

What I Did Today

The Commemorative Air Force brought their B-24A cum C-87A "Diamond Lil" to Brooksville and flew it around some.

Being the frugal bastards we are, Marv and I just took the self-guided ground tour.

The B-24A is much smaller inside than a B-17G.

 

This Guy Is Hilarious

 This is the most sober I've ever seen his analysis of military tech, so this particular vid isn't really all that funny, but it's at least an attempt to be fair about what Russia's capabilities are.

I Should Not Have Done That

Bloke on the Range has a video up talking about the litigation between GWACS Armory and KE Arms et al.

Someone said that Karl and Russell weren't given the opportunity to defend themselves in the Arfcom thread that got locked and got themselves banned with.

Au Contraire!

I read that damned thread.  And the other three they participated in.

While not the only parties guilty of moving the goalposts, they never did answer some of the direct questions put to them.

And I said so in the comments to Bloke's vid.

I got replied to.

If I am charitable, they asserted that Karl and Russel didn't need to reply to some of the accusatory "questions."

But those aren't the questions I was saying remained unanswered.

I pointed that out.

Hit send just as I realized...  It was a waste of time to engage there.

I don't think the person I was replying to cares.

My 1911 Likes And Dislikes

 

I've been issued a couple.

I've owned a few.

They fit my hand well and I shoot them well.

I've, thankfully, had no problems with any I've owned.

My last issue gun kept shedding its front sight because the unit armorer didn't know how to stake a new one in.  I don't know either, but it's not my job.

I like how they are slim.

I dislike that they are heavy.

I think that I shoot them well enough that their lower capacity compared to the soulless plastic that has supplanted it doesn't matter.  But I prefer more chances to hit the target afforded by the newer designs.

I must have the correct sized meat hooks that the grip safety never gave me a bit of trouble.

1911's have soul.  As does an HP-35.

There's even soul in a metal framed Smith auto, like the 59.

I like the storied history of the thing and how it remains in production despite the advances in technology and the naysayers.

I like how you can make it completely yours from a list of parts that's at least as big as what you can do with an AR, even if it lacks the Lego-like simplicity and ease of installation.

Socket Two Me

I have a Magpul MS3 Sling that often resided on Dottie, but normally sat in the closet.

At one time I had three of my guns configured for it, and Dottie was the only for a while.

Now Olive is configured for it with the addition of QD sockets in the provided holes of the KP-15 lower.

I have a socket on both side by combining a Magpul Type 1 (passenger) and Type 3 (driver) QD socket with a washer to give more stand-off on the Type 1 side.

KE Arms makes their own version of this socket, but only allows for single side mounting.  Which is fine for 95% of the time, but occasionally it's handy to hang it from the passenger side socket because it hangs just a little different.

To me, the whole point of this QD thing is to be able to rapidly reconfigure it.  And idea that the MS series of slings supports.

Also KE Arms charges too much for shipping!

PS the Type 3 was a deeper version of the Type 2 socket that has threads in it.  The Type 1 and Type 2 are the same depth with the 2 being threaded and the 1 having just a hole.  The Type 3 has been discontinued.  To make this work with parts you can still get, use a Type 1 and 2 as shown in the instructions with a washer under both sockets and using the appropriate screw as needed.

They Said It Couldn't Be Done

I installed the LaRue MBT-2S trigger from Dottie into Brenda.

It works with both versions of the KE Arms "optimized" safeties, despite KE Arms saying that they don't.

BULLY!

I am still not completely happy with a match trigger because it feels so alien compared to a bog standard AR trigger.

I cannot deny how it tightens up the groups.

Tinker Tank

Made some small changes to my Republic Fighter Tank MOC.

Improved the pintle for the small gun.

Did it to the OG Fighter Tank too...

Made some structural changes to the bustle area to make it less fragile.  This also aided the aesthetic, especially with the hatch closed.

Oh, and I changed the crew to be from the 501st Legion to match my AT-TE.

At Least We've Shifted The Language

Another Permitless Bill

A month ago, these bills would have been reported as, "Constitutional Carry."

They are now being, accurately, reported as, "Permitless Carry." 

We've forced a change in the terms being used and that will put Governor DeSantis' feet to the fire since he promised Constitutional carry.

WHAT!?!

I pick what Lego sets I get based on what delights me.

It's mostly been Star Wars sets lately.

It turns out that some of the minifigs that came with those sets are insanely expensive.

The original Jango Fett that came with the Episode 2 Slave 1 is over $500.

The fucking head is $100 by itself.

What the actual fuck?

I'm seriously considering cashing in next month at a convention.  Even $300 for him would be a deal for me.

Poong-San Defense

Because a casing was caught in my jeans cuff, I got to look at the headstamp of the ammo that Olive doesn't seem to like.

PSD 21.

That's Korean military M193.  I have no idea how I came to have 15 rounds of it in an old Colt 20-rounder.

It could be PMC X-Tac 55gr.  It's labeled as 5.56mm (M193) on the box.

Where's The Hate Crime Charge

 Mother shot in back in parking lot in front of her family.

Alleged murderer is in custody.

But I cannot help but think that, had the races been reversed, there'd be some hate crime charges here too.

Justice needs to do a better job of being blind.

Naked Photography

Shooting in the raw doesn't mean you don't wear clothes.

RAW photography is what it is.

It's a format that doesn't signal process your image.

It takes up more space than the jpg I'm currently using.

It would cut down the number of pictures on my card from thousands to fewer thousands.

The thing is, I don't photoshop to make my pictures better.  I just take the best image I can, in jpg, and call it good.

Yes, this will limit my skills.

I accept that.

I do not, however, condemn anyone who is shooting in RAW.

What is odd is being condemned for not shooting RAW.

I haven't needed to.  I am mostly satisfied with the pictures I'm taking and where I am lacking, it's still within the realm of the camera's settings to fix... I just need to be more adept at setting those settings and picking the right mode.

I am not, just in case it is not obvious, a professional photographer.

I'm not even a hobbiest!

But I like taking pictures.

I am impressed by the photos people who ARE shooting RAW and using photoshop to edit.  They put a lot more work into getting their shot than I do.

They're also spending a lot more money than I do because they get paid for their work.

Were I to attempt to jump from where I am to pro, I'd be investing in a better body, glass, computer and software to take the shots that someone would be willing to pay me for.

And I would, almost certainly, start shooting in RAW.

And Nobody Commented

 Twelve plus years ago, I asked people to state what they liked or disliked about the 1911 and why.

I specifically said they were allowed to tell anyone else they were wrong.

Nobody stepped up.

Is it because I took away the power to condemn someone for liking what they did not?

Angles And Dangles

Olive's KP-15 lower was the first complete lower I've purchased...  Um...  Ever.

That meant that someone else picked the parts for me.

So far the only thing I've actually changed is to use the standard buffer and spring I got from Brownell's from the slightly heavier buffer that KE Arms included.  The Brownell's one feels smoother in an ineffable way.

The safety is messing with me a bit because it's two things I've never had before.

First is it's mirrored ambidextrous.

Second is it's 45° throw.

Driver's side shooty:

Driver's side no-shooty:

Passenger side shooty:

Passenger side no-shooty:

I admit, it's quick, but it's unfamiliar.

It can be changed to a 90° throw, but that puts the passenger side lever into my hand in a distracting way when shooting dextrous.

I learned to work an AR safety with the edge of my hand when shooting sinistrous, so I am not sold on the passenger side lever yet because I don't tend to send my thumb to look for the switch.

I'm not sure this is a solution to a problem or a solution looking for a problem.

Speaking Of Shooting

The Lovely Harvey went shooting alone on Friday.

She still gets tired quickly because she's still building strength, but her groups were the smallest yet.

I think it helped a lot that I wasn't there making her self conscious about how she was shooting.

We might have a, "Thag thinks he's helping, but he's really making Harvey nervous," dynamic going on.

She's still biasing her shots to the left, so I think we'll knock her rear sight over a bit and see if that moves the group.

And Another Thing

I am not entirely happy with my 5.56 grouping from yesterday.

I am hoping that it's because I am not very experienced at shooting past 25 yards.

For years and years to shoot past that distance I needed to drive for hours.  Most of the time the limit at that range was the 50 yard line because of a shortage of RO's to keep an eye out for the people walking back from checking their targets.

Couple that with the range shutting down just about the time I'd be able to get there...

I stayed local and shot shorter.

I am endeavoring to persevere, though.

Some of it is not being able to see.

Some of it is not getting good and steady resting on my range bag.

Ammo might be an issue.  The gun might simply dislike what I'd brought.

I definitely need practice.

Just Step Into The Light Already

I am so sick of hearing about Jimmy Carter.

I have been sick of hearing about Jimmy Carter LITERALLY for decades.

It's bad enough he was a poor president, it's that he inspired a "hold my beer" movement to be worse.

Once he finally croaks, he can fade into obscurity and be remembered for the malaise he led and for being the person that got America fed up enough with the establishment to elect an actor of all things to right the ship of state.

If only the Reagan administration had not made so many concessions to the welfare grift to get the Cold War funded and won.

A Bit More Detail

 Ace lays out why it's not a good idea to listen to Mr Hersh, especially when it's a sensational story.

It's important to remember that Hersh can only give you the correct time when it coincides with the stopped clock.

The Crushing Recoil Of 5.56x45mm

 

Marv pummeled me with his muzzle brake because he's a pussy.

I've never known someone so recoil averse than he is.

On the up side, it does appear to be working.  That gun ain't jumping.

That'll Do

Brenda in 6.8x43mm SPC is a shooter!

Ditching the KE Arms buffer for a generic H weight give perfect ejection.

100 yards and it's all in the circle on a half-size three-quarter-size IDPA target.

Olive...  Well her upper was originally zeroed for SS109 ammo and the range we go to doesn't allow that ammo any more.  So she shoots off to one side with 55gr... something.

1x magnification did me no favors either.  IIRC this was not very accurate ammo in the first place.  It was what was in the 20-round magazine I keep in my rifle bag.  Have to hit the range with known good ammo before I blame the gun or accept the blame for myself.

Do Try This At Home

 

4 Slices bacon, chopped 2x 12oz packages of kielbasa, sliced 1/2” thick 1 lb. Hamburger 1 white onion, diced 2-3 cloves minced garlic 3 Tbsp flour 1-1/2 tsp chili powder 1x 14.5 oz. Can crushed tomatoes 2x 16 oz. Baked beans 1x 7 oz. Can chopped green chiles, undrained. 1x 15 oz. Can sweet corn, undrained. 2 large russet potatoes, chopped into 1/2” cubes. 1 cup water. Parsley for appearance Salt and pepper to taste. Crisp bacon, set aside. Brown kielbasa in bacon grease, set aside. Brown burger with onion, add garlic at end. Add salt, pepper, flour and chili powder.  Stir and cook 1 min. Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 1 hour.

Interesting Read

Prescient too.

Read the whole thing. 

The Seven Factors
These key "failure factors" are:

• Restrictions on the free flow of information.
• The subjugation of women.
• Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
• The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
• Domination by a restrictive religion.
• A low valuation of education.
• Low prestige assigned to work

How many are in play here in the US today?

Let's Be "Racist"

The more I dig into the problem, the more convinced I am that much of "racism" is conflict of culture and not any actual failing of any particular string of genes.

Are blacks stupid?  Are whites smart?

Probably not.

But to make a bad analogy:  How far are you going to get using Apple Basic to program an IBM?

It's not going to work.

Western Civilization is a framework of values.  Use that framework and you're guaranteed a level of success and comfort within it.

Perhaps not great wealth, but you will not starve.

There are some cultures which cannot work within that framework.

There are some which almost work within it.

Because Western Civ is a culture of education and science, it tends to accumulate wealth and advance technology.

That wealth has allowed some "almost" cultures to exist within it.  It's propped up more than a couple non compatible cultures too.

The people in these cultures are currently successful in spite of their native culture, not because of it, thanks to the largess generated by The West.

The problem is they think they are successful because they've been told all cultures are equivalent.

The gigantic problem is that all cultures are not equivalent.

It didn't used to be a problem.

Once upon a time there was a vast, and brutal, education program running in America which took people from other cultures and got them up to speed with Western Civ.

It was called "The Melting Pot."

If you ask a teacher today, they will describe something sitting on a stove making a stew-like mixture.

That wasn't the original meaning.

It was a crucible.

The good from the outside culture was burned out and absorbed into the, stronger, alloy of American culture.  The bad, the slag, was discarded.

Our long, festering, issue in America is and has been actively preventing black people from assimilating into American culture.

This is where there's genuine racism.

But you didn't need to be a racist to see that a slave assimilated into western culture wouldn't be a good manual laborer.

But!  BUT!  BUT!  Western civilization, with its idealism and embracing of freedom and liberty had slowly been coming to the idea that slavery is wrong.

What better way to convince yourself that it was still OK to keep that peculiar institution going than to promote the idea that the slaves were incapable of being equal members of American civilization?

An idea promoted so well that the very people most oppressed by the concept have bought into it so fully I despair at the task of fixing that lie.

The idea that it's their genes and not the subculture is something that creeps into, otherwise, rational people's thoughts.

Why?

Because membership in this subculture requires one to be of the no longer enslaved race.

How does this subculture react to its members coming to the same conclusion as I have?  It curses them and tries to drag them back in, like crabs in a cookpot keeping others from escaping if they are doomed.

It's ingrained.

The good news is that it wouldn't take but two generations to unfuck.

BUT! (again with the buts)

We have to decide to fire up the melting pot and let it work its brutal magic.  And make no mistake, it will be brutal.

At the end, though, we could have black skin have no more meaning than having auburn hair or green eyes.

We've come so very close more than once.

Every time it's been actively sabotaged by "people" with strong incentives to keep the status quo.  People who have convinced themselves that blacks are incapable of being full members of society because of genetic failings.  Gee, that sounds familiar, Mr Crow!

While we're on the topic of bigotry and why I think that the concept has merit:

Italians, Irish and Catholics.

They were subjected to as bad (some even say worse) discrimination and abuse than any free-black person endured.  In some cases, being Irish was worse than being a black slave.  A slave, being property, had some value to their owner.  Irish laborers were considered disposable.  If one were to die, you'd shrug and get two more off the dock.  YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM!!!

But the Irish went from filthy Micks to identifiable surname in about two generations.

TWICE!

Italians, same thing.

Catholicism took JFK to assimilate, but that had more to do with the idea of obeying The Pope than a real hatred.  Americans used to be distrustful of someone who had extra-territorial allegiances.

We know, in our hearts, that it's possible.

PS: Reading the history of a couple of places in Africa convinces me even more that it's a culture issue than anything else.  Rhodesia might be another example of where it was actively prevented from happening.  The white government repeatedly stated that the black population was "not ready" for full enfranchisement.  That they lacked the education to handle the responsibility of the vote.

Well, Zimbabwe kind of underscores what they said would happen if majority rule was implemented before such education was disseminated.  But, then, Communists never did value education when there was a population to subjugate.