Why? Is Slavery A Problem There?

California is poised to create a slave reparations task force.

I am wondering why.

I just double checked and California was a free state from the beginning and stayed with The Union for the Civil War.

Why would California have a need to compensate slaves for their servitude?

Unless we're talking about the ungrateful descendants of former slaves who took the gift of freedom and...

Did nothing with it.

Unless we're talking about the real effects from discrimination stemming from Jim Crow laws.

 But, again, why would California need to have reparations for Jim Crow laws they never instituted.

Jim Crow laws are a Southern Democrat thing.

But even Jim Crow reparations are bullshit.

Since the Civil Rights Act dozens of special carve outs have been made for people of color to give them a leg up against Evol Whitey to no avail.

Maybe there'd be a point talking about reparations from Equal Opportunity and the corrosive effect it's had on people of color.  But if we start talking about reparations for the harm done by EO, we're going to be paying out to white people harmed by losing the job to an under-qualified candidate who happened to have darker skin.

The Difference

On the left: Violence is increased until a fight starts.

On the right: Violence is applied until the fight stops.

It's the difference between a switch and a rheostat.

Overheard At Dinner

My buddy JT was lamenting how far off the reservation his little brother had gotten with regards to being a flaming liberal.

Apparently the brother was going off about all manner of Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police and JT was relating the story.

I quipped, "Tell him to be careful, people like him are getting shot for it now."

Five Branches

There is a local brewery named Five Branches.

I've been in there exactly one time and had one beer that I didn't particularly care for, but friends of mine have had better luck so I'm not writing them off just yet.

Being a bit slow on the uptake, it took me a moment to realize, while looking at the decor, that the "5 Branches" are the five branches of the military and not five branches of a tree or river.

I can be taught!

I did get the owner to flash between anger and outright belly laugh when I asked to confirm it was the five branches of the military by naming them.

Army
Navy
Coast Guard
Coastal Artillery
Lighthouse Service

The Marines not being a branch, despite their excellent PR team.

The Air Force, having left the Army, is no longer in the military...

It's all in good fun.  The service rivalries are not very serious really.

They apparently have a wall where you can buy a veteran a drink and they move a magnet from one side to the other to show that there's a drink for a vet available.  The vet gets a buy-one-get-one deal when they come in.

Taking Up A Collection

Mr Willard has slipped and fallen and broke his leg.

I'm pretty certain he's got either limited or no insurance to pay for this.

If you hit the tip jar I will see it on to him.

We'd prefer he'd not have to sell off the gun collection (again) to pay for this because one always loses one shirt selling in a hurry.

Let The Lawsuits Flow

In DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services and Castle Rock v. Gonzales the US Supreme Court has held that government has no requirement to protect any individual.

It's commonly said that these cases establish that the police only have the responsibility to protect society at large and keep the general peace...

A responsibility they appear to have abdicated in several jurisdictions.

I wonder if a suit can proceed on the grounds that the local police failed to do anything to protect society at large or keep the general peace.

Important Safety Tip

We know the four rules.

When someone is assaulting you, your finger will be on the trigger because the gun is loaded, it's pointed at something you wish to destroy and it's right there.

Your assailant.

But you don't wish to fire because you don't want to shoot until it's absolutely certain you need to.

And they grab your gun and pull it towards themselves.

The gun moves and your trigger finger doesn't... and/or... your trigger finger will clench down as you tighten your grip to retain the weapon.

Your assailant has, in essence, shot themselves with your gun.

Dear Assailants:

Don't try to grab guns away from armed people.  You'll get shot.

I think this is what happened in the Ahmaud Arbery shooting and it appears to have happened in Kenosha at least once, perhaps twice.

ORLY NAUW

Most people found positive for Wu Ping Cough weren't positive enough to warrant being called positive.

Read, not sick OR contagious.

Pure Nostalgia

Having converted Twlight: 2000 to GURPS twice, I appreciate this effort at reviving the game.

I love the (extra cost) metal box!

Six Legged Motherfucker

Yesterday while doing the down-spouts there was a sharp pain in my ring finger.

I was drilling out a rivet, so I attributed it to a bit of hot metal.

Today my finger was swollen just enough to make my wedding ring uncomfortably snug.

I just put two and two together...

There was a wasp nest in the gutter.

I think I got stung by one of the little striped bastards.

We got revenge with both bug spray and by throwing the segment they'd occupied into the trash.

Legos And Home Improvement

My Lego AT-AT arrived today!

I pre-ordered it months ago, so I had to put it together the instant it arrived.

I've been after a Battle of Hoth AT-AT since I was priced out of Kenner's offering in 1982.

Once I was finished with that, I had to finally replace the down spouts on the front of the house which have been in a state of jury-rig for... mumble... years.

Fixed properly now, and just in time for some rain to test them out!

And since I didn't have to use my AK, today is a good day.

Donut Operator Breakdown

He condenses the timeline pretty well, I think.


Update 2345 30AUG20:
He published an addendum to the above video with some corrections and additions.

Ruh Roh Raggy

Joe Ruby, one of the co-creators of Scooby Doo has passed on.

I got many fun hours watching re-runs of Scooby Doo on afternoon TV and Saturday mornings.

Because There's A Bit Of Doubt

Click to embiggen.  Mr Grosskreutz already has the pistol in his hand during his "hands up" ruse.

He's seen drawing it earlier on the approach to Mr Rittenhouse (ignore the felon part, his worst conviction appears to be misdemeanor A for drunkenly carrying a gun).

After being shot, he can't drop it because of the injury.

The More Footage I See

This is not a race war.

75% of the assailants in Kenosha are white.

100% of the assailants who absorbed a bullet were white.

What's the phrase?  Talcum X?

Interesting Discussion And Fisk

Gene Pool Bleach

Regardless of the legality of the shoot...

The three people shot in Kenosha weren't exactly choir boys.

The first one snuffed at the car dealership was a registered felony sex offender.

Number two, the "peaceful" skateboarder liked domestic abuse.

The third guy, the "paramedic" was the only non-felon shot.

I don't think the world is worse for their passing.

Race: Mutt

While I play up the Scottish side of my heritage... which is really English...

It's a long sordid story with an offer of lands and titles in England in exchange for support in some silly war and my ancestors being left with ONLY the English lands and titles when the dust settled.  The family name even changed from it.

But those folks moved to America and married.

We've a family legend of a Japanese grandparent.  I've met her.  She was OLD when my great-grandparents were merely old.  I am not sure if she's a blood relative or not.  She doesn't seem to turn up on Find A Grave or Ancestry sites...

We've got WOP.  We've got Norwegians.  We've got Germans.

If it weren't for the privacy issues, I'd do a 23&Me.

But what I want on my government form isn't "Causcasian" or "White" but "Admixture American".

It's Not All I Do

I have been reading gunwriters for as long as I've been fascinated with firearms.

I have been reading carwriters for about as long.

Both have a fascination with spending my money.

Training, classes, accessories, upgrade and replace everything.

It hit me today.

They don't do anything else.

At least they don't spend money on anything else.

Not only that, they get some of it for free or are actually paid to do it thanks to their job writing about it.

It's how they can attend multiple, expensive training seminars every year.

It's how their gun can swing with the winds of popularity.

It's how they can embrace the latest and greatest accessories which make everything all better.

Gun stuff is all they do.

It's not wrong, but it warps their perspective.  I strongly suspect that even without the paying gig writing about it, they'd still spend all their money on it.

Honestly, who else would strive to write about guns, and whom else would a magazine hire?

The thing is...

I do other things that I spend my money on than firearms and training.

Wanna know what people like me have noticed?

The cycle.

X is best, buy X because Y.

Y is wrong!  Buy Z because A.

A is wrong!  Buy R because K.

K is wrong and Y was right all along...

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Over and over.

Dateline Kenosha

Rioters: "Fuck tha police!  Defund tha police!"

Rioters try to steal from actively defended place.

Rioters get shot and killed.

Rioters: "Call the police!  Dial 911!"

Pick one, leftists.  Not that you're going to like either choice.

On one hand the cops show up and enforce the law.  And you all go to jail for multiple felonies related to your rioting.

On the other hand the cops don't show up and the citizenry cum militia just shoots your stupid asses dead.

On the gripping hand, Officer the militia is actually mentioned in the Constitution (you're not) so it kinda has the right (pun) of way.  If you decide to choose sides, choose wisely.

A Primer For The Creation Of Racists

When a career criminal, of a particular race gets ventilated by the cops.

When people of a particular race elevate the deceased to pillar of society status.

When these people of a particular race burn, loot and murder in response.

When nothing is done to punish the people of a particular race burning, looting and murdering.

When punitive measures are taken against the victims of the burning, looting and murdering before they can begin to put their lives back together.

When the victims of the burning, looting and murdering are punished for defending themselves.

You get racism.

Congratulations.

But it's your bed to lie in.  Sleep well.

What Happens

What happens when the police have been defunded?

When there really aren't any cops coming?



Who but we?

Ich Keine Nazi!

Dear miss Hill,

First off, you're a sportsball caster.  Only a film critic is a lower form of Dancing Monkey.

As a subtype of Dancing Monkey, your opinions on anything are at BEST suspect, and routinely invalid.

To your point that the US is as bad as National Socialist Germany?

The fact that you can compare the US to Nazi Germany and not disappear like an incriminating email to Hillary Clinton says more about your stupidity and ignorance of history than anything I can come up with on my own.

Not that you'll bother to open your horizons past whatever j-school propaganda mill indoctrinated you; White Rose.

If the US was actually under the thrall of a modern fascist or national socialist American worker's party that needed sportsball equal opportunity hires to save us from... your trite little diatribe would send you to a short show trial and a quick death.

I know j-school didn't properly prepare you to examine history or facts, but you really do need to get out more.

You're wealthy enough, I suggest a trip to Poland.  The city of Oświęcim in particular.

Most of my readers have already seen what I did there.

But, Ms Hill, if you'd like to discuss parallels with Fascist Italy or National Socialist Germany, I think you should brace yourself for how similar the behavior of Black Lives Matter and Antifa are to Mussolini's Blackshirts and Hitler's Brownshirts.

It's not me or my people trying to recreate Kristallnacht or get the Reichstag lit.

I suppose I should warn you, though I do so reluctantly because I really want to see people like you get what you deserve good and hard.  The people you've aligned yourself with are known for kinetic downsizing once the useful idiots have outlived the useful part.

The true ironic tragedy here is that you think it will be ME and folks like me who will take you to a small room with a sturdy beam and a strong wire loop.  It's your fellows who do that, not me.

You're far better off with people like me in charge.  In fact, aren't you a wealthy media persona thanks to the fact that you're living in a nation that's as bad as Nazi Germany?

I know you're not capable of answering that question.

I Suspect Bitterness

Some RINOs have decided to no longer keep up the facade and openly support the Democrats.

Yeah, Flake, we knew.

No, Flake, we're not shocked.

It's not Republicans for Biden, it's Deposed RINOs for Biden.

File Under Things I Want Cops To Do

h/t 90 Miles from Tyranny.

Order Direct

The Lego I wanted went live on Lego's site at midnight.

I was waiting to pounce!

Free shipping and a bonus kit.

Wins all around!

Considering Amazon and Target appear to be completely sold out of both kits and Wal Mart doesn't seem to have taken delivery of any locally yet, I'm quite happy to have snagged them when I could.

They were released in Europe about a month ago and those sold out in less than two weeks.

Probably to people who wanted to scalp them to the US market.

Update:

The AAT kit 75283 now shows, "Backorders accepted, will ship by September 11, 2020."  I expect the 501st Battle Pack 75280 will show the same before I leave for the VA.

Update 2:

Amazon has the AAT "in stock" with a delivery date of 12th to 25th of September.  Lego has changed to, "Backorders accepted, will ship within 60 days."

Update 3:

Amazon and Lego now show the AAT as out of stock.  This is the very first time I've wanted a set that was in this high of demand, and I'm surprised that I managed to snag one for MSRP.

Stop Teasing Us

Kim Jong Un in coma?

North Korea needs a good, long succession battle that substantially weakens them and breaks communism there for good.

We're getting one in November, so why should the Norks be left out?

It's Telling

When people move from one cultural area to another for the food, but there's no famine in their homeland, you know their native cuisine is pretty bad.

It says something about Scotland that many moved south to get English food.

This Wouldn't Happen If Dick Cheney Was Still Vice President

BOTH Laura and Marco are going to miss New Orleans and look to hit Texas instead.

In 2005 I was assured that Katrina only hit New Orleans because of Republican hatred of peeples du colour.

Well, here we are almost four years into a Republican term and New Orleans hasn't been devastated by a hurricane even once.

Almost as if the party in power has nothing to do with the weather.

Friend Guns

Steel!

Wood!

Sometimes pig's teeth compressed into a simulacrum of ivory!

These guns have SOUL!

And half of them are out of production because they cannot be made economically.

The Browning Hi-Power and the Colt Super 38 both shoot well enough that I was asked to stop bringing them to a local bowling pin shoot.  The only other person to be told this was using a slide mounted red-dot on a Glock 17.

The Hi-Power and the Pocket Hammerless are out of production.

Yes, there's a Turkish clone of the Hi-Power, but it's not finished to near the same degree as this Belgian example.  That's a testimony to how hard the corners need to be cut to make a sale in today's market; and the Tisas made guns aren't being marketed as a competitor to Glock, S&W or SIG.  They're being sold to romantics who want a steel 9mm and can't afford the eye-watering price of a real FN-Browning.

I am often torn between my love of these old fashioned steel guns and the brutal efficiency of modern plastic fantastics.

I know what I carry and it's resilient polymer rather than corrosion prone steel.

Technology marches on and it doesn't care about our emotions or feels.

I gave up on the "romance" of carburetors for sequential, port fuel injection years ago.

I even learned about metal injection molding to see where it could be appropriately used (and where it shouldn't).

I'm a romantic at heart and my feels want a full-steel gun to be better than a souless plastic monstrosity at the same or lower price... but it won't be.

WWSD

Ian, Karl and Russel have a project in combination with Brownell's which asks the question, "What would Gene Stoner do if he was making the AR today?"

Fairchild Aircraft created a division which asked this question in the early 1950's...

Well, they asked, "What kind of service rifle can we come up with using all of the material advances of the past decade?" when they created Armalite.

Eugene Stoner was one of Armalite's engineers.

What would Stoner do?

Design something in 7.62x51mm NATO.

Stoner is the brain behind the AR-10 and AR-16.

The 5.56 versions are known as AR-15 and AR-18; and those are James Sullivan's.

Since the WWSD 2020 project is in 5.56, it's really, "What Would Sullivan Do?"

But neither of them would be gravitating to a 16" barrel.

5.56 does best out of the 20" tube the round was designed for, even if it's adequate from 14.5".

They might compromise with an 18" barrel (like Galil and Mini-14) but I don't think they'd go 16" or shorter.

It's a neat project, but it should be noted that while WWSD 2020 is going with a polymer, fixed-stock lower:  Eugene and James went with a folding stock when they revisited service rifles...

Glock Gen 2 Prototype!

Found this on GunBroker. (Link might be long dead, but was live at time of posting)

Their description:

"This is an interesting Glock. It looks to be a proto type of the Gen 1 with the Gen 2 style grip.Please look at the single pin in the frame."

I think this seller is confused about the Glock generations.

My 1994 made Glock 17 Gen 2 is also single pin!  Well, both have two pins, there's one in the back too.

I love how people try to make something special out of something mundane.

Quote Of The Day

In a thread asking, "Have you read Atlas Shrugged?"

"It is Russian literature, written in English." -- NuyaBidness

I think we can drop the mic on this one.

Beat The RealLive Gunwriter To The Punch

Remember me talking about oddball calibers?

Tam's only a week or so behind me.

Noble Savages My Ass

Did you know that all of the still existing Indian tribes displaced or committed genocide to claim the land they're currently claiming as their ancestral homes?

You know, places like the "sacred" Black Hills?  So sacred that the Sioux are just the 3rd of 4 people to claim it?  The USA being #4.

They moved west and did to the people already there what they whine about white people doing to them.

The Sioux still exist.  They didn't wipe the Cheyenne out, but there's at least one tribe of native American who didn't survive the Cheyenne moving into the area.

Can we talk about existential conflicts?

Almost all of the senior leadership of the US Army during The Indian Wars were veterans of The US Civil War.

Union veterans.

Do you think that slavery might have been a triggering item for these officers?

The plains Indians were slavers.

ALL OF THEM.

No.  ALL of them.

Hitting the neighbors to steal women and children for slaves is part of their culture.

It's a reason that several Army officers felt that genocide, though the term had not yet been coined, was the only way that peace would ever be achieved.

That peace was eventually achieved without killing every last Indian is a testimony to the compassion of The United States.

The history isn't even difficult to find, despite active revisionism being done at some universities.

Playing In The Rain

We've transitioned from the orange sodium vapor street lights to white LED.

I'm having a nostalgia moment because when I was a kid we had mercury vapor street lights and those were white light.

Seeing my neighborhood illuminated in white light, and being able to actually SEE the neighborhood at night, is triggering so many memories.  Good ones, actually.

They Need A Rosa Parks

Bureau of Land Management Burn Loot and Murder Black Lives Matter really needs a Rosa Parks.

Someone who gets killed by the cops who, not only, was demonstrably doing nothing wrong when killed but also someone without a criminal history as long as my arm.

For most of the people watching the riots following the death of some career criminal we're like, "maybe the world is better off without them."

These people whose deaths are triggering these riots are NOT pillars of the community.

Maybe we shouldn't be shocked that their lives came to a bad end.  Maybe we aren't all that surprised.

I get the sentiment that every life should matter, but for your life to matter you have to actually matter to society.

Criminal lives don't matter to society, regardless of their race.

Criminal lives might matter to their friends and family, but that's not society.

A question I have asked about this is, "if they see themselves in the place of the dead criminal, why do they so relate to them?"

Is it because they're also criminals?

Let's face it, if it were just about race then it would be dirt simple to find some truly innocent people who've been murdered by the cops.

Also, addressing the racist elephant in the room.  When a black criminal finally comes to the logical end of being a violent criminal, black people burn, loot and riot.  When innocent white people are killed by the police, white people write long missives on blogs and forums.

Want racism to end?  Stop acting in a manner that's consistent with how racists describe you.

This ≠ That

The fact that a proponent of intelligent design predicted that so-called junk DNA actually has a functional purpose is not a proof that junk DNA having a functional purpose means intelligent design.

It just means we didn't understand DNA as well as we thought.

It also serves as a wonderful example that the science isn't ever settled.

Reasons For Quitting Facebook

While the proximate reason I stabbed, "delete account," amounts to a rage-quit...

There's many reasons to never go back to my real-name account.  My nom-du-blog Facebook is still there.

First is the flying monkey effect.  If you're in a debate with someone about a political issue and having an actual reasonable discussion; your friends and their friends can come in and be less reasonable.  Since my "friends" never come in and stand up for me, you can see why this is triple annoying to have it happen repeatedly.

Then there's the censorship.

Then there's the chance one of the flying monkeys decides that the best way to punish me is to get The Lovely Harvey fired or dox us in some other way.

Then there's the expectation that I curtail my thoughts and opinions on a myriad of topics because they're "controversial" while having to endure the opposite position on these same topics silently from others.

I'm left thinking that if all I'm supposed to post is the most superficial and non-upsetting topics, then my "friends" on Facebook aren't at all interested in being friends with me, but a shallow, banal simulacrum of me.  They're willing to tolerate what I think as long as I'm willing to stop thinking it.

And lest one think this is a liberals problem...  I get it from the "I've found GOD! since high school!" group too.

Dig the archives here and you're going to find that I support LGBT issues and don't give a fuck that Planned Parenthood is murdering babies.  I don't have any invisible friends ghost writing books telling me how to be a better slave to them.  <-- Yes, that's phrased very inflammatorily, and with a lot more derision than I actually feel towards all y'all who've found and keep Faith in the face of so much contradictory evidence.

But you will also see that I want smaller government, fewer taxes, smaller taxes, and more liberty FOR EVERYONE.

While I don't give a fuck about abortion, I also don't think that someone who DOES should be forced to pay for it.  Especially if it's the invisible friend objection and tax money is doing the funding.

Just remember The Shitheels don't do abortions and they're devouring tax money hand over fist in assistance payments.  Abortion is cheaper and eliminates Shitheels, we need more abortion not less in this case.  I support your right to not pay for abortions, will you support my right to not pay for Shitheels?

While I support LGBT stuff, I support LGBT stuff for adults.  Not minors.  You turn 18 and wanna go through the process of having your junk cut off, have at it.  If you're 11 and think you want to change permanently, NO.  And no to your mom.  And no to gender bending drugs and hormones, especially ones which will cause hellish side effects come puberty.  Speaking of which, puberty might just change how you feel.  Puberty often DOES change how many young trans people feel about it, perhaps most.  Getting out of your home town and away from your parents often changes how you feel about it too.  I looked it up.

Willard Update

Finally got the staff at the rehab center to register that Willard cannot hear the phone thanks to many years of things what go bang killing off the frequency range the ringer is in.

He's doing as well as can be expected.

They're starting slow on the exercises, but progress is being made well enough they've told him "end of the month" for discharge to home.