RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - JANUARY 2009
Re-reading RH Junior's Fellowship of Heroes (which he's not updating often enough for this recovering comicoholic (I spent quite a bit of bandwidth a couple days ago wikisurfing the Marvel Civil War (Cap Was Right!))) and this was in my subconscious when I wrote my review of Flags of our Fathers. ...It occurs to me that John Ringo is also guilty of this deconstructionism, with Mike Harmon. But I'm not going to stop reading his books. And is that a fair accusation anyway? Harmon is a Very Bad Man who chooses to do good things. Hmm.
Britain sucks. (Some linked images may be NSFW.) And the disarmed subjects are supposed to do... what?
2061 - Friday, 2 January 2009: Hey swell, more snow. But not much, and followed by sunbreaks. -And then hail. Radio news sez flooding and/or landslides elsewhere.
Talk radio, some history author is going around rattling off points why Hussein is like Lincoln - "political outsider against entrenched veteran"? "Athletic"? "Small children while in office"? "Born in a working-class home" - bwaaahahahaa! What about that mansion in Hawaii? But no, I have a much more topical, and accurate, reason why Hussein is like Lincoln: His election triggered a civil war. >:-[
So the Corolla's been sitting since Tuesday 'cause I'm conserving fuel. Aaand... she starts right up. Leaving her idling to charge the battery while gathering up the laundry and library discs... no trouble.
Vanderboegh transcribes Heinlein's Naval Academy speech, printed in Expanded Universe. Which I've long since very deliberately read a few times. Sweet! Now I can copy-and-paste for future use.
Codrea will be on Gun Talk again this Sunday! See you in chat, 1100PT.
Reader comments on yesterday's deconstructionism: IMHO, the genre/medium matters. Films are more accessible than books, plus there's a different set of messages going on here. The Kildar is a guy who does bad things, and then blows away badder guys. There isn't any of that Merka Is Bad crap going on. And we're not kids anymore: we can handle all the extra stuff that's not exactly germane to the story, and Ringo allows me, at least, to scroll past the icky stuff.... And if one was to delete those sections, you'd still have a perfectly good set of Ringo stories, mostly. How much movie do you still have after deleting the Merka Is Bad parts? Credits and some music?
Awwwwsummmmm. For Christmas sis sends the complete 10-disc, 37 episode Tales of the Gun. :-D
Encore l'Go Israel.
2062 - Saturday, 3 January 2009: Groceries... and I'm reminded, as if I needed such, why I want to leave Oregon. Stupid people. Not just the unwashed (I mean that, literally - you should see the restrooms at some of the production jobs I've had) third-worlders who can't read or write their own language, but born-here white Amurican-speaking Amuricans who can't figure out an ATM. On which topic I've ranted before. Some people just can't handle technology. Products of government schooling I'm sure. My mother got me reading and writing before I entered that system, which is probably the only reason I survived long enough to escape it.
Money running out. ~$65 car insurance due in about two weeks, $100 club membership by the 31st or an additional $50 and a waiting list. This does not count phone, electric, fuel, and food. I do have a couple more items I could liquidate but I really don't want to. If I get work next week, and figuring for the payroll lag, I think I can make it - but the economy really is screwed right now and the Usurper will only make things worse. And the people who do the hiring know that. Besides this, Oregon itself has been business-unfriendly for years and is getting moreso with typical Blue State ecofreakiness and taxthievery (and, I wouldn't be surprised, the aforementioned $500 traffic tickets) (and you blueshirts writing those, do you ever look in the mirror? Are you still denying, even to yourselves, that you are nothing more than highway robbers in uniform?).
Radio news & 'blogosphere, anti-Israel protests in London, anti-Jew protests throughout Europe. Are that many people really that ignorant of history? Has MSM done such a thorough job of... whaddaya call it anyway, Goebbelsism perhaps? How much longer until I'm assaulted over the JPFO pin in my hat? And the Jewish politicians here in America push for disarmament and appeasement and censorship. How can an entire demographic be so self-delusional and self-destructive?
2063 - Sunday, 4 January 2009: Chat & show every Sunday 1100 PT, today featuring David Codrea.
Re-contemplating the M100. The hypothesis is that the magazine box is touching the action, therefore causing movement of the action relative to the Fajen synthetic stock, therefore degrading accuracy. Here's what I have now - first, the magazine box mated to the receiver:
Second, the magazine box separated from the receiver, showing how the tube for the forward receiver screw mates to a step on the bottom of the receiver, and also showing a raised portion at the rear of the magazine box which goes inside the receiver:
Then, a closeup showing how the bottom rivet on the Bold trigger makes inappropriate contact with the trigger guard:
So: my concept is to have at the magazine box with a Dremel, sawing off that forward tube to some distance to eliminate metal-to-metal contact there; to open up the area where the Bold trigger presently contacts the trigger guard, to eliminate that contact; and also possibly removing that raised portion at the back of the magazine box to eliminate that contact, though I think I don't want to do that as it would likely cause feed problems. The original stock was wood with a blind magazine holding only three rounds with a partial magazine box. Comments and suggestions?
Steve's Pages has military manuals and lots of them. M249, grenades, and not just hardware.
Another cold snap - outside temperature about freezing. ...Aaaand snow.
Via Codrea's Gun Rights Examiner, there is another arms-oriented radio talk show Sunday evenings (dialup does suffice, mostly, for streaming audio). Immediately following a cop talk show. Which was rather what I expected. A lot of people, coast to coast, are getting really disgusted with the ignorant, bigoted highway-robbers-in-uniform. Don't push, blueshirt. We're better shots. All we want is to be left alone, but if you're not going to leave us with anything to lose....
2064 - Monday, 5 January 2009: Last night's snow gone by morning.
Cruffler sends, whistleblower cops persecuted. "Few bad apples" my ass, rather the opposite.
Calling temp service... possible assembly job, paying more than tech support was - tweaking resumé again.
Readers donating!
Email behind. Some being ruthlessly deleted.
Laboriously backing up HP box to NEC laptop (and USB drive and memory cards), preparing to re-OS to improve performance.
Want.
Is the republic doomed? The gene pool needs chlorination, a'la Dean Ing/Pulling Through or John Ringo/The Last Centurion. -Ringo actually touched on the same concept in his Council Wars series too.
Mm-hm. Say what you will about W, we ain't been hit again.
M100 tips coming in. Studying.
2065 - Tuesday, 6 January 2009: Ya knowww, season 3 of Babylon 5 bears some Deeply Disturbing similarities to our current situation. For example.
2066 - Wednesday, 7 January 2009: 'Nother example. As I've said before, Orwell and Huxley were writing warnings, but it seems they're being viewed as instruction manuals.
Stop Holder, lazy edition.
Moseying through Cavalryman of the Lost Cause. Not as gripping as other histories or biographies I've read - the author largely recounts Stuart's military record, and that of the Army of Northern Virginia, inserting colorful anecdotes. But hey, what other material is there to work with for a man who was killed in action at age 31?
I hate re-OSing. So tedious. Working on spare HD and switching back to the old one, with all the bookmarks and such, for daily 'net sessions.
2067 - Thursday, 8 January 2009: Eyeing the collection to determine what I can part with this weekend, sigh. Cruffler says I can share his table. If the two items sell I maybe won't have to let go of the third. -Got another reader donation, from Germany! Sometime next week maybe, I might be getting a couple hundred from my 401k (before the socialists steal that too). I might make it another month....
Sheepdogs... the implication is that you're taking responsibility for, committing to defend, people who are unable or unwilling to defend themselves. Surely that's admirable in an abstract sense but it doesn't appeal to me personally. Why should I risk my life and/or limb to defend some useless prey animal who would, and likely often has, voted to remove my ability to defend myself? Someone who has, by word and deed, declared my life to be worth less than that of some amoral parasite? Furthermore, dogs are slaves, bred for millenia to serve, and that appeals not at all. -Obviously I'm being too broad here - naturally one's family and loved ones can be counted among one's flock of personal sheep. But I'd be a lot more comfortable with the idea if "sheep" were only a temporary condition, such as childhood, to be superceded by a higher status. -Not sure I'm being clear here, but Richard Henry Lee might have been clearer: "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." Like some old Roman dude said, Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Not unrelated, Quote o' the Day: "At least once, every human being should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from the supermarket, that safety does not come from policemen, and that news is not something that happens to other people." - Robert Heinlein
January 1959 Guns magazine. Page 31, "Where Are Tomorrow's Minutemen?" -Page 40, cast bullet article.
2068 - Friday, 9 January 2009: Re-OS finally done! I think. Some performances improved, others not - the HD I'm using now is the older ~75Gb which came with the HP box I bought from Yuri, while the last time I re-OSed, and until now, I was using the 120Gb which came with TowerZilla. I suspect something to do with the speed of the drive itself. Anyway AVGFree v8, fully updated, says there are no virii or worms (which caused the last re-OS over a year ago), so if I have to do this again I think it will be safe to master/slave the drives for data transfer, which should take a lot less time than the 2-way USB cable (especially since the ancient NEC laptop does not have USB 2.0).
Money... nothing from temp service of course. Current budget requirements are $58.something for car insurance by the 18th, $40 for storage rent by the 12th, and $100 for club membership (which is a Quality Of Life issue) by the 31st. One item - which Cruffler has already expressed interest in - plus the reader donations thus far received, will cover those immediate expenses, but I need some real income for rent and utilities, soon. Which will have it's own problems, speaking of quality-of-life.
Pretty much giving up on Wert's Cavalryman of the Lost Cause. Not bad, just dry, and not much more than a colorized blow-by-blow of the ANV's operations up to his death in '64. Stuart, haring off for personal glory, does bear some responsibility for the near-disaster at Antietam and the real one at Gettysburg, and may not be as emulation-worthy as I had previously thought. -Maybe I should read a Forrest bio, if I want to study a Good Cavalry Commander.... Back to Hanson's Carnage and Culture.
The incompetent apartment mangagement has not cleared my rent check, which I mailed on the 26th. >:-[ Or the incompetent USPS has lost it. Both have happened before.
Cityfolk. Out for supplies - you know one thing that really ticks me off? Oblivious cretins who stand right in the way in doors or aisles, not doing anything, just standing there yakking or simply staring at nothing. Twice at one store, four times at the next, and a couple at the library too. MOVE YOU MORONS!
Inspired by Absolved, watching Michael Collins. Like Back to Bataan, interesting instructional material on guerilla operations in an entertaining package. The documentary was also informative.
2069 - Saturday, 10 January 2009: $uccess! Sold two items, not enough for a whole 'nother month but plenty for immediate needs. One of those will have to be replaced later, on principle, though I never even fired it in the time I'd had it. Thanks to Cruffler's generosity I shared table space with NorthwestFirearms.com, a local forum site.
Sightings - two good-looking pre-Zit M29s, both Callahan-approved 6.5", one $600, one $800 - also a 4" M629 Mountain Gun I didn't catch the price for. M15 .38-only subversion revolver, $400 IIRC. Rare M57 fixed-sight .41, $600. A couple correct-period-styled .54 percussion rifles, $150-ish - but I have one. .58 Zouave (much shorter than a '61 Springfield, and with a more conventional bayonet lug on the starboard side of the muzzle), lockplate says "Navy Arms", $250, been there for months - I just might, next time my fortunes reverse. "Tanker" 7.62 Garand, possibly a re-weld but I couldn't tell in that light, $800. (Oleg Volk has a Tanker.) Yuri (who is in similar financial straits) and I gave each other moral support at the table with four percussion revolvers - two 1860s and an "1851" .44, ~$170 each, and a .44 Remington, ~$200. (Colt = prettier, Remington = better. For that breed.)
Arms rush? Yes. Old-timers report biggest turnout for this show in memory. And then there's this little news item. And this one.
I've gone up to #37 in the western United States for Garand matches - and I haven't had one since September. Must talk with club honchos about the schedule conflict with my plate match, and if I can keep this up I should start shooting JCG matches at other clubs. Tucson Tom! DUDE! Thanks.
2070 - Sunday, 11 January 2009: Chat & show every Sunday 1100 PT, today featuring Jeff Knox.
Via Yuri, is 24 selling out? Spider-Man already has - but I knew that.
China sucks. As does public school. But I knew that.
I actually did buy something at the show - a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P92 digital camera, 5MP. It boots up, but it takes Memory Sticks and didn't come with one, so I can't get a live image. Researching, evidently this thing retailed new (five-plus years ago) for about $400 - I got it for $20, so what the heck. Lots of local stores have the sticks, including one second sis sent me a Christmas gift card for. The much-newer Canon A580 is still my primary camera - 8MP, and fast on startup - but it's good to have a backup. Also this one saves video in .MPG, which might be useful. Both the USB card readers I already have will take the sticks, so no trouble there - and then I'll have another piece of portable media besides. (Looks like the camera will only take up to 1Gb, and I might need an extension/adapter thing for modern, shorter sticks, so I can actually reach it in the deep, old-style slot.) And the camera has an optical viewfinder in case the LCD fails, and takes standard AA batteries which I already have (NiMH) for the Canon. .PDF manuals easy to find.
2071 - Monday, 12 January 2009: Crap. Still nothing from temp service.
Crap. The Sony camera is non-functional - everything seems to work except the actual image; black screen with all the expected icons. In movie mode it records sound but no image.
Crap. This hard drive is just no good, I'll have to re-OS again.
Crap. The rent check still hasn't cleared and they're not answering phone or email.
2072 - Wednesday, 14 January 2009: Awright, re-re-OSed again, I'm fairly certain. Reinstalling everydamnthing - think I'll go wardriving for a new version of VLC, got OpenOffice and AVGFree yesterday. Not getting XP SP3 or MSIE7, phooey.
Stop Holder. GOA makes it easy. They're voting on the guy tomorrow, get over there.
2073 - Thursday, 15 January 2009: Mostly via WoG, cops are constantly proving themselves to be Thugs. Thieves. Bigots. Murderers. And useless anyway. The ignorant sheeple thumbing the tabloids in line at the supermarket don't know this - but they don't count anyway, they're easily herded. There is coming a time when threepers and the like will engage, on sight, on principle, anything with a badge. It's a public service to dispose of rabid animals....
Rent check finally cleared yesterday. After three bloody weeks. Grump.
Pins Saturday! -Taking the GP100, I'll need the practice for plates on the 24th 'cause Breen and I will have a shoot-off after regular plates for the 2008 Revolver trophy, for which we're tied 5-5.
At only 16Mb it's feasible to download VideoLAN on dialup... but I prefer version 0.8's faster interface to the current v0.9.
Speaking of murderers. And of course he pleads not guilty.
2074 - Friday, 16 January 2009: W retrospective. ...We've had worse. We have worse. Is anyone running a pool on when the next terrorist attack will hit?
One reason I use the Opera browser is its multiple-tab feature. Furthermore, bookmarks can be arranged easily in folders and subfolders so that, with a very few keystrokes, I can open huge numbers of pages simultaneously (then go change the Corolla's oil or make a few hundred rounds of .357 while they load on dialup...). As previously stated, I'm a recovering comicoholic - I can't go into comic stores anymore, srsly, lots of money gone in my college years. Webcomics, OTOH, take up no physical space and cost nothing but bandwidth. With Opera I can load up dozens at a time, arranging them in folders by the days they update.
Why am I bringing this up? Because the exact same feature works with 'blogs. Here's some of my dailies:
The War on Guns
Codrea's National Gun Rights Examiner
Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner
Los Angeles Gun Rights Examiner
St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner
Civil Liberties Examiner - I don't always agree with this one on other issues, but he's on our side for RKBA
Oleg Volk
Sipsey Street Irregulars
The Liberty Sphere
The Real Gun Guys - Yuri Orlov
Western Rifle Shooters Association
Wall Street Journal opinion pages
Meanwhile, at 4:11pm, a call from the temp service for another possible assembly job, less pay than the other was supposed to be but at least they haven't forgotten me.
2075 - Saturday, 17 January 2009: Znrk! Out of bed, out of the hovel, off to the range to forget, for a while, that, as Londo Mollari said, "...every time I have been happy, the universe has consipred to do something nasty to me." (Electric bill is really ugly right now.)
1st major revolver! Of four, 8th of 18 overall, adequate. After, we stayed for a little steel plate action - three ~8" square swinging plates at maybe 12 yards: draw, two hits on each, mandatory reload, two more hits on each, three runs, worst discarded, best two totaled. In that I switched to the Witness and got second of eleven, picking up speed as I went - my last run was the second best of 33 runs in the field, 11.04 seconds, and I might've broken 10 if I hadn't bobbled the reload a bit. Nothing wrong with the Witness. (Well. It does need an extended safety.) Srsly, me and that pistol had an ESPN Moment together.
After, I had planned to go to my regular club for more general practice, but by the time all was done (and I actually drove back from Wolverton) the place was a) crowded and b) closing in little more than an hour, so maybe next weekend after plates.
Sooo back to the 'net. Here is Davy Crockett's "Not Yours to Give" speech, which IMO every member of the House of Representatives should be required to memorize but most of them today would probably consider it perverted, if not an outright hoax.
Codrea points out FaxZero, ad-supported free e-fax of your .DOC or .PDF files or webform text.
Some cops are awakening to find themselves on the Wrong Side. Not enough though, and certainly not of the current generation.
Bits of randomness - yesterday while driving to the library I heard Shepard Smith on Fox News Radio's Fox Report quip, "It's so cold in Chicago the politicians have their hands in their own pockets."
So there was a plane crash the other day, except it wasn't entirely, not least due to a Hot Stick USAF-veteran pilot. My thoughts: If you have to have a plane crash this is a perfect one - no pilot error (quite the opposite!), no mechanical or maintenance or design failure (it ain't Airbus' or US Air's fault the birds were there), no terrorist attack (though I'm sure some troofer somewhere is 'blogging about the Eee-vill George Bush Haliburton Death Flock), no deaths and, what, a single broken arm? Some reports suggest that after the textbook-perfect ditching some passengers didn't even get their feet wet, stepping from the cabin to the wing to the rescue boat. Anyway on the lists was a suggestion that these were Eee-vill Assault Birds, which must be limited to flocks of 10 or less (except for official police and military use I'm sure), For the Children. Obviously this was meant in Heavy Sarcasm but... there are legislators so far out of touch with reality they might actually have their staff draft such a bill....
How to Make Springs! 'Cause, ya know, Numrich and Wolff will likely not be answering the phone during the Restoration....
2076 - Sunday, 18 January 2009: Zzzz.
Chat & show every Sunday 1100 PT, today live from SHOT.
In chat, up came the topic of industry boycotts. I've collected a few, actual or potential:
Barrett does not sell to California government
Barrett will not sell to Hawaii government if Hawaii bans .50s
Extreme Firepower will not sell to anti-RKBA governments
STI will not sell to California at all
Remington and others may halt sales to Connecticut
I do hope the rest of the industry wakes the hell up and follows suit. Unfortunately we have Kimber, STAG Arms, and Smith & Wesson making JBT-specific models.
So I shot pins and some plates at Wolverton yesterday and the Witness did so well the director commented on it. There were several 1911s there, and I think every one of them had a malfunction of some kind during the event, mainly misfeeds or failures to go fully into battery. I only fired 40-odd rounds from the Witness but, as usual, it functioned perfectly, even with my light loads (I was using the 230gr plated over 5.2/5.3gr W231). Lee. Factory. Crimp. Die.
2077 - Monday, Blame Whitey Day, 19 January 2009: Gun Rights Examiners gaining readers.
Totalitarianism. It's not about safety, it's about control.
We are so screwed. There will be blood. Most of it ours.
Hatcher's Notebook .PDF! 75Mb though - wardriving later. And more!
About that plane crash - the pilot made such a perfect ditching it looks like they're salvaging the aircraft intact.
2078 - Tuesday, Usurpation Day, 20 January 2009: Gods help us all.
2079 - Wednesday, 21 January 2009: Oleg Volk raises a valid point on the nature of God.
Sellouts begin. Note the fifth verse.
Britain sucks. But we've known that for some time.
Montana doesn't. I've heard of this before, a few years ago - apparently it's being brought back.
Radio news yesterday, Oregon has 9% unemployment, third-highest in the Union. I'm in trouble.
At pins Saturday I was eyeing a fixed-sight Kimber 1911 (whose POI was Incorrect with the load being used), and while the rear sight looked like a Novak cut, the owner told me it was not - a smaller dovetail. Bear that in mind when shopping. Their adjustable models look like Bomars but now I wonder. -Besides, with models like the SIS and LAPD SWAT, Kimber is one of those companies I griped about the other day, feeding the JBTs in the hope of being eaten last.
2080 - Thursday, 22 January 2009: America is a racist nation - now. Here is the YouTube URL for SaveTube, about 8Mb.
Cruffler sends, "What really brought down Flight 1549":
Of course the geese will be entitled to full Constitutional rights, tax-paid health care, and free driver's licenses, and they'll sue for racial profiling....
2081 - Friday, 23 January 2009: John Moses Browning, the single greatest genius in the thousand-year history of gunpowder, was born in Ogden, Utah, on this day in 1855. (Some continue to say it was the 21st, but both his headstone and his official biography say the 23rd.)
Speaking of official government racism, Quote o' the Day: "History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened." - Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations
...Even Reich and Hussein can't be that stupid, right? I know the saying about attribution of malice vs. stupidity but this really looks like they're trying to launch a civil war. Working hard at it.
So I had errands to run today and one of them took me past Sportsman's Warehouse, so I stopped to look. They were out of BL-C(2) powder! Out of most primers! Out of many reloading projectiles! Out of some muzzleloading roundball! Nearly out of percussion revolvers (just a couple brass-frames left)! Even out of some cleaning patches! The Great Hussein Arms Rush continues. Good thing I mostly stocked up before my fortunes reversed. As for actual arms, there were plenty of sporting types still on the racks, hint-hint.
Radio news, big Microsoft layoff, big Intel layoff, maybe even a big Starbucks layoff. Trouble.
2082 - Saturday, 24 January 2009: In the gods hate meee department, my airbed failed in the small hours this morning and, while I previously laid in not one but two spares for just such an occurance, as I was loading the car for plates some hours later My Back Went Out. I could barely get into the Corolla. I did still make it to the match, and as expected I started feeling a little better after a couple hours, but my performance was affected and I won nothing but the intramural timed event with last weekend's pin shoot.
Ow.
And I'm just about out of money, the temp service is still stringing me along, I have one count it one item I might bear the pain of liquidating which might barely raise enough for another month's rent... but now with this spine thing (which, judging from experience, will improve in a couple days) I'm in neither shape nor mood to trod the miles of cement aisles at Expo tomorrow, or even the much smaller OAC. I'll be lucky to get out of bed in time for chat.
Blech. The universe is crapping on me again.
Oh, today I learned that the magazine disconnect on a Ruger MkIII can be disabled. I got yer "dubious utility" right here.
2083 - Sunday, 25 January 2009: Back is... less bad. As expected.
About an inch of snow last night, melting soon.
Chat & show every Sunday 1100 PT, featuring John Longnecker of LA Gun Rights Examiner. If there is no station in your area, this one streams adequately even on dialup, and the shows are eventually archived on the show's site as .WMA.
Codrea plugs Appleseed, among others. Speaking of which, Castle Rock on Patriot's Day (and five more in 2009 including Independence Day) - if I'm not living out of the Corolla by then. :( One in Lewiston, Idaho, too, dunno about that - it's driveable but I surely have no clue about schedule and budget at this point.
2084 - Monday, 26 January 2009: Back improving by the hour. I think it's muscle damage as opposed to something more structural - once every year or so it goes sproing and I hobble around like a senior citizen for the next couple days, then I'm fine again. Probably wouldn't have happened at all if the airbed hadn't failed - when I got up that morning I was fine, and nothing happened until I started loading the car.
Recently on library disc I watched Scaramouche, MGM 1952. I love a good swordfight and this one is apparently cinematically famous, over six minutes. -Which in a roundabout way brings me to Kill Bill. The first part was better than the second, and the Bride's battle with the Crazy 88 Fight Team certainly had its moments, but Tarantino isn't as good a director (or writer) as he thinks he is, and Uma Thurman isn't as good an actress as Hollywood seems to think she is (nor as attractive neither).
Yes, I've seen The Princess Bride. Decent swordfight(s). But really, Scaramouche's is good.
Historical articles, including Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. All we want is to be left alone....
Cops: Don't expect us to help. You done spent that political capital. And you're on the wrong side anyway. You murderous thugs.
Yet another Gun Rights Examiner. Lots of people are getting really ticked.
Finally an interview (on the far end of town, as usual - fuel was down in the $1.60s a couple weeks ago, now back up near $2) tomorrow morning - but it's with a big company whose name I've heard on the radio as having big layoffs, hm. Meanwhile, even if I do get the job there's a payroll lag....
2085 - Tuesday, 27 January 2009: Aaand snow. With predictable mass incompetence.
Did reasonably well at the interview I think - 12 month contract, no weekends, rare overtime, assembling stuff. Long icky commute though. Now waiting for the temp service to call me again.
Government regulation? "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." And let's not forget John Hancock. I'm talking about one of the oldest American traditions.
Remember what Harry Browne said: "Government is good at one one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'" And remember the last even-partly-worthy President we had: "...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." But that's not what we have now - we have negotiations with terrorists. Blatant censorship and blacklisting. Official government racism. This is what we're in for. And how will you answer this question?
Aaand I got the job, starting probably Monday, maybe Friday. Likely no paycheck 'til the 13th - looks like I do have to sell that one item. :( And there's electricity and phone besides. 8(
In other news, the schedule conflict between plates and Garands for May and July has been resolved - I'll push my plate match into the afternoon, and shoot the first relay in Garands so I'll be done sooner. -Which reminds me, come May I'll use the Canon to get better videos.
2086 - Wednesday, 28 January 2009: Bureaucratic "security" pre-employment runaround, with various violations of 4th and other Amendments. Grump.
Not unrelated, Quote o' the Day: "Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry." - Thomas Paine
Palin 2012? Not in so many words, yet....
Inmates run asylum. ...Words fail.
Argh! I only have one slot open in the library hold queue and there are two new books to place on hold - Drake's In the Stormy Red Sky, the latest Leary/Mundy; and Hal Colebatch's Man-Kzin Wars XII! -I went with Colebatch as it will be released sooner. Alas, Kratman has not yet continued his Carerra series....
2087 - Thursday, 29 January 2009: Back nearly back to "normal", supporting my theory it's muscle instead of something else.
St. Louis GRE Kurt Hoffman illuminates the antis' total contempt for the founding principles of this republic, their psychotic disconnect from historical fact, and their callous disregard for human life.
Stop Holder. Last chance. Of course my emails are wasted bandwidth - we don't even have RINOs anymore, only outright statist/collectivists. But I have readers from all over....
Snafu at the company, no employee badge yet. The office where the wannabe Only Ones make the things (which I've already driven to twice) closes at 11:30 tomorrow, and it takes about an hour to get there from the hovel. Fine, I'll (probably) sleep in tomorrow and they and the temp service can sort it out for Monday.
Smuggling? Smuggling! If guns are outlawed I'll be a gunrunner. "Can't stop the signal" - or the product(s). ...Perhaps not unrelated, on library disc I'm watching a History Channel thing on the James brothers, who for all their ruthlessness, reportedly never robbed anyone but damnyankees....
2088 - Friday, 30 January 2009: New RNC chairman Michael Steele. GOP ain't learned a damn thing. It's like they want us to stay home and clean our rifles on election day.
REPRIEVE! First is a loan from my too-generous sister for the electric bill, and in the same batch of snailmail is my 401k from the tech support job, which is just enough combined with what I have left in my accounts to cover the rent without selling that last item, which I really didn't want to sell. -Now I still have fuel costs for the next two weeks, so, um, if anyone else out there is feeling generous, there's this little button down there at the bottom....
Another GRE. That makes five major cities and Codrea's national.
"Gun Culture"... there are two. The one I belong to - the real one - with decent peaceable people, knowledgeable, disciplined, shockingly generous; and the false one MSM paints for the indoctrinated masses. Lemme spell this out: it ain't white middle-aged NRA members doing drive-by shootings and home invasions while holding their Glocks sideways. Mainstream media's "gun culture" is an object of contempt and ridicule to the real one. As, of course, is MSM itself....
2089 - Saturday, 31 January 2009: Zzz. 'Cause I can't afford to go anydamnplace or do anydamnthing else for two weeks.
A moon or two from now I should probably get some of this before it runs out. (I've been using and reusing the Greek brass since after the April '07 Appleseed.)
Yep, GOP getting rusty. Visual aid.
Got a few bucks helping a friend ferry a car across town, that'll help.
Here's a quote that will, I predict, increase in relevance: "We share very few sentiments with our government." - Pike Bishop, The Wild Bunch
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