Spo. Effing. Kane.
RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - JUNE 2010
The World Sucks
More equal than others. Casus belli, dudes.
Doctors and boundary violations, again.
Charlotte GRE seeks more light than heat on the UN arms treaty.
There is no difference between cops and terrorists. This one should have been killed.
POLICE ARE THE MOST DISGUSTING PERVERTED SADISTS IN THE WORLD. THAT'S WHY THEY BECOME COPS.
But there's more, always more. Billy Beck disassembles the Chief Thug over the SEIU mob assaulting a private residence. We know whose side the cops are on and it sure as hell ain't ours.
And here's one in my own godsforsaken town I somehow missed. ("Conservative" talk radio can't be trusted to report such things, they're all "law and order" types you know.) Police are a danger to society and must be eliminated in the name of public safety.
In Lighter News
Finally finished Weber's A Mighty Fortress, adequately-climactic naval battle at the end. What's probably the next, Out of the Dark, is already in the hold queue; from forum chatter I'd thought it was another Honorverse but it's published by Tor, not Baen, so it's probably the next Safehold. Returning to Robinson's Red Mars, which is still soap-opera-y. In the stack is still Flynn's Up Jim River, sequel to The January Dancer. Finally the library has ordered three more I've been waiting for: Williamson's latest Grainne, Do Unto Others; van Name's next Jon & Lobo, Children No More; and Drake's new RCN, What Distant Deeps.
Speaking of books, Codrea discovers Kratman.
You know one thing that turns me off? Fake blondes. I think a lot of women would look better as natural brunettes than as fake blondes. Fake redheads turn me off even more.
The World Sucks and I Hate It
And I hate Chicago too.
And California.
And Mexico.
And South Africa.
And Britain. The island is long overdue for another civil war.
Power is always abused. And "protections" are always deliberately misinterpreted and circumvented.
And If This Goes On, we won't even be allowed to talk about it anymore.
Speaking of stuff you can't make up. Head. Splody.
But there is more worldsuckage than most people realize. I don't link most of the economic gloomdoom I see from places like WRSA, but that doesn't mean I'm not aware of it. It is possible for the world to suddenly become worse than it ever has been. I mean, just-short-of-Zombie-Apocalypse bad. One tries not to think about it if one expects to get any sleep or keep any food down, but reminders are everywhere.
In Lighter News
Speaking of BATFU being unAmerican from it's very conception, Libertarian Movie Quote o' the Day, from Thunder Road, MGM 1958: "You know, I remember when I was a little kid, trailin' my daddy up to the stills in those mountain winters. I suppose I knew then that what he was doing was contrary to somebody's law, but... my granddaddy had done it before him, his daddy before him, and so on, clear back to Ireland. They held that what a man did on his own land was his business. They didn't have any noble notions then, of course. They still don't. When they came here and fought for this country and scratched up those hills with their plows and those skinny little mules, they did it to guarantee the basic rights of free men. They just figured that whiskey-makin' was one of 'em."
I know which side I would have been on, and I don't even use the stuff. &*^%ing Hamilton, this is all his fault. Maybe my utopia's money should have Aaron Burr's face on it.
The knee-jerk reaction from the control freaks is, "But it's against the laaawwww!" They are incapable of imagining that the law should never have been written. THE LAW IS WRONG.
Nice rifle. I wouldn't'a bothered linking if it didn't have a bayonet lug. That's important. ;)
The World Sucks All the Time
Yet another report on the Virginia Tech shooting: "Had the report been a term paper, it would have brought a D-minus for lack of research."
Chicago again. A different incident of private armed self-defense.
Britain sucks so very bad. Oleg, as usual, cuts to the heart. Self-Defense Examiner also weighs in, as does Smallest Minority. Via Codrea from a different angle, in comments, "England is now officially Bizarro Universe."
More acts of war by government against citizens. The. Law. Is. Wrong.
I'm not unaware of the latest Israel/Gaza thing. This sums it up nicely: "Within twenty four hours, regimes noted for the regular murder of their captive subjects were at the podium of the United Nations, denouncing a democracy for defending its borders."
Boycott Turkey? That would include, IIRC, the ArmaLite AR24 pistol (CZ75 clone), and the Stoeger (Beretta) Cougar, among others. -Where are the latest Springfield XDs made?
Government can't stand criticism. That's why our FREAKING BRILLIANT Founders slapped the First Amemdment onto the best Constitution anyone's yet written. How long would we have lasted without even more explicit restrictions on government?
They can't stand the peasants having any privacy, either. But of course theirs is supposed to be inviolate.
Question for geophysicists in the audience: That whole California-sliding-into-the-Pacific thing, how can we make that happen?
There is no such thing as a "temporary" tax. Typically the only way to end one is to have a war. Oh hey....
In Lighter News
Another reason to move to Wyoming.
Don't forget the Liberator concept. Use the weapon you have to get the weapon you need. "Kill more Japs Damnyankees/Redcoats/Hessians/BlueHelmets/WhatHaveYou."
Want. Have an old original, not in the best shape. I think I've seen modern nylon versions advertised by Numrich.
The World Sucks
So last week I placed another Midway order - the .308 cartridge headspace gauge, another McCormick 10-round magazine, more Hornady One-Shot and Lee Liquid Alox - and Midway was on the ball for their part, I got email confirmation it'd shipped the same day. According to UPS, it was supposed to arrive today. UPS' site says it arrived in Hermiston at 10:30am yesterday, and that's only a couple hours' drive on I-84. It left there at 6:35pm.
So where is it this morning?
According to UPS tracking, at 10:39pm last night it arrived in Spokane.
Spo. Effing. Kane.
The opposite end of a whole other state. Undoubtedly because some subliterate couldn't read a ZIP code and put it on the wrong cursed truck. Not to reach the hovel 'til Monday. Not that it's some terribly urgent need but fer cryin' out loud. This is what happens when government runs the schools. -Ain't Midway's fault, they're Gunfolk after all, they're competent, probably took several times as long for the email to slide through the intertubes as it did for them to pull and box the order. But outside the Culture, my whole life is a Kornbluth story.
A while back fellow curmodgeonly republitarian 'blogger SMLE Fan explained why he and clanbrother Yuri don't post as often as I do. I understand their point of view. Let me illustrate why:
&#%@ Britain. @&#% it. Not. Worth. Saving. British cops will arrest, assault, and/or rob people whose wheelie-bins are an inch too full, or who try to help a kid out of a tree, or they'll prevent people from trying to rescue folks in a burning house or drowning in a canal, they got all the balls in the world for that, but if some goblin goes around murdering the citizens they're supposedly sworn to "protect and serve", they run and hide.
And yes, every point I made can be applied to American cops as well. Just not as often, yet. They wish it were so, because all cops everywhere are enemies of civilization.
You want examples? I got more examples than I can stomach, like this one via Sipsey St.: There. Are. No. Good. Cops.
The New McCarthyism? Not so "new" to us.
The ruling class is in a state of open war against the people.
And as if all that weren't sucky enough, the UNIVERSE ITSELF is THROWING BIG DAMN ROCKS AT US. It's like that scene in Barbarosa, the Willie Nelson/Gary Busey western film, where one's been shot, both have been roughed up, they lost the gold and their horses and a storm's moving in and Barbarosa shouts at the sky, "Go on and rain on me now why don't'cha!"
In Lighter News
From the lists, Worldsuckage Solution o' the Day: "I'd say we should start deporting the 'troublesome' element in Chicago (including Daley) to Mexico, along with the illegals. Then we can start air dropping weapons and ammo into their country. Sorta a 'Escape from NY' in reverse." I've heard worse ideas.
Speaking of *#@%ing Britain. Apparently you can get a knighthood for walking upright and having a pulse. -This is something that's bugged me for years. Knighthood is supposed to mean something. You're supposed to have accomplished something to get one. Like Saving Your Baron From Certain Death by Disembowling Several Frenchmen In Close Combat, for example, or Leading A Cavalry Charge to Turn An Enemy's Flank at a Crucial Point In The Battle. Or hey, how about the Dunkirk evacuation, all those private civilian boats jumping over the channel and not all of them coming back? Any o' them guys get knighted? Every boater who cast off that day deserves it a helluva lot more than any of the dubbings I've heard of the last twenty years. (-I think I need a copy of Mrs. Miniver as antidote. Except for the scene where she hands the Luger over to the cop, that was variously dumb: beside the utilitarian aspect of having a weapon in the house on an island about to be invaded, it's a godsdamned legitimate trophy of war and personal battle-prize worthy of being handed down to future generations accompanied by glorious tales of ancestral pride.)
(GAAAHHH!!!)
Rereading some of my own work, and contemplating the disappointing Paul Chafe story it was meant as rebuttal to. This also leads me to remember at least two Heinlein stories, both with their own tastes of tragedy. One is the definitive sublight horror story, revisited in part recently by Freer. The other finished by offering a way out of the horror (which Turtledove stole at the end of his Worldwar series, shortly before I quit reading him). I wonder how Chafe will close his trilogy?
For quite some time I've wanted to try 3-Gun, but my fortunes, figurative or literal, are always making like The Poseidon Adventure, sigh. Handgun I have; rifle I could piece together I'm sure; as for the shotgun, having owned both Mossberg and Remington over time, I prefer Mossberg's simpler and more-rugged designs. -And there's that whole "most with the least" shtick I got going; there's an undeniable warmfuzzy in whupping somebody's $2k racegun with a $400 Cheap Philippine Clonetm - likewise there would be in whupping their $1,500 WilsonVangCompTactiSnobÜberRemmy with a Wal-Mart Mossberg. :D
For useful goodness, go to Sipsey St. and/or WRSA and in the search box at top left, type "praxis" and smacketh thy Enter key. In the latest such I notice something faithful readers will recall me ranting on: drum magazines and their wastefulness of the spaces. Looking at the typical Chi/Rom 75-round Kalashnikova drum, it seems they've figured a way to waste a heck of a lot less space than any comparable device. Like the Saiga 20rnd 12ga drum for example. Why can't we come up with stuff like that? -And another thing, while watching 1968 episodes of Mission: Impossible on library disc last night I was compelled to grab Hogg's Military Small Arms of the World to discover the villains du jour were using Danish Madsen M46 maschinenpistolen and there is a difference between those and the far more common M50 and now I suppose I'll have to watch the ST:TOS episode "Bread and Circuses" again to see which the parallel-Romans were using BUT THE POINT OF THIS DIGRESSION IS, while flipping through the book I was again reminded of the Spectre using a double, double-column magazine and if something like that works for 9x19mm why can't it work for 5.56x45 or 7.62x51? My Teuton blood demands efficiency!
[thought=idle] What's yer vote fer Biggest Military Blunder Evar? I can think of three from the same conflict, from the same Austrian corporal: The Blitz, as opposed to finishing off the RAF to enable Operation Sealion; Operation Barbarossa, which in fairness was actually working for a while; and Rommel. Not logistically supporting him in North Africa (which was largely the fault of Barbarossa's huge supply drain), not ordering his butt to be right-freaking-there in the sands of Normandy with authority and autonomy, then killing him off when he was the last useful field commander left. Triple-FAIL on Erwin alone.
(Comes soon an edumacational email from SMLE Fan I expect....)
But let's not limit the question to just the one period. Varus in the Teutoburg? The French at Agincourt? Etc.
The World Sucks
St. Louis GRE connects some dots where new high-tech badgethug toys are concerned. Now, if the enemy really wants to start that kind of arms race, I'm sure there are plenty of folk on our side who can respond in kind and with interest. Heck, I've wanted an EMP cannon for years, just for the car stereos at the convenience store next to the hovel.
Speaking of the ruling class being disconnected from reality.
Tam nails it: "You know, if there are two sets of recordings, it's less likely that one will be... lost."
Even more bigotry from the people who call us bigots. I know a Jew from my SCA years, who votes for these people and their fellow-travelers, who needs to get her nose rubbed in this good and hard. But it's not worth the effort; I am not the kind who enjoys argument for it's own sake, and there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Breda meant this as a funny, I guess, but I'm not laughing. There are too many of that kind out there, at ATMs, self-serve checkouts, vending machines, library catalog terminals, trying to use a debit card (often a welfare card which is my tax money and yours too) at the supermarket - gah. Free-market education now. -There are other facets of this; beside the grown-ups who can't figure out which button to push BUT would probably outlast 95% of the population in an EMPocalypse, you got GenXers who are teh very awsumm in an FPS and can set up an epic home theater in an hour, but can't change a flat tire to save their own lives.
Which in turn reminds me of Ringo's Council Wars series in a couple ways. First and most obvious, an overdependence on technology leads to, first, a tendency to decadence and navel-gazing, a decline in population as people are uninterested in breeding (which we're also seeing in Europe, in the Islamic Demographic War), then a massive die-off of the unprepared; and second, the überAI running the planet, with Clarke tech, contemplates the cold-blooded benefits of having a war once in a while to chlorinate the gene pool.
In Lighter News
Kim Stanley Robinson ain't no John Ringo. Spoiled by the Baen stable, Red Mars strikes me as half soap-opera, half technical journal.
Best. Men. Ever.
The World Sucks
The Lairds of Fairfax and the Manchurian Candidate. I remember those TV spots. -Apparently the One Party strategy is to run a bad candidate in one column and a worse in the other. I am so tired of having to choose the lesser evil.
Too much has changed in fifty years.
Again with the Jews. There are so many justifications for this story idea.
In Lighter News
Stats o' the Day. Think it over, you thugs-with-badges. Stop poking the rattlesnake.
Reader reports hearing the Spectre 4-column magazine wasn't reliable, and reminds me Calico, with the 50-round helical, is back in business, then points out flaws with that system I've also noted. (Putting the rear sight on the magazine? Whose idea was that?) Reader then suggests a return to sewn-cloth belts, as 1) more easily reusable compared to disintegrating links and 2) more easily fabricated, maintained, and replaced with minimal Resistance infrastructure. Which goes with Friday's Sipsey St. Praxis article - I just discovered a justification for those belt-feed semi-autos.
Same reader sends cartoon beautifully illustrating why Canada sucks, and so does everywhere else that isn't America.
Red Mars just isn't grabbing me like modern Baen stuff. Giving up on it and starting Up Jim River. Which, OTOH, is highly stylistic - but dang, flavorful.
On Gun Talk today, interviewee Brian Patrick, college professor (! don't they have to surrender all independent thought when they get the position?), compares the development of the modern, connected, internet-savvy Gun Culture to the spread of Christianity in the early Roman Empire, something like "We lurk in the catacombs of" forums and email lists.
Later on the show the new Springfield XDm .45 was mentioned, and a caller said that with his not-m XD .45 he had feeding failures. TomG directed him to examine, and change, magazines. The caller said that the "clip" (>:-[) had "been loaded for about a week". (Sigh. There we go with the "springs taking a set" falsity again.) For my 1911 I use McCormick magazines, all the way, except for that one which looks exactly like a McCormick but isn't marked as one. Some of them were left loaded for five months, since the last plate match. They all worked perfectly when I finally dusted the pistol off and dug out the ammo-sack for May IPSC. I dunno what is or isn't wrong with the caller's weapon or with Springfield's (or their subcontractor's) magazines, but I know what brand I'll be sticking with. My third McCormick 10 should arrive tomorrow.
Let's See How the World Sucks Today
Speaking of disgusting sadist cops, Yuri sends this illustrative .PDF, local and recent. Those scum turn my stomach. They enjoy inflicting pain and perverting law to destroy lives. That's why they become cops.
Remember, they don't obey laws. They only use force on us. Jennifer III also comments, as does ElmTreeForge at the end of his own daily worldsuckage roundup: "... every time some jerk like this finally crosses the line and winds up paying a price, it turns out he'd pulled crap in the past and the other cops covered up for him, the union covered for him, or both." There. Are. No. Good. Cops.
Prohibitionists' minds don't work right. Yet they're the ones with the power to destroy our lives?
Related in the larger sense, the servants have forgotten their place.
Dr. Pournelle is worried. And if a man of his intellect and experience is worried, the rest of us damn well should be.
In Lighter News
Finally UPS delivers.
Little improvement in Michigan? ("Permit to purchase"? Fer cryin' out loud! I suppose you need a license and computerized ID to enter a bookstore!? How do Americans allow this to happen to themselves? -Because they're not Americans anymore, that's how. They've become something... less.)
Little improvement in Britain? Gods know there's room for plenty.
Hmm, some perspective on "unequal" living and working conditions.
I knew this. Did you?
Joe Huffman's 'blog has not been one of my daily reads. I just fixed that.
The World Sucks
Cures worse than diseases.
Related, at the last Garand match, nationally-ranked shooter Mr. E. mentioned this. And as I was driving to the (different, not right next to a thug nest) laundromat today, on "conservative" talk radio the hosts on two stations were taking the thugs' side. Blinders firmly in place....
These people cannot be reasoned with. They are mentally ill.
The Quote o' the Day is not the Quote o' the Day but the quoter's comment: "We have a legal system. Not a justice system."
PROHIBITION FAIL, Chapter Eleventyteen.
In Lighter News
Yuri points out some Unintended Consequences of the good kind.
I can't be the first to have had this thought: Glock vs. 1911 = Mac vs. PC. JMB's creation is something one can actually open up and work on, as I've done (replace slide stop lever, including hand-filing to fit; Dremel thumb safety for positive function in both positions; replace trigger for preferred feel; install aftermarket donated magazine well funnel including Dremel-inletting of Uncle Mike's synthetic grips, which happen to have metal inserts). I know there are many aftermarket parts, including internals, available for the Glocks, but I'm of the impression that beyond replacing a drop-in barrel and maybe sliding on a Pearce grip sleeve, anything else Must Be Done By A Certified Glock Armorertm. Leaving aside the FFL nonsense about the serial-numbered frame (and presuming said frame came with the plunger tube installed or the builder has the appropriate staking tool), one could assemble an entire 1911 with each part from a different manufacturer and expect it to run. And that strikes me as exactly like Mac vs. PC.
Speaking of the most combat-proven handgun of all time, the United States military has always considered the handgun to be a legitimate weapon of war, not simply a badge of rank like most other nations. Barrett Tillman - who as I understand it is a Gunsite graduate - had a whole chapter on Medals of Honor awarded for actions in which the M1911 was the primary weapon. Comes now this further food for thought.
Preach it, sister. -Aurora might carry nukes, haven't decided yet; I know she carries missiles big enough to be shipkillers (and in this day and age a lot of nuke can be packed into a mere Tomahawk or Harpoon), and orbit-to-surface-capable beam weapons. But once you have the capability to simply drop stuff on targets from orbit (hey, there's Dr. Pournelle again, gets around don't he?), fission and fusion become a bit superfluous. (I remember a line from Footfall: "They dropped rocks on you. There was nothing you could do.")
The World Sucks
Here is another data point illustrating the sadistic mentality of anyone who puts on a badge. They ENJOY causing pain.
"I like technology as much as the next kid, but may I say that the implications of stuff like that creep me right the hell out?" Yes. Yes you may. And I'll say it along with you.
In Lighter News
½ argh. The Muse is fickle - I intend to continue Aurora's story in sequence, and you'll learn something of a crewmember's past, but what she's telling me now is something completely different a year or more later. And she's keeping me up late doing it.
Inspiration comes from diverse directions. First there was an image: a two-page spread in a Star Wars comic book (recent Dark Horse of course, not the old Marvel stuff) showing a great big impact crater on a planet's surface, overgrown and forested in the central plain, the rimwall still clearly defined. Stuff can be... done... with that. (There's also a certain visual from one of the Indiana Jones films with which stuff can be done.) Then there was my own mention yesterday of targeted orbital bombardment. Stir, and... you'll see it, sooner rather than later I hope. I also hope, again, I haven't bitten off more than my keyboard can chew. I fear some of it will be formulaic.
O for an illustrator....
This guy is likely to lose his pension.
Another stick in Daley's eye.
Regeneration and alien life.
I HATE PORTLAND MORE THAN EVER.
The World Sucks
Money running low again. I suppose I'll have to get a job soon. Then there's something over $100 to renew the car's registration, probably five or six differently-worthless government scams in that bit alone.
Police hate citizens and want them to die, still.
Britain must be cleansed from the face of the Earth before the contagion spreads.
And so must California.
Man-hating feminazis against self-defense. Mental. Disorder.
Any Jew who voted for Obama is by definition suicidally insane.
And, said Usurper should be removed from office for gross incompetence and criminal negligence.
One of the biggest divides I have with "true" libertarianism is open borders.
In Lighter News
At long last, Aurora: Part XV is ready. If you are entertained, PLEEEZE consider a charitable donation!
Speaking of stories, more news on the Red Dawn remake.
Antis are by definition morally bankrupt, but now they're the other kind too.
The World Sucks
Bigotry and slander, as usual.
...The news is constantly depressing. Items like these illustrate that there is no justice; the system is inherently evil and actively malicious. And I'm stuck here in an urban collectivist cesspit.
In Lighter News
Ain't got nuthin'.
In Lighter News
Match daaaayyy....
The PIG was my first match, way back in 2003. This year's course of fire is:
For benchrest shooters (front sandbags only):
For position shooters:
Again with the fog:
Finally, about 10am on the 12th of June, it actually started looking and feeling a little like, maybe, May. "Global Warming" MY ASS.
First time I shot human silhouettes with a rifle. The one on the right is life-size:
On the left is a typical modern target AR. On the right is an actual Accuracy International.
Closeup:
'Nuther view:
Since I hadn't spent enough time and effort on the M100, I used the Queen from the positions.
Ain't Nuthin' Wrong With The Rifle. You know that mental snapshot you take of the front sight at the moment of firing? The bullets were going exactly where the front sight sent them. I mean, my called flyers would have been tack-drivers if the tacks were way the heck out there where the front sight happened to be at the time. I am badly out of practice and badly out of shape.
Sighters - again I had to add way more elevation than I used to, exactly as much as in the last Garand match, but light conditions - and the, alas, low quality of the Konus $100 90x spotting scope - prevented me from seeing everything that was happening downrange. And I have a pronounced tendency to pull right which I know is not the rifle's fault. I guessed a lot. If I weren't broke, and still had a membership in the club, I'd've been practicing a lot more, like after every monthly plate match which I no longer either direct or attend.
Marksmanship skills are perishable. They must be actively maintained.
So, my slow-prone string on the full-size B27:
Awright, even as out of shape as I am, that jackbooted kitten-murdering thug ain't goin' home at the end of his shift. Note the group, which Did Not Suck in and of itself for a scruffy-lookin' 55-year-old rifle surplussed from two armies, at 200 yards, with metallic sights, a simple GI nylon sling, a $25 yoga pad for a prone mat, and a flannel shirt buttoned up for a "shooting jacket". With more practice I would have had better settings for the Best Sights Ever Put On A Fighting Rifle.
I've been to four Appleseeds and won the Rifleman patch. I know I am capable of better shooting than this and I know the rifle is putting the bullets exactly where I send them.
For clarification, here is how the 200yd targets were arranged. The round bull at the left was an MR-31 for sighters. The smaller silhouettes were for the benchrest (that is, umptyhundreddollarscoped) shooters, the larger for people who could get in and out of prone without medical assistance (BTW the AAI belonged to the guy on the far left in the OD shooting jacket, which also bore an Appleseed Rifleman patch, and he was shooting from position - I scored some of his stages and he was mid-to-high 90s all the way):
Rapid-prone, same target, and I sucked badly, with four outside the scoring rings and one of those completely outside the JBT:
"What a drag it is, getting old."
At 100, prone-rapid on the Official Pig, overlaid on an SR-1 for hidden scoring (until peeled):
At least I hit the damn thing, sigh. Finally, slow-standing on the SR-1:
Eh, coulda been worse. Meanwhile, the guy with the target AR in the next lane, from the bench, shot Possible, and 1.5MOA, on the MR-31 with itty-bitty scoring rings (4" Leatherman for scale):
I don't think I've ever accused the AR of being inaccurate. Underpowered, overly complex, having ridiculously tall sights and a receiver made of SoftGooeyAluminum, maybe, but not inaccurate.
ClubNewsletterGuy graciously took photos of me in slow-standing - note ejected case at top right:
Last, my disappointing scorecard which is in no way the fault of the rifle (Praise and Blessings Upon Tucson Tom the Benevolent):
Thus the match.
Tam has a pocket-pistol fetish (and evidently the liquidity to indulge it). Me, I'd kinda like to get some funky old designs of a larger flavor, like the Astras, or - and I actually saw one of these in splendid condition at a show, with a couple magazines and other accoutrements - the Bergmann-Bayard, or a .30 Luger. The problem is, some of these are museum pieces and you don't dare fire them, but I want every weapon in my collection to be functional. Considerations of historical blasphemy aside, 9x23mm should be very easy to handload; Winchester makes brass for their version and I'm sure Huntington's or Graf's offers dies, if 9x19mm dies couldn't be adjusted to serve, like .38/.357 (and looking at case dimensions other than length, I think they could).
I actually wrote that late last night (or was it early this morning?), again inspired by the Villains du Jour on vintage episodes of Mission: Impossible. After the match I stopped at the show and met Yuri for shopping and burgers and July IPSC planning before all the grumpy old farts packed up and left, and aside from this charger-fed rotating-barrel humongous-lanyard-loop funky goodness (for only $400!):
...at least three different tables had vintage boxes of 9mm Steyr cartridges. (o.O)
That's not the only pr0n I have for you today. Behold this gen-you-wine Colt limited retro repro:
And these actual-vintage S&Ws (vendor said the big ("big") .32 at top left was likely used in the WBtS) (and I noted to Yuri that one very much like it appeared in the Kurosawa/Mifune film Yojimbo):
And some Sharp Pointy Things:
The World Sucks
So we've got the Teleprompter of the United States asking a movie director how to stop an oil spill, and now we've got three and a half brain cells flying in loose formation telling us we're not supposed to defend ourselves. For this I get out of bed in the morning?
"Information wants to be free!" So say the hippiegeeks preaching their hopeychangeyfreedomofexpressionism-ism (and who, incidentally, slaughter thousands in first-person-shooters but don't think your sister who works the late shift at the market should be able to defend herself from the rapist in the parking lot). THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR YOU UNUTTERABLE IGNORAMI.
What can be said in response to something this deliberately stupid? If someone wants to be treated as an "equal", they should, ya know, not act like a five-year-old on LSD.
The World Sucks
Guh, exhaustion.
Catch-22. "We have a legal system. Not a justice system."
Disarmament Kills. Everywhere. That's. What. It's. For.
"...[S]omething very wrong with this picture."
THE. LAW. IS. WRONG. By which I mean not some particular piece of legislation with it's own reference number, I mean The Law. The very idea of some gang of thugs claiming the authority to dictate terms to the rest of the population.
Got kids in public school? Your Tax Dollars Not At Work.
This item belongs right here on the border between my two now-traditional daily sections.
In Lighter News
At the show yesterday I handled one of those MG42 dress-up kits for the 10/22. The sights it comes with are crude plastic, theoretically adjustable for elevation in the rear and windage in the front, and you can't get a cheek weld for a sight picture - the sights are too low to the line of the stock.
Chikaran cryopantries and science-fiction-y coldsleep? Working on it.
The World Sucks
A state of open war exists between the people and the government. And we didn't start it. We're just the casualties.
And the spoils ("Around the Industry", starting at 7th paragraph). Police are liars and thieves. That's why they become cops.
Billy Beck smacks "higher" "education". I've wasted years there too, many years ago. Bad then, worse now.
EMPocalypse Redux. Talk about not wanting to get out of bed.
For this we pay membership dues?
In Lighter News
Encore l'argh. The adventures of Aurora and her family are continuing, but out of sequence. Type what comes and fill the blanks later.
"...[I]f I’ve written forty pages and nothing has exploded, I’m probably not doing my job." I'm learning to write, sigh.
Who wants to carry this in the field? And where's the bayonet lug?
This is an experiment I still intend to perform someday.
Heh.
The World Sucks
Radio news, Oregon unemployment still 10.6%.
And the weather is crappy when I'd hoped to get some maintenance done on the car. "Go on and rain on me now why don't'cha!"
"Conservative" talk radio, sticking up for tasers. If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, is a libertarian a conservative who's been arrested?
Related: The Jews-in-the-Attic Test has been around some time, and I think I've linked it here before. It's worth revisiting, frequently. Look around. The system we have now fails that test. Never effing mind what the "law" SAYS. Never mind what people aren't supposed to be doing. Look at what actually happens.
Further related: Nationalize police unions? Why does that strike me as an extraordinarily bad idea in several different ways?
Probably because of all the graphic examples: Why is this cop still walking around on his own two feet instead of having been righteously beaten to a quivering pulp like the sadistic perverted animal he is? Even the ones who don't get their sick thrills from inflicting suffering on the people they're supposed to be protecting, can be counted on to lie and cover up for those who do. There are no good cops.
In Lighter News
Hollywood sucks, they're out of ideas, blahblah. If they want good stories, they're just not looking in the right places.
The World Sucks
More yet on NRA selling out it's membership.
There is no difference between cops and any other criminal thug. They should be treated the same.
Bigots on one side, Fudds on the other: "Do you understand why you should care when someone wants to ban open carry, or semiauto rifles, or private non-dealer sales, or limit purchases, or require registration or...?"
Via Tam: "A legal system cannot demand the faith and fealty of the governed when rules are seen as arbitrary and deceptive." It's getting worse. Specific example.
In Lighter News
Re-revisiting the Test, I intend for my utopia to pass.
NRA still. Newbius in particular walks the walk.
There is no such thing as a good cop. Even the ones not actively stealing, lying, brutalizing, raping, murdering, and child-molesting, are covering up for the ones who do. Everywhere, every day.
Oh look, "Law enforcement personnel would be exempt from the new ordinance." Because we all know they can be trusted.
Related - it's all related - reader sends Cato Institute's map of botched JBT raids, which I've linked before but it appears to be regularly updated.
Via PatriotPost, Quote o' the Day: "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." - John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
No wonder they don't want us taking pictures.
This has been going 'round the 'blogosphere for a month or three. Cultural warfare, subtly or unsubtly causing people to flinch away from the founding principles of this nation. In my utopia, education is free-market, with very few government requirements - like a big stone monument of the Constitution just outside the front door of every school and government building. Unfortunately in the real world, students are lucky if the (Unionized! Tax-paid!) teachers show up sober and are literate enough to read their own lesson plans. Often the "teachers" are blatant revisionists and brainwashers.
In Lighter News
Writing... sometimes you write yourself into a corner or over a cliff and just gotta take that whole subplot and send it to the great electronic beyond.
But of course you can also cut-and-paste it to your slush file for some other story which may not even be in the same universe.
When the Muse speaks - and she does when she damn well pleases - it may take some time to get to the particular word processor file you want to put what she's saying in. Long ago I discovered how to add items to the Windows start menu. In XP, right-click on a blank area of the taskbar, then choose Properties. At the top, click the Start Menu tab. (This is also where you can switch between the Classic and Dumbified menu formats.) At lower right, click Customize. At upper right, click Advanced. This opens an Explorer window. Typically you'll have a drive-and-folder structure on the left and the contents of the selected folder on the right - if not, there should be a Folders button in the toolbar at the top, but you don't need it because the Start Menu folder is already selected. Now you can choose File -> New -> Shortcut, then navigate to the file you want. The shortcut can be named differently from the file it points to, so for example you can assign single numerals or letters to each item. Thus, when you need to access a particular file right now, it only takes two keystrokes: the Windows key, usually between the Ctrl and Alt keys at lower left on nearly all keyboards (and also at lower right on most), then the particular key you chose for the shortcut. Just like double-clicking on the file in an Explorer window, the appropriate application is automatically launched. I used hotkeys like this a lot when I was at the tech-support job.
I have seen this video and it was worth the bandwidth.
Speaking of GenXers who are teh very awsumm in FPS but couldn't change a flat tire to save their own lives, Tam snarks.
What Brigid said. Choosing a weapon for personal defense is personal. Try everything.
Bacon. Because Bacon. I'll have some now!
The World Sucks
Coast Guard stops oil cleanup to count flotation vests. It's not about safety or the environment or anything but control. Coasties are just cops with boats.
Related satire. Can't tell the difference, can ya? Coulda come out of a FedGov press release last night.
More yet on NRA and DISCLOSE. Reportedly LaPierre will be on Tom Gresham's Gun Talk this Sunday. Personally I'm expecting a good long softballing.
We certainly can't expect any relief from the unstable freaks in black robes.
Speaking of that campaign video I linked yesterday. How are we not already at war?
It's. About. Control. Sell a kidney, rob a liquor store, do whatever is necessary to get your kids out of government school now. I'm glad I don't have any.
In Lighter News
Umm... nuthin'.
The World Sucks
Two rifle matches I could be attending this weekend, at two clubs. Can't spare either fuel or ammunition or match fees. Saving what I have for CMP next weekend, 'cause I have ranking still (there was a big reshuffling in CMP stats shortly before the last Garand match), and for IPSC which is buckets of fun and makes good video - having my last tragic bit of pleasure before I have to go back to selling blood plasma, or something.
Nor am I figuring on buying any pyro for Independence Day this year.
Club picnic next weekend, but since I'm no longer a member, and just as well from the BoD politics, I won't have to drive up there and wander around taking photos all day - besides Garands are that Sunday at a different club.
Meanwhile we've got bigots and hypocrites and ignorami.
And now the United States by-God Navy is setting themselves up for a Ft. Hood-style massacre. "Every time there's a shooting, they want to take guns away from the people who didn't do it." And who could have stopped it.
Permits are infringement. Anyone who in any way denies or infringes upon the unalienable human right of self-defense is no better than a murderer themselves. The law is wrong, as are all who enforce it.
"What’s next, NRA branded Vaseline?"
There are many kinds of pollution.
I escaped public education and I'm still ticked at it. Free-market education NOW.
In Lighter News
Continuing Flynn's Up Jim River, very flavorful and evocative, Kipling-esque word-pictures and a feeling of vast unplumbed depths of distance and history.
Armed self-defense WIN. We knew that.
The World Sucks
More yet on NRA and DISCLOSE. Dig: “Before you criticize NRA for understanding that this isn’t your grandpa’s checker game or even your college dean’s chess game, you need to thank them for treating this as an extremely complex exercise more akin to Mister Spock’s three dimensional chess. A chess game [sic] demanding a very sophisticated and highly intellectual approach to the very serious problem at hand.” - John C. Sigler, past NRA president, now president of Fifty Caliber Shooters Institute. What's the difference between that and the Usurper telling us we're not smart enough to understand how smart he is?
Show & chat every Sunday 1100PT. NRA ExecVP LaPierre... "We fought McCain-Feingold [campaign-finance "reform" violating 1st Amendment protections] all the way." So why in the hell are you endorsing McCain? -In (a very small amount of) fairness, Tom changed tack and even (very briefly) interviewed Kevin Starrett... after Wayne was off the air.
Speaking of schisms this is an excellent summary of my idea of libertarianism. -There was an old OpEd cartoon... ah.
Yyyyeah I'm still boycotting Pizza Hut.
We hate cops because they're sadistic and evil and because they hate us and want us to die. There are no good cops.
In Lighter News
With Up Jim River as Muse fuel, pecking slowly at the next sections of Aurora. I've got at least some Stuff actually written for the next three parts, and you haven't seen the last of the Nakayamas neither.
...If Baen Tor (dang, so much of the stuff I think is good comes from Baen, I forget there are other publishers) were to offer an omnibus hardcopy edition of Flynn's Firestar tetralogy I might have to actually buy it. I wish I'd gone to a Mentor Academy.
The World Sucks
It's officially summer but the Pacific Northwest is always late getting the memo. Looks more like March.
Money is running out. I have enough for the car registration and rent, but maybe not enough for the Garand match at Lone Oak, counting fuel and a larger match fee (which includes GI ammunition required to be used). More Garands on the 10th, that's only $10 and a shorter drive, then a long drive to IPSC on the 31st.
"Lining up to be a hot lunch." I would add, "Think of it as evolution in action" if the damn psychotic government and their sadistic enforcers weren't trying to remove all choice.
"Detached from reality." Visual aid. Yet they have the raw power to control our lives.
The Constitutional definition of treason is very specific. Therefore this cannot accurately be called treason, though I'm sure a case could be made by counting the prayer rugs abandoned at the border. Blatant criminal negligence and dereliction of duty, we can call it that.
Hell, maybe I can find work as a mercenary down in AZ. -Naw, I'm out of shape, couldn't keep up.
No National GRE column today? No WoG updates? Did they get him?
Quote o' the Week. And They want us to be just like those other places.
In Lighter News
If I won the lottery tomorrow I WOULD BUY THIS FREAKIN' CAR.
I've stated before that I'm disappointed with Paul Chafe's Genesis series thus far, particularly the socio-political message and the complete failure to colonize Sol System, dumping all the eggs into a single sublight basket and blindly hurling it at a star which may not even have an hospitable planet. Buuuut, he's done some homework on the nuts & bolts, I'll admit. The trip takes about 10,000 years, during which time the soil inside the ship - which, in gross terms, is an O'Neill Cylinder with an engine - under the microacceleration, is slouching glacially aftward. He has a mechanism to scoop up the muck and pipe it forward so it doesn't go all pizza-box at the stern. IIRC Niven had conceptually-similar gigaplumbing on Ringworld. Thought: A conical generation ship, wide end forward, angle calculated to result in zero angle-of-repose when combining the vector of the spin-weight and linear microthrust, thus obviating expensive überplumbing. Eh? ...Eeeeh, but then, duh, you have different perceived weight along the entire length of the ship. But how different? How steep would the angle have to be? Obviously that depends on how much thrust you have vs. how much spin vs. what diameter. Hmm, the angle itself might then not be constant and you might end up with a curve. How about a terraced arrangement, the cylinder chopped into sections so each one's length, and thus the necessary angle, are reduced? Orrr, a flying torus instead of a cylinder? With a much greater diameter and vastly shorter length, the angle would be far less significant. (Remember, for such projects "diameter" and "length" are measured in kilometers and "acceleration" in centimeters-per-second-squared.)
The World Sucks
$107 to pass DEQ and renew registration on the car for two years. What a scam. Budgeting what's left, I will in fact skip the Lone Oak Garand match on the 27th, and I might have to skip the one at Clark Rifles as well, to sell odds & ends at the show that day instead. Really want to make that big 7-stage IPSC shoot on the 31st though.
HR 5175 lives and NRA is spinning like a Gatling's barrels. Note link to Gun Talk archive.
The Fudd Disconnect. (And evidently They didn't get Codrea.)
Disarmament kills again. That's what it's for.
There are no good cops. It's not just me saying it. Remember: Even the ones not actually raping and murdering and stealing and child-molesting and getting paid for it with your tax money, are lying and covering up for the ones who do, while also getting paid with your tax money. Ain't none of 'em clean.
Driving to DEQ, Rush referenced this article from Thomas Sowell. We're... really quite screwed.
Really, really screwed. One wonders what's next.
"...[I]gnorant fools... responsible for educating our children."
In Lighter News
I. Frickin'. LOL'd. You will have to back up some distance in the archive to get the full effect.
Aurora, Part XVI. Much of the next two are already written. XVIII will have what I hope you find to be stirring word-pictures. If you are entertained, please consider a charitable donation!
Brigid's bayonets. -I need a better for the Queen, the battered old M5A1 I have flops around. Perhaps a firmer fit wouldn't change the POI as much.
Advice on shopping for the Best Pistol Evar. I stumbled across mine, and had to work on it some, but it turned out all functional-like.
Your Daily Disrecommended Dose of Worldsuckage
I Told You So: "More ominous is Yale Professor Ackerman leading the charge for using this crisis as a purge of the officer corps."
Nuke Britain into fiery oblivion. Again.
Lunatics run asylum. Still.
More lying theiving cops. As if there were any other kind.
Jennifer has the article and WRSA has the image. Click through, read, buy ammunition.
In Lighter News
Stossel is worth watching or reading on nigh any issue, but he's addressing our cause specifically soon.
The World Sucks
First actual heat yesterday afternoon. No A/C in the hovel of course.
On page 13 of the July issue of American Rifleman is a full-page ad for the S&W M&P AR. "The Chosen One" it says (talk about word choice - have S&W even heard of that interwebs thingy?), over an image of a JBT in full panoply, followed by a fistful of Only Ones organizational emblems. This isn't the first time S&W has displayed a disconnect where their customers are concerned - first there was the Faustian Clinton deal, whence came the execrable Zit; then there was (pardon the source, couldn't find a better) foot-in-mouth disease from the then-CEO. Like Kimber, or STAG Arms, or too many other companies with a few notable exceptions, they're feeding the crocodile.
What, again with newspapers and CHLs?! Abusing (what's left of - see Jennifer/WRSA yesterday) the 1st Amendment to violate the 4th and 2nd. Talk about feeding crocodiles....
More croc-fodder, which I mentioned a few days ago. The world sucks so much....
Hollywood headcases. Their minds don't work right at all.
In Lighter News
Argh, up far too late polishing Aurora, Part XVII. Your charitable contributions are deeply appreciated! XVIII is in the works.
Speaking of writing, in Weber & Ringo's March Upcountry series, one of the protagonists starts out with something a lot like this.
The World Sucks
I have the rent and the internet covered but very little else. Looks like I'm skipping the 10 July Garand match too, to sell stuff instead. Magazines and optics and such - maybe that floppy M5A1 bayonet which I never use and hope to replace anyway if my fortunes ever reverse again.
Blatant censorship and discrimination in Chicago.
Codrea comments on yesterday's passage of DISCLOSE. So the government can have lists of us to discriminate against. ...Sigh, watch the next couple issues of the NRA magazines, they'll say how this terrible new law passed despite their very best efforts From The Very Beginning and they need more money to fight it. See also Stossel.
Speaking of lists, Des Moines GRE comments on newspapers and CHLs.
It's been a long time since I cared about anything O'Reilly had to say. Unfortunately a lot of Joe Sixpacks still listen, and vote.
"In a just world those bastards would have died on the bridge from the return fire of the citizens."
Related, even more evil sadistic cops who deserve to be hung from streetlights until their corpses rot.
And they're not the only Only Ones. I'm not making this stuff up, folks. Cops don't need my help to look bad, they're doing a spectacular job on their own.
Disarmament advocates are mentally ill. -Remember this preventable death.
Then there are the psychotic rulers who can't even read a map of their own territory. I'm feeling much sympathy for SMLE Fan and Yuri's lack of posting.
In Lighter News
With all this schisming going on over NRA and DISCLOSE, BTR displays unity for the Cause.
More writing tips from Correia.
Aaand Aurora, Part XVIII. Your charitable contributions are teh awsumm!
Aurora is a good name for a ship....
There is No End to the Worldsuckage
Quote o' the Day: “On two occasions I have been asked, – 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”
But our government keeps cramming the wrong numbers into the machine every moment of every day.
It's not paranoia if they really out are to get you. -Also see, again, this fictional extrapolation. It has happened before. It can happen again.
In Lighter News
Thoughts on relocation. 'Cause, folks, cities and Blue States are deathtraps in far too many ways. Get out.
Speaking of relocating, Alaska, hmm. Too many "felonies" these days come from violating "laws" written by the emotional equivalent of a spoiled five-year-old and enforced by... much the same kind of person.
The World Sucks
I have one reader who occasionally reproves me for being too harsh toward police, but every time he does, the very next day is a new report of some thug-with-a-badge shooting a kitten or tasering an invalid granny. Last night on library disc I was watching the first season of the original Mission: Impossible TV series. The tenth episode, "The Carriers" (November 1966), was a Cold War story about enemy agents being trained to infiltrate American society to instigate biological warfare. The setting was an artificial American town built for total immersion in American language and culture. At one point, the protagonists, who have abducted and replaced the original enemy trainees, are tested by their trainers, who burst into their room and arbitrarily attempt to arrest them. Two of the faux comrades meekly submit, but Rollin Hand puts up a 4th Amendment defense:
He is praised, and the other two criticized, by the director of the operation:
But it's not that way anymore. Now they show up in gangs, with dogs and automatic weapons, rob you at gunpoint, and any protest or resistance at all is construed as a felony, justifying their use of beatings, electric torture, and summary murder. How are we not living in a totalitarian dictatorship? Sure, you think you're free. You can buy all the food you want at the supermarket, drive to the beach one weekend and go to a pistol match the next - but scratch the surface, step off the government-approved path, do something without permission no matter how peaceable or harmless it is, or just get swept up in a "random" "safety" "checkpoint", and the sadists with badges will have their way with you and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Except take some of the murderous filth with you, maybe. They're certainly not leaving us much to lose. These are not the actions of keepers of the peace or defenders of public safety, they are the actions of an occupying army. Our combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are more humane and mature in their treatment of suspected terrorists than police are toward the citizens whose taxes pay them.
These are acts of war.
In Lighter News
...Show & chat every Sunday 1100PT.
Yah those evocative word-pictures I promised in Part XVIII, gonna be a while, with a 6,000-hour trip and a bunch of supporting characters and several worlds along the way. This story is open-ended.
Okeh, there were a couple nice visuals in XVII I think, like the museums. The one at Lisa's was based largely on the Natural History museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which specific exhibit may have been reconfigured by now. Must go back someday and take more pictures, I've grown as a photographer since then.... But srsly there's this city in my head that some srs SF artist needs to paint.
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long online. Sample: "Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed."
The World Sucks...
"Good people do not embrace communism, and communists are not good."
...a Tiny Bit Less Today
McDonald analysis or commentary from Codrea, LA GRE, Minneapolis GRE, Charlotte GRE, The Shooting Wire, two entries from DownRange.TV, Brigid, Stossel, TGZ, Newbius, Yuri, Outdoor Life, and The Volokh Conspiracy.
Related: "...[T]he only civilized Nation in the world." And, Hah-hah. But OTOH: "Make it legal to own a handgun so long as you fill out form XYZ-42B… but then never bother to actually print out any copies of form XYZ-42B." Ask a Civil Rights crusader from the 60's if that sounds familiar. Permits are infringement. Requiring government permission is tyranny.
A conscise eulogy.
The World Sucks
Codrea has a Kagan roundup. Srsly WTF!?
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Inconvenient Truth o' the Day: "Governments must not attempt to anticipate and prevent crime because the only way to do so is to coerce people who are not doing anything criminal." One must therefore examine the definition of "crime" - as opposed to the "legal system... not a justice system" we have today - and conclude that 99% of police work is illegitimate from it's conception, 99% of all laws are crimes, and those who perform that work and enforce those laws are the real criminals.
And these enemies of civilization actually think they're the good guys. While they're shooting kittens and electrocuting grandmothers and robbing peaceable citizens at gunpoint and randomly performing acts of attempted murder, in the name and under the color of their "law".
In Lighter News
More McDonald:
Elsewhere, North Carolina moves toward preventing another Katrina grab.
Hints of improvement in Wisconsin.
Wyoming. I may cry....
Ya know there's just boatloads of worldsuckage out there. But once in a great while, someone finds something good to talk about.
Niven & Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer (sequel forthcoming) (and Footfall). Clarke's The Hammer of God. At least four movies (with various degrees of suck). Recent events (and an anniversary). My own humble efforts. And now, now someone is finally running some numbers.
U can haz pinfire. For much moneys of course.
"Green energy"? Hah-hah.
Däs Überpost, mit viele Founderenquotten und SCOTUSZitieren.
FRICKIN' FLYIN' CARS. Though personally I prefer this one.
The World Sucks
Codrea has more on NRA, Kagan, and DISCLOSE. W. T. F?
It's long been established that the roots of disarmament are racist. A case can be made that adherence to this malicious and destructive policy is a mental illness, 'cause some nut thinks that ruling in favor of a black man's RKBA is somehow racist. Sick In The Head.
"Permit proponents, including the president of the Iowa Police Chiefs Association, say a repeal would jeopardize public safety." It's not about safety, it's about control.
...And considering the increasingly unconscionable behavior of the average cop, their safety damn well should be jeopardized. With all the fun their union brothers are having every day, no wonder they don't want the peasants to be able to defend themselves.
In Lighter News
Another point of departure between myself and "pure" libertarians. In the test, one question asks, "Should private clubs have sole authority to select their own members, even if they are discriminatory?" The "libertarian" answer is Yes, yes? But then they ask, "Should we relax immigration laws? Should immigration laws be abolished?" Inconsistency, dey haz it. ...113 BTW.
Yet more McDonald from Tucson GRE.
DC GRE reports on market forces.
LOL o' the Day: "[Russia's] got the final boss fight from a Chuck Norris movie and we’ve got Steve Urkel." -Correia should have a show on FNC, right next to Stossel's.
I'd've LOLd at this too, except for this. Too many dashed hopes. -Still funny though, putting aside the source.
