Saturday, September 22, 2007

Rachel Lucas Torments Dogs

Film at ten

After being directed to her site by Kevin on a different matter, I ran across this. Take note: not only does she do this, she's trying to pull her boyfriend into this horrible plot against canine dignity. Happily, the boyfriend is standing firm.

What IS it with women doing nasty things like this to dogs? It's not enough to get a poodle, it's got to have some disgusting haircut that makes it look like George Michael's date after they leave the men's room in the park. Or tie little ribbons on their head. Gah.

When I was going with what later turned into my second ex, one evening I went over to watch a movie. She had a dog that looked a lot like a husky(can't remember the breed) with long off-white fur, and every summer she'd have the fur cut short. She'd had that done the day before. I walked into the living room, looked out the window to the back yard and stopped moving. I may have stopped breathing for a moment. Fur cut short, except for the poofy ball at the tip of his tail. I think my actual words were "God, what did you do to him?"

She smiled and informed me that A: she thought it was cute, and (you know this is coming) B: "He likes it."

"He LIKES it?" At this point the dog heard us and looked in. And saw me looking at him. I swear, he ducked his head and looked away. "Look him! He's ashamed!" She looked out the window and saw him hiding his face, and she actually looked shocked. "Look at that!" as he turned his head enough to look, saw us and turned away again, "He's wondering just what he did to be treated this way! Just look at that face: "Mom, what did I do to deserve this?" "

Oh, that was a merry evening for a while. And yeah, that SHOULD have been a warning.

His fur grew back out and the poof on his tail disappeared, and I made sure to act like I didn't see a thing until then. But DAMN, what a thing to do to a dog.

From what I'm reading,

this situation stinks. I heard something about it yesterday, and today found this. So I looked at Blackfive for more information. I'd suggest go there and search 'sniper' and find all the posts on this mess.

This sounds an awful lot like the Haditha bullcrap, but worse(at least there's no jackass named Murtha running around braying). Here there's no question what happened, when, how and why, yet this general decides these two troops need to be tried. Just bloody amazing.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Remember the al Dura kid?

Who the palistinians and French tv claimed the Israelis killed? Well, check this out:
Many have accused the photo of young Mohammed Al Dura’s father shielding him from Israeli bullets of being a fake, but the original videotape from which this photo was drawn was hidden from view by France 2. Yesterday a French judge finally ordered the channel to produce it. PJM’s Nidra Poller was one of the few journalists witnessing this stunning turning point.

Besides the interesting look at the French system, we come to this when the judge says "We want to see the original, unedited footage":
The court recesses. (Even though an informed source has already whispered the result in my ear, I am gripped with suspense.) The judges return and report their decision on the question in suspense. The expertise. The raw footage. They want it. They will not go forward until they have seen it. MaƮtre Amblard drops her pencil. She is sincerely stunned.

Now, us uneddicated rednecks have an observation: unless there's footage that proves that a lot of this was staged, they wouldn't mind people seeing it. But oh, boy, do they mind.

Kim's 'No Response Necessary'

post is downright interesting. Especially so since I just ran across this:
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.

But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime.

Gee, ya think maybe?

Thursday, September 20, 2007

And speaking of foul beings,

Our Lady of the Thong points us to this:






May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.

What? I hadn't said that before? Ok, then
May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.

Also, Our Lady points to Gates of Vienna who point us to this:
O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.

You have GOT to read the whole thing.

In honor of the miserable politicians

who would even consider letting that pimple on a camel's ass go to Ground Zero(or anywhere else except a high-security cell), my own version of the Col. Bogey March:

Mahmoud has only got one ball,














Bashar has two but very small,























Moqtada has something similar


















And Osama has no balls at all











It being difficult to have balls(or anything else) when you've been converted to mulch spread all over Tora Bora.

Anyone able to make it to the Pimple's visit to NYFC, feel free to sing it to him. If I could get there, I'd do it myself.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ammo price differences

There's a Wally World not far from my house, and a while back looked in on their ammo cabinet. Blazer Brass in .40S&W was almost $10/box, in 9mm about $8.50.

Couple of weeks ago went to Sportsmans Warehouse to get some primers, and there's a Wally nearby. I remembered it often has more movies in the discount bin than other stores, so stopped in to look, and while there I checked their ammo. Mostly to see if had any .223 for a friend. At this store, the .40S&W was $2.00 less a box, also that much less for 9mm. But the .223 they had was about a dollar higher than the other store.

Big difference for a few miles apart.

This just in: John Murtha

is still a miserable, vile pimple on the ass of the Marines.

My family expanded by more than a daughter-in-law

when son got married. Daughter-in-law's brother(does that make him a form of son-in-law?) headed back to the hot & sandy region today. He's going back for the third time.

And just to make things merry, he got married recently(yay!) and found out shortly before his ship-out date that she's pregnant(damn, that's fast, even for Airborne!)

May wear out God's ear by the time this is done.

Double rifles

Kim has a post up about a lovely CZ double, which reminded me of something seen at last years fall Wanenmacher Show up in Tulsa. It looked like this:





Holland & Holland double, in .470 Jeffries Nitro-Express. In the original case with the turnscrews, oil bottle and so forth. Obviously used, and well cared for. God, it was BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately it also sold for a little over half the cost of my house, so it was just a bit out of reach.

But if I had the money, I'd have written a check right there.

Some general things

Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test:
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

What do you call dozens of dead Iranian missile engineers and 15 Syrian officers? A start.

More problems at the State Department:
"Dissent within the State Department, particularly from a guy who doesn’t like the administration, who goes outside the policy and tries to put focus on himself, there’s nothing unusual about it," he said, adding that most career diplomats were Democrats. "If you don’t have dissent at the State Department, there’s probably a Democrat in office."

This should be known as 'more proof the striped-pants weenies at State think they should run the worldcountry. And should be canned.'

Gee, school choice actually works! The only problem I have is with this:
The second replaced the money for public schools that was lost when a student used the vouchers. If the school is no longer responsible for teaching/caring for that student, THEY DON'T NEED THAT MONEY. But even with that crap, this is a program that's showing strong results. Good for it.

And last, Captain's Quarters notes this piece of... I'm not sure what to call it. Anything that starts with I know why I chose Columbia: the campus is magnificent, the education is top-tier, and my peers are intelligent. I could look at a stranger, tell him or her that I went to Columbia, and hear the predictable, “Wow, you must be smart.”, tells you that disconnected BS is following. In large amounts.

Come on, people, there's no way that anybody with three working brain cells to rub together CANNOT know that it's a military adademy; how could 'Naval Academy' not register? And this:
She begged me to call a naval lieutenant Monday morning to start the out-processing forms for my brother.
Yeah, I'm sure the brother was just freakin' thrilled to find out that his mom and sister tried to get him out. Without asking his thoughts on the matter, of course; after all, he chose to go there so he's obviously too stupid to know what's good for him.

And she's mad because he couldn't call mommy and her more than occasionally. Hey, lady, when my son was in Army Basic, barring emergency(real ones, not freaked-out relatives), no calls. Period. Letters you could write and receive, but no phones or e-mail. So shut the hell up and let your brother get what really is a top-class education as well as Navy training.

God, some of these people...

They never, learn, after the first report is TOO LATE!

"That said, the first Peruvian cannibal story I hear, I’m loading up on canned goods and firearms."

Dammit, people, that's waiting too long. After the reports come out is when the run on arms, ammo and supplies have started.

Stock up now, avoid the rush!

When the title of the sympathetic reporter's story is "We're ****ed",

I think the weenies have a problem.
An hour into the event, a woman passed me with a disappointed look on her face and said, “This is pitiful.”

And it was. “We are not insignificant,” a speaker read from his prepared speech, but the numbers assembled before him gave lie to his words. And the repeated references to the will of the people seemed pointedly indifferent to the fact of the rather listless group that milled around, carrying the same sorts of banners and placards that might have been seen a couple of generations ago in much larger and much younger gatherings.

A very sympathetic journalist, who gives the expected "the war has become deeply unpopular, and the disgust with Bush policies in Iraq is high.", and the 'nasty Texas president, etc. Who is honest enough to point out what a sorry mess this protest was.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

MOAB is good, but

the daughter is right: the Chinese had some good names for ordnance.

Something to check on old .22 rifles

I mentioned in this post that the rifle appeared to be entirely a stranger to lubrication. Rifles like this are often like that, people bought them and used them and never did anything except load and fire them.

Which eventually led to function problems, which leads to them being sold. Sometimes downright cheap, as in this case. The previous owner looked amazed when the current owner performed the amazing feat of pulling the bolt to look down the bore; he not only had never done it, he didn't know how.

So if you find an interesting old .22 but things don't seem to work right, check it out as carefully as you can. It may be perfectly sound mechanically but needs lube desperately. Or- especially in repeaters- just has fouling and dust built up to the point it won't work right.

On the subject of Mo cartoons,

this guy in Sweden has balls. Amnesty(for thugs) International and the ACLU & Co. do not.

Also, ref the post on the Day by Day cartoon, Chris Muir said There are none. Zero. Nada. Zip.

The impression out there is it's dangerous, and it's not. There are more of us than them.

I admit to being surprised. Seems like there's an awful lot of islamists and their PC buttmonkeys always ready to have screaming fits, it's amazing they haven't been calling for death and destruction on this. Hell, I don't think I've heard anything from Islamic Rage Boy having a cow, even.

Monday, September 17, 2007

And Chris Muir started getting threats


in how many seconds?

'Fat children seized by government'

Make more bureaucrats, and they'll find something to do. All for the public good, of course.
According to a BBC investigation, at least 20 child protection cases this past year have involved a child’s weight. Details on most of these children’s situations and their fates are unavailable.

"Oh, it's because we CARE, you see!"

Dr. Capehorn appears to be on a tireless mission to lock up fat children, but there’s more behind his interests in promoting fears of fat and threatening such dire consequences for those failing to be slim. The Independent made a brief mention that he “runs an obesity clinic in Rotherham, South Yorkshire” in a story last summer. But he isn’t your ordinary weight loss doctor.

But there is some hope:
Growing numbers of parents aren't buying it, as they see their naturally fat children eating and active and just as healthy as other kids. Hysterical headlines driven by vested interests cannot change reality, create a nonexistent crisis, or make sound healthcare policies.

How much good it'll do depends, of course, on if they can get their nanny-state government to listen to them.

Sometimes I'm especially glad some of my ancestors

left Britain.
SIR Menzies Campbell yesterday pledged to "hammer" households earning more than £70,000 with higher taxes.
The Liberal Democrat leader said the rich have done "too well" under Labour and agreed the wealthiest 10 per cent should pay more taxes.
...
The Lib Dems want to reduce the basic rate of income tax by 4p in the pound by environmental taxes and changes to capital gains tax relief on investments and pensions, which are currently skewed in favour of those in the higher tax bracket.
In calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, the Lib Dems are following growing concern about income inequality. There was public uproar when a private equity boss recently boasted in front of MPs that he paid less tax than his cleaner.

Idiots make the tax system rediculous, and then get mad when people find the ways to avoid taxes which are only there because the idiots made the mess. And then they want to rip pockets open because "I don't like what you did!" Listen, dumbass, they could only do it because of you.

Oh, and why 70k pounds as 'anyone above that I'll hammer'?
The Lib Dem leader's salary - the £60,227 paid to any backbench MP - would not make him liable for greater tax.
Oh, of COURSE not.

"There is genuine disgust at some of the tax dodging ... and a large majority share our wish to see a crackdown," he said.

'Tax dodging', just like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, who pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than I do because of the bullshit, complicated tax code. Simplify the mess, and knock off this 'the rich should pay a higher percentage' crap.

Scotland, now Socialist Paradise. Crap.

Found through The Englishman. Which somehow seems appropriate.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

More on the threat to our kids

Few days ago I posted on possible 'what then?' actions if the terrorists do manage an attack on our kids in school. JR has a post I just found(got to get by there more often) on the same subject, with a bunch of links.

Beware Og:

Him bad for mental health

Note to self: next time Og says "Make it", do two things:
1. Ignore him.
2. Drive up to wherever the hell it is he lives and shoot him.

This being brought on by a project. I wrote a while back of having picked up a Sistema, the Argentine 1911A1. This one has a mismatched slide & frame numbers, so I decided to do some work on it. New sights, trigger job, flare the mouth of the mag well a bit, refinish with either bluing or something like Duracoat. And a new barrel. This one has some pitting in the grooves, shoots quite well with jacketed bullets but fouls fast and bad with cast.

I mentioned this to Og. I've lightened the trigger a bit(needs more work) and used wet/dry 220grit paper to clean up the finish, such as it was.


















The first thing it needs is better sights. Better for me, at least, that thin, rounded front blade is a pain to see in all but bright light. I asked Og for opinions on a set, and he suggested making a wider front blade and keeping the original rear. Which sounded like a fine idea, me being one of those idiotshandy people who likes to do things himself. Which is what led to my considering violence.

The original design of the 1911, in the slide is a slot with a hole in the bottom. The sight thins where it meets the barrel so the base fits in the slot and a tenon on the bottom goes through the hole. You set things in place, then set the slide upside down on something solid and use a special chisel to upset the tenon to fill the hole, locking the sight in place. Taking it out means cutting some of the tenon out(I used a dremel with a small ball-end diamond bit) and then grabbing the blade and pulling it out. So far, so good.

Making the new blade... This was one time I really wished I had access to a milling machine. Let's just say that with a hacksaw and files, it took two tries, then had to make a tool to set the tenon. By the time this was done, I was saying unkind things about Og and wondering about having a machinist cut a dovetail in the slide. But it got done, and I fired it today. 50 rounds through, and it's still there, no sign of loosening.
















It actually looks better than this, I'd just filed it down a bit and hadn't wiped the filings off.

I widened the notch in the rear sight to match up with the wider blade, and it works pretty well. Down the road I might get a set of white-dot sights, though if I do that I will have a dovetail cut so I have a wider selection available.

A while back Xavier pointed me to a site with some 'how to fit a barrel' information, so when that time comes I've got a good idea of how. The mag well I know how to do, and I can either blue it or Duracoat it with no problem. I'll dig out the trigger job instructions I found at M1911.org and go the whole route next, the trigger breaks clean but is heavier than I want.

One of these days I'll finish this thing. I think it'll work out pretty well.

Store brands

One thing you run into when you start looking at older firearms, rifles and shotguns in particular, is the 'store brand'. Some company wanted to carry a firearm with their name or their brand on it but didn't want to build it themselves. So they'd contract with some gunmaker to produce one or more of their firearms- sometimes with small differences, sometimes pretty much identical- with the store's name on it.

Montgomery Ward was one. My dad has a shotgun marked with their name, that was actually made by Winchester. Sears & Roebuck did this a lot. I remember going to the bigger Sears stores and roaming the sporting goods while my parents looked at whatever. Rifles and shotguns, many with the 'Ted Williams' brand marked on them, others simply marked 'Sears'.

Here's one:












This is a Sears single-shot .22 rifle. This one was actually made by Marlin, with the Sears name and model number on the barrel. Lots and lots of people bought these both as a kid's first rifle and as a 'get the varmints out of the garden and squirrels out of the pecan tree' rifle. About as simple as you can get: open the bolt, drop in a cartridge, close, pull the cocking piece back, fire.

A guy found this one a while back, with electrical tape wrapped around the wrist(no idea why, no cracks or breaks) and the buttplate broken. You had to brace the butt on your hip and pull to get the bolt open, and he got it cheap. It gave the impression of never having been oiled in its life, lots of light rust on the barrel & receiver. But the bore, thanks to the wonders of .22 ammo, was spotless. At least after a oiled patch had been pushed through. Stripping and oiling took care of the stiff bolt and cleaned the rust off, and it had a trip to the range today. It's actually got a damn good trigger, breaking at about three pounds with no creep or drag. With better sights or a scope(the receiver is grooved) I think it might do really well; with the front bead and rear notch on a somewhat dim range at 30 yards it gave about 1" groups. He's going to refinish the stock and hit the metal with cold blue to improve the finish. What there is of it.

Next time you see an old .22 with a store name on it, going cheap, give it a close look; it might be worth a lot more as a shooter than they're asking.

Bad cops

The one getting the most attention right now is this clown, St. George Missouri Police Sergeant James Kuehnlein. And he deserves every damn bit of it. Xavier later links to The Northern Muckraker who has some things to say in response to a post at Officer.com(scroll around at Muckraker, he's got a lot of interesting stuff on this).

I hate this crap. I hate that a law enforcement agency not only keeps a jerk like this on the force, he makes Sergeant. Which means God knows how long he's been doing crap like this to people.

I hate it when someone has been messed over by an agency so badly that they feel the need to put cameras in their own car. And in this case, glad he did. As has been pointed out, does anyone think this would have ended any way other than the guy going to jail- probably after having the crap beat out of him- if Kuehnlein hadn't realized he was being recorded? And in a way he couldn't destroy?

I hate it when brass, instead of saying "Wrong was done and we're gonna take care of it", tries to excuse and cover up. This crap from the chief:
Chief Uhrig states that Sgt. Kuehnlein told him that the recorder had a "glitch" on the night in question, but the chief told KMOX radio in an interview:
"During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein's police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found."
...
"Apparently the recording device was not working properly. Well, I in turn have checked the recording device, the in-car camera system, and it is functioning properly."
First, there is NO excuse for supervisors hiding or destroying a recording like this. Second, there is NO excuse for a Chief of Police having anything to do with such. If the Chief did indeed have anything to do with it, he should be fired. That includes not doing anything about a tape 'going missing' or 'becoming unusable' in an investigation. I'm sick to death of excuses.

There is a comment on the Officer.com post that sums up a real problem. After ranting about the usual stuff("We're not treated right, we're not respected, " and so on, we get this:
Most departments are desparate to hire officers that little consideration is given to these peoples ability to defend themselves much less the public at large. Now we have to deal with idiots setting us up when they have nothing better to do?? I hope all of you Douglas Hesters and Joel Rosenbergs out there are the ones that reap what you sow. I hope it’s the most vulnerable members of family tjhat are violated by the little punks that the police are to scared to stomp a 6 foot mud hole in their heads when they obviously desrve it. I hope the next time you call for help the police don’t show… maybe some little hethern with a video camera will come plug the holes some gang bangers shot in your torso…but I hope not.

That apparently comes from a police officer. Got a question: you want to work with this guy? Maybe he's mostly blowing off steam here, but still... It's like nothing this officer did counts, "He was set up", and so on. Which is exactly how departments get this bad. The people abusing authority, abusing the public, in many cases flatly committing crimes, are protected by other officers because "He's one of US." So other officers who come on the force do the same crap. If this guy wants to know a big reason so many do not respect the police anymore, it's because of bad cops doing crap like this, and other cops protecting them.

Dammit, this leaves a real bad taste in my mouth.

Well, Rodger just couldn't stay away

so he's still there.

A combination of things

that other people have noted, but I just can't pass up.

This kind of crap is why people don't trust the schools and teachers:
"The lesson being taught in class was that the U.S. kidnaps innocent people and takes them to Cuba, where they are kept indefinitely and tortured," Hill said he learned through his daughter.

When Hill asked her if Brooks mentioned Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. imprisons terrorist suspects, he said his daughter replied "yes."

He said his daughter broke into tears when she talked about Brooks mentioning illegal wiretaps and other surveillance directed against innocent people.

"I think I was more irritated by the classroom discussion than the letter," he said.

I would think 'Seriously pissed off' more than 'irritated'. But the principal says ...she doesn't believe Brooks has any political agenda to advance. Oh, no, of course not.

Syria has been naughty, and the Israeli Air Force administered a serious kick in the ass.
At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.
I wonder if that miserably little bugger in Damascus may have gotten the idea that people are tired of playing games with him? Also, ought to check out Tigerhawk's thoughts on this.

Rush Limbaugh said the other day that we may have to win the war without Democrats. Sounds a bit strong, but after the absolute marfi thrown at Gen. Petraeus, before, during and after his report, I tend to agree. Especially with crap like this:
“No one wants to call [Gen. David Petraeus] a liar on national TV,” noted one Democratic senator, who spoke on the condition on anonymity. “The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.”
Chickenshit little bastards.

Directly connected to the above, read this: Defeat at Any Price.