Saturday, April 17, 2010

One helluva picture and video of a solar flare

Thanks, Insty!

As to that idiot statement(the latest one) from the EffingBI about 'domestic terrorism',

I'll borrow from Tam:
We have guys with their jockeys full of Semtex buying airline tickets with cash, and the feds are busy getting spun up about bubbas in Mossy Oak angry about taxes. Way to keep your eye on the ball...

Of course, with this level of fixation, I'm starting to worry about them looking for a van der Lubbe; if their devil doesn't exist, they may have to invent one
.

That'd be an 'Only One' incident I'd pay to see

ATF Witness: I'm the only one here, that I know of, professional enough to carry this Colt 40mm...

Defense Attorney: Your Honor, I object to this witness blowing himself up with a grenade launcher. Move to suppress testimony.

Judge: Sustained. 20 minute recess to give the firemen a chance to put out the burning corpse.

From behind a blast shield, at least

Speaking of politically motivated violence, Mr. Clinton,

your damned party needs to clean up its act.
John Durajczyk — Violent Tea Party Infiltrator and Secretary of the St. Charles County Democratic Committee.

On Thursday April 15, two violent leftist infiltrators attended the St. Charles Tax Day Tea Party Rally. St. Charles is located just a few miles west of St. Louis. The two men threatened and attacked elderly protesters and shouted down speaker Lt. Governor Peter Kinder during his speech.

The two infiltrators have now been identified
.
The other jackass:
Footnote: I also confirmed via this Facebook page that Belosi’s partner at the St. Charles event was John Durajczyk, a St. Peters, Mo., resident who, according to the Missouri Democratic Party’s local committees web page, also serves as secretary of the St. Charles County (Mo.) Democratic Committee. He and his wife own an apparel and promotions business, Faithfully Yours, at Mid-Rivers Mall in St. Peters.
And what do these to National Socialist Democrats think of as upholding freedom of speech?
I went on to explain to him that a lady who attended the event told me in person Thursday — and again during a follow-up phone call Friday — that the man she identified as Belosi indeed had confronted her while she was sitting in her lawn chair, simply listening to event speakers.

She said Belosi came out of nowhere, leaned down close to her face and screamed at her, “Get your fat (expletive) and your damn dog and get off this socialist property!”

Confronted with that information, Belosi tried to shift the blame to her.

“I know the lady you’re talking about, (she) was boo-hooing really good,” he said. “What’s she, about 60 years old?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?” I countered.

“Sometimes, I think it does matter,” he replied. “I mean, she was just having a real fit over anything.”

The lady, whom I’ll call Sally Jones because she asked that her real name not appear in this story out of fear of possible reprisals against her, told me she only started crying after he confronted her.

Asked if it was okay for him to say something like that to the lady, who I learned is only 59, he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I did say something to her to that effect, but not completely though,” he replied
.

Remember the Lower Merion school district and the laptop cameras?

The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.

More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied
.
Except that this computer, for instance wasn't stolen; now they're saying The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins' computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.
Well, then why weren't there phone calls to the kids parents saying "We need it back"? If this crap was solely to track missing computers, once they knew where it was, why keep taking pictures? And those two quotes above make it plain that 'tracking stolen laptops' may have been the excuse, but it's bullshit: they enjoyed peeking in on these kids and kept doing it.

Dirtbags. Who demand respect from the kids and wonder why they don't get it.

Some really good pictures of the current in-the-news volcano

here, including this of the ash cloud:

One messy eruption

Your morning news, before I start dealing with the rest of the cleaning

Taranto points out there's STILL no evidence of racial slurs being yelled at those congressmen who threw their credibility down the toilet for the sake of trying to grab some political points.


A guy tells the Democrat Party how to make the bloodbath coming in November less bloody, including this at the end:
Democrats can avoid the electoral bloodbath we predicted before passage of the health-care bill, but in one way: through a bold commitment to fiscal discipline and targeted fiscal stimulus of the private sector and entrepreneurship.
I think he misses something: I don't think Obama cares what happens to the Democrat Party; he's head of the National Socialist Democrats in all but name and wants what he wants, no matter the price other people pay. I do think a lot of Democrats have realized this, but it's still Obama and Reid and Pelosi throwing their weight around. And Reid and Pelosi seem to have the same outlook: "Screw the Democrat Party, we're getting what we want."


The miserable little socialist prick David Axelrod tells the truth about Obama and the National Socialist Democrats: they'll have to be stomped to stop them; they don't care about anything except winning, and if they win the United States loses. Everything.


A bit more detail on what that progressive jerk Goodwin Liu said about Samuel Alito:
“Judge Alito’s record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse … where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man,” Liu wrote. “I humbly submit that this is not the America we know. Nor is it the America we aspire to be.”

The testimony was “vicious, emotionally and racially charged, very intemperate, and to me it calls into question your ability to approach and characterize people’s positions in a fair and judicious way,” Kyl said.

Liu only acknowledged that this language was “unnecessarily flowery.”

NEVER forget, this is what Obama wants on the Supreme Court: a whole bunch of Liu clones.


That's enough for now.

It started raining here yesterday morning and has had only slight pauses since

which served to keep me in the house and make me actually do the cleaning and such I'd needed to. Including processing a bunch of brass I'd tumbled and had ready; some from the past while, some from the range trip the other day.

Speaking of range, I took the Martini 12/15 for the first time in a while, which reminded me of why I like it so much: iron sights at 50 yards with Eley Sport ammo, twenty shots made one big ragged hole less than an inch across(not counting a couple of flyers; ammo or me, not the rifle). I do need to work on my prone shooting, I tend to spread shots laterally a bit.

The 15-22 got a workout. I took the scope I'd had on the previous one and mounted and zeroed it. The thing's quite accurate, but I need higher rings; extra-high still has me mashing my cheek into the stock. Speaking of which, while looking for extra-extra-high rings without much success(without spending more than I can), I remembered Amazon has been carrying a lot of shooting stuff so I took a look there. Damn. Set of VERY tall rings on their way, $8 including shipping.

Fired the 15-22 with Centurion solids, Federal Lightning(the old stuff I found), Eley Sport, Federal 36-grain hp and some Federal Auto Match; no misfeeds, misfires or anything else. All shot well, and I could've had tighter groups if I hadn't been straining to keep my eye aligned with the scope.

By the way best comment of all on Bill Clinton's "The teabaggers are Tim McVeigh in waiting" slander the other day:
I did not have sexual relations with that man, Timothy McVeigh.

In my continuing series of "You probably already know this,

but just in case",

Ever had a revolver with some fairly cruddy chambers? Scrubbing them out can be a pain. For really fouled ones, what I would up trying was a power tool; screwdriver, to be precise*. You can buy a small drill chuck with a hex shank for them(very handy for a number of things). Put it in, lock a bronze brush big enough to be a proper fit into the chuck, apply your favorite bore cleaner, turn it on** and work into the first chamber. You can work it back & forth to make sure it covers the entire surface, then move to the next chamber.

Seems to be a lot less messy than pushing a brush back & forth through, and does a better job of scrubbing. And if you have a worn brush, you can wrap a large patch around it for wiping out, too.


*I've got an orange stick driver that ran $5 at a local tool shop, but you can use a big driver as well.
**Slowly. If it's a variable-speed driver, slowly. you're not trying to drill, just turn the brush in the chamber; with a bronze or brass or nylon brush there's no real chance of damaging anything, but slow speed is still best.

Friday, April 16, 2010

More than you may have read before

about MREs.
Enter Dumpster diving. "We needed to see what soldiers were actually throwing out," explains food scientist Kathy Evangelos, a 31-year veteran of the Combat Feeding Directorate, who helped pioneer the scavenging practice. "Dumpsters don't lie." Not long ago, soldiers hid the truth about military chow—they were too polite to spill. But while the standard fare in the field was officially tagged Meals, Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, the nutritionists eventually learned what the grunts called them: "meals rejected by the enemy" or, even less kindly, "meals refused by everyone."
for a start, though the first definition I heard was Meals Rejected by Ethiopians. Interesting reading.



Found thanks to the Mauser guy

"This is how they buy you"

At Stormbringer.
What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.

I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote . . . I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.
...
We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group - Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria.

We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler
.
Go read.

Rep. Heath Shuler(Lying National Socialist Democrat)

backtracks and twists. Miserable little bleep.
U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler is distancing himself from comments he made to the Times-News last month, stating he heard racial slurs yelled from a crowd of angry health care protesters outside the U.S. Capitol.

On March 20, black Democratic congressmen John Lewis, Andre Carson and Emanuel Cleaver said they heard the N-word as they walked to the Capitol to vote on health care. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said anti-homosexual epithets were yelled at him.

At that time, Shuler told the Times-News he was walking toward the Capitol with Cleaver when protesters began yelling racial epithets at Cleaver.

On Wednesday, Shuler told The Associated Press that he heard slurs against Frank, but not Cleaver
.
"Well, I say that SOMEBODY said something bad! I just don't know what or who or...

RNC Chairman Michael Steele: race-baiting jackass who needs to be fired

The annual conference of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) runs today through Saturday in New York City. According to the official program, the “Republican National Convention” is among the 45 sponsors of the event that serves as Sharpton’s biggest fundraising event of the year. Perhaps the program was supposed to read “Republican National Committee.” According to NAN, sponsorship requires a contribution of $5,000 to $100,000.
So: Steele plays the race card against anyone who criticizes him, craps on conservatives and now this? Throw his ass out.

Goodwin Liu, another Obama appointee with things to hide

So much so that- well, hell, just go here and read about it.
Liu acknowledged his copious sins of omission on his committee questionnaire. “I’m sorry,” he told the panel, but rationalized that they didn’t matter so much because his life’s work has been “an open book” anyway.

Well, it was thanks to conservative blogs and GOP staff that all of the controversial appearance and statements he somehow forgot to include were unearthed.

Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein came to Liu’s defense, weakly noting that there have been other nominees who forgot stuff on their questionnaires
.
Yeah, EVERYBODY up for a judge's position forgets more than a hundred things that should have been listed. Sure.
GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions grilled Liu on his unhinged attacks on Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Liu ran away from both positions, acknowledging his “high regard” for Roberts’ experience (to which Liu allowed he could not himself compare) and acknowledging that his Alito attack used “perhaps unnecessarily colorful language.”
And so on. Miserable little bastard, he'd fit right in with Obama.

Sink expedient report and general bitching about the news

Well, it didn't seem right to call it field expedient, so. Bathroom sink was draining REALLY show, and I didn't want to go out in the rain and buy something, so tried an idea: ex once showed me a plastic snake for sinks, basically a flexible rod with hooks molded in it; push it down the drain and pull it back. Being cheap and wanting to stay dry, I cut a piece of weedeater line(.080" diameter), and used the knife to cut a series of notches on opposing sides, cutting so it formed barbs. Ran that end down the drain, worked it back & forth a bit and then dragged it and an amazing amount of crap out of the drain. It works much better now.

Now, the news:
Like this exemplary performance by Tampa Airport PD and TSA:
A security breach at Tampa International Airport was caused by a missing training device, according to airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan.

The incident began about 1 p.m. Wednesday at the airport's Airside C terminal after an airport police training device was found to be missing, according to Transportation Security Administration spokesman Jon Allen. The breach caused about an hour delay for passengers.

"TSA was notified at approximately 12:50 p.m. that a Tampa International Airport Police explosive detection canine team training aid was unaccounted for in Airside C," according to a statement. "To ensure the safety of the traveling public, the decision was made to close Airside C while a thorough search for the aid was conducted. The training aid has been located and normal operations are resuming."



An FBI agent is found guilty of gun dealing. Codrea says has some serious questions about the case; also
...I can't help but think about other Americans taken from their families by an enforcement apparatus Shipley has been a part of—men like Wayne Fincher or David Olofson, who harmed no one, but who nonetheless ran afoul of edicts trampling a proscription that could not be more clear:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

What the hell have we allowed to happen to us?



Our 'most intelligent President EVAH!' seems to have some holes in his understanding of things like space travel.


Jerry Brown, you're either an effing moron or crooked as a dog's broken hind leg.


Damn, I used to like Gloria Estefan; now she's turned out to be another Obama ass-kisser.


Whether you agree with Rodger's chart or not, I think we can agree in saying that Bill Clinton is a sorry bastard with no regard for the truth and a liking for slander.


Bumper sticker hell, I want this on a shirt.

There's more, but some things Need Their Own Post, so...

Seems to be about right


Found thanks to Theo

Thursday, April 15, 2010

That's better

Having spent a good chunk of yesterday outside, I can now face some of the news. Like, remember the post the other day noting what the New York Effing Times was planning as their next piece of treason?
In a follow-up to my story this morning and my ongoing series about the CIA’s vicious war on the Department of Defense that is partly being waged in the pages of the nation’s major newspapers, the Washington Post is reporting that the CIA’s Deputy Director, Stephen Kappes will “retire” and be replaced by career Agency man Michael Morell.
...
While I have been adverse to mentioning Kappes by name, when I was informed last night that the CIA had leaked to the New York Times the names of Americans covertly providing Force Protection to our troops in Afghanistan and that the Times was going to run with those names, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

As the Agency has blindly followed what has become known as the “Kappes Doctrine” it has made mistake after mistake after mistake; all underscored by the horrible F.O.B. Chapman attack, one of its most deadly. Something tells me that there won’t be anyone baking any cakes for Mr. Kappes’ sendoff
.
Lamppost, rope, bureaucrat... And, looking at other posts this guy has made, here's yet another reason a lot of the treacherous shits at CNN ought to be on the list:
On Wednesday, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr reported on multiple, highly sensitive documents that had been “provided” to CNN and which detail valuable, strategic intelligence gathered by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It should come as no surprise that Starr made sure to highlight all of the juicy details. She not only revealed U.S. knowledge of a covert meeting between Hamid Karzai’s brother and Mullah Baradar (a top Taliban leader who was later arrested in Pakistan), as well as a secret audio message played to Taliban commanders from reclusive Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, but she went on to inform the entire world that the United States has a safe house in Kabul (used by members of the Haqqani terror network) currently under surveillance. Great work Barbara!

Do these clowns at all realize what damage they're doing, or do they just not fucking care?


Dick has a link to pictures from the big quake in China.


If this holds up, cancer treatment just took a big friggin' leap forward; having lost and almost lost some people to cancer, damn glad to read of this.


So Obama is amused by tax-day protests, and thinks we should thank him for 'lowering taxes'... Interesting that he thinks a lie like that will fly, and that he's 'amused'. As Ace says, wonder how long before 'amused' turns to 'insulting and threatening'?

Speaking of Obama & Co., the crashers tried, but it didn't work.


Message to the Stupid Party: "We're not working for you."


Volcano in Iceland, flights all over Europe grounded by the ash cloud. And here in OK, been a number of quakes registered lately; many listed here.


That's it for now, food and tea calls.

Son's been on leave

but didn't get to see him this time; for some reason he decided he wanted to spend the time he had with his wife(the ungrateful bastard). So they've had a while together, but he flies back out today.

Add that to a pretty day and stuff that I can do outside, you're on your own for a while.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Friend found this in a Scottish newspaper


And here I thought everyone over there was going to love us now, thanks to The Obama ascending to the throne.

To: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer(National Socialist Democrat-MD)

Ref: Call for civility

Screw you, you chickenshit little bastard.

And speaking of chickenshit, I give you Rep. Henry Waxman(NSD-CA), who apparently realized just how effing stupid he was going to look yelling at and threatening businessmen for obeying the law that Waxman helped pass.

It should be noted that there are journalists who need to be on the receiving end

of tar & feathers just as much as many politicians; and if this is correct, they deserve the noose.
I have just received word that the New York Times is preparing to go public with a list of names of Americans covertly working in Afghanistan providing force protection for our troops, as well as the rest of our Coalition Forces. If the Times actually sees this through, the red ink they are drowning in will be nothing compared to the blood their entire organization will be covered with. Make no mistake, the Times is about to cause casualty rates in Afghanistan to skyrocket. Each and every American should be outraged.
And why would even the New York Effing Times do this?
The report goes on to quote General Stanley McChrystal, who stated that “our senior leaders – the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States – are not getting the right information to make decisions with … The media is driving the issues.”

Through its use of the New York Times, the Central Intelligence Agency has tried to embarrass the Defense Department into shutting down what, by all accounts, has been an amazingly successful program, which has dramatically saved American and Coalition lives and continues to do so on a daily basis.

But thanks to the beating the folks on the 7th floor at Langley and the New York Times have taken in the blogosphere, they are about to go for broke and to do so in a fashion so grotesque that every American should be moved to action
.
He's got contact information; maybe if enough people tell them just how disgusting even the thought of their doing this is, it may do some good. If not,

And from another radical who makes progressives cringe and foam

because he's the kind that helped found this place,
The watchdog media have become a house kitten that purrs rather than barks at such radical change. Mass assemblies — so common in protests against wars during the last decades — are now racist and subversive. Grassroots political expression like talk radio and cable TV is in need of government-enforced fairness. Hollywood no longer produces movies like the anti-war, anti-administration Redacted and Rendition; Knopf no longer publishes novels like Checkpoint; and there are, we may be thankful, no longer docudramas about shooting presidents — the latter would be both unpatriotic and clearly defined as hate speech. Filibusters are not traditional ways of checking Senate excess; the “nuclear option” is now a slur for legitimate majority legislative rule; and recess appointments don’t thwart the legislature’s will but resist its tyranny.

In other words, the last 14 months have been a catharsis of sorts. At last the world of Rush Limbaugh’s fears and Sean Hannity’s nightmares is upon us, and we can determine whether these megaphones were always just alarmists — or whether they legitimately warned of what logically would follow should faculty-lounge utopian rhetoric ever be taken seriously. Europe screamed for a multilateral, multipolar, non-exceptional America. Now in place of the old Johnny-on-the-spot NATO colossus, they are quickly getting what they wished for — America, the new hypopower. Perhaps the European Rapid Reaction Force will take on the Milosevices and Osamas to come.

The whole thing is here

Annoy a progressive!

Quote from these radicals! Like Patrick Henry:
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
and John Dickinson:
“We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers (“irritated ministers” – I love that; that’s spot-on) or resistance by force. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.”
Alexander Hamilton:
“The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.”
And even Sam Adams!
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

Thanks to Insty for the pointer

One of my new favorite tools

Picked this up a while back at Home DespotRatcheting T-handle screwdriver. Comes with 26 assorted bits, and the shaft is reversible and will hold a bit on both ends. And it's great. Works better than a standard driver(for me, anyway) for putting torque on a screw and keeping the bit square.

And it cost $5.

Yeah, it's marked 'Made in China', like damn near everything else nowadays. Which sucks. But it works.

Something important was missing

Drove me nuts before I found it

But found one hell of a hiding place.

Let's start with the NC Capital Police, who should be

ashamed of themselves:
Organizers of a tea party event planned for Thursday at the state Capitol are unhappy they can’t carry flags on poles because of state officials’ fears that they could be used as weapons.

The prohibition applies to the American flag, North Carolina’s state flag or anything else carried on a pole more than a foot in length. Scott Hunter, chief of the State Capitol Police, said that the group will be allowed to carry tiny flags of the kind handed out at parades and Fourth of July events
.
Hunter, you're a tool in the worst sense of the word, and you suck.


Speaking of overreaction and stupidity from a cop, check this out. Dumb. And suing because the guy recorded the event? Far dumber.


MSNBC thinks a disgraced politician who's also a serious dirtbag is a good guy to have on? Fitting, for MSNBC.


More people discovering just what they helped elect; and they don't like it.


My my, they're just desperate to 'prove' the tea party people called Lewis bad things, aren't they? And they're willing to lie and cheat to smear people with the 'racist' brush:
New Hampshire Democrats are engaged in a statewide search for liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments, a Democratic source with knowledge of the effort tells NowHampshire.com.

According to the source, who sought anonymity for fear of reprisals, the Dems’ last minute scramble reflects a growing obsession among party leaders that they need to discredit the tea party movement soon or it will overwhelm them come the November election.

Former Democratic State Party Chairman Kathy Sullivan is heading up the search, the source said. Sullivan has been calling and e-mailing liberal activists trying to get them to attend tea parties in different parts of the state and hold signs denying the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and make racially disparaging comments to reporters.

“This is Kathy’s [Sullivan] project,” the source told NowHampshire.com. “She is absolutely obsessed with painting the tea party people as racists.”
Hey, New Hampshire, nice people you elected.


I'm off to take care of actual stuff, including buy groceries. Though some of the above is enough to ruin your appetite.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Hmm, some very harsh words toward The Obama

from Europeans, including
A new report circulating in the Kremlin today authored by France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) and recently “obtained” by the FSB shockingly quotes French President Nicolas Sarkozy [photo top right with Obama] as stating that President Barack Obama is “a dangerous[ly] aliéné”, which translates into his, Obama, being a “mad lunatic”, or in the American vernacular, “insane”.

According to this report, Sarkozy was “appalled” at Obama’s “vision” of what the World should be under his “guidance” and “amazed” at the American Presidents unwillingness to listen to either “reason” or “logic”. Sarkozy’s meeting where these impressions of Obama were formed took place nearly a fortnight ago at the White House in Washington D.C., and upon his leaving he “scolded” Obama and the US for not listening closely enough to what the rest of the World has to say
.
Go take a look, see what you think

Lawn mower finds knot of wood in grass

Knot of wood flies out at x-hundred FPS. Impacts ankle.

Ow.

Steve has a bit of confusion on the purposes of a bench and rests

It was a post on Box o' Truth that brought this up:
I am prompted to ask: at what point do you sacrifice accuracy, just to feel like you’re shooting the gun in a realistic manner? If you tell people how well you shoot, but you do all your shooting in this odd way, are you being completely honest? If you had to shoot somewhere other than the range, would you have all this crap with you, and would you use it? Maybe it’s better to buy a machine that fires the gun. I have one, although I haven’t used it yet.
I know most of you are quite familiar with the matter, but on the chance there's someone reading my stuff who's not, I shall now pontificate:

A solid rest is invaluable for a number of things with a rifle:
Adjusting sights so the point of impact and point of aim will be as you choose,
Testing ammo to see what works best in your rifle, or to test a new handload,
Making sure a scope is mounted with the crosshairs(or whatever reticle) exactly square,
Giving a new shooter a comfortable way to get started.
In the first three, the common thing is trying to reduce human error as much as possible; it's not to test your shooting skills, it's to test the sights/ammo. That means a solid rest that keeps things as stable as possible. You're still doing the aiming, your breathing and trigger squeeze is still very important, but it removes or reduces the errors that can be caused by any kind of sitting/standing/kneeling/prone position; very important when adjusting sights or testing ammo.

On sights: one thing a lot of people don't realize is that it's not uncommon for a rifle sighted in from a solid rest to have a different point of impact when it's not on the rest. As a 'for instance', my Model 94 Winchester: shoot it from a solid rest, receiver or forend on the front rest, stock on the bag, to test ammo, BUT when you take it off that rest(for instance, put your hand between the forend and rest, or shoot it from sitting position) the point of impact will be several inches below where it is when shooting from the rest. BIG difference as the range stretches out. So once you sight in from the bench, you need to get in field positions and shoot to make sure if your POI shifts. Shoot from prone with a sling, you might find it hits a bit(sometimes quite a bit) off, usually low and to the side, from where it hit off the bench.

That's my short & dirty version: feel free to make corrections. And take a look at the Box o' Truth to see how he shows it.

To every effing moron and dirtbag in Congress who voted for Obamacare:

see what happens when you can't be bothered to read the crap you pass?

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.

In other words, theoretically the law kicks them out of the federal health plan now in order to force them to join insurance exchanges … that don’t exist yet. Looking forward to tomorrow, when we’re inevitably told that they meant to do that.

At this point, I don't know if President Obama keeps bowing

to communists and socialists because he actually wants to suck up to them, or if he still does it largely to piss off most of the country.

If the latter, he's very much succeeded.

We lost another piece of the past the other day

John "Jack" Agnew, 1922-2010. Rest in peace.

And if you've never heard of the Filthy Thirteen before, go read. There's a book about them, too.

There's a tea party in Oklahoma City tomorrow

Local radio guy named Mark Shannon has been talking about it, and has been specifically pointing to the need for cameras, so if some lefty dirtbags start to stir things up there'll be proof. Reason for which caution being listed in Michelle Malkin's column:
Over the last week, conservative activists online have thoroughly exposed the loser behind an Internet call to “Crash the Tea Party.” His name is Jason Levin. To follow his trail, check Free Republic here, Canada Free Press here, and Velvet Hammer here.
...
Last month, it was nutballs on the rabble-rousing “Infoshop News” site. Like Levin, they tried to cover up by deleting their call to sabotage. But the fingerprints have been preserved through screen-caps and caches:
...
Before them, it was Craig Varoga — a shady Democrat political operative and overseer of a convoluted, money-shuffling web of 527s. He launched “TheTeaPartyisOver.org” in January to target Republicans who supported the Tea Party movement and to prevent the “radical” and “dangerous” fiscal accountability agenda from “gaining legislative traction.” Here’s a screencap of Varoga’s site:
...
As those of us who have covered the Tea Party movement before it was even called the “Tea Party” movement have pointed out for more than a year, the saboteurs who have tried to smear these tax revolt protests come in all shapes and sizes. Look at Bob Beckel. On April 6, 2009, Beckel insinuated that Montana Tea Party folks were all gun-toting wackos and he recycled the false and illogical rumors that the grass-roots movement was directed from the GOP, national tax groups, and CNBC.

Yep. Remember that one?

Now, if we had any reason to trust the major media to actually tell all the story, as opposed to pushing a narrative, all the cameras and such wouldn't be necessary; instead we get crap like the above parroted, and stuff like this:
I speak from direct experience about the underhandedness of Tea Party smear merchants. On February 17, 2009 at one of the country’s first tax revolt rallies in Denver, a man approached me amid a throng of bona fide anti-stimulus protesters and thrust a camera in my face. I obliged cheerfully, as I usually do after such speaking events. I later learned from the character assassins at Progress Now, the Soros-backed outfit that just happened to be there and just happened to snap a close-up photo of the interaction, which was immediately disseminated to the local press and to the hitmen of Media Matters, that the man pulled out a sign at the last minute (which I didn’t see until later) sporting Obama’s name with a swastika on it. He held the sign away from me, but in direct view of the Progress Now cameraperson who used to work for CNN.

Never mind the Left’s Bush=Nazi hypocrisy and the uncanny, instantaneous manufactured outrage. The narrative was set: A conservative supporter of the nascent Tea Party movement posed for a photo with a man holding up a swastika at a protest against out-of-control spending! Ergo, the stimulus protesters and the entire Tea Party membership are all racist, fascist menaces to society!


So cameras will be a popular accessory.

All these people discovering, apparently with astonishment,

that Obama isn't the wonder he painted himself as.
I weep as I witness outrageous verbal attacks on Israel. What makes these verbal assaults and distortions all the more painful is that they are being orchestrated by President Obama.
Well, Mr. Koch, if you'd bothered to pay attention to all the stuff dragged out about Obama on blogs and talk radio- you'd have had to get it there because the sorry excuses for reporters known as 'journalists' did their best to ignore and cover it all up- you'd have known what was coming.

But it was just so much more fun and popular to praise The One and expect him to be something other than his past indicated he was; so now you're all upset that Obama is acting like what his past said he would be.

Would've been nice if you'd bothered about this BEFORE the election.

Monday, April 12, 2010

The night's collection of idiocy, dirtbags and 'WTF?'

So NPR is made up of birthers, now?


What 'free speech' means in Canada: not very damned much.
The letter details what happened at Ms. Coulter’s last stop, in Calgary, just days after rowdy students at the University of Ottawa forced organizers to cancel her appearance there.

Though there was an obvious risk of a similar incident in Calgary—particularly after the Ottawa students’ intimidation tactics proved so effectives—according to Mr. Benoit, not only were police and campus security both unwilling to do anything to protect the free speech of Ms. Coulter and the other speakers, they warned the private bodyguards not to contain any aggressive behaviour “for any reason” or “we would be charged and face criminal prosecution."

If you don't believe him, how about Steve Paikin, who broadcasting a live episode of The Agenda from the University of Toronto with Ontario's finance minister as a special guest had to play bodyguard to the minister after a mob rushed the stage. “The police, I’m told, were urged not to intervene,” Paikin explained, “lest pictures of demonstrators being hauled off by the cops show up all over YouTube.”

That only raises a critical question: if the police won’t protect someone’s right to speak, who will?



Journalistic integrity: "We know the story was fake, but we believe it was mostly real."


Right-wing thugger- oops, make that 'Democrat Union Thuggery'.


Last, I don't know about senile, but apparently Justice Stevens is something of a friggin' idiot.

I wonder if it uses a joystick

for steering?

Spring went into full attack while I was gone

Friday afternoon the trees around the yard had lots of buds, little flags of green; still mostly bare branches. I looked out the back window this morning and GREEN! Over about 48 hours the leaves exploded out of everything. And the tomatoes grew about three inches, a bunch of the beans sprouted and the grass looks like I hadn't mowed.

Happens fast sometimes.

Speaking of protected species and politically-correct bullcrap,

SCOTLAND YARD has bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest — which could have the unintended consequence of politicians or the police being hit.

News of the concession by the Metropolitan police has come to light amid a series of trials of more than 70 mostly Muslim demonstrators who were charged with violent disorder after last year’s Gaza protests outside the Israeli embassy in London
.
'Unintended consequence' my ass.

The second piece of idiocy, which WILL cost lives,
Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff should be "bare below the elbow".

The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so that Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith, providing they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient.

The rules they objected to had a somewhat important reason behind them:
The rules were drawn up to reduce the number of patients who were falling ill, and even dying, from superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile.
Important, at least, if you're one of the people likely to suffer and die from the damned infections, but deity forbid you make a muslim or Sikh uncomfortable just for the purpose of keeping patients alive; talk about 'PC at any cost'...

Law enforcement in some places are quite realistic

about what they can and can't do. And what the clowns in DC won't do.
A couple hundred people crowded into the grade-school gym to hear a chilling message from Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West.

"You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves," he said. "As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."

His warning was prompted by the killing of the Arizona rancher, and the spiraling violence a couple of miles away in Mexico in a region known as the Valley of Juarez. The notorious smuggling territory is being fought over by the Sinaloa and the Juarez cartels
.
So you've got realistic lawmen telling people "We can't be there to protect you; you're going to have to be willing to protect yourselves. We'll do what we can, but we can't be everywhere.", contrasted with the idiot politicians playing games:
In recent years, the Department of Homeland Security has put up 44 miles of tall fencing across from the Juarez Valley, and doubled the number of Border Patrol agents. As a result, marijuana seizures in this area have fallen 97 percent in the past four years.
How many years have people been pressuring the clowns in DC to get serious about our borders? And how many times have they been blown off by said clowns playing 'virtual fence' bullshit games?(can't actually DO SOMETHING, it would piss off the illegal alien lobby, y'know) So now? What happens when one of the gangs decides they need to send a message across the border? Attack a town, or police station or sheriff's office in the US? Leave a whole family tortured and dead? Think the clowns in DC will actually DO SOMETHING? Or continue talking and pretending to do something as long as they think they can?

Couple of quick notes

From Hanson:
I confess this week to have listened in on many conversations in Palo Alto and at Stanford, read local newspapers, and simply watched people. So I am as worried about the elite upscale yuppie as the poor illegal alien. The former have lost almost all connection with physical labor, the physical world, or the ordeal that civilization endures to elevate us from the savagery of nature.

While many were fit, and seem to work out, bike, ski, and hike, none understood the mechanics that lie beneath the veneer of the good life — the chain-sawing, hammering, drain-unplugging, tractor-driving, irrigating, and welding that allows a pleasant afternoon Greek salad and cappuccino on University Avenue — the disconnect between those Pennsylvania “clingers” and Obama’s arugula-eating crowd.
...
A strange elite I suppose likes and pays for the ambience — that is, living among people like themselves — of upscale university centered communities. Why? I have a theory. It allows them to be liberal and progressive in the abstract, without having to live the logical consequences of their utopianism, or deal with the underbelly of American life. Take the most sophisticated Palo Alto dweller, and a week outside of Laton on a farm would make her, well, “seasoned” so to speak, and challenge much of her assumptions about wealth and poverty.

As I watch this teeming recession-era energy — thousands leaving squalor in Mexico for the life raft of the U.S., thousands in the middle buying as birthright what a few decades ago would be considered the playthings of the aristocracy, and thousands living in a progressive bubble disconnected from the grime and mess that fuels it — I hope there are still enough around to keep all this going. I say that because a new Microsoft program, a better search engine, another recent arrival from Chiapas, and someone out of work and still at Best Buy simply are not going to get us out of this recession, find the energy to keep the country fueled, and create the money to pay off a soon-to-be $ 20 trillion debt. In short, from this week’s observations, I think our so-called poor need to read a bit more, and our assumed elite to read a bit less
.


It appears more Jews are taking note of just how Obama & Co. are crapping on Israel in particular and Jews in general, and not buying the excuses:
Sherman portrayed himself as more pro-Israel and more concerned about Iran than any U.S. president during his Congressional service. He shrugged off the current controversy as something we will have forgotten in a few years, arguing that the U.S. relationship with Israel is fine because the foreign aid package remains and we haven’t yet stopped vetoing anti-Israel UN resolutions. While he promised action on his part concerning sanctions on Iran, he expressed skepticism that anything would really be done (at one point “joking” that the rabbi would be more useful than he, as if divine intervention would be required), and kept emphasizing that any military option would spike gas prices. These statements did not go over well.

Most negative were the reactions when when he repeatedly wrote off his and Obama’s critics as die hard right wingers who would be angry regardless. The moderator polled the audience and showed that the room was about 60/40 McCain voters, meaning there were in fact many angry Obama voters there (and that Obama opponents of all kinds are energized in this community). The most applause was for the question of whether many Jews would switch their votes to Republican because of this controversy — which fired up the crowd and those potential switchers
.
So Rep. Sherman tried the current "Anyone who doesn't like Obama and his(and my) policies is just a bitter clinger" line, and it blew up in his face. Wonder if he actually learned anything? Or cares?

What really pissed me off in this piece is this:
Sherman must have expected a hostile crowd, as he did not allow anyone to talk to him directly. Questions were submitted in writing and chosen and paraphrased by the moderator (Rabbi Stewart Vogel of Temple Aliyah, who did do a very good job expressing the written concerns of the audience while also being fair and hospitable to Sherman).
I'm getting very, very sick of this crap: "You might not be what We consider properly respectful to Us, so We won't let you directly question Us."

About the gun show

First, had about as many vendors as usual. Maybe a few less; hard to tell and I didn't think to ask. Friend gunsmith had a space and I spent most of the show helping take care of it.

Second, attendance was WAY down, especially Sunday. Usually, on Saturday, you can't see more than, oh, two aisles away because there's too many people; you could see quite a ways. Sunday, a whole lot fewer than that.

Fortunately(for myself) the guys with all the double-rifles weren't there, so I wasn't forced to carry a drool cup with me. Lots of the usual stuff, lots of interesting stuff coming through. Primers and most ammo were in good supply, even on Sunday; brass & bullets, not so. One company, Blue Star, carries almost every kind of brass & bullet you can think of; they were out of all .380 brass and a number of others, with no idea when they'd get any in; same for some bullets.

One guy showed me a Winchester 1897 shotgun with a damascus barrel. Some wear, as to be expected*, but in quite good shape; lovely thing that'll restore beautifully. I also found out that most of those barrels, and a lot of British damascus barrels, are nitro-proofed and quite safe to use modern ammo in.

And now I have to put away all the crap sitting in the living room, and take care of some other stuff.


*The things were made as using tools, and used they were. Which is why so many have no finish, and some are flat worn out.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Somewhat normal bloggage should return tomorrow

if I get some sleep tonight.

Just back from the Tulsa gun show. There's a shower, a drink and my own bed waiting.