One more celebritute, it seems,

despite some previous actions.

You vandalize buildings, and call it 'street art'? Very fitting for someone who supports the man destroying our economy.

Yes, I know, I should have realized it sooner,

but sometimes I'm slow.

Referring to the post the other day on giving up. I admit to still being in something of a state of wonder: this is someone I'd known for years, I'd thought a reasonable sort; and they actually believe that I'm either evil, an apologist for evil, or too stupid to know, because I don't have the right political beliefs.

I think the saying is "Liberals think conservatives are evil, Conservatives think liberals are stupid." First time I've ever had someone I know actually tell me I'm evil. But I don't think 'stupid' is the right word; 'demented' comes pretty close.

It looks like the later whistleblowers handed Issa

some real interesting stuff.

Now if the Stupid Party leadership, and Romney, will demonstrate some balls and integrity and go after this...

Just when I thought the greenies had hit a wall,

they make a hole in it and jump over the cliff:
One of the best ways to reasonably enjoy your pet and reduce your overall Carbon Footprint is to determine in advance how long your pet should live. As a family, set a date when your pet will be euthanized. One great way to teach children the value of pet euthanasia is to turn the occasion into a family celebration.
...
Until governments wake up and start passing "one child per-family" laws, the best way you can help reduce the collective Carbon Footprint is through voluntary sterilization.
Read it. It's... disgusting, for lack of a better description right now.

Update: they say it's a spoof. Problem is, the 'get rid of too-many people' stuff is fairly standard greenie dogma; makes it hard to tell

Pre-Attack Indicators, threat indicators

and such. Just a gathering of things I've run into over time
From Xavier, this one and this one.

From a place called TDA Training, which I hadn't seen before

From Blue Sheepdog, which I also hadn't seen before
Similar from PoliceOne, with more links

Something from James

I had a link a year or so ago that had some very good information, including pics to illustrate each warning sign, but I can't find it. If I do, I'll add it here. Here it is, thanks to kanigit:
Managing Contacts(pdf document)

And if you've got a good one, let me know in comments and I'll add it, and put this on the sidebar

I've decided that some people, I just give up on

Just had someone tell me that 'R' party people care about nothing but getting rich and powerful so they can crap on everyone below them.

ALL Stupid Party members. And from things said in the past that includes ALL conservatives and ALL libertarians(the person once referred to Somalia as a 'libertarian paradise' I should love). Oh, and(do I even need to add?) the Evil Party is all goodness and caring, all bad comes from the other side, socialism is a real good idea, and so on.

Once upon a time I tried to discuss or argue things with just about anyone; with someone who blankly tells you you're an uncaring, power-hungry asshole and who can see no wrong- ever- with the Evil Party and members... I give up.

A few things before I get back to actually doing something

Two very connected:
A new testing program's set to begin this fall at Fort Sill, on unmanned aerial drones.

Adjutant General Myles Deering says the federal government's Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety program can assist rescue crews and first responders.
and
A group of researchers led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at Austin Radionavigation Laboratory recently succeeded in raising the eyebrows of the US government. With just around $1,000 in parts, Humphreys’ team took control of an unmanned aerial vehicle owned by the college, all in front of the US Department of Homeland Security.

After being challenged by his lab, the DHS dared Humphreys’ crew to hack into a drone and take command. Much to their chagrin, they did exactly that.
As somebody said, "Don't you feel safer?"


As noted in Tam's comments, a dry heat may feel better, but it'll still dehydrate you; you just won't feel as sweaty while it's happening.
Side note: one of son's vacations in Iraq, in an area with both very high temps and humidity, one of the medics told him they were all drinking so much they were right on the line of screwing up their electrolyte balance and winding up in a hospital; but if they didn't drink that much, they'd dehydrate and wind up in a hospital. Fun choices, huh?

Connected: I'm out working in the yard in shorts and a shirt and thinking "Damn, it's hot!", while the troops are wearing 80 or so pounds of gear plus weapons and whatever else and patrolling or working equipment or whatever; God, I feel like a wuss in comparison.


Doesn't say if they ate his face, but definitely monkey trouble(I know they're not technically monkeys, shut up); those suckers are dangerous. Daughter once said that, with just a little research, she couldn't understand how anyone could be so stupid as to have chimps as pets; I have no answer other than 'stupidity'.


"Let's screw with the troops, they probably don't vote for me anyway."
Florida congressmen and veterans' groups on Tuesday blasted an Obama administration plan to double or triple Tricare medical premiums for active-duty and retired military personnel.

The sharply higher prices reportedly are designed to push service members and veterans out of the military's Tricare program and into Obamacare's insurance exchanges. The administration believes the move will cut Tricare costs by $1.8 billion in fiscal 2013 and $12.9 billion by 2017.


Maybe it's time to start making those Jackson masks.


And now I shall go sweat and- hopefully- get those things done

On the 'Holder is contemptible' vote,

we'll see what happens next. And if Boehner will actually do anything, or act like not preventing the vote(any longer) was enough.

From the gentleman at Sipsey,

It's done. In truth, I never thought we'd get this far.

Holder's defiant.

Here's Issa's "Statement on Bipartisan Vote Holding Attorney General in Contempt over Refusal to Produce Fast and Furious Documents."

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a resolution holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his refusal to produce Operation Fast and Furious documents subpoenaed last October. The vote on H.Res. 711, making a finding of contempt, was approved by a vote of 255 to 67. Seventeen Democrats crossed party lines to join the majority in the finding of contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder. The House is also scheduled to vote later today on H.Res. 706, authorizing civil action in courts to compel production of subpoenaed documents. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued this statement following passage:

“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.

“The Congressional inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, and the cover-up by Justice Department officials of wrongdoing, has been a fair and fact based investigation. False and partisan allegations by the White House and some congressional Democrats about the Oversight Committee’s efforts were undermined by the votes of 17 Democrats. These Members resisted the pressure of their own leadership and the Obama Administration to support this investigation on the House floor.

“Claims by the Justice Department that it has fully cooperated with this investigation fall at odds with its conduct: issuing false denials to Congress when senior officials clearly knew about gunwalking, directing witnesses not to answer entire categories of questions, retaliating against whistleblowers, and producing only 7,600 documents while withholding over 100,000.

“I greatly appreciate the ongoing efforts of Senator Chuck Grassley, his staff, and other Senators on the Judiciary Committee who have pressed the Obama Administration for the full truth. Senator Grassley began this investigation and has been a full partner throughout it. I must also recognize the hard work done by many of my colleagues here in the House – without their efforts the Justice Department’s stonewalling would have succeeded.

“My message to my colleagues and others who have fought for answers: We are still fighting for the truth and accountability – for the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, for whistleblowers who have faced retaliation, and for countless victims of Operation Fast and Furious in Mexico. Unless President Obama relents to this bipartisan call for transparency and an end to the cover-up, our fight will move to the courts where we will prevail in getting the documents that the Justice Department and President Obama’s flawed assertion of executive privilege have denied the American people.”

Been getting a lot of congrats from various quarters, some quite surprising. Now, it seems, I'm not so dangerous to talk to. I tell all of them, "Hold all applause until the end of the scandal." Because if you think this is done, it's not. Much more fighting for the truth and justice for the victims of Gunwalker looms. As always, our job is to ferret out the inconvenient truths and stiffen the spines of people who ought not need it. But I would be lying if I wasn't just a little bit proud of what we've accomplished so far.

And never forget, our 'professional journalists' didn't do squat; they didn't care, they 'overlooked' it, they ignored it, they didn't want to even know this existed. And they still want to ignore it as much as possible, with a very few exceptions like Attkisson. A couple of bloggers talked to people and dug and pushed until some politicians actually did something. And the major media and a lot of politicians and bureaucrats will NEVER forgive them for it.

In a continuing series of "It's messy, but

it works" stuff, a while back Dad gave me an old military pick/mattock head
They have a tapered handle; put it in from the top and it wedges into place; rap the bottom of the handle on the ground to break the head loose and it's two pieces that fit in a carry rig
that hangs on a a web belt. Alas, I had no handle. Did a lot of looking, could find the head/handle set but no handles, which meant I'd have to make one. Standard pick handle was way too big. Then I brought home a broken sledge handle and tried it; the swell that would be at the base of the hammer head wedged into the pick eye, but lots of space around it.

So got some suitable epoxy- in this case Loctite as for some reason everybody seemed to be out of JB Weld. First, make sure the inside of the eye is fairly smooth, then give it a good coat of paste wax(Johnson's is what I had around) and let it dry, then repeat; that'll keep the epoxy from sticking to it. Might not be a bad idea to cover the area around the eye as well. Then wedge the head into place on the handle and wrap some tape around the bottom of the eye as a seal. Set it in something that'll hold it vertical.
(Yes, I forgot to take pictures of this as I went; no, I'm not doing it again)

Mix up the epoxy, and soon as it's ready pour it into the eye, all around the handle; fill up the space. Check for leaks, and then let it sit until the epoxy is set firm; you have to wait until it won't sag or run. Then remove the tape or whatever, and rap the bottom of the handle on the floor to jar the head loose; if you waxed it enough it should only take a few raps. That should leave a handle end that looks something like this
Let it set 24 hours, give it plenty of time to cure, and you now have a handle that fits properly
I'll trim the handle to length, and this'll go in the truck with the GI shovel as part of the emergency gear. If I can pick up a carrier, it'll go in that.

Can do this a couple of different ways. Know those sticks of epoxy putty? You can mix up a big hunk of that, form it around the handle end, then put the head on; use a stick to pack the stuff into the eye for a tight fit. Or, I'm thinking you could get some fiberglass cloth, cut it up into small fibers and add that; use a long-cure epoxy so you have enough work time and mix the fibers into it, then pour/pack it in. That ought to be very strong.

A quick something about the events of earlier today

that did not involve Holder being held to a standard:
Borepatch thinks the Chief Justice played chess with Pelosi and set the Evil Party up for big trouble. Could be.

I'm still in agreement with Og. Such that if Roberts knocked on my door, pale and shaking, and said he'd broken down and was desperately thirsty I'd tell him to get his treacherous bastard self off my property. Yes, I'm still seriously pissed, and will remain so for some time.

And if it turns out Roberts DID change his vote due to pressure, then he should be removed from the court immediately. I will not speak as to the preferred means of doing so if that's the case. It's all very nice to speak of 'political concerns' but the God-damned court is not supposed to decide something based on "It's popular(or not)!"; they're supposed to be concerned with the Constitutionality of it. Fucking period. Yes, I do think they should ignore the pressure and name-calling(hell, that'll happen no matter what they decide); and if they can't, then they do not belong on that bench.

Rep. John Dingell: "Screw your dead son and the questions, (updated)

I'm a Democrat! first and foremost!"
It's kind of peculiar; I've got all kinds of things floating in my mind after reading this article; and the only thing I decided to write is(slipping into bad words for it)
"Dingell, you're just another corrupt politician. Fuck you and your excuses."

Two things that make further comment superfluous:
Terry’s family was particularly disgusted with Dingell’s use of their name in his partisan defense of Holder. “Congressman Dingell represents the district in Michigan where Brian Terry was born and where his family still resides, but his views don’t represent those of the Terry family,” the family said, pointing out that Dingell “invoked” their name in his defense of Holder. “Nor does he speak for the Terry family. And he has never spoken to the Terry family.”
He used THEIR NAME to defend Holder? Just what kind of slimy bastard would do that?
This kind:
“A year ago, after the House Oversight and Reform Committee began looking into Operation Fast and Furious, one of Brian’s sisters called Rep. Dingell’s office seeking help and answers,” the Terry family added. “No one from his office called back.”

Added:
Speaking of asshole politicians,

She can't even remember Terry's name.... (ignore the 'preview image' note, it works)

Holder held in contempt,

and 17 Democrats joined the 'yes' vote. Get this:
Led by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, 108 Democrats skipped the vote, storming out of the chamber in protest.
I find it interesting they didn't stay and vote 'no'. I can't decide if it was more "We want to protest!" or "We want to support the Party official, but we don't want to have a vote on our record!"

Yes, the Supremes just decided that if it's called a 'tax'

the .gov can do anything it wants. Five of them also made it plain that that oath to uphold the Constitution means nothing to them.

So we've got to get Romney in the Oval Office. And he need to know that this one one of the several things that, if he betrays us, his term as President will make him wish he'd never run.

So if I do make that trip to Britain, there's one place I will NOT

go into. For any reason.

Google can go to hell

Google sent out an email to Google Adwords customers saying that they are going to pull all Google Shopping results for guns, ammunition, gun optics and gun accessories (Shopping results, not general search results).
So, when they're not helping the PRC hunt down bloggers and such, they're deciding that firearms-related businesses don't meet their standards.

Screw Google.

Some info on the Fast Food Rejects with Police Powers(TSA)

and Amtrak.

And an incident in Chicago.

Today's rant on LE: do these effing morons not realize

just what they've done? And what it looks like? And what it's done to attitudes towards them?
I'm referring to the Evansville PD, who I wrote about yesterday; made a SWAT raid that turned out to be an "Oopsie!" A little more on this: it seems they based their raid on the IP address involved in posting some threats, but apparently didn't investigate beyond that.
Ira Milan, whose house ended up targeted by the authorities, tells the Evansville Courier & Press that she thinks the author of the posts used her granddaughter’s Internet connection from an outside location. Police Chief Billy Bolin says it is much more cut and dry, though.

“We have no way of being able to tell that,” Bolin tells the Courier, adding that the messages “definitely come back to that address.”
It appears you also have no way of being able to prove THE ONE WHO MADE THE THREAT LIVES AT THE ADDRESS YOU DECIDED TO RAID. Which is kind of something you're supposed to do BEFORE you decide to throw grenades and break in to a house. Especially since there've been so many cases of people using someone else' wifi to access the 'net.
Police reps tell the Courier that they obtained a search warrant for computer equipment at Milan’s house so that they could collect whatever devices may have been used to make the anonymous posts. Responding to an inquiry from the paper, though, the Vanderburgh County Clerk’s Office was initially unable to locate a copy of the document; Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Nick Hermann also refused to comply with the request. When Bolin was asked by the media to materialize the warrant, he deferred their plea and insisted that producing the paper could compromise the investigation. What Bolin did have to say, however, was that the document did not contain the names of any suspects.

“We have an idea in our mind who it is, but we don’t have evidence yet,” Bolin explains to the Courier.
What The Effing Hell? "We have an idea, but no evidence" and a bloody easily-spoofed IP address is good enough to put on the ninja suits? AND call the local tv weenies to shoot video of your 'dynamic entry'? Really? And the prosecutor couldn't redact anything sensitive? Anymore, they pull something like this and 'can't show the warrant' makes me think they skipped some of those troublesome legal preliminaries that are supposed to be done before you do crap like this; something else for a lawyer to dig for, and the paper if they're worth the title 'reporters'.
Even still, the department says that the hunch was enough to throw two flash-bang stun grenades into the front window of Ira Milan’s home. The Courier Press reports that the front door was open at the time of the incident.

“To bring a whole SWAT team seems a little excessive,” says Milan.
Especially when everything's considered, yeah. Except I'd say 'unnecessary and possibly criminal'.

But for the real RCOB moment, read:
Authorities say it should prove their point, though.

“This is a big deal to us,” Sgt. Jason Cullum, a police department spokesman, tells the Courier Press. “This may be just somebody who was online just talking stupid. What I would suggest to anybody who visits websites like that is that their comments can be taken literally.”
Got that? Sgt. Cullum, and presumably Chief Bolin, think that raiding THE WRONG DAMNED HOUSE and THROWING IN GRENADES WHEN THE DOOR IS OPEN and TEARING UP THE HOUSE and CONFISCATING SOMEONE'S LAPTOP is worth doing because IT PROVES THEIR POINT? Their point being, apparently, that if you say something threatening or 'talking stupid' the Evansville PD thinks that's sufficient reason to put on their ninja suits and raid WHERE THEY THINK YOU MIGHT BE?

And, just for the icing on the cake, it's been known for quite a while that 'IP does not equal physical address or particular computer':
As several courts have ruled recently, though, that isn’t enough to exactly single out a certain home, let alone a person. While an Internet Protocol address can be linked to a computer, any person who accesses that network’s WiFi — with or without authorization — can be linked to that IP. Only last month, in fact, New York Eastern District federal court magistrate Judge Gary Brown ruled that IP address logs can’t be used on its own to link a suspect to a crime, writing “a single IP address usually supports multiple computer devices – which unlike traditional telephones can be operated simultaneously by different individuals.” District Court Judge Howard R. Lloyd made essentially the same ruling one month earlier in a Northern District of California courtroom.
I hope the family gets a lawyer and sues the PD. I know, it'll be the common citizens paying any award, but just maybe "We're paying HOW MUCH because these idiots raided the wrong house?" might cause enough problems to cause the PD to decide "Sending a Message" isn't sufficient reason to put peoples' lives at risk.

Speaking of racist dirtbags, the NBPP

has some new threats out.

If they try, I don't think they'll like the result.

The Congressional Black Caucus demonstrates that skin color and racist views

trump all else.
Ignore the bodies.
Ignore perjury.
Ignore sundry other violations of law and ethics.
All that counts is skin color and "Holder has the views we want to push."

An interesting view on a mess in Guatemala,

which included the US Embassy being picketed, but not for the usual reasons.
Five thousand people spontaneously marched on the capital. Arriving in front of the US embassy, the protestors burned US flags and shouted, "Yankee, Go Home." The head of the teachers' union grabbed a bullhorn and shouted: "This protest is to inform the international financial organizations that Guatemala rejects a tax increase that will make the poor poorer." The union there evidently has more sense than ours does. Students at the universities promised hunger strikes, and crowds formed human blockades against government trucks.
...
It sounds like a typical complaint The New York Times would make, but then the report moved on to unearth what it called the "intellectual origins of anti-statism among Guatemala's elite." In particular, the US embassy blamed "the economic philosophy of the Austrian school economists, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek," which has taken root in a local university.

The US embassy report continues with alarm: "These extreme views would have little practical effect if they only reflected the opinions of a few individuals. But ironically, as the threat from the left has receded, the libertarian view has gained strength and has become unquestioned dogma."

Issa's letter to President Obama;

oh my, I'd imagine this went over like a rabid skunk in a restaurant.

Accordingly, your privilege assertion means one of two things. Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it,including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee,or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation. To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case.
And at the end:
In the meantime, so that the Committee and the public can better understand your role,and the role of your most senior advisors, in connection with Operation Fast and Furious, please clarify the question raised by your assertion of executive privilege: To what extent were you or your most senior advisors involved in Operation Fast and Furious and the fallout from it,including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee?Please also identify any communications, meetings, and teleconferences between the White House and the Justice Department between February 4, 2011 and June 18, 2012, the day before the Attorney General requested that you assert executive privilege.


Rep. Issa Letter to Obama Re: Executive Privilege

"You can't HANDLE the truth! So stop asking what Holder

knew!"
No, I'm not kidding. When his opinion starts off with this:
Between the 24/7 news cycle, social media and reality TV, we have been spoon fed other people's private business for so long we now assume it's a given to know everything. And if there are people who choose not to disclose, they must be hiding something. Being told that something's "none of your business" is slowly being characterized as rude, and if such a statement is coming from the government, it seems incriminating.
it tells you where he's going. "We don't need to know, we need to just let this go and stop asking questions."
Mr. Granderson:
No.
We will NOT stop asking questions, we won't stop trying to find out just who was behind this (literal)bloody mess. You write
Heads should roll because of the Fast and Furious debacle. We don't need every detail of that operation to be made public in order for that to happen.
What you're either overlooking or trying to cover up is the fact that if Codrea and Vanderboegh hadn't taken what disgusted ATF agents(y'know, actual lawmen with some honor?) and started beating some politicians over the head with it, if those politicians hadn't started asking questions and refused to back off, how the hell would we know anything? And if we didn't know anything, how the FUCK would you expect 'heads to roll'? Your attitude would have insured that ABSOLUTELY BLOODY NOTHING came out, and the people behind this would have gotten off free and clear.

Fuck you, Mr. Granderson, and your "We don't need to know" garbage. It sounds like you're just making excuses for the journalists who've ignored Gunwalker as long as possible, and now that they can't ignore it they're trying to cover it up and make it go away; and they're damn sure not doing it because they think it's necessary for the security of the nation.

There they go again

“This was a good faith effort to try to reach an accommodation while still protecting the institutional prerogatives of the Executive Branch, often championed by these same Republicans criticizing us right now,” said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday night. “Unfortunately Republicans have opted for political theater rather than conduct legitimate Congressional oversight.”
And what was that wonderful offer?
White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Justice Department officials met Tuesday afternoon with aides to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and showed them roughly 30 documents requested by Issa as part of an ongoing investigation into Operation “Fast and Furious,” according to several administration and congressional officials.

But the GOP aides declined to accept Ruemmler’s offer that the Obama administration hand over the documents in exchange for Republicans permanently dropping plans to hold a contempt vote, the officials said.
Got that? 'Roughly' 30 documents out of hundreds, maybe thousands, and "We'll show you these if you forever drop the contempt stuff," and that's 'good faith'...

Just what level of- well, it's far beyond 'Dumbass'-

let's try frickin' idiocy is required for this?
Elite secret agents sent to protect France’s new president Francois Hollande at a major overseas meeting forgot to pack their guns, it has emerged.
That's just... bleep.

Among the reasons the 'R' party is called the Stupid Party,

except when we're calling them 'arrogant shitheads', also a fine example of why we're in the mess we're in:
Evil Party: "Don't worry about dead people a borders violated and trying to use this to influence laws: our message is "This is all a political attack!"
Stupid Party: “The contempt of Holder is a dog whistle to the right-wing tea party community, saying that we are representing them. They’re upset we haven’t done more on spending, etc. But this is a way to say we’re going after this administration, holding them accountable.”
The Democrats don't give a rats ass about anything but protecting Obama and Holder, no matter what they did. And the Republican bigshots don't give a rats ass about anything but keeping themselves in positions of power. All those bastards consider Gunwalker to be is their dog whistle to the people they usually crap on.
How do you like being considered their mongrel?

Mayor Nanny Bloomberg: more "Do what I tell you, peasant,

not what I do."
The New York Post has uncovered a dirty little secret about the supposed environmentally-clean NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor apparently doesn’t like to enter a hot car, but his city has the toughest anti-idling laws in the country. So, naturally, his underlings rig a window air conditioning unit to hang out his SUVs window while it sits.
...
But the eagle-eyed post noticed a type of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do rhetoric:

When temperatures hit the high 90s a week ago, Bloomberg visited the Bronx Works senior center and called on New Yorkers to turn off “all non-essential appliances.”
“It only takes a couple of minutes to cool off a room,” he said at the time.

"But We do not like entering a hot vehicle, therefore We are exempt from this."

Finished Merchants of Despair a week or so back;

it's a profoundly depressing book in some ways. I'd heard of the Eugenics Movement; I'd had no idea it'd been such a big thing, and started so long ago. Daughter and I once tried to figure, while on a drive, just how it was that a society so advanced and generally civilized as Germany had been able to very calmly and efficiently carry out the Holocaust; well, a big factor was they'd been primed for it. Honored scholars and teachers had been teaching that 'it will be necessary to get rid of the inferior humans to save the planet' for a long time, so actually moving to do it didn't take that much. I'd never read of that before. And part of the depressing is how easy it was for some very smart people to buy the idea that moving across a border automatically moved you into 'inferior humans who're eating the proper humans' resources' territory.

And the dislike I had for Margaret Sanger has become close to hatred; the connections between her and a bunch of other 'forward-thinking progressives' and the encouragement they gave Hitler & Co.(some of them very openly and happily encouraged him)...

And then he gets to a lot of people in the modern Green movement; which in Europe included having a founder who was a Nazi; a real one. Which didn't seem to trouble them at all.

I'm actually having trouble writing this, too much information and too much of it seriously disturbing. Get a chance, either buy it or hit the library and read it.

It appears Austin PD needs some of the same 'fire some

and re-train the rest' work that Dallas County SO does.
What Officer Oborski didn’t realize, however, is that other cameras were rolling during the altercation with Buehler. And video shot by a witness standing across the street show a different scene than what was painted in the police reports. In the report, Oborski claimed Buehler shoved the officer, and then proceeded to spit on the officer. While the low quality of the cell phone video makes it difficult to detect any loogies hawked, what we can see is Oborski pinning Buehler against his car, followed by wrestling him down as he straps handcuffs on his wrists. Furthermore, Austin Police Department’s spokesperson Anthony Hipolito admitted that dash videos show no evidence of Buehler’s alleged expectorations, meaning Buehler was unlawfully arrested. So should Buehler be a free man?
The obvious answer is 'Yes. And the officers are facing serious discipline for lying in a sworn statement and false arrest.' However,
Not according to the cops. Though the spokesman Hipolito said he saw no spit, the police department refuse to release any of the arrest videos to Buehler, or even let him watch them. According to Buehler, this policy comes from a police union contract, where the investigations into his arrests will only be made public if allegations against the officer were verified.
Really? You don't get to see evidence because of a union contract? Considering the laws say something about exculpatory evidence being REQUIRED to be handed over to the defense, I'd say there's a problem with that. And this case is further reason why police officers and prosecutors should NOT have immunity for crap like this; make them PERSONALLY liable for damages: "Officer Jones, you lied under oath and submitted a false statement to support a false arrest; if Plaintiff Smith wins this suit, YOU will be liable for money awards, not the city." Bet that'd make an awful lot of crap stop happening.

Added: as Tam put it a while back, every cop out there better get the idea between his ears that no matter where he is or what he's doing, when he's on the job there's going to be a camera- or more than one- recording what he's doing. So if he's doing something he doesn't want to become the next viral video, he'd better stop it.

Damn, I feel safer already

Take the 50-officer police department in Oxford, Alabama, a town of 20,000 people. It has stockpiled around $3 million of equipment, ranging from M-16s and helmet-mounted infrared goggles to its own armored vehicle, a Puma. In Tupelo, Mississippi, home to 35,000, the local police acquired a helicopter for only $7,500 through the surplus program. The chopper, however, had to be upgraded for $100,000 and it now costs $20,000 a year in maintenance.
...
In Lebanon, Tennessee, a town of less than 30,000 people, Mike Justice, the public safety coordinator, was so eager to accumulate military goods that he used to wake up at 3:00 a.m. so he was the first person logged in at the government’s first-come, first-serve online store. Thanks to his sleepless nights, since 2007, Lebanon has collected $4 million worth of stuff, including tanks, weapons and heavy equipment like bulldozers and truck loaders. Lebanon’s tank, an LAV 150, has been used only “five or six times,” according to Justice. Although it did help save a man who tried to commit suicide, spotting him with the tank’s infrared camera.


Brian Terry's parents are finally getting a bit of a hearing; their words for Holder and Obama are not kind. This from the comments:
I think they got the departments confused... it's Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Smoke, and Mirrors.

You want to know how screwed the Border Patrol is?

06-20-12 In another nauseating series of "Virtual Learning Center" brainwashing courses that Border Patrol agents are forced to sit behind a computer for hours and endure, we are now taught in an "Active Shooter" course that if we encounter a shooter in a public place we are to "run away" and "hide". If we are cornered by such a shooter we are to (only as a last resort) become "aggressive" and "throw things" at him or her. We are then advised to "call law enforcement" and wait for their arrival (presumably, while more innocent victims are slaughtered). Shooting incidents cited in the course are Columbine, the Giffords shooting and the Virginia Tech shooting.
Read the whole thing. Breakables warning in effect.

The Evansville Police Department: We'll break your door

and throw in grenades anytime we think the 'threat matrix' demands it. Even if we're at the WRONG EFFING ADDRESS."

And even though they admit it was the WRONG EFFING ADDRESS, Laptops and a cellphone belonging to Stephanie Milan...were seized in the raid and remained in police possession on Friday.
Why? Trying to fish for something to justify this crap?
Equally despressing is all the comments in the "They had to do it that way, good job!" vein.


Speaking of idiots 'enforcing the law', this from Minneapolis:
A Minneapolis man says he suffered a concussion after receiving a beating from five police officers who attacked him after they noticed he was carrying a gun in his waist band, WCCO-TV in Minnesota reports.

The problem is, Zachary King has a concealed carry permit to lawfully carry the firearm. He argues police still attacked him anyway as he was leaving a local nightclub on Father’s Day night even after he told them he was carrying the permit.

“’I have my conceal and carry, and it’s my gun.’ And soon as I said that he grabbed me by my neck, slammed me against the wall, snatched my gun out the holster, started waving it in the air saying ‘gun, gun, gun,’” King said.
And it went downhill from there.


And from the Fast Food Rejects With Police Powers known as the TSA,
John Gross, a resident of Indianapolis' south side, was leaving Florida with the remains of his grandfather -- Mario Mark Marcaletti, a Sicilian immigrant who worked for the Penn Central Railroad in central Indiana -- in a tightly sealed jar marked "Human Remains."...
"They opened up my bag, and I told them, 'Please, be careful. These are my grandpa's ashes,'" Gross told RTV6's Norman Cox. "She picked up the jar. She opened it up.

"I was told later on that she had no right to even open it, that they could have used other devices, like an X-ray machine. So she opened it up. She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it."
So not only did she violate TSA rules, SHE WAS STIRRING HER FINGER AROUND IN THE ASHES. And then
"She didn't apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn't pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me."
Chances of this arrogant, nasty bitch being fired? Zero.


Hey, you can get Gunwalker t-shirts again!


Apparently there's a lot of "You look silly" going 'round about the Utilikilt; I imagine we'll hear more when the 5.11 kilts start shipping. As to the 'wear a REAL kilt or don't wear one at all', when it's in the 90's or above, several yards of wool isn't real fun; pleated cotton isn't bad at all. If you don't like them, don't wear one(sounds a lot like the '1911 pistols SUCK!' thing, doesn't it?)


Some of Obama's words catch up with him(again); Maddow and other NBC/MSNBC clowns hardest hit.


“We now confront the spectacle of the president of the United States behaving as an emperor, and the cabinet officer entrusted with the security of the nation as his court jester,” Quayle continued,
Except there's nothing funny about what they're doing.



Attention, tourists: the buffalo has right of way. And will beat hell out of you if you don't believe it.

Ok, one last thing, from Kipling,

an excerpt from this poem:
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
...
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had
plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "If you don't work you die."
The direct links to our current situation are scary; nothing does change, does it?

Ah, the tolerance and open-mindedness of the left,

once again on display.

And here.



A single internal Department of Justice email could be the smoking-gun document in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal — if it turns out to contain what congressional investigators have said it does.

The document would establish that wiretap application documents show senior DOJ officials knew about and approved the gunwalking tactic in Fast and Furious. This is the opposite of what Attorney General Eric Holder and House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings have claimed.
Makes me wonder, remember those two DoJ people who asked for whistleblower status a couple of weeks ago? Wonder what they might have brought with them...


Speaking of Gunwalker, from Sipsey Street,

This is a rumor which I cannot confirm to my satisfaction but it comes from two previously well-connected sources: Boehner is set to deal away the contempt vote in the full House for less than the minimum discovery that Darrell Issa has set.

Said one source, "Romney wants this to go away, so the RNC wants it to go away, and they're putting more pressure on Boehner who never wanted to get this far down the road in the first place but he's been pushed along by Issa and the stand-up guys on his committee." He added, "The NRA making this a 'scored' vote means that if it comes to a vote, it will happen with as many as two or three dozen Democrats as well. The leadership now thinks that the only way for this to 'go away' like Romney wants is to short-circuit the vote."

The other source agreed, although he was less certain that Boehner could get away with it without losing his Speakership. "The Trey Gowdy's of the committee will make sure that everybody understands the nature of the sell-out. Boehner can make Romney and the RNC happy, but it may cost him his job as Speaker."

Issa may have been hinting at just this outcome because on the Sunday shows he insisted that even if the contempt vote didn't take place, that his committee's investigations would continue.

So there you have it, all the rumor that's fit to print -- for now.

If Boehner & Co. do this, they should ALL lose any leadership post; and if it makes Romney unhappy to have the vote, well, he can kiss our collective ass.
Also from the gentleman:

Eric Holder ‘Fast and Furious’ contempt vote to be held Thursday.

The House is scheduled to vote on recommendations that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. be held in contempt of Congress on Thursday, according to House Republican aides.

Republican leaders plan to bring the issue to the floor on Thursday, meaning lawmakers likely will vote on contempt charges on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to announce its ruling on the constitutionality of the 2010 health-care reform law.

The timing likely deprives advocates for contempt charges of the big headlines they might have received if the vote were held another day this week.

Damn. Uncle linked to my trigger spring post; that brought a LOT of traffic today

And I'm done for the night; I need a shower and some sleep.

...Finally, word of the operation

slowly made it across the country to Washington, where Obama DOJ appointees raised concerns with top ATF officials. Though they may be faulted for moving too slowly, eventually these DOJ appointees alerted their boss, Attorney General Holder, who was horrified and acted decisively to shut the operation down.

Bunk. In fact, Fast and Furious was an OCDETF case. That made it a Main Justice case, not the orphan Arizona debacle of media portrayal.
...
Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009, when agents in ATF’s Phoenix office developed their strategy — including the fateful gunwalking tactic — with the U.S. attorney. But things really got going in January 2010. It was then that the case became an OCDETF investigation. This does not just happen in the blink of an eye. It is a deliberate process. ATF and the U.S. attorney had to apply to Main Justice for OCDETF status. A case gets approval for funding — which can run well into the millions of dollars — only if senior Justice Department officials, after studying the formally submitted proposal, determine that the investigation has great promise.
I'd strongly suggest reading it all. There's NO WAY Holder & Co. did not know what was going on. And if he continues to claim ignorance, then he's admitting to a criminal level of incompetence.


Which, of course, isn't keeping the major medial clowns like Maddow from claiming "It's nothing, I tell you! All dreamed up by Fox and the NRA!"


Oh my, the illegal immigrant lobby and the White House must be having conniptions. And Arizona is breaking out an early drink to celebrate.


Really, Dallas County SO? THIS is something you want to be known for? And how much do you think it's going to cost you in the end?


Keeping You Safe. Except not:
These fools are keeping us safe?!?

The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated and hundreds of passengers marched back through security screening all because one dimwitted agent failed to realize his metal detector had been unplugged, sources told The Post.

The stunning error led to hours of delays, two planes called back from the runway and infinite frustration for furious passengers.

“The truth is, this is the failure of the most basic level of diligence,” a law-enforcement source said.
Ya think MAYBE?


REAL witch hunts. With specially-trained police squads.

Why didn't Germany invade Switzerland?

The early versions of this probably had something to do with it.


"You voted for Obama? You're a racist!
You're not voting for him? You're a RACIST!"
Lather, rinse, repeat.


A response to globular warmering true believers yelling "DENIER!", this is the beginning:
The tragic thing about the thoughtless use of a stereotype (denier) is that it reveals that you really think of people in terms of its projected meaning. In particular, even in your response you seem to equate the term “skeptic” with “denier of AGW”.

This is silly. On WUWT most of the skeptics do not “deny” AGW, certainly not the scientists or professional weather people (I myself am a physicist) and honestly, most of the non-scientist skeptics have learned better than that. What they challenge is the catastrophic label and the alleged magnitude of the projected warming on a doubling of CO_2. They challenge this on rather solid empirical grounds and with physical arguments and data analysis that is every bit as scientifically valid as that used to support larger estimates, often obtaining numbers that are in better agreement with observation. For this honest doubt and skepticism that the highly complex global climate models are correct you have the temerity to socially stigmatize them in a scientific journal with a catch-all term that implies that they are as morally reprehensible as those that “deny” that the Nazi Holocaust of genocide against the Jews?

For shame.


If you want any Kalashnikitty shirts, this is the time.


Dammit, I didn't post on this month's postal match! It's over here


So, you just take what the major media and their experts tell us about what's happening in the mid-East, and figure on the opposite; sounds about right.



Oh my, heads must have been exploding like a greenie 'kill the kids' dream come to life:
'Failure is the only option for this conference if you care about the environment & poor people. Carbon based energy has been one of the greatest liberators of mankind in history of our planet'
...
I challenge UN activists, environmentalists, Greenpeace, and the media to ask Sec. Hillary Clinton what the objective here in Rio is for the U.S. Her objective is nothing more than to check a box and get the hell out of town. She is going to be conning people if you believe she is here for substantive agreement.
...
We are witnessing an historic moment in history of UN. UN IPCC chair Pachauri is now saying global warming is but a secondary problem to sustainability. The UN is now saying saving species is a greater urgency than global warming. They have now thrown global warming under the bus in favor of species extinction.


And from a former IPCC supporter,
For many years, I was an active supporter of the IPCC and its CO2 theory. Recent experience with the UN's climate panel, however, forced me to reassess my position. In February 2010, I was invited as a reviewer for the IPCC report on renewable energy. I realised that the drafting of the report was done in anything but a scientific manner. The report was littered with errors and a member of Greenpeace edited the final version. These developments shocked me. I thought, if such things can happen in this report, then they might happen in other IPCC reports too.

Steyn on Obama's work of biography/dramatic fiction

and other works of 'personal history' by other phonies:
David Maraniss is no right-winger, and can’t understand why boorish non-literary types have seized on his book as evidence that the president of the United States is a Grade A phony. “It is a legitimate question about where the line is in memoir,” he told Soledad O’Brien on CNN. My Oxford dictionary defines “memoir” as “an historical account or biography written from personal knowledge.” And if Obama doesn’t have “personal knowledge” of his tortured grandfather, war-hero step-grandfather, and racially obsessed theater-buff girlfriend, who does? But in recent years, the Left has turned the fake memoir into one of the most prestigious literary genres: Oprah’s Book Club recommended James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, hailed by Bret Easton Ellis as a “heartbreaking memoir” of “poetic honesty,” but subsequently revealed to be heavy on the “poetic” and rather light on the “honesty.”
...
David Maraniss is no right-winger, and can’t understand why boorish non-literary types have seized on his book as evidence that the president of the United States is a Grade A phony. “It is a legitimate question about where the line is in memoir,” he told Soledad O’Brien on CNN. My Oxford dictionary defines “memoir” as “an historical account or biography written from personal knowledge.” And if Obama doesn’t have “personal knowledge” of his tortured grandfather, war-hero step-grandfather, and racially obsessed theater-buff girlfriend, who does? But in recent years, the Left has turned the fake memoir into one of the most prestigious literary genres: Oprah’s Book Club recommended James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, hailed by Bret Easton Ellis as a “heartbreaking memoir” of “poetic honesty,” but subsequently revealed to be heavy on the “poetic” and rather light on the “honesty.”
...
In such a world, it was surely only a matter of time before a fake memoirist got elected as president of the United States. Indeed, the aforementioned Rigoberta Menchú ran as a candidate in the 2007 and 2011 presidential elections in Guatemala, although she got knocked out in the first round — Guatemalans evidently being disinclined to elect someone to the highest office in the land with no accomplishment whatsoever apart from a lousy fake memoir. Which just goes to show what a bunch of unsophisticated rubes they are.

Another of the wonders of the Arab Spring

“Finally, concerning the highly controversial notion of sexual orientation, we can only reiterate that it is not part of the universally recognized human rights,” said the Egyptian delegation at the UN Human Rights Council.

“We call on Mr. Kiai not to undermine the credibility and legitimacy oh his important work in the eyes of real people who actually need it, especially in regions where such concepts are rejected by both its Christian and Muslim inhabitants like the Middle East,” the statement added.Which reminds me of the Queers for Palestine idiots; do they somehow think they'd be immune to harm if they went over there, or do they not care?


As to the leaks and 'Obama's electronic war on Iran, isn't he WONDERFUL!' noise,
But Israeli reporters Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman have been speaking to Mossad agents and they have a very different story:

The Israeli officials actually told me a different version. They said that it was Israeli intelligence that began, a few years earlier, a cyberspace campaign to damage and slow down Iran’s nuclear intentions. And only later they managed to convince the USA to consider a joint operation — which, at the time, was unheard of. Even friendly nations are hesitant to share their technological and intelligence resources against a common enemy. In our book, Spies Against Armageddon, we will reveal much more about the special strategic relations and cooperation between the CIA and the Mossad and the importance given by the Aman (military intelligence) to cyberspace warfare.

For the complete story, click here.


Remember all the "This is just a political attack on the AG!" crap from Rep. Cummings? He issued a 'report' a while back...
But the substantial body count that resulted from this operation is something that Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings and his colleagues avoid mentioning. The report simply does not include the two American federal law enforcement officers killed in ambushes with Gunwalker firearms, and does not mention the Mexican casualties of this Obama administration-created fiasco.

Instead, the minority report minimizes the magnitude of the crimes perpetrated under the guise of law enforcement, while building the case for gun control — an interesting development, as gun control may have been the ulterior motive for Gunwalker all along.


Yeah, Krauthammer is a very smart man, but if he actually expects the major media to accurately cover Gunwalker, then he's got a blind spot a mile wide.


Borrowed from Kaus:
Don’t Be Paranoid. We’re Out to Get You: From the conclusion of Eugene Robinson’s op-edattacking the GOP’s Fast and Furious investigation:

[C]ongress should look into the overall flow of firearms from the United States into Mexico. The Fast and Furious weapons were just a small part of a much larger problem. Mexican officials have complained for years that lax U.S. gun laws have the effect of worsening drug-related violence along the border. …

If Issa really wants to save U.S. and Mexican lives, he should convene hearings on banning the sale of high-powered weapons.

That will reassure Second Amendment enthusiasts who suspect the otherwise indefensible Fast & Furious fiasco was really an effort to lay the groundwork for a … ban on the sale of weapons (by confirming the Mexicans’ complaints about the origin of guns involved in Mexican drug violence). …


And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get some netting to keep the effing mockingbirds from destroying more of my tomatoes; it's either that or set up a sniper hide near the garden.

Screwing with my trigger (update: information added)

for a lighter and still-safe pull.

DISCLAIMER! WARNING!! READ THIS!!!

This is how I did this mod, and it worked for me, on this rifle; that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a good idea for you to do it. Messing with the trigger mechanism is something to do ONLY if
It’s actually needed
You know exactly what you’re doing
You test it out thoroughly , both before you load it and after.
So if you mess with yours get a BANG noise when you didn't want one, don’t blame me.

Ahem.
The Remington 512 I used for the Accu’rzr testing is a fine rifle, part of the 510 series they turned out: single-shot, box magazine, tube mag, hunting and match rifles. I added a scope to this one, and aside from the basic front bead/rear ‘U’ sights(which worked better for me years back for some reason) there’s only one thing I didn’t like about it: the trigger. Breaks clean, but it’s heavy. Cleaning and lubing did not change it at all. I did NOT want to screw with the engagement surfaces, and after disassembly and a bit of study I found they weren’t the culprit anyway; it's the trigger spring.

In the top rear of the trigger- which is something of a '7' shape- there’s a vertical blind hole, into which fits the trigger spring and plunger. The plunger bears on the safety mechanism and the spring forces the trigger to pivot up at the front to engage the striker. It’s a small, but quite stout spring. So I decided the best option was to replace it.

Yes, you can shorten it; I’ll borrow from Sailor Curt on the CZ82 mag latch spring:
Many people lighten springs by cutting off a coil or two and that is a possibility, but it changes the overall length of the spring. In this case, I don’t think it would be a good idea because the spring’s so short already, shortening it more could adversely affect operation.
This also being a short spring, I didn’t want to cut it shorter; that left either the lightening method Curt uses, or making a lighter spring. ‘Making’ because I couldn’t find anything that would both fit in the hole and be strong enough. And it has to be 'strong enough'; this is what causes the trigger to engage the striker and hold it engaged until you WANT it to release, and it causes the safety to stay in the 'safe' or 'fire' position: make it too light and you run the risk of a bump causing the striker to slip, and I have an allergy in inadvertent ‘BANG’ noises. Or, possibly, the safety could jar into what's the wrong position for the situation(Murphy being the sneaky bastard he is).

For a spring of the same length and travel but less power, smaller diameter wire. So I measured the diameter of the spring wire(.025" close as I could tell) and found some a little smaller, the stuff I used being .024”(music wire, from Ace Hardware in this case).** Then I got the tools together, which in this case consists of
my power driver and a 1/16” drill bit as a mandrel. The driver to spin the (reversed, cutting end in the chuck) mandrel, and the bit because it was just the right diameter, which means slightly smaller than the final inside diameter: remember that wound wire will spring back just a bit when you release it, so when you finish winding and release the tension the spring will become slightly larger in diameter; so you need a slightly smaller mandrel than the inside diameter of the original spring.

Step one: take some pliers and make a almost 90 degree bend in one end.
Two: chuck the mandrel and the short leg of the wire in the driver. Yes, it can be a pain to get both locked in.

Three: Start winding. You have to use your off-hand index finger to support the mandrel, and it bearing on your finger will keep your hand and the wire moving forward evenly, giving you a nice, consistent spring. It’s hard to describe. Start the driver turning SLOWLY, and get the first few turns as evenly-spaced as you can; if you can get that first few just right, those coils bearing on your finger will just move things along, kind of magic to watch. Make it long as you can, you cut a section to length to try, and you can always cut another.*
Yes, this is difficult. Yes, you’ll probably screw up a few; big deal, the wire comes in 3-foot lengths. And remember that if you get a couple of turns wrong at the start, it’s not horrible: just adjust and keep going (I cannot emphasize this enough) SLOWLY. Shift your index finger further along to the good coils if need be. You’ll get it.

Here’s the product, right off the mandrel
You'll notice the first few coils are uneven, then I got it smoothed out nicely.

Here’s the original spring and the replacement
Original on the left. Yes, the replacement has fewer coils per inch. I would suggest, after cutting a section off, use a stone or- my favorite- a cutoff wheel on a dremel to smooth the cut ends.


As to getting the original out, clear the rifle, and pull the bolt. Then remove the action/barrel group from the stock. You have to drift out the trigger pin and remove the safety to do this job, so I used a bench block to support the receiver
and a brass punch to push out the trigger pin. You don't have to remove it from the receiver, just drift it over enough to free the trigger, which will then slip down.
Actually removing the trigger involves pulling another pin so you can remove the whole trigger assembly; it's connected into the feed mechanism. You don't have to do that for this job, so I left it connected. Now, see that piece sticking up at the top rear? That's the spring plunger. You can't take it out now, because the safety is in the way; so you flip the receiver over
and unscrew that screw; you'll have to hold the safety lever in place to break it loose, mostly likely, but after that it should just unscrew. The lever and screw lift off, and you can pull the safety itself out the back. They look like this
once removed. If you work on one of these, note the end with the ears; those ears go to the left and down when you reassemble it. The end of the shaft is slightly smaller diameter and fits into the hole in the receiver, and if the ears aren't down things don't work. At all. The area between those ears is shaped so the plunger bears on it and compresses(would that be pre-loads?) the spring, both giving a nice 'click' between 'on' and 'off', and giving the trigger the pressure it needs to properly engage the striker.
(Yes, you can take the safety out first; but if you do make sure you're in a place where, if the plunger and/or spring comes out while you're removing the trigger pin, they won't fall out and go walkabout; don't ask how I know that)

I put the replacement spring and plunger into the trigger and reassembled everything.

Then started testing. I worked the bolt(after making sure nothing was hiding in the magazine that shouldn't be there), both gently and then hard and fast; no unplanned ‘snap’ noises. Then put a #6 snap cap in and found the trigger pull was much lighter and still clean. Excellent, so far. So I kept working the bolt, banged the butt on the floor, whacked the side of the stock with my hand a few times, all trying to make the striker slip, and it stayed cocked.
Note: I cannot emphasize this enough, if you mess with the trigger mechanism AT ALL, you HAVE to test it thoroughly; there are no shortcuts on this, do it right or not at all.

I don't have a trigger pull scale, so I rigged up a 'string to the trigger, add weight to the cup' mess and tried that; according to it, the trigger now breaks at about 4.5#. Feels lighter than that to me; if it is indeed accurate weight, then the original pull was around 8-10#.

So took it to the range to try, and for the first ten rounds I worked the bolt gently, then hard and fast(making damn sure the rifle was pointed downrange), and it behaved just as it should. And the lighter pull definitely made it easier for me to keep the shots where I wanted, especially offhand.

So that’s how I lightened the pull on this rifle.

DISCLAIMER! WARNING!! READ THIS!!!

This is how I did this mod, and it worked for me, on this rifle; that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a good idea for you to do it. Messing with the trigger mechanism is something to do ONLY if
It’s actually needed
You know exactly what you’re doing
You test it out thoroughly , both before you load it and after.
So if you mess with yours get a BANG noise when you didn't want one, don’t blame me.

Note: I was using the camera with the timer on a tripod for the shots of me holding the stuff, a very handy thing that is. As long as you can hold whatever you're doing long enough for the timer to run down.

*There are several ways to do this. If you can find a machine screw with the right diameter and thread pitch, you can use that as the guide, and get very nice springs. You can use a lathe set up to cut threads or with a suitable tool to turn the mandrel and control the pitch of the windings(I've seen pics, haven't tried it myself); you can make a crank of a proper-diameter wire to wind the spring around. Or if you’re lucky you can visit Ace or Lowe’s or someplace and find a spring that’ll work and save all this messing around. If you're one of those "I need that" types, sometimes Numrich or somebody will have a big bag of assorted springs for sale, you might find the right size in one of those.

**Yes, the original wire may have been .024" also; I was using a caliper to measure, and a thousandth is within my margin of error. But near as I could tell, the replacement wire is slightly smaller diameter.

One more note: Something to remember on making springs is that the act of winding the wire around the mandrel won't just form a coil, it will actually work-harden the wire a bit(I think, this is opinion and I haven't dug around for confirmation/negation of it), which can make a spring a touch stronger than you might expect. I don't think it's enough to be a big factor most of the time, but thought I'd add this on

Added: Bob had a question:
...is the spring you made tempered properly to act as a spring? That is to say, when it is compressed, does it return to true reliably? Is it hard enough to flex without taking a "set?" Is it still soft enough to prevent snapping from brittleness?
Good questions. Here's my answers:
From what I've read, the small-diameter music wire like this isn't heated and quenched: when it goes through the drawing process, it's not annealed after the last draw, and the work-hardening of the process gives pretty much the same effect. Add in the work-hardening of winding it, and it's stiff enough to make a nice coil spring and tough enough to take repeated cycles without collapsing or taking enough of a set to not function reliably. If you've never messed with this stuff, it's very hard and flexible. Small-diameter stuff like I used can be worked cold. I've made a number of them over the years with this stuff, in different sizes, and they're all still working; a gunsmith I used to know had made some also, and so far as I know they're all still in service. Larger-diameter wire, unless you've got some kind of equipment to handle that much pressure you'd have to heat it to be able to wind it, and then you would have to harden and temper it.

A lot of springs are made this way: suitable wire wound cold on the appropriate mandrel to give the desired finished size and strength.

All the springs of this type I've made have been for something like this job, they don't undergo complete compression when they're worked(like a recoil spring, for instance), and I've never thought to measure original length to compare to current. That would be an interesting experiment: make a spring, measure the length, put it through a number of compression cycles and measure again... Dammit, see what you've started? Now I've got to disassemble that and measure, and then make another spring and a test rack of some sort...