Carport maintenance & Italian journalists

No, they're not connected. Other than both being a pain.

When I got this house one of the things I liked was the carport. I still do, but I've been trying for a while to clean out the drain channels. One pair I could stick a gutter-blaster hose attachment into in places and blow some of the stuff out, but the other two channels are covered in such a way that there's no damn way to wash them out. Leaf litter would be bad enough, but the big problem is all the gravel from the old roof. After a year of trying various things, I finally gave up and did the drastic thing; since the corners couldn't be opened up, I got out the hole saw and cut holes in two corners. With the holes there, I was able to blast most of the crap out them, and when leaves blocked it could use a wire to pull the plug out and continue. It looks like I've got the worst of it out, and when I'm fairly sure I'll cut two plugs out of sheet aluminum and stick them in with silicone sealant. Should make drainage a lot better.

The Italian journalist in question is the idiot who got shot approaching a road checkpoint at high speed and is now claiming the troops were intentionally trying to kill her. Hey, stupid, if they'd wanted you dead, you'd be in a box instead of flapping your gums. Instapundit has lots of links on this. I like the comment at Wizbang:
"On her way out, our forces shoot 300 to 400 rounds at their car. And the result of all that firepower? One killed, three injured -- none apparently very seriously. Then they treat them and send them home.

Obviously all that money we've spent on training and equipment has gone to waste if our forces are performing that poorly."

'Nuff said.

Oh, and just to cover it, FEC?

You can kiss my ass.

Bill Clinton sucks(as well as inhaling)

With the problems with Iran, including but not limited to the governments support of terrorism and working to build nukes, at Davos Bill Clinton made comments about how wonderful it is in Iran. Including:

" [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.
In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own."

Found at Little Green Footballs.

What to do, what to do about accuracy...

If you've ever been around someone who's really serious about .22 rimfire accuracy, you know about picky. One thing a lot of people don't realize about firearms is that some can be really picky about what they like; what shoots amazingly well in one rifle or pistol may give lousy accuracy in another. Some shoot almost everything well, some only one or two types.

I've got a BSA Martini model 12/15 rifle I picked up a while back that fits in the 'good with everything' category. I've sat down at a nice, solid bench with it and a dozen different brands/types of ammo over time, and it shoots as well at 50 yards with Federal Lightning ammo($.69/box) as it does with Wolf Match or Aguila match ammo($3 to $4/box). I haven't tried the Lapua($7 to 10/box) or some of the other serious match-grade stuff; being chea- uh, fiscally conservative, laying out $7 to $10/box for .22's just doesn't register. Not when I get 1/2" groups with the 'economy' ammo at 50 yards.

But for the serious accuracy hound? Oh, he'll buy a box or two of each, carefully clean the bore between each brand/type. He'll check out the different sites for anything that might tweak the ammo just that final little bit to get the dream groups; like putting a different lube on the bullets(here and here).

The one advantage .22's have for those who go all out is that a $10 box of ammo still holds 50 rounds; a 20 round box of centerfire match will probably start about $15 or so, depending on cartridge/brand.

I'll never make a serious match shooter. If I can find a .22 round that, off a solid rest, groups 1/2" or a little less at 50 yards, I'm real happy since that's the best I'd ever be able to shoot in the field. Likewise, when I work up a centerfire rifle load that'll group an inch at 100 yards, I know it'll take care of anything I'm going to try in the woods. The people who are SERIOUS about accuracy will keep trying different case/primer/powder/bullet/lube combinations forever, or with .22's different brands/lubes/bullet mods, looking for the golden combination for that firearm.

Notes: I'll admit to plans to buy a box or two of CCI or Eley match stuff to try in this and another .22, someday when I'm feeling rich, but unless the stuff all goes through the same hole in the target, it'll just be to try the stuff out.
On centerfires, it can be amazing the difference one component can make. I once worked up loads on an 8mm Mauser. With Federal or Remington brass holding the same primer/powder/bullet combination, group size was identical with the Remingtons hitting right at 1" higher; with Winchester brass, the group was about 6" and about 5" higher and to the right.
On tweaking ammo, there's an interesting gadget here that swages the bullet of a .22 to either a more accurate(possibly, depending on firearm) bullet diameter or a more efficient hollowpoint shape, depending on which rod you use. Hmm, tax refund should be in soon...

Update: Welcome Carnival of Cordite readers!

Watch lost

Og tells about almost losing a watch that means a lot to him. I did lose mine.

When I was about 19, my parents bought me a Seiko divers watch; self-winding, extra-tough crystal, waterproof. That thing went everywhere with me, from school to the woods to 95 feet down in Lake Elmer Thomas(what's at 95 feet there? Muck and darkness). Years and lots of wear and knocks later it stopped working, and since I didn't have the money to get it fixed(new kids, house payment, etc.) it was put in a drawer for 'someday'.

About ten years later a friend of mine in Texas turned out to know a Seiko repair guy who had/could get parts for older watches. So I packed it off to Fort Worth, and it came back in beautiful shape. And once again it sat on my wrist for several years. And then it vanished.

I took the house apart, moved everything in the garage, did everything but find a psychic to look for the damn thing with no luck. It was just gone.

I still miss it.

While I'm on the subject of 'other uses'

This is the first large knife I ever made. I decided to go for a clip-point blade because it's a good generally-useful shape. I had a piece of leaf spring from God knows what kind of car, put it in the fire and started hammering. When done, I used a piece of thick brass for the guard, and for once I had a good piece of antler that would work nicely for the grip. (By the way, have you ever tried to drill/file a shaped hole in a piece of old Sambar stag? That stuff is hard)

First time to harden and temper something this size(the blade is 12" from guard to point), and I damn near sweated blood trying to keep the heat even over the length. But it came out nicely. And I did some nice filework on the guard, and made a sheath out of good heavy leather. And it was good.

At the time, then-wife and I were still active in the SCA, and I took it to an arts & sciences meeting, where it met with acclaim. And one guy was interested in buying it. Now, we could really have used the money, no question. But I didn't want to let it go. I was wrestling with my conscience(left shoulder:"You should sell it, you know you need the money" right shoulder:"Shut up over there! Keep it!") when wife said "Keep it. You really like this one, and we're not that desperate". So I kept it.

I have had this blade for about 22 or 23 years now. I have carried it as my dirk with my kilt, I have carried it camping. I've used it to cut bread, and cheese, and meat, and wood. I've used it to trim brush and tree limbs in the yard, and to cut up limbs for the trash pickup. The antler is worn a bit smooth in places, and the finish is kind of blotchy now. But it will to through limbs better than some hatchets I've used, and when the edge starts to dull/which takes a lot of cutting/ a few strokes on a stone or steel brings it back. And it hangs on a belt, far more out of the way than an axe would be.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm very glad I kept it.

Other uses for stuff

I'm too lazy to get up right now to shoot the stuff I mentioned in the last post, so in the spirit of the matter, here's something else.

This is my personal sgian dbu, Gaelic for 'black knife', supposedly because the traditional grip was ivy root stained black. It was a Scot's general-purpose cutting tool, good for everything. I once found a book titled- I think- "Knives in Colonial America" that contained a picture of the dirk and sgian dbu of a major in a Highland regiment that had been stationed in North America in the 1770's. The dirk showed signs of wear, but the sgian dbu was only about half as wide as when new; it had been used and sharpened so many times it had been worn back that far. Tells you which one got the most use.

This one has a walnut grip and nickel silver fittings on the knife and sheath. 'Other uses' comes from the blade, which started out as a 5/8" ball bearing. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to hold onto a red-hot ball while you hammer it into a bar? It ain't fun. I just know that someone will see this and say "Why didn't he just weld a handle on?" I didn't have access to a welder, so shut up.

Besides, it's good for your footwork when it jumps out of the tongs...

Thoughts on a tired evening

This has been a fun 24 hours. Yesterday about this time a friend called and asked if I could go by his house when I got off work. He'd been at his fiance's house when he was notified that his house was on fire. A couple of hours later he told me not to bother coming by, fire was out and the house was secured for the night. Get off work at 1a.m., home & in bed about 2. Get up a little after 9 and go to friend's house; happily the damage was mostly confined to the utility room- except for the whole house smelling of smoke and the water damage- but the power & water are off until repairs/upgrades are done(upgrades because they apparently think it was of electrical origin). Then outside to work on a couple of knives, and while out back notice that part of the yard needs mowing. Again.
Then met a friend for dinner. About halfway through, two waiters started to clean up under a table nearby, the baby in the family had been a bit messy. They had one of those small push sweepers, and on the first push a mouse jumped out of it and ran under our table, from where it vanished. Not quite the entertainment I'd have selected for dinner, but it did.

I've been reading the transcript of a show featuring an idiot named Nancy Soderberg, who was talking about her book on how the U.S. has messed/is messing up the world(found the transcript at Opinion Journal). It's very revealing, in that Soderberg makes it quite plain that since Republicans are in charge right now, she'd rather see the entire world go down the toilet than see good things happen that the R's might get credit for. To me, the high points are:

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

and:

Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.

Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--

Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!

Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work.

Got that? Some very good things are happening in the world, but "there's always hope that this might not work". These clowns are like some brat who can't eat another bite, but he'll spit on the last roll or piece of pie so nobody else can eat it. 'If WE don't get credit for it, we don't want it to work!' I am so freakin' sick of these people.


My earlier post on why carry?, I left out a point. Rights need to be exercised; if they're not used regularly, a lot of bureaucrats and politicians take this to mean that you won't miss them if they take them away from you. Carrying a sidearm is, besides a means of defense, a way of telling the pukes that they will not take this away from you without a fight.

I miss Calvin and Hobbes. One of the finest comic strips ever.

I made a tall hook yesterday to put in the ground by the pecan tree in front and hold a bird feeder. The feeder's up and filled, and so far not a single bird has noticed it. I know some of the featherheads are the same ones who dine at the feeder in the back yard, it's the same type feeder so you'd think they'd notice, but no..... I'm going to see how long it takes them to 'discover' it.

I'm very damn ready for a day warm enough to put on shorts and lay out in the sun. Even if it does scare the birds.

So now it's late, and I'm tired. If I can find the camera and the energy I'll take a picture of the knives I worked on today and post it.

That didn't take long

For once, I found a picture when I needed it. Here's Axe, with his brother Little. Little was made the same way, though his haft is ash wrapped with braided leather for the grip. I need to set up a target and see how Little throws, he works quite well at trimming limbs and brush.

Done, in plenty of time for the Fair

This is the second large axe I've made. The body is mild steel wrapped around a mandrel(fancy name for pipe) to shape the eye and welded together. Then a piece of high-carbon steel is inserted between the sides at the end and welded. Once that's done you grind the profile and bevels, harden and temper the edge, then either polish to a sheen, or grind clean and brown, which is what I did here.

The haft is a three-foot piece of oak, which when I have time I'll probably soak in kerosene; that works very well with hickory to make it more flexible and tougher, I hope it'll work as well with oak.

So far it cuts wood quite well. No, I haven't tried it on a mugger/burglar/generic orc; do you have any idea how much paperwork that involves?

I'll see if I can find a shot of him with his little brother.

Yeah, them A-rab types can't do a republic...

But they're trying damn hard.

Found this at Insty. Along with notes on the new Lebanese government being formed. And the Syrians being told to get out. And Egypt making some moves. And for a a change, the Palistinians not dancing in the street over the last suicide bombing.

I think I sense a pattern developing...

Yes, there are other pictures from Lebanon, and they're all inspiring. I just like this one.

Followup on Star BM

Star test target
Took it to the range last night with a box of Speer Gold Dot 147 grain hollow points and half a box of Blazer ball. Accuracy was quite good with the GDs, and recoil quite manageable; the weight of the Star balances it out nicely. The GDs are a fairly long cartridge, the bullet being long to get that weight with the big hollow, and they're about the maximum length this pistol can handle(and I suspect the same for other pistols). They all chambered and fired with no problem, and no jams. There was one nose-down fail to feed, cleared by pulling the slide back and releasing. I can't decide if it was due to the length of the cartridge or shape of the nose, or simply one of those things. When I get a chance I'll pick up some other brands of hollow points to try in it. God knows a lot of semi-autos are picky about what they like, this may be a case of that, although I doubt it, it wouldn't have ripped through the rest of the box as nicely if that were it.

That picture is the 50 rounds, ranging from 7 to 15 yards, slow-fire and three-shot drills from low-ready. Overall I'm impressed with the accuracy of this piece, the limit so far being what I'm capable of. As I mentioned I'll try some different ammo in it, see if there's anything it likes better. And I might get out the Dremel and polish the feed ramp...

Shut up. Yes, I know I have a problem leaving things alone.

Bob Jenny died today

Bob Jenny was kind of an institution around here for many years. I first saw him back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, on a local kid's show called 'Foreman Scotty'. Scotty was the foreman of the ranch, and one of the things he did at times was have Jenny on to talk about animals, primarily reptiles. Snakes, lizards, turtles, alligators. Over the years he did God knows how many programs for Scouts, schools, churches and anyone else who wanted the kids to learn about the critters.

He was a fine man, and was somewhere in his 70's(didn't catch the exact age when the news mentioned his death). He ran a nature center north of Oklahoma City, hopefully he had someone ready to take it over.

One instance I heard of was when he was out in the field with a Scout troop and one of the boys found a Gila monster. If you've never seen one, it's a truly ugly lizard, and one of only two venomous lizards in the world. Somehow in the pointing out and lecture the thing- slow moving most of the time, but can strike damn fast- managed to sink fangs into his hand. So he calmly detached it, put it back under a rock, and proceeded to give a demonstration of first aid for the bite of a poisonous reptile.

From what I understand, the kids were very impressed.

Remembering Mark Wilson

Kim du Toit lists what this man did that justly allows him to be called 'our hero'.

I think one of the best definitions of that word is someone who puts their own life at risk to help others. He and another guy kept the goblin from murdering more people, at the cost of Wilson's life, and gave the police time to get on the job.

Two things. In comments to the 'Why Carry?' post, a gentleman said that you have to be realistic in assessing risks; I doubt Mr. Wilson had any idea that he would be on the scene of an attack by such a waste of oxygen, but a lot of people owe lives/health to the fact that he had a gun handy. Like I said, better to have & not need than need & not have.
Second, this was outside a courthouse; security all over. And yet it was up to a couple of citazens to prevent the goblin from killing all the people he planned on, and given a chance would have killed. As a lot of people have pointed out, the cops, no matter how good, are primarily reactive, they show up after a crime has occurred. You're the one there when it happens.

Remember Mr. Wilson, good people owe him.

I'll give it a try

Found this quiz at Mostly Cajun, your senior year of high school:

What year?
1976

What was your schedule?
Good God, I don't know! Only part I remember was the auto mechanics class in the afternoon.

What were your favorite bands?
Heart is the only one I remember offhand.

What was your favorite outfit?
Jeans and a t-shirt in warm weather, jeans and a flannel shirt in cold.

What was up with your hair?
When it started getting in the way, I went to the barber.

Who were your best friends?
Didn't really have anyone I did stuff with.

Did you take the bus?
No.

What did you do after school?
Depending on weather and time of year, read, hunted when could, watched tv, took some classes at the local YMCA.

Who did you have a crush on?
Lots of girls I thought were pretty, none really had a crush on.

Did you fight with your parents?
Not much.

Who did you have a celebrity crush on?
Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, and Jan Smithers, the chic who played Bailey on 'WKRP in Cincinnati'.

Did you smoke cigarettes?
No.

Did you lug all your books around in your backpack all day because you were too nervous to find your locker?
Carry the damn things around all day? No, I went to the locker.

Did you have a 'clique'?
No.

Did you have Chili's? Denny's?
Nope. If I had, didn't have enough money to hang out there.

Who did you want to be just like?
I don't remember, other than wanting to be able to kick ass like Bruce Lee.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
I grew up?!? Dammit, when did that happen?

I need more shelves

Especially with the box of books sitting in the floor. About $200 worth new, for $22. I love this sale.

Ever noticed how crowds warm a place up? Outside it was mid-50's, walk through the doors into that crowded room and it went up 15-20 degrees. But I found copies of stuff I didn't have, stuff I'd wanted to read, replacements for a couple of beat-up old books I have, and a couple to pass on to the kids.

Ever heard of Matt Helm? Donald Hamilton wrote a series about this character, and agent in a classified agency. He once put it that his job was taking care of people who the FBI types didn't want to dirty their hands with and who the other alphabet agencies couldn't deal with. In some ways like the James Bond of the early novels; hard as nails, sometimes bothered by what has to be done, but gets the job done. Some clowns made a couple of movies by combining elements from several of the books, with Dean Martin playing Helm. They did them as comedy/action movies, and they're pretty crappy. I think Martin could have done the character pretty well, but they'd have needed a director who kept him on the character. I think they could still make some damn good movies, though they'd need screenwriters/director who cared more about a good story and characters than about how many car chases, messy shootouts and explosions they could cram in. Anyway, I found one of his, I'll pass that on to the kids; I think they'll like it.

In any case, the book sale's over for me. There is a motorcycle swap meet Sunday, I'll be going by that. It's at the fairgrounds too, so I may swing over to the sale again, but I doubt there'll be much left.

Why carry?

Not 'why own guns?', that's a question I'll go to later. Specifically, why carry?

Oklahoma specifically forbade concealed carry up until a few years ago. There were the usual hysterical denunciations("bodies in the streets, blood in the gutters", etc.), but it was passed. I didn't get a carry permit right off. Partly inertia, partly because I had become much more protective of the 2nd Amendment and it pissed me off that I had to be 'approved' by the state to carry.

I had carried in my vehicle for years; every trip I made a revolver was under the seat. I had decided my fathers' attitude was the right one, better to possibly face trouble if caught with it than to be in a bad situation and not have it. However, I did not carry on my motorcycle, and that's where my decision came in. At the time we were having a lot of the noise about gang problems, with some of the big-name coastal gangs moving into the city, and I had to drive through the area of town they were most active in. And I liked the idea of having arms legally handy, just in case. So I took the course.

The class I attended was taught by two local police officers, who did a good job of it. The range test was straightforward, and I passed it and the classroom both. So I got two pictures taken, and went to the Sheriff's office to have my prints taken, paid the fees and sent it all in. In due time I was notified to pick up my permit, and did so. It was exciting to have it, and I began carrying wherever I legally could.

No, I wasn't just jiggly-happy, and I didn't flash it or take it lightly. What it did to my attitude was reinforce what I'd already learned. My dad was a law officer, and when teaching me to handle handguns had been unsparing as to the responsibility arms carried. When I'd decided to keep a gun handy at home, and to carry in the car on trips, the thought of "what happens if I pull the trigger?" had gone through my mind. A lot. And this simply made it more locked into my mind that I was responsible here.

Face it, in some ways it's a pain to carry. In hot weather it can be difficult. In any season you have to make sure you don't take it somewhere you shouldn't. Some friends will think you're a nut, and some people will treat you like a mass-murderer in waiting just for speaking about it- they find out you actually carry a deadly weapon on your person! well, what is wrong with you? that's the job of the police to protect you, etc. And the responsibility is always there, and the weight that you come to not consciously notice reminds you of it. Think about that last; it reminds you of your responsibility. And that responsibility is a big reason why I carry.

One of the facts of life has always been that you are responsible for your own safety and protection, and the police came in to clean up. If you were able to call them in in time to help protect you, all to the good, but you were the one there, you were the one next door to your neighbor when they screamed for help. It became more and more the attitude that the cops will take care of everything, and we started hearing directions about how to behave when you were robbed or raped, including all too many officials telling you how you should submit to pretty much anything so as 'not to make the situation worse'. And NEVER should you 'take the law into your own hands', which was how so many of these beaurocrats with badges saw self-defense; YOU weren't qualified, YOU were not properly able to act, wait for the PROFESSIONALS from the government to show up.

There were problems, of course. You had to actually call the cops before they could do anything, or someone seeing or hearing you being attacked had to call them, and they had to find an officer free to come over. And something else happened. There were a couple of cases where people who did call were harmed or killed, and they or their family sued the cops. And the courts ruled you couldn't do that, because the cops had no responsibility to you; their responsibility was only to 'society' in general, and if they fell down and you died or were crippled, too bad, now stop making noise and annoying us. So we don't have to do anything to protect you, but we sure don't want you doing it yourself!

The fact is that you are the primary one responsible for your/your familys' safety. You can try to farm it out, but that's always the fact. That doesn't mean everyone should go out and buy a gun; it does mean you have to think about it. If getting an alarm system for the house and some pepper spray for pocket or purse makes you feel better, fine. It makes me feel better too, because you have actually thought about your safety and how to safeguard it. My thoughts for safety include firearms. I have no desire to get into a fight, because at best people get hurt and I'm allergic to pain. If it comes to it, I want the best tool for the job, and that's a gun. Don't lecture me about batons or whatever; if I or my familys' safety is in danger, damned if I'm going to choose something that means I have to get within reach of some orc with a knife or chain, let alone trying to play disarm games against somebody with a gun.

I took a friend to the range for the first time a couple of months ago, first time she'd ever fired a handgun, and she did quite well. She wanted to get one to keep in the house due to some problems in the neighborhood, and we did some talking about what to do if you actually have to grab it. She commented a couple of times about how big a thing this was, and I made sure she kept thinking about it. Taking up any weapon means lethal force, and it is not to be taken lightly. Ever. Every time I put that sidearm on my belt and walk out the door I know the responsibility I carry, literally, for my actions. And that's a good thing.

Note: someone had the usual question of a friend, do you carry a pistol because you want a fight? In one of David Drakes' books a character was carrying a .38 revolver, and noted that it was just in case; if he knew he was heading into trouble, he'd have an automatic rifle. True enough.

Book sale!

Every year the local library system has a Friends of the Library book sale. Books they have too many of, damaged, replaced old copies, donations, all up for sale. I think hardbacks are $1 this year, paperbacks $.50. And of some things there'll be a whole sackfull for $5 or something.

The weather is supposed to be decent, so while I'll have to park in Outer Mongolia, it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm ready for some actual warm weather. Especially now that I'm over the plague minor, I'd love to be able to just sit out in the yard in the sun, without a coat.

But I should have some new books to hold me over.

Ok, Britain is not only being run by GFW's,

they've lost their damn sense of humor, as well.

Kim posts on this ad, which is stirring up a fuss. I like it, but over there even the shooting groups are bitching about it.

Stick that fork a little deeper.

Someday, I'd like to go to Africa and hunt

Not really interested in elephant; they've got enough problems without me annoying them, and I've got no place to put the tusks. Lion? Maybe, would make a nice rug. Leopard? Oh, yeah. And antelope and Cape Buffalo.

The antelope and buffalo have the most good points on their side: not only can you hunt them, you can eat them. Ok, you could eat the lion and leopard, but I've read that lion is really gamy tasting, and I'd think leopard would be about the same. Warthogs could be had as bait for the leopard, and for their tusks; from what I've read they tend to be infested with enough parasites that you wouldn't want one for dinner unless you had NO other choice.

Having somehow, er, 'obtained' enough cash for this venture, I would also need to draft Steve into the trip. I'd bring in the meat, and he could cook the beasts and make beer to wash them down with. Maybe talk Kim into going along; he's got some familiarity with that part of the world-some parts of it anyway- and might be handy to keep something from having me as an entree. Or something venomous from sinking fangs into me. All things to be avoided, I'm sure. Since I've heard that a lot of government agencies over there operate largely as kleptocracies, he could probably give pointers on who to brib- er, encourage to assist us and with how large a gratuity.

My son, if along, would probably spend some time hunting, and some figuring out how to lift and blow the pro hunters vehicle(mechanically, dammit; shut up). Daughter would, along with shooting tasty things for dinner, be talking to the local citazens and finding out what was poisonous, how to use it, etc.(she's interested in poisons, and has a number of references on the subject; her bookshelf used to make dinner guests nervous)

This would be an interesting trip in many ways("Kim, where's the brandy? " "Steve, go ahead, stuff the whole damn thing! The crew can dig a firepit and they'll help eat it, too." "Son, he doesn't want the drivers seat as high as the platform on top of the other one. However after that elephant chased us yesterday, he will let you give the engine and tranny a kick up." "Jasmine, would you please be sure and store that stuff well away from the spice rack? And how are you gonna get it through customs, anyway?") We could name the local livestock, for instance call a drunk elephant 'Ted' or 'Senator'. Though it might be better to use that for a hippo, since they run into the river a lot.

This would be fun.

This kind of thing happens so often there,

I'm getting tired of posting about it.

"Police arrest father who fought off two strangers and was threatened with a gun".

Over at Alphecca, check it out.

Is your property yours? Maybe not.

Professor Bainbridge and Kevin both take a look at a case before the Supreme Court that has BIG implications for all of us. It's about the way cities are using their power to take your property, pay you what they decide is a fair price, and then sell or give it to someone else. Kevin's got a very good breakdown of what's been happening with this, and why it appears that the SCOTUS may lack the integrity/balls to rule as they should, so I won't try to repeat or compress it.

This boils down to, if SCOTUS rules(literally, in this case) with the government, we're screwed. It means your city or county can literally steal your home or business so they can sell or give it to someone else who they think can 'better' use it; and their idea of 'better use' could be anything from apartments, to a condo complex, to some business they think will pay more money in taxes(i.e., pay us off and we'll rob the citazens for you).

This is profoundly depressing. The highest court in the land appears to care not for the document it is supposed to protect and defend, caring only for the way the words can be twisted and warped to serve what they've decided is a 'good idea'. If you disagree, tough shit, because the all-high court knows better than you peasants!

And the question becomes, what do we do about it?

Nobody in black with a scythe riding past......yet

I was right, I do NOT have the real plague; only a undistinguished relation.

The flu is fairly consistent when I get it. Somewhere between one and two weeks of misery during which I have to keep putting lotion on and around my nose to keep it from turning into scenery from a Martian landscape. This is a pain, but not nearly the bad relation.

It's weird how this stuff happens at times. Real flu fades in over a couple of days, settles in and makes itself at home for a while. With this, Thursday night I was a little ratty, but I thought that was from tired and from the ventilator draft at the range blowing on the back of my head & neck. Then I woke up Friday morning and could hardly talk, and felt halfway like someone had whacked me with sticks while I wasn't looking. Now my throat and the aches are both a lot better. Still tired, the way this crap does to you, but not too bad; though I'm not heading back to the gym for a few days, and I'll stay out of the wind.

Found out today that some other people at work got the same thing. It's some type of virus, confirmed not the flu that all the news people are screaming about(Is the epidemic due to the vaccine shortage? More at ten!).

It rained a bit last night, and it's supposed to tomorrow night & Wednesday. And the grass in back gets higher, and higher... By the time it's dry enough and I'm healthy enough to mow, I may need the hooded guys' scythe to take it down to lawn mower height.

But it sure is green out there.

Wild animals, city dwellers & Disney Disease

Disney Disease is my name for the attitude of otherwise intelligent people who believe the crap that started coming out of Disney years ago and continues in a lot of the 'nature' shows today. It boils down to 'animals are our friends, no animal will deliberately try to hurt you, they're only scared of us evil humans', etc. It ignores the true nature of a lot of animals, and sets a lot of people and animals up for a serious collision.

Current case in point, mASS BACKWARDS brings up the case of a woman who tried to 'scare away' the coyote that was cornered by the dog. The coyote, of course, chomped down on her when she got too close. In many cases a coyote may indeed run away; or it may decide it needs to show who's top dog and start slicing. If you are in any doubt, I assure you that a coyote can bite the tax reform act out of you with great speed. Making this case worse is the coyote tested as rabid. NOT a good situation. And this was in Cape Cod! Apparently the state wildlife people had been making noises about how since people were moving into the 'natural habitat' of the critters, people needed to scare the critters if they got too close, so they'd be scared of people. By the way, if I'm not mistaken, the coyote just moved east into areas like Massachusetts over the last decade or so; 'natural habitat' my ass.

My point is that these people believe that if you have good intentions toward them, the animals won't hurt you; and believe that all you have to do is wave your arms to scare them away. Got news for you, folks; sometimes that don't work. Coyotes are predators, and if they either feel cornered or decide they need to show who's on top around here, may very well chew on you. A fox or skunk or possum that's near a den, or around breeding season when you disturb it, may well bite the crap out of you. That's not taking into account the occasional case of something that's sick and won't act normally because of it.

Bears and elk and deer, too. Bears are big powerful omnivores who, if they feel imposed upon- or on occasion hungry- will turn you into an entree. They don't care what you think of the matter. Deer and elk won't eat you, but the males can gore you with antlers, and the male & female both can kick you into a hospital bed.

I don't want animals killed off; if we did that, there'd be nothing to hunt. Besides, I like having wild things in the woods and plains. I just wish people would often be more realistic about what they're dealing with when they come face-to-face with one of them.

Note: about a year ago I was driving home about 10 one night when I saw what I thought was a dog run across the street and stop in the median a litte ways ahead of me. I slowed down in case it decided to run back, and as I approached tried to decide what it was. It's a German Shepherd? No, it's... IT'S A FREAKIN' COYOTE! In the middle of Oklahoma City. Yes, I did get a real good look; I slowed way down, and it was standing near a streetlight. It was also about the biggest, fattest coyote I've ever seen; it had apparently been living well on cats, dogs, possums and trash cans.

Global Warming, and a lost city found

These two things both from Dean Esmay

First, this piece on the infamous 'hockey stick' chart that 'proved' global warming. And on the roadblocks put in the way of the people who found the mathematical errors/among others/ in the piece.

Second, the ancient city that was literally uncovered by the tsunami. Amazing things turn up.

The Anniversary of Iwo Jima

Feb. 19th is the date the first American troops landed on that island, and began some of the bloodiest combat of World War II.

I had two great-uncles. Ray spent WWII getting a government-paid tour of Europe as a rifleman in Patton's Third Army; he's never spoken to anyone in the family about it, just a little about some of the souvineers he brought back.

George, who died last year, was a diver in the Navy, and spent a lot of time in the Pacific. S&R and salvage of both our and Japanese vessels, and among the places he went to was Iwo Jima. He never spoke of it, either, except for one time...
When Bill Clinton was trying to drum up support to invade Iraq, remember the 'town meeting' where a bunch of people, especially some old veterans, tore his butt apart over it? My dad and I were visiting George at the time, and as this went on- interspersed with some video of Marines training for assault landings- George started talking. Some about what he'd done himself, some about what he'd seen, including "all those boys dead on the beach and in the water"at Iwo. He believed that Clinton was only talking it up because he thought he'd get political points for it, not because he really believed it needed to be done, and for George that was it; that made Clinton a sorry opportunist not to be trusted with the lives of others.

That was the only time he ever said a word about the War that put him on a partial-disability pension. He and Ray had done the same thing; finished a dirty job that needed doing, then came home and put their lives back together. I figure I'm the richer, and my kids also, for having known the two of them.

I will not forget George's words that night about what he'd seen & done. We need to make sure we never forget those who went and did.

Note: Kim du Toit notes that Adam of the Walter & Adam Fund died in Mosul from a car bomb explosion on Feb. 17th.

The first Carnival of Cordite is up!

It's right here, and has some really good stuff linked up.

That's it for me right now; the plague or something has decided to set up housekeeping in my throat.

Does whiskey kill plague? If I had a bottle I'd damn well find out right now.

I have never liked Jimmy Carter

1976 was the first year I could vote, and surprisingly for me/already hated politicians in general/ I actually paid attention to the presidential race. I wasn't wild about Ford, but there was something about Carter that set my teeth on edge. There were specific policy things that bothered me, but beyond that was a basic distrust of him. Which he proceeded to prove right.

This is the guy who put Stansfield Turner in charge of the CIA; who took a somewhat messed up agency and really screwed it up. Carter was a Naval officer under Hyman Rickover, and I've read that he and a lot of his junior officers had a really bad habit of looking to technology to prevent stupid humans from messing things up. Well, Carter and Turner decided that since we had these fine reconnaisance satellites, we didn't need all those human agents on the ground costing money and causing trouble, so they fired several hundred agents. Some were near retirement, but weren't given the option to retire; just a card saying "we don't need you anymore, don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on the way out". Besides the fact that there are lots of things satellites can't see for you, there are things they cannot do, which was brought out by their firing what I read were the only agents who spoke Farsi just before the Iranian revolution began.

Carter did a number of things as president that really pissed me off. And after he left office, in some ways he may have actually become worse. He's declared elections fair and valid when everyone else was yelling about evidence of fraud, he's kissed up to dictators, and he's spoken against this country. His sucking up to the Nobel Prize committee so as to get a prize led to him being awarded one with the committee actually saying that it was their way of taking a poke at President Bush. And so on.

Power Line had a piece earlier about Carter, including specifics of some really dispicable things he's done. They also mention a book I was unaware of, "The Real Jimmy Carter" by Steven F. Hayward. I'm going to have to find this and read it.

I used to know a lady who thought Carter was one of the best presidents we'd ever had, apparently for two reasons: first was his various crawling around and kissing up to make up for all the evil things the U.S. had done- the CIA in particular- and second was the fact that 'he signed lots of international agreements'. I pointed out that yeah, he signed multiple agreements with the Soviets and North Korea, and they simply turned around and ignored them. Her attitude was basically that "at least he did make agreements". First time I'd really run into the attitude that the process counted for more than the results. Which I think is a load of crap.
'Course, she thought we owed the Palistinians and should beat the Israelis into submission to them, and we really got along there...

Marvelous developments!

I meant to post on this earlier. Read it over at Dean's World.

A researcher named Ashok Gadgil first developed a way to use ultraviolet light to kill bacteria in water, giving a lot of people drinkable water at a price that could be afforded. Now he's found a cheap way to filter arsenic out of drinking water; if it indeed works out, this man will have saved literally God only knows how many people by his work, and made their lives a lot better.

Not a whole lot of people manage to do such a thing. Check it out.

Do NOT register your weapons. Ever.

From Smallest Minority comes a link to the end result of registration, this case from New South Wales in Australia.

Money quote: "Mr Moroney said that, as part of the blitz, thousands of weapons were destroyed because police were not satisfied that the firearms were being kept securely, or that "possession of that firearm was necessarily further warranted"." Please note, they minions of the state decided either they didn't like the way the owners stored them, or decided the peasants didn't 'need them anymore'; so they stole private property to be destroyed.

Also note, the registration system there means that the cops can show up at your home any time they like to 'inspect' your storage and decide if they think you should be allowed to keep your property.

This is directly related to a bill some jackass tried to pass here a few years ago stating that if you owned more than a certain amount of ammo/I think it was 1000 rounds/ you would have to have an 'arsenel' license from the feds, which would entitle them to inspect your home and 'storage' any time, day or night, with the usual threat of arrest & confiscation if they didn't think you were within their specs.

Never, NEVER register your arms with some government flunky; they and the nannies will screw you with it.

Ok, here's some stuff to use, now for a variety of reasons

A couple of years ago I read about some stuff called Microlon Gun Juice. It's a lubricant/protectant that goes on wet, then the carrier evaporates leaving a dry film. I did a writeup of my experience with it for George at Mad Ogre to post in his weapons section. Short version, it works quite well.

George has been putting together a load of stuff to ship to the troops in the sandbox, and wrote me today that Microlon is sending him a case of Gun Juice to include. That's a bleep-load of product, and will go a long, long way.

So the stuff works, and the company is supporting the troops with their product. Two good reasons to support the company.

Note: I just sent Ogre a follow-up to my original piece. I took a knife blade and treated it to test how well Microlon worked to prevent rust. It does a pretty damn good job so far. I'm going to be using this stuff for a number of purposes for a long time to come.

It's hard to believe some people can actually exist

Over at Whacking Day, he's had a number of bits from a real and true loon named Joe Vialls. "The Jews run everything, the U.S. is about to implode, the Russians are going to strike against the Jewish-American elite", etc. This particular link is to a collection of some of his predictions for the future.

This guy brings true meaning to the term 'barking moonbat'. It's hard to describe; think of someone off his meds and a bigot and a socialist... not exactly an attractive line of thought.

Tex is good for other things, too. He reviews motorcycles, he quotes fine literature ("Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss.
- Robert A. Heinlein ")
and tells off idiots like George Monbiot who tell us the sky is falling.

I've really got to go to Australia some day.

Star BM test

As my previous post indicated, had a chance to try shooting one of these. It's a 9mm semi-auto pistol, one of those originally issued to the Spanish Civil Guard. First impressions were:
It's solid, steel frame & slide.
It's nicely fitted, no slop or rattles that shouldn't be there.
Lots of holster wear on the outside, but the inside was very good; looks like it was carried a lot & shot a little.
Big sights, wide front blade & rear notch to match, though the front needs some paint to make it easier to pick up.
The bore and chamber were spotless, with strong rifling.
And a very nice trigger. A little takeup, and then a clean break, no creep or drag I could tell.

Detail-stripped it to clean, and the insides were in quite good shape. The magazine disconnect, trigger & sear assemblies were not removed; there was no old, caked grease, nothing was hanging up, so wiped it all down, wiped it clean & lightly oiled it all. As noted previously, putting the trigger/follower/spring combination back in is a serious pain in the ass. As it was, the hammer strut slot & pivot had a little grunge, and there was a little on the spring, so it needed doing, but finding the way to put it back together involved some bad words. Field-stripping for normal cleaning is downright simple.

Testing used one box of CCI Blazer ball. There was one stovepipe in the second magazine(it came with two) and that was it; otherwise it ran through without a hitch, and the slide lock worked every time. Accuracy was quite good. I had no problem keeping shots in about 3-4" groups offhand at 7 yards in slowfire, and about the same starting from low-ready, up to fire and back down. With the aforementioned paint on the front sight to make it easier to pick up, I think I could improve on these groups.

One thing I did have to watch was the thumb safety. When the hammer is cocked and you thumb the safety on, the last part of the motion takes a real push. The safety actually cams the hammer off of the sear and blocks it from falling, and seems a very secure arrangement. If you don't push it all the way on and pull the trigger, the hammer won't fall then, but may well slip off the sear and fall to the 'safety' notch when you take the safety off; which means that if the sear slips over a worn or damaged notch, the gun will fire. It might be possible to polish the surfaces and make the safety take less pressure to put fully on, but I'm iffy about messing with it. I'd say just make sure you push it all the way on.

Overall, I liked it. It's solidly made of good steel, gave good accuracy- certainly capable of better, I'd say-, and I'd guess it will be reliable. Stovepipes like the one I had could be from a number of things, one of the most common being ammo. I'd try it with several brands to see what it liked best, especially in the case of self-defense ammo. And the price was quite good. I know of very good things said of Kimber and Wilson, for instance, but at prices starting around $700 on the Kimbers and about $1200 for a Wilson... This ran the guy about $185, and I think he got his moneys worth. So if you were looking for a 9mm pistol for target shooting and/or self-defense, and you're on a budget, take a good look at one of these. Wouldn't mind having one myself.

I am going to pick up some different ammo, including some good hollowpoints for further testing. I think I'm going to be pleased with the results.

Update: over at Shooters' Carnival, here's another test on this handgun. Even if you're not interested in this, check out the Carnival anyway, lot's of good stuff there.

Ref the conviction Lynne Stewart

About damn time. She's the kind of 'lawyer' I find most contemptible; professing love of the freedoms of this country and individual rights while doing everything they can to destroy those things.

To Gitmo with her.

Note for gunsmithing

If you're helping someone take a Star BM down for cleaning, and you don't have to take out the hammer/spring/follower setup,

DON'T.

About that announcement from North Korea...

Varifrank has some outlook on it.

I fear I hadn't thought too much on this matter, taking it for granted that they had them. However, the effect of the announcement on the Peoples Republic of China hadn't occurred to me. Complications, indeed.

Found over at Smallest Minority

Old .22 rifles

I love old .22s. Many are very basic rifles meant to puncture tin cans and put squirrels and rabbits on the table, some were finely-finished works for those who could afford the best. Part of the attraction is the possible history behind one; the worn bluing, the scratches and dings on the stock, a bit of filework on the sights tell you things about it, how it was used and cared for- sometimes how it was abused through bad luck or carelessness. And even the abused ones can be worth the work to clean and fix them up.

A few years ago I was at a flea market with my daughter and stopped at a table to look at one of these. It was a Remington Model 33, the NRA Junior version. It was intended as a beginners target rifle, and came with a Patridge front sight(a square post instead of a thin body with a bead on top), a Lyman aperture rear sight(also called a peep sight), and sling swivels. The swivels were missing; the toe of the stock was broken off; and the finish was pretty much gone, all the metal worn to that faded color called 'gun-metal'. The bore was a bit dirty, but I couldn't spot any obvious pits. I talked a bit, asked the price, and wandered on. The price he wanted would have been fine for one in considerably better condition, but not this one.

It was a hot day, and a lot of people were packing up early, and we made a last pass by the table, just to take one last look. They were loading up, and already had the .22 packed. I asked about it and the man pulled it out of a case. I talked a bit about price, but he was still higher than I was willing to pay- more than I had for that matter. He asked how much did I have, and I told him $65. He thought about five seconds, then said, "I haven't sold a thing all day. It's yours." Money changed hands, and we took it home.

First thing for it was take the barrel & action out of the stock and run an oily patch through the bore, leaving it to soak. Wipe the outside down with a heavy coat and set it aside. The bolt took a bit of figuring, but finally got it apart and cleaned & oiled it. Wiped the bore out, and amazingly, it was in fine shape. No pitting or sign of rust, sharp rifling. The bolt went back together, the action & outside was cleaned off and the trigger mechanism lubed, then all put back together. Yes, I do love working on things like this.

It was about two weeks before I could shoot it, and I took along six different brands & types of ammo since some can be downright picky about what they shoot well. And to say I was pleased would be an understatement. This rifle was made in 1933, and had seen hard use. After almost 70 years, the trigger pull was crisp and light(as good as some quite expensive target rifles I've handled), and with one brand of ammo it would shoot 1/2" groups at 50 yards. The worst ammo went into about 1.5", most of it around 1": fine performance for most new rifles.

As I had time the stock was scraped to remove the old finish and crud, and I fitted a piece of walnut to repair the broken toe, then finished the whole thing with Tru-Oil stock finish. Someday I may reblue it, but for now I like the way it looks about as much as the way it shoots. One of these days I'll find the proper type of sling swivels and put them on, to finish the job.

Please do not misunderstand me, I like new and old guns; it's just that there's something about some old ones, especially when you can restore them a bit. You get a fine firearm and the pleasure of working on it, and that can be a very good thing.

By the way, I'm quite proud of the stock repair. After it was rasped and sanded to match the shape and curves and finished, you can't spot the line: the grain matched up beautifully. And in case you wonder, I did find out what the rifle is worth in current condition, matter of fact the rear sight is worth about what I paid for the rifle. And I don't care. It stays in the safe, and someday it'll go to either one of my kids or a grandkid.

Ideally, that's the way it should be.

I'm Anti-Science, he says!

I had a comment on the earlier post that I thought I'd respond to here instead of in the comments.
Anonymous says:
"Guess who I don't trust?

That would be head-in-the-sand types, who find some oily reason to reject anything that might worry them.

The problem really is that this head-sticking might be growing. Consider this bit from a reacent Neal Stephenson interview:

"For much of the 20th century it was about science and technology. The heyday was the Second World War, when we had not just the Manhattan Project but also the Radiation Lab at MIT and a large cryptology industry all cooking along at the same time. The war led into the nuclear arms race and the space race, which led in turn to the revolution in electronics, computers, the Internet, etc. If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It’s no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you’re living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.

It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn’t care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don’t belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture."

I don't know if you are doing it on purpose, but you are part of that. You are part of the anti-science.

Good day to you sir!"

Ok, Fez, here's my response.
I don't have my head in the sand, and I don't have an 'oily' reason to reject things that might be of concern. One of the questions, possibly 'the' question, is deciding if something is indeed something to worry about and/or a threat. And I don't think global warming is, for reasons mentioned before. Also, a while back there was an article at TechnologyReview.com dealing with the famous 'hockey stick' graph showing warming as starting up roughly the same time as the Industrial Revolution started up. Problem: they found a 'fundamental mathematical flaw' in the program used to product the graph, "This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not." Read the article, it's quite interesting. And it also points out something other than the problem with the graph; namely, the problems they had trying to get their findings published. Which leads to:

"science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture." Science is supposed to be about that: it is also supposed to be about the willingness to ruthlessly discard a theory, or parts of it, when data shows it to be inaccurate or flat wrong. Unfortunately, it's not. Scientific fraud, altering data to fit theory instead of the other way around, is an old problem that's not gone away. It's seen in, among other things, the almost hysterical denunciations of people who disagree with a pet theory- for instance, the screaming and threats directed to Bjorn Lomborg for daring to point out that data shows things have improved, and that a lot of the hard-pushed 'solutions' such as Kyoto are not necessarily a good idea. The same thing appears to be happening in HIV/AIDS research(check over at Dean Esmay for some interesting stuff on this) and BSE('Mad Cow' disease). Tech Central Station has had some reports on BSE that pointed out that it's very difficult to get funding to search for things other than prions in reference to BSE because the Powers That Be have decided that prions are it.
These things make it hard for a lot of mainstream culture to give the kind of support that once was pretty much taken for granted; when people find out about the broken hockey stick, when they hear the threats at scientists who dare to go against the PC ideals, when they find out that medical research is/has been sidetracked and the Powers That Be don't want to let it head toward another line, it causes doubts about the integrity of the process itself, and why should I be willing to put more millions into a broken process? That a lot of the guardians don't seem to want to fix?

Questioning a theory, arguing with a set of ideas, does not make you anti-science. That's kind of like the argument you hear a lot that red-state people are 'anti-intellectual and anti-education'. Generally, they're not either; they are anti-being told how to live their lives by people who think that having a set of letters after their name or the 'correct' viewpoint means they're qualified to tell all the peasants how to live. Anti-dipshit is not the same as anti-education, and those who think it is are doing a disservice. I don't think the U.S. overall is turning against education or the use of the sciences. I think there is a lot more criticism of a lot of avenues of research, and one of the effects of that is some researchers think that questioning them and/or their work means you dislike science and research.

Our lives are incredibly more free and more comfortable and more safe in many ways because of work in the sciences, and I'm glad of it. That doesn't mean I won't call bullshit when I think a line of reasoning is wrong, or that a suggested fix is a bad idea. It means I will question, and demand facts, and demand that researchers live up to the standards they are supposed to uphold.

I think that about covers it.

Additional: this article found through Dean Esmay on problems with a lot of research

On Indians, and assorted other crap

Over at Hog on Ice, Steve has been laying his own personal smackdown on that academic nitwit Churchill, in his own inimitable style. Inspired by his work, I shall therefore put down in words my own opinion on some related things.

I don't say Native American, I say Indian. 'Native American' covers anyone every born here, not simply the PC-approved tribal types. When I really want to be annoying, I refer to the earlier arrivals on these shores as the First Immigrants.

No I don't think there's anything particularly holy about the tribes that were here before the first Europeans set foot on these shores. They were human, and suffered from all the usual flaws and good points. As far as the 'worshipped their mother Earth' crap goes, it's exactly that. There was an amount of spirituality in their beliefs, no question: and like some people who go to church on Sunday and cheat someone selling used cars the next day, it was, to a certain extent, nonsense. Ever read about Lewis and Clark's travels? They spent timein places where they couldn't trade for food, because the local tribes had eaten everything that didn't run away fast enough, and they were starving, too. They moved through areas where there was no deer or elk or whatever to be seen, or a few at a distance, because they had been hunted out.

The horse was a native animal here. The Indians killed them off for food before the idea of using them for beasts of burden came up, so they didn't see them again, or think of riding them, until the Spanish came. Most of the big animals here after the last ice age were hunted to extinction by them. They've found bison kills, usually where they ran a herd off a cliff or riverbank, where they killed far more than they could do anything with before they rotted.

Respect for others? Slavery, murder, unlimited warfare, cannabilism, and torture- often just for the fun of it- were staples. There's one tribe/can't recall the name offhand/ that was known by the Pawnee word for 'slave'; so many of them had been taken for slaves over time that that's what the Pawnee called the whole tribe, and over time so did all the other tribes around.
I once did some reading on the Cheyenne, some of the fearsome warriors of the plains. Except they didn't go there voluntarily; their early tales say they lived in the woodlands to the east. Then a bigger tribe decided it wanted their hunting grounds and ran them off into the plains to live or die. Along the same lines, when the Sioux decided to move west, they simply killed, enslaved or ran off anyone who got in their way. And so forth.
In the book 'Our Oldest Enemy', it lists records of the various eastern tribes who fought with the French against British settlers; their big reasons for showing up were to kill and to give the younger warriors a taste of man-meat(sound like a bunch of orcs, don't they?)

There are some fine things that have come down to us from many of the tribes, and we would be the poorer without them. But I got sick of the worship a long time ago. It's kind of like the Beatles; you can't just say they made some good music, oh no, you've got to idolize them. Yeah, I'm sick of that crap, too.

True enough, most of the tribes were treated badly over time, some downright horribly. Which puts them in the same category as the Europeans and Asians and Africans who treated everyone outside their tribes as a resource to be mined, sometimes by converting them to fertilizer or barbeque.

I once read a story that touched on the idea of what would have happened if the eastern Indians had had the Norse or the Scots who touched down around long enough to learn the working of metal. There were- still are- huge deposits of iron and copper in the northeast. If some of the tribes there had learned to refine and work it, you'd have wound up with a bunch of barons and counts and kings just as nasty on their bad days as any in Europe or Asia or Africa. Even if they hadn't gotten to that level, the big trade goods the Europeans brought was iron and copper and steel implements, from knives to needles to cooking pots; if some tribes had learned to make those, so the early white settlers didn't have a monopoly on those items... That would make an interesting book.

Two things, both a pain

First, many Dutch schools have banned the display of the Dutch flag by students; they fear it may "provoke other students, mainly Moroccan students". This is not being 'sensitive', this is surrender. When you do not allow students to display the national flag because it might 'provoke' immigrants... get that fork ready, 'cause you're just about done.

Check the wording from one school: "They deny access to students who have flags on their bags or cloth. The school says they need to do this because of the new social climate. But they say prohibition is a big word, they do it in consent with the pupils..." Hey, butthead, if you 'deny access to student who have the flag', that's not in 'consent' with the pupils, that's a command from on high. You just don't have the balls to admit it.


Second thing, the noise about the Marine general who said it's fun to shoot terrorists. Here's what he said at a news conference:
"Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," Mattis said.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

And the predictable sources have been pissing and moaning about it ever since. "It's a bad example, We have to have a Higher Standard", etc. Shut the hell up! This is a man who has been leading troops in combat, providing leadership in & out of combat for years. And you know what? Have fun, General Mattis. Your targets are murdering terrorists who are wasting oxygen that could be breathed by more deserving organisms; like the women they murdered, for instance. So shoot them with a smile on your face. And if you're ever in Oklahoma City, I'll buy you a drink. Hell, I'll buy you dinner. You're doing a nasty job that has to be done, and doing it well, and I thank you.

Further on weather

Yesterday the prediction was for rain last night, ending by about noon, clearing in the afternoon.

It's now 4p.m., it's still cloudy and spitting rain occasionally. Yeah, they can predict what'll happen in the next hundred years or so.

By the way, remember the last couple of years during hurricane season? There would be monstrous storms and more of them, the destruction would be awful! All caused by global warming!

Horsecrap.

It's just beautiful! Kevin says it well

Over at Smallest Minority, Kevin has a couple of posts on and in response to the comments of a history professor named Cornell. Prof. Cornell basically says the 2nd Amendment means that someone may bear arms only as part of a militia unit, that there is no individual right to arms, the group he's part of (Second Amendment Research Center, John Glenn Institute) is only trying to help with some 'common-sense' restrictions needed for the public safety(sound familiar?) and so forth. Kevin's reply is long, fact-filled and comprehensive. I'll not excerpt from it, it ought to be read in its entirety. I will include this:

"(Citizenship) "would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citazens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State." (My emphasis)"

That's from the Dred Scott case, one of the worst decisions to ever come out of the Supreme Court. It specifically denied fundamental rights to a whole people. But it a way, it's useful; it lists just what a lot of people were scared of blacks having equal access to.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Yeah! Here's how to do it!

From Free Iraqi:
"Citizens of Al Mudhiryiah (a small town in the "death triangle") were subjected to an attack by several militants today who were trying to punish the residents of this small town for voting in the election last Sunday.The citizens responded and managed to stop the attack, kill 5 of the attackers, wounded 8 and burned their cars.3 citizens were injured during the fire exchange. The Shiekh of the tribe to whom the 3 wounded citizens belong demanded more efforts from the government to stop who he described as "Salafis". "

Yes! These people have a chance to build a free country for themselves and their children, and they're grabbing it. And thank God they were armed; gave them the most effective way to fight the bastards.

To all the people who said the Iraqis could not really make it in a free society; screw you. They seem to be taking to the ideas of freedom from terrorists and self-defense and voting quite well.

Very important statement: "I consider it good even if the government forces were not there at the time to do something about it, because it shows that Iraqis are no longer paralyzed by fear from the terrorists and are able to organize themselves and defend their town when it's necessary." Exactly.

All honor to them

Clayton Cramer has this about one of the Iraqis that Moore & Co. don't mention:
"one story that is famous now in Iraq is about one brave Iraqi (A'adel Nasir) who saw a suspicious looking guy walking around a polling center in (Al- Hurriyah) district and soon the brave man realized that the suspicious guy was trying to commit a suicide attack; he ran towards him, wrestled him and knocked him down causing the bomb carried by the terrorist to explode, sacrificing his own life and saving the lives of the people standing in line at the gate of the voting center. It turned out later that the terrorist carried a Sudanese id.
Now, the school that hosted the voting center on the 30th carries the name of A'adel Nasir, as the Iraqi minister of education announced today."

And from FreeWill:
"I want to refer you to this incident from right at one year ago.That was when Iranian and Lebanese terrorists went on an early-morning rampage through Iraqi police stations and administrative offices, killing numerous officers, until they were finally caught at one station near Fallujah that made a stand. Despite being caught badly short on ammo, the Iraqi cops there fought back with everything at hand, and even when they ran out, did not flee. Fighting dragged on for an hour, and Coalition forces, only 10 minutes away, could hear the explosions and sent out a radio call to ask if the Iraqis needed reinforcement.

The Iraqi cops politely refused: Despite death and hellfire raining down around them, they didn't want reinforcements. This was their fight, and they wanted more ammo. They got their wish, and ultimately repelled the murderers, taking their RPGs as trophies.

(After the battle, the commander observed, somewhat prophetically in hindsight, that "there has to be a foreign agency that is financing this type of thing". You can read more about the battle in that article, or this one. Numerous related photos here.)"

I repeat, all honor to them. And screw Pelosi and Reid and company.(metaphorically, that is; you think I'm that crazy?)

Computer modeling and weather

I wrote once before on the subject of 'global warming', just touching on it. Last night & today is a fine demonstration as to why so much of the crisis-mongering means nothing.

There was a snow advisory for the area. We were supposed to get 1" to 3" here; south & west, up to 6". Every meteorologist in the area, and the National Weather Service, was warning of this. What did we get? Some wet flakes and some rain. Of the predicted 6", some areas of southwest & east central OK had some icy spots on bridges. That was it.

This mess was less than 24 hours into the future, and they blew it bigtime. And it's not the first time, and won't be the last. Snow, thunderstorms, tornados... with multiple Doppler radars scanning a mesocyclone, they can say there might be a tornado, and they're often wrong. And sometimes they still don't spot one until someone reports it on the ground.

Correction: it's 'State of Fear'. What, you want perfection?

When the models cannot reliably predict what's going to happen within 24-48 hours, why in the hell do people believe it when someone says "My computer models predict the earths temperature will rise X degrees in the next century", or whatever the time frame is they're using? But a lot of people do. And they're scared to death by it; so they demand Changes Be Made, and Now! Don't tell me what it will cost in how many ways, don't tell me there's nothing to replace what I want to get rid of, we have to DO SOMETHING!!!

I just finished reading 'Climate of Fear', Michael Crichton's newest book. Not a bad story. In some ways the most interesting things were the charts included. Real charts, showing the results of studies of temperatures, of sea levels, etc. Guess what they indicate? That the crisis-mongers are full of crap.

Oh, he also references exactly where the data came from. Including Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish researcher whose former colleagues at Greenpeace want to hang. You see, he wrote a book pointing out just how full of crap all the predictions of crisis are, and they can't stand it. Pretty good book. No, I didn't understand everything in it, I still got the gist of it.

If someone used data like most of the modeling studies to sell their services to predict the stock market, they'd be in jail for fraud. But since they're 'only' predicting the weather a century away and scaring hell out of people, they get away with it.

At this point I've been up for 21 hours, with about 6 hours sleep before that, and I'm beat. But I wanted to get this down now. No particular reason, just needed to do it. Now goodnight, all, I'm for a shower and bed.

(Sondra K, where are you when I need you? Heh, heh, heh.....)

We're paying how much for these schools?

The Geek linked to this, demonstrating the ignorance of so many schoolkids about our freedoms.

Is this really surprising to anyone? There was just a story about some Massachussetts schools with 'multi-cultural math' that had nothing to do with teaching math, and everything to do with making people 'feel good' about everyone. Math and science scores tend to suck, but kids are taught that they're not allowed to say anything that might hurt someones feelings(obviously, feelings are more important than actually KNOWING anything), and when they do teach the Constitution or Bill of Rights, it's through a pretty set of P.C. filters to teach it the say the squirrels decide that they 'ought' to be.

My daughter had a class in high school called 'street law' that was apparently some teaching about the Bill of Rights, and out of the entire class she was the only one who could accurately name more than one or two of them. (she also had an interesting discussion one day on the distance at which someone with a knife is a threat; the teacher was impressed and the other kids wanted to know 'where do you find out this stuff?') It was discouraging then, and it's apparently gotten worse.

Bah. I need to hit the range today.

Long list of quotes

FreedomSight has the link, lots of good stuff. There's one in particular that really ticks me off:

"If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees." -President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993.

That quote demonstrates quite well why Kim du Toit said he never wants to read another news story about Clinton unless it contains the words "died suddenly".

First-aid

Lo, these years gone by, I used to play a lot in a history group call the Society for Creative Anachronism. It specializes in medieval history, including using weapons made of rattan in combat. Make your own armor, go to events, become a character, etc. Due to the normal incidence of people getting injured even without meeting in a ring to hit each other with sticks, there was always someone around with some first-aid training. The local guy who was pretty much in charge of this went by Andreas, and was a fully trained EMT- it was his real-life job.

One summer my then-wife and I went to a war between Ansteorra(Oklahoma & Texas) and the Middle Kingdom(Kansas, Missouri and somewhere else). The first thing that happened was we discovered the wife was allergic to chiggers; when you find this out in a campground that has just been mowed for the first time in a couple of months, you've got a problem. If you're not familiar with the little bastards, they are a tiny- as in sharp pencil point tiny) little red insect that gets into your skin to feed on your blood. They inject an anticoagulant like a mosquito, but the itch caused by a chigger is a mosquito times ten. Unless you're allergic, then it's times God knows what. Since this was a War, there were a number of medical types around, including at least one doctor, and they provided a tube of some ointment that helped some. I had no chigarid, and nobody had any nail polish I heard of, so that couldn't be done(chigarid is a liquid that you dab over the chigger, it dries and kills it and helps kill the itch; nail polish will kill the bug also, though it doesn't seem to help the itch much). So she used most of a tube of the stuff and spent a large part of the weekend fairly miserable.

My own need for assistance came from clumsiness. I found a loose end of a wire on a sword hilt, and drew my knife to seee if I could push it back into place. Oops, slip, and the point skated off and sliced through my left hand on the thumb side of the index finger knuckle. Ok, wipe the knife off and sheath it, sheath the sword. A friend named Brian was standing there while I did this, and inquired did I have a bandage? Yes, of Course, I have bandaids in the tent! So I hold my left hand out so as not to drip on the floor and dig out a bandaid. Then we decided I really should wash it off first, so we walked about a 1/4 mile to the faucet, and rinsed it off. Then I stood there dripping red as we had the thought that, you know, bandaids don't stick real well on wet skin. Looking about, we spotted Andreas, set up with all gear handy near the water. So we walked over. "Andreas , to you have any gauze?"

Andreas was a BIG guy, currently sitting on a stool swapping stories with people. "Do I have gauze, of course I have gauze." Pause. "What do you need gauze for?" I held up my hand and said, "I cut myself".

You know how even a small cut, if you have water on the area, winds up looking terrible? This wasn't too bad a cut, but it had been bleeding fairly well, and now my whole hand was wet, so I now had red literally dripping off.
I'd never seen his face change that way. It froze for a second, and he jumped up and said "Sit down!"

"It's not that bad, I just need to-"

"SIT DOWN!"

Ok, ok, I sat down, and he sat down with a whole kit and began cleaning. Happily it had missed, or maybe barely nicked the vein, so after proper cleaning he put a pressure bandage on it, fairly bulky because of the location. So far so good. By the time he was done he had calmed down, and everyone there who'd looked at my hand and went "!*&$*!" had calmed down. However...

The bandage made it look like I'd damned near cut my hand in two, and I spent the rest of the weekend explaining no, I hadn't slipped with an axe, or no, it hadn't happened in the battle. But dammit, if I'd been single I could have played it into some interesting times. "Yes, it WAS bloody awful. But you just can't stop in the middle of things, so when all was over I wobbled over to the healer, and now I can't use my hand very well. Can you get that lace loose yourself, darlin'?" "Why no, I can't; however, if you'll roll this on we'll see how I work one-handed", etc.

I thought about introducing this in fairy tale fashion, except this is all true. Including that I used to hit people with sticks. For entertainment, I mean. Not for- never mind.
(start of a southern fairy tale: "You're not gon' believe this")

"Mr. Zarqawi, you've got mail" 

"Take that, you foul Islamist nutcases!" 

Further thoughts on the Iraqi election

Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are assholes.

Now that that's out of the way, from what I'm hearing at least 70% turnout! Bloody wonderful! God (whichever name you use) bless them all for their courage. Will it be a government that we'll approve of in every detail? Probably not. That's not the point of this; them choosing their government is.

Various places/people have been running 'ink your finger in support' stuff, not a bad idea.

Did I mention John Kerry is a jackass?

The local 'peace' group had a march today, leading into 'Non-Violence Month' or something. The head of the group, Nathaniel Batchelder(sp? no, I'm not checking, I really don't care) was interviewed on the radio. Among his other gems
"We're marching to protest the terrible conditions in Iraq"
"We're protesting the policy, this war should never have happened"
"War is never the answer", etc. I think those about cover it. He's one of the people who informs you that violence NEVER solves anything, war is ALWAYS bad, 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by us, etc.
After noting that you disagree with someone like this, you usually hear something along the lines of , "I disagree with him, but I do not doubt his sincerity, and I respect him for it." Well, I don't respect him. He's either idiot-level naive, or a fool if he means all he says. And he's dishonest; that 100,000 number has been ripped apart, along with the study it came from, but he keeps using it; got to have a big body count of innocents, you know. He's also part of the group that used to- may still for all I know- try to find trucks carrying nuclear weapon parts or materials and follow them. I don't know if he ever actually condemned the Soviet Union or the PRC, but we were definately sorry whatevers for having this stuff. So no, I don't respect him, and I don't respect his views. He reminds me of the people who say we shouldn't have gotten involved in WWI or WWII, etc. I have yet to hear an alternate solution to Nazis and Imperial Japan that makes sense, but they're sure it's there.

Day by Day says it pretty well, today and yesterday.

Sondra K has also been selling her butt. Er, sellin g the use of her bu... That's just not coming out right. Selling advertising on her butt! There you go! It has nothing to do with the election, but it's such a nice backside...

To all the troops, all the people at the sharp end, thank you. Many times over.

The Iraqi election, and other things

So the Iraqi people, by the millions, gave the finger to the bad guys/literally and figuratively/ and voted. Good for them. There's a lot left to do, but they've made a damn good start.

Instapundit linked to this at DU, wherein Steve Stirling, a fine sci-fi writer, does a bit of fisking(look for joatsimeon). Happily, he's not the only one there either horrified or pissed of by some of the other comments. I've always been a bit horrified by what I run across at Democratic Underground; people who insist that Bush is 'chimp' or a nazi, and that the elections can never be considered valid as long as our troops are there(and of course we shouldn't be there in any case) seem to either not be thinking with a full deck, or are so filled with hatred and disgust of this country that nothing we do can ever be good. I just flat cannot understand that attitude.
In any case, the Iraqis voted, the bad guys are scared and horrified, and both are to the good.

Spent the day helping some friends out at a small Midwinter Ren-Fair out at the fairgrounds. Considering it's the first one, and the weather sucked, not a bad turnout. Some good vendors and entertainers, and some nice people overall. Among the entertainers were the Bilge Pumps, nicest group of filthy pirates you'll ever meet. And among the vendors were Alain Viesca, who does prints of various kinds, mostly fairys. I now have the Tequila Fairy, which I will have to find a frame to hang her in. His websites a bit messed up right now, but you can still hit the gallery and see much of his work.
Another vendor was Storm Watch Jewelry. Mostly Celtic patterns, all designed and made by Ron Pace. Yeah, this is a commercial for these two, and I'm not getting paid(dammit) for mentioning them. I like their work.

Now it's misting outside, it's thrown in some periods of snow and sleet during the day, and my knees ache from walking around on concrete all day. See you later.