Sunday morning thoughts

One of the things I've always treasured is the freedom we have here to scream and yell and state our opinions without fear of some clown in a trench coat asking for our papers and hauling us away. First time I really thought about it was when some court ruled that the communist party was free to put a candidate in an election. My dad was pissed, not thinking that a bunch of people wanting to destroy this country should be allowed to act openly on it. I tended to agree with him, but a part of me thought, hmmm, freedom of speech has to apply to everyone or it's in danger for all of us. I don't claim it as an original thought, I probably heard it somewhere in an argument or read it in an article(way pre-www), but it made me a bit uncomfortable; why should we let enemies of this country work openly to destroy it?

I thought about it at the time, and a lot since. I've decided I'm not an absolutist; I'd rather have people like the communists and socialists openly showing what they are so we can see them, but I do think there are limits. And I think actually calling for the death of our soldiers and our loss in war is over that line.

Oh, for the most part I don't like the idea of throwing people in jail for it; again, this shows us who the enemy is and how they think, it reveals the danger they pose. There is such a thing as treason and the other such charges, and when those laws are broken those who break them should be prosecuted.

What I am sick to death of is the clowns who scream "Dissent in the most patriotic act!" and so forth, when they don't actually dissent against a policy but against this country itself. The dipshits who scream "Don't question my patriotism!" to keep people from calling them on their most unpatriotic acts. Again, don't call for our troops to die, don't call for the enemy to win, don't call for censorship of those who disagree with you- don't try to silence those who disagree by trolling and spamming and hacking and shouting them down- and then defend yourself with that cry. And when you constantly call for various and sundry people to be killed and scream 'fascist' and so forth at anyone who argues with you, you're not in a good position to sound indignant over someone else turning it back on you(see Wizbang) I don't like it when anyone calls for killing someone else or destroying their life because they argue with you or have a different stand on matters, including someone on 'my own side' to some extent, I simply point out that the clowns at DU aren't in a good space to scream about evil threats when that's what makes up much of their idea of 'discussion'.

What brought this up was two things, this post at Michelle's and this one at Greyhawk. In the first, Michelle has posted some of the crap she receives, and it's the most vile racist garbage imaginable; it's like these idiots want to prove that if you appear to belong to some minority group you don't DARE speak out in any way that takes you off the reservation or they'll come after you. The other, Greyhawk has been posting tributes to troops who died in Iraq, and has received so many trolls etc. that she's decided to stop for now. These bastards can't argue with the policy, oh no, they have to redicule and threaten and demean those who are over there. Shitheads like this are the first ones who scream and whine when anyone challenges them on it. Got news for you folks; you ARE unpatriotic, and you ARE on the other side when you do crap like this.

I've apparently been lucky, the only such who've come by here have left one comment and gone away, but a lot of people have had all kinds of crap dumped on them for stating a non-PC thought. And our discourse has become somewhat nasty over the last decade or so, and much more so since 2000(gee, I wonder why?). And it's not helping. You don't convince someone that your idea is better by calling them names, or by ignoring their argument and attacking them personally, you just prove to them that your idea is no good; if it were good, you'd be able to argue it.

So far, this laptop is ok,

but I miss my full-size keyboard for one thing. And if I hit the end of a sentance and try to do a couple of line-feeds to drop to a new para, it won't do it for some damn reason. Which makes some things a pain. And is leading to run-on sentances like this.

Well, if this works I think I have a solution to the last, but I'll be glad to get my pc back. I hope.

I've been watching the Firefly dvd's, a bit at a time, and just finished the third episode. I'd forgotten how much I'd liked this series. And no, I kept forgetting to get out and see it, so I haven't seen Serenity yet; I may have to buy the DVD when it comes out if I can't catch it at the dollar theater. Hell, I may buy it anyway.

In any case, I have brass to sort and dogs to annoy, so 'nighty-night

Carnival of Cordite #39

up at Gullyborg. Lots of nice stuff, though I haven't been able to hit it all yet.

Computer problems suck

Specifically, a pc that won't boot up. More specifically, mine. So I'm posting this on a borrowed laptop until a friend finds out if my pc can be saved, or if it bit the big one this time.

It's actually a nice laptop, but the little drag-your-finger mouse screen will take some getting used to. But I can check my mail, and if some important thought crosses my mind(shut up) I can put it here.

I was trying to remember how old my pc is, and I'm not sure. I can't find the receipt anywhere, but I believe it's about 6 years old, maybe a bit more, and has worked quite well the whole time. I had a weird problem that turned out to be software related a year or so ago, and that turned out ok. I'm afraid this time it's either the drive or the motherboard. When it first began acting weird I backed up most of the stuff that had changed since my last one, and the only important to me stuff that's not I can replace pretty easily. So we'll see.

Ref my earlier piece on the ownership of arms

In the comments Kevin reminded me of a three-part post of his. If you haven't read it, you should check it out

Part one: It's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can, here

Part two: Violence and the Social Contract, here

Part three: Governments, Criminals and Dangerous Victims, here.

Blogroll additions, and no new forging for a while

I just discovered these two tonight. I was looking over comments and checked their homepages and wow! good stuff here!

The King at Pirates! Man your women! and
the man at South Park Pundit.

Now I've got to find time to read all their stuff.

On the forging front, between weather and time and so forth haven't been able to do much for a while. Right now it's turned cold, and standing in the wind trying to work on thin pieces- like decorative scrolls and blades- doesn't work too well; they cool off damn fast when the temp is in the 40's-50's and the breeze is whistling along. On top of that, it's been pretty dry around here, and the whole state is under an outdoor burn ban. I could probably get by with the forge, but between the dry and the wind, I'm not taking the chance. The weather this time of year can run from 30's to 70's for highs and teens to about 50 for lows; so if we get some rain there may still be some days I can light it off and do some hammering. We'll see.

National Ammo Day/Week; it's a start

Picked this up today

Le's see, three cartridges, 600 rounds total. If I didn't have some other expenses that have come up recently, there'd be two boxes of the Gold Dots, a local gun shop has a real good price on them. And for practice ammo the Blazers are quite good and inexpensive. Well, maybe by the 19th...

A fine quote to add to that of Krusty

That quote? "There are three reasons to own a gun. To protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England out of your face." - Krusty the Clown

The one I just heard? "Don't think of it as a rifle; think of it as a part of your body that shoots bullets." The kid on King of the Hill

Kevin's nomination, and thoughts on force

Kevin at Smallest Minority has been nominated for Greatest Blog Post Ever for this: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them. If you haven't read it before, take a look when you can. It's an interesting piece.

One of the things that keeps coming up from some people is the 'guns are evil' or 'guns are dangerous and should be banned' argument. There are variations on it, but it boils down to 'if you get rid of guns the bad people will be less dangerous and you won't have accidental shootings; so there!". When the people making this statement do acknowledge that bad people won't turn in weapons just because you tell them to(you, of course, become a Bad People if you refuse to turn in yours), they usually come down to two ideas: that eventually the Bad People will run out of guns/ammunition, and that it's a good idea to get arms out of the hands of honest people even if it won't help crime problems because nobody needs to own them. That last is, I think, their real Truth that leads them; they've decided that nobody has a reason- or a good enough reason- to own guns, so they shouldn't be allowed to. They don't trust themselves with weapons, so they don't trust anyone else either. They'll make exceptions for minions of the State, military and law enforcement, but that's it(it should be noted that the really rabid adherents of this idea don't like LE having arms either, and would rather get rid of the military, too). They are putting complete trust in the State to protect them and discount any right to self-defense. Yeah, for some that's a bit drastic, but for many? Seen any of the information about what's happened in Britain over the years? If you defend yourself with your bare hands, in your own home, against an attacker and the Crown Prosecutor thinks you used too much force or, at any time, had any intention of harming your attacker, you go to jail. And most of the 'you don't need to own guns' people think we should be more like Britain.

This includes the pacifist and 'no violence' types. The pacifist doesn't think force other than moral argument should be used against anyone for any reason, the 'non-violent' types don't think force should be used except in extremis with exceptions; and those exceptions almost always include only the use of force by the state. I have little to no respect for either of them. They both depend on other people to keep them safe, so they don't have to dirty their hands with violence and weapons, and don't think anyone else should be allowed to defend themselves. Oh, some will allow as to how you should be able to defend yourself with your bare hands, but use of weapons shouldn't be allowed; if you can't do it bare-handed, you should run. I just love the idea of these people telling an old woman or a pregnant woman or a mother with children that she should just run away(after, if necessary, jumping out a window) rather than take a weapon in hand. It's idiotic, but it makes sense to those who think you shouldn't be allowed to use violence even to protect self/family/home.

There are some pacifists who say "I don't want the state to use violence even to protect me", but that's really a bullshit statement. I wrote once before that a government cannot adopt a two-tier system where force can only be used to protect some of the people but not others; claiming you want them to do just that is insane. And saying you won't use force to protect citazens from the bad guys no matter what is inviting the bad guys to do whatever they want, because force won't be used to stop them. A society that tries to work that way will go the way Britain is going. Take a look at this book, or go read The Policeman's Blog and see if you like that idea. Rampant political correctness that won't let you do or say anything that might hurt precious feelings somewhere, you can't use force without having the threat of firing and/or jail hanging over your head... There are restrictions on the powers/authority of law enforcement for good reason; they also must have the authority to act as and how needed in times of trouble or the job can't be done. The crooks tend to be people who only respond to force or the threat of it, and waving your magic fluffy bunny wishing wand won't change that, and it won't make bad guys suddenly stop hurting/robbing/raping/killing people and make them amenable to reasoned discussion.

And last, among the 'guns are icky' people are those who have no problem with self-defense, but don't think guns should be used. I used to know a lot of these when I was messing around in the Society for Creative Anachronism. They'd tell- with great relish- the stories about someone using a sword or axe or knife on a burglar or attacker; they'd speak of the knife or sword they kept by the bed and how they'd use it on anyone who broke into their house. But mention firearms, and they sniffed up something terrible. Guns were bad, guns were not 'honorable', guns were excessive use of force. Slicing someone's guts open with sharp steel was acceptable, but guns were 'excessive' force... And 'honorable'? Why in the name of whatever would you give a rat's butt about giving 'honorable combat' to a rapist/buglar/murderer who is attacking you? I didn't understand it then, and I don't now. In fact, I think it's idiotic. The right to self-defense, using whatever force necessary, is the most basic right of a human being; restricting it, especially for reasons of political correctness or just because you don't like it, is a definate step toward tyranny; if people are not allowed to protect themselves they become ever more dependant on the government, and that's something tyrants like, even-maybe especially- if they don't think of themselves as tyrants.

I'll throw in another category as the 'not too-violent' people. These are the people who say a knife is nice but 'it shouldn't be that sharp because it's dangerous'(no, I'm not kidding, I have heard that). Or, as some lady wrote in a local weekly, "People should be allowed small guns for hunting and maybe self-defense, but that's all". Yes, you should be able to own this BUT; yes, you can defend yourself BUT. Again, you(and themselves) cannot be trusted so various restrictions must be placed on you so you'll be 'safe'.

You also get combinations of the above, and very often they'll be either unwilling to believe that you can't agree with them, or will dismiss you because, obviously, if you were smart enough to really understand, you would agree with them; therefore, since you disagree, you're not smart enough to be worth listening to.

This has all been covered by different people in the past, I just felt the need to lay this out after rereading Kevin's piece.

We 'woke up to reality', did we?

Looking over Instapundit, found this article on how the rioting in France continues, and how it's further weakened Chirac. And how there's no leader in Europe to step into his role.

Which doesn't really bother me. His 'role' was 'France is Great, and rules all of Europe'; a whole bunch of people over there never liked the idea of an EU dominated by France and never liked all the ten-thousand-and-one regulations on all aspects of life that grew under the EU. Big reason why the EU constitution was stomped when it came to a vote. I'd much rather see a bunch of independant countries than an EU with a bunch of provinces that are kicked into line by an 'elite' bureaucracy.

My gripe with the article comes here: "There's been a change in tone by the Bush administration, a perception of the importance of Europe to the U.S.," said Michael Calingaert, an expert on Europe with the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

"It's unfortunate that at the moment they woke up to those realities, Europe is increasingly weak and fractured," he said. "It makes that dialogue more difficult."

I call horsecrap on this statement. We spent a long time trying to get/keep Europe on board, with the result being insult and backstabbing by the 'elites' who ran the EU. Mind you, a lot of countries- mostly those who'd been under Soviet domination- helped out, and are helping out. Spain did, until the current socialist weenie got into power. But because the EU didn't back us, and there are problems in Europe, we didn't 'wake up to the reality of how we needed Europe' till now?

And if our leadership is weakened now, it's because of the actions of a bunch of politicians who don't care about facts, who don't care about what they themselves did and said before, who only care about what they can say now that they think will help them gain power.

I'll throw in a point connected to that last. There's been a bunch of noise back & forth about the holiness of 'dissent'. I say this: if you're actively hoping for us to be defeated, if you're actively hoping for U.S. troops to die, if you're actively hoping for a bunch of islamist murderers and terrorists to win, then- to borrow a phrase from Glen- you're not 'dissenting', you're on the other side. And I damn well DO doubt your patriotism. Scratch that; you are NOT patriotic. You can argue like hell with what the government is doing, you can disagree loudly without question of your patriotism. But when your 'dissent' consists of the above noted things, your 'patriotism' is not only doubted, it's denied. When you march for a communist governmnet to take over with all its' soul-destroying tyranny, when you call for murder and death as your means of 'protest', you're an asshole and an enemy of this country. "Don't question my patriotism!" my ass.

By the way, on the subject of our 'weakened leadership', the Captain notes the words of that sanctimonious jackass Sen. Jay Rockefeller, in which he admits to going to a meeting with, among others, Syria and telling them what he thought the president was going to do. One of the worst supporters of terrorism in the world, one of the worst dictatorships(look up Hama), and he tells them "... was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11". God knows what else he passed on to them while flapping his gums. And this is one of the people who's on tape referring to Saddam as one of the biggest threats in the world, referring to his NBC weapons programs, etc., and now runs around saying "I was lied to!". This jackass was/is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and made statements for years before Bush was elected talking about what a threat Saddam was, and now? "Well, Bush lied to me!". No mention of how Clinton lied to him before that, of course, oh no.

When someone acts this way not because they're more worried about trying to increase their political power than with, say, WINNING THE WAR, I damn well question their patriotism and their honor. This idiots' actions may well have made the task of defeating the enemy more difficult, damn well did give Saddam and Assad more time to sneak NBC materials out of Iraq, and he whines now because the President fights back against his bullshit? He should be kicked off the Intelligence Committee for this admission.

It's enough to mess up the whole morning.

Not sure if this will come out or not

Weather changed the other day; from southerly winds and warm temps to, early this morning, strong northerly winds and colder temps. I walked outside and saw this, grabbed the camera and took some shots

Moon up high, a star below and the cloud below that. Not as clear as I'd like, but better than I'd expected

Ok, after posting this I opened the blog and viewed it, and it just didn't come out. Damn.

Like fishing?

Found here

National Ammo Day/Week

I can't believe I forgot to make note of this before, but here it is.

If you've not heard of it before, I think the Gun Guy originally came up with it; on one day, have as many gunners as possible buy at least 100 rounds of ammo. It was then expanded to Ammo Week. Officially NAD is the 19th, but the whole week counts.

Nobody around town has the same price I found for .30-06 at the Tulsa show... Hmmm. I can always use another brick of .22... I wonder of Brigadoon has any good .303?

Roll-your-own firearms

Smallest Minority has this post on small-scale firearms manufacture in Pakistan and the Phillipines. By 'small-scale' I mean what amounts to in a backyard shed in some cases, and some of these people turn out damn good firearms, stuff you would have no problems using. And all illegally made.

Which brings up the nonsense of 'ban guns and nobody will have them'. As has often been pointed out, the only people who surrender arms at government order are honest people, the criminals keep theirs. And get more illegally. And in many cases, can make them. There's been several articles about 'homemade' guns turning up in Britain, though not too many; it's too easy to smuggle them in(although the Brits have pretty much banned anything they think might be modified to fire a cartridge). And they do turn up here, too. Oh, and take note of this: "...Japanese Yakuzas were known in the past to fly to the central Philippines to collect them...". Now, that's just not possible, EVERYONE says Japan has no gun crime problem, and nobody has guns...

I first heard of this when I was a kid. Dad had a magazine from some LE agency that mentioned a bust of a gang armory in New York City. Among the things seized was a submachinegun made by the armoror, chambered for .22. They noted it test-fired just fine, and it was apparently the first; they lucked out and grabbed it and them before they could go into production. That was in the late '60's if I remember right, and nothing has changed since. Except that machinery like mills and lathes and, if needed, heat-treating furnaces are more available than ever before.

Which brings up something I read over at mASS BACKWARDS a while back. He noted that some idiot at a lefty blog had been running some posts on how the idea of people making guns and ammo was silly because of the precision machinery and special skills and materials required. As I note above, there are a number of places from which you can get milling machines and metal lathes- good ones- and they'll deliver to your door. Steel? Cheap and easily available in all grades, same for brass. And so forth. It would actually be easier to make a subgun than a revolver, and you can find plans to make a subgun from salvage yard materials, no special tooling needed except for a reamer(and as one book points out, doesn't even have to be an actual chamber reamer).

'Course, this is largely academic. With the borders as open as they are, does anyone really think that people who smuggle people and large amounts of drugs in would have any problem- or moral qualm- with smuggling arms and ammo?

Didn't think so.

Crapblogging- the variations

Og has, over the past while, informed us of a number of incidents that brought up the term 'crapblogging', among the worst of which was this from Velociman. While I have nowhere near the experience he has shown with certain phenomena(thank God!), I thought I'd pass this on. Especially since he bought a bike.

A few months ago I was out one evening taking care of some errands. Warm evening, the bike running smooth, all's well with the world. Until I was heading home, with a couple of miles to go, and my system suddenly advised me "It's Time". Maybe the vibration, or the rough spots in the road, but it was INDEED time. Every tried to ride a motorcycle over distance, in traffic, with your butt clenched as tight as you can get it? I'll save you the trouble; it ain't a whole lot of fun.

Various internal motions and close calls later, with about a half-mile to go, got caught at a light. A LONG damn light, with rumbles and disturbances threatening to not only let go but to blast me off the seat when they happened. I nearly blew the light but there was too much traffic, so I sat there, about two inches taller in the saddle than usual, and when that light changed I damn near used the curb for a berm shot as I took the turn. Residential street, can't go too fast, please don't let me get caught at the light, yeah thank you, down the final straight and into the driveway. Hit the kickstand, hit the door at a near run, I'm thinking I can feel bad things coming out of me, slam it behind me, into the bathroom nearly breaking my belt getting it open and my pants down and with my butt about two inches above the seat it begins. Not nearly at the cosmic-incident level of Velociman, but damn! I never felt thrust from a bowel movement before. Which went on for a while, with a feeling of 'all is right with the world' coming over me as my system emptied everything except my internal organs(unless that was a gall bladder I felt? Nah).

And after all that, it only took about two squares of TP and one wipe to clean up. For which I was profoundly grateful.

Something you'll never see happen, no matter how bad it is,

if you count on the UN, the EU, etc., to do it.

No matter the open slavery, the open religeon-based killings and raids and rape, the UN and EU will never agree to supply arms and/or trainers to people being oppressed. Because if you do that, you grant that they have a right to self-defense AND the means with which to do it. And the 'elites' who run both groups flat can't stand the very idea of that.

Hell, it's been covered at Smallest Minority and Geek's place and Publicola how the UN and EU work hard to ban the ownership of 'small arms'- which to them means any firearm- from private ownership anywhere for any reason. Screw your Constitution, we know better! So do what you're told, peasant! They've demonstrated that they'd rather see people dead and raped and in chains than help them fight for themselves. Hell, in too many cases they'd rather watch them die and sit bitching about why doesn't 'someone'(usually the U.S.) do something?, rather than act themselves. Military force is so 'non-progressive', don't you know?

So Instapundit has asked the question several times, why not provide these people arms and trainers?, and the answer is always the same: the UN and EU and company would rather see those people die or live in chains than give them arms. Partly because they disdain the idea of people, instead of international agencies, acting; and partly because later on, you tell an armed and free people to do something they don't like, they're just likely to tell you to go to hell and back it up.

You know, same reasons people like Kennedy and Schumer and Feinstein don't want anyone here to own arms.

I HAVE to make note of this

If you've not gone by Steve's place, you have no idea what you're missing. Recipes, thoughts on virginity and sex and women and men and, under the heading 'How to Annoy a Muslim' you find this:
"Tell me I'm not wonderful. I'm sitting by the pool with my Koran, half in the bag, smoking tobacco, drinking beer, cooking swine, and listening to a Jew play the piano."

Go there. You'll regret it if you don't.
(C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it...)

Range report: Enfield Trainer

You ready for this, Og?

I had a chance to take this rifle to the range where I could give it a proper try. Wednesday a front came in, so it was a chilly and windy morning. The wind was blowing downrange, however(mostly), so it wasn't too bad. And I needed to sight in my .308 in case I have a chance to go out after deer.

Here's the star of the day:

Along with all the other crap on my bench and the one next to it. Ammo used was Eley Sport and Federal Lightning. Started off at 50 yards with the Ross aperture sight flipped up, and at the lowest position:


Then with the open rear sight. You can remove the Ross from the mounting bracket by pulling one screw, so it's easy to get it out of the way. This is with the sight at the lowest setting(200 yards):

The #1 rear sight has a straight-sided notch; this one has the notch widened out to a 'V' because with the aperture all the way down(which put it just a touch high at 50) the notch would be in the way. It's a little bit in the way as is.

The Federal shot about the same size groups, but about 3/4" higher. So after sighting in the deer rifle, I set up some targets at 100 yards. No, I don't have those targets. Did I mention it was a bit windy? 'Nuff said. I was getting 3-4" groups with both brands, and considering the light, the wind and my eyes I thought that was pretty good. The sights aren't up to the Parker-Hale match sights on the Martini, but this rifle still shot quite well. I'll note that I shot at 100 with both rear sights, and the widened notch on the open sight didn't help matters, but it still did a quite respectable job for a 91 year old rifle. I'll also note that recoil, as expected is almost non-existent; with the weight of a rifle designed for .303 plus the extra weight in the barrel from the smaller bore, it shifts the piece- slightly- when you fire. The trigger is the standard two-stage military, kind of heavy on the break; I've got a Enfield trigger, so I think I'll do a bit of careful polishing and fitting and see how it comes out.

Especially after this, I'm damn glad that Ross sight caught my eye. I'm going to enjoy being the caretaker for this piece for a while.

As a side note, the .308 I was sighting in was the Savage Scout. After the last time I shot it I found that the scope mount was loose, so I needed to make sure it was shooting where it was supposed to. Damn good thing I checked; it was off. Shooting this rifle is a pleasure, it's got a wonderful trigger and the three-point sling setup is great for steadying your aim. If I am able to go out, and get a shot, all my excuses are gone.

Law enforcement problems in Merry Olde England, too

I'm still stewing about the lastest information about the OKC Bombing coverup, and today the Gun Guy linked to this and this about conditions between police and citazens(or is it still 'subjects of the Crown'?) in Britain. It seems like lots of bureaucrats and politicians(with and without badges) are doing all they can to make relations between the cops and commoners as bad as possible.

A couple of years ago at a gun show I heard a couple of guys talking about the new uniforms some agency was going to. They'd decided to go from dry-clean only wool to a cotton/poly that could be washed(good) in a dark color. What color? Dark green or blue or something? Hell no, it had to be black. One of the guys was recounting telling a local officer that that cost them his respect; his words were something like "there's enough idiots in black uniforms and masks running around without you adding to it". And I see his point; the uniform does affect attitude in all too many cases, on both sides. We've got enough trouble with the militarization of law enforcement without adding to it. How many cases have we heard of in the last decade or so where, on an anonymous tip or just bad information, the local tactical team blew into someone's house in a no-knock raid and killed some innocent? And then nothing happened to them because 'they followed proper procedure'? Do these idiots think that this crap doesn't affect how people deal with them? How about the pull someone over on a traffic stop and then pressure them for 'consent' to search? And making someone sit by the side of the road for however long while waiting for a drug dog becuase the cop is mad that the driver won't be intimidated into 'consenting'? That does NOT leave members of the public with any great willingness to cooperate with the next badge-holder that they come in contact with.

The crap in England and the frenzied attempts of the feds to cover up their screwups in the OKC Bombing case are related: "We need to be able to do whatever we want whenever we want and not be held accountable; how else can we do our jobs?" How many people reading about this crap, especially family & friends of the dead and wounded, have any great desire to trust the FBI and ATF?

And why should they?

Carnival of Cordite #38

Up at Gullyborg. .223's, .45's, the mess in San Francisco and(to wash the bad taste of the last out of your mouth) this week saw the Birthday of the U.S. Marines and Veteran's Day.

The French riots are 'overblown' according to some,

and reports of fewer cars being burned are supposedly one indication. However, the Captain points out "The rioters in these areas have begun targeting the French infrastructure instead of just parked cars." That could mean that they're not burning as many cars because a: the weenies who took it as a chance to just destroy things are tired or scared now and b: they're saving their stuff up now for serious targets. Not good.

And Little Green Footballs notes something for us to worry about here: the MEChA assholes are expressing their admiration for the riots and predict(more look forward to) the same here. Oh joy, the BPMs and MEChA weenies all wanting to riot together. I know about AZ, but you folks in CA have some ammunition laid by? You may need it.

Found it! Article on OKC Bombing Updated

KTOK has it on their site today here, and at the bottom is a link to the original article by the McCurtain County Gazette. I don't have much time right now, basically it notes that:
ATF had informants in a neo-Nazi compound.
One informant told ATF about the threat to bomb federal buildings in OKC.
The judge in an informants trial(and that's a messy damn story by itself) ordered the information not made available to lawyers in the McVeigh trial 'so it wouldn't affect the trial'.

More later. I'm already disgusted as well as mad about this.

Ok, with more time to read the article, it's summed up in the first two paragraphs:
Unearthed by a Salt Lake City, Utah, attorney, statements made by a Tulsa Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agent in a federal courtroom confirm that a confidential informant did warn the agency of plans to bomb federal buildings before the attack in Okla­homa City that left 168 dead and hundreds more injured.

Moreover, a federal judge in Oklahoma ordered that the infor­mation be kept sealed because of its potential impact on the trial of bomber Timothy McVeigh, records show.

That covers it pretty well. Despite all the denials, despite all the crap, federal agents knew there were specific threats to federal buildings in OKC. They even saw the buildings: "Howe was de­briefed and then taken to Oklahoma City to show Graham the areas she visited with the individuals who were part of a wide-ranging terror­ist investigation that was receiving substantial funding and attention in Washington, D.C." And while some of those who testified in court or gave statements may not have known, others did. And they lied about it, under oath. They gave sworn statements in which they lied. They testified in court, and lied.

And then, just to make this really, truly wonderful, the judge in the case had this exchange with a federal prosecutor(Burrage is the judge):
Burrage: "With that McVeigh trial going on, I don't want any­thing getting out of here that would compromise that trial in any way."
Brewster: "What do you mean by 'compromise?' Do you mean snared with McVeigh's law­yers?"
Burrage: "Yes, or something that would come up - you know, we have got evidence that the ATF took a trip with somebody that said buildings were going to be blown up in Oklahoma City before it was blown up or some­thing of that nature, and try to connect it to McVeigh in some­way or something."
Brewster: "That would be up to their representation of the cli­ent in some regard, Your Honor. If you are asking me not to share any documentation from these files with those lawyers, then I won't."

So, let's see, federal agents and lawyers lying under oath, a judge witholding information from defense lawyers that had bearing on the case... and before all that, hundreds of people dead and injured in a bombing the feds had been warned about.

People, we're talking about perjury by agents and lawyers, we're talking about a judge breaking law. People should be prosecuted for this, lawyers should be disbarred for life for this. And you could probably make a good case for negligent homicide cases against those who knew of the warnings and didn't, from the sound of it, do squat about it.

Think any of that'll happen? Me neither. And crap like this is why I despair for my country.

Ref the OKC Bombing

This is pissing me off on several levels, not least that I heard about this on the radio, but KTOK doesn't have anything on their web site about it. So I looked around and found this on the site for the McCurtain Daily Gazette, only the damn link is broken and the whole article won't come up. Full text of what does come up is:
Judge sealed testimony that ATF was warned before bombing

11/9/2005

Copyright 2005,
McCurtain Daily Gazette

By J.D. Cash
Unearthed by a Salt Lake City, Utah, attorney, statements made by a Tulsa Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agent in a federal courtroom confirm that a confidential informant did warn the agency of plans to bomb...

and when you try to bring up the rest of the article you get a blank. And I can't find the damn thing anywhere else. If I can find anything from wherever it's been hidden, I'll add it in.

Update:
I still can't find the complete article, but KTOK just had an interview with the McCurtain Daily Gazette reporter who did the story. Basically, an BATF agent admitted in a trial that they'd been warned of bomb threats against federal buildings in OKC. They judge decided didn't want the information to get to the Timothy McVeigh's lawyers because it would show there was a wider conspiracy than the governments' case said, so he sealed the record. Think about that. My understanding is that it's unethical at least and, in at least some cases, illegal to keep information of this type from a defense attorney, yet the judge sealed the record of this testimony so the defense couldn't get hold of it.

I have to think that another consideration of this judge is that this would show how ATF and FBI fell down on the job, and he didn't want that coming out. May be wrong about this, but I tend to believe it.

Ok, I can live with this!

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

I've already got the kilts

The Captain calls it Falluja-sur-Seine

and points out that it's now spread to over 300 towns and cities in France. This is not just some 'disaffected youth' acting out their frustrations, this is a serious, widespread action. Clive Davis thinks that calling it an Islamist uprising is incorrect; other people state that at center that's exactly what it is. In either case, it's a bloody mess that's getting worse with every night.

I think it's, depending on where it's coming from, either dishonest or hoping for the best to discount the islamist roots of this. And barring the French government finally saying "enough" and turning the army and security services loose... Not just France, but a lot of Europe is in real trouble with this.

To borrow from Wizbang,

it's time for the 'anti-war' crowd to sit down and STFU

I could remember some bits and pieces of nuclear and chemical weapons and/or materials found in Iraq, but Jay Tea has this link to Summary of WMDs and WMD material found in Iraq after the invasion

Isn't it just wonderful how the 'news media' has ignored or downplayed every bit of this?

A new term of reference for ragheads!

Little Green Footballs pointed to this article by Mark Steyn which contains this marvelous passage: "They look like LA gangsters, not beturbaned prophet-monkeys."

This is a good week. I got my first "it's all Bushs' fault"(thank you Robert), and now a wonderful term for the islamist butt-monkeys among us. From now on, they shall be 'beturbaned prophet-monkeys', or BPM for short.

On the bad side, this close from Steyn:
"If the insurgents emerge emboldened, what next? In five years' time, there will be even more of them, and even less resolve on the part of the French state. That, in turn, is likely to accelerate the demographic decline. Europe could face a continent-wide version of the "white flight" phenomenon seen in crime-ridden American cities during the 1970s, as Danes and Dutch scram to America, Australia or anywhere else that will have them."

Oh, lots of places will have them. Far better would be for the people of these and other countries a: tell their governments to get off the multi-culti bs and DO SOMETHING, b: add a 2nd Amendment to their constitutions and c: make sure it's in law that self-defense, including lethal force when necessary, is recognized as a basic human right no matter what the 'elites' think of it. You know, the 'elites'? The ones with lots of money and condescending attitudes toward the peasants, and armed security guards all 'round? Screw 'em- metaphorically, of course, God knows what diseases besides idiocy some of them carry.

Speaking of self-defense and muslim corsairs, I've been thinking about the 'what weapons on your boat' question. It partly depends on what you have room to hide; after all, doesn't do any good to have a legal BAR or something if the Coast Guard boards you on a drug search and confiscates it because the captain doesn't think your paperwork is good enough. So...

If you have the room, some type of machinegun. Not a sub-gun, the real thing. Mention was made of an M2 Browning, but I think a .30 Browning would work quite well instead, and be easier to move. If there's a small pirate craft that can withstand mixed ball, incindiary and AP they should sell the design to the Navy. I'd say nay on a Barrett; long-range precision shooting ain't gonna work on a boat. Or one of the other good GPMG's should do.

Shotgun. Definately a shotgun. Mixed load of buckshot and slugs, probably leaning toward buck. One of the Mossberg or Remington or Winchester stainless jobs would do nicely. 12 guage of course, and if someone else in the crew has trouble with a 12 go with a 16 or 20. Yeah, 16 guage ammo would be hard to find many places, but restock isn't really going to be a problem here.

Handguns. Plural. What you're best with, and practice reloads under non-ideal conditions. Ammo that'll punch through light armor and damage boats. Lots of ammo.

And, if you have the space/money/connection, a few grenades would be rather nice. Just the thing to toss into the pirates' craft as they close, don't you know?

And, oh hell, if you're going all the way, a good compound bow and some arrows with either explosive or incindiary heads, or something suitable taped to the shaft up front. Again, long-range accuracy isn't a factor hear; blowing a hole/starting a fire in the other boat is. Just the thing for toasting BPMs.

Opinions?

(no, I don't care how cool it looks, parrots and cutlasses are a last resort. You really want to clean up after a seasick bird?)

Ref the Trentadue case

I couldn't find anything more recent than this at World Net Daily. Yeah, I know, but it seems to mesh with what I'd heard on the radio about this. I found this, too; it's a couple of years old, but does summarize a good bit of what's turned up, including harassment of witnesses.

I keep coming back to why this isn't more of a story. You've got someone almost certainly murdered while in federal custody; you've got evidence destroyed; you've got a medical examiner harassed into testifying how the authorities in charge wanted him to; you have a quite possible connection to what was at that time the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil; and you have evidence that various federal agents/officials may well have known an attack was going to take place and have covered up and lied about it since. All the kinds of things screenwriters go to rediculous lengths to put into a script, all happening in real life. And nobody wants to cover it or talk about it, other than some blogs and some OK news agencies.

I probably shouldn't be surprised. When the 're-enactment' of the last day of the Branch Davidian mess at Waco was done, they did it at a different time of day, different weather conditions, different ammo, etc., and the major media didn't mention that that I ever heard. Not to mention the other things that, if ever, were mentioned once and then forgotten.

Of course, lately they're real busy talking about the mess in France in the most neutral way possible with little or no mention of the fact that it's primarily Moslems burning things, breaking things, shooting at police and setting people on fire. Mustn't say anything offensive to the little bastards, you know.

General roundup

Been busy and, being lazy, haven't anything wonderfully interesting to write about. But, assuming all three of you haven't already seen this stuff, here's some things to check out:

Ace of Spades has a bit on the New York Times telling the family and girlfriend of the late Corporal Starr to basically screw themselves. Aren't they just a wonderful buch of people at the worn-out whore--excuse me, Grey Lady? Best paper around, they insist so themselves.

He also has this on the wonderful tolerance of the left in academia for speech they don't like. Which means if you don't agree with them they'll cry and stamp their feet and try to ruin your life. After all, they're better than everyone else, and you know it, you dirty right-wing fascists! And don't confuse things with the actual fascists being socialists, you're just trying to twist things!

And this covers a variety of stuff, CIA leaks and CIA working against this administration and- oh hell, just check it out.

Captain's Quarter's has a roundup of the mess in France, and the terrorist arrests in Australia and the possible links between them. Just start at the top. By the way, a state of emergency and curfew(?!?) was declared. After twelve nights of this? Where the hell was this declaration the first night?

I need some powder and .30 cal bullets. Not news, just reminding myself.

Smallest Minority has a lot of stuff recently. It's another start at the top and work down, beginning with(you ready for this?) DU with a guns forum. No, I'm not looking there, I haven't eaten yet. I won't look later, because I will have eaten recently; there's only so much my fagile psyche can take.

There was a link somewhere to some good info on the French mess- no, the current one-, and if I can find it I'll add it in.

There's been some new stuff on the Trentadue case recently, but it's been hard to find stuff to link to. A couple of weeks ago KTOK said that the judge had finally been given(I'm tempted to say 'allowed to read') the unredacted documents to study, but by the time I got home that evening I couldn't find anything on their site. I remain amazed that the national media seems to be pretty much ignoring this case, and I'm still wondering why? I'm not big on conspiracy theories; it could well be that, for some reason, it just doesn't fit their collective template of 'what people should hear'. In any case, I'll keep looking for the new stuff.

'Category 7'; oh yeah, no bias here...

Year or so ago there was a disaster movie about weather going to hell. It was bad enough I forgot the name, and I'm not going to waste time looking it up. Well, the next installment has its' first half on tonight, called Category 7: The End Of The World. On, where else?, See-BS.

Huge and extremely powerful storms, all over the world. Global warming causing part of it but 'something else' making it spin up to the extremes. Put-upon FEMA director fighting the government. Put-upon scientist whose theory seems to be working out, but can't get funding from the eeeevil government(his current grant is from Greenpeace). Wicked presidential chief of staff who's mean, nasty, and loves the energy industry. Wicked evangelists using disaster to call for money. Add in a rain of poison frogs and a plague of flies and a member of the evangelists staff talking about bringing more things about(plagues of Egypt, anyone?). Oh, and tornados in Egypt destroying the Great Pyramid.

I will eat a large bite of my favorite hat if this doesn't turn out to be the evil bible-thumpers behind the mysterious something making the weather worse.

UPDATE! My hat is safe, the prediction has just been proven true.

Oh, and an SR-71 being used as a weather-chasing plane. Yeah, real likely.

Ok, this is, if anything, a bigger piece of crap than the one before, with bias showing through every seam. Add in a lot(a LOT) of jerky, stop-action photography that's supposed to add to the drama but just makes for irritation, and you have a tv event that should be missed at all costs. If I were into self-abuse I'd go to check out the Kos kids and DUmmies later; I'm sure they're wetting their pants over the way this piece of crap 'speaks truth to power' and so forth. Understand, I like disaster movies, but when the movie is primarily a propaganda piece, and not even believable, with every evil-government and etc. you can think of thrown in, forget it.

Ok, they just had a Cat 5 hurricane pop up out of nowhere, with some news weenie in the winds playing Dan Rather and saying "It's a definate category 5! Winds are gusting to 150 miles per hour! If there's a hell on earth, this is it!!" I can't take anymore, the tv's going off.

Pirates

Real ones. No, I'm not kidding.

I've been reading about this for years. It's been worse in the southwest Asian waters where piracy is a looong tradition, but it's never actually gone away anywhere, including the Caribbean. What brought it back to mind was a post at Publicola on an incident off the coast of Somalia, pirates attacking and trying to board a cruise ship(Muslim corsairs strike again!). That made me look around, and I found this at Hell in a Handbasket.

Which, in particular, makes me wonder what the rules are on cruise ships. I know some have shotguns for skeet shooting, are the crew told/allowed to use them to repel boarders? Birdshot wouldn't be that good, but if you had a case of 00 buck on board, pirates and inflatable boats like those in this incident would be vulnerable. 'Course, the lawyers and weenies in a cruise company would probably have fits at the idea(why wouldn't the idea of having several hundred people with no defense except running bother them?), and some countries would have cows at the idea of a non-naval ship with arms for self-defense.

The latter has been a problem for a lot of people. I think it was last year a guy leaving Singapore(I think) was chased down and boarded by police because a crewman the owner had fired told the police he had guns on board. Turned out to be a shotgun and handgun(again, I think) specifically for pirates. That's a wonderful thought; he's leaving, almost out of their territorial waters, and they chased him down over this. Jeez, don't you just love it? Being Singapore, if the ship was looted and burned the pirates- if caught- would probably have been hanged or something, but that wouldn't have done the crew any good. A lot of countries get real snippy at the thought of someone having guns of any kind on a ship in their waters, including small private boats. They won't protect you if someone's coming over the rail in the middle of the night, but they'll damn sure jail and/or fine you to death for being armed.

Over time I've seen several reports of people repelling boarders with shotguns and/or rifles, and in some of them I remember they waited until they were home to talk about it; being worried about being jailed by the local authorities(when you can find them in some cases) will cause you to do that. The two cases I remember best, one woke up in the night to find them coming into the hold(he grabbed a Mini-14 and opened up) and in the other the ship was attacked in daylight; while one guy handled the boat the other used a shotgun and 00 buck to take care of business.

I've never had a chance to take an ocean trip. On a cruise ship I'd think the risks from run-of-the-mill pirates would be less, but nowadays the chance of terrorists trying to grab and/or sink the ship is greater; on a small ship(no, I can't remember the difference between a ship and a boat other than size) in many parts of the world pirates would be a real concern. In the case of a boat of my own, I'd damn well have at least a shotgun and handgun with a sufficient amount of ammo, and good places to hide them from customs inspectors, coast guard, etc. Damned if I'd trust my and other people's lives to the hope that if I call for help the cavalry will arrive in time.

Which does bring up a question: you're a member of crew or passenger on a ship sailing through an area where pirates(or just call them theiving assholes on water) could be a concern; what weapons would you take? In addition to the shotgun and handgun, I'd also like a semi-auto rifle, preferably something with a large magazine. I have little experience with automatics, and the paperwork for getting one is a pain and some places that would choose to ignore other things would break out in spots and handcuffs if you had a select-fire weapon on board. Since you'd be thinking of damaging their boat as well as the pirates, for the shotgun 00 buck and slugs in plenty. For the handgun, probably heavy hollowpoints like the Federal 230-grain Hydra-Shoks in .45; good stopping power on people and good penetration on their vessel. For the rifle? I'd lean toward something .30-caliber, this being a place where an SKS might be good. Reliable, plenty accurate for the work, ammo sufficiently powerful for both boat and people, and if it was damaged or lost overboard you wouldn't have the same level of screaming and upset as if you lost a $1000+ AR15 or something. What do you think?

(Yes, I know the U.N. has forbidden piracy and other such anti-social acts. I don't think I trust the bad guys to obey the U.N. Hell, nobody obeys the U.N. Except us, in too many cases where we should tell them to kiss our ass. But that's another post)

Update 11/9: Les Jones had a piece here that included some piracy information, including a link to The High Road that has the story of the sailing ships with the shotgun, here. Thank you Les!
And speaking of .50 Brownings and pirates

Paris(while it's still there)

Ok, it probably won't be that bad, but it's pretty damn bad. I've been looking at different places and different accounts, first- and second-hand. So far, this seems to be the worst:
"A handicapped woman was doused with petrol and set on fire by youths during another night of rioting in Paris. The 56-year-old suffered third degree burns to 20% of her body in the attack."

I've had second and third-degree burns; they hurt like a sonofabitch, and mine were over nowhere near 20%. And any burns over that large an area can kill you. But let's ignore that for a moment, and try to figure this: what kind of asshole does it take to do this?

And this is one incident of many. Instapundit and Michelle have a lot of links on this mess, and it's pretty bad. It looks like the incident of the two kids being electrocuted was the excuse these bastards needed to start this; they've been building up to it for a long time. For the last several years there've been articles about the mess in these parts of French cities; gangs ruling, police afraid to go in except in groups with automatic weapons, gang rapes, Jewish cemetaries and places of worship damaged and burned, Jews attacked, the whole damn list. I can't remember where the article was, but about a year ago read where there's been a regular circular trade going on; ragheads in France stealing high-dollar cars, smuggling them to eastern Europe to sell, taking part of the price in and/or taking money and buying automatic weapons and RPGs, then using those to knock off banks and armored cars and such. And, as one or two people have pointed out, here for instance, a lot of big media have gone way out of their way to avoid mentioning that muslims are the rioters; to the point that it slaps you in the face that instead of reporting news they're actively trying to manage and control what people hear and how they'll hear it. Which means, more than ever, what you get from the BBC or whoever has to be viewed with great suspicion and cross-checked('course, we've been doing that for a while anyway, but still...).

A guy who wrote to Insty wrote this:
"There's just no damn jobs. White college grads can't get jobs, what hope do immigrants from regions with bad schools have? I think this is more like the LA Rodney King riots -- there's people there who want the French dream, just as in LA people wanted the American dream, but they just don't see it when they look around, and they resent the fact enormously."
There's an amount of bullshit there, the King riots were a bunch of assholes using that trial as their excuse to loot and burn(much like these clowns and the electrocuted kids).From what he says, though, the muslims in question in France have no choice where to live or go to school and little chance of getting out, which would definately push things toward 'worse'. Especially with the fundy kiss-the-prophets'-ass people stirring it up further.

And, if what can be dug out is correct, the French government is making it worse by, instead of taking concrete action to stop the rioting, arguing about whether 'tis better to appease the assholes or actually, maybe, making them stop.

The French really have two options; play appease and pay and plead and watch the rioting get worse, or do something hard and nasty that , while it'll cause condemnation by the usual suspects, might actually help. 'Course, if the commenter at Insty is correct, one of the things that would have to happen to really make a difference would be to make big changes in the French government and society, and barring a flat-out civil war that ain't gonna happen.

At least not in time.

Carnival of Cordite #37

At the usual place, the wondrous Gullyborg, and including a couple of pieces by yours truly.

Ah, the tormenting of friends...

Also a range report

As mentioned before I wasn't able to make the NoR shoot(forgive me, K, for I have sinned), but there was a, ah, slight compensation. Which leads to the 'torment' above.

There was a small gun show I went to. Didn't know it was small until I got there, but a nice one in any case; found some things I needed/wanted, including the item in question here. I mentioned to Og what I'd found, he replied "!!*%#! Not a .22?" I said yes, and he called me unkind things, some of which referred to my family and parentage.

What I found was this, an Enfield training rifle:

Looks just like a standard #1 Mk3, except it's bored for .22 long rifle. One of the interesting things about the Enfield series is the two-piece bolt, body and head. With a standard rifle, if excess headspace developed a larger(longer) bolt head could be installed to correct it. In this case, a standard bolt head had an insert fitted to the inside with an off-center hole extending through the face. A firing pin was placed in the hole; the standard striker was cut off in front of the wide section near the front, so when you pull the trigger the striker hits the pin and bang. The extractor was modified to reach and hold the rimfire cartridge, and there's no ejector; the magazine is just the shell, and when you pull the bolt back the empty is pulled out of the chamber and falls into the mag body. So you have a rifle that is slightly heavier than the same rifle in .303(more steel left in the barrel), same sights and all, so you could start trainees off with a fairly quiet arm with virtually no recoil. A friend of mine got hold of one of these a couple of years ago, and it's a fun rifle to shoot, so when I ran across this one I was quite happy.

What caught my eye originally, though, was one of two unusual things about this one. In the rack it looked like another #1 until I saw this:

That is the rear sight from a Ross rifle. The Ross is a straight-pull bolt design, so what was that sight doing on it? Then I found that it was a .22 and... You'll notice in this picture the other oddity: that sling swivel in front of the magazine. It's not on my friends' rifle, or on a standard #1. The swivel base is part of the trigger guard, and if it was welded on it was a damn nice job; I'm thinking it was forged this way originally. I'd seen this third swivel on the WWII sniper rifles, but not on anything else. So it's a training rifle with the standard front and rear sights, with this bracket mounting a Ross sight on the receiver and a third swivel. Which information caused Og to say more unkind things about me, the brute, because these indicate it's one that was set up as a match rifle.

But the big question is, does it shoot? Yeah, yeah, collectable, blah blah. If it won't shoot well, I don't really want it. There are things I would make exception for, but a .22 that won't hit anything? So today I hied myself and it off to the range. Being short on time I went to the indoor range(H&H) where I mostly practice handgun. They have a 30-yard rifle side, and you have a rest for the forend, so I wasn't trusting to my somewhat wavering offhand style. The following four targets were:
First, with the Ross sight removed(pull one screw and it slides off the base) and the standard rear sight, using Eley Sport ammo:


This one was the same ammo with the Ross sight:

That high one was a called flyer.

Third was some of the Sellier & Bellot ammo that's on the market:


Last was shot with my favorite: Federal Lightning(now Champion):

Low shot was called flyer.

So yeah, it shoots. When I can I'll put it on a solid benchrest at 50 and 100 yards and see what it'll do, and I think it'll do well. This is about the same accuracy I get with this ammo and the Martini match rifle under the same conditions, so I'm quite hopeful of the results.

It doesn't make up for missing the shoot, but it's very nice anyway. A fine rifle, a variation of an already hard to find piece, with some undoubtedly interesting history behind it, and I get to care for it for the next however long.

Steam, Og. Mwahahahahaha!

Additional: The Eley Sport ammo seems to be very good stuff, it's one of the two most accurate in every rifle I've tried it in. And while the top-grade Eley Tenex runs about $11/box, the Sport can be had for $1.50 or so. And I remain amazed by the results from the cheap(pricewise) Federal ammo. In several rifles, from a Remington bolt to Martini match to Marlin semi-autos, it's consistently shot at least equal to and in most cases more accurately than anything else, including some $5/box match stuff. No, I'm not spending fifty dollars to get several boxes of the Olympic-grade stuff to test, not when these two give such good results. If you're shooting serious matches, it may well be worth it to you; it ain't to me, not now.

Remember that guy Ritter?

Scott Ritter? The 'former Marine Officer', as the 'anti-war' people liked to put it? Who turned out to be both a liar and a jerk who talked-up kids? Tim Blair compared some of his statements from 1999 and last month here. Example:
"Scott Ritter last month:

[B]y 1995 there were no more weapons in Iraq, there were no more documents in Iraq, there was no more production capability in Iraq because we were monitoring the totality of Iraq’s industrial infrastructure with the most technologically advanced, the most intrusive arms control regime in the history of arms control.

Scott Ritter in 1999 (extract from Ritter’s Endgame):

In 1995 Unit 2001 conducted tests on live human subjects taken from the Abu Ghraib prison, using BW and binary CW agent. Around fifty prisoners were chosen for these experiments, which took place at a remote testing ground in western Iraq. The purpose of these experiments was to test the toxicity of available agent to ensure that the biological agent remained viable. As a result, all the prisoners died."

Be it said, I have a huge respect for the Marines and the men they turn out. Be it also said that, being a big organization, there's no way it can avoid having its' share of jerks. And just because someone was a good Marine doesn't mean they'll be wonderful at all other things. Look at John McCain; fine officer, fine service to his country, but look at what he's done as a Senator. Financial scandals, selling out people who trusted him and so forth. Ritter seems to be one of the bad ones, selling out when he saw benefit in it. And this is a good example of his selling out, and of how a lot of the 'peace and anti-war' people use the military when they take notice of them at all; he said what they want to hear, so he's a 'former Marine who should be listened to' when their usual reaction toward the military is moaning about fascists and those who allow the U.S. to ruin the world.

Ok, that's enough bitching on my part. Read Blair's post.

Additional: I mentioned yesterday the Democrats taking the Senate into closed session and the bullshit involved. Here's some interesting quotes from the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act. Let's see, Bush wasn't President then, was he?

I's back

And a bit rested. So I need to catch up on some stuff.

First, the Carnival of Cordite(number 36 yet!) is up at Gullyborg. The announcement came out after I left town, so this is a late notice. And I don't care; I couldn't make it to the NoR shoot, but it was a good trip.

Speaking of the NoR, Gun Guy has pics up the the NoR site, plus his reaction to a presentation a lot of us put something into, plus his usual observations and a fine bunch of blog links. Start at the top and work your way down, it's worth it.

Speaking of Gullyborg, he's got a fine post on the Democrat weenies taking the Senate into secret session here.

So the Pres chose a guy named Alito as his pick to the SCOTUS. I admit that before I read anything about him, the fact that Reid and Schumer were speaking solemnly of their 'disappointment' and generally having the vapors(along with the usual suspects) told me a lot of what I needed to know.

I had a whole list of things in mind last night, but after sleeping and eating and taking care of things around the house, I can't remember most of them. Shut up. It'll happen to you, too.

I'll add some of them in when they come back to mind.
addons:
Remembered a big one. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership(here) found that when ATFE was questioned as to their testing manual for firearms, they came back with this: they ain't got one. Think about that; their 'experts' are testifying in court, people go to jail and/or have their lives ruined, and they don't have a standard testing procedure... There is no excuse for this kind of crap. Remember when all the screaming after the 'sniper murders' in MA tended to center on "ATF can't audit a firearms business more than once a year"? Bullshit. My understanding is they can make as many announced audits as they want, but can only do one unannounced audit a year, and the reason is their own past. A few years back a bipartisan congressional committee that investigated ATF slapped them with this restriction, among others, because they'd been abusing their authority. This feeds right into it; how can a law enforcement agency have their people testifying in court, under oath, when they don't even use a standard procedure? Because it's easier to jail people that way, I guess. There were reports in the past of ATF 'testers' taking semi-auto rifles, putting in a light firing pin spring or a heavier pin and using ammo with sensitive primers to 'test' them; if they got it to double once, "Well, we got us an illegal machine gun here!" and somebody winds up on trial. It's a lot easier to get away with crap like this if you don't have a standard procedure that a: you have to follow and b: can be pointed out in court. JPFO has the document available here, and you really should read it.
I'll add that this is another case of the assholes making is hard for the honest. I've dealt with some ATF people who were as helpful and easy to deal with as you could wish, and their job gets harder every time something like this comes out.

Addon:
Little Green Footballs has this and this on the rioting by primarily muslims in France. You know, that multi-culti heaven where all is well, and we should follow their example? Like this example, I guess:
"Sarkozy says that violence in French suburbs is a daily fact of life.

Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde."

The caliphate, anyone?

Did you miss me?

Anybody?

Damn.

In any case, back whole and reasonably healthy. No trick-or-treaters, which is a bummer. It's now late, I'm tired, and I've got stuff to write about. Tomorrow.

Except for this. Val notes that Castro and Chavez have been caught paying off politicians in Bolivia; and now the same in Brazil. You know, where the president was pushing for a ban on the ownership of arms? The president who, it turns out, has been bought and paid for by the worst dictator in the Western world? Gee, why would a corrupt politician, bought by a communist dictator, want the people disarmed? Any thoughts?

To borrow from Misha again, 'Lamppost, rope, politician: some assembly required'.

Just a thought before I go...

The word on the news is that Libby will be indicted, and the Grand Jury will be continued to keep looking at Rove.

I have a question: if you can be indicted for perjury now for remembering something you forgot before, or being reminded of a conversation you testified about and remembering something about it you'd forgotten(because it was, oh, two years before or something), if you can be charged with 'lying to a federal investigator' as Martha Stewart was- in an informal interview, not under oath, etc.- why would anyone say anything to an investigator or grand jury? If, because of some political connection with someone, you know that forgetting something about a conversation or forgetting talking to/about someone could get you charged with a crime, why say anything?

I can see someone being asked a question and taking the 5th Amendment: "Since anything I say, or forget to mention, or remember and add in later could get me charged with a crime, I plead the 5th and will not answer". And if the 5th protects you against self-incrimination, I would think that a perfectly proper use of the plea.

And if the prosecutors don't like it, maybe they should have considered that before.

I love stuff that actually works

If you don't reload, the phrase 'stuck case' won't induce the same mix of terror and rage it does to us alchemists(as the Gun Guy calls us reloaders). So I'll explain a bit.

To reload cases, once you have some to reload(obtaining fired cases being an activity worthy all on its' own), the first step is resizing. You take the case, a resizing die set up in a press, and run the case into the die. The die usually does three things: first, it squeezes the case back down to standard unfired dimensions; second, a rod sticks way down into the case and through the flashhole and punches the fired primer out; third, when the case is sized it makes the neck area smaller than it should be, so there's a hardened steel button on the depriming rod, and as you pull the case out of the die the button expands the case neck to proper dimensions.

With a few exceptions- straight-walled pistol and rifle cartridges and a very few bottleneck rifle cartridges- the die is hardened steel with the inside very smoothly polished. The exceptions noted above have a ring made of carbide or a ring plated with titanium nitride that actually does the sizing. These two are extremely hard, and when polished have an extremely slick surface, so you can generally get by without lubing the cases. However, if you run a dry case into a standard steel die, the case will get stuck. WILL get stuck. Not 'pull a little harder on the lever' stuck or 'get something and tap on it' stuck. STUCK. We're talking teenage girls stuck on Orlando Bloom level here. You now have the options of getting a stuck case remover kit or taking the die apart and using a punch to hammer the case out, both of which ruin the case. And if you get careless, ruin the die. And they ain't cheap.

Enter Microlon. Yes, the same people who make the engine treatment I used on the bike. They make a stuff called Gun Juice for firearms. I've written about it before, mainly on cutting down fouling problems in barrels, and did a full review over at Mad Ogre's place in the weapons section. It slicked barrels up so well, and it mentioned using it on dies, so I stripped and cleaned my dies that aren't nitride or carbide and treated them. It did make a noticeable difference in the force needed to run cases in & out. And then...

A couple of weeks ago I had about a hundred .30-06 rifle cases to resize. Lubed them up and started. I generally put on some music for this stuff, so I'm cranking along when I notice that this case was kind of stubborn. And thought about it and realized the last half-dozen had been a bit stubborn. I grabbed that last few, and the next couple, and found that I'd somehow missed lubing about ten cases, six of which I'd run through the die.

This was flat amazing. No stuck cases when normally the first one would have jammed tight. So I'm definately a believer in this stuff. If you decide to try it, you can order it from Brownells, or straight from the company here.

He's alive! He's safe! And he saved the beer!

Steve has now been heard from. He's posting from Man Camp, where Val has hooked up to a neighbors generator, and Steve's supplying badly needed labor and nutrients. (LIQUID nutrients, what did you think I meant?)

Among his thoughts on the current 'cane aftermath are that it's hard to get in a 'Oh my God!' frame of mind when you're sitting on the patio drinking homebrew, smoking a cigar, listening to music on the boombox and have a cockatoo for company. And how some people are freaking out, even though they don't live below sea level and have 'neighbors' floating their valuables away. And how some people in Broward County are comparing Wilma to Andrew; as he puts it:"So SHUT UP. Anyone up there who compares this storm to Andrew should be punished by having one leg of his walker glued to the floor so all he can do is shuffle in circles."

And think of being in a place where everything is electric, the lines are all down, and they tell you to boil your drinking water. As Steve says, a nicely mixed message. What to do, what to do... Aside from grabbing the nearest bureaucrat(assuming you can catch one out of his natural habitat of behind a counter with a security guard handy) and gently asking 'how?' as you choke him, that is. I'd say it's a good thing all those trees are down, except green wood doesn't burn worth a damn, and if it's been that long since a really nasty storm probably only 10% of the people around own an axe and have some idea how to use it without amputating body parts.

We've got tornados here, but at least they're a: at worst a mile wide, b: only travel about 20-30 miles in most cases and c: even though they can have winds over 300mph, they pass by in a few minutes, as opposed to a hurricane which only has 150mph winds but is a couple of hundred miles across("Wilma, you bitch, go on a diet!") and takes hours to pass by. Although we've had ice storms and wind storms that took down lines and poles and left some people without power for more than a month.

In any case, we have heard from Hog-Boy, and he is well. Maybe we can get him a laurel wreath to wear, with a sign that says 'Pig Power'.

More general thoughts

Steve has once again been rendered speechless by FP&L. I'm wondering if he ever got the ice for the fermenting fridge?

Kevin over at Smallest Minority has a number of good thoughts and reports. On the wussy GFW new James Bond(!), the move toward a carry law in Wisconsin, and the vote in Brazil.

The Geek speaks of Eugene Volokh and the 2nd, ABC playing bluffing games with the news, FEMA reversing course on one of their latest bullshit moves, and his own thoughts on Brazil.

I'm trying Steve's advise from last week on seasoning cast iron. I hope it works, I can smell it inside and the grill is outside and the windows are closed...

Mr. Completely writes of the Jennings .22. When I took my carry class, one lady had one of these, and the shots were keyholing at three yards. No thank you.

I checked the cast iron; it was nice & hot, and I hadn't set the garage on fire, so I turned off the heat and left it to cool slowly.

I just re-read Volokh's piece that I mentioned earler; GO READ IT. It's important.

I may not post for a few days. No, I won't be able to make the NoR shoot, but I will be out of town.

Various observations and comments

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the news the last few days, so last night & this morning I've been cruising around.

Just read about the burned terrorist bodies and 'muslim outrage' at Wizbang. I have to agree with Jay; the 'mainstream Muslim community' does want it both ways- "Don't blame us, they're not true Muslims" and "You're not showing these Muslims proper respect!". To quote one of the commenters, "Pigshit". Either the bastards who set off a car bomb to kill a bunch of women and children or men applying for jobs are Muslims and you worry about their treatment, or they're murdering wastes of oxygen and don't deserve any consideration. You can't claim them when it suits you and disclaim them when it doesn't. Make up your damn minds, and in the meantime, shut the hell up.

Ran into Harry's Place, which I'd never seen before, who had this post on a wanker in the Guardian. Short version: Iraqi's Vote, Bush Aided In Next Election, All Is Lost! Worth reading, if only to see how BDS has spread worldwide. Check out the commenters for further illustration.

That bitch Sheehan and the fascist supporters are all atwitter because the 2000th soldier died due to combat in Iraq. Bunch of fucking vultures. I did hear Bush's speech the other day while I was doing laundry; contrast this to the MoveOn wing of the Democrat party and marvel at idiots who think terrorists killing people is preferable to us doing something about them. And a people becoming free.

Got time, go to Power Line and start at the top; lots of good stuff there.

The Gun Guy has initial thoughts about the Tulsa Gun Show.

Michelle Malkin wrote about a racist idiot at North Carolina State University. And the University disowning him.
Gee, I wonder why?

Captain's Quarters writes of Iran calling for Israel to be destroyed. NOW will somebody do something about their working to build nukes?

Michelle also notes that, beyond doubt, Al Franken really is a friggin' idiot.

I know I said it before, but Britain just keeps working harder to flush themselves further down the toilet. Piglet, pig stories, piggy banks... why don't they just wave a damn white flag and get it over with?

I think that's it for now.

Brazil Votes 'NO' On Gun Ban

In other news, Sara Brady is reported to be suffering severe gas attacks.

This is very good news. First, for the Brazilian people. They were hit with every 'we know best' hammer the 'elites' could use, and in the end said 'Hell no'. And 64 to 36 counts as Hell no. To quote a guy who wrote to Instapundit on this:
"Hi Glenn, I live in Brazil and believe me, you don't know the half of it. The level of propaganda from the pro-ban side, which included the current government, the Church, the Globo television network (think CBS, ABC and NBC combined) and the arts/intelligentsia crowd was beyond the pale and clearly directed at the less fortunate. In other words, it was presented as a class vote. The margin of victory indicates that Brazilians of all classes voted against this ridiculous referendum. It is a sure sign of the steady but certain maturing of democracy in this country. "
Think about that; just about every group that keeps helping push for bans/taxes/restictions here- discounting the President and our current government- was yelling at them, and they listened to both sides and said 'No'. I like this quote from Dave Kopel's post at the Volokh Conspiracy:
“Their whole campaign (against the ban) was imported from the United States. They just translated a lot of material from the NRA. Now, a lot of Brazilians are insisting on their right to bear arms, they don’t even have a pseudo right to bear arms. It’s not in their Constitution,” said Jessica Galeria, an American who researches gun violence with the Viva Rio think tank.

Don't you just love that? "Oh, God, they actually believe they have a right to arms! And their government hasn't given them permission to think such a thing! And the eeeeviill NRA had a hand in it! Aaaaaahhhh!" May they strain their throats with their screaming. As Kopel points out, their constitution specifically states:
"the home is the inviolable asylum of the individual, and no one may enter it without the dweller's consent, save in the case of "flagrante delicto" or disaster, or to give help, or, during the day, by court order;"
and if you have the right to protect your home from invasion, you have, implied at least, the right to the means to protect your home. There's more in the post, so go read it.

And the Reuters AlertNet article is just full of good stuff.
""We didn't lose because Brazilians like guns. We lost because people don't have confidence in the government or the police," said Denis Mizne of anti-violence group Sou da Paz." Gee, you think maybe? They think the police are corrupt and/or incompetent and want means to protect themselves? Whoda thunk it?

"Many voters had expressed concern before the vote that a ban would leave them defenseless against heavily armed criminals. Public confidence is low in a police force widely seen as inefficient, abusive and corrupt." Yep.

" "This referendum ... is not going to end violence," said Assis Augusto Pires, 60, who voted against the ban in Sao Paulo's wealthy Jardim Paulistano district, where high walls, electrified fences and private guards protect residents." Wow, even people who can afford private heat want arms! Hear that, Sen. Kennedy(Dr.MA)?

"Spotlighting the issue, a young girl was wounded by a stray bullet as police clashed with drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro's Dende slum on Saturday night, police said." Gee, some of the strictest gun-control laws around and the gangs still have guns? Sound familiar, D.C.?

And this one: " The ban failed in all 26 states and the federal district of Brasilia. Rural areas rejected it overwhelmingly. "This region is very isolated. If you don't have a gun here you don't have protection," said Igor Dedea, a logger in the rainforest state of Para." So it failed everywhere, and in rural areas 'overwhelmingly'.

Brazil is like a lot of countries; the government has made it as difficult as it can for a common citazen(at least they don't openly call them 'peasants') to own a gun, and is constantly trying to make it worse. And in Brazil's case, they're next door to Venezuela which has the weenie Chavez as president(think that may have something to do with some of their troubles?), with Chavez trying to export the wonders of castro throughout South America. But this gives me hope. The people of Brazil got both sides and voted to keep their ability to own arms for whatever reasons they choose. They took note that with current laws the bad guys aren't even slowed down in getting weapons, and decided that "Trust us, this will make you safe" from the government didn't cut it.

Now, let's see, a referendum to put a right to arms in their constitution... Probably won't happen, but it's a nice thought, isn't it?

And let us not forget National Ammo Day

If you're new to it, it started as one day in which everyone possible would buy at least 100 rounds of ammo. For all information, posters, etc. go here.

I just wish I could count the stuff I picked up yesterday.

Carnival of Cordite #35

Is up at Gullyborg. I don't even know what's in it yet; I just got the e-mail. So go, beat me to it.

The Big Gun Show Report

As I mentioned, this is the biggest gun show in the world; the building is 11 acres(!) and it's full, something like 3800 tables. Guns, ammo, parts, accessories, knives, books, if it's related to firearms you'll either find it there, or find someone who can get it for you.

Also there, I just found out was the Gun Guy. Dammit, I wish I'd known, I'd have made sure I said hello. As it was, there's so many damn people, so many of whom look familiar for different reasons, I didn't notice him. Or maybe he doesn't look like his picture, or was gone to pee, who knows?

For some reason Martini Cadet rifles seem to have gone way up on price; the only one below $500 was pretty beat up in the stock and still $450. I'd like to have one, but not for that price.

Among other things, I picked up some sling swivels, recoil buffers and ammo. Found a place that had a good price on M2 ball for the M1 rifle. And my friend bought a tuna can each of 7.62x54R and 8mm from them. AND they dollied it out to the truck; what more can you ask for? You could go broke in the place really easy. And really quick.

Books. Lots of books. I'm going to have to make a list of Peter Capstick's stuff I don't have or want in hardback. No problem with buying from Books a Million, but if I can pick it up at the show...

Yesterday was cloudy and cool, today started cloudy and occasional sprinkles and cold. And maybe some frost tonight, dammit. I've got to cover the squash and maybe it'll last long enough to produce. I hope so.

Must...drink....and rest...

Got up at 0500, which I normally don't do unless there's a chance of shooting something, and got home about fifteen minutes ago. And I'm beat. I shall write of the wonders of the Big Gun Show tomorrow. If I wake up.

More progress

In some things, anyway. The friend I'm going to the Big Gun Show with has a set of short-range radios we've used the last couple of years. This year, between fire/marriage/moving twice, for some reason he can't find the damn things. So off I go to Wally World.

I now have a set of Uniden radios, max 3-mile range, run on three AAA batteries apiece, for the grand total of $18.22. If I had regular need of such, they had a set with 6-mile range, running on four AAAs each, with charger and eight NiMh batteries, for about $25. God, these things have improved.

By the way, when big trouble with China(the evil PRC China) happens, one of our big problems is so much of our small stuff has been farmed out to them. With virtual slave labor(non-virtual, in some cases) they've undercut our domestic makers of stuff so much that I don't think American companies even make some of the stuff anymore. Last time I needed some small files, the only ones I could find were made in either China or India. How much of our electronics come from China? Other countries, too, but the stuff that worries me is the huge amount of small, you-don't think-about-it stuff that comes from the PRC.

I'm to bed, up early tomorrow. I will, in due time, report on this thing.

Another reason to like John Stossel

I argue with him on a number of points, but more often I tend to nod my head in agreement when he's doing one of his reports. Case in point, this one. Go read it, it won't take long.

All done? Point after point knocking down the gun-ban agenda(don't tell me it's not their agenda; Clayton Cramer has a list somewhere of quotes from a bunch of these people, I'll try to find it and post it).
(Update: Found it! Was at the Volokh Conspiracy, here)

Think it'll make any difference to the hysterics and nannies? I don't either, but getting the information out there lets people who can be reasoned with know the facts.

And I have to make note of this

In a comment on my last 'cleaning greasy old guns' post Gerry close his comment with this: "I could go into minute detail, but most folks capable of detail stripping a rifle aren't liberals and are smart enough to figure it out for themselves."

I just love this.