Cheap screws and good threadlocker

Never a good combination

Having nice weather today, I decided to flip the blades on the chipper, which were getting dull. No big deal, pull two machine screws on each blade and turn it around, then put the screws back. Uh huh. Let me mention that I put penetrating oil on them a few days back, just to ease things.

One screw came out ok. One came after some bad words and fiddling. And both on the other blade stripped. Hex-head screws, yet. So get the drill and the broken-screw pullers, and drill through both screws and turn them out(I highly recommend these tools, by the way; every home should have a set. I use the things 2-3 times per year, but on those occasions nothing else would do the job). The first two didn't show any, but the stripped pair seemed to have some kind of threadlocker on them. I'm wondering if someone picked up the wrong damn tube and put the high-strength or stud-grade stuff on them. Anyway.

So now I need two metric machine screws, not something found at Wally World. So get the helmet and start the bike and go to Pep Boys. Always a good place for stuff like this, as they've had bins of bolts and screws of different types, standard and metric both. Guess what? Pep Boys doesn't have those bins anymore; they've got about six or eight feet of fasteners in little packages. No bins, no large or odd stuff anymore. Crap. Then I see a rebate on the new Sylvania halogen headlamps, which my son swears by. Except they don't have the size for my truck. Double crap. Where now?

I remembered there's an Ace Hardware on the way home, so I swing in there, and lo and behold! I find them. Bigger heads than the originals and a little longer in the shank; big deal, both fixable. So home. Chuck the shank of one in the cordless, turn on the belt sander and cut down the edge so, although it'll stick up a bit the edges will curve down nicely and leave no step for anything to catch on. Do that twice, then cut the shanks to length and use the sander to clean up the ends. And while it's out, use it to sharpen the dull side of the blades. And THEN, put a drop of medium(yes, I checked) threadlocker on each screw and turn them into place.

So a job that should have taken half an hour if I sharpened the blades took about two damn hours. And a sliced thumb. No, not from sharpening, that happened when trying to get the two #*%)$(*!! jammed screws out.

And the gas bill came in today. DAMN! Almost double what it was last year at this time! I'd expected higher, it was warned of, but it's still a bloody shock. Damn hurricanes.

Speaking of hurricanes, read earlier that someone started a petition to recall the governor of Louisiana for poor performance. The Gov. was not available for comment, being in the Netherlands. Probably looking for wooden shoes for office decorations. While they're at it, they need to do something about Schoolbus Nagin. And has anything been done yet about the Chief of Police of NO? Not about the gun seizures and connected mistreatment of people, I mean about the ghost officers, and the looting officers and the deserting officers? If not, something should be done. And while we're on the subject, the dickhead I mentioned earlier still hasn't contacted my ex and daughter to repay them for the gas; somebody needs to feed parts of him to a gator, or a snapping turtle. Bastard.

Yeah, I am in a mood today.

What got my attention on gun control laws

Some people figured this stuff out early, or had it pointed out to them. I think a lot- maybe most- of us had it creep up and whack us over the head. Which is pretty much what happened to me. I'd heard bits and pieces when I was a kid; the first I actually remember was my dad and someone else talking about a measure someone had introduced in Congress to ban 'short-barreled' handguns. Dad thought it was a dumb idea, and that led to discussion of some other idiots' idea of banning ALL handguns, including for law enforcement personnel. General outcome of that discussion was Dad saying that if it happened, he'd either borrow the cut-down Winchester idea from Steve McQueen, or quit; he would not go out on patrol unarmed. I wondered what kind of jerk would want to disarm even LE, but after that it slipped out of my mind. We were visiting my grandparents, and there was fishing to do and beehives to watch and maybe some squirrels to hunt.

It continued like that for several more years, something would bring this stuff to my attention and I'd get distracted and forget it. Then one day Dad and I went to the range. Didn't get to go often at that time, so it was an occasion. Handguns only that time, Dad's sidearm and a .22 revolver(side note: I was in my early 30's before I fired a semi-auto pistol). Great fun was had, and then it hit.

I was lining up a shot when the aforementioned Truth walked up behind me with a 2x4 and swung. There were people out there who would never let us do this again! They'd take the .22, and Dad wouldn't be able to let me shoot his .357! I'd never be allowed to own a pistol, and if I had kids someday, I wouldn't be allowed to teach them to shoot them! Hell, if those people had their way, we wouldn't be allowed to own ANY firearm!!!

It's kind of hard to overstate how strong a shock this was. I'd known it intellectually, but not in my gut where it counted. I knew it now, and it scared me. And then it made me mad.

Dammit, we were honest people! We weren't going to rob or rape or murder someone, but it might be handy to have one if some criminal came along. The thought of our own government saying "You cannot be trusted to own arms" really, really pissed me off. And I joined the NRA.
And I read the magazine every month, and I started writing letters. I was a pissed and scared teenager who didn't like the idea of my basic rights being chopped up by politicians and GFWs(damn, I wish I'd known that term then!); especially when I started finding out just how crooked and hypocritical many of them were. And how arrogant and condescending others were.

So here I am. I still write letters to my Rep. and Senator; I write letters to the editor sometimes; and I talk to people. I've helped a few people start shooting, helped others with maintenance or ammo questions. I've been an on & off member of the NRA, partly because there were years I flat couldn't afford the membership and sometimes- in later years- because I was pissed at them for compromising(or compromising excessively) on something important. When I wasn't in NRA, I was in GOA after I learned about them. Yeah, they sometimes are excessive on some things; I've decided that I'd rather support that in many cases than the 'we must compromise' attitude.

And I raised my kids as gunny people. Bill of Rights people in general, actually, which led to some funny and some scary episodes. Funny when- my daughter in particular- got into arguments with teachers about the Bill, especially the 2nd and firearms in general, and either fought them to a truce or won. Scary when they found out how little most of the other kids- including in high school- knew about their rights and responsibilities, and how little many of them cared.

So on we go. They're of age now, and as I have happily found out, willing to argue the matters with people. Oh yeah, they've discovered the "if you bring up nasty facts I'll call names and go away" method of 'argument' among many GFWs and libs. We don't agree on everything; they weren't raised to be parrots. On a number of important things, however, we're in accord. And the 2nd is one of them.

Oh, being able to point out some interesting facts to a teacher and change their mind about firearms is a fun thing, too. The hippies I just wear a suitable shirt and annoy.

It has to be said:

This woman must be stopped!

So Steve mentioned he's on a diet; good so far. And the usual bitcher- helpful commenters have their say. And then.

She struck.

First, she suggested kickboxing. Ok, it does burn calories, and might be useful someday. But does she stop there? NOOOO. Then she tells him to.. it's hard to say.. she told him to QUIT DRINKING!!!

That's it. I don't care if she IS the big-ass- er, big-shot Diva blogger, Something Must Be Done!

If you've never heard of Oleg Volk,

he makes things like this:













Don't you just love it?

Check out his other stuff at A Human Right, and here at his place.

Interesting site, and a particular post

The Carnival had a link to a site I'd not seen before, the Pro-Gun Progressive. Looking through the site, found this comparing the murder rate in the U.S. to that of other countries.

Brings up a good point. Someone starts yapping about the high rate of murders involving firearms here, they either don't know about total rates, i.e. by all causes, or don't care; guns are bad and that's all that counts. Being able to point out those total numbers can really take the wind from their sails. And in the case of the really annoying GFWs, it really pisses them off, too.

"Saddam had nothing to do with terrorists"

'Bullshit' has been the proven reply to that nonsense before; now there's this:
"THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials."

As Michelle says, this is Big News, and ought to be on the front pages. Want to hold your breath until it is?

I didn't think so.

Combat stress

I'm not writing this from firsthand experience of the real thing; it's been a long time since I've been in any kind of fight. I was just thinking back on some of the descriptions of fights in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly from a writer like Yon. Just reading about this gets your system pumped up. One thing I do know is that while hard, realistic training will stress you out, nothing equals the wear and tear of a real fight. I've never been in a real life-or-death struggle(happily); and the closest I came to true combat exhaustion was from a demonstration, of all things.

I've mentioned I used to play around in the SCA. Well, one evening the local group had been asked to do a demo for some organization. The guy I was to fight was working hard at a Japanese persona, and at that time fought only with katana. We'd sparred some times before, and that night we agreed to use his chosen weapons. Time came and we got up on the stage and stood facing while we were introduced, rules explained, etc.

I had always seen SCA combat as a game. I'd never taken it seriously, seeing it as a real fight. Until tonight. For some reason, this time, I looked at Taisho and thought, "You're mine". Everything around me faded into the background; I could hear everything but only the sounds from my opponent counted, I knew where everything/everyone around me was without having to glance aside. And the fight began.

And this time it was a real fight to me. I was fairly skilled, but not taking it dead-serious kept me from getting much better. But this time, everything was focused. He was better, better than me at this style but I had him on the defensive from the start. I have no idea how long it lasted, probably no more than a minute, then I feinted him out of position and made a beautiful cross-body cut into him, and he folded and went down. I stepped back, they called me the winner, and then, I couldn't move. I mean I couldn't move; I had to lean my helmet on the sword pommel- point on the floor- to keep from falling over. Truly realistic training is much like a real battle, it drains you, and this was the first time ever in SCA combat I'd done this. I think somebody led me off the stage, at least I didn't really remember walking off. And after we both calmed down, Taisho basically said "What the hell was THAT?" I said something like "I remembered to concentrate this time" and left it at that.

I was wearing a steel helmet that probably weighed about 6-8 pounds, a padded tunic and leather and steel scale laced onto a leather backing body armor, shoulders to mid-thigh, some leather armor over arms and gauntlets for the hands. Probably about 45-50 pounds total weight, and the sword weighed about three.

What made me remember this was thinking of what our troops wear. Fatigues, and armor, often elbow and knee pads, helmet, goggles, sometimes night-vision gear. Ammo and first-aid kit and water and food and personal weapons. Sometimes a belt for the guy with the machinegun or other ammo for somebody with the heavy-weapons stuff. And so on. David Drake wrote in Fortress that what a lot of people didn't realize is that the infantry grunt carries everything he needs on his body, and hopes it's enough at the same time he's sweating to carry it all. And in real combat; real outdo the other guys, kill or die combat. I don't think I can imagine the level of stress, and the let-down at the end, when the shooting stops. And then they have to stay mobile and alert until things are secured and they're relieved...

A lot of people have said it better than I can; we OWE these people bigtime for doing what so many of us cannot for whatever reason.

Carnival of Cordite #42

The first of 2006 is up at Gullyborg, with a big backlog of gunny posts to check out.

I have to agree with Gunner,

this is it:
"For those who believe it to be outdated, the Second Amendment provides a good test of whether their allegiance is really to the Constitution of the United States, or only to their preferences in public policies and audiences."

And from the desks of Steyn and Lileks,

we have first "It's the Demography, Stupid" from Steyn. And then we have further on the message and on the mindset of those who hate and/or despise their own western culture from Lileks.

Go read them both if you haven't already.

OKC Bombing update

All the current screaming because the NSA was checking calls made internationally to specific phone numbers found on a terrorists' cellphone? How about this:

"A series of internal documents from the U.S. Secret Service obtained by this newspaper provide details of a project involving the transfer of thousands of telephone and bank records to a government database with the help of U.S. telephone and financial company executives. "

"Federal prosecutors would, over a year later, use the roadmap created by the so-called Daryl Bridges calling card to obtain convictions in the Denver federal trials of McVeigh and Nichols. However, during each trial there was scant mention of any role played by Riley or the Secret Service in obtaining the phone records.

Instead, a series of FBI agents and phone company executives would take the stand to tell jurors a much more “sanitized” version of how the records were obtained.

At no time did the government admit that federal agents were able to obtain thousands of unsuspecting Americans’ phone and bank records without their knowledge, nor did the government show a court any evidence that these citizens had done anything illegal."

Gee, I thought all was wonderfulness and light before the Eeeville Bushymacchimphitler took office?

If this is true, Britain's gone through the toilet

And is reaching the pond.

Update: I found this link at No Quarters; this crap is for real. Here's his post on it.


" Police in the United Kingdom have now been authorized to arrest anyone at any time for any reason, according to the UK Telegraph."

Civil liberties? What are those?

"Before the law changes, police were able to arrest suspects only if the police had reason to believe that the suspects were going to commit a crime punishable by at least five years of jail. Those restrictions have been dropped such that police can now arrest and detain anyone that they think might commit any type of crime. Police will still have to file a report explaining why they thought arresting someone was necessary."

I looked over the Telegraph site for more information and couldn't find reference to this. I did, however, find this:
"The government was accused last night of compiling a national DNA database "by stealth" as police reported a rapid increase in genetic profiling in recent years." Sound interesting?
"The growth in the UK database has followed several legal changes allowing the DNA taken from people who are acquitted, or arrested and questioned but never charged - or even cautioned - to be retained indefinitely.

No other country gives its police greater freedom to obtain, use and store genetic information and most remove the profiles if the person is acquitted or not charged."

Near the end it has this from the Home Office minister:"

Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, said: "It is vital that the police are equipped with the powers they need to enable them to do their jobs properly and effectively. The powers need to be updated to reflect modern policing priorities and the changing nature of criminal activity.

"We need to maintain the crucial balance between the powers of the police and an individual's rights.

"The introduction of a single, rationalised power of arrest simplifies arrest powers and requires the police officer to consider the necessity of the arrest." Yeah, it really simplifies things when you can bust someone you think, might, commit any type of crime.

Combine this with the ever-increasing video surveillance, and the plan to track every motor vehicle all the time... If you're planning a trip to Formerly Great Britain, be damn careful when you're there.

I think it may have been Cowboy Blob who started the 'first gun' stuff lately. I don't have the first one I bought, but I do have the second:














Ruger New Model Super Single-Six, to use the whole name. 5.5" barrel, adjustable sights, and came with both .22LR and .22 Magnum cylinders. Like Cowboy, I wasn't old enough to buy it myself, Dad did the honors there, and I've had it ever since. Not too many magnums have been fired(I was always short of money, and they's expensive), but I have no idea how many long rifle cartridges have gone down the bore. When I first heard of them, I wanted to get a Wolff spring kit to lighten the trigger, but a: didn't have the money then, either and b: since then just never got around to it. Realistically, wouldn't make a lot of difference; the trigger has a bit of creep, but it's not heavy, and someday I'll get around to taking it apart and polishing things.

Nicely accurate, and solid in the hand. I found a holster that fit, and used it to carry it on fishing and camping trips and hikes. Barring disaster, it'll go to the kids to argue over someday.

The first gun? Marlin Model 60 .22 rifle. I don't have it because it belongs to my daughter now.

And for a better level of reporting from New Orleans,

go here.

Can they tar and feather the judge?

After hanging the bastard?

"A Williston man who admitted repeatedly sexually assaulting a young girl for four years was sentenced Wednesday to spend 60 days in prison -- a punishment that angered the victim's family but was defended by the judge as the only way to provide counseling for the perpetrator."

And when the prosecutor asked for at least an eight-year sentance? "Cashman, though, told the crowded courtroom that punishment was not his priority in sentencing Hulett, but rather finding treatment for the man to prevent future abuse."

How about this, judge; you could prevent future abuse by LOCKING HIS ASS UP FOR A LONG DAMN TIME! He repeated his crime over FOUR YEARS, YOU IDIOT! He RAPED the kid over and over and over, and YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT HIM GETTING COUNSELING?!?!?

This is the kind of thing tar and feathers exist in tandem for. And a nice, splintery rail, too. It's hard to imagine anything else as vile as what this walking piece of trash did; and it's hard to believe a rational adult could do something as idiotically PC as this worthless excuse for a judge did.

And you know what? If a family member of the kid beat the crap out of the molester, let alone hanged him as he deserves, this jackass jurist would probably want them imprisoned for life; after all, the 'justice system' had dealt with the miscreant, right?

God, it's enough to make you dig up pitchforks and torches.

Book Review

Through The Crosshairs, by Andy Dougan

Found this at the library, and decided to give it a try. It's about snipers and their craft. And it does have some good bits and pieces of history. Unfortunately, it suffers from two faults: first, the guy obviously read a lot of references, but never actually learned enough about the subject to tell good info from crap; and second, he occasionally lets political bias into his writing.

The major problem is not being able to sift crap from good information. Best way to cover this is to give some quotes from the book.

On the problem of the musket ball: "Additionally the soft lead ball itself had a tendancy to deform as it traveled through the air, meaning that it lost power and accuracy in flight... Sometimes musket balls ended up as no more than flattened lumps of metal that scarcely broke the skin of their intended targets."(page 85)

On German snipers in WWI: "...using rifles with muzzle velocities of around 3,000 feet per second - more than twice the speed of the deadly Mauser of twenty years earlier."(page 165). I never knew a 7mm Mauser only had a MV of 1500fps.

Referring to the 8mm Mauser: "The bullets had hard metal jackets and were larger than the Minie' ball - about three-tenths of an inch in diameter, or .30 caliber"(page 153). Considering the Minie' ball was, in the arms he speaks of, .57 or .58 caliber, I think he needs a ruler.

And one of the really good ones. Most of you have heard of the Snipers Triangle; his definition of how it's used is priceless: "The sniper wants to place himself on high ground or in a sufficiently elevated position to be shooting down on his target. If he misses the clean head shot then the bullet should still travel through the head, down through the neck, along the long axis of the body, through the heart and out of the back. This vastly increases the chances of hitting a major organ such as the heart or liver or severing an artery."(page 252-253)

And so on. I think he must have taken some things he read or heard of and come up with his own ideas on how things work; that last bit, for instance. Either that or he swallowed the hook, line and sinker when someone threw him a line of BS.

The political bias doesn't show that often, but the time that pissed me off was a reference to a mission of Sgt. Carlos Hathcock in Vietnam. He'd been sent out to kill a Frenchman who was helping the North, among other ways by torturing American prisoners for information. Hathcock made the shot, and this jerk's opinion is "Whatever the Frenchman's crimes - and they may have included the torturing of captives - Hathcock's mission was an act of sniping as terrorism."(page 252). It takes a real friggin' idiot to pop out with this.

Overall, I'd have to say give it a pass. There are lots better books out there on the subject.

Note: I will give him this, he reminded me of something. At the Battle of Saratoga, Daniel Morgan gave the order for a British general trying to rally his men to be shot. The official words are "That gallant officer is General Fraser", he said. "I admire him, but it is necessary that he should die. Do your duty." Considering what is known of Morgan, he more likely said "You see that bastard on the gray horse? Kill him." In any case, Timothy Murphy climbed a tree for a better line of sight and did the job nicely.

Ok, guys, get ready to drool

Range report, 1903-A3

Today, being the first day since I got this thing that a: the weather is decent, b: I'm not at work and c: I had time, I took it out to try at 100 yards. To refresh your memory of which I speak,














Yeah, it's kind of washed out. January, low sun, no helping it. That white thing over the rear sight is bacause of the angle; I was getting a LOT of glare into the sight, so I taped a piece of target paper up as a shade. Which worked very well. Wind was a bit gusty, too.

I tried this with both the Korean M2 ball which works so well in my M1, and- having gotten myself some for Christmas- some Greek ball I ordered from CMP. Both hit at the same point of aim so far as I can tell, and gave pretty much identical accuracy.

I fired about 40 rounds total, and saved three targets. Some were not in the 'bragging' category, but that went away when I made the sight shade. Which gave me this:















The group on the left was the first three, I checked them through the scope, adjusted windage, and shot the next two. Adjusted, then fired the next target, lower three first, then the next two:















Note that while I strung the first three vertically, the horizontal dispersion is damn near zero.
Which made me very happy. This rifle, with standard ball, will shoot minute of angle or better; not sometimes, but every time when the guy shooting it does his part. I'm really tempted to get some match bullets and work on some loads, for it and the M1 both. And I need to find a place with a longer range, I'd really like to try this at 200 & 300.

I'm saving this target for last because, though I like it, I can't repeat it. Not so far, at least. This is right after I made the sunshade, and it's three shots. The first and third are the one hole at the left:














Honest and for true, I swear it! The second wasn't a surprise, I thought I'd pulled it. After the third I used the spotting scope, and couldn't figure out where the third round went, so I walked down and checked it. That hole is just slightly out of round, which flat amazed me.

Not bad for a rifle built in 1943.

What's YOUR worst/best New Years?

Steve having made his contribution to the mental health of his readers this morning, it made me remember the one time I didn't wake up the proverbial bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

A few years ago I was invited to a New Years party in Dallas. I took a bottle of whiskey as my contribution to things, and on the evening off we went(staying with friends, one of whom didn't drink, hell NO I wasn't driving). Party went very nicely until...

Most of the people there are Rennies(i.e., people who work at/live for Renaissance fairs), and were generally good people(Mouthfull, where are you now?). Great fun was had by all, the host took note of the fact that I spoke better English after some booze than I did sober, and somebody kept topping up my drink. With straight whiskey. Late in the evening, a while before midnight as I recall, I was sitting in a corner, halfway dozing; very drunk, and very aware that if I sat there a while and drank nothing more but water or tea I'd be fine. FINE, I tell you. And then a couple of people(man and woman, and later I could not remember who) started talking about the bit the woman was working on to gross out patrons(people who just come to the fair, wear regular clothes, i.e. normal people, though they wouldn't have put it that way).

I can't remember what the hell she came up with, I just remember that it was so bloody gross that after about ten minutes I arose fairly unsteadily from my nice, comfortable, warm corner and headed for the bathroom. Which luckily was empty. Where I proceeded to involuntarity purge my system of what seemed like everything except my lower intestines. Apparently noisily because when I left the host was at the door inquiring as to whether medical attention was needed.

I assured him no, just water. NOW, please. Which he did provide, and which I drank a damn lot of. By this time it was just about midnight, and I was in much better shape than I'd have expected, and the toast(beer passed around in a by God drinking horn) I did not have to bypass. Then I was (probably, this is a bit fuzzy) guided to the car and we went home.

The folks I stayed with had a big two-bedroom house, big bedrooms, but one was given over entirely to an office/workspace for jewelry work, so they had a cot in the attic for visitors. Not bad at all, actually; the heater was up there, it was warm and the cot was comfortable, it both gave me a place to stay and allowed people the chance to refer to me as the odd relative who lived in the attic. God knows how I made it up the ladder, but I did.

Came the morning, and probably because of all the water I'd had I did NOT have a hangover, but I didn't feel quite right, either. So I sat up and contemplated the universe until it occurred to me that food might be a good idea. So I dressed and went downladder, and happily it was only a short time after that my hosts came dragging out. I looked at them and suggested "Food?". They paused, hubby said that sounded like a good idea, so they dressed and off we went.

There's a chain in the Fort Worth area called Beefers, and they served breadfast until 2 p.m. on New Years, so there we went. No, it wasn't 1:30, only about 10:30. I got the BIG breakfast, as I recall a small chicken-fried steak, and hash browns, and two over easy, and a biscuit and gravy. And the Lord did smile upon me, for I took the first bite and a feeling of peace came over me, and all was right with the world. And I sat there and attacked my plate. About halfway through I looked across the table at wifey, who was leaning her head on one hand while she poked at her plate with the other; she turned barely-open eyes at me and asked, in a cracked voice, "How can you eat at a time like this?".

That was my worst awakening that had anything to do with booze, amazingly. Especially considering my mood for quite a while after my divorce. As of now, I've never woke up with a hangover. Never. A little fuzzy a couple of times, but nothing some liquid and food didn't take care of. I have aided some friends through the aftermath of one, and it's made me very happy to have avoided that particular experience.

And Steve? I had to work the day before AND New Years, so I had reason(besides not wanting to be on the road with a bunch of idiots and/or drunks) to wake up clear-eyed, as us virtuous folk do. So yell away.

(but if I'm nice, can I come to ManCamp someday? Please? I'll bring good scotch, I promise)

Ref New Orleans and the confiscations

Over at Xavier Thoughts found this on the matter. It's got some bits I hadn't heard, and reminded me of some I had.

When I first heard about this crap, one of the quotes was from a National Guardsman from- I'm ashamed to say- Oklahoma, saying something like "I never thought it would come to this, but we're doing it". It took a certain amount of restraint to keep from calling the OK headquarters for these people and asking what the hell they train these people to do? that they'll follow orders like this. The thought occurred that we took drastic action about 60 years ago against a bunch of people who used "I had to follow orders" as an excuse.

That's not counting the various law enforcement 'professionals' who, as Xavier put it, showed once and for all just what a lot of them think of the Constitution and their oath. I've been around LE for most of my life, and I've been bothered many times by things done. This is up at the top of the list.

Xavier is right, we need to keep this in mind and keep it up as a subject. Lawsuits have been filed, but you can bet that the major media will, if they can, say not a damn word about it. If, as Xavier says, some bubbas in LA doubt it actually happened, there's a real damn problem with public memory and care about our rights.

Additional: remember the gun show in VA where ATF agents and local LE were illegally taking information from NICS sheets and going to people's homes to question relatives and/or neighbors about them? I had heard the show organizers were going to file suit; anyone know if they did? This is ANOTHER one that's slipped out of mind, and shouldn't.

Holidays involving balloons

and cats(Surprise, Aciddude!)

























If you don't check out Two Lumps, you should

This is kind of amazing...

Sometime in the next couple of days, I'm gonna hit 30,000.

To think that seven people could look back here that many times is really something. And a little strange, is this ALL you people do?

In any case, yay me!

Happy Early New Year! Again!

And start it off right; you have GOT to read this!

Tactical Tommy Goes to the Store, courtesy of the Texican Tattler.

Found through the good offices of Uncle.

Another wonderful piece from Michael Crichton

Couple of years ago he wrote a book called State of Fear about the enviroweenies working to scare us all to death, to try to force us into doing what they want. I wrote about that book and a speech he gave, and it got me some of the more passionate comments I've had; all from people who insisted global warming was real, a true danger, etc. Mind you, I didn't mind the comments, with one exception they actually argued their point without insult or name-calling.

Well, Clayton Cramer linked to a speech by Crichton on Fear, Complexity & Environmental Management in the 21st Century. It's a wonderful piece, which touches on:
Just how wrong the predictions were about the impact of Chernobyl;
How people can 'believe' themselves to death;
More predictions of "We're all gonna DIE!" that were/are wrong;
And just how much we don't know how to manage nature.

(Ref the last, in 1987 Playing God in Yellowstone came out, about that exact subject. Well worth the read)

And, just to enrage the enviroweenies and Indians-as-God fetishists, both Crichton's speech and the book take note of the ways in which the first immigrants managed land and animals, fire being one of their main tools.

Go read the speech, at least; you'll be glad you did.

There's no other way to put this

Fucking Barbarians

I don't care about their 'culture' and 'social mores', that this is considered a normal and proper thing in so much of the muslim world marks them as such.

"Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn't want them to do the same when they grew up."

I repeat, fucking barbarians. And if the muslim community doesn't like being thought of as such, then a: speak out against this crap, and b: STOP IT!

Remember Sacco & Vanzetti?

I do. It was a case I remember several teachers hitting on in school and college. A marvelous example of the unfairness and bigotry of our system, the teachers said. Except that they were guilty as hell, as noted in the article that Red State links to.

I haven't read the L.A. Times article, as it requires registration. However, Betsy has some excerpts from a letter written by Upton Sinclair:
"Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the full truth," Sinclair wrote. " … He then told me that the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them." and

"But the fearless Sinclair was left a conflicted man by what Sacco and Vanzetti's lawyer — and later others in the anarchist movement — told him."

Fearless?
"My wife is absolutely certain that if I tell what I believe, I will be called a traitor to the movement and may not live to finish the book," Sinclair wrote Robert Minor, a confidant at the Socialist Daily Worker in New York, in 1927."
"He also worried that revealing what he had been told would cost him readers. "It is much better copy as a naïve defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public," he wrote to Minor."

So the 'fearless' Mr. Sinclair wrote a book painting the two as railroaded innocents even though he knew they were guilty and had said he was going to "write the truth about the case."

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Tsunami, a year later

While I was visiting my folks saw two shows, one specifically about the tsunami, the other one of the Discovery Channel "Here's what's going to kill you next!" shows. The second had good points, including a team scouting the sea floor around the fault area and finding some really amazing evidence of how strong the quake was and precisely how it generated the tsunami.

The first had a lot of video I hadn't seen before, and some of it was scary as hell. Most of the early stuff I saw either was from areas where the wave height wasn't that great, or you just couldn't tell because of angle, obstacles to view, etc. Some of this showed the proverbial 'wall of water' slamming in. One was from a beach where when the water pulled out, a lot of people went to the beach to see; you can hear the two people shooting it talking, finally one says 'tsunami', and finally someone realizes what's about to happen when they see the wave building in the distance and started yelling, too late. One guy who must not have believed what he was seeing was still standing on the beach when it hit him.

One from Banda Aceh showed a city street when the water started up. The first like a spill moving up, then deeper with timbers and cars and bicycles and people rushing along at(I'd guess) a good 20 mph. A couple of guys who'd been caught actually jumping along the mass of wreckage until they were able to jump onto some stuff trapped against a building and made it to safety.

I think the worst was someone shooting from the second or third story of a hotel; a half-dozen women were in the lee of a small building trying to hold on. The photographer zoomed in on one for a few moments; she was screaming and trying to hold on to another woman, then the photographer zoomed back out, and a few seconds later those two were swept away.

And then the aftermath. Women screaming and crying over the bodies of their children, men and women and children carrying bodies, children looking around for families they'll never see again. A guy sitting beside his bicycle. Apparently he'd been somewhere else when it hit and hurried home. You didn't really need the translation; "My family is gone. I'm the only one left. Why has God abandoned me?" The despair in that voice was enough to give you nightmares all by itself.

A quarter of a million dead. Something like 50,000 missing. People saying they'll not believe their family is dead until they see the bodies, which means never.

A few years ago an F5 tornado passed nearby, thanks to modern forecasting and chasers only a few died in a storm with winds of 319mph(I drove through an area that took the full brunt about two weeks later; pictures cannot do justice to the sight). The Gulf coast states take hurricanes every year, some of which can be terrible. Blizzards can still, forecasting or no, slam you with little warning. Rogue waves on the ocean can destroy ships. Earthquakes, almost always with no warning. Volcanos can sit rumbling and making people nervous for months and do nothing else, or can go from the first quakes to full eruption in days and kill thousands. Remember Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia? Actually not much of an eruption, but the mudflows it generated killed tens of thousands.

I can't remember who, but when I was little I heard or read someone saying about any body of water "If you don't respect it, it can kill you without a moments notice, and the water won't care". That pretty much goes for much of the planet and many of the creatures on it. Spiders and snakes and sharks and blue-ringed octopi and lions and hyenas and buffalo and fish and cattle and pigs and dogs and so on. But normally- make that 'usually'- they don't whack people in such numbers.

I still remember one picture from the days after the wave. One baby's hand sticking out of some rubble. I pretty much summed it up.

Note: Michelle Malkin has this link to Storm Track, which links to some of the videos.

Happy Early New Year!

Just in case I forget later.

Remember I said I don't like working on ladders and roofs? Went down to see my folks the past couple of days and helped Dad take down the last of that tree we'd worked on before. Wasn't a lot left, and we got all we needed to cut before the wind got really nasty yesterday. Very happily without me falling from any great height.

I am trying to decide what to do, if anything, for New Years. Most of the folks I know don't go out to party, and I don't particularly enjoy spending the evening around a bunch of noisy drunks. I also have a great dislike of driving while some of these fools are on the road; I drive a truck, not a light armored vehicle. At this point I think I'll stay home and drink a little good stuff.

That's another factor; for what three or four drinks cost anymore, I can buy a bottle of good whiskey. So I don't generally drink when I go out, other than a beer or two in some cases.

Well, it's still a couple of days away. We'll see what turns up.

This is a lousy thing to go into on this day,

but I have to.

I've only been over at Junkyard Blog a couple of times; no idea why not more often. Today I clicked over there, and found this post about Spielberg's new movie. I'd already heard enough about it to know I'll not put money in his pocket by seeing it; he also linked to this article which has a pretty good critique of Spielberg's point of view and the movie, and some in-depth information about the murders in Munich and what led up to them than I'd not seen before. It also has some information about the aftermath, in specific:

I remember hearing some at the time of the hijacking of a German airliner by Palistinians who wanted the three terrorists who'd been captured released. They were released. This is something I never heard a hint of before now:
"In the course of the making of the documentary film and writing of the book One Day in September, it was revealed that the hijacking had been set up between Black September and the German government."

Read it all. Then remember that the German government just released the terrorist who'd murderered an American, refusing us any opportunity to extradite him. And the damn Lebanese government, who held him for a short time, turned him loose.

Some things seem to hold true over time. One is that we can't trust many governments to give a rat's ass about what terrorists do to Israeli and American citazens; if they do care, it's only enough to give themselves some cover.

The other? Never trust those people to do something about the terrorists. A bit unfair? Maybe for some people over there, but recent history has shown that too many people in too many positions of power actually seem to delight in our people being murdered.

I didn't know squat about politics at the time of the Munich murders; I did know that when I heard later the Israeli's were hunting down the guilty and killing them, I thought "Good!". Looks like we need to have some people going hunting, too.

Merry Christmas to all!

Or Happy Solstice, or Happy Day Off Work or whatever. That doesn't cover it? Screw you, just be happy.

My present for you is this for the devoted of the 1911:












(found in a post at The High Road)

All hail the fish!

I just checked my status at Truth Laid Bear, and I'm now a Flippery Fish.

Whatever the hell that means.

Hey, Sondra, wanna bass around?

Over at Moral Flexibility found this post on the 'get out of the country' response by a bigshot Liberal politician to an upset sport shooter. Down in the comments found an interesting piece of crap. I left a comment, but apparently it didn't meet with the moderator's approval, so I'll do it here:
I must admit I have to chuckle every time I hear an American brag about their vaunted liberties and freedoms. Yes, I’m sure that if you’re white, rich and well-connected, America can be a great place to live.
Yeah, that explains all the rich white Mexicans and everybody else crawling over each other to get here.

Certainly, Canada is not without its own problems. But, unlike the U.S. Constitution, which is being progressively eroded (especially with respect to the First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments) by expedient legislation such as the ‘Patriot Act’, Canadians’ rights under our Charter remain largely intact.

"Largely intact"? Like a previous mention of private property rights basically being written out of the Charter by Trudeau? And the current crap going on? Ok.

I still have confidence that I won’t be rousted off an inter-city bus by armed constabulary at 3:00 a.m. for an unreasonable search, as happened to me in Arkansas last year. Admittedly, as an alien, I could claim no protection under your Constitution, but I watched as several dozen Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights were flagrantly violated. Presumably with impunity, because they were black, poor and politically unconnected.

Not having any knowledge of the incident you speak of, I'll only comment that based on your other comments, I have great suspicion that what you describe leaves a lot out.

By most objective international standards, the quality of life in the US is on the decline. As the gulf between the rich and poor widens, as compromises in personal freedoms are introduced in the name of ‘national security’, as political corruption continues largely unabated, claims of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ ring somewhat hollow.

Hee, I guess compared to the gentle social life in France, and the huge unemployment, and the people being murdered by Islamists, our lives must seem pretty bad. Though I keep reading about middle-class people in other countries who want to live like the 'poor' do here, and most millionairs here are self-made, so I must be missing something. Like just what your 'objective international standards' are. Political corruption? You mean like the finance and bribery scandals that got your PM and party a no-confidence vote? Guess we'll have to work harder to live down to your standards.

Claims of democracy are hollow without an informed electorate, a viable and free press and freedom from censorship. America has now dropped to forty-fourth place in the world in terms of freedom of the press (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders)

If I remember right, this is one of those organizations that think Castro and his little buttmonkey in Venezuela are wonders; so screw their opinion.

America’s record on human rights abuses has become a scandal (http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/usa-summary-eng), it now leads the world in incarceration rates (http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/pub9036.pdf),
continues to slip on the UN’s ‘Human Development Index’, falling to tenth place in 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index), largely reflecting its levels of poverty and inequality.

To quote somebody in the comments, I wouldn't cross the street to piss on Amnesty International; they suck up to every anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-Jewish weenie in the world. Screw them too.

America is a great nation. But it could be a true world leader with a rational foreign policy and improved social equality for its citizens.

First, we're a great nation party BECAUSE we don't have what you probably define as a 'rational foreign policy', which probably means "hand over the keys to the UN and EU and let them run your lives". And 'improved social equality' tends to be code for 'socialist control of the country and everyone/everything in it; no thank you, we've seen how that crap works in other places. So you just go ahead and feel superior; I'm sure the terrorists and sympathizers your current government has let into the country will get to you eventually.

Jackass.

Ok, this is NOT a cheery day

Found a post over at Clayton Cramer's on- ready?-
"Around the holidays, the biggest challenge for many theater companies is convincing audiences to care about yet another staging of "A Christmas Carol." This season in Atlanta, however, Actor's Express wants to stir up buzz about a less familiar property -- namely, a pedophile musical."

Somehow, I don't think 'stirring up a buzz' about this will be a problem.

On the upside, some of the real pedophiles are really, really stupid.

And so much for my hopes for Lebanon

Found this at Little Green Footballs.

I just love this from the Lebanese PM:"“Originally they (the U.S. government) could have requested that Germany hand him over. Why are they asking us?” Siniora told reporters. “He served his sentence in Germany and there are measures that will be completed in Lebanon ... Why are they asking us now?”

We DID ask the krauts, you little bastard, as you damn well know, and they turned the dirtbag loose anyway; THAT'S why we asked you!!

Apparently all the murders and bombings and etc. by this bastard and his friends weren't enough to sour the Lebanese- at least the politicians- on giving cover to them.

And some people from New Orleans really are dickheads

Yeah, my language is going downhill; sometimes I don't care.

About three months ago my ex agreed to let a guy from NO who was about to lose his hotel room stay at her house. I wasn't thrilled(my daughter still lives there), but a: I was assured that he was on the list of people who'd been checked out and b: I had no say in it anyway. Seemed like a decent sort after I'd met him.

About a month ago he got word he had a FEMA trailer and a job waiting for him, the trailer for use 'till his house settlement was sorted out. He needed to get back quickly, the buses and airlines were full-up, so they agreed to drive him back. He promised to pay back the gas money.

No money arrived, and my daughter told me the other day that the dickhead has changed his phone number. So no address, no phone number, and a Louisiana dickhead cheated them out of money they couldn't afford to lose.

I just LOVE people sometimes.

Update on the slimy Krauts action

More accurately, the followup; Lebanese authorities grabbed the scum-sucking waste-of-oxygen terrorist when he landed. So at this point the little pile of pig crap isn't getting backslapped by his Hezbollah buddies, and there's a fair chance he'll be extradited for trial here.

I'm thinking after we fry him, we bury the body in something appropriate, or in an appropriate place. Like a latrine, or a hog farm.

And to the German authorities: you suck. You suck so hard there's an imitation black hole in northern Europe. You sucked up to Saddam, you sold out to him, and now you sold out to a bunch of murdering terrorists. Fuck you and all your little socialist brethren, and I hope it'll be a cold day in three hells before we give you one hand out of the mess you've dug yourselves into.

Oh, Germany?

You can kiss our collective ass

Let's see, sucking up to Saddam, violating the sanctions you said 'needed more time to work', selling him weapons and tech... check. Releasing a terrorist murderer sentanced to 'life', even though there's a waiting request for his extradition from us? Check. Sitting with France and Russia and calling us names and undercutting us in the war? Check.

Yeah, you can kiss our ass. Assuming we don't give a great big crap on you when you try, you gutless collection of socialist assholes.

But I repeat myself.

About the fudge,

Kevin asked, so,

1.5 cup sugar
2/3 cup (5 oz.) evaporated milk
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups mini-marshmallows
1.5 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla

Line a 8x8" pan with foil.
Combine the sugar, milk, butter and salt in a(preferably) non-stick saucepan. Heat until it's melted, then bring it to a full boil. You have to keep it at the boil for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat, stir in everything else and keep stirring 'till all the marshmallows & chips are melted and mixed in.
Pour into the pan, spread it out level, and let it cool. Then refrigerate for at least two hours. After that you should be able to remove it, peel off the foil and cut it up. Then proceed to torture friends and family with it.

I didn't have a pan that size, so I bought some of the cheap foil pans(3/$1) and used that without lining. With luck, the slab, when cold, will pop out and you can reuse the pan.

Screw the '1/2 cup pecans', I used 2 cups in the last batch, and it came out great. If you don't like that many, cut it back. Up to you.

And I'd suggest getting all the stuff ready in a bowl or two so you can just dump it in when you take the pot off the heat; the cooler it gets, the harder it is to mix up.

Oh, Canada,

you're determined to follow Britain down the toilet, aren't you?

Lots of gunbloggers(the Geek here, for instance) have been pointing at the promise(threat?) by Prime Minister Martin that if his Liberal party wins the next election he'll move to ban handguns. This is, of course, after years of telling people "registration has nothing to do with eventual confiscation, nothing at all!". Which, of course, was bull; it's the same with these clowns as with the VPC and Brady group weenies here, lie about what you want to do so you can do it a little at a time.

And the Liberal party has pretty much made it clear what it thinks of anyone who disagrees that this is a good idea, one of their weenies telling an upset voter "take your NRA gun loving ass back to the U.S. where you belong".

For anyone tempted by the though of "Well, if we give a little it won't be too bad, and what's so horrible about having to have a license to own firearms?", I give you this from Moral Flexability:
"My original thought was that a registry, assuming the government doesn’t have a hidden agenda seeking to disarm the populace, was not a bad idea. Owners should be licenced and the firearms should be registered. Much like vehicles. For the few million price tag originally forcast, it seemed like a good idea.

Even in my short time as a recreational shooter and gun owner I’ve watched the “incremental approach” you’ve described begin it’s magic, No more I say. Moderation has entirely failed to serve the firearms owners of this country."

In EVERY CASE I have ever read of, registration HAS been followed by confiscation, either of a particular type of firearm(as a start) or as a blanket thing. Hell, look what happened in California with the registry of 'assault weapons'(all for the public safety, of course). SKS owners were assured their rifles were clear, then about a year later the AG changed his mind and added them to the banned list. And it goes on from there.

The only reason for registration of firearms is to a: make it more difficult/expensive to own them and b: to make it easier to confiscate them down the road. Period. People like Sen. Schumer here make speeches on news shows about how he's only for 'common-sense gun safety laws', but when speaking to the believers he says every law is only a step toward a total ban. If they say it's about crime, they're lying; I've had a couple of people admit it would do nothing toward stopping crime, they just don't think gun ownership should be allowed.

And 'compromising' with those people always means one thing: you lose.

Ok, this stuff is GOOD!

I tried making some fudge for the first time a while back. Got the recipe from my daughter, and made two changes; added more pecans and used some different chocolate chips.

I found some Ghirardelli chips that are 60% cocoa, and I'd intended to make cookies to try them out. Instead, I used them for the fudge.

Oh, this is almost as good as I remember sex to be. I mean DAMN, it's good stuff.

A lady I work with found out about a month ago- about two months after her husband's last leave- that she's pregnant: Good Thing. Bad Things: hubby is back over in the sandbox, and she's been having morning sickness. So I took some for her to try(have you ever met a woman that chocolate didn't cheer up at least a little?), and she's implied it helps the sickness. I'm not sure, I think she's just using that to guilt me into bringing more in.

The place I found the chips no longer has them, but I found another that carries big bags at a good price, so I've got fudge makings for a while. They make good cookies, too; you can taste a definate difference from the chips I usually use, but it's a good difference.

Dammit, now I want some. Fudge, I mean.

Well, sex too, but there's fudge in the house. Damn, I need to get out more.

Some more news on the OKC Bombing comes out

KTOK reported this a few days ago:
"The McCurtain Daily Gazette reports today government documents show a US spy satellite targeted the eastern Oklahoma compound called Elohim city after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing."

You know, the compound that various feds said- under oath in court- they were never interested in, didn't know anything about in relation to the bombing? That one?

KTOK has a link to the article, but I can't get it to come up right now. The Gazette's site has an archive to their articles on this mess here, though.

Books

Not in general, a specific series.

Glen Cook is a pretty good writer. I know his work mostly from two series, The Black Company and the one I'm talking about now, The Garrett Files. Garrett is an ex-marine earning a living as a private agent in a city called TunFaire. There's lots of PI's out there, but his world has some differences: magic works, and there are elves of various breeds and ogres and dwarves out there; mixed with pretty women and villains most vile. His partner is The Dead Man. Literally. Well, not a man, but a Loghyr, a species that has several differences from humans, including a: when dead it takes a long time for their body to decay and b: when killed, sometimes their spirit doesn't go away; it stays with the body, sometimes for a long time.

It's what I used to hear referred to as sword & sorcery fiction, though with the storylines I guess you could call it sword & sorcery mysteries. I like them. Garrett is a believable character, and he's not the only one. The magic is often a factor in a story, but it's not there simply to make a complication, it's part of the story.

The first few aren't in print now that I know of, but they can often be found used(Sweet Silver Blues, for instance). Happily, they do well as standalone stories, not requiring you to read them in sequence.

You get a chance, check them out; you just might like them.

If you're looking for an SKS,

I just had a chance to look at one in from Interordnance, one of their 'M-59/66 SKS Rifle- Excellent w/Excellent Bore'. Man, they're not kidding; the bore was spotless, the finish on the metal parts really was like new, the stock had a couple of small dings and that's it. And all the numbers matched on this one. And it came with all the accessories; sling, oiler, ammo pouch and cleaning kit.

Speaking of guitars...

If you're not, I am. Well, Steve and Acidman started it.

Shortly after my first divorce(and crap, that still hurts at times to say), I wound up hitting some Renaissance fairs, and it reminded me how much I liked traditional and folk music. So I looked around, and in a wonderful shop called The Irate Musician(sadly, gone now) I found this:















It's a Fender 12-string. I hadn't played a guitar in many years, and it's a bit larger and heavier than a 6-string, but I fell in love with the sound. So there went my 'spare money'. In the years to come I spent I have no idea how many hours with it. I bought some music books, and copied pages from library books, and after I discovered the Internet(shut up) I printed out stuff I found there. And I played, at times until my fingers hurt too much to continue.

Years later I started going to a bar that had an open mike night, and finally tried performing. While there are things I can do in front of a crowd without a second thought, this wasn't one of them. Absolutely bloody awful the first time, marginally better the second, and it got easier after that. A guy I met at another bar(Brian MacFarland down in Norman; handmakes some of the best damn guitars you'll ever see or play) installed a pickup for me(trying to sing and play through one mike don't work too well), and that's the only mod ever done to it. This instrument helped me get through some bad times, and the only place it'll ever go is to one of my kids.

The other is a Tacoma 6-string cutaway:














A few years ago I was visiting my folks and hit the music stores in Lawton, and in one found this. If you've never seen one, they've got a very thin body and marvelous sound, and it played very well. On sale, even. For far more than I had. So I went home without it.

About two weeks later I was down in Texas and told some friends about it. Apparently my enthusiasm showed through because Brian asked "Where is it?" Still in the store. "Why?" asked Beverly. Cost. "Uh huh" she said. You'd have to hear her say that to understand.

Two weeks later, on a Saturday, I called Dad and asked him to call the music store and see if they still had it. Turned out the sale was going off that day, and they had one left, and if I was interested they'd hold it- at the sale price- until Monday for me. Uh huh. So I got off work at 9 Monday morning, drove a hundred miles, identified myself to the staff as the idiot who'd relayed a request for them to hold the Tacoma, and they smiled and said "Oh, yes!" and brought it out. And I sat there and played a few minutes, and surrendered. Which in this case means "here's my card, please be gentle". Took her to my folks house to show them what I'd bought(they also fed me lunch), and I've been very happy I spent the money. Apparently just in time, because when I looked at the Tacoma site and other stores, I never saw that model again.

Them's my instruments. I've started practicing regularly again, Fender and Tac alternate evenings, or just the Tac when my hands are bothering me. I'll never give a run to the memory of Stevie Ray, or equal some of the players I've met, but I do love playing them.

On my previous post,

James over at Hell In A Handbasket(nice place if you've never been there) had a long comment that he posted at his place, here. My response is as follows:

"Don't disagree with you. I do NOT take it on faith that anyone with such feelings toward kids is just 'biding their time'. I don't assume that they're automatically a criminal.

I do state flatly that anyone with such feelings has a problem, and they creep me out. No apologies, and I don't think anyone is going to change my mind.

My big concern is that there really are people actively working toward decriminalizing child molestation. Or as they tend to call it 'adult-child sex'. THAT scares hell out of me."

That about covers it. It IS possible for a pedophile to be, call it 'non-practicing', and if they remain so they're creepy but not criminals. I can't help it; if I knew someone like that, I'd try to never let kids be alone with them, and they'd make me very nervous.

My big concern, as I say, is the people who want to 'normalize' it, and who do actively want to decriminalize raping kids. There's not a lot of them, but there's far too many for comfort. And I guess this is something I'll never be cold and rational about.

Ok, things are definately going to hell

Over at Clayton Cramer I found a link to this:
I am tired of being forced into the shadows by society," Ashford said recently in an e-mail interview. "I have committed no crime, therefore there is no good reason that I should have to hide myself. As long as pedophiles continue to hide, there is no chance of them ever being accepted."

The whole article is about how pedophiles are 'misunderstood' and 'not accepted' by society. And how they would like to be accepted because they're not child molesters, they're 'just' pedophiles.

I doubt very much I even have to say this to anyone who reads my bloviating, but: Not a chance in hell, guy. Not ever unless this society goes totally to hell. And if that happens, your problem won't be arrest, it'll be being hanged or shot when you touch someone's kid. If you are sexually attracted to children, you have a serious problem whether you want to admit it or not; if you act on it, it may well be a terminal problem. There's a guy I work with who's homosexual, and we've had arguments and agreements on various things. He was married at one time and had kids, and one of the things we agree on- very emphatically- is that if anyone had ever touched our kids, we'd have killed them. Only thing preventing that would be if the police arrested them before we could get to them.

And that's exactly what will start happening if the clowns trying to 'normalize' pedophilia get their way. We've already got NAMBLA posting tips on how to get kids into seclusion so you can molest them, and a bunch of idiot psychiatrists want to make it easier:
"On Monday, May 19th, 2003 in San Francisco, at a symposium hosted by the American Psychiatric Association, several long-recognized categories of mental illness were discussed for possible removal from the upcoming edition of the psychiatric manual of mental disorders.

Among the mental illnesses being debated in the symposium at the APA's annual convention were all the paraphilias--which include pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism, and sadomasochism."

I don't know if these clowns realize what they may be setting up; you manage to 'decriminalize' someone molesting kids, and you basically tell people that if some asshole touches their child, or rapes their child, their main avenues now become a: trying to get enough money to sue the bastard or b: making the bastard disappear. Guess which will start happening? Probably a lot?

It's connected to the touchy-feely 'nothing is actually bad, and you shouldn't be judgemental' crap that a lot of 'progressive intellectuals' keep telling us is the only correct way to think; if you tell everyone that nothing is really bad, then how do you pass judgement on anything?

If the psycho-weenies ever do have any real success pushing this, it might be a time to invest in rope futures.

Speaking of places you look only occasionally,

there's one called 'Unclaimed Territory'. Most of the time he leans toward 'Bush lied/lies, Bush is causing/caused disaster', etc., and since I can catch that on the evening news(when I bother to watch anymore) I only look over there occasionally. Then he comes up with something like this on 'The true character of the European Left'. A very nice piece on the whining and posturing by our 'moral superiors' in Euroweenie Land.

And in the comments are some wonderful pieces(for me at least) from his normally "You're perfect!" commenters:
"There may be some things wrong with liberals in Europe, nobody is perfect, but compared to the Bush Administration, why spend your talents swatting at flies when there are real monsters on the loose?" and
"Of course they are more sensitive to human rights abuses and state-sanctioned murder, having lived through it. Why can't we accept that other people do have insight and moral wisdom that we lack? Talk about a character flaw."

But the prizewinner is from a guy in Iceland:
"I think there's something to be said about devoting your energy to where it's most useful. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps European liberals think they'll be able to change the mind of the leader of another Western nation, like the US, than trying to change the mind of a psychopath like Hu Jintao? (a man whose regime is better defended and coddled by your own government than most European ones, by the way)"

Oh, yeah, it's so much easier to bitch and whine at a free country that won't do something nasty to you if you annoy it. And it's so much more satisfying to posture about your moral superiority to the U.S., as opposed to actually trying to DO something about an actual dictatorship. Apparently it wasn't 'most useful' to do something about mass murder in Bosnia, but it was to bitch at the U.S. as to why WE weren't stopping it.

"There's also the small matter of the US being, as y'all so like to put it, "The world's only superpower." If you can't deal with the criticism, then give France tons of money until they become the superpower, and everyone will attack them. Until then, you're supposedly the standard other countries should strive for. You are held up to a higher standard than any other country because of your superpower status.. this immediately opens the US up to more criticism."

Oh, we can deal with criticism. Sometimes by saying "Why should we care what whiny socialists in Europe think?" and ignoring them henceforth. Give FRANCE tons of money, for God's sake? Why? If France hadn't screwed itself up, it wouldn't NEED 'tons of money' from other places to, for instance, come up with enough aircraft to move its' own forces. And the only way you clowns will attack France(the elites at least; from what I've heard most citazens in a lot of countries can't stand France) is if France stops being a socialist government going down the toilet and starts actually demanding people obey the law. THAT would have you squealing and screaming for certain. And we ARE at a higher standard; more people working, more freedom, and we actually do something about multiple murderers other than make excuses for them.

"By the way, I'm sick of the cross Americans constantly put themselves on with this ridiculous notion that the entire continent of Europe hates you. It really makes you look whiny and self-centered. Try coming here someday."

Well, when people like you and the Austrians take every possible chance to call us names and denigrate everything about us, it kind of gives that impression. By the way, we don't think EVERYBODY in Europe hates us; just the idiots like you. There's a number of countries- particularly in the east where they actually knew the kind of dictatorship European socialists wanted everywhere- who have sent their soldiers to do something about the mess in the mid-East, right alongside of ours. So screw you.

Gee, I feel better this morning.

SKS mods, and a fix for a problem

A while back a Very Helpful Commenter(hereafter known as VHC) mentioned that he'd taken some of the Yugo 59/66 SKS rifles and cut down the barrel to make them shorter, lighter and handier as a truck/car rifle. He sent a couple of pictures and has given permission for me to post them.

DISCLAIMER!! He had good luck with this, and the one I tried it on is working nicely. That does not mean you will have no trouble! This is not a hugely difficult project, but there's a couple of points that could cause a real problem later on if you don't do it right.

With that over:
If you're not familiar with that model, it has a grenade launcher and sight mounted to the front and that end looks like this:














(I'm going on the description party by memory, as one of the side effects of losing my old PC was losing the e-mail that described his process)

What he did was a: take off the launcher and bayonet, b: remove the front sight assembly and cut off the forward extension, everything behind the sight base itself and the bayonet mount, c: re-mount the front sight.

Start by stripping the rifle, including taking the barreled action out of the stock. Pull the screw the bayonet pivots on and it comes off. The launcher is screwed onto the muzzle and pinned; drive out the pin with a punch. Use a vise with padded jaws to hold the receiver(if you have/can make some curved pads to hold the barrel tight enough, go ahead). Then, if you're not worried about the finish of the launcher, grab it with some vise grips or a pipe wrench; if you want to protect it, use some leather or something as padding. It's a standard right-hand thread; I'd suggest get your whatever locked on and give it a sharp blow with a piece of metal rod or pipe, after which it should unscrew.

The sight unit is held in place with two pins(on those I've seen), so drive out the pins, and the piece comes off to the front(note: I took all the pins out at the same time). Put a little oil on the barrel in front of it; mine I was able to twist back & forth as I pushed forward, some may be tight enough to need moving with a wood block and a mallet. Once off, you can do what VHC did and cut off everything in front of and behind the sight base itself:














Or you can do what I did; since the flip-up night sight still had some glow left I decided to keep it. So I cut off the rear section just behind that:














If you cut as much off as he did, you lose both pin holes; if you leave the night sight section on, you'll still have one. To take the launcher sight off, the easiest way is to bend one leg out to take the sight off the pivot pin, then cut/file the pin off flush on both sides. I, for some reason, decided not to do that and drove the pin out. This pin also holds the night sight in place, so I had to put the damn thing back in.

Whichever you do, you now have to decide how long you want the barrel to be. You could leave it the original, threads and all, or cut it back. VHC wanted it short, so he drove the sight base as far back as he could-taking care to keep the sight as vertical as possible- and then drilled through the lower curve of the base and barrel for a new pin.

POSSIBLE SERIOUS PROBLEM If you do this, make DAMN SURE you don't go high enough to either drill into the bore, or too close to it; if you cut into the bore all you can do is move the sight back beyond that point and try again, which will mean either milling/filing/sanding the inside of the base larger so it'll fit further back or cutting down the diameter of the barrel to allow the base further back. And if you're too close, it could possibly cause the barrel to bulge at that point during firing, which may or may not cause a dangerous failure. So take note of exactly how deeply the original pin notches cut into the barrel.

After he set the sight in place, he cut the barrel off a little in front of the base, then filed it square and crowned the muzzle. I'm not going to cover some of the how's of that right now.

POSSIBLE SERIOUS PROBLEMS You could, by opening up the sight base a bit, move it as far back as just in front of the gas block; two things wrong with that. Cutting it back that far might affect the functioning of the action by changing the gas pressure that reaches the system, and it could make your rifle illegal. Remember, the minimum legal length of a rifle barrel is 16", which(according to the ATF agent I called and asked) is measured from the bolt face to the muzzle; by my measurement if you move it all the way back you'll be a bit below 16. So if you decide to do this and move it way back, measure it and make sure you leave the barrel at least the legal length.

I decided to use the original pin hole in the barrel, so the sight stayed in the original location. I marked the barrel about 1/4" in front of it, cut it off and crowned it, which gave me a barrel just under 19". Then pushed the base back into place and set the pin. If your pin doesn't feel tight enough, put a drop of thread locker on before driving it in. And it's done.

It's amazing how much lighter and more balanced it feels now. VHC says he's never had a problem with the action functioning. I did, but that was before the mods, which brings me to

The SKS Fix

I found out there's been a lot of discussion on various gun boards about this model SKS not functioning. As in it fires, but the action either doesn't cycle at all or only partially does, resulting in either stovepipe jams or incomplete ejection. Not good in a rifle at all, but especially bad in one you might have bought as a 'just in case' firearm.

The problem seems to be mainly(maybe entirely) on the 'shooter grade' rifles. 'Shooter grade' all too often seems to mean 'was rode hard and put away wet, but they still go bang!'. Often bores are worn or somewhat pitted, and- the big problem- the gas valve and/or tube is worn or corroded badly. This model has a valve that in the normal position causes gas to flow into the tube and work the action; in the other position the gas system is cut off so all the gas from the blank goes into launching the grenade. The valve fits into the gas block and the gas tube fits onto the end of the valve, so you have a couple of places where wear or corrosion can cause a lot of gas leakage, quite possibly enough to cause your SKS to become a straight-pull bolt-action. If it were the gas tube at the end, a new tube would fix it, but from what I've heard it mostly seems to be the valve itself. I thought of a couple of things that might fix it(other than a new valve; they seem to be hard to come by). One was to get some shim stock and make a sleeve for the valve to fit it more tightly into the gas block, which would do it if the valve body or inside of the block were eroded. Or, do something to make the end of the valve fit the gas tube more tightly.

There's a lip on the end of the valve that looks like it should have some kind of seal on it(it doesn't, but it looks like it) so to see what would happen I found an 'O' ring the right size, put it on and headed to the range.

Perfect function, empties thrown like a frat boy throws an empty bottle. For about 35 rounds. At which point the ring fell apart; didn't seem to hold up too well exposed to the gas stream. So I got a piece of thin, flat steel bar stock, cut a thin strip, did some sanding and made this:















Took some filing/sanding to get it the right thickness and width, but it fit into the lip and the gas tube fit on snugly. And it worked great. Action cycled with no failures. The empties were not flung as far as with the o-ring or a rifle without the problem, but as VHC put it that may be a feature, not a bug; enough gas leaks that the action does not cycle as hard, which means a bit less pounding and stress on the bolt carrier and receiver. In any case, I put 40 rounds through it without a bobble.

Tried two other things. Took a piece of old guitar string and made a ring; that didn't work. Apparently the spaces in the winding let too much leak out, or it just didn't fit tightly enough. The other thing was a piece of brass wire(steel would work as well). Made a ring that fit tightly, but the wire at .065 diameter was too big for the tube to fit on, so I cut it down with a dremel sanding drum so it's about the same diameter as the valve body, and tapering thinnner toward the tube. The tube goes on snugly, and it went through 40 rounds with no problems. Depending on the extent of a rifle's problem, you probably could, in some cases, just use a suitable diameter wire, in others you'd have to shape a piece to give the fit you need.
Or, if you want a new valve, VHC found this link to a guy who started making them when his rifles all gave him trouble.

This ends my current lecture on screwing around with an already functional rifle. Goodnight, VHC, wherever you are.

I shall now give a sermon on tolerance

And what, you may wonder, brought me to this? No, I don't care if you wonder or not, I'm gonna say this anyway.

The subject for tolerance today is 'smoking'. Not the cordite leftovers that drift lazily from a muzzle, the kind that comes from tobacco. In specific, the efforts of a bunch of elitist dictator wannabes to prevent anyone from doing it.

I don't like cigarettes. I think they stink, and being around people who smoke them makes your clothes stink. Most cigars I've been around smell like the proverbial burning rope(there are some exceptions), though I do have a liking for the aroma from some pipe tobaccos. And by the way, what's the crap with places that do allow smoking not allowing pipes?

Ahem. In any case, I have a simple and well-working solution to the problem: A, I don't smoke them and B, I don't go to places where people are smoking unless I'm willing to put up with it. I realize these two things may be a little too simple for some to accept, but it takes care of my needs and doesn't hassle people who like to smoke.

Two things brought this to mind. First was this from John Stossel(blessings upon him) on the planning by the nannies to eventually either ban smoking or make it too difficult/expensive for people(sounds like what some nannies want to do to firearms, doesn't it?). Then there was this from the beauteous Sondra K's place on what's happening in Washington state under Gov. Gregoire. Key quote: " Two days after the Statewide smoking ban went into effect in my fine State of Washington our esteemed Governess politely asks the stateÂ’s sovereign tribal casinos to VOLUNTARILY comply and make their establishments non-smoking also." Take note of the 'voluntarily'; I bet there was a lot of pressure in whatever way she thought she could get away with. Happily, the tribes seem to have told her, in a polite way, to kiss their collective ass.

There's a bar/restaurant here called Galileo's where I used to go every week for open mike night. Amazingly, a lot of people there smoked, so I planned on the clothes I wore that night not being worn again until they were washed. I was willing to put up with the smoke because I wanted to attend those evenings. I did NOT bitch and whine and demand that everyone who smoked leave. When I eat at most places, I just sit in the non-smoking areas; isn't that simple and easy?

Right now there's a commercial being played on the radio about how you should look for a sticker on restaurant doors noting that they don't allow smoking because 'hundreds of people die from secondhand smoke every year in Oklahoma'. Now that is a blatant lie, but they repeat it over and over, and I'm sick of it. You don't want to smell smoke? Don't go into or work in places where people do smoke. And if you're tolerant of people smoking in places you don't go, you'll be noted as a tolerant type who leaves other people to make their own decisions, instead of a pissy little busybody who wants to run the lives of all people- all for their own good, of course.

Amen. Congregation dismissed and the bar is open.

Evening roundup

Was browsing some various news places, and found a number of things.

Instapundit notes that a bunch of Saddam loyalists are urging Sunnis to vote and warning the terrorists off, and the article he links to includes this: "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation," said a Baathist insurgent leader who would give his name only as Abu Abdullah." They've got the American and Israeli bits wrong, but he's definately working with the moolahs in Iran. And they're figuring it out. Now if some of the idiots in the Democrat side of Congress would.

Tim Blair notes riots in Australia that started when some 'middle-Eastern' men hassled people on a beach and beat up some lifeguards. It's now a general mess. Now, there probably is an element of thugs on both sides, but I have to say "what in the hell were the idiots thinking?" when they went to the beach to beat people up. This ain't a number of places; any idiot could have told them that a bunch of Aussies would not take kindly to this(ok, not any idiot; these idiots apparently thought they could get away with it).

Some jerk started trouble on an airplane heading to Hawaii and is now in custody. Says he threatened a baby and 'lunged' at the cockpit. It also notes "Passengers tackled and restrained Tizol when he lunged toward the cockpit." Let's see, 'tackled and restrained', hmmm... is that a polite way of saying 'beat the dog shit out of'? If it's not, it should be.

From the Carnival over at Gullyborg, found a couple of things in particular. One is the takedown at "It comes in pints?" of an e-mail Bitter Bitch got. He makes a couple of points in particular about the way the guy tries to frame the argument to make gun owners look selfish, etc. Kind of thing that needs to be kept in mind when we argue such matters. And Of Arms and the Law has this on the Waco mess:
"I got the ATF reports that showed what the ATF undercover agents in the "undercover house" (across the street from the Davidian place) had done on February 19, nine days before the raid.

They went shooting.

With David Koresh."

Considering this was after ATF had insisted they had to do the raid because Koresh never left the house, etc., we're back to people lying in court in order to cover up a series of serious mistakes(at best). Check it out, along with the other stuff on this site.

Oh, and Gully? I don't want the 25mm; ammo would be a pain to get, give me the .50 cal.

The Geek makes a very good remark: "In a truly civil society peopled primarily by enlightened, sober individuals, the carriage of arms might be deemed gratuitous, but it is nonetheless harmless.

In a society that measures up to anything less than that, the option to carry arms is a necessity."

I like it. He also has this marvelous pic:























And I'm done for now. My son turns 21 tomorrow, and I have the joys of that to contemplate.

Carnival of Cordite #41 is up

Once more, hie yourself off to Gullyborg and check it out. Lots of good stuff, and it's the last one this year. Between his finals and Christmas and New Years, he flat won't have time(certain amount of sympathy, there).

So enjoy and learn.