"Change your ways, filthy peasants, and save Mother Gaia! Ignore the hypocritical boobspeople behind the curtain! Get rid of your car and motorcycle, burn the neighbor's truck! And live like we tell you to, not like we doin the proper way!"

Pretty much seems to cover the attitude of the arrogant, self-righteous boobs in the political and entertainment industries. Not all of them, of course:
Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it 'private jets for climate change'.
Which is hugely outweighed balanced by:
A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations.

But they will take care of such niggling little matters by buying indulgencescarbon credits by the friggin' railcar-load:
John Rego, the environmental director of Live Earth, says he expects to purchase at least 3,000 tonnes of carbon credits to off-set the event. It is believed the organisers will spend in excess of £1million on carbon offsetting to counter criticism.

Rego explains: "All the events are carbon neutral. We have chosen a reforestation and reagricultural project in Mozambique. It is a credible certifiable carbon-diffused project. We are in the process of purchasing a carbon offset."

"See! We are doing a PC and Socially-Approved Thing, so shut up about us using private planes and big cars and motorcycles, you bloody peasants! Do what you're told! And don't eat meat, either!"

Just as a side point, ignoring the diet deficiencies vegans and 'no animal product' vegetarians tend to suffer, have these clowns ever checked the numbers on how much land would have to be put under the plow to feed everyone if they could force us to go vegan? I know the bastards want to kill off most of the human race, but since they can't pull that off I'd think they'd be willing to trade people eating meat for a bleepload of square miles of forest and prarie and mosquito and leech-infested swamp wetlands. But apparently not.

If I had time, I think I'd take both the muzzloaders to the range and proceed to create clouds of stinkyaromatic, carbon-laden smoke.

After all, it's the thought that counts.

Two more things for this day

First, a damn good essay from Kim.

And found through Kim, a video on citizen preparedness

It's a bit humbling at times

to find out what a firearm you own is capable of when your clumsy self is taken out of the equation.

This is the first handgun I owned, a Ruger













New Model Super Single-Six(yes, all this really is the model) . .22- caliber single-action revolver that came with both a .22LR and .22 Magnum cylinder. Adjustable sights, and- this being the 'New Model'- the hammer block so you can carry it fully loaded. I've had a lot of fun with this over the years, and it was the first pistol my kids fired.

As part of my celebration of the 4th, one thing I did today was sit down at a bench with a solid rest and fire this at 25 yards. Had the frame solidly placed on the rest to remove as much error as possible, and it did this:


















That is six rounds of Federal Champion .22LR, the inexpensive stuff I usually buy at Academy. I promise you, I have never in my life been able to shoot a group approaching that offhand no matter how carefully I tried. Even from a rest it's rare that I can group them like this, but the pistol seems to be able to do it with no problem.

It's a standard saying that many- maybe most- firearms are capable of greater accuracy than most people are capable of getting from them. Not just a saying, folks.

My Independance Day

has consisted of reading the Declaration and going to the range. No fireworks for me, have to work tonight. God, I used to go through enough flash powder in various configurations to fuel a infantry skirmish in muzzleloader days.

A little load testing, otherwise just enjoying a day at the range. 'Course, since it just stopped monsooning a couple of days ago and the clouds cleared off shortly before I got there that meant 'bright sun shining into an area that magically avoids all but gale-strength winds and has humidity equal to Louisiana in the bayou'. I had a butterfly sitting on my hat for about five minutes, right at the band, drinking sweat. I actually took my hat off to see if the shadow was what I thought it was and the little bugger just sat there, looking at me and waving his wings.

So let's count up the points for the day:
Reading that document and considering what it means,
Day at the range, with a number of people all making noise and punching holes in targets,
Driving there in my Goreacle-defying pickup(which I may start referring to as the Carbon-Producing Transport System),
And stopping at Sonic for lunch to ingest a double-cheeseburger for which a cow had to assume ambient temperature.

Good day.

Because I don't think this can be posted too many times today

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

John Hancock

Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
Geo. Walton

Wm. Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thos. Heyward, Junr.
Thomas Lynch, Junr.
Arthur Middleton

Samuel Chase
Wm. Paca
Thos. Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Th. Jefferson
Benja. Harrison
Thos. Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Robt. Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benja. Franklin
John Morton
Geo. Clymer
Jas. Smith
Geo. Taylor
James Wilson
Geo. Ross
Caesar Rodney
Geo. Read
Tho. Mckean

Wm. Floyd
Phil. Livingston
Frans. Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richd. Stockton
Jno. Witherspoon
Fras. Hopkinson
John Hart
Abra. Clark

Josiah Bartlett
Wm. Whipple
Saml. Adams
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
Wm. Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton

Oh yes, let us follow England

Right down the drain.
Gun and knife killings are getting out of control as six Londoners were murdered over the past week and one child is stabbed to death each week, anti-crime campaigners warned.

Local communities were being blighted by run-away violence as gang members who believe they are "untouchable" carry guns and weapons as a matter of routine to carry out crimes and to settle scores.

Let's see, handguns banned, rifles & shotguns regulated to an extreme, you can lose your firearms certificate for as little as the local chief cop deciding to cut down on the number of certificates in his area... Pretty close to what the GFWs want here. Doesn't seem to work well, does it?

At least not for crime control. To control the honest people, lot more successful.

He added although government figures show a small reduction in gun related crime, it is under reported and has to be viewed against "unprecedented" high levels of knife and gun crime over the last five years.

Although the Trust welcomed the fact the majority of murders leads to an arrest and conviction, prevention is a better cure it said.

Mr Brennan said: "There are currently 270 recorded firearm related offences committed on the streets of Britain every week."

Britain is an island, and relatively small. If they can't keep the bad guys from getting arms there, just how the hell do the politicians expect to do so here? Oh, that's right, they'll just pass one more law, and everything will be puppies and kittens and everyone will be singing Imagine in the streets.

Of course, in Britain it doesn't help that defending yourself can get you in trouble. Sometimes more trouble than the dirtbag who attacked you.
Jacob Smyth chased three youths out of his hardware shop in Penzance, Cornwall, when he was set upon. When he was kicked in the groin by one of the hooded youths who had stolen cans of spray paint Mr Smyth hit back.

Police issued fixed penalty tickets to the shoplifters but charged Mr Smyth and a colleague with assault.

Just bloody wonderful.

Added: well, hell, Kevin has already taken note of this, along with some 'slight' problems with Brit crime numbers:
An extra two million violent crimes a year are committed in Britain than previously thought because of a bizarre distortion in the Government's flagship crime figures, it was claimed yesterday.

A former Home Office research expert said that across all types of crime, three million offences a year are excluded from the British Crime Survey (BCS).

The poll caps the number of times a victim can be targeted by an offender at five incidents a year.

If anyone interviewed for the survey says they have been targeted more than five times a year, the sixth incident and beyond are not included in the BCS.
The authors of a report by think-tank Civitas said the five-crimes limit is " truly bizarre" and "misleading".

'Misleading'. Gee, ya think?

About all those layers of editors...

Here's a good rundown of the Story of the Mass-Beheading That Didn't Happen, and the trust(loss thereof, I'd say) involved.

And while the major media is playing games like this, stories like this are pretty much ignored. Gee, I wonder why...

As regular as the tides

are the plaintive cries of the family: "He was a GOOD boy, they didn't have to kill him! Why aren't THEY in jail?" In this case noted by Munchkin Wrangler specifically,
But Gadson's grandmother, Rosa Jones, said: "He ain't no hero. He is a murderer and God will serve justice."

She and her husband, Ivory Jones, pastor of a Fort Lauderdale church, sat on their front porch in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday wondering how a man could shoot two people and not go to jail.

Uh, because your grandson was committing armed robbery? Because the man thought your angelic offspring was about to murder him? This may be a new concept to you, but... Oh, never mind. Not a chance of them reading this and I'm tired of this crap. Nobody shot and/or killed while committing rape/robbery/attempted murder/kidnapping ever actually did anything bad, they never were any real threat to anyone, and that person who killed them ought to be in jail! Regular at the tides, only with no useful purpose.

Have a friend who's a teacher. He's bloody sick to death of, when some little monster is sent to the office for causing problems, the first reaction of the parent who shows up is to bitch at him for daring to do anything to/about their little darling. No matter what the kid did, no matter how many times they've been told about problems. It never seems to occur to them, or they don't care, that if they keep defending the little bastard when they do this crap they're setting them up for bigger trouble down the line; oh no, their little angel never does anything wrong...

Well, damn, it didn't rain last night!

or if it did, it was pretty light, just enough to keep things damp. Which means the ground can drain a bit more, things dry out just a touch.

I was able to mow the front yard by the procedure of
Make a pass
Bump the mower up & down to knock loose the wet grass caked on the deck
Repeat
which produced enough clippings when raked up to fill a 5-gallon bucket(wet, packed clippings mind you) which went on the compost heap. Right on top of the mushrooms that were standing almost six inches high on the top. I can't even think about the back yard until it's had at least a couple of no-rain days; the mower would clog up every 15-20 feet. And my rose bushes are losing leaves, looks like bloody fall under them. I raked those up, too.

Just looked at the situation up northeast near Bartlesville and found this on Lake Hula:

Hulah Lake is  34.0 feet ABOVE  normal and falling.
 The average discharge will be  44341 cubic feet per second.
 Flood control pool utilizatioin is at 100.1%.

I think 34 feet above normal qualifies as a "Holy Crap!" situation.

A group Down-Under you ought to check out

The Midnight Sun

Thanks to Stephen for recommending them.

Someone you should be aware of

Just found this place thanks to Kevin.

From a post on Jesse Jackson:
As far as I can tell, the black community spent a minimum of 231 years fighting for the right to have those guns available to them.

As far as I can tell, the black community spent a further 93 years fighting to enforce that right after it was granted to them in 1871,

As far as I can tell, the black community has only had enforcement of that right for less than 43 years.

As far as I can tell, Jesse Jackson has not mentioned that to the black community he serves.

Wouldn't you think, by this time,

the major media would be more interested in accuracy than pushing either sensationalism or their personal desires?

Must be the wonderful work of those layers of editors we heard of.

Speaking of major media BS, check out this at Blackfive

Why the hell didn't Blair say this

a couple of years ago? Good God, he's been making excuses for muslims and being the PC chief for years, but starting a little before his leaving office, all of a sudden we hear sense on the matter? One reason I despise most politicians: even when there're literal life and death matters involved they wet that finger and stick it in the wind before they'll say anything. And all too often they don't give a crap about the wind from most people, only from the 'elites' they want to suck up to.

Which brings up, was he lying about his beliefs then? Or has he recently had a change of heart on some matters? Right now I don't bloody care.

Check out Malkin's piece, has links on the attacks in Britain. Including one on the on-the-other-side mayor of London, whose mind I don't want to understand.

It's really been amazing the snotty comments from some along the lines of "They didn't actually hurt anyone, so it couldn't really be classed as terrorism, so why are we worried? We should be worried about the fascists calling it terrorism", etc. Absolutely bloody insane. It's like telling a woman "Well, he didn't actually rape you, so why are you so upset?" when her attacker was chased off. Damn, these people are gonna get us all killed.

I wonder if Blair is going to have another personal revelation and start speaking positively about the right to self-defense, even if you have to whack the robber/rapist/murderer breaking into your house? Or is that still too un-PC for him?

Speaking of floods and arks and such,

here's the current situation in one part of northeast OK:
HULA LAKE IS TAKING IN 2X THE AMOUNT OF WATER IT IS LETTING OUT. THEFLOOD GATES ARE OPEN TO APPROXIMATELY 2.5 FEET (AMOUNT OF FLOW). THE LAKE IS AT APPROXIMATELY 106% CAPACITY AND INCREASING 1% PER HOUR.

COPAN DAM/LAKE IS AT CAPACITY AND CONTINUING TO RISE. THE FLOOD GATES ON COPAN WILL BE OPENED ON SUNDAY AND MONDAY.

BOTH COPAN AND DEWEY ARE EXPECTED TO HAVE CRITICAL FLOODING, AS WELL ASPOSSIBLY IN BARTLESVILLE. FLOOD STAGE IS AT 22 FEET. IF FLOOD STAGE (ONTHE CANEY RIVER) IS EXCEEDED, WASHINGTON COUNTY (BARTLESVILLE) MAY LOOSEIT'S 911/DISPATCH CENTER. ADDITIONALLY, BARTLESVILLE WILL BE CUT IN HALF.

And a little while later:
HULA LAKE IS CURRENTLY AT 108% AND TAKING IN 2X MORE THAN IT IS LETTING
OUT. THE CANEY RIVER IS EXPECTED TO CREST AT 22.8 FEET ON WEDNESDAY, IF
COPAN LAKE FLOOD GATES ARE NOT OPEN BEFORE THEN.

I'm really surprised we haven't lost a damn somewhere before now, considering the amount of rain the last month. Even if the rain stopped right now, runoff will continue for days; some of this flooding is going to be really nasty.

If your system can take the shock,

this would explain a lot about Bill & Hillary...

I don't know whether to thank Theo for this, or ban him from my keyboard.

The God-cursed politicians keep opening their yaps

and crapping on real heroes, but it seems people are getting a mite testy about it.
This lunatic judgment reduced first hundreds, then thousands of ARRSE-posters to gibbering outrage. The next day, a post popped up from Kieran O'Rourke of Howe & Co, saying they were Mr Pun's solicitors, working pro bono and preparing to appeal the Home Office decision. They'd set up an online campaign: www.vchero.co.uk, which you should look up; it reduced me to choked snuffles.

Amazing, isn't it? The same politicians who make excuses for and find reasons not to deport islamists who call for mass murder turn right around and dump on people who've bled for the country. Happily, at least sometimes, enough outrage can make a difference. Next step:
Howe & Co's next campaign is for L/Cpl Gyanendra Rai, who fought and nearly died at Bluff Cove in the Falklands. He was saved by British Army doctors, who grafted skin from a British soldier on to his appalling wounds. He still suffers from his wounds, but gets no pension at all, having been invalided out before he finished his 15 years. Look him up: his story will make you howl.

Here's hoping Kim's right about the day Stout Bulldogs hang the bastards responsible for these decisions. If they agree, comes The Day, we can make room on a long gallows for some of the idiots in positions of power over here, too. Maybe find an island in the Atlantic for all of them, where the smell as the bodies rot won't disturb the neighbors.

So how does Hamas deal with the Disney problem?

Martyr the rat, of course.
A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children’s television program was beaten to death in the show’s final episode Friday.

In the final skit, “Farfour” was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a “terrorist."

I guess they think this is a two-fer solution: "My brothers, in this manner we both get the infidel Disney lawyers(may they burn in hellfire!) to leave us alone, and paint the evil Joooos as murderers of the character children love; therefore, the children will burn with desire to blow themselves up trying to kill Jooos in the name of Allah."

Yeah, these people need their own country. As long as there's a wall and minefield around the damn place to keep them in.

One thing I DON'T like about Australia

is the Brit-inspired GFW laws, as example:
The would-be intruders had thrown rocks through the front window and cut the home's power supply before trying to jemmy open the front door.

They fled after the man, who was inside with a woman and young girl, opened fire.

Police recovered the rifle and charged the man with conduct endangering life and firearm offences.

'Endangering life and firearm offences' my ass. He should get something of a "You didn't finish the bloody job, mate" for not whacking at least one of the bastards, and otherwise be praised for protecting home & those inside, not charged with anything.

Dammit, in every other way I really want to visit that country...


Found at Tim Blair

Just how wet is is around here?

My parents live in Lawton, about 85 miles southwest of here. Dad has a small weather station set up on the roof where there's no interference from trees or anything. Since May 1, they've received 35.8" of rain, which is more than is received in an average year.

And I don't think we're far behind.

Just in case you were in doubt about the enviroweenies

and their minions, the gentleman at Random Nuclear Strikes has been collecting some quotes from the freakin' morons.

And their socialist nanny brethren.

They're sure-hell not on our side.

And a week before the anniversary of the 7/7 bombs Updated

in London, it appears the BPMs are trying it again.

I just had one of my occasional chances to see cable, and Fox is saying the police have confirmed it was a 'massive' explosive device inside a car, including both explosives and nails, found after "bouncers from a nearby night club had reported that someone had crashed a blue Mercedes sedan into garbage bins and ran away."

Sounds like someone had an owie on the way to wherever and ran; no word as to whether the vehicle was disabled by the crash or the jerk just panicked and ran. Which does bring up the questions as to where they planned to use it and when.

You think that maybe, just maybe, this might be enough to kick some of the pc-at-any-cost politicians into maybe doing something about the BPMs? At the least, ought to get the potentialplanned victims to have some words about it.


Update: Well, so much for first reports.

A second car bomb was found. According to the latest stuff I've seen(here and here), the first one was spotted by an ambulance crew saw 'smoke' coming from a car parked in front of a nightclub. The second?
The second was in a car that was illegally parked nearby and towed to the Park Lane car pound.

Staff there alerted police because "it smelled of gas."
Think about that. And think about the tow truck driver wondering why he didn't get blown up when he hooked it up.

Stepping way outside my pay grade, I'm going to make some guesses. First, the bombers didn't know their business very well. Neither went off(in the case of the first, if something was 'smoking' they may have tried to trigger it; the second 'smelled of gas' so either a bottle was leaking or the detonator didn't work or both), and neither had anti-tamper devices added in(which is also why the police officer who decided to defuse the first didn't get blown to hell).

Second, trying to set off two car bombs in crowded streets, this was no 'let's scare some people' idea, they wanted massive casualties. Which does bring up a side question: was the second supposed to go off about the same time, or were they planning to set it off when the rescue/recovery effort was going on?

Third, you'd think, after hearing about something like the first bomb, people checking abandoned or illegally parked cars nearby would, oh, be looking inside for anything suspicious(gas bottles for instance) before towing it. Either the possibility of another bomb never entered their mind or this attitude is very prevalent: "Sure, it's disturbing, and obviously it reminds everyone of 7/7," said Ian Hiskos, 32, eating at a cafe across the block from the police cordon on Haymarket. "I try not to think about these things." Which is a very damned dumb attitude in anyone, even more so in people checking cars.

Last, this idiotic claim: Police believe they have foiled a major terror attack and said if the Haymarket bomb had gone off it could have caused "significant injury or loss of life". No, they didn't foil the plot: the terrorists were incompetent. And they can't count on that.

Neither can we.

Looks like the IIABAN bill is dead

And one of the people who switched his vote? Senator "I can't be intimidated" Voinovich, the slimy little bastard. Along with a number of others.

Gee, you let these clowns know in blunt terms that you're going to kick their fat ass out of that office they think belongs to them, and their hearing improves immeasurably. Which means they need to be kicked out, preferably with a recall so we don't have to wait for the next election.

These clowns have gotten use to being members of 'the world's most exclusive club'; all too often they've done nothing else in their lives but (for many) inherit money and play politics and they think they're the boss. Time and past time for a serious house-cleaning.

Webbed paws my ass,

I think the dog is trying to build a raft.

It's been a wet year. Very wet. Bunch of ice and sleet in winter, rains in March(about average I believe), lot of rain in April and May. June alone has dropped more rain than the state received all last year.

Yesterday evening I checked my rain gauge: an even three inches over the previous 24-36 hours, most of it within the last twelve. And it's rained(lightly) off and on all day; not enough to start puddling again but enough to keep things from having a chance to dry any. And there's a flash flood watch for this area up into Thursday morning. A low pressure system just keeps sitting where it pumps moisture up into the region, which keeps feeding the rains.
















Dark green in flood watch, lighter green is flood warnings and statements. One county was telling people not to try driving on county roads because A: they hadn't been able to get around enough to survey where was flooded and bridge/road damage, and B: they were out of 'road closed' signs. Some of which had been washed away.

Lots of roads with water running over them, dangerous as hell; no matter what's happened before or how often you tell them, some people think you can drive through this stuff. A foot of running water can push a car off the road, eighteen inches can take a truck or bus.

Damn, this has equaled, maybe passed, the wettest month I remember before this. I've got leaves falling off the rose bushes from being too wet for too long. It's gotta break sometime. I hope.

Just to note we've not a monopoly on idiot politicians and bureaucrats

as to people coming into the country, take a look at this:
A decorated Gurkha who fought in the Falklands War has been banned from entering Britain to get treatment for injuries sustained in the conflict.

Why, you ask, would they do such a thing?

LCpl Rai, 51, recently tried to come to Britain to get NHS treatment for his injuries as he cannot afford the necessary medication in his home country of Nepal.

But Government officials rejected the father-of-five's application fearing he would stay here and claiming he had insufficient links to justify a visa.

Their decision means he also missed events in Britain to mark the 25th anniversary of the victory of the conflict, which took place yesterday, and has caused outrage.

Apparently the bureaucrats and politicians don't consider bleeding for the country a 'sufficient link' to give him a visa.

Lamppost, rope, etc.

Some really good cleaning brushes

One problem with cast bullets is that they can leave lead fouling in the bore. And sometimes it's a pain to get out. Aside from hooking up the FoulOut the best lead cleaner I've found is Blue Wonder and a good bronze brush, but even with it can take a while and a lot of scrubbing.

Week or two ago I was looking through the Brownell's site and ran across their Double-Tuff bore brushes(#084-142-144 for .45 caliber). They're a thicker, stiffer brush for heavy fouling. Since I was getting some other stuff I added a three-pack to the order.

Just tried them out. Took the Kimber .45 and the .455 Webley out to shoot, and the Kimber had the usual amount of fouling from the cast bullets. Process with Blue Wonder is to saturate a brush and run it through the bore five or six times, add more cleaner and repeat, let sit about ten minutes, brush, then use patches to clean the bore. It usually takes several repeats of this to get the fouling out; with this brush it took one. There may have been traces left, but they were not visible. This brush really did make a difference.

Webley shot as well as usual. The new grips really are better than the originals(to my hands, at least); bit more work at it and I should be able to checker well enough to keep things better aligned. One of the things I ordered was some replacement cutters for the tools, the originals having dulled with use. For some things, if you did this a lot, the carbide cutters would be well worth it.

Somebody put locoweed juice in the Senate water supply

At least that's as good an explanation for the idiocy going on there as I can think of. Not going to link to anything as there's enough stuff out there that you can't miss it. Happily, my state's two senators are voting against this IIABAN* bill, so I don't have to do a lot of yelling at them. But a lot of others...

Had Sean Hannity's show on while sitting here cleaning boomsticks and just listened to his interview of Sen. George Voinovich(Weasel-OH). Somebody talked to him the other day(may have been Hannity) and he explained his vote for cloture as 'I want there to be more debate, and we have another vote for cloture coming so this one doesn't really count'. Which is absolute marfi. Today he went on a tear about 'people are trying to intimidate me, and I've been in this business 40 years and I DON'T INTIMIDATE', which roughly translates to "The peasants are really annoying me. They act like I'm supposed to listen to them instead of doing what I want, and I'm getting mad!" He the proceeded to do the standard politician two-step of trying to avoid answering questions by talking around them and trying to talk over Hannity when he called him on it. And finally(tried to do it earlier but Hannity did manage to keep him on) said he wasn't getting anything but ignorance, etc., and wasn't going to waste any more time and hung up.

Ohio, I don't know a lot about his previous record. That being said, if this is an indication of how he sees his relation to the voters, you need to kick him the hell out of that office: he thinks he's your boss and shouldn't be questioned, and seems to think he owns that office.

*Illegal Immigrant Amnesty By Another Name

I think it'll hold true here also:

licensing and registration will be followed by confiscation.
Kilt wearers could face prosecution if they do not have a licence for their sporran under new legislation which has been introduced in Scotland.

The land of some of my ancestors has turned into enviroweenie and GFW central.

Another liberal discovers guns as tools,

instead of something to be terrified of.

More of those old cartridges

Starting off with some pistol fodder











#1 is the old .45 Colt
#2 .44 Colt
#3 .38WCF(Winchester Center Fire) Also known as .38-40
#4 .38 Colt NP(New Police)
#5 .32 Colt NP
#6 is a .38 S&W blank

Case heads:










#1 is WRA Co.(Winchester Repeating Arms)
#2 is UMC(Union Metallic Cartridge)
#3 is Rem-UMC
#4 and #5 are WRA Co.
#6 is R-P(Remington-Peters)


Now to the rifle fodder












#1 is .40-82WCF
#2 9.5x57, a variation on the 8x57mm Mauser cartridge
#3 .25-35 Win
#4 .25 Remington
#5 .401 SL(Self-Loading)
#6 .351 SLR(Self-Loading Rifle)
#7 .25-20

Case heads










#1 W.R.A Co.
#2 PS on top, a six-pointed star left & right, then the 9.5x57 at the bottom
#3 Super-X
#4 REM-UMC
#5 WRA
#6 REM-UMC
#7 Western


Rimfire and odd stuff











The first two are the paper-case 9mm shotshell I posted before next to a metal-case of the same.
Second is a pinfire. The bullet at the case mouth is .44" and it's .944" oal.
Third is an unfired rimfire case. The case mouth inside is about .41", 1.52" long.
Fourth is a lead bullet .68" diameter and .89" long. My loading scale goes up to 500 grains, and won't begin to lift this; I'm guessing about 700 grains.
The last is (I think) a Winchester .22 Rimfire

Case heads on these










On the two shotshells, the paper-case is W, the metal looks almost like a stylized GF but I can't quite make it out.
The big empty case is U, so is the .22
The pinfire(not shown until I can manage a better picture) has PSH at the top, FGA7PIA at the bottom; there's a line in front of the F that may be an 'I' but I can't really tell.

Some interesting stuff coming out of that box.

And a slightly better picture of the Webley

in all its new, black, oily glory.

Finishing up a blade,

and this one I decided to parkerize.

Which, if you're not familiar with it, is a phosphate coating chemically deposited on the metal surface to help prevent rust. A few years back I got a bottle of a concentrate for treating knives and I've still got the solution I mixed up; some are only good for one use, this stuff you can keep using. Nice and simple to use, just bring the solution up to 165-180F(and it's not real sensitive, you can be a bit lower and it'll still work) and hang the clean, degreased steel in. After about twenty minutes, take it out and let it dry completely, then oil.

Here's before:














This one was forged out of a harrow tooth, and the guard is hammered brass soldered into place on the tang. That's a 400-grit finish, which is as fine as I usually polish unless special request/need. So into the bath for 25 minutes, and here's after:

















You'll notice a difference in color between the edge and back. Remember the differential hardening I wrote of before? It causes that, the stuff grabs just fine but looks different on the different hardnesses.

It doesn't actually stick to the brass but it does discolor it. A little careful polishing with a dremel and a polishing wheel will take care of that. Then fit a grip and pommel.

When you look in your breaker box,

you do not want it to look anything like this

Bluing, before & after

Last fall I wrote of finally finding a MkVI Webley, a big, ugly .455-caliber revolver. It had none of the original finish left, so I decided to make it my second bluing project. Here's the before:















and here's after:












A very nice, even black over all surfaces. Like the 1911 I did before, no polishing was done. In this case while I wanted to reblue I didn't really want to change the surface itself. Disassemble, spray all needed parts with brake cleaner, then after dry wash with Dawn dish soap. As the solution was coming up to temperature I then dipped the parts in muriatic acid to strip any remaining finish, rinsed thoroughly, then hang on wires and into the bath.

Og mentioned the acid bath for stripping, and a Helpful Commenter sent me an e-mail with some good information which included that a 'pre-pickling' in an organic acid could help lead to a faster, deeper color. I damn sure doesn't seem to hurt.

Second try at bluing

Decided to try it on another couple of pieces the other day. Pretty simple, put the salts & solution in the pot, water in the rinse pot and start them heating while cleaning/degreasing the pieces. At proper temp hang the pieces in and boil for 25 minutes, maybe a couple more(lost exact track). This time everything had a bit of the red 'smut' on them when they came out, but brushing in the hot water cleaned it right off. Oil and let it sit overnight. Overnight's probably not necessary, but actually managed to leave it this time.

I'd heard that bluing salts 'creep', and they do. I'd stored the stuff in a plastic tub with a snap-on lid. When I poured the liquid into the pot I found the salts very thin in the center, very thick in the corner and they'd crept halfway up the sides. Soft, and easy to scrape out into the pot.

One of the pieces I did was another knife blade, I'll post pictures later on(busy evening, bad night, I'll get to it). So far this stuff works really well.

By the way, to the holders of the Human-Caused Global Warmering, 30% my ass. 30% was the chance of some scattered thunderstorms in this area last night. Which means it stormed and rained from about midnight to almost ten this morning. God knows how much rain, my gauge was on the ground so no measure; if I'm decipering the NWS listing they officially show about 1.75". I repeat, they can't predict this crap but they claim they can tell what the weather will be in 50-100 years?

And for a different timeline on earth's history,

take a look:

* 4003 B.C.: Earth still largely molten , Adam and Eve cover their shame with asbestos waders

* 3714 B.C.: The first biotechnologist, Cain, patents cyanobacteria.

* 3554 B.C.: Komatiitic lava floods Earth's earliest crust ; Noah's Ark incinerated.

* 3264 B.C.: Methuselah begins to notice passage of geological time.

* 3124 B.C.: Archaean copper deposits form , kick-starting Bronze Age.

* 3004 B.C.: Y1K crisis averted : Gilgamesh unable to count as high as 1000.

and so forth.

The 3/2 Stryker Cav

A couple of years ago Kim started the Walter & Adam fund to provide equipment for some guys in a sniper unit.

Now he and the Mrs. have set up to give assistance to men of the 3/2 Stryker Cav, info here and here.

Give if you can.

And Kim? My profound apologies for not getting this up sooner.

I have to agree with Tim,

these people are freakin' insane.
Home Office statistics suggest that there are 12 such murders each year. However, according to research, the true figure is much higher. At a conference in Southampton last week, police chiefs revealed that they are re-examining 2,000 deaths and murders between 1996 and 2006 to establish whether they involve honour killings. So far, 19 have now been found to be honour killings. A further 20 involved some element of “honour violence”.

I include in the 'insane' part both the islamic murderers and the British politicians and officials who've had a big hand in things getting this far. Do you really think they'd be having these problems, at least at these levels, if they'd started stomping on it when it first cropped up?

Hell, no.

But a bunch of politicians- which I guess would include the appointed and hired officials in, for instance, law enforcement- who'd rather be called a child molester than insensitive to islamists- kept making excuses for the swine, and threatening and abusing those who yelled about it, and now they're here:

A team of 20 prosecutors are to be based in London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Lancashire. Each one will be trained by a number of different agencies including the police, the government’s forced marriage unit and the independent victims group, the Southall Black Sisters ...

Nazir Afzal, the CPS lead on honour-based violence, said that such crimes are often elaborate, pre-planned and can involve many suspects.

One in nine honour killings in the UK is carried out by hit men, he said. It is also common for the youngest member of the family to carry out the murder, with the others playing a lesser role.

And let us also note Tim's update, wherein the islamists once again become the victim of something done for someone else:

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the decision to praise the “apostate” showed Islamophobia among British officials ...

Mr Hosseini told a press conference: “Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is ... a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials.

Freakin' bozos have indeed taken the PC attitudes into account: paint yourself a victim, no matter what, and the idiots will make excuses for you.



















"Those people are nuts, boss"

Got some old cartridges

from Dad, stuff he'd picked up/found/been given over the years. Some I recognize, some I have no idea what they are. I'm going through the box and doing some cleaning, mostly headstamps so I can read them. Thought I'd post a few of them here.

First up, some rifle ammo:


















The first two I don't know. #1 has a paper-patched lead bullet of about .44 caliber, #2 a lead bullet of .427" at the case mouth.

Here's the headstamps:










#1, the central portion of the head surrouding the primer is raised, then the head narrows to the rim. It has a 'D' at the top, '11' on the left side and '87' on the right and '*' at the bottom.
#2 has 'A' at the top, a 'S' on the left and '5' on the right(looks like, and they're laying on their side; hard to read) with '78' at the bottom.
#3 is REM-UMC at the top and '30 USA' at the bottom, which I think makes it .30-40 Krag.
#4 is W.R.A. Co on top, .30 U.S.G. at the bottom, another .30-40 Krag.
#5 appears to be .303 British softpoint, 'R', then an Brit broad arrow, then 'L' at the top, going clockwise the date 1939, then 'G II'.
#6 is .30-06, 'Western' at the top and '1917' at the bottom.

There's also a bunch of pistol cartridges, here's a few of them:











and headstamps:









#1 is a .455 Webley, 'K42' at the top, 'VIZ' at the bottom.
#2 appears to be a .45acp blank, 'REM-UMC' at the top and '1906' on the bottom. Which, since I think the cartridge was developed by John Browning in 1905, makes it pretty early indeed.
#3 is .45acp, 'REM-UMC' at the top and '18' on the bottom.
#4 is a .45 Auto Rim, 'REM-UMC' on the top, '45 AR' on the bottom.
#5 is a .38 Colt, 'REM-UMC' on top, '38 COLT NP' on the bottom(NP for New Police?)
#6 is a 9mm blank, 'R-P' on top and '9mm LUGER' on the bottom.

The last two(for now) are interesting:























The first is(I believe) a 9mm rimfire shotshell. I've seen them in all-metal cases before, but not a metal/paper case. The second is a rimfire, and appears to be a heeled bullet like a .22 rimfire with external lube grooves. Which would, I think, make it produced in the 1800's. Bullet is .376" diamater, overall length is 1.39". Headstamps:















There's a WHOLE bunch of other stuff in this box, I'll be posting more pictures as I have time and get them cleaned up enough to see what they are.

Found a couple of good columns

from a guy named George Jonas up in Canada. Couple of good bits:
Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens pose little danger to public safety. (Less danger, to be statistically precise, than unattended swimming pools.) In fact, from the point of view of public safety, the worst combination is armed criminals confronting unarmed citizens.

Yet this is all our current gun control laws can possibly achieve: Armed criminals confronting unarmed citizens. The 1993 Brady Bill was no exception. It could do nothing but add some annoyance and red tape to the life of a law-abiding person who wished to purchase a gun.(from here)

and

I visited the home of a police chief in the 1970s. He lived in a big house outside metropolitan Toronto, and had a gun in every room of his home. He also had four or five healthy Dobermans that roamed the grounds freely at night.

"Gee, Chief," I said to him, "look at all these guns and dogs. Why don't you just run a direct line to your merry men?" "They can't fly," he replied, "as fast as a bullet."

I didn't blame the Chief for wanting to hang on to his life or to his silver, but it irked me that he didn't like the rest of us having similar ambitions.(from here)

Found through a link from the Relapsed Catholic

Sometimes 'Mythbusters' makes me want to scream

and yell at the screen. Other night had the chance to see an episode where they tried some firearms stories and a 'can hammers break each other' . Usually I wouldn't go into this, but there were a couple of things that I have to comment on(No, I'm not going to their website and posting on it; I'm sure the points have been brought up, except for maybe the last).

On firearms, they tried to shoot through a scope with another rifle from 100 yards, I think(missed the first minute or two) trying to duplicate that one scene in Saving Private Ryan. They repeatedly hit the scope, but no shot made it all the way through to hit the head of the 'shooter'. I didn't hear them say what caliber the rifle they were shooting was, or what kind of bullet used. The one case of this happening I've read of involved Carlos Hathcock firing at a VC sniper using a 91/30 Mosin Nagant with a PU scope. Hathcock was using a .30-06 firing a 172-grain match bullet; the PU scope has a fairly heavy steel tube. I'd like to see the test done with that setup.

The thing that irritated me here was when their sniper 'expert' said that WWII was the first time scoped rifles had been used in war. Which would be a real surprise to the German and British and other snipers who used them in WWI.

I'll throw in something on ballistics that made me groan in the SPR scene: the distance of the shot. The guy with the Springfield said the German sniper was about 400 yards away, which meant there's no damn way he could have shot lengthwise through the scope to hit the man. As we all know, a bullet travels in an arc from muzzle to target and that arc gets higher over distance: the arc of a .30-06 bullet over 400 yards would mean that- at best- the bullet could hit the eyepiece of the scope on the trip to his head.

On hammers, the question was could a hammer head fragment explosively if struck with another hammer? That testing was fine, but at the end they decided to try to make the hammers as likely to break as possible, so they decided to heat them 'as hot as you can get them without melting' and quench them in used motor oil- "...which is full of carbon..." because that would 'put more carbon in to the hammer head and make it more brittle' and kept referring to it as case-hardening.

I know, I'm being picky, but that's so damn stupid(especially coming from people with something of a science background) and it pissed me off enough that I had to write about it.

When you heat steel that hot, you enlarge the grain structure(bad) and when you quench it you do harden it, but how much depends on the carbon content and the alloy in the steel. A medium-carbon steel, especially with some alloys, will harden but not become brittle. Big thing here, though, is that no matter how much carbon is in the oil it doesn't 'go into' the steel. You actually lose carbon from the surface when you heat above about 1500F, but you cannot raise the carbon content by quenching in dirty oil. The steel cools below the point at which actual case-hardening is possible almost instantly and with in an open atmosphere the carbon has no chance to penetrate.
And I'm even more pissed on this because a: people will believe this crap because Jamie of Mythbusters said it and b: they had already talked to a blacksmith about hammers and he could have told them the facts. So could a lot of others(machinists for example).

The last was when the cast some minie balls for a test involving Civil War-era rifled muskets. They were pouring the lead into the mold and then dipping the mold in water! BAD! BAD Adam!

Aargh.

I think it's called 'karma',

at least in part, when stuff like this happens.
In the past 48 hours 19 Palestinians have been killed, tossed from rooftops, executed at point-blank range, and shot in hospital wards. That number seems certain to rise. More than 80 Palestinians have now been killed since mid May.

Among yesterday's dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer's home.

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

Don't you just love these people? "We're not Jews", which makes this terribly wrong. Whereas if the Hamassholes(thank you for the term, Emperor) were killing Jewish men and women and children, it would be just ducky.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy to the Middle East, said: "The picture which emerges is very dark, and apparently getting darker. There are reasons for real concerns in the international community."

My first thought is that things will rapidly get lighter as the terrorists kill each other off. And to quote somebody, it serves them right. The Palistinians knowingly elected a terrorist organization to power, and this is part of what comes after. "...reasons for real concerns in the international community", which means that the UN will have a commission to appoint people to a study to examine the situation and make recommendations as to what the following letters of "Why are you doing this?" should say exactly.

And for more on why they deserve this(at least a LOT of them do), check this out:
A 'music video' broadcast on a Palestinian Hamas TV station on Wednesday had a simple message for its viewers: Carrying out a suicide bomb attack is more important than raising one's children.

The video, broadcast on al-Aqsa TV, was made available by Palestinian Media Watch and can be viewed on YouTube.

I think it was Golda Mier who said there would be peace when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated Jews. Looks like they're not there yet. By a long damn way.

And in other news, Angelina Jolie really is a jerk. Not bad looking, but a jerk.

Reason #216 why Sen. Harry Reid

(Disgusting-NV) is a sorry, worthless, walking piece of crap.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

Stinking, cowardly, corrupt, vile little excuse for a man. And do take notice of the picture; looks like he's copying the Castro & Co. 'socialism forever!' speechifying.

Among the reasons I like Oklahoma

is the way vets tend to be treated. In this case, the son of a friend, a Marine just back from his second tour in Iraq. Couple of days ago they went to a Pizza Hut for dinner, and a friend of the father who'd known the son growing up saw them, invited them over, and then announced to the place that this man was just back from the sandbox. The whole place gave him a round of applause.

Tonight he said a bit about it. He'd been in Ramadi and said that when his battalion arrived, for the first couple of months there'd been a bunch of firefights; for the last two months not a single American troop in his area had fired a shot. The Iraqi army and police had done all the fighting. From a trickle of information from the locals at the beginning they'd moved up almost to a 'flood' level, tips on bad guys(who and where), weapons and explosives caches and so on.

Also mentioned they'd had a bunch of bad guys who'd gotten sick of the fighting and killing and turned themselves in, often giving information leading to arrests of bad guys and lots of equipment.

He spoke of power restored to neighborhoods, schools and clinics opened and such. Finished with 'there's still bad problems, but they're moving ahead and taking responsibility; it's getting better'.

Oh yes, he got a round of thanks from us, too.

It's not quite 'Let Africa Sink',

but it's definitely 'Stop trying to save us!".

Couple of years ago Kim wrote Let Africa Sink, his thoughts on what might save that continent. This is an interview with a Kenyan economics expert basically saying that "all the aid is making things worse". Couple of key quotes:

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

and on the subject of AIDS:
Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

Interesting reading.

So the only time Mexico gives a damn about border security

is when A: it's their southern border and people are sneaking in and B: it's their northern border and they're blaming us for their problems.

Like this one:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that Washington is taking steps to address Mexican concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to stop illegal weapons from being smuggled across the border and into the hands of brutal drug gangs.

Oh yes, the drug gangs couldn't possibly be getting weapons anywhere except from the U.S. And it seems the Mexican government is getting talking points from the Brady Gun Ban Group:
Mexican officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. must do more to stop the flow of potent weapons - including assault rifles and even .50-caliber machine guns - that drug gangs often purchase in the United States.
You know, those evil select-fire M16's and the M2 Brownings you find on the shelves at the local gun shop?

Except that ANY select-fire or automatic weapon can only be bought legally after a bunch of federal paperwork and background checks and taxes and fees, and only if it's one that was owned by someone before it was decided(back in the 80's) that no new firearms of the type could be sold to citizens. Which means, besides the cost, there's only so many of them and the authorities are pretty picky about inspections to make sure people still have them. Which means, (wonder of wonders), that the bad guys- IF they're buying them here- are(GASP!) buying them illegally.

And I have to wonder about that, because there's a very few companies that build these, and they have to account for every one built. Not just the completed guns, but the receivers. And even if you assume a company is willing to risk the entire business for the chance of making a few extra dollars sneaking out some pieces to sell, just how many could they manage to make and sneak out?

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on the (U.S.) side of the border," Patricio Patino, Mexico's top anti-drug intelligence official, said last month. "What we have asked the American government ... is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons."

I call bullshit. I don't doubt that there are smugglers taking some weapons south across the border, and if somebody's sneaking them in to the U.S. first and then south, but the numbers they're talking about? And this 'shipments of weapons' crap makes it sound- again- like someone can buy this stuff in stores here and then sneak it south across the border.

And, with all the coastline to land things on and mordida being the way of business down there in so many things, just why would someone smuggle the stuff into the U.S. and then across a second border into Mexico? As much as anything, sounds like another way of blaming the evil, nasty, bigoted U.S. for the problem.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora argued that combatting violence was a cross-border issue, saying: "We recognize that we can't confront this problem alone."

Gonzales agreed, and said he and President Bush were "committed to collaborating in the development of a regional security and law enforcement strategy."

"Regional security and law enforcement strategy", right. When it's about something THEY want stopped and only in a way that(you can be sure) won't inconvenience the people crossing our border illegally.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's build a damn fence along the border and stop ALL the smuggling going BOTH ways! And when the Mexican government bitches and whines about the northbound smuggling being stopped(people in particular) wave this article at them and tell them to shut the hell up.


Added: be it noted that Mexico has real problems with gangs of various types; I'm just damn sick of the U.S. being in some way called responsible for all of them.

The son has been heard from,

Yesterday while packing up to head out in the field again. They've been training hard(as they should) and spending a lot of time out in the field.

Pretty much everybody's been qualifying with everything, and he made expert with the M240B











.30 caliber machinegun. Also fired the M2 Browning, (only with the plastic bullet practice ammo, alas) and everything else that might come to hand in time of trouble.

He's supposed to have some leave and come back for a visit in the near future, which'll be nice. So far, so good.

If you've got someone joining or in who doesn't have one, may I make a suggestion? A really good folding knife. Gave him one for his birthday a couple of weeks before he shipped out, one of the big CRKT folders, and it's been a very handy tool.

Dealing with police

in a traffic stop is the subject of this post over at Kim's. Read it, and then read the comments. All 122 of them that got in before he closed them.

Something I'd read confirmed about .303 ammo

I'd read years ago that to increase lethality, the Brits had started putting an aluminum insert into the nose of the jacket to move the center of balance further back: the bullet remained very stable in flight and accurate, but on hitting a 'soft' target tended to go unstable much more quickly. This was the Mark VII ball.

Just looked at the Box o' Truth for the first time in a while and found this post testing just such ammo, including a couple of pictures. I'd never tried cutting a bullet in half to check the inside, here's the aluminum insert design:


















And, to make it even more interesting, here's a WWII round with a WOOD insert:


















Better than my describing it, go check out his results with this ammo on water jugs. Impressive, to say the least. A few years ago I wound up with several boxes of WWII Brit .303 ammo, I may have to move it up to my 'grab in case of trouble' box.

Ok, so I lied on one point

and was wrong on the other.

I looked at the parts of the pistol, sitting there all oily and disassembled, and I just couldn't wait. So I put it all together(minus the grips) and here it is in it's new, still very oily glory

















In my case, I can't blame the camera. Mine's pretty good, but I don't have the lighting or the skill to really show how well this came out. It's just as black and even as the knife blade. And if I'd spent an hour or two with a file and some 240/320/400 grit wet/dry paper polishing the slide and frame, it'd be just as smooth and glorious a finish.

This is so damn pretty I will eventually take it back down, polish and re-black it.

The only post I will do about Paris Hilton

It's about damn time she was treated like anyone else would be. Anyone else would have spent time in jail when first arrested for DUI, not to mention the two times she was caught driving without a license after that.

When she showed up late for the sentencing hearing, anyone else would've been whacked for that, too. For that matter, as Lawdog pointed out, anyone else in any other venue, when the parents stood up in court and started mouthing off, they'd have either been whacked with a fine or jail time or both.

My primary thought is the parents need a serious kick in the ass. They raised this kid to believe that because they were rich, she was automatically something special. She became 'famous' for nothing more than being of a rich family, going to big-name parties and flashing her crotch at photographers when getting out of cars, and came to think she was immune to actually having to do things like obey the law.

Paris Hilton was taken from a courtroom screaming and crying Friday seconds after a judge ordered her returned to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Hilton. "Mom!" she called out to her mother in the audience.

Maybe, just maybe, if her parents had held her responsible for her conduct in some real way years ago, she wouldn't be whining and screaming at being held responsible for it now.