Monday looks better after a good nights sleep

But some of this stuff is still freakin' nuts.

The Telegraph looks at the facts of climate cooling showing up in many places; here's the end:
Three factors are vital to crops: the light and warmth of the sun, adequate rainfall and the carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis. As we are constantly reminded, we still have plenty of that nasty, polluting CO2, which the politicians are so keen to get rid of. But there is not much they can do about the sunshine or the rainfall.

It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world's food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming, Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU's biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn't persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that. And the EU, we must always remember, is now our government – the one most of us didn't vote for last week.
Which is why so many of the globular warmering nuts have switched over to being "Man is causing Climate Change!" nuts; hard to tell someone in Montana or Ontario or Australia that Globular Warmering is going to cook you when it's snowing in June. Or, in the case of the Aussies, colder and/or snowier than usual. And you've GOT to keep people from paying attention to those sunspots disappearing and the history of what happens when they do.

Which brings us to the evil Frankenfoods crops that have been genetically-modified in a non-PC manner. As in, in a lab instead of over ten or twenty years in fields. Y'know, like Golden Rice that can help prevent blindness in kids that's not supposed to be used because-Gasp! Horror!- it's been genetically modified to produce a needed vitamin? In this case, a wheat disease that could cause literally catastrophic damage to wheat crops needs to be fought; and the article includes this:
After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a mere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from Ug99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques is a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process will have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that is specially adapted to a particular region and climate.

"All the seed needs to change in the next few years," said Ronnie Coffman, a plant breeder who heads the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project. "It's really an enormous undertaking."
Yes, it is. And not a mention of modifying those genes in a lab; oh, no, we've got to ignore that and hope the 'nine- to 12-year process' can work in time.

People, every single crop out there is the product of genetic manipulation. Corn, beans, wheat, turnips, tomatoes, everything. All of it, to some extent over time, by selective breeding; some by further manipulation in labs. I don't now if some of the "No Frankenfoods!" protesters don't realize it, or don't care, but it's fact. I have a problem with some mods(producing seeds that can't be planted, things like that); especially since some of them can spread to other fields. But if there's no lab looking at ways to change/add those genes it'll surprise hell out of me; problem is, they find a way to do it the EUnuchs & Co. will scream and call names and insist those nasty seeds not be used. And they'll pay the price. Or, the people who starve because of it will pay the price(I'm sure the EUnuchs will still get plenty to eat). As a guy says at Insty, “The great irony is that America’s greater acceptance of genetically engineered food will leave it the least vulnerable to this stuff. The EU may be stuck with genetically modified wheat, if it wants to grow any wheat at all.”


Ann Althouse is often interesting, but occasionally I wonder what the hell is going on in her head. She has this post on the Letterman idiocy, and is bent out of shape about the Palin response:
"The Palins have no intention of providing a ratings boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show. Plus, it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman," PalinPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said Wednesday.
She says this about that:
Sullivan seems to miss that Stapleton just made a child-rape joke. It's a joke! Well, it's a joke is not an apt excuse — is it? — when the joke is supposed to work based on a shared belief about the butt of it.

Stapleton's joke depends on seeing Letterman as someone who's enthused about the rape of children — or at least the children of politicians we don't like. By the same token, Letterman's joke worked to the extent that the audience shares the belief that Palin's daughter is a big slut.
What the hell? How she gets this from Stapleton's words, I don't know. It's anything but a 'child-rape joke'; it's "We have no intention of exposing the kids to this creepy, insulting bastard." But, further along, she says this in response to a comment:
Christy said... "I interpreted "wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman" not as a child rape joke but as a joke that Willow would tear Letterman a new one."

So, in your scenario, the child is now the rapist -- the violent anal rapist? That sure solves everything.
I repeat, what the hell? I think she's been reading Sullivan too much, it's affecting her thought processes.


Israel's PM made a speech the other day on the 'two state' solution, and it includes this:
This policy must take into account the international situation that has recently developed. We must recognise this reality and at the same time stand firmly on those principles essential for Israel. I have already stressed the first principle – recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is: demilitarisation. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We don't want Kassam rockets on Petach Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion airport. We want peace.

In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbollah and Iran. On this point as well, there is wide consensus within Israel.

It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised.
As Ace says, it basically tells Obama "You can say all the pretty words you want, if we don't have real assurances, like troops on the ground or something, that a Palestinian state won't be used to attack Israel, it ain't gonna happen. So what do you say?" The Palestinians want Israel destroyed and all the Jews dead(preferably everywhere), and they want to be handed a state with no conditions, so they're screaming and blaming the perfidious Jews for ruining things by demanding to survive; SSDD*. Makes me wonder if Obama thinks he can just keep throwing words and things will happen, or thinks that as long as he's speaking his will people will forget that nothing's happening. Or something.


Another addition to Brigid's handloading post(hey, somebody's got to overly-complicate things; she sure didn't): for straight-wall handgun cases, like .45acp and .38 Special and so forth, there's actually two kinds of dies that don't need lube: carbide(that she spoke of) and titanium nitride. I think it's primarily Hornady that uses the TiN in their dies, but in any case works like carbide. Good stuff.


What, Gov. Palin actually accomplished something? And clowns who had nothing to do with it are trying to claim some credit? Wow.


What? Corruption and law-breaking from a Chicago politician?

Inspectors General are part of every federal department. They are given the responsibility of independently investigating allegations of waste, fraud, and corruption in the government, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House. Last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which added new protections for IGs, including a measure requiring the president to give Congress 30 days prior notice before dismissing an IG. The president must also give Congress an explanation of why the action is needed. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was one of the co-sponsors of the Act.

So what? This:

...on Wednesday night the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received a call from the White House counsel’s office telling him that he had one hour to either resign or be fired. The White House did not cite a reason.
[RTWT - includes Walpin’s email response to the fone call]

And lots of other stuff. Whole LOTS of other stuff at the linked article.


Canada's chief censor tried to get Ezra Levant thrown off a show. Backfire, in a major way.


I've been reading stuff about the post-election mess in Iran. Was there fraud? I don't doubt it. Anything we can do? Very little; it would involve Obama actually giving support to those yelling about the problems, and he seems far too busy trying to kiss up to Ahmadogcrap to actually, y'know, care about the problem. Other than saying something along the lines of "We are concerned."


Dog food and birdseed to buy, I'm off.

Kevin notes that The Obama is losing some surprising people;

and when he's lost those three...
Now Maher's doing teleprompter jokes?

I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

Mouth hangs agape.

He has done a lot of stuff. He's validated all most all of the actions taken by his predecessor (that's what had Rall all fired up), he's dissed his gay constituency (that's got Democratic Underground all fired up), he's essentially taken control of major banks and two of the Big 3 auto makers. How can you say he hasn't done anything? Oh, right. You're Bill Maher.

I know that's harsh. But when I read about how you sat on the sidelines while bailed-out banks used the money we gave them to hire lobbyists who got Congress to stop homeowners from getting renegotiated loans, or how Congress is already giving up on healthcare reform, or how scientists say it's essential to reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years, but your own bill calls for 4%, I say, enough with the character development, let's get on with the plot.

See? Obama just didn't do what Bill wants done.
And so on. It's funny as hell to see people like Mahar having fits because- Gasp! Surprise!- they've discovered The One lied to them, but it's tempered by the knowledge that he's screwing the whole damn country over- or trying very hard to- with the support of these clowns.

It is nice that Obama's now facing revolt from a lot of Evil Party members. Whether it's personal problems with his trying to take over everything, or pressure from people back home saying "He want to do WHAT? You vote for this and you're toast!"; people taking note of the damage being done by his takeover of GM and Chrysler and closing dealerships, people- often with family and/or friends in the military looking at the cuts he's trying to shove through; people looking at his screwing over Israel in order to suck up to the 'muslim world'; there's a lot of Reps and Sens backing off a whole bunch of things. I get the feeling that he truly believed that because he's Obama, and The First (semi)Black President, that people were just going to bow down and do his bidding(witness the "I won" crap early on); now that he's pissed off a LOT more people, including many who voted for him, and now that people are listing to/reading alternate media and getting more information than the major media(i.e., 'the suckups') will give, he's realized- or his advisors have- that he just can't do a lot of this crap. For instance, that 'reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years' crap; people have been getting the message of just how badly trying that will cripple us('cripple', hell, flat destroy our economy and lives) and raising hell with the politicians, and- most of them being politicians to whom staying in DC means more than anything else- they're listening. Which means no blind following for The One, which means problems in his agenda.

And so the realization hits a lot of people; not only did he lie to them on a lot of things, but he apparently didn't realize just how much resistance would be generated to a lot of the other promises; and, Obama being a Chicago machine politician(defined as 'crooked as a dogs' broken hind leg'), he'll throw just about anybody and anything under the bus if he thinks it'll help him in some way. Like all the good union members now finding their jobs gone but the Union still being kissed by the administration; they realize that while he does indeed 'owe the Unions', he doesn't give a crap about the members, just about the brass who control the money and can order people around.

Like I say, entertaining as hell in some ways, but the enjoyment is tempered.

Ref Brigid's reloading post,

I'll throw in a couple of things.

That bright-red Lee hand press in the pictures? I've got one; first press I owned. I loaded a LOT of .38 Special and .357 Mag on it, and a bunch of .303 British. And yes, full-length resizing a .303 case with it will give you Arms and Shoulders of Steel! if you do much of it. The press I learned from Dad on- which he still has- is a massive old Herter's swaging press, built like an I-beam. Strong enough, and leverage enough, to swage bullets. It's a 'C' press, as the body is 'C'-shaped, open in the front; and 'O' press is closed in front for more rigidity with less weight. If you wind up doing much, I'd suggest getting a 'C' or 'O', as they bolt to the bench and give you more leverage for rifle cases. But I still have that Lee stuck away, as a backup. And because you can take it and sit down and resize/deprime and bell cases in the living room with a movie on.

When you get a scale, the basic you should look at is a good balance-beam scale; very basic, very accurate and will last forever if you take care of it(much like a good press and dies). If you decide to get an electronic scale(Dad has one and loves it) as you primary scale, get a good one. Which is going to cost around a hundred bucks or more. The small ones that you can find on sale for $20 are fine for spot-checking, but they tend to 'drift', as in not holding zero, which means you can weigh a couple of things(charges, bullets, whatever) and then start getting odd weights because it forgot where 'zero' is, so you have to recalibrate, and it's a pain to have to keep doing it. Something like this RCBS, for example(the one Dad has) ain't cheap; unless something's wrong with it, it won't forget where 'zero' is every time you turn around, either.

Brigid covers that you can wash cases to clean them without using a tumbler; you can also wash them AND tumble. Rifle cases that have to be lubed for resizing I usually* wash and dry before I tumble to get rid of ANY traces of lube. She notes you should only use the 'warm' oven setting; reason is, you get the brass too hot and you're annealing it to some extent(accidentally leave the oven too high and you'll completely anneal them) and, as she says, this is Bad. Annealing is something you do to the case mouth area only, and then only when actually needed; anneal the base and the area above and you take away some of the ability of the case to hold pressure, which is indeed a Bad Thing.

Please do not misunderstand, I think she did a damn fine job of covering "Starting Handloading"; it's just that I have a hard time not throwing things in.

*Some lubes are water-soluble, and those that aren't will usually be cut by adding some suitable dish soap(I usually use Dawn). For some jobs I use this stuff, which is flat wonderful, and when you're done you can just wipe those cases with a paper towel to clean it off.

Spent the weekend visiting parents,

which was nice. Dad was helping an old friend make a start at handloading, and we got him through 100 rounds of .38 wadcutters and 15 rounds of .257 Roberts. He's going to try those out before making any more(especially the rifle loads).

Stormed last night in Lawton, but appears to have missed the Oklahoma City area. Right now, between the tornado or severe thunderstorms watchs, almost the western half of the state is covered. It's mid- to upper 80's outside, and I think the humidity is almost 70%. Which is just delightful, if you like sweating from the effort of breathing. Right now they're saying 30% chance of storms in OKC, but I'll wait; I've seen '30%' turn into 'Head for the cellar!" in the space of a couple of hours.

Brigid has a very good post up on starting handloading; if you're thinking of it, go read, lots of good information. Though I think she made a special effort to make her loading space nice and neat; I've NEVER seen a working bench that clean. If she actually keeps it that clean in use... then she ain't human.

I also left mom the recipe for the cast-iron soda bread; I suspect she'll be trying it the next day or two.

I've got to put things away, and feed the dog in a while; when it's this hot she won't really eat until closer to dark. More later, assuming I don't fall over.

"Don't you talk to those people,

WE will see it as a hostile act!"
Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called a last-minute, pre-emptive strike on Wednesday with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday.

Russell Sullivan, the top staffer on Finance, and Jon Selib, Baucus’ chief of staff, met with a bloc of more than 20 contract lobbyists, including several former Baucus aides.

“They said, ‘Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act,’” said a Democratic lobbyist who attended the meeting.

“Going to the Republican meeting will say, ‘I’m interested in working with Republicans to stop health care reform,’” the lobbyist added.
Hey, Montana, you need to have words with Baucus; he seems to think threatening people to help Obama take over health care is part of his job.

Hope! Change! Threats if you don't go along; it's the Chicago Way! And the Evil Party just doesn't seem to have any tolerance for somone disagreeing, do they?

And let's not forget Obama's speech the other day of "I don't want to run things! I'm too busy! I don't want the government running things!" Flat-out lies, and he expects people to believe them.

Of course, he has all that enthusiastic belief of his mistakes or lies(take your pick) about the mideast, so I guess he expects everyone to believe everything he says:
In the recent Cairo speech, Obama's historical allusions were even more suspect. Almost every one of his references was either misleading or incomplete. He suggested that today's Middle East tension was fed by the legacy of European colonialism and the Cold War that had reduced nations to proxies.

But the great colonizers of the Middle East were the Ottoman Muslims, who for centuries ruled with an iron fist. The 20th-century movements of Baathism, Pan-Arabism and Nasserism — largely homegrown totalitarian ideologies — did far more damage over the last half-century to the Middle East than the legacy of European colonialism.

Obama also claimed that "Islam … carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment." While medieval Islamic culture was impressive and ensured the survival of a few classical texts — often through the agency of Arabic-speaking Christians — it had little to do with the European rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin values. Europeans, Chinese and Hindus, not Muslims, invented most of the breakthroughs Obama credited to Islamic innovation...

Obama also insisted that "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition." Yet the Spanish Inquisition began in 1478; by then Cordoba had long been re-conquered by Spanish Christians, and was governed as a staunchly Christian city.

In reference to Iraq, President Obama promised that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other." Is he unaware of how the United States imposed democracies after World War II?

Hopey!! Changey!!! And screw Israel!!!!

And, just to add to the glisten on his halo, Pres. B. Hussein Cartman Obama wants to can an inspector general for actually doing his job. I guess this fits with Pelosi's Most Ethical Congress EVAH!

"Communism. I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it. I will hate it until the end of my life.

Most of you here say guns in the hands of people can defeat tyrants. Regardless of what you may hear from naysayers and firearms “hobbyists” who will tell you AR’s and AK’s in civilian hands are no match for tanks and machine guns (I remember one such hobbyist posting this here on Calguns), I come before you to tell you that what you believe to be true it is true: on December 22nd 1989 me and thousands of my compatriots we did just that.

The Word, from someone who lived through that time in Romania. Go. Read.

This crap is NOT a good way to wake up

too early. That's bad enough, but then you go online and run across crap like this:
Listen to him. He's talking in what seems to be a glossolalic deluge of issues. One plan a week, each thrown out there while we're still digesting the previous one. He's moving too fast for us to keep up with him. He's talking a private language, to himself, like crazy people do, because he certainly can't be talking to us, his strange, atrophied people, our capacity for large projects and great achievement, let alone for the participation in enlightened self-government that such projects and achievements require, something safely kept reserved for HBO historical miniseries. The muscles have gone slack, the nerve endings gone dead. He's talking about phantoms, about ghosts, about things that aren't really there. He's speaking in tongues is what he's doing.
Insty had a link to this, titled What if Obama's out of his mind? But don't worry, the article makes it clear that Obama is just freakin' WONDERFUL and intelligent and trying to save us; it's most of America that's degraded and full of hate and stupidity. Pierce describes the tea parties:
...On April 15, all around the country, there was an inchoate outburst of public disapproval. There were caricatures of him dressed as Hitler and as Lenin, which is a considerable, if utterly ahistorical, parlay. There was the spectacle of thousands of lower-middle-class people making the noise of hundreds and expressing outrage that Obama intended to raise the marginal tax rate on people making more than $250,000 a year to somewhere around where it was during Ronald Reagan's second term. It was a pathetically thin if noisy spasm of ill-conceived outrage.
If that doesn't tell you the whole of this piece of crap...


Letterman's a sorry piece of crap, and CBS can't do things honestly at all, can they?
The remark was aired live, but CBS removed it from the transcript it makes available to media, including the New York Times, which publishes Letterman’s opening monologue on its blog site.
They just seem to love memory holes, don't they?


Ten things about the Kennedy-Dodd Shut up and do what you're told, peasantHealth Care bill they're trying to shove down our throats.


Congress and 'transparency', which apparently means "If you don't know about it it's transparent" to these dirtbags.
Lawmakers do not have to reveal homes they own unless they are rental properties. They also do not have to say whether they have mortgages or home equity lines of credit on their non-rental residences, who holds the debt, how much it is or what the terms are. Often, it’s only when scandal occurs that the public learns of financial arrangements that pose potential conflicts of interest.

That was the case when the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., received preferential treatment on mortgages. Dodd was an architect of last year’s multibillion-dollar housing rescue plan. The scandal involved a Countrywide Financial Corp., “VIP” program for “friends of Angelo,” Countrywide’s then-chief executive Angelo Mozilo. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit this month accusing Mozilo of civil fraud and illegal insider trading.

Dodd’s mortgages don’t appear in his public financial disclosure reports; Conrad disclosed a Countrywide mortgage on a rental property but not one for a vacation home. Both have denied wrongdoing.


So Pres. B. Hussein Cartman Obama ordered the FBI to Afghanistan to read Miranda Rights(something here in the US) to terrorists captured in battle; why yes, the man is insane or a freakin' idiot. Take your pick. Of course, attached to this we also have to thank McCain for his idiocy. God, that the last Presidential election was a choice between these two...


Various media weenies are trying very hard to say the nut who murdered a guard(Stephen Tyrone Johns, who should be remembered) at the Holocaust Museum proves that Napolitano's DHS report saying 'Veterans are a Threat' correct:
"As you watch, bear in mind that Smith and Herridge know they're talking about a guy who claims to be an 89-year old WWII veteran. Unless he crashed a PT boat through the front doors of the Holocaust Museum, any military training from back in '42 was not a factor. But Smith wants to make sure you understand very specifically - this is a former military guy, it's not political, social, or anything else."
Please note the suggestion at Blackfive: You want your e-mail to have impact? Then start contacting advertisers on Fox News and ask them if they agree with the comments and conclusions expressed by Smith and Herridge. Be nice about it, but... That will get action, writing him or Fox will not.

From the gentleman at This Ain't Hell, on the subject of the DHS report,
(U//FOUO) The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

ME: Hey JT.
JT: [Congressional Staffer] Hey, what’s up?
ME: You covered the whole DHS report debacle right, I have a few questions.
JT: You know they pulled that report, right?
ME: Yeah, I heard that, but why did they pull it?
JT: Because everyone went batshit over it.
ME: Like who?
JT: Well, veterans groups for one. Also all the Tea Party people, a whole host of blogs, most GOP Senators and Congressmen. But, really, it pretty much got pulled when Bennie Thompson the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committe came out and said that “this report appears to raise significant issues involving the privacy and civil liberties of many Americans — including war veterans… As I am certain you agree, freedom of association and freedom of speech are guaranteed to all Americans — whether a person’s beliefs, whatever their political orientation, are ‘extremist’ or not.”
ME: Any idea how long he’s been active in the white supremacist movement?
JT: …….
ME: You there?
JT: What the hell are you talking about? He’s a black democrat from Mississippi who’s on the Congressional Black Caucus.
ME: Does he hate Jews?
JT: Is this going somewhere?
ME: I’m just wondering who complained on behalf of the racists who were in the report so that it got pulled. Anyone stand up for the Klan or anything?
JT: I’m going back to work now.
ME: One last question. How many people stood up for the rights of previously incarcerated wackjobs who tried to kidnap federal officials?
JT: *click*

And, proving we have no corner on idiot politicians, in and out of uniform,
But it has emerged that the Who Dares Wins regiment had been planning a classic hostage rescue.

In a rare breach of protocol that reveals the SAS’s anger, serving members have given us details of the top-secret action.

Operation Aerobic was organised after al-Qaeda’s North Africa wing set a deadline for the release of hate preacher Abu Qatada in exchange for Mr Dyer’s life.

But with time almost up at the end of May, senior military officers in the MoD advised Foreign Secretary David Miliband that the operation must not go ahead.

SAS officers and other ranks across the board were left furious.

A senior SAS source said: “We knew where he was. We are convinced we could have got him out alive, but Whitehall bottled it.

“Whether it was the Directorate of Special Forces, the military chiefs or Government ministers, we don’t know. We have our suspicions.

“Of course there was risk, there always is in hostage rescue. The group said they were going to kill him anyway, so what was there to lose?

“And if we did it, it would have sent a powerful message to these sorts of people not to screw with Brits.”
God knows why it was decided not to do this; I can't see a downside to a strike of SAS troops playing "Guess who!" with a bunch of terrorists. And the troops are pissed; that 'rare breach of protocol' says it all.

Of course, this would have indicated the Brits still have people capable of pulling this off and resulted in the whacking of bad guys; maybe that's exactly why some weenies didn't want it to happen.


Ain't things just wonderful at times?

On the "We're all gonna DIE!!!' front,

St. Helens might be part of a supervolcano.
IS A supervolcano brewing beneath Mount St Helens? Peering under the volcano has revealed what may be an extraordinarily large zone of semi-molten rock, which would be capable of feeding a giant eruption.

Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents travelling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock.

Graham Hill of GNS Science, an earth and nuclear science institute in Wellington, New Zealand, led a team that set up magnetotelluric sensors around Mount St Helens in Washington state, which erupted with force in 1980. The measurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano. About 15 kilometres below the surface, the relatively narrow column appears to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material.
I remember when St. Helens blew in 1980; besides all the general noise, for months afterward every time the thing hiccupped- or seemed about to- the voice on the Civil Defense phone would put out a warning. Assuming it actually is one part of a supervolcano base, if it ever blew for real there'd probably be one warning- "Ok, folks, we're all screwed"- and that's it.

Range day

Though it promised to be hot, I went. Glad I did, too; after all this 30%, it's gonna be bloody awful humidity tomorrow if it does hit the upper 80's.

I discovered a while back that the Hornady Leverevolution .30-30 ammo won't work very well in my Model 94; with the rear sight as low as it goes the stuff still hits almost 8" high at 50 yards. I did have a chance to try it in a Savage 340 with a scope; the stuff seems quite accurate. I'm wondering what the trajectory is like at 150 and 200 yards(I need to find a place with longer range).

Every time I shoot that S&W Target Masterpiece I'm more glad I bought it; even I can shoot fairly well with it.

If I haven't said it before, I heartily endorse a .22 conversion kit for your 1911. Or Glock. Or Hi-Power, or whatever else you can find one for. Mine's a Ceiner, and so far the only problem I've had is when it gets dirty, and can't really fault it for that. Seems to work with all ammo I've tried in it; definitely more authority and the brass flies further with something like Golden Bullet, but even with Centurion or Federal Champion it ticks right along.

I found some Lake City .223 brass someone left, and saved it; of all the brands I've tried, this stuff seems the easiest to form for the Nagant revolver. Otherwise, I think I found three or four .30-06 cases and two .308 on the rifle side; just about everything else reloadable had been cleaned up already. Lots of 9mm, .40S&W and .45acp on the pistol side, though not as much as before. I did find about twenty-five or so .380 cases, especially nice right now.

Remember that sucky Pentax red-dot sight I wrote about a year or so ago? Ran across it and decided to try it one more time, on a .22. New battery, everything clean, and it worked. For about 50 rounds. Then it started wandering all over the damn place; try to adjust elevation and it would change the windage, too, on top of that. I repeat:
Pentax Red-Dot Sights Suck!

I don't know why, but a lot of cast-bullet loads are very consistent in hitting a few inches to the right of where jacketed bullets hit. In something with windage adjustments, no big deal; just crank it over a click or two. In everything else, unless you plan to use cast loads only, you just get used to the POI being a little off.

Guy was trying out a .17HMR Savage rifle he'd just acquired. Seemed very accurate. He hung up a coconut at 50 yards and shot it; little bitty hole up front, BIG hole in back. I do believe that'll leave a mark on varmints.

Just a general day at the range, which ended as a storm was blowing in.

Except for not going to a workplace, doesn't seem like much less work to do so far in retirement; just different stuff. All kinds of little stuff I never had time to get to. Like trimming the holly trees out front, which I realized didn't just need trimming but almost needed to be beaten into submission, they'd grown out so much. So spent a couple of hours cutting them back, and gathering the trimmings into the trash can. I need to look up holly and see if there's a male and female plant; the leaves on one are pointy, but the leaves on the other will flat stab you. I do like the things; green and pretty, red berries in winter and in spring lots of little blossoms that attract honeybees. But trimming them will bleed you if you're not careful. And there's more to do, but it was too hot to continue the other day, so in a day or two out with the ladder and get the stuff overhanging the carport and house.

David Letterman really is a sorry pimple on the ass of mankind

Pacific Taping tonight's program in New York, Letterman made for him a lengthy explanation or clarification, though no apology. He said that his "joke" Monday about Palin's (unnamed) daughter getting "knocked up" by a professional baseball player was aimed at Palin's daughter, Bristol, who is 18, not Willow, who is 14 and attended the baseball game. "I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex with a 14-year-old girl...Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes."
So, according to this sorry little shrunken-testicled boob, it's just fine to make jokes about the rape of Palin's 18-year-old daughter, but not the 14-year-old. Yeah. Right.

Letterman, you suck. Like a Rainbow plugged into a 220-volt circuit.

Down in the comments, the first one is by a clown named Peggy, who wrote
Sarah made her daughter and her out of wedlock pregnancy part of her political persona. Sure it's a cheap shot, but Sarah Palin is the one who put her daughter and her daughter's sexuality in the spotlight.
Let me explain something to you, Peggy, since you don't seem to be bright enough to figure it out: her family was on stage with her; that does NOT make them an open target. At least not to anyone with any moral sense or integrity.

And, as I recall, it was the Evil Party and the media who did the whole 'part of her political persona', she just noted she understood some of the hard things families go through, having this problem in their family(while the media who couldn't be bothered to question Obama about anything was sending teams to Alaska trying to dig up dirt). But according to you, that makes it open season on her kids? Uh huh. I'll bet you would've screamed bloody murder if anyone had said a word about Chelsea Clinton, wouldn't you?

"I am afraid I no longer believe"

in a number of things. Like our major media. And President Obama's statements.
No one points out that almost every historical reference Obama invoked in Cairo—from the supposed Muslim role in great world discoveries to Islam fueling the Renaissance and Enlightenment to the Inquisition and Spain—was inflated, but, more importantly, always inflated from a politically-correct point of view.
...
I do not believe any of his numbers concerning, or analysis about, Muslims in America. I do not think he has a clue about the Renaissance and its relationship to the flight of Greek-speaking scholars to Western Europe from the fear of Turkish Muslims, or the Enlightenment’s interest in a Greece suffering under the yoke of an oppressive Ottoman fundamentalism.
Read it all. And that last bit I quoted reminded me of something: any idea when was the last major invasion of Europe by an islamic power? 1683. The Ottoman army made it all the way to, and laid seige to, Vienna. As in Austria. Damn near conquered most of western Europe. Think President Obama will ever make mention of that when talking about islam's contributions to the Renaissance and Enlightenment?

Once again we hear from the "That is not the pastor I knew!

pastor:
"Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ...

"They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do."
You know, it must be really handy for a politician to have a religious and moral teacher who has no problem with him lying and hiding what he actually thinks and does.

Ace points out that he might be speaking of one Jew in particular:
Jew not Jews? Several commenters have pointed out that Obama's Chief of Staff and gatekeeper, Rahm Emanuel, is Jewish. I always forget that but it's true. I'm guessing the f-bombs are flying around the West Wing in even greater numbers today.

And, considering Obama spent twenty years listening to stuff like that makes the concerns of Israel very understandable. And very real:

Israel's Channel One TV reported that Netanyahu was told Tuesday by an "American official" in Jerusalem that, "We are going to change the world. Please, don't interfere." The report said Netanyahu's aides interpreted this as a "threat."

The message could not be any clearer: "that's a nice country you got there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."

The only problem with that, is that it's become clear that some of Obama's administration want something to happen to Israel. Soon. Which makes it not a threat but a promise: "Don't mess with us while we're changing things, or you'll get screwed sooner."

Pretty much true

Thanks to Theo

Damn, I've caught all kinds of things, but never a Sidewinder

Despite the danger, Rodney Salomon, a commercial fisherman, reeled in the missile, attached it to his boat and kept fishing in the Gulf of Mexico for another 10 days before returning to port.

"I had it strapped to the roof of my boat as we rode through lightning storms," Mr Salomon said, according to local Tampa Bay's 10 Connects News.

The bomb squad from a nearby military base that promptly dismantled it upon his return to shore said the heavily corroded eight-foot-long missile could have exploded at any moment.
And he did it again!
He said it wasn't the first one he and his three-man "Bold Venture" crew picked up. Days after the find, Mr Salomon nabbed another.

That one was beeping so he decided to let it go.
Probably a wise decision; and I'm sure they wouldn't have let him keep it, either.

Last night I watered the garden, and hit a couple of spots

again this morning, so the 30% chance of rain became 100% a short time ago; a nice, soft rain that's soaking in nicely.

Good thing I didn't wash the truck after all, yesterday; there's probably be tornado warnings.

Be it noted that David Letterman

is an asshole. A vicious, nasty, slimy, infected asshole.

And you 'Republicans' who crap on Palin and family at every opportunity? You're just as low and dirty.

Awww, the poor little 'muslim convert' murdering piece of

shit considers himself 'innocent' because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.
Gee, which action is that, you miserable little excuse for a pimple on the ass of mankind? Building schools? Shooting your chickenshit child-raping brethren who kill children for daring to go to school? Whacking your brothers who murder men standing in line to apply for a job? Keeping your fornicator of swine islamists from killing people who're trying to take care of their irrigation canals?*

Standard excuse-making learned from every islamist dog-humper from Hamas to the local "I dream of murdering women for showing an ankle in the marketplace" imam: "WE ARE VICTIMS! So you can't blame us for ANYTHING we do!"

And this from a local representative of the Religion of Peace:
Muhammad had moved to Arkansas in the spring to work at his father's bus tour company and had never attended the Islamic Center of Little Rock, a mosque frequented by most of the area's Muslims, said Iftikhar Pathan, the center's president.

Pathan said he spoke with most of the nearly 300 people who attend Friday prayers at the mosque and no one knew him. Those at the mosque also spoke with FBI agents in the days immediately after the shooting, he said.

"What he had in his mind, God knows," Pathan said.
Considering the record of so many of these 'islamic centers' and their members as to speaking the truth on such matters, I'd want proof he 'never attended'; put bluntly, Mr. Pathan, I don't believe you. Am I being unfair? Maybe. After the past record I mentioned of lying about terrorists, making excuses for them, claiming victim status and yelling 'racism' to try to shut people up who ask inconvenient questions, tough shit; show me reason to believe you.

Last week, Hensley said his client, born Carlos Bledsoe, had been tortured and "radicalized" in a Yemeni prison after entering the country to teach English. He was held there for immigration violations, and Yemeni officials have denied mistreatment.

"Those claims ... are all lies," Muhammad said Tuesday. "That never happened in Yemen. The officials dealt with me in a gentle way."
Here we have the dirtbag lawyer(no, I'm not feeling charitable toward lawyers either) trying to set up an excuse, and- amazingly- being called a liar by his murdering client. Oh, and 'entering the country to teach English'? If that was why he was there, why did the FBI catch him using a fake Somali passport?

Gee, a lawyer lying for a shitbird client; whoda thunk it?


*Son said one of their daily activities while on patrol was to find where the assholes had damaged irrigation canals during the night, get hold of the nearest village and, if needed, watch over them while they repaired the damage. Speaks volumes of this pig-boinker this his 'brethren' considered it a brave act in the name of Allah to screw over the locals who were trying to take care of their land and families. Also, when they found out there was a price for it, there was less of it as time went on; being the cowardly little shits they were, they went looking for children to murder or something equally shahid-like.

One of the casualties of the current financial idiocy

The Shriner's Children's Hospitals may have to close some of the hospitals.
The system's board says it may ask the fraternity's membership in July for authority to close six hospitals -- including the one in Greenville -- largely because the endowment fund that supports the hospitals dropped from $8.5 billion to $5.2 billion over the last year as the stock market plummeted.

The others that could close are in Erie, Pennsylvania; Shreveport, Louisiana; Spokane, Washington; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Galveston, Texas. The Galveston hospital's operations have been suspended since Hurricane Ike flooded it last year. See map of where all 22 Shriners hospitals are »

Deflated investments aren't the only reason the fund has dropped. The hospitals normally operate with donations and the fund's interest, but the system's $856 million 2009 budget is outpacing both, causing the hospitals to take about $1 million per day from the fund, said Ralph Semb, president and CEO of Shriners Hospitals.
This is bad. These places provide care for a LOT of kids, and any of them closing will be a real problem for the kids currently there, and those who need help in the future.


Yeah, I'm heading to the yard; but I saw this and had to post on it.

California unions: "Screw the state, we want your

money!"
The relationship between Democratic leaders and some of their labor benefactors has turned particularly frosty: Many of the programs union members rely on for paychecks -- and the unions rely on for dues -- have been slated for deep cuts.

For example, there are pledge forms being passed around to lawmakers by a major labor union that might have attracted takers in budget battles past. The union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, wants the legislators to sign statements of support for up to $44 billion in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco and other industries, products and people.
Because not enough businesses and wealthy people are leaving the state now; we want to speed it up!
But so far the drive hasn't produced a single signed form, even from the Democrats who normally march into California's budget fights in lock-step with organized labor.
Gee, I guess when it gets bad enough, even Evil Party politicians can see that knee-jerk tax-raising isn't the answer for everything.
"Many public employee unions, teacher unions [are] thinking that they were thrown under the bus in the last budget," said Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Montebello). "So now they're asking themselves: If these Democrats are not going to stand up for us, then what good is it to have them there?"
Translation: "We thought we owned these politicians, but they're not taking our orders!"
The union leaders say they are appalled that Democratic leaders are talking openly now about decimating government programs without first making a stand for bigger, broader tax hikes that could substantially offset budget cuts.
Got that? "Don't you dare think about cutting programs where some of our members get paid until you've taxed the state into oblivion!" Which is what it amounts to.
"Democrats came to Sacramento to help people," said Marty Hittleman, president of the California Federation of Teachers. "I know they did not go there to destroy government. For some reason, they are unwilling to stand up and say 'This is not what I was elected for.' "
Because cutting spending and trying to stop the idiocy that's screwed the state is to be defined as 'destroying government' so as to try to scare the politicians and scare people who don't belong to unions.
But even some of the most liberal Democrats say some union leaders are ignoring the reality of an angry public, a sour economy and a state government approaching insolvency. Moreover, more taxes would require Republican support in the Legislature, and the minority party has made clear that there will be none.
So here it is: even Evil Party "We can always raise taxes" politicians have finally faced the fact that they can't; they've brought the state to ruin(I have doubts they can prevent it at this point), and enough people are finally pissed and yelling enough about it to make them realize they can't keep doing the 'raise taxes' crap. And some unions are so busy worrying about keeping their dues flowing that they don't care how bad it screws the state(and all the jobs that will flat go away if things continue), just "Raise taxes, dammit, don't you mess with OUR situation!"

I don't excuse most of the people in CA for this; they kept voting these clowns into office, and-until now- never said "Enough, we can't take any more tax increases"; they just kept wanting goodies and wanting someone else to pay for it. Also, I think a part of the halt to tax-raising is that the CA politicians are listening to the noise from other states at the thought of having their taxes raised to buy CA out of the hole; probably lots of Reps and Sens are telling their little friends in CA "If I vote to pay your bills out of our pockets, I'll be on the street next election. If they don't drag me out of the office and hang me. So I won't be voting for your bailout."

I shall now adjourn from my analysis of crap in another state, and go cut grass.

Speaking of idiot politicians and bureaucrats,

including those in the Secret Service,
Graduating midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis are being told in writing to leave at home or in their vehicles all "ceremonial swords" and anything else "that might be considered a weapon or a threat by screeners" for Friday's outdoor commencement ceremonies featuring an address by President Barack Obama.

Inside the Beltway has obtained the academy's list of prohibited items for this year's graduation exercises, which, besides ceremonial swords, includes umbrellas.
Because someone who just spent four years working his ass off to get there is going to charge the stand with a dull sword just because- I have no freakin' idea- and the Secret Service and their sidearms and sub-guns are going to become magically useless or something.

Years back I knew a professor who was very big into Revolutionary War recreation. At one of the BIG ones in 1976, the President was going to speak. Couple of- as the prof put it- SS bastards walked up to the gate of the fort where Gen. Washington was meeting with his staff. Two guys on guard at the gate crossed their bayonetted muskets and asked what they wanted.
"We're going to look the place over." They didn't say "We're Secret Service and need to look things over for the President's trip", just tried to bull in.
"Do you have permission from General Washington?"
"We don't need it!"
"Without it, you're not going in." At which point they did ID themselves, but the guards wouldn't budge; they knew, like everyone else, the Pres wasn't coming to the fort, and the agents attitude just didn't help matters at all.

They would not let the guys in, despite various threats; one of them started to push through and one of the guards stepped back, prepared a buttstroke and said "I wouldn't try that." He meant it, too. The pair finally went away promising Dire Punishments for those guards for daring to prevent them from going where they wanted. Nothing happened, some supervisor apparently asking something like "Do you really want to arrest two guys guarding a gate because they wouldn't let you in? The President isn't even going there!" This prof had had high respect for the Secret Service before that few days, just on general principle; after spending a couple of days with them acting as some of them tend to, he referred to them as 'the SS'. When he wasn't using a word or two referring to their doubtful parentage.

Quote of the Day

Referring to our State MoronsDepartment:
You've gotta be a special kind of stupid to appeal "on humanitarian grounds" to a nation which fences its people in with guard dogs and electrified barbed wire while they starve to death so that their Dear Leader (not our Dear Leader, North Korea's,) can afford imported booze and hookers.

Ah, Monday,

stuff to do. Starting here; Kofi Annan is a liar and alarmist, so what else is new?
This is a heroic set of assumptions, even if you agree that emissions are causing adverse changes in climate. Take the supposedly heightened risk of conflict: The authors suggest that "inter-clan fighting in Somalia" is a product of climate change. A likelier explanation is the collapse of a functioning Somali government and the rise of jihadists in the region.

Enter Mr. Pielke, who, we hasten to add, does not speak for us (nor we for him). But given the headlines the Annan report has garnered, his views deserve amplification. Writing in the Prometheus science policy blog, Mr. Pielke calls the report a "methodological embarrassment" and a "poster child for how to lie with statistics" that "does a disservice" to those who take climate change issues seriously.

I know you've probably heard about this idiocy, but if you haven't, it was NewsWeek(NewSpeak?) editor Evan Thomas actually saying
"I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."
We're used to seeing 'journalists' and commentators slavering and drooling at the mere sight up The Obama up close, but this takes the disgusting to a whole new level. If Obama stopped walking, Thomas would die; his breathing passages would become clogged with fecal matter. And this clown thinks he is annointed to tell us what we 'need' to know?


I got pretty much all the old grease and oil out of the P14 stock. After cleaning I rubbed in a mix of linseed and mineral spirits(the spirits thins the oil and lets it penetrate deeper) and let that dry about three days, and it's now got it's fourth coat of the finish drying. The surface is sealed, and the wood looks nice, and it should no longer bleed old ick when it gets hot.


I'd forgotten, yesterday was the date of Operation Opera, the Israeli operation to destroy the reactor Saddam Hussein was building. I remember reading about it after; a maximum-range(if everything went right) strike that went off flawlessly. And it kept Saddam from getting nukes.


Why do so many traitors turn out to be like this courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. "We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said. ? 'Witty, intellectual' people with prep-school backgrounds?


Another fine example of major media ethics:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is currently being interviewed by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a former employee of former President Bill Clinton. So far, ABC has not disclosed that conflict. I guess he's just continuing his role as a spokesman for Clinton. In my world, that would be a firing offense.
Stephanopoulos is as big a whore as you'll come across; this is just the latest example of what ABC bought when they hired him.


And, as Ace notes, Hezbollah lost in the Lebanon elections.


And now I need to go do constructive things. Or take the long walk I've been trying to do every day to keep my fat ass under some level of control. One or the other.

I first read this by EJ Dionne a few days ago,

but saw it again today at ShrinkWrapped and had to say a couple of things:
Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.

The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He's the guy who nominates a "racist" to the Supreme Court, wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism, and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. Steve Forbes, writing for his magazine, went so far recently as to compare Obama's economic policies to those of Juan Peron's Argentina.
Let's see, lots of media weenies quoting Rush and Gengrich and generally casting them as nuts when they do, counts as 'a conservative inclination in the media', huh?

Only if you're delusional.

This was brought home at this week's annual conference of the Campaign for America's Future, the progressive group that supports Obama but worries about how close his economic advisers are to Wall Street, how long our troops will have to stay in Afghanistan, and how much he will be willing to compromise to secure health care reform. In other words, they see Obama not as the parody created by the far right, but as he actually is: a politician with progressive values but moderate instincts who has hewed to the middle of the road in dealing with the economic crisis, health care, Guantanamo and the war in Afghanistan.
'Progressive values but moderate instincts'? 'Hewed to the middle of the road'? I'll use the word 'delusional' again.

SW's post is on the failure of the media to do its job. Which, they seem to have forgotten, is to report information. NOT decide what we should hear(in their opinion), NOT to slant it to fit their view, NOT to act as a mouthpiece for one political party, but to REPORT INFORMATION. Which is why I refer to so many of these clowns as 'sorry excuses for reporters'. They're not reporters, they're 'journalists', and damn well off the rails at that. That so many of them(and a lot of leftists and 'progressives') seem to think that their work to cast Rush as a 'spokesman of the Stupid Party' so they can demonize and try to sideline him(and anyone who agrees with any of what he says) think that means the media has a 'conservative inclination'... That's just flat effing stupid. But a lot of them seem to actually believe it.

Just flat amazing, isn't it?

Oklahoma summer has arrived

Oh joy

I don't have a problem with summer, it's just that when the higher temps and humidity gang up, it can make the day something less than pleasant. It's great when there's time to sit in the shade out back with a book; the dog gets scratched, then finds one of her spots where she can snooze and make sure I don't sneak out on her, and the birds visit the feeder(which reminds me, more bird seed). But tilling the garden, or pruning, or mowing... as Lawdog put it, There I am, poaching nicely in my own perspiration, which does nicely cover it(although, I must note, if any rattlers are in the immediate vicinity, they keep well out of sight and don't curl up next to the hose).

Day before yesterday I cast some bullets. Be it said that something like the Lee bottom-pour melter is a wonderful thing; doesn't put off an excess of heat like the gas burner I once used, keeps things at temperature, and is a lot easier than a pot full of lead and a ladle. However, it DOES put off heat; combine that with ambient temps of upper 80's-low 90's, and it gets just a bit poaching even if you aren't in the sun.

I was using one of these Lee molds, which are good, but they do have their problems. They cost considerably less than a comparable Lyman or RCBS, and a LOT less than Saeco; they're also less finished when you get them(Carteach0 has a nice piece here on a couple of things to do to a new Lee mold before you use it). I've got molds from Lee, RCBS and Lyman, the two big differences I've noticed in use are
The Lyman and RCBS are pretty much ready as they come out of the box; degrease them, smoke them and go. No touchup needed.
These two are much less temperature-sensitive than the Lee. Once you get them warmed up, just keep going; Lee, because of the aluminum blocks, are much more likely to cool a touch and have to be warmed back up if you set them down for a minute. They can also be damn picky about what temperature lead gives good bullets. I've had one give good castings with the temp set at '5', and the next time I use it have to set it all the way up to '8' to get the damn thing to fill properly.

The Lee molds do work, you just have to keep in mind you may have to fiddle with settings a bit more with them.

I mentioned smoking the molds. Sometimes a bullet won't want to fall out of the mold after you open it, causing you to have to tap on the hinge pin to shake it loose(NEVER tap on the mold blocks!). One thing that helps here is to put a layer of soot in the cavity. Matches work, but I keep a candle handy, as it works much better than a match. There are spray-on mold-release agents you can buy, and they do work; it's just that candles are cheap and I already had one.

I'll throw in that this mold, for .30 Carbine, has given very good results; used with a gas check, I've fired hundreds through my Carbine with no sign of lead fouling. And I've used this RCBS mold to load for .30-30, .30-06, .308 and 7.5x55 Swiss with good results; the only problem is with some bolt rifles, the flat nose will occasionally hang up(most always, I've noticed, when feeding from the left) in some rifles. That problem is the main reason I got this Lee mold, as the pointed bullet should eliminate that problem.


On news other than what makes me sweat half to death,

Well, looks like some of the Evil Party people are getting a bit worried/upset about dealers being closed at the will of The Obama, and the losses of jobs and tax revenue it's causing/will cause. Most of them don't have the pull of that dirtbag Frank to 'save' dealers in their district, so they're getting a bit antsy, it seems. Of course, they have to properly massage The One's ego:
We recognize that efforts by your Auto Task Force prevented the total liquidation of General Motors and Chrysler, as well as their dealership networks. We commend your efforts to help these businesses survive these challenging economic times.
Well, yes, if he hadn't gotten into the middle of this they'd have had to file bankruptcy months ago BEFORE he poured billions of dollars of other peoples' money into them, and while the union brass would have been pissed, everyone else would have been better off.

One more celebrity discovers that- "WHAT?!?"- when you help elect a tax-raising socialist, he'll go after your stuff, too.
Today, though, I’ll cast him as Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca for his shock, shock! that a redistributionist Democratic Party might tax his industry into default
Yep.

Ah, yes, a proposal that the White House is somehow supposed to not have known about:The NY Times covers a trial balloon that would provoke outrage from the left if Bush-Cheney had proposed it. However, as the Times tells it, the proposal has no sponsorship at all - apparently it just fell from the sky, or something. Here we go:

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.
...

And Obama's position? Who knows?!? The Times is utterly mystified:

The draft legislation includes other changes administration officials disclosed last month when President Obama said he would continue the controversial military commission system with changes that would increase detainees’ rights. It is not known whether the White House has approved the proposed death penalty provision. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Hope! Change!


Victor Davis Hanson has a very good piece that deals with Obama Versus the Way of the Universe. Well worth reading, although I'll argue with this:
Obama will come to his senses with his ‘Bush did it’, reset button, moral equivalency, soaring hope and change, with these apologies to Europeans, his Arab world Sermons on the Mount to Al Arabiya, in Turkey, in Cairo, etc., his touchy-feely videos to Iran, his “we are all victims of racism” sops to Ortega, Chavez, and Morales. It is only a matter of when, under what conditions, how high the price we must pay, and whether we lose the farm before he gains wisdom about the tragic universe in which we live.
Hell, Jimmy Carter, who seems to be Obama's model on some things, STILL doesn't get it. And if we lose the farm before he does get it, we're still screwed.

Ah well, things to do.

One last D-Day post

pointing you to Blackfive, and the efforts of the Soviets and their minions to rewrite history:
At the very last display in the camp, there was a book for former prisoners to write messages in. Most were in French or Hebrew. One of the pages had been torn out by the new German historians of the camp. They had framed the page above the book. You could not miss it - that was obviously the point.

The page was written by a former prisoner who lived in Paris and had just visited the camp a few weeks before we did. It was written in French and the Germans had it translated into German and English and Russian (brilliant!). I'll never forget it.

It read:
I survived the horrors of this camp.

Now everyone can know the truth.

Patton liberated this camp, not the Russians. I was there. The Amercans saved my life.

Thank you Americans!


Not one of my sergeants spoke for a long time.

I had two great-uncles, both now in the soil,

who served in WWII. George Llanes was a skinny guy from south Texas who wound up in the Navy as a hard-hat diver. Ray Wells, Army Infantry in Europe.

Neither of them talked about it. Ever. Until the last few years before they died, each would say a few things. Not much. When Clinton was talking up an invasion of Iraq(and being surprised everyone didn't jump on his wagon), and George talked- a little. About Tarawa, mostly, and dead Marines in the water and on the beaches. Only time I ever heard him speak of his time in the Pacific. He wound up on full disability from injuries received. He did mention(that same night) that a lot of it came when they were diving on a sunken Japanese submarine, and were bombed; as I recall, he said "They knew we were diving on it, and didn't want us to get any intelligence from it."

Ray went over, and came back. And didn't talk about it to the family at all, not even his wife. The little ever heard was when a guy from his unit passing not too far away made a point to visit. Ray's wife, that evening, got him aside and asked him about it. Didn't get much; he didn't like talking about it either. Ray was a country boy who grew up hunting and fishing, he knew how to move in the woods and was, until the last couple of years, one hell of a shot. The friend did say that in one battle, there were eight Germans he personally knew Ray killed; and, worse than the killing, kids coming to their camps to beg for food. Ray was one of those who went without some nights because he couldn't stand to see them go hungry another night. He served from somewhere in France until the end, came home and, like George and a lot of others, considered it a dirty job that'd had to be done but they didn't want to think about it, or talk about it, once over.

Both were the kind of men you were glad to know, good friends. Who did something that had to be done, like a whole lot of others.

June 6

1944. The biggest amphibious landing of all time, combined with massive airborne landings by chute and glider, into the teeth of one of the most heavily-defended and fortified areas in the world.

Airborne troops dropped at too-high speed who wound up landing with a pistol and knife and not much else because the airstream ripped everything else off them. Guys landing on a beach knowing about all the machine guns and artillery waiting for them. I'm going to borrow some from Russ at Ace of Spades:
You know what I did this morning? Maybe it would be better if I told you what I didn't do this morning.

I didn't have to spend over 12 hours on a transport ship in choppy water, then clamber down a cargo net into a plywood landing craft, all while carrying up to 100 pounds of gear on my back. Then, I didn't ride through the rough surf in that little plywood target, only to have the steel ramp (the only part of the little plywood boat that was even remotely bullet-resistant) flop down and drop me into the cold ocean water in front of a beach filled with steel obstacles, mines, flying bullets & exploding artillery rounds.

I didn't fly over enemy occupied territory at 1000 feet in a C47 cargo plane and then jump out of the plane into the teeth of enemy anti-aircraft fire. I didn't have to worry about my bright white silk parachute making me a good target for troops on the ground who wanted to use me for target practice, and after I landed, I didn't have to worry about engaging a vastly superior force with only the gear I carried with me (providing that said gear wasn't ripped off by the turbulence I encountered exiting the plane) with whoever I could gather together from the other troops dropped behind enemy lines the same as I was.

I didn't march into a plywood glider (PLYWOOD, as we've already established, is NOT very resistant to gunfire and explosions) and sit quietly while I was towed into anti-aircraft fire, only to be released and experience a controlled crash into trees, buildings or apparently open fields that were booby trapped with wooden poles and steel cables by the enemy.

I wasn't asked to take my place in a McGyvered together amphibious tank, where I would most likely be swamped by the waves and sink to the bottom of the English Channel like....well, like a tank rigged for amphibious operations with lumber and canvas. And if I DID happen to get to the beach, I would have been the prime target of every enemy artillery piece for miles around.

God only knows what all was lost on those beaches and fields and towns and villages. How much potential died there, doing a filthy, bloody, nasty job that had to be done.

For those, and everyone else in uniform that's been to and fought over and bled and died in everyplace from fields in the Colonies to deserts and mountains and jungles, give them a thought today.

And, as a knifemaker, I now have to note that the President

is after your knife, too.
Beware! That folding knife in your pocket may turn you into a criminal if the Obama administration gets its way. Although there has been a lot of fear and speculation that the new administration wants to take your guns, the most pressing threat now is actually to your pocket knives. With the changing of the guard at U.S. Customs, that agency has now embarked on redefining "switchblades" under federal law to include a wide variety of one hand opening knives that never were intended to be prohibited. In fact, many of the knives U.S. Customs now seek to prohibit under the Federal Switchblade Law had not even been invented at the time of its enactment! Furthermore, four previous U.S. Customs ruling letters (prior administrations) specifically determined "assisted opening" knives not to be defined as switchblades.

This new proposed U.S. Customs regulation is so broad that thousands of pocket knives will fall under its sweep and millions of knife owners will be affected. The problem is not simply that imports will be banned (which is bad enough), but that the "agency determination" will be used by domestic courts and law enforcement to determine what a "switchblade" is under both federal and state laws. Many states, including New Hampshire, fail to define switchblades and simply rely on the federal definition.
Just effing wonderful, isn't it?

As stated on the www.kniferights.org website:

U.S. Customs has proposed revoking earlier rulings that assisted opening knives are not switchblades. The proposed new rule would not only outlaw assisted opening knives its broad definition could also easily be interpreted to include one-handed opening knives and even most other pocket knives.

Note that customs interpretation of the Federal Switchblade Act forms the basis for national, state and even local law and judicial rulings in many cases. The effect is NOT limited to just imports.

As stated on the www.akti.org website:

URGENT NEWS - U.S. Customs Proposal would characterize assisted-openers as switchblade knives and jeopardize all pocket knives. On behalf of the entire sporting knife industry and knife owners across the country, AKTI will be filing an official response to U.S. Customs.

It appears Pres. Barack Hussein Cartman Obama is only interested in

energy sources that are 'extra'-PC, and wave power doesn't count:
The Obama administration has proposed a 25 percent cut in the research and development budget for one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the Northwest — wave and tidal power.

At the same time the White House sought an 82 percent increase in solar power research funding, a 36 percent increase in wind power funding and a 14 percent increase in geothermal funding, it sought to cut wave and tidal research funding from $40 million to $30 million.
Let it also be noted that he has no problem with friggin' Iran building reactors, but doesn't want any built in the US. And now this.
The decision to cut funding for tidal and wave power came only weeks after the Interior Department suggested that wave power could emerge as the leading offshore energy source in the Northwest and at a time when efforts to develop tidal power in Puget Sound are attracting national and international attention.

By some estimates, wave and tidal power could eventually meet 10 percent of the nation's electricity demand, about the same as hydropower currently delivers. Some experts have estimated that if only 0.2 percent of energy in ocean waves could be harnessed, the power produced would be enough to supply the entire world.

As the Random Nukes guy says,
If our two Senators, Patty “Osama bin Laden builds daycare centers” Murray and Maria “Can’tVoteWell” Cantwell would keep their damn eyes on the prize instead of dallying with shit our state doesn’t need attending to, this wouldn’t have happened.

Just last month a set of these power generators was OK’d to be set off in Puget Sound by Mr. Completely’s place. The things have four legs and can be moved around if a better location is discovered or if for some reason their location suddenly becomes a shipping lane. All you see is a damn buoy floating on top of the water and the fish could care less. Twice a year cleanings is the required maintenance. Hit the link for a rather well done drawing.
But noooooo, The President’s folks would rather cover the state of Nevada with solar panels that can’t be manufactured fast enough to meet his production targets and every ridge line mowed down and topped with a propeller until alien civilizations begin to wonder if they have religious significance.

Ever heard the saying "It'd almost be kinder

to shoot him"?

As to Pres. Obama's speech the other day,

various people have taken it apart. On the "Islam Saved Sciene"-type aspects, Robert Spencer deals with that:

As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

The idea that Islamic culture was once a beacon of learning and enlightenment is a commonly held myth. In fact, much of this has been exaggerated, often for quite transparent apologetic motives. The astrolabe was developed, if not perfected, long before Muhammad was born. The zero, which is often attributed to Muslims, and what we know today as “Arabic numerals” did not originate in Arabia, but in pre-Islamic India. Aristotle’s work was preserved in Arabic not initially by Muslims at all, but by Christians such as the fifth century priest Probus of Antioch, who introduced Aristotle to the Arabic-speaking world. Another Christian, Huneyn ibn-Ishaq (809-873), translated many works by Aristotle, Galen, Plato and Hippocrates into Syriac. His son then translated them into Arabic. The Syrian Christian Yahya ibn ‘Adi (893-974) also translated works of philosophy into Arabic, and wrote one of his own, The Reformation of Morals. His student, another Christian named Abu ‘Ali ‘Isa ibn Zur’a (943-1008), also translated Aristotle and others from Syriac into Arabic. The first Arabic-language medical treatise was written by a Christian priest and translated into Arabic by a Jewish doctor in 683. The first hospital was founded in Baghdad during the Abbasid caliphate -- not by a Muslim, but a Nestorian Christian. A pioneering medical school was founded at Gundeshapur in Persia — by Assyrian Christians.

In sum, there was a time when it was indeed true that Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations. But when the Muslim overlords had taken what they could from their subject peoples, and the Jewish and Christian communities had been stripped of their material and intellectual wealth and thoroughly subdued, Islam went into a period of intellectual decline from which it has not yet recovered.
I'll add, on the 'religious equality and racial tolerance' bit, Jews and Christians, from what I've read, were dhimmi; restricted in their worship, in what house/type they could own, what kind of livestock they could own, and had to pay a tax to be allowed to live this way. And Mohammed didn't like non-arabs; said it quite plainly that 'Islam is a religion for Arabs'. Not exactly what the President was pushing. Ok, further down he notes this:
"The dhimmi, as these covenanted peoples were called, were granted religious freedom, not forced to convert to Islam. They could continue to be Jews and Christians, and, as it turned out, they could share in much of Muslim social and economic life. In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax — no Muslims paid taxes — and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals."

Things like that, basically sucking up to other countries, and all the apologies for the US... about what you'd expect from Obama. He did point out that the US has done many good things for the world, but always he throws in "We're not so good, we need to advance", always he has to have something to denigrate the US. And this line:
Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.
WHAT 'world order'? What 'order' has elevated one nation over another? Just how does he mean this? I strongly suspect he's speaking of having a 'proper' world order(UN) making sure no country is, in his terms, better off than another. Yeah, that'd be a wonderful situation, wouldn't it?

I suspect that what American Thinker put forward was right; he didn't have the integrity or balls to say anything sooner- tried to avoid it altogether- about the murder of Private William Long and wounding of Private Quinton Ezeagwula, because he didn't want it to somehow cause him trouble in sucking up to the 'muslim world'. Got news for you, Mr. President; if calling a muslim a murderer and dirtbag, even indirectly, for this crime would cause problems with them, then they need to change their damned attitude. And you need to stand up for our guys, not filter everything through "We must not give offense to muslims."

And, to borrow from someone, STOP APOLIGIZING FOR THIS COUNTRY! I'm sick of it.

Ah, one of the joys of old surplus rifles

is getting the oil and grease out of the stock. The P14 I picked up at Tulsa last fall, to be specific. It wasn't too bad(I've cleaned much worse), mainly the wrist at the back of the receiver, and along the sides of the receiver area.

I finally got pretty much all of it out, and rubbed on linseed thinned with mineral spirits; the spirits thins it enough to let it really penetrate into the wood, let it sit a while then wipe off any excess. It's been drying the last couple of days, so tomorrow I should be able to do a bit of smoothing- making sure not to damage the cartouches- and put on the first coat of Minwax Antique Oil Finish. I'm not going to try to take this all the way to a gloss finish, just three or four times to seal the wood and protect it.

Have I ever mentioned how nice nitrile gloves can be?

Oh, earlier at the redhead's place, I read her recipe for soda bread, and decided to try it. The only cast iron I have that's about 10" diameter is the dutch oven I picked up a while back and hadn't used yet, so it was christened with this; and considering how much rising the stuff did while baking, I'm glad I used it. The bread's good(very), and that and some cheese was dinner.

Battle of Midway

And some of the things involved in the victory. In part,

1. Have your major surface combatants destroyed or seriously damaged and unavailable for use.
2. Make sure the enemy has 4 aircraft carriers and some big battleships headed for you.
3. Make sure you are outnumbered in aircraft carriers by 4 to 3.
   
4. Have 1 of your 3 aircraft carriers severely damaged and limp into port unable to support flight operations.
5. Have only a vague idea where the enemy fleet might be.
6. Arrange to have your most aggressive, experienced aviator admiral come down with some sort of skin infection that puts him in a hospital bed, unavailable for duty.
7. Replace him with a non-aviator admiral just in time for what you know has to be a battle largely fought by carrier aircraft. See #1.

Go look at the rest. When you consider everything that could(and some that did) go wrong, it's friggin' amazing.

Rep. Barney Frank(Evil Party-MA) is a slimy, corrupt little whore

Which you already knew, this just makes what's happening to GM dealers even worse(if possible):
Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) won a stay of execution on Thursday for a General Motors plant in his district that the automaker had announced it would close.

No other lawmaker has managed to halt the GM ax. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Frank oversees the government’s bailout program, known as TARP. Frank’s staff said the lawmaker spokes with GM CEO Fritz Henderson on Wednesday and convinced him to keep the Norton, Mass. plant open for at least 14 months.
'Convinced'; let's see, is that a euphemism for 'threatened' or 'bribed'? Or both, considering Frank, miserable little bastard that he is.

Breda notes a company that doesn't want your business

if you're a gun owner.
I was about to continue on but I paused long enough to look at the page again and noticed this as the item's description...

"Kikkerland donates 5% of proceeds of each bag to the Brady Campaign to end gun violence (www.bradycampaign.org)"

Right. Well then, they just lost a potential customer. And really, it's not as if I couldn't find the same items somewhere else with a little extra effort on Google - librarian skills do come in handy sometimes.

Yeah, if someone craps on gun owners, find the product somewhere else. And tell them about it.

Why I'm glad Coburn decided to run for a second term

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn says he's not ready to meet with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
He says he still has a lot of reasearch to do before he meets with her...

"I'm not going to talk to her... she has 3,600 cases and when I have reviewed and have prepared myself properly, then I will sit down with her in my office and visit with her."

Senator Coburn was a guest on Wednesday's Mark Shannon Show on KTOK and he says choosing a Supreme Court Nominee isn't about someone's personality...

It's about how they will interpret the law.
Yes, I'm still ticked about his 'yes' vote on the Pork, Payoffs & Bribes Bailout Bill; overall, he's still one of the best in that Parliament of Whores.