Ok, guys, get ready to drool

Range report, 1903-A3

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














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

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

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















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















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

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














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

Not bad for a rifle built in 1943.

What's YOUR worst/best New Years?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ref New Orleans and the confiscations

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

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

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

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

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

Holidays involving balloons

and cats(Surprise, Aciddude!)

























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

This is kind of amazing...

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

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

In any case, yay me!

Happy Early New Year! Again!

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

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

Found through the good offices of Uncle.

Another wonderful piece from Michael Crichton

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

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

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

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

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

There's no other way to put this

Fucking Barbarians

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

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

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

Remember Sacco & Vanzetti?

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

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

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

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

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

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Tsunami, a year later

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Early New Year!

Just in case I forget later.

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

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

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

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

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

but I have to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas to all!

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

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












(found in a post at The High Road)

All hail the fish!

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

Whatever the hell that means.

Hey, Sondra, wanna bass around?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jackass.

Ok, this is NOT a cheery day

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

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

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

And so much for my hopes for Lebanon

Found this at Little Green Footballs.

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

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

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

And some people from New Orleans really are dickheads

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

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

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

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

I just LOVE people sometimes.

Update on the slimy Krauts action

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

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

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

Oh, Germany?

You can kiss our collective ass

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

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

But I repeat myself.