Helmke, of the Brady Group To Ban Guns, is a flat-out

damned liar:

McLendon fired more than 200 rounds from his military-style semiautomatic assault weapons....Assault weapons were banned under federal law until four years ago....

"This man needed the firepower of assault weapons to execute his plan of mass carnage. Alabama, and our nation, must take action to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons," said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign.

I'll pass on the other bullcrap; the simple fact is these firearms were not banned 'until four years ago'. Which means, once again, the Brady Group To Ban Guns either doesn't know what it's talking about, or is a bunch of damned liars.

On the subject of the care and feeding of the Garand

Rustmeister noted in comments Modern 30.06 loads are hotter than what the Garand was designed for and can damage your baby. Which is something to consider.

Remember a while back I wrote on pressure, and when it comes in, and why military arms are generally designed specifically around a cartridge? That's very much in my mind, and I plan to be careful about it. Generally, jacketed bullets from 150 to 170 grains weight can be safely used when loaded to pressures that will both give accuracy and cycle the action properly; heavier bullets, no. Lighter jacketed often no, because the powder type and charge that works best for them often does not play well with the operating system of the Garand.

Cast bullets as heavy as 200 grains, sometimes with a slower-burning powder than IMR4895, have been used successfully in the Garand due to the fact that a cast or cast and gas-checked bullet has a lot less friction in the bore than a jacketed bullet with that hard copper-alloy coat; but you do have to watch pressures to make sure you stay in the range.

I've been told the Federal American Eagle .30-06 with 150-grain FMJ bullet matches up to military M2 ball specs, but haven't checked that out for myself; I do know that one local range that regularly runs service rifle shoots sells that ammo for the matches with that as the reason.

Speaking of the Garand, after shooting it to check it out, when time allows I'll use some stuff to clean the old oil and grease(happily, doesn't look like much) out of the wood and refinish it carefully(so as not to damage the stock markings). Right now it's 30-something and damp outside, and I ain't gonna do it. I did a few years back in similar weather, because the rifle in question was really greasy and I just couldn't wait, but I about froze doing it. My hands get stiffer in the cold than they used to, so I'll wait for things to warm up a bit.

Ok, you people who voted Hopey-Changey to end the war

and bring the troops home? In case you haven't figured it out yet, President Hopey-Changey lied to you, too.
President Obama, apparently seeking to keep the anti-war left firmly under his spell, announced that he was drawing down American forces in Iraq, and was instead diverting forces who had trained specifically for an Iraqi deployment to Afghanistan.

Less than a month later, another unit's scheduled deployment to Iraq is sped up, in order to keep the same number of Stryker brigades in Iraq as there would have been if he hadn't shipped the other unit to Afghanistan.

The President ordered a unit that had trained for ten months specifically for the Iraqi mission to another part of the world that speaks a different language and has entirely different cultures. There is no easy way to determine on a Sunday night how many tens of millions of training dollars and man-hours Obama wasted by shifting this Stryker brigade, but if the Iraqi theater really didn't need them, it at least could have been understandable.

But the Iraqi theater clearly did need a Stryker brigade, and he planned on sending one all along.

We know this because just as soon as the Obama White House sold the drawdown story to the media and the anti-war left, he immediately and quietly ordered that another Stryker brigade—one that is no doubt capable, but one that didn't have the specific, intensive training of the unit diverted to Afghanistan— rushed to Iraq months ahead of schedule in order to keep the same number of Stryker brigades (two) as there has been the entire time.
So what President B. Cartman Obama really meant was "I will bring the troops home(while I send others over there, but don't pay attention to that part)!"

People taken away from their families prematurely, without the training that would really help, so Obama could play at keeping a campaign promise. Just effing wonderful.

True, true...

Thanks to RNC for the toon

The Sportsman's Warehouse here is closing

Just heard about it today. There goes one of the places I got reloading stuff locally.

I went up to take a look around, not expecting much. When a shipment of ammo, powder, primers or bullets came in, unless you happened to come by within two days it was all gone, so, as I expected, not much on the shelves. Did have some powder, shotgun primers and some bullets in stock, very little in the way of ammo. Not just handgun or whatever; if you counted up everything, maybe two cases on the shelves, and that was going away.

They have a wall behind the gun counter that has most of the handguns on it, with some of the more special stuff in the counter; it would've been easier to list what was there than what wasn't, by far. A fair number of bolt rifles and shotguns left, but they're going, too.

I'll miss the place.

A couple of pieces on the major media trying to avoid noticing

the tax protests.
If a revolution happens and no reporters cover it, will it make a sound? That's a good question because an anti-tax revolution as American as they come is under way, and the country's top newsmen could care less.

Anti-tax protests have been sprouting like spring flowers from sea to shining sea the past couple of weeks. Inspired by the "Chicago Tea Party" rant of CNBC business analyst Rick Santelli, taxpayers have rallied in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, among other locales. A national "Tax Day Tea Party" of coordinated rallies is planned for April 15.

But if you only get your news from the mainstream media, you probably wouldn't know the protests ever happened. Most major news outlets have provided zero coverage of any of the individual events or the grassroots movement as a whole. The conservative-leaning Internet startup Pajamas TV is the only outlet consistently covering the protests, which totaled nearly 30 by PJTV's count after last weekend.

and
DOES THE L.A. TIMES COVER RALLIES? YOU BET IT DOES! And they don’t have to have 15,000 people, either — as long as the issue is one near and dear to the hearts of Times editors.
Again, the major media shows hellish bias, would rather die than admit it and try to fix it, and then bitches about their markets going down the toilet.

"But THESE earmarks are IMPORTANT; and they

put the Kennedy name on more things."

Sick to death of arrogant politicians who want to spend more of other peoples money so they can polish their own image, sick to death of politicians who claim something is important but don't want to be bothered with actually arguing their point and trying to legitimately get funding; oh no, much easier to do this.

I guess the Kennedy family wants to be like Byrd in WV; they think their name ought to be on every damn thing around.

So these are the wonderful people running the

whole damn mess:
Bryan described himself as an Obama supporter who derived “intellectual satisfaction” from the president’s healthcare, education and climate proposals. But he questioned whether most people connected such complicated issues to the plunging values of their retirement accounts or to soaring unemployment.

Pervasive voter uncertainty means Obama needs to emphasize short-term measures to fix the economy, Bryan said. “If there’s not a sense that we’ve reached bottom and there’s a sense of uncertainty, I think the president’s support will erode fairly rapidly,” he added.
Yeah, we're too unintellectual to connect Obama wanting to trash the coal industry and prevent drilling and shove cap & trade down our throats and warning us that electricity costs will 'skyrocket' to the economy. Uh huh. Or maybe we just don't have Mr. Bryan's 'intellectual satisfaction' in Pres. B. Cartman Obama wanting to 'remake the country' in an Alinsky image.

The whole piece is interesting, with it seeming to boil down to this: doesn't seem to matter to these clowns if things actually improve, what matters is if they can make voters think things are better so they can hold onto majorities.

It may not be Tam's preferred

flying predator, but it's a fine example of a stealth attack craft saying "TURN OFF THAT LIGHT! I'M TRYING TO HUNT!!"

Have you ever seen the claws on those birds?

About that shortage of ammo,

as I pointed out before, it ain't just the finished stuff.

The guy that owns the pretty Colt Hammerless couldn't find ANY .32acp in town. So he went online; very little there, either, and the price on stuff like Blazer is ridiculous. So I did a bit of browsing...

Checking Midway and Grafs, most .32 bullets show sold out. Neither place has .32acp dies in stock when I looked. Checked a couple of other places and things, and all kinds of bullets from .32 on up, lots of dies, even many bullet molds for .32 and .380 and 9mm and so forth are sold out.

It seems people distrust the gummint enough, and are bothered by the cost of things and worry about future availability enough, that they're stocking up on things to roll their own; wonder how many of them are people who've started handloading in the last few months?

You know, there's got to be a bunch of nervous stomachs among the people in DC over this.

My personal stimulus package, and contribution to the

re-arming of America going on.

When all the fun started back around last October, I started thinking about a EBR. Question was, what? I'm just not that fond of the AR15, they're expensive and were rapidly becoming more so, and ammo... jeez, have you looked at .223 lately? Plus son is not that fond of it*; he recommended that if I did, get a piston upper in 7.62x39; can you say 'even more pricey'?

I've always liked the idea of a M1A, but they're more expensive than most AR15s I've seen. Then I had a thought(shut up, Og, it happens). I checked the site and they still showed them, so I put the paperwork together and mailed it off. '30 to 60 days' turned to 90, to 120, and then I got an e-mail: 'processing your order'! Which was a real surprise, as I'd been afraid they'd run out. Then a couple of days ago the White Truck of Happiness brought the box from CMP:
M1 Garand in the grand old .30-06 cartridge, this one made by Harrington & Richardson. After disassembly and a thorough cleaning, it's in quite good condition; the bore looks very nice indeed, the muzzle shows little wear, the action's tight and the trigger not bad at all; I'm guessing about 5 pound with no creep or drag. The stock has a lot of little 'carried around a lot' dings, and appears to be original to the rifle.

I've got a bunch of -06 brass, and you can use any 150- to 170-grain bullet to feed it, so ammo won't be a big problem. May see about ordering some more of the HXP ammo CMP has; I've fired it before, it's good stuff. And I think the cast bullets will work out to make very nice practice loads.

True, it doesn't have the pistol grip or detachable magazine that causes such pants-wetting among the Brady Group To Ban Guns and their associates; and the handguard is wood instead of being a horrifying 'thing that folds up' barrel shroud. But it does have a bayonet lug(got a sticker for it), and you can stick a grenade launcher on it, and it is on the list those GFW dirtbags drew up as 'Evil Assault Weapons That Make Us Foul Our Diapers That Peasants Should Not Own' , so it'll do for that part. Helmke, that arms expert who said that guns capable of shooting more than 100 yards should not be allowed for hunting, should go into PSH at the thought of a 150-grain bullet at almost 2900fps("Why, it'll go MUCH more than 100 yards!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!") And, though no detachable mag, those 8-round clips go in pretty quickly, so I guess that counts for it, also.

The stimulus part? I used my tax refund to pay for it, and it'll stimulate interest at the range, pleasure for me in further cleaning and use, and "Crap, where'd you get it?" questions at the range.

Clips. More clips... And wheelweights.


*He told me that he's never seen one, properly maintained(i.e. 'scrubbed within an inch of its life daily') fail to function in combat; he does say they can be a pain in the ass to thoroughly clean after much use, and he's not fond of the cartridge for fighting.

Back to the 'Most Ethical Congress

EVAH!
Over the course of the past decade, Rep. John P. Murtha has earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University — money that has, in turn, gone to clients of the PMA Group, the Murtha-linked lobbying shop that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe.

Founded in 1999 as a joint enterprise run by Penn State and the Office of Naval Research, the EOC promotes electronic research needed for state-of-the-art military equipment.

But sources familiar with the EOC’s operations say Murtha has used the center as a “front” for PMA and other lobbyists and contractors with ties to the Pennsylvania Democrat.

At least 10 PMA lobbying clients have received funding via the EOC, officials at the center acknowledged. Sources familiar with the EOC’s operations said the total that went to PMA clients ran into the “tens of millions of dollars.”

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Murtha has received $2.38 million in campaign contributions from PMA and its clients over the past 10 years.

“Welcome to the ‘earmark factory,’” said a person familiar with the EOC’s internal operations.

Insty noted Some Democratic spokespeople are saying that earmarks don’t matter because the amount of money is small compared to the total budget. If that’s true, then outright bribes wouldn’t matter, either, because there’s not all that much difference . . . .
Yesterday, I think on Hannity(listen occasionally) some Evil Party mouthpiece, I think Beckel, was noting exactly that: "It's only a small part of the bill so why get upset about it?" How about BECAUSE IT'S OUR MONEY YOU'RE WASTING, YOU BASTARD! Real easy to be careless with other people's money, isn't it?

He also made the statement that 'health care is a right' and needed to be socialized. Hannity asked where in the Constitution or any of the founding documents it said that it's a right, and Beckel replied "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. So, according to the Evil Party and the socialists, those seven words mean that you have a right to have to government rob other people to pay your doctor bills. Kind of like the Interstate Commerce Clause means the feds can regulate ANYTHING in their view; all for our own good, of course.

Rat bastards.

Those wonderful Saudi enforcers of the

religion of peace:
A 75-year-old widow has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison in Saudi Arabia for mingling with two young men who were reportedly bringing her bread.
...
The two men, including one who was Mrs Sawadi's late husband's nephew, were also found guilty and sentenced to prison terms and lashes.

The elderly woman met the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported.

The men - identified by Al-Watan as the nephew, Fahd al-Anzi, and his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein - went to Mrs Sawadi's home in the city of al-Chamil, north of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. After delivering the bread, the two men were arrested by a one of the religious police, Al-Watan reported.
Just frikkin' wonderful.

The creation of the AC130,

thanks to Blackfive:
...but we think it went something like this in 1967:

Drunk engineer 1: So...dude...let's take a cargo plane and trick it out with every weapon we can find!

Drunk engineer 2: I don't know man...a cargo plane?

Drunk engineer 1: Come on!

Drunk engineer 2: Well...can we add a 25mm gatling gun and a 40mm cannon?

Drunk engineer 1: Shit yeah, man! We can even add a 105mm Howitzer cannon!

Drunk enginner 2: Really? Well in that case - I'm in!

Theo had a piece about what sons teach you,

including
1.) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq.... ft. house 4 inches deep.

2! .) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.

3.) A 3-year old Boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

4.) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
and other interesting things. Sent it to a friend, and she contributed these:

Do not pull down on handles on walls in public buildings. The fire alarm is very loud and little boys can not out-run the sound.

Boys who love splashing in puddles will seek out water. When Mom says to get out of the pond/lake/creek or river, the little boy will immediately find the hole or drop off, going in over his head and necessitating a rescue. (This has happened twice; once in a pond and once in a river. Luckily I was only a few yards away.)

Little boys should not be left in parked cars when the motor is running, even for thirty seconds. They can put the car into drive. Yes, Grandmas can run fast enough to catch up and stop the car before it reaches the fence.

I'll throw in, "They can't remember being told to pick up the damned toys, but they can remember every one of your special words for fixing the car."

Question: Does Pres. B. Cartman Obama just not pay attention

to the problems with nominees, or did he think he could just shove them through anyway?
...The allegations against Freeman included claims that he was insensitive to the cause of Tibetan independence, having described Tibetan independence efforts as “race riots.” He described “Israeli violence against Palestinians” as the barrier to peace in the Middle East without acknowledging Palestinian violence against Israelis. Freeman’s stance on these issues may come as no surprise given that he was part of an institute that was funded by Saudi money and sat on the board of a Chinese state-owned oil company.
Including this marvelous comment he made:
For myself, I side on this — if not on numerous other issues — with Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be. Such folk, whether they represent a veterans’ “Bonus Army” or a “student uprising” on behalf of “the goddess of democracy” should expect to be displaced with despatch from the ground they occupy. I cannot conceive of any American government behaving with the ill-conceived restraint that the Zhao Ziyang administration did in China, allowing students to occupy zones that are the equivalent of the Washington National Mall and Times Square, combined. while shutting down much of the Chinese government’s normal operations. I thus share the hope of the majority in China that no Chinese government will repeat the mistakes of Zhao Ziyang’s dilatory tactics of appeasement in dealing with domestic protesters in China.

Wow. That's just... amazing. And Obama, with all the stuff hanging off this guy, thought he could be run through with no big problem. Like all the tax-cheats and other assorted dirtbags he wanted in high position.

So did he just think his powers could loft them through the process anyway, or did he and his staff just not pay attention?

Back to the subject of insulting allies,

these are some of the people President B. Cartman Obama wants to use a bargaining chip with the Soviet bastardsRussians:
WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's army is changing its tactics in Afghanistan -- going on the offense in military operations in view of more likely attacks on coalition forces, Poland's Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said.

Klich, who is paying a visit to Afghanistan, said that Poland's likely involvement in offensive military operations in Afghanistan is linked to the forthcoming presidential elections there and the end of winter, a time when rebel attacks are hindered. Intensification of U.S. operations in neighbouring provinces is another reason.

"Taking this into account we decided to change our tactics in Afghanistan and cooperate as closely as possible with U.S. troops," Poland's defence minister said.
I remember reading that the Polics specops people who were involved in the invasion and after were considered first-class people, very nice to have on your side; nice to know they're still carrying their end. Now if we could get the other NATO 'allied' governments to let their troops do the same...

Man reads headline "Madam arrested for keeping a disorderly house";

Wife says "They arrested Pelosi?"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline."

Pelosi's office disputed the claim, pointing to White House policy enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks allowing for the House speaker to travel to his or her congressional district via military aircraft whenever possible for security reasons. Her office said she typically uses the same kind of aircraft used by her predecessor, Dennis Hastert.
One of the important things here: 'whenever possible'. That's not supposed to include "I want an airplane and I want it now!"
In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker."
And if that last isn't a threat, what is it? Please note, not "Is there a flight we can get on?" or "Is there a plane available?", but "The Speaker wants a G5!"

Most Ethical Congress EVAH!!!

Gee, there are bad things hidden in the Rob Your Grandkids

Spending Bill? Damn, ain't that something?
Some issues that inflamed Democrats in previous years have yet to even register, including the proposal in Obama's budget plan to "means-test" the Medicare drug benefit as a way to pay for health-care reform. Doling out entitlement benefits based on income has long been anathema to most Democrats.
I will, for now, pass on commenting on the 'entitlement' crap; the important thing here is this was being snuck in without even most Evil Party members being aware of it.

Menendez knew that his hard-line approach to Cuba was a minority view within his party, and that it was at odds with Obama's approach. But he did not expect to discover a significant policy change embedded in the text on an appropriations bill. His policy aides came across the language when the legislation was posted on a congressional Web site.

"The process by which these changes have been forced upon this body is so deeply offensive to me, and so deeply undemocratic, that it puts the omnibus appropriations package in jeopardy, in spite of all the other tremendously important funding that this bill would provide," the enraged son of Cuban immigrants said last week on the Senate floor. Menendez even slapped a hold on a pair of Obama nominees to draw attention to the issue.
Well, something should put that piece of crap in jeopardy, before it ruins us all.

Yeah, well, I'd like to trace my ancestry back to Conan,

but that don't make it so.
The remark provoked much headshaking in the parliament of a bloc that likes to trace back its democratic tradition thousands of years to the days of classical Greece.
Very conveniently passing over all those monarchies and dictatorships and socialist 'people's republics' that watered the ground with blood for centuries*... Guess what, bozos? Our republic IS older than your somewhat free governments. Which are becoming steadily less free as your socialist governments keep moving toward fascism.

As to Clinton?
Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering was effusive in his praise, saying that with the new administration, the United States and Europe once again "share the same values."

"What you said mostly could have been said by a European," he told Clinton after she fielded questions ranging from climate change to energy security and aid to Africa and one on gay rights from a participant wearing an "I love Hillary" t-shirt.
Snork. Snuffle. "...said by a European" Personally I find that to be something of damning with faint praise, if not a flat-out insult. I don't doubt Hillary Clinton shares your socialist('progressive' if you prefer) viewpoint; you should get along famously, but don't expect the same from an awful lot of us.

*Yes, Greece began democracy; hasn't been a straight shot for it all these years.