Damned whether he does or doesn't.

The biggest danger of trying to be all things to all people is that if you don't succeed, you wind up being nothing to nobody.

Barack *redacted* Obama's latest experience with high-centering himself on the middle ground occurred at a rally in Detroit, where apparently observant Muslim women wearing the hijab were asked not to sit with the rest of their group behind the podium in view of the TeeWee cameras.

I almost feel sorry for him here. Almost. He's made his bed and he'll have to lie in it. If he's got head scarves in the picture, the wingnuts accuse him of caving to Islamofascist terrorists. If he keeps headscarves out of the picture the moonbats excoriate him for religious and ethnic discrimination and preaching fear and divisiveness. It's a lose-lose situation when you want to be the ever-vigilant yet all-inclusive stern healing tough nice guy. Best o' luck, Barry; the juggling act only gets tougher from here.

Hopefully McCain will just embrace his inner bastard and run his campaign from that angle, but I don't see that happening either. It's gotta be hard to do a convincing Cuddly Porcupine impersonation all the time.

It's official...

British Columbia now has six feet of shoreline.

Today In History: Like fish in a barrel...

On this date in 1944, the U.S. Navy shot down, sunk on carriers, or otherwise destroyed the bulk of the Imperial Japanese Navy's air arm in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, also known as "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot".

If this makes you want to look at pictures of old warbirds in all their piston-powered glory, that's completely understandable: Mauser*Girl's warbird pictures, let her show you them. Great photos; you can almost hear the Wright radials and smell the exhaust.

Things For Which I Wish I Weren't The #1 Google Result, Part MCXLIV

"Enslaved to aliens dream"? Ewww! Just... just... ewww!

Head, meet wall...

My latest column went up at Low End Mac, chronicling some of the joys of playing with old computers.

Read it and laugh at with me.

You're not a real gun nut...

...if you can't have fun quibbling over the minutiae.

Just great.

Look at what I turn up as the number one Google result for: "electric boobs i read it in a magazine".

Ah, SiteMeter, you are the source of endless giggles...

"The Only Ones", International Division

Less than a month away from the thirteenth observance of "The Government Will Protect You Day", the issue of U.N. immunity from lawsuits in the matter is up before a Dutch court.

6,000 people think that the U.N. has blood on its hands for first disarming, and then failing to prevent the massacre of, over eight thousand civilians in and around the Bosnian village of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995.

Remember: The U.N. are the Only Ones who can prevent genocide.

Today In History: England That Was.

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." - Sir Winston Churchill, 6/18/40

The speech was not recorded by CCTV camera...

I feel unclean.

I don't know why it shocked me, seeing as how there are scholarly treatises on pro wrasslin' to be found there, but the fact that Wikipedia sported a slew of articles on... you know... Foxtrot, Uniform, Romeo, Romeo, India, Echo, Sierra... kind of caught me completely off guard. Now I know stuff I can't unlearn, no matter how heavily I drink tonight. That won't keep me from trying, however.

Because misery loves company, I want you to imagine how many mothers' basements had to be emptied to take this photo. I wonder, if you added them all together, how many days the people in that picture have spent with their heads held in toilets by varsity football players.

Notes from The Resistance...

Signs that you might be behind enemy lines in California...


Makes me kinda happy to be in the place that famous gun board poster El Tejon calls "American-occupied America", actually.

Am I not merciful?

Marko proves he hasn't yet planted a vegetable garden.

Meanwhile, here where the neighbors would frown on indiscriminate small arms fire in the back yard, one of those %^&* striped rats got one of my tender little corn seedlings. (And hail beat three more flat.)

Today In History: The whites of their eyes...

On this date in 1775, some 2,400 government troops under the command of Major General Howe crossed Boston harbor to dislodge a ragtag band of roughly fifteen hundred militia types, separatists, and other unlawful combatants who had dug in on the heights of the Charlestown peninsula overlooking the harbor.

Despite ferocious resistance from the rebels, the brave government troops advanced into the teeth of the enemy fire and captured the top of the hill, taking thirty prisoners. The rebels left 140 dead behind. Government casualties are unreported, but believed to be in excess of thirty percent. General Clinton remarked that "A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America."

With all the gasoline price talk lately...

...I wondered why the junk email from Vickie's Secret was offering a "Free Tank".

It took me a second to realize that they meant "-top", not "-of gas".

(I guess in more normal economic times, I would have thought "Cool! I'll take an M3 Stuart and drive it to work!")

Witchcraft!

You don't have to be completely irrational to confuse historical vandalism with peace activism, but it helps.

Nice to see that the medieval concept of the "deodand" is alive and well in progressive California.

Trying something new...

I noticed that both Chris Muir at Day By Day and Caleb at NRAhab are using Project Wonderful for ad space. I looked it over and thought the bid system was interesting, and decided to give it a whirl for one reason: If I was an FFL or firearms accessories-related dealer with an online presence, I'd sign up with Project Wonderful and put an ad here on VFTP where it would be seen by a couple thousand gun nuts a day at an advertising cost of diddly-squat a month.

I doubt I'll see a fraction of the return I see from Google AdSense (which doesn't quite cover the cable bill), but the way the bidding system works seems to make it perfect for targeted niche markets. Considering the number of Google hits I get from "Gewehr 71 Mauser", "11mm Gras", and ".577-450 Martini", Buffalo Arms would have to be crazy not to buy a Project Wonderful ad here. They could sell one set of RCBS dies or a box of .43 Mauser and pay for a year's worth of banners...

Successful Meme.

I have noticed on editorial pages and in certain sectors of the intarw3bz that the "mercenary" meme has really taken root. You'll never even hear the word "contractor" anymore.

Get a job with Wackenhut guarding an airport in Qatar? Mercenary.

Doling out chow in a Burger King on a base in Iraq? Mercenary.

Driving a truck for KBR? Mercenary.

Working for EOD Tech clearing unexploded ordnance to make a soccer field safe for kids? Mercenary.

Say "Mercenary" and it sounds like they're all swaggering doorkickers with machineguns, and not support personnel filling gaps to free U.S. troops to do things that only troops can do.

And I guess that was the point of the whole exercise, no?

I never realized it before...

But as

[f]loodwaters inundated ... the University of Iowa arts campus,

it slowly dawned on me that George W. Bush hates the artsy whitebread children of ofay midwestern farmers.


UPDATE: Great minds snark alike.

Breaking News:

This just in: Tim Russert is still dead.

Today In History: It was a very small sorority...

On this date in 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6. It would be nineteen years before another woman made it to orbit.


While she was initially selected for political reasons (new socialist youth with dead war hero father), she took to her role like a duck to water, passing through jet fighter pilot training and later getting a doctorate in cosmonaut engineering. Plus, in those days it took a fair amount of courage to strap yourself in a Russian rocket, as the early ones were pretty far from OSHA compliant and a ride in one was an iffy lottery ticket with the booby prize being a future as an airbrushed blank spot in Soviet space program photos.

Incidentally, on her one mission Tereshkova completed 48 orbits, spending almost three days in space and logging more time in space than all U.S. astronauts up to that point combined.

Big shock there.

-3 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

At least I don't wear red nail polish like some shameless hussy. I suspect I got docked points for preferring PJ's (actually old tee shirts or scrubs) to nightgowns.

(H/T to RobertaX.)

The Circle of Life...

So friend Matt tagged me with a meme that he'd picked up from Breda. Which was odd, because I'd actually (and quite inadvertently) started the meme myself. So I'm replying to my own meme.

Here's the candid snapshot of the desk at VFTP Command Central from five days ago. The shot is not posed and nothing is moved. In addition to the snazzy coffee cup with the P-47D Thunderbolt on it, note also the Leatherman Juice and Micra, and the .32 and .38 Smith & Wesson single action top-breaks awaiting their day in the Sunday Smith sun. The piccies in the table tent are Stephanie Seymour and Dennis Leary. It's just some little desk fixture I've had sitting next to my computer since my computer was a 486DX.


Incidentally, the coffee cup actually belongs to my roomie, I've just sort of appropriated it. There's a head-on view of the P-47 on the inside bottom of the mug. Being a southpaw, every time I finish my coffee it looks like some daredevil Francis Gabreski is flying inverted straight at me from the dregs of my java...

I am just unreasonably happy...

...to see "Keep The Change" bumper sticker orders going to California and New Jersey.

It may not make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but it's cool nonetheless.

Now if Zazzle would only let me sell Liberators to folks in Burma or Tibet...

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

It's a tired cliche, but how did my dad go from being some fuddy-duddy who didn't know anything to being one of the smartest men I know in so few years?

Thanks for always encouraging me to read and learn; if it weren't for you, I might have been dumb.

I hope it's a happy one, Dad.

In his spare time...

...Barack *redacted* Obama has been known to take pink 10/22 rifles away from little girls and use them to shoot cute, defenseless puppies, before having the gun melted down and turned into Che Guevara buttons.

Can we run the flag back up the pole now?

I notice the flags are still at half mast for that TeeWee talking head who choked on his last cookie the other day.

Not watching TeeWee, when I heard that Tim Russert had died, my first response was "Who?" I literally had no clue who the guy was. Now, though, I know. After three days I understand that he was a brilliant, sensitive, courageous, passionate genius who loved puppy dogs, helped little old ladies across the street, healed the sick, made the blind to see, and walked across water hazards to get to the next green.

For pity's sake, Gerald Ford didn't get this much florid eulogizing in the news when he croaked recently. Of course, he was only a President of the United States, not a member of the media...

419 Scammers usually amuse me...

If I recognize the title of an email in my spam folder as a 419 scam, I'll even occasionally open it and read it for some yuks.

This guy, however, has gone beyond the pale. This guy I would cheerfully beat to a paste with a claw hammer. And smile while doing it.

Dear Sir,
My name is Sgt .Anthony Hill; I am an American soldier with Swiss background, serving in the military with the army's 3rd infantry division. With a very desperate need for assistance, I have summed up courage to contact you. I found your contact particulars in an address journal. I am seeking your kind assistance to move the sum of (US$14,600,000.000) Fourteen Million Six Hundred Thousand United States Dollars to you, as far as I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here, this is no stolen money,and there is no danger involved.

Source of money:
Some money in various currencies was discovered in barrels at a farmhouse near one of Saddam's old palaces in Tikrit-Iraq during a rescue operation, and it was agreed by staff Sgt Kenneth buff and I that some part of this money be shared among both of us before informing anybody about it since both of us saw the money first. This was quite an illegal thing to do, but I tell you what? No compensation can make up for the risk we have taken with our lives in this hell hole. Of which my brother in-law was killed by a road side bomb last week. You will find the story of this money on the web address below; http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13187
The above figure was given to me as my share, and to conceal this kind of money became a problem for me, so with the help of a British contact working here and his office enjoy some immunity, I was able to get the package out to a safe location entirely out of trouble spot. he does not know the real contents of the package, and believes that it belongs to a British / American medical doctor who died in a raid here in Iraq, and before giving up, trusted me to hand over the package to his family in united states.

I have now found a much secured way of getting the package out of Iraq to your country for you to pick up, and I will discuss this with you when I am sure that you are willing to assist me. I want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give to me. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with anybody, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us soldier's here in Iraq. I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help, I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately, please contact me as soon as possible my only way of communication is email. you get back to sgtanthonyhill@googlemail.com

I look forward to hear from you
Sgt. Anthony Hill

Nice, M'butu. The "@googlemail.com" adds just the touch of authenticity to convince Aunt Edna to help out one of our boys overseas... What was wrong with pretending to be the widow of the "Finances Minister" of Zimbabwe or the son of millionaire missionaries eaten by cannibals? No, now you want to tug some gullible codger's patriotic heartstrings just in time for the Fourth of July by pretending to be an American soldier in Iraq. I hope you die of some virulent and painful tropical crotch rot.

Just close your eyes and think of England...

...as you write the check for this nice .455 Webley Mk.I(N).

Mine's not quite as pretty, but given the cost difference, I think I'll live with it. Personally, I think his asking price is way high for an RN pistol. If it was an RHA or RFC gun? Sure. But a Navy gun? That's all of a $1,500 pistol, maybe a bit more. Ah well, there's always a greater fool out there somewhere...

(H/T to TD of The Unforgiving Minute, via email.)

Today In History: Australopithecus Geekus.

On this day in 1822, proto computer geek Charles Babbage presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of very big mathematical tables."

From that moment, it was only a matter of time until first-person shooters, spam email, CD piracy, and watercooled overclocking became common. All that Babbage's proposed "Difference Engine" needs to be instantly recognizable to any geek today is some red anodized aluminum, and neon light tubes in the case.

Just ill.

The first Mauser rifle adopted by Germany was the Gew. 71. It was followed shortly by a carbine variant for horse soldiers, cannon-cockers, and the like. The carbine was a diminutive little thing, with a full-length stock of the type now referred to as "Mannlicher-style", a turned-down bolt handle, and a stubby 20" barrel.

Apparently, sporting conversions of these rifles were somewhat common around the end of the 19th Century, after they had been obsoleted. I came into possession of one such, a bringback from a WWI Doughboy who pulled occupation duty in Germany during 1919; I bought it from his grandson. Mine was originally made in 1877 by C.G.Haenel & Sohn in the town of Suhl. It had been sporterized in a fashion that would be familiar to later generations of American shooters, by the simple expedient of shortening the military stock to the barrel band and refinishing the wood. In meticulous Teutonic fashion, every piece, down to individual screw heads, bears the gun's serial number, and they all match. The finish is worn to an even brown/gray patina. It looks very much like the one here, except the stock on mine is a little longer and has no inlet pistol grip.

This single-shot black powder Mauser carbine is a handy, compact little weapon. So compact that one could mislay it in the frenzy of moving, and it could lay on a table in a basement with a large sofa cushion atop it. Up out of the floodwaters, mind you, but with the cushion preventing air circulation...

I just noticed it yesterday. I was almost physically ill. It really wasn't too bad; just some freckling on the receiver, the knoxform of the barrel, and the bolt, and an hour or so's diligent work removed the orange cancer spots, but still...

A 131 year old rifle is going to carry the marks of history, and some of those little marks on this rifle from now on are going to be from the Great Indiana Floods of 2008.

Been there, suffered that.

The worst thing about shooting by yourself is that you never get to do it for long...

(H/T to reader John.)

Ten different kinds of wrong.

Time + Money + Suzuki Hayabusa motor + Poor little Smart Car that never knew what hit it = The sickest thing I've seen all week.

WANT.

Hidden in the corners of the intarw3bz:

From the profile of blogger Words Twice:

Compose the lyrics to a new national anthem that features an animal sound at least once:

"Oh say can you hope by the dawn's early change
What so proudly we hoped at the twilight's last changing?
Whose broad change and bright hope through the perilous change,
O'er the ramparts we hoped were so gallantly changing? Baaaaaaa!"

Ha!

The lawnmowing conundrum.

The monsoon season has transformed the front lawn at Roseholme Cottage from the usual scruffy patch of grass one sees in front of the wee bungalows in streetcar suburbs to a verdant fast-growth jungle from which can be heard the call of the cockatoo and the cough of the hunting leopard. (Well, the Broad Ripple street leopard, which bears an astonishing resemblance to felis domesticus.) The grass at which one was chanting "Grow! Grow! Grow!" just weeks ago now draws cries of "Stop already!" as you pull the mower out for the second trim of the week.

With the front lawn on the east side of the house, the situation becomes dicey. Do you mow in the morning, before temperatures have peaked, and get your albino skin char-broiled by the direct rays of the pre-noon sun? Or do you wait until 4:30 or 5:00, when the front lawn is largely in the shade, but the air temperature has reached a sticky 90 degrees? (Side Question: How in Vishnu's name did I ever do yardwork before the invention of the iPod? Was I really making fun of these wunnerful gadgets just a few months ago?)

There's one ray of sunshine in the process: Our neighbor, who is as sweet and friendly as the day is long, is a fervent, politically-active Democrat. As a matter of fact, not being good with names, that's how she's known in my internal monologue or conversations with my roomie: "I was chatting with The Democrat today..." The acoustic mower just wasn't cutting it anymore, no pun intended, so I've transitioned to the electric for the remainder of monsoon season. A couple of weekends ago, it being the first time I'd ever used an electric mower, I was tying myself up in the mower's extension cord in the front yard. The Democrat saw this, and asked if I'd like to use her gas mower. I looked at her steadily and, doing my best to keep a tone of supercilious piety out of my voice, said "Thanks, but this one's so much greener." Ahhhh. So that's how Prius drivers feel...

The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain.

Lose the gun. And the hat.

John Bull can't wear his bowler anymore while taking a pint in Yorkshire. (H/T to Unc.)

Sadly, there's a metaphor in there someplace...

So the USMC came to town about a week ago to practice urban warfare in our modern nation-building era. The plan was to practice deploying from helicopters in parking lots surrounded by big city buildings, patrolling and setting up roadblocks in urban environs clogged with "no-shoot" civilians, et cetera.

Instead, they've spent their week on necessary humanitarian aid, evacuating flood victims and building sandbag levees. It was needed, it was humanitarian, and it was, somewhat poignantly, a metaphor for our military's problems since those klieg lights first shone on SEALS slithering ashore on Somali beaches in 1992.

Today In History: Itchy trigger finger, comrade.

On this date in 1952, a Soviet MiG-15 shot down a Swedish sigint DC-3 over the Baltic Sea, killing all eight crew members. The Commies denied splashing the plane for another four years.

It's worse than I thought...

I just found out on teh intarw3bz that

when Obama says he’s trying to ‘kick the butts’ he means puppies’ butts.

That'll cost him the PETArd vote.

The cost of custom...

Some of the comments on the post below got me to thinking. I've had one custom rifle built so far, and it's a fairly rack-grade, utilitarian piece. When you add it all together...

I got the Mauser (a Turkish tomato stake with a shot out bore) for $35. The gun was stripped to the bare action and the lugs were lapped for free. I paid a friend $200 for the .30 cal Lilja barrel. I paid pretty much cost on a bolt handle, a Timney trigger and a bolt shroud and safety. I paid retail for the Boyd's stock, the recoil pad, Leupold bases & rings, and the Millet scope. Labor for fitting a short-action Savage mag box, welding up the bolt face, custom-fabricating bottom metal, threading the end of the barrel & making a thread protector, cutting the .300 Whisper chamber, and hundred-and-one other things involved in generally putting the whole thing together was done at "Good Buddy" rates (along with which you have to accept "Good Buddy" time; when a working 'smith is doing your gun in his spare time as a favor for a friend, you don't bitch if it takes a couple of years.) The matte bluing job was picked up at employee discount.

And even with all that, my plain-jane, rack-grade, budget Mauser custom came out well over a grand, probably closer to two . And the stock is still unfinished.

Speaking of gun pr0n...

Og shows us what 109,129 pounds of pennies will buy these days.

Drooooool.

Sexy, sexy antique Winchester pr0n.

Did you hear about Obama's new campaign bus?

It seats thirty in the passenger compartment and six seven under the wheels.


(...and will the day soon come when we miss the fluid and easy extemporaneous speaking of George Um W. Uh Bush?)

It is a vicious, baseless slur...

...to claim that Barack *redacted* Obama was heard to shout "Allahu Akhbar!" when he pushed that iceberg into the path of the Titanic.

The truth is that nobody's really sure what he said as he gave the 'berg a nudge.

I guess it's too late to burn the nest.

I get mad enough when I read about some idjit tofuista trying to make their pet cat (order Carnivora) go Vegan, but that can't possibly compare to the vein-bouncing-in-the-forehead mood into which twaddle like this puts me.

The irony of the situation? I'm sure good Vegan Mum and Dad would have supported bringing charges against a snake-handling backwoods yahoo who tried to treat their child's leukemia with a prayer hankie and a visit from the preacher.

Well, Mr. & Mrs. Anonymous, how does it feel to know that your asinine beliefs have permanently broken your kid? Morons.

Today In History: Beginning of the End.

"Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" -Ronald Reagan, 6/12/87

Online Rumors:

It is a little-known fact that Barack kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

Also, Jimmy Hoffa was last seen getting in his car.

And he changed his middle name to Hussein from Khomeini, to make it seem less conspicuous.

Garage Sale:

One steel Colt factory 32-rd magazine for 9mm AR-15, w/black Magpul. 6/97 date, LE-marked, available only to folks who don't live in bolshevik hellholes that prohibit good magazines.

$30 + $5 for USPS Priority Mail sound fair?

Respond in comments; first come, first served.

One in four!?! Oh, ick!

Blogger starfuryzeta with info I could have lived without knowing.

Note to self: Avoid NYC like the... well, like the plague.

Not to cast slurs on the man...

...but I read on the internet that Barack Obama was seen bayoneting Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Wearing a keffiyeh.

That'll cost him votes in Texas.

Don't tell his cybernauts I told you this or they'll come get me.

Crack team of cybernauts, indeed...

"A crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet “war room” to track and respond aggressively to online rumours that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and a Muslim."

Seems they're trolling CafePress rather than patrolling teh intarw3bz, making sure that nobody spills the beans about the fact that Obama is really a ten thousand year-old Assyrian demon that eats babies for breakfast. Or Martin Bormann in disguise, whichever.

(H/T to Tully @ Stubborn Facts.)

Bringing hOpe.

"Imagine hopey-changey
it’s easy if you try"

Hahahaha! That's funny right there, I don't care who you are.

I'll take "Burning Irony" for $500, Alex...

Having sweated my way through my share of summertime Atlanta commutes in an un-air-conditioned car wearing dress code-mandated pantyhose, I couldn't help but grimace at the ABC News story to which RobertaX linked this morning:

"Fight the oppression of the patriarchy by ditching your pantyhose for leg makeup."

I felt so empowered by that sentiment. Only not.

That makes no sense.

The video of the conjoined twins on CNN.com seems to have black bars across their eyes to help foil... well, help foil what, I'm not exactly sure.

"Hey! I saw some girls on CNN last night that were joined at the head, but I can't tell if it was you two or not 'cause their eyes was blacked out."

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the web...

After a one week long sewage-in-the-basement-related hiatus, my Low End Mac column is back. From now on, I'm going to keep an extra column or two ahead. That way if, say, my noggin falls off or something, they've got two weeks to reattach it before I have to worry about missing a deadline...

Today In History: Non-assimilating Catholic Immigrants Riot!

No, not today in LA; in Boston back in 1837.

Well, what have we here?

Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say that the Obama campaign wanted me to use their logo, since they make it available for frickin' public download.

Can't stop the signal.

Neener.


Keep The Change
by

TamSlick

Get this custom bumpersticker
at Zazzle

Bias!

So, CafePress.com (whose complaint department may be reached at cup@cafepress.com or 650.655.3104) notified me that my artwork was inappropriate. Rather than being legitimate parody and political satire in the middle of a crucial and hotly-contested election year, they said it infringed on trademarks and copyrights and caused the heartbreak of psoriasis. Well, actually not all my graphics were bad, just some of them.

Care to guess which some?

(In case you can't tell, CafePress outlines the pulled graphics in red.)

Anybody want to bet that there aren't many McCain voters there?


UPDATE: Can't stOp the signal.

UPDATE 2: Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say that the Obama campaign wanted me to use their logo, since they make it available for frickin' public download.

on a rOll...

Available as a bumper sticker or coffee mug.

Yum.

Tonight I will likely dream about being a sandbag.

Obama urges conversion of US economy to the Peso.

Claiming that the economy needs a boost, Barack I'm No Economist Obama called for

"another round of fiscal stimulus, an immediate $50 billion to help those who've been hit hardest by this economic downturn,"

without explaining what invisible pink unicorn was expected to defecate this windfall.

Given that the fed.gov is already in hock up to our grandkids' eyeballs, one can only expect that this would come from an order to the printing presses at Treasury.

In related news, Ace Hardware has started selling special "Weimar Edition" currency wheelbarrows for trips to the grocery store and gas station.

Today In History: Lidice.

On this date in 1942, German Einsatztruppen entered the Czech village of Lidice, rounded up all the men over the age of 16, and shot them down like dogs in a farm yard. The women and children were separated from each other and sent to concentration camps. Most of the children were gassed on their arrival at the Chelmno concentration camp on the orders of Adolf Eichmann. The women were worked to death at Ravensbruck. The village itself, which had stood since at least the 14th century, was razed. The German government meticulously recorded the massacre and announced it in official broadcasts.

Remember Lidice the next time someone gives you that tired "BusHitler" crap or natters on about how "America is just like Nazi Germany now".

Fair & Balanced

Because I'm all about the Fair & Balanced.

Imported Snark..

VFTP Command Central is still awaiting the morning's shipment of fresh organic free-range domestic snark. In the meantime, may I direct you to some Grade A imported snark over here?

Storm Drops Travel Trailer On Woman.

"...reports that a little girl in a gingham dress immediately looted her shoes are as yet unconfirmed."

Y'know, I understand it's awful. It's horrible, and it's a tragedy. Call it a character flaw that I can't read a CNN headline that says "Storm Drops Travel Trailer On Woman" without reflexively laughing. Mel Brooks once said something to the effect of "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

Look! More stuff for you to buy!

...at VFTP Cafe.


All proceeds will go to my Widows & Orphans Fund, which I regularly embezzle for beer money.

Bored.

Just downloaded NeoOffice the other day and got to playing with its drawing program...
UPDATE: Sticker available here, at VFTP Cafe.

Unpossible.

In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife.

So, apparently, can a knife.

They should ban those things, or something.

Wikiwander.

Did you know that Roald Dahl, who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a British agent in America before our entry into WWII? He also was a fighter pilot, who crashed his Gloster Gladiator during an emergency landing in the Libyan desert.

The Gladiator was the last biplane fighter to see service with the RAF before being replaced by more modern aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was an amazingly successful design; its only real weakness was short legs that prevented it from serving as a long-range escort for the daylight bombing raids of the U.S. Army Air Force. Everyone knows about the B-17s of the Eighth Air Force and their brave crews, but fewer people know that the Consolidated B-24 Liberator played an equally big role with the Mighty Eighth.

Commanding one of those B-24s over Germany was a man who had to put on weight to enlist in the USAAF as a private before we entered the war. His flying skills got him a commission, and by a combination of wrangling and pleading, the man who would retire from the USAF Reserve in 1968 as a Brigadier General was allowed to fly in combat against the Hun like he wanted. He's better known for his other career, though, because Jimmy Stewart wasn't a half bad actor, either.

Becoming a dictatorship, but only half-fast.

Pugsley's mandatory finking law was thwarted by thousands of angry marchers who took to the street in protest of attempts to shut down opposition candidates, as well as chanting against the aforementioned law that made rolling over for the national security police compulsory.

Hitler never had it so rough...

The other blog...

Nattering about old rifles at the other blog.

No blog for you. You come back later.

I have sworn a terrible oath before eldritch gods that I will write posts for The Arms Room, two columns for Low End Mac, take pictures of some stuff for a mini eBay garage sale, and answer a two-week backlog of email before I play on teh intarw3bz today.

Back soon.

Eaten lunch yet?

If not, unpack the brown paper sack on your desk (or drag your laptop to Panera Bread) and read Kevin's essay on the Edjumacation Conspiracy while you nosh. It's one of his long 'uns, but it's really worth it.

Planting tomorrow's Soylent Green crop, indeed...

20,000 Pixels Under The Sea.

The neatest thing I've seen on the interwebz in a while: Detailed sonar pics of shipwrecks in Scapa Flow.

One of the more interesting things there is image of the wreck site of SMS Bayern. Note her gunhouses all lined up in a neat row on the sea bed. I remember being surprised the first time I read of a battleship's turrets falling out as she capsized, then realizing that you really don't need anything other than gravity to keep a 2000 ton turret stuck to the ship as long as it remains right side up. (And if it's no longer right side up, who cares if the turrets stay attached, really?)

Planting tomorrow's Soylent Green crop.

When I first read it, I thought it was satire. Surely nobody could be such a walking, talking parody of an Ayn Rand villain...

Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are "middle-class" creations, a Government adviser will claim today.

Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.

Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy-saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes.

It apparently is true however. Oh well, the Morlocks will have to eat, too, I guess.

Over One Million Served...

My one millionth reader.

Wow... I can't tell you how cool this is to me. Thanks folks, really! I'm just tickled to death that anybody reads this stuff, actually. For a little personal blog about nothing in particular that hasn't even had it's third birthday yet, that's not too shabby.

Anyhow, enough gloating and patting myself on the back. Back to writin'...

(I'm Rick James, bitch! :D )

I was going to say something...

...about the State Security Organs of D.C. and their planned "Neighborhood Safety Zone" garbage, but I changed my mind. It's already been said, only better.

Hippo birdie two ewe

Hippo birdie two ewe
Hippo birdie deer Breda
Hippo birdie two ewe!

Tools in the shed.

I'm going to go out on a limb with a prediction:

IF we get eight years of a Democrat in the White House AND the Dems retain control of congress for the next four to six years THEN we will see at least one of the fringier gun/freedom groups get investigated for terrorism, membership and donor rolls seized, assets frozen, members put on the no-fly list, the whole Patriot (ha!) Act shebang.

It'll be KABA or the Michigan Militia or everyone who's ever posted at the Claire Files, or the records of everyone who has chipped in to help Oleg buy a lens to take those seditious pictures, maybe even as big a target as the JPFO.

And all the Bush Derangement Syndrome folks are going to miss the point, saying
"Ooh! It was those evil NeoCons and their Patriot Act! And now they're hoist by their own petard!", completely ignorant of the fact that the Patriot act was nothing but a laundry list of failed law enforcement gimmes, some dating back to the Carter administration, that was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority during the Rah-Rah Government! days while the rubble from the towers was still cooling.

Meanwhile, the Law & Order GOP types will still be chanting "If you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about?" since they wouldn't be members of such a loony fringe organization anyway. (They're not even sure if their Ducks Unlimited membership is still up to date, but they must be okay with the NRA since they haven't stopped getting American Rifleman.)

Oh well, at least the conspiracy theories are more entertaining when the Dems are in control. The Truthers have nothing on the guys who swore that Clinton had a million Chinese troops across the border under UN command that were going to drive into the country on the wrong side of the road (because they were furriners, that's why there are secret code stickers on the backs of traffic signs) and round us all up in detention stalags made from WalMart garden centers.

Surely he can't be that crazy...

So the talk now is all about whether or not Barry will take Hils on board as Veep.

You know, they say that the Vice President is only one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. You couldn't pay me enough money to be the heartbeat between Hils and that chair. I would wear a bulletproof vest in the shower, I would be the first president with food tasters. I would... I just wouldn't do it; I'd rather sleep in a bed full of rattlesnakes.

Big day.

Barring some freakish misfortune, Thursday should be a big, big day here at VFTP...

Pimpin' ain't easy...

So, you may notice down in my sidebar below my blogroll that I'm pimping a few books from Amazon. Rest assured that I did not throw darts at a catalog to decide to shill these particular choices.

The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, Mauser Military Rifles of the World, and Collecting Classic Bolt Action Military Rifles are three books that stay within arm's reach of my chair at VFTP Command Central. They are among a small suite of indispensable books that I don't want to have to get out of my chair to fetch when answering questions online. If Amazon has some of the other handful of books on that shelf (and if they're still in print) I'll try and link them, too.

Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye and Parliament Of Whores are two great introductions to my literary idols and unwitting role models, Miss Florence King and P.J. O'Rourke. I can't recommend them highly enough; if this blog makes you chuckle, I owe it all to reading too much of them.

Click. Buy. Read. You'll thank me. I guarantee it.

The past is another country...

...they did things cooler there.

The joys of gardening...

Last night's torrential downpour beat the radishes, chives, carrots, and dill flat. I spent a fair amount of time gently freeing tender sprouts from the mud. The verdammt tree rat keeps sitting in the pot of nemophila out front, and one of his cousins dug up and devoured a nice tender corn seedling. The delphinium is blooming with loverly dark purple flowers, but had to be staked after the weekend's typhoons.

Maple seedlings, on the other hand, are springing up like frigging kudzu.

Maybe I should scrap the herb/vegetable idea and go for a maple syrup plantation instead...

Pardon our dust...

I'm attempting to add one of those little Amazon widget thingies to my sidebar down below my blogroll. You know, shilling cool books for folks to read.

Obviously, my html skillz are neither mad nor 1337. Bear with me, please...

Apu may have a disgruntled employee.

Well, I'm going to have to say that all depends on how much time you have to kill someone and whether you can get them to hold still or not. Personally, I'd favor a really, really big blade. And a really big dude to use it while I remained at a safe distance, like maybe the next county over.

For those tactical wabbits...

Frank James, writing on farm guns, finds a surprising winner. Interestingly, I once sold one to a guy who planned to use it for the same thing.

Another customer once had a Springfield M6. Deciding that .22LR wasn't enough, but .22 Hornet was too much, he had us take a chamber reamer and convert his to .22 WMR. It was from him that I learned that CCI's .22 Magnum TNT round was not a good choice for squirrel hunting if you actually planned to eat the tree rat. Apparently at ~50 yards or so, it will scatter squirrel all over the forest.

Today In History: Boarders away!

On this date in 1944, a U.S. task force in the South Atlantic captured the German submarine U-505.

The sub is now on display and open for tours at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Today In History: American Somme.

On this date in 1864, General U.S. Grant again tried to turn Lee's flank on the northern approaches to Richmond. It was the fourth day of fighting around Cold Harbor and Grant attempted to fix Lee's left with probing attacks while making a major thrust against his right with three corps of infantry.

The attacks were poorly coordinated and little had been done to scout the Confederate positions; if they had scouted, they would have discovered that Lee's troops were well dug-in and waiting. In the early morning of June 3rd, men who had already survived the bloodbaths at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania marched into the teeth of withering musketry and point-blank canister shot from emplaced cannon. Some Union troops expressed their view of the likelihood of success by writing their names on pieces of paper pinned to their uniforms, in order to assist with the recognition of their remains in those pre-dog-tag days.

The Union army took as many as 6,000 casualties (perhaps as many as 2,000 KIA) on that day. General Grant later wrote that he had "...always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. ... At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."

Hints from Heloise.

Suppose that you owned a really nice Eddystone M1917 and an Arisaka Type 38 carbine. Suppose you'd left them out of the safe because you'd been playing with them, and they were resting against a wall with their buttplates on a raised piece of particle board.

Suppose that this piece of particle board was on a basement floor that flooded and, while it kept the rifles actually up out of the water, the board itself got waterlogged, and when you looked at your rifles before putting them away you noticed that they had developed a bit of orange fuzz on the heel of the buttplate where it had been in contact with the damp.

Tools you will need: A cloth; some good protective oil and some cleaner/oil combo (I use Butch's Gun Oil and FP-10 respectively; everyone will have a favorite); a brush; a brass cartridge case (I've found a bottleneck rifle cartridge of about .30-'06 size works best for me); and a hammer.

Use the hammer to mash the mouth of the case flat. Lube the cancerous spot with the combo oil and use the flattened end of the brass case as a scraper to get the oxidation off; brass being softer than steel, it won't hurt the underlying metal. Then go to the brush and cloth and clean as normal and apply your protective oil. Et voila! Cancer removal.

Jeff gets a fix...

...for his new gun jones.

Check out his shiny new PF9.

Dumb so dense it bends light.

Western civ has crossed the stupidity event horizon, from which not even the most energetic particle of common sense can escape.

A gun by any other name...

A recent post at Unc's sparked discussion on the ATF's definition of which part of a gun constitutes the actual firearm. I inadvertently managed to muddy the waters by using a piece of industry jargon, "the serial-numbered part". This is used frequently to refer to the piece that is designated as the actual firearm, as in:

"XYZ Wholesale is selling complete Blastomatic kits, everything but the serial-numbered part, for $189.99. You want I should order a few?"

"Fish around in the bottom of that box from Acme Tactical. There's a couple of serial-numbered parts in there that I need to put in the logbook."

Used outside that setting, this can cause confusion. Many firearms have the serial number on several parts (you will hear collectors of old guns refer to an example of a Mauser or Luger or Peacemaker as having "all matching numbers".) There is a reason for this, however.

Regardless of your feelings on gun control laws (and I think they're pretty much all unconstitutional), we have them. If the government is going to have laws that control guns, they have to define something as the "The Gun". In other words, if they are going to have a law saying, for instance, that you can't mail a handgun, then they can't let you just take a handgun apart and mail the complete thing as "gun parts"; there has to be an "atom of gun", a piece that, no matter how many other pieces you remove, retains its "gun-ness", and that is the part that is controlled.

In most cases it's fairly obvious: There is a frame or receiver that all the other parts (lockwork, barrel, cylinder, whatever) bolt up to, and that part is the gun. Several common exceptions to that rule or variations on it can be confusing to the casual hobbyist, and I'll try and cover a few here:

With self-loading rifles, it's usually pretty apparent at a glance. With most designs, the controlled part is the piece that the barrel, bolt and magazine all go into. Two big exceptions are the AR-15 and the FAL, which have "upper" and "lower" receivers. With the FAL, the upper contains the bolt, barrel, and magazine well, and it's obviously the controlled part. The AR, however, has the mag well on the lower receiver. Part of what has made the AR such a hit in the aftermarket is that the whole top half of the gun is unserialized and barrel length, caliber, and dozens of other features can be changed simply by swapping uppers out, since only the lower is controlled. It's really something of a fluke in the rifle world, but thank heavens for it, because it has spawned a whole hobby within a hobby.

With self-loading pistols, the frame is almost always the controlled part. Generally this is easy to tell, because even with most of the rest of the parts taken off, the frame still looks like a gun. Major exceptions would be the Ruger .22 semiautos, in which the barrel and its integral receiver are the gun and the grip frame is not; the Luger, in which the "slide" is the receiver; and the Beretta Neos, which can have its grip, barrel, and bolt all removed or changed out, leaving only the receiver as the actual gun.

In revolvers, confusion can also arise. The frame is, again, the gun, but most old single action revolvers and their modern clones have removable grip frames. The controlled part is the part of the frame that the barrel and cylinder mount to, not the separate "grip frame". Charter Arms double action revolvers are similarly constructed, in that the grip frame is separate from the actual frame of the gun. This sometimes causes confusion on eBay when someone freaks out over seeing a "grip frame" being auctioned.

Bolt-action rifles have a rather obvious receiver. For whatever reason, the Russians numbered their Mosin Nagant rifles on the barrel, rather than the action, and everyone else that made Mosins followed suit. Since these rifles are so rarely re-barreled, it's not that big of a deal. If you ever do, make sure to have your gunsmith move the S/N to the receiver. (Some importers these days are marking the receiver to fix this.) Mausers are generally serial numbered on the receiver as well as having the bolt and bottom metal numbered. If the gun has been re-arsenalled at some time in the past, these numbers may well not match. It should be obvious that the number on the receiver is the one that matters.

This is generally all common sense. I'm no rocket scientist, and I managed to pick most of it up by deductive reasoning. If you can figure out a 1040EZ, you can probably figure out which part of the gun is actually the gun.

Apparently Capt. Obvious was promoted.

Retired Lt. Gen. Honoré managed to fill not only air time, but bandwidth, explaining that disasters can happen at any time, tragedy "can result if we fail to prepare", and "each of us has a personal responsibility to be ready".

I guess maybe this is news for some people. Maybe some people thought it was the government's job to prepare for disaster, and that the government would take care of them when disaster struck. Maybe some people believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, too.

Look, when the dead have risen and are staggering through the streets in search of human brains, the government is not going to be there to help you. The only representatives of the government you will see during the Zombocalypse will be soldiers, who will try to kill you, and guys in lab coats or hermetically sealed bunny suits who will try to use you for hideous experiments in a misguided attempt to find a cure.

As Gen. Obvious said, come the big disaster, surviving it is your responsibility. Yours, your family's, and your community's. Not the government's. It'll probably be the government that accidentally releases the brain-eating zombie virus in the first place.

Quickie Fun Show Recap.

So, me being me, I just couldn't stand not having any real dough to blow at the show. I looked through the VFTP arsenal, playing a game of "Which one of these things is not like the others?" and decided that my 6.8mm SPC AR-15 was the odd gun out.

The 6.8 was a pretty nice AR, with some fairly top-shelf components: A MagPul M-93B stock, a Vltor CASV-EL forend, and an EOTech 512 holosight. The downside was that your average yob in the aisles was just going to ask "Whut kinda lower izzat?" and wander off when hearing "Superior Arms", because the average yob doesn't realize that all lowers are made in only a couple of places. Most folks wouldn't see the $900+ in accessories bolted to the gun.

The folks running a few specialty AR tables would be able to tell it was a pretty bucks-up carbine at a glance, but they're buying for resale and they have to make a buck. Unless they already have a customer lined up for a fairly high-end 6.8 carbine, they're not going to be willing to risk sinking too much in it on speculation. I was on the other horn of a dilemma I've faced countless times from the other side of the counter. (ColtCCO can probably picture the look on my face as I considered my prospects; the rest of you can get the effect by imagining the results of the expression "like chewing on a cat turd".)

Oh, well. The price I was asking was a reasonable one; a reseller could make a bit of money on it, and it was a damned good deal for an end user. If it sold, it sold, and if it didn't, it wouldn't kill me to take it home again. Early in the morning of day two I was strolling it down an aisle when I heard "Hey! Didn't you sell me a 9mm AR at a show in Knoxville?" from a table to my left. Indeed I had. It was the the folks from JSE Surplus. She asked how much I was asking, I told her, she knew a deal when she saw it, and I was flush.

The main reason I wanted to generate some cash was that this Indy 1500 was the best show for Trapdoor Springfields I have seen in over a decade. Most gun shows I've been to, I'd been lucky to find a bare handful, and even mediocre examples tended to start around $800. This weekend though, it seemed I couldn't turn around without bumping into another one, ranging from ugly pieces sporting tags in the $5-600 range to nice rifles with stickers north of a grand. I wanted a Springfield because I had an example of every primary US martial longarm from the Garand back to the Krag-Jorgensen, and that meant it was time to add a floptop to the museum.

The gun I settled on was a standard M1879 rifle that dated to 1884. It had a stock that had been sanded at some time in the distant past, obliterating its cartouches, but the finish was worn to an even brown patina with no really serious pitting anywhere, the screw heads were un-buggered, it was mechanically tight, and (mirabile dictu!) the bore had good, strong rifling and was rather amazingly bright for a rifle that had been built before the discovery of smokeless powder and a half century before the introduction of non-corrosive primers.

Following my maxim of always trying to turn one gun into two, I also browsed the Smith & Wesson selection at the show, coming up with a nice Model 1 1/2 Centerfire (basically a .32 S&W companion to my .38 Single Action, similarly dated, also nickeled, and in a little better condition.) Happy as a clam with my new acquisitions, I'll call it a successful show.

Thanks, but we've got plenty.

The BBC wishes to warn us that "Nature Loss" (whatever the hell that is) may hurt the world's poorest folks; those people struggling along in various corners of the planet where they have to pipe in the daylight and which are so far removed from current events that by the time news reaches them, it's already gone bad and turned into history. There are two big problems with this hand-wringing paean to pity, however...

First, who do you think is doing most of the nature destroying? I'll give you a hint: Percy T. Moneybags hasn't grabbed a chainsaw and slash cut the old-growth maples out of the back yard of his summer cottage in the Hamptons so he could grow more yams. If it comes to a choice between more room for the village pigs or placating Gaia worshippers, I'm pretty sure I know which direction a New Guinea hill dweller's tree is going to fall.

The second is that, while the "pity Gaia and her suffering poor" angle plays well to the Benetton crowd, it's hard to sell the glories of nature to a guy who spends all day up to his knees in the stuff while staring at the south end of a northbound water buffalo. Mr. Qixlia!a doesn't care about "Nature Loss". Hell, he has to beat nature back with a rake every morning to get from his hut to his outhouse. Losing nature is what he'd do for a living, if he could ever get enough time off from subsistence farming to take up doing something for a living.

It's times like this that it would be nice if I could have three wishes. The first wish would be to give every poor schlub in the worst corner of the planet internet access for one day. The second wish would be to give them all perfect reading comprehension of English. The third wish would be to give each and every sweaty, toiling subsistence farmer on the planet that has just read that patronizing piece of head-patting twaddle a plane ticket to London and the reporter's home address. I suspect they might like to talk with him about "Nature Loss".

Today In History: What's in a name?

On this date in 455AD, a mob of freebooters from Germanic tribes living on the North African coast entered Rome and engaged in an orgy of looting and rapine, carting off everything shiny that wasn't nailed down, as well as the Empress and her daughters.

The looters were apparently persuaded not to burn the place to the ground by Pope Leo, but the name of their tribe would be forever after associated with biker gangs, juvenile delinquents, rioters, and the crowd at Motley Crue concerts: They were the original Vandals.

Because knowing is half the battle.

How to be an Elite Team Fighter.

Gooooo Joe!!

Priorities.

Power out.

Buildings collapsing in the vicinity.

Flooded roads.

Valuable possessions threatened by rising tide of sludge in the basement.

What am I worried about?

"Oh gawd I hope the smoked salmon I just bought will be okay in the fridge!"

You have to keep your priorities straight.

Gun Show Report Preview:

One word: "Floptop".

I'm doing the happy Tam jig. Tune in tomorrow.