MilSpec Fun.

Abby at Bad Dogs and Such takes time out from a pre-deployment work-up for some Army-issue fun.

Guest who...

On tonight's episode of GunNuts: TNG, in its new 9PM EDT time slot, we're in for a surprise guest host: The Breda!

Retconning the Wild, Wild West...

The Clanton-McLaury faction comes down with Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Like you and me, only better.

Robert De Niro, whose life is valuable enough to rate an NYC toter's permit (unlike ordinary folks like you, me, or a single mother of two waiting tables at an all-night diner in the Bronx,) is apparently a half-decent shot.

Turned out from the tribe...

"I have long been uncomfortable with the undercurrents of sexism and misogyny in some quarters on the Right*, so I’m not sure whether I’m gratified or horrified to find out that it’s evidently much worse on the Left. If there were whiffs of sexism against Hillary Clinton in the media and in the Obama campaign after they decided she was not to be the anointed this year, all pretense of restraint has been completely dropped now that the dumb broad in question is wearing the uniform of the Enemy." -LabRat, "Sarah Palin, Gender Apostate"

Do yourself a favor and Read The Whole Thing...

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again...

On this date in 1920, a horse-drawn wagon came to a stop in the lunch hour crowds at the corner of Wall Street and Broad in New York City, right across from the headquarters of J.P. Morgan.

Moments later, the wagon disintegrated into a fireball, as over 100 pounds of dynamite flung shrapnel in every direction, scything through the crowd with enough velocity that the stone walls of the bank across the street are pockmarked to this day. Thirty were killed and hundreds injured in the attack.

This fanned anti-immigrant sentiment, since the perpetrators were almost certainly guilty of being Italian-Americans in a country whose president had recently stated

"Hyphenated Americans (who) have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out."

and where ten thousand immigrants had recently been deported for suspected anarchist ties. It also gave a fledgling "General Intelligence Division" of the Justice Department and its chief, a 25 year old hard-charger by the name of J. Edgar Hoover, a shot in the arm.

In the end, the perpetrators were never caught, a new federal law enforcement agency was born and new laws were passed to empower it, and Wall Street had worries much bigger than mere physical bombs by the end of the decade.

And who says history doesn't repeat itself?

Ungrateful hippies.

San Franciscans... (Franciscites? Franciscistas?) always make such a big fuss about the military doing anything in their city.

Help me, Intarw3bz Kenobi; you're my only hope...

When I had my .300 Whisper Turkish Mauser project done, I had the barrel threaded 1/2"x28, because that's the standard AR muzzle thread. Which is cool and all, but the gun has a .3" hole in it and not a .22" hole, and all the .30 caliber suppressors on the market are threaded for... well, not 1/2"x28, that's for sure.

I don't want to cut and rethread the muzzle. Further, I don't want to buy most of the .30 cal cans out there because they're the size and weight of truck mufflers and you don't need a friggin' AWC Thundertrap to stifle a .300 Whisper, which only emits about as much gas as a mouse fart. Surely someone makes a can intended for the .300 Whisper, and given the round's roots in the AR platform, surely that can is threaded 1/2"x28. I know there are people that read this blog that are hip to the topic.

Help me, lazyweb! Where is this magic can I'm looking for, and how many cereal boxtops will I need to save to get it?

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to own Dremels...

And yes, the bayonet fits.

I have no words...

That's a hell of a thing to wake up to.

I was in to buy Merrill Lynch for four dollars and ninety-seven cents, which was what I had in the change jar, but I woke up this morning to find out that those jerks at Bank of America had outbid me by $49,999,999,995.03.

Oh, well. I didn't know where I was going to keep the bull anyway. My roommate said the garage was right out, even after I promised to get him one of those diaper things the carriage horses use downtown.

Gun Zen.

I managed to wax all profound on teh intarw3bz last night:

Where the bullet lands is a lot more important than what the bullet is. Train to make the bullets land where you want.

I are deep.

Brunch and a movie.

Roomie cooked up an excellent bowl of breakfast-type vittles and we spent the afternoon watching Collateral.

RobertaX hadn't seen it and was unfamiliar with Michael Mann, and so it was fun watching someone really enjoy this lush, beautiful piece of eye candy for the first time. I'd forgotten just what a pretty movie it was...

Still haven't hooked up the steam-powered kinetoscope to watch the VHS copy of Heat yet.

Quote of the Day:

LabRat on Palin, here:

I would have liked her well enough without it, but the media frothing frenzy has been just about enough to turn me into a rock-ribbed pro-life evangelical just out of sheer and unmitigated spite.

Grrrr!

Boy, do I hates me some of that new SiteMeter...

What a colossal pain in the butt, and all to make it more geeky and pump it full of data overload. The reason I liked SiteMeter is that it wasn't buried in slow loading charts; if I wanted to drown in data and pie charts, I'd go play with my Google Analytics account...

The range today...

Plans are afoot to burn powder at Eagle Creek today sometime around noonish. I'm thinking the weather favors stainless revolvers. What to take? The 696 or 624 to send some .44 Special downrange? Maybe the 646, since I have more .40 S&W than I reasonably need? (Don't forget the moon clips this time!)

Oh. My. God!

Feast your eyes upon the dumbest (and unintentionally funniest) Google searcher I've had in months:


I would call this person a retard, but that would insult the intellects of hard-working morons everywhere.

Oh, and by the way, which one's Pink?

I have to admit to being totally out of touch with pop culture. I don't watch broadcast TeeVee, barely watch cable, and I can only assume that the tuner on my car stereo works, because the CD changer in the trunk means that I never use the radio.

So I was a little taken aback to find out that there is apparently a pop singer named "Pink" who is, like most celebrities in the entertainment biz, a complete whiz at foreign policy and possessor of a level of fiscal acumen that would shame Alan Greenspan. Now she wants to challenge the governor of Alaska to a geography bee-cum-therapy session:

"If I were writing a letter to Sarah Palin," Pink told PopEater during her Sessions taping on Thursday, "it would be a lot of whys and hows. Who are you? Do you know? Why do you hate animals? Please point out Iraq on a map ..."

What scares Pink are women who consider the Alaska governor's selection a feminist victory. "This woman hates women," the singer said.

Vapid pop singer or sitting governor? Vapid pop singer or sitting governor? Hmmm... I think I know who I'd be betting on in that particular game of Trivial Pursuit.

Anyway, showing such a Matt Damon-like, nay, positively George Clooney-esque level of political insight is a sure recipe for success in the odd Bizarro-world that is the E!-universe.

Come in here, dear girl, have a cigar, you're gonna go far...


(PS: "Hate animals"? No, no! Palin loves animals. With mashed potatos.)


BONUS!: Noted political scholar and ex-Tommy Lee video co-star, Pamela Anderson, weighs in with her views of Palin. Thank you, Pam. Shouldn't you be off getting a tattoo removed or something? Run along, now...

Talk about "No Exit Strategy"...

Og the Neanderpundit on being a soldier in the never-ending war against entropy.

Caveat emptor, baby.

Picture with me, if you will, the interior of a courtroom. The case is Some Dude Whose Gun Blew Up v. RetailCo, Inc.:

Plaintiff's Attorney: "And where did you say you received this ammunition?"
Guy in his best poly/cotton blend: "Um, well, some guy brought it in the store..."

Picture the alternate scenario, now:

Plaintiff's Attorney: "And where did you say you received this ammunition?"
Guy in his best poly/cotton blend: "We received it from XYZ Wholesalers, who purchased it from ABC Ammunition Co. Representatives of both those fine organizations are here in the courtroom today."

Which defendant would you rather be? Yeah, me too.

This is why practically no retail firearms establishment will let you return or exchange ammo. Yeah, I know the counter troll at Dick's told you it was a "Federal Law" or somesuch, and that's probably what his shift supervisor told him, if only to shut him up.

Now, understand that the person working the counter at Wally World does not have the same fine, high-powered thinking instrument you do (since, like every VFTP reader, you're a veritable genius, right?) This is why the policy is written "No ammo returns, period." They don't want Cletus or Imogene to have to puzzle through "No ammo returns except for rimfire ammunition," or "No ammo returns except for CCI Blazer which is non-reloadable," or "No ammo returns except for Mrs. Johnson, since you've known her since she babysat for you when you were six."

No, they just tell Cletus and Imogene that it's some bogus "federal law": No ammo returns, do not pass go, end of story. We've done it that way at every shop I worked at, too, except without the lying about federal law part.

Anyhow, this policy exists because any time there is a mishap involving a firearm, the sky turns legal-pad yellow and pinstriped dorsal fins start circling. This is why it's actually kinda funny when a real live, you know, lawyer gets cross-threaded with Wally World about it.

(H/T to Unc.)

Oh, it's on now...

So, when CafePress got all squeamish about my bumper stickers, I meekly pulled them and went to Zazzle. Now Zazzle is apparently being squeezed, too...

Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that many of your products are in violation of Zazzle’s Copyright policies. Specifically, your product contains a logo copyrighted by Obama for America.

I guess it was easier for the Army of O to be magnanimous when they thought they had this one in the bag...

A video for the day...

America's Defense, Featuring linkin park

I found it at GrouchyMedia a couple years back, but it seemed appropos to link it again...

Overheard at the Banquet...

When you hang out with guys who do that martial arts-type stuff for fun, you sometimes overhear the most amazing snippets of conversation. Check out this juxtaposition, overheard at the Friends of the NRA dinner in Lafayette, IN last night:

"Yeah, I haven't been punched in the face good and hard in so long I kinda miss it..." (whips out camera phone) "Hey, have you seen pictures of my new puppy?"

Today In History...

Every generation has its Kennedy moment. Its "Where were you when...?" frozen for an instant in time. Briefly, I thought mine would be an Uzi-waving man in a sportscoat in front of a hotel, the class bully poking small kids in the chest on the middle school bus and demanding in an accusatorial tone "Why did you shoot Reagan?"

Then, for just over a decade and a half, it was an awful morning in front of a television during my senior year in high school, watching the vapor trails of disintegrating dreams fade in the impossibly clear blue of an oddly frozen Florida sky.

Seven years ago I parked my battered TransAm in front of Montague Gunsmithing. I was early. Only the owner was there before me, and I let myself in to see him sitting, staring at a small television set, looking out of place there on the sales floor, trailing its extension cord from the showcases back into the break room. I was all excited because of a phone call from my lawyer the previous afternoon. "Hey, Ken! My check should be here tomorrow!"

"Some idiot in a Learjet just flew into the World Trade Center. They shouldn't outta let those tourist pilots fly low over New York."

"Huh? Are you sure?"

"Look at the TV."

And so that morning's drama unfolded...

We sold out of our meager stock of AR-15s pretty quick that day. One regular customer, a lawyer who was mostly interested in antique double-barrel fowling pieces came in. "I want one of those assault rifle-y things. In .223."

"Jack, I don't think the Arabs are coming here on their camels."

"I know. I just want to do something."

We sold him a pre-ban Mini-14. It was the last semiauto rifle left in the store. Then he cleaned us out of our remaining stock of .223 ammunition.

My roommate, Marko, had blown out of work for the day. Most folks had, it seems, and were just milling about. Seeking friends. Seeking television screens. Seeking news. Seeking some damn sense to the whole thing.

Walk-in traffic petered out at the shop as the afternoon wore on. Marko and I stepped out for a late lunch. The food court was out, since West Town Mall was closed. "They're hitting the great symbols of American commerce and power," I joked to my roomie "The World Trade Center, the Pentagon... West Town Mall in Knoxville is obviously next."

We sat at the local sports bar, both on the same side of the table for a better view of the tube. The big screen that normally showed happy throngs at sporting events now showed a gaping canker in Manhattan, a smoking corpsefield where thriving businesses used to be. Both towers were flattened. WTC 7 smoldered fitfully. A camera briefly showed the gaping wound on its backside. "Oh, yeah," I remarked to Marko, "that's comin' down." I got back to the shop to find it had. We closed early.

My boss wanted to nuke Riyadh. His son joined the Army. Good friends marched to the sound of the drums. Ridiculous legislation got passed. The world changed, and yet life went on. And here I am, seven years later, seven years older. And all I remember every year on this day is how ashamed I felt that my first worry was "Dammit, my check's going to be late."

That, and an angry, confused-looking older man buying a gun he didn't like, explaining sheepishly that he wanted to do something...

Stickin' it to The Man!

Roomie apparently had her own Hippie Encounter in the parking lot of the very same grocery store in which the "Nuke Berkeley" incident occurred.

I almost feel guilty riding a bicycle in this neighborhood, as though I were letting down the side or something. People might think I was one of them.

Then I remember that I don't believe in sides, teams, groupthink, or identity politics, and I go pedal my own damn bike if I feel like it.

Today's Totally Awesome Book Review.

OH JOHN RINGO NO!

Perfect review of the Ghost/Kildar/et al series, and yes, I have all but the latest. They are a lot of fun, but they are among the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Like eating Peanut Butter Captain Crunch in bed, straight from the box.

(A big H/T to Unix Jedi. Thanks to that link, my sides hurt from laughing before 6AM.)

Hooray!

I have just discovered that RobertaX has not seen Heat. We need to hook up a VCR, since my copy is in that recently-anachronized format, but I'm pretty stoked about getting to watch it again, and with a first time viewer to boot. I wonder if she's seen Collateral?

Throw down thy crutches and walk!

Apparently Joe "I'm not the guy" Biden forgot that Obama wasn't in the room to make the visually-challenged see and make the differently-abled walk:

Biden slipped a bit during the introductions, through no fault of his own. In introducing local elected officials, from Ninth District Congressional candidate Judy Baker to former Gov. Roger Wilson, Biden tried to give a special recognition to Sen. Chuck Graham of Columbia.

“Chuck, stand up, let the people see you,” Biden says. He was a bit chagrined when he realized that Graham uses a wheelchair.

Hey, when you're second banana to The Messiah, you kind of expect miracles to get delivered on demand...

(H/T to Unc.)

Spooking the locals...

So, I may have mentioned that I live in this relentlessly gentrified, hopelessly twee little in-town neighborhood called Broad Ripple. There's a business/entertainment strip that is all pubs and live music joints and restaurants and vintage clothing boutiques and hair salons. Stretching several blocks away from that in every direction is block after block of quiet, tree-lined former suburb, inhabited by single adults and young families. You will often see Kelli, the personal trainer or Skip, the newly-minted attorney out pushing baby strollers or pedaling their mountain bikes.

I have referred to the 'hood as "The O-Zone", due to the fact that the (admittedly sparse) yard signs are pretty much all for one guy, as is to be expected in the demographic, which is young, artsy city-dwellers. Every now and again it makes me twitch, though. Like the other day, when I parked the Bimmer (urban camouflage) between the brand new 911 and the Jag X-type (the latter with the obligatory "O") where my doors should be safe, and ran into the Fresh Market for some necessaries.

I'm in the checkout line with my purchases when I draw the attention of the dude behind me. Or rather my shirt does. He's tall and thin, with a tan physique that speaks of lots of frisbees thrown to bandana-wearing dogs in lots of public parks. His salt-and-pepper hair is pulled into a long ponytail and he blinks through wire-rim John Lennon specs as he says "Does that shirt really say...?"

"'Nuke Berkeley'? Yes, it does."

"But," he asks in genuine puzzlement, "why would you want to nuke Berkeley?"

"Because," I say in my sweetest voice, the one I use to get toddlers to take their medicine, "that's where they grow hippies, silly!" And I picked up my purchases and headed for the door, leaving him standing there in slack-jawed puzzlement.

Today In History: Potpourri.

On this date in...

...1798, a small force of colonists, marines, armed slaves, armed commercial boats, and Royal Naval vessels thwarted the Spanish Empire's attempt to invade Belize at the Battle of St. George's Caye.

...1813, Oliver Hazard Perry shot up the British fleet on Lake Erie, capturing everything that didn't burn or drown.

...1939, the Royal Navy suffered its first loss of the Second World War when, only a couple days into the conflict, the skipper of HMS Triton got trigger happy off the coast of Norway and mistook her sister, HMS Oxley, for the boche. He put a few fish into her midships and she promptly sank.

...1945, an unnamed barnyard fowl was magically transformed into Mike the Headless Chicken, using only an ordinary hatchet.

Rock and Roll High School...

I'm assuming y'all have seen the two groovy video montages from the Blackwater trip? Joe Huffman's totally awesome montage is here. JR did a club mix video, as it were, to Slipknot's "Duality", which doesn't sound quite the same unless it's reverberating off linoleum and plate glass at taxiing 747 volume, all at an hour to annoy sleeping birds.

You'll note in the videos that I brought my best selection of total poser t-shirts: National Forensics Academy, Department of Energy SRT, and Boone County, Indiana SRT. The National Forensics Academy one is totally my favorite, because it says "The Harvard of Hellish Violence" on the back and has a big ol' skull on the front. This is guaranteed to get you rapid service in most restaurants in the hopes that you will eat fast and leave. The DOE guys used to be regulars at CCA and would occasionally bring t-shirts if they had some to spare. My tour guide to Hoosier Shooty Goodness hooked me up with the Boone Co. one, where Sheriff Ken Campbell runs probably the only program in the nation that schedules big-name instructors on the county ranges for plain ol' everyday folks.

Can't we all just get a long gun?

The Armed Schoolteacher on rifle marksmanship and the recent Appleseed tiff.

PDB goes to carbine school: Day one. Day two.

No facehuggers.

Went out to dinner with my roomie last night. She introduced me to the funky, happenin' Broad Ripple joint that is Naked Tchopstix. Contrary to the name, all staff and diners were clothed.

Good sushi and very friendly service. Prices were reasonable. The decor looks like Buddhist hippies from Planet Ikea gave Ten Forward a remodeling. The presentation on the spider rolls was not what I was used to, however. The little facehuggers were all smooshed up and served atop the roll, rather than reaching up out of its center in all their H.R. Geigeresque splendor, as is traditional. It still tasted like crunchy pureed awesome, though.

All Palin, all the time...

...even on NPR.

From Mike-istan:

From what I could gather - between bouts of spittle-flecked microphone biting, he felt that MaCain chose the Alaska Governor in a cynical, underhanded attempt to turn the simple country folk, what with their cow milking and hay making, against their dazzling urbanite betters and thus drive a wedge between these heretofore natural allies in the battle against the Darth Vadars of the Republican party.

When your enemies can talk about nothing but you, it means you've got them rocked back on their heels. They are reacting to your moves. You are all up inside their OODA loop. Witness Slick Willie and every conservative talk show guy between '92 and '00.

A very relaxed and laid-back kind of scandal.

Pop Quiz: The highest court in the land has ruled that Thailand's prime minister must step down because he scandalously...

A) Embezzled jillions of baht.
B) Was dipping the ministerial pen in the secretarial inkwell.
C) Was fighting in the War Room.
D) Had his own cooking show.

If you picked "D", you're absolutely right.

"Thailand: Where even the scandals are relaxed." I mean, there's your next Phuket travel brochure slogan right there.

Today In History: Her experience was questioned.

On this date in 1543, long before anything that whiffed of child labor laws, Mary Stuart was actually crowned Queen of Scots in a ceremony at Stirling Castle when she was nine months old. The ermine onesies must have looked so cute...

Lunchtime comfort food...

Thin-sliced Swiss cheese + wine-soaked Sopressata + Kavli crispy thin crispbread = A Italo-Norse-Swiss taste treat.

Yum!

Google Search of the Day:

Someone hit my blog today searching for "used car problems after 100k miles".

Well, Anonymous Searcher, those problems can vary depending on the used car in question. For instance, an older diesel Mercedes Benz or American pickup truck rarely has much in the way of problems at 100k miles, unless you count "stinky exhaust" or "a tendency to spontaneously sprout rebel flag bumper stickers" as a problem. Meanwhile, some brands of Yugoslavian cars or older Korean imports will frequently suffer GEF, or "gratuitous existence failure" before hitting the six-digit mark on the odometer. There are certain special categories too, such as 1970s Datsun Z-Cars, which could theoretically have lifespans measured in jillions of miles if their bodywork didn't succumb to rust in dozens of months.

PUMA humor.

T'hee!


(H/T to the Old Grouch.)

JayG of Borg...

...assimilates another one. At his one-new-shooter-per-weekend clip, who knows? He may get the Augean stables of Massachusetts cleaned out eventually.

Airports? Sports teams? Pphhhtt.

These days, your city ain't nothin' unless it has 50-foot mechanical spiders roaming the streets.

The money quote, as it were, comes from the Wikipedia article:

The project, which is free to the public, cost £1.5 million to stage.

That simple sentence demonstrates such a breathtaking lack of anything resembling a grasp of economics that it fair staggers the imagination. It's as though someone thinks the fairy godmother bestowed all that moolah on the Liverpudlian Commission For Giant Sidewalk Creatures.

*sniff!* That's beautiful, man...

Check out this stylishly-decorated Hellfire slung under a Predator drone.

Lurve it! :D

Range Thoughts...

1) When you grab a freezer bag full of 10mm moon clips and your handy de-mooner, it helps to actually put them in your range bag rather than leaving them lying in the attic. ~100 rounds of 10mm doesn't sound like much until you have to pop them in and out of your single moon clip with your fingers.

2) Georgia Arms 180gr 10mm @ 1100fps is pretty zippy stuff when fired in a Smith & Wesson revolver with no moving action bits to spread the recoil impulse over time. With a 3" barrel, and recoiling against a standing breech, there's a lot more sturm und drang than the same load fired from a 5" Colt Delta Elite. The stuff I had was actually Georgia Arms commercial reloads, rather than new-manufactured stuff. I actually encountered one round with a visible crack in the case. Luckily I caught it as I was loading the clip. I've never had a problem with Georgia Arms ammo over the fourteen or so years I've been a customer, so keep an eye on the ammo you use, no matter where you get it from; even the big companies can occasionally split a case mouth or seat a primer wrong. (Also, if shooting 10mm reloads, bear in mind that the round was, statistically at least, likely fired from a Glock, which can be a warning sign in a high-pressure round like the Big Ten.)

3) Even with Mag-Na-Porting and fairly moderate MagTech 240gr JSP ammo, a 3" S&W 629 can be a flinch-inducer. Maybe save that 'til the end of the range session...

4) Did you practice strong-hand only and weak-hand only drills today? If your gun malfed, did you practice clearing the malf rapidly and finishing the string of fire, or did you stare at the jam like a duck in thunder before clearing it?


Happy shooting!

Rain, rain, go away...

Yeah, the garden and the lawn needed the water, but this kinda puts a dent in my lawn-mowing plans for the day. On the other hand, there are guns that need cleaning.

Wore plumb out.

Range report mañana.

Pistol pr0n on teh w3bz:

Xavier with a blurb on the reintroduction of the Combat Elite by Colt.

Organization Man...

I'm not so sure I'd want a rep as having been a community organizer in a city where that largely means passing out the packs of free cigarettes to the bums hobos winos urban outdoorsmen as they get in the van to go vote for Daley. I'm just sayin'.

Soooo, what do you call someone who inadvertently rouses a rabble of rabble-rousers? A metarabblerouser? Anyhow, they sure are butthurt. Like they say, it's the hit dog that yelps.

Recoil therapy...

There will be snub-nosed big-bore magnum revolvers at Eagle Creek tomorrow morning, because some weeks just call for the fire and thunder of big bullets out of a short barrel to get one's head screwed back on straight. I'm pretty sure I've got some Buffalo Bore 265gr .41 Magnum around here someplace...

UPDATE: I'm going to bring my 3" 610 and my 3" 629. My 3" 657, too, if I can dig it out without too much trouble. The best part about the 610 is that I have, like, a case of 10mm Georgia Arms FMJ left over from my Glock 29/Delta Elite days, plus gawd knows how many boxes of various high-power JHP, and all I have left to shoot it is that revolver, so it should last a good, long time before I need to think about buying dies. I'm going to try to be there early, so maybe I'll see some of y'all at the range!

Quote of the Day:

"In my reading about the rain forest, however, I have found very little description of what it's like to actually be in a rain forest. There's a good reason for this, the same reason that little girls' baby dolls don't smell like actual babies. Not that the rain forest smells. You'd think something so wet, hot, and biological would stink like boiled Times Square, but it doesn't. Jungle has a nice fresh scent, the reason being that there's so much life in the jungle that anything which dies or is excreted or even gets drowsy is immediately a picnic for something else." -P.J. O'Rourke, All The Trouble In The World

My neighbors probably think I'm nuts for occasionally cackling like a loon on the front porch...

...nor any drop to drink.

I am in a house surrounded by literally thousands of books. And I want to read something, to crank my mojo back up. And there's not a damn thing that tickles my fancy at the moment.

In the last four days I've read Crichton's Sphere, The Charm School by Nelson DeMille, and the sequel to Blade Runner, Edge of Human, by K.W. Jeter.

I decided to fall back and punt and re-read All The Trouble In The World, by P.J. O'Rourke, despite having read it so many times I durn near have it memorized. Maybe something will come to me as I'm reading it.

Why we love Breda...

It's the way she makes all the little words jump through flaming hoops and sit up and balance balls on their noses and play Ave Maria on squeaky horns. When she gets on a roll, she sure can write purty.

Her speech was, in a word, brilliant. I'll leave the analysis for those who do that sort of thing for a living because all I can honestly do is gush and wax poetic. We all know a woman like Sarah - the unapologetically smart, boldly determined chick who can hang with the guys without ever losing the best qualities of being female. The one who puts on lipgloss to beat you in a debate. The one who has read books you've never even heard of and laughs at jokes that would make your mother blush. The one who works hard and loves fearlessly.

RTWDT

Yup, we lurves us some Breda.

Your morning LOL...

And the actual text of the link at CNN.com said: Democrats say McCain too partisan

Right, unlike your guy, Mr. Barack "Hands Across The Aisle" Obama.

Comfort food...

Fresh-baked rye and deli-sliced corned beef from the Fresh Market + Swiss cheese + kraut + Thousand Island + ~10min in the oven @ 350 = Contentment.

It's been a crappy week on the whole, but at least my tummy is happy right now.

We got us a movement.

Join here.

BONUS! Actual footage of Sportschicks for Palin clinging to guns and Bibles at Coal Creek Armory after Wednesday night Bible study! (h/t to Unc.)

DOUBLE EXTRA BONUS!! How can you tell when a liberal is scared sh!tless?

He’s talking about Sarah Palin.

Is that flop sweat I see on your forehead? Can j00 smell teh pwn4g3?

I know how you feel; two weeks ago the uninspired cardboard cutout was going to get stomped by the charismatic youngster who had fired up the base. Today? Same, but different…

Mating signals of h. campus idioticus...

...as noted by veteran idjit-spotter, Crankyprof:

If you do not understand what is wrong with wearing a red shirt with a huge graphic of Chairman Mao on it while carrying a ratty-assed backpack plastered with “FREE TIBET” stickers, there is no help for you.

Palin walks on water...

...Democrat pundits rip her for not wearing USCG-approved life vest. Also, they accuse her of pandering to fundamentalist Christians with messianic imagery.

Some wonder aloud "where were her children when she was gallivanting about on these aquatic jaunts? What kind of mother does that make her?"

They went on to state that her speech was "divisive", because of its criticism of the Democrat ticket, unlike the slobbery kissyhugs that the Dem candidates have been bestowing on McCain and Bush.

Who has more foreign affairs experience?

The Governor of AK or the Governor of AR?

Just curious...

For gun geeks...

I mentioned the Brownell's catalog in the previous post. If you're a hardcore gun geek like me, you've no doubt spent countless hours with your nose buried in it, poring over exotic sights, walnut rifle stocks, titanium bits, and reproduction vintage handgun grips. Also, if you are like me, you have pounded your head in frustration wondering "Who laid this thing out?" There was hardly any rhyme or reason to what fell on what page; match chamber reamers were one page away from oversized 10/22 safeties which were in turn a column over from Mauser scope mounts. If you weren't good with an index, your only hope of wowing your friends by finding stuff quickly was to memorize the whole thing.

No more.

The latest Brownell's catalog, which is in my sweaty mitts as I type this, is neatly categorized, with color-edged sections dividing it all up by category. There are even two special sections for 1911 and AR bits (I'm a little surprised that the 10/22 didn't get its own, too...)

Click here and spend the five ducats for some of the best throne room literature on the planet. (And warm up your credit card, because titanium firing pin caps and TiNi-coated M14 gas pistons get expensive...)

"Nothin' gonna save you from a love that's blind...

...when you slip to the dark side you cross that line."


Caleb went and bought himself a P-16.40 Limited. As the name suggests, Para's "Limited" guns are pretty much turn-key solutions if you want to play in Limited class USPSA shooting. Along with the STI high-capacity guns, they largely dominate the class.

Wait'll I show Caleb my shiny new Brownell's catalog...

The point escapes me...

Can anyone tell me what the Blogger's Choice Awards thingie actually signifies? Do people really get wound up about it, the way they do the Miss Dixie County Hog Calling Festival pageant? Are there bitter allegations of Dieboldesque vote-rigging if a leftist blog doesn't win "Best Political Blog"? Will Markos Moulitsas be busing people to Internet Cafes and library computers and giving them packs of Camels for their vote?

.

Quote(s) of the Day:

On watching the Left go into total PSH over the Palin news:

Beyond that, what scares the left is that Palin is guns, God and babies. Bitter and clingy Americans love that. -SayUncle

I try not to give unsolicited advice to those who are neither kith, nor kin, but it would be in the best interests of their candidate if the Democrats simply let this story die. -LawDog

With regard to the way the Lenin-Red end of the intarw3bz spectrum has behaved in the last 24 hours, well, when people force themselves to be so Excruciatingly Politically Correct for 24 hours of every day, it's shocking how misogynistic and racist they can get if you put an R after the name of a target. I haven't seen such bigoted vitriol since the Clarence Thomas nomination.

Remember kids, it's the hit dog that yelps. See ya at the polls! :)

He's going to need a doctor's note.

"Hey, boss, I'm not going to be able to make it into the office today, I'm really..."

"What is it this time? Kidnapped by aliens again?"

"No, mugged by a kangaroo."

"Dammit, Johnson, I'm sick of your lame excuses!"

"No, really!"

A reminder...

Don't forget to tune in to Gun Nuts: TNG tonight @ 11PM EDT, where the subject will be the Appleseed Project and the special guest will be recent attendee Breda, of The Breda Fallacy. If you've been, or are involved as an instructor, or just have an opinion, call-in lines are open.

Tempted the fates...

I was typing a comment at a friend's blog about what a perfect day I'd been having. I hit the final period and was about to poke the "Submit" button when the phone rang.

"Tam, it's for you," said my roomie, "it sounds like your sister..."

I'd asked for a call as soon as my grandpa's situation changed. And that's what the call was. And it wasn't a happy call.

Not much blogging today, folks; I'm waiting for one more phone call. :(

Unbelievable!

Will you look at this?

48 hours later and I'm still fairly squeeing with glee. I may actually get to vote for a candidate instead of against one. This feels weird... :D

(Found in comments at The Munchkin Wrangler.)

BONUS!: Sarah Palin pick retroactively makes the theme of #DNC08 “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead” (H/T to Random Nuclear Strikes.)

If some is good, more is better...

...and too much is just enough.

How best to follow a great day at the range? Why, with another one...

A corps in the field and another in jail...

A veterans' issue in the UK:

It said that around 24,000 veterans are either in jail, on parole or serving community punishment orders after having been convicted of crimes. They make up around nine per cent of the prison population.

That's a not-insignificant percentage, no matter how you slice it. I wonder what the root causes are? Contrary to post-Vietnam Hollywood images, returned vets tend to be, on average, more squared away than the general populace.

Round Count For Today:

Someone Else's Guns:

3" Model 13 shooting .38 Spl +P: 6 rds.
Flat-latch Model 36 shooting .38 Spl wadcutters: 10 rds.
6.5" Model 629 shooting .44 Spl LSWC: 12 rds.

My Guns:

2" flat-latch Model 34: ~60rds of .22LR
'66 Colt Gov't Model: 224 rds assorted .45ACP (ball, SWC, 200gr GDHP)
As above, with Ceiner conversion kit: A lot. I mean, probably 400 rounds or so.

Which all adds up to a pretty darn good day at the range.

Hey, you! Get off of my cloud!

Last month we won Heller.

Last weekend I went to get trained up at Blackwater.

Yesterday Palin got tapped for Veep.

This morning I burned a ton of lead downrange and was just absolutely lights out with any gun I touched. And then I went out for lunch with a friend. Plus it's a positively beautiful day outside. My face hurts from smiling.

You know, the world may end tomorrow, but for today, ain't nothin' gonna break my stride. :)

Heh.

Found here, thanks to here.

The local Indy cat box liner headed their piece with "Conservatives Pleased; GOP Insiders Puzzled." Yeah, Conservatives and GOP Insiders have pretty much been two separate groups for the last ten years or so...

EDIT: Couldn't figure out why my face hurts from grinning like an idiot since yesterday morning until someone on the web wrote "My God, she’s a Heinlein character come to life." Yup.

Just doing their jobs.

An ABC News producer busted by the po-po in Moscow on the South Platte for... well, felony politeness and misdemeanor loitering with intent to gawk, as best I can tell.

I'd like to say that I hope the meathead that shoved him into the street gets busted back to meter maid, but from what I can gather, this is pretty much the norm for the corporate culture of the Denver Police Department. Good work boys. I'm sure your Chamber of Commerce is thrilled with the little "Come to Denver!" commercial you just starred in.

More here.

Paul Begala is all butthurt.

(CNN) -- John McCain needs what Kinky Friedman calls "a checkup from the neck up."

In choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, he is not thinking "outside the box," as some have said. More like out of his mind.

Smell that? That's one scared pinko, right there.

Yeah, Paul, I'd be all bitter if my guy had just announced a dull gray flannel Veep with all the charisma of a tub of library paste, too. Plus, Barry ain't the prettiest girl at the dance no more, as a commenter at Wachel's pointed out. Sucks to be you right now.

Total Eclipse of Their Card...

Hey, didn't that Obama guy make some kind of speech last night? I thought he was supposed to, but everybody's talking about Sarah Palin today, so I can't find anything about it.


*snicker*

That's gotta smart, Barry.

In other news...

McCain has locked up the horndog vote.

EDIT: Like I told him in email, I'm surprised he didn't go for the more obvious one: "Maverick & Cougar: Vote Top Gun '08"

Palin? Color me impressed.

I'll tell you what, this kicks the Barack *redacted* Obama campaign right in the slats and shows his VP choice up for the cynical, gun-shy, least-common-denominator sop to the old guard of the Dem party that it was.

(...and if McCain wins, we could have President Palin in four years. I feel a little giddy all of a sudden. I'm going to have to do some soul-searching here.)

UPDATE: I'm not the only person stoked by this. (Pay close attention to that last link. Awww, Biden, who's the sad clown?)

Oh, frabjous day...

Drain clogged. Sink leaking. Can't use dishwasher. Tempers frayed. Roomie's boss being dick. ("Is this an emergency?" "How would you describe standing water on the kitchen floor?" "Well, you need to come in.") Plumbers en route, maybe. Sometime before noon (they say).

I haven't had this much fun since I got my wisdom teeth pulled.

Manufacturing definitions.

So, as some of you may recall, the ATF recently released a document clarifying what it thought constituted "manufacturing firearms".

Since this made it sound like your gunsmith needed a Type 07 and had to pay excise tax if he put new sights on your Glock or spray-painted your 870 green, this raised some questions. Sean Galt decided to write to the BATFE for clarification, and included an extensive list of cc recipients.

Troofers...

So I've got a bit of a Troofer infestation in my comments section. This one claims (obtusely) to be a Navy SEAL, but isn't going out of his way to dispel the rumor that a seal is a small aquatic mammal that balances balls on its nose.

Do you know why I have no effing respect for a Troofer like this one? Let me tell you why:

If you really and truly believe that eight goddam years ago the federal government conspired to cold-bloodedly murder nearly four thousand Americans on live TeeWee in the middle of downtown New York Frickin' City and then covered it up, why are you just flapping your gums on the intarw3bz instead of taking the fight to the frickin' enemy (as defined by you)?

And then you have the chutzpah to threaten people in my comment section? Pardon me if I think your threats are slightly less credible than Bigfoot stories. You don't have the stones to shoot a BB gun at the Trilateral Commission and their space lizard overlords and then you want me to quail in fear at your vague ninja skills?

Phhhttthhht!

Go whine about the Black Helicopters someplace else, loserboy.

Best. Intarw3bz. B-day. Post. EVAR!!!!

Happy birthday, LabRat!

(Well played, Stingray! Well played!)

"And now, from the Department of...

...Why Didn't I Think of That?"

Today(ish) In History: A Good Day for the Good Guys...

On (roughly) this date two years ago, a certain librarian very reluctantly busted some caps out of a .38 revolver.

I wonder if her instigator knew just how much good would eventually come from those first hesitant shots?

Congratulations, Breda!

Country girl can survive...

Remember that song I posted a link to a few months back? Here's an interview with the artist, Miranda Lambert:

What did you think when you heard you were going to be on the cover of a magazine called Garden & Gun?
I was excited. I think that fits my personality.

You’re a gardener, right?
Yeah, I live on a farm and I was just talking to my boyfriend last night about what we’re going to plant. Plus I’m a “gun-toting chick”—I have my concealed handgun license—so it all sounded perfect!

(Thanks for the link, Rob!)

Optimistic Googler of the Day:

Someone hit this place by Googling "indianapolis cheap ammunition". Good luck with that.

Oh, and while you're at it, Google "gps coordinates of secret fishin' hole" too, and tell me what you come up with...

I did not know that.

Triggered by something he read here yesterday, Charles Pergiel went on a geek safari and turned up an interesting factoid about Scandium...

The original use of scandium-aluminium alloys was in the nose cones of some USSR submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

Huh. I did not know that...

See the dot. Be the dot. Shoot the dot.

Todd Jarrett had a mission. He wanted to convince me that the Crimson Trace Laser Grips were not only a useful gizmo on a handgun, but also the handiest training aid since the invention of the snap cap.


He failed.

Full disclosure time: About five years ago, I was very active on the gun boards. I think the forum in question was The Firing Line, but it may have been The High Road during the TFL hiatus. Somebody asked about Laser Grips in the revolver forum, and I replied…

I called lasers a gimmick. I decried them as being detrimental to basic marksmanship. Most of all, I pooh-poohed the very idea of a battery-operated gizmo on a carry gun.

Crimson Trace apparently has always had a very forward-thinking marketing department. Even half a decade ago, they had folks stalking the internet forums to answer questions, and I quickly received a Private Message.

“Hey,” it basically read, “you’re obviously a pretty knowledgeable shooter. You have a lot of posts; you’re on staff; people listen to what you say. Have you given CTC Laser Grips a fair try?” He offered to send me a pair for my backup J-frame on the condition that I give them a fair shake and report my findings, for good or ill, but honestly. “…and don’t just try on your indoor range; try them in low light. Try them on the move. Try them against multiple targets.”

Sure enough, a package arrived in the mail with a refurbished set of the now-discontinued hard plastic grips with approximately the same contour as the famous J-frame “Boot Grips”. It also contained some propaganda literature and videos and, I was relieved to note, a spare set of batteries. I lost no time attaching them to the .38 Special S&W 442 I was currently packing.

I loaded up a bunch of the primer-powered CCI-Speer plastic training ammo, set up some IPSC targets in my living room, turned out most of the lights and, much to the chagrin of my cats, went to work.

Wow! Even cold, never having used the Laser Grips before, the difference was night and day. Drawing from concealment on the random signal of a timer, your eyes are on the A-zone of that first target. Especially when the gun is coming out of a pocket or purse, it’s hard to do that perfect IPSC presentation; no worries with the Laser Grips. As that dot tracks onto the A-zone, you start shooting, and the dot tracks your eyes onto the next target. Even if the batteries crap out, you still have your irons to fall back on, but picking up the first target is just amazingly faster. It’s like the difference between using iron sights and a red dot on a carbine; your eye doesn’t have to juggle multiple points of reference, and target fixation actually works in your favor.

But from where I sat, that was only a side bonus. At the time, I was working hard to master the double-action revolver trigger, and there is no better aid for diagnosing problems with grip and trigger squeeze than a laser. At the time, I was doing fifty rapid dry snaps a night with both hands and then, trigger finger wobbly with exhaustion, doing rigorous dry-fire practice, trying to keep my sights from wavering through the trigger pull. You can fudge your dry practice with irons, but that red dot don’t lie. Heeling the gun? Too much trigger finger? Not enough? The sudden lurch of the dot off target will let you know. I’d still be fumbling in the dark without the instant feedback the laser gave me. When Todd said he wasted his first million rounds of practice before using a laser, he probably wasn’t exaggerating as much as you’d think.

Is it a cure-all? Heck, no. You still need to know how to use your sights. The laser is an adjunct, not a substitute for basic marksmanship skills. But when even Jim Cirillo, who killed more bad guys than Cecil B. DeMille, said that a laser is a worthwhile addition to a fighting gun, I tend to sit up and take notice. (Incidentally, you may ask why I prefer the Crimson Trace grips over a LaserMax guide rod or a rail-mounted laser. The answer is that the CTC grips don’t require a separate switch to turn them on; the button is right there on the grip and doesn’t require an additional fine motor skill to activate.)

So when Todd Jarrett set out to convince me of the utility of Crimson Trace grips he failed. He failed because you can’t convert the already converted.

Oh, and about my worries about battery life? Well, it’s a good thing Crimson Trace sent me those spare batteries five years ago. That way when the set in my grips (which are on their second gun) finally go dead, I’ll have replacements handy, and won’t have to drive four blocks to the drug store to get more…

Return of the real world.

Off to mow the back yard and drag a weed whacker about the alley before Evil Mister Sun gets too high in the sky. Wish me luck...

UPDATE: Y'know what really itches? Skeeter bites and grass clippings atop a good sunburn...

Appleseed.

Breda has a three-part review of the Appleseed event she attended this past weekend. PDB says "Allow me to retort."

Appleseed will be the topic of discussion on Gun Nuts: TNG next Tuesday night, too.

That's no moon, it's a space station!

At first I thought it was a simple error...

A nearly half-ton Texas woman charged in the death of her toddler nephew couldn't have beaten the boy to death because of her limited movement from weight problems, her attorney said Tuesday.

No, no, Mr. Reporter; a ton is two thousand pounds, so 500 pounds would be a quarter ton. I kept reading...

Mayra Rosales, who weighs nearly 1,000 pounds...

Oh...
Oh, my!
Look, I try to be sympathetic, I really do, because lord knows I'm nowhere near as svelte as I used to be, but it only works to a point. Nobody just wakes up one morning and says "Oh, holy crap, I'm five hundred pounds! When did that happen?" There are all those intervening warning steps, like 350, 400, 450... You'd think that on passing one of those intermediary points between shopping at Lane Bryant and shopping at Omar the Tentmaker one would reduce the amount of stuff one put in one's cakehole, no?

ParaUSA LTC 9 after-action report.

In 1950, Colt introduced a version of their Government Model with an alloy frame and a shortened, 4.25” barrel. Dubbed the “Commander”, it became a favorite of many who toted a pistol concealed on their day-to-day rounds, both for its more compact dimensions as well as the eleven or so ounces that the aluminum construction shaved off the avoirdupois of its bigger forebear. Many also swore that it balanced and pointed better in the hand, and some even claimed that the shorter tube made for a faster draw, although the latter rationale is dubious at best.

As relentless mismanagement drove Colt into an ever-decreasing market share, the two biggest players in the 1911 market, Kimber and Springfield Armory, introduced their own variations on the Commander. Although generally aping the original Colt product, the Kimber “Pro” and Springfield “Champion” used barrels an even four inches long, which caused grumbling among the purists. A quarter inch may not sound like much, but it did alter the lines of the gun, and not for the better; a Commander can be told from its early imitators at a glance.

Shortly after Para Ordnance made a splash by announcing that they were entering the single-stack 1911 market a few years back, they made an even bigger splash by announcing that they, too, were entering the Commander look-alike field with a new entry. To the delight of purists everywhere, and in a not-so-subtle dig at the aforementioned Kimber and Springfield, Para’s gun was dubbed the “LTC”. LTC is, of course, Armyspeak for “Lieutenant Colonel”, officer pay grade O-5, the equivalent rank to a Navy Commander: Para’s gun sported a “true Commander” 4.25” barrel length. It had the classic lines.

My friend Marko got one of the early LTC’s and played with it for a while, having a generally positive ownership experience and no complaints over feeding or function. He took a bit of ribbing from our gunsmith over the bake-on finish (Painted Ordnance), but as both my heavy rotation CCW 1911s at the time sported paint jobs, I couldn’t exactly tease him over it.

The original Colt Commander was available in 9mm, in addition to the more traditional .45ACP and .38 Super, and this year the newly renamed ParaUSA is releasing their LTC in the popular 9x19mm caliber as well. In a world where metals prices have .45ACP ammo boxes coming with attached credit apps, this is a good and practical thing. However…

Compared to the traditional calibers, 9mm Commanders did not have a stellar reputation for reliability, and so when Para announced that one of their choices for the upcoming blogger weekend was the LTC 9, I cynically picked it. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think that I would have plenty of opportunity to practice malfunction drills at Blackwater. When I found we were to be using frangible ammo, my heart sank even more. To my gun snob mindset, 9mm Para Commander + Frangible Ammo = One Long Weekend of Suck.

Boy, was I wrong.

On the first drills, my gun didn’t lock back on the empty mag. Although not a super-critical thing and one I’ve seen on tight new guns from every manufacturer under the sun, I mentioned this to our host, and he handed me a second one. After that? Not. One. Hiccup. By day two, the gun was so filthy that you could have planted crops on the feed ramp and was drier than a Temperance convention and still it kept gobbling up frangible ammo and spitting it out like the well-oiled machine it no longer was.

Para's nine uses their "PXT" Power Extractor. Similar in concept to the Aftec unit, it replaces the single piece, self-sprung conventional 1911 extractor with a multi-part internal pivoting extractor. Unlike the Aftec, the PXT uses a large extractor tunnel, which means that not only can the parts be made beefier, but it can use an extractor claw that is noticeably larger than the standard 1911 unit, which should provide better extraction. Also, Paras use a plunger tube that is integral to the frame, preventing the possibility of a badly-staked plunger tube from ruining your day. This fault is not as common as the intarw3bz and gun counter gossip could lead you to believe, but it's just not possible on a Para.

Quibbles? Sure; I’m a gun snob and no machine is perfect. The trigger was heavier than I like, but of my three 1911-type pistols, my Springer Pro has the heaviest trigger at 4.5#. I didn’t have weights with me, but I’d guess the “Gun Blog 9” LTC they handed me probably broke somewhere closer to six than four. Nothing I couldn’t fix with thirty minutes and a stone, and saying that the trigger isn’t as good as my heavily-massaged custom guns is praising with faint damns.

The special pistol was outfitted with Para’s adjustable rear sights of a BoMar pattern (fauxMars, if you will,) and a fiber optic front. These give a phenomenal, fast-to-acquire sight picture, but their sharp, sure-snag corners make as much sense on an alloy-frame 4.25” carry gun as a kickstand on a tank. Again, a couple minutes with a stone and some Aluma-Black will fix the most annoying part of this.

Lastly, the gun had a full-length guide rod. I cordially detest the FLGR as an abomination before God and John Moses Browning (pbuh). If God had wanted us to have full-length guide rods, we would have evolved opposable bushing wrenches on our right hands with which to disassemble our firearms.

But these are minor complaints, and mostly stylistic. The gun ran like Jesse Owens and shot like a house afire, and if you can think of another thing you need a gun to do, your world is more complicated than mine.

The acid test? Well, if I have to sell a kidney or get a paper route to do it, I am buying this gun. I may be a starving artist, but even a starving artist knows the value of a dead reliable, deadeye accurate pistol when she sees one.

Gravity claims another victim...

It was a bad week for nasty falls all 'round, it seems.

Get well soon, Billll!

You know you want to...

Listen to Gun Nuts: The Next Generation tonight at 11PM EDT, that is.

It'll be 15 minutes longer than usual (IOW, a whole hour) and chock full of the good, the bad, and the homely from the Gun Blogger Summer Camp this past weekend. If you want the dirt on Para, Blackwater, how useful a laser is in a shoot house, and whether Robb Allen snores or not, don't miss out.

You know what makes shooting such a neat sport?

What are the odds of you being able to get golfing lessons from Tiger Woods or a weekend of tennis pointers with Steffi Graf?

In very few sports are the top athletes so accessible.

Sebastian has a sort of extended mix compilation video up from this past weekend's class.

It just ain't the same.

The Metro & State section of yesterday's cat box liner had a picture from this past weekend's air show on the front page. It was a nice color photo of an F-22 Raptor formating on a P-51D in invasion regalia.

The Raptor's cool and everything, I guess, but it doesn't have a Merlin...

News Flash:

What do credit apps, tax forms, and fairy tales have in common? They all contain a bit of embellishment that... umm... may vary from the truth.

This apparently surprises some people.

Now, the credit histories of many applicants are not good enough to get approved for mortgages, except through some creativity - or chicanery - by brokers and loan officers.

The most common type of fraud that MARI found pertained to employment history and income. Many applications exaggerated how much borrowers earned and misrepresented their job descriptions.

I remember in the late '80s, when I was briefly selling cars for a living, having another salesperson tell me how "It's wrong to lie on these forms, so I just present the truth in the most favorable light possible," as he changed a garbage man making $12.50/hr into a Waste Disposal Engineer making... tap, tap, scribble... carry the two... round up to the nearest ten... $30,000/yr.

PS: Interestingly, the little poll shows that 44% of respondees are unaffected by the mortgage snafu. I'm going to postulate that those who really took it in the shorts, either being badly upside down in their crib or getting kicked to the curb by a foreclosure, are probably not regular readers of Money.CNN.com. Perhaps if they ran that poll at an online gambling site or a 419 scam relief organization, they'd get different numbers.

Not the kind of spam I wanted to get...

I woke up hungry at 1:45 and decided to check my email before wobbling off to find sustenance. Before I did, I checked my email and noticed that I'd accumulated a bit of spam in the last couple days. Double-checking my spam folder before emptying it turned up an email dated yesterday from my Dad, via one of his other email accounts.

Apparently while I was busy driving to Blackwater on Thursday, my 89-y.o. grandfather, my last grandparent, was busy taking a header onto a doorknob in his house. He broke six ribs and cracked his shoulder blade in half. Luckily he retained consciousness and his cell phone and called my mom.

While I've been busy running around having fun over the weekend, he's been busy fighting for life on a respirator in an ICU. Things are still very touch and go.

Blogging may be light for a little bit. I promise I will get back to the fun stuff ASAP. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Whupped.

Woke up yesterday at 6:30AM (that's 0630 in tacticalspeak) at Blackwater. Spent most of the day on the range, 'til about 3:30ish. Packed up, rode the rock star Blackhawk! bus back to where the Nazi slot car was parked. Mad props to Caleb, who noticed that the effects of the sunburn had me hanging on my chin strap and cancelled his flight to share the driving chores back to Indy. I stayed awake the whole trip on conversation, caffeine, and leftover adrenaline.

I have so, so, so much to blog about, but it's going to have to wait 'til after I crash, y'all. More later...

Redemption.

I may not have been the most stellar pistol shot of the weekend, but I redeemed myself okay when we got to fam-fire Para's new carbine.

We weren't keeping score, but I think I gave a bit of schooling. :)

More later...

PS: Sun poisoning sucks. Big rocks up off the ground.

Boy, is my face red...

...and not because I'm Todd Jarrett's "Special Ed" pupil, but because I typed on this very blog the words "Sunscreen? Check."

Yeah. Well...

SPF nine jillion doesn't work when it's still in the bottle, unless you, like, tape the bottle to your face to block the sun's rays or something. Whereas if you forget it in your room and don't bother to borrow anybody else's, you just get cooked.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #48: ParaUSA LTC 9

Shoot 'til it hurts...

I burned more powder today than I have at one time in a long time. We started early in the morning with some simple drills, picking up from where we left off yesterday with sight picture, a good firm grip, sight picture, trigger control, and sight picture. From there, it was time to work from the holster.

Todd made sure everyone could work safely from the leather plastic, and from there we went to shooting on the move, both moving towards and away from the target, as well as laterally along the firing line. Ironically, shooting on the move can be easier than you think, because you're generally zoned in on the front sight and what surplus attention you have is on your footwork and that doesn't leave enough brainpower to overthink your trigger pull and botch your shot.

Awesome Mad Max rental car. Spent Simunitions included.

After a ride in the totally rad Blackwater taxi to the chow hall for lunch, stages got more complicated, mixing movement and barricades and moving targets.

More later...

As the sun rises over the Blackwater compound...

...there are whole battalions of ninjas doing their morning kung fu exercises, like in the SPECTRE hideout in a James Bond flick.

Well, not really, but I'll bet some hippie read that and said "I knew it!"

Actually it's like the cross between a military base and a... well, a school. Except that the classrooms are, on the whole, a lot cooler. And I'm supposed to be at one of those classrooms in an hour and a half to make some noise. I'm going to have to sign off and get to the chow hall. (How cool is that? I'm going to eat breakfast in a chow hall!)

Anyhow, more later...

I could tell you what they showed me today...

...but then I'd have to kill you.

Actually, it was pretty cool, and I'm here to tell you all about it...

The day started with us piling into the ¡Blackhawk! bus, which is decked out much like something you'd find on a rock tour, except with more SEALs and fewer strung-out Betty Ford alumni. The bus is plastered with graphics featuring explosions, machinegun-wielding specops dudes, and enough exclamation points to write three grade school essays about Six Flags, and it apparently runs on a proprietary blend of awesomesauce and testosterone.

I followed this hard-to-misplace vehicle to the secret world headquarters of Blackhawk. We got to nose around a showroom. I poked at Gladius flashlights and SERPA holsters and MOD knives and drank free coffee. Then it was time for an actual presentation in the little conference room...

To Be Continued: