Knee Deep in the Dead

Using a pile of his Wagner Group stiffs as a prop in the background, Yevgeny Prigozhin went on a rant, saying he was going to pull his forces out of the fight around Bakhmut because the Russian army wasn't giving him enough ammo and support.



If I were Progozhin, I'd be making a habit of avoiding windows any higher than the second floor for the near future.

Meanwhile...

I feel like it's a good time to remind everyone that tankers literally only want one thing, and it's disgusting. pic.twitter.com/PpA8zTWl4G

— Sean M. Smith (@ReallySeanSmith) May 5, 2023

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Did you know...?

From 1968 to 1998, the Holley Performance Products company, best known as a carburetor manufacturer but also the owner of a bunch of other automotive parts makers, was owned by Colt Industries?

Yeah, that Colt. They had a bunch of non-gun businesses in the '60s and '70s, like Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool (not to be confused with Pratt & Whitney the aircraft engine builder.)

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Automotif CCCLXIV...

Here's something you don't see every day. For whatever reason...probably a combination of rust and the attrition that afflicts inexpensive sporty cars at the hands of youthful pilots whose courage exceeds their skills and judgment...you just don't see a lot of Sciroccos running around this part of the country.

This one's a second-generation Scirocco, pre-facelift, which makes it an '82 or '83.

US-market '82 Sciroccos had a 1.7L SOHC fuel-injected inline-four putting 74 SAE net horsepower to the twee little 13" front wheels through a 5-speed manual gearbox. Peak Malaise-era stuff. (The same motor would be used in 68hp carbureted form by Chrysler as the base engine in the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon penalty boxes, for buyers who didn't want to splurge on a 2.2.) 

Built on the same floorpan as the Rabbit (US-market Golfs were still called Rabbits back then because Volkswagen of America wanted a cute and cuddly name for the vehicle replacing the beloved roly poly Beetle), the Scirocco was intended to replace the Karmann Ghia in the same way the Rabbit succeeded the Bug.

The sharply creased disco-era styling is very distinctively Giorgietto Giugiaro. He was big on low-slung wedges for his sporty car designs at the time, as can be attested by his other well known period pieces: The Isuzu Impulse, Lotus Esprit, and of course the DeLorean DMC12.

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To those who celebrate...

Happy Star Wars Day!

Automotif CCCLXIII...

Here's a 1976 Cadillac Coupe de Ville in Georgian Silver Metallic. The '76 model year of the de Ville was the apex of big Caddies until the arrival of the Escalade some twenty-three years later.

It cast a shadow nineteen and a quarter feet long (you might notice it's longer than the parking space), tipped the scales at two and a half tons, and was wafted down the interstate by a 500 cubic inch V-8 that, with optional fuel injection, put out 215 SAE net horsepower.

The next model year was most of a foot shorter, four inches narrower, and nearly a thousand pounds lighter. The engine went on a diet, too, with a new 425cid mill that used smaller bores and the same stroke, and a lightened block that shed a hundred pounds of weight.

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Managing the Unsafe Student

Greg Ellifritz has a good post on how he handles students in class who are having difficulty adhering to stated safety expectations:

"I don’t have any hard and fast rules. It depends on the class, the other students, and whether I think I can remediate the student’s problems without slowing down the rest of the class.

It also depends on the violation. Someone who has good muzzle discipline but is unintentionally putting his finger into the trigger guard too early is a very different problem than someone who is casually muzzling me or the other students."

Whether you are an instructor yourself (and I'm not) or just a frequent student, it's worth a read.

I like that he draws the distinction between someone who is unsafe due to fatigue or medical reasons and someone who is having a hard time with following the safety rules.

If you're a student, I think it's kinda incumbent on you to also keep an eye on your own performance. I've pulled myself off the line a couple times when I noticed that I'd reached a level of fatigue or dehydration that was reducing my ability to focus enough to cause me concern.

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That Nineties Show

A Macintosh PowerBook Duo 280c, a box of Winchester 9mm Black Talons, and a Smith & Wesson 3913... It makes me want to put on some Smashing Pumpkins and write a PI story set in 1990s Atlanta.

If you want to read the "Classic Carry" article on the 3913, it should be on newsstands now in the current issue (#32) of Concealment.

Nikon F4, Motorola MicroTAC, early "P" stamp Sebenza, and a 3913LS

I'm pretty happy with how the photo turned out, given the stupid simple lighting setup: It's sitting on a TV tray in the garage with the door open on an overcast day. The raised overhead door presented a white surface above that I bounced the light from an old SB-50DX Speedlight off.

One of these days I'll really get into making my own light rather than counting on the sun.

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The Great Utah Spank-Out

It'll be interesting to see if this move leaves voters flaccid, causing pols to get spanked at the polls.

"The adult content website Pornhub blocked access in Utah on Monday due to new state laws requiring websites with adult content to verify users' ages before allowing them to access the platforms."

"Erections have consequences", to mangle the aphorism...

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'Tis a Silly Place

“The Lumping Womble Billy in the Wold was out and about in Yompers Dingle yesterday!”

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) May 2, 2023

Of course, any mention of anything Morris-related makes me want to re-read Reaper Man.

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Anarchy in the Circle City

Things getting a little Mad Max with this Guzzi in the Half Liter BBQ parking lot on Sunday afternoon.

I'm still not used to composing with a wide angle lens. Given the 28mm equivalent lens on the Coolpix A, I should have gotten much closed, but things were kinda rushed.

The top pic is copped more heavily, with some faux grain and vignetting thrown in for effect. Below you can see it in glorious color. Click either pic for serious embiggenation.

Yes, the welded chain link flagpole is surmounted by a rusty machete blade. Safety first!

QotD: Future Hooey Edition...

From an interview with Charles Stross:

"I’m not Christian. But I was raised Reform Jewish, which meant I was unable to avoid being confronted by Christian beliefs — many of which look batshit crazy, to my outsider’s eyes — on all sides. And when I looked at the Extropians and Longtermists and Singularitarians what I saw was simply refactored Christianity, minus God and Jesus, with a whole bunch of new saints bolted on top. (Ray Kurzweil! Satoshi Nakamoto! Konstantin Tsiolkovsky!) And this similarity inclines me to adopt the same wary skepticism.

I cannot refute the possibility that a hard take-off AI singularity will take place in the next few decades, any more than I can refute the possibility that the Rapture will take place at 9:47am next Tuesday and all the Elect of Jesus will go a-flying up to Heaven. But I think either event is about equally likely."

Click the excerpt to RTWT. It's worthwhile.

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Automotif CCCLXII...

Did you know that the Buick Electra was named after somebody?

That's right, in 1959 Buick juggled the names of their models and the top-of-the-line Roadmaster became the Buick Electra 225.

The "Electra" name came from Electra Waggoner Biggs, Texas socialite, sculptor, and land baroness, who was the sister-in-law of then-GM president Harlowe H. Curtice. The "225" appellation was the overall length in inches of the big 1959 Buick, from gleaming chrome snout to rakishly finned tail. 

The Arctic White 1964 Electra 225 hardtop coupe in these photos represents the final iteration of the second generation of the famed "Deuce and a Quarter", which spanned the '61-'64 model years.

The base motor was the 401 cubic inch Buick "Nailhead" V-8 with a four-barrel carburetor, rated at 325 SAE gross horsepower. (Buick’s overhead valve V-8 was dubbed the “Nailhead” by period hot-rodders because of the small valves relative to the long stems, reminiscent of nails.) The only transmission available for '64 was the 3-speed GM Turbo-Hydramatic 400, which Buick sold under the "Super Turbine" moniker.

Buyers could opt for the bigger version of the Nailhead, in 425 cubic inch guise. The 425 was offered in regular format, rated at 340 bhp with a 10.25:1 compression ratio and a single Carter 4bbl carb, or a "Power Pack" version with a pair of Carter 4bbls and dual exhaust, rated at 360 bhp.

The car in the picture doesn't have dual pipes, so it's either a 401 or the regular 425.

An interesting bit of trivia regarding the 401 cid Buick Nailhead: The United States Air Force used a special starter cart with a pair of the big V-8s to spin up the Pratt & Whitney J58 turbojets on the SR-71 Blackbird. (Later versions of the cart used a brace of Chevy 454's.)

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Gobsmackingly Wrong

Noam Chomsky, I'd like to dedicate my Twitter profile picture to you.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) April 30, 2023

This dude is almost uniformly wrong on every topic that doesn't involve linguistics, but he's never let that stop him.

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Indian Winter

Take a map of the US and draw a sort of "s"-curve on it. Start up in the Pacific Northwest and head eastward before curving southward somewhere over the plains, before you reach the Mississippi.

Continue going south until you get down around the Gulf someplace and then curve east again.

Everything wet of that line had a wetter, cooler-than-average winter & the first weeks of spring. East of that, we had an unusually warm, dry winter/spring...up to now.

March and the first part of April was just crazy nice weather. If you were here for NRAAM and remember how nice it was for the first couple days, well, that's how it had been for the most part.

Remember how it was icky and cold when you left on Sunday? Well, it's mostly been like that since then. It's gonna be in the thirties and drizzly tomorrow morning, too, and springlike weather isn't supposed to return until the middle of the week.

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Automotif CCCLXI...

I love the Mad Max/Rat Rod vibe of this '78-'81 Malibu coupe. Check out the diamond plate cladding on the B-pillars. I'm still trying to figure out all the parts he bodged together for that nose. (EDIT: Rapping with JayG on the Book of Face, he brought up the G-body Monte Carlo as a possible donor fro some of that.)

Between the rumbly exhaust and the mechanical whine emanating from under the hood, it could be hiding some serious firepower beneath that JC Whitney fiberglass...or the cat could have rusted out and he's danger low on transmission fluid.

I choose to believe the former.

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Henderson Field II: Electric Boogaloo

Guam's vulnerability should be a worry.

"China makes no secret that Guam is in its cross-hairs. The df-26 missile, with a range of 4,000km, is commonly called the “Guam killer”. In 2020 a Chinese propaganda video depicted an h-6k bomber attacking an undisclosed air base: the satellite image was unmistakably of Andersen. To survive within China’s “weapons engagement zone”, the American air force is developing “agile combat employment”. This involves scattering aircraft to deny China an easy shot, and networking them with distant “sensors” and “shooters” to give battle. It practised such tactics at the Cope North exercise with Japan and Australia on Guam and nearby islands in February. At the end of each day, though, the jets were all parked together in neat rows in the open. The base has no hardened shelters for aircraft, and its fuel is stored in closely packed tanks above ground."

As someone who loves using the GoogleSat to look at airbases around the world, the paucity of hardened shelters at Andersen AFB has always been a little surprising.

B-1B's, probably transiting through Andersen to go do Bone shit someplace.

Schadenfreudelicious.

Hubris is followed by Nemesis, every single time.

"While being berated, Crowder’s wife, Hilary, repeatedly tries to reassure her husband that she loves him and is “committed.”

“I love you … but your abuse is sick,” she told him at one point — with him warning sternly: “Watch it. Watch it. F–king watch it.”

Crowder reportedly admitted to later inside the house threatening his wife: “I will f–k you up.”"

Ol' Crowder is on record as being strenuously opposed to "No Fault" divorce, but it looks like there's plenty of fault on his part here.

Wonder how many times that meme got made yesterday?

While he was busy stepping on his schlong and making grinding motions with his shoe, Crowder also made a whole bunch of tasteless jokes about the recently released Down's Syndrome Barbie.

Hey, you wanna know what the difference is between Right-Wing Social Media Commentators and people with Down's Syndrome?

I've never met a person with Down's Syndrome who was an asshole.

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Automotif CCCLX...

Spotted this 1970 Mercury Cougar on Crawfordsville Road while headed home from the range on Thursday afternoon. I was in the passenger seat of Dave's car and all I had was a 50mm-equivalent lens, so the photo's through a windshield and pretty heavily cropped. Sorry 'bout that.

1970 was the last year of the first generation of Cougars, which started in the '68 model year. These early ones were basically "luxury pony cars"; plusher equivalents of the Mustang.

The base motor was the 351 Windsor V-8 with a 2-barrel carb, rated at 250 SAE gross bhp, with an optional 351 Cleveland 4-bbl. The latter was a decidedly high-performance motor, with an 11.0:1 compression ratio and rated conservatively at 300 gross horsepower. Ordering the "Eliminator" package unlocked the optional 290bhp Boss 302 and the big-block 335bhp 428 Cobra Jet.

After 1970, the Cougar remained on the Mustang platform for the '71-'73 model years. Bulkier than the earlier pony car versions, the Cougar leaned into the size increase and started sliding toward the "Personal Luxury Coupe" mien of cars like the Cutlass Supreme and Chevy Monte Carlo.

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QotD: Culture Clubbed Edition

From Bobbi, in the middle of a RTWT sort of post:

"[O]ur culture was not created by our government and is not directed by it. (One of the markers of totalitarianism is the government runs the culture -- or tries to. That's not how we do things in the United States and if you have a problem with that, you have a problem with America.)"

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About tree-fitty...

Yesterday morning I ducked into Indy Arms Co for a minute with the FN Reflex. I was in a hurry, so I basically put fifty rounds downrange at a seven yard target in four quick mag dumps before heading out the door.

I'm still having a hard time shooting little guns fast. On the upside, this makes three hundred and fifty completely malfunction-free rounds through the little Tactical Dirt Color pistol.

I was in a hurry because I had to get home to meet Dave Merrill from RECOIL and get some photography done at Marion County Fish & Game.

We were taking photos for the magazine with his badass Nikon D850, but I'd brought my little camera bag that holds all my Nikon 1 gear and got a few shots with the Nikon 1 V2 & 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 just for kicks.

FN Reflex with Swampfox Sentinel and Surefire XSC, ringin' steel at 20 yards.

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