Man(dalorian)'s Got To Eat

Hey, Boba Fett has to make money too; the Slave 1 won't pay for itself, you know. Besides, he's got Vette payments.

Oh, Well OK Then

A Marten. Not a Weasel. 

Is this a Monty Python sketch I've not seen? Because I laughed.

Man carrying dead weasel accused of assault | KOMO News

HOQUIAM, Wash. (AP) - Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into an apartment and assaulted a man in Washington state.

The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker answered, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

The attacker was apparently looking for his girlfriend and had gone to her former boyfriend's apartment Monday where the victim was a guest.

KXRO reports he left the carcass behind.

Comedy Gold, Jerry! I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that drugs and/or alcohol were somehow involved. I really want to know the rest of this story. Also, the last line of the article cracked me up:

A marten is a member of the weasel family.

Who says journalism is dead?

Quote of the Day

Charles Krauthammer on Palin:

When it comes to policy, she had two-and-a-half years to school herself and she hasn't and that's a problem. It's not only the lack of schooling, it's the lack of effort to school herself and the lack of insight to see that she needs it.

Yup. Granted, Krauthammer's never been Palin's biggest fan, but she seems more swept up by basking in the Jonestown-size cult of personality that surrounds her than analyzing exactly how she could avoid the questions that dogged her during the '08 campaign and why she's not getting the support of some of the old-line GOP. Her modus operandi thus far has been to preach to no one but the Tea Party/Fox News choir, which will not get her into the White House. Of course, we don't know if that's actually her goal; maybe she just wants to ride around in her bus getting paid to say the same things over and over to people that have heard every word already and believe every bit of it.*

If she really wants to run, her cultists will not be enough to win; she'll eventually have to talk to the "lamestream media" and describe to all the other registered voters exactly what a "common sense conservative solution" actually is, among other buzzwords and platitudes.

*American Dream, baby!

Headlines That Shouldn't Be News

Seriously, this is the position that the oft self-proclaimed party of small government should have taken a long time ago, on this subject and many, many, others:

Ex-GOP senator to announce pro-gay marriage group

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A former Republican state senator plans to announce a new advocacy group to build conservative support for gay marriage in Iowa.

[. . . ]

According to a media release, the group will "give voice to Iowans who believe that conservative values of smaller government should keep government out of the private lives of all Iowans."*

Angelo served in the Senate, but did not run for re-election in 2008. His position puts him at odds with many Republicans, who have sought to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage in 2009."

"Small Government" means getting the heck out of my house and my bedroom. It's not the government's business one way or another as long as everyone involved is a consenting, mentally capable adult. It'd be nice to see more elected officials at all levels in both parties, but especially among the "small government conservatives," take this position, both on the gay marriage issue and other issues of government overreach into our personal lives.

Bonus related quote:

The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay.

-Barry Goldwater, 1994. Yes, THAT Barry Goldwater.

*Emphasis added. -Ed

Gettin' My Edjamacation On

Forgotten Weapons is a new-to-me site that I've been looking at today and have added to my feedreader/blogroll. From their "About" page:

We believe that one of the best things that can be done to improve the community of technical firearms enthusiasts is to make information as freely available as possible. Most information about firearms development remains on paper and microfilm in inaccessible collections. We want to publish as much as we can, to prevent this information from being lost forever. So, we created this site to be a repository for everything we can unearth – trials reports, details photographs, original manuals, and more. It is all available completely free of charge, and will always remain that way.

Photo courtesy ForgottenWeapons.com

They also manufacture their own replicas of many of the firearms they research, which is just awesome. I particularly liked reading about the Garand Carbine (pictured right), which I knew existed, but have never read much about or seen more than a thumbnail photo. Cool stuff!

So if you're interested in the technical, often obscure, and sometimes weird branches of firearms history, you should check these guys out. If you are someone or know someone who can contribute to their project, you should get in touch with them; spreading knowledge will benefit us all.

h/t to Les Jones

Butterfly, taken at my parents' house.

What The Internet Was Made For*

Ever need to check the owner's manual to find out how to do something to the old discontinued Marlin or pristine Colt Woodsman you just picked up in a loophole sale at a gunshow? Or that used, recently overpriced Sig you just bought because OMG!Team Six! maybe/definitely/probably uses them?  Or that Jennings .22 you picked up? OK, not the Jennings. Nobody who buys those ever feels the need to look at a manual. Forget I said that. That was stupid. 

Anyway, if you do need to look something up for your firearm, there's a good chance that this website has you covered. They have hundreds of manuals as PDF's; even airguns. I discovered this site while on some hunt for information about some esoteric, rare, extinct firearm or another, and though I can't remember what kind of brain food I was stalking or why I was stalking it, I thought someone else might be able to use it.** The guy who created it really did the gun owners of the 'net a good service. Good luck! 

NOTE: The HK owner's manuals contain nothing but "You suck and we hate you" typed over and over again in various languages. Weird, but that's the way they came from the factory. 

*Well, other than porn. 

**OK, I was just looking for a rather prosaic GLOCK Armorer's Manual, but whatever. 

Never Got Out Of The 6th Grade

I can't help it, I laughed. Actual headline:

Horse herpes outbreak forces rodeo queens to ride stick ponies

Mmmm. . . That's good euphemism!

Bonus:

Mark Zuckerberg Kills His Own Meat

*chucklesnort*

Hilarious

"You just said that, didn't you Joe?"
"Yeah, I did. Sorry Barry."

Via one of my favorite horror/thriller/sci-fi/whatever writers comes an hilarious example of why I don't blog too often, or well, for that matter; other people do it WAY better. Funny stuff:

Joe Biden and Bud Light presents: teh bestest president EVAR!

Also, the only reason they let Joe Biden out to speak unsupervised is because people would notice if they locked him in the basement of the West Wing and fed him a steady diet of Valium.

Why Tornadoes Scare Me

NPR has a great bird's-eye before and after view of the destruction in Joplin, MO. They also have a page up showing before and after street views, which is just as sad and chilling. Freaky stuff. Have a reaction plan and post-disaster plan people!

If something as bad as what happened to Joplin happens to you, well. . . your life will still suck, but with plans and forethought, you can mitigate the amount of suck. Don't wait for the bad to happen and then wait for someone else to alleviate the bad. Be proactive, be prepared.

Yes, the tornado in Joplin did that.

Good News, Convenience

From the local fish wrap:

Indoor shooting range approved by county

A proposed indoor shooting range has received the blessing of Coweta County.
The Coweta County Board of Zoning Appeals and the Coweta County Board of Commissioners have approved a conditional use permit for an indoor shooting range and retail space on 4.4 acres on Amlajack Way, in the Shenandoah Industrial Park.

This is the first permit requested under the county's ordinance regulating gun ranges, which was approved in December 2009. The ordinance includes extensive requirements for safety and lead abatement, including compliance with all recommendations of the National Rifle Association. The property is currently zoned M-Industrial, as are all surrounding properties.
Gary DeGeorge plans to build a 20,625-square-foot building, with a 5,000-square-foot retail space and a 15,625-square-foot shooting range.

DeGeorge said plans are for 24 shooting lanes that "we may open with 16 and go to 24."

There will be guns available for patrons to rent, or they can bring their own.

"Good luck with it," said Chairman Rodney Brooks. "Maybe we can put pictures of commissioners' faces" on the targets," Brooks joked.

As the location in question is about 5 miles from my house, I'm pretty hopeful they can get this venture off the ground. It would be nice to have an indoor range close by for rainy days and casual practice; the range to which I usually go is about 25 miles away. It's close enough to be convenient for a "formal" range day, but a little inconvenient for a quick trip to pop off some .22's. Same goes for outdoor ranges around here and another indoor range a little south. Having an indoor range so close by would probably increase the amount of time I practice, which is never a bad thing. Heck, I might even be able to find the time to join a league.

Thinking things through

Well, this is just a horrible overreaction and these vigilantes should have simply called the authorities and awaited the swift response of the. . . Nah, I can't do it.

FayObserver.com - Police say two men beaten, stabbed and shot in botched robbery attempt

Two men who police said tried to steal a woman's purse early Monday got more than they bargained for when as many as 15 of the victim's family members and friends rushed to her aid and then severely beat, shot and stabbed the suspects.

Fayetteville police officers arrived at the scene of the melee in the Cambridge Arms apartments about 12:45 a.m. and found two men lying on the pavement of the parking lot with multiple stab and gunshot wounds. Police found a group of the woman's relatives walking in the parking lot covered in blood.

You idiots! Going into a Salvadoran neighborhood where your intended victim's entire family both lives and is angry about the crime problem, as a self-identified member of the Bloods, does not exactly get you into the gangsta hall of fame. It will however get you a little swift karmic justice:

Guevara's family members then ran after the two, caught them and disarmed them during a struggle, Davis said.

"Both suspects were shot during the initial struggle, with the suspect's gun, and then the family severely beat, stabbed and cut both suspects," Davis said

The best part? The loyalty of their compatriot:

The third man had the car doors open and was yelling for the men to get back inside, but he drove off after realizing his accomplices were outnumbered, Flores said. Police identified that vehicle as a silver Buick.

Maybe a little critical analysis of their plan would have prevented their ass-kicking. Maybe I'm too optimistic of the general intelligence and humanity of humans.

Expect a retaliatory drive-by at some point.

Unicoi Lake, Unicoi State Park

Beautiful place and where I spent my honeymoon.

Things That Aren't Supposed To Happen, But Do

My father and I were at the range last Friday for our normal practice and stress relief session, just plinking away with .22's. I was shooting Remington 36 gr. Golden Bullets, and had shot about 75 or 80 rounds when, during a string of rapid fire noticed the bolt had, for lack of a better term, a stutter at the end of it's cycle on the second or third round of five in the magazine. Golden Bullets aren't the cleanest or most reliable cartridges in the world, plus I'd put approximately 400 of them downrange the week before and hadn't cleaned the gun since. So my brain sees the slide move into battery a little slower than usual, chalks it up to DIRTY GUN, LAZY SHOOTER, gets a good sight picture on the target, and decides to pull the

BAM!

Then my brain says "What the HELL was that!?!" as smoke explodes, FAST, out the sides of the gun where the barrel/upper receiver meets the frame, and WAY more smoke than usual explodes out of the chamber. My second thought, after the initial shock, was that a Kaboom just occured. My left thumb, which was held alongside the upper receiver in a high grip, right on the loaded chamber indicator, immediately begins throbbing, which I took to be a good sign. After all, if the loaded chamber indicator had blown off/out of the gun, I might have lost a chunk out of my second favorite thumb. Which would suck. I immediately safed the gun, put it down on the table pointed in a safe direction, and inspected my hands. Other than quite a bit of carbon fowling all over both hands and a quickly appearing, oddly loaded chamber indicator-shaped, reddish bruise on my thumb, all was well.

Next I checked the gun. I am not a gunsmith, engineer, etc., so this is my laymen's take on the situation. After the Kaboom, the bolt appeared to have cycled almost properly. It picked up a cartridge out of the magazine and moved it forward, but failed to load it into the breech. I dropped the magazine and cleared the unchambered round. I quickly looked at the chamber, mostly just to confirm that there was no live ammo in the pistol. Locking the slide back, and telling my dad what I was about to do, I looked down the barrel and saw this:

You don't want to see this when looking down a barrel. 

"OK, so I won't be shooting this particular firearm anymore today." I kinda expected that to have happened, so didn't look at the gun any further and stowed it away. I knew I could probably run a cleaning rod down the barrel to clear it, but honestly, I didn't want to mess with it. We had other guns with which we could keep shooting and I didn't know if there was any other damage to the firearm. Best to take it home and give it a thorough inspection in the armory, aka, the garage.

Later, I took the bolt out and, under a much brighter light than those at the indoor range, saw this:

Yes, I know how dirty the chamber is. It's quite clean now. 

I was NOT expecting that. My inspection at the range mostly consisted of clearing live rounds out of the gun and checking the barrel. My initial diagnoses at the range was that a squib round (Rd. #1) failed to exit the barrel, causing Rd. #2 to cause the Kaboom. I was wrong. What I think might have happened is that the case on Rd. #1 failed and ruptured on detonation, sending the bullet downrange, but weakening the case enough to allow the extractor to rip the rim off the case. This is borne out by the fact that there was a keyholed bullet impact extremely low on the target, very far (24" +) from any other holes. Rd. #2 then, when the bolt picked it up from the magazine, partially pushed it's way into the case of Rd. #1. which explains the slow cycling I noticed, and seated just enough to allow me to complete a trigger pull, send the firing pin forward, and blowing most of the propellant gases out the sides of the gun and into the barely opened chamber. The bullet on Rd. #2 did not have enough energy to exit the barrel and thus ended up 1/2" from the end.

I sprayed some oil into the barrel, let it set for a bit, then gently tapped the bullet back down the barrel toward the chamber with a cleaning rod and mallet, only encountering resistance when the bullet met the chambered case. A sharp rap of the mallet popped both out of the breech and onto the work table. I continued field stripping the gun, cleaning and inspecting each part: no damage that I could see. Frame looked fine, as did the chamber area and barrel. After a thorough cleaning, reassembling and hand cycling the pistol revealed no loss of function.

I guess I'll find out soon, as today the big white FedEx truck of love brought this to me:

Yeaahhhhh

Again, the gun looks fine and I'll take precautions when shooting for the first time, but I can't wait to get back to the range.

Big Lizard in my Backyard

Daisy in the back yard

I didn't know it ever left...

Opium cultivation returns to parts of Afghanistan

Opium poppies are being grown this year in parts of Afghanistan where last year there were none, but overall cultivation of the drug will decrease slightly, the United Nations said in a report on Monday.

It's as if there's a worldwide demand! Bonus:

Aside from leading the world in opium output, Afghanistan has become the biggest producer of hashish, or cannabis resin, turning out between 1,500 and 3,500 tones a year.

How pragmatic the ultra-conservative, anti-West, anti-intoxicant Taliban is when it comes to monetizing the rest of the world's desire to get high.

Russian comedians soon to have new material

Hey, guys, we already tried this and it didn't work all that well:

Russia's parliament on Friday gave preliminary approval to a law creating color-coded terrorist threat alerts, a measure rushed forward in the wake of the Moscow airport bombing that left 35 dead and raised questions about the country's ability to handle attacks.

In fact, we're dropping it:

The proposed law is modeled on the U.S. system instituted after 9/11, which Washington announced Thursday it would be abandoned by the end of April and replaced with a new plan to notify specific people about specific threats. Critics had complained the general color alerts were unhelpful.

Learn from our mistakes. After all, we're the United States; we screw up often, especially when it comes to security theater.

Gun Snobbery

Oh, god. Why S&W? WHY? OK, I get the "Hey, the Taurus Judge is a runaway bestseller and we want to get a piece of that action" why, but ugh, that is an ugly revolver. I wish Smith & Wesson would avoid such modern travesties, at least within their revolver lineup. 

Maybe I'm just getting even more old-fogie-ish than I usually am.

Ex Libris

Well, I've finally married my wonderful Garm. Yup, he's stuck with me. And my wonderful Garm's wonderful parents gave us the best wedding present ever: an entire wall of bookshelves. "Entire wall" doesn't really do justice to the scope. The bookshelves literally stretch the width of the entire house. That's right. We've figured it up to about 166 linear feet of shelf space. And we've almost filled it up already .......

We began measuring months ago. There were charts and graphs and some more measuring as the piles of books in corners grew. The goal was to make the most use of the largest single wall in the house, so that we could combine both of our libraries into one place. After a while, the was a good deal of hoping along with the measuring.

Once home from our lovely honeymoon we settled in then took our happy, literate selves up to Ikea, home of all things for the home (some assembly required). We weren't sure how all of the bookshelves that we knew we needed were going to fit into the back of Garm's truck, but those clever Sweedes, they're so good at flat packing that everything fit with room to spare. Seriously, the next time I need to pack a suitcase, I'm finding a Sweedish person do help me! Here's what the truck looked like:

We got home and I had to go to work, leaving Garm to assemble 6 full sized Billy bookcases, one half bookcase, a DVD tower, and a TV stand. While I was walking dogs, he was busy in the garage, and this is the result:

It's amazing, how packages so small can be coerced into being such significant bookshelves. Each one is over 6 feet tall. Garm was so excited he even dragged the first three in and started arranging some of our books on them:

When I got home that night, I helped him carry in the others, and we began sorting the books onto them. SO MUCH FUN! I've had some of my books in storage for years and years, since I moved away from Newnan the first time, and they've stayed in storage in a closet at my parents' house while I was overseas with the Peace Corps, then they moved to the closets and under-beds at Garm's house. Finally, they're breathing air again!!

I had to go to work again the next day, but was able to help Garm get the electronics started. There wasn't too much I could help with this,
and I mostly just left him alone to untangle that, checking occasionally to make sure he didn't accidentally get strangled in the nonsense. He got it worked out, thankfully, and in time for the Auburn game, even. That evening he also secured the bookshelves to the wall and started putting the history and non-fiction out.

I came home to a lovely mess of books all over the house, and quickly set to work pulling out more boxes and fitting them in to where they belong. We have the books sorted by category -- fiction, anthologies, children's, literary criticism, general non-fiction, religion, mythology, poetry, history (by time period and then by author), biography, and political science. Poor Garm, he was exhausted but I was just so excited that I kept pulling boxes out from under beds and putting them into their respective areas. The history section was probably the most difficult, and I let Garm do all of those, though I did try to help. Getting the books into both chronological AND alphabetical order was such a chore ... I will never, ever shelve a book in that section: he can do it for me! I'll build a book drop first!

Exhausted, sometime in the middle of the night, we finally had to go to bed. The next morning, Sunday, I went back to Ikea with my BFF so she could browse the home of all things for the home (some assembly required) and I could pick up a couple more wall shelves. Garm and I decided that to give our wall o' books a truly built in feel, we would join the Bill bookcases over the TV with some matching wall shelves. We got 4 shelves on our original trip, enough to make 2 joining shelves, but we realized that our TV does not need to be mounted, like we originally thought we did. We also realized that the extra 5 feet of bookshelf was going to be crucial.

Especially since while I was at the bookstore, Garm found 2 more boxes of books under a bed I missed the night before in my excitement and exhaustion. These books, mostly history and non-fiction, required that we rethink where those sections ought to go. So, when I returned home from Ikea we mounted all 6 of the shelves and made 3 shelves above the TV, with the resulting effect of a single, custom unit. Garm claims he was 3/8" off on one of the shelves, but I defy you to find a flaw in these pictures!! Once we rearranged mythology, religion, and moved the yearbooks for the umpteenth time, the bookshelves are finally complete! Can you believe we managed to get our living room from this:

to this:

in just a few days? We've been looking forward to these ever since I announced to my new betrothed that I came with a dowery of a library as extensive as his own. One neat side effect were the duplicate books. Garm and I often had the exact same book, and we collected the doubles to turn in for credit at our local used book store. They'll only let us turn in one box at a time, so we have to make 6 trips to get them all gone. We've even been able to replace a few paperbacks for hardbacks, then turn the paperbacks in! Of course, if we keep lucking out and getting such good credit off these books, we may be needing more bookshelves sooner than we thought ....