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Earth Day

April 22, 2015, 11:24 pm
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For Earth Day the 30 mpg 2008 Corvette sat in the garage and the Biscayne SS got the nod.

Just for Earth Day I eschewed overdrive and drove it in D instead of OD.

That makes the in-town mileage something atrocious!

Sounds GREAT at close to three grand at sixty though!

Just for Earth Day I had every light in the house on all day and cracked the AC down to 70 with an empty oven set to broil at 500˚.

Why?  Because the drug war is a well known trampler of our rights and it's a very distant second to the Environmental Protection Act in that regard.
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Inversion

April 23, 2015, 5:57 am
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I was reading Michael Bane's Blog...

Ruger has jumped on the bandwagon and is making a Mini-14 in .300 Blackout.

The thing that jumped out for me about it wasn't the new caliber but that a Mini is now a kilobuck rifle.

I remember a time when a new Mini was about $400 and a new AR was at least $600 (and that was Bushmaster not Colt).

I've been aware that the relative prices have reversed somewhat over the years, but this time it really stuck.

I've read that the newer Mini's are greatly improved over my old gun, and that could be why the price went up.  The near ubiquity of the AR greatly aids in keeping its prices down.  It makes sense that the trend lines would eventually cross and considering that newer entrants to the field of 5.56 rifles cost at least twice as much the Mini is still something of a bargain.

The role it used to fill as the "cheaper than an AR, entry level 5.56 gun", I think, been taken up by the KelTec SU-16 (but it's MSRP is nipping at the heels of $1,000 too).
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Old Gun Cleaning Methods

April 23, 2015, 6:57 am
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Because the Army issued inadequate cleaning solvents for the task we'd often stealacquiretakeborrow the immersion heaters from the mess and boil our guns.

With the guns completely field stripped...

First barrel was literally boiling water.

Second was nearly boiling soapy water.

Cold water rinse.

Third barrel of boiling water.

Then a blast of compressed air while it was still hot.

Then a wipedown with a tiny amount of Break-Free® CLP.

It made the guns inspection ready.  Where just Break-Free® CLP, old t-shirts, toothbrushes and elbow grease would get them less dirty, they'd never pass inspection unless you dedicated a week to cleaning them.

The reason it took a week is because the C part of CLP attacks the carbon very slowly, and three application and scrubbings over a week typically got it done.

Or one day of making gun soup.

I wonder today if we were damaging the guns doing what we were doing to make inspection.  If we'd missed some tiny amount of water some place and the guns were rusting from the inside out.
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Ultimate

April 23, 2015, 10:44 am
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The Hughes H-4 is the ultimate anti-hippie vehicle.

Not just eight gas guzzling engines, but literally an entire forest went into building it.
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Take That Gaea

April 23, 2015, 12:11 pm
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Um Teddy...

April 23, 2015, 3:59 pm
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Gun Owners of America sent me this...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz excoriated the Senate Republican leadership on the floor today for the way they rammed this nomination through: 
"The Republican majority, if it so chose, could defeat this nomination, but the Republican majority has chosen to go forward and allow Loretta Lynch to be confirmed. I would note there are more than a few voters back home that are asking what exactly is the difference between a Democratic and Republican majority when the exact same individual gets confirmed as Attorney General, promising the exact same lawlessness, what's the difference?"

OK, Ted.

After that rant one would have expected you to, I dunno, HAVE FUCKING VOTED!  For fuck's sake that's YOUR GODS BE DAMNED JOB!  Voting on things that come to a vote in the Senate.

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Ayotte (R-NH), Yea
Baldwin (D-WI), Yea
Barrasso (R-WY), Nay
Bennet (D-CO), Yea
Blumenthal (D-CT), Yea
Blunt (R-MO), Nay
Booker (D-NJ), Yea
Boozman (R-AR), Nay
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Burr (R-NC), Nay
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Capito (R-WV), Nay
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Cassidy (R-LA), Nay
Coats (R-IN), Nay
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Coons (D-DE), Yea
Corker (R-TN), Nay
Cornyn (R-TX), Nay
Cotton (R-AR), Nay
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
Cruz (R-TX), Not Voting
Daines (R-MT), Nay
Donnelly (D-IN), Yea
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Ernst (R-IA), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Fischer (R-NE), Nay 		Flake (R-AZ), Yea
Franken (D-MN), Yea
Gardner (R-CO), Nay
Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Nay
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Heinrich (D-NM), Yea
Heitkamp (D-ND), Yea
Heller (R-NV), Nay
Hirono (D-HI), Yea
Hoeven (R-ND), Nay
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Johnson (R-WI), Yea
Kaine (D-VA), Yea
King (I-ME), Yea
Kirk (R-IL), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Lankford (R-OK), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Lee (R-UT), Nay
Manchin (D-WV), Yea
Markey (D-MA), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Merkley (D-OR), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Moran (R-KS), Nay
Murkowski (R-AK), Nay
Murphy (D-CT), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea 		Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Paul (R-KY), Nay
Perdue (R-GA), Nay
Peters (D-MI), Yea
Portman (R-OH), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Risch (R-ID), Nay
Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Rounds (R-SD), Nay
Rubio (R-FL), Nay
Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Sasse (R-NE), Nay
Schatz (D-HI), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Scott (R-SC), Nay
Sessions (R-AL), Nay
Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Sullivan (R-AK), Nay
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Thune (R-SD), Nay
Tillis (R-NC), Nay
Toomey (R-PA), Nay
Udall (D-NM), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Warner (D-VA), Yea
Warren (D-MA), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Yea 

Maybe it's just me and I don't understand how this feral gubmint shit works...
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Paring It Down A Mite

April 23, 2015, 5:50 pm
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Here are the Republicans that didn't stop it.


Alphabetical by Senator Name

Ayotte (R-NH), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Cruz (R-TX), Not Voting
Nay Flake (R-AZ), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Johnson (R-WI), Yea
Kirk (R-IL), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Portman (R-OH), Yea

Seems a list of the usual suspects, doesn't it?




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That Lady In The Back Of The Room, Ms. Genovese, Has Raised Her Hand. I Believe She Has A Question.

April 24, 2015, 12:04 pm
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This is a guest post by W. Fleetwood.  (C. V. below.)   (McThag will, under oath, deny all knowledge of, or responsibility for, its content)

This is in response to some of the responses to a video that made the rounds recently.  The video showed an unidentified veteran bracing a bum ("homeless man" is newspeak for bum) and making him remove a jacket because it had an (unidentified) patch on it.  There are several things about this event that caused comment, Bums, Stolen Valor, Stolen Valor Bums, etc, etc, but the ones I'm responding to here are the many firearms and self defense trainers who took pains to explain why one should  Never Do This--NeverEver, or anything else.  Ever!  

The received wisdom of the Trainerfolk, when rendered into plain English, is: keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, avoid eye contact, walk away as quickly as you can and leave everything to the Proper Authorities.  Be a good German.  Oh, and if you feel like it, call 911 on your phone, that will absolve you of any and all moral responsibility.  Yes people, be a good German, like the folks in Kew Gardens back in 1964.

Really?  Let me get this straight Mr Trainerman., after spending thousands of dollars on superguns and superammo and spending hours and days mastering the XYZ Drill (157 rounds, eight tactical reloads, the last stage fired weak hand from a trapeze) which qualifies you to shoot it out with the entire James-Younger gang, and their horses, and a squad of Soviet era Spetsnaz to boot, when you hear the sounds of a rape/murder under your own damn  window you're going to call 911 and..............What?  Close the window, turn the sound on the flatscreen up to eight, and polish your IPSC trophy while you wait for the screams to stop?  I will grant you that one of the grim lessons of the last half century is that if you wait long enough the screams will always stop. True, but still..........Really?

And that brings us to the thing that really chapps me about all this. Y'see........I don't believe the Trainerguyz.  I really don't.  I'll bet you a real silver dollar (Morgan, Circulated not Mint, let's not get carried away here.)  that if they actually faced the actual screams of an actual woman being hacked and raped they would, after,  yes, making the phone call, take a deep breath and, with all due caution, and all tactical skill, wade in.  This  I do believe.

So why the good German advice?  I think I know.  Over the years I've trained about two dozen people on a personal basis but I've never taken any money for it, not a dime.  In fact, at the end I would give the students a five dollar bill as a start on their further exploration of the wide world of guns.  Now, why would I do that?  Simple, to avoid becoming the target of the terrorist group that has brought the former USA to its knees. You know, the Plaintiffs Bar. Yes, people who I have no doubt would face the reality of Winston Moseley and his stinking switchblade with a clear eye and grim resolve are reduced by Fear Of Lawyer to "eyes down, mouth shut, walk away and keep going, kid" or at least the public parroting of it.

Of course all the above begs the question: okay smartguy what's your answer?   Well, I don't have a perfect one, but Florida has at least a partial one with the Hold Harmless statute.  It ain't perfect, far from it, but (sort of like Floridas' CWP law) its a good start.  Frankly, while superguns and superammo and superdrills, and yes, even open carry are certainly great and good things until the Fear Of Lawyer gets hammered down, and hopefully  eliminated, all those things will be great hardware badly  crippled by defective software.


W. Fleetwood, Curricula Vitae, (Latin for "Who is this clown anyway?):  Born and raised in rural Oregon, US Army, Korea {the place not the war} and the Second Ranger Battalion out of Ft. LewisWa.  Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, First Bn. The Rhodesian African Rifles.  Namibia/Southwest Africa, 701 Bn. SWATF.  El Salvador, Commandos de Marina.  Nicaragua, FDN.  Merchant seaman, Captain 1600 tons steam or power, any ocean.  Florida Highway Patrol,  Crash Investigator.  Widower and Grandparent.  And yes, I personally think e. e. cummings was a great poet.


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Look It's Not A Mac

April 24, 2015, 4:15 pm
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Let us welcome Crispy, the Lenovo ThinkPad to the fold.


He's a lease-return refurb generously sold on time by reader JT.

Crispy replaces the Hybrid-MacBook Pro I'd made from the best parts of a Late 2007 and Early 2008 15" machines which finally succumbed to what kills all MacBook Pros of that generation, heat unsolders the video card from the logic board.

Considering the price to repair or replace that logic board is about what I am on the hook here for, it's not that hard of a decision.

Changed from a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo to a 2.5 GHz i5.  Same size RAM.

Changed from OSX 10.6.8 to Win 7 Pro 64.

Changed from a back-lit keyboard to a little LED in the brow.

Lots of little changes and some things change not at all.

PS:  I authorized the fresh install of the OS at about 1330 and I am only just getting done with installing updates!  Microsoft really should streamline this process because there's lots of people in my situation.
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Again

April 25, 2015, 7:56 am
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On Wednesday we had to take Shi Shu back in to be further treated for this nasty shit the neighbor's dog shares along the fence line.

Another $200 down the hole that I wouldn't have had to spend if they would simply do what's right by their dog.  Their miserable and obviously suffering dog.

I do not grok this behavior.

Sheesh gnaws on his ass when this stuff starts to take hold and the longest he has to wait is a few days for an appointment to open up, most often it's same day.  Knowing our pup, though, he's been feeling it about a week before he starts being obvious about it.

Yes, a visit to the vet is $100 - $200.  Yes, quite often we'd rather have spent that money on something else.

The thing is, we accepted responsibility for him the day we paid the pet store.  A lifetime commitment.  It's not a small thing and it's a very serious thing.

I simply cannot abide someone who shirks that responsibility.

Onyx next door is an abandoned dog in her own home.  This crud is curable, I know this because we cure it annually.  If they'd cure it we could both be rid of it.  If they're not going to cure it, why don't they let the poor thing out of her misery?

I know it's hard to take a pet on that last walk.  I cannot say I've lost count of the number of times I've had to, because I still feel each and every loss as if it happened a moment ago.

I question, though, if it would really be hard for these scumbags.  They clearly don't care about their dog.
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The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133

April 25, 2015, 9:23 am
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I don't think I've watched a single one of Destin's videos where I didn't learn something.



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Understandable

April 25, 2015, 9:44 am
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Which is worse?

The world does not understand you and it never will.

OR

The world understands you and always has.

OR

The world understands you, always has; but you think that it doesn't and never will.
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Computer Fun Time

April 27, 2015, 7:53 am
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I'd forgotten how much "fun" it was to get a Mac and a PC chatting amicably with each other.

It's not amicable, yet, more of a grudging acceptance of each other.
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You Go To Jail

April 27, 2015, 9:08 pm
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If your religion says you cannot marry homosexuals, and that will land you in jail, then you should go to jail.

It's called standing by your convictions and showing that you really believe in them.

And it shouldn't be illegal to fail to perform marriages outside the strictures of your faith.

This shit right here is what is at the core of religious freedom guaranteed by the first amendment, not some nebulous penumbra of separation.
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With Great Umbrage

April 28, 2015, 9:23 am
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"Military handgun training is laughable."

I will have you know, Tam, in 1987 we spent WEEKS and WEEKS on the M1911A1 in 19K One Station Unit Training.

We learned how it worked, we were quizzed and tested on statistics such as its weight, mass (drop! if you don't know the difference!) maximum range, maximum effective range, etc...

We learned how to take it apart.

We learned how to put it back together.

We learned to do that blindfolded then blindfolded in the dark.

We learned to clean them so that they'd pass a white glove inspection using only a t-shirt and 2oz of Break-Free® CLP.

We even shot them once!

Do not sit there in whatever kind of chair that serves as your throne and say that we weren't TRAINED!


I'm serious about going out to shoot once.  We spent a day shooting, we got to shoot the pistol table twice for practice and once for scoring and once more if you failed to qualify.  Fail that second round of testing and they recycled you to a different training company.

Here's the standard.  52 rounds total per table.  26 or more hits on man sized targets from 10 to 31 meters and you're expert badged.  16 out of 52 and you're "qualified" and wear the "Marksman" badge.

So a recruit in my OSUT company fired a maximum of 208 rounds.  If you got a hit you could stop shooting, so many of us fired fewer rounds than the 52 allowed per iteration.

Tam's totally correct, it's laughable to call someone with this level of practice an expert.
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I Know What To Do

April 28, 2015, 10:33 am
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Of Tartans

April 28, 2015, 12:44 pm
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MacTavish and Thompson are often shown as the same plaid.

I have found a "Thompson" Sport Kilt.

But that's not the MacTavish (modern) I am looking for.  It's close to the "hunting" or "dress", but it's hard to tell from small swatches.

But I'm not about to drop $500+ on a kilt.  Near $150 is bad enough.
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A Couple Of Things

April 28, 2015, 9:58 pm
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From Weer'ds talking on the FAL and AK...

In normal operation AR the only time you should be using the charging handle is to open the action to to load that first round or to clear it once you're done shooting.  Then you use the bolt stop to chamber a round.  If nothing goes wrong you keep using the bolt stop; if something does go wrong, then you shouldn't have the thing up in a firing position because you now have to fix what went wrong and it's almost never cured by racking the charging handle blindly.

If you're using the thing for magazine changes, what idiot taught you that?

On the FAL, however, there's a known problem with the foot of the bolt stop popping off when you push down on it to release the bolt.  Some are pressed onto their shaft and repeated use slowly pushes it off; so with the FAL, use the charging handle when changing magazines.

The reciprocating bolt handle is on the SCAR because of literally decades of people writing for magazines and defense journals bitching about the charging handle's lack of movement.  It's rather ironic that they change that and new complaints began immediately.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

I'm going to have to drag Willard, kicking and screaming, into this general discussion about fighting with your rifle because he's done so much more of it, but I don't think he'll agree that beating the shit out of your magazine to gain at most 1/4 second on reloads is worth it because such gems of time just don't matter in real fights where the appropriate weapon is a rifle.

There's a shit ton of pistol gaming infecting the proper use of a battle rifle that's frankly detrimental to the employment of said rifle.  The reason things like this matter with pistols is the likelihood that someone can knife you by the time you get the task done.

Some of the fast reloading techniques I've seen advocated for rifles has me asking again and again, "Why the fuck are you standing there in the fucking open doing your reload under fire?" The first step of reloading is COVER!
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Cop Dash

April 29, 2015, 4:05 pm
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The instrument cluster from an Olds Custom Cruiser I'd put in my car finally stopped giving even a hint of accuracy about the speed plus negative function on both the trip and odometers.

Before


On a shelf in the garage I had a cluster out of a '92 Police Caprice.

Rewired the connectors, added a ground and viola!

After

Installed and almost entirely functional.  The tach is reading hilariously high.  We think it might be expecting a 4 cylinder signal and it's getting pulses right off the coil.  I need to get it someplace where I can get a steady state cruise in lock-up to see if it's a fixed ratio.

Note the mileage!  That's accurate (and a pain to make so).

By the way, GM, the connectors are the same for the Chevy 9C1, Olds Custom Cruiser and Buick Roadmaster 91-93.  The placement of the gauges is the same for all three.  Why don't they share pin-outs?

I had to move 13 wires from one pin to another, plus add a ground to change from Oldsmobile to Chevrolet.  The Olds and Buick share the same circuit board, but rearrange the lights so there's like 8 wires that are either relocated or omitted.
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ANOTHER Wire

May 1, 2015, 8:16 am
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The large, friendly, speed display does not dim when the headlights are on.

Grumble.

Let me check my notes...

Oh, I see.

I didn't see that I needed to add a wire to the C1 connector that leads to the parking light circuit.

Luckily, it's a simple splice to the light switch mere inches away and easily accessible.

The hilariously wrong tach is because there's a resistor pack dealie on the board that decays with time.  This is likely also what was wrong with the speedometer in the Olds cluster.

I've found a diagram for the pack and some instructions that tell us that if we bypass terminals 4 and 10 in the pack and put in a 500k multi-turn potentiometer we can just dial in the correct resistance and tune it right up.
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