Weapons, warfare and industrial idiocy

Good News Everyone!

2012-01-14T19:11:00.000-08:00

Okay... for all you militaria nuts:
You now buy have an opportunity to possess serious piece of history.
Cue Professor.

Below, one of many photos of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Naval Historical society has kindly named the foreground vessels. The big high-value-unit you'll find astern would be the lovely and talented USS Pennsylvania.

Of course the two tin cans foreground got hosed. Pennsylvania was only slightly damaged.
In fact, here she is a few years later - bombarding Guam.
But this isn't about the ship or the two demolished destroyers... this is about the machine that helped Pennsylvania survive the day.
You can spot him... it... she?
I'm gonna go with "it".
There... it is just to the right of the Pennsylvania in the photo above.
It's a "whirley crane"; so called because it could rotate through a complete circle.
And, during the attack, it was operated by one George Walters.
You can read about him on the link. It's an impressive story.
He was, let me add, a civilian and I'd bet a union "Operating Engineers" member.
The crane however...
Is likely to be this one: An entire shipyard's coming up for auction on Wednesday - including this jewel. Run on out to Troutdale now.

Ain't she a beauty?
Now the morning paper reckons the big unit will bring in between $10,000 and $20,000.
Of course, those are heavy equipment prices.
That is why you have an edge. See, no one seems to know what a bitchen'cool thing this is.
So, here's the plan: buy it at these giveaway prices - which ain't bad even if you happen to own a shipyard or are thinking of starting one - then sell it on the crazy, Topsy-Turvy, militaria market.
If it sells... well then, maybe there are other old cranes for sale... ones that could be hauled down to the gravel pit for some... "combat points"?
At worst, hell... just put it back on the equipment market and watch the past fade away.
It's not like it's a real rarity like the Stanley Heading Machine.

Clear Your Schedule. This May Take A While...

2011-12-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

The last post reminded me of how cool I thought the Vietnam, gun-trucks were back then but it made me regret that the only one I touched on was Eve of Destruction.
She is the only surviving example. However, lots of vet's groups have put together replicas of those they recall using surplus 5-tons and deuce-and-a-half's.
Eve wasn't the only one named for a current piece of pop culture so here we go for a look at the tunes that were on the minds of those Transportation Corps guys in the late '60's and early '70's.

This song may not have been the inspiration for the rig's name if the guys had seen this video. Love the stripes.

Next up...pop country. Jimmy Dean the sausage king.

Okay, of course Canned Heat is the name of the band. They did take their name from "Canned Heat Blues" but the band was what the lads were thinking about.

Since there's no specific song... I get to pick.
At Woodstock, August, 1969.

The one in the middle, Uncle Meat.

Iron Butterfly. Yeah, there's an interesting irony to that name but it's another band name and I'm not embedding their "signature" work (Life is just too short). You can find it (assuming you've got time to kill) here.

This Coasters tune was covered by the Rolling Stones in '65 or so. No vid for it though.

Okay, now a novelty song...

Of course, both sides were represented.
Lame, I know.

It was number one in '65 and Rolling Stone's 2nd best (Second best?) song of all time.

Now one from the man who country music is measured against (and found wanting), former Marine, George Jones.
Anyone who doesn't agree is probably a Ted Nugent fan and blind to greatness. I'll be in prayer for them... with no great hope.
From the Mercury Records years, The Possum's drunkest, craziest period and when he wrote most of his best songs.

This one was written by fellow Beaumont, Texas boy J. P."Big Bopper" Richardson.

To conclude; back in the day I had a photo of a truck bearing this name. Rolling Stone notwithstanding, this is one of the best songs of all time - and the first use of the sitar in rock and roll (1964).
To the lost gun truck named Paint It Black...

Some things never change...

2011-12-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

My big brother and I got a clock-radio in the mid-sixties (Clock-radios were a big thing. It's a clock - and a radio!).
This was one of the songs I remember listening to while I was going to sleep... forty-six years ago.
I posted it earlier when I talked about one of the gun-trucks from that mess in Vietnam - and there is a connection.
The vids not on that post anymore but this is the same one - intro by Jerry Lewis.

Barry's gone Christer on us but... good on him.
We're out of Iraq (Where we had no business to begin with) and all the troops are coming home.
All that are left are mercenaries... Oops, my bad. I meant rent-a-cops. No, that's not right either.
Okay, now I've got it! "Security Contractors", one of Little George's better ideas.
Let's check out Evie again... when she had it goin' on.

Hey! Conversion notwithstanding - Barry's still in the game.
Last March.

Pearl Harbor Day

2011-12-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

Yet another date commemorating a "surprise" attack that we were actually expecting.
To be fair, what we were thinking would happen was that Clark Field in the Philippines would be bombed. Nobody said anything about destroying a fleet at anchor.
'Course, had people been paying attention, someone may have pointed out that the Japanese did the exact same thing to start the Russo-Japanese War in 1904.
No! The Port Authur attack was different. Way different. They used destroyers and torpedo boats to knock the shit out of the Russian fleet... at anchor.
See, the question is like apples and... some other kind of apples.
And, since a pompous, morbidly obese ass - who also happens to be a doctor of history - recently alluded to America's besting of "...Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan... in just 3 years and 8 months" - that would of course be the - salamander, good ole' Newt (The pastry who would be King) - I'd like to bring two facts to your attention:
On 12/7/41; China had been at war with Japan for four and a half years, the Poles and Britain (Canada, New Zealand and Australia included) for two years.
Plus, after Pearl Harbor, although we did kick serious butt in the Pacific at Coral Sea and Midway, our ground war didn't start 'till August, '42 at Guadalcanal.
Just chipping away at the old "American Exceptionalism" canard (Unless you mean "exceptionally egocentric").
Okay, enough reality regarding the country we love.
This AM, Harry Morgan died (At 96 so - as the Brits would say: "He had a good innings").
Bill Gannon, yin to Jack Webb's yang - everyone's favorite CO, Colonel Sherman Potter and Marshall Tibedeaux in "The Shootist".

That's him on the right... the one who's not John Wayne.
This date is also the sixty-seventh aniversary of the sinking of the tin-can, USS Ward.
The first in a wartime, accelerated building program, Mare Island, CA - summer, 1918.
She's also famous for something else that happened on this date.
I prattled about it a year ago last February.
Here's my ravings, complete.
"I'm a lazy man"
Krusty the Clown.
There she is, "Liberty Destroyer # 139, still in utero.
We won't contemplate the abuses that a term like "Liberty Destroyer" would undergo in the present lexicon. It would be a good screen name for someone though, someone like Obama!
The Baby, later christened "USS Ward DD-139" was notable for two reasons.
First, she was the first ship constructed in an accelerated, wartime program at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California.
Secondly, as the baby announcement above states (I'll leave that analogy now), she was built in record time; 17 1/2 days from laying the keel to launching. May 15, to June 1. July 18, 1918, she was commissioned. Eight weeks from "a ship on paper" to one that's floating in the ocean flying the ensign. Not bad.
Now, a photo album:

She's the one in the middle.
Fast forward to 1941.
Below, the gun and crew that fired the first, American shots of the Second World War.

"A Shot for Posterity -- The USS Ward's number three gun and its crew-cited for firing the first shot the day of Japan's raid on Hawaii. Operating as part of the inshore patrol early in the morning of December 7, 1941, this destroyer group spotted a submarine outside Pearl Harbor, opened fire and sank her. Crew members are R.H. Knapp - BM2c - Gun Captain, C.W. Fenton - Sea1c - Pointer, R.B. Nolde - Sea1c - Trainer, A.A. De Demagall - Sea1c - No. 1 Loader, D.W. Gruening - Sea1c - No. 2 Loader, J.A. Paick - Sea1c - No. 3 Loader, H.P. Flanagan - Sea1c - No. 4 Loader, E.J. Bakret - GM3c - Gunners Mate, K.C.J. Lasch - Cox - Sightsetter." (quoted from the original 1942-vintage caption)
This gun is a 4"/50 type, mounted atop the ship's midships deckhouse, starboard side.

And, a photo of the same gun, displayed at the Minnesota State Capitol (The Ward was crewed largely with men from the Minnesota Naval Reserve).

Time marched on for the little ship that could.
Photo below, a representative bunch of the enlisted, ship's force displaying her "scoreboard".

The photo's caption at the LOC:

"Crewmen pose with their ship's battle "scoreboard", soon after the Biak Invasion, circa June 1944. Nearly all of these men had served in Ward since the beginning of the War, and were present when she sank a Japanese midget submarine just outside Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941.
The original caption, released by Commander Seventh Fleet on 4 August 1944, reads: "Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea, falls to the Allied Forces, July 30, 1944. One might almost say - Sansapor falls to the boys from St. Paul, Minn. - as all but two of these men come from that city and the entire group has shipped together since Pearl Harbor, with the actions and results shown on their banner. As a matter of fact, they are believed to have fired the first offensive shot of the war in the Pacific, while on patrol against Japanese subs. They are L/R: (bottom row) J.L. Spratt, MM2/c; A.J. Fink, CM2/c; O.S. Ethier, MM1/c; C.W. Fenton, BM1/c; D.R. Pepin, SM1/c; J.G. LeClair; SOM2/c; F.V. Huges, SOM2/c. (Top Row) R.B. Nolde, SF1c; W.G. Grip, BM2c; H.F. Germarin, S1c; H.J. Harris, MM1c; H.K. Paynter, CMoMM; J.K. Lovsted, CMMM; W.H. Duval, CCS, (of San Diego); I.E. Holley, CSK (of Los Angeles); W.S. Lehner, SC1c; F.J. Bukrey, CM1c; and F.L. Fratta, MM1c."

Alas, everything comes to an end.
USS Ward was sunk by a Kamikaze attack near Leyte in the Phillippines, three years to the day after her moment of glory at Pearl Harbor.

So's we're not bummed out, here's a great picture of some soldiers chowing down on deck.
Ultimate coolness; riveted deck plates.

The Big Guys... and Gals

2011-12-04T18:57:00.001-08:00

Really big ones.
See here:
"List of the largest cannons by caliber"
Notice, you're up to number eleven before you even hit the 20th century with what we consider the serious biggies; like those of the Yamoto at 18.1 inches.
The ten listed first are seriously old-school.
Just as a matter of house-keeping we'll dispense with The Tsar Cannon, the largest, with a bore of thirty-five inches and change, because it was only fired - if at all - as a ceremonial gesture.
It's the biggest but it exists as a novelty, not a tactical weapon.
The first of the runners-up: Plumhart von Steyr, of the Hapsburg Empire.
Okay, obviously Plumhart is more of a mortar than a cannon but we'll overlook that in light of the fact that it, like those following, is a bombard.
As the name implies, these monsters were used to bombard... fortress walls.
Once the range was found, simply loading and firing the same charge (30+# of black powder - for this gun) and the same 1500# projo (chiseled out of rock) again and again 'till, over time and six to eight rounds a day, would bring about the collapse of the wall and the fortress was then breached.
The etiquette of the day (14th to 15th century) held that, when the walls were breached, the defenders would give up and the siege would be lifted... theoretically.
Anyway, the above pictured, ugly bad boy sported a bore of 32 1/4"
Next up - at least of those extant is Dulle Griet coming in at just under twenty-six inches.
Her name comes from a Flemish folk tale "Mad Meg" (See her here: courtesy of Pieter Bruegel the elder)
On this gun I'm going to talk construction.
Old Plumhart above is the largest, wrought-iron bombard in the world (the Tsar Gun is cast bronze.) but this one actually has stats regarding what it was made of.
First, let me comment on the color: In the story of Mons Meg (patience) it was written that the British painted all of their royal cannon with red lead as a rust preventative.
That jarring, international-orange slathered on the above is the stuff. The bane of boatswain's mates since the days of wooden ships and iron men.
Back to bidness; You know why they're called gun barrels? 'Cause they used to be built like barrels - staves and hoops.
Old Meg consists of 32 sticks of wrought iron, 16 feet long, precisely beveled (Just like barrel staves) and held together with 61, wrought-iron rings, each of which was forged individually, welded into a circular shape just shy of the required diameter, heated white-hot and driven down over the tube.
The video at the end illustrates to concept on a smaller gun with a rolled barrel.

The structure can be seen clearly in the above photo. This is a bombard with no pedigree listed with the photo but we'll assume that the crew of men who lovingly tended her must have called her something.
The first thing to notice is the staves. Beveled - but not forge-welded. Imagine forge-welding a sixteen foot strip of iron to thirty-one others; previously welded. It wouldn't have happened.
Each of the rings were forged separately and driven on and that is where the strength of the gun lays.

Wrought iron is very cool stuff in that it has a grain - like wood.
Due to the way it's made (Was made. Now it's only available as old scrap or as a boutique product) it has a linear crystalline structure, further enhanced by microscopic slag inclusions (Also linear - between the crystals).
The end result: a very tough metal (non-brittle) with excellent tensile strength - in line with the grain - just like wood.
The staves of the gun were structurally functioning mostly to keep the barrel rigid and to hold the shape while the rings were driven on.
The rings, being forged and welded at the ends, retained all the tensile strength of the iron because simply punching the appropriate hole in a disc of of wrought iron would leave cross-grain - poor tensile strength.
Of course, none of this means anything with modern steel. It has no built-in direction even though some producers of overpriced, under-qualitied knives (Cold Steel) seem to think it does.
Which brings us to the crux of the biscuit and the reason why this is such a logical means of construction.
Not to say that modern cannon should be built this way. it's just that the more up-town technique, casting seems so much more sophisticated.
They both worked - many times over. The afore-mentioned Tsar cannon was cast from bronze.
The problem with a cast cannon is that the pressure is contained by just one unit. A monolithic, massive unit to be sure but one whose interior is invisible. A giant slag inclusion in a cast cannon could ruin every body's day if it blew out.

But, there's a lot to be said for a system where stress is parceled out in bits and pieces.
Case in point: number seven on the list with a bore of only twenty inches, "Mons Meg" (Another Meg!), so called because she was built in the Belgian city of Mons.
Mons, you may recall is where the BEF first butted heads with Kaiser Willie's lads during that golden August of 1914. The meeting which precipitated a most spectacular and orderly - although ignominious - retreat.
A seventy-thousand man contingent of the world's most professional army going against the second largest army on earth... while said 2nd largest was simultaneously fighting the 3rd largest to the south and bracing for the onslaught of the largest army off to the east. Good times...
Anyway, Mons Meg was put together in 1449 and, stories differ as to how, ended up in the possession of the Scots.
They used her to hurl big rocks at the English for a time and she served admirably.
However, she eventually experienced a blow-out.
"The gun was fired in 1680 to celebrate the arrival of James Duke of Albany and York, later King James II of England and VII of Scotland"
To be fair; the old girl was on her 240th birthday so it would make sense to figure she'd be a bit fragile.
The rumor is: the shot was loaded by an English cannoneer who may have overloaded it due out of jealousy since Mother England had no such boss ordnance.
The ball was found (According to the story) two klicks away.

Here's the damage.
Hardly a catastrophic failure. It broke one ring - didn't even bend (Looks like) the staves.
Now, the explosion of the "Peacemaker" aboard the USS Princeton in 1844 was a catastrophic failure and a good illustration of the linear vs transverse strength of wrought iron,
If Mons Meg's mishap had occurred in the heat of the moment instead of just at a ceremony, this old bitch could have still have thrown rounds down range.
Okay, I've illustrated the principle proving that a lot of little, weak parts can be better than just one big... part.

Here's a down and dirty demo of the making of a wrought iron cannon. It's a little one so the tube is a rolled sheet but the reinforcing rings are identical.
The comments are hilarious. "Why didn't they just cast it in one piece?" Like that's easier.
On the subject of of cast guns, we'll touch on "The Dardanelles Gun" to finish up.
The Dardanelles are, of course, the choke point between the Sea of Marma and the Black Sea. A bit to the west is the Hellespont, home of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
As long as there have been hotly contested chunks of real estate in the world, this has been one of them.

Anyway, the Dardanelles gun was cast - inspired by those cast by a Hungarian named Urban whose bombards knocked down the walls on Constantinople in 1453 thus making it Istanbul - in 1464.
The shift from Constaninople (formerly Byzantium) to Istanbul is lucidly explained in this video by They Might Be Giants (They did the theme song for "Malcom in the Middle" - and they might actually be giants.)
So Constantine's city fell and those Godless Muslims covered up all the mosiacs in the Hagia Sophia but... to the victors go the cool buildings.

About ten years later, this unit was commissioned.
24 7/8" bore, 18 tons (both chunks) and wicked bad.
It was, for a time set up to overlook the straits, the better to shell ships that may not be welcome in the Black Sea.
Fast forward from 1464 to 1807.
The Dardanelles Operation wherein the British thought to show those rag-heads who was boss and got their ass soundly whipped by this old antique as well as some of her sisters.
Twenty-eight Brit sailors dead and a solid Ottoman victory.
What I love about this old thing is this: One of the innovations brought to the table by the gun's designer/maker, Munir Ali, was the two piece construction seen above.

And that is where I fall in love with her.
Check out the picture. The two pieces (Probably 9 tons each as the smaller is the chamber/breech and contains a larger quantity of solid metal.) just screw together!
Now, I'm not throwing rocks at Munir Ali and his innovation at all. It's just that... I can't get my head wrapped around this concept where two parts of a whole - are threaded together - weighing nine tons apiece.
Just pick 'em up and screw 'em together. Righty - tighty, lefty - loosey.

Yeah, yeah. That's what those handy rims are for - levers and such.
Or a twenty-foot pipe wrench and teflon tape on a roll like paper towels.
Okay, gettin' silly.
Me, out.

Agents of Change... Chemical Agents That is... And Unintended Consequences

2011-11-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well... unless you've been in a coma of late, you should be aware of the sudden uptick in the use of... aerosol, crowd disbursement technology.
Earlier, we saw good ole' "Tony Baloney" almost two months ago doin' his best "violation-of-everybody's-pepper-spray-protocol" coupled with ... "I thought the Bill of Rights" started with number two" shtick.
No, Tony... you're number two.
The new poster boy for the "repressive, fascist asshole, drunk on his own marginal power" movement is the fat cunt you see to the left.
That is one Lt. John Pike, a "campus charlie" (an old UofM term from my childhood) at UC Davis.
Fat boy's antics are now broadcast all over the world so I'm not going to go over them again but, if you want to get in touch with Fat John - to, I don't know... chew the fat, talk about how much people you don't like, suck - Here's his info - courtesy of Anonymous; the people no one should piss off - even though they may in their parent's garage on their sixth Mountain Dew of the night:
Phone: 530-752-3989
Cell: 530-979-0184
japikeiii@ucdavis.edu
Address: 4005 Cowell Blvd, Apt 616. Davis, CA 95618-6017
I Googled this place. It's up for sale! No price listed but, 120 units... total square-footage... 1000 times that ergo, the average apt. size is... 1000 sg ft.
This leads me to infer that boy isn't married... at 38. Unless Mrs. Pike is willing to live in a matchbox with an over-bearing dick.
Point is: He's single girls, possibly not for long. I guess he has tons of pizzas delivered to his house.Lt. Pike is quite the item now. There is an entire site where you can post you own version of his behavior at UC Davis. Note, I've helpfully provided a starting point for any who like to see him pepper-spraying... I don't know - Ayn Rand.
Anyway, enough of flipping shit at two abusive, cock-sucking cops who bring disgrace to every decent State Trooper, Sheriff's Deputy, and Police Officer in the... world.
This chemical agent thing is taking off. It's now an aid to shopping - if you can believe that.
Yeah, someone cuts you off in the check-out line, hose 'em down. You know: it is essentially a "food product".
And she's right. Why, if I was to pull a leg-of-lamb out of my freezer and - I don't know - beat her dumb-blond brains out with it - it's still essentially a food product.
Am I right? Hell, if I liked lamb, I could cook it up and chow down. No murder weapon... I mean food product.
Back to another seeming "food product". I say 'seeming' because mustard gas has nothing to do with the condiment other than, in it's original, Great War formulation (ie sulphur mustard) that's what it looked like. It was later fine-tuned into nastier versions such as nitrogen mustard which we'll bring up later.

Unlike its predecessors, chlorine and phosgene, it wasn't actually a gas.
While chlorine and phosgene were easily detectable, especially chlorine, and were readily dispersed by wind - to the extent that such dispersal could come right back at the user - mustard was a "persistent agent".
Being an oily yellow liquid resembling diesel fuel, it was spread out in a cloud of droplets at the impact of the shell carrying it.
Where it landed on exposed skin it produced severe chemical burns. In the eyes - blindness, lungs - ultimately, pneumonia.
And, it would stay in the ground, on surfaces and in water in shell holes, remaining active for several days to weeks.
For example, the owner of the ass shown in the drawing did nothing but sit on the ground were mustard was present - eleven days prior to modeling for the pic.
This poor slob just put on his glove not knowing that some was on the back of it. The photos show the aftermath: One day, two days, one week.
Nasty shit. The one consolation was that virtually no chemical agents were used during the Second War. The Japanese dropped some mustard on Chinese and the Luftwaffe dropped some on Poland very early in the war but that was it.
Fact is, Hitler had been temporarily blinded due to mustard gas in WW1 and didn't want to use it ever.
This didn't stop its manufacture, by the thousands of tons. The US, in particular made copious quantities for use in retaliation should Fritz forget himself.

"Umatilla Chemical Depot sends off last shipment of weapons"

Just last month.

The black, wavy line is the Columbia River. Portland lies a couple hundred miles to the west.
The depot itself is the brown, semi-trapezoid at the center. The town of Umatilla is in the upper right.
All those beautiful green circles - fields irrigated with center-pivot systems.
So, stuff grows there. People live there.
I've driven within a mile or two many times as this it the spot to cross over to Washington when going to the old homeland.
Then, there are things such as the title of this blog post:

"Umatilla Chemical Depot Mustard Gas Leaks, The Business of Destroying Chemical Weapons Stockpiles"

Don't sweat it. According to the map above, you only had to be five miles or more away to not be in the "Immediate Response Zone."
In the event of catastrophic failure the big worry wouldn't be the mustard so much as all the nerve agents also stored on site.
So, being this is in Washington's and Oregon's backyard, it's good that our inept, inefficient government finally got around to destroying (At great expense - after having produced it at similar expense decades ago) this stupid, nasty shit.
About fucking time.
Ultimate amount finally shit canned: 37,000 tons.
In conclusion; remember nitrogen mustard?
During WW2, the US Navy secretly transported thousands of artillery shells to Europe - just in case.
On November 18, 1943, the Germans staged an air raid on the port city of Bari in Italy.
Eighteen ships were lost including the Liberty Ship, SS John Harvey which just happened to be carrying "...2,000 M47A1 World War I type mustard gas bombs, each of which held 60-70 lb of sulfur mustard."
Several hundred Navy personnel were affected and the government covered it up until the war's end.
However, the medical officers treating the survivors noticed a decreased number of "lymphocytes" whatever those are.
This information was paired with research into medicinal uses for nitrogen mustard which eventually led to Mustine, the first chemo-therapy drug.

Time Does Fly....

2011-11-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

Thirty-six years ago tonight; Nov. 18 1975, the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

Update:
Just ten years earlier... Them, Van Morrison on vocals.
Ten years and about six months. April 1965.
My pickup was three years old.

Happy Armistice Day! Totally Tubular Edition

2011-11-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

Sorry vets, me included, this day's taken. It commemorates the end of hostilities in the most costly war up to that time.
It was essentially "WW2's first installment" war, the influence of which is still being felt. The mess in the Balkans and the Middle East, caused by: The Collapse of the Ottoman Empire - a direct result.
It wasn't just the Ottomans. The Austro-Hungarian Empire also went tits-up and Great Britain's imperial presence was dealt a death blow as well.
We Yanks don't think much on the Great War 'cause... we were only there a while. Hell, our first independent action was six months before the Armistice.
Before that... holes were dug... millions were slaughtered... mistakes were made.
America's contribution was important but it was also the causative factor in some other unpleasant bits. Actually, just the rumor of Americans was sufficient to goad General Sir Douglas Haig into test driving his oft-discredited tactic of massed infantry against hardened machine guns. Siegfried Sassoon said it best:

"I died in hell -
(They called it Passchendaele)"

This absurd offensive was pushed through against the advice of the less stupid because Haig was afraid the Yanks would get there and rob him of a breakthrough.
The 1918, German, all-out, spring offensive was based solely on a desire to capture a seaport before there would be added a new, fresher combatant.
But really, that war has given us so much. The French "souvenir" replaced the British "keepsake".
"Entrenched", "over the top", "breakthrough" and others. Where would we be without those expressions?
Ah, and the trenches, the war's enduring image. It wasn't the first time they'd been used. Trenches had been used in our own mid-19th century unpleasantness as well as the Russo-Japanese War.
But those were baby trenches.
These stretched from the North Sea to the Swiss border, roughly 450 miles. It was said that one could walk the entire distance without ever showing one's head on the surface.
Interesting factoid: Between 1914 and 1918, the largest city on earth in terms of both population and area was the Western Front.
But I digress. There was one, unquestionable benefit of the Great War.
I touched on this briefly four Armistice Days back, that is: "gueules cassées"; "The men with broken faces".
Harold Gilles, an ear-nose-and-throat man from Dunedin in New Zealand tacked this head on.
To the left, Henry Ralph Lumley.
Henry had essentially lost his face due to burns so Gilles attempted to graft a full-size piece of skin from the chest onto the face.
It didn't work. Henry died from infection.
Gilles came to a couple of conclusions after this failure as well as others: One, grafts were to be made in stages, not 'all-of-a-piece'.
And the grafted tissue needed to maintain it's own blood supply.
Meet Willie Vicarage, Able Seaman on HMS Malaya, an Elizibeth class, British battleship.
Willie's problem is obvious. During the Battle of Jutland a shell fragment took off most of his jaw.
But as you see, there's more to the picture. What Gilles came up with was the "tubed pedicle" wherein, a flap of tissue, which could be just the skin or underlying tissue as well, is cut from the head, back or shoulder.
The flap is left anchored at the end, then stitched into a tube. This seriously reduces the chance of infection and the new tissue is never without a blood supply.
It worked - well. It worked for Willie as well as many others.
Major success: William Spreckley whose nose was shot off in the Ypres Salient.
What Gilles did was to attach a chunk of cartilidge from Williams rib-cage and attach it to his forehead. He then brought a flap from the forehead and stuck both it and the cartilidge into the nasal cavity. There was, I'm certain, more to the process than that.
Things took some time after that but - Hey Presto! A new nose.
Here's the new nose, and it's proud owner, as an older man.
Harold, ya' done good.
If you checked the link to the Wiki entry for this technique, then you know it is also known as "the walking-stalk skin flap" or the "waltzing tube pedicle" due to the fact that a graft could be made from one place, then detached at its point of origin and stitched on elsewhere (Good names for your goth/punk band as well).
This next, Jack Toper from WW2 is a good illustration. I can't find the pictures again but that elephant's trunk he's got originated on his calf.
I'm guessing that they didn't want the "donor scar" to be anywhere that would be generally visible.
So Jack had a strip of skin from his calf sewn to his wrist which could, when things had healed sufficiently, transport this new nose material up where it was needed.
I daresay he's in better humor about the entire thing than I would be.
In conclusion, one site says this is Willie Vicarage, the first recipient.
Finally, and I mean it this time, a wax model for any who may have been slow on the uptake.
Harold Gilles was knighted for his accomplishment as well he should have been, but it wouldn't have moved so smoothly forward without his having a nearly unlimited supply of chopped-up kids to practice on.
Thanks, Warmongers.

The London Matchgirl's Strike of 1888. Another chapter in the history of the 99%

2011-11-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

Has anyone other than me noticed that matches (You know - They're like a lighter but biodegradable) these days are steaming chunks of shit?
And, you can't even find the good ones, the "strike anywhere", kitchen matches anymore. That's what matches were when I was growing up.
The other bitchen' thing about them was that they could be gun-decked into primers.
A Cormac McCarthy book, "The Orchard Keeper" has a character recollecting firing a percussion shotgun with a match-head inside a cottonseed hull for a cap.
It would work. I've put them on my vise, hit them with a hammer and they make a bang.
But alas, we're leaving behind all the things that were, not only cool but, essential to "livin' large" in the world.
All nostalgia aside: As counterproductive as they are, I love Bic lighters. Other brands are shit - as are the tiny Bic's.
I use the things several times a day - and I don't smoke. I'm always lighting something on fire so this is important to me.
I always buy any color but black since the black ones always disappear into the clutter on the work bench and I always pry off the stupid little "child-proofing" strip.
But in the realm of lighters, no one can dispute the absolute coolness of the classic Zippo. There's something I love about this pocket-sized thing that needs to be "gassed-up".
Coolness aside, gotta give 'em a miss. I'm a busy man.
But this is about matches - and not the ones nowadays where trees in the forest and chemicals in the warehouse are magically transformed into shitty matches without ever being touched by human hands.
This is about the time when human hands were a very large part of the process.
Now, if any libertarians - or other fools who think that regulation in manufacturing is silly - happen to be reading this, go and ask your Mommy if you can stay up just a little bit longer. Tell her it will be educational.
Bryant and May were a concern which organized, in the 1840's in London, for the purpose of marketing Swedish matches.
They later took possession of of a factory in Bow, London that, prior to their acquisition, had made such disparate products as candles, crinoline and rope (?).
To B&M's credit (and ignoring the unfortunate acronym their initials make) the firm began with the idea of making nothing but "safety matches". That is: strike-on-the-box matches.
This altruistic move wasn't because they hated the idea of someone making impact, ignition devices from their products. I'm sure that had never occurred to them.
It was because safety matches were made with, relatively safe, red phosphorus.
But, red phosphorus is expensive and... what if the strip on the box wears out?
So, the invisible hand told them to also manufacture the "strike anywhere" variety.
So, here's the problem: These matches required white phosphorus.
Okay, this is nasty shit. Funny thing though; it can be converted to red phosphorus by simply heating it to a bit less than 500 Fahrenheit.
Then it can be converted back by heating it about forty degrees or so past that temperature. I don't get it. I'm not a chemist.
Of course, it's also the fabled "Willie Pete" of all the Garritrooper's war stories.
I was never supposed to call it that. As a 13F I had to be disciplined on the radio.
Many a mission at Yakima Firing Center or Gowen Field, Idaho included, as its conclusion: "Whiskey Papa and HE in effect" (The classic "shake-and-bake" I have no idea why "high explosive" managed to dodge the phonetic alphabet bullet but, so it goes).
Now, this horrible shit, mixed with... some other stuff, was heated in a large pan (Large as in: Over a thousand people worked here - not all in this one spot but that's how big an outfit B&M was) which the girls (They tended to be female but some were older and some - like the fella pictured - were also guys) dipped the ends of little wooden sticks - for twelve to sixteen hours a day.
So, beside this warmed-up tub of toxic horror was where these folks spent their workday. The phosphorus fumes being breathed in regularly - and also, said fumes permeated their clothing and worst of all - their lunches.

No separate place to eat or store what they'd brought from home was provided so they sat in the same place they worked while munching down on their contaminated food.
But this wasn't even the main complaint. The company also issued fines for things like: going to the bathroom too often or dropping something on the floor or not kissing the appropriate ass.
The strike began around July, 2 when management, reacting to an article on "White Slavery in London", written by Annie Besant, circulated a letter contradicting the article for the workers to sign.
One girl didn't and so - on another pretext, she was canned.
The first day some 1400 women and girls walked off the job. Management offered to reinstate the girl but the strikers weren't having it.
They dragooned Annie Besant into helping them and it went from there.
After the London Trades Council became involved and a Member of Parliament spoke of it on the floor, the company caved two weeks later.
The system of fines was eliminated and complaints could be taken directly to management and... they got a lunchroom.
Back to Willie Peter: Apparently, phosphorus goes to the bone when ingested and the jaw bone is somehow (something about continuous growth... I'm not a doctor, Dammit, Jim!) the place where the chickens come to roost.
"Phossy Jaw" (Don't abused workers come up with the cutest names for things!) was the result.
It might take several years to develop but, when the symptoms became noticeable and noticeable they were, you had less than two years to live without treatment.
And said treatment was no day at the beach.
Symptoms: Swelling, toothache (You're shittin' me!), tooth loss, headaches, chunks of the jawbone working out through the gums as the jaw slowly deteriorated.
Bad as all that is, the icing on the cake was... the draining ulcers that showed up outside, on the jaw-line; the fluid so drained being described as "foul smelling".
So, you could obviously count on lots of company during your convalescence.
It did have its upside though: The affected bone (while slowly disintegrating) would glow with a greenish - white light in the dark.
Is that cool or what?!?!
Great ice-breaker at parties! - except you'd stink - and to see it folks would have to overcome retching and look in your mouth.
Probably not the crowd-pleaser I'm imagining.
Folks in the neighborhood where the factory was situated would notice that, of an evening after the girls got off shift, there would be various, fluorescing puddles of barf.
Just to end on an upbeat note, a little medical documentation:

“The patient was a 35-year-old matchmaker who presented with great external swelling and in a debilitated state from inability to take solid food. Extending from ear to ear along the line of the jaw was a chain of ulcerated openings, from which there was profuse discharge and through any of which a probe could reach dead bone. Inside the mouth, the toothless alveolar process was seen bared of soft parts in its whole extent, the bone being rough and brownish-black. The gum gaped widely away from the dead jaw and had receded so as to leave it above the natural level of that bone, a probe could be passed easily either in front or behind the bone toward the sinuses of the neck. Under chloroform, the jaw was removed by dividing it at the symphysis and dragging the two halves out separately.”

Short version: She just lost her entire lower jaw. No corn-on-the-cob for her.
But, everyone learned from the experience.
Finland banned white-phosphorus based matches in 1872; Denmark in 1874; Sweden in 1879; Switzerland in 1881 and the Netherlands in 1901.
An agreement, the Berne Convention, was reached at Bern, Switzerland, in 1906 to prohibit the use of white phosphorus in matches.
Great Britain passed a law in 1908 prohibiting its use in matches after 31 December 1910.
The United States did not pass a law, but instead placed a "punitive tax" on white phosphorus-based matches, one so high as to render their manufacture financially impractical, in 1913.
Gee, twenty-five years after the fact. Innit that nice of them?
But, we weren't just sitting on our hands.
In 1910 Diamond Match (The flagship of modern day, shitty match manufacturing) discovered a way to make non-toxic matches. About fucking time.
In a serious break from the way our modern-day Republicans think, Big Bill Taft asked Diamond to release their patent "...for the good of mankind."
They did so.
Corporations used to behave like citizens.

Unrelated: Just want to clarify my problem with Mr. Correia; and this goes right to the heart of Larry's lack of service being a disqualifying factor in many case.
Okay, in defending the latest mouth-breather, leading in the anybody-but-Romney sweepstakes, he states:

"Uh, part of Cain's job at the Navy was related to Chinese nuclear weapons... I'm fairly certain he knows they have nukes."
(Scroll down for the stupid)

Larry, Larry, Larry... nukes are strategic. The stuff Herman did (Impressive as I'm sure it was) was tactical.
Besides, he was a civilian employee using his mathematical skills dealing with fire-control systems for Naval gunnery and ballistics.
I don't think he bumped heads with the strategic I-wonder-if-China's-nukes-pose-a-threat-? crowd at all.
It isn't like the Department of the Navy has one big lunchroom.
Jesus, Larry... pull your head out.

Wilfred Owen. RIP

2011-11-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've been away a while; and for no good reason.
But, here are the "sub-optimal" reasons: got sick of adjusting clutch set-up and pit-man arm length on the power hammer and, so converted it into a treadle hammer.
It's way green - and I now can triumph in our, much anticipated, and certainly overdue, societal collapse.
And the city told us we had to chop back our blackberries (My defensive perimeter!). That killed three days - but, alas no blackberries. They're immortal.
Unlike our friend here; one Wilfred Owen.
Dead at the age of twenty-five, on this date, ninety-three years ago.
One week before the armistice.
He was of solid, middle-class stock, not an aristocrat but many feel him to be the most important of the Great War poets.
Wilfred's got his moments, no doubt. It just would have been nice to see where he would have ended up had he the time to fully process the advice of Siegfried Sassoon, my guy.
Sassoon gave him input while they were together at Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh, the nut ward.
Anyway, Wilfred's signature piece - at least the one that led me to him - is:

"Anthem for Doomed Youth"

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, —
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

One more from the ... Deathday boy:
Another of those that put him on the map - and which puts paid to the idiotic notion that it is glorious to die for one's country:

Dulce et decorum est:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Bit of a downer, innit?
Let's have some from another of the Great War, gay (Of course you knew that... Owen was gay!) poets, Edmund Blunden:
Ed, unlike Owen, did come from the upper-crust but this was back when rich people were worth pissing on should one find such a person blazing (My fantasy... I confess).
This is my favorite of Ed's stuff. It has a vague reference to the tunneler's war in the final two lines.

Concert Party: Busseboom

The stage was set, the house was packed,
The famous troop began;
Our laughter thundered, act by act;
Time light as sunbeams ran.

Dance sprang and spun and neared and fled,
Jest chirped at gayest pitch,
Rhythm dazzled, action sped
Most comically rich.

With generals and lame privates both
Such charms worked wonders, till
The show was over – lagging loth
We faced the sunset chill;

And standing on the sandy way,
With the cracked church peering past,
We heard another matinée,
We heard the maniac blast

Of barrage south by Saint Eloi,
And the red lights flaming there
Called madness: Come, my bonny boy,
And dance to the latest air.

To this new concert, white we stood;
Cold certainty held our breath;
While men in tunnels below Larch Wood
Were kicking men to death

Well, that didn't lighten the mood much, did it?
Well, must soldier on...
On to another rich guy (That's not like me!).
The aforesaid Siegfried Sassoon.

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Fuck me blue-in-the-face... that last stanza is just like a kick in the balls!
I love it.
Okay, another from the guy who would have been named Brunhilde had he been a girl (Mom was into Wagner):

Atrocities

You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
How once you butchered prisoners. That was good!
I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.

How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy:
You know I love to hear how Germans die,
Downstairs in dug-outs. 'Camerad!' they cry;
Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.

And you? I know your record. You went sick
When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick
And lie, you wangled home. And here you are,
Still talking big and boozing in a bar

I think Allen West needs that on a plaque.
Okay, one more from old Siggy:
One of my faves...

To the Warmongers

I’m back again from hell
With loathsome thoughts to sell;
Secrets of death to tell;
And horrors from the abyss.
Young faces bleared with blood,
Sucked down into the mud,
You shall hear things like this,
Till the tormented slain
Crawl round and once again,
With limbs that twist awry
Moan out their brutish pain,
As the fighters pass them by.
For you our battles shine
With triumph half-divine;
And the glory of the dead
Kindles in each proud eye.
But a curse is on my head,
That shall not be unsaid,
And the wounds in my heart are red,
For I have watched them die.

Okay, so far the Brits have ruled the day but - just to keep things even ... there's a Yank in the woodpile here as well ...
Alan Seeger... uncle to that Commie shite, Pete Seeger. What...?
What's with the gay, little, waxed mustache and the Adrian helmet for Christ's sake?
Okay, short version: Alan also came from a position of some privledge - and he was stackin' up birthdays (Like Sassoon) but he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and was killed, at the age of thirty-eight, in 1916... before America, the world's savior was even in the war.

I Have a Rendezvous with Death

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Said rendezvous came on the fourth of July, 1916.

Just as a side-bar: Anyone enjoying a romp in the Larry Correia, narcisism realm needs to go here.
I'm at a loss. This is someone who fancies himself a thinker.
He's a joke.

Of "automatic" (self-exracting) revolvers

2011-10-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Back to weapons, finally. And, I'm done with pitching shit at Larry Correia - explained in depth here.
Also, I've been getting lots of hits from Ms Tamara - all coming from my expressions of... "Who cares?" concerning the release of "Atlas Shrugged". Part one has proven its own thesis. The market spoke.
The matter at hand.

Above,the S&W, Schofield #3, AKA "Russian". A very cool gun. I don't know why but I've always loved that spur under the trigger guard.
I've also always been partial to the top-break design mostly because my first pistol was a Harrington and Richardson Sportsman.
Then I inherited the Iver-Johnson, historic wall-hanger, an incredibly well-built little Saturday Night Special for only having cost the equivalent of $110 back in the day. If it wasn't a black powder model and if anyone actually made .32 S&W short, I'd be shooting the hell out of it.
Of course, in the top-breaks, we shan't leave out the Webley. Hi Webley.

But, just like the chicken and the egg, something had to come first.
Pictured next, two Merwin & Hulbert revolvers.
Now, since they were open-top pistols, they took care of the ejection issue in a way similar but different. Instead of pivoting up, the front of the frame, cylinder and barrel slip forward.
You can see the half dovetail just below the cylinder; the barrel was rotated 90 degrees and pulled ahead. A supposed advantage was the the M&H revolvers were quieter due to the smaller cylinder gap.
In the wild, wild west, M&H revolvers were the fourth most popular - behind Colt, S&W and Remington, in that order.
But... back to the S&W at top. This unit, designed with the advice of the Tsar's guys was the first to use the .44 Russian cartridge - which was the first internally-lubricated bullet and the precursor to the .44 Special and, ultimately, Dirty Harry's round, the .44 magnum.
But, before the Russians approached S&W, they'd had some experience with wheel-guns.
They'd been happy and and they wanted lots and lots of them (an "economies of scale" sort of thing).
This was back when the American manufacturing ethic was such that "maybe we didn't make the most gorgeous, finely crafted firearms" but what we did make were solid reliable ones - and butt-loads of them.
Of course, that was before "manufacturing" entities became corporations whose sole product was stockholder dividends while the nut-and-bolts aspects of the work went to the third world.
But that was now, this is then.
Way back, when men were men and sheep were nervous (1870), the Tsar's Imperial Navy purchased the first ever revolvers used by the Russian military: The Galand-Sommerville (That's the maiden name of my maternal Granny - Sommerville not Galand).
For the the Rusky Nav. It's nomenclature: "Gun, revolver, boarding model, 1870".

This pistol also goes by the name of Galand-Perrin - if chambered for the Perrin .44 cartridge, that ugly little spud below and was manufactured in civilian models as well.

Pictured next, a Romanian, military or police, Galand, circa 1878 with the long lever that makes the earlier ones so cool (to me. I'm a cheap date).
The Galand-Sommerville used a short lever, probably handier but not as dramatic.
The long lever, which swung downward, pulling the cylinder and lower frame forward, was, in its locked position, part of the trigger guard.
But said lever, when swung forward, pulled the cylinder ahead so the spent cartridges could be shaken out.
Coolness will have its day.
The Galand "Sportsman" with attached, cumbersome, folding, shoulder stock.
Question: Where, when using this rather large (12mm) pistol as a quasi-rifle, did the left hand rest? The barrel? - Powder burns on the wrist. Nestled snugly around the front of the cylinder and frame? The same only worse. Maybe lose a finger.
I was going to say: great idea but... It's just not. it's dumb.

But, stupid as the "now it's a rifle, now it's a pistol" concept is, the beauty part of this, the upscale "Where's my ass? I guess the butler has it" crowd's version of a sweet design is shown above.
The extractor plate - forerunner of the star-shaped piece of business on the later S&W, H&R and Iver-Johnson - that holds the base of the cartridge so it can fall free instead of being stuck with carbon to the inside if the chamber.
This outfit, Galand, didn't cry just 'cause S&W got the big contracts. They still innovated.
Above, an early "Tue-Tue" which means, supposedly "kill, kill". Help me out, Kevin.

Lastly - and the name of this is easy to figure out - the Velo-Dog (Velocipede/dog), marketed as a cyclist's line-of-defense against aggressive canines. An earlier, simpler time...
In closing, if you ever want to see enough Belgian guns accompanied by hilariously translated copy, just go here.

A bit o' drama... (Updated)

2011-10-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, yes, yes... A psychotic, fuckface, NYPD, coward Occifer just ran over someone with his bike.
He ran over the guy's leg with his front wheel first - then carefully parked on top it with his rear wheel (Broken leg and an arrest - in the ER!!!).
These idiots really don't have a clue as to how to avoid an insurrection.
NYPD - see "The Troubles", Northern Ireland. What you're doing won't work.
The stupid sites go on and on about how stinky, lazy hippies could never pose a threat to the doughty Fat Guys in Cammo.
I wouldn't bet the ranch on that, Dumbass.
Anyway, in the midst of the ongoing crumbling of our social contract, another group has emerged. Arithmetic seems to be tough for them (seeing as; 53 < 99) but they're quite adamant in their willingness to stay bent over to take it in the ass some more.
Find the humor here.
I describe the mindset thus: "I put together my shitty life all on my own even though there are people (?), who wipe their ass with my annual salary, they deserve everything they've got 'cause they earned it... the hard way... by living through another year to watch that carried interest roll over. It doesn't just fall in your lap, you know!"
Humor abounds with these smug, little shites.
Notice, the guy who penned the missive above. The accomplishments required to reach this point notwithstanding... he's is still in school!
Write when (and if) 'ya get work. 'Till then, shut the fuck up! Oh and - although I would never presume to lecture an "almost" college grad - you should know... 53% is less than 99% so... you're there by default. Suck it up, college boy.
Dim bulb inspired a response - from someone with the creds that our boy is still awaiting.
See that next.
I love the way he takes Mr. Bootstrap's arguments apart piece by piece.
And, just to illustrate that some people actually need others to tell them to come in out of the rain:

Oh, and it's a red-letter day for the science primitives as well.
Remember those neutrinos that may or may not be exceeding the speed limit... Well, everything's up in air now. innit?

Sorry, Kevin but this is exciting. Storming the Bastille is coming... Reign of Terror... all the good stuff.
Weapon post tomorrow... Scout's Honor.
I was never a scout. Ha!

Update:
It gets better. Apparently at least one entry is bogus; this guy.

Here he is, with that strangely flat sheet of graph paper. How can he be holding it like that?
Well, someone over at the evil Daily Kos wondered about these things and subsequently did some research.
Meet Adewale T. Akande. This gentleman lives in Spain where he writes for the blog, Nigerians in America.

If one of these "submissions" is so obviously fake, it throws suspicion onto the whole silly enterprise, doesn't it?
Way to maintain credibility, idiots.

Death on a stick

2011-10-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

You'll recall, if you have any attention span remaining, that we discussed grenades previously.
It was apparent that many - many of the "designs" pressed into service triggered every one's "You could put some body's eye out!" response - as illustrated by the field-expedient, "hairbrush" or "racket" grenades pictured next.
As ball-shrinkingly sketchy as those appear to be (are), they're far safer than what we're going to talk about next

That would be the grenades pictured at the top.
Actually, those pictured are the Number 2 model which, in comparison with the preceding, No 1, Mk I percussion grenade, was a seriously big chunk of Number 2 (Picture from Tommy's Pack Fillers, an outfit that makes replicas for museum dioramas and such. Look them up if you want an authentic period label for your can of bully beef).
The schematic to the left shows the No 1.
It consists primarily of a brass cylinder, filled with explosive with a detonator (installed as late as possible) with a cap covering said detonator, held in place by a safety pin.
So, to arm, one must remove the pin and then the cap, insert the detonator, then replace the cap and pin.
To deploy, remove the pin and give it a toss at the bad guys.
Now, if I may, a brief digression: These were developed, pre-war by the Royal Laboratories based on grenades used by the Japanese during their scuffle with Russia.
The original intent was that these would be utilized solely by engineers who were familiar with explosives, and only to a limited degree in taking out strong-points and the like.
Surprise! In this new war of living in a ditch; everyplace is a strong-point.
This was brought up in our previous bit re grenades and recently when we talked about the "running about with their collective dick in their hand" trying to resurrect the antiquated concept of mortars.
So, in all fairness, these were never intended to be used by Pvt. Idiot on a day-to-day basis, from a hole in the ground.
Back to the design. The business end is encircled by a segmented, cast-iron fragmentation ring and the whole unit is mounted on a... wait for it... sixteen-inch handle, with attached streamers to ensure it landed on its head - unlike its designer's mishap as an infant.
I'm not going to draw you a picture. Throwing a 22" weighted stick - that happens to kill you if it hits something like... the back of the trench maybe; bad idea.
Just to illustrate that not all idiots are Privates, Robert Graves reported an incident where a contingent of the Royal Irish Rifles were to receive some instruction on the technique of "bombing".
Prior to class convening, a sergeant in the class thought he could provide a little "pre-lesson" knowledge.
He picked up a No 1 from some displayed on a table and said: "Now, lads, you've got to be careful here! Remember that if you touch anything while you're swinging this chap, it'll go off."
Concluding his little, vest-pocket speech he banged the grenade on the edge of the table to emphasize his point.
I'm sure the point was driven home to all. It detonated killing the Sgt. (He would have died of stupidity anyway), the man next to him and wounding twelve others.
Now that's an effective teacher!
Given the glaringly obvious faults with this concept, the Brits doubled-down and produced the (appropriately titled "No 2") which had a shorter handle (top photo - that's a shorter handle) and a different, more sensitive detonator.

The primary issue being available detonators more R&D went toward a design that could mate the more available detonators used in mining to the tactical explosive.
This is why the down-and-dirty carried the day for a few years.
The bright sparks would not let a sleeping dog lie. A few "patent" designs that never saw production further explored the just-throw-it-and-it-blows-up vision.
Next, the patent drawing for the design of one H. Siegwart.
In it's fusing system, a ball is held captive by a rod protruding into it. The external sleeve on the bit of business at the top, held in place by a wire wrapping, is pushed down which retracts the rod.
Toss this puppy and the ball, now a free agent in its little chamber impacts the detonator. Boom.
Next, the "Billinghurst safety, patent percussion grenade" with "the all ways fuse".
This one also used a weighted ball, held in place with a safety device prior to arming.
Upon impact, the ball would depress the plunger on which it sits and, again, Boom.
The fuse was called the "all ways fuse" because it would detonate no matter how the grenade landed - or not.
In conclusion, a far more elegant solution to the "all-ways" problem.
This thing is, graphically, a marvel. James Buckingham's percussion ball grenade differs from all thus far.
First of all, the detonating system is off-center so it would be efective no matter how it landed.
To explain; you can see a plunger, with a spring and a pointy end aimed at what must be the detonator (duh).
The plunger is held, in tension, against the spring by a narrow, and seemingly brittle stem (glass?).
The stem is encased in a weight which, upon impact, breaks the stem sending the plunger... and you know how it ends.
I like this thing.

Disgust Alert!

2011-10-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Ah well. The past few days have been fun - especially the Larry component although I'm disappointed that the big man himself never came over here.
He's done so in the past, to thump his manly chest of course. What's more he always commented under his real name - which I felt, and still feel, is admirable.
But, he can't be bothered this time I guess. I left him my parting shot last night and won't go back to read what he comes up with in response 'cause it'll just be stupid and this way, I get the last word.
I'll go over in a few and poke him some more.
But thinking on old Larry and his faithful acolytes, I began to ponder the poignant reality that all of God's creatures, from the soaring, turkey-vulture to the most loathsome freshman, Republican representative, all have their place in the grand scheme.
I am going to tie this to the actual raison d'etre of this blog (About fucking time!) by showing how a particularly disgusting - even compared to Allen West (Evil/FL) - organism can be majorly beneficial.
Okay, the drawing at the top, done sometime in the '20's by the brilliant Otto Dix, offers a clear illustration, if a bit stylized and understated, of the little fella we're discussing, at work.
That would be the larvae of the blue-bottle fly who's less than PR friendly nickname is of course: "maggots".
The little guys picking the brain of Dix's subject appear to have nearly finished their task simply because there are so few of them. The pantry is bare so to speak.
However, during the previous few days there were probably hundreds of them helpfully disposing of the squishy, rotten bits of this poor SOB's melon. Had they not done so, this little lump of unpleasantness would have remained unpleasant for a far longer time.
They're the first line of offense in the clean-up crew that takes care of all that nasty organic stuff we tend to leave around - particularly during times of conflict, like the possums vs cars dynamic. They are nasty little buggers but their only downside, realistically, is that they grow into flies. But frogs, bats and spiders gotta eat something - and the medical profession will always need maggots.
Look to the left to see them when the entire crew is on-shift.
Looks like the trading floor on the Chicago Commodities Exchange doesn't it?
A little bit?
In reality this is some homeless gentleman who didn't happen to buy insurance to cover leg infection - or any insurance at all.
This is an example of what would shame and actual cognizant nation.
Alas though, we're talking about the US, "the best health-care on earth" - if you can afford it and don't need it.
I refuse to believe there's anyone walking around Stockholm with white-rice look-alike's falling out of his pants.
But all is not lost for our anonymous friend pictured because all those little traders - I'm sorry, Maggots are helping him out.
I'd bet he pulled through and may have even gotten to keep his leg thanks to our under-appreciated, squirmy little friends.
First, a rabbit trail: When I was a kid I read and reread a book called "Lord Grizzly", the factual account of Hugh Glass a guy who's got chunks of guys like Larry Corriea in his shit.

As part of a fur-trapping expedition in 1822, he was mauled by a grizzly with two cubs that he came upon and surprised.
He wasn't expected to survive so two men, one of whom was a young Jim Bridger, were detailed to either stay with 'till he was well enough to travel or until he was dead.
Two or three days passed and they decided that, since they were in hostile territory (Arikaras) and Hugh wasn't doing anything - just laying there, unconscious and all gory, they'd count him as dead (Likely in any case) and catch up with the rest of the party.
Of course, they couldn't leave his knife and rifle because they'd fall into the hands of the "Rees" so when Hugh came to a few days later, he was injured, alone and defenceless, two-hundred miles from "civilization" - Fort Kiowa.

Well, he made it, crawling for the first hundred miles or so.
But - in his travels - remember his torn-open back and mauled leg - he was helped by those cute little guys we've been discussing all along.
And cute? You've never seen so cute; colored, electron microscope scan above.
Ever since the Napoleonic wars and probably earlier military doctors were aware that maggots in a wound was, in general, a good thing.
During the Civil War, when amputations were all the rage, it was noticed that the maggot infected wounds tended to be in much better shape.
The knowledge goes viral - probably not the best term. During The Great War, an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. William S. Baer, noticed something unusual.
A soldier who had suffered a compound fracture of his femur as well as flesh wounds to his abdomen and scrotum (An ugly word. I prefer 'nut-sack') was brought in after laying in no-man's-land for several days.
When he got to the hospital the Doc was surprised that, despite his wounds and days of exposure, he had no fever.
But they cut his clothes off and... you can guess, can't you? "Thousands and thousands of maggots.
But, when the little-corpsmen were removed...
"there was practically no bare bone to be seen and the internal structure of the wounded bone as well as the surrounding parts was entirely covered with most beautiful pink tissue that one could imagine."
And this at a time when 3/4 of compound fractures of the femur were fatal. I think that's a wartime statistic but... it was pre antibiotics.
Dr. Baer took this new knowledge back to Johns-Hopkins after the war and discovered that ugly little shit's saliva contained an antibiotic and that they'd only eat the necrotic tissue (ie; dead) and not the living. That's in some dispute now but it's confirmed they eat all the nasty, stinky stuff first.
Now the sterilized (no idea how they do that) "Medical Maggots" are the unlikely heroes of "bio-debridement".
Not just any maggots will do. The maggot of choice for medical purposes is the blow-fly maggot.
Good for what ails ya'; be it burns, gangrene (wet, dry and gas), MRSA or diabetic ulcers of the foot.
So, next time you walk past a road-kill skunk or whatever, give a shout-out to these tiny, inadvertent, medical workers.

New update from the world of stupid Larry! Wait... is that redundant?

2011-10-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

I spoke ill of the social-skills challenged fellas's last post and may have spoken too soon.
He's posted my comments - including the "Larry, you're a pussy" one!
I'm agog, simply agog. A New York Times (Bear with me. This gets complicated), mass-market paperback... twenty-eighth... in the "also selling" category... author.
Impressive? Very much so.
Anyway, since the large-bald chickenshit decided to finally post my diatribes against him, I endeavored in a clear, openhanded way, to elucidate my points but was sadly rebuffed by both Larry and his well informed followers.
So sad, but, in the hopes of clearing the air, I'm going to link, yet again, to the pathetic douche bag's blog so that you may, as well, soak in the mighty, rather dis-connected wisdom of Mr. Larry.
And, because Larry's readership may get antsy what with all this reading and all, how 'bout a movie!
Yay!!! Okay, the first part is that scary, black guy. Just hide your eyes and wait for the voice of... I can't tell you who! It's too exciting!

Boy-Fucking-Howdy! Welcome to the fight.

2011-10-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

.
.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

John Steinbeck

That's pretty much the mindset (mindset! As if) shared by the FGC faction - Fat Guys in Cammo (Guts, not the courageous kind. I mean the kind that hangs over your belt buckle), Guns and Goatees.
Photo to the left ("Eeeek! I've seen better heads on boils!" Pee-Wee Herman): one Deputy-Inspector Anthony Bologna, a guy who, really should have thought about changing his name before breaking new ground in the abusive-cop-power-mad-asshole-on-film field.
Tony Baloney! Could ya' die' ?
Officer Lunchmeat has been quite a public figure ever since his romp through the crowds of protesters on Wall St. last Saturday.

This is the more charitable of the several vids of Chickenshit Dickweed. Earlier he pepper-sprayed a group of five, unarmed and completely non-threatening, young women. They had already been penned in by the blueshirts with some orange, plastic, barrier fabric. Blueshirts who, I might add, were acting professionally and not abusive in the least.
Deputy Inspector "My-dick,-such-as-is-it-is,-can-be-contained-in-a-handy-spray-can" marches up, hoses down everyone, peripherally including the cops on the barricade, before running off to make mischief elsewhere. What a scamp!

These would be the Occupy Wall Street protests which have been largely ignored by the liberal-biased media. You know, those libtard sell-outs who cover anything that the special-needs field trip known as The Tea Party happens to bumble through.
These "dirty hippies", as they're often described, are supported by the AFL-CIO, the New York Transit Union, Airline pilots, the Laborers Union, the Teamsters, United Steelworkers and... wait for it. the IWW (See black cat to the left).
There are similar rebellions against the stupid going on all over the country/world as more and more people wake up to the fact that the organisms in the Billionaire Boy's Club are not their friends.
Sadly, the George Hills and Muscular Minarchists out there are still exemplified in the Steinbeck quote at top.
Offered by way of "Know thine enemy": from the early days of the protests - some of these primitive life-forms watching from their habitat above the fray.

Boy, the things ya' see when ya' ain't got a gun.
The Marines are on their way as well.

Semper Fi, Do or die.

In closing, if anyone would like to discuss this with Deputy-Inspector Pimento Loaf, Anonymous has thoughtfully hacked his workplace and possible phone number:
Anthony Bologna
NYPD Deputy Inspector
Patrol Borough Manhattan South - 212-477-6181

-Possible phone number: (518) 989-9051

If I was this asshole, I'd start checking under my car every morning.
Or I'd "eat my piece" (My preference for Tony).

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Added later since I just commented on the blog of one hack author Larry Corriea.
I was thorough, concise, provided source material for my assertions but... the big fella spurned me.
Seeing he wasn't going to post it, I followed up with a friendly admonition regarding willingness to engage in debate.
In it I was even more to the point. I believe my exact words were: "You're a pussy, Larry".
Anyway, just for you Mr. Lovable-Big-Lug, ya big ole fuckin' teddy bear, a photo:

That could have been you... oh,but... you were weighed in the balance and found wanting weren't you?
Wonder how your politics would have shaken out had you stopped some ordnance in that capacity.
But snap out of it! Turn that frown upside-down. How about some tunes to cheer you up.
Now, this was recorded in '82 when you were still shitting your pants and your older buddy Fatogre was in middle-school so, it's kinda' dated.
"Career Opportunities" The Clash.

Quad-ro-mania

2011-09-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

We haven't had a truck post in a while so ...
You'll recall the British affection for the FWD, Model B during the Great War, well the American forces, who used the FWD as well, were also enamored of the Nash Quad.
This unit, along with its sister-ship the FWD, hail from the great state of Wisconsin which, although its politicians seem to be sub-human, had/has heavy manufacturing down cold.
FWD in Clintonville, Nash in Kenosha.
We mentioned Nash in passing back here when we were discussing the giant hash that corporate-think George Romney (Little Milton's Dad) made of some of the makers of America's truly great vehicles.
To begin, who with a pulse can resist the Nash Metro?

Bitchin' fuel economy - before it was fashionable, a uni-body construction and body styling with input from Pininfarina of Italy.
Gone the way of the albatross. Tell your Dad 'thanks' Mittens.
The overwhelming mediocrity of AM General is far more profitable than actual, quality products albeit lacking a guaranteed buyer.
Back to Nash - or Nash Kelvinator as they came to be known: Nash Motors came into being in 1917. In so doing the firm inherited quite another product from the cars that the company seemed to be poised to produce.
That would be the Jeffery Quad, product of the The Thomas B. Jeffrey Company.
They manufactured a number of very popular bicycles and branched in automobiles soon after the turn of the century.
One of their bicycle lines - as well as some of their autos - were called "Ramblers".
Sound familiar?

1958 Rambler sedan. Sweet.
Anyway, between these two points, bicycles and archaic 4X4's and that sweet white-over-pink Rambler, there was also Nash-Kelvinator's contribution to the war effort in WW2 to consider.

A bit of a stretch because the copy never really says "made by Nash-Kelvinator" and, as I recall, it was Sperry Corporation that built the actual ball-turrets.
But, N-K was in there battin', not sitting on their corporate asses but - that was true of all manufacturing at the time 'cause... that's how you fight a war. You don't just "Go shopping".
I digress; what we're discussing is the Nash Quad or - the Jeffery Quad.
In 1913 the U.S.Army was looking for something to replace mules. Something that wouldn't kick or bite and still need feeding even when not being used.
At the time, in general, the military made a poor customer; slow to make up its mind and stingy when it came to paying the bill.
But, even though the Quad came with a price tag north of two-grand while a conventional 3-ton truck could be had for $900, the Army was smitten.
The Army ordered Quads and Jeffrey, unable to keep up with demand, sold out to Nash.
By wars end some 30-40 thousand Quads had been produced by Jeffrey and Nash - 11,000 in 1918 alone.
During the course of the war, the Nash Company produced more trucks than cars and by the close of hostilities was the largest truck producer in the world.
Alas, Nash was never really in the truck business so Nash automobiles became the focus while FWD solidified its position in the off-road, truck market.
But, the Quad was way cool. First of all, four-wheel-drive (duh) but also four-wheel brakes and four-wheel steering.
That last, cool though it may be, since the turning radius is around twenty-eight feet, is probably not a big issue.

But, coolness must take pride of place. Behold, the left-front wheel and axle of a Nash Quad.
Notice, the axle is solid - as is the rear axle. The differential, of an early, limited-slip variety, was bolted to the top of same while two half-axles carry the power to the wheels.
Before I go on, take note of the cooling fins on the oil-pan.
Okay, these half-shafts transmitted their power to the hub where, after a series of universal joints get them around the corners, a spur gear engaged an internal ring-gear mounted on the inboard of the hub - visible as the deep brake-drum in the pic above.
This kept all the delicate bits, the differential and universal joints up, either out of harm's way or shielded.
Now, my concern would be that ring-gear and its mating spur - down there in the mud...
These guys don't seem to be sweating it.

Oh My Fucking Christ...

2011-09-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

Homeboy... .301?
Ladies and gentlemen, a wonderful exhibition of the patience and professionalism of the Gallatin County sheriff's department - and - what Ron Paul's supporters really look like.

You did a great job, buddy.
FIGHT THE POWER!!!

Q: What do you say to a libertarian you meet at the zoo?

A: Don't cry honey. I'll help you find your Mommy.

PS: Gallatin County, called the Gallatin Gateway due to its tendency to follow the Gallatin River (One of three - along with the Madison and the Jefferson - that come together at Three Forks (Why did they call it that?) to form the Missouri) is where "A River Runs Through It" was filmed. The Big Blackfoot of the book had already been logged enough to be rendered unrecognizable.
Anyway, I say again:
WAY TO GO, HOMIE! YOU STUPID SON-OF-A-BITCH.

Po' Folks Got Po' Ways

2011-09-11T11:02:00.001-07:00

Okay. last minute update:
Check out my sweet-bear's blog...
This is my daughter, Betsy, puttin'; it out there (Fifth Grade).
If you've got kids, clue 'em up.
Check it out. The last, ring-of-fire, jumping squirrel... It kicks ass

First of all: today is the tenth anniversary of the national scab that we just can't stop picking at - so I'm not going to address that at all. Well, I will for a very brief bit.
If you lost someone there, I'm very sorry and am in no way trying to trivialize your grief but, for all you folks out in bum-fuck, Utah: it was ten years ago. Get over it!
It's like a national case of PTSD.
Let's try to look beyond the visible evidence of our mortality for a second.
First of all, since we have two presidential contenders who subscribe to this faith, let's not forget the other 9/11. The one in 1857 known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
I think something on that subject would a good question to throw at Romney and Huntsman next debate. Hell, bust Harry Reid on it too.
And Herman Cain. Fuck-oh-dear. Again throwing rocks at the short bus. Here's his "tribute" (AKA campaign video - and he did the vocals - in one take):
You'll find it in all its self-congratulatory splendor here.
Unlike Herman, I tend to think of things on the time line in relation to past and further past. For instance, my 1962 pickup - which I love dearly is almost fifty. A vehicle built fifty years prior to it was made in 1912.
See how it works. Ten years before 9/11, Godfather's Pizza was actually good pizza - very good pizza.

Okay, enough grabass.
A while back we explored the issue of infantry rifles, cut-down to "pistol size" Long ass pistols.

Now, those sawed-off SMLE's exist in abundance and, while some were undoubtedly used by the tunnelers given the shortage of pistols, most had a far more mundane function.
Initially the 2" mortar (AKA "The Toffee Apple") used a standard friction igniter. I suspect that, given the nasty back flash and recoil, this was soon amended to a shortened Enfield rifle attached to the tube, chambering a special, blank round and fired by means of a lanyard.
Not nearly as sexy but apparently effective up 'till 1916ish when the Stokes mortar became the standard.
But...but... WTF? Are there no cut-off rifles at all?
It's okay, honey. Our old friends, the Russians have rushed unto the breach.

Meet the "obrez".
I just acquired one of these rifles (not an obrez - a Mosin Nagant, 91/30) and am having a hard time keeping it and my jungle carbine from getting into cat-fights.
I dearly love my Enfield but, well... she's expensive to feed - and kicks like a mule.
To give mad props to my first love though:
"Gunny's" an idiot.
A: He got his ass kicked bolt-action vs bolt-action.
B. If the Brit had known the proper way to rapid fire, he'd have kicked his ass when he used the Garand as well (Gunny doesn't seem to be that good of a shot).
C. And THIS is the biggie, 30.06 did not "win" WW2.
We'll hold off on revealing that until we explore the dumbass - Gunny's - my bad - statement that the 30.06 round was the longest serving round that he can imagine.
Your imagination sucks ass there, Ron. The longest serving rifle round (120 years and counting) is that stone-age, archaic 7.62X54R which - incidentally - also won WW2.
Back to the obrez. These were made/modified by various factions during the Russian civil war.
In a long conflict where many participants were conscripted peasants and guerrilla fighters - and peasants wanting to not be conscripted and so, were willing to fight against it - this thing was perfect.
Genuine pistols were in short supply and the standard rifle was impossible to conceal so, being that there were tons of them around, the rifles could be easily cut-down as a do-it-yourself project.
Every firearm forum I've read about these on has a large group of hand-wringers who can't leave alone the uselessness and illegality of the thing. Of course it's got no accuracy - not everything has to be practical.
Speculation regarding horrific recoil abound as well on which this video may shed some light.
Apparently he was firing Czech surplus ammo. The barrel is so short that not all of the powder is consumed leading to a massive fireball and manageable recoil, but at the expense of muzzle velocity.
The pearl-clutching regarding legality cracks me up as well. If you were to actually fuck up a perfectly good rifle to make yourself one of these - legally - it would require paperwork and a fee of $200 - and the ATF folks would have you on their radar. And would you actually plan to take it to the range, your local gun shop? Would you think of carrying it in your car? I would hope not.
Myself, if I was going to do something so outside the law, I'd prefer to keep the government out of it.
Neither here nor there. I have no intention of ruining my present MN nor buying another to ruin. I just like these as the make-do artifacts that they are.
Really, the true beauty of this thing is the complete freedom to accommodate any skill level.
So now we'll enjoy looking at some examples so the wide range of possibilities can be appreciated.

This next one; ten minutes in the basement with a hacksaw and you're golden.

Or you can go all anal-retentive on it.

These I love. Wood - or not?

Saving the best for last. Little Ivan's junior-high, wood shop project.

The guy on the left looks to be high. Poor trigger discipline too.
Thus concludes our journey through the wonders of the obrez.
But, in closing one thing must be said.

This is not what we're talking about.

This is more than a ruined Mosin Nagant.
This is a cry for help.
Please give generously so we can defeat tacticool derangement syndrome in our lifetime.

Happy Labor Day - and A Happy Birthday!

2011-09-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

No, yesterday was not Labor Day. It was the stupid let's-pretend-Washington-and-Lincoln were-born-on-the-same-day-and-that-it-was-always-a-Monday-or-a-Friday version of labor Day.
Ah, that great cornerstone of democracy, the three-day weekend.
Yesterday was a birthday as well. Freddie Mercury would have turned sixty-five.
That's not who we're talking about though.
The birthday girl in question, nine years and 364 days older than the late Freddie - and still with us, is the Yaquina Bay bridge in Newport, Oregon.
Dedicated seventy-five years ago today, it is the second-longest of the astonishing twenty-two bridges built by Conde McCullough between 1927 and 1936.
With its siblings it allowed traffic along the coast for the first time between Washington and California along Oregon 101.
The best part: It was a WPA project - built with Federal dollars - stimulus dollars if you will.
With that in mind, you'll have to acknowledge that none of the guys pictured at the left, hanging steel 135 feet above Yaquina Bay, was actually holding down a real job at the time because - of course - only the private sector can provide those.
So, even though these poor, deluded, nanny-state schmucks may have thought they were building the second longest bridge in Oregon, in fact they were building for themselves and their descendants a culture of dependency.
So, what is the ultimate outcome of this corrosive practice of simply allowing the bloated, Federal government to hand out such free-rides as the opportunity to risk life and limb building something the country actually needed?
It is a huge inventory of big, high-maintenance white elephants constantly in need of repair.
Really, had we counted the cost, would it really have been worth it to build, Fort Peck dam, Grand Coulee dam, Hoover dam (at least they named it after the right guy) and the Going to the Sun Highway, just to name a few.
Seriously, who needs to drive over Logan Pass?
Hell, if the mountain goats could just scrape together the airfare, they'd go to Palm Springs.

Then there's all those other roads, buildings and such that, had they actually been needed, could have/would have been done by the private sector, the guys who are really looking out for you - and not just your well-being - your character as well.
Okay, winding down the raving, here's a shot of that giant boondoggle in her younger days. That street in Newport still looks very much the same except all the buildings are filled with "brew pubs", restaurants and touristy boutiques.
You can stand on the left side and watch the charter boats come in in the afternoon. When they arrive, the more helpless of the passengers have their catch filleted by the crew who are quite something to see. Two slabs of bone-free salmon and a spine with a tail - in less than twenty seconds.
So, my warning: Don't fall victim to this whining about our "crumbing infrastructure".
Sure maybe a bridge will fall down here and there. Ultimately we'll reach an equilibrium where the bridges that are actually required (by the right sort of people) can be propped up - providing it can be made profitable - and all the other ones can be creatively recycled by the little people. They tend to be very inventive if not coddled to much.
Now, in closing (almost), I'll explain the photo at the very top.
That was provided in case someone may want to steal the identity of the man pictured above.
Taken by the brilliant Dorothea Lange in Oregon, August, 1939, it depicts an out-of-work lumber worker (logger, millworker. It's not clear) and his wife in a camp for bean-field workers.
I want to say Klamath Falls or Coos Bay but I can't find the book with the caption saying which.
Incidentally, despite the famous topsoil of the Willamette valley, apparently the only crops that grow exceptionally well here are beans (No flies on that. High fiber, protein and they fix nitrogen in the soil) and grass seed.
Guess which one they grow now?
Anyway, check this guy out. Nice hair, recent shave - with a Boston Blackie mustache - and an air of confident, self-possession that should be the envy of any Grover Norquist, Dickless Cheney... Madogre.
And, he's so at home with his new status as a "subject" of the nanny-state that's he's taken the trouble, expense and (minor) pain to have the evidence of same tattooed on his arm - and I don't think it's 'cause he'd forget it otherwise.
And, his wife is way cute.
Oh, and just so all you taxpayer-patriots can grumble a bit more, her photography was paid for by the government. Another one of the alphabet soup agencies, the FSA.
This agency is responsible for 175,316 photos (at least that's what the Library of Congress made available online) and they're being kept on your dime as well.
Don't that just frost ya'?
So, labor day. Outrageous unemployment and a Republican party that will do something about it (somehow) only when they can get that tanned fella with the funny name out of the White House.
A day when Jimmy Hoffa's son says that the Tea Party idiots need to be taken out (of office but he forgot to say that) and the aforesaid idiots view this as a direct threat.
Go here for some hilarious chest-beating. Full marks for correct use and spelling of "acquiescence".
In closing, for real this time, this is one Matthew Vadum - he's the one with the big tits, the one in the middle ("Toga-Toga!").
He's one of those clear-thinkers, a "Conservative Pundit" and sort of a putz.
The fat version of Dougie Houser here has put forth an absolutely brilliant thesis on the length, breadth and depth of what he doesn't know about democracy - or how to be a human being.
Read it here.
American Thinker! Could ya die?
I so want to photoshop that masthead into Uncle Sam on the shitter.
Anyway, Lumpy Rutherford here also has a blog - on Blogspot! Homie!
Stop by, give him a listen. Notice that he's affecting a goatee. All the cool guys have them... like... Jonah Goldberg.
Fat Matt's is a little slow filling in but... he's young and might be carrying a bit too much estrogen.

The very last cool people on earth with goatees were Maynard G. Krebs, Burl Ives (Blacklisted as a Communist) and my late Uncle Earl.

More of the cheap, sharp ones...

2011-09-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Okay. Sorry but we've got to do this again...
This is Joe Walsh:

This fuck... well, let's hope he dies or changes his name.
Didj'a know... he owes over a hundred-grand in back child support"

"Job creators". Would that include your ex-wife's attorneys?
I would think they're in a pretty sweet spot right now.

Okay, enough grab-ass. Back to bid-ness.
I was brought up short - and legitimately so - by Andy and Kevin (They play Jiminy Cricket to my Pinnochio) regarding some glaring omissions in my discussion of the down-and-dirty, functional and therefore beautiful, peasant knife (Post immediately preceding).
And, I hasten to add, that faithful reader and commenter, Anonymous, raised another glaring omission.
All things in their season.
Andy mentioned the Douk-Douk, a French equivalent to the Higonakami - although it's a bit higher-tech than the Japanese version.
It's majorly tricked-out. It's got a back-spring and all kinds of uppity stampings... But, essentially, it's a cheap functional knife.
It was intended for the SE Asian market, hence the name.
So, in the interest of marketing, it was designed so that the handle depicts a "douk-douk", or a "Melanesian, spirit incarnation".
I hope that I'm not being insensitive but I can't help thinking of Hugo Ball, the founder of the art movement known as Dada another odd offshoot from the Great War.
Seriously. Check the photo.
Twins separated at birth?

Moving right along, another that faithful Andy slugged me with was the Okapi (Never heard of it).
But, another shank designed to be cheap and easily produced for sale to the third world.
Don't get above your raisin' folks, that's where we're headed.
Anyway, it's got some added complexities but all the elements are there: Blade, handle, pokey goodness.
Another Kevin brought up was yet another that I'd never heard of (I lead a very sheltered existence), the Mercator.
It's a step up the complexity ladder from the Douk-Douk. in that it actually has a locking mechanism.
Still, the handle is the same folded, metal we've come to know and love in the Higonokami and the Douk-Douk.
And here I'd thought Mercator was just that funky world map that made Greenland as big as Africa just so the longitude lines would behave and lay parallel like those obedient lines of latitude.
Keep it simple, stupid.
Okay, Kevin's last contribution and maybe my favorite the erroneously titled New Zealand peasant knife.
Erroneous in that it's based on Bavarian examples from the 15th and 16th centuries but it is made in good old En Zed.
It is, to my addled mind, both-ends-and-the-middle of the shit.
It's got everything. butt-simplicity, reasonably low cost (They are sent from way the fuck down there) and are just a giant fuck you to the Lynn Thompsons of the world.
Woo-Hoo! Sit on it and spin, you pudgy fuck.
Okay, at long last, and unfairly late because he was asking an important question, we address the issue of the Mora blades.
These are knives, made in Sweden since the middle-ages, using a type of laminated steel developed at the time. Steel which, at a far more reasonable price, is identical to the over-priced (and over-rated) San-Mai steels that knife geeks wax orgasmic over.
They do make some stainless crap (isn't that redundant?) but their real knives are a lamination of two layers of mild-steel sandwiching a chunk of UHB 15N20.
Okay, another incomprehensible steel designation.
It's a nice steel, about 75 points of carbon and 2% nickel.
Quote:
"...is a 0.75% carbon Ni alloyed steel and is ideal for the
heavier size range. It has 2% nickel, which assures a
homogenous structure of ﬁne-grained martensite through
the complete cross section."
Sorry folks, this is a valve steel. There are no super-duper knife steels.
They're all industrial steels developed for industry which - sorry - ain't makin' knives.
I bought a Mora knife way back when I was a lad. It was all it claimed to be.
Anonymous, if that really is your name, buy with confidence.

The KISS Concept Revisited

2011-08-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

Meet Otzi, AKA "The Iceman".
I'm afraid that he's not looking his best right now since... well, he was wounded and, struggling to elude his pursuers, climbed up to a pass in the Alps which now is now on the Austro-Italian border.
He was resting in a small hollow, out of the wind, when his luck suddenly took a turn for the worse.
He took an arrow in his back, right near his left shoulder blade.
It nicked an artery and he bled out there in the snow at 10,500' elevation.
5300 years ago.
Sucked to be him.
What's cool though is this: He's the only copper-age body ever found with complete, everyday kit (As opposed to grave-goods, the crap people are buried with).
He had some cool stuff with him: A copper axe, insulated clothing, a pack-frame, a quiver full of arrows and an unfinished yew bow.
But what we're concerned with is his shank.

There it is. A double-edged flint blade driven into an ash handle and tied with sinew. Also please note the sheath, plaited from "bast" which is: The inner bark of the lime tree (No! Not that kind of lime. Limes don't grow that far north. This is the name given to a flavor of alder).
It, along with sheath appears a bit shop-worn because the old fellow was wildly misinterpreted when he was initially discovered.
All sorts of yahoos, including climbing god, Reinhold Messner, thinking Otzi was of more recent vintage were less than careful in hacking him from the ice.
No matter.
A pedantic description of said knife... 'cause I'm lazy:

"The Iceman's knife was only 5 inches long. Its flint blade resembles an arrowhead; it was driven into the wooden handle. Since the handle split when the blade was attached, someone had tied the handle securely together with sinew (or animal tendon). The sheath was woven from lime bast (that is, cords made from the inner bark of a lime tree)."

Okay, we've established ourselves on the time line. All kinds of crusty old stew-burners like to call the knife "man's first tool" when anyone knows the first tool was the hammer. AKA the BFR; the big-fucking-rock.
But I digress. Back to first principles as we are - and to blow more shit at the modern "knife culture" if there is one - we're looking at minimalism.
Otzi, Joe Six-pack of the copper age, carried the above - and was glad to have it, I'm sure.
Which brings us to: The penny knife.
And I don't mean this:

And here I find driving to a building to simply get on a machine where one can simulate walking to be an unproductive use of energy.
It is a cool thing though.
No, what we're talking about is rather the "peasant's knife".
Joe "Tankard 'o Ale's" or Pierre "Mug of le Pinard's" EDC blade - to fall into the stupid jargon now in vogue.
I was clued up to this a few years back by my friend, Kevin (Who will, I hope, forgive my butchering of his language above) who, in his compulsive gift-giving (you could all learn something from Kevin) sent me the two following:
An Opinel #9.

These things are idiotically cheap (not to cast aspersions on Kevin's generosity).
They're the French "If you don't have one you must be paralyzed knife" and the one I have runs fourteen bucks!
And they're knives, useable knives... a sharp bit of (very nice) steel on a comfortable, wooden handle. And the blade fucking locks.
It would be my EDC knife but for my loyalty to the venerable Camillus TL-29 ($12.50).
Next is one that's runs a bit more 'spensive - for reasons that escape me. It is Japanese.

This is the Japanese equivalent, the Higonokami.
This thing makes the Opinel look positively complex. It's a 'friction folder' with no back spring and... other than a handle (folded brass) and a blade, it's nothing but a knife - one with a laminated blade at that. It would clean a fish, sharpen a pencil, trim your fingernails. I'd hesitate to open a can of beans with it. One of the larger Opinels would be better for that.
It was developed in the late 19th century and, up 'till the '60's was considered part of every Japanese student's school supplies.
Apparently there is only one remaining guild member that can sell them as Higonkami. He's seventy years old. If you can read Japanese, you can order direct.
But, as you can see, these are both knives - simple, functional, just like the Iceman's.
Oh wait, gotta address the one issue that the congenitally fearful always raise: You could even defend yourself with them!
All that having been said - ranted - you be the judge; what is the point of buying all these virtually identical "tactical folders" when all they are is a sharp piece of steel with a handle?
Before the (sweaty under) armed schoolteacher gave me up as a bad habit, he spoke lovingly of Spyderco and all their patents.
Last I checked they had eighty-six and they helpfully listed the numbers of same.
Thanks to the wonders of Google, they can be researched.
Some were legitimate "innovations" such as new (although the same in lots of ways) locking systems but others were for blade shapes. Holes in the blades!
I love it. "Know what would be way cool... put a hole in the blade! Bet nobody's ever thought of that before."
Then there's Cold Steel.
First off, the name's a blatant ripoff of John Styers (USMC) book of the same name - available at Amazon here.
Then there's the fantasy alter-ego of one Lynn Thompson, founder.
This would be one, pudgy, overcompensating poser.
Talk to me when you can produce a DD-214, Mr. "Warrior Lifestyle"... fat boy.
So kids, in closing. Keep it simple. A knife is a tool - nothing more. You're every bit as likely to go toe-to-toe with some bad hombre when you're armed with nothing more than a framing hammer... or an umbrella or your own knock-out good looks.
Get over yourselves. You're not going to find yourself in any knife fights and, if you did, you'd find it over almost before it started with one or both of you bleeding and wishing you'd stayed the fuck home.

A Dignified Retirement for ALL our Veterans

2011-08-20T20:09:00.001-07:00

Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn't seem to get to work on time.
Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp-minded and a real credit to the company and obviously demonstrating their "Older Person Friendly" policies.
One day the boss called him into the office for a talk.
"Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang-up job when you finally get here; but your being late so often is quite bothersome."
"Yes, I know boss, and I am working on it."
"Well good, you are a team player. That's what I like to hear."
"Yes sir, I understand your concern and I'll try harder."
Seeming puzzled, the manager went on to comment, "It's odd though your coming in late.
I know you're retired from the Armed Forces. What did they say to you there if you showed up in the morning so late and so often?"
The old man looked down at the floor, then smiled.
He chuckled quietly, then said with a grin, "They usually saluted and said,
"Good morning, Admiral, can I get your coffee, sir?"

To quote Pee wee Herman "I love that story".
Some say it's apocryphal (Read: bullshit) but the great arbiter of internet bullshit, Snopes has yet to repudiate it although the guy pictured with the fruit-salad isn't named "Charlie" but is rather the current CincPACFlt (The Nav does acronyms right!).
Regardless, it's an amusing story and a nice lead in to yet another Navy story (ZZZZZ).

Meet the USS Franklin, a "screw frigate", Commissioned in June 1867, she served three tours as European Squadron flagship over the next decade. That is to say... Farragut's flagship. For a year at least.
A screw frigate was one of those odd ducks that surface when technology is evolving. Back in the days of wooden-ships and iron-men, the conversion to steam propulsion was in fits and starts.
The screw frigates were so-named to distinguish them from the earlier, slower paddle-wheel frigates. The USS Merrimac, which needed a scuttling and rework to put her in the history books as the CSS Virginia, was a typical screw frigate.
One screw frigate remains today, the Jylland.
She now takes up space and reigns as (Correct me if I'm wrong) the largest wooden ship in the world at Ebeltoft, Denmark.
Let's have some more USS Franklin porn. She's rather under-photographed considering she was commissioned up until 1915.

After her year serving as Admiral David "Damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead" Farragut's flagship and the other nine years as flagship for the Atlantic fleet, she was, in 1877, given another role.
That of "receiving ship":

Now, a receiving ship is an odd concept but, by way of clarification, any Nav vets should immediately recognize the phrase: "Transit barracks".
Here's one of many "hulks" that were turned into floating, transit barracks so that arriving boot-campers, awaiting orders, could be housed and - thanks to a gang-plank - controlled until "their ship came in".
I wonder if any of these shitbird boots had any inkling that the ship in which they were laying on their rack, loping the mule and dreaming of dusky maidens, was once a "contender"; An ass-kicker; A fucking battleship or heavy-cruiser before they used those terms?
I think not and it makes me sad. The old girl was commissioned for forty-eight years, thirty-eight of which were spent as a glorified (Hardly!) houseboat.
It makes me wish she'd gotten into some trouble in the 1870's just so she wouldn't have ended up so useless.
Since I'm all in a mood, some more pics of her... as a has-been:

See. There she is - in the background - looking like a fucking building.

Oooh! There she is again. Waaaay in the background this time - but still in there battin'.
Okay, my piss-off string isn't run out yet.

In closing - and this will be made to relate - Charles (No! My name is not pronounced "COCK"!) Koch felt led of the spirit to address an earlier editorial by Warren Buffet which said, in essence, that all the billionaire, greedy fucks ought to pony up a little.
Here's what Chuck Cock (Koch) had to say about that:

“Much of what the government spends money on does more harm than good; this is particularly true over the past several years with the massive uncontrolled increase in government spending. I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington."

Ah, billionaires. Is there anything they're actually good for?

But, I promised this would tie in...
Here is, the second comment to the above drivel - in its entirety - billionaire I-don't-have-to-be-smart-'cause-I'm-rich - typos left as read:

One thing for cutting- just found out that military members can retire on full pension after 20 years service- which is often at 38 years old!!!

"Now thats ripe for a cut - why should they get full pensions in their 30s while hard working americans have to wait until they are in their 60s? (Bear in mind that there are infact professions that are more deadly thatn being a soldier- trawler fishermen for example have high killed in the line of work per capita figurtes than the army). Where are the half salary full pensions for 38 year old fishermen?

But good news is that the army will propose replacing this with standard 401k instruments that pay out at the same age as the rest of us."

Veterans, I rest my case.
Any billionaire apologists, feel free to comment. PLLLLEASE comment.

Finally! Something About Knives... kind of

2011-08-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Jesse L. of We The Armed.com who showed up last time to take issue with my Georgie Hill obsession.
Now, I hope I was clear in my response to Jesse because I no longer want to beat that horse.
I would like to put this whole thing to bed though, since I can only read Georgie's tripe if I use the other computer in the house - or go to the library, Here's a couple of video links to illustrate my disgust with the FGIC faction.
First this:
"Contract for the American Dream"
Next: the "Voice of the Stupid" AKA Fox News' response:
And these are the adults.
Please watch enough of it so you can see/hear this twat, Kathleen T. McFarland, give voice to this:

"These kids are a bunch of dorks."

I hope those two vids were watched - at least enough to get the sense of why I personally believe that anyone who watches Fox News, other than ironically or to gather material for a stand-up act, is either morally bankrupt, stupid or some combination of the two.
And let's not forget Sociopath Barbie:
Why isn't this bloodthirsty bitch in the military? Psychotic... oh yeah,
Enough said.
Jesse, you're an intelligent, sensitive guy as I've said before; if you come here again - and I hope you do - comment. On these videos, please.

Okay, on to bidness...
This is a better mousetrap that never saw production - probably because it was presented a couple years too late.
But Mr. Hughes had a really good idea.
What you're looking at is, in essence, a switchblade held by a strap so that it rides on the back of the hand, perpendicular to the arm.
The top drawing isn't really clear but it shows how a rifle stock can be gripped even with the knife deployed.
Its spring arrangement was a bit fiddly involving a tiny piece of cable but the entire thing could certainly have been streamlined, perhaps even by mounting the blade horizontally to the hand had there been financial incentive.
It is, to my mind a really great idea and would have seen much success - in 1915.
Patent here.

This, pictured above, is something entirely different.
First of all: it was manufactured although the pictured example is seriously long-in-the-tooth.
The leather bits are hard to figure out but the guts of the thing is an oblong of cast brass, large enough to fit the knuckles of the right hand (Sorry lefties. Right hand only) with a square steel spike - on the palm side, that can be pushed down with the thumb until a spring locks it in place.
With me so far?
Next up: the same thing only different. Spike in full extended position.
Okay, just to make a complicated concept on slightly complicateder, is a pic of the unit folded into its pocket sized, transport status.

Okay, still not really clear what this thing is but it is clearly sporting some nasty spikes on what would be the outboard, knuckle portion, of the brass casting.
At the top you'll find what looks to be a Sam Browne button which originally no doubted mated with that slot torn in the wet-cardboard that the leather has deteriorated into.
It all comes together with the small nub of a strap with attached buckle on the right.
That would be the strap the corresponding half of which is conspicuous by its absence.
Next up: A helpful (maybe) visual aid. My slightly undersized (I got it pretty damned close!) cardboard mock-up of the unit as worn.
It should be fairly self explanatory. Imagine that my left hand isn't there and the tape on the wrist portion is replaced by the aforementioned buckle and its mating bit on the other side.
Essentially, this thing is worn like a glove with a buckled strap securing it around the wrist.
The knuckle side presents the wicked spikes seen earlier, backed by a brass, single-hole knuckleduster.
On the palm side is a square spike that can be pushed down by the thumb to a protruding length of 1, 1/2" (?).
I think this thing is waaaay beyond merely cool and I'd love to make one.
Alas, prior commitments, baby-need-a-pair-of-shoes (Fuck! They're not babies. We're talking new shoes every three months) preclude my jumping into it.
However, an expected purchase can always make the R&D worth it.
Case in point:
The Canadian Tunneler's dagger. I've only sold the one but I'm glad I made it - and the one I still have.
Anyone? Anyone?

The End of an Era... Or is it?

2011-08-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

Sob... Sob...
Whatever shall I do?

George Hill. Ya' gotta love him.
I left a comment on his blog yesterday.
He was pouting about having been summoned for jury duty and swore that if he wasn't excused within fifteen minutes of entering the building, he'd lose faith in the system.
I simply pointed out the obvious... that he was a slime.
Shirking his civic duty - not to mention - being idiotic enough to tell everyone.
Kind of like being idiotic enough to post that he was too dumb to cut down his Christmas tree with an axe - so he used instead... wait for it... A SHOTGUN!
Loaded with breaching rounds to boot. Carried in his pickup, no doubt, in case he locks himself out of the house.
So motherfucking dim that he whines about the sorry state of his finances less than a week before:
A. Declaring that he needs a new motorcycle because he isn't liking the vibe he's getting from all the Fat Bob riders. Transportation as fashion accessory - always fiscally sound.
B. The widdle boy had a bad day at work a week or so later. Nothing a little retail therapy won't fix! A brand new rifle later and he's feeling better already.
Dumb enough to whine about the sorry state of Utah's roads when what pays for them is... what is it? Oh yeah, taxes.
So, recently riding his cycle in a downpour (smart lad) he solved the hydroplaning problem by tailgating a semi at 80 mph so he could ride in the brief semi-dry spot left by the rear wheels.
How old is this dipshit?
Okay, this next is all old news for gun geeks so I'm going to skip with all the background.
Short version: Chiappa Firearms announced - or someone leaked it - that they were going to start installing RFID chips in their products. It's apparently mandated by the Italian government.
This is the company that makes the weird-looking gun pictured next.
Now we break for an illustrative lesson:
A month or two back, the folks in charge of the water supply for Portland saw, on their surveillance video, a guy peeing into one of the reservoirs.
Now, with full knowledge that lots of animals pee - and shit - in Portland's water supply and that some even die and decompose there, the water commissioner ordered that the entire reservoir - eight million gallons of treated water - be dumped back into the river because, as he, the water commissioner put it, "I don't want to have to talk to those 100 stupid people who imagine that their tap water is going to turn yellow".
Apparently, MKS Distributing of Dayton, Ohio, US distributor of Chiappa arms, found themselves in the very place that the water commissioner wasn't willing to be.
So, in the interest of calming everyone and assuring them that there were no monsters under the bed, they released the following, of which only the final, salient paragraph is quoted:

"RFID Removal: For those still concerned you can simply remove the grip and remove the hot glued RFID from the frame in the grip area when (over a year from now) these begin to appear. Others may prefer to wrap the revolver and their head in aluminum foil, curl in a ball and watch reruns of Mel Gibson's 1997 film, Conspiracy Theory. Well, that's a plan too!"

Oooh, the children were not happy!
Not to imply in the least that the owner of this blog is one of the children. I'm implying nothing of the sort. The kiddies we'll get to them later.
What is very interesting in the blog entry linked to is the response that the author received from the head of MKS Distributing who wrote to him and apologized - and vowed to do the same, individually, to everyone else who wrote him.
Classy guy.
Now, at another spot the subject was discussed at some length.
There, the comments get seriously funny as a few rational folks, Magoo and Adam, do battle with the tin-foil-hat people.
It was instructive too. I found that for a paltry twenty bucks I can protect myself with... an RFID-blocking wallet.
Now, what about that!
Your very own Faraday cage - right in your pocket!
Be sure to read all the terrifying things that could happen if you try to skate by with just a dumb-old, leather wallet.
Now, you can also just retrofit your old wallet by simply cutting a piece of aluminum window-screen into a wallet-sized chunk and sticking it right in there with all your big bucks. They won't tell you that 'cause... they want to sell wallets.
But, now that we've got the skillz, why stop there?
Some one-by-twos, six-penny nails, casters and screen; a couple of hours some evening and there you are, cruisin' down the bouvelard in your very own, personal Farady cage.
If you live in a mobile home, you're probably cool when you're at home so you could park your cage outside.
With conventional construction, you should consider cloaking your entire house in screen. Less bugs too, an extra bennie.
But you may want to go the long dollar so here's what you do: Designate your RFID "safe room". Staple screen to the walls, floor and ceiling, put in an area rug for the floor and hire a plasterer to put a skim-coat over the rest of it.
Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezie.
And don't worry what the plasterer will think. He won't think you're out of your fucking mind. He'll probably go home and do it to his own house. Maybe incorporate it into his business. Could be a real growth industry.
Seriously, we can't be too careful.
These things are everywhere.
Apparently Wal Mart, shopping heaven for the tin-foil people, is wanting to put them in everything.
There's even one in my surly, morbidly-obese, sixteen-year-old Russian blue, Bill.
And who knows when some terrorist plants a bomb somewhere with a receiver attuned to my big, old, fat boy's frequency?
Maybe I can put together a window-screen, kitty ball-cap.
Now some may say: Considering how many fucking people there are on earth and the number of RFID's there are - and how remarkably un-interesting most of us are so why bother?
Well, if we all think that way, then the terrorists have already won.
But, I digress; we started with Georgie - who jilted me - Oh, cruel fate!

Here's le Stupids reaction to this nontroversy:

"The tone they took on the issue is insulting to anyone that has a concern. It’s much like those that questioned the President’s birth certificate and just calling them “Birthers”. Slinging an insult instead of addressing a legitimate concern."

George, George, George... Birthers?
That would be the group whose poster-girl is that Jill-of-all-trades, Orly (I'm-really-not-a-Sascha Baron Cohen-character) Taitz?
That bunch?
Does "brain-dead fuck-wad" suit ya'better?
I don't want to be unduly insulting.

A Sad Tale Of Abandonment, Rescue And Mistaken Identity

2011-07-27T13:11:00.001-07:00

This photo was posted on The Great War Forum with the title: "Is this real?"
Now, obviously its subjective reality is not in question. It's probably not a hologram.
What the poster took notice of, as would anyone who's ever paid attention to an artillery piece, was that it looks... odd.
No hydraulic compensator, no means of changing elevation or traversing and no proper trail.
This posed quite the head-scratcher but the bright sparks nailed it down.
It's not a gun. It's something different and far more difficult to come by. This appears to be only the third Rohrwagen known to still exist.

Here's one of the others - complete - collecting pigeon shit in Saskatoon.
It all makes more sense now. This is the cart used to transport the the tube portion of a 150mm Krupp pm cannon in order for it to be drawn by horses or mules.
Here's the big fella when he's all put back together.

And a family shot of the gun (background) and the third Rohrwagen situated outside the American Legion Post in Prairie DeRocher, Illinois.

You'll notice that there are two different types of wheels pictured.
Evidently there were two manufactorers.
From the forum"

"The Rheinmetall 15 cm Kanone 16 RH had spoked wheels on both cart and carriage. The Krupp 15 cm K16 had the "holed disc" on both. This suggests that the gun in question is the rarer Rheinmetall gun and not the Krupp. The Saskatoon gun is the Krupp."

Now, back to that sad, cobbled-together specimen we started with: In the mad flurry of giving any and all municipalities their own huge, heavy chunk of Great War memorabilia in the form of captured arms, a town in the North-Eastern corner of England received the above unit - complete.

lousy image quality I know. The photo dates from the twenties when the cart and barrel were still on display.
The accompanying article was written in 1982 when the old girl was rediscovered - buried at a sewage plant.
My thought is that most things one finds in the sewer are small, flushable so I have no clue what that really entailed.
In any case, the townsfolk eventually tired of their partial artillery piece. It wasn't nearly so sexy as a complete gun - but, in moving it, got it bogged down at the "sewage farm". They then simply left it there; circa 1930's.
Afterward it sank of its own accord or was intentionally buried and forgotten about until 1982 when they found it again.
That's when they "solved" the sexiness deficiency by losing the front wheels and calling it "a gun".

The above clipping, another lousy photo with mostly unreadable text, shows the damage done and an admiring, old Light-Colonel who either didn't notice or was too kind to tell them of their patent fabrication.

There Oughta Be A Law...

2011-07-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

...that any conservative, dumb-fuck with the same name as someone cool has to change it to... poopy-pants-stupid. Something like that.

That was Joe Walsh.
Not this sniveling prick.

I rest my case.

Lots of knives! But first, I make fun of George...

2011-07-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

Okay.
Fair warning. A good part of the text portion of this post will be devoted to pointing out how stupid and dissembling George Hill (AKA "Psychotic Garden Gnome") is was and ever shall be.
It's easy and it's fun. Is any reason needed but that?
Actually, that's a rationalization.
In fact I find myself compelled, led by God, incapable of resistance, to ridicule this pathetic sap.
In considering him, I'm surprised - actually, I seriously doubt - that he can even dress himself in the morning.
We'll start at the very beginning ("A very good place to start" Julie Andrews).
A few days back, Bastille Day plus one, the genius penned (keyboarded?) this:

"Obama is freaking up in the night. No, I don’t want higher taxes, Mr. President… you jackass. Since you’ve been in office, my income has been lower and the cost of everything has gone higher. My savings are depleted and debt is rising. All of this as a direct result of your policies. Direct and tangible results of the Obama administration’s actions."

Now, he did do a top-notch job on capitalizing all the proper words which is usually difficult for him.
Credit where due.
Just don't read the paragraph that follows. He gets more Creative (that's how ya' do it) on that one.
His debt is higher? His savings are depleted? And this is Obama's fault?
Seems my little "personal responsibility" buddy ought to be clued up to the fact that the Stupidogres finances are his responsibility.
Here's a tip:
Quit buying so much shit!
Christ, in just the past few months he's bought himself a new (used) motorcycle, yet another 1911 and God knows what else.
That fat fuck is one of the most self-indulgent people I've ever come across.
And "...freaking up in the night"?
Really Hill, start drinking. You'll have an automatic excuse for stupid.
And, not to embarrass you (if that's possible) but all your economic woes started before he took office - Dumbass!
George Hamilton Hill IV, the gift that keeps on giving;
Fresh from the great mind, his latestt:

"I love this. Steve Wynn blows Obama out of the water so hard, it’s hilarious. And he’s absolutely right. I love this so much… when I’m next in Vegas, I’m staying a night at Wynn’s place."

Steve Wynn; he blows all right. Only George knows if it's "hard". That's not my preference but...
Okay, billionaire, parasite, casino-mogul Steve whines; and that is somehow interpreted by the dim, as him "blowing Obama out of the water"?
Dummy, just because he agrees with your idiotic worldview - and has a vested interest in maintaining it - doesn't mean he's got an argument.
And Gimpy, even if your fly-speck of a life ever even intruded on his, you'd be swatted as the insignificant insect you are (We all are - but you think you're one of them).
You're a chump.
And now you're going to toss some bucks Steve's way - next time you're down in "Vegas" paying your stupidity tax.
In thrall to your idiotic vision, you're already dead. You just haven't fallen over.

Okay, deep breath. My God, that clown's exhausting.

Andy guilt-tripped me into remembering that making fun of Stupid is merely my hobby so...
More Bowies etc. who've left home recently or are due to:
The most recent. Blackened iron guard, brass ferrule and a dogwood handle.

Yet another Mussso...

This one is forged from about six inches of the tang end of a big half-round rasp. The ricasso still has "Nicholson, Black Diamond" legible on the flat side. Antler, ebony and brass.

Another d-guard, this time full tang which was kind of fun.
The actual tang that was part of the blade had to be able to fit through the hole in the guard so I welding a chunk onto it to fill up the space. The welded the tang to the blade and the back of the guard making it very strong indeed.

Another damned Musso, this time lacking the parry strip.
Don't be scared. That's not some Musso spectre at the bottom - just a full size photo that this "discerning" customer sent along so we were golden vis-a-vis proportions and the like.

Fuck-oh-dear...
Behold the Bart Moore Bowie (as interpreted by ...).
This is another knife which is owned by Mr. Musso and the original lacks the parry strip; instead is serrated along the spine.
Okay, lots of folks view this as the holy grail.
Here's a video of a knife guy (Now, don't make fun of his shaved head and goatee - or his utili-kilt) waxing enthusiastic over this knife.
It's got "J. Bowie" etched along the blade.
How cool is that?
Not very, methinks.
At one point, during the middle-ages, there were reputed to be seven different, authentic heads of John the Baptist floating around Europe.
So, this knife shows up out of Mexico around 1910 and Bart Moore's granddad takes it in trade for a ten-dollar debt from some old Mexican guy.
And that slave-trading, smuggling, shitbird Bowie had put his name on it?
I....... don't think so.
It is an interesting knife - and the original is truly old. It's just not what the "true believers" imagine it to be.

Okay, now an Ek knife, only the second of this pattern I've sold.
#4, New Guinea Brush Knife. Spalted myrtle handle.

Now, to make a long story even longer, a V-44.
I really like this knife.
Brass hilt, leather, brass, plexiglas and ebony spacers.
No, you can't have it!
It belongs to the Big Dub.

Don't let the shits get ya' down, ya'll.

Where am I and why am in the handbasket?

2011-07-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to bitch some about the piss-poor state of American manufacturing (But we're moving toward more of a "service economy"; double-speak for "a shit job for everyone.)
But first, this little jewel.

Yes, yes... that dumbfuck actually shot himself practicing his quick-draw. What a fucking moron.
Georgie the always opinionated but often wrong thought someone else had superior wisdom on the subject so, on behalf of the Ogre, he covered this today.
Now, if you don't want to bother reading the Og's take (the Og's friend's take) on it, I don't blame you.
I can tell you this one thing that the oracle spake: the dimbulb pictured posted the video as a "warning".
Could ya die!!!?
And... wait for it... he was "training"!
No... He was pretending.
Global stupidity on display because he not only shot himself but he posted the video!
But seriously, heed the warning kids:
Don't be a dumbass and shoot your stupid self in the leg. And if so - never, ever tell anyone.
What a fucking maroon.
Okay, the stupid will continue without our ridicule so let's get cracking.
To the left; isn't that just the prettiest thing? But it's not a Colt.
Colt, in their infinite wisdom, quit making their signature arm, the 1873 Single Action Army sometime during the forties.
Just wasn't relevant anymore, I guess.
But - in the mass-market entertainment world of the fifties, westerns became popular, first on radio ("Gunsmoke" started as a radio show - with "Floyd the barber" playing doc Adams) later on TV.
"Gunsmoke" was my Dad's favorite show - and mine too. I remember being way excited when they went to hour-long episodes.
Here's the introduction Marion Robert Morrison provided for the first episode:

Good evening. My name's Wayne. Some of you may have seen me before; I hope so. I've been kicking around Hollywood a long time. I've made a lot of pictures out here, all kinds, and some of them have been Westerns. And that's what I'm here to tell you about tonight: a Western—a new TV show called Gunsmoke. No, I'm not in it. I wish I were, though, because I think it's the best thing of its kind that's come along, and I hope you'll agree with me; it's honest, it's adult, it's realistic. When I first heard about the show Gunsmoke, I knew there was only one man to play in it: James Arness. He's a young fellow, and maybe new to some of you, but I've worked with him and I predict he'll be a big star. So you might as well get used to him, like you've had to get used to me! And now I'm proud to present my friend Jim Arness in Gunsmoke.

A brief aside, then I'll get to my rant:
James Arness died recently - just a few months ago.
He earned a Bronze Star and was wounded at Anzio. You'll find him here - second row down and kitty-corner from my Dad who would pee his pants if he knew that he and Marshal Dillon were that close - both on a web page and in Italy.

Now, Okay. Now, how boss is that?
And hey, guy in the video; that's how it's done.
Bad news: the pistol that the good Marshal uses to take out the bad guy isn't a Colt.
He's firing a Great Western (Now defunct -sadly).
Yes, Colt couldn't be bothered making such antiquated shite at the time.
Later, the task was taken up by those clever Italians.
Pietta (Maker of my 1851 Navy - they're supposed to be better on the black powder stuff.) and Uberti being the top two.
Uberti manufactured the top-pictured beauty - assembled by Beretta.
Now, my "spaghetti western" cost me a bit strong of the four-hundred mark.
But, for just that same amount - tripled (roughly) - I could have bought a genuine Colt.
Seriously, even though the modern Colt SAA's (They finally pulled their heads out and started making them again) seem to have serious functioning problems right out of the box, plus the fact that they cost well over a thousand, should be offset by the cachet gained by having an old, respected arms-maker's name on the piece. Don't ya think?
I mean, shouldn't it? Colt. What's more respectable than that?
Well shit. Mine only says Beretta, oldest gunmaker (1526) and oldest corporation in the world.
I think... I'll see your Colt and raise you a Beretta.
Okay. Now we're all going to take a deep breath, find our center, and move onto the topic at hand - and an even better example of that corporate American credo: Hey, there's my ass. I'll bet I can fit my head in there:
Hand planes.
Now, I've waxed tedious on this subject before so you'll have to... I don't know... handle it.In case you haven't met, this is my co-worker G. E. Reeve.
He's a Stanley, Bailey-pattern, #4 smoothing plane, made just about a-hundred-and-fifteen years ago.
He, along with his bigger/younger brother, a Stanley #26 (post 1902 - pre 1915), are working for me diligently - almost every day.

These tools were made during the time when America was an industrial giant - with good reason.
We couldn't match the fine craftsmanship that centuries of tradition and long apprenticeships in Europe provided.
That being the end product of centuries of guild-enforced apprenticeship rules,.
That system made everything expensive but of very high quality.
Case in point: the British, infill plane pictured to the left. These tools, manufactured by Spiers, Norris and others were the Cadillacs of hand planes - Rolls-Royces rather.
And, pricey.
Back in the day, circa 1900, a number four like Mr. Reeve went for around $2.50 - $65-ish - nowadays while the Brit planes sold for five to six times more.
They were better - in their way.They fit with the European way of doing things and, with their heavy irons and tiny mouths (I'll leave you non-woodworkers to puzzle that out) they could reliably plane the most ridiculously figured wood you could throw under them. Thus fitting the European aesthetic.
We brash Yanks, however; didn't have a vast cadre of hyper-skilled craftsmen producing super tools so we went with what we had.
And that was: A large labor-force, lots of raw-materials and incentive to innovate.
That alone was our strength.
We weren't smarter, stronger, better-looking - we just had a unique set of circumstances to start from.
Names that no one remembers anymore, like Elisha Root (Who,for my money made Colt) and Thomas Blanchard were the heros.
You partake of Blanchard's genius anytime you have a key duplicated and - no, that's not what he invented.
The principle used in the key machine is the same as that used by his revolutionary lathe.
There's one above.
1940's - more than a century after its invention - cranking out stocks for the M1 Garand at Springfield Armory.
What his lathe did was automate the tedious, skilled carving of rifle stocks. It could rough one out minutes rather than hours.

Above is his original (patent 1819), still at the Springfield Armory.
Other folks like John Hall, designer of America's first breech-loading rifle - and guy who actually did pull off the concept of interchangeable part (Fuck you, Eli Whitney) or Leonard Bailey, designer of the adjusting mechanism used in both my museum pieces pictured above - and, thanks to the sale of his patent to Stanley energized the company that is now most famous for garage-door openers.
The corporate fucks, in deference to their primary product, stockholder satisfaction, have made it so America produces nothing compared to what it used to - nothing of value anyway.
Stanley still produces the product that built the company, hand planes. It's just that they're crap.
Now, some modern folks are going against the America-made-means-it's-shit ethic.
Lie-Neilson for one. You can get their modern version of G. E, Reeve for just ... coupla Benjamins and change. Or you can go the long dollar and get it cast in silicon bronze!
Isn't that special. Here's the news: when this outfit started all their planes were silicon bronze.
Why? It's way easier to cast than iron - a bit more expensive - maybe five dollars a unit.
And for that you get to pay fifty more. it does sound cool though.
But that isn't the only place where you can overpay for a product that was run-on-the-mill less than a century ago. There's also Lee Valley Tools.
I'm not dissing on the boutique tool-makers. I'm sure that they make quality stuff. It just seems that they're/we're missing the point.
Quality can/should be a standard - not just the lowest common denominator to sell products and keep those shareholders happy.
But, fear not. Stanley, following the day-late-dollar-short lead of Colt, is making a "Premium line" of planes.
By all accounts they're shit as well - but expensive... therefore Premium.
And made in Mexico. Now that's how an American company behaves!
Okay, the hour draws late and I still have fun to be made of the Og but it will have to wait.
I will leave you with this:
For quality tools at reasonable prices, go to flea markets, pawn shops, this place.
And, if you're a woodworking geek - all you ever wanted to know about what Stanley manufactured before they went to shit can be found at Patrick Leach's site "Patricks's Blood and Gore".
He wrote the book on anorak.

The Little Cartridge That Could

2011-06-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's been a great few days.
Wack Lady #2, Michelle B. announced her presidential aspirations therefore rocketing her to the top of a mediocre field in both my states, home and adopted!
You go, Girl!
She's also managed to follow in the footsteps of two of her illustrious predecessors.
Saint Reagan had bragged to Tip O'Neill that he'd played President Grover Cleveland in a movie when it was actually baseball player, Grover Cleveland Alexander. They're easy to mix up.
Michelle got down-home saying that she shared the spirit of her fellow Waterloo, Iowa homeboy, John Wayne.
'Course, The Duke was born in Iowa but it was a different town.
The John Wayne who had lived in Waterloo was John Wayne Gacy. Again, it's a mistake anybody (stupid) could make.
And, just like Little George of fond, recent memory, she's managed to piss-off Tom Petty by using one of his songs without permission.
It's a promising start but, Rick Goodhair met with the Koch(sucking) brothers so it's plain to see where the bucks will be going.
But I digress. This an important date.
On June 28, ninety-seven years ago the event that ultimately caused virtually everything wrong in the world today took place.
And it involved that cute little mouse-round pictured at top - civilian version on the left - nickel-plated military on the right.
The round is the .32 ACP and one was sent on its way via a Browning FN 1910 right into the neck of the heir-apparent to the crown of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The deaths of Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie of course set off two world-wars, lots of blood, screaming, millions dead, the mess we have in the Middle East to this day, Adolf Hitler, and my pickup's bad vacuum-advance - although I admit I may be stretching the point on that last.

"An FN M1910, serial number 19074, chambered in .32 ACP purchased for the Black Hand members) was the handgun used by Gavrilo Princip to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, precipitating the First World War."

The little bullet did get around. The next photo, showing a 1910 in usable condition along with a distressed example came from this website, dedicated to the Danish Resistance of the second war.
When the Germans burned the headquarters where it was found the lower pistol - obviously had the mouse-rounds in its mag explode.
This next is from another website, this time showing all sorts of ordnance dug up in Poland.
It deaded a lot of folks, no doubt about it - and was instrumental in fucking the world up, big-time.
That would be young Gavrillo Princip to the left, the guy who set in motion the next four years, the years that the other fellow, unaccountably, enjoyed.
But everyone's favorite Bizarro-World, Charlie Chaplin did try to wrap it all up nicely for us.
Thirty years, nine months and twenty-eight days after old Gavrillo stepped on his dick, Adolf helpfully put one through his own melon using a Walther PPK chambered in 7.65mm or as we like to call it: .32 ACP.
Thanks, Addie.

Final note:
How will the "We the Armed" folks spin this one?

The Last, Best Place to...

2011-06-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

I'm just bursting with pride!
The auld sod, my homeland, is in the news - and again it's because of yet another survivalist nut-fudge.
The above bumper sticker dates from the time of the Montana Freemen, Ted Kaczynski, and the initial mad-cow outbreak in Britain.
We grows 'em stupid up there in the North.
This mouth-breathing embarrassment is one David Burgert, a dim-bulb bound and determined to be shot dead.
This moron just got out of the Federal joint last year - after eight years - but he's still "no one to be fucked-with" or so he thinks.
Fact is: He's peach-orchard-boar crazy - paranoid personality disorder. Not an encouraging diagnosis.
The crack-up is that this clown is "hiding-out" in the vicinity of Lolo, Montana.
I remember Lolo. Nowadays, urban sprawl being what it is, it's pretty much another Missoula suburb.
In high-school, it's where we'd stop after rock climbing in the Selway-Bitterroot to buy some pop and Hostess fruit pies (They're lots smaller now).
My brother, twenty years ago built a lot of earth-sheltered houses in the Lolo area for out-of-state yuppies.
My point?
He's hardly in the middle of nowhere.
Nowhere's a whole 'nother area code from there.
In fact, over forty years ago - in this same impenetrable wilderness - my friend broke the axle of his Dad's IH Scout.
We didn't walk more than a mile or two before someone came along to give us a ride.
Sorry, Dave. If you want to get lost, you'll have to try harder than that.
But, to cut old Crazy-Dave a little slack, what got him busted to begin with was his affiliation with a militia group called "Project 7" (Seven is the Flathead County number that license plates in the county begin with. Missoula's four, Helena's five, Butte's one and so forth).
So, Dave's little private army was based in... Kalispell.
The brother mentioned earlier was born there - fifty-eight years ago.
I was born in Hot Springs a year later.
Anyway, at the time, the folks and my big sister lived in Big Fork.
Jim Nabors lives there!
And therein lies my point - and I did have one.
Here's a list of some, just plain, folks living in tiny little Kalispell - at least sometimes.
Phil Jackson
John Lithgow
Johnny Depp
Jack Hanna
Maury Povich
Connie Chung
Julie Chen
Info taken from:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Celebrities_live_near_Kalispell_Mt_59901
Seriously Dave, you're waiting for a bullet. Give up.
And, thanks Reagan for "mainstreaming" all these wackos.

More Procurement Idiocy

2011-06-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

You'll recall the complete snubbing with which our brilliant leaders blessed the LMG that was markedly superior to the BAR way back here.
Well, Major Melvin Johnson, USMCR also designed a semi-auto rifle in .30-06 that gave the M1 Garand a run for its money and would probably have been adopted instead but for the stupidity of them-that-buys-our-guys-their-stuff.
The pregnant guppy at top is the unit in question - the Johnson M1941 Semi-automatic rifle.
If you read the Wiki entry for this rifle you'd gather that the Garand walked all over this thing in tests.
Not so - to my mind.
When we discussed the Johnson LMG earlier I'd linked to this site which also has a nice treatise on the Johnson vs Garand match-up.
We'll sing the praises of the Garand first.
Slightly higher rate of fire - offset by the Johnson's greater magazine capacity.
It worked better than the Johnson with a bayonet mounted... and... not much else.
The fact is: so much money had already been pissed away developing (and developing, and developing) the Garand that the decision essentially came down to this: which one was familiar (Made by Springfield Armory) and had already had a ton of money spent on it?
The Johnson, at trials, went up against a Garand that was in constant, well-funded development while the Johnson was designed, built and tested as-is.

What more; the total R&D and manufacturing costs of the Johnson were less than those burned up in just the conversion of the Garand from a "gas-trap" to a "gas-port" system.
The big differences that put it out of the game?
It was completely recoil operated so the barrel retracted less than half an inch per shot. This was problematic with a standard bayonet since the weight of same would affect the cycling.
It had lots of small parts that they worried our stupid, fuckin' dogfaces were likely to lose.
Now there's a vote of confidence.
The upside: ten rounds vs eight.
The capability of being reloaded at any time in the process - bolt open or closed - with single rounds or the standard '03 stripper-clips.
2/3rds the perceived recoil!
What's more, Johnson had designed it so that it could be produced in any well-equipped machine shop while the precious Garand, in the early stages, could be produced only at the sacred Springfield Armory thus making its production far more than slightly vulnerable to sabotage.
The Johnson used a two-piece, wooden stock with the fore-stock being separated from the butt by the rotary magazine that gave it the "fish-belly" look.
Patent drawing above.
Patent here.
Now, I've never shot a Garand but my understanding is that it loads quickly with the eight-round, en-bloc clip but to top it off while still partially loaded is a process requiring both hands while the Johnson - as stated above - could be fed single rounds or fed with five-round clips - at any time.
It could fire both M1 ball and M2 ball while the Garand was a hazard when fed M1.
And did I mention: 2/3rds perceived recoil?
Here's the beauty part, especially given the ways of modern warfare:
I can't say it better than this guy - although I can't find the site again:

"The Johnson Semi-Automatic Rifle M1941 could change calibers easily, by simply removing the barrel (I've done a thousand times, it takes about 15 to 20 seconds), and installing another barrel. It had barrels with various calibers built for it, and it could fire 7.7 Japanese, 7 x 57mm Mauser, 8 x 57mm Mauser, and any other that are near the same size cartridges. It could be loaded with a standard 5-round stripper clip, or load a single cartridge at a time, into a 10-round magazine (topping it up using a 5-round stripper clip, or a single round with the bolt open or closed was a normal activity)."

I rest my case.

Now, For Something Completely Different...

2011-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

This is a thing about weapons - for real. Something interesting too...
But first, Something from "The Land of Action-Figure Worshipers:
Gee, tough call... the clown who came over here, lectured the president - who happens to be bankrolling his entire military operation - and then went back home again having accomplishing nothing other than looking (again) like an ass to the international community.
He did get lots of blow-jobs from Congress though. They know on which side their "Crazy Fundamentalist Voting Bloc" is buttered.
Or, the other guy? I've made my choice. I wouldn't put Nuts-and-Yahoo in charge of a clambake.
Any-hoo, this pair of pics was presented at above linked-to forum with the question posed and a whole raft of comical conversation ensued.
These guys (the forum guys), in general, really like action-figures - or at least guys who looked like one at some time or other.
After much discussion concerning the Johns: Kerry, Murtha and one George (He played an action figure too - quite recently. Remember?) this thesis statement was arrived at.
Now, boys and girls, carve this on a plaque and hang it over your rack when you go to sea:

It isn't that all Veterans are angels who always make perfect leaders, its that hipster, dope smoking, commie worshiping punks never make good leaders.

I'm so happy they got that straightened out.

Okay, we're finished with pitching road-apples at the short bus. On to the bidness.
Everyone with any curiosity regarding the First World War has seen the photo to the left. It's usually illustrating the tenacity and ingenuity exhibited by the Royally-Screwed ANZACs at Gallipoli.
Of course, it shows a periscope rifle and what was most certainly a clever, field-expedient one.
According to Wiki - in its only entry relating to the concept - this unit was "invented" by one Sgt. William Beech of the 2nd Battalion NSW, Australian Imperial Force.
There he is, pictured next, giving a demo of his handi-work.
Not to take anything away from the good Sarge, but he didn't invent anything.
The sniperscope (the other name for it) was invented before the war.
Like the other random pieces of material culture that were resurrected or newly conceived in this new war of living in a hole with an absurdly close enemy (At one point, the British and Germans actually shared the same trench. The dividing line was simply a thirty-foot barrier of sandbags and wire.) the periscope rifle seems to have been "invented" by all combatants on all fronts.

"Genius 'round the World stands hand in hand and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle' round"

Herman Melville

This is a cobbled-together, Belgian one which happens to be contemporary with Sgt. Beech's effort - 1915.
And another, early war model, this time German.
There was a fellow from East Tennessee who built one - an Aussie one - although you can't get a report on what firing it was like, you can see what one looks like out of fresh lumber and un-muddied.
I'd show you a pic but it's not link-to-able (just flows off the keyboard, no?).
Also, because we're a full-service organization offering something for every attention-span, there's a movie here. Genuine, ANZAC Cove footage. The beast in question is in use about a third of the way through.
Here's an elegant piece of work from the Dutch.
The steel skeleton structure is nice but I'm not sure how the shoulder stock works unless that bit of business across it is leather or something else resilient.
Next up: a French model.
You can see by the U-shaped iron incorporated in it that production values are getting better.

Case in point: this unit from Belgium.
But - there seems to be a problem here that's not being addressed.
It's illustrated in the video linked-to above.
All of these had to be pulled back down to work the action so they could be fired again.
The bright sparks back at home were soon on the case and many, absurdly complicated designs were patented, most with a cocking mechanism and one with a tubular periscope, the optics of which would have prohibitively expensive.
Remember our old mate, Capt. Newton, the fella with the sloppy, military deportment spoken of in the previous post?
His 2nd Army Workshop produced this next in quantity.
Easily and quickly put together with no esoteric parts.
The rifle could be taken in or out with minimal time and bother (One of the patented designs called for the Enfield shoulder-stock to be removed from the rifle and mounted below).
The best part though... it had a bolt operating mechanism - and a spike for attaching it to the trench wall.
For my money though - even though it couldn't be cocked while in position - was Germany's late-war, production model.
It folds into a compact package about the size of a big thermos, is easily taken off and installed.
The Brits were so impressed that they published this bit of info here, using illustrations from a German manual, on its workings.
Brilliant

Sorry I'm late...

2011-05-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to have been raptured by now. Actually, maybe I have been and my pathetic, prior life was really heaven - the trailer.
if so, this would now be coming straight from heaven!
Is it different?
Reply in comments.
Probably not. Ah well...

Behold... Mouse-Hammer, Scourge of Rodentia!
I've been having difficulty with beasties of late so have started running a trap-line. It cuts down on the pilfering (scratching - driving the dogs nuts) thing and the pelts will come in handy later for trade or to make into clothing for my new Caribou Barbie.
Mouse-hammer here, the trap not the mouse, is a serious piece of business. It may look like just any old, garden-variety, Victor mouse-trap (patent here) which it is indeed but, this guy's got it goin' on.
You're looking at mouse number ten! MH caught one after the photo.
Eleven mice with one trap; you say. So what?
With THE SAME PIECE OF CHEESE!
You'd have thought the bloodstains would have tipped them off but...
On this next issue, I feel that I have been terribly let down. All the trusted providers of useless information have failed me, Google, Wiki... Nothing.
My rave-fave anorak site, Great War Forum has only brief mention of this oddity:

At this time I was in Sergeant S_____'s team, and our machine gun emplacement was in Pelissier Trench. Here, in addition to manning the machine-gun, we had control of a "rifle battery" on a road immediately behind the trench. This rifle battery always struck me as being rather comic. It was trained on some cross roads just behind the enemy's lines, where their supply wagons used to leave the rations. Six rifles set in a wooden frame and you fired them all at once, at stated times, by the simple process of pulling a cord.Comic indeed.
These were serious items. The drawing above is of a standardized design produced by the Second Army Workshops at Armentieres.
It could hold from one to six rifles the elevation of which was adjustable by one hand-wheel while another wheel could traverse.
Designed by one Capt. Henry Newton, at far left in the photo - the one whose hands are cold - and produced in prototype by a blacksmith attached to Newton's home unit the 5th Sherwood Foresters.
It so impressed Maj. General Furse, II Corps commander that he ordered Newton to set up the very workshop that produced this, as well as other items for the Second Army, with the title of Chief Engineer.
It's not a dumb idea at all. As the quote above mentions, one could have six rifles, all zeroed in on a pre-designated target. Rifles that could be fired simultaneously with no need to call for the lads who may have been napping or were toasted from pilfered rum and whose aim may or may not have been good.
One could know of a specific break in the wire where the baddies were likely to pass through at night and the sentry on duty had only to pull a string to send six accurate rounds into the midst of it if suspicious noises were heard.
Work the six bolts (These were Enfields so - no giant amount of time lost) and another six rounds are off.
I don't know what could possibly have worked better in the dark.
And it wasn't as if you had to buddy up with Capt. Newton to get one of these wonderful machines. They were butt-simple.
Initially, they consisted of rifles propped up with sandbags.
The final photo is of a down-and-dirty French example. Two wooden wedges at the rear control elevation while, I guess any traverse would be by shifting the whole unit one way or the other.
Far from rocket science.

We'll start on a lighter note...

2011-05-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Red State Update. I've missed these guys

This is a hilarious day (for me). Your mileage may vary.
For the first time in about a year, I went and bought three bags of coal the other day (Yessir, yessir, three bags full).
I haven't done so prior to this because it's a 35 mile drive - one way - and the stuff is getting expensive. Eight years ago it was going for $20 per 50# bag - now, $28.50 (It comes from Kentucky so it makes some sense).
It also comes with a learning curve that, being propane-lazy, I needed to go through again.
First time out, I labored mightily to work down a hunk of very nice steel only to burn it in half after two hours of work.
But, I love the stuff. I've missed it. You get really dirty and it smells wonderful.
Now, the smell...
Across the street from me lives one of those "hippies" that one loves to hate. He's old by the way - pushing sixty.
But, he's also a serious pussy.
M. Schubert - oh wait - maybe I should put it as Michael S. That's better - anonymity for this guy who I have no desire to "out" in any way.
About five years ago he called the county zoning office claiming violations on our property.
One of said transgressions was the operation of a "forgery" on the premises.
I know. Could ya die?
The day the guy showed up I was just starting a coal fire. It was just a little after the absolute stinky/smoky phase but still putting out plenty of my favorite cologne.
Short version: the guy that the zoning folks sent said: "This is it?"
End of story.
During the period that we were doing a paper route (never forget your childhood roots) he took issue with the state of the muffler on my car. At one point he yelled from his porch asking when I was going to take care of it.
To that end he duct-taped a nasty-gram to our front door (A class act all the way) which was intended to express the feelings of all our neighbors -Not!
That fizzled when he hollered at Mary while she was getting the mail and she chewed him out over a distance of fifty yards or so in full view of God and everybody.
Back to today.
I've been burning this stinky, smoky stuff on the place for eight years now and I long ago quit worrying about sirens I might hear. They were all going somewhere else.
Today, they kept getting closer and closer... then I hear the sound of a big truck out front. Like... fire truck size.
They were in the process of turning around (We live on a dead end) by the time I walked out to the front.
"Good neighbor" was conveniently futzing around in the trunk of his car at the time.
The driver took off his ear-muffs and asked me how I'm doing.
I'm fine I said then added that I'd just lit my coal forge and that it smokes a bit during the first ten or fifteen minutes - and that I've done the same for eight years now with no fire alarms being sounded.
He didn't even get out of the truck - just nodded said 'thanks' and drove off.
About fifteen minutes later my daughter got home from school and said that there was a red van marked "Fire Department" in the street out front.
I thought that I may get to talk to a Fire Marshal- not a big worry. I'm not hazardous in any burnin'-down-the-neighborhood sense.
No one ever came over to where the "hazard" was - at all.
Betsy told me that "the guy" was talking to Michael S. - I mean M. Schubert.
I'm guessing that they weren't swapping recipes.
I'm ready to pee my pants with glee over this.

Okay - enough about me.
You know that loud-mouthed asshole in the bar who's always going on about his time in Special Ops...
Run his name by these folks:
Posers, beware!

"There were about 500 SEALs that operated in Vietnam, and I've met all 20,000 of them."

It's not just a mixture of cement, sand and lime...

2011-05-08T17:42:00.001-07:00

Off topic but I'll be brief.
I'm like a moth to a fucking flame. I just keep starin' out the window at the train wreck that is The Mind Of The Ogre.

Okay, I hate acronyms, especially when it means you're just too mealy-mouthed to simply write "fuck".
So, in my response, I'll be using the proper, King's English.
Obama has a Juris Doctorate from Harvard. Unless you have that or the equivalent... wait for it: Shut The Fuck Up!
John Kerry went to Viet Nam and was decorated, until your idiot of choice has been: Shut The Fuck Up!
Unless you can show me, side-by-side, Kerry's and Georgie's transcripts, Shut The Fuck Up!
Unless you'll freely admit that Al Gore served in Viet Nam, as a speedy four - and voluntarily;
And until you can prove that you even made E-4, much less did anything with it, Shut The Fuck Up!

That was fun.

Mortar: That's our actual topic, class. It's not just the mixture mentioned in the title; used to stick masonry units together.
It's also the clumsy, cereal bowl that comes with the tiny, baseball bat used to crunch things up.
We're talking about the ones that, although named for the cereal bowl look-alike, look nothing like it in the modren era.
Pictured first, a "Stokes Mortar Bomb".
I got onto this odd tangent after reading about an, otherwise intelligent guy who was stopped by customs in the Channel Tunnel due to explosive residue on his hands - and who thought the muddy, rusty thing he'd found and was carrying in his trunk was a Lewis Gun barrel.
He got off light - very light in view of the fact that they were going to ding him for the expense of shutting down the tunnel for three hours.
What he actually had was the above - only not deactivated.
We'll get to the Stokes, the forerunner of all modern mortars but patience.
Now, that's an old-school mortar - and an acutely-cute example, from the Castle of Edinburgh, at that.
With the situation very much the same as that of the machine gun, the Germans had their heads out waaaay ahead of everyone else in spite of having the Prussian equivalent of G. W. Bush at the helm.
In 1914, along with the shock that the glorious cavalry and the spirited bayonet charge weren't going to the carry the day, the French and British realized that they had absolutely no weapons they could use against an enemy who may be very close - but is hiding in a hole.
The Poilus and Brits had to, first of all, pull hand grenades out of their asses - not literally - that would hurt.
Re mortars, the Germans had shown up at the party with a variety of, very effective, Minewerfers.
This caused a mad scramble among the French and English to come up with something, anything that could fling a charge over the top.
The print above (click to zoom) shows some of the more interesting, early solutions utilized.
First of all, retired, 19th century mortars were dragooned from their jobs as lawn ornaments and pigeon-shit collectors and pressed back into service.
Above, one can see a wheeled example at the center while there is another, skid-mounted museum piece in the right foreground.
The others pictured are something else entirely. Called the Taupia Mortar they consisted of an empty, German shell casing with a hole for a fuse drilled into the lower end.
Once it had been mounted to a sizable chunk of wood and charged with black powder, it would toss a bomb - usually just a can full of explosive with a simple fuse, ignited by the firing, at one end.
It did the job - and was cheap to produce.
There were also large caliber mortars made of wooden slats bound with wire. All in all it was a very ugly situation.
Both the French and the British came up with their own versions of the minewerfer but the crux of the biscuit came with Sir Frederick Wilfred Scott Stokes.
Don't be fooled by the title. He was a humble engineer who was knighted in 1918 for his invention.
At the age of fifty-four he was chairman and managing director of the engineering firm of Ransomes and Rapier which company manufactured cranes, pumps and gas cylinders.
He freely admitted that he knew nothing about weapons and, in 1918, said that was why his design was so successful.
He was a hater of complexity like Kalashnikov quoted in the masthead and tried to set up a "Simplification of Designs Department" but got no traction.
Look familiar?
Stokes did flub a few. His first prototypes were too light. It's a problem when the tube only weighs three times the projo.
He also designed a "bouncing round" that contained six separate charges that would cause it to bounce around from place to place wreaking havoc.
Okay, they can't all be winners.
But, even with the aerodynamically unsound projo pictured about, it was extremely successful.
Ernst Junger in "Storm of Steel" refers to mysterious mortar rounds that resembled rolling pins.
By the war's end, the modern, finned, streamlined round was established.
The technology, such as it is, remains the same.
A round is dropped down the tube. A primer at the base ignites the propellant, made up of incremental rings - the number depending on range, which sends it up and away.
To finish up; some "optics".
A few of the Stokes in action along with some of the monstrosities it replaced

Coehorn mortars at Cold Harbor during the late unpleasantness.

Same war - different ordnance. This was a thirteen-inch, siege mortar (8, 1/2 tons. Safe from pilferers methinks)
Named for its designer, one Richard "Dick" Tater. Okay; Dictator! I'm just a child.
A little easier to pack than the last?

Left, a Portuguese crew on the Western Front.
Who knew?

One of the big boys from the War to Prove that Rich Assholes Don't Always Get Their Way.
It appears to have caught one on the "chin" and was tossed backwards off its mounting.
Actually, it was probably just some wild teenagers.

Last Time. I Promise!

2011-05-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

I just have to get in on this.
My President, while delivering a stand-up routine that pulled down the voluminous pants of The Donald, was simultaneously setting in motion the completion of what George the Incompetent was unable to pull off - and, he was cool (and funny) throughout.
Not even with all the King's horses (asses) and all the King's men (Men? Alberto Salazar, John Yoo, Dickless Cheney) helping to make the naked emperor look ... less than naked - with very limited success - could George the Idiot even make a fair imitation of a triumph.
Now the Monday-morning-quarterbacks are screaming "George got the lid of the pickle jar loosened!" (paraphrased).
He was just too classy a guy to have claimed all the glory when it was the new guy's turn.
That was it.
So shit, Lex Luthor's dead. What's Superman gonna do with his time now?
This is just too precious; a symbolic end to a symbolic struggle. A struggle that we lost by the way.
For your edification: Peter No-Tool telling it the way it is.
The good bit is just around 3:00. Stick around after only if you want to hear Anthony Hopkins being accused of sodomy.

I remember 9/11.
I remember thinking, at the time; "This - is - fucking - brilliant."
Whoever came up with this plan was a fucking (evil) genius.
Two big buildings down, three thousand dead and so much symbolism candy it made my teeth hurt.
Disclaimer: I am in no way trivializing the deaths of these people. That is and will remain for many, many people a lifelong tragedy.
Bin Laden was a sociopath. He didn't care about the buildings - or the people.
More than not caring - they were just incidental. he was a Randian - if you will.
What he wanted was the symbology and he nailed it.
He gave America a rallying cause, warfare against an amorphous group of people - extreme fervor with no focus - and more eye candy than anyone could handle.
Not to mention; 9/11... that would be... the emergency phone number. The two towers looked like the number "eleven".
Talk about memorable.
He knew it would be - and was - widely filmed and played over and over and over.
And he knew that Americans in the Reagan era (may it pass quickly) operated on naught but emotion.
One never even had to move beyond the infantile level of consciousness to be outraged - and outraged we were.
Not to mention, Bin Laden also wisely picked the moment when America's most reactionary and least intelligent President was driving the bus.
An overgrown frat-boy with a hard-on for Iraq (You know, Saddam tried to kill his Dad - he along with lots of Japanese back in the day but they seem to get a pass. No oil! Got it).
Now, almost ten years later, the dim-bulb's policies have left us virtually bankrupt (Maybe the all those John Galts could bail us out).
We've given the store away to rich fucks who are said to... what? I forget - oh yeah, create jobs.
We've maxed out the credit card on the Bank of China just so we could have lots of dedicated folks out driving around in other countries so they could be bombed or shot at.
Good thinkin', Georgie.
So now our comic book villain is dead.
he wasn't entirely successful. We're not quite in the toilet. We didn't elect John "who do want me to be now?" McCaine and got a smart grownup instead.
He's the wrong color but... we'll repaint later.
The witch is dead.
Good. No tears shed.
And, it's better that it was like this rather than natural causes because, a war of symbols needs a symbolic ending.
Taken alive, brought back here for a long, drawn out trial would have been just more cheap, tawdry spectacle and, God knows we've had enough of that.
And he would have ended up dead anyway - or in a SuperMax prison, costing yet another pretty penny - and therefore winning again.
I believe in the consummate professionalism of SEAL Team Six (My Nav again!) so it was all righteous and legitimate but, I really don't care.
Bin Laden's been written out of the script.

The "New Coke" of Firearms

2011-05-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

NOW This Just In!! (ya like the selective capitalization? Know where I got that sly, stylistic twist?)

My fave guy to make fun of 'cause he's so derned stupid, one George Hamilton Hill IV penned this just today... and I am not making this up.

"Well, at least he was decisive…
16 hours to do decide on if he should have the SEALS go get Bin Laden.
Really, 16 Hours? What was there to think about? Target Number One, and he had to think about it for 16 hours? Yeah, I’m glad he made the right choices, but 16 hours tells me he had a lot of conflicting opinions on the operations. And yet he is milking the credit for it as much as possible. The jackhole."

"Jackhole"? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I think that even an affirmative-action, Ivy League elite like my president would be able to cut down a Christmas tree without resorting to violence.
Dumbass. Note: easier to interpret that "jackhole".

THIS JUST IN!

"Let’s be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found UBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!!"

Guess whoo.... Lotsa caps, rabid nationalism, two, yes two,count 'em exclamtion points.
And Georgie flew the plane.

And they said that the Webley-Fosberry was the answer to a question nobody asked.
The question being answered here went as follows:
How about a pistol that is:
A. Ugly as homemade sin
B. Requires either special ammo or an adapter (with a few dozen rounds, imagine the delight - not to mention - expense of reloading quickly)
C. Did I mention "butt-ugly"?
D. Is kind of a revolver. But feeds from a magazine (the only advantage.
E. And is less-than-esthetically pleasing. Or have I mentioned that?
I know, everything looks like shit in its patent drawings but this stayed with the ugly right up into production.
I crap you negative.
They'd have had to tie a pork chop around it's neck to get the dog to play with it.
Yes, Virginia. This idiotic thing was on the market - briefly.
This is the brain-wave of one David Dardick who came up with a seriously well-thought-out-scheme for something that was completely irrelevant.
But there were options available!
Lookie! Something to make your cumbersome pistol - into a cumbersome carbine.
I don't mean "cumbersome" in an ergonomic sense. Both may have been a joy to handle.
The problematic bit (and we're talking about a large bit) is the "tround". Triangular Round... get it?
Again, I want to make it clear that I think this thing is really cool - just completely out of place in a world full of perfectly adequate arms firing round cartridges.
A lot of firearms... like - all of them.
And, it's ugly.
But, product placement notwithstanding, this was a clever idea. The cylinder (it is a revolver) has three chambers open to the side. Three because then the strongest cross-section of the cylinder would transfer the impact of firing to the frame through the web between the other two cylinders and on and on and on.
The chambers are fed from a double magazine below filled with triangular cartridges which take up less space than round ones and - unlike Dardick's initial design - can be oriented any-old-way in the chamber.
The right side of the magazine would feed until empty, then rounds would be picked up from the left. It really is brilliant.
You could have picked one up in the late fifties.
1958
Note the interchangeable barrel and selective firing pin. This was for the .38/.22 version where each (conventional) round had to inserted into a sleeve before loading to take away its roundness and replace it with troundness.
Also the double stack mag has been streamlined and still takes advantage of the triangular rounds stacking ability.
Still, a lot of smart, brain power expended accomplishing nothing.
But Dardick did make some money with his brilliance.
It was explored in the '70's as a "salvo" round with each tround carrying three flechette rounds but was rejected.
It found success in, of all places, the well-drilling industry.
The Dardick Terra Drill combined a conventional drilling head with, I don't know how many, trounds which, loaded with four ceramic projos apiece were fired to soften things up whenever the drill hit something hard.
Again, the guy was no dummy.
Just had to find his market.

May Day, Beltane, Stuffed Crotches, Stuffed Shirts and "Tubby Little Cubbies All Stuffed With Fluff"

2011-04-30T17:26:00.000-07:00

Ahh, remember that day; eight years ago today, when our gallant leader "landed" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to comfort us with the fact that he pretty much considered the Iraq thing over.
And that he'd (Donald) trumped it.
What - a - guy!
Or as former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan would have put it: What a MAN!
You can't blame her for being twitterpated.
Check out our boy's "unit"!
Whoa! Little too much Kleenex, fellas. Subtlety is what we're after.
But it was effective.
The entire thing was obviously stage-managed from the beginning.
First of all, they had to turn the boat around before his speech because otherwise the city of San Diego would have provided the backdrop for what was supposed portray Georgie cruisin' the blue in the deepwater Navy.
Anyone want to ask a Republican what turning a carrier, at anchor, around cost the taxpayers?
He also told reporters that he'd flown it - the plane; here described by a report by CNN two days later:

"The exterior of the four-seat Navy S-3B Viking was marked with "Navy 1" in the back and "George W. Bush Commander-in-Chief" just below the cockpit window. On the plane's tail was the insignia of the squadron, the "Blue Wolves.""

Georgie, Rove or one of his minions was obviously too, too into "Independence Day", a disaster that Will Smith and Randy Quaid had the misfortune to be in the way of.
Of course, it's bullshit.
First of all, my Nav would never have let that incompetent fly an expensive piece of hardware.
The slow boy wasn't a pilot - or aviator as the Navy and Marine Corps legitimately call their guys who routinely land planes on the deck of a ship.
He had been a pilot but that was probably about the time that the actual aviator who flew the plane was born.
By all accounts, he was a good fighter pilot but he disgusted some of his colleagues in the Air Guard as most of them had volunteered for, and served, tours in Viet Nam.
They'd gotten combat cred as well as the feeling that they weren't complete shirkers.
The Pooh Bear didn't roll that way.
So no, Georgie didn't fly the plane.
Actually though, using the criteria developed at the Institute For Public Stupidity for what constitutes actually flying an aircraft he did - because one of the fellows at aforementioned think tank, one George Hill has "flown" all sorts of aircraft.
By which measure, I myself have "flown" a succession of 737's, a Super Stretch DC8, a C141, - twice, several ski-equipped C130's, often making ski landings, a 747, a Shit Hook, a Huey (See, I'm hip to the jive), a DC10, an Aeronca Champ, a Cessna 180 and some random, little-airline twin engine thing.
There are probably more that I'll remember later.
But what I'll always remember though is the flight from Christchurch NZ to McMurdo Station when we were making 350 knots against a 200 knot head wind.
I was just glad that I was "flying" the plane the way the Georges did - by sitting in the back.
We turned back, thanks to the sage advice of the E4 who was "flying" the plane.
I'm not going to tip my hand but lets just say that one of the Georges believed that the other George had actually flown (conventional interpretation) the plane.
Read his old stuff. it ain't The Onion but it is amusing.
Back to May Day.
Poor choice of dates for the Rovians to have picked - especially since they've had eight years worth of other days to sort through to find one that's less problematic.
May Day, aka "International Worker's Day", aka Beltane (It's pagan - don't approach without proper protection) has a long history of being... well... off - for a certain crowd.
Wife number two, an occasional Wiccan and now full-time lesbian said that to ensure good luck for the coming year the thing to do is to roll around naked in the dew at first light.
I've never tried it. I mean... it's cold, you've got to get up early... the whole idea's stupid.
That attitude and lack of participation might go a long way toward explaining my sorry state at this time.
And FUCK! I missed it - again!
Okay, I'm done.
I promise - a weapons post on the morrow. It's just that... it's like the smelt season.
When the stupid is running, it's impossible to resist.
Speaking of which - and I promise I'll be done after this - Tamara K. is the gift that keeps on giving.
I didn't link to her because, if she writes about me, then no one will find out about her most recent, brilliant, clever rejoinder.
But, total from last Sunday to yesterday - 771 visits.
Again, thanks, Tam.
Check back tomorrow for me getting back on task.
The rush of new faces is drawing to a close - only six hits yesterday and four from the day before.
Alas.

This guy speaks for me...

2011-04-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

...and I'm not even Kenyan. I can prove it.
I have both the long and short form within arms reach. In fact I just scanned one so I can properly report at my initial interview with Social Security tomorrow.
I'm out to become one of those "moochers" like... I don't know... Paul Ryan... Ayn Rand.
But, because Hot Springs Montana is just a stone's throw from Kenya (You can see it from there!), I'm aware that many may think my pissy, malcontent, Scots-Irish schtick is merely a front to conceal my true Islamic heritage.
So I'm prepared to offer proof.
I mean... anyone would wonder, right?... Lou Brock?... Huh?
Just ask, folks. I'll cough it up.
So, apologies to Kevin (It's just a ploy for more fudge - some with almonds this time. Your birthday's coming up by the way, Teletubby. I'm not in the stone age. I'm on FaceBook.) and my new friend, Josh who is a rational, decent man who I have no wish to offend.
But... the hairdo that walked like a (grossly obese) man has gotten his wish.
He's made the country look like idiots - even more so than before - the world over.
The "self-made man" (It's easy when you inherit part of 400 million) has splashed his stupidity over the whole nation.
Thanks, media.
And mostly, thanks, Donald.
You've been very helpful.

Link to the vid on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vX5ueEKsSWc

The Tale of the Tank Named "Mystery Meat" A Tale of Pluck and Daring

2011-04-25T19:35:00.001-07:00

Actually, its name was Fray Bentos and the mystery meat ("Eraser Meat" as my ex called Spam) was good old British Bully beef aka canned corned beef.
I made myself a sumptuous dinner of CB hash last evening after my delightful time of poking at Ayn Rand and her acolytes.
It occasioned quite a response (My shots at Ayn - not my hash) - 199 hits that came from good old Tam's site just last evening. More than double my normal traffic. Thanks, Sweetie.
A hint to any subsequent commenters (paraphrased): I already know enough about dog shit from picking it up off the lawn, rug, etc. that I'd feel completely justified in rejecting your assurances that it's a nice ice-cream topping - out of hand.
I wouldn't even give you a chance to argue your side.
So, back to the clubhouse where you can pet each other and say that you're still very, very smart for rationalizing a morally bankrupt world view.
But, I don't know. I'm just a... (Sentence completed by Mickey Rourke here).
And, apologies to any dog shit out there who felt unfairly impugned by comparison to Ayn Rand.
Back to the beef. "Bully" comes from the French bouilli "boiled". The French themselves had no use for the stuff and called it singe aka "monkey meat".
The Germans loved it. According to Remarque ("All Quiet on the Western Front") often raids were mounted just to rip some off.
Fray Bentos was a Mark IV Male meaning that, in addition to Lewis guns, it had a Naval six-pounder mounted in each sponson.
She was one of a section of four commanded by Captain Donald Richardson, a grocery retailer back in the world - possibly the reason for the name.
The actual tank commander was 2nd Lieutenant George Hill (And I'm not making this up).
The Captain was a veteran of earlier fighting albeit in the infantry and Hill was a newly promoted pre-war Territorial Color Sergeant who had also been in the shit.
For them, as well as the rest of the crew, the main gearsman, the two six-pounder gunners, the right and left gearsmen and the two Lewis gunners, in was their first time fighting a tank. The tank's maiden voyage as well.
Their shot at glory occurred about a month into the pointless debacle (General Sir Douglas Haig's idea... again. Did you know he was the model for Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh books? Not really) affectionately referred to as "The Third Battle of Ypres".
The numerical classification was just a sop for those historical purists who demand a name for everything.
In reality, the Ypres Salient was the site of a constant, non-stop battle - for four years. A bight in the front about six by eight miles that still contains 40,000 unrecovered bodies.
This latest of Haig's fuck-ups ("I've never met a massed infantry assault against entrenched machine-guns that I didn't like") goes by the more general name of a village, one of many, obliterated by the war, Passchendaele.
Haig's plan, as always was that the PBI (poor bloody infantry) would break the line so the glorious cavalry could rush in and consolidate the position.
He was sure it would work this time because he'd heard that the Passchendaele Ridge was dry and sandy and perfect for the cav.
Helping old Doug along, assisting in his dimbulbitude were the facts that the entire area was reclaimed marshland and was only farm able thanks to extensive drainage systems that had not done well in the previous three years.
Another turd in the old boy's punchbowl was that the August during his attack (It went from July to November 1917) turned out to be the rainiest on record.
I'd venture to say that most pictures you find of Tommy Atkins ass deep in mud are from Passchendaele.

Okay. Enter the brave little tank named after a food-like substance ready, along with it's contemporaries, to kick some Teutonic butt.
Shorty before dawn on August 22, they moved forward. Capt. Richardson had chosen to ride in Lt Hill's tank and on they went.
Their objectives were a set of "farms". They'd been farms in an earlier, simpler time but now they were reinforced concrete bunkers.
They made some headway on Somme Farm and left the following infantry to mop up while the moved on to Gallipoli Farm.
They had been doing better than most of the other tanks as most of them were ditched behind them.
Hill's eyes were swollen from the strain of trying to see in the smoke so Richardson offered to relieve him at the helm.
Hill agreed but, while moving out of the drivers seat, a burst of machine gun fire sprayed the viewing port.
Blinded by splinters, Hill inadvertently pushed the throttle forward and the tank found itself tilting precariously to the right with all traction lost.
Not a problem. It's just a simple matter of hooking up the unditching beam and... unditching.
This simple process required nothing more than that someone go outside, on top of the tank, free the unditching beam (a chunk of iron-bound timber longer than the tank was wide) from its moorings and the hook it to the tracks.
Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezie - in principle.
The lad sent topside to do the work however turned out to be the victim of a single, short burst of MG fire.
Another volunteered to go out and give it a shot but Richardson decided that taking out the MG was a smarter plan.
It had been close so the uphill sponson's gun soon took it out.
The same sponson gunner was aiming again when a shrapnel shell exploded just outside sending a giant splinter through his jaw and into his chest.
It was 6:45 AM. They'd been in action all of three hours and Richardson and Hill were wounded. The gunner was nearly dead and the poor fellow who tried the unditching trip was dead as well.

At this point, the German artillery had gotten the range and began sending rounds out to them.
They shook things up, making the tank settle lower to the point that the gun in the right sponson was buried in the mud.
While the right sponson was heading down, of course the left was pointing increasingly skyward until, even at maximum depression, it could hit little.
The ARTY wasn't quite equal to the task since Fray Bentos had managed to ditch herself on the back slope of a large crater so, as far as conventional artillery, she was reasonably protected.
Early in the afternoon things quieted down and another of the gunners offered to give the unditching gear another shot. Richardson agreed and invited himself along to help.
Alas, the body of Brady (The unfortunate who had first tried the idea) was jammed up against the rear door - along with the unditching beam, knocked loose by the shelling.
Stuck. Well and truly.
So, at this point, the only way out of the tank was through the door of the left sponson which, inconveniently, was now virtually horizontal and in full view of the enemy.
At this time, being out of ideas otherwise, they decided to start her up and see if maybe she could pull herself out.
It didn't work. Worse, it made the tank lurch further to the right knocking the breech of the six-pounder into the chest of the other gunner.
At this point, one of the Lewis gunners began firing. Some Germans were forming up around Gallipoli Farm for a counter-attack.
The Lewis gun, being protected by the horn of the tank dispersed them.
The day wore on and the big steel box started baking in the August sun.
Long about evening it occurred to them that none of them had eaten. They broke out the rations: ration biscuits and - wait for it - bully beef and chowed down.
Okay, to make things just a little worse, the detonations around the tank took on the tones of trench mortars, low velocity but high trajectory. Just the thing for a target on a reverse slope.
Now fire is starting to come from, of all places, the rear.
The lads in the trenches behind, assuming that the tank was abandoned, were peppering it with rifle fire.
The ultimate (bad) outcome was that they'd bring up a field gun and take Fray Bentos out entirely to prevent its being used as a German strong point.
The tank's second in command, one Sgt. Missen, an old regular said he was tired of sitting and volunteered to move to the rear to clue them up.
Waiting until it was dark enough to not be shot but light enough to not get lost, off he went.
He arrived, wounded but the message was received.
Nighttime came and the 18 tons of steel that had been so unbearably hot in daytime gave up all that heat and turned into a cold, steel box.
In the dark the worry became that German sappers would come to mine the tank and, sometime in the very early morning, the left sponson door was jerked open and a figure was seen against the night sky with a stick grenade.
Richardson shot him with his pistol and the German and grenade fell off and those inside the tank slammed the door and latched it from the inside.
The grenade went off just outside and the concussion sent the sponson (mounted on tracks to be retracted for rail transport) flying into the tank where it smacked the shoulder of one of the gearsmen.
It was determined that they wouldn't be safe if they were completely blind so they left the rear door (blocked by Brady and the beam) open enough to see/shoot a revolver through.

Two Germans carrying a box between them were spotted and put to flight.
Richardson then decided that the left sponson door should remain open because, otherwise they were blind toward the front.
What this entailed was holding was holding an armored door - maybe two by four feet - open just a few inches - against gravity.
Come morning they decided that they could still make themselves useful but they were thirsty.
Since they probably weren't leaving under their own steam, they started drinking the radiator water.
Later, early afternoon, the crew member watching at the sponson door reported that he saw troops assembling. They were out of reach for the Lewis gun but a rifle, poked through the crack between the sponson door and its jamb sent them packing.
Later that day they saw another group of infantry assembling and broke them up.
Night fell - again - and, long about 1:00 AM they saw figures moving to the rear of them.
They watched anxiously wishing that one side or the other would send up a flare to illuminate just who the fuck was out there.
Richardson was just getting ready to send a round into them on spec when a flare went up from British lines.
They were Germans and so Tommys in the rear took care of them.
After this, they fired lights off at regular intervals.
In the morning the crew fended off a half-hearted attack in the front of the tank but the food was running low and the radiator water didn't seem to be doing the job.
It was decided that it was time to hike on home.
What followed was a looong wait for dusk during which time the mortars were getting closer.
By this time, all but one of the crew was dead or wounded but they'd stayed in action for nearly three days during which time they'd broken up three German counter-attacks. Most of that time being ditched and "helpless".
All the surviving folks got back. The lads - unasked, it had been drilled into them - unshipped the tank's Lewis guns before going home.
Richardson's last act before passing out was to make sure that the Lewis guns were properly received by the infantry.
Taken primarily from "The Boiler Plate War" by John Foley.
It's one of the books you can have the time to read absent any time wasted with tripe like "Atlas Shrugged".
Fray Bentos is the name of a town in Uruguay.
The bully beef I ate last night (and this morning), Libby's, originated in...
Fray Bentos.

Update:
Interior shots of a Mark IV just like Fray Bentos.
First photo, taken from along the right side of the engine, shows the driver's position.
They're Brits - it's on the wrong side.
You can see that this is a male by the ammo racks for the six-pounder in the sponson to the right.
Next up; the Commander's seat.
Notice that they would have had to fight over the Lewis gun.
And, why the Lewis gun instead of a belt-fed Vickers which would have had more sustained fire capability?
It was because the drums of Lewis ammo were easier to stow than belts.
Now, this is obviously a "clean and well-lighted place". The lighting most certainly to make the photo possible.
Regarding clean; prior to slowly sinking into the mud and having eight people living and dying in it for two days and nights, Lt. Hill's tank was said to be immaculate as would befit a former color sergeant.

The Reptilian Brain

2011-04-24T15:46:00.001-07:00

Hey, Friends of Tammy! Nice of ya'll to drop by but... what the fuck are you doing here?
This is old news. The movie bombed. Big surprise. Water over the dam, Tam's heroine further discredited... what?
Anyway, say "Hey" to the "gun-chick" dreamboat (That's what you all think. Admit it) for me.
And hey, Don't be a stranger...
10/21/11

I know, I know... this is all supposed to be about weapons... The next post will be. I promise.
I also know that this is probably inappropriate for the Day of our Blessed Savior's Resurrection but I'm just no damned good.
I've just been cracking up recently over the "mixed" reactions to the release of the, apparently shitty movie based on the, almost certainly shitty "novel" by female talking lizard, Ayn Rand.
I confess, with no small amount of pride in the huge amount I've time I've saved for more productive pursuits; ie taking a dump, that I've never read (thought about reading - tried and failed to read - picked up out of curiosity in a bookstore) "Atlas Shrugged".
I did read "The Fountainhead" during the period of enforced boredom spoken of in the previous post. I don't recall much other than the fact of Howard Roark being one of the least likable characters I've ever been forced to follow through a book.
The guy was a prick - my bad - superman.
Video below: Part of a long ago interview with Mike Wallace interspersed with quotes by some of the deep thinkers of the right singing her praises.
Sean Hannity? In what universe does that little dough-boy rate an opinion?

She's hot! Don't you think?
Lank hair, crooked teeth and no lips whatsover.
With the accent she's the entire package.
Also amusing is the relatively recent revelation, mentioned briefly here, that the great individualist went to Uncle Sugar to succor her during her (I hope) long and painful death from lung cancer. Couldn't have happened to any more deserving organism with a three-chambered heart. Seriously, I like reptiles. I'm not going to cuddle them but they eat bugs that I'm not willing to.
Hey! Maybe she was actually a Komodo dragon. They have toxic drool.
But there's even more to good old Ayn, the darling of the brain dead.
I'll not ruin the surprise. It's lurking in the video below but I'll give you a hint:
William Edward Hickman
Here's an enlightening essay on their "relationship".

What is making this all the more delicious for me is that a few years ago I butted heads (Well, my head. They just used brain stems.) with a couple of Lizard Woman's devotees. You can find them here and here.
Now, Marko, the first of the two is settled into being a Dad and seems to have lost some of that libertarian fervor which I take to mean that he's salvageable.
But the next, one Tamara K. is still on the case. She went and saw the movie and was even cleverly "snarky" (God! I hate that expression) during the previews. And the Village Voice even picked up on that! Wow!
Anyway, back in May of '08 what I was told was that my grasp on the "philosophy" of "Objectivism" was stunted by my lack of understanding.
Okay. Fair enough.
But, being that this entire school of thought begins and ends with the impulses formed in the most primitive part of the psyche, it makes me wonder: "What's not to get?"
I guess I'm just not deep enough.
In closing (And a gun post tomorrow - I promise) a new blog by someone who knew the reptile and The Donald's Mom and has anecdotes to tell.
Go there. Sarah Proud and Tall.
If I wasn't spoken for and she wasn't 92, I'd be so taking her out.

Update!!!
Boy, fucking, howdy. I must have stirred up Ms Tam.
Lots and lots of folks coming my way thanks to her.
Of course, I'll not bother to read her response. It's more fun that way... for me.
Ta ta, Dear.

Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot. Then this cool-ass photo of your truly - taken by my faithful Canon FtB(rick) with the self-timer - would have had to wait another year.
Palm Sunday; 1975.
Location: the top of Observation Hill.
Yes, Oly product shot. I'll be getting a royalty check in a few days.
Oly used to be Clint Eastwood's beer but I digress.
Anyway, lest you think that I'm a rabid, Christer, Easter fan.
No...Christer though I may be;

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."
Romans 14:5

Sorry all you Revised Standard/New International fans - it's the King Jimmie for this kid.
This excursion was nothing more than a boredom staving device which resulted in a photo (Conversation piece!).
The supply ship had been gone since January. the last flight until August left a month before.
Daytime was, at that point, about eight hours long - easing into all-dark-all-the-time.
Thirty-six years ago today.
Ah, sweet bird of youth.

Stupid so thick...

2011-04-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

...it'd be easier to jump over than walk around it.

Picked up from "The Great War Forum"; a conversation vis a vis the pulling of grenade pins with one's teeth.
Bozo here proved that that at least was possible.
He proved as well that his buddy; A. Likes and cares about him. and B. Is exponentially smarter than he is.
What idiot did was hold it loosely enough that the spoon flew off while still in his hand and bounced the grenade in the water.
Good job the pond was as deep as it appears to have been.
Most definitely a Bear of Very Little Brain.

Johnny Reb

2011-04-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained."

Robert E. Lee

Yeah, I'm a day late with this but I was rather impaired last eve and thought it needed a more sober rewrite.

Meet the Tea-Bagger of the 19th century, Johnny Reb.
Of course, as has been beaten to death everywhere, 4:30 AM, 150 years ago today it all started - or ended - depending on your outlook.
The "hate-filled" (Dumbass George Hill's nomenclature) liberal sites I frequent have been awash with screeds excoriating those with the temerity to "celebrate" this horror, America's most costly war. Lots of revisionist history flying back and forth from both sides with, in all fairness, the most unrealistic coming from those with Southern sympathies.
The war was about slavery - nothing else. Not "state's rights" (Excepting of course the right of the states to allow slavery). But that's not what I'm talking about.
Everybody knows - and knew then in their heart of hearts - that slavery was evil.
Further, I doubt that anyone, at the time, didn't know that it was a doomed institution.
All the other "civilized" countries had already abolished it.
Our unpleasantness over what was supposed to be the settling of a Mexican state, Texas, came about solely because the new Mexican government - in their backwards way - had outlawed slavery in their brand-new constitution thereby robbing all those American entrepreneurs of their shot at the American dream - a big plantation growing cotton with free (Well, you had to feed them) labor.
None other than Robert E. Lee wrote in an 1856 letter to his wife: "... In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country."
The problem was - we'd gotten ourselves addicted to it.
Not to the idea of owning people like you own farm equipment but to the idea of being a sudden world power in a certain raw material.
That would be: cotton. Before Eli Whitney did his bit to help humanity self-destruct, cotton had been a luxury fiber, either imported from Egypt or India where they grew long-staple cotton or it was laboriously picked out of the bolls of American short-staple cotton.
I have no idea what cotton's portion of the GDP of pre-war America but it must have been considerable.
My point, and I do have one, is this: Stopping slavery didn't involve merely a change in behavior, but rather a shitcanning of an entire, very lucrative, way of doing business.
A greedy, selfish attitude on the part of those doing the business to be sure but there it is.
Talk to the Koch brothers about alternative energy sources for a "reenactment" of the mindset.
The problem, for me, is this guy. These guys, the first twelve I picked from the Library of Congress' eighteen pages of such portraits.
Johnny Reb.
Actually, I was wrong. A lot of the images on those eighteen pages were dead JRs.
I'm going to cop to a having a real soft spot for the Confederate ground-pounder. First off, I've always liked the underdog but mostly what interests me isn't the regimented, well-equipped armies. It's the poor assholes making do.
The Monitor is interesting to me in a technical sense but the Virginia, I see as a real triumph. Serious back-of-the-envelope technology.
I really had my interest piqued when, discovering that "Hey, I can actually make knives - that cut stuff", I found myself scouring the Internet for possible ways to "monetize" my new skill.
I discovered... Confederate Bowies.
These things were perfect. They were historically interesting. They were big - always a plus - and there was absolutely no standard to them.
They were all over the map as far as size, quality of construction, type of construction, fit and finish (Something I've never been into).
A tiny sampling of examples can be seen here. A Google image search of "Confederate Bowie" will yield a far more serious bunch.
The fact that there were so many of them speaks, to me, the same thing the knuckle knives of the Great War do:
Knife as security blanket, Dumbo's feather, something to make the scared, excited, proud kid feel "manly" (and slightly less vulnerable) as he hiked off to war.
Plus the fact that some are so obviously homemade, it just breaks my heart.
Okay, Wahh - Wahh, poor me. What does this have to do with those absurd Tea Party nutfudges?
Well, leaving aside the fact that I hugely respect these guys and think very little of the overweight posers who drive the motor-home off to where ever Sarah Palin's next "squirmish" with reality takes place, those pathetic idiots share one attribute with the, far more admirable, Johnny Reb.
They were/are both tools for people who didn't/don't give a shit about them.
As I said, the Tea Party morons can tool about in their Medicare purchased Rascals while demanding a more "limited government and they're nothing but an amusing distraction ("We came unarmed... This time" Pu-fucking-lese!) but they drove there on government roads.
And, a significant number of them collect some sort of government pension. And yet, they've been convinced that they're "rugged individuals".

"All non-conforming in exactly the same way"; Charles Bukowski.

It might just be that JR has a little more historical distance for me but I think the biggie is really this: Johnny Reb fought and died, for a - just few days shy of four years - in what was certainly the most wrong-headed cause that Americans have ever fought and died for - although Georgie's Iraq adventure might compare in spirit if not in volume.
And, for the most part, it wasn't even their fight. They were fighting to perpetuate the aristocratic Southern "lifestyle" of the plantation owners - primarily.
Yes, lots of Confederate soldiers owned slaves - 10%, 25%. It depends on what you're looking at. One study determined that about half of the Rebels were involved in some way with slave ownership but that included - working for someone who owned slaves.
What I'm trying to say is this: 10%, 25% notwithstanding, how many of the 12,500 poor shites in Pickett's charge were thinking, while on their 3/4 mile walk into Union fire; "Once I get to that stone wall, that's one step closer to me ownin' some nigras of my own"?
I don't know. Maybe all of them but I doubt it.

It's unfair to denegrate these poor schmucks. They thought they were doing the right thing.
Yeah, yeah. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" Fuck you.
These guys were sold out.
They were suckers, chumps - and it pisses me off that some would shit on these who gave the last full measure just because they were sold a bill of goods by the powers-that-be.
And now, we have the Tea Party folks, prattling about "states rights" and secession", the same stupid idiocy.
Actually, that last, secession, really gets my attention.
Here's a thought:
How long is the "Free Republic of Utah (or Idaho, Texas, Arizona, pick one)" likely to last - landlocked - with resources, yes but of a rather narrow sort?
Or Alaska secession. Now, there's an idea! Alternate title: "Giving Alaska back to Russia - or Korea".
They're not rugged individuals. They're not self-sufficient - not by a long shot.
They've been fed a steady diet of Ayn Rand horseshit that truly is horseshit.
Case in point: Paul Ryan suckled at the Social Security tit himself after his Dad died when he was sixteen.
Do I begrudge him that? Hell no - not in the least but, now that he's successful and flush, don't you think that his convictions would lead him pay it back?
Or not.
Better yet, Ayn Rand, hack author and half-baked "philosopher", received Social Security benefits while she was (Thank God!) dying from lung cancer. She'd applied under the name "Ann O'Connor" (Hubby's name).
It's bullshit.
And these poor idiots, just like Johnny Reb, are being goaded by moneyed forces that view them as an expense at best and an impediment at worst.
So, it's late. I'm rambling. Best close.
But, Johnny Reb, you were a good man and it sure would have been better if your life had gone to something more worthwhile.
You certainly deserve it.

Of Automatic Pistols and Poorly Dressed Scotsmen

2011-04-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

"Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones.
The gun is good.
Go forth and kill."
I saw this movie exactly one time. 1974, the base theater at Port Hueneme (thirty-five cents admission).
I just put it on my Netflix list so I can see it again because, back in the day I missed a salient feature.
You only have to see the first thirty seconds or so to see what I'm talking about: The piece of ordnance being wielded by Mr. Universe, at least Scotland's most famous contender circa 1952.
Apparently this gun also shows up in "The Maltese Falcon" but that movie doesn't have the bitchin' cool, low-budget '70's special effects and Mr. Universe/Scotland Forever with a long braid and running about in various states of undress.
The heat Mr. Connery is packing is something unique among firearms - a revolver that has a safety - and needs it.
That would the Webely-Fosberry, an automatic revolver.
Not "automatic" as described by Iver-Johnson in the marketing of their low-cost double actions such as this.
No, this is an automatic - as in; self-cocking - revolver; produced from 1901 'till 1915 with less than 5,000 total.
For my money, this design is brilliant. The top half of the frame, along with the cylinder slides back with the recoil - just like the slide on a regular auto-pistol does.
In the process the cylinder, its zig-zag grooves following a stud on the lower, immobile, part of the frame is advanced.
Some tricky machining I would think, especially in aligning the cylinder with the bore.
Of course, in the process of this backward movement, the hammer is cocked as well and it's left ready to fire again.
This brings us to the safety aspect. This puppy took two hands to cock initially. The off hand would grip the hammer and pull it and the frame/cylinder back until it locked.
Thereafter it was carried at full-cock making the safety (the big lever at the top of the grip) very important.

About the photo: and a million dead Scotsmen spin like rotisserie chickens in their graves.
This was his first post-Bond flick and I would think he'd have saved some bucks from them but... maybe not.
Or maybe there's things we don't know (or want to know) about old Sean.
Myself, I simply adore the boots.
Okay, when you manage to tear your eyes from the beefcake, you'll notice that Zed (his name in the movie) is holding his piece un-cocked. This was necessary because the blanks used in filming didn't generate enough recoil to cycle the action so it had to be cocked (two hands) every time he fired it.
And 'cause this is just a cheesy publicity still.
The Fosberry used the same top-break action and fired (in the service version) the same .455 round as the standard Webley, service revolver. A later civilian model fired .38 ACP with half-moon clips - eight shots vs six for the .455.
Depending on who you talk to, this was either never issued or was issued to the RAF.
Its use by the Airedales made lots of sense but down in the mud of the trenches the groove-stud dynamic would only suffer.
Alas, the invention of Lt Colonel George Vincent Fosberry, VC never took off but the old boy wasn't a one-trick pony.
He also came up with the paradox gun which I understand Holland and Holland are going to produce again.
This was devised so big-game hunters didn't have to be encumbered by carrying a shotgun as well as a ginormous rifle.
This sweet unit was a standard gauge shotgun with the final two inches of the bore rifled.
When you think about it, a rifle with 12 gauge bore (roughly 3/4" or .75 caliber) would be an impressive thing.
In closing; another flick of the W/F in action:

Almost forgot.
The idea was resurrected with apparently the same level of success more recently with the manufacture of the .357 magnum Mateba Utica.
From Italy, the country that gave us Michelangelo, Titian and lasagna among other things.

Birthday Boy!

2011-04-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

Happy 74th, Merle.

My Internet Hero

2011-04-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Wong.
It'll take you ten minutes or less (unless you're a slow reader) so take the time.
Sensitive, talented guy vs Ms Push-up Bra, Orange County Division, 2010.

Pissyness and a Swarm of Hornets (Well... three)

2011-04-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

I promised further pissyness and I'm not one to let you down.
Now I'm going to rail about our country's most idiotic entitlement program, our most misguidedly generous give-away.
That would be... military procurement.
Short version: Those folks don't give a shit how much money they spend, nor what they spend it on.
My own personal, modern example is the, oh-so-cool HUMVEE.
Ever since these things came into being I've thought they were nothing but a boondoggle. A giant 4X4 in a world full of such vehicles, available off-the-rack but it gets better.
My cynical belief is that it exists only to provide a raison d'etre for that pathetic auto manufacturer, American Motors.
Before I owned a Dodge Caravan, the worst car in my experience had been an AMC Hornet.
The photo shows the identical rig - right down to the color. Taken by someone who obviously feels better about the chunk 'o crap than I did. Before I finally managed to sell it ($200!!! I'd paid $500 but I was happy to get rid of it) I contemplated giving it to a guy at work who wanted a demo-derby car. All that stopped me was the realization that he probably had hopes of winning and this thing couldn't even crash right.
This rolling (some of the time) shitbox was built when Detroit was still figuring out how to make little cars.
For one thing, the Hornet used the identical rear-view mirror as the Matador and the Rebel even though they were half again as big. Seriously, the mirror looked to be about 1/4 the width of the entire windshield.
And it featured - in 1974 mind you - vacuum wipers. And shitty ones at that. My '59 Ford had vacuum wipers too and they kicked ass on these that were 15 years newer. Six months I enjoyed the pride of ownership of this abomination by which time the right rear door was the only one of four that opened.
This can all, of course be explained by the "birth" of AMC.
"Birth" isn't really accurate as the company was a Frankenstein's monster cobbled together by Mitt Romney's Dad out of some of the countries oldest and most respected car companies.
Studebaker (They built wagons that were used in the Great Western Migration), Packard, Nash and Hudson; they were all absorbed so that America could have yet another shitty product.
Take Hudson as the best example.

The Hudson Hornet (There's that word again. Damn you, Romney!) was the unit that dominated the Southern, stock car circuit in the early fifties - back when stock cars were stock... cars.
This was due to a couple of features: A lower center of gravity with the first (I think) uni-body construction.
Also the Hornets were powered by a high-compression, flathead, straight six displacing 308 cu in.
It was the "largest six-cylinder engine in the world" at the time and, with a two-barrel carburetor, produced 145 hp at 3800 rpm.
For the time, the thing was an ass-kicker. The Montana Highway Patrol used Hornets in the early fifties because in the land of wide-open spaces and no speed limit, they didn't like to be outrun.
Case in point: When I graduated in '72, they were using 440 magnum, Dodge Challengers with 120 gallons of gas on board.
Enter George Romney and the invisible hand of corporate stupidity and the legendary Hornet devolved in this sorry specimen:
9666" />
Behold, the 1957 Hudson Hornet Hollywood. It's gonna take more than alliteration and the word "Hollywood" to give this turd any appeal.
Really clarifies why it's the Chevys of the period that get the attention.
Nice goin' George. Thanks.
Okay, George Romney was an idiot and American Motors produced shite.
But, what does this have to do with the Danny?
Back when I was in the Guard - '90 or '91 - I had occasion to sit for a few minutes in the suicide seat of one of these ridiculous vehicles (the "Hummer") and during such time my gaze settled on the hinges holding the windshield to the body.
Of course, everyone knows; tactical vehicles have to be easily transportable; ie lifting lugs, folding windshield, removable top, etc.These particular hinges (Let's be sympathetic to my age and failing memory) were attached very securely by means of five-yes-five-count-'em-five bolts on each leaf. Military "hardening"; gotcha.
These were graded bolts, specifically grade 8 bolts.
Again; "I'm an old man... I'm confused..."; attributed to: Uncle Leo so... don't be difficult.

Okay boy and girls, settle down. We need to do some arithmetic now. Sorry, but it's necessary.
A grade 8 bolt is made from a medium-carbon steel and is quenched and tempered.
They're rated for a tensile strength of 150,000 psi meaning - a one-inch-square bar of such could support - in tension - two Abrams tanks and all the really fat guys you may know - with some to spare.
Okay, buckle up. It's gonna get bumpy.
According to some folks living a bare 110 miles north on the I5 corridor, Portland Bolt; the shear strength of steel is roughly 60% of the tensile strength.
Okay, the hinges attachment bolts are obviously only going to be stressed in shear so we'll proceed from there.
A grade 8, 5/16" (The best I can recall of the size - see Uncle Leo above) bolt's "tensile stress area" (the cross section we're concerned with) is .0524 square inches.
Out of pure cussedness, and as a giant 'fuck you' to all the math teachers in my past, I'm not going to show my work.
You can calculate yourself. Not to worry. If I'm mistaken I'll correct myself and simply hate you forever as compensation.
150,000 multiplied by .60 (tensile to shear) then multiplied by the tensile stress area equals... wait for it.
4716 lbs per bolt.
Okay, the over-built unit sports twenty of these bad boys but we're only worrying about the half that matters; the ten bolts that would cause the windshield (God forbid!) and vehicle to part company.
It matters not.
An unarmored HUMVEE tips the scales at 5200 lbs.
Now, I've never run across a dead-horse I was unwilling to flog so, that means that just one of these peripheral fasteners could do most of the job of supporting the entire unit.
Okay, so just one of them's not entirely up to the task - but there's a built-in, ten-fold redundancy factor.
So, the taxpayers of America can rest, secure in the knowledge that the bolts securing this vital piece of gear to the vehicle could, if need be, support... what? Eight HUMVEES - by one windshield.
I recall thinking at the time: "If Paul Bunyan happened along and took a fancy, he could stick his fingers through the glass and swing said HUMVEE around his head - by its windshield frame."
So you say: "What's wrong with over-building?".
Nothing, our boys deserve the best but, and here's where all those austerity-hawk, taxpayer patriots need to call their Mommies into the room to explain to them that: Graded bolts cost over twice as much as grade 1.
But hey, again, aren't our boys worth it?
Well, being that grade 1 bolts have slightly less than half the tensile strength of grade 8, it would still mean that Mr. Bunyan, as illustrated in our metaphor above, could still do the identical thing - albeit with a somewhat greater chance of of failure.
Not a likely scenario in any case.
It's expense for its own sake and you can be sure that every single piece of hardware in that ridiculous vehicle is a designated "spare part" to be supplied (Happily I'm sure) by American General with just a "slight" markup.
Anyone recall the $5000 toilet seats?

Stop the presses!
Update - An intelligent treatise on why we, as a nation, keep doing such stupid shit.

April Idiot's Day and Further Pissiness

2011-04-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

This fella's my homeboy, yo. Check out the... it's not a string tie. I'm not sure what you call it but it's way, waay wild-west.
Anyway, this dickweed hails from Basin, a wide spot in the road between Butte and Boulder.
You can hear what this (Bar owner) has to say about Montana's onerous drunk driving laws.
What a maroon
Finding this was extremely fortuitous for me as this, April 1, is the 35th anniversary of a formative moment in my misspent youth.
In the wee-wee hours (To wit: the hours that only folk who have to wee-wee should be up) I cleverly wrecked the first vehicle I'd ever owned.
Worse, I'd owned it for less than a month - a 1965 International Harvester pickup, purchased out of the five grand or so I'd managed to squirrel away during my 12 months in the Antarctic.
One of the bennies of the Winter-Over was 60 days of leave afterward and. This happened less than a week before my sixty was up and I was to arrive to pop tall at CBC, 31st NCR, Port Hueneme, CA.
My plan was to drive my new rig down there but, being that "the other guy" in this little escapade was a Burlington Northern, switch engine, I ended up flying instead.
Okay, alcohol was involved. Hint: If you're going to run into a train at 2:00 AM, don't have an empty 12 pack's worth of cans rolling on the floor (Hey, Keep Montana green).
Really kids; take this to heart - and not just the anti-littering bit.
But this nimrod (See video) doesn't want to destroy a vital part of rural Montana culture - and his owning a bar is just incidental.
Okay, in my last, pissy post I alluded to (Hell, I came right out and said it) to the fact that I retain some of the cultural practices of my ancestral homeland.
I'm an open container kind of guy. In fact, a former employer in Valier (A bigger wide spot a few miles off of I15 a ways north of Conrad) said, and I quote: "Don't leave home without it".
In fact, we negotiated the various expenses - he drove and paid for gas so I had to buy the 'drivin' home' six-pack.
For further insight, check out an essay entitled "Drinking and Driving" by UofM professor William Kittredge, a protege of my favorite poet, another famous Montana drunk, Richard Hugo.
It's a proud and... well... it's a tradition.
Let me be clear; 4/1/76 was the only big ticket I've ever received and occasioned the only time I've ever spent in jail.
A whopping 2 1/2 hours of which I recall little.
But, in my pathetic defense, let me say this: There's a world of difference between driving with a beer between your knees and driving drunk - which was clearly what I'd been doing back in the day.
The key is this: Don't be an idiot and, if you get pulled over - you're hosed.
Deal with it.
Above all, don't be like this (Republican - who'd a thunk it) dim bulb, Alan Hale.
Seriously!
Alan; play it close to the vest, idiot!
Folks will still be pounding them down at your place. You'll be okay.
Clue up, stupid. No one who gets toasted in your joint is going to be dissuaded by "considering records back five years in DUI cases"
Driving home on auto-pilot is already illegal but they're still in there, suckin' 'em down.
"Small business" in Montana will be okay.
Honest. Voice of experience.
With all apologies to any Republicans in my readership, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
It's getting so Sarah looks like one of the smart ones.

I'm in a Pissy Mood

2011-03-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry Kevin, waxing personal on this one. Skip if you please. Some homemade fudge delivered to my house will you absolve you.
First some housekeeping:
You have read in the past, and will most certainly read in the future that "I don't know. I'm just a crazy, beer-drinking wrestler who likes to fart".
It's not entirely accurate as I'm not a wrestler and I don't specifically like to fart. It's a bodily function, necessary but inconvenient (sometimes).
Anyway, said quote by the immortal (in literature) Henry Chinaski can be seen and understood in a clip to be seen here.
Clear?
Had an interesting cultural experience yesterday the occasion being: taking the whole fam damily to see "Battle Los Angeles". Okay flick but that's not what this is about.
Okay, being the gentlemanly fellow I am, I dropped aforementioned damily at the door and went to park the car.
It's what us guys do - along with hold the Missus' purse if needed and (occasionally) buy those monthly necessities.
If ya'll can't do either of these... MAN THE FUCK UP!
Anyway, I was off taking the rig (80-something Camry) to find a spot and ran into one of those insane situations where otherwise rational people will hold up car after car just so they can park close to the door and save their fat ass some steps.
Okay, to my right: a line of three or four cars. To my left: a brand-new (You'll soon find out how I know this) beige, Toyota Land Cruiser.
Now, dead ahead is a space.
Empty.
Land Cruiser could have taken it but didn't. Not my lookout.
It's close enough to the entrance for me and there's plenty of room between TLC (How the Land Cruiser shall be referred henceforth. It's got a nice ring) and the car ahead and I mean a lot of room - six feet away from each door as I drive through to claim said space.
Well, as soon as I started moving the line of cars did also - at the customary, parking lot crawling speed.
TLC honked at me but I'm out of her way so I waved my hand to acknowledge an awkward situation but - no paint scratched.
Then, the pleasant woman in TLC screamed: "YOU'RE A FUCKING DICK!"
I pulled in and she pulled in a few spaces to the right and my thought was to sit a bit and let Ms Hothead get out of the AO - while I finished my beer (Said beer didn't exist in reality of course but was a "virtual beer" provided by a caring professional).
Well, Barbie (The moniker by which she shall be referred from now on - and Skipper, her daughter, 17ish. I know, Skipper was Barbie's sister but let's keep the focus) climbed out of the "brand new" TLC and came over to my car.
Mom screamed more of the same "fucking dick" shit (Note to assholes: If you're going to engage people in public, get some fucking rhetorical material) and flipped me off which of course was an entirely new occurrence to me and left me aghast, aghast I tells ya'.
She came as far as the car window while I politely pointed out that the space was there had she wanted it and that, if I'd "cut her off" it was at a snail's pace and slowed her down by a second or two (I'm being generous).
"You drove out RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" She flipped me off again and headed off with Skipper - who was faithful to back her Mom's play but with even more paltry rhetorical ammo that Mom had.
So, Barbie and Skipper are off into the mall on some wild, terminal-blond-bitch shopping experience.
The virtual beer was finished and the dragon ladies were presumably off on their bidness so I ventured forth and, just because I've been an asshole longer than Barbie has been alive, I tossed the empty up onto TLC's luggage rack (PBR - nice redneck beer).
Boy-fucking-howdy!
They'd been watching, suspicious twits, and Skipper immediately confronted me with an unanswerable question: "Are you kidding me?"
Having no answer - I was anything but kidding - I brushed on past and Mom came right behind.
Now, here's where having one's rhetorical guns cocked pays off.
What was it that Mommy said but: "Are you kidding me?".
Not a very original family.
This is where it got fun though.
I pushed past her as well - I had to meet Momma and the kids at the movie - so she grabbed my arm and said "Go and take that down, you piece of shit!".
I said - give me a moment, it was memorable - "NO".
So she screamed: "Get that off of there! (Wait for it...) THAT'S A BRAND NEW CAR!".
Okay, another hint to would-be dickheads, from someone who knows: if you're going to be anal about your car - and an asshole in public - don't yell it out in front of God and everybody. Don't expose your vulnerability, idiot.
Why do you think I threw the can on your rig in the first place, dim bulb?
As an aside, this TLC was loaded (starting bucks for your bare-bones TLC: $68,000. Get 'em while they're overpriced!) with killer, aggressive tires and the whole "Off Road" package - including the rooftop safari rack - or beer can catcher.
For these idiots I think "off road" must really mean "in the driveway".
Anyway, I kept walking. She shoved me and things could have gotten far more interesting (for her) and far more lucrative (for me) until, behind me, I heard some calmer folks (lots of them about) ease the stupid bitch off.
Bummer. It would have been fun to stand in front of a judge with her had she taken a swing at me. Alas, lost opportunities.
I could have owned that rig - and I would have tested its off-road capabilities to the max (Do people say that anymore?).
Again, lost opportunities.
Okay, the flick was over and I looked forward to seeing what Ms Screaming Cunt and daughter had left behind (Hoping for an angry hubby or - better yet - cops) but alas.
She'd put the can on my aerial. Whoa!
I had to pick it up and toss it.
She'd had to climb on top of her rig to get it. Actually, I'm sure she made Skipper do that - chickenshit bitch.
Anyway, Eugene/Springfield area, "brand new" beige TLC.
If I see it again, I am so going to park my old shitebox six inches from her driver's door while I go off for... I don't know, a week or so.
On my return I'll open an entire six-pack at once, like the Coneheads, and upend it on her ride.
Hell, if I had her address I'd be busier that a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest ordering pizzas and magazines for her.
Everyone likes pizza, right.
And I'm thinking that she be just right for some skateboard mags.
I want to make it up to her.
I truly do.
More pissy shit tomorrow. I'm in a mood.

Welcome to the Abattoir of Sacred Cows

2011-03-09T16:48:00.001-08:00

"Abattoir"; what a great word. a ten dollar word for a fifty-cent concept.
Well, we're back again with that old, bombastic, retired Gunnery Sgt. and giving him a chance to regain some ground after his shameful display on behalf of Toys For Tots back in November.

Very interesting - especially considering the almost sacred status of the BAR amongst American gun nuts and history freaks - and, one would think, the Gunny's predisposition to things American.
To have just one more mention of R. Lee Ermey check out this video where he does something similar using the Thompson and the German MP40.
Turns out, they're relatively equivalent but Ermey likes the Thompson better because it's American.
No problem with that. Be American, buy American. Besides, it shoots a bigger round.
But his final line is especially telling and may get him into hot water with his Tea-Bagger fans, the ones who are on the wrong side of the issue in Wisconsin:

American-made by union men. Urraah!

Okay, if you watched the video then you saw the British Bren pull down the pants of the BAR. But that British and Czech designed, Johnny-come-lately, superior weapon has had a few less birthdays than ole Granpa BAR.
The problem with the BAR, which Browning recognized and was unhappy with, was it's lack of sustained fire capability.
Small, unreliable magazines, a fixed barrel and no way to top off without complete removal of the mag (I think. Please correct as needed).
But, what the hell. There were no other light machine guns available to US troops when we finally got involved in helping to destroy western civilization.
Or were there?

The weapon being demonstrated by the pre-war Marine above is of course, the Lewis gun.
Although nearly everybody in the Great War used them, the US didn't - even though it's final designer, Isaac Newton Lewis, was American and they were even manufactured for the Brits by Savage Arms in Utica, NY.
Now, just to be accurate, it's not a straight-up comparison. The Lewis was only slightly better for sustained fire - a much larger magazine: 47 vs 20) rounds and a fixed - but air cooled barrel.
The cooling system is ingenious. What looks to be a water jacket is actually an aluminum shroud covering a system of fins running parallel to the barrel.
The shroud runs slightly long of the barrel so each round creates a vacuum as it passes, thus drawing a constant stream of air along the barrel.
The BAR was also lighter, around fifteen pounds vs twenty-some but a later version with a heavier, ribbed barrel ran over twenty.
The Lewis was never designed for firing from the hip while walking but could certainly have been adapted. It's just that no one had thought of that beforehand. It would certainly have been light enough - about the same weight as the Bren.
Back to why we never adopted it.
Before the war in Europe even started, the Army made it clear that they had no interest whatsoever in the Lewis.
This was nothing more than a case of pig-headed stupidity on the part of the Army Chief of Ordnance, one General William Crozier.
Seems that Lewis, a retired colonel, had pissed in Crozier's Wheaties at some time in the past so this dipshit kept the US Army from acquiring what was universally recognized as the best LMG of the war.
Even the Germans loved the Lewis. They published a manual for it so the lads could more easily use captured guns. They'd developed a respect for it early on while trampling Belgium, Lewis' first government contract.
They referred to it as "The Belgian rattlesnake".

What old Bill Crozier had for our boys instead was the notorious Chauchat.
By all accounts this wasn't a bad gun if you held your mouth just right and fired it in a NASA clean room.
It's main weaknesses were that it was shoddily constructed from poor materials and used a prize-winngly stupid magazine.
Nearly semi-circular to accommodate the oddball 8mm Lebel cartridge, it also featured open sides; probably quite effective in keeping the parapets tidy as the mags would collect any and all shit that came near them.
This was the first machine gun ever to made to be fired by one man on foot and given some better manufacturing standards and a closed magazine it would probably have been just fine.
This one seems to work okay.
A bad deal all around but Crozier was ahead of the problem. He just bought twice as many as needed.
To clear up a lose end; the Marines, not being stupid or at least not vindictively stupid had been using the Lewis as can be seen pictured above but they were forced to give them up when they got to France and had to use the Chauchat.
But, Just about too late, the BAR came along and was, of course vastly superior.
By the way, this is no slam on the BAR in any way. It was what it was, solid and reliable.
So, that's why we kept using it, even past the Korean idiocy, right?
Because, it's a hallowed, Browning design and therefore cannot be improved on.
Or can it. Every other country that manufactured it did improve on it. The Swedes came up with a quick change barrel and a pistol grip. The Poles managed to equip it with a drum magazine - and a pistol grip and the Belgians also made them with a pistol grip and replaceable barrel.
Hell, even the FBI put a damned pistol grip on it and a compensator to control barrel climb.
This is a fascinating subject, covered in detail here.
But what American gun could have replaced the BAR in WW2?
Pictured next: The Johnson light machine gun.
Lighter, around twelve pounds with a larger magazine capacity, 25 vs 20 rounds.
Capable of being topped off with the magazine remaining in the gun, using either '03 five-round clips or single rounds and with the bolt either open or closed.
It fired single rounds from a closed bolt and selective automatic, 200 to 600 rounds per minute from an open bolt.
If it had a deficiency it was the single stack magazine.

The Dutch government purchased thousands of them to use against the Japanese in the East Indies which plan went by the wayside when the government was forced to move to England.
The Johnnie Guns already delivered were returned to be held by the Marine Corps. They used them to some extent in the Pacific and traded 145 of them to the First Special Service Force for two tons of RS plastic explosive.
The Force used them in all their operations and it was the only squad level automatic weapon they did use in combat.
What made it attractive aside from its light weight was the fact that it could be broken down into three pieces none of which was over 22" long making it far more usable for parachute operations than the BAR which, by the way, means the barrel is replaceable in the bargain. The only BARs the Force issued were to headquarters and other rear elements.
No one who used the Johnson ever had any complaints with it.
The Army is stupid when it comes to defense purchasing. Look at what the BAR was (finally) replaced with - the M60 (Motto: "Not as unreliable and shitty as it used to be) and, after fifty years, they've just about gotten the M16 into a workable condition.
Speaking of the stupid, I haven't had much to report on the deep thinker from Utah as he's mostly been going on about guns where I have no argument.
But today, it's energy policy.
Ogre thinks that the US should be an oil exporter. A noble idea but believing that Americans with a surplus of oil would ever deign to sell it is about as likely as George ever unloading a surfeit of bacon. Check him out. Hell, Ermey's got twenty years on this doughboy and could kick his ass.
Nope, what would happen is that he and every body else would just buy bigger "trucks". Maybe one of those Ford F450 pickups - with a short bed and color-coordinated topper. That's what I'm talkin' about.

Finally. Something about knives.

2011-02-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

Good lookin' SOB, innit?
Some time ago (a criminally long time) a faithful reader, Mike wrote and mentioned that he'd acquired two chunks of Civil War sabers and wondered whether I'd like to make a knife out of one of them.
I wrote back something to the effect of "hell yes" and added that if he let me have one of the chunks, I'd make him a knife out of the other.
Well, to make a long story only slightly longer, we traded e-mails for a bit as I'd allowed that I really enjoyed the theater knives that were made from existing blades - especially the aluminum ones.
During said process, one of the pics he sent me this one above which... you can figure it out.
Well, this got me interested in the whole concept of the cast-aluminum-handle-on-broken-saber-bayonet-etc... knives.
So, I went a Googling and found this wonderful example that's pictured next.

Now, this one doesn't seem to use a recycled blade but, as you can see,it was cast from that over-designed, overly-heavy, committee-designed travesty the M1918 MKI. For my money, that's the best use they can be put to.
What's especially sweet is the provenance, existing in the form of the stampings.
They cover a gamut of North Africa postings; "CASABLANCA, ORAN - ALGIERS, TUNISIE, BIZERTE". The name of the owner, "TED SEZLUNG" and the date: "NOV 8. 1942".
Best of all; "GERMAN MESSERSCHIDT" presumably referring to the source of the material used.
Now, Ted misspelled "Messerschmidt" but letter-stamp sets don't come with spell-check. His punctuation was random and he had several overstrikes - all of which adds to the charm. A true hand-made piece of kit.
I found it on this forum. More photos of it also be seen there.
Now, what torqued my jaws to some extent were some of the replies this guy's posting of his new purchase generated.
One fellow, apparently not a close-reader, immediately ID'ed it as a chrome-plated, WW1 MKI.
No, aluminum. He did have the grace to later correct himself.

I'm going to toss in another saber-bladed knife here, just for visual interest.
Now, back to the discussion.
Another reckoned it to be a Parson's knuckle knife tricked out to look all WW2 "theaterish".
Okay. Deep breath.
Kevin Parsons started making knuckle knives at the very tail-end of the Viet Nam mess, early '70's.
He only sold around 1000 of them and the cast aluminum handles they used looked nothing like the MKI. I suppose one could maybe have filed away enough Parsons aluminum to get there but I doubt it.
In any case, it's my feeling that an unaltered Parson's knife would in all likelihood be worth more than Ted Sezlung's blade.
What's most comical about all these spoil-sports wanting to rain of this knife's parade is this: The real theater knives don't generally go for much money. Certainly not anywhere close to enough to make it worth faking them.
You could make money faking some of the famous ones; Howard Cole, Taylor Huff, Eugene Stone and some others but those are valuable enough that people would actively look out for fakes so it would be more work than it would be worth.
No name theater knives; some of them go for less than twenty bucks. Hardly worth the faking.
Next, a Stone knife made from what looks like a bayonet.
The point I'm getting at is this: People on the internet can be full of shit.
You can toss me into that category if you'd like but I do try to be correctable.
It breaks my heart when I read some earnest guy asking the giant brains on whatever forum not realizing that many of them are ignorant in the extreme.
Just this morning, I read a post on the same forum linked to above concerning an Australian, Gregsteel, aluminum knife. He posted questions about it two years ago without a single reply - and this on a militaria collecting forum.
His knife is in "The Flook Book" by the way. A volume I can't imagine a serious collector not owning. I bought mine when they were waaay cheaper. Hielige sheist! But, at least no one posted that it was a fake.
The most egregious example of this arrogant, dimbulbitude was on our favorite, Blade Forum. I found out about it because someone had linked to me as the question concerned a Middle East Commando knife.
Before the conversation was brought back to earth, one asshole had suggested "The blade's probably crap steel. Just grind it off and enjoy your knuckleduster."
Oh my head.
This ties into one of newest guilty pleasures: Finding books and movies that I enjoy and reading the one-star reviews they've generated on Amazon.
You will never find such a bunch of pompous dinks trying to look smart.
So, my point and I do have one (Ellen Degeneres) is this:
To quote that guy... tall, kinda ugly - he's on the five. You know the one.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Another Wayback Machine Double-Action

2011-02-17T16:31:00.001-08:00

The odd duck pictured above is one of the several models of revolver made under the patent filed by C. S. Pettengill on July 22, 1856.
See entire patent here.
I posted a picture of it earlier here.
At the time I'd assumed that it was just one of the many transitional revolvers which were nothing more than evolved pepperboxes.
Due to their affordabilty compared with other pistols produced in the UK, the transitionals were popular in Britain long after they went out of favor here .
Example below:

The transitional revolvers were nothing more than pepperboxes with a single barrel. Lighter (A significant consideration with a full-sized pistol of say .44 caliber), faster to clean but losing some punch due to the cylinder gap.
But the Pettengill - that was a whole different breed of cat.

First off, it's double-action. Not a biggie, so's the transitional pictured above.
But it's got a hidden hammer - and a solid frame.
The solid frame was still innovative for 1856 being two years ahead of the Remington 1858 New Model Army. Still, it was patented a year after Colt's first solid frame revolver the 1855 Pocket was put into production.
The solid frame itself goes back a few years before to the British designed Adams revolver.

1851 is the date for this modern-looking handgun, the first successful double-action and the first with a solid frame.
And they weren't kidding when they said "solid frame". Unlike the Colt Pocket and the Remington New Model it had no screw-on barrel. The entire thing was milled from one chunk of steel, barrel, frame and butt.
Having been made in the European tradition, everything was hand-fitted and therefore they were expensive and parts interchangeability was virtually non-existent.
But, back to the Pettengill.
Pettengill's scheme was that the trigger and hammer were mounted on the same pivot while the main spring wasn't anchored to the frame anywhere but was attached to the hammer and the "tumbler".
What's more, the hammer in it's normal, at-rest position, was raised. When the trigger was pulled the "tumbler" (Pettengill's word for what the schematics for the Colts refer to as the "hand") advanced the cylinder while simultaneously tensioning the main spring. The sear, which is a separate piece unattached to the trigger releases when all the ducks are in a row and boom. As trigger relaxes pulling the tumbler down a separate spring pushes the hammer back to where it belongs.

As you can see from the photo the design evolved somewhat between the patent date and actual production in 1862.
More to the point, several other folks poked their oar in (Two subsequent, additional patents) with the unsurprising end result being a committee-designed door stop.
Although the serial numbers go up to 3000, only 2001 were delivered to the military for $20 each (I checked with the inflation calculator folks. $20 in 1862 equals around $425 in 2009 dollars. Not a bad price but not what the government should be paying.
They were expensive to produce and rather finicky.
Having been manufactured by Rogers and Spencer of Utica, N.Y. the design was sent back to the drawing board.
The folks at R&S then took cold showers and produced the Rogers and Spencer revolver which internally functioned pretty much like the Colts and Remingtons and was single-action.
But it did retain the barrel and loading lever of the Pettengill. That's something, I guess.

The rejected Pettengill and its proud offspring - which, according to Dixie Arms, showed up too late to be ever issued to troops.
Dixie sells a repro.
A more thorough telling of the story with more pictures, here.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

2011-02-13T16:39:00.001-08:00

We've played this game before...
Just to clear up any confusion among the historically ignorant, these are not Aussie slouch hats, although, if they were the question would still be valid.
These are campaign hats, the pride of the US Army's EM up until WW2.

Anyone? Anyone?

PS. Mean-spirited addendum:
Poser extraordinaire, Georgie Hill, is mad at me so he's changed his home address.
You can find him here.
Aren't we lucky?