The opposition in Iran is led by the son of the deceased Shah, Reza Pahlavi. He claims to want to see Iran be free and democratic. Toward that goal, he seems to be cajoling the Iranian people to reject the mullahs and turn away from extremism.
I wish him all the luck. The Iranian people deserve better than the mullahs.
We've all been there, sentry at a remote post in the middle of the night. You can hear minimal traffic out on the main highway. If you are lucky, you have some help. Maybe another private, or a low ranking sergeant. But he's asleep in the guard shack.
If you are in the Iranian Army, you are wondering why someone posted you at a place called Fordow. Something about the nuke program, all you know is that it's top secret and your relief should be here at daylight. It's still dark and relief is still several hours away. Then you hear a sizzling sound, a thud, then a dull explosion. Then another, and another, and another. Then you think maybe it is time to wake up the sergeant.
You hope they don't blame it on you. Nobody came through the gate. The gate is still secure.
As the Islamic Republic continues to be hammered by Israeli jets, it seems that the Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, has announced a transition to a democratic government. He is in Paris, so it's hard to know when he will get to Tehran. There is still a lot of work to be done, but he is premising a democratic government, a separation of church and state, and fair trials to the Islamists. We'll see how that works out for him.
I would love to see a democratic, parliamentarian style government in Iran. But I'm realistic enough to know that won't happen this week. I also feely admit that I was surprised to see the Berlin Wall come down in such a hurry.
About an hour from where Belle's daughter lives in Missouri is a little town called Knob Noster. The home of Whiteman AFB, it must be a great place to live. And a poor place to get TDY. I don't know how Air Force bomber crews handle it. For example.
Yesterday, these fools loaded up, flew to Iran, bombed the crap out of it. Then turned around a flew home. If it was me, an old cavalry trooper, I would have been tempted to have engine trouble somewhere over... I dunno... Italy. Maybe found a place to eat pasta.
Not these crews. No, hell no. They flew back to Knob Noster. I've been to Knob Noster, and there isn't much to recommend it. Nice Base Exchange, small commissary. I believe I would have stopped in Italy, or Spain maybe. Or, the Azores? I hear it's nice in the Azores. Not these crews, we're going to Knob Noster.
Well done, Air Force.
Kudos also to the submariners who showed then how to launch a targeted missile strike. Well done!
That new revolver, my new EDC, came to my hand with a Crimson Trace laser grip.
The revolver itself is one I've been looking at for quite a while. A Smith and Wesson Model 60 in .357 Magnum with the 3" barrel. Adjustable rear sight, Crimson Trace grips. I'm no stranger to the Model 60 in particular and J-frames in general, having carried them on-and-off for 40 years.
I'm one of those old curmudgeons who think that revolvers are still relevant in the self-defense world. I'm also of the opinion that the most beautiful revolver ever produced is the old Colt Navy. Sleek lines, beautiful in concept, it is a stunningly beautiful revolver. I think that the Smith and Wesson classic revolvers come in at a close 2nd place. This is NOT to say that I hold semiautos in disdain. Quite the contrary, I am an acolyte of John Moses Browning, and I think that Gaston Glock makes some fine pistols. But, they ain't as pretty as a classic revolver.
I am old enough to t remember when Marshall and Sanow did their research and came to the conclusion that the best caliber to stop a gunfight was the .357 magnum. Specifically, Federal's 125 grain load. I have no wish to get into a gunfight, but if I have to, I choose to go old-school with a caliber known for winning gunfights.
Back to that laser grip. The biggest problem that most shooters face is trigger control. The sights must stay aligned with the target during the firing sequence. A bit of dry fire with a laser will show a shooter where the problem lie. If you can't keep that laser on the target through the trigger squeeze, then the sights won't be on the target when the bullet leaves the muzzle.
I've been doing quite a bit of dry fire lately, and the trigger squeeze is getting a lot better.
The war is going very badly for the Iranian government, which is to say it is going very well for everyone else. The ability of the Israeli Air Force to operate freely over Tehran is increasing and the ability of the IRGC to launch missiles at Israel has been severely degraded.
I've been watching this guy, who seems to be an Iranian living overseas. His reporting seems to be six or eigh hours ahead of the corporate media. He reports that the Iranian army is defecting to the opposition, who is aligned with the Crown Prince, the son of the deceased Shah. It appears that the IRGC has been severely depleted, and the Islamic government is defeated.
Regime change is the dream, but that is and should be the province of the Iranian people. I would love to see a secular, parliamentarian government in Iran, but that might be a pipe dream. The simple fact is that the IRGC is going through its death spasm and there will be chaos for a while.
In the US, the news media are idiots, asking the President to reveal whether or not he will bomb Fordom. Of couse, he tell sthe media that it's a stupid question. As well it should be. Let us recall that the Glo bal War on Terror is still a thing, and Iran is the chief exporter of terror in the Middle East.
This imag4 popped up on my computer today, and it is one of my favorites. That is my Belle, dressed in what I call Country Elegant. A well-dressed lady with a friendly smile. Confident, poised, graceful, she could be at a backyard barbeque, a church social or a town festival. From the top of her head to the tips of her boots, she exudes charm and friendliness. Oh, wait... she's wearing a single-action revolver.
Yep, that's my Belle. She knows how to use that revolver, too. This picture was taken in 2021 and the Kansas State Championship.
Renaming Army posts was silly when they did it in 2023, and it's probably silly now. Fort Johnson will be returned to Fort Polk, Along with Lee, Rucker, Gordon, and several others.
Fort Cavasas will go back to being Fort Hood, this time renamed after some WW1 colonel. Okay. I still think that the Army missed a sure bet by not naming it Fort Seguin in the first place.
For those who don't know who Juan Seguin was, he was a true Texas patriot, a military and political leader, and probably the only man to serve both at the Alamo under Travis and at San Jacinto under Houston. They should have named that post Seguin from the beginning.
As for Polk, they could name it Fort Armpit, or Camp Swampy for all I care. I served there a lot in the 80s and 90s and never did like the place.
This morning, I made a call at 0913 that went through. About 1300 I went to town to run errands. At the grocers, I was told that their networks were down, and they were accepting cash only. At another vendor, I was told the network was down, and an employee told me that her husband worked at a nearby federal prison, and all their networks were down. Interesting.
I tried to text Belle and call her phone. Nothing works. That's weird, even in a hurricane, if voice doesn't work, we can generally get a text message through. Evidently, something has seriously gone sideways at AT&T. We're still connected through the cable modem, and the TV works, so that's something. But,I wonder what happened to AT&T?
I got distracted this weekend with the Isreal/Iran thing, and a club meeting, and family on Father's Day.
Completely forgot about that asshole in Minnesota who posed as a cop and started shooting local lawmakers. It looks like they caught him after a pretty intense manhunt and he's due in court today to start answering for his crimes. Initially, we were concerned that he was a MAGA because he was shooting Democrats, but that seems not to be the case.
The cops found a manifesto in his car, and they haven't released that. Believe me, if the guy was a right-winger, that manifesto would be all over the news. Listening to the news this morning, it seems that the guy was a registered Republican, but he had been appointed to some bullshit board by Governor Walz. If I understood that correctly. At any rate, this guy seems to be simply a garden-variety nutjob. Not MAGA, not conservative.
In other news, I did get a new-to-me revolver this weekend. A sweet little J-frame and we'll be talking more about that later. I've owned... I dunno, a half-dozen J-frames in my lifetime, and I've given them all away. Younger son took pity on me and gifted me one that he no longer uses. In the initial inspection I noted that it does not have a hammer-mounted firing pin. I thought that was odd, as all my Smiths have the firing pin mounted on the hammer. A little research tells me that Smith made the switch circa 2015 to frame-mounted firing pins. That helps date the little gun to a fairly new revolver.
I have a holster on order from Simply Rugged. Let me get the holster and become more familiar with the little gun and we'll talk about it more later.
