Monday Musiings

Al Gore, our past Vice President and current spokesman for weather warming everywhere, only earned a "D" in natural science as a sophomore at Harvard.  I'm aware that folks can learn stuff after college, but getting a D in a crip course like Natural Science doesn't give me a great deal of confidence about AlGore's creds.  What I do have confidence in is his absolute capacity for self-aggrandizement.

I spent a little time at the loading bench this afternoon, reassembling that .30-06 ammo.  It's got a good, sane charge under those 165 grain Gamekings.  Now, I'm looking for a good load with 150 grain bullets and IMR 4895 powder.  I've got a bunch of both and I'd like to combine them to make a good .30-06 load.

Bourbon whiskey tastes good on a Monday afternoon.

It's warm outside and I've got eggs boiling on the stove.  We're going to make a big tuna salad and have cold sammiches for supper.

My sergeant stopped by the school today and we sat under the trees, drank Dr. Pepper, and told lies to one another.  The worst part of working at a school is that I don't get to hang out with cops as much as I'd like.  Sometimes I'll go a month or so without seeing another cop and that just ain't right.

I think it's time for another bourbon.

Pulling bullets

As I was loading the range bag for the ill-fated trip to the range on Saturday, I pulled down some .30-06 ammo that I had loaded sometime in 2010.  I happened to check the label on the ammo and the powder charge didn't look right, so I pulled down the manuals to check.  Oh, hell, an over-charge.  I don't know what happened, but somehow I had loaded that ammo with what amounts to almost two full grains over the normal max load for that brass/bullet/primer/powder combination.  I'm no fan of over taxing my rifle, and I'm certainly no fan of breaking my face so I marked the box of ammo as bad and left it behind

SO, not wanting to waste most of the components, I got down the kinetic bullet puller and started pulling bullets.  This being a Sunday and grandkids were wandering about, I soon had one inquisitive kid looking over my shoulder.  We took the time to explain the process.  Discuss ramifications, even to go into the front yard and set a couple of powder charges on fire to demonstrate that modern smokeless powder burns rather than explodes.  Good stuff.

One day this week, I'll reload that ammo with a sane charge and take it to the range next Saturday, where I am reassured that I'll be able to fire my rifles without some special interest group to run me away from my tax-dollar range.

Sunday Morning Dawg

I realized that with all the excitement this weekend, I forgot to post a Sunday Dawg.  Shame on me.

Here's another of the dog eating fudgecicles.  I"ll try to do better next week, I promise.

That's Done

The annual high school prom is done.  PawPaw worked it as always and the ladies were sparkling and the gentlemen were handsome.  This is my ninth prom, and I can say that I've never had a real problem at a prom.  It's something that the students do for a little while, and the last thing they want is to cause any problems.  PawPaw doesn't tolerate problems at dances, and ending your evening with a call to make bail from the local jail puts a buzz-kill on the evening. As per usual, ninety percent of the students left after about an hour or so, to go to after-prom parties where the sort of activities they want to participate in are allowed.  There is a reason why the old expression "off like a prom dress" resonates a certain truth.  I'm sure that the parents don't want to hear it, but hey!

As is also usual, we had the bitter clingers, those who stay until the last dance, who are still there when we turn the lights on, and who we force to help us clean up the hall.  If they got their feeling hurt when I impressed their labor, then told them to un-ass the building, that's just another of life's lessons.  In a few more weeks they'll graduate and I'll really cease to care if their feelings are hurt.  The majority are going to be fine upstanding people, salt of the earth types.  There are several who are going to die horrible deaths at an early age, and there are several who will make good trustees for a warden.  The Bell curve is a horrible thing, but it applies to people of all ages.  Life is tough.

As is also the tradition, I then repaired to the local IHOP and drank coffee with the deputy who provides security for the night shift.  We told lies, swapped rumors and generally watched the crowd eating pancakes.  PawPaw is home now and will soon climb into the sheets.

The Woodworth Range

Last weekend, some of the family wanted to do some shooting, so I checked the calendar of the Woodworth Shooting Range and saw that it was reserved for the normal 3rd Saturday muzzleloader shoot.  This shoot has been happening for years. 

The local muzzleloading club reserves the range every 3rd Saturday morning, and normal, taxpaying recreational shooters are not welcome unless they want to burn charcoal.  They have all kids of weird rules, and you have to pay dues to be in the club, and all this takes place at a shooting range that is built and maintained by tax dollars, especially Pittman Robertson money.  Dollars that I pay so that the range might be available for my use, and the rest of the shooting public.

So, this morning I loaded my gear to go do a little recreational shooting.  I drove out to the range and got there at about 8:30, only to be told that the range was closed.  Closed to let some other club use the range.  A kids group had come up from the New Orleans area to shoot.

Well, hell.  I support kids groups and hunter education, but this is the second Saturday in a row when the range has been closed.  I came home and looked on the calendar and I see that the range will be closed again in May, on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th for the state muzzleloader shoot.  They get the whole range for four whole days.  A public range, built and maintained with public money.

I have once again written a nasty-gram to the state offices, specifically, a fellow named John Sturgis.  He runs all the LDWF ranges in Louisiana.

It's a damned stinking low-down-dog shame that a taxpaying citizen can't use a public shooting range on a Saturday morning.  It's even more of a dirty stinking shame that a public range allows private clubs to reserve those public ranges for their private use.

The Pool is Open

The pool is officially open, the birthday party was a smashing success.  We ate pulled pork sammiches, got into the beer locker, told lies and laughed at each other.

Now, everything is cleaned up and PawPaw is going to bed.

The Beer Locker

Part of my responsibility as a summer-time host is to maintain the beer locker, a task that I gladly assume.  One of the benefits of maintaining the beer locker is that I get to choose what resides therein.  I stock it to suit my tastes.  If anyone doesn't like my particular taste in beer, they're free to tote their own ice chest over here, no hard feelings.

On the way home this afternoon I picked up some fresh beer.  One six pack each of Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, Sam Adams Summer Ale, and Sam Adams Light.  Accompanied by a case of Coors Light.  Plus, kids drinks on the lower shelf.  Grape, Lemon-Lime and Root Beer soda.

That should be sufficient for the pool opening tomorrow night.

Desert One Debacle

If you were alive in 1980, you probably remember the Iran Hostage Crisis.  You probably also remember the Desert One debacle, where an Army officer named Charlie Beckwith tried to rescue the hostages and failed through a debilitating combination of bad luck, equipment malfunction, and accidents on the landing zone.  All the demons of combat combined to attrite Beckworth's force before he had gotten past the first rally point.  Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.  Desert sandstorms, busloads of Iranian tourists showing up at his rally point, collisions between aircraft, it all conspired to defeat the mission before it ever got to the objective.

The failure of the mission had huge repercussions, both politically and militarily.  Charlie Beckwith never made flag grade, Delta Force became the premier Special Forces unit in the US Army, and Jimmy Carter was defeated in his presidential re-election, going down in history as probably the worst president ever in American politics.

When we went back to the desert in 1990, there was none of the bullshit that Beckwith contended with.  The lessons of Desert One were learned very, very well.  Go to the link above and refresh your memory if you're my age.  If you're not, go to the link anyway.  It tells the story of a good officer and a piss-poor President.

Obam's Over-Reach

I see where the Obama administration is proposing rules that would prevent kids helping out on the family farm.  Seriously. 

The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.
Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

When I had a hobby farm, raising kids in the country, part of the daily routine saw the kids helping feed cattle, sorting feed, stacking hay, doing all manner of things that farm kids have been doing since the beginning of human civilization.  If you live on a farm, you work on that farm.  It helps the family and fosters a sense of shared prosperity.  If working kids had been against the law, I would still be serving time in Angola. 

The Department of Labor is so out of touch with the American experience that they don't understand the family farm.  All the more reason to vote these bastards out of office.

The Pool

This weekend is the traditional opening of our family pool.  Generally, we open it in the last weekend of April, coinciding with a grandson's birthday.  When the weather is warm and the grandkids are pestering us, we simply ask if Quinton has had his birthday yet?  No?  That's when the pool opens.  On Quinton's birthday.

Quinton's birthday is this weekend and the grandkids know that we're going to open the swimming pool.  However, the weather is decidedly cooler than average and the water temps have not come to the point where I'd be happy in the pool.  The grandkids are going in, though.  I'd have a mutiny on my hand otherwise.

Maintenance for the opening proceeds apace and I'm fairly happy with the results.  It looks like it's ready for swimmers and we can only hope that hypothermia isn't a problem.

The water is clear, the algae has been beat back, the filters are clean, the pH is in the normal range.  The pool will open on Friday afternoon as soon as the grandkids arrive for the party.  PawPaw, of course, will demure, but he'll have a big tub of pulled pork ready for the event, along with lots of chips and buns.  Soda for those who are under 18, and more adult beverages for those adults who wish to participate.

We Win! USA! USA!

It looks like we've won the War on Terror.  According to an administration official:

"The war on terror is over," a senior official in the State Department tells the National Journal. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."

Really?  I guess that we won. Cool.  I wonder if the Islamists know that we won?  I doubt it, I haven't seen anyone surrendering publicly, anyone signing surrender documents.  That's the problem with wars these days, you never know if they're really over.

Still, if the State Department says that the GWOT is over, I guess that we can disband Homeland Security and send all those TSA retards into the unemployment lines.

Feds Raid Flea Market

Yep, that's what Instapundit is reporting, via a link to the Baltimore Sun. 

Vendors at the Patapsco Flea Market have a history of allegedly selling counterfeit and pirated merchandise, according to an affidavit, which outlined the latest accusation that resulted in a raid Sunday by federal Homeland Security Investigations special agents.

Capping a 2 1/2-year-long investigation into counterfeit apparel and accessories as well as pirated DVDs and musical recordings, federal investigators confiscated numerous items being sold there.

Insty closes with a worthy observation, one I've been pushing for awhile.  If Homeland Security is concerned with counterfeit merchandise, we don't have a terrorist problem.

Abolish the Department of Homeland Security. If they’ve got time for this crap, we don’t have a terrorist problem anymore.

Amen, brother.  Homeland Security is long overdue for a wing-clipping.

CNN: Secret Service needs more women.

That's the headline, anyway, but we'll lead with a blockquote. 

(CNN) – Two members of Congress on Sunday questioned the gender makeup of the Secret Service, speculating whether the recent scandal in Colombia could have been avoided if the agency had more women on its payroll.

“I can't help but wonder if there'd been more women as part of that detail, if this ever would have happened,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said on ABC’s “This Week.”

That makes me wonder what Senator Collins thinks that the women agents might have done?  Or to what purpose they might be productive?  Is Senator Collins suggesting that the women might have stood-in for the prostitutes? Or that the male agents might have moderated their conduct?

I don't have a problem with female cops, and I certainly never had a problem with female soldiers, but I know from long experience that when you put red-blooded Americans into a foreign environment, the horn-dog is going to come out of some of them.  Folks who would never have had an affair in their hometown are known ot let the standards slip when they're away from home.  The old saw about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" has a certain basis in fact.  The old soldiers lament about "TDY rules apply.  Don't talk about it when you get home." has another basis in human behavior .  And, from my experience, it's not limited to the men. 

I could tell you stories about a Reserve field hospital full of nurses (about 200 females) that were deployed during Desert Storm, and found themselves far from home without the normal comforts or influence of children and husbands.  Let's just say that some of them found the steadying influence of their hometowns to be less exciting than the foreign lands that were filled with wholesome American soldiers.  I'm sure that when they all went home, they settled back into their lives with their families and told war stories.  Not all the war stories, but stories nonetheless.

Violating your marriage vows is a sin that will place your soul in mortal danger.  Violating the regulations of the Army, or the Secret Service is a sin that will place your career in mortal danger.  Endangering the President is a horrible thing to have on your record. 

But I'm not sure how the Senator thinks that female agents would have mitigated the damage.

The War on (Some) Drugs

The Wall Street Journal highlights an article today on the Drug War, what's working, what's not, and how we might be able to fix it. 

"For every complex problem," H.L. Mencken wrote, "there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong."
That is especially true of drug abuse and addiction. Indeed, the problem is so complex that it has produced not just one clear, simple, wrong solution but two: the "drug war" (prohibition plus massive, undifferentiated enforcement) and proposals for wholesale drug legalization.

Very true, but I'm not sure what will work and what will not work.  The libertarian in me says that prohibition is not working, the cop in me says that drug use impacts society far beyond what appears to be a victimless crime, the citizen in me says that we've got too many laws of all kinds.  It's a complex problem and Mencken is right, the answer that is clear and simple is also wrong.

This is a national conversation that we should have.  More particularly, this a national conversation that the states should have.  Let the states work their drug laws to their advantage and let's see as a nation what works.  We've got fifty laboratories and one of them is bound to get it right.  Let's get the Feds out of the drug business except for the most egregious cases of smuggling and let the states decide how best to handle the problem.

Then, let's see who has the best ideas.

New Dr. in the Family

Congratulations to my nephew, Adam Roberts, who last week defended his dissertation, entitled "Time Domain Spectroscopy of Graphene".  I have no idea what the hell that is, but if Adam knows, that's all that's important.  I'm sure that he can explain it to me in layman's terms.  I'm told that he got "thumbs up" from the dissertation committee on his presentation.


Congratulations, Adam!  I'll see you this summer at the family vacation.

Sunday Dawg - Bonus edition

A nice fudge-cycle is a wholesome cooling treat on a Sunday afternoon.

At least, that's what the dog thinks.  They tell me that chocolate isn't good for a dog, but he seemed to be enjoying the cooling treat.

New Browning A5

Well, Lookee Here!  Browning has resurrected the A5, the old familar humpback shotgun that John Browing himself invented.

From reading the article in the Rifleman, it appears that Browning is after the Benelli fans.  This is an inertia repeater, takes 2 3/4 or 3" shells and has a lot of neat features.  It's available in the standard Browning glossy finish or the synthetic pictured above.  It can also be bought in camo.

No, this ain't your grandad's A5, it's a thorougly modern version, and I haven't seen anything yet to lead me to believe that it's offered in anything but 12 gauge.  Still, it's a cool-looking shotgun, immediately recognized by millions of shotgunners worldwide.

At an MSRP of between 1300-1500 USD, it ain't for everyone, but it might pique my interest if I didn't already have a bunch of shotguns.

Sunday Morning Dawg

It's been a good week to be a dog.  Lots of grandkids over at varying times.  Grandkids eat lots of treats, and when a grandkid opens a bag of chips, or a box of cookies, it sounds just exactly like a bag of doggy treats.

It's time to lick the lips and see what the grandkids are eating.

Shooting with Misty

My daughter-in-law, Misty, said that she'd like to try a little rifle shooting, so we went this morning to let her explore shoulder-fired weapons.  She likes her pistols, but she wanted to try other types.

We began with rimfire, which is a good place to start new rifle shooters.  She's no stranger to recoil, but I believe that the lack of recoil surprised her.  Below, she's shooting her husband's Henry lever rifle.

Next, we moved up the chain to the centerfire calibers.  I happen to have a Handi-Rifle Ultra in .223, which is a good place to start.

Then, when she was comfortable with that level of recoil, we moved up to the Savage bolt in .243.  She was able to easily ring the 100 yard gong with that rifle.

After that, she wanted to do a little pistol work, so we brought the target in and let her work with her pistols.  I didn't take many pictures of her pistol work, but I did drag out the Super Blackhawk and ask her if she'd like to try it.  I loaded it with some .44 Special, Skeeter loads, and let her have a whirl.  I apologize for this photo being a little blurred, but I caught her in recoil.

She later told me that the Blackhawk was her favorite shot of the day.  She finished the cylinder and claimed to have enjoyed it.  I know that I enjoyed it.  All of it.  It's really fun to shoot with family on a Saturday morning.

Friday Afternoon

I'm off work with nothing pending at the school-house, there are no grandkids scheduled to spend the night, and Milady's calendar is clear.

 I think we're liable to slip off and have a good time. Without grandkids. Without adult supervision.