Monday, May 28, 2012

They Hardly Ever Visit Anymore

 Memorial Day. It started, contrary to Yankee lies in the south, the old Confederacy. There was no attempt by the Reconstruction gang to do anything about the graveyards filled with the Confederate dead, the surviving family members started out decorating the graves after cleaning up the weeds and trash that collects.

 Then the whole towns started in. There were graveyards everywhere and a family from, say, Arkansas with a son, husband, brother or father who died outside of Richmond could know that their family member was taken care of while they cleaned up a grave of a soldier from Georgia.

 This spread all 'cross the Nation, Lord knows there were plenty of graves. Some six hundred thousand American dead when in 1870, while memories were still fresh, the whole population was only thirty-eight million.

 Fast forward to my war in the 1960s. I saw my first war death on May the Seventh, 1965. A Marine somehow fell off the net while climbing from the troopship to the landing craft. He managed to fall between the ship and the boat and the weight of all the crap they made us carry sent him straight to the bottom. His was not nearly the last death.

 Some fifty eight thousand of us died for no good reason. God only knows how many uf us died too early after our tours.Cancer from the Agent Orange, PTSD, , pain from wounds, depression. Many of us were literally in the war one week, flown home and separated from active duty and back in our hometowns the next.It was jarring.I left the US near the end of '64 or the beginning of '65. We were supposed to go on some amphibious exercises on the Siver Strand beaches of Coronado, California and then in Hawaii. We did all that and then were supposed to come back to Pendleton. Somehow the Sun was in the wrong place, though and it didn't take long before we figured out that we were heading almost due west, into the Sunset like Roy Rogers.

 Next thing I knew we were in Okinawa. My next stop, Chu Lai.

 This day isn't about me. It's about the young men who flew home in shiny aluminum boxes. Yet it's about me, too. How those young men would visit me almost every night that I didn't drink myself to sleep. I don't do that anymore, I hardly think about it. When I do think of them it isn't like it used to be, they do not look at me accusingly.

 I do not believe it is possible to do enough for those young men. And I wonder. Did the young men of The War To End All Wars have their buddies visit them?Or today's kids from Iraq or Afghanistan? Do those young men (and now, women) drink themselves to sleep?

 It took a couple-three years of sobriety through the 12 step program for me to finish exorcising my demons.Twenty+ years after the first landings at Chu Lai. I pray today's kids don't take that much time.



 

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Kimberlin

 The country is full of ex-cons and I do not mean former conservatives. There are far too many process crimes and men and women like Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart who ended up not guilty of the crime they were suspected of but guilty of misspeaking to a federal investigation.

 There are real criminals out there, though, people like Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber, convicted of bombing in the Midwest, and the jailbird behind the "I supplied cocaine to Dan Quayle" lie.

 He's still at it, conducting "lawfare" against anyone bringing up his criminal past. I've been too busy the last week or so to pay a lot of attention but, apparently, Stacy McCain, who is The Other McCain of the conservative Blogoshere. For some reason blogger keeps putting www.blogger in front of my lame attempts to create a hyperlink but, heck, if you don't know Robert Stacey McCain, how did you get here.

 Anyhow, Patterico is blogging about this, the Puppyblender is blogging about this and McCain is hiding out.There are about a bazillion conservobloggers mentioning this and now I have too.

Friday, May 18, 2012

A Little Of This, Some Of That

 Midway USA has a monthly flyer and you can find them on the Intertoobz.  There are a few real bargains in their monthly sales. This month they have some good practice ammo like .380 brass cased Blazer ammo for $18.75 per fifty and .38 Special American Eagle for $20.49 for fifty. Good prices for some 9mmP and .357 Mag, too. I've never made, nor have I been offered a nickle from any outfit I endorse here, I just know good service and good prices. I've been doing business with Midway since around 1988 or so.

 another mail order outfit I've done a lot of business with is Graf and Sons. I buy my black powder from them and sometimes their prices on any one thing will beat Midway.  Graf's always has a lower shipping and handling charge than Midway but their prices usually runs just a tad more.

 I shoot very little factory ammo, I have a crowded and cramped little room in this house that has my computer on one desk and my reloading gear on the other, components and such on a bunch of steel warehouse shelves we've scrounged.  I do keep a few boxes of factory ammo for the defensive revolvers we live with. On the other hand only one of my .45 (long) Colts has ever had a factory round through the tube and that was because it was picked up from our oldest boy in Arizona. By the time I got home I had dies and components for it, and then the other three never had a factory round. I load my .45 Colt ammo to three levels, depending on what I'm trying to do. I load the revolvers to the ballistics of the original 40 grains of black and a 250-255 grain bullet, meaning anywhere from about 700 feet per second to about 950 fps.  And don't scoff at those 700 fps loads. Shortly after the .45 Colt was issued to the Army back in 1873 they lightened the loads.to equal the .45 S&W round, a 230 grain bullet at around 725. This is the load that conquered the Sioux and Cheyenne and, later, the Apaches. I load these rounds in both black and smokeless to those ballistics, going up to te 900+ loads when I want to play with them. The main difference between my bullets and factory bullets is that mine have a much broader flat point than factory bullets due to the fact that my bullets are cast in a mold that is designed for both handgun and tube magazine rifles and carbines.Sometimes when I'm running about places where handguns are verbotten  I'll toss one of the Colt clones into the console. If I ever have to tag something with one of those big fat soft flat point bullets it will be well and truely tagged. I know it is popular to carry something with which you could fight off an entire platoon without reloading. Horsecrap. If a problem requires that many rounds I'd be dead anyhow.

 These loads also work in my clone of the '92 Winchester. When I get home, though, I clean the thing, adjust the sights and load it up with Hornady XTP JHP bullets over a max load of either Hodgdon's H110 or LilGun. That Brazilian clone will actually move a 300 grain bullet to the same velocity as the old Remington .45-70 300 grain JHP that used to be a big staple in deer camps all over the country in the late 19th and early 20th Century. A big fat hollowpoint at 1900 fps? That'll stop anything up to Bison. And for those critters there are heavier bullets.I don't have the molds but places like Montana Custom bullets sells the heavyweights by the hundreds. Beartooth Bullets goes all the way up to 405 grain gas checked bullets, just in case there is an unexpected Rhino infestation. The 350 grain are really more practical in the .45 Colt case. And I've read that the black bear is coming back to east Texas. I wonder could I grin down a bear like Davey Crockett did?

 I only load black powder in my shotgun rounds so all of the buckshot and slug loads in the house are factory, although I do have a five pound box of Hornady buckshot I can load in my brass shotshell hulls. Shotguns being what they are I can load black powder shotshells and get the same ballistics as smokeless loads. Plus I could hide in the smoke as I reloaded the double barrel.

 There is a twenty dollar per shipment HAZMAT fee for any powder and primers so, except for black powder it usually is more economical to buy those local, except for Black. The mess of regulations and fees for BP make it really expensive to buy local. Now if I only wanted a pound it would be one thing but what handloader has ever been satisfied with one pound of powder?

 Oh, and notice that Graf's has Schuetzen black powder at $2.00 off, only 12.99 a pound. When Linda Lou can move about safely and I go back to Cowboy Action shooting It's no trouble at all to split up a 25 pound case to where everyone gets enough powder to last awhile. Now I do know a couple shooters who can burn up a 25 pound case in a year, most of us aren't nearly wealthy enough to shoot that often. I usually end up with ten pounds at a time, either buying just that amount or splitting up a case.

 If I'm looking to buy components or ammo in person I usually end up at either Southwest Ammunition Supply in Mesquite, Texas. I used to shoot at Gibson's Outpost and buy components there but now that what shooting I do is usually at the range where my Cowboy Action club is located.  Anyhow, if one lives in the Dallas area both those places are worth a visit.

 I usually buy a brick of .22 ammo whenever I slip into Cabella's or Bass Pro Shops. The only wat to have too much .22 ammo is if the steel shelf collapses under the weight. I have two kinds of Remington, some CCI MiniMag hollowpoints, some Winchester and two kinds of Agulia. I'm out of Federal so that's on the list.The stock barrel on my little Ruger will eat anything. The match chamber on the Shilen barrel is somewhat more fussy.It likes the CCI and Remington hollowpoints, oddly the Remington match ammo has a little trouble. It likes the Winchester Power Point ammo better than the hollowpoint. I've never had a bit of trouble with any Federal so far, in either barrel. I have a family of bunnies living under my deck. When they see me they just freeze, thinking I don't see them, even when I say "Hello B'rer Rabbit!" as I walk by. They are my first batch of meals, come the apocalypse.

 We're going to our son in law's graduation ceremony on Friday. Dean is getting his MBA. His bachelor's in in mechanical engineering.  He is gonna be someone important there in the ceremony because he is giving a speech. Linda Lou disremembers  the title he's been given but they don't usually let the class clown give a speech. Otherwise I would have given a lot of them when I was younger. Of course Dean studied, I majored on coeds and beer.

 Our neighbor Patsy is home from the hospital. She had something like a 90 percent blockage in her heart so they put in something called a shunt. I dunno what that is but they had to open her up, stop her heart, put in the implement, restart her heart and, I assume, sew her up. and she's already home. She says she feels a lot better but, due to the tube down her throat she's not eating solid food yet because those tubes hurt. So when I took Trespasser Dog back to her she was eating egg drop soup from the Panda Restaurant in Wills Point. That's another place I like but they don't pay me anything. Well, actually they do. You know that Chinese BBQ chicken on a stick that most Chinese eateries have? They always give me one of them in a bag for the dogs. Because we have a Chinese Pug. See, I can be bought. The usual way to a man's heart is through his stomach or points south.  I'm so durned old that the way to MY heart is through the dog's stomach. Sigh.

 It's a Texas Formal event so I have to wear long pants.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Obama's War On Black Americans

 Black Americans are about as aware of the war the Obama Administration has declared on them as was the Clinton Admin aware of Osama's war on us.

 In both cases denial has robbed them of a good look at reality. And it's a crying shame.

 Black Americans have been drafted, unbeknownst, as the foot soldiers in the Obama war on dirty colonizing America. And we know what happens to foot soldiers when led by leftists.

 The more I look at what is happening today I see the Obama/Soros Admin throwing a huge fit because Americans are rejecting them. and, like the wife beater whose family finally really tries to leave, grabs a gun and screams, "if I can't have her, no one can!" and tries to kill the family, well, black Americans are that gun.

 If Obama and his master, Soros, cared about black Americans he would have at least tried to pump some of those billions of dollars into jobs for black Americans, instead it was all sluiced into the coffers of already wealthy leftists. Solyndra, anyone? This isn't anything new, either. When Obama was Bill Ayer's lapdog in Chicago they ruled the Annenberg Challenge, a billion dollars to improve Chicago's disastrous public schools. The lion's share of that billion went to wealthy leftist academics. The schools did not improve, they got worse because of lefty programs instead of enforcing behavior that allowed students to learn.

 How about those low income housing projects championed by then State Senator Obama? the ones closed due to being substandard and unfit for habitation. Yet an already wealthy Obama supporter got even richer.

 Now I have no complaints about folks making money. If I'd have had the sense to make better choices I wouldn't be poor today. No, my complaint is that these crony capitalists have not earned money by providing a good or service for which people voluntarily pay , instead they bought a lapdog politician.

 The real tragedy for black Americans is that the Obama regime is priming them for violent unrest during the election season. He is hoping that violent unrest will scare the voters into keeping him on. He has nothing else to offer. Jobs for black Americans? No, that money went to his masters. In the antebellum south polite people called men like Obama house negros. Most folks back then used a different word. Still, the situation was the same. Use the house negros for personal gain and for their slightly improved conditions the house negros would spy and sell out the rest of the slaves. And sold out they have been. Come election season if there is violence it will drive race relations even further back. And the violence will be in the Democrat strongholds, again. The difference this time is that after the violence there will be no money left to try to rebuild, it all went to Obama's white masters.

 There is a political movement that would allow black Americans to advance. It's not that individualism cares any more for blacks than for anyone else, it just gives everyone a chance to excel. I have lived with and worked with enough black people to know that they can, it's just that they cannot with the whole Democrat Party standing on their backs.

 There are enough black Americans living in suburban Republican areas to show us which areas allow black Americans to thrive. Hint. It ain't the Democrat areas.

 I hope this makes a little sense. I have been thinking on this since Eric "my people" Holder's "Justice Dept" dropped a winning case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. The "knockout game" played by feral "youths" has made me think more and the Trayvon Martin thing has added to it. Race relations are not my thing, really. I don't like white people anymore than I like anyone else and I don't hardly like anyone very much. I'm more comfortable with my books, my shootin' irons and my dogs, to tell the truth. Still, my grandchildren will be living in the country long after I'm gone. I'd really like them to live in a country that isn't divided up into warring tribes. I'd like them to live in a country where entire city centers are not burned out shells. And we ain't getting there with the still segregationist Democrats leading us.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Elections, Near And Far

 So, in West Virginia an inmate in the Federal Lockup got some 40% of the vote vs. Obama's 60%. Seem that the inmate drew most of his votes in the coal country. Obamanites claim RAAAAACSM!!!!!!!!111!!!!!

 It couldn't possibly be that the folks in the coal country know when their jobs are being savaged, no, it's got to be RAAAAACSM!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!

 Richard Lugar is being sent home, if he has a home anywhere but inside the Beltway. Anyhow, he's being moved from an office in the Senate. This makes it easier to vote for Romney. The more solid conservatives in both houses of Congress, the harder it will be for a President Romney to ease left. This, BTW, is why I'm supporting Ted Cruz for the Senate seat from here in Texas. Well, that and Dewhurst didn't have the courage to go to the debates. I dunno, I might have been willing to support Dewhurst but this cowardice is a deal breaker.  If I wanted to vote for someone without the courage to articulate his beliefs I'd be voting in the other primary.

 Same Sex marriage went to a crashing defeat in North Carolina. I guess Teh Gheys are now going to insult NASCAR. Oh, wait. Despite having a boy and daughter in law, plus a bunch of grandkids there I know nothing about the rest of that primary.

 France voted to jump off the cliff, as did Greece. The nice thing about Greece is that they have been unable to form a government. If they can be kept from forming a government for, oh, I don't know, the next ten years, folks over there might  learn to take care of themselves again. I'm not a big fan of anarchy but Neo-Nazis?

 Meanwhile Obama is trying to end unemployment by building the largest paid campaign staff in US history. Of course this means his campaign managers will be busy managing staff instead of the campaign which is how we get these bright ideas like hashtag askmichelle.  And Forward! Over the cliff! Remember, Obama is smart!

Monday, May 07, 2012

Clean Cartridge

 So I've been busy doing lots of laundry since Steve fixed the washer. Yesterday I pulled the blue jeans and blue jean shorts out of the washer and lo and behold there was an old cartridge laying in the bottom, still damp. I said an ugly word and remembered where I had picked it up while in the frantic cleaning since we got the new shelves. I have loose ca'tridges lyin' around, I recognized that this was a several year old one because it was a semiwadcutter lead alloy bullet that I didn't use anymore. Instead I like the round nosed flat point as those work both in the revolvers and the rifle. Anyhow those who studied the shooting game some thirty+ years or more ago know about how moisture was a big enemy of the primer.



So, anyhow, here was this old, wet cartridge that went through the agitation, spin and rinse cycles, thirty-forty years back it would have maybe been useful in a slingshot but worthless in a firearm. So I stuck it in one of the .45 revolvers, opened the back door and let fly into the ground. I got a loud noise and the ground erupted with the impact of a 255 grain slug at some 850 fps.

 Now I realise that a sample of one does not a big scientifical experiment but still, I remember when we were not even supposed to touch a primer with bare hands for fear that the skin oil would render it inert. It wasn't long ago that a factory round couldn't go through the washer and work, now a five+ year old handload can. Progress.

Friday, May 04, 2012

Dear "Julia"

 "Julia" the only thing I owe you is common courtesy. You are neither my daughter nor my friend. I am not responsible for your life, nor did I marry your mother and take you for a stepdaughter.

 I am somewhat sorry for you, you have been born with a massive debt. You will be shoved into government programs your whole life under the unending Obama regime. What Obama doesn't tell you. "Julia", is that each government program will cost you your freedom, cost you your money and will actually make your life worse. The Headstart Program is nothing more than very expensive daycare and recent studies have shown that the $22,000 dollars per year Headstart will leave you less prepared for school than the eight or nine thousand dollar per year day care.

 The government schools? They will cost far more than private schools and the teachers will be far less capable. Since the Department of Education came up the K-12 schools have become the training ground for losers. There will be a few good teachers among the scads of drones and administrators. The administrators will be doing their best to grind the good teachers down. If you are very lucky you will know how to read at what was once an eighth grade grade level. You will know all about putting a condom on a cucumber, though. I reckon that's something.

 Funny, though. When I was in school we learned how to put on condoms on our own time, at no cost to the government.

 You will now be ready for "college". A BA degree will give you almost as much knowledge as a thirteen year old eighth grade graduate of the Teddy Roosevelt era. Please, Julia, do not major in any of the Angry Studies programs. "Julia" Womyn's Studies will not teach you how to be a woman, only in how to be angry that you are. I started my brief college career when the big fight over the first Angry Studies program was going on. It was Black Studies. I got in trouble, although nothing like I would today, for asking how long this feller would have to study to be black. I then got further marginalized for asking how much someone would pay him to be black with that degree. And would it be more than a black guy with only a high school diploma heavy in shop classes. I got into the last bit of trouble commenting that I served with a lot of black guys in the Service and none of them had gone to collage to learn how to be black yet they were doing just fine at being black. I sat alone at the Student Union cafeteria a lot.

 Welcome to adulthood, "Julia". Good luck in finding a job. A simple fact of life that no one will tell you is that every single government program take money out of the economy that would be used to create jobs. The evil rich do not stuff their money under the mattress, nor is it change between their couch cushions. The rich have bank accounts. Those banks then lend that money to folks starting businesses and buying homes. People work for those businesses and build those homes. The rich buy stock. That stock builds more businesses. The rich pay taxes. Now some of that money taken in taxes provides essential services. Fire Departments and Police Departments, for two. Although police are overburdened with "crimes" that are such only because some politician likes to feel important.

 Anyhow. "Julia" you should be totally on your own now. Too bad you're a helpless ward of the state. Enjoy your life. In the unending Obama Regime that has mapped out your life you will now spend well over forty years working at a government provided job. Now matter how well you work or how well you learn you will never make a dime more than that lout over there who came to work late and half drunk. Sorry "Julia", that's the rules. You will never own your home, "Julia". The Regime only allows it's crony capitalist friends to own home. You will live in a small apartment in a large complex that smells of dirty diapers and boiled cabbage. You will not have a car. You will ride the bus and the subway where feral youths have free reign to mug, assault, rape and murder. Good luck. If you dare arm yourself and actually fight off one of these groups you will be a vigilante, savaged in the press. If you don't fight them off you will be a victim.

 Welcome to Obama's America. Good luck.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

What An Ordeal

 My pal Steve came out here to the Poorfarm and worked his butt off for two solid days. This after he worked another whole day fixing out mower. He redid two spots where water leaks had made soft spots in the floor and put new vinyl down in those spots, put a mess of shelves up and fixed our washing machine.

 Steve does this for a living but he was between jobs. He talked a pal of his who runs a warehouse for flooring and got enough leftover vinyl and plywood for the job and had salvaged the shelving from some sort of remodel. I will be paying for this for as long as he tells me to, he does things like this and we send him fifty bucks a month until he's feeling as if we treated him well. Steve is a contractor, mainly flooring but also fencing, mechanical stuff, whatever it takes to put food on the table. And between real jobs he does things like this.

 So, anyhow I know this would have cost a couple-three thousand dollars that I simply don't have. And between me and the other folks Steve does this for he gets a hundred and fifty- two hundred bucks a month, enough for a nice dinner with his wife or a trip on their Harley every so often. A good deal all around.  I'm not exactly sure what I did in life to deserve a friend like this but I'm blessed. Wore plumb to a nub but blessed.

 We found what happened to the washer, the field mice that enter the house ate through the hoses. and flooded the joint. Had to get dogs, couldn't get a mean, mouse eatin' cat, no, had to get dogs. Anyhow, next time I call Steve it better be an invitation to go shootin'!

 I'm going to be busy for a while, cleaning the crud and dog hair that formed around the piles of stuff we had no room for. The way my health is I can only work around ten-fifteen minutes on my feet, then I need to sit until the back spasms quit.  Then another ten-fifteen minutes, lather, rinse, repeat. If I had known I'd live this long...