I Got Your Definition Of Good Right Here

My reading on the ethics in interaction of business and the environment, apparently written by a watermelon, was interrupted by the Big Brown Truck of Happiness, dropping of 500 pieces of sized, trimmed, and deprimed once-fired 7.62x51 NATO brass. Looks good from inspecting random cases, and far easier to get (which isn't saying much) than actual loaded rounds. If I'm lucky, the local gun show coming up may have some large rifle primers at a less than painful price.

Ethics and Distribution

This week's class topic involves them. This is something that's intensely interesting to me, especially as we're seeing a massive shift in philosophy regarding capitalism with the new administration. Doubtless there will be some very interesting discussion threads as we cover this. I tend towards Libertarianism personally, although this is in a broad sense as I haven't deeply studied the topic. One of the ways these classes are beneficial is in refining what I've tended to take for granted since college in the '80s. I'll soon be ordering a copy of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia for addition to the home library. As to when I'll find time to read it.........

Update: having read one chapter of the textbook for the week and scarcely now into the second, I'm pretty sure the author is a hippie. The main thing I'm picking up here is the humanity is evil and needs to be saved. Bet I know who he voted for.

Wierdness Prevails.....

Seriously, is there any reason why the tax payer should fund this?

As an aside, it would really creep me out to think one of my drill sergeants going from this:

To this:

Do what you want, but when you start expecting everyone else to pay for those "final touches", you're on your own.

Stress? What Stress?

After a seemingly short hiatus due to returning from deployment, school is back in session. And I've gone from hanging out at home with The Wife for half a day in my sweats before doing some home destruction improvement projects to "wake up, study, eat, study, install flooring, study, eat, study, hang out for an hour, go to bed, repeat". This should be really fun once I start back at with working full time.

Topic for this week's class discussion- Business People: Amoral Bastards or Simply Tainted With Greed?

My Brain Hurts.

Ugly Gun Sunday

Pressed for time today, so in the interest of due credit, the following is a straight copy of the article from Wikipedia.

The Charlton Automatic Rifle was a fully automatic conversion of the Lee-Enfield rifle, designed by New Zealander Philip Charlton in 1941 to act as a substitute for the Bren and Lewis gun light machine guns which were in chronically short supply at the time.

The original Charlton Automatic Rifles were converted from obsolete Lee-Metford and Magazine Lee-Enfield rifles dating from as early as the Boer War, and were intended for use as a self-loading rifle with the full-automatic capability retained for emergency use.[2] It used the 10-round Lee-Enfield magazines.

There were two versions of the Charlton: the New Zealand version, as designed and manufactured by Charlton Motor Workshops in Hastings, and a version produced in Australia by Electrolux, using the SMLE Mk III* for conversion. The two designs differed markedly in external appearance (amongst other things, the New Zealand Charlton had a forward pistol grip and bipod, whilst the Australian one did not), but shared the same operating mechanism.

Approximately 1,500 Charlton Automatic Rifles were manufactured in New Zealand,and nearly all of them were destroyed in a fire at the Palmerston North service storage facility shortly after World War II.

And You're Doing This Why?

This kind of stuff reminds me of the aftermath of Katrina. And, it's my state, thus my National Guard, practicing this.

Searching for illegal weapons dealers is a job for the police, not the military. And if it's for practice in Iraq, then it can be practiced on a military post in an appropriately simulated area, not in American homes.

This stuff is wrong, and I wouldn't, won't, and never will participate in searching American homes for privately owned weapons as a military member.

H/T The Trooper's Gal

Green Technology

Actually, Red Green tech. As I'm taking leave before returning to my regular employer, what could be more relaxing than starting a relatively simple project requested by The Wife (convert a tiny bedroom into a large walk-in closet)? Why, deciding to do a complete tear-down of the entire room, including stripping all wood trim, ripping out the old flooring, and repainting the entire room after repairing the 100+ year old plaster. Unfortunately, heat guns take a long time to work on wood with nearly a 1/16th inch build up of paint, and the follow up sanding is a mess. So by the time I got to the baseboards, it was time to get inventive.

Step one, remove baseboards from walls. As a bonus, find 1/2 of a movie ticket for when admission fees were ninety cents. Reflect on how old this stuff is. Step two, pull the nails without ruining the wood. Step three, haul boards out to garage and fire up this:



and slowly run baseboards one inch in front of heater until latex paint looks like overdone pizza cheese. Step four, use scrapers to make a giant mess in garage where wife can't see or smell it.

Actually worked pretty well, although you have to really watch the wood; it doesn't take long to start thing smoking compared to an electric heatgun.

You Mean It Isn't All About Obama?

Somehow, I doubt this was an issue during the last administration. As in, I'm confident no one put up a picture of Dubya. Because there would have been someone screaming about the injustice of it all, and the pervasive effort to inflict a totalitarian regime, yada yada yada.

Cheers to the individual with the spine to point this out. And for those who think I'm repelled by the original actions here, I'm actually irritated that Washington and Lincoln's birthdays were ever rolled into one generically labelled holiday. If, in the interest of improving .gov efficiency by making sure that there was only one day off instead of two for the holidays (snort), combining was necessary, it could have at least had the president's names still appended to it.

Speaking of efficiency and the government, it certainly is refreshing to see that our current president, in the interests of drawing attention to the "green" benefits of the porkulus bill, will board Air Force One to fly out to Colorado for the signing of the Great Leap Forward that will save us all from the evil that is capitalism. Of course, when you're dispensing notional dollars like cheap hard candy in a July 4th parade, what does a jet exhaust carbon footprint or the cost of fuel, support services, and local economic disruption for security matter?

There are different standards for the plebes, apparently.

Talent

Wish I had a portion of what this guy has.

On a personal note, I don't believe there's a pursuit model more graceful in appearance than the P-40 Tomahawk.

Ugly Gun Sunday

Another "sporterized" battle rifle. In this case, a ground-mum Type 99 Arisaka that went through the hands of a novice (I hope) gunsmith in the past.

This unfortunate rifle underwent a less than optimal bolt-bending procedure, leaving the bolt straight and directed sharply back, rather than having a graceful curve down the side of the stock:
The handguard was thrown away; the stock roughly bobbed; and what appears suspiciously similar to an aftermarket metal hose strap serving as a barrel band.

All of which was most likely wasted effort, as the original military sights were left as issued. Not a big deal when used as intended, aiming at center mass of a soldier's torso, where an impact six inches or more above the line of sight was still counted as a good hit. Not so much with the horizontal of a whitetail deer or feral hog.

Hopefully this old rifle will find a home with someone who enjoy shooting the 7.7 cartridge, but doesn't want to put wear on their excellent condition C&Rs.

Firmly Advancing Into Middle Age

We bought one of these tonight while killing time:


and I was more excited about it than my wife. I went a year without access to good bread while deployed, and now I'm making up for it. With taking terminal leave, I've enough time to work on actually baking bread than buying it. So when The Wife and I ran across this unit at %50 off, and with a store gift card in hand, plus another 15% for using the in-store credit card, I snatched it up faster than a free case of Sam Adams Boston Lager. Which means I now have a powered bread hook for the first time since I was slinging pizza dough back in the '80s.

I'll be spending tomorrow in the kitchen.

Bipartisanship: Conform Or Else

The more often I watch CIC BO stump for getting the spendulus passed, the greater my conviction that any time a politician demands his pet project be passed it's probably in need of extended exposure to sunlight.

Demands for bipartisanship, are in general, a sop to the mentally deficient who believe there is a way we can all live with, if all of us are simply understanding and respectful enough. The problem from their perspective is that so many of us are so obstinate in refusing to compromise. Which is the problem that those of us who have beliefs about the value of individual worth have with the other side's idea of compromise.

I believe the other side believes they are right. I believe that for the most part, those that are driving the ideological engine of the White House are sure that if the peasantry would shut up and stop being unruly, they could do their job of making everything run the way it should, and everything will be fair. Which is why political opposition is so important. It seems many of the public thinks disagreement is the greatest threat to the general well-being. Apparently there is something about never having lived under a one-party political system that makes them look attractive for the sake of efficiency. I'd wager this same segment of the population was forced to suffer through history in high school, and hasn't willingly had an encounter with a book dealing with political history since then.

It's given me a small measure of hope that most Republicans have been resisting the financial time bomb being whipped up. It's my hope that some of the younger members of the party are willing to get aggressive, and continually point out the waste folded into the plan. That should hardly be difficult.

They might actually gain some seats when the time comes to vote again, if they stop trying to be Democrat Lite.

Response Time

This recent video (note: pawn shop ad precedes video) from a home owner's surveillance system demonstrates why no police department, no matter how efficient, can be counted on as a first line of personal defense. Unless your home is a military-grade bunker, retreating and calling 911 wouldn't have kept these intruders out. Given the speed of this assault, I doubt the owner would have had time to even make the call. There is no substitute for having a personal defense weapon readily accessible in the home. You can't guarantee surviving an exchange of gunfire, but your odds are better with an exchange versus simply receiving. Few criminals are willing to press home an attack when their own lives are suddenly at risk.

H/T to Survival Blog.

Home Again

Finally back in the family housing unit. Which means inspecting the armory, building repair/improvement lists, and schlepping frozen dog poop out of the back yard. And then it's back to work! (eventually).

Ugly Gun Sunday

This would look simply fabulous with this:

Inconceivable!

Linked by Brigid. My thanks, and a goblet (iocaine-free) raised in salute.

Ugly Gun Sunday

If this doesn't scream "I'm a man of refined taste" the same way a bad toupee and new sportscar shows what a stud a man is, I don't know what does.