Category: Uncategorized

as I’m busy working support. But don’t forget that it’s

I can’t get out to buy ammo today so I’ll be joining the NRA.

…bigger calibre 🙂
I refer to my inheritance (see below) as opposed to Kim du Toit’s recent acquisition.



click for larger view


This baby is an 8mm Model 98k made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn, Suhl. We think it is 1944 vintage. It’s got a muzzle velocity that would curl your hair after it parted it (loads test variously from 2300 to 3100 fps at 15′). Dad picked it up on a French battlefield in 1944 or ’45 and tore it down and mailed it home. (Luckily; otherwise he would have lost it with all his other souvenirs when someone stole all his things out of his tent after the war was over.) When he got home in ’46 he had the original stock replaced — I seem to recall him telling me that the original stock was “a piece of shit” — and a sport sight installed (see the pics). The new stock also has a rubber cushion that the original lacked. I can vouch for the fact that this weapon needs it…
The real problem is finding a range to shoot this thing at. I think the NRA range near here has sufficient backstop to handle it but I’m not sure. As far as I know the gun hasn’t been fired since I was a tad. We used to take our guns up to my Uncle Jack’s place in Peru, Indiana at Christmas time. Uncle Jack’s family lived at the time on the edge of a big honking gravel pit (he worked for the company that mined the pit) and we’d stand in his driveway and shoot across the pit to the opposite wall. Just to shake the dust out of the barrels, mind you.
Now there’s something you wouldn’t be allowed to do in the civilized State of Indiana these days. (For one thing we probably were less than 200 feet from the highway, albeit we were firing away from it.)

The Professor writes:

SO THE HOMELAND SECURITY BILL HAS BALLOONED FROM 35 TO 484 PAGES: And the addition appears to be largely pork. That’s no real surprise, I guess, but while it may not be a surprise it is an illustration.

It isn’t my habit to quote the Confederate Constitution, but it contained a provision that “each law must deal with only one subject, announced in its title, and the President had the right to veto separate items in appropriation bills” (Foote, Shelby; The Civil War, A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville, 42. New York; Random House, Inc., 1958, 11th printing).
That would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?
UPDATE: The Confederate Constitution is reproduced (among other places) here. Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 20: “Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.” Article I, Section 7, Paragraph 2: “…The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.”

And I think we’re winning. We’re certainly giving the Iraqis food for thought.
(Via the Professor.)

For over two days my router’s been logged into the wrong network.
I’ve gotten absolutely zero help from SBC’s tier 1 support in getting it fixed (first call: A trouble ticket. Second call: Routed back into voice mail hell).
And you know what the problem was?
They changed the login protocol for static IP logins and didn’t bother to tell anyone. Yes. All I had to do was log the router out and log it back in from a slightly different email address.
Fucktards. It’s a damn good thing I’m not shopping for T3 service here in Indy like I was a year and a half ago for my employer. SBC would not even be on my long list, let alone my short list.
The upsetting thing is that this is the first serious problem I’ve had with them in a year, and they failed the customer support test big time. And since I won’t do business with Bombast, er, Comcast, I’m sort of stuck with SBC DSL.

Nice. If you can read this, it means SBC have gotten around to putting me back on the CORRECT FUCKING SUBNET.
Until they do, I’m screwed.

James Lileks ought to switch to Dish Network.
(I also like what he has to say about the second coming of bin Asshole.)

Which Firearm are you? brought to you byStan Ryker

I’m beginning to think Michael Ledeen is right. We should assist the revolution in Iran first. There’s nothing like striking while the iron is hot.
Maybe that would distract Saddam’s attention.

Melana Zyla Vickers writes about lefty reaction to the new National Security Strategy over on Fox.
Some of these old lefties just don’t get it:

“If the American military appears able to win victories at low cost, war might become a preferred instrument of diplomacy rather than an instrument of last resort. This situation would lead to an unhealthy militarization of American foreign policy,” warns Clinton-era NSC director for defense policy and arms control Hans Binnendijk, in the preface to a book he has edited on military transformation.

Or maybe, you incredible pissant, if the American military is able to win victories at low cost, OTHER COUNTRIES WILL THINK TWICE BEFORE THEY FUCK WITH US.
Read the whole thing.