HP or HP

Crud.

I first saw "Hewlett Packard" when I saw 'HP'.  Stupid job.

I wish it had been one of the others.

I may have to get myself a new line of work.  This one doesn't seem to agree with me anymore.  

Loophole

These aren't loopholes New York Post. (I prolly shouldn't blame the Post for an AP story, but they did put it up.)

"The killer bought a gun and then had a gun."  And?

"The killer bought a gun despite having an assault conviction as a minor." Yeah, I agree, if you are gonna make a person prohibited then felony convictions, or violent misdemeanors, should qualify as a legit reason.  But to have a background check system that catches on to such then the gummint has to actually report people as bad guys to the background check system.   Incompetence or a legally expunged youth record. Not a loophole.  This journalist even recognizes that.  Still calls it a loophole.

Here's a thought.  When repeated failure of gun control laws fail to stop something, maybe that failed regulation should be repealed before thinking up something new to add to the pile of regulations?  Background checks failed to stop the last umpteen mass shootings, so no more background checks.  They clearly aren't working.  Or, 'working.'

"...bought a Ruger AR-556 pistol, a semi-automatic weapon with a 30-round capacity"  Yeah, it also has a 10 round capacity and a 20 and a 100.  Citified journalism degree ignorance?  You can almost hear the wheels in his head kachunking.  Wait, is this an AR-15?  It says AR.  But that number after it is bigger than 15.  Does that mean it is that much more dangerous?  But it's a pistol, and I coulda swore AR-15 were rifles.

The writer does float the idea that sex-addicts should be banned from gun ownership that same as Reefer Addicts already are.

But lets be honest here.  The reason their side wants a background check on every sale is to get backdoor gun registry up, over time.  Once they are confident of the location of a goodly number of the nations 500,000,000 extant firearms then a gun confiscation from law-abiding owners becomes possible.  Want to get a universal background check passed tomorrow?  Take the serial numbers off the NICS check.  The gun banners want the registry and won't agree because they think they can win it their way, but you will see where they stand if you bring up the idea.

In another shooting "legally purchased six firearms in the three years before he opened fire on a municipal building, including the two .45-caliber pistols used in the attack. An independent review of the shooting, commissioned by the City of Virginia Beach, found that he displayed no warning signs or “prohibited behaviors associated with a pathway to violence,” and that he had no known history of mental health treatment."  What loophole was this?  What law does the writer want passed that would address this?  A law against murder

Trespassing?

Baltimore is telling folks to trespass all they want.  No longer any real consequences.  If it was an Open Carry city you could be told by the store owner to leave and not come back with a gun  on your hip and nothing would happen to you.  The cops wouldn't make you leave.  Trespassing was how gun squishes kept OC out of their stores.

But Bawlmer isn't carry friendly.  Fine.  Well now you can piss in the middle of a barroom (which is also legal) and when the bartender tells you to leave you don't have to.  You aren't trespassing.  What if they have a bouncer?  Well, without the trespassing part isn't the bouncer just assaulting you?  The courts will still prosecute that.  

Whelp, the brain surgeon is out of ideas

Took a look at my imaging and can't think of a surgical solution.

Which is a big deal.  I like it when a surgeon declines to fix a problem with surgery.  That's a good thing.

But now what do I do with this back?

He's referring me to a chiroprocter and acupuncturist and a neurologist.  The first two can prolly do no harm. And might help.  The third tests for packet loss on my internal network.  Shrug.

But hey, my neck is indeed fixed.  

Singular

 Been listening to a lot of H. P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle.  Both seemed enamored with overusing the word 'singular.'  Their use of singular. isn't.

Throw a unique in there, fellas.  Or even an extraordinary.

But I don't think it is just them.  A century ago a lot of prose had extra singulars, if I can now recall.  

Another thing the snooty Doyle and Lovecraft worried about a lot in their stories.  Scandal!  People would murder themselves or others if something embarrassing happened to them or to prevent same, and if they didn't die greater society would never let them off the hook.  Alien to out modern sensibilities.  If my bride worked in summer stock theater performing musicals and it got out that she did so just after the marriage I wouldn't go begging for an annulment.  But we do overshare, these days.  I would mind a little less, if we could do it without great stigma.  I've heard about too many strangers sex lives and colonoscopies.  And I am guilty, too, no mistake.

Grocery Report

 Not much to report.  I stopped sorta doing this when things got back to normalish in the early fall.  Supplies were decent, and there were few shortages.  

Moreso now.  All the cleaners were in place, and there was so much paper goods that they were stacking Brawny and Bounty on the floors in front of the shelves.  

One other thing.  Traffic backup are back to normal.  Which is unwelcome.  It means people are going into the office as these backup aren't on schoolbus routes.  

Crazy Town

Do you know anyone, especially in your own family, that is legit mentally ill.  Crazy-town?  A danger to themselves and others?

I was thinking about how HARD it would be to do something about that.  Just massively difficult.  I am glad it is not a problem I have had to confront.

To get a friend or family member committed, even if it is for the best would be gun wrenching.  

How to fix this?  I don't know.  Make the experience feel much more like you are securing them real meaningful help rather that condemning them to compelled institutionalization?  But we'd have to be confident that the insanity could be cured, and rather quickly, properly resecuring the afflicted's freedom.  

But we aren't confident.  At all.  There is no quick cure.  This isn't the Clap, circa 1965.  Where a shot fixes you up.  So we are still confronted with the hesitancy of compelling someone to at least get treatment.  And sometimes that is deadly.  If it was ALWAYS deadly, it'd be a lot easier to lock up crazy Uncle Frank.  But not all ticking time bombs go off.  Hell MOST of these time bombs don't go off.  And therein lies the problem.

The family of the Boulder shooter, I am sure, would rather have had that shooter committed to some asylum 2 months ago and maybe getting good treatment, but definitely secure and in custodial care, than in jail now and prison hereafter.  Also secure.  But without the 10 innocent victims. 

Well THAT will replace the white whale in my nightmares

Dr. Heller inspects the skull of a victim of the 1806 Mycelium infections, an epidemic that decimated a village in the south of France.
The fungus grew into the bone, creating ossified structures that broke out of the skin to spread spores. pic.twitter.com/LyoLYUU3d7

— Eduardo Valdés-Hevia 🐛 (@Valdevia_Art) March 20, 2021

See?

Pressure mounting to end filibuster to get through gun control.

It was so long ago

I am trying to remember what guns I was interested in before Covid and Antifa riots and Gun Ban legislation made gun shopping challenging.

Let the first time buyers get ahead of me in line.  I have guns.

But there are still holes.  Still have gotten a DeLisle.  A suppressed rifle that shoots .45, preferably taking 1911 mags.

And I was close to getting an M&P Shield.  Single stack? (naw, staggerg stack), compact, 9mm.  Maryland friendly.  Replace the J-Frame in my year round carry regime.  I think Tam has an article coming out soon that will address my questions.  

Social media ads seem to think I need an Urban Carry G3 holster.  The small Shield would match with that.  But I don't know.... Master Ken seems to like the crotch protecting features.  Maybe stick with a more conventional holster.

Taxes are gonna go up

 And YOU are going to pay more.  A lot more.

"But T-Bolt, Biden said he is only going after the people making $400,000 or more."

Let me be very clear: If you make under $400,000 you won’t pay a penny more in taxes under my administration.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 16, 2020

That number has altered to 200k.

Biden tax hike could hit people earning $200K, White House clarifies https://t.co/YYzEqoDPJz pic.twitter.com/wW4Wj6aCPt

— New York Post (@nypost) March 17, 2021

But that doesn't matter.  It will be 50k soon enough.

Usually the anchor goes right through

Ask EB Misfit. She'll tell you.

Heh...

pic.twitter.com/xzgQEe9U3J

— ✯╾━╤デ╦︻ (@intlgunnut) March 19, 2021

He's not an Idiot

He just thinks all you rubes are.

No state requires you have a drivers license to buy a car. You have tweeted a fallacy. Withdraw your silly legislation.

— J T Bolt (@NewJovianTBolt) March 18, 2021

DC Industry

 This place hasn't always been a one-company town.  We used to do industry.  Well, for the gummint, yes, but still better than producing nothing but paper that tells other people what to do.

They turned the place that made torpedos across the river into an art center.

But there was more general industry in this ecosphere, including a woodworking tool manufacturer.

Other regions were further along with hard industries than this sleepy southern town, and all local ones would be eclipsed in economic market share by the exponential growth of the federal government during the FDR administration and the coming of WWII.  

"But the Navy still needs weapons systems T-Bolts?  Why is Navy Yard not the powerhouse it used to be the first half of the 20th Century"

Dunno.  Lotta money in weapons contracts in the cold war era.  Lotta political favors need to be bought out there.  Might be that lead to an industrial diaspora away from the mother ship.  And those machinists could move or just get office jobs, I guess.   

Dangit

 I was using information gleaned from lived examples in the misty past when my grandfather was but a tween and THIS guy uses something from Johns Hopkins two years ago.

In September 2019, Johns Hopkins in partnership with WHO published a detailed report on "high-impact respiratory pathogens" that is prophetic. For example, they warned NPI policies could be abused by overreaching governments for political/social purposes, not because of evidence. pic.twitter.com/DbC1WQjeQc

— Eric (@IAmTheActualET) March 16, 2021

Pandemic -100

The graph for infections and deaths in this pandemic is remarkable parallel to the one in 1918

First noticed in January, then initial surge, quieter summer, much bigger spike in the late Fall, then another regular size Spring.

Differences.  Back then public fear and gov't underreaction 100 years ago lead to shut downs.  We didn't have the same kind of war censorship today we had then.  Totally different kind of censorship now.  And different age cohorts were harder hit.  Not as many crowded draftee army bases, troop ships, and trenches nowadays.

Oh and there is more of a vaccine rollout now than then.  That'll make the comparative spring graphs diverge.  So watch Europe.  Worse vaccine rollout there, so it will look more like 1918 there.

But the graphs, no matter how an area reacted to the outbreak, the humps came when the humps came. Some crowds made for superspreader events, other indistinguishable crowds did not. Just a huge feeling of inexorable inevitiblity.

Pince nez

 And palimpsest.

I’ve seen those words, as printed words, most of my literate life.  But I have only heard them pronounced this week.  Not what I expected. One of those "I was today years old" things.

From a librivox recording.  A Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, and Kristin Hughes is a wonderful podcast narrator.   Very crisp and precise reading voice.

And taking joy in the language.  On today, an Irish holiday.  A nation with a plethora of people that also revel in the written word. 

But I use these, myself, for reading.  I thought I had them in a 0.5 diopters correction, but the lowest they sell now is 1.0.  Nooz.

I always liked Yaphet Kotto

RIP Yaphet Kotto pic.twitter.com/4OmmrqsETA

— The Tweet Sniper💥 (@IWashington) March 16, 2021

The Ammo Situation

Went to check online.  Ugh.  But you knew that.  The ammo situation is still dire. Low availability and 200% markups from 'normal' on what is actually in stock.  With the gun banning legislation bouncing around it won't get better until that is long over.  And that's me being optimistic.

Doesn't matter.  Gonna get an immunization shot tomorrow and be effectively immortal and invincible, by...  Sunday?  Certainly by 2 Sundays from now.  Then I will stride the earth like a titan, help get little cats out of high trees.  Stop by ammo factories and see if there is heavy stuff they need moved around for free. 

Maybe I'm Not Too Fat

(And I take a lot of my self defense online training from Master Ken, of course.)

I view Mr Correia's videos on youtubeyoutube, too.  He is a man of similar size and carriage as me.  But until this Master Ken video I didn't know he did appendix carry.  A lightbulb went off.  Maybe a guy as fat as me CAN appendix carry.  I'll have to get the blue gun and putter around the house, see how it feels.

I am in hell

Thoughts and Prayers for Schumer

 Vote?  Is he gonna suspend filibuster rules for the first time ever on gun control bills?

Or maybe he has 10 Republicans going along with his agenda.  I doubt one is Steve Scalise, not despite what happened, but because.

(ed:  I don't know why the link works sometimes but not others... Stupid Fox)

Man I love living in the future

 What is WRONG with some of you people.  And when I say 'you people'  I don't mean you people you people.  I just mean you people.  The 'tother way.

A Bucks County woman created ‘deepfake’ videos to harass rivals on her daughter’s cheerleading squad, DA says

USAF lose badly to CHICOMS

Yeah, but I bet their pass rate on Sensitivity Training was WAY better than the Chinese People's Army.

I had the idea for this post 3 days ago, and now it looks like everyone has had the same comment.  When I was in the military it was drilled into me that training was nearly the most important thing you could be doing, second only to victory in battle.  

It did not mean Sensitivity Training.    

But maybe today training to fight and winning battles are no longer the priority at DoD.  I've had my DD214 a long time.  Screw victory in battle in the 21st Century.  Now have a victory over a new anchor.  

Is this the best use of your time Command Signal Major Lemon?  You sound like Swallwell.  Never a good look.

This is healthcare!

"You can't pay for anything out of pocket! That's insane!"

So my MRI place got bought out by MedStar, and they decided that I don't get an MRI unless I jump through a buncha hoops first.  What a difference 3 months makes.  So no imaging.  My doctor's office is trying to go to bat for me before the next appointment on the 23rd. 

Thanks Obama.

"We'll let you get an MRI after 2 more doctor visits, and 16 more PT sessions, all at $30 a pop, co-pay."

I did PT.  It made things worse.  And all that costs more than the $500 an MRI goes for. 

--

But, I got an appointment for the vax.  St Paddy's day.  It's a dice throw on which company, but everyone that got the one and done J&J here have had flu like symptoms for 2 days after.  So if I get that one I better hit the pubs right away before it kicks in.  

"How did you manage that?  Are you special?"

Sorta?  Essential worker and all that.  Though they aren't really demanding proof apart from my word.  I will be the last in my extended family to get a shot.  Even my work from home Navy brother got one already, and the over-70s have all gotten both shots.  The office I work at only has one more person that hasn't gotten an appt lined up.  Dollars to donuts, before May some of us will be leaving the mask in the car. 

This isn't the ammo blog idea, but...

We were discussing ammo deterioration.  Quite a few people had an example of ammo that went bad.  

I'm not talking the ammo stored in a paper sack in the basement that floods all the time.  Properly stored in a upstairs closet sort of storage in a year round climate controlled house.  

Mine was leftovers from the 1950s.  But other had tell of ammo going bad less than 20 years old.  All corroded, lots of duds...

Can you guess the commonality?

It was .22, correct.  Huh.

Anyone else notice a propensity for their long rifle ammo spoiling?  If so, do you know what causes that, if I am noticing an actual 'thing'?

I LOVE THIS!

No, not Col. Cooper or the Steyr Scout, though I have been fascinated with both.  Look at that vest!  LOOK AT IT!

Admittedly, tho

 I do like one feature of books that come on a screen.  If you touch a word, it give you the definition.  Yet another efficiency increase thanks to technology.

I buy Blu Ray

To, just in case, actually have physical property of my media.  

So, you know, Hitchcock movies, Blazing Saddles, Caddyshack.  Stuff that might be cancelled and yoinked from the regular economy.

I was never a fan of Dr. Seuss.  Even as a kid.  So... Meh.  The Grinch cartoon is good!  Worth having.  So I don't need to buy Mulberry Street.

Never a fan of Gone With the Wind, neither.  I mean, I saw it, thought it plodding, the burning of the King Kong set as a stand in for Atlanta was cool, but I never saw the greater appeal.  

I have a spare DVD player, as well. 

Of course I am not the only one with this attitude.

Nobody reads Hemingway anymore.

Had an idea

 Last night.  For blog fodder.  But I didn't jot down a note.  Now it's gone.

I think it was about ammo.  Not wadcutters, but wad cutters are all I can think about now.

Monday

My standard blog drought day.  Or I could whine about my spine.  I'm sure you all lover reading about that.

"Everyone talks about their aches and pains, but no one ever does anything about it, T-Bolt."

Not true!  I go for lumbar imagery today.  Two weeks, the Noive Doctor follow up.  I just hope he has a way to fix it a little short of Laminectomy.  I hate ectomies.  This Florida Man performed a wholly different kind of ectomy, but just as unwelcome.  Maybe a bit more unwelcome...

I've had a couple of good days, tho.  You know how I know its a good day?  I go "Up, time for ibuprofen!  Wait...  I don't feel so bad.  I can skip it for now."  Low pain days are nice.

"So what is causing all this, T-Bolt.  What is it?"  

Spinal Stenosis.  Most like caused by:  Old.  A narrowing of the channel the nerves ride in, both the main cord itself and all the branches off of it. Thing that didn't help it:  

• 6 years of military style physical training every week.
• Working in microbrewery throughout the 90s lifting kegs that weighed 140 pounds, grain sacks that weighed 50, trashcans full of wet, spent, malted barley, shifting hundreds of beer cases at a go.  Oh and shoveling enough snow to get semi trailers to back to our door.  And the 90s had quite a few good snow storms.
• Three decent car accidents that didn't send me to the doctor, but weren't nothing, either. 
• And 20 years of system administrator posture.

But mostly just being old.  It's arthritis on the bones narrowing the channels, ya know.  No history in the family of people with similar issues except maybe dad.  He had a twinge in his back that would come on sudden.  It went away of it's own accord by the time he was about my age now. 

But, lets get some pictures.  Clearer ones, this time.    

Which was the bad guy of WWII, Europe side?

 Easy!  The one that invaded Poland in 1939.

"OK so neither of us invade Poland. Deal?" pic.twitter.com/t7HqJDb5h1

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) March 3, 2021

Good Ol' Uncle Joe

Happy Stalin’s Death Day! pic.twitter.com/FwNjoADY7E

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) March 5, 2021

Near Future NBA Prediction

 "The 3-Point line is racist"

1987 NBA Three-Point Shootout. If you need me to tell you who won, you haven't been paying attention. pic.twitter.com/0E3UQ9lBSz

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) March 3, 2021

Hell, it may have already been a thing for a time and I just forgot.

You Tube may be worse than CPAC

🚨🚨🚨Breaking🚨🚨🚨
Hidden in plain sight? User uncovers ░N░A░Z░I░ ░I░M░A░G░E░R░Y░ on YouTube proprietary video player. pic.twitter.com/MIiKi7qV65

— I,Hypocrite (@lporiginalg) March 3, 2021

Update on that Insurrection 2:

 QAnon boogaloo.

At the Capitol, a March 4 threat from militant Trump supporters proves a mirage https://t.co/pHUgunuHEN

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 4, 2021

What a jerk

Banned from hunting errywhere, but Hawaii and Mass.  Has to turn in the guns he used for poaching.

It's not like it is really that hard to adhere to most hunting regulations.  He didn't just poach a lil bit...  he poached it lotta bit.  Like he preferred it out of season.

I imagine he can get another rifle tomorrow.  And he can buy a couple hundred acres.  I assume in that situation he can hunt all year round from his back deck.  Ifn that was what he wanted.  He seems trophy obsessed and not venison obscessed, tho. 

... uh huh...

U.S. CAPITOL POLICE SAYS IT HAS OBTAINED INTELLIGENCE ON POSSIBLE PLOT TO "BREACH CAPITOL" BY MILITIA GROUP ON THURSDAY

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) March 3, 2021

What do you do here?

Wayne?  You can't think of ANY gun law that might be a bit much?  A bit of an infringement?  Not providing any public safety benefits despite what it was billed as before it was passed (like that matters with a right anyway)?

You suck up all the money to live high on the hog, AND you don't really advocate for our rights, which should have been you raison d'etre.  Plus flubbing the New York incorporation.  Out.  Of.  Touch.  

Retire.  

If you had said "We don't need to repeal any gun laws," out loud I'd be for investigating you for malfeasance to pack you away in prison.  Instead of retire.

Retire, you have outlived your usefulness.  If you ever had much in the first place.  Now you have the utility for the cause as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Waco

 I'd been reading up on the Waco Siege of the Branch Davidians because the ATF was being all mournful of the 4 agents that dies there.  Not so much for the 80 some 'civilians' that died there (2 dozen children) because the ATF wanted to make a flashy arrest for the cameras and elevate their exposure.

Oh, their exposure got elevated alright.

The thing that got the ATF sniffing around is the cult (a bit sketchy as a cult, yes, but the ATF doesn't arrest people for being in a fringe Christian group...) were firearms enthusiasts.  They made some folding money with an FFL selling stuff at gun shows.  Being very meticulous to properly fill out the ATF forms.  The ATF found it sketchy that they got shipped firearms accessories.  Citing a time when they got 60 AR magazines at one time.

Sixty.

I bet more than one reader of this tiny blog has considered owning up to sixty magazines for personal use.  

For that all this people had to die.

President Clinton:  "Why can't you just wait them out?"

Janet Reno: "Well, the FBI shooter team is getting tired."

President Clinton: "..."

Janet Reno:  "Plus reports children are getting molested, like all them Satanic daycare centers across the country!"

President Clinton:  "Whatever... Look, do what you want, but if this goes pear shaped that is on you."

And it went pear shaped.

We remember the fallen agents: Special Agent Conway LeBleu, Special Agent Todd McKeehan, Special Agent Robert Williams, and Special Agent Steven Willis who made the ultimate sacrifice while trying to execute a search warrant. Learn more: https://t.co/4bKunPx0Hq pic.twitter.com/aVde6ZK13K

— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) February 28, 2021

Does Mitt have a brother?

That, you know, likes to drink a lot, and was known for being a southpaw boxer back in the day.

Like Harry Reid's brother!  Sure, Harry, it slipped.  

Wait, Mitt was visiting his boy, Tagg.  No word on Tagg's boxing prowess.

Garum

 But I thought that I was the only one that went on Ancient Rome fish sauce jags.

--

If I had a time machine I'd go back to 1979 and bring back some Trac II razors.

But I'd also go back to 79 BC and bring back an amphora of garum.  Just to see what the fuss was about.

Monday always sneaks up on me.

 Been doin some experimenting.  Dosing with booze to help with sleeping.  What with the painful spine and all.  Beer is less effective than I remember, and wine isn’t much better.   But four fingers of bourbon does a decent job.  And unlike opioids, alcohol isn’t addictive.

~whisper~

It is?!  No shit.  Huh.