Taps

Robo Calls

 I just noticed.  I don't think I got but one or two robo calls to my land line from August to May.  Now it is daily, again.

Getting an old school answering machine, instead of voicemail, with an SSD instead of magnetic tape was something I should have done long ago.

He's in a cemetery near Manilla, now.

 

I'm with YOU, Chonk.

 And you are definitely my brother, Bruthah.

Oopsie, Masky

So I used Saturday's post yesterday because I forgot to think of something for Friday.  Mea Culpa.

So, Maryland went from 100% masking discipline 2 weeks ago and is about 50% at my now mask-optional shopping places this week.  The beer store and the grocery store.  

So, back to normal is almost here.  If only 2x4s cost a coupla bucks, again, gas was a buck cheaper, and American Eagle plinking ammo was plentiful and could be bought 1000 at a time at normalish prices. THEN we would be back to where we need to be.  

Why did some of you vote for Biden again?  Just because Trump was an asshole?  Yeah, I didn't like him either, but I need you to come fill my gas tank a coupla times, now.    

Jazzy Skyscraper

Just scrub away the past and make way for sterile glass towers.  It'll look good when Superman fights Zod among them.

Thems skyscraper builders are either gonna make me an offa youse can't refooz, or make me pay back dues for AFSCME

I've seen this happen

Travelling south on Interstate 95 near the exit for Route 212.  It didn't hit anyone but bounces like a Dambuster bomb into the woods on the left side of the highway.  Scary stuff.

 

This is me

How I looked at my first gun show. It was a Nation's Gun Show in Chantilly Virginia. I wasn't wearing a mask, tho.

Chicago Shootings

Chicago shooting are up 36% over the previous year.  But that's not so bad because shootings last year were so very unseasonably low.

whisper whisper whisper

Wait, I am told they were pretty high last year, too.

So, is all this police defunding push and ACAB and bail elimination really a Roger Stone political op to make Democrats look bad and get law and order GOP type elected and re-elected for generation when folks assume such crime encouragement was really a push by the incompetent Progs?

Texas

Will Governor Abbott sign constitution-carry into law in Texas?

Or will he come up with some excuse?  

---

"All the news stories say he will sign it, T-Bolt!  He promised!"

Yeah?  Then something just happens to happen and whoopsie, maybe next year..

SBRs

If SBRs got removed from the NFA, what would I get?

10 years ago I'd get a short KRISS.  Today?  Meh.  I am less enamored.

Short AR?  Meh.  Them things are loud, and I don't have a pack I want to tote a short rifle in.

Now, suppressors, that would be different.  Not that ANY appropriate barrels I own have threads.  So I'd have to so all that.  

A .45 SBR with a suppressor?  That I might roll out of bed for.  

Conservative Candidates

Even if you mean the butt, you can't say the butt.  We SEE you, Little Marco.

"I'm all for the Second Amendment, but"

I know you are saying it that way because you want to be on both sides of the issue.  Get the votes from us neanderthal gunnies, AND get the votes from suburban Karen-moms.

But it hasn't worked that way in a while.  The gunnies know what it means from the jump.  It means you are against the Second Amendment.

Look at Trump, Little Marco.  He's as against the Second as you are.  But he NEVER said the 'but'.  He means the but, but never said the but.  See his poor record as president on the issue?  But he ate your lunch on the campaign trail and one of the ways he ate it was by knowing what phrasing had gone stale and become counter-productive.   

Too late now.  But try to remember this, going forward.  It applies to other parts of your job.  Try to be a leader and smart politicians in the future instead of a follower and out of touch politician like you are.  Good luck.  

And don't make the mistake Lil Marco did, other conservatives.  Stop kissing up to Democrats with the fence sitting.  Them dirty Progs will never love you and it alienates your base

I wish they came that way

I carry a pocket knife for when pistols are for sale as impulse buys on the end caps of hardware and hobby stores.  To open the clam shell.

Book

I bought a used book through Amazon and forgot about it.  It arrived this week.

Guess when I bought it?

Mid December.  Better late than never.

Thomas Boswell's Why Time Begins on Opening Day.

It has a B. Dalton price sticker on it, maybe it did some other time travel

Satisfying

6:15

Maryland is Pretty Liberal

Especially the part I live in.

I'll let y'all know when I start seeing folks inside stores and such with no mask.

Now I don't get out much, and it seems most of my 'out' is the gas station, work, grocery store, and doctor visits.  So, grocery store will be the bellweather.

My County, officially, 'opens' up May 28th.  

Mask at work

My big company hasn't pulled the mask.  Our big federal customer has.  So we are more hesitant than the unionized gummint workers.

What's the hold up?  "Oh the CDC says it's fine, but we haven't heard from OSHA..." Nice goalpost moving.  This is the first time they told us they take their cues from OSHA.  For our Brit readers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

OSHA says they are working on guidance.  Might take awhile, "In the meantime, follow CDC guidance..."

I work in an office.  Where they confiscate any cake knives.  There IS no weapons to counter an active shooter for the Fight part of the Run-Hide-Fight training. 

I used to work at a brewery, with slip and fall hazards, drop hazards, lift hazards, burn hazards, heat exhaustion hazards, forklifts, strong caustic chemicals, steam lines...  OSHA never shows up for stuff like that until you start getting hurt a lot and filing claims.  So OSHA was a joke.  

I doubt anyone has put a claim in at the office for workman's comp for Covid.  So OSHA isn't even on the radar.

Left Lumbar Done

 It felt weird.

Lotsa needles, as per usual.  But those aren’t that bad.  Arm shots hurt more.

Then weird electric pulses.  Then weird internal burning sensations for three minutes. Now I have to ice up for two days.  Because it is only half the back I don’t know if it has fully worked but there seems to be some relief.  I will, of course, report more later.

How dry I am

I hate blog dry spells.  Big day.  9:30 shot.  Hoping for relief on one side.  If I think of it I will report here later today.  Tell you how the test drive goes.  

Speaking of dry, though.  My beer of choice is Victory Prima Pils.  It was an excellent example of the style.  It's still fine, but I noticed a drop off in quality.  Not as bright in the mouth as it used to be.  The Saar didn't snap like it used to.

Come to find out the founders Ron and Bill, brewing contemporaries of mine, sold their interest.  That explains it.

But I have cut way back on my beer consumption.  It just helps that my brand lost a step.  Easier to give it up.

Lost and kept off 30 pounds that way.

Am I just getting old and crotchety?

Going to lots of Doctor offices lately, as you know.  

Half of them use my first name with a Mister.  Like:

"Good morning, Mr. Jovian..."

It's Mr. Thunderbolt.  But they are nice ladies and mean well so I don't get all snappy about it.  It still rankles.  I'd be more cantankerous and correct them if they didn't mean me well, but, never upset the front desk at the doctor.  Yes'ms and Thank Yous, all round. 

Ablation tomorrow.  Left side.  Hopefully eliminate back pain for at least 6 months on the left.  Right side in 2 weeks.  After that I am taking up competitive gymnastics.  I swear.

Oh, good LORD

I spoke to the "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley's attorney, Albert Watkins, for this story. Here's what he had to say... https://t.co/6gZ2jzPvSh pic.twitter.com/b4w62dYvLN

— Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) May 18, 2021

I had thought I had a post set for today

Scheduled.

Apparently I did not.  

Talked about the 9-0 decision at work today.  Apparently cops are not allowed to steal your guns.  At least not without a warrant.  

"This is a welfare check, Mr. Jovian..."

"It's Mr. T-Bolt.  My welfare is fine.  Now have a nice night getting off my front stoop."

One thing about Wayne LaPierre

He makes Oliver North looks like angel.

Everyone fired by LaPierre and his cronies should be rehired.  Every crony and Wayne should be horsewhipped out of town.  Then sued.  First three cronies that turn on him and provide damning testimony get their own lawsuit dropped. 

Ollie on his worst day would be better than Wayne on his best.

I miss going to the range

 I hope this nerve ablation makes it easier to stop going to the chiropractor and to maybe be able to stand at the firing line and expend some ammo.  Now that gas is gone ammo is catching up I notice.  Well starting to. 

Left side ablation on Thursday.  Right side one the third.  Fingers crossed.  If this doesn’t work then I am out of ideas.  Spent most of yesterday in bed.  At least I can read again if I use a pill to prop up the book.  Podcast fiction has been a lotta fun, I must admit.

Now I am curious

pic.twitter.com/aTgCHoPuVP

— 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐥 (@JoshD0110) May 15, 2021

Nothing for today

 Sorry.

Health Update

Because I have no other blog fodder.

The Neurologist finally got around to test me.  Found nothing.  Maybe a little wrist carpal tunnel.  Pfff.

But blood work shows some anomalies.  Is it allergies?  Is is Rheumatoid Arthritis?  Is is kidney problems from MONTHS OF DAILY IBUPROFEN USE?  (I know what I think...) But, anyway, Hematologist referral today for that lab number.  It's a mystery!  Maybe.

Yesterday was the second lidocaine back shot to be sure I can take some Radio Frequency Ablation back there.  Ablation will eliminate back pain for 6-24 months.  That can't come too soon, see: Ibuprofen use.  I'd like to go a few weeks without the Advil.  For my health.  

Neuropathy in my extremities?  We'll see.  It isn't Lyme disease.    

Happy Pi Day.  Wait, no, that's March.

AND!

 Now the CDC says you don't need a mask if you are vaccinated.

"Yes, T-Bolt, but how will you prove to me that you are vaccinated?"

Well, because I am not wearing the mask.  If I hadn't been vaccinated I'd still be wearing it, wouldn’t I?

"Not good enough."

You have my word of honor.

"Still not good enough."

Then you can go pound sand down a rathole, Muthah Hubbard.

And...

Governor Hogan has announced to day an end to masks mandates by Memorial Day.  By then we will have more that 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one shot, so, no need for masks.  

In one of the worst counties in Maryland

When does it go from Pandemic to Endemic?  We've already peaked on vaccinations.  Peak first and second stick.

I know, I know...

 Read another book.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollow-Point pic.twitter.com/W5bZFV7lCW

— Poor John Brewing (@PoorJohnBrewing) May 9, 2021

Books

Hmm.  I was trying to figure out if this applied to me:  "A Book You Remember, a Kindle You Forget".

My gut charged in going 'This is Boolshite!' but then I gave it some thought.  I stubbornly cling to a older style paperwhite Kindle with no back light.  It look and feels more like a book.  Plus no quick internet access from it to distract me.   So:

Nicholas Carr’s “shallowing” hypothesis, which she describes as the notion that “when reading on a digital device, people expend less mental effort than when reading print.”

May apply less to my reading style, and my recall and absorption is not impacted enough for me to notice, on reflection.  But the worry isn't for me, a broken down old warhorse, closer to the grave than to grammar school.  The worry is for today's grammar school kids.  

Well, since you pretty much threw them kids overboard in the Covid year when the Teacher's Unions got their way, I'd say you have a bit more to worry about than reading comprehension and retention by a digital generation.  It's a Lost Generation without the muddy trenches. 

Hypothetical

Just as an exercise.  Let's say SCOTUS comes back with more than we'd ever dare to hope on that 2nd Amendment case.

Justice Thomas: "Heck, this country isn't full Vermont carry, but if you can prove you passed a NICS check you can carry CCW anywhere, legally, that isn't a controlled area like an Airport or a Courthouse ... places with a metal detector.  In 18 states you don't even need that.  But if you have a Chicago FOID, or a UTAH out of state CCW Permit, or a Maryland Firearm Purchase Permit, or that permit thing Massachusetts made you get... you can carry without permission in the Smithsonian, or the streets of Honolulu, or Times Square.  And those permits shouldn't cost much.  $60 every 5 years maybe too much.  Oh, and of course you can carry at your Post Office! That bad was nonsense."

Wow.  Just shy of 'the 2nd is your carry permit.'

And... Heh, instituting them FOIDs in non-permissive really bit them gun grabbers in the ass. 

Anyway, at that point nothing is legally stopping me from carrying a full size pistol at work in an IWB holster.  Finally.  Except they might tell me if they catch me I am fired.  I'd expect a lotta offices like mine would put in metal detectors and upgrade the security staff.  Our gate guards are pitiful.  Unarmed trip wires.  They only tell me a crazed shooter has entered the building when I hear the shots that kill their unarmed ass.  Then I am all Run, Hide, Fight training they make us take every year.  With nothing to fight with.

Anyway.  At work I would have to undoubtedly use my car as a gunsafe until management got their heads out of their asses.  Booooooo.

But I would have to!  I go to the store after work.  I go to the gas station.  I park in my neighborhood and walk to my door.  All places I normal people carry.  I'd have to mount up in the car.

AND THAT IS SUB-OPTIMAL.

It's situations like that that make a lazy person pocket carry a j-frame everywhere.  Which is also sub-optimal

Remember Bella Twin

She shot and killed a record Grizzly bear with a beat up .22 on this day in 1953.  She was 63 years old at the time.  

A Crime

A crime against nature.

Every key member of the brewhouse should be committing ritual sepuku for this abomination.  For shame!

Gummint ONLY

11 days after Kamala Harris told us ‘Only the Govt should have assault weapons’, an Army trainee hijacks elementary school bus full of children.

Well, when you think about, Private Snuffy with the M16 is the government.  The bus driver works for the government.  And the 18 elementary school kids Snuffy kidnapped were going to a government school...

It's government on government evolution and none of our business.   Let the Veep figure it out.

Private Snuffy, Snuffy's battle buddy, Snuffy's platoon, the Drill Sergeants, the Chain of Command at Fort Jackson...  All are gonna be in a world of hurt.  Some more than others.

They should bring these back

I like the cut of that big tank's jib. Er... So to speak.

Of course maybe make em a bit faster.

I also prefer the M60 on this side of the pond. But, in both cases, purely for classic aesthetic reasons. Like loving the 1966 Bonneville while recognizing the base, boring, Hyundai Elantra is objectively a better in features, safety, reliability, and even some performance measures.

 

It's Weird

Why is there a rash of reports, often with video, of black people attacking Asians?  

Did word go out "it's time to beat up Asian people" in cultural media sources I am not privy to?  

Is the mainstream media just stressing this now, and there are just as many crazed Sikh beating up ginger haired people as there are black people attacking Chinese folks?

Seemed like 3 years ago Asians weren't targeted but Hasidic Jews, and only in NYC, were the target.  And that was supposed to be Trump's fault, but the videos of the attacks, the attackers didn't look like they had MAGA hats.

Only Jussie Smollett was attacked by Chicago MAGA folks, I was informed.

It's just weird.  Why the hate on Asians all of a sudden?  There have been other surges, that faded, in the past (bodega resentment?), but why this new surge?

I had a gonne dream

 I was at work, and it was a crowd of us, and we were all being handed loaded AR style rifles.  It was a hectic and confusing event.  I took my rifle, checking for the safety, and there was no real place to point it.  Crowd, plus office park.

Now I am not super familiar with the AR.  I've only shot hundred through one, not thousands.  I am better than an average Air Force person, and better than a lot of Army folks with one.  Not infantry trypes, naturally.  All Marines come out of bootcamp with weeks of exposure to the platform.  Not even close to a boot Marine.

But I have some exposure to firearms in general.  I grabbed the rifle by the grip, barrel pointed down, flipped the sling loop over my head, and held it close to my body with the barrel still pointing down but NOT at my feet.  Sul with a rifle?  I improvised something like that. Not pointing at me, not pointing at anyone else outside my personal space, not pointed at the sky.  Then I meandered away from the confusion, but close enough to hear instructions.  And maybe close to actual cover, and started scanning the rest of my co-workers.  Chamber check and put the dust cover back up.

Pretty standard safety stuff.  Especially the hide from the horde of noobs.  Stuff you sorta absorb from my now 14 years of new-found gun enthusiasm,

At this point I realized it was a test.  The folks in security were handing out rifles to see how people would act.  Who would be too excited, too unsafe, just too awkward, too afraid of it?  Apparently I passed.  I bet the ammo was fake

That reminds of this guy.  Some diner facing down a horde of also-armed Marxists with an NAA revolver.  Good luck with that, buddy.  Muzzling EVRYONE.  On purpose.  

Yeah, the commie should leave people alone.  And the people need to maybe think a little bit more on their CCW choices and tactics.

Hey, is there a "Sul" thing with ARs?  What's it called.  Is it anything more than what I improvised in a dream?  There has to be something...

 

And Speaking of the Rhine

I just finish this great book about Colonel Anderson, CO of the 1111th Combat Engineers Group.  

Combat Engineer: The Life and Leadership of Colonel H. Wallis Anderson, Commander of the Engineers at the Bulge and Remagen

He was there as a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard when Pancho Villa had little excursions el Norte, he was an Engineer in WWI, he worked the rails all around PA as a civil engineer, and then he trained an engineering unit that was pretty much him and green 2nd Lieutenants sleeping in pup tents in the winter in Plattsburg New York.  Brrr.

Then he and his unit found themselves in a quiet sector near the Ardennes in the Autumn of 1944.  A good engineer might keep his head and know what few bridges he'd need to drop in the unlikely event a buttload of SS Panzers came rolling in, wandering around an area like that, making lumber and gravel for engineering purposes...  

And then a unit like that might be handy to construct back up bridges if they ever captured a damaged but semi-intact bridge over the Rhine.  

Just extraordinary displays of leadership and professional competence, and the book was a pleasure to read.  If you like military engineers, quiet competent leadership by example, or SS Generals losing battles, then you, too, might enjoy this book.      

MD Bumpstock Ban

Maryland has one, and SCOTUS declines to hear a case about it.

Yeaaaaah.  Bumpstocks don't have a lotta positive PR out there.  I don't think you want a SCOTUS case on them right now.  It's no one's hero issue.  

I am not fond of them.  And I am progun.  Not because I want them banned or even regulated, but because of their bad reputation among the straights already.  I would love it if the Overton Window was shifted and the Bumpstock Battleground was where our side was fighting and winning, but that field is way behind enemy lines, like, east of the Rhine, and we'll have to push them back a ways to meet them there.  Let's fight and win "oh yes, there is a right to bear a CCW outside the home, of COURSE" in SCOTUS-Bastogne first.   

Help Me Out, T-Bolt

"I gotta problem.  You know I have a two year old and another on the way.  And also that I live way out on the fringe of the outer suburbs.  So close to country it might as well be.  How do I store my firearms so they are ready to respond at a moments notice, but also are put away safe from curious young hands."

That IS a pickle.  And his ready guns are 2 or 3 long guns, 2 or 3 pistols, max, but also kind 'min'.  So a tiny one-pistol gun stowage with a biometric lock isn't the solution.

Currently they have double padlocks on plastic gun cases.  Slow to access. 

Big combination lock safe?  As secure as you'd want.  Slow to access. 

On two pegs above the door, out of reach?  Quick access, but you know as soon as you do that the 3 year old learns to stack chairs and is touching the dang thing.  No good.  

---

The closest I come up with that satisfies his needs is something like this:

I like push button access more than bioetric.  When one of the combos is pushing 2 button simultaneously, that often defeats kids trying to get in.  1, 2-3, 4.  Or summat.  

Anyone else cracked this tough nut with something better?  

Gasp! Zombie Ammo!

Yeah, I bought a box of that on a lark.  10 years ago?  Of course I did.  Mine was a Hornady label, but other companies copied the theme.  Don't need gimmicks to sell ammo these days...  The trick is keeping it on the shelf to sell more of.

Well border patrol caught some small time smuggling, and because of the packaging... It's NEWS!  A box of lower power pistol ammo in among a shipment of household good.  Almost the perfect cirme!

Heh.

It's .38 special.  In a box with a picture of a zombie.  Nothing else.  I bet you can't just easily buy ammo in Honduras.  They've been tightening what was a pretty free gun control regime down there.  Like that helps reduce crime.  Some Central American immigrant to the US is going back home and he wants to be able to feed his plain Jane revolver to protect himself, his stuff, and his family.  It might be completely innocent.  Dude thought what was the big deal shipping my stuff home to myself?  ANd it is no bigs, really.  Prolly just another made-up federal felony we all violate unknowingly every day.  Oh know, I bought the wrong orchid, ate the wrong lobster, knocked over a lamp in a federal building, and now I am gonna go to Ft Leavenworth Supermax for 40 years. 

I mean, it IS bad to smuggle ammo to the cartels south of our border, but, this doesn't feel like that.  Can't CBP do a big press release about a time they found 50,000 rounds of 7.62x39 heading south fast and furiously?  Did the return address say Eric Holder?

Plague

 Hey whatever happened to the mandatory anal swabs we were all supposed to be getting by now on a regular basis to test for China-Virus?  A few diplomats were forced to in customs then the whole thing just disappeared.

Citation Needed

“Currently, no U.S. law lets the government designate domestic extremists as terrorists or bring specific charges for domestic terrorism. That contrasts with laws to combat international terrorism, which allow the government to designate groups and bring charges for providing those groups with material support.” Bloomberg reported.

“This is a cancer on our country,” said Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), chairman of the subcommittee. “Right-wing extremist attacks and plots have greatly outnumbered those from all other groups combined and caused more deaths as well.”

What deaths?  I know the Neo-Marxists got over 30 deaths and burned quite a few building last year.  ANd I know you'd like to label 75 million Trump voters as criminals and terrists.  But it'd be nice to have some examples, there, buddy.  

When the actual white supremacists rally, there are dozens present.  Two dozen.  There are more news cameras than racists.  And at least half of them are on the FBI payroll, they might as well enroll in the DoJ pension plan.  And they never DO anything.  

Man we dodged a bullet not getting Merrick Garland on SCOTUS.  What a pig.    

Creed, like Apollo

Roof Koreans. It's not a race. It's a creed.

Now with a theme song! https://t.co/SaityEtN4e

— Phil Kadath (@PhilKadath) April 23, 2021

It's Mayday

Don't be a commie.  Commies ain't cool.  They are at least as bad as Nazis and sometime arguably much worse.