later gator

off to the other side of the continent for a while. of course, we've been planning this trip since last year, and the forecast for Boston is 1 to2 inches of rain tomorrow. figures.
adios

a nice commute home today

one of the really cool things about my commute is that my favorite local range is somewhat between my work and my home. i've started using that fact as an excuse to stop by at least once a week on my way home to do a little target practice.
today was an all .22 day.sorry, but i took these pictures with my cellphone camera, so they aren't quite up to National Geographic standards, but suffice for what they are.
so i spent a while, fired 300 rounds into two targets at 25 yards offhand, and went home. as always, click for other size options

one week from today!

the one week countdown has begun. this time next week, the wife and i will be flying to boston for a couple of days, followed by a conference sponsored by MIT out on the cape. should be good times!

Today's email funny

This just in:


All of the Wal-Marts across Alabama sold out of ammunition as of yesterday. A reliable source said that one of the purchasers commented that while Russia may have invaded Georgia, they sure as hell ain't doin' it to Alabama.

Nikki with a gun

IMG_1668
Originally uploaded by darling_nikki

just a friendly reminder.... don't mess with my daughter. that's a S&W 686+ 7 shot Performance Center tuned .357. and she hits what she shoots at.

political commercial of the year?

got in my email just now. as the mailer said, this could very easily be THE political commercial of the year.

debunking some common misconceptions about Palin

i'm really surprised. Newsweek has published an interesting article concerning a spate of rumors surrounding Sarah Palin. interesting. seems most of this crap was generated by a Dem in Alaska. who must have thought she was doing her political duty making crap up. read and learn.

politics, and the role of women in them

Commander Salamander has a pretty sharp entry where he suggests Obama man up. great job, as usual Cmdr.

and to use part of a phrase i read today, the wheels may not have fallen off the Obama bus yet, but the lug nuts are certainly backing off. one or two too many curves, and that bus may end up in the weeds.

the role women play in modern American politics has experienced a relatively radical sea change in the last couple of years. hillary, pelosi, and others have shown that women are simply not to be discounted or ignored when it comes to leadership roles in this country. i say it's about damned time. too bad the two examples i used are from way over on the other side of the fence from me, but it does point out that huge strides have been made. and what is particularly sweet for me is that the biggest step may be taken by one of those women often denigrated and underestimated by the liberal factions in this country. that would be gun toting mom from out west, with no law degree and close ties to "small town" America. what also fascinates me is the apoplectic paroxysms of the feminists, leftists, and the others out there. oh my, here is a woman, but she isn't in our club.
yesterday's SF Chronicle Insight section had a front page essay by one of the members of that select group of women. or she WAS a member. let's see, she was a life long member of the Dem party until recently (she's registered as "declines to state") now, and was the former president of the L.A. chapter of N.O.W., the epicenter of feminism in this country.
a quote or two from the article:

...There was a lot of pandering and lip service to women's rights, and evenings filled with anecdotes of how so many have been kept from achieving their dreams, or failed to be promoted, simply because they were women. Clinton's "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" were mentioned a heck of a lot. More people began to wonder, though, how many cracks does it take to break the thing?

Ironically, all this at an event that was negotiated and twisted at every turn in an astounding effort not to promote a woman.

Virtually moments after the GOP announcement of Palin for vice president, pundits on both sides of the aisle began to wonder if Clinton supporters - pro-choice women and gays to be specific - would be attracted to the McCain-Palin ticket. The answer is, of course. There is a point where all of our issues, including abortion rights, are made safer not only if the people we vote for agree with us - but when those people and our society embrace a respect for women and promote policies that increase our personal wealth, power and political influence.
...
Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.

check out the article, and see what i'm talking about.
hell, even the Brit's get it.

...
People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.

Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of 'change'.

But change from what to what, precisely?

Unless there's a clear answer, 'change' becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.

This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen.

Yes, he has amazing gifts of charisma and oratory; along with his youth and black ancestry, this all helps create the impression that he is an outsider and embodies a fresh start.

But, on closer inspection, he looks suspiciously like yet more of the same old same old. The way he changes his political message to fit the audience he is addressing sits ill with his pitch to represent a new politics of integrity.

And his voting record and positions on social issues place him firmly among the Left-wing elite which has waged such devastating war upon the West's moral values.

By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the 'hard Right'.

This is clearly absurd: she is a working mother of five who has shown herself as capable of felling Big Oil and other political cartels against the public interest as shooting moose.
...
For she has taken the supposed characteristics of the Left - youth, dynamism, change, excitement and social conscience - and presented them as conservative virtues.

Since the Left habitually shores up its own position by demonising conservatives as nasty, backward-looking, mean-spirited, lifedenying, prejudiced, stupid and boring, it recognises her as a mortal threat - not just to Obama but to its whole political platform.

Accordingly, it is frenziedly hurling smears and allegations at her. And maybe she will eventually fall apart under the pressure.

read this article at The UK Daily Mail

ayup, going to be an interesting 59 days....

practical jokes: a sailor tradition worldwide

i have an Irish merchant marineman blogbuddy that posts some really interesting stuff about the civilian side of sailing. he posted about practical jokes that brought up a quickie seastory.
on the 575, we had a sonarman that was central to many of the escapades (see this entry) or actually, was the instigator of many escapes on the seawolf. he used to come into the engineroom to shoot the breeze, since i was a gun nut like he was. being a highly trained nuclear watchstander, and an engineering lab. tech to boot, i knew that if we had a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGG (as in, end of the world big) problem, one of the first indications would be that the contamination frisker sitting on the engineroom workbench would alarm for no reason.
bbbbeeeeeeeeepppppp. WTF. run over, check the indication, everything's normal. a little while later, bbbeeeeeeeeeppppppppp. run over, check the indication, everything' normal, but by now the Engineering Watch Supervisor is in the Reactor Compartment Uppper Level checking things out with a meter in hand.
this went on for a couple of days. funny thing was, it was only when Fost** was nearby. Bink! i may be dumb, but i'm stupid too! Seems he had perfect pitch, and after hearing the frisker alarm once, by whistling he could exactly mimic the tone, pitch and volume of the alarm.
sumbich. we made it a rule that he had to clap his hands and whistle dixie whenever he came into the engineroom after that. that way we knew he wasn't touching anything, we knew where he was, and we knew he wasn't messing with this poor nook's head.

for a couple of other seawolf practical jokes, check out my links here and here.

benefits of practice at the range

very rarely can i say that i've had enough time at the range. if i had my druthers, i'd be living on the range grounds. then, maybe, i'd have enough trigger time to satisfy me. but alas, i don't.
one nice thing about the range is they stay open until 1900, at least while the sun lasts. a quick hour or two after work helps. so what do you get when you actually practice more often than once or twice a month?click pix for other size options
for a non target pistol, this Springfield TRP does pretty well. i'd spent most of a box of handloads tweeking the sites in over sandbags at 25 yards. just before leaving, i loaded 5 rounds, and placed a new target. results off hand:that's 1.1 inches, center to center on 4 of the 5 shots. one flier wrecked the group, but it was still on the black, so i can't bitch too much. 3 of the shots were around 3/4 inch. not bad for a cigar smoking, coffee drinking, after work shooting amateur.
i took the new Ruger out too. here are two target spots, each an inch in diameter. the optics dot is bigger at 25 yards than the spots, so i am not unhappy in the least that they didn't group in one tiny hole. it's actually not too shabby for me. i'm still trying to figure out this holographic site. it's manufactured to have minimum parallax at 50 yards, but definitely moves around at 25. i'll figure it all eventually. it just takes trigger time. each spot had 10 rounds fired at it.

for those interested in my other gun pics, here's my flickr set for things that go bang.

The Onion: How to Pretend to Give a Shit about the Upcoming Election

for all of those of you that are really tired of 24/7 politics, and have fallen into the "give a shit" zone, a helpful video tip for you, from the fine folks at The Onion



Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

Palin's nomination didn't surprise everyone

check out this entry at Stubborn Facts for a well linked readout about Sarah Palin's selection. Want to know what the red meat folks are thinking? don't read the NYT. There is a virtual who's who of the right's biggest bloggers listed in the post, and if you really want to know what "WE" are saying, check them out.

and before you think i'm claiming to have known ahead of time... i'm not. i was as surprised as everyone else. i didn't think McCain had the balls to pull this one out of his hat. i was happily wrong.

updateDave came in laughing his ass off. he said he heard on the radio that "Palin is doing to Obama what Jackson said he wished he could do."
what a hoot!

it's official, McCain and Palin

dang, i just watched the Palin speech at the convention. i can see why the folks that know her in Alaska call her "Barracuda". a kid in one hand, and a set of brass knuckles on the other. i don't think the dems are prepared for someone like her.
oh, they'll dig, and squawk about everything, and if she's been a real campaigner for her constituents all along, there will be things that can be used, i'm sure.
guess we really won't know the mettle of her until the VP debates. a great delivery of a speech written by a staff is one thing. one on one with the old guard, a known scrapper in his own right, that will be one of the deciding factors.
but i have to say that speech was well crafted and well delivered.
McCain and Palin in 08

i may have to move out of the house until after the election, since i married a dem. a well read dem at that. dammit.

Media's 360 degree coverage of the Palin family

From today's email:

For Immediate Release Contact: Robert Romano

September 3rd, 2008 Phone: (703) 383-0880

To Whom It May Concern:

It is rare that we at ALG News are actually disgusted with the coverage of a political campaign, but the truth is, we have been positively appalled by the vicious attacks against the family of Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee. So much so that ALG’s award-winning cartoonist, William Warren, produced the following cartoon portraying a ravenous media feasting on the Palin family.

click for larger image


We believe that all fair-minded journalists were as shocked by some of the coverage as we were, and in that vein, we encourage you to republish and redistribute the cartoon. There are no royalties or restrictions involved.

Clearly, the attacks against Mrs. Palin and her family have gone far beyond the pale, and have no place in a mature discussion about the direction America is going in this year.

Sincerely,

Robert Romano
Editor
ALG News Bureau

###



Americans for Limited Government is a non- partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms,private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at Get Liberty.Org.