reasonablenut

Apparently, the paddles didn't work as well as they usually do on TV. 

Autumn approaches, the weather is cooling off, and the evenings are slowly getting shorter. These are all indications that hunting season is about to start. The old guys at the range trying to get a 100 yard zero with a shitty Simmons scope, reaming out their bores endlessly and complaining about the weather. It's a wonderful time of year.

Last season, we had Mr. Vang, the noted philosopher and medicine man. Pretty tough to beat, as far as weird hunting shit.

Well 2005 is a banner year, and the premier player is going to be hard to top.

Cops in North Carolina thought it was odd enough a Jacksonville man was
driving an ambulance reported stolen hours earlier.
Odder still was that he
was wearing a makeshift doctor's uniform consisting of a stethoscope, a
pager-like gadget and latex gloves stuffed in his back pocket.
But then
things started getting really strange when they saw a dead deer, fully stretched
out and wedged in the back. Some said there was an intravenous line attached to
the animal and there was evidence a defibrillator had been used.

I'm posting a picture of the 6-point buck's ass above. Rest assured, this will be my wallpaper for the next six months. In fact, I may try to work this into the HTML.

Be careful out there this season.

My final group. A little loose, but I'm generally in the area. There's time to fine tune it. 

The Old Man's final group while zeroing at 400. Could be better, but I wouldn't complain. 

I haven't done a range report in a month or so. There is good reason for this. Both the Old Man and I have our rifles for the 2006 Boomershoot. His is a Remington Classic chambered in .308 and mine is a LH .308 Remington BDL. Both have 30mm Leupold M4 scopes with mil-dot reticles. Getting the Old Man's Classic and the scopes mounted took awhile.

Needless to say, the 100 yard zero took no time at all. Taking that to a 200 yard zero wasn't that big of a deal either.

One day I miscalled a gong that was at 600 yards and told him it was 400. He tried to crank the scope up to that and the ballistics charts, produced by Modern Ballistics, made no sense.

Well work got a little fucked up (as it is wont to do) and the next couple of times we went out the wind was blowing like Ron Jeremy's...well, you know. We ended up firing AR's and Garands at mid-range. One day we had the classic line from an old-timer. You know the one: "Well, til' you guys pulled up, it was as calm as Jenna Jameson getting 50...{well you know}. Now its getting rough and we're heading out."

Thursday we had the perfect day. No wind, cool, light cloud cover, though the mirage was still a bitch (if anyone has more info on this please email me.) We got zeros down at 400 yards within a half hour for both rifles.

Walked away satisfied. Posted above are the best groups we pulled. The Old Man thinks these are nothing to brag about. But, isofar as zeroing a rifle, I have no complaints.

Jeff at Alphecca has chosen to burden me with a new meme (I'm not complaining, as a link from him usually doubles the traffic on this blog, until the new readership starts to hate me.)

I hadn't seen this meme before being tagged with it:

1) How much music do I have?

Probably about 1,000 CDs, give or take a hundred. Another 200 tapes that I have not yet gotten around to replacing with digital media. No vinyl as I'm a bit of a young guy.

2) What was the last CD I bought?

Two Skinny Puppy CD's: Too Dark Park and Last Rights. Same Amazon order.

3) What am I listening to right now?

"Too Bad About the Fire" by Jesus Lizard.

4) Five songs I listen to that mean a lot to me?

"I Am The Resurrection" by the Stone Roses, "Sweet Virginia" by the Rolling Stones, "Archangel" by Samhain, "Sunny" performed by Stanley Turentine, and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John.

There's a lot of classical and other shit, but it is not as easily delineated as pop tunes are.

5) I’m passing this meme on to:

Kirk at Limpidity, as he hasn't posted or emailed in awhile;

AnalogKid at RandomNuclearStrikes, as he is one of my favorites nowadays;

and Joe Huffman. I just can't see him having a big Styx collection that he rocks out to on Saturday nights.

I've said this before and I will repeat it; I'm an insurance adjuster. In the wake of the sudden paranoia about actually using your Christian name as opposed to some limp-dick psuedonym like "Gun Guy", I will state that my name is Benjamin Hopkins and I live in Albuquerque, NM. If you find the time to look me up, give advance warning.

The anti-pussy disclaimer being done, I know a fellow adjuster who is going to Mississippi. His wife called me wondering what to do with the miscellaneous shit left behind. I understand the man's motivation, as you can make a shitload of money working catastrophe claims. I've been there and done it, but not to the the degree that the current situation presents.

The man in question is the only adjuster I know who doesn't keep something in his glove box or center console. The first thing his wife said was that she thought he should be packing if he is going anywhere near that shit.

Would you? (and if you comment, don't feel the need to show any balls and state your name.)
Or are you smart enough not to be an insurance adjuster in the first place?

The Chai Vang verdict finally came in. Predictably, it was amid much discussion of race.

"If Mr. Vang was white, it would probably take more time," said Lee, owner of
Hmong Times, a Hmong newspaper in Vang's home town of St. Paul.

Of course, the white jury assumed that this moster was guilty based solely on the fact that he was a Laotion refugee. That's the way white people think. That's why they blew up the levee in New Orleans to disproportionately affect blacks, as the esteemed Mr. Farrakhan has alleged.

Of course, certain activists still cling to the absurd notion that Mr. Vang was only attempting to defend his own life. As one community leader put it:

"Given that he thought his life was in danger, you'd think that would weigh in
at some extent," said Lee Pao Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong Studies at
Concordia University in St. Paul.

As analyzed on this website and others, this was a cold-blooded killing of the worst kind that demonized both hunters and certain varieties of battle rifles. The media jumped on that angle of the story with both feet, ignoring the fact that this guy was just a flat out psycho asshole.

When I commented upon this situation originally, I was generally reviled and also the target of a one-post blog, advocating my death. Say Uncle also received some flack for his commentary.

As we've all realized after the rape and looting in NO, no issue can be considered sans race. It is more of an essential component than it would have been 20 years ago. Why what the "Hmong community" thinks about pre-meditated murder, is of any interest to the media, confounds me.

A "spokesman" had this to say:

Xiong will go hunting this fall, as usual, but plans to be more cautious in the
woods. He said he's been harassed before by white hunters. "Hmong people will
probably arm themselves more," Xiong said. "But I hope that it will also prevent
people from making derogatory comments."

This is counter-intuitive tripe at its best.

I would recommend that any non-Hmong hunter arm him or herself better this season, as that was the profile of the asshole who shot 8 people last year. To date, the only thing Hmong have to fear is a fair trial if they decide to go kill people.

In conclusion, this shitbird actually had the huevos to say that some of these people deserved to die, when he took the stand:

Vang says the hunters used profanities and racial slurs when they confronted him
for trespassing. Vang says he feared for his life. He testified that
he started shooting at them after he thought one shot at him and the others were
going for more guns. Prosecutors asked him if each victim deserved to
die. Vang answered "no" in some cases and "yes" in others.

Fuck him and anyone who supports him. This begins to remind me of the ignorant though noticeable movement to "Free Mumia."

Nice military peep sights. We may end up mounting a scope on this one...and I might hang up something on the walls in my place one of these days. 

Nice clean action. 

The Old Man did an awesome job of refinishing the furniture. 

Overview of the final Springfield. 

As we previously reported, we scored a CMP Springfield 1903A3. It was a pretty shite state of affairs when it showed, as it had about 20 pounds of cosmoline on and in it.

I cleaned up the receiver, barrel, and bolt (i.e. metal), while the Old Man undertook the wood restoration. The wood took longer, as his plan to sweat the cosmoline out stumbled a bit when the weather turned overcast when he set it out.

It's done and it's a great shooter. Discussions have taken place about scoping it and using it as a back-up rifle for Boomershoot 2006. We got it out to a 300 yard 12" gong, with little or no adjustments to sights.

If you've got $400 in disposable income, buy one.

We are so worried about gettting people out of NO, I think that it is time that we start worrying about people coming INTO NO.

NO is now for all practical puposes an "Open City" - in WWII terms. Think about all the curency, jewelry, cars, other portable property that is just sitting there. Think about all of the banks that are under 3 feet of water just waiting for someone with a little gumption to come in and take what is there. Think about all the safe deposit boxes just sitting there. Think about all the cars parked on the street there for the taking (shipped off to Mexico for spare parts, they don't even have to run.

The problem in the coming weeks is going to be establishing a perimeter for the city - basically a military perimeter. If I can think of this, there are criminals all over the country renting U-Haul trucks and car carriers and heading for NO. The city is WIDE OPEN.

They are coming from Detroit, Chicago, LA, New York and Mexico to take what they can get away with. You ain't seen nothin yet.

The problem in the coming weeks is not going to be the refugees, but rather the infragees.

The Old Man

As the week wraps up, the New Orleans situation seems to be resolving, not that that excuses the pandemonium that we've witnessed. In the mean time, finger-pointing has been rampant over the last few days. I've yet to make up my mind on who bears what responsibility for what fuck-up. The mayor is a dolt. If you haven't seen the pictures of the school buses that are now up to their asses in water and were never deployed, you will be pissed off.

The governor is a whiny bitch, and convinces me that anything with a uterus should never have their finger on the trigger (i.e. Pres & football.)

The billions of dollars spent on Homeland Security seems to have...not done a single fucking thing.

I will say that the circumstances in NO are unique compared to almost any other population center in the US. The two-punch tragedies (the hurricane and then the failure of the levies) that befell that city could not have happened anywhere else. Osama's kicking himself in the ass because he never thought of this easily exploitable vulnerability.

Regardless of whether this was a failure of local, state, or federal government is moot. Government's primary responsibility is to protect its citizens from threats both foreign and domestic. Well, they suck at it. National Security is a little more difficult than doling out food stamps. First response is a bit more ponderous than a city council debating how large of a sign should be permissible in a certain sector of a city.

The point is they can't do their job and that's why one needs to be prepared. Refer to this Feces Flinging Monkey link if you want to understand why (h/t Uncle.) Flood, earthquake, terrorist attack, riots, etc., you cannot depend on the gummint to protect you or provide for you in these kind of extreme circumstances.

Now outdoor types always have plenty of camping gear, so they think that they're ready for roughing it for a couple of days. Gun nuts think if they have enough ammo, surmounting a small civil breakdown would be cake. The truth is: readiness consists of a lot more. Ammo and such is important. Hell, a liberal buddy I was driving around with last night finally understood why I like to keep 6,000 rounds of .223, 1,000 rounds of .30-06, and 3,000 rounds of 9mm on hand at any given point.

I am quickly approaching middle age and have not been a gun enthusiast for the better part of my life. It was after 9/11 that I went full blown. Since then I have been stocking up on things that I have determined would better my chances in case of a national catastrophe or a zombie attack. I have acquired a month's supply of MRE's and keep plenty of canned food. I own several high-end gas masks. The building I live in has a large supply of bottled water. Ammo...well...I'm good. I've got high-power flashlights and LEDs. I'm also blessed by living on the second story, although vantage points leave something to be desired.

After watching what has transpired in NO, though, I realize that 99% of people don't have any kind of contingency plan. They assume some benevolent government body will swoop in to save them in the event of any bad shit. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it ain't happening.

And I am not void of guilt. My main weakness, that NO alerted me to, is sanitation. In the Dome you had dead bodies and piles of shit stacking up all over the place. On their own and especially together, that is an invitation to disease and sickness. Plumbing is what sets us apart from third world countries, and it seems to be the first infrastructure component that fails. Fresh water is a factor, but what comes out the other end is of some concern, as well. I need to invest in a couple of bags of lye. If you've got to shit in a hole for a week, you don't want flies and whatnot coming back at you with matter that certainly contains harmful bacteria.

Early this week Jonah Goldberg posted the following on NRO's blog:

ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg]I think it's time to face facts.
That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies
horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now.
Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're
working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it
beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you
will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in
your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never
too soon to be prepared. Posted at 10:05
AM

He caught a world of shit from both the right and left. He apologized forthwithly. What he and nobody else realized was how right he was.

Be safe and guard the people you care about.

UPDATE: Individ seems to be of like mind.