Author Archives: Lyle

“The economic AND the personal sphere.”

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Those are Rand Paul’s words from CPAC, and as much as a like what I see in Rand Paul, that phraseology really bugs me. That’s like saying we must pay attention to the weather AND the temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, cloud cover and wind as though the term “weather” doesn’t already take those other things into account.

As a business owner, that attempt to separate the economic from the personal has never made any sense at all.

In fact, it is impossible to separate the economic from the personal. Name any “personal” subject or issue and tell me it has no economic implications whatsoever. Name any economic subject or issue and then tell me it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal choice.

Tax me, limit my business activities, my investments, get between me and my bank, and you are directly attacking my personal choices. Try to tell me who I must or must not associate with, how I must interact with others, or what I can do with my body, and that is a direct attack on my economic liberty. One equals the other. There is no moral or logical separation between them.

Yes yes, I know that we’re supposed to separate the personal from the economic, as though they’re different, for political reasons, but that’s a ruse. A trick. I will not step over the line into Crazyland just to make someone else’s politics easier, or to assuage their guilt. No, Young Grasshopper; there is just the one word that matters, the one that encompasses everything, and you’re either for it or against it – liberty.

Pure plutonium

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That’s a John Ross term, for something that “nukes” the enemies of freedom. Tonight’s episode of the Glenn Beck program is pure plutonium. The fastest hour you’ll spend this week is the March 13 episode of the Glenn Beck program.

Call in sick, take a vacation, whatever it takes; watch this episode. Hang on every word. Even the commercials, most of them anyway, will have you up, out of your seat. It’s on theBlazeTV.

THIS IS THE (new) MAIN STREAM MEDIA, or medium. If you are not a subscriber, you are missing out. I don’t care who you are, you are missing out. They have a free trial membership, so you have no excuse. Support them.

Tonight’s guests include one Starr Parker. I’ve read two of her books. The other guests are very good also, and it is clear that they love each other. You will get hope from this.

If there was any doubt before tonight, there is no longer any doubt– Glenn Beck is slated for death. Keep an eye out. I think he knows this and he can take care of himself, but keep an eye on it.

This is what can happen when you own your own network, and it’s beautiful. What you may not know are the things Glenn could NOT say when he was on someone else’s network. That’s a story unto itself, but I digress. Go watch, and for that matter spend your sick day, or your vacation day, watching this whole week’s worth of shows.

It’s is an addendum to Joe’s latest post.

To you Progressives out there, and you know who you are, weep. You cannot escape the truth forever. We are WATCHING YOU.

Unintended consequences

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Or; Action, Reaction, Synthesis
Or; Thesis, Antitheses, Synthesis
Or; “I’m not sure that it means what you think it means.”

Refusing to sell to government entities that attack the second amendment is fairly popular, it certainly has made good press, and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but I’m not sure people are thinking things through.

Oskar Schindler was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party, and he had extensive business dealings with the Nazis. Just keep that in mind.

Let’s say we all refuse to sell to any government entity that even infringes (literally; “touches around the fringes”) on second amendment rights. That would be all of them. Just keep that in mind; we are talking ONLY about degrees of violation when we say that New York or Chicago is bad and OUR jurisdiction is…what…a bit less egregious? Or does your state and local .gov commit zero infringements? So we all refuse to sell to any government entities. What will be their obvious reaction, for 100% sure and for certain? Taxpayer funded, government owned munitions factories of course, with union workers, full benefits and a retirement plan, and now they are, one way or another, competing with the private industry. Good luck with that. OR, you know all it takes is for one individual company to sell to your worst violators, they will become the next General Electric, i.e. a pet company for the tyrants, funneling their profits via multiple channels into the Democrat Party. They’ll arrange it that way just for that purpose. It’s what Progressives do.

More on phonetics

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As often happens, I was talking to a customer over a poor cellular connection today. We have to exchange a lot of data to complete an order. He’s spelling the name of his street.

“Wait; that’s A, T, T as in alpha tango tango?” I say to confirm.
“No, it’s hotel echo papa”
“Wow!” I said “I really got that wrong” and I’m thinking to myself, “Bam! We’re home free– this guy knows standard phonetics.” Without it, we’d have had a hell of a frustrating time.

So, Young Grasshopper; learn your Standard Phonetics.

I’m still amazed and disgusted that most cop shops have their own systems, which makes it more difficult because for one, they don’t always use words that all sound completely different from one another, and too, if you know Standard Phonetics, their retarded cop phonetics don’t sound familiar and it therefore takes longer to comunicate. Moron phonetics.

Learning the standard system is easy. There are only twenty six of them, and as it happens, each one starts with a different letter of the alphabet (fancy that) so it’s really easy. It’s an international system, and most pilots, military and ham operators already know it hands down. Whaterya waitin’ for?

Practice. For example, if I look to my left on my desk, I can read off in my mind, “Hotel Papa…Delta echo sierra kilo julliette echo tango.” Stuff like that. Road signs, what have you. This should be taught in school, except for the fact that kids should know it before they get to school.

On a similar note; use text on your phone when the signal is too poor to use the more bandwidth-hogging voice communication. If you have only one bar on the s-meter it still works like a charm whereas vioce communication is two steps below impossible. I explained that to my daughter a while back, and was surprized that she hadn’t thought of it. I’d though it would have been obvious even to a teen-aged school girl– a few dew drops of bits verses a tsunami/torrent of bits, you know.

More on that Canton police freak-out

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The threats Joe’s been getting, along with much of the language coming out of the Progressives over many years, makes this look a little different to me lately.

Officer ‘Roid Rage didn’t come up with his attitude in a vacuum. It was given to him. He was molded, shaped and prepped for it. He was playing a role laid out for him in advance. An unwitting foot soldier in the war on American principles, a cell of one, he was merely expressing the feelings of millions of people, including, no doubt, many of his superiors.

When I first saw that video, I suppose I believed, without really thinking about it, that anyone who saw it would be disgusted with Officer ‘Roid Rage and want him out of law enforcement for the rest of his life, but now I know better. There are plenty of Americans, including most of those in the White House, who would see that vid and think; “Yes! That’s how it’s done! Right on! We need more of this, please.” In other words; it’s obvious that some people see government (and law enforcement) as an outlet for their anger. They typically won’t come right out and support such things openly of course. At least not most of the time– not in public. Most haters are chameleons.

This seems obvious to me now. It’s just that I haven’t thought of it quite like that until recently. If you have, well, I’m just now catching up to you. Carry on.

Letter to my representative

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“Regarding the gun issue (and all issues really); We who advocate liberty are getting tired of reacting to the Left’s latest outrages. Shouldn’t they be forced to react to our “outrages”? In that spirit, I call for a bill removing all firearm restrictions on the state level, and for ordering all state and local law enforcement to prevent any federal gun law enforcement in the state. In other words, uphold and protect the constitution you’re all sworn to uphold and protect.

How’s THAT for an “outrage”? Let’s see the leftists go nuts trying to pick that one apart, and get them to feel lucky if WE only get half of OUR way this time through.

See how this works?.

Sincerely,
[Me]”

Not that it’ll have a whelk’s chance in a supernova of doing any good. We’re dealing with Republicans after all. But it has to be said, if for no other reason than to be able to say we told them so, to give them a chance to do the right thing while they still have a chance.

What’s wrong with this picture…

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…is what’s wrong with society. You all have gotten some version this spam e-mail, usually from a .ru domain;

“You know, they are so many people in the world, but some of them are alone, because they didn’t find their halfs yet, as it is so hard.
If you are alone and want to find your love, you can write me and we’ll start communicating. I’m alone and looking for a good man, who will give me his love and care. Who knows, maybe we can fill up our lonely hearts with love.”

If you’re looking for someone else to make you whole, you’re looking in the wrong place. If you want to be wanted, if you desire to be desired, if you need to be needed, you are part of the problem.

I cringed when one my many nephews said, right after he’d been divorced within a year or two of being married, that he’d found this other woman, and how great she was, and how they were meant for each other and he knew it because of some mundane coincidence or other. The ink on the divorce papers was still drying. I didn’t know what to say at the time, but he was running from one hell-of-his-own-devising and straight into another.

No, Young Grasshopper; if you’re not whole, or complete already, no one else can make you whole. If you’re searching for someone else to make you whole, you’re looking for love in all the wrong places. You’ll be let down, because getting what you want, the way you want it, is impossible. You’ll feel betrayed, because what you thought you had was something you can never have. This is the stuff of murder, of self destruction and suicide. It’s what’s wrong with our whole society.

Those in government (and gangs) know just enough about this to take advantage of it. We look to them for “salvation” of one kind or another when all they have to offer is entrapment. They want to own you in the same way you want to own someone else, or be owned by someone else. They want you dependent on them in the same way you want to depend on someone else, or you want someone dependent on you. They want you to need them in the same way you need other people, or you want other people to need you. This is the stuff of mass destruction, war and mass death.

That word we throw around so much in America, Independence, I am only just realizing, has a far deeper meaning than I’d previously suspected, and I think it is extremely important.

None of this stuff is new, and so these words aren’t mine. It’s as old as the hills, and yet we fall for this trap over and over.

How many times do you have to be fooled by the same tricksters?

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Once you get this mental “health” bit into NICS, you will see an exponential increase in the number of people being adjudicated mentally deficient in some way. This is a very, very important move for the Progressives, and all the more dangerous for sounding “reasonable”.

It shocks me that so many people on the “pro second amendment” side seem to think this is OK.

All I can say is; once the S really HTF, we will have deserved it.

That old, outdated document…

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…written by old, dead, white, misogynist slave owners who aren’t the boss of us.

We are told that the founders wrote the second amendment with muskets in mind, and that they couldn’t possibly have foreseen the deadly effectiveness of our modern weaponry. The Bill of Rights, the enemy says, should be interpreted with that understanding, which means we should be allowed to have all the flintlock long rifles and muskets we want. Banning effective modern weapons is therefore not only permissible but is the necessary, “right thing to do”.

We’re all very familiar with this argument, but like everything else coming from the Progressives it misses the point entirely.

The purpose of the American Revolution, and of the Constitution, was to secure liberty. The purpose of the second amendment was to ensure that the people at large would keep any army the government could muster “in awe”. Their words.
That concept makes perfect sense for a people who, not only had just defeated the most powerful military in the world, in part using personally owned weapons, but who saw the purpose of government as being “…to secure these rights…”

The new concept of that time (and it is still very new today – so new that even now very few people understand it) was that government functions at the pleasure of the People – that ultimately the people hold the power, and individuals’ rights having been “…endowed by their creator…” cannot be altered or abridged by anyone for any reason.

The second amendment is a natural expression of these concepts. It defines the force relationship between government and the people. WE hold the power. Rights belong to US and cannot be altered by any mere mortal. Rights can be violated by criminals, certainly, but not altered.

Therefore; if we are going to “update” anything with regard to personal weaponry for the purposes of the second amendment, so as to maintain the force relationship required to secure liberty, we must have weaponry that will truly and efficiently keep the most powerful, modern military in the world “in awe”.

In support of that simple point; I don’t want to see any of you making that silly “Semi-autos are OK because they aren’t assault rifles” argument any more, or its twin brother; “Those media types are trying to confuse people over the difference…” That’s the argument of the loser– he’s already ceded the main point, and is now arguing (pleading) over the details of the violations of his rights and those of his neighbors.

The point is, Young Grasshopper, that semi-autos are OK, and assault rifles and machineguns are even MORE OK. And now you need to ask yourself; just what would the private citizenry want to have, so as to keep a modern army “in awe”? And right there, after thinking about that for a few weeks, you begin to see the meaning of the second amendment.

If liberty is worth defending, then surely it is worth defending effectively and efficiently.

Of course the weaponry is only a part of the equation. The understanding of the principles, and the resolve that comes from that understanding, is the prerequisite. Without that, this conversation is pointless.

So much for that “common caliber” meme

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Re-think?

Taking a step back

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If the origins of American ideals of liberty were understood and widely embraced, we wouldn’t need to be defending the second amendment. Understand the former and the latter comes naturally.

ETA: I got that from my son, who seemed fairly miffed that I was talking so much about the second amendment. He is quite convinced that I don’t get it, and his evidence is that I talk about it so much. I’m finding that I cannot very well disagree.

Original Principles

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You cannot claim to defend the second amendment while supporting or openly accepting the NFA of ’34 and GCA ’68. Or background checks. It makes absolutely no sense.

Progressive president FDR knew exactly what he was doing. Before 1934 you could buy a Thompson sub machinegun by mail order with no paperwork. Or a BAR. Or an M2, et al. The second amendment said so. It was understood. The convenient ruse was Prohibition. Never let a crisis go to waste. Prohibition naturally led to gang warfare, widespread corruption and a general degradation of society, just as the “War on Drugs” does today. Then, as now, the violence and degradation guaranteed by a profitable, government-enforced monopoly for criminals is used as a tool to intimidate you into accepting infringements on your rights. It isn’t so much a conspiricy as a natural progression for those in power.

You don’t HATE children, do you? Of course not, and so you must give up more of your rights, and your children’s rights. Remember that, Grasshopper; this “for the children’ or “for the good of society” crap demands giving up not just yours but your neighbors’ and your children’s rights – so now who hates children? Who hates your grandchildren? Since you gave up THAT little bit (NFA, GCA, NICCS, et al) you have ceded the enemy’s point. You’ve agreed that restrictions on gun ownership are a legitimate and sensible way of addressing crime. You’ve proven to everyone that, under the right pressures, you’re willing to give up more, and more and more, until you’ve forgotten what the right was in the first place. Which is where we are now. You’re dancing someone else’s dance and you don’t even know it. It works so well that many of us are afraid to articulate the true meaning of the second amendment in public, for fear of being branded as extremists. That cheap, transparent game is as old as the hills, but it’s so effective, over and over again, that many of you reading this are still falling for it. Cowards. Don’t think that your clever rationalizations make you less of a coward. You’re clever cowards.

If we allow ourselves to be suckered by proposals for “mental health” screening for gun purchases, for example, just watch how quickly the number of people being determined to have “mental health” issues starts to climb, and climb, and climb exponentially. Don’t ask later, in bewilderment, (NRA) how it could have come to such a state of affairs. It will. And you will have helped it along (which means you’re crazy, which means you can’t have guns ; )

No, Young Grasshopper; the only way to fix this is to rediscover Original Principles, then articulate them clearly, then stand our ground, and then win it all back. The enemy wins through subtle lies, mind tricks, degradation, intimidation, smear, and outright lies. We are better than this. We win with the truth, and with the courage to stand up for it.

Perceptions

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Joe and I, and several other bloggers, have referred to this photo as an example of how different people can look at the same thing and see something completely different;
woman
You see either a beautiful young woman or an old hag, or maybe both in rapid succession. It depends on your “wiring”. My theory is that most men will key in on the young woman because our brains are wired to notice them, but I have no evidence whatsoever to back it up other than watching other men in their cars or out and about, looking at young women. If the military could devise a system that efficient at locating enemy combatants, we’d never lose a battle. (Yeah; I see you guys zeroing in on all the women – it’s like a magnet drawing in all those iron filings you never knew could possibly be on your floor, or something)

A search for that image brought me to this site, which is great. I now do not remember what exactly it was I wanted to say using the above image as an example, but that first link also links to this site, where I found a great gift. The person who does most or all of the posts demonstrated the concept, and did so with regard to gun rights! This is a VERY beautiful juxtaposition (or something) on the subject, on a site that SPECIALIZES in perception and illusion art. How great is that?

First I found this, posted on January 12, 2013;

“We should all stop being petty about each other, learn to be tolerant, and stop aggressively intruding our ways on others. I think if we all learned to do this, we would find our place under the sun, and these differences wouldn’t even be brought as important.” (emphasis mine)

Excellent (the author sees the beautiful young woman). I couldn’t agree more.

And then I found, written by the same person (Vurdlak) on December 16, 2012 (on page three as of the day this is written)

“I have to say I’m still under shock after reading what happened in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut (USA). My heart is broken, and I can’t seem to understand how such horrible things are even possible. What is happening with our species?! I also read how pro-firearms lobby suggests that every teacher should be allowed to keep firearms in their class (for protections)?! Are those lunatics for real? What makes you think this wouldn’t cause another incident??! I for one wouldn’t feel safe sending my kids to school where teacher keeps a gun in his desk. All this literally makes my stomach hurt. Owning a gun should be heavily regulated, like rest of the world does it – period.” (emphasis mine, for various reasons I’m sure you understand)

And there’s the old hag, and the author is just about ready to beat the shit out of you if you insist it looks like a young woman if you look at it differently. It don’t think it can get any better than that.

I could go on and on with a thousand or more words, fisking that last quote, but I think this audience already understands it completely.

Anyway, to change the subject entirely; check out those links. WOW! I got lost in there for about an hour before I knew it. Now my eyes hurt a little bit. I love that stuff (you probably should avoid it of you’re epileptic – some of that stuff wanted to make me dizzy).

I now remember noticing sometime in junior high school that, looking at a shadow alone, you have zero information to tell you whether the shadow figure is “facing you” or “facing away from you”, hence the moving silhouette of the woman that can be seen to rotate in either direction. Did I tell you I love that stuff? Speaking of shadows; a few weeks ago my wife had a football game on the tele, and you know they use computers to “paint” the scrimmage line and the first down marker line on the ground for the TV audience, while showing the players above it. Pretty sophisticated programming, I figure. Anyway, the thought hit me at that time that it would be really stinking cool if there was a program that could delete the players’ images entirely, and only show their shadows, so you see a game played by teams of two-dimensional silhouettes painted on the turf, fighting over a two-dimensional “ball”. Yikes! Joe?

Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves

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Or KH waves, or a KH instability. It’s a result of two distinct layers in a fluid traveling at different velocities. You’ll see it in rivers and streams, between bands in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, in your coffee cup, etc. In this case it’s made visible by the bottom layer being cloud, interacting with a clear layer above. The wave pattern extends from one side of the photo to the other. I had to darken the image a lot to bring out the detail. Through my polarizing glasses the waves could be seen curling in on themselves more dramatically. For really good detail in sky photos you need a polarizer, and probably a UV filter too, but my little point-and-shoot isn’t set up for such things. These KH waves are over the Clearwater River canyon above Lewiston, Idaho, seen from the south end of Moscow on my way to work the other day.

Kelvin-HelmholtzWaves

It isn’t complicated

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We occasionally get someone who wants to submit an idea for a new product. They’ll want us to evaluate it in hopes that we will help manufacture and market it for them.

Here’s the deal. If it happens to be something we’re already thinking about, I most certainly do NOT want to even know what you have. You can figure out why.

Somehow there has come to be this strange attitude, or belief, that if you’re a “little guy” with scant resources, that you must tug on someone else’s coat tails and convince them to “give you a chance” otherwise you have no chance.

It doesn’t work that way, or rather it certainly doesn’t need to work that way. If you have a little gizmo you want to turn into money, start searching for companies that do machining, or injection mold building, or casting, or whatever type of manufacturing you need, contact them, get some quotes for a few hundred or a thousand units. There are small shops that do these things in practically every town larger than a mere whistle stop. Many of them will not want to talk to you about such small numbers, but some will. Keep at it. Register yourself a domain name, take some nice photos, build a simple web site and get a web host for it, place a cheap ad in Shotgun News or what have you, and BAM! You’re in business. Just like that. What’s stopping you?

It probably will not cost more than the annual or twice annual beer and cigarette expense for the average, unemployed trailer park dweller. The rest is leg-work– finding people who can provide the specific services you need, and so I think that if you’re not willing to give yourself a chance, why should someone else give you that chance? Hmm? You won’t go out on a limb for your idea, but you want me to go out on a limb for your idea?

Another quote of the day – Me

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If it’s the best thing I’ve read all day, why after all should I be prevented from posting it here just because I happen to be the one who wrote it?

Seen in comments at Uncle;

“Machineguns are in common use by military, and AS SUCH they are protected by the second amendment. Actually, if it is or can be considered an “arm” it is protected by the second amendment (the second amendment doesn’t have any qualifiers, exceptions or modifiers in it).

One might be able to make the case that strategic weapons like nukes and other WMDs are not, but even then you may be running afoul of the balance-of-power concept embodied in the second amendment.

In the American Revolution there were private owned war ships, were there not? Those would be analogs of our modern aircraft carriers and destroyers.

And don’t give me court precedent bullshit. If precedent defines (redefines) our rights, it means that any and all rights degrade and evaporate over time. No thanks. I’ll stick to original principles.”

There is a common error committed by our side. It is the use of arguments along the lines of, “Machineguns are ALREADY banned [and so leave our semiautomatics alone].” That’s a bit like saying to the alligator, “You already ate my buddy (and I didn’t like him a lot anyway) and so you should therefore leave me alone (I guess because your appetite should already be satisfied, or something…)”

In fact, if they can ban the most common small arms used by military and police, and get away with it, they can certainly ban everything else, just as the alligator can eat you some time after it ate your buddy. The fact of the matter has been established, so at best you’re only arguing over the details of the infringements at that point.

The Hughes Amendment to FOPA of 1986 should be rendered null and void, followed by GCA ’68 and NFA ’34.

Ammunition Capacity Limits – the “why” of the matter

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Trying to cut to the chase; there are two possible reasons that I can see, why a rogue government (and let’s be honest– that’s what we’ve had for some time now) would want to limit ammunition capacity. One would be simply to irritate and harass their political opposition, putting a few innocent people in jail now and then as a bonus. The other would be to limit the ability of the citizenry to fight against mass attacks (two or more assailants).i.e. to promote the ease of government attacking citizens. A possible third reason, going along in part with the first, would be to generally degrade society with more complex laws, more bureaucracy and more violent crime (criminals will have 30 round mags, but law-abiders won’t).

Any or all of those motivations would appeal naturally to any authoritarian, and to anyone who sees the founding of the U.S. as a problem (unfair, unjust, etc.)

If anyone can think of another reason, I’d like to know it.

ETA, 1-18-13; I’d thought of another, hoping maybe someone would chime in with it, and Publius pretty much, sort of did in comments here, though it’s not the way I would have put it. That motivation being to control the framework of the conflict (between liberty and authoritarianism), to keep us fighting THEIR fight and not ours. On that they have done a most excellent job– I bet you can find a million words, just today, about details of this or that proposed restriction and how it will not “work”. Well, it is working– they’re keeping us talking about THEIR ideas. As I’ve said before and elsewhere; it is a subtle yet crucial tactic, though most every little kid understands it. You see that bratty kid fussing loudly at his mother in the supermarket? He knows how to keep his mom off balance, off kilter, off her game, distracted, irritated, embarrassed, until he gets something from her (recently I noticed one such brat pause in his “tantrum” to look around and make sure he was getting a reaction from bystanders, then resume his fake tantrum, thus demonstrating that he understood exactly what he was doing). HE set the agenda, the framework of the conflict, not his mom. That one should have occurred to me foremost. It goes along with number one, but the distinction is between simply wanting to irritate your opposition on one hand, because you dislike them, and maintaining control of the whole discussion’s very framework on the other. The communists are experts at this.

“Review” has a specific meaning

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I think I’ve read several hundred product “reviews” that go along the lines of;
“It looks and feels great. I can’t wait to go out and shoot it.”

I’m sorry, but “wow-I-can’t-wait-to-get-out-and-try-it” is not a review. Please don’t do that. Sometimes I can read through dozens of “reviews” before I find a single review. I fully understand your excitement and pleasure upon receiving a new product, but that’s a reaction, not a review. Please don’t waste people’s time.

Words mean things

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I suppose that the word “clip” being used to refer to a magazine must have started in earnest during the period in which the M1 Garand rifle was common issue. “Toss me another clee-up, Cletus” would have been used to apply to either a 1911 magazine or a Garand clip (or Tommy gun, M3, et al, magazine) among comrades, maybe. I still talk with the occasional W.W. II or Korean War vet who says “clip” all the time (and if they’re from Alabama it is “clee-up”, with the extra syllable, as in “She-it” or the number Foe-er”)

And so we’ve been harping on it for a while now. Some media types are starting get a whiff of a clue, but just to be safe, they’re using both terms, talking about “magazine clips” which, technically, would be devices that hold two or more magazines together. I’ve seen those for sale. Not that your average media pundit would ever understand.

Anyway; just off the top of my head, I don’t recall ever seeing an ammunition clip than hold more than ten rounds (unless you count a belt). You?

I suppose some of this misuse is intentional, just to irritate people. When you read the actuall laws, they tend to use the term magazine when they mean magazine.

Some days are better than others

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I have to think about it. This is Wednesday, so it had to be Monday night. I had a normal day at work, but when I got home I started to feel a bit uncomfortable, in a vague sort of way. Then it got more uncomfortable.

Son and I were watching a movie (Loopers – not bad either) and after getting up to get a drink of water, it got very uncomfortable. I told Son; “I don’t think I’ll be watching the rest of the movie.”

Then it was Armageddon. It came on so exponentially fast I didn’t realize that all I really had to do was puke. I remember saying something like “I think I’m dying” between moans, and then things went the way of the classic, closing down tunnel vision people talk about as a result of being under high Gs. The world went dark, and as I went under, in the sort of agony that brings thoughts of death being a sweet gift of relief, I don’t know if I said it but I remember thinking it, very deliberately, and it was sort of printed in bright letters over my endarkened vision;

I DON’T WANT TO GO OUT LIKE THIS

In upper case letters just like that. Now I think I know exactly what it’s like to die a very quick and agonizing death, ’cause essentially that’s what I did, only I woke up later, in a dream. My wife was slapping my face, trying to get my attention like you see in the movies (what else could she do?) but I was still dreaming. When I noticed wetness on the side of my face that was against the floor, and that my sinuses were packed full of liquid, I said dreamily, and to no one in particular “I think I vomited”.

Waking up in a pool of your own vomit, and with your sinuses full of vomit, is something we’ve all heard tell about, but I’d never done it before. Never even came close before. It wasn’t nearly as bad though, not by a long shot, as the going down part. But it wasn’t over.

Oh no. I’ll just say “both ends” and leave it at that (PV/PD). So my wife and kids sort of freaked out I suppose, and so did I. Phone calls were made and crews showed up, and well, right now I’m just fine and dandy. They say that a “single episode” like this is not uncommon, and not necessarily indicative of anything but some immediate GI distress. I got hauled in, poked, bled and prodded, EKG’d, x-rayed and whatnot, and everything is fine. They seemed surprised in fact, that my BP and heart rate, glucose level and everything was all so good. I guess a fart of my oldness is suppose to be more deteriorated.

When I told a nurse I was cold, she said my skin was warm (still in the process of getting over the bout). I told her that it made sense – that if your skin is hot, you’re losing more heat, and so you’ll feel cold. Your heat sense registers direction-of-flow (gain or loss) more than it registers temperature. I would have expected her to understand that, but it seemed a new concept to her. How many times have you hugged your spouse, and she says you feel cold, while you say she feels warm, or visa versa? That’s what’s going on there, and if you think about it from a survival point of view it makes sense.

And here’s a thing about negotiations. They (both my wife and the doctors)wanted very much to keep me at hospital overnight. They all said so several times, but I wanted to go home. I knew that I could have said simply, “No way. I’m going home and that’s that” and I was prepared to do it if needed, but but instead all I said was stuff like, “I’d rather not stay” and “I think I made a big compromise even coming here” and “all I really need is water and some sleep”. They took my wife out of the room to talk about it for a bit and then THEY decided I could go home, see.

Twenty four hours mostly sleeping and I’m a new man. I’d tap dance right now if I’d ever learned how. So remember, if you’re having problems and things seem to be going from bad to worse, well; cheer up– You’ll soon be dead.