Claire Wolfe has listed a few more eBay auctions that are fundraisers for Richard Celata’s family.
Some cool flags are up. Check ‘em out.
Archive for July, 2006
More Auctions
July 31st, 2006Update on the Previous Post
July 30th, 2006I try to spend my Sunday’s around my family and that’s what I did this Sunday. Mostly. I did take some time to hit the range as I said I would in the previous post.
Not bad.
First off, the cadet wasn’t that bad of a pistol shot. Oh, he’s horrid, but he can at least drop them all in a target the size of a man’s chest a 7 yards with ease. It looks like a shotgun pattern but I’ve seen much, much worse.
Actually I’m being a bit hard on him. It doesn’t look like a shotgun pattern at all, the shots tend to pull in one direction or another fairly consistent. There would be a vertical string off the left of the bulls-eye on one mag, a spread-hand sized grouping around 5 o’clock on another one, a group way too low, etc.
He’s got a flinch. It happens. With a .22LR pistol he’s quite able to put them where he wants them.
Expected. Practice, provided that he keeps using the .22LR to get rid of that flinch, will solve the problem in the long run.
Not that I’m one to talk — I am by no means a crack shot with a pistol.
It was very interesting to watch a total novice today. He’d fire a full magazine consisting of 12 rounds of .40S&W out of his Springfield XD and then wonder why they’re all to the left and strung out like that.
Trigger control.
After some time I handed him my Smith & Wesson 1911 and let him give that a guy. First shot: Bulls-eye.
Why? He had no idea when the trigger was going to release. Any 1911 design has a pretty short trigger pull compared to most pistols but when you put it up against something like the XD or a Glock the difference is astounding.
Of course, the rest of the magazine he emptied was off target and showed evidence of flinching.
With enough practice he’ll get the hang of it.
He did bring along his SKS too. In my previous post I said he needed to get the cosmoline out of it but it was actually pretty clean already. Clean enough to shoot at least.
I did a couple checks to make sure that the firing pin wasn’t going to lock in place and cause a slam-fire. It was still floating around nicely so I wasn’t concerned with that. I then took it to a sunny part of the range and gave the bore and chamber a quick check. No blockage — good to go.
We played around for that a bit with it. Long enough to realise that it works and it shoots where you point it. We also played around with my Marlin 1984C in .357/.38 special and my Schmidt-Rubin K-31.
Good times.
Sweet
July 30th, 2006My gun-nuttery is wearing off on others, I think.
One of my youngest brother’s buddies is a cadet for a local police department and has gotten the gun bug. While I’m not directly responsible for that I am somebody he can bounce gun ideas off of without him having to worry about sounding like a nut.
He’s got a Springfield XD in .40S&W right now and just purchased an SKS the other weekend. After I had told him, about ten times, that the SKS is a prefectly fine rifle. He still needs to get the cosmo out of the SKS but the XD is good to go. Unfortunately he can’t hit anything with the XD yet and needs somebody that knows a thing or two about pistol shooting to verify that it’s hitting at point of aim.
Definately going to put that boy behind a .22LR pistol tomorrow.
So, I’ll be checking out his gun tomorrow and let him fire a few of my pistols and rifles.
Should be fun.
To Be Fair…
July 28th, 2006Abject Disappointment posted a link to the following video in the comments directly below this post. It is worth a watch.
WARNING: It is graphic. Blood, guts, burned bodies, etc.
Nobody in this conflict is a saint. War is Hell.
Just Because
July 28th, 2006
Israel and Palestine Modern History
July 27th, 2006It’s a pretty intense subject, and here’s the Wikipedia entry on it.
Here’s a couple of things that I wasn’t aware or, or might have just plain forgot, prior to this week:
- Israel and Jordan (Palestine) was under British control after WWI.
- Jews were immigrating into this area prior to WWII and purchasing land
- Palestinian Arabs sided both with the Allied and Axis powers during WWII.
- The Axis powers encouraged Palestinian Arabs to join their side.
- From 1939 to 1942 Jews were illegally immigrating into the British Mandate of Palestine because of the Holocaust. It stopped with the Soviets sunk a boat carrying Jews and resumed after WWII.
- Prior to British withdraw there was no formal state of Palestine, or Israel.
I think the last point is the most important one here. Palestine? Ancient state. Israel? Ancient state. They both lay claim to the land based upon ancient history. However, since it is religious in nature, things get sticky, but let’s ignore that.
The British owned that area. It was theirs. They gained it in the fruits of war. When they gave it up the allowed the UN to split it up into a Jewish and an Arab state. If the Arabs think they have a right to Israeli land then logically the Israelis should presume that have every bit as much right to Jordanian and Lebanese land.
After all, prior to 1948 it was British land. If the UN can’t give the Jews Israel then certainly they cannot give the Arabs Jordan. Of course the only way to handle a border dispute is with a war, and through war the Israelis have won their land. They’ve even taken over more land only to give it back later.
Yes, Israel is a creation of the UN — but so is Jordan. Palestine, as a nation, doesn’t even exist. It has no land! How they fly their own flag in the Olympics I’ll never understand.
The Palestinians are refugees. I don’t disagree with that. They were given Jordan and provided that you’re not trying to walk into Israel with a bomb on your chest they’re actually allowed into Israel to work. The Palestinians were refugees not when Israel was formed, but with the British took over the land, if not before that. I cannot recollect the last time that they actually did have a formal state of Palestine.
The same case can be made for the Jews. They are refugees. The British gave up the lands so that the Jews and the Palestinians would have their own` home states. One nation is OK with this, the other is not and demands occupation of that land at all costs.
Let’s try and relate this to the United States of America. What historical right do we have to be on this land? None. The British took it over, at least the original colonies, and when push came to shove we took it from the British. The Israelis were given their land.
Through a series of wars the USA kept their land, and actually expanded it in vast tracts through treaties and wars combined.
Israel was engaged in a war within days of becoming a state, secured their land, and the natives are still trying to push them out — although in their case they can actually lay a historical claim to being natives where US residents typically cannot.
I can’t really blame them for fighting to secure their lands. If I were to do that then I must also presume that Native Americans lobbing rockets into US cities should be met with a meek and mild force to subdue their activities.
The Native Americans have more rights to the lands of the US of A than the Arabs do to the lands of Israel.
Ponder upon that. What makes the Native Americans less hateful to modern Americans than the Arabs are with regards to Israel?
Most Americans do not share the Native American’s skin tone.
We do not share their religions.
We’ve actually been the aggressor in a multitude of conflicts.
We’ve committed genocide against them.
I’d say we have a worse track record than Israel when it comes to occupying a foreign land.
I figure it is one of the following:
1) The Native Americans are real keen on making bank on the stupid white man in their casinos.
– or –
2) The Native American isn’t a radical fundamentalist Muslim extremist.
I figure if we put a casino in Lebanon we’ll find out what the root cause is.
SPAM
July 27th, 2006Since moving to WordPress I’ve gotten a lot more SPAM comments on here that I need to manually approve or deny.
I just had my first one today that landed in the moderation bin that wasn’t SPAM so don’t fret if your legitimate comments don’t apprear immediately.
The basic rule-of-thumb it seems with blogging software is that if 3 or more hyperlinks appear within the comment it gets dumped into the moderation bin. Use three or more and I’ll have to approve it manually it seems.
Just so y’all know.
Sounds About Right
July 27th, 2006
Once Again…
July 26th, 2006FEMA is not an agency concerned with your well being. They are command and control; nothing more.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency prohibits journalists from having unsupervised interviews with Hurricane Katrina victims who have been relocated to FEMA trailer parks, according to a report in the Baton Rouge Advocate (7/15/06).“If a resident invites the media to the trailer, they have to be escorted by a FEMA representative who sits in on the interview,†FEMA spokesperson Rachel Rodi is quoted in the article. “That’s just a policy.â€
UPDATE: It seems that they’ve changed their minds.
I’m still not happy about having to have press credentials to get in. It just doesn’t sit well with me.
Well, I’m Surprised
July 25th, 2006Judge lifts order requiring treatment for teen with cancer
I didn’t see this one coming.
Long story short boy has Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes, and after going through round one of chemo treatment the boy decided he’d like to do something else.
State steps in and takes partial custody of the child and insists on chemo treatment. On appeal a judge has overturned that decision and given control back to the parents and the child.
As it should be.
I do feel differently about this case than I do about Katie who I’ve mentioned in the past. In this case, presuming the media is presenting it properly, the only reason young Abraham doesn’t want to continue chemotherapy is because it was extremely uncomfortable. In Katie’s case there was concern of her becoming sterile and the parents were getting differing medical opinions on the right way to proceed. They were also looking for treatments within the realm of accepted treatments by the FDA — not herbal stuff from Mexico.
While I believe that the choice should be left to the sick and their parents, in Abraham’s case I would strongly recommend chemo based upon what I have seen. Of course, I am not a doctor, but, his only complaint is that it’s too hard on him.
Man up, nancy-boy! Life’s hard. Sometimes doing what you need to do to stay alive is going to hurt. Did you know that the first chemo patient ever was taken off chemo because doctors, aside from his own, objected to it and insisted that the patient was going to die from the treatment? The cancer was shrinking, and the patient would have likely lived if treatment was continued. Did you know that it was for a fairly treatable cancer these days? Throat cancer. The patient contracted throat cancer likely for his love of cigars and chewing tobacco.
The patient was George Herman Ruth. Babe Ruth. The Great Bambino.
Now, perhaps “man up, nancy-boy!” is a bit harsh but the primary reason that I found this case so appauling is because the “child” in this case is a 16 year old male. He would easily be tried as an adult in a murder trial anywhere in the country because at that age people understand life and death. I’m also biased when it comes to his gender — I’ll heap responsibility and critisim on a 16 year old male before I will a 16 year old female.
Yes, I’m sexist, if you want to call it that. I’m more likely to harsh on a young male than I am a young female. I’m also more likely to bitch out a family member than I am a stranger for the same reason: I’m part of that group, I’ve been there, and I know what you’re thinking.
If I were the judge I would have dismissed this too, but with the above nancy-boy talk.
