Tuesday morning thoughts.

--Supply and Demand: Remington is reportedly expanding production of ammunition. They'd be fools not to.**

--In a more perfect world, a real-live astronaut who plays guitar and sings Space Oddity while in the International Space Station would be a bigger rock star than any of the current rock stars out there on the airways. I watched this yesterday, and thought: 1. That guitar sounds a little tinny. Too bad they couldn't get a bigger one up with some more bass tones. 2. But they sent a guitar up to outer frickin' space. 3. What's it cost to boost a properly-padded or cased small acoustic guitar to the ISS?
--Oh, look-- Homeland Security is using pin traps and wire taps on the Associated Press. Way to wake a sleeping giant, guys. Ambulance Driver calls this statement by Miguel Gonzales the
Quote of the Day:

"So what's the big deal about the Justice Department secretly viewing AP reporters' phone records? The Obama administration has every right to know what its employees are doing on the phone during working hours."

--The docs are trying to claim that firearms are a legitimate health concern, again. If they can show that pathogens are being passed by firearms in the home, then they've got my support. Otherwise, they can butt out.

--This weekend, my dad had a birthday. I arranged for him and his wife to come over to my house for burgers, but on the sly invited other friends and family. Given that it was Mother's Day, we had spotty attendance... thank heavens. We had lots that did show, and I grilled 3 pounds of bratwursts, 5 pounds of hamburger, and a pound of wienies. My wife made a pot of beans. We had a big pan of iced brownies, a locally-produced* cake, potato salad, chips galore, and lots of fixings. We were left with one brat, one wienie, and half a pound of potato salad. The rest was consumed.

Rabbit came, and brought Dad a Molon Labe coffee cup, and brought one for me, too. It's on my desk at work, now. I know other people brought gifts, but I didn't pay a lot of attention, because it's all about me, and I'm self-centered like that.

My gift to Dad was a 100 Federal shotshells, with a card explaining that he'd best get to the skeet range to practice, because in November, I've bought him and me a space on a weekend of guided duck hunting. This is a danged selfish gift that I bought him, because it means that I get to go hunting with my dad.

The cousins arrived, and we agreed that we should do this again.

--Reportedly, LBJ turned off a scathing indictment of the US involvement in Vietnam, and said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
See now how Obama has got to be saying, "If I've lost Jon Stewart..."

This may well be the funniest piece that I've ever seen Jon Stewart and the Daily Show ever do.

________________________
*We picked the peaches last summer, and picked the pecans out of our yard this past fall. It was kind of like a cake/cobbler thing. Fit to eat.
**I suppose. I just want to see more a bigger supply.

Go home, Frank C Barnes. You're drunk!

One of my favorite books to kill a few minutes with is the great work by (the late) Frank C. Barnes: Cartridges Of The World. Barnes started the project in the mid-century, and periodically updated it with new editions. I finally threw away my old and yellowed worn-out 2nd Edition copy without a cover, which was missing pages. That old copy referenced .25-06 and .35 Whelen as "wildcats," and which didn't have 10 mm, .40 S&W, or .357 Sig in it. It talked about how the .257 Roberts was being pushed out by the "new 6mms," and talked about how the .45-70 was almost 100 years old!! 

Barnes passed away in the early '90s, and Richard A. Mann picked up the task of updating the mandatory reference manual; it is in its 13th Edition now.  He left in some of Barnes' original descriptions about different cartridges, and put in his own. By and large, he's done a pretty good job, of a pretty good job that Barnes had done. Keep doing a pretty good job for long enough, over a field as broad as this, and you end up with a real work of value. While everyone reads the historical notes and general descriptions of the cartridges, there is also a very valuable specifications section at the back, which gives gross measurements of each cartridge. Most of the rounds have descriptive loads in each section, but I will caution you NOT to use those for hand loading reference. But if you're a shooter, or a collector, or any kind of aficionado of firearms, this is a necessary household reference book.

At any rate, this morning while awaiting my coffee to perk, I let the book fall open where it may, and noticed something odd, for the first time, about the illustration for the classic old black powder cartridge, the .38-40 WCF:

This most certainly is NOT the .38-40 WCF. Perhaps it's the .38-40 WTF?

Without a scale, it's hard to know what caliber is portrayed there. It's obviously a belted magnum, likely of .38 caliber. It has a fairly sharp shoulder, and a long neck. It is most certainly NOT the .38-40 Winchester.
Hey, accidents happen.

Maps.

Check out this amazing, zoomable map of all of the roads in the United States, and nothing else. No borders. No topographical features.

No, no. Click on the BIG one.

And supposedly, half the people live in this circle, most of which is water.

And bad research yields poor maps. When you assume that racists are located where words that you call pejoratives are tweeted from, you get a map like this. Note also that in south Texas, for many, the term "wetback" is not used as a pejorative, but rather as a descriptor of a person who illegally migrated across the Rio Grande. I have the utmost respect for Latinos, and of immigrants, but I used the term in a non-derogatory way for years, before being informed that it was being perceived as pejorative. :(

Interesting story developing.

On April 17th, a fertilizer plant blew up in West, Texas.
At least 15 people were killed, mostly first responders.
Hundreds were injured. Hundreds of homes were obliterated, destroyed, or damaged.

There were two very newsworthy types of fertilizer there at the plant: anhydrous ammonia, and ammonia nitrate.

--Anhydrous ammonia is scary stuff. It is highly reactive to oxidizers, and gives off a caustic gas. It is stored as a liquid, in tanks. It is used in the production of methamphetamine.
--Ammonia nitrate is a plastic solid, and was used in the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. It's highly explosive, but is more stable than Anhydrous.

News people cast around, talking to people who didn't know what they were talking about. I saw news stories early speculating that the firefighters had sprayed water onto reactive substances, causing the fire and explosion. I saw references to them responding to a re-kindle.

At this point, they still aren't exactly sure what caused the fire.

Blame came, as it always does. Someone HAS to be to blame.
If Texas governor Rick Perry hadn't realized that his political aspirations for the national stage were ended in 2012, I hope that he realizes now that it's over. Political cartoonists and pundits in California, Illinois, and the east coast all tore into Perry, for his recent attempts to woo investors to Texas with his quite correct claim that Texas is booming. In his radio spots, Perry cited no income tax, and less interference by regulations for Texas' success. His critics seized on this as Exhibit A in the case of why half a Texas town was blown off the face of the earth.

The truth is, that West is a hub community, in the midst of farmland. A fertilizer plant and seed company would certainly have been an economic engine there, 60 years ago. The town grew around it. These things happen.

But now, we find that BATFE[IEIO] and the Texas Rangers have an open case of Possession Of A Destructive Device against one of the paramedics who was a first responder with the West Volunteer Fire Department, and who lost friends in the blast. You can see the newsies champing at the bit to connect this with the cause of the blast. And I'll admit that it would make a helluva story. Haven't we all heard the tale of the firefighter who is a secret arsonist, and been amazed? What better story than to find out that this small-town medic wanted to be a Walter Mitty with Münchausen syndrome-by-bombing?

But it's not necessarily the case. The BATFE boys are in town. The Rangers are in town. They're looking under every rock for ANY clue as to what might possibly has caused that fire. So if Mr. Reed was into making homemade firecrackers in his garage, this is not a good time for him. If he's fulfilling a lifelong dream to make his own recoiless rifle in his basement, these guys might get a bit twitchedy, and put a case together on him, out of something to do.

But time will tell.

**EDIT**
Looks like it was components for a pipe bomb which Reed had. Ruh roh.

Music and shoes.

I'm fairly sure than even our fellow-Texan and shoe-obsessed blogger friend wouldn't even give up all practicality for this fashion.

Wednesday evening this and that.

--Steampunk Lego sets? Why had this not happened before. Unless they are fools, this will be made of win.

--Nancy Grace has always irritated me, even before I happened to be stuck in a doctor's office or something, and saw her try to corner Elizabeth Smart in a bullying manner. (Note Smart's semi-eye roll at 1:21, to a rather stupid question put up by Grace.)
But she's especially irritating as a commentator, when she does a split-screen interview with a woman who is in the same parking lot as herself. On-scene stand-ups are over-used in the news. There is NO POINT in sending a reporter out to stand in front of City Hall at 07:00, to tell you about the agenda that they're going to talk about, later that day. So now CNN is using three tools that irritate me at the same time: unnecessary stand-up remote broadcasts, unnecessary split-screen interviews to attempt to show that they're ALL OVER on the coverage of this salacious story, and of course, Nancy Grace.

--On a side note, that Jodi Arias chick is so bat-feces crazy guilty (she took the stand, for 18 days!!!), she'll be extremely lucky if she doesn't get the needle.

--I like that now-defunct Nickel Creek band.

--From F. Scott Fitzgerald's entry in Wikipedia:

"Among the attendants at a visitation held at a funeral home was Dorothy Parker, who reportedly cried and murmured 'the poor son-of-a-bitch,' a line from Jay Gatsby's funeral in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby."

I would have expected more out of Dorothy Parker. But I'm planning on collecting crude statements by Marko Kloos, Cranky Professor, PhlegmFatale, and Larry Correia, so that I'll look literary when I cuss. Larry says that he can write me up a good funeral scene. I look forward to reading that. I'm thinking along the lines of a Valhalla send-off, delivered in the style of John Cleese at Graham Chapman's funeral.

--Phillip, a fine historian of firearms was giving a presentation of a Teddy Roosevelt double rifle at the end of the NRA Convention in Houston this weekend. This is something that they will do for accredited news media, to educate about some of the noteworthy pieces in the amazing NRA firearms collection. I went to the one last year in St. Louis. This time, just like last time, a security flunky came up to these officers of the National Rifle Association (the group that just spent million$ to lease the space), and tried to give them and the media the bum's rush. Phil politely let her have it with, uh, both barrels. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)  He took a breath, and continued with the demonstration. Well done, sir. One of my colleague web correspondents caught the action on video, here. Hopefully next year in Indy, we'll have this issue worked out.

--I didn't get to go to the NRA Convention. I'm still kinda pouty about that. But Dad got to go, and I'm glad about that.

--Lots of graduation notices, this May. Pricey.

When loads shift.

Along with the pilot, the loadmaster is the most important person in the safety of a cargo airplane. Here's why.

When a heavy load such as 5 military vehicles totaling 70,000 lbs, shifts to the tail end of the plane during ascent, the nose pitches up. A stall occurs. This is a good time to deploy a parachute, if you have one. If you don't, then it's a good time to spend the remaining 5 seconds of your life remembering the good times. I don't think that there's any way out of this.

The dashcam video was caught next to an airport in Afghanistan. The driver sounds British, when he cusses briefly. Interestingly, he seems to have a dog with him in the cab of the truck that he's driving.

Weekend projects

Ventilating the shed.
When we bought this house, one of the attractive features was that there was a garden shed built in the back. It had been custom-made by the previous tenant's ex-husband, who was something of a craftsman. He had made the hinges himself (he was a welder by trade), and had put the shed together very snugly.
Actually, he did TOO good a job at making it snug. He didn't even use trim; the joints are all so close that he just ran a bead of caulk to seal them. The door is good-sized, and I literally had to lean on the door to get it to compress the air inside, so that I could latch it.

While this is good for keeping your lawn tools dry, it also means that it has been death to enter that shed in the summertime. We genuinely have feared for the lives of our cats, should one get caught in there for more than a couple of minutes while exploring a the opened shed and then get locked in when we close it. So, ventilation.

We went to a construction salvage store yesterday, and bought a new back door for the house. While there, I saw some nice used gable vents. I have made gable vents, while I was a carpenter's helper. It was a pain to do, right. These looked pretty good. We bought them, and I put them into the shed.

Modifying the gable by cutting a 12"X18" hole.

First vent installed.



Second vent, installed.

 The difference was immediate. The door swings shut effortlessly, too. Fear not; both vents are screened in the back. Strangely, they were already painted a shade that worked pretty well with the extant shed gables. Yay, me.

Cat Door.
This one, we haven't solved, correctly, yet. We wanted to make it so that only our cats could come and go. We bought a cat door for the garage that would only let in the cat with the magnetic bobbin on his collar. In short order, he lost the collar, and butted his way through, breaking the door.
I've noticed that the neighbor cat has been coming in.
We have a second door through the kitchen door to the garage. Its locking device was broken by our boulder-headed cat, as well, but the flap remains. My wife installed stops (many screws, with their heads sticking up) into the cat passage, to prevent the flap from opening inward. Thus, the cats can exit to crap, but cannot creep back in. They must been ushered in. We'll see if this works.

Looking online, there are auto doors that use the RFID chip in your animal to let them in, which you can program for only one of your animals. Smart. Neither of our cats is chipped. Also, they're made of plastic parts, as well. I'm not spending $150 (before $70 to chip the stupid cats) for another plastic door. That plastic hinge with a flexible poly door is a fatal flaw. Make the whole thing out of sheet steel/aluminum, and I'm there. I might even go higher. I don't dote on those vomiting, shedding, annoying pieces of crap. But they matter to my wife and my daughters, and I'm lazy, so I'd actually go $200 to not have to deal with this anymore.

That neighbor cat has a collar and tags. It would give me only momentary satisfaction to deal with it the way I first was tempted to. Unless there is danger, I'm against killing someone's pet, as a rule, even if it's trespassing. It's not HIS fault that we make the food in our house accessible to him. We need to put a stop to this, though. I don't want opossums or raccoons in here.

And cheap at twice the price.

The only reason those two women injured in the inappropriate shooting during the manhunt for Dorner are taking the $4.2 million is because attorneys behind closed doors said, "Would you rather take the four point two million now, or wait five years to collect ten million dollars, by which time the attorneys have gotten the bulk of it?"

Yeah, L.A. would like to get that behind them, indeed.