Never Trust the Narrative

Unless you are a military history buff (or practicing/theorizing professional) who has kept up in recent decades, or were there, you probably don't know anything about the Vietnam War. If you were paying attention to newspapers and television back in the day, you haven't got a clue. But the link above will point you in the right direction, and you won't even have to study up.

Now when someone tells you Iraq is another Vietnam you can tell them: Vietnam wasn't Vietnam, 'tard.

Bum Steer

OK, on the left is the old Swedish Military insignia and the new on the right. You may notice that something has been removed at the request of some female soldiers.




Now, I'm all for women soldiers. They do tough jobs. But I don't think that women soldiers are lions with their nuts cut off. They would more be lionesses with short manes trimmed for fighting and killing.





However, the symbolism of knackering the Swedish Military was too good to pass up evidently.

Over the years, I would expect to see that ol' knackered lion just get fat and happy.

"Why does everyone laugh when I roar?" The old-prune lion cried.

Signposts

The sign clearly indicates that one is not to bring guns into the public space beyond, even if one is legally entitled to do so. But some people just ignore the sign. They just want to shoot people, and it's best really if no one around can defend himself/herself. So, I'm sure the friendly signs were welcome to him. And maybe he was confused because the rifle he was carrying didn't really look much like the picture in the red slash. Anyway, the strategy works well because the sheep rarely look up.

There's a reason why you don't need to post keep-out signs around your average star system.

This is a sign of something. Polygamy would be much more manageable in heaven, of course.

And a sign that new (actually old) tactics are working in Iraq, are detailed (pdf) here.

What happened?

I follow events from Iraq and Afghanistan by reading blogs maintained by people there. That's because I like military history and I like to learn about what's happening in those terms. People reading our popular media may have been surprised that things are going well for the moment and war coverage has moved recently to page 19.

Well, here's a summary of what's been going on since June or so. Her regular site is here, with more background material.

I often read that there's "no military solution" in Iraq, but rarely the other true statement that there's "no political solution" there either.

It's the same here too, except instead of "kinetic" assets, political fighting uses earmarks and other legal corruption of the process. That's what we hope for in Iraq too. We want all these people fighting for their little piece of the federal budget in their own country and not murdering us where we sleep and work.

Scar

In my previous post, the HK 2000 SK, covers just a naughty bit of Britney and you, gentle reader, may be wondering why so little. Well, I wanted to leave her "bikini" scar. If she would just wear her bikini it would be completely covered. However, Britney is a mama twice over and I salute that. Granted her ex has enough money to drag her through court and take the kids away with an assist from the 24 hour coverage she gets and he doesn't.

But she gets the credit in my book. So I hope she finds a normal guy and makes some more. The world needs more babies and if Britney can take the time to do it, all the power girls can.

Full Disclosure: I need babies not to pay for my retirement a couple of decades from now...Britney, make sure you spend all their money so they have to work and don't just endow a bunch of tax dodges like the Kennedy clan.

Maybe, but it's a long shot

Victor Davis Hanson, VDH, makes a plea:

So the next six months of this war are critical, both for the Iraqis and for the very future of our country as well. Who knows, perhaps Fox News can spotlight and profile one of these rare officers each week, just one captain, major or colonel — and maybe just one less blond high school teacher frolicking with her students?

Or, everyone can just look at the latest one of these:



Oh my God! Britney's got a hot H&K P2000SK! Sweeeeet!

The Girl in the Glass Booth

In a time of plenty or want, someone, a shaman perhaps, led a party up a mountain. In tow were three special guests: a teenage girl, who probably counted as an adult woman, and two young children. They'd been given special dispensation to chew coca, officially only for the elite.

The three were dressed finely and the teenager had makeup to make her look even younger or more pleasing. The trio were plied with corn liquor to make them drowsy in the cold thin air and left in a cleft to die of exposure.

The mountain enveloped the three in a cold, airless embrace.

The remains of the two children are back in the lab getting studied, but the teen girl was judged to be of such transcendent quality that she was allowed to have visitors.

Only we look, she is remote, she is still given to the mountain. What do we see?

Farewell Beer Hunter

Michael Jackson, The Beer Hunter, has passed away.

I've sat with him at a table at the Great American Beer Festival, talking about beers from all over the world with passion and gusto. I was proud that he loved the beers we made at our brewery and trumpeted them on his web page and on Seattle radio show interviews. I felt like I'd let him down when our brewery went under.

At the GABF, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes all day, then drinking beer after hours with us brewer-folk, then saw him from outside the window as we limped back to our hotel room, leading a scotch tasting at the host hotel bar. Found out later there was spontaneous wine tasting until early hours after that. The next day, I saw him diligently tasting beer and keeping notes, working his way through many of the 400 plus beers on the festival floor. He was an inspiration.

He loved Belgian beers, as do I, though I've not tried as many as he.

He made a living writing about beer for 30 years. 'Nuff said.

Abbey brewers say that in Heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here. So:

Godspeed Michael, I'll do my best to help hold up this end---but I'll need some others to help out. A great spirit has risen from the earth, and we must fill in where we can.

Vacation in Tuva

Feynman famously wanted to go to Tuva, and Putin is taking his vacation there. It's amazing that the president of Russia would consent to having vacation snaps of him showing off his 6-Pak, but maybe more amazing that a former KGB head wears a crucifix.

Summer in Siberia seems pretty nice.

Match Analysis

If you win matches, like Rob Leatham, match analysis is pretty simple. In my case, I have to resort to statistics to see if I did well or not.

USPSA matches are free form and can be wild, but your classification is based on standard exercises. In the beginning, I was much better at the standard exercises (not everyone is) and so my rating outpaced my general match ability---still does in Limited 10. I shot Area 1 in Limited, however, and that big Division is a good test of how much I've improved in non-standard courses of fire (or not).

My rating is 53.57% and I shot 52.25% so that's 97.54%. There were seven Grand Masters, so my average will count as another classifier.

In summary, I didn't have a great match, but I shot almost to my ability measured over a year's length with standard exercises. I didn't let the pressure of the match get to me. In fact, I had to do a reshoot on a stage that I only was down a point on because of a timer/official error. I'd been reading some books before the tournament that stressed that the shooter should only have positive thoughts. I therefore focused on the opportunity to pick up that point. Amazingly, I picked up the point---an upper A-zone hit---and bettered my time. There may be something to this positive focus thing.

Chrono Spider Bites, Prez Vanishes

It's election time for USPSA, the shooting organization that will allow even me to join. The Prez is standing for election again with pretty stiff competition. So, I imagine he thought he should pop up to the Area 1 Championships and put on a good show to improve his elect-ability quotient.

Most of the big wigs just blow into town and do a shoot through, i.e. muscle on to squad after squad. Then, toss off a few hand smooches to the hoi poloi and head for the airport.

The Prez would have won too--looks great, he's winning matches, beating seven other Grand Masters, and leading our organization to greatness. But...he blew right by the chrono station...ooops. It's like he was never at the match. Those chrono-spider bites can be nasty.

Bye Bye Prez! Hope you pay more attention to detail when it comes to association business :).

Our other VIP shoot through did chrono and did win the match.

One of the other presidential candidates stayed through to the end, collecting proxies for the prize table so he could collect swag for the junior program. He was raking it in big time.

In other chrono-spider news, one of our club shooters went minor (scoring is less for off-hi-zone shots), but managed to win his class anyway. I guess if you're pure of heart, and accurate, the chrono-spider venom is not so deadly.

The group before us had a guy shooting 200 gr 0.45 bullets with a 223 power factor! No wonder we did ok---the poor chrono spider was still cowering in the dark hiding from the bad old hand cannon.

Roller Coaster

I get a star, because I'm special!

So, I'm back working nights in an even more rigorous burn-out schedule than last year. Now, I get at most three days on the same schedule before switching.

And not just to the next shift, but skipping shifts---going against my rolling internal clock.

It's sort of like walking into a museum and dropping into some artistic roller coaster.

Or maybe a gravity assisted hamster ride.











Where you spin down... down... down... to... something. I forgot.









It's a metaphor for something....wait.... it will come to me.

World Building

I would like the moon over that right peak please, and bring up the pink a little.

Gretchen, I'll have that Duvel now please.

OK, OK, less pink. How about violet fading to black at the top?

Angel Michael

He pulled this guy to safety, and kept on fighting the good fight. Now he's no longer on this good earth, but he's still with us. Saint or Angel? I would say Angel, because he brings us tidings of great joy.

Turn Left...First

One of the things course designers like to do is put you in starting positions that can put you out of your comfort zone. Like facing up range, with nothing but walls and closed windows behind you. This is at the Nationals, and I'm doing my best to stare down the spot behind and to the left of me where I'm going to run to. From that spot, I'll be able to see targets that will open one of the windows. Then, I'll be able to open the rest.

If I draw a split second too fast, the range officer staring at my gun will throw me out of the tournament. She didn't get me this time, but on another stage starting up range one of the shooters we meet regularly met his Waterloo. Ironically, I had warned him before the tournament to be very careful.

Opinions differ: someone close to him says he barely broke the 180-it was an over reaction by the ROs. Two people in his squad that I know (and that he didn't), told me that they'd looked up and "Holy S***, we're staring down the ports of his compensator."

One person DQ'd on the same stage by starting to load and make ready facing up range. The heat and pressure will do strange things to a person.

Happy 4th

I'm spending the 4th working, but here's an essay from Red Square to explain it all.

If you have trouble getting up in the morning or hitting the snooze button too much, you might consider this alarm clock.

Chrono of Doom

This time our squad faced the Chrono of Doom without any of our number going minor that wasn't declared minor. To be major, the velocity in feet per second times the weight of the bullet in grains divided by 1000 needs to be greater than 165. We had two at 165.5, whew. I was safely major.

You can see from the above chart, that a few people had monster power factors, some barely scooted by, and quite a few were bit by the chrono-spider, including at least one Open shooter on the Super Squad.
Slow bullets are caught by the spider, and remember Thou Shalt Not Whine.

Nationals Rush

What happens when the excitement of being in the Nationals hits ya? How about double tapping so fast your brass is only a few inches apart?

I didn't have any misses on this stage, but I ran into speed kills on another one. I zeroed my first field course ever. Go as fast as you can see--and no faster!

If you can't win, at least learn something. I learned a lot.

Don't be Standing There

I hope this is a remote camera behind plexiglass...

Army Strong

Picture by Tom

The Army Pistol Team was a big presence at the Nationals in Missoula. Not big physically as you can tell by the guy on the right who can put his headphones around his waist. The back of their jersey has a big "Army Strong" on it. These two were shooting Open Class, and Max on the left won the whole thing.

Picture by Tom

Here's Max showing us his "Load and Make Ready" routine. These guys shoot fast but as a squad they are slow.
The guy on the far right writes books and was doing a DVD while he was shooting. He would set up a camera in the field and one or two others. He was mic'd for sound and had a hoser-cam in his hat. So he was acting, directing, and shooting good enough to get 4th in Open and high international shooter. He even blogged it.

Unfortunately, the Limited-10 supersquad was shooting at the same time as we were and on the opposite end of the range. Well, we'll just have to go back then.

Woooeeee!

OK, let's assume you have your finger on a deadman switch attached to a Thermo-Zombification warhead. Lights are flashing, a siren is blasting, and you're fighting off disappearing and hostage-holding zombies one handed.

You'd wanna know how to do that, wouldn't you?

An Unusual Experience

Update: Never mind. It never happens to me, but the second place shooter got his score corrected. Now I'm a distant second---so that confidence boost just before Nationals? Forget it. I'm back to just trying to not be disqualified.

I spent Father's Day out on the range, as planned, but managed to win Limited-10, which was unexpected. It wasn't just by default either (my usual method), but a third of the competitors were in that class.

I did OK with the rifle, on the side match but obviously need to practice shooting prone. Last time I shot prone, I lay a lot flatter on the ground. Now it's like using a beach ball as a rest.

I had one stage design in the pistol match. It worked out pretty well and seemed to be fun to shoot. I did OK on it, which is unusual as I make stages based on what is hard for me to do.

Both kids checked in and are still alive, so Father's Day was a success for 2007.

Road Sign Up Ahead

In Happy Father's Day Mom, we get a little taste of the future that corporate America has already sensed. Father's Day has always had a tenuous hold, coming as it does after school is out. Mother's Day has the whole school machine behind it, pumping out personalized artifacts galore to bring home to honor that special day.

And, let's face it, the job of mom is pretty secure. Dads are mostly replaced already by the Nanny State after supplying their special contribution---more and more via syringe.

Maybe Father's Day will be better off as a back-up Mother's Day.

I still enjoy Father's Day, and love to hear those special words: Shooter Ready?

Notes for those who misinterpreted my previous post:
1. I'm not saying I don't like Father's Day.
2. I'm not saying I don't like my kids to call on Father's Day.
3. Shooter Ready? is a USPSA command and is not a reference to turkey basters.
4. I'm not saying that school teachers waste too much time on Mother's Day.
5. I'm not saying that Moms can't shoot their husbands and fathers of their children in the back as they lay in bed if they really wanted to.
6. Go away, don't look at us! (gratuitous LOTR reference)

Beer is More Important than Life

For proof, let us consider:

Serving beer at your under-age son's party ---27 months in the slammer.

Shooting your husband in the back whilst he lay in bed --- about a week while they get the paperwork straightened out.

Should I be worried when the Justice System reaffirms my life priorities?

The World as Our Economy

Click to go to the full size picture. The map makers took the Gross Domestic Products of countries around the world and matched them to GDPs of states in the USA. Kind of Amazing really.

Are you conservative?

So, I've mentioned before that when it comes to our government, etc., I'm conservative with a small c. To my amazement, there is a top ten list of what small c conservatives mostly believe in. You may agree with more on the list than you might think at first.

Many have said that Liberals in America aren't; I think it's also true that Conservatives in America aren't so much either.

Revolutions are usually carried out by persons of little forward-looking ability for realistic outcomes. They are focused on their Utopian vision and don't see what else could come. For instance, Tony Blair in the UK has helped build a surveillance network (to make people safe, you see) that photos an average person in London going about his business 300 times a day---and increasing coverage is coming daily. The government may change several times before someone realizes what an ambitious man or woman could do with such a network. And acts.

Revolutions, like our American one, are better for everyone getting a say at a very local level before changing something that has served for generations. Like local people watching out for the public order themselves, not an apparatchik in front of a bank of monitors. How long before the job of watching the monitors gets outsourced to India, China... Russia---they'd be good at that and cheap. Once the video is in the network, it can go anywhere in the world.

Getting our say is not to foreclose the people from doing something stupid, however. Peoples can diminish and nations can fail though great they once were.

Dave for Prez

Iowahawk is running for president. Here's his environmental platform:

The Environment

The scientific debate is over: man-made global warming is real. Finally! This means we can now stop paying for all those expensive redundant research projects to prove global warming. Not only will this save over $2 billion dollars per year in federal spending, we will see significant reductions in CO2 as unemployed global warming scientists sell off their Volvos and move to mud huts.

To further help reduce the nation's carbon footprint, I will order the Environmental Protection Agency to bulldoze the mansions of Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, and Laurie David, and convert them to more eco-friendly use as free public drag strips. And for all serious environmentalists willing to make the ultimate Green sacrifice, I will offer discounted funerals with hybrid hearses, and framed federal carbon credits for their surviving families and animal companions.

Burqas Everywhere

Well, above is a Burqini when you just have to swim where they beat women in the streets when they show too much. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Even the little mermaid is covering up:
Hans (Deleted by order of the Mufti) Anderson is resting more comfortably I'm sure.

MisCon

We are at MisCon, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror fan convention in Missoula, MT. The guest artist is Myles Pinkney who gave a great presentation of his work over the last 20 years. I was surprised that it was his first invited talk at a Con. What! How is that possible? He puts incredible detail in his pictures, which end up on posters, calendars, plates, and even circuit boards.

Check out his gallery linked above.

I have the "Demon Refuge" strong Belgian Golden Ale here that I made specially for the Con. Instead of blowing it out in one big registered party, we're showing it off in the more intimate room-party format. That way, it lasts at least two nights (via having it in two kegs not both active). To keep the party in the unregistered, private category, you keep the door mostly closed. Door too far open... bam you're an unregistered outlaw room party. Door discipline is critical people!

Oh, and the beer is a success. It's smooth, light-tasting for its strength, and sneaky strong. Those Belgian brewers are the bomb genius.

Update: I bought this one... Babylon.

OK, Say you're swimming...

...and suddenly you hear a splash behind you.

Woah, that's a big pussy cat.

Aww, eating with its little paws.

Hmm, where's Fifi?

Note: photos from Pravda (yep, that old Soviet rag), which seems to have morphed into a tabloid of somekind.

Multi-Gun Fun

Yep, shotgun, pistol, and rifle all together in one stage---pictures from the USPSA site.

I got to do this yesterday at our yearly multigun match. Six stages with all three guns and one pistol-only classifier. Wow, what a work out. Took about 8 hours of shooting with a short break for a LATE lunch for about 9 hours total on the range.

Anyway, if there are weak points in your equipment or technique, you are going to find them in multigun. I did OK, but was sore Monday morning.

I played it safe (it was my first multigun match) and ended up right in the middle with 14 above me and 14 below me. Since my goal was not to get thrown out, I smashed through that.

It's taken about a year to collect what I needed to shoot multigun---just cause it took me that long to decide what to get that fit my budget. The gun cart of doom was converted to an extra-fine long-gun hauler for the occasion.

I'm going to keep with local multigun matches and side matches for the rest of the year and maybe do Area 1 multigun next year.

BBQ Season

Costco steak burgers on the charcoal grill...
Brass suspended in air...

See ya out at the range.

Mom's Day the 13th

So, if I was an EOD type who disposed of explosives for my job, I would stage a picture like this. It's all in the timing. Then I would send it to my mom for Mother's Day. You know, maybe say something like

Mom! You light up my Life.

This picture is from a "Women at War" series. There's a couple of things to note: She's not wearing ear protection or safety glasses and she's looking through a game gun sight. This is what the Open class guns in the game we play look like. These guns are big, fast, accurate, and picky picky picky. A war-fighting pistol it is not.

She might be on the pistol team though. Just because it's an artificially staged shot doesn't mean she doesn't know how to use that thing. Maybe it's like those college football pictures where the guy isn't wearing pads or a helmet. The Army sponsors a team and one of the members shoots at big tournaments in the NW. I would count that as a cool military job. It better pay well to buy one of those guns.

Her mom better not see her shooting without PPE (personal protective equipment)!

P.S. Check out the video of Travis above---he really does reload that fast!

in just spring

Not all of Iraq is desert and blowing dust. Some of it affords a stroll through spring wildflowers.

To mark the anniversary of V.E. day, how about a reminder of how we used to view irregular war-fighting tactics and mistreatment of prisoners.

Why parody is dead:
Zimbabwe will be the Head of the UN Committee on Sustainable Development.

Even the Trotskyites at the BBC are concerned. However, I'm confident that Zimbabwe will be just as effective as any other at the UN, that great leveler of talent.

HK on Target

This was a wild one where we had to run to 6 boxes in a zig-zag and engage all five targets from each box. Princess showed good form, but I was S...L...O...W... On the other hand I could have slipped on the damp grass...we don't have grass in the desert.

Thanks to he guys in Mica for the great shoot and the great pics.

Got the windshield changed today

We got the windshield changed on our Suburban Assault Vehicle today. Wasn't this bad though.

U.S. Army Pvt. Brice Hinton looks through bullet holes left in his humvee after his convoy was caught in a complex ambush in Mosul, Iraq, April 30, 2007. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Vanessa Valentine)

Reads

A couple of good reads from VDH's site.

First up, a Professor of English gets a questionnaire. Makes good reading for May Day.

And VDH gives 10 things to do about Iran. After discussing how they are playing us, of course.

I've seen suggestions that we turn May Day from an event where boomers in gray ponytails and braids showcase their partial knowledge of communist theory to a new Memorial Day for the 100 million plus victims of that theory in the 20th century. If nothing else, it would bring some balance to the conversation.

I was thinking of using a link to pictures of gray ponytails and braids, but thought better of it at the last minute...

Photo Op Delux

Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing Five perform a formation flight in front of Mount Fuji, Japan, April 12, 2007. The wing is embarked aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), which operates from Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jarod Hodge)

Pagentry

That was back in the day of course. Tomorrow we're going to go clear some bays with aimed fire.

Eight stages designed by Yakimaniacs. Woot!

Comic

You can see a bigger version here.