Fred Thompson & the Pirates of Tehran

Posted on April 10, 2007 by Alaska

Jeez, why couldn’t this have been Dubya’s weekly radio address? Bravo for FT — the man’s an actor and a WRITER too! …and he published it on RedState, which makes him (gasp) a BLOGGER!

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Fred Thompson & Ronald Reagan

Posted on April 10, 2007 by Alaska

The Thompson juggernaut gains steam!
Yeah, it’s a little rough around the edges (the “bio” section needs a lot of work) but overall, I think it’s pretty impressive. If she tidies it up a bit, the youthful Webmistress of this site could end up redefining “sophomoric” as a positive word!

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Getting Ready

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

AKA: Making preparations and/or gathering equipment

For Boomershoot.

Some of the long time readers of RNS will remember my trip to the 2005 Boomershoot, which is where I met our good man David.

I had customized a shooting bench before going off to Joe’s Most Excellent Celebration of Long Distance Riflery and Explosives. I custom-built a top that mounted onto the head of an spare engine stand I had sitting around holding nothing. And it worked quite well.

On the floor of the garage.

What I failed to take into account was the obvious: That Boomershoot was 1. Held outdoors, and 2. In an open field, which is not level.

To say the bench was top heavy would be a gross understatement. No matter which way I set it, it wanted to fall over. I had tried to brace it some items I had in the truck, but even then, I couldn’t get a level surface to shoot from.

Precision Long Distance Rifle course instructor, Gene Econ, says to let your rest point the rifle for you. Since I was shooting off a table, my rest would be sitting on the table and I would need the table to point the rest so that the rest could point the rifle. That wasn’t happening.

In an odd bit of good luck, I got paired with our good man David, who had built the best homemade bench at the entire event.

fom3.jpg

It looks like an octopus with a board on it’s head, but it can be levelled for any terrain and a 9.0 quake won’t bother it. It was pure genius, and as soon as I saw this bench, I knew I was going to like shooting with this guy.

Well, Boomershoot 2007 is almost here and it is time to get everything together. And built. Which is what I did this weekend. 

Last week I went on down to the Washington General Administration Surplus Warehouse and bought me one of their used desktops for $5.

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It weighed a ton, but was the right shape.

Next, I took some general measurements witht the rifle setting on it.

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I then set about marking the final size on both sides. This allowed me to turn the desktop over and mount the flanges and screw in the treaded 1″ pipe fixtures I was using for the legs (David used 1 1/2″ pipe, which could be considered overkill. I just knew that it “overkilled” my wallet, with the 1″ stuff still costing $97).

Then, I turned the table back over, cut off the excess of the desktop, and abra-cadabra we have the completed bench.

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Things of note:

David is making his own bench for the match, but he is a southpaw and I’m not, so we’ll be the spot on the line with two benches. At least we won’t have to move the spotting scope much, if at all.

After this pic, I attached an old web belt to the edge of the table for a convenient carrying handle.

The removable legs should last forever, though if the top gets wet, I may need to replace it every or every-other year.

This probably doesn’t need to be said to the folks who do a decent amount of woodworking, but I’ll say it for the folks such as myself who don’t. When using your circular saw, remember to move items you like out of the way of the sawdust roostertail. Don’t be a bonehead like me and leave one of your Corbeau GT4 racing seats anywhere near your workspace (it’s OK, I’ve been meaning to get them detailed anyway in preparation for replacing Grimm’s bench seat with a pair of GT4 buckets with 5-Point belts).

Lastly, find a comfy chair because you’ll be doing a lot of shooting at Boomershoot. I’ve got 1000rnds and am wondering if it’ll be enough.

PS: Gun Porn tomorrow

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 6 Comments

RNS Quote of the Day: 04/09/07

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

Anyone know who this guy is? All a Google search turns up is a stead stream of this quote.

You may find me one day dead in a ditch somewhere. But by God, you’ll find me in a pile of brass.

Tpr. M. Padgett

Posted in Quote of the Day | 2 Comments

Got their lunch “repo-ed”

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

The issues involving the inflated self-esteen of today’s youth are well known. So imagine my surprise when I read about the Twin Falls, ID School District poked the egos of the little darlings with a pin for being past due on their lunch bills

Students who fell behind on school lunch payments were stunned Monday afternoon when their lunch trays were taken from them and dumped in the garbage.

Cafeteria workers then gave them a sack lunch and two words of advice – pay up.

The Twin Falls School District refused to serve hot lunch to more than 150 students at Vera C. O’Leary Junior High School on Monday because they were not paying for their school lunches. Cafeteria workers threw out the students’ hot meals and replaced them with sack lunches while charging them full-price for a hot lunch.

District officials say the purpose of the brown-bag lunch was to encourage students to pay their delinquent lunch accounts, but others say the district was coercing students into paying off their debt by humiliating them.

“It was perfectly legal, and it was not done to set those students apart from the others,” said Mary Lu Barry, secondary programs director for the Twin Falls School District. “It was done to send the message to students that if they want regular school lunch they have to pay the fee.”

She said district officials were shocked when the junior high reported more than $600 in unpaid lunches – the highest unpaid school-lunch balance in the school’s history.

The school sent a letter to parents informing them that some students were not paying for their lunches, and cafeteria workers informed students when their accounts were delinquent.

Twin Falls has one of the first biometric lunch account systems int he country (fingerprints). I wonder how the adults that were so hip on getting this system set up think about it’s accuracy now?

I’d also like to have been a fly on the wall when the kids got home and told their parents what happened that day, just so I could get to hear the kids reply’s when their parents asked them what they’ve been doing with the money they send with them to pay the lunch bills.

Hey, if someone else besides me is in trouble, I’m all for getting the juicy bits.

Found at Just Some Poor Schmuck

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 1 Comment

A “Peaceful” Kidnapping?

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

Over the weekend, RNS had a visit from some leftard commenting under the name “Joseph Partida”, who praised the Brits for not going overboard and bombing the Iranians for kidnapping on the high seas (AKA: Piracy) a group of the military  personell.

I wonder what Mr. Partida has to say about this new snippet of information

Blindfolded Britons tell of the moment the guards’ guns clicked

All 15 of them had been blindfolded, handcuffed and pushed against a wall by their Iranian captors.

Then they heard the sound of guns being cocked – and believed they were about to be shot by firing squad.

The most terrifying moment of the British hostages’ 13 days in captivity was revealed yesterday as seven of them faced a press conference.

The mock execution happened the day after the Navy sailors and Royal Marines had been seized while patrolling at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides Iran and Iraq.

Lieutenant Felix Carman, 26, of Swansea, said that on their first night in captivity their treatment was not too bad.

But the following morning they were flown to Tehran where the “atmosphere changed completely”, he said. “We were blindfolded, our hands were bound and we were forced up against a wall.”

All 15 prisoners, including young mother Faye Turney, heard the Revolutionary Guard cock their guns.

One of the hostages screamed out: “Lads, lads, we’re going to be executed – do something.”

Another was physically sick, said 21-year-old Royal Marine Joe Tindell, who believed he was hearing the sound of a colleague having his throat cut.

“I assumed we were all going to be executed. We were all standing there waiting for it to happen.

“I just thought that was the end of it. It was the only time in my life I really felt scared.

“From there we were rushed into a room and then stuffed into a cell and didn’t see another human being for six days.”

The men said the hostages were subjected to “constant psychological pressure” which Lt Carman described as amounting to “torture”. While it stopped short of physical abuse, it helps explain their apparent willingness to appear in Iranian propaganda broadcasts before their release on Thursday.

Their captors said the choice was clear – admit they had strayed into Iranian waters or face seven years in a Tehran jail.

Leading Seaman Turney, a 26-year-old mother, was not present at the press conference at the Royal Marines Base at Chivenor, north Devon.

But her fellow prisoners described how she was put in solitary confinement and, for four days, told by her jailers that the rest of the group had been sent home and she was the only captive left in Iran.

Of course, Partida will probably just claim that it is all Bush’s fault. Nevermind that the Iranians have been doing this exact same thing since 1979.

Asshole.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

It must be nice

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

Being able to determine the term of negotiation.

One of the tenets of leftist mantra is “Negotiation” and “Talking It Out” and Compromise”. You will hear them speak to this nearly every single time they open their mouths.

Except when it involves them “Compromising” on something, like the gun bigots in Littleton, CO who are fighting against the installation of a statue dedicated to Navy Cross awardee, Petty Officer Daniel Dietz because it pictures him holding an M-16A3

Emily Cassidy. Gun Bigot:

“There’s no middle ground here, and that’s unfortunate,” said Emily Cassidy, one of a handful of Littleton parents who say the statue with the gun should not be near three schools and two playgrounds at the southeast corner of South Lowell Boulevard and West Berry Avenue.

“We’re continuing to try to spread our message,” Cassidy said. “The message is not against Danny Dietz, his family or the war. It’s location, location and the audience that will view it.”

They are demanding that either the gun be removed from the already completed bronze statue or it not be dedicated. No compromise. No negotiating.

Posted in The Left is Never Right | 1 Comment

Parenting? Not for me.

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

And apparently not for many other as well.

Controversy Brewing Over New Energy Drink

Prom night check list: camera, cash, and a new energy drink called Spyke?

The new two ounce brew has parents worried because it contains caffeine, ginseng and 12 percent alcohol.

It costs about a dollar and comes in bottles that look like neon nail polish. Even though you have to be 21 to purchase Spyke, some groups are worried that under age drinkers will be the main consumers.

“These products come in small, colorful packages that are bound to appeal to millions and millions of children out there,” said George Hacker, who heads the Alcohol Policy Project for the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI).

Hacker is demanding that Anheuser-Busch, the company producing the new drink, take Spyke off the market.

Spokesperson Francine Katz with Anheuser-Busch says it’s up to adults to be responsible, especially since the drink is targeted towards beer and shot drinkers in their early to mid twenties.

“No company anywhere has done what we have done to fight underage drinking and drunk driving, but the way you do that is not by limiting product choices for adults,” Katz said. “As parents, it is up to us to set the parameters and to establish what is right and wrong for our kids.”

The marketing field for this new drink however has primarily been through the blogosphere, where the audience consists of many underage drinkers.

“Saying that it is the parent’s responsibility to keep it out of the hands of young people is absolutely ridiculous,” Hacker said.

Wait a minute, I thought that was at least 50% of the responsibilities of parenting: To keep harmful substances away from your child.

I guess that is why I’m not a parent.

And I guess that all of the nanny-stating of children’s rights over the rights of parents is continuing apace.

Found by Rocket Jones

Posted in Color me confused | Leave a comment

More like “Rewrite their own history”

Posted on April 9, 2007 by Phil Kadath

I’ve been keeping an eye on the website set up by the latest incarnation of the Students for a Democratic Society (the SDS) and they are engaging their members at a secondary site to get into Wikipedia for some historical revision.

The SDSwiki Project is a new project within Students for a Democratic Society, open to SDS members, that is designed as a place where SDSers can share information, work on collective documents, write our own history, share lessons learned in grassroots movement work, and upload pictures, audio, and video.

I’m sure that their version of the SDS’s history is a lot different from what actually happened; probably leaving out the bits like the popular democratic vote of the Weathermen into SDS leadership postitions, the murders, the bombings, etc. that followed as well as their USSR funding sources, among other things.

I’ll let y’all know if they try to pull a Stalin-esque “revising of photos”.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The 10% Factor?

Posted on April 8, 2007 by Phil Kadath

Or a lie?

Since we all know what a lie is, I’ll explain the “10% Factor” to the uninitiated:

Basically, 10% of any group are assholes who will ruin it for everyone else. This is a minimum percentage. It can be higher than 75% in some groups (ie the “protesters who burned a soldier in effigy in Portland).

Here is the story I’m wondering about

For years, ATV-riding, gun-toting sport shooters have flouted gun laws in part of Idaho’s high desert by taking pot shots at ground squirrels and other animals.

Now, officials say, they’re also setting their sights on National Guard tanks that train in the area.

Rifles and pistols have been banned in a 68,000-acre area of the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area since 1996.

But the federal Bureau of Land Management is considering expanding the gun-restricted area by 41,000 acres to try to limit shootings at Idaho Army National Guard troops who report slugs bouncing off their tanks on a regular basis.

“There’s a segment of the shooting community that will shoot at anything that moves,” said John Sullivan, the area’s manager.

National Guard spokeswoman Lt. Col. Stephanie Dowling said she thinks the proposed expansion would help alleviate the problem.

So, is it the 10% or is it a lie being used to close off more public land?

I’m not saying the tankers are lying, but someon their higher command may be. I know that I’d never shoot at a tank with anything besides another tank. Kind of pointless, in my reasoning. And foolish.

So. Anyone?

Posted in Color me confused | 7 Comments