1911 Bangity

I installed a "fast safety system" in one of my 1911s:

The idea is that you don't have the appearance of a cocked gun and you don't have the hammer sticking out, snagging your clothing. You also don't have the possibility of something getting between the hammer and the slide. The basic kit also gives you an amibidetrous safety.

The instructions say that you should fully cycle your gun 25 times before using, pulling the slide back and letting it slam shut to make sure the hammer doesn't follow it down. I'd suggest using a magazine with snap caps in it to do that. Also, if you're planning to do anything involving the trigger, do that first, as it's a little more of a PITA to detail-strip a 1911 with an ambi safety (you have to drift out the pin holding the right-hand lever).

The major change to how you handle a 1911 is that the safety is applied by easing the hammer forward. When you do that, the safety pops on. The directions say that if you were to apply the safety, it can damage the mechanism.

After I live with this one for a bit, I may convert my Browning High Power.

Polling Proves That a Majority of Republicans Are, In Fact, Insane

53% of Republicans think Donald Trump is the actual President, not Joe Biden.

Let that percolate for a moment.

A majority of Republicans believe something that is objectively not true. That is insane. They are crazy. That's not hyperbole, they are actually nuttier than a boxcar of almonds.

I don't know how we can function as an adult society when over half of the adherents of one of the political parties are batshit lunatics.

Did You Criticize the 2020 Census Online?

If you did, a bunch of Constitution-shredding spooks in the Department of Commerce called the Investigations and Threat Management Service probably opened a file on you. When they weren't busily racially profiling Commerce Department workers, they were scouring social media in seach of people who were critical of the Census.

The Washington Post has the story: "In one instance, the unit opened a case on a 68-year-old retiree in Florida who tweeted that the census, which is run by the Commerce Department, would be manipulated “to benefit the Trump Party!” records show." That retiree made his comments on Twitter; he had under 100 followers.

ITMS came to the attention of a Trump appointee, who was working to shut them down, except that he quit after the Insurrection. In March, Biden Administration ordered ITMS to stop all ciminal investigations (which they had no authority to conduct) and ordered them to cease all activities after the Post asked for interviews. The abuses of authority of ITMS have sparked critical interest by legilators from both parties.

The whole operation seems to be the diseased brainchild of one career Federal employee. That goon sent copies of critical social media posts on the Census to the FBI, which told him that maybe he ought to take a referesher course in freedom of speech.

Said goon probably deserves to be at a Federal guest house for awhile. If they can't convict him or fire him, they can at least transfer him to working the trash pickup detail at a remote Federal park.

Coming Soon to a Roadway Near You

Tolls. Or something like that.

I base this on the rise of electric vehicles. The impact of EVs on the environment is arguable (not terribly great if the generating plant is fossil-fueled) and their utility (you can refuel a petroleum-fueled vehicle in minutes and drive a few hundred more miles) may be marginal for some, but one point, so far, is clear: EVs contribute nothing towards the maintenance of the road network.

This is because road maintenance almost everywhere in the U.S. is paid for by fuel taxes. Even states where the legislature is stuffed with mouth-breathing ideologues have realized that gas taxes have to go up to keep the roads and bridges from crumbling.

If you drive 10,000 miles a year and your vehicle gets 20 MPG and if we assume a tax rate of thirty cents a gallon, that means you're paying $150/year into the road maintenance kitty (assuming your state's legilsators aren't stealing reallocating the tax receipts), that works out to about $150 a year. The easiest way to do it would be to assess a flat tax to the registration fees, which could be adjusted based on the size of the vehicle.

But that's not going to fly, as people will squawk that they don't drive 10,000 miles a year. So instead of that, there will be some system that keeps track of people's driving. Because if it'll save them a few bucks, people will eagery sell their privacy (witness all of those spyapps that the auto insurance companies are pushing).

The Lemming Defense

[MAGA Asshole] said he came to Washington on Jan. 6 with no intention of rioting. But he got caught up in the mob of angry supporters of then-President Donald Trump as they surged into the U.S. Capitol, breaking through police barriers and smashing through doors.

It wasn’t his fault, he said, that he ended up inside the building with a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag around his neck as lawmakers ran for their lives.

I guess their mothers never asked them: "If Jimmy jumped off a cliff, would you?"

Meanwhile, The Trumpist politicians are saying that we shouldn't be examining what happened on 1/6/21, because it's in the past, but we should examine the way the election was held. So some things are in the past but others aren't?

I don't see how anyone who thinks of themself as a patriot can have a single thought that the Insurrection was understandable, much less permissible.

Just Going to Leave These Here

Your Sunday Morning Big Prop Noise

Martin Mars firebomber:

There always seems to be some asshole in a helicopter, screwing up the audio.

Just Going to Leave These Here

Palestinians Claim Victory

Palestinians rallied by the thousands Friday after a cease-fire took effect in the latest Gaza war, with many viewing it as a costly but clear victory for the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Right. 250 or more dead, thousands wounded. Tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand, lost their homes. 800,000 don't have running water.

That's "victory"?

If I had any sympathy for the Palestinians due to a lot of the bullshit that the Israel keeps pulling, that's gone.

ETA: This, from 2009.

Caturday; Guest Critters

Ducks in a Gulf Coast yard:

Gaetz-gate Heats Up

Federal authorities investigating alleged sex trafficking by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz have secured the cooperation of the congressman's ex-girlfriend, according to people familiar with the matter.

The woman, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is seen as a critical witness, as she has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, a period of time that has emerged as a key window of scrutiny for investigators. She can also help investigators understand the relevance of hundreds of transactions they have obtained records of, including those involving alleged payments for sex, the sources said.

News of the woman's willingness to talk, which has not been previously reported, comes just days after the Justice Department formally entered into a plea agreement with Joel Greenberg, a one-time close friend of Gaetz whose entanglement with young women first drew the congressman onto investigators' radar.

It's never a good sign when both your ex- and your best friend are ratting you out to the fuzz.

Some Primo Flying

This King Air landed with a bad nosewheel:

The pilot held the nose up until the aircraft was almost stopped.

Because It's Friday

Steam at Greenfield Village.

That locomotive is an 1897 Baldwin 4-4-0.

The Tug Fees Must Have Been Mounting Up

Just more than a decade after they entered naval service to great fanfare as the future face of the U.S. Navy, the first two littoral combat ships will be mothballed later this year, according to the Navy’s inactivation schedule for 2021.

The first LCS, Freedom, will head into inactive reserve status Sept. 30, less than 13 years after the ship was commissioned.

The second LCS, Independence, a separate class variant, will receive its shadow box on July 31 after just 11½ years of service.

The LCS concept has been sketchy right from the jump. It was pretty clear to a casual observer that all of those touted "mission modules" would never be built, or, if they were, they would not be built in the numbers required.

There were quite a few things that might have worked out for the LCS. But they take a shitload of contractor maintenance that, on most ships, was done by a ship's crew. The manning plan for the ships ensured that the sailors on board would treat the ships like rented mules. One could sum up the problems with the LCS by noting that it was one of the dumb ideas of Rumsfeld's DoD, right up there with the gutting of surface officer initial training that led, in part, to at least two collisions at sea.

And it didn't take a rocket scientist to foresee the problems that arose with the LCS program.

Christian Taliban Gets a Free Pass on Child Abuse in Missouri

The Children's Division in the state of Missouri used a statutory excuse to close its eyes to rampant child abuse at a Christian-themed school. It had been going on for fourteen years, or more, and the social workers just turned their backs.

In hearings, the legislators asked the agency head if it was agency policy that legislators were to receive reports on agency problems only from reading it in the newspapers. The agency head denied that there was a policy of retaliation against social workers who talked to legislators.

This all came to light because kids who had aged out of the system were telling their stories on TikTok. There were almost twenty complaints about the school made to various authorities, who did nothing until it hit the press. The operator of the so-called school closed his operation in Washington and opened one in Missouri sixteen years ago specifically because he was trying to escape being regulated.

Now, the operators are probably going to prison for a very long time. And so should those who turned their backs on those kids.

When Kevin McCarthy Speaks, Trump is Wiggling His Fingers

pic.twitter.com/OOT6SUW3cr

— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) May 19, 2021

The Republicans wanted to have equal representation on the 1/6 Commission. They got that. They wanted to have bipartisan agreement needed for subpoenas. They got that. As Speaker Pelosi explained:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called McCarthy’s opposition to the commission “cowardice.” She released a February letter from the GOP leader in which he asked for an even split of Democrats and Republican commissioners, equal subpoena power and no predetermined findings or conclusions. The bipartisan legislation accommodates all three of those requests, she said.

“Leader McCarthy won’t take yes for an answer,” she said.

I guess McCarthy has wiped from his mind the call that he made to The Tangerine Führer, where Brave Kevin pleaded for the Scarfer of Big Macs to call off the mob, only to be told: "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." Kevin yelled: "Do you who the fuck you are talking to?"

It's clear that The Cheating Golfer knew exactly to whom he was talking: He was talking to one of his most loyal toadies, a man that he could count on to ignore reality and parrot the line of the Grifter of Queens.

Every day, in every way, we see that the GOP has placed loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the United States. I'm surprised that they haven't had to place their hand on a copy of Mein Kampf and swear a loyalty oath to Trump.

Just Going to Leave These Here

Moscow Mitch Has the Back of the Dark Lord of Mar-a-Lago

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he is “pushing the pause button,” on the legislation to form the commission, which is expected to pass the House this week despite the opposition of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. That means the bill is likely to have a more difficult path when it reaches the Senate, where majority Democrats will need at least 10 GOP votes to pass it.

The very last thing that the Party of Trump wants is for there to be a detailed examination of the Jefe de Covfefe's failed self-coup. Their party has increasingly become an authoritarian party. Republicans, more and more, have given up on the idea of winning elections by persuading the electorate that their ideas are better. Their route to power, in their minds, is to keep people from voting.

In short, they don't believe in democracy.

And, like this guy:

They are willing to deny the truth of what happened on January 6th.

But we know.

The Wheels Are Grinding On The Gilded Grifter

The New York attorney general’s office said Tuesday that it is conducting a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business empire, expanding what had previously been a civil probe.

Remember when Moscow Mitch said, on the floor of the Senate, that Trump faced criminal liability? This probably isn't what he had in mind, but it works.

It's possible that Disgusting Doofus and some of his adult spawn could wind up as guests at a New York State crossbar hotel. But I'mnot holding my breath.

But I will pick up some more popcorn.

Just Going to Leave These Here

Kevin McCarthy: Venal Opportunist or Seditionist?

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that he won’t support a proposal to form an independent, bipartisan commission to study the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, almost certainly eroding GOP support ahead of a vote and positioning his party as opposed to investigations of the attack.

McCarthy's opposition is classic whataboutism of the vilest nature, in that he equates thos protesting against racial injustice and police brutality with those who sought to violently overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In the end, it doesn't matter if McCarthy is a seditionist or just an abject Trumpist toady. The results are the same. The only certainty is that McCarthy is not loyal to the United States of America. In a just society, he would be given an engraved wooden box that contained either a seppuku knife, a revolver with one cartridge or a teabag of hemlock leaves.

He wants us to forget about the Insurrection of January 6th.

Don't forget it.

1/6/21: Never Forget

Yep, just your average, everyday, well-behaved tour group. And if you believe that, then you've drunk deeply of the Trumpist Kool-aid. Like this imbecile.

Also, this.

At Least He Wasn't Ranting About "Purity of Essence" and "Precious Bodily Fluids"

A commander of a U.S. Space Force unit tasked with detecting ballistic missile launches has been fired for comments made during a podcast promoting his new book, which claims Marxist ideologies are becoming prevalent in the United States military.

One might conclude that the fired officer's complaints about diversity and inclusion being Marxist is basically code for the tired, old complaint from white guys that they have to now compete with women and minorities. In short, it's a white supremacy argument. A unified cluture, in that view, is white men at the top and everyone else knowing their place underneath, happily and rythmically rattling their chains.

I'll have to go back and read The Communist Manifesto, for I don't recall it discussing diversity and inclusion.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

A Spitfire from "A Bridge Too Far":

Caturday

Priss disappeared a couple of weeks ago.

She came back yesterday.