Chris Johnson

Tuesday Tunes

From the YouTube description:

The following are a series of war correspondence films from the Simba Rebellion in the Congo in 1964/65 set to the tune of “Roland the Thompson Gunner” by Warren Zevon. The film features a platoon of mercenaries from Europe conducting a platoon attack on the town of Boende in the Cong. The mercenaries primarily come from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Of note, there is an ex-ss officer in the film according to the source, I can’t confirm this, though.

EDIT: The German officer is Siegfried Müller, one of the mercenary captains. He was a Wehrmacht First Lieutenant in World War 2, not an SS officer.

This is the type of war the leftists are pushing for. I fear for my children and grandchildren.

What was old is new again

Allyson had picked up a wooden box a few years ago to take to events. It was a plain wooden box with just a bit of decoration and a porcelain knob attached to the sliding top.

The knob and screw holding it are not period. The rest was pretty period. Or more precisely, it was period-20.

It looked period at 20 feet.

Over the years, it has taken a beating. This knocked the back off, pulling out the brads.

She asked me if it could be repaired. TiteBond III to the rescue. I pried the back out enough to get glue where it was needed. Clamped the entire thing closed and called it a day.

Until I decided that it could be better.

Today, we use petrochemicals to create high-quality, strong, enduring coatings for our cabinetry and furniture.

Modern finishes are long chain polymers that have all the right characteristics for a long-lasting, shiny surface.

I’ve used polyurethane finishes. They can be polished to a near mirror like finish.

But that is the modern world? What were they doing 100 years ago? 200? 300? They were using some of the same finishing methods we use today.

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Jasper, Indiana, USA - August 5, 2018: The Strassenfest Parade, Clowns, members of Funsters, driving a clown car down the street during the parade

Filler–

I’m trying to export a video from OpenShot-community, and it is refusing to cooperate. Switching to a filler article.

Poor Ricky, he thinks that government inspectors keep us safe from bad business practices. Maybe he should ask about all the mandated state inspections of Gosnell’s medical facilities?

MSNBC is likely lying by omission and by intentionally ignoring the rest of the story.

It isn’t that this one person posted a video, that may or may not be a correct interpretation, it is that there are now many such reports.

According to my leftist sources, this is Biden trolling Trump. I think they are half right. This is Biden trolling Kamala.

robber, gun, thief

Why Do They Start By Wanting to Break the Law?

I’ve been advocating for the Right of The People to keep and bear arms for decades now. After the Sandy Hook shooting, I was in a discussion with somebody on Google+. They were attempting to come up with a “common-sense gun safety laws”.

After a couple of days going back and forth, they asked “Well, what law would you propose?”

“A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

He didn’t reply.

Regardless of what anybody tells you, the supreme law of the United States is the Constitution, as amended. It is not a document locked in amber, nor is it bright, transient dots on a display, it is the bedrock of our country.

It is difficult to modify, there have been only 17 amendments since 1791 when the first 10 were ratified. That is a very stable foundation to work from.

The problem that leftest have with The Constitution is that it is too stable. It does not progress as they would like to see.

If it doesn’t progress, then it must be thrown out. According to them.

So we have endless arguments about “well regulated”, and “being necessary” means it is a collective right.

They modify the meaning of the words so that they can twist the foundation of the Constitution. I fear for our grand children. They will have to depend on the translations of others to know what our Constitution actually says.

Consider this for a moment, how many times have you heard or heard of somebody saying that the King James Bible holds the words of Christ?

I promise you, it does not. Jesus Christ did not speak English. I can’t tell you what he spoke, it is not relevant.

My point is that most people cannot read the original Bible because we don’t read that language. I can read some Latin. I know others that can read ancient Greek. Those scholars are few and far between.

Words have meaning. Leftists don’t care what the meaning of a word is. They choose the meaning of the word as they want it now. Which can change in 10 minutes, or less.

So the arguments always start from the same place: How can we get away with breaking the law?

In Heller, the Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment protects the core right of self-defense.

So for 22 years we had people breaking the law because their needs were more important than the law. Justified by saying they weren’t hurting “the core right of self-defense too much”.

They were breaking the law, and they knew it. They knew it then, they know it now.

Shall not be infringed? Well, it isn’t too much. YES, it is too much. You are breaking the law every time you infringe on my Right to keep and bear arms.

A machine gun isn’t an “arm” under the plain text of the Second Amendment? Why? Because it isn’t used for self-defense.

Is it an arm? It is a firearm. This makes it an arm. FULL STOP.

We’re not going to take away your Second Amendment rights — we’re going to prevent your kids from getting shot at school. — Tim Walz
For nearly 50 years, @Bradybuzz has been fighting for common-sense gun laws, but we must also tackle the Big Lie that makes people believe owning a gun makes them safer — and if that were true, America would be the safest country in the world. (2/2) — Kriss Brown, Brady
Together, we passed the first bipartisan law addressing gun violence prevention in nearly 30 years, but we have more work to do.

We must pass an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, and red flag laws. — Kamala Harris

P38 v. P51

This is an attempt to cleanse my palate after watching part of the debate.

The magic of the can…

Or better stated, the how to preserve food.

We are spoiled today, we go to the local supermarket and purchase almost any type of food we want, regardless of the growing season. It will be fresh and safe to consume.

My parents would not have dreamed of such luxuries when they were children.

We have a tradition of putting an orange into our Christmas stockings. Today, no big deal. When the tradition started, in my parents’ or grandparent’s time, it was a big deal. Those oranges were brought from far away at great expense. It was fresh and taste.

Yesterday, my wife went grocery shopping. We don’t eat as well as we did 4 years ago, inflation has eaten much of our purchasing power. Still, she was able to pick up fresh avocados and a bag of oranges.

If we don’t want fresh food, we can buy our food frozen. Still tasty. The quality is good, actually. Much better than I remember as a child.

But that food is not “shelf stable” and it will not last if the power goes out.

Smoked and dried foods will last a long time, but they too have issues, one of the large ones is that they are unprotected from the elements. It is no fun to find that your dried goods have been eaten by some critter.

Canned goods are, generally, shelf stable. They do lose nutritional value over time, but that time is measured in decades.

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Blood Vultures

A mentally troubled kid decided to take his AR-15 to school and start shooting.

The good news is that there was an SRO on site. This SRO ran to the sound of gun fire. The cowardly asshole shooter gave up as soon as a good guy with a gun arrived.

The bad news is that 2 teachers and 2 children lost their lives.

Thank god it wasn’t another Uvalde.

The father of the shooter has been arrested and charged with manslaughter. This is likely a direct result of the parents of the Michigan shooter being found guilty of their child shooting up a school.

Before the blood was cold, before the smoke had cleared, the blood vultures were at it again.

For some reason, they are big in the collective punishment game. I’m considered guilty of killing children because I have guns. Worse, I have a black gun that looks like an AR-15.

They have no issues with the actual weapons of war I have in my collection. The M1, the Springfield Trapdoor, the K98 and others are all weapons of war. They were all carried in battle.

But for some reason, that AR-15 style firearm is so evil I have to give mine up because some nut job used a gun to kill people.

Still no word on the murder capital of the US, Chicago. Oh, right, that’s black on black crime. I guess that doesn’t matter to the blood vultures.

Years ago, my eldest son, in 2nd grade, came home to report that he had been in lockdown. This was the first I had heard of “lock-downs” in schools.

When I went to talk to the principal, he explained it was a drill because a bad person could come and shoot up the kids.

He made a mistake, he asked me “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to open the gun safe, take your gun out and run to the sound of gun fire and stop the shooter.”

He did not like that answer. Seems that he would rather children die than have the right tool to save lives.

Most schools are “weapon free”. A local high school was on lockdown for most of the day, this then extended to a local elementary school.

The cause of the lockdown? A high school student was spotted with a pocket knife. When they demanded to look into his stuff, he left. He walked home. That happened to have him walking into town. The elementary school was in the general direction.

This required therapy dogs and counselors to deal with the panic the staff instilled in the kids.

I’m sick of the blood vultures. Every one of them starts their argument with the same line of reasoning: We should break the law! It is for the good of the children!

Why do they always advocate breaking the law?

Oh, that’s right, they don’t like that law. So it must mean something else. You know, like only muskets, they say on their Wi-Fi enabled handheld magic box.

“You ignore the first part of the amendment, about well regulated! That means plenty of laws.” No, it means functioning well. It is still used in some technical fields to mean exactly that.

Or it only applies to “the militia”. The English doesn’t scan that way. The Supreme Court has said it is an individual right. The amendment says “the right of the people“. But they are dishonest.

Listen to Justice Thomas

In the best of worlds, the courts would work to enforce the laws as they were meant. We wouldn’t have judges and justices that are so goal-driven that their wants forces a predetermined outcome.

The state passes a bad law. The People file a suit challenging the law. They request a temporary injunction, a preliminary injunction, and summary judgement.

The court looks and agrees that the law is likely bad and grants the TRO. The parties file briefs, the court grants the preliminary injunction as well. The case does or does not succeed on a summary judgement and moves to arguments.

The case is heard by the court, the court issues their final judgement, or they issue the summary judgement in favor of The People

The state files an appeal. The administrative panel reads the court’s judgement, allows it to stay in place, schedules the case for a hearing before a merits panel. The merits panel looks at the case law and the lower court’s opinion and finds for The People.

The state pleads for an en banc hearing. The court denies the request.

The state file a motion for certiorari with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denies cert, case over. The People win.

Unfortunately, that is seldom how it works.
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Kershaw Select Fire – 6 Month Review

About 6 months ago, I picked up a Kershaw Select Fire based on a suggestion in one of the comments.

After I wrote about it, I was asked to do a review after I had been using it for 6 months or so.

First, it is lighter than my Cold Steel. When in hand, it deploys as fast. It is easier to close than the Cold Steel. I find myself fumbling and being unhappy when I have to close the Cold Steel.

The liner lock works for me. The only locking knife that has a better release was my exchange blade Gerber. That had the release on the side. Your fingers didn’t get near the blade when closing.

The liner lock requires your thumb to be inline with the closing blade, but only for a moment, and it is comfortable to move out of the way. With the Cold Steel, you needed to squeeze the lock on the back to release. This put your fingers in the wrong place while you didn’t have a great grip on the knife.

The Cold Steel is a win on the pocket clip. I can place the knife in any of four different positions, tip down, tip up, left or right clip. The Kershaw only allows for left/right, not tip up.

For me, this means the knife comes out of the pocket in the wrong orientation. I have to do a rotate in my hand before I can deploy the blade. It is a rapid and easy deploy.

The actual blade is nice. It has held an edge for the last 6 months. It needs a touch up. Kershaw offers free sharpening. I have not looked into that. I’m sure I can sharpen this blade, I haven’t needed to. Almost there, not quite.

I’ve used it on cardboard, carving wood, lots of plastic, sealing tape, scraping things clean, cutting food and general use. No issues.

So what about the gimmick? The folding 1/4″ socket and four bits held in spring-loaded holders on the side?

First, it is not a Gerber. This is NOT a multi-tool. The number of times I reached for it because I wanted my Gerber is unreasonably high. It just isn’t a Gerber.

That said, I wouldn’t have had the Gerber with me in those cases, I would have had the Cold Steel. This Kershaw is a replacement for my Cold Steel, NOT for the Gerber. If I leave the house, the Gerber is with me. Inside the house, the Gerber is not with me, but I have real tools instead.

The first thing I learned is that a 1/4″ socket is not the right size, most of the time. In the past 6 months, two screws have had 1/4″ heads. Those were located yesterday.

Every other screw has had a larger head size. It had gotten to the point where I was considering adding that socket to my junk to carry. Then decided against it.

When using the screwdriver bits, it works a champ. Very happy. The bits are good enough. They are well-made, The socket holds them firmly, they don’t wiggle. It feels much like using a fat handled replaceable bit screwdriver.

As such, I prefer it to my Gerber. It takes a little longer to deploy, but it fits better.

The downside, yesterday I needed to pry a clip up. The driver slid in, as it should, then I started to pry. The socket popped off.

It went back on, I was very surprised it came off. I haven’t tried to repair it yet. I’m not sure how to repair it.

This is a significant disappointment.

I am more than willing to accept that if I use a blade as a pry bar, I should expect the blade to break. I have had far too many blades destroyed or damaged because I used them to pry or twist and had a piece snap off.

Do I recommend this tool? Today, that would be “no”. If I can get the socket to stay, it will become a “yes”, with caveats.

I have also not looked into Kershaw’s repair policy.