Eastern Bloc Rifle Would Make Comrade Obama Proud

It looks like the new trigger has fixed up the PSL/Romak III/FPK/Whatever. The gun cycles and shoots, and the trigger feels great and has a very light pull.

When I got to the range, my shots were completely off the paper, but after I searched for a while, I found the black. I had to move to 50 yards to do it. Here is what happened when I finally zeroed the scope:

The upper shots were made before a scope adjustment. I realized I was not going to learn anything at that range, so back I went. Here are a whole bunch of shots at 100 yards.

That was pretty exciting. Unless I am mistaken, that is a very nice group with some flyers caused by shooter error. It looks like there is nothing wrong with this gun that a new owner won’t fix. It appears to be highly accurate.

I shot another 20 rounds, but by then I was pooped. Here they are:

I think fatigue explains the difference here. I don’t think it’s the gun.

Here’s what I don’t get. I see people saying they get 1″ rifle groups with iron sights. I can’t do that with a 4x scope, because the error in my aiming is that big. The scope doesn’t magnify the target well enough for me to find landmarks on the target and hold the POA accurately. Add the error of the rifle and the error induced by trigger pull problems, and 1″ accuracy is impossible. So how do people do it with iron sights? My guess: the usual explanation applies. They lie their butts off. Or they shoot all over the paper, circle the three closest shots, and call them a group. To me, if it’s not 15 or more shots, it’s not a group, and it means nothing. Anyone can put three consecutive bullets in a one-inch circle by blind luck. If you can’t do it with 15 rounds, shut up.

I figure the aiming error with this scope is about 1″, meaning that even if I pull the trigger perfectly and the rifle is 100% accurate, I should still expect a 2″ group. The trigger error is probably about the same size. So I’m pretty happy with these targets, because they’re not much worse than that. If I’m right, this rifle will reliably put bullets into a circle the size of a quarter. You just have to hire a robot to fire it.

I think I may have a bum magazine. The magazine disengages when you push a lever in front of the trigger guard. It is getting harder and harder to push. The upper end of the lever has to slide on the metal of the magazine, and I think it’s getting rough with age. I have to find hard objects to press against it; it’s nearly impossible using my thumbs.

I am tired of this scope. I don’t see how I can exploit the rifle’s accuracy with 4x optics. I guess I can find a 9x online.

Am I wrong about this? It seems like a bigger scope is always better. With these little ones, you can’t really tell where you’re aiming, and you can’t see the bullet holes, so you have to have a spotting scope (which I did not have today). I love the 14x scope on the .17 HMR. The 4x Russian scope is dandy at 50 yards, but at 100, you just can’t tell what’s going on.

I’m looking at the Kalinka site. Maybe this is a 6x scope.

I didn’t shoot any other guns today. I took the K31, but I left it in the car.

A fellow shooter taught me something. One of my shells hit him, and he complained. I had no idea you were allowed to complain about being hit with hot brass. I get hit all the time, especially on the pistol side. He said things were different on the rifle side of the range. Apparently they provide people with pieces of cardboard to set up on the podiums, to deflect brass. And of course, they don’t tell you this at the mandatory class.

I think this gun is accurate, and I think the Russian ammunition is a bargain, and I need to get more of it, before Comrade Obama starts taking names.

Help me Escape From Psalm 37

I have a new mission in life, and it’s not to create a dessert that will kill you before you leave the table. My mission is to memorize the 37th psalm before I die.

A few weeks back, I wrote about memorizing psalms. I have been working at it steadily. Generally, I can knock off maybe half a psalm a day. But number 37 has been driving me nuts for like two weeks.

I can’t explain it. It’s a long psalm, yes, but that’s not the whole story. The prose has a lumpy, counterintuitive quality that makes it resistant to memorization. In comparison, 1 and 23 are much more fluid. Naturally, faith junkie that I have become, I am trying to see a divine purpose in it.

Today I got up to-what was it?–a couple of verses past “The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.”

I may have a party when I finish.

A reader inadvertently gave me an idea for a Christian book today. I’m trying to work it out.

Little Guns for Hard Times

We have a gun-grabber headed for the White House, and he is going to appoint gun-grabbing judges at every level, so people are going nuts, buying guns. That will work fine, as long as old guns are “grandfathered” past the fascist laws and executive orders and rulings that are likely to hit us in the near future. Of course, it won’t be as helpful if Obama manages to fix it so existing guns can be confiscated. And that’s a possibility. Gun-grabbers like to use grandfather clauses to reduce opposition from people who already own targeted weapons, but if they ever get powerful enough to come after the guns you already have, they’ll do it, and they’ll melt them down. Rosie O’Donnell is probably salivating.

We Second Amendment supporters like to bluster about “cold dead hands,” but the reality is, nearly all of us will obey the law and hand over our weapons. Would you commit a bunch of felonies, knowing there were people in your community who could inform the cops and the BATF that you own guns? Guess what. In prison, you won’t even be allowed to carry a sharpened toothbrush. On the whole, it’s better to avoid arrest and stay free. Or relatively so.

Have you ever had a couple of beers and told a liberal acquaintance you have guns, just to irritate him? Do you have liberal relatives? Someone outside of your household probably knows enough about you to get you put on a list. You may be on one already. The odds are good that someone out there will have the knowledge and the inclination to send the storm troopers to your door.

I guess it’s a good idea to stock up before Obama starts rewriting the Constitution, even if your purchases won’t guarantee anything. Still, it seems pointless to rush out and buy guns in November. You’re driving prices up, and you may end up settling for weapons you don’t want, because dealers’ shelves are bare. It will take a little time for the new regime to put new policies in place. You have a couple of months left for shopping.

I keep thinking it would be nice to have something handy for short-range encounters, beyond a pistol yet not as hard to use as a big rifle. If you have to defend yourself on your property, you won’t have much need for deer-rifle-size loads that can kill people at a thousand yards, and you won’t want a really long gun that gets caught on things when you try to move around indoors.

One of the guns that caught my eye a year or two ago was the Thompson .45-caliber rifle. You can buy these with removable buttstocks, and you can add hundred-round drums. That’s not bad. It’s a short weapon with no recoil to speak of, and it will shoot a hundred marvelous .45 ACP rounds as quick as you can pull the trigger. Aiming becomes nearly optional. It’s heavy, and I’m not sure how reliable the drums are, and it will cost over a grand, but it seems like a surprisingly nice defensive weapon.

Here’s something else that seems like a sleeper. The M1 carbine with a folding stock.

I know everyone makes fun of this round, but think it over. It’s faster than a .357 or .44 Magnum. The bullet weighs about as much as a 9mm round (let’s say “.357,” since it’s the exact same round but sounds better). The Box o’ Truth confirms that it penetrates nicely, regardless of the funny stories about Chicoms in fluffy jackets. And you can shoot it from a pleasant carbine that takes a 30-round magazine. And unlike the Thompson, it will reliably hit things at distances greater than a hundred feet. The sights on a Tommy gun are just plain weird; I shot one, and I had to guess what the POA was. The M1 comes with a nice peep sight.

I checked out Kim du Toit’s site yesterday, and he has a lot of SHTF stuff up. In case that acronym means nothing to you, “TF” stands for “The Fan.” He stores water and dry food, and he even found himself an entrenching tool, which people like me call “a soldier’s shovel.” As I understand it, the entrenching tool is the Holy Grail of survival supplies. It has magical powers non-veterans such as myself cannot comprehend. It’s even better than a towel; don’t listen to Ford Prefect. Guns play a big part in SHTF lore, and I’ve noticed that the M1 is mentioned at times. Maybe it would be a fine thing to have. It seems to combine the handiness of a .22 with the short-range deadliness of a centerfire. Rabbits, squirrels, your starving liberal neighbors who suddenly regret making fun of your SHTF plans…it will take down a wide variety of prey.

Auto-Ordnance makes a nice folding M1 carbine, and it costs less than a good 1911.

Maybe some day.

Oops…maybe some day before the inauguration.

Kim has a nice, brief Veteran’s Day post up. Take a look, and think about the men who bought the rights our President-Elect wants to take away.

Christianity Will be Blamed

I got some information about the Nigerian “child witch” crisis.

I contacted World Vision about it, and they informed me that they don’t work in Nigeria. So there goes that option. But I found a few other things.

First of all, there is an organization called Stepping Stones Nigeria, which specializes in helping Nigerian children. It appears to be a purely secular organization, but they are getting things done.

Second, a Nigerian man named Sam Ikpe-Itauma has started his own charity. It’s called CRARN (Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network). He began by taking a few kids into his house, and now he has a school and various projects going. He doesn’t have a donation link up on his site, but there are instructions that will allow you to transfer money. Personally, I’m a little leery of letting my bank information get to Nigeria, regardless of the purpose.

Third, Catholic Relief Services and ADRA work in Nigeria (ADRA is the charitable arm of the Seventh-Day Adventists). It’s not clear whether they are doing anything for these kids, however.

This isn’t just a Nigerian problem. It’s a Christian problem. The people behind this mess are Christian pastors. The most prominent is a woman named Helen Ukpabio. She has a big church, and she sells videos, including videos on witchcraft. She encourages people to bring their children to the church to be delivered. I don’t know whether it’s true that pastors are encouraging torture, murder, and abandonment, but they don’t seem to be doing much to stop these things, and their teachings on witchcraft appear to fan the flames. If Nigerian pastors are taking these kids in and helping them, they aren’t saying much about it on the Internet.

If Christians don’t step up to the plate and put a quick stop to this cruelty, someone else will. Once that happens, it will be very hard to defend ourselves from charges that we caused this problem and did nothing to stop it. We will be accused of approving of it. If our enemies succeed in tarring us as nuts who support the torture and starvation of children, we will find ourselves in a situation in which every Christian who comes forward with an honest testimony about witchcraft or demons will be treated like Josef Mengele.

One famous American Christian has already been sideswiped by this disaster. As you will recall, Sarah Palin was criticized because her church hosted a Nigerian pastor known for his opposition to witchcraft. A lot of conservatives and Christians hope Sarah Palin will do great things in the future, but now she has a Nigerian PR time-bomb waiting to go off. Most people didn’t draw a connection between the pastor and the persecution of Nigerian children, but sooner or later, the dots will be connected. Then she’ll be Sarah Palin the Child Inquisitor.

Can I Heat the Oil to Boiling First?

Every day contains the promise of an exciting discovery, especially when you are both ignorant and curious.

Here is my latest discovery: petroleum oil.

The county where I live is literally overwhelmed with plant plagues. We have scale insects, several types of thrips, several types of whiteflies, an incurable tomato virus, fusarium, phytophthora, a ficus blight, citrus canker, citrus greening, sooty mold, red algae, aphids, carpenter ants, termites, spider mites, rust mites, citrus mites, hornworms, grubs, and a bunch of other things I am too lazy to mention. And you can forget finding a poison that kills all the bugs or a spray that fixes the diseases. One bug hates this poison. Another bug hates that poison. Some poisons actually make the bugs worse by killing their enemies.

There are lots of organic remedies. Unfortunately, they are expensive and useless. They do absolutely nothing. Most of the time.

It turns out there is a safe remedy that may actually solve a lot of my problems. It’s called petroleum oil. Scott’s sells this stuff; it says “Volck oil” on the label. It’s some sort of highly refined petroleum derivative you spray on plants. It suffocates the bugs. It kills whiteflies, so that means it may be helpful in the fight against the diseases they bring. It kills mites. It kills aphids. I have to try this stuff. So that is my mission for the day. Oil the bugs.

Whoops. Dang. You’re not supposed to apply it on windy days, and today the wind is crazy. So I guess my mission is to buy Volck oil and wait for the wind to die.

In God’s Name, no Less

Before I went to bed last night, I read something that horrified me. Drudge linked to a story about Nigeria’s “child witches.” These are kids who have been abandoned because they have been accused of witchcraft.

In Nigeria, Christianity has been combined with sick local idolatry, and the result is a religion in which people calling themselves pastors bring themselves prestige by exposing people they claim are witches. Many of the accused are small children. When they are accused, they are subjected to torture in hopes of correcting them. Many are abandoned. Some are killed. It is beyond belief.

I know the world is full of suffering. I am not ignorant. But when I read this story and saw these lonely kids sitting in a group, one of them holding a sign reading, “We are not witches or wizard [sic],” I suddenly regretted being single, because it meant there was no way I could apply to adopt any of them. I realize how crazy that sounds. Truthfully, I don’t like being around kids. A lot of single men pretend they adore kids, in order to impress women; I am too lazy to put up a front. I don’t know what to do with kids, and they get on my nerves. It’s pretty unusual for me to perceive a kid as cute, or to want to interact with it. I do not understand the urge people feel to hold other people’s babies. But I know how it feels to be a child who suddenly fears he can’t rely on his parents to take care of him, and to worry about being alone in the world, and I can’t even imagine how much worse it is when those fears pan out. And to have your parents participate zealously in your ostracism and persecution? I can’t think of a way to express my amazement and distress. I think that photo will be in my head for the rest of my life.

I sent an email to World Vision, to see if they would put a link on their site so people could send money to help these kids. I don’t know if they’ll answer.

Another item of interest: I keep thinking about Against All Odds, and the many stories of Jews defeating powerful enemies in the face of overwhelming military superiority. When you read stories like that, it’s easy to be encouraged. You think, “Look what God does for people he favors. This can happen to me.” But last night, I thought about the other side of the sword. What if you’re the Arabs, and you don’t even know it?

Think about those military battles. The Jews had fewer weapons. They had fewer troops. They had every reason to lose. I grant you, modern Muslims are generally sorry soldiers. Nonetheless, they should have beaten Israel by now. They did a lot of things right. They came in superior strength. They used surprise. And so on and so on. And they failed, utterly.

A lot of people, including Christians, are like the Arabs. They live under curses, for one reason or another. They do things right, yet they fail. Over and over. If God can help a few Israelis rout a huge number of angry Syrians, he can prevent you from getting a job. He can keep you from marrying or having kids. He can make your enemies win. The Psalms are full of this stuff. If you want peace and abundance–the lasting kind, not the fleeting or illusory kind some people get in spite of their bad behavior–you have to clean up your life.

I’m going to keep that in mind. I already knew wrong living would bring me problems, but somehow, looking at it like this makes the principle more real to me. Maybe it will be of use to you, too.

At Last

Here is a peculiar aspect of my new relationship with my sister. She keeps providing me with educational materials and information she has found, relating to Christianity.

The latest item: Bill McKay’s series of documentaries, Against All Odds.

I don’t know much about it. I’ll say that up front. But it’s fascinating. McKay is a Christian, and he interviewed Israelis who served in the IDF. The common thread? They experienced miraculous victories and rescues. And by “miraculous,” I mean “miraculous.” Example: they’re trapped by landmines. The mines are buried about a foot down. A wind rises, and it blows the sand off the mines, and the soldiers walk out. Apparently, some of these guys heard voices–presumably angels–telling them what to do. And supposedly, a number of atheist Jews turned to God as a result of these experiences.

McKay says the scholars at West Point study every military battle they hear about, to learn about waging war. He claims they have thrown up their hands over Israeli battles, because the odds the Israelis overcame were so great, the battles didn’t make sense. That happened in the Bible, and it is still happening today, as 1.2 billion Muslims often tell us.

The trailer is really neat, and you can see it at this site: Against All Odds. Take a look and see what you think.

Another interesting thing: she wants to go to Wayne Cochran’s church on Wednesday. If you don’t know who he is, I’ll tell you. He’s a former rock star, and he started a church here many years ago. My sister had forgotten about it. She and my mother checked it out, back in the 80s. They were impressed by his kindness and concern, but they didn’t join the church. A few years later, I went with my mother, and the church had grown so big, you could barely see the man from the back rows. Anyway, she wants to go, so we may make a run up there.

Tonight a commenter said something about me believing in a “comic book God,” because I believed God and the angels could influence voters and machinery and so on, to alter the outcomes of elections. I deleted the comment because it seemed like it was unnecessarily rude, and an ad hominem, and an attack on my beliefs, and I just didn’t want to fool with it. Maybe that was wrong; I’m trying to change the tone of this blog, and I don’t see how I can do that if I publish obnoxious comments. Maybe I took the wrong approach. But it’s hard to have patience with people who suggest, condescendingly, that God is some sort of detached, aloof being who is too important to involve himself in our business. That’s not how God was in the Bible, and if the Bible is wrong, then the people who wrote it were idiots, and we shouldn’t believe in God to begin with. God is a person, and he is crazy about each of us, and the angels are real, and so are demons, and they intervene directly in people’s lives. I once got a good long look at a demon; I saw it very clearly, in the middle of an ordinary day. I know supernatural beings are real. I don’t want to hear about the silliness of my beliefs. You might as well tell me my feet aren’t real, and I can see one of them right now. The fact that something hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

How am I supposed to deny that God exists as we know him from the Bible, when he has done so many remarkable things to prove himself to me?

It’s past my bedtime. I’m out.

Adventures in Food

On a whim, I bought myself a cherimoya. I think it may be ripe. It’s sort of soft. I am about to try to eat it.

Here is some troubling text I found on Wikipedia: “Similar in size to a grapefruit, it has large, glossy, dark seeds that are easily removed. The seeds are poisonous if crushed open and can be used as an insecticide.[4] One should also avoid eating the skin as it may cause paralysis from 4 to 5 hours.”

If I don’t blog for five hours, you’ll know what happened.

I have checked my banana tree, and I now have nine hands of bananas, with about 12 bananas each. I thought I would never be able to grow anything except peppers and limes. God’s way of telling me to be less caustic and sour? Dunno.

Wait, I also managed to grow another fruit. On the other hand, it’s grapefruit.

Dang.

Moxvox

Here is good news. Tonight Moxie will be resuming Nowlive shows!

Read all about it.

Let’s not Oversell It

The other day I said some religious people were fasting and praying, in hopes of securing a McCain victory. And a reader criticized the effort, believing that the existence of free will made it pointless to pray for an election outcome. Votes are cast by people with free will, so it makes no sense to ask God for victory. That is the theory.

There are a lot of things wrong with that theory. First of all, the Apostle Paul pointed out that secular authorities are placed over us by God. And the Bible is full of leaders who were chosen by God. David, Saul, and Moses are obvious examples. Gideon, Noah, Jeroboam…you could list such leaders all day. Second, if you’re God, you don’t have to control voters and take away their free will in order to change an election. You can discourage people from voting at all. You can send rain to keep people from the polls. You can make cars break down. You can make voting machines malfunction. You can cause damaging news about candidates to be released. Third, free will is way overrated. Our sovereignty over ourselves is very limited. If you think free will is inviolable, ask a recovered crackhead what he thinks. Ask him why free will didn’t prevent him from becoming addicted, and from using crack even after he tried to change. The truth is, people yield to persuasion and temptation, regardless of free will. And sometimes external influences (including God’s) are so powerful, it is almost as though free will did not exist. Think of Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened by God himself.

So, yes, it makes sense to pray that God will change the outcomes of elections. And it makes sense to pray that God will change people’s ways, and that he will help you to be good.

I am thinking about this because I read Psalm 119 this morning. It’s a whopper. In my King James it runs several pages. I had heard that Psalm 119 somehow summarized all the psalms, and I wanted to see for myself. I didn’t see it, but I did notice this: the psalmist kept asking God to help him refrain from sinning. He didn’t say, “I have free will, so let me fix it myself.”

Here are some excerpts.

10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

12 Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.

28 My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.

29 Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.

35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

36 Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

93 I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

94 I am thine, save me: for I have sought thy precepts.

95 The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.

132 Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.

133 Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.

For that matter, Jesus told us to pray that we would not be tempted. Why did he do that? He could have said, “You have free will, so don’t ever sin, regardless of temptation.” Obviously he did it because he knew that even good people are subject to influence.

The above verses also underscore the importance of memorizing scripture. The psalm talks a great deal about learning God’s law and word and testimonies.

I remember studying physics. Instructors always said it was bad to memorize laws and equations. They were completely wrong. When these things are imbedded in your mind, they are available for use at all times. You understand them more deeply. It’s easier to apply them, because your conscious mind is like a box with a limited capacity, and you can only hold so many things in it at once. If you’re thinking about quantities and measurements while you’re also trying to keep a complicated equation in mind, you will not think as well as a person who has the equation memorized. Doing physics with equations you haven’t memorized is like trying to speak French out of a dictionary and grammar book, without putting the words and rules in your heart.

The Bible is the same way. It’s good to run to it and open it when you need information. But it’s better to have the information inside you, so it comes to mind instantly. Many Christians call this “the sword of the Spirit.” Satan comes to you with a problem, and you remember an applicable verse, and you pull it out and throw it at him, and you win. This is what happened when Jesus was tempted in the desert. Satan told him to turn rocks into bread, and Jesus remembered his scripture: “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Satan finally started using scripture, himself. He told Jesus to jump off the temple, saying, “For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11). Jesus responded, “It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 6:16).

If you read the Bible a lot, you’ll find that it has the answers to many modern questions. For example, convenience abortion is very clearly wrong. John the Baptist moved in his mother’s womb when Mary approached (Luke 1:44). And the Bible speaks of God consecrating a prophet who is yet in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5).

I know abortion supporters will claim I am citing “talking points,” but I came up with these citations all by myself, on the spur of the moment. I simply thought about the issue, and they came to mind.

One of the unfortunate things about Christianity is that we cheapen it by making it an easy religion, involving no study. It will probably never be as cerebral as Judaism, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn as much as we can, and try to understand.

I used to know a little bit about the Bible, but when I stopped going to church and fell away, I forgot a great deal. I see now how I cheated myself.

Anyway, don’t let anyone tell you free will is the whole story. God is a motivator and persuader.

We Should All Send her Cards

Nancy Reagan is 87 years old. She lost her husband four years ago, after a long and horrible illness. Last month she fell and broke her pelvis, and she is currently recuperating.

At his first post-election press conference, Barack Obama joked about having consulted every “living” President. And then he joked about how he would not be holding any seances because he didn’t want to get into a “Nancy Reagan thing.”

Is this change? I guess it is. I can’t think of another President who would say a thing like this. Even Jimmy Carter has more class. Suddenly Bill Clinton looks like a statesman.

Americans wanted the favored candidate of the Daily Kos, Amanda Marcotte, and Jeremiah Wright. I guess we got what we asked for.

We Cannot Risk Damaging the Self-Esteem of Thousands

I am reading up on the GM/Ford mess. It seems to me that the US economy is running into landmines and booby-traps we put in our own path in years past, and now there is very little we can do to prevent them from blowing us up. And what’s going on at GM and Ford seems typical.

There are a number of economic time bombs that are now going off and blowing us in the direction of socialism. The most obvious one is the mortgage crisis, which was caused by a government policy of coercing lenders to give money to unqualified minority members and people who were just plain poor or irresponsible. The carmaker problem is another example. Social Security is still plugging along on imaginary money, but it will eventually fail unless we go completely socialist and enslave the young to pay the old.

If GM and Ford go bust, they will have a hard time paying their pensioners. They are supporting 600,000 people who no longer work. If it happens, the federal guarantee program will kick in, and that’s where the pensioners will get their checks. I have seen analysts say that we should bail out GM and Ford because if we don’t, we’ll end up paying off the pensions anyway. But is that true? I’ve been reading about the guarantee program, and apparently, it seizes the assets of failed companies to pay off pensions, and it has other funding sources, and it isn’t funded from general tax revenues. If that’s correct, then you would think letting these companies fail would be the smart move. We would lose 450,000 jobs in the short term, but that’s not catastrophic. And we would gut the parasitic UAW, which apparently drove us to this crossroads. If you include benefits, unskilled autoworkers pull down about $75 per hour, according to web sources. That’s insane. That’s as much as SEVERAL prosecutors, who go to college for seven years and then have to pay off student loans. Many doctors earn less than that.

And who is to say that if GM and Ford die, someone else won’t swoop in and buy the plants and start making cars people actually want and can afford? We don’t know that. Without the UAW, you could pay people what their skills are worth, which is what GM and Ford should have been doing all along.

My dad is a labor lawyer. When he was a student, he used to work in Detroit during the summers, to get money for school. This was in the Fifties. He was shocked by how lazy and overpaid the workers were. When a new hire worked at a normal pace, that person would be taken aside and ordered to slow it down. My aunt worked up there, too, and she said she eventually ended up taking her knitting and sewing stuff to the plant, because she finished her quota in half a day.

In those days, the Big Three had no competition, and America was prosperous, so the carmakers paid the UAW pretty much whatever they asked. Then the Japanese came along, and the UAW still had the Big Three by the throat, and you know the rest of the story. It has been about 38 years since Datsun and Toyota invaded, and we still pay unskilled workers five times what they deserve. On top of that, the management is corrupt and inept, and the people who design the cars simply can’t compete with foreign talent. Many American models are very nice, but overall, we are in fourth or fifth place.

The best thing is probably to let these companies fail. If we need cars, someone else will come along and build them correctly. Haven’t Toyota and Honda already done that in their US plants? Overpaid workers and incompetent executives will have to take one for the team, but that’s what they deserve. On the whole, they will come out way ahead, because we have been subsidizing their ineptitude and laziness for decades.

If what I say makes you angry, relax. You’re going to win. These companies will be bailed out, and others will follow. Pelosi and Reid and Obama will take care of it. And you’ll pay the bill.

I am extremely optimistic about my own life, but my gut tells me the country is going socialist, and it will happen very quickly. The landmines we buried are going off, one after the other. The stimulus didn’t work. The interest rate cuts didn’t work. The bailouts we have seen so far have not worked. We still haven’t seen the full extent of the mortgage mess. We are setting precedents by bailing out the irresponsible and the dishonest, and we will have to honor those precedents in the future, with more bailouts. It might even be possible to force the government to pay up, using an Equal Protection argument. That kind of thing flies in Florida state courts, to some extent. Economies are tanking all over the place, and that means a bad market for our goods and services. Obama is going to be a very powerful President, and he is going to do everything he can to expand entitlements. Taxes are going to go up, and if you think it’s going to stop at 39%, well, you’re probably the kind of shrewd customer who believed Obama when he said he was going to rely on public campaign funding. Obama knowingly says things that are not true. Why would that change once he’s in office?

This is how the supernatural works. You do something bad, and you think everything is fine, and then after a while, things start going wrong very quickly, and you can’t do anything about it. You do the smartest things you can, but it doesn’t help, because there is more to success than human effort and human ability. You have to be blessed, and you can’t be blessed when you do as you please.

I think America is washed up. I really do. God just looked at our report card and cut off our allowance. Tens of millions of abortions. Gay marriages, officiated by gay clergy. Arrogance and cruelty and greed celebrated as virtues. Increasing anti-Semitism, even among so-called Christian churches. A warped Republican-conceived plan to achieve Mideast peace by carving up Israel and passing it out to barbarians. With our eyes wide open, we elected a new President who sat for twenty years in an anti-Semitic church, approving of everything his pastor said. And the God-fearing among us haven’t done a very good job of winning souls; we don’t seem to work very hard at making people understand the peace and blessings of Christian life. We’re better at turning people off by telling everyone we’re more righteous than they are. I’ve certainly done my share of that, whether or not that was my intention, and whether or not I realized I was doing it. I helped bring us here.

We flunked, by any sane measure. And we flunked consistently, over a period of decades. What possible reason could God have to help us now? “Give us more money, so we can take more drugs and have more extramarital sex and flaunt our wealth and have more abortions!” Who would listen to that? “Give us more money, so we can buy tickets to Urinetown and The Vagina Monologues, while we stiff charities and the church!” Crazy.

I suppose we can make a difference if we change our ways, but I don’t see that happening. I think we’ll be lucky if we only end up as messed up as Europe. I think our enemies are going to push us around with ease, our standard of living will plummet, and when the nations of the world have a problem, they won’t come to us any more, for the same reason they don’t try to get help from India or Mexico. We’ll be just another second-rate nation, trying to be heard at the UN.

I think our only hope lies in the individual. Change your ways, let God fix your life and your family, and hope the effect will spread to your community and the rest of America. Or go rent East of Eden and have a look at our future.

No Wonder Gilligan was so Spry

I came across an interesting news item the other day. A physician who is married to an Alzheimer’s sufferer started adding coconut oil to his oatmeal, and he improved dramatically over a very short time. Here is a link to the article. This guy was a mess, and he sharpened up a great deal over the course of a month. Researchers think coconut oil might benefit people with other types of neurological problems, such as Parkinson’s.

My aunt has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s (prayers solicited), so I sent her a link to the story.

Coconut oil is a very weird substance. Unlike most plant fats, it’s solid at room temperature (below about 75 degrees). And it’s supposed to have a lot of beneficial effects. A reader suggested it to me a year or two back. I ended up using it to deep-fry doughnuts. If you don’t mind the taste of coconut, this is the ultimate fat for frying desserts.

The doctor who treated her husband with it says she mixed two tablespoons into his oatmeal every day. She eats it, too.

On a given day, I am lucky if I can remember my address, so I tried coconut oil in my oatmeal this morning. Mike brings dark maple syrup when he visits from New Hampshire, and I use it in my oatmeal. When you add coconut oil, it’s like eating a big, hot cookie dissolved in water.

I have been looking for a way to get more calories into my breakfast without adding carbs, and this may be a good way to do it.

In other news, I figured out what was wrong with the Red Star Arms fire control group I had in my PSL (Romak III, Dragunov, FPK). Thought I’d mention it in case other frustrated souls have the same problem later and try to solve it by Googling. If you don’t own guns, this will bore you to tears.

The trigger assembly has a couple of hooky-looking things that project upward in the receiver. One is the trigger sear. This is a hook-shaped thing that holds the hammer in the cocked position and releases it when you fire. The other is the disconnector. I am not totally sure what it does, but I believe it disengages the trigger after firing, so the sear, which drops to release the hammer, can rise again to be in a position to grab it and cock the weapon. I think it also holds the hammer while the sear pops back up. Then I think it releases the hammer so it can swing into the sear and catch. I read the PDF over at Red Star Arms, but it’s very badly written, and the drawings are bad.

Anyway, here is what kept my rifle from cocking itself. When the bolt comes back after a round is fired, it knocks the hammer into the disconnector. Then the hammer catches under the disconnector. It then pops out and catches under the sear. If the disconnector is too far back, the hammer will miss it, and it won’t catch under it. There is a set screw on the front of the disconnector, and it adjusts the disconnector’s position. If you turn the screw counter-clockwise (the “loosening” direction), it will pull back up into the disconnector, and the disconnector will rotate forward, toward the hammer. My screw was too far in, so the disconnector was too far back, so the hammer kept missing it.

You are supposed to adjust this thing until it works, and then you have to apply Loc-tite. The shock of shooting the gun will make the screw rotate unless you glue it in place. Red Star Arms says to use blue Loctite, but some guy on a forum claims there is a special Loctite for set screws, and it’s green.

If your gun works with the screw adjusted flush with the bottom of the disconnector, you can just remove the screw and put it where you won’t lose it.

You can test the disconnector by removing the receiver cover and the gas piston and working the action by hand.

The stock fire control group in this thing is a complete piece of crap. The trigger slap will make your finger numb, it will ruin your accuracy, and it will make it harder to shoot other guns well later in the day. So a new assembly is probably a good idea. The one I have is expensive and adjustable, but there are cheaper ones.

This is kind of a silly gun, but once the trigger starts working, it will seem less silly. The Russian sniper ammunition is supposed to be accurate and highly lethal, and the gun is AK-based, so it should be very tough and reliable. The gun costs a lot for what you get (about $750 with a used Russian 4x scope), but it’s a pretty accurate semi-auto that takes detachable 10-round magazines and kills people reliably at a hundred yards. With ballistics similar to a .30-06, it’s no poodle-shooter. If you get shot with this thing, you stay shot. I’m no gun guru, but it sounds like a good substitute for an M1 Garand.

I am Ready for the Killing Fields

I hope I lived up to Comrade Obama’s expectations today, as I celebrated his victory by practicing my shooting. I want to be ready when we line up capitalists and shoot them so they fall into mass graves.

I started out with the PSL, but I had to quit. For one thing, the zero was like 15″ high, and for another, the rifle did not work. I put a new Red Star Arms (in honor of Uncle Ho Barack) trigger group in it, and I had problems with the spring falling off. Today I adjusted the spring. Now it doesn’t fall off, but for some reason, after the gun goes through a cycle, it’s not cocked.

I got out the K31, and the zero was off. Here is me, trying to find the bullseye at 100 yards. I was not able to move the POA far enough to the right to make the bullets go where I aimed.

After that, I managed to do some shooting. I believe this is 20 rounds. I felt pretty good about it. It seemed like the flyers were due to obvious mistakes, and other than that, things were fairly tight. But I found I was having a problem with the trigger guard biting my middle finger when the gun went off.

Here are my last 20 shots, which I shot after changing my grip to protect my finger. I was perfectly content with these. There are flyers above and to the right, caused by mistakes I was able to perceive as I made them. Other than that, I sent the bullets through a pretty small hole. It’s frustrating when you think you’re doing everything right and you somehow end up way off; it doesn’t teach you anything. When you’re off and you know what you did wrong, it’s a good thing, because you know what to fix.

I got out the SW1911 and fired off 50 shots. Here are the first 25, from 7 yards. It’s amazing how rifle shooting improves your trigger pull. It seems to reduce my tendency to shoot to the left.

Here are the last 25 shots. I was tired, and you can see what that did to my shooting.

Some alien life form was at the range, shooting into a 3″ circle at 25 yards. I have no idea what planet he came from.

I’m going to contact the people at Red Star Arms and find out what’s wrong with my trigger. I’ll bet they can tell me.

Range Time

Here is my prescription for the Obama Blues. A trip to the gun range! I’ll go celebrate the second amendment, while it lasts. If Obama had appointed the last two Supreme Court justices, the Heller decision would have been much different, and we would have no federal protection against Nazi-style gun bans and confiscation. If he gets his way, that will be the situation when he leaves office.

I’m taking the K31, the SW1911, the .17 HMR, and the Kommunist Kannon with me. By “Kommunist Cannon,” am, of course, referring to my Romanian-made PSL, which is an Eastern-bloc rifle similar to the Dragunov. If Obama’s comrades had gotten their way a generation ago, we would have seen rifles like this in the hands of “liberating” Soviet forces. So I can’t think of a better weapon to take, in honor of the President-Elect.

I had problems with the PSL after I installed a new trigger group. Today I adjusted it using brute force. We will see if it works.