Weapons Man

It’s time again for a report from OTR, Our Travelling Reporter — who keeps riding us about the incomplete Castillo de San Marcos series, and other firsthand fortification stuff he’s sent us. We’ll get to it we hope, Real Soon Now. Meanwhile, the “T” in OTR has taken him to Pribram, Czech Republic. -Ed.

The rarest Deringers? Certainly those would be the ones properly named Deringer with one R, made by Henry Deringer of Philadelphia, a pioneer of the pocket flintlock and, later, pocket percussion pistol. His fine pistols also bear the stain of one of them having been John Wilkes Booth’s assassination weapon. But the rarest of all Deringers is not any of his much-sought-after pocket Deringers, but this rare rifle.

The suck-ups have an answer, and a champion: Vice Admiral Douglas Crowder, who argues that only serving generals (and admirals; we’ll lump them all in as generals, rather than use to goofy acronym GOFOs for General Officers & Flag Officers) ought to have the write to comment on political and policy matters, and that retired officers ought to be stripped of their First Amendment rights, not by law, but by peer pressure and appeal to tradition.

Golden, the victim in this case.

This one strikes close to home. This young man was from a few miles from stately Hog Manor, and at 21 he was a tabbed, combat experienced Ranger leader… a man at the top of one craft with several pathways to greatness ahead of him. But all that potential greatness never came to pass, because young Andrew Aimesbury got whacked in a training accident.

It seems illogical, but for a combat weapon, (c) might be more desirable than (a). And even (d) might work.

Well, today we relocate back to Hog Manor. It will be good to recline in one’s own recliner, and see Small Dog’s holy-crap-I-remember-you-now doggy dance, and resume riveting and wrenching on the RV-12 project.

This afternoon, we’ll be skylining our way back home on an aptly named Airbus. Allegiant Air is flying into the former Pease AFB in Portsmouth, NH, which is much closer to Hog Manor than the previously available options (Boston or Manchester). Going into Boston even to fly is a complete misery drill.

Somewhere in there some actual work is going to get done, and there’s the ugly but necessary new fitness program (which is an old fitness program that was left to go slack in 2014 and 2015) to shake down.

It’s been a great week despite mostly rainy weather. We had your humble blogger, the Blogfather, and the Blogbrother all under the same roof for four days and three nights and no one has been strangled, run over with a golf cart, or fed to the gators. That’s a successful week off in our book.

Before men fought with jets and missiles, before they fought with flintlocks and pikes, even before they fought with sticks and stones, they fought with their hands. (And teeth, but let’s leave Mike Tyson out of this boxing story).

Road right of way equation: 1/2 mass x velocity^2. Or, the cement truck always wins (file photo).

Every Washington department runs for the benefit of the workers, not the ostensible beneficiaries, but the VA really stands out at every level.

First, let’s apologize to all you Diggers who can’t own one of these. We can’t help you at this time — like us, you get the government you vote in, not the one you deserve. Sorry, mates.

It all began with a bike ride. Your Humble Blogger was simply going to ride around the neighborhoods of the gated community, a place where the only crime is property crime committed by the Huddled Masses Yearning to Get Free $#!+ that staff the landscaping and cable installation trucks. Hadn’t done daily PT1. It was time.

We’ve been piling up some shaggy critter stories for a while. Not our usual beat, perhaps, but we need to vent about ’em.

Sure, creepy, evil daughter Heather Mack and her creepy, evil boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, didn’t kill her mom with this suitcase. They stuffed her mom in the suitcase, after they killed her by bludgeoning.

Bugout Bowe, the most famous turncoat since John Walker Lindh, is the center of a media blitz designed to prepare the battlespace for some sort of deal to broom the charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy which the treacherous weasel faces.

One of the most interesting and influential weapons of the 20th Century was the original “assault rifle,” a name coined by no less a personage than Adolf Hitler (which might explain the term’s popularity with some of today’s wannabe totalitarians). The gun was also known as a Machine Carbine (MKb) and Machine Pistol (MP) at various times, but the definitive, or at least, final, version was the StG, Sturmgewehr, 44. The Assault Rifle of 44 was one of many late-war German weapons that proved conclusively that even technically revolutionary equipment can’t turn the tide of a losing war. (Fortunately, in this case).

What’s on the menu at the Islamic Center? Looks like cabeza de puerco.

Choose your crazy-mom mugshot. Raging redhead…

It turns out, even a desultory, half-hearted and micromanaged “attack” plan that runs a half-dozen one-ship sorties a day, can wear out gear and run down stockpiles. Who knew? None of the empty suits in the E-Ring, that’s for sure.

Care to step inside and see what’s there?