Sunday (Updated)

I got her back from the smith later Thursday. I had the barrel flutes peened in hopes that she would return to reliability without the purchase of a new op rod or gas cylinder. Saturday at Lee Kay I divined that Something Was Wrong. The bolt wouldn't open far enough to lock into the receiver. Wouldn't open far enough to accept a clip, for that matter.

I took her apart on a table at Lee Kay to find that the clip release tab wasn't connected correctly over the follower assembly. It's been literally years since I've taken her down to pins and springs, so I just put her back together with the tab in the "right" spot and headed back in to see if she would shoot. The bolt went all the way to the rear but the clip would not seat. I declared surrender and waited to get back home and the reference books to figure out what was going on.

Last night I found that the follower assembly was installed backwards. The fact that it had fallen out instantly when I detensioned the operating rod spring earlier at the range should have been a give away. So I put it in correctly and loaded a dummy clip with zero problems.

This morning I fired three clips with one FTF. In the course of this action I noticed that the front sight on my rifle is no longer stamped "NM" for National Match.

***UPDATE: Upon further review of my records, I found that the only part that bore an actual "NM" stamp when I purchased this rifle in 1987 was the operating rod handle. Old age is creeping up on me.***


I will discuss these ***assembly*** issues with the smith on Monday. (That didn't happen - got home after dark again.)

Well, I Wasn't That Into The Show Anyway

CBS is trying to piggyback on the success of NCIS with a star power spin-off set in LA. LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell work at it, but two episodes I watched before tonight required more suspension of disbelief than even a Kucinich voter might marshall.

Then tonight, the shark jumping moment came when the crack NCIS psychological profiler opines on why a former Marine, recently in the employ of a private security outfit and working Iraq, beat a victim to death and left him hanging in the back of a gun shop instead of just stealing the missing pistols.

The babe with large breasts and legs up to her shoulders ponders (paraphrasing; I wasn't listening real close): "The report says he was beaten to death; why go to the trouble? Why not just steal the guns?" And the Dr. Freud character drops this line on the room (which contains LL Cool J's character, a multi tour SEAL)

"He was an interrogator in Iraq. He might have gotten a taste for it."


And everybody in the scene nods sagely, because EVERYBODY knows that Marines just love hanging sand n**** ass from a hook and beating it all bloody, over there in the sandbox. Or where ever that Evil Boosh war is still sputtering along.

Nobody in the room of full of crime solving geniuses wonders why the dead guy was dead... or why the suspect, whose only link to the victim was that of being a childhood friend, was automatically the killer. We're halfway into the episode at this point and nobody has thought to ask why the guy was shot AT at the airport... when he wasn't a deadly threat. Or why he carjacked a car by gently pushing a woman out of the way instead of incapacitating or abducting her.

The night wasn't a total waste. From now on I get another hour on Thursday night to do something productive.

Clarity

The Obama presidency isn't merely a bumpy stretch of road in the American journey.

It is intended to be an end to the Republic and a beginning of utopia.

"Whatever Barack and the people he has surrounded himself with may profess with their mouths at any particular time, their actions show they still loathe America and our standing as most powerful nation on earth, as well as our free enterprise, individual liberty, reverence for family and local communities, Main Street, the U.S. military, Christianity, and every other hallmark of the traditional culture and values of Western civilization.

And now they think they have the power and position to do what they've always wanted to do - tear it all down and remake it in their millenarian image of Leviathan. As philosopher Erik Voegelin would say, they don't merely intend the immanentization of the eschaton, they are securing the appropriations and regulations to make it happen.

Viewed from that assumption, things become so much clearer. On foreign and military policy, Obama's dominant principle is to apologize, to reverse a previous course - thus disavowing the intrinsically moral role of America in protecting freedom - and to seek rapproachment with our enemies on their terms."

I can't talk politics or finances with my wife any more. At all.

Will I have a job a month from now? Will we have capital in any form other than what's on the shelves in the basement or in the cans next to the safe?

And I grew up thinking that watching the wall fall was the pivot of my generation. Not nearly. Not even close.

(via Instpundit)

Just Trying To Help

Somewhere in England, just before D-Day, General George S. Patton speaks to his Thrid Army:

"When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American."

Times have changed quite a bit since June of 1944 but the sentiment expressed in Patton's words still pertains. Amphorous hope, suggesting change without purpose, and huckster populism as foundations for political power fade against stark failure on the part of The Won. Town Hall tension and TEA Parties are just the foam on the crest of the wave that is rolling across the nation.

We've elected the hind tit on a boar hog, haven't we? Pay attention, Mr. President. It's not going to get any easier.

It's turning out to be a lot more of a bummer, this bringing down the system, than TOTUS man thought it would.

Silly little Marxist. The Soviets tried for sixty years, and had nukes, armies, and half the cabinet agencies in the government, and they got beat by blue jeans, toilet paper, an actor, a British dame, and a Polish Pope.

Just who the f*** did Obama, or his handlers, think he was, to succeed where Vlad's best and brightest had failed?

It's going to get ugly... but my money is on the possibility that Team O will be going under the bus they've so readily tossed all those other folks, and a lot sooner than they ever thought such a thing could happen. The nation will not shed a tear for their absence.