Mark@Sea

Oh Shoot, what do you call someone who criticizes someone else for the behaviour they do themselves? Stevens investigation and conviction were first and last a political maneuver. You've got dems stuffing cash in freezers and in their sweaters, two big names (Murtha of PA and Moran of VA) just taking kickbacks straight from pork-barrel earmarks - Murtha to the tune of 10 million or so, Moran to just a little over a million - where is the outcry? The old man from Alaska, who held a very important seat the dems wanted, got a hot tub and a new deck put on his house. By congressional standards, he is pure as the driven snow.

What global warming? Global temps have been decreasing the last two years. Sky. Sun. Big heater. Heck, check the weather reports. Not really, cleaning the tank adds complexity, corrosion, cost and time. But yeah, you can use salt water. Not what I'd call cheap, and the energy has to come from somewhere. Yep. A version of this has been around for about 80 years - no kidding. The original version was a guy filling the tank on his model T from a farmers waterpump. Yep. You want a fuel efficient vehicle, its' doable. You want a fuel efficient car that has both reasonable performance and an extra thousand pounds of payload in the form of mandated airbags, mandated smog controls, mandated crash bumpers, etc. etc. ad nauseum, you have a problem. Friend of mine drives a 15 yr old Toyota that gets better mileage than the same car today. Difference? emission controls, crappy gas and the govts' requirements. California puts so much 'anti-smog' crap in its' gas, they have to add chemicals to make it burn! Occams Razor. Easier explanation, no conspiricy theory required, fits the facts at hand. Or to put it another way, an old saying goes "Never attribute to evil what can be accounted for by stupidity".

Because Exxon-Mobil owns the coal power plants? Yes, it is easy to make. All you need is lots of fresh water, and lots of electricity. Wait, wasn't a water shortage going to be a severe problem? And even so, losing the 2/3rds of the countries' power supplied by coal plants may present a tiny little flaw in this plan. I think I missed that episode of X-files. Would you happen to have a link to a police report, newspaper story, anything of that nature? Right, because the gas companies (who, in order to make this nefarious plan work, have to have control of domestic auto production) would prefer to lose billions of dollars with uncompetitive products, rather than make untold billions selling gasoline to people who can afford to buy it. And this cunning plan to achieve bankruptcy on a massive scale is succeeding admirably. Priced a Lithium-ion pack recently? Because if I can save 10,000 in fuel costs over the life of a car that costs 200,000 more than a standard sedan, I'm going to rush right out and... Oh. Never mind. Look, I'm not trying to make fun of you, or make you mad, but the holes in your argument could comfortably pass a C-5. Please think about this.

It is thinner, more easily carried and concealed. It is steel and wood, not last months' milk jugs. It feels better in the hand, unless you like holding bricks. As for the thumb safety - remember, in order to discharge the firearm the grip safety must be firmly depressed, and the trigger pulled. Leaving out the thumb safety entirely, under what circumstance do you see this happening unintentionally? As for the manual hammer - I personally prefer it. Especially with the original (wide and short) hammer. Lots of folks prefer revolvers, don't recall any made with a decocker. Don't recall them being touted as especially unsafe for the lack of it, either.

My problem with it is that I'm in an industrial environment (shipboard) 24-7. We all live aboard, eat aboard, work aboard. Nicks, cuts, abrasions happen. I'm not scared of gays, but I am afraid of HIV exposure - and this isn't like having them as neighbors, or walking past them in the street. The military is its' own walking blood supply.

Below is from a 2006 article about UAW and the auto industry.... Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits. "We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat." Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union. The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing. As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program. With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner. "It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook." General Motors Corp. has roughly 5,000 workers in its jobs bank. Delphi has about 4,000 in its version of the same program. Some 2,100 workers are in DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group's job security program. Ford had 1,275 in its jobs bank as of Sept. 25. The pending closure of Ford's assembly plant in Loraine, Ohio, could add significantly to that total. Those numbers could swell in coming years as GM and Ford prepare to close more plants. Detroit automakers declined to discuss the programs in detail or say exactly how much they are spending, but the four-year labor contracts they signed with the UAW in 2003 established contribution caps that give a good idea of the size of the expense. According to those documents, GM agreed to contribute up to $2.1 billion over four years. DaimlerChrysler set aside $451 million for its program, along with another $50 million for salaried employees covered under the contract. Ford, which also maintained responsibility for Visteon Corp.'s UAW employees, agreed to contribute $944 million.

An excerpt from Obama's address to a 'global warming summit' hosted by California governor Schwarzenegger: "Few challenges facing America -- and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change," he says in the video. "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security." I'll say it again. Many of us will be freezing in the dark, in the next 3 or 4 years, if this man has his way. Six sentences, six lies. He has to know better; AGW (global warming) has been thouroughly debunked on every level. Given that he has enough functioning brain cells to realize this, one has to wonder what he is really attempting to do.

Astra, if the glockenspiel or some other plastic fantastic suits your fancy, good! Why the 1911 - May be one of those questions where "If you have to ask, you'll never know". It just suits some folks to a T. The 1911 Retrovirus is addictive, though, I'll warn you.

Astra, if you've shot a 1911 built on an Essex frame, and a Llama, you somehow picked possibly the 2 worst examples of a 1911. I wouldn't waste money on lottery tickets if I were you...

2500 30-06 2000 .30 Carbine 1000 .38 spl And 5000 rounds target 22LR In addition to what I bought earlier this month.

BHO was involved a lot earlier than you might think - he was the lead lawyer for ACORN, suing the banks under the CRA to force them to make loans to bad risks. The bailout, by the way, is up to about 3 trillion dollars (not 700 billion anymore). It is covering every sort of pork-barrel project imaginable. Oh, it is also covering "O"'s political payola - 124 million to MSNBC. The 25 billion UAW wants? Oh, sorry, I mean the auto industry? That would be the second 25 billion - they got the first one a couple months ago. Unfortunately, with the way our system is set up, a 'taxpayer revolt' is almost impossible. For those of us with withholding, the only way to stop paying taxes is to quit work. This may be the twilights' last gleaming; there are dark times ahead.

Hi there, CJR Wrong time of the year for it, but hope to see you at one of the Kingsport shoots sometime.

Too right unions are like the government. The unions have done to the auto industry what Congress is doing to the taxpayer. Choking the life out of it.

Unions? You mean where organized crime went to become legit?

Marxism isn't a race. Neither is despotism. Neither Ruby Ridge nor Waco had anything to do with white supremacists. History is revised before your eyes, here, folks. Southern Poverty Law Center, if ever it did worthwhile things, is long years past it and searches for (creates) racism from the merest shadows, in order to cash in on civil rights suits.

Sorry to hear it. I prefer the old stuff myself. I ended up with an old (west german make, browning marked) 220 in a swap a few months ago. Good piece, but I'm a victim of the 1911 retrovirus, so it doesn't do anything for me. PM me if you'd be interested.

Actually, it would be ideally suited to 're-education', domestic intelligence (snitching on parents, friends), and a vehicle for maintaining control and strengthening the 'cult of personality'. About the only thing it is liable to be missing is the 'Hitler Youth' knives. Wife was watching the O on TV. He was saying something about his plans, and Congress could go along with him, or get pushed aside. Should be a very interesting few years.

Astra, what do you want for the colt?

Water. You can go days without food. Water, not so much. You need a canteen, water bottle, something. A filter or small bottle of bleach if you figure on drinking from streams, etc. If its' raining, a funnel or your tarp will collect it, but what do you put it in? Basics; security, shelter, water, self-rescue, food (in about that order). You're stranded overnight, and a hungry bear comes along, your first order of business is not being lunch. Probably won't happen, but if it does, it takes absolute priority. You won't have to worry about anything else if you freeze to death first, so shelter is good. Hydration is life. Really. Go 8 waking hours without drinking anything, you'll get wonderfully concentrated on that fact. Self-rescue covers everything from compass to first aid. You got a compass? Cool! Do you know how to use it, really? First aid - stop the bleeding, splint the fractures, and if you are highly allergic to bees or what-have-you, be prepared. You really won't be giving yourself CPR, or removing your own spleen, so don't get crazy, there, Doc. Food, yep. MRE's are good, you don't spend any time catching them. Fishing kits are cool, but not very useful if you aren't on a river or lake. If you can get out of the fix you're in within a day or two, though, you won't starve. How about self-rescue for your vehicle? A good come-along may be your ticket home.

SunTzu, the O symbol with horns - perfecto.... I have a few serving suggestions, just not for actual consumption.

Yeah, well, Sue has found another large and heavy piece of furniture, advise you steer clear for a week or two until she finds someone to move it for her... Seriously, though, welcome to come up and visit anytime.

Hey, Mike, I talked to Sue tonight... Looks like snow instead?

The AR just doesn't appeal to me. I did order a 'comfortable' amount of ammo for my Garand, though.

Current federal excise tax (not including state sales tax) on firearms and ammunition is either 10 or 11%.

How about an executive order 'finding' that semi-autos are not 'suitable for sporting purposes', and an order from BATF to halt sales? Heller was in the courts for what, 5 years? By the time it could be challenged at the Supreme Court level, it'd be "game over".