Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

“woke” is the new caravan.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Not all heroes wear capes.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Gun Issues / Gun nuts / Friday Night Crazies Open Thread

Friday Night Crazies Open Thread

by | 160 Comments

This post is in: ,

As of this moment, I hate my life. I’m in the middle of arranging for a bunch of Fun Stuff coming due, and I’m of the hobbit philosophy: Adventures should be avoided, because they will make you late for dinner.

What’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend, in less depressive areas?

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  2. 2.

    Pogonip

    My car is flea-free. Ultracide works. (Two of the exterminators recommended Ultracide, two Precor, so I took the belt-and-suspenders approach and ordered one can of each.)

    We’re expecting a pretty good weekend–having roast chicken and sweet potatoes tomorrow, going corn mazing Sunday. I hope everyone else enjoys the weekend.

  4. 4.

    Pogonip

    P.S. I followed instructions and vacuum every day to a fare-thee-well. All 4 exterminators explained that, since hardly anything kills the pupae, all treatments MUST include the vacuuming schedule. So if Ultracide did not work for you, try it with the aggressive vacuuming schedule.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @benw:

    Grew up in Chicago, so I am by default a Cubs fan. And I’ve always quite liked the Cards, not least because a dear friend of mine, who passed away a couple of months ago, was the world’s most enthusiastic Cardinals fan EVER. But gotta go for the Cubbies.

    I don’t know what I’ll do if by some chance the WS ends up being Chicago-Toronto. I remember with all too vivid horror the divided loyalties of 1992.

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Ben Carson is not sane. I think he’s established that beyond the shadow of a doubt today.

  15. 15.

    Shakezula

    Yard sale tomorrow. Why did I agree to take part in a neighborhood yard sale? I mean, the idea of getting rid of some of this crap is dandy, but it also means talking to people and the inevitable dipshit who shows up at buttcrack of dawn looking for the kind of score that causes people to faint on The Antique Roadshow.

    And hagglers. Gah.

    Also, Mr. S will be at work so there will be no way to run off an hide if the masses get too massive.

    And then a party on Sunday and also, work work somewhere in there.

  17. 17.

    Howard Beale IV

    Gonna start ripping up carpet and install laminate. I won’t get it done all in one shot, so I’m going to do it room by room. At least I have a long weekend (plus the laminate price was pretty cheap- $0.80 sq ft and it’s made in Switzerland.

  19. 19.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Having been raised a Jew and just moved out of an ultra-orthodox village, I would appreciate learning what Jews tell each other about guns. Somehow, I missed it.

  21. 21.

    Elie

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Totally agree. But you aint seen nothing yet. I hope they keep interviewing and making him talk.. He has a lot of rotten pus in that old brainola and more attention from the media is going to be like putting in a good drain. Look out and be sure to get a good sized collection container–

    Its ironic that he is a neurosurgeon having such a fked up brain himself… They say a lot of psychiatrists are pretty crazy ….

    I would have a lot of fun with this man just looking for buttons to press to get ever more outlandish responses. Since he does not have an internal governor (like many narcissists), he just can’t stop or modulate himself except after fact. The key is to keep him talking and talking — expanding on a existing point.

  22. 22.

    Hungry Joe

    @KJSBrooklyn: They must’ve been doing it behind our backs, because I’ve never heard Jews say that, either. I have, however, heard Jews — myself among them — get seriously pissed off at the suggestion that the Jews of Germany didn’t do enough to defend themselves.

    Actually, there weren’t even that many Jews in Germany; half a million, maybe? Polish Jews — there were more than two million — suffered most in the Holocaust. And what good does a handgun, or a rifle, do against an occupying army? And … and… and … (getting upset here) most people who were rounded up had no idea they were going to be murdered; it was unthinkable because it had never happened before.

    And … and … YOU try taking on an army that comes to arrest you. Kind of like “rushing the shooter”: easier to imagine than to pull off.

    One more “And”: Most of my family came to the U.S. in the 1850s, so we lost only distant relatives — people we barely knew, and only from a handful letters — in the Holocaust. But I still feel qualified to say: And fuck you, Ben Carson.

  23. 23.

    benw

    @SiubhanDuinne: By a crazy coincidence, one of the only Cubs games I ever went to, when my wife and I were invited by her thesis advisor, was the Sammy Sosa corked bat game.

  24. 24.

    dedc79

    Everything Carson “knows” about the world he appears to have learned from rightwing nutjob email forwards.

    Let’s Go Mets!

  25. 25.

    ThresherK

    Those VT three-stripe-layer helmets look like some gourmet $3 lollipop next to the cash register at a high end store. On that basis alone I am prepared to root for NC State.

  29. 29.

    Major Major Major Major

    Farnsworth: “So what are you doing to protect my constitutional right to bear doomsday devices?”
    NRA Guy: “Well, first off, we’re gonna get rid of that three day waiting period for mad scientists.”
    Farnsworth: “Damn straight! Today the mad scientist can’t get a doomsday device, tomorrow it’s the mad grad student! Where will it end?!”
    NRA Guy: “Amen, brother. I don’t go anywhere without my mutated anthrax. For duck huntin’.”

  30. 30.

    Iowa Old Lady

    If life is depressing, I recommend not spending a single second on Ben Carson. He’s a momentary irrelevancy except for what he says about the culture.

    Has anyone seen The Martian?

  31. 31.

    Elie

    @dedc79:

    Oh no… they just confirmed what was already cooking in that cabesa of his. I would love to do a Hare assessment for socioapathy on him. He would definitely hit the threshold is my guess.

  34. 34.

    Tommy

    @benw: I get why people don’t like the Cardinals. I know people like myself can do a disservice to the team, being such a raving fan. Liking to say we are the best fans in the world must get old to others. My mother likes to joke that she put headphones on her belly, when I was a fetus, so I could hear Jack Buck call a Cardinal game. But it is kind of how we roll :).

  42. 42.

    MomSense

    Kid surprised me by catching a ride home tonight. Going to be a late night. Pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.

  43. 43.

    Tommy

    @Hungry Joe:

    And … and … YOU try taking on an army that comes to arrest you. Kind of like “rushing the shooter”: easier to imagine than to pull off.

    Well said. If the military wants to come for you I don’t care how many guns you have nor if you think you are a bad ass, you will lose.

  45. 45.

    raven

    @efgoldman: Can we beat a terrible Vols team? We can. Will we? You tell me. They totally suck but who knows?

    eta Home from LA? Oh yea, we came back Monday.

  46. 46.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I haven’t seen it, and hadn’t planned to, but I’m hearing so much great stuff about it I may have to give in. (Generally not a huge fan of the big superstar blockbuster movies, but this one actually sounds pretty interesting.)

    On the other hand, I have just totted up the opera, ballet and theatre events “Live (or at least ‘live’) in HD” in cinemas coming up over the next few months, and it’s kind of overwhelming. These days, when I go to the movies, it’s almost always going to be a Giselle or Tannhäuser or Henry IV/2 rather than a Martian or The Intern.

  47. 47.

    benw

    @Tommy:

    Liking to say we are the best fans in the world must get old to others.

    Got it in one! Things seem to be going pretty well for the Cards right now, however annoying you guys are. :)

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tommy:

    Well, I don’t know many people beside me who are both Cubs and Cardinals fans. Up to now I have been a Braves fan, but I am so pissed at them for the defection to Cobb County that I haven’t paid much attention to them this season. (And see, it worked!)

    Normally, I am Braves #1, Cubs #2, Cards #3. But sorry, in a Chi-SL matchup, I’ve gotta go for the Cubbies.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @dmsilev:

    Tweety had on the author of the original book (didn’t read it, and can’t remember his name) but it sounds as though he’s generally pleased with the filmic results.

  52. 52.

    JPL

    @raven: The local high school is doing quite well. Even when my sons went, I never paid much attention to the football team, but the former great Moxie, loved listening to the band practice and would sit at the back fence at the current house. I became more interested. Any how.. long story short, this year they appear headed to state and are 30 in the nation. One of the players already committed to Clemson. That doesn’t make sense to me that we are losing good players to other states.
    Maybe that’s the problem with GA.

    I just checked the score and yes they are winning 42-0 against a good Cobb team.. at the half.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    Waiting to see what happens next in the GOP 2015 version of the Night of the Long Knives.

  57. 57.

    raven

    @JPL: This state is huge, we supply the SEC and half of the ACC. There is always all this bullshit about “locking up the state”. It is not possible.

  59. 59.

    Calouste

    @Villago Delenda Est: To properly describe Ben Carson’s state of mind you need kind of like the Parrot Sketch, but with insanity instead of death.

    ‘E’s bonkers, e’s a nutter. ‘E’s got no brain, ‘e’s bereft of ‘is senses. ‘E’s got a screw loose. If ‘e didn’t keep his mouth shut his brain would fall out.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    @raven: I was just talking to a friend who is heavily involved in Clemson football. I was surprised that someone would commit this early, she wasn’t.

    Clemson qb.. who is pretty good is from Gainesville

  61. 61.

    jl

    That a real Breitbart headline?
    I guess that is why there are so many Jews fanatically agitating in the open carry movement? I’ve always wondered about that.

  62. 62.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Hungry Joe: I’m working on a post on this. I’ve recently had to deal with this online on other locales. Please stand by. Or slouch of you prefer.

  63. 63.

    max

    @SiubhanDuinne: Well, I don’t know many people beside me who are both Cubs and Cardinals fans.

    {waves} But go Cubbies!

    @Villago Delenda Est: Ben Carson is not sane. I think he’s established that beyond the shadow of a doubt today.

    He’s a black guy with no political experience running to get the Republican nomination for President. Upon learning those bare facts, one should jettison any presumption of sanity, and seek evidence of sanity – in case a mistake has been made.

    max
    [‘Not likely.’]

  64. 64.

    raven

    From the AJC

    * Georgia has been playing football since 1892. In 123 years, the Bulldogs have had 21 seasons with 10 wins. Richt has 10 of those seasons.
    * Richt has won 140 games in his 14-plus seasons at Georgia, an average of about 10 wins per year. With his next win, Richt will stand alone in second place on the school’s career list behind Vince Dooley (201 in 25 years), who averaged eight wins per year.
    * Richt’s winning percentage, which is right at .740, is the highest of any coach in Georgia history. Dooley won 72.3 percent of his games.
    * Richt currently has the fifth-highest winning percentage of all active FBS coaches, behind only Urban Meyer, Bob Stoops, Saban and Gary Patterson. That’s good company.
    * The guy graduates a lot of his players (292 to be exact) and has run a scandal-free program. He had a stretch where too many players were getting into trouble, but Richt has effectively tightened up that part of the organization. Georgia has the toughest drug-testing policy in the SEC. Ever heard him complain about it? Me neither.
    * Since Richt arrived in Athens in 2001, only one school (LSU) has had more players drafted than Georgia’s 79. Some see that as evidence that he should have accomplished more. I see it as evidence that good players want to play for him.

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SiubhanDuinne: Andy Weir. It’s a good book. Somebody here recommended it and, like Mike J, I read it in one gulp (helped that I was on a LAX-MEL flight.)

  69. 69.

    Tommy

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Well, I don’t know many people beside me who are both Cubs and Cardinals fans.

    I’d think you’d be pretty rare.

    My best friend is a Cubs fan. Where I went to college my frat, I was one of only two Cardinals fans out of 75. All Cubs fans. Happy they “played” their way in so when we beat them, again, I can mock them. But at a core is it just a game. Can’t get that upset or mad about it. A game!

  72. 72.

    phein55

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Yes, we saw it last night, in a theatre with oversized recliners and vodka shooters.

    I think XKCD described it thusly: “Remember that scene in Apollo XIII where the NASA guy dumps a bunch of parts on a table and says, “If we can’t make a power source out of this, those guys in space die.” This is an entire movie of that scene.”

    I liked the book, liked the movie, my 14-year old son like them both, even my wife liked it, and she normally isn’t into SF.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    I know what PIP is, but I’ve also known you to get … testy … when someone mentions a score to a game you haven’t yet seen, so I decided to err on the side of extreme caution.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    They’re coming for Uncle Ben…they’re going to gut him, from stem to stern. his time is up. he’s outlived his usefulness.

  80. 80.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @raven: Well, having a blogquaintance rooting for VT is enough to swing the needle back to “no rooting interest” for me.

    Tomorrow is the Hartford Marathon, and I’m helping the (hopefully not at all emergency) communications. I enjoy the contact endorphins from having thousands of people run 26 miles past me. Weather should be dry and middling temp, maybe a bit warm for the runners, but supplies ought to hold.

  81. 81.

    rikyrah

    The Associated Press ‏@AP 6h6 hours ago

    BREAKING: New map ordered for Florida congressional districts, includes speaker candidate Webster’s seat.

  86. 86.

    catclub

    @raven:

    Georgia has been playing football since 1892. In 123 years, the Bulldogs have had 21 seasons with 10 wins. Richt has 10 of those seasons.

    I am sure expanding the season from nine to 11 games has nothing to do with this.

  88. 88.

    jl

    @efgoldman: We’ve all seen pictures of Washington, Jefferson and Adams waking around dragging their personal six pounders after them, with canisters of grape shot hanging from their belts. I mean, come on, how can we have so thoroughly forgotten the lessons the Founders taught us?

  90. 90.

    phein55

    @Tommy:

    You hear a lot of crap nowadays about Cards’ fans claiming to be the best fans in baseball, but I’ve never heard that from a Cards’ fan. I’m a Card’s fan, but I don’t know in what way that makes me better than a Cub’s fan.

    I’d heard it plenty from people on the East coast, and I always assumed that they’d just come from a Phillies game, where being an asshole is not only acceptable but a requirement for game entry. Compared to that, St. Louis fans must seem like they’re straight out of Lake Woebegone.

    [As an aside, if you have XM/Sirius satellite, you MUST listen to the Texas/Toronto series on 209/212. Switching back and forth between the Texas announcers and the Blue Jays announcers is surreal.]

    Yes, people in St. Louis will applaud good plays by opposing players, but that’s pretty normal outside of Philly or NY, I’d think.

    Recently, I’d hear about Card’s on Chicago sports radio (My Guy!) where Steve Stone would talk about the “Cardinal’s Way,” and what he meant was, Card’s minor leaguers were taught to face the infield while the ball was live, unlike, say, Starling Castro.

    But then . . . 10 years ago I was at a Braves game at Wrigley, first time at Wrigley. Sat behind the first base dugout, second row. Beautiful park, great game. An older woman sitting next to us told us stories from her 50 years of being a season ticket holder. We had a great time. And then, someone brought up St. Louis, and her face soured, and she spat out, “I hate the Cardinals!” She never said why, and I never asked her.

    I guess the closest I can get is the almost tribal hatred that St. Louis Cardinals football fans from the 70’s have for the Dallas Cowboys: If the Cowboys never win another game, that will be alright with me.

  91. 91.

    gf120581

    @rikyrah: Not a pretty map for the GOP. If it ends up as it is, they lose three seats to the Dems one. And that’s at minimum.

    I consider it a start to undoing the GOP’s gerrymandering shennanigans.

  92. 92.

    raven

    @catclub: If you really knew what the fuck you were talking about you’d know Major College Football is now 12 games and has been forever..

    College Football Gets 12th Game

    Network News

    By Liz Clarke
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Friday, April 29, 2005
    Over the objections of advocates of academic reform, the ACC and college football coaches, the NCAA Board of Directors voted yesterday to add a 12th regular season game in major college football starting in 2006.

  94. 94.

    Gin & Tonic

    @efgoldman: Long, long time ago a friend was a passenger in a car somewhere in the SoCal desert. State police pulled them over, because they were towing a piece of military artillery. Operational. They had the right ordnance and were heading out to nowhere to fire it, for grins. In the end it turned out there was not any specific law against that.

    I don’t know if the laws have changed, and I’ve long since lost track of that guy.

  95. 95.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I liked the book, The Martian, but since the Matt Damon character was alone for most of the book, you mostly got his inner monologue. I’m curious to see how they translate that to a movie. The character’s voice was very entertaining, and I liked the science stuff far more than I expected to.

  97. 97.

    different-church-lady

    But nothing is more insufferable than a Pats fan.

    It must be true, because we keep hearing it.

  102. 102.

    Pogonip

    @Shakezula: My mom lost a lot of weight after a serious illness so she had a yard sale of all the clothes that were too big for her. One woman brought up a $30 blouse she’d marked $5 and had never got to wear and said “I’ll give you 50 cents.”. Mom said, “No, $5,” and the woman yelled “That’s too much!” and left in a huff. Everyone else, however, recognized a good deal–“plus-size” clothes are quite expensive!–and left happy.

    My big (ha!) complaint about large-size clothing is not so much the cost as the design. If you get fat you will never look like a grownup again. Everything has ruffles, sequins, pictures, lace–all kinds of goop. The designers seem unclear on the difference between a fat lady and a Christmas tree topper. If you say I shouldn’t have got fat in the first place, you’re right, but do I have to be punished with ugly clothes?

    Designers delenda est! Also, fleas.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Used to have a friend who went to machine gun meets. He had a federal firearms license and could own them. Not sure if that’s changed in the last 20 yrs. He had pictures of folks firing WWII Browning 50 cal and other such stuff. Also used to work for a guy with a half track, who also had a 50 cal to go with it. The firing pin had been removed but he owned a machine shop so making another was not an issue. IOW he had a fully functioning machine gun and a half track to mount it on. And other than the firing pin all completely legal, 50 yrs ago.

  105. 105.

    phein55

    @raven:

    No, I didn’t remember that, but thanks for the link. Although my Mom was a St. Louis Cardinal’s football fan, my team will always be the 1969 Chiefs. My school bus went past the lane to Leonard Dawson’s house every morning, and I still have a jersey signed by Jim Otto.

    The football Cardinals started their carpetbagging career in Chicago, of course, and now it looks like the St. Louis football fans will be once again f*&[email protected] over by another scum bag owner. At least the Bidwills made all their money from football, not from screwing over suppliers and employees on a global basis.

  106. 106.

    raven

    @Ruckus: I brought back some incredible antique Winchester’s from LA last week. They are not for shooting but they are really nice. It’s hard to imagine something made in 1881 functions so well.

  110. 110.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Pogonip: A lot of clothing for petite sizes also looks like children’s clothes. I think the fashion industry expects everyone to be the same height and size, any one who is off that ideal has a difficult time finding clothes.

  111. 111.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: I saw that this morning. Luntz was flushed and appeared to be in angst. Really I am so sick of these people who unleashed the crazies. Ryan wants to rid us of medicare and social security that we have paid into.

  112. 112.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman: The whole GOP field could gang up here on this idiocy and half of Carson’s support would evaporate in a day. But they won’t, because they’re cowards.

    It’s been interesting to see the articles this week that have been talking about T-rump preparing his own exit strategy, laying the groundwork for getting out once he’s not loved as much as he feels he deserves. I’m thinking early December, maybe?

  113. 113.

    phein55

    @Ruckus:

    Have you ever fired a real machine gun? I was a machine gunner in an Arctic Paratroop company in the late ’70s, and we did get to live fire a couple of times a year, and it’s fucking great! Hitting targets at 1100 meters is like hitting a five-iron next to the pin from 200 yards, or throwing triple 20’s to open a round of darts.

    Recent research shows that your brain details specific neurons to individual locations, such that when you think about that place, the neuron fires. I think that’s the basis for shooting sports, golf, etc.: You think of the place, you take an action, and then you make something happen at that location, and shazam!, your brain rewards you. How cool is that? Alice Cooper calls golf the crack of sports for good reasons.

  115. 115.

    phein55

    @efgoldman:

    There is a famous (to me, anyway) Tank McNamara comic strip from way back when Tom Landry was on his way out as coach of the Cowboys, and the reporter is asking different fans how many games Dallas should lose in a row to balance things out:

    Cards fan: “Oh, about 90.”
    Giants fan: “Until he has to change his name and move to Uruguay!”
    Redskins fan: “Until they bleed from the ears!”

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR WHY MOREHOUSE AND HBCUS MATTER YOU’LL EVER READ

    Panama Jackson, 10/8/15

    One of my good friends from college is a teacher in Chicago. One particular student of hers has begun the college search and in her attempts to convince him to attend Morehouse College, or at least an HBCU, she reached out to myself, and three of my best friends – all of us Morehouse College graduates from the class of 2001 who met in a pre-freshman STEM summer program in June 1997- to see if we could talk to him about our experiences at Morehouse and do a little bit of convincing. The young man wisely took the opportunity to email us and asked about Morehouse and what impact it had on making us the men that we are today. We all responded back to the young man, but my friend Adrian Wilson wrote a mic-drop response that was so impactful I feel it needs to be shared and sent to every prospective Morehouse Man for the rest of days.

    Last week, Damon wrote a post about hating Howard Homecoming because of how much Howard grads treat their experience like the best thing that ever happened. Well, Morehouse, Spelman, NC A&T, Hampton, FAMU, etc grads…we’re all like that. Folks often wonder why we HBCU grads love our institutions so much. I think that Adrian’s letter about Morehouse explains just that. It’s printed below without edit, though the name of the student emailing has been removed, because minor.

    http://verysmartbrothas.com/the-best-argument-for-why-morehouse-and-hbcus-matter-youll-ever-read/

  117. 117.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pogonip:

    My big (ha!) complaint about large-size clothing is not so much the cost as the design. If you get fat you will never look like a grownup again.

    If you don’t already know about them, I recommend:

    Ulla Popken

    Making It Big (MiB)

    Jessica London (for ‘office wear’)

    Somewhat pricey, by mall standards, but they all do regular email sale offers. And at least you won’t look like you were trying to star on the ‘People of Walmart’ snark page!

  121. 121.

    ruemara

    Tonight’s big struggle is… how to be flamboyant. I can do transman, but a bombastic flamboyant person? No. Yes, I’m still talking about my read. It’s a victory so I’m gonna boast.

  122. 122.

    raven

    @rikyrah: Nice. One of the best things that ever happened to me was breaking my back (in a wreck in Atlanta). I might never have gone back to school since there was a ton of union labor work in Central Illinois back then and I might have just taken the money and ran.

  123. 123.

    phein55

    @raven:

    Yeah, I humped a 60 at Ft. Rich. You sent me a link to the 4/23rd’s website, which I greatly appreciate, sometime ago. I’m going to have some new PT shirts made for me and my grandkids: “On your left, sick call! On your right, sick call!”

    didn’t you also say you worked at the P&DC in Champaign fairly recently, like in the last 30 years? I ask because now, of all things, I’m the sysadmin for the IT system that runs the USPS environmental compliance review system out of CERL in the Interstate Research Park off North Mattis.

  125. 125.

    raven

    @phein55: It was called the SCF at the Post Office in 1978. I worked there for about 6 months until they looked at my Army records and found I had not reported a special court I got for selling some generators in the ville in Korea. That was the second best thing that ever happened to me. Getting fired from that motherfucker saved my life.

    I thought CERL was a U of I operation? Huh.

    Glad that site was of interest.

  128. 128.

    phein55

    @raven: There are two CERL’s in C-U. One is a computing engineering facility down on campus, and one is the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, part of the Corps of Engineer’s. It was started by engineering profs from the U of I, and they still own and (sometimes) maintain our facilities, but we are part of the Engineering Research and Design Center (ERDC) out of Vicksburg.

    SCF, huh? what did that stand for?, and did they have vehicle maintenance facilities then?

  129. 129.

    raven

    @phein55:

    A destination Sectional Center Facility (SCF) is a Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) of the United States Postal Service (USPS) that serves a designated geographical area defined by one or more three-digit ZIP Code prefixes. A Sectional Center Facility routes mail between local post offices and to and from Network Distribution Centers (NDC), which form the backbone of the network. The following are the USPS SCF’s (along with associated airports) by state that, together, form the backbone of the primary mail service in the United States.

    I don’t know about the vehicles except that I was driving a 62 GMC pickup with a 305D V-6. I had them convinced I had to start it on breaks in the winter and I’d go out an burn one.

  130. 130.

    phein55

    @Honus:

    I also have (had?) Emerson Boozer’s hand pads from the game where he was knocked silly against the Chiefs at old Memorial Stadium, I’m thinking 1968, maybe ’69.

    Counting coup!

  132. 132.

    Jeffro

    @efgoldman: Trump has to think that his main purpose in getting in – dragging Jeb! down – has been accomplished. I can see him (Trump) hanging in there for a while longer, but once there’s enough certainty that Jeb! has been mortally wounded (much less actually drops out) there’s no reason for Trump to stay in. Kind of like Graham getting out the day after Paul drops out.

    It will be interesting to see how the Trump-crazies and Carson-crazies migrate to the remaining candidates. We all know Cruz is hoping to pick up the lion’s share of these folks, but so is Fiorina and so is Christie.

  135. 135.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Iowa Old Lady: I have seen The Martian, and it’s pretty true to the book. Watney’s smartass is tuned down a bit, and they took out about three and a half crises (to include the entire ZOMG I fucked fried the Pathfinder! bit) but overall I’m pretty happy with the result. Damon is good, the rest of the cast is pretty good, it’s got a good feel to it. They included the Iron Man gag and expanded on it, THEN they gave us the “as seen in the movies” ending :P.

  136. 136.

    phein55

    @raven: That’s great. It’s still a P&DC, but they’ve done away with the SCF designations.

    The Postal Service used to be a pretty sweet job (at least according to my Dad and uncles in the ’60s, although none of them worked for the USPS). It pisses off conservatives to this day because (I think):

    1. It provides a valuable service to normal Americans at minimal cost
    2. It provides decent jobs to working class people
    3. It provides NO kick backs to Republicans
    4. It provides NO graft to conservative businessmen — think of all those dollars that could be skimmed!

    The people who work at regional and HQ for the USPS remind me a lot of some of my other clients at Veteran’s Health Admin and Dept of Energy, in that they are extremely dedicated to their clients and don’t give even the slightest fuck about making money off of them.

  137. 137.

    raven

    @phein55: I have two friends, one ex-SF and the other was a Combat Tracker. They both made careers out of the PO in C-U and they fucking hated it. They stuck it out, the dude in Urbana was the Union rep and he drove those fuckers crazy.

  139. 139.

    lamh36

    ‘Sup BJ.

    I’m off to bed soon, but before I go, wanted to say that I’m thinking about travelling to Los Angeles for my birthday. It’s gonna probably be for 4 days and 3 nights. I’m planning to drive to DFW to visit my sisters. and I found RT flights via Southwest to LAX from DFW for $140!

    What I need to do if I really want to go, is find a reasonably priced hotel in a nice enough area that is either central to attractions, or easy to get to by public transportation?

    If it works out well, I’ll have 2 full days to see some sights and maybe a tour or two?

    It’s kinda a budget trip. I’d like to keep it between $500-600 for travel, hotel and lodging. Can it be done?

    Any suggestions would be awesome!

    It’s kinda late, so I will be posting this comment again in the morning thread. I’ve got to go to bed now though. I’ve got work this weekend.

    Have a good night ya’ll

  140. 140.

    dedc79

    Murphy! He may not be a Met after this season, but he’s making his remaining time with the team count. Cuddyer on the other hand has been a liability.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    A lot of that goes to the individual gunsmiths that assembled them and how well they did their jobs. The parts may have been mass produced but the fitting/assembly was still done by hand. Even 50 yrs ago machining was still at the stage that to make/assemble something like a gun or engine took operator skill and knowledge.
    @SoupCatcher:
    A museum is different in that my friend and his cohorts didn’t want stuff to display, they wanted operating machine guns. My understanding was that the ammo was the sticking point, only so much exists and they go through a lot when you fire them.

  142. 142.

    PaulW

    Football-wise this weekend, I want the South Florida Bulls to beat Syracuse like a rug, the Florida Gators to beat Missou on the road, and the Tampa Bay Bucs to eke out a win vs. the Jaguars especially with my fantasy football players Mike Evans and Doug Martin racking up yards and touchdowns.

  144. 144.

    raven

    @lamh36: That is tough. We were out there last weekend for a family wedding and, if you haven’t been there, LA is UUUGE and public trans is limited. It’s better than it used to be but the place is so big it’s hard to reach. We found decent hotels in Sherman Oaks and Irvine for around $100 a night.

  146. 146.

    phein55

    @raven: You know, that bums me out a great deal. I know that after Reagan came in, the pressure on line folks was tremendous: tons of time-motion studies to identify “efficiencies,” pressure to meet quotas, etc., but I’ve never talked to a union rep from that time.

    The engineering support people still talk about the ’80s as disastrous time in the Service.

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    @phein55:
    No I’ve never personally fired one. But by the time I was in the navy, I’d lost any real need to fire or handle guns. By that time I’d been shot at 3 times with one more to go and none of them in the military. Guns do nothing for me, including how they are made. I don’t need killing machines to make my life complete. Now that said, I did watch from a very close distance, two people fire a BAR. One who knew what he was doing and one who didn’t have a millionth of a clue. The first one fired an entire clip, full auto and didn’t flinch at all. The second one pulled the trigger and before he could release the trigger he fired the full clip, unfortunately he spun around and was very close to hitting every one behind him, except that we had all hit the deck before the second round left the barrel.

  149. 149.

    seaboogie

    @Shakezula: Pro-tip on the yard sale situation: consider taking the frame of mind that these folks are paying you to haul your crap away, and engage in the dickering with some generous wiggle room and have fun with it.

    I had an October or November garage sale several years ago, so it was a bit out of season (in Vancouver area), and everyone was pent up and eager, and I had a wide range of stuff (including a kiln that I could have sold twice, and it wasn’t even advertised).

    I told the early-bird pickers that I was absolutely not available to start until 9 am and they were to stay off the property until that time, as I was busy loading up the carport with all of the goodies by myself. They lined up at the end of the driveway, and as 9 am drew nearer, they positioned themselves like racers adopting a standing start position – very funny!

    The first hour or so was crazy with the pickers, and they were even re-selling things to each other, glancing my way a bit nervously, fearful that I might have felt that I should have asked for a higher price. I was like “whatevs, dudes – knock yourselves out – just give me some cash and take it away”!

    At one point a gent came up to me with a roll and a half of duck tape and a half can of WD-40 (I was cleaning out my deceased husband’s shed) in is hands and asked me what I wanted for it. I asked him what he wanted to pay, and he said “$2.50?” Boom – it’s yours.

    I made about $1400 in cash, and loaded the last little bit into my trunk to drop off at the thrift store at about 2:30 – and ALL MY SHIT WAS GONE! It was awesome.

    Also, I had some former co-workers who were friends show up (because I was moving soon), and when they asked me what I wanted for something, I told them that I wanted them to have it. Gratis. And then we all went out for lunch – my treat.

  150. 150.

    phein55

    @Ruckus: The idea of people being down range is fucked up, agreed. [There is an article in the New Yorker some years back about how very few infantrymen in WWII fired their weapons in combat, and what it took to overcome that in Viet Nam.]

    But hitting a target at distance is something else, and I don’t dismiss that casually. There must be an evolutionary explanation for the desire to do so, and I’m not going to abandon that to the gunsuckers.

  151. 151.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    I know the guy and he’s up in ruemara’s neck of the woods. Knows how to be very flamboyant, life of the party type of guy.

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    From a mfg standpoint 130 yrs ago and 50 yrs ago were not a lot different. Electronics has changed that so very much in the last 30 or so years that it is hard for someone who’s never seen the old ways to even understand. People knew what they wanted to do, they just didn’t have the tools. Much better precision, much better tools and almost all of the result of electronics, which has shaped what could be done and how you get there.

  153. 153.

    grandpa john

    @efgoldman: They also left out the part about the now extended schedule, Most schools now play a 12 game schedule not counting bowls or playoff games, its easier to win 10 of 12 or 13 than it was in the past when most schools played 10 game schedules

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @phein55:
    I still don’t care. Guns have no attraction for me. I know them, I’ve owned them and reloaded my own ammo, hunted, and consumed my take. I even know how to make them. But I have no interest. Maybe I got it out of my system when I carried a gun in the navy. Maybe I just don’t feel the need to kill anything. Maybe I’ve just grown up, who the hell knows.

  155. 155.

    Eric U.

    @Ruckus: I certainly understand the attraction of guns as a physical object. However, they have always just seemed too dangerous to me to own one. And I’ve had loaded guns pointed at me 3 times in my life, all three times by idiots that shouldn’t have had them. Granted, none of the three intended to shoot me, but that’s still really scary

  159. 159.

    sm*t cl*de

    @efgoldman:

    Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the Holocaust would have been “greatly diminished” had Jewish people in Europe been armed with guns.

    “I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said. “I’m telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take guns first.”

    Carson isn’t talking about Jews there, he’s talking about the German population as a whole. “The people”. Carson appears to be genuinely convinced that (a) the Nazis came to power against the wishes of Germans, who would have fought back if they had access to firearms; and (b) that access to firearms (for non-Jews) was at all restricted after the 1938 gun-law relaxation.

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Trackbacks

  1. […] Anne Laurie brought our attention to Dr. Carson’s recent comments regarding Jewish Armed resis…. Earlier today, between a conference call and doing some other work related stuff I came across Steve M’s much fuller treatment on the topic. Steve traces the history of the assertion that had Jewish Germans been allowed to keep and bear arms, then they would have been able to either provide significant resistance to the NAZIs. This argument originated, as Steve noted, with the founders of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) who did an analysis of the German firearms laws and restrictions – both those from the late 1920s and the latter set from the late 1930s. […]