Lew Rockwell on the MSM

"The normal range of opinion is from Pravda to Izvestia."


Rockwell asks, "Are the Media Hurting Obama?"

Everything I need to know, I learned from Solzhenytsin

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.

Everything I need to know, I learned from Miller's Crossing

"Nobody knows anybody, not that well."

Everything I need to know, I learned from Gen. Mattis

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

Everything I need to know, I learned from Roadhouse.

"Be nice, until it's time to not be nice."

Everything I need to know, I learned from Bill and Ted.

"Be excellent to each other."

Primer popping, enhanced by FastFire

As you may know, I am probably an inveterate gun-swapper. I'd like to think that I've mostly gotten past the point of thinking each new toy is going to be "tha best evah" but, well, who knows.

Today I ventured out to the shooting range on the West Side of town (should I call this the West Side Story? No, probably not), to put some rounds through a 9mm, and a .45.

The 9mm is a Smith and Wesson, from their "gun of the month" phase of things. It's one of the first metal framed Smith autopistols I've owned, the other one is the bigger and heavier version of this one. The 9iq (9mm In Question, pronounced "Nick" of course) is a S&W 6944. If you're all hep to 3d Gen S&W terminology, you probably know what that means, or can, at least, make a stab at breaking it out. Most people AREN'T hep to S&W terminology, so I'll spare you the google-fu.

The 6944 is a double action only (DAO) version of the S&W "minigun." The minigun (which ain't, when all is said and done, all that mini, btw) was originally released in the 2d Gen of S&W autopistols, and was a bobbed version of the main line "59" derivatives. (The 659 was the big stainless steel version, the 459 was, I think, the big alloy version, etc.) It's a twelve shot 9mm. Note: the S&W DAO pistols "halfway pre-cock" the trigger, so repeat strikes on a dud primer are out.

I was shooting offhand, unsupported, at 7 yards. Not a real long way, but pretty decent groupings---especially since I was switching from left hand to right hand after each shot. I used a mix of Wolf and Magtech 9mm ball ammo (115 grains in both cases).

Verdict? This is a decent little pistol. Recoil is mild, the trigger ain't bad at all (somewhat short and heavy compared to a Beretta 92D I'd picked up earlier), and while it's not tiny, it's significantly smaller than the 5946 that is its big brother. With a double stack magazine, it is a little fat through the butt.

The other pistol I shot was a Glock "21/30." Thanks the the miracles of polymers, by the time I got it the butt had already been trimmed from the full size "21" butt to use the shorter, ten round, magazines from the Glock 30 (hence the name). It's got about an inch more barrel than the smaller Glock 30, "and I'm the only kid on the block."

I've shot the 21/30 before, and like it. I prep the trigger---taking up the slack, and then letting it break, and when I do things right, it is a pretty dang accurate little popper. The new thing today was that I'd put a Burris FastFire on it. I was inspired by the use of red dot optics on fighting rifles/carbines in our current Mesopotamian adventure. Actually, I'd liked the idea of red dot optics for a long time, I just never got off my ass and put one on a pistol until now.

The FastFire is a virtual dead ringer for other small reflex sights---Trijicon makes one, and the progenitor was the J-Point and then the Docter Optik sight. It is small and lightweight, although it DOES bulk up the pistol some.

Since it's a red dot sight, I tried to focus on the target, and then move the dot over the target. Yowee and shazam!

I only ran fifty rounds through it---forty rounds of Magtech .45 ACP ball, and ten rounds of Winchester ball. At first I alternated left hand and right hand, then said, "Let's pretend I'm really a lefty." (No cracks, please!) I stuck to the left hand, using a modified Weaver stance---left arm only slightly bent, right hand pulling back with right fingers wrapped around left hand. I put ten rounds into a single chewed out hole. Oh it was bigger than "one round of hardball" but not by all that much.

Now, the way it's set up at present, the FastFire attaches to a mounting plate which is attached to a dovetail blank which goes where the rear sight used to be. That means it rides at least 1/4" higher than it would it the slide was milled to accept the FastFire directly. I want to shoot this setup some more, but the initial results were very gratifying.

Reflex sights? There may be something to the idea after all!

At the same time, now I think I need to try out a laser sight

Not quite shoes, not quite mittens . . .

Check these out: Vibram Five Fingers.

As the title of the post says, they're not quite shoes, they're not quite mittens. Naturally, one of my friends dubbed them "shittens." (Note: later on my beloved sibling pointed out that they're more like "shoves" since mittens don't have separated fingers. But "shoves" don't flow like "shittens" do, do it?)

Since I try to be somewhat self-aware, I can freely admit that my interest in these shoes, err, mittens, err . . . these things, probably grew out of my deeply conformist decision to start wearing pants again. Hey, it's tough to find a job where wearing a kilt is a part of the job description! I got a call or two from a pipe band, but the only musical instrument I play is the radio.

Anyway.

There's the good, and the bad, about these shoes. I'll start off with the bad.

They look silly. Remember, this is coming from a guy who wore a skirt for a few years! They look a little too . . . slipperish. While "shoe" or "footwear" is a pretty elastic concept, here in the Greater West we tend to bring certain "social constructs of shoeness" to the table. (OMG, I'm sounding so SO MARXY!) And we expect shoes to completely cover the top of the foot (for men, anyway), and probably to have laces or buckles or something. I have actually thought about a "top cover" for these shoes, to give them at least a "deck shoe" appearance. Sometimes I dare to think really goofy thoughts.

Let's see, what's the other bad part about these puppies?

Well, so far as I can tell, it's just the looks. (Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!)

Well, I lied. I'm still working out my ability to easily slip into these shoes. The toe pockets require sliding your foot in just right, otherwise you end up with two toes awkwardly squeezed into one toe-pocket. (Can we call them toe-pockets? Or would just "the toe" be better?) If you consider taking ten or fifteen seconds to get the toes aligned just right a drawback, then there are two drawbacks.

Upsides?

They breathe very well. The Vibrams have basically only two components: the Vibram sole and the stretchy nylon-type material. The body of the shoe breathes well, and doesn't build up heat. Foot sweat is a non-issue. When I drove up to Gainesville recently, I wore the Vibrams for the second leg of the trip up, and I'd been wearing my Keene sandals before that. The Keenes were freshly washed and air-dryed, and still my feet got warm and sticky and sweaty after about an hour on the road. Switching to the Vibrams, my feet were cool and dry the whole way up.

Road feel. You get better "road feel" from the Vibrams than you get with almost any other shoe. Let's compare with a "traditional" running shoe, shall we? (Note: what we think of as "traditional" these days is very damn seldom related to any kind of tradition with history behind it, witness "modern traditional" running shoes like those churned out by Nike, Adidas et al. Long dang way from a Chuck Converse, is all I'm saying.) A traditional running shoe will provide lots of support, lots of cushion, lots of orthotic influence. The Vibram takes a completely different tack. If a Nike insulates you from the road, like a mid-1970s Lincoln Town Car, the Vibram is a MG TC. They let you sense it all, the transition from asphalt to concrete to grass to sand.

You can wiggle your toes. Maybe it's only become important to me after seeing Die Hard, but I do a lot of toe wiggling. Side to side, up and down, all kinds of goofy stuff. Essentially, the same kind of hand stretching exercises, only below your knees! Your toes are not pinched together inside a shell with the Vibram, and the nature of the sole allows independent toe movement. Jerry Lee Lewis could play an arpeggio on the piano with his toes, if'n he was wearing Vibrams.

They may be silly, but I like them. I have worn them a good bit lately, and they really do feel like you're going barefoot. To me, that's a good thing. I'm not sure how much credence to put into the "barefooting movement" in terms of health claims, but I know that these are very comfortable.

I've worn them "just walking around", and driving, and even two times to Memorial Park, where I huffed and puffed around in a three mile circle with a fifty pound pack on my back. Even at the park, while my feet did feel much more "muscle sore" than in the past, there was none of the "bad pain." ("Bad pain" is the pain that doesn't comply with USMC definitions of pain as "the weakness leaving your body" but more along the lines of "dude I broke something.") Walking on rocks was a touch uncomfortable, but that thin sole IS Vibram, so it wasn't nearly as painful as being barefoot. Walking on gravel wasn't painful at all, but kind of "stimulating."

So there you have it.

Shittens.

Despite their unorthodox look, I can enthusiastically recommend the Vibram FiveFingers line of footwear. While not appropriate for a professional environment, I think that they represent a bold new approach to "what footwear is." Plus they represent a way to let your freak flag fly without tattoos or piercings.

So foshizzle.

Accountability

You know, between watching the second season of "24", thinking about Mathias Rust, watching the ongoing shenanigans on Wall Street, wondering desperately about how to change my "gainfully unemployed" status and hearing Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber prat on about how Afghanistan is on the verge of turning into Kansas if we only send a couple more brigades, I think I've realized that I just don't know what constitutes treason any more.

Guest Post: The Berlin Airlift

Note: This blog post was NOT created by me, but by a close friend of mine, "SSgt Guinness." Many years and miles ago, I was SSgt Guinness' squad leader for a while, and we have remained tight. I'm proud to call him my friend, and proud to post this guest comment about the Berlin Airlift.

While my dad was in the Army, I had the opportunity - albeit without a choice - to move around a lot and see a lot of the U.S. and the world. Of all the places we lived, there's no doubt in my mind that the two years we lived in West Berlin made the biggest impact on my life, my future, and how I've come to view the world in my lifetime.

We arrived in late 1979, just after my 5th birthday. I flooded my parents with questions about The Wall, the Russians, why people couldn't live together, all the other things I couldn't quite understand at the time. By the time we returned to the States, I had grown to understand a lot of the history, culture, and politics of the city. But it was only years later that I began to fully understand and appreciate one of the greatest humanitarian efforts in modern history - the Berlin Airlift.

It was 60 years ago that the Soviet military blockaded Berlin, shutting down rail, road, and boat traffic to the city. General Lucius Clay, who was appointed as the civil/military governor for the occupied zone, rightly concluded that leaving Berlin would be the wrong thing to do. Although the the Soviets would likely resolve all "technical difficulties" causing the blockade immediately, it would be a huge loss of prestige for America - not just her government leadership, but her military as well. All this, not to speak of how the lives of two million Germans could be changed forever.

Now, keep in mind that I hate math, statistics, and having numbers thrown in my face to make a point. But in this instance, I think the numbers give a good basic understanding of how monumental this effort truly was. On 24 June, 1948, there was enough food in the city to last 35 days, and 45 days' worth of coal. The next day, 32 US aircraft flew in 80 tons of supplies. Four days later, the RAF began flying in supplies as well. Based on numbers generated by Clay and legendary Air Force General Curtis LeMay, American and RAF pilots in C-47s, C-54s, RD-5s, DC-4s, and the venerable Avro York began flying almost 278,000 sorties in and out of the city that would continue for 15 months. 2.3 million tons of food and supplies were taken into the city, at the rate of roughly 5,000 tons per day loaded at 3-4 tons of cargo per flight, depending on aircraft type - the larger birds held around 10 tons. Tempelhof Airport had aircraft touching down every ninety seconds for the bulk of that 15-month period.

The picture I'm painting here (and the definite impression that I have of the Airlift) is one of constant activity, countless moving parts, and true selfless dedication to accomplish a mission - in this case, helping Berliners to not only keep their city, but live life as they had prior to the blockade. I'd imagine one other big factor in those very early days of the Cold War was being able to roll up your sleeves as part of a team and give the Russkies a big one-fingered wave while you were at it. Despite all this, the pilots who flew these missions knew how vital every single flight was - particularly the first flight, piloted by the late Jack Bennett. I can only sort of imagine what it's like knowing that you'll be on the ground again in an hour, yet still wondering if it'd be wheels down or in a burning heap of potatoes and avgas.


This, to me, is THE PICTURE of the Berlin Airlift. I saw it a lot as a kid, all over Berlin - it is to the Airlift what the Suribachi picture is to the Marine Corps.

What really drives home the significance of the Airlift for me is that to this day, all Germans - and Berliners in particular - remain grateful for what the American and British pilots did for them. Tempelhof Airport, one of the very few remaining structures that was built ground-up by Hitler's Reich, became an icon of the Airlift. I'll tell you something - when you have lifelong residents of the city which was the beating heart of the Nazi regime actually fighting to preserve something the Nazis built - that speaks volumes about what Tempelhof represents in their hearts. Sadly, their efforts failed and Tempelhof will soon be swept aside for a larger Berlin airport.

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but I think Berliners in general would call it a travesty that most Americans never heard of the Berlin Airlift. I know it pisses me off a little bit. Just to narrow it down further from my perspective, as a serving member of the Armed Forces: there are many proud moments, legendary battles, and timeless heroes who have formed a legacy that I strive to carry on every day I put on this uniform. For my money - and especially in light of America's post-Korea views of her military - you'd have to dig pretty deep to find an operation more selfless, more righteous, and more deserving of respect and admiration than the Berlin Airlift. Regardless of the circumstances or the politics surrounding the entire affair, it came down to American and British fighting men putting their lives on the line to help two million strangers keep their own.

If that's not as good as it gets, I really don't know what is.


The three prongs represent the only three air corridors opened for flights to & from Berlin during the Blockade; they remained the only three air routes authorized for Allied/NATO and commercial traffic until the wall fell in 1989.

Greek Wine

Nice article here from the LA Times on Greek wines. I frickin' LOVE Greek wine. I'll admit, though, that I'm also a big fan of the retsina, derided in this article as "medicinal, resin-tinged Retsina, one of the more archaic, not to say weird, modern evocations of ancient tradition."

For some reason, it reminds me of Bill Murray in "Stripes," saying, "Maybe I shouldn't have drank all that cough syrup this morning."

But retsina is nothing like cough syrup!

All Options On the Table?

Hey, if all options are on the table for dealing with Iran, umm, what about negotiations? You know, between THEM and US.

This thought has been on my mind some

I was reading Jim Lobe's blog on Neocon humiliation and something tangential leapt out at me.

I quote:

Indeed, it was shortly after the war that Podhoretz steered ‘Commentary,’ the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, sharply to the right on foreign-policy issues, in particular, and that Rabbi Meir Kahane, who popularized the slogan “Never Again” with its multiple connotations of humiliation, shame, militancy, and rage coming out of the Holocaust, founded the Jewish Defense League. (This was before “Never Again” was appropriated by anti-genocide movements that wanted to make the idea universal, rather than specific to Jews, as Kahane had intended.)

(The whole thing is worth reading, this is a tangential thought, so only a snippet of a quote.)

I'd been thinking about "Never again" and the easy, and the hard, lessons that one can learn from something like the Holocaust.

The easy lesson is: Never again, to us.

The hard lesson is: Never again, not to anyone.

Yeah I DID mention "The Road Goes On Forever"

. . . but little did I know it made the "Above the Law" Top Ten Law Songs.

I might quibble about some of the choices, but #1 (with a bullet?) obviously DOES deserve to go to the Clash. "The only band that matters." Yeah, I'm still a Clash fan, too.

. . . then there is no such thing as torture.

Christopher Hitchens got waterboarded, and of it he writes, "Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."

He agreed to be waterboarded, and he agrees that it is torture. Although he equivocates, I think he comes down solidly on the right side. I expect my heroes to have feet of clay, for they are as all men are, flawed, fallen and fallible. I also expect my enemies to have things in their favor, to occasionally see a truth I might miss, to sometimes be fighting just as hard for their beliefs as I like to think I could, or would, fight for mine. There is much where my opinion diverges from Christopher Hitchens', including God and Iraq. But Bully for him. Good show.