Google Talk

So I'm up on Google Talk as of fifteen minutes ago. It's a cool program, and easy to set up. You can group chat and even talk, if you have a headset, which I don't yet.

Anybody who wants to get on GT and chat, sound off and create a gmail account. We'll coordinate invites and whatnot. It's a good idea.

And you Utah people get Kyle and Ken to look at this. That means you, Bon. I have some thoughts on the possibilities it presents.

They're Running Out Of Time...

To keep me from walking away from 24 forever. There is nothing about Season 7 that isn't absolutely retarded. Well, except for Annie Wersching, who's quite adorable.



But 24 has jumped the shark, maybe lethally. Since Joel Surnow left the show the hippies have taken over and sent the whole freakin' thing right into the toilet. I can't enjoy it anymore. This season of Heroes is brilliant by comparison. Hollywood has never churned out a more unrealistic, unoriginal, and schlocktastic plot in the history of television. It's like the writers don't even care anymore.

And the stupid Official 24 Stop Global Warming campaign makes me want to slap someone at Fox. With a car.

Spoiler alert!

A tin-pot African dictator with a dozen skinnies managed to take over the White House with a handful of subguns, a power drill, and a small waterproof laptop using Windows Vista. Seriously? The White House?

I can't even enjoy Jack torturing suspects, thanks to Senator Red Foreman and Madame President Hillary Cankles Waffler. The president's equally useless and equally emotionless daughter, Mizz Whiny Princess Waffler, is now set to annoy me further in future episodes. Why oh why didn't Juma cut her eyes out? I can't wait until First Gentleman Waffler wakes up from surgery. Oh, what an emotionless reunion that will be from the Waffler women.

Bill is dead!? Why? Who on earth would willingly sacrifice his life for the likes of Madame President Hillary Cankles Waffler?

I'm sure Angelina Jolie's dad will turn out to be a greedy capitalist pig with nonsense stereotypical greedy motives that only make sense to the Hollywood worshipers of Che Guevara.

And now Jack is on the run from every government agency and terrorist group in America yet again. YYYYYAAAAAAWWWWWNNNNNNN.

And how many reset story arcs are we going to get this season? I count four so far, with no signs of stopping. And what kind of WMD's are left that they haven't used already? Nukes? Check. Chemical warfare? Check. Biological warfare? Check. With the way this season has been going, I'm guessing at this point they're going to have to dig out the giant robots or mutant lizards or reverse-engineered alien spacecraft just to keep the audience from falling asleep.

Wait, I know! Time travel! Angelina Jolie's dad and a team of Chrononaut Special Forces are going to go back in time to 1976 and kill Jack Bauer when he's only ten years old and only capable of killing half of them.

Oooo, I got it! Vampires. They're going to release an army of vampires into downtown Washington D.C.! Wait, that won't work. Washington is already filled to the top with sociopathic bloodsuckers in Brooks Brothers suits and Gucci pantsuits. They aren't going to notice a few more walking the streets.

I get the feeling I'm going to be just a pain about 24 now. It'll be annoying to all who know me.

The only way I shall continue watching this POS season is if I can do it drunk.

And Now For The Guns

Steve asked me a question about carry guns today for a friend of his, and I thought I'd share my thoughts here, since I can add pictures. If guns aren't your thing, then move along. Nothing to see here.

The question was, what .357 magnum revolver is sturdy enough to shoot a lot, accurate, yet is small enough to carry concealed comfortably? The answer, I'm sorry to say, is none of them.

Now don't get me wrong, the .357 is a good round, but you're always going to have to compromise on something when it comes to a carry .357. It's the nature of the beast.



First, for a small revolver that might do the job, the Ruger SP-101 is always a good choice. The gun is accurate and sturdy. The stainless steel finish is rust-proof and it's heavy enough to dampen a lot of the recoil of the .357 magnum. It's among the most economical, too.

The ideal SP-101 is the factory model 2 1/4" bbl. with the bobbed hammer. The bobbed hammer is a necessity on an Every Day Carry (EDC) revo. The 3 1/16" gun would also be a good choice, but you'd have to get the hammer spur cut off by a gunsmith. That's the way I'd go. I like a 3" bbl for a .357 magnum.

The downside to an SP-101 is that the triggers are heavy, and the the grip frame is the weird Ruger frame that is hard to find grips for. The factory grips are not my favorite thing ever, and I'd prefer some options. The Hogue grips in the pic are too long for my liking. I'd go with Eagle Secret Service stocks myself.



Next comes the Taurus 617. This is a good, quality revolver at a decent price point. Stainless is good, but you can get it blued. Prices run about $350-ish. A great deal. You can also get this gun in .38 special as the model 817 lightweight. Honestly, I'd be tempted to go with the light .38 over the .357, but then, I don't have an overwhelming need for magnum power. I kind of prefer the controllability of a +P .38.

The nice things about the 617/817 is that they are compact guns, but pack a solid 7 rounds. They're fixed sight, so that's one less thing to worry about, and the grips are decent, although as usual I'd probably replace them with something else.

The bad part is that, like with the SP-101, you'd probably want to have the hammer spur bobbed by a gunsmith. Taurus used to offer the 617 with a bobbed hammer from the factory, but they discontinued that model. You can still find them used on occasion, so look around. Recoil will also be stiff, and the Taurus triggers are a little rough, but manageable.

One of the most squared-away guys I know of lives in Brazil and carries one of three Taurus .38's, with the 817 his favorite. I'd have to agree with him on why he likes his. The extra rounds available may mean the difference between life and death.



Now, an odd addition to this list is the Rossi 2" .357 magnum. There are a surprising number of guys who swear by their Rossi's. It's true that a Rossi is not as refined, not as accurate, nor as sturdy as one of the more expensive brands, but let's face it, a snubby will never get shot a lot and at four yards in a dark Wal-mart parking lot accuracy won't matter. The nice thing about the Rossi's is that they can be had new-in-box for under three hundred.

Recoil will be painful though. Always remember that. .38's loaded might be a better choice.



Now we come to the Smith and Wessons. The Smiths are usually considered the best, and for good reason. They are the best quality currently made. Unfortunately, this comes with a hefty price tag. But we'll go ahead and name off some of the better guns in the different sizes.

J-frame: The Model 640- Five shot, 2.5" .357 magnum. My choice in a really compact .357, if only for the fact that you can put a Barami Hip-Grip and Tyler T-grip on it. Recoil is painful.

K-Frame: The Model 65- Six shot .357. Fairly compact, three inch barrel. A handy, easy to carry gun, especially with the Barami/Tyler setup. Sadly discontinued, but can be had at scalper prices used. Recoil is unpleasant.

L-frame: The 686, 619, 620, 386 Nightguard. All great guns, all insanely expensive. My favorite of the l-frames was the 681, but finding one is almost impossible nowadays. The 619 is a good replacement, but a little biggish and also hard to find.

N-frame: the Model 27, 327 and 627 are awesome, and also insanely expensive. As in $1000+. Fuggetit. But an eight shot, 2" .357 snubby is sweet. If I had unlimited funds...

I should also mention that Taurus' Model 608 is an 8-shot, 4" .357 at a very decent price.

General Pros and Cons

Now, all this being said, here's a few points on carry revolvers.

Revolver Pros- While automatics better withstand abuse, revolvers better withstand neglect. You could load one up and put it in your sock drawer for fifty years, then pull it out with dust bunnies hanging all over it and it will probably still go bang.

Revolvers are reliable, in that if you have a bum cartridge all it takes is another pull of the trigger to line up and fire the next chamber. No messy tap-rack-bang drills here. Just pull the trigger.

They're simple and easy to use. Point and pull simplicity. The snubbies draw quickly thanks to the short barrels, and the round handles are easy to find and acquire under stress. Snubbies are also tough to disarm, and they don't bind or jam if you have to shove one up against a guy's chest and pull the trigger in a self-defense situation.

Revolver Cons- Heavy, long trigger pulls make longer shots more difficult. The hammer spur needs to be taken off of a gun meant to be concealed, as the hammer catches on clothing and flesh when pulled quickly. Ouch. The cylinders are bulky and uncomfortable when carried inside the waistband, unless you have a S&W with the Barami/Tyler set-up, which is what I use on mine. Revolvers also have limited ammo capacity, and reloading is slow. Carrying extra ammo is also a pain.

The revolver is a good choice, but the auto is better as an EDC gun. Faster shooting, faster reloading, higher capacity, more comfortable to carry, and spare ammo is easy to pack around.

But that's another subject entirely.

Serenity NOW!

There are times when the bad news is just too bad to take. Today I'm reeling with the scope of everything that's wrong out there.

The creep of despotism, more unconstitutional gun laws, Paul Harvey's dead, Phoenix is Ground Zero in Mexico's drug wars, colleges are squelching student's civil rights, Obama is declaring war on investors, business, and entrepreneurs, AIG lost 60 Billion dollars last quarter and wants another bailout, Napalitano wants Radio Chip ID leashes for all of us, the British want global socialism, the illegals are marching in Phoenix again, California is FUBAR in every way conceivable, all of the upcoming depression news is damned near overwhelming, the government will soon be choking the life out of us, class warfare guaranteed, the eco-freaks are marching against global warming in the middle of a blizzard, the US is still giving money to terrorist groups and tyrants, and I won't even talk about my own personal troubles.

It hit me all of the sudden how angry I am. I'm in a bad, bad mood, and it's not likely to get any better anytime soon. I just want to pull my hair out in frustration.

And there isn't any answer.



All I can do now is enhance my calm...



Koom-Bye-frickin'-Ya.

Keep Eating In Troubled Times

With's Steve's post about survivalblog.com, I'd thought I post some stuff I've found over the last few years that might help you guys plan ahead. A warning though, that some of these sites are huge, and you could spend days looking through it all.

Unfortunately, I still haven't learned how to hotlink on Blogger, so you'll have to cut and paste these.

First of all, there's the Old Timer's Page. This is a page devoted to living like they did in the old days, without power or refrigeration. There are also links to dozens of other sites with similar info.

http://www.waltonfeed.com/old/old/index.html

Next comes Alpha Rubicon. AR is pretty much a die hard survivalist site, that's easy to navigate, and has just about all the info you could want on SHTF scenarios. BTW, read the Distilled Message of Preparedness on the home page first.

http://www.alpharubicon.com/index2.html

http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/themainmessage.htm

Equipped To Survive is a site that focuses on the gear involved in SHTF undertakings. I found this site to be generally reliable and worth checking out.

http://www.equipped.org/

On Fighting

To begin with, we'll start on the unarmed category of fighting. My favorite for the WWII and conemporary combatives is gutterfighting.org. Gutterfighting is the bailiwick of the New Jersey combatives crew of the late Carl Cestari. You'll see Cestari's Bare Knuckle Boxing vid on the upper left corner. Gutterfighting has a slew of Carl's articles he wrote over the years, as well as a lot of other applicable stuff, and all of it is worth reading and learning from. Carl was the man.

Their forum is awesome as well, but it is readable by invite only, and I don't have the clout to get anyone else in, unfortunately.

http://www.gutterfighting.org/Main.html

One of the better sites I've seen is Lee Morrison's Urban Combatives site. Lee is a UK combatives trainer, and I own a couple of his training dvd's. The free stuff on his site is basic, but good. Give it a serious read through, and take notes.

http://www.urbancombatives.com/index.htm

Jimmy Fatwing has a bunch of links on his site worth reading. Much of this stuff comes from old texts, but the material is still just as useful as it always was.

http://www.jimmy-fatwing.co.uk/

For the use of the knife, here's a PDF of a good slam and jam knife book, Put 'Em Down, Take 'Em Out. A classic knife fighting manual.

http://www.zhivitam.ru/files/83d9f916f68c532.pdf

Here are a slew of the classic combatives works of the old masters such as Colonel W.E. Fairbairn, E. A. Sykes, John Styers, Col. Rex Applegate, AJ Biddle, and others. All of them are good reads, and are good manuals for beginners. Indeed, the WWII combatives curriculum evolved during the war to meet the needs of instructors who had to train thousands of beginners in combative principles in a matter of weeks, so the methods they designed had to be easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to make work in the field.

Cold Steel by John Styers. His knife and bayonet work is excellent. Anytime you see bayonet, substitute cane or walking stick, 'cause the techniques are the same.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2346045/Cold-Steel-John-Styers

Get Tough by W.E. Fairbairn. The greatest hand to hand manual of WWII.
http://www.vrazvedka.ru/main/learning/ruk-b/fairbairn-01.shtml

Shooting To Live by Fairbairn and Sykes. The original point shooting manual. I've taught Jeremy and Kyle in these methods, and they can vouch for how effective they are.
http://www.gutterfighting.org/files/shooting_to_live.pdf

Do or Die by A.J. Biddle.
http://fliiby.com/file/41489/81blmvoowf.html

Kill or Get Killed by Colonel Rex Applegate. Another of the great WWII manuals.
http://www.gutterfighting.org/files/Kill_or_Get_Killed.pdf

Arwrology by Gordon E. Perrigard. Weird name, decent book.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3026801/Arwrology-AllOut-HandtoHand-Fighting-Gordon-Perrigard

That should get you started.

And remember when reading through these combatives books, that unlike martial arts, which is something you do with someone, combatives is something you do to someone. There's no sparring, no give and take, no cutting slack, no giving an even break. Just bare naked caveman aggression and killer instinct. Attack, attack, attack.

The Coming Charlie Foxtrot

You know guys, we try on our blogs to post more of the lighthearted things in our lives, but right now, I think that there is a dark cloud hanging over us all, and I feel like I need to get you guys informed and able to cope with what I see coming down the road.

Now, I know that you guys probably think that I just sit around all day reading books and watching movies and looking at guns on the internet, but the truth is that in the last year and a half or so, I spend at least four or five hours a night online getting what is probably the equivalent to a college degree in history, economics, and geo-politics. I'm constantly crawling through various forums, blogs, organization websites, institutes, and think-tank sites trying to learn as much as I can about What Is Going On. Everything I've seen for months and months points to the fact that it doesn't look good for us in the future.

So I'm going to try to keep everyone here informed, in a way that's easy for everyone to understand.

First of all guys, we've got trouble abrewin' in this country. Everybody knows it, but the average person, it seems, would rather believe that everything is going to be okay as long as they trust the government and simply believe that everything will be okay.

In reality, though, what we're looking at is another Great Depression, and very possibly either the collapse of the federal government, or at least a drastic curtailing of federal power. According to some of the experts out there, we're already in a depression, but the government is refusing to call it that for fear of causing a panic and making everything worse. At this point, the actual unemployment numbers sit at 13%, not the 7% being claimed. There are experts out there predicting unemployment at 25% before the year is out. Market strategist Dr. Brandon Kim thinks that number could actually get into the 30%+ range, which is freaking scary to think about.

Just like with the Soviet Union, the US is spending itself into collapse, and we get to watch it all unfold on Fox News every day. The Spending Bill of 2009 is going to be the beginning of the end. This turkey is all about the Dems getting all of the funding for programs they haven't been able to get passed in the last forty years all in one go. They're pushing social programs that cannot in any way be supported by the taxpayers. There's just no more money.

The Dems grand plan is to borrow money to pay off debt. WTF? Anyone who has ever payed off a credit card with another credit card knows that this is a losing game. Why the Democrats can't see the lunacy of this just amazes me.

There are several US States though that can see this as the biggest problem to our security. At the moment, eight states have introduced legislation declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Another twenty are expected to draft similar bills in the coming weeks. Halle-freakin'-lujeh!

Essentially they are telling the Feds to back off of their latest power grab and stop spending money like drunken sailors. They're also rebelling against pending legislation that violates 2nd and 4th Amendment rights. Things like the REAL ID act and gun registration and ammunition encoding are absolutely unconstitutional, and the Dems are trying to push this stuff through ASAP.

This is how the Soviet Union started breaking up. I've even been hearing talk of secession now, and the movement is growing. New Hampshire, Montana, Texas, Arizona, just for starters.

So what does all this mean? We'll throw aside politics, and get down to what this means at the individual level, which means you and me.

Well, for one thing, it means that we are now looking at drastic changes in how we live our lives. The luxuries we've all gotten used to will likely be gone in the next few years. There is a very real need to start by planning ahead at covering the basic necessities of life. Food, water, shelter, transportation, and security.

Food- For one thing, start stocking up right now on food and seed. As much as you can afford. Buy it cheap, stack it deep. Also, I want everyone, and I mean everyone, to rip up their back yards and start planning subsistence gardens. Seriously, it may be the thing that gets you through the bad times in the years to come. Learn how to can and preserve food.

Jeremy, get Kyle and Dad together, tear out every patch of grass and Mom's flower beds, and start planting food. Do the same at Heidi's house. Get food growing, and start making compost.

Water- Very important. Keep a good supply in the garage, just in case. Enough for a few days at least. Maybe more if you live in AZ.

Shelter- At this point, shelter is going to be the least of anyone's problems. If you had to, it wouldn't be tough to find an empty house to squat in, given how many foreclosures there have been in the last few years. There is a three year inventory of houses in this country. There's plenty of room.

Transpo- Keep your car at least 3/4 full. Get a ten gallon gas can or three and fill them up. Rotate them, but keep the gas handy. 30 gallons of gas on hand would allow you to Get The Hell Out in an emergency.

Before the Spending Bill was passed, there were experts saying that gas would be down to eighty cents a gallon by summer. Now, though, we're looking at the very real threat of hyper-inflation, so the cost of gas could go through the roof. Keep some extra handy.

Get a bike. Start riding it. Get used to doing as many chores as you can on it. Eventually, it may be the only vehicle you can afford to use. You'd be surprised at how folks in third world countries get along and thrive on the bicycle.

Security- This means guns, friends, and family. The family we got covered. The guns though, are another issue. Get one or two, and buy as much ammo as you can afford. There may come a time when ammo will be worth more than money. No, I'm not kidding. Get to know your neighbors. Establish good relations with those around you.

Also, if the economy and the nation collapse, which is likely, crime will go through the roof and you have to be ready to protect yourself at a moment's notice. Cops will be few and far between. Guns and friends will be the only protection you have.

Get into the best shape you can. Exercise as much as you can, and lose some weight. If we collapse, you're going to want to have as few health issues as possible. Get used to walking long distances with a backpack. Trust me, I've done this a lot in the last few months, and it isn't easy. The Army has guys run with full packs every day for a reason. Get your body used to hardship.

Learn how to fight. Unarmed, with blade, club, and firearm. This is important. Keep it basic if you must, but learn something. Especially you men. There is no excuse for not knowing how to put the hurt on an enemy, and your family might need you to be able to defend them someday. So might your friends and neighbors. So learn what you need to learn, and become modern warriors.

Next time I'll post a few articles on the coming cataclysm, and solutions to surviving when the times are interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word.

I know this sounds like end of the world, tin foil hat stuff, but you can't ignore the lessons of history. America is not immune to the stupidity of those in charge. We've had nearly two decades of bad government leading us down the road to failure.

We've arrived.

The Great Kabuna

Anybody remember the movie Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN? I do. Me and my family used to watch it a lot when we were young, and we still quote this movie all the time, but I'd mostly forgotten about it until I stumbled across a an article on Dick van Dyke today. It was an awesome retelling of the Robinson Crusoe tale, but with island girls and drunken monkeys, so it's better.

Everything is better with island girls and drunken monkeys. Trust me on this.

Turns out Netflix has the movie available, so I'm gonna have to rent it again for old times sake. I hope the years haven't rendered it stupid and unwatchable for me, like they did with Weird Science. LT. RC, USN was funny as can be when I was a kid. Hopefully it remains so.

While I'm at it, I've been going over some movies to put into my Netflix queue. I usually only get Netflix for a month at a time because I quickly go through all the movies I want to watch and by the end of the month I'm getting a bunch of crappy b-movies that I'm invariably disappointed with. So before I start up my Netflix again, I'm going to have a big stock to choose from.

The only problem is, I have nothing to watch.

Modern movies are usually not worth the time, but there are still a bunch of old movies out there that I've either never seen or haven't seen in a while. On my queue right now, I have a handful of old movies like Operation Petticoat, In the Good Old Summertime, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Strangers on a Train. For starters.

Anybody got any ideas for some good, old movies I can rent?

By old I'm talking movies made before I was born. The '60's or earlier. Once Hollywood got into the seventies it was all turtlenecks and afro hair and swankyness and chickawakka chickawakka music. Oh yeah, and Joe Don Baker, which I will never forgive the '70's for. No thankee Mitchell.

No, the seventies are best forgotten. I'd rather watch movies from an earlier, less obnoxious time. I like action movies, war movies, pulp, film noir, mystery movies, and even some comedy, unless it has Jerry Lewis in it.

Gimmee some ideas, folks.