Stump the Experts. What is this?

I saw this gun on another web page.  It is called an Ishapore FTR 2A according to that site.

At first glance, I thought it was one of those Ishapore Enfield 2A rifles that Navy Arms modified to Jungle Carbine form , but the magazine is completely wrong and appears to be a standard .303 Enfield Magazine.

The web page clearly says this is a .308 gun, and the 2A designation belongs to the Ishapores built from scratch as .308 guns, not converted.

The mixed wood precludes this being a Navy Arms rework.  I'm wondering if this is just a scratch built cut down Enfield Mk IV. No.1, and is in .303.   If it is, somebody did a lot of work on replacing the sights.

This is the carbine made by Gibbs Rifle/ Navy Arms in the mid 1990's from an Ishapore 2 or 2A.

This is an Ishapore Enfield 2A made to chamber 7.62X51.

This is an original Jungle Carbine MK. V

The World of Late Night Radio

I spend a lot of nights up pottering around.  Sometimes I read, and once in awhile something will be worth watching on one of the satellite tv channels.  Primarily, though, I listen to late night radio.

It's a whole different world than the day time broadcasting people are more familiar with.

On the shortwave, there are all sorts of patriot radio stations,  end of times radio stations,  and survivalist oriented stations. Some of them are fairly high powered in terms of transmission power and they are licensed.  Most of them , though, seem to originate in barns or shacks in Tennessee, Oklahoma,  or Florida.  They have irregular transmission times, and the quality of the programming varies but it's usually interesting even if you don't believe everything you hear.

There are also some FM stations that broadcast syndicated late night radio.  I like Coast to Coast AM, myself.  It's been around for decades and sometimes the byzantine power struggles that the leading characters engage in over control of the show are more interesting than the show itself. Art Bell started it a long time ago, and it had a following of about 3 million listeners nightly at it's peak. Then there was a series of coupe de etates'  after Bell retired,  he came back out of retirement, and on, and on.
It's still pretty interesting.  I listen to my local talk radio station to get the program , usually from about 0100 to 0500.  You can go to their web page and subscribe, but it costs something in the order of $30.00 a year and I'm not paying that.  About all it gets you anyway is access to on line listening when you feel like it, and access to the archives for shows you've missed.

Because of terrain masking, I can only receive one FM station at my house with regular FM radio receivers. Fortunately for me, instead of being one of the many religious broadcasting stations or country western music stations up here, the station I do get is a news, talk radio station coming out of a college NE of my location.  I have one of my best FM radios locked on to that frequency.

I'd be in dire straits without all the different radio programs at night. Sometimes I even learn something but I'm almost always amused.

On a different tact, I posted some you tube videos that contain the full versions of Discovery Channel, BBC, and History Channel programs from some years back. They are just below this post. They're all good, informative shows. Some are documentaries, and some are "docu-dramas" but they're all interesting. I thought there might be some folks out there who don't have satellite or cable, and might have missed seeing them.  All of the programs are older but I don't think they are outdated.

Dreary day here,  drizzling rain since before dawn and cold. That's why I am fiddling around with the computer so much today.

History Channel - Prophets of Doom. Full version.

Super Comet - Science Channel Docu-Drama. The full version.

The History Channel - Super Volcano - docu-drama. Full version.

BBC The Yellowstone Super Volcano - documentary (2 parts: part 1 geologic explanation of super volcanoes. Part 2: impact on humanity)

History Channel 2010 docu-drama "After Armageddon" This is the full version.

Obama speaking to the "National Black Caucus" in D.C. on Sunday, 28 Sept.

Quick comparison: Kirkland canned roast beef at Costco vs. Great Value canned roast beef at Walmart.

I made two big pots of rice this weekend, and added in two different types of canned roast beef.

The Kirkland weighs 12 ounces.  Of the two, this had the best taste. There was more meat in the can, and less stock.  Since it's not available here, the best price for me is the 24 can case, which I can order from Costco.  Total cost , which includes shipping,  is $84.99.    That comes out to $3.54 a can.

The Walmart roast beef is available to me here.  It costs $2.50 a can, plus tax. In my area, that means a total cost per can of $2.67.   There is less meat in the can, and more stock, so the fact that it too is 12 ounce doesn't necessarily mean you are getting the same amount of beef as the Kirkland.

Still eighty-seven cents more per can prices the Kirkland out of the competition.

If you can go to Costco, I am sure you can get the Kirkland beef at a price closer to the Walmart brand.  If I could do that, I'd buy the Kirkland. It seemed to be a better product over all, less fat in the stock and more beef in the can.

Don't worry. It's not Islamic terrorism.

This is Alton Nolan.  He's the guy who went into his old job location, starting attacking people at random, and beheaded one woman.  The picture you see on the news is three years old, and shows a clean shaven, common looking Alton.  No little beany and no beard.  There are other pictures of him in his full Islamic regalia, but they aren't making it on the news either for some reason.

Nolan was only stopped when one of the plant managers shot him.  The plant manager had a gun. If he hadn't, there would be several more people sans cabeza as a result of this incident.  Nolan devoted himself to proselytizing for Allah instead of working , so he got fired.

But this is not Islamic terrorism. no indeed. It's just common workplace violence.  That's what the Feds are saying today on all the news shows, anyway.

This is the second incident in a week where some lunatic who has embraced the Religion of Peace has gone out and whacked somebody in the name of Allah.  The other victim was a young man on his way home when he was randomly picked out by a home grown Jihadi and killed.

Like the title of the old 1920's movie,  The Shape of Things to Come.

Night of the Red Wolves

50 years ago, Red Wolves were native to North Georgia.  Unfortunately,  people killed them for the sheer "fun" of shooting them.  They are harmless animals, shy and they steer clear of human habitations for the most part. No matter, people hunted them to extinction, just as they did the mountain lion and a number of other animals that had lived here for centuries.

About 15 years ago, the forest service tried to reestablish both the mountain lion (called panthers here) and the red wolf.   The mountain lion project didn't work very well, to the extent that until just a couple of years ago mountain lions were still listed as extinct in Georgia.

The red wolves did better. The breeding pairs were brought in from Florida and they did well .  We still have people who sho0t them, knowing full well that they are protected, just for the hell of it.  No one ever accused red wolves of killing stock, or killing pets, or anything else. They primarily hunt small mammals like rabbits, and they scavenge carcasses.

I once came out of my house early in the morning, to sit on the porch as the sun came up and drink a little coffee.  There were five red wolves sitting down in the meadow. Three adults and two adolescents. My dogs weren't fussed by them, and they didn't seem to mind the dogs but they minded me and took off.

Tonight I was out on the porch and I heard them way back up in the national forest "singing." They sound like Gray Wolves, only not as "throaty."  I know they aren't dangerous, but I went ahead and turned on all the red security lights on the outbuildings and  the rest of the red security lights that were not already on around the main house.

It's a strange thing to hear wolves singing.  Even in the certain knowledge that they represent no threat, it makes you feel kind of odd.  I suppose it's an atavistic throwback to the time when wolves really represented a threat to people, and night was the most dangerous time of all. Must be there in the genes, buried in some quiet recess of the DNA.

Nothing doing here aside from the normal chores.

Everything is quiet here.  It's just a little bit early for the tourists to be flooding the roads , and the great bicycle club invasions won't start until the middle of October.   Cool enough for a fire in the fireplace this evening but I wasn't feeling overly energetic so I didn't build one. Maybe tomorrow.

If you look very closely at this picture, you can see that it's a black hen, with a black squab under her wing.  That's the only chick she hatched out this year. They sleep in this tree just off the porch every night, and she always cradles her chick under her wing like that. It must be pretty uncomfortable now that the chick is just about ready to be off on it's own.

This is Midori the cat, in one of her favorite hiding places.  There are lights in the panel along the ceiling in the living room.  Midori likes to get out there and nestle on the pads of insulation in those spaces. From there she can peer down on everyone below and she thinks she is invisible.

It's like the old song by the Beatles, "We all Live in a Yellow Submarine", except we all live in a cedar log house.

This is the vet medicine I get at the Farmers Depot. It's good stuff, and heals up most wounds, skin irritations, etc.   It says not to use it on humans but I've used it on myself and it works just fine. My nose may fall off or something one day but so far there have been no ill effects.

You can't use it on cats, though, because it has something they are allergic to in it.  Works great on dogs, horses, and goats as I can attest from personal experience.

November American Survival Guide on the newstand.

This month has some good articles.  The story on group psychology in stressful situations was interesting.  I'm not sure I am very enthusiastic about them telling how to pick a padlock, as  I use a lot of padlocks, but since the magazine isn't published in Spanish I  probably don't have anything to worry about here.

One of my dogs has a big hunk bitten out of her tail.  I cleaned it up and used veterinarians "wound spray" from the Farmers Depot on her.  I use it on myself and it works pretty well on cuts, so I'm hoping it will keep out infection and help her heal up. I have no idea what got a hold of her but something did.  I'm glad she's had her rabies shots,  even though there haven't been any rabid animals here in ages, that's always a concern out in the woods.

Leaves are falling pretty fast now, and the acorns are all over the ground.  I hope the bears are stuffing for their winters hibernation, and I hope they are staying out in the woods and not coming around my place.  There was a big pile of "pooh" out behind my barn this morning that looked suspiciously like bear scat, even if it didn't smell like bear spray or have any little bells in it.

Eric Holder Resigns.

Eric Holder has resigned.  He is not finishing out his time at the "Department of Justice", and there's a good reason for it.  Looks like the Republicans may take control of the Senate in the next election. That means Obama has only until the end of the lame duck session (December of this year) to get a replacement confirmed by the Senate. After that, if the Republicans are in control, no left wing, racist, morally impaired individual will get through the process which means Obama can't have his choice for Attorney General.  Holder absolutely has to be the worst, most reprehensible Attorney General the U.S. has had since Clinton got Janet Reno into the job.  If you don't remember that reign of terror, count your blessings.

They can't lock up everybody, and other good news.

I read a news article today about California's pending proposition 47.  It would change a lot of felony crimes in California to misdemeanors. Why?  Because the prisons are too full.  It was only about a year ago that Texas released a huge number of felons on the orders of a federal judge who felt their prisons were "overcrowded."

I'm not sure about the logic of these pronouncements.  Just making something a misdemeanor to help with jail overflow doesn't change the heinous nature of the crime.  Letting the perpetrators out on the street in short order will just put decent citizens at greater risk. The logic has gotten twisted somehow.

According to the 2010 Pew Report,  there are approximately three million Moslems permanently living in the United States.

If just one percent of them listen to the ISIS on line entreaties for implementing Jihad in the United States, that would be 30,000 potential terrorists established in the continental U.S.  One of the articles I read today said that the biggest source of converts to Islam is young black men in prison.  No wonder the government is already covering their collective posteriors with warnings about "lone wolves."

The recent "near miss" in Australia ought to light a fire under the alphabet agencies.  Australian security forces nailed some would be home grown Jihadi's before they could implement their plan to kidnap and behead ordinary Australian citizens.  From the perspective of Islamic Fundamentalists, that was a good plan. Westerners don't deal with that sort of thing well, and the randomness of it would have been particularly effective. Of course, everybody has the "sardine defense" but that's not very comforting when you think about it. After all, even if most of the sardines escape the predators, it didn't work for the ones who got eaten.

Personally,  I don't plan to be hanging around any malls for awhile.  Other places that wouldn't be a good idea to linger near , based on past Islamic terrorism, would be schools, school buses,  hospitals, theaters, or trains. Now is not the time to be flying on commercial airliners if you can help it.

My daughter has had to postpone her trip down to visit us.  That means no new ferrets until January, although I had been planning on receiving some refugees from the ferret rescue in October when she came down.  My two remaining ferrets need about four more companions to be really at ease. Six is just about the minimum for a colony.

In just a bit,  I am going into town for supper, then I'm going to Walmart and pick up some ammo. Not because I really need more, but because I am bored and I have to have some justification to make the journey into town.  It's expensive to drive the F250  that far and back for no reason. So I always invent a reason why I "have" to go.  The truth is, I'm bored.

Something new under the sun.

I went into town yesterday.   Went to the post office and took care of a stack of outgoing mail. Then I went to the grocery store. No new magazines but I did get a case of the fizzy water I like.  After that, I had lunch at Subway.  I don't really like Subway, but my 85 year old mother sends me all these gift cards for places like that. She gets them free for points on her Visa card or some such thing.

Then I went out to Walmart for dog food.  As always , I went to the ammo counter.  It was crowded with old timers, most of whom just wanted to talk and weren't interested in buying anything. There were two stacks of Federal 9mm in the cabinent, one priced at $14.95 and one priced at $9.99.

I thought they were the same, and asked the clerk if there was some mistake on pricing, but immediately all the old guys starting trying to be the first to tell me that the cheap ammo was aluminum cased. I knew Speer made that , and CCI, but I never heard of Federal doing it.

It would make good carry ammo I guess, since if I had to shoot evil doer's it's unlikely I would be able to pick up the cartridge cases afterwards.  I reload 9mm so I don't see a big use for this stuff on my part.  If  I can get 50 once fired cartridge cases for an extra $5.00 by buying the brass cased ammo, why not.  Besides, they are still selling the Turkish 9mm really cheap, and that's brass cased and boxer primed.

Great Value, the Walmart house brand, canned chicken was on sale for under $2.00 a can, so I bought what they had. I got about 20 cans.  I wish I could have gotten them still in the cardboard case, but since there is no "back room" at Walmart, everything goes on the shelf as it comes out and you can't get an unopened case.

Very chilly here this morning. At dawn it was 49 degrees.  It's supposed to warm up during the day into the mid seventies. I haven't got any plans. Everything that absolutely had to get done, I took care of yesterday.

Maybe I'll just stay in and read.  I got a new book on the 1982 "Peace for Galilee" operation. That's the one that trapped the PLO in Beirut and led to USMC involvement.  There isn't much out there on the War in Lebanon.  It's a forgotten chapter of American history, but one I'm interested in for obvious reasons.

  That was a long time ago,  and I'm still trying to figure out how it all came about.  I know stupidity on the part of Ronald Reagan was certainly at the top of the list.

The idiots from the state department played a large role too.  The same kind of Alice in Wonderland mind set that gave us Benghazi was prevalent back then, with Habib and McFarland doing a great imitation of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

I wonder why the state department attracts so many people who have no concept of reality, and live in Cloud Coo Coo land?  Doesn't seem to matter if it's a Republican or Democratic administration, the state department clown show remains the same.

At any rate, I'm still trying to make some sense out of it all these many years later.

Why would the USMC, which abhorred the Islamic Terrorists of the day, have been sent in to protect them from our allies, the Israelis?

Why were the rules of engagement so stringent that after months of being constantly attacked, the Marine sentries on duty the day of the bombing were under orders not to have weapons cocked and locked?

Hell, I don't know and I was wrapped up in all of it from the get go to the bitter end.  But I'm still working on understanding it.

The wind is blowing as if it were November. Books, and behind on my email.

This is November weather, not late September.   Getting down to the low fifties at night, low humidity, very cool during the day.  If it's like that now, I wonder what it will be like during the Holidays?  The wind is blowing today and a lot of leaves are falling. That probably means a less than spectacular leaf season here. Usually, in about two weeks the leaf season is at it's best and the tourists are crowding the town.

I suppose just about everyone has a copy of this book:

  I bought many, many copies and mailed them to nephews, nieces, and some old college buddies and former Marines among others.  If I had to pick only one book for someone just getting interested in survivalism, I'd get this one.

That's not to say there are not a lot of other useful books out there. One look at the bookshelves in my study would substantiate the fact that you can spend as much as you want to on the topic.  However, this book covers just about everything the neophyte has to think about.

They got a lot more expensive in the last few years, so I stopped buying them for other folks unless it was a special case, or a family member. I've always considered that the money I spent on postage and books was well spent. Even if they sat unread on people's books shelves or wound up being sold for a quarter at a yard sale, I tried.

This is apparently a companion volume. It was originally scheduled to be available on Amazon in mid to late October, but there are rumors floating about the ether that availability has been delayed until late December. I certainly want a copy, and if it's as good as the first book then undoubtedly I will wind up purchasing some for my nephews and nieces if no one else.

Not that they need them.  My middle brothers sons are all sportsmen and outdoorsmen. They would do fine. My youngest brothers girls all married rural men, from families with large land holdings. What would be called a clan here in the Blue Ridge mountains. They should be ok. Still, every small idea, every new concept, has value in the overall scheme of things.

Surely having these two books would be thought provoking, even if you had the skills and infrastructure to get along already.  No matter how much you have done, you've overlooked something.

  I am woefully behind on my email.  I have several good emails I am late in responding too.  I think tonight I may be able to start getting caught up. So, if you have emailed me in the last three days or so and haven't gotten a response yet, please just bear with me.

I'm not as good about answering promptly as I used to be, but I'm juggling a lot of different things right now. Maybe when life settles down I can get a better routine going.

I need to go to the post office.

I have been doing some carpentry work at the house.  I'm not a good carpenter, but I can do simple things like replacing boards in the porch, putting on a metal roof on the porch, etc.  All of my buildings, as most people know, are cedar log.  That's good in that bugs don't eat them, they don't split or crack, and they are great for keeping you warm in winter and cool in summer.

But a wooden house is like a wooden boat.  You never stop fixing, replacing, or repairing.

I need to get into town and I guess tomorrow I will just declare a short hiatus on the projects I have going. I have some books, some magazines, and a few other things I need to get mailed off to friends.  I guess I'll go in there, do that, and then go to the grocery store for more of the fizzy water I like. Also the grocery store is supposed to have ordered me a case of the dog's favorite dog biscuits and they should be in by now.

Still cool and dry here.  The phones have been going out, on and off.   I suppose the telephone company must be doing more work on the lines out here. They're in rough shape, some of our telephone lines have been in use since the days of the Rural Electrification Program.

I need some way to monitor the line current in the house. I know I could get an amp meter, but I have more in mind a meter I can just plug into an outlet that gives me a constant reading of the line current. I don't know if they make such a thing.  I have battery backups on all my sensitive equipment, and the alarms have been going on and off intermittently for three days now. I called the EMC and they just gaffed me off.  They lie about everything anyway so asking them what the problem is , becomes a waste of time. If I had some sort of meter, I could stand in front of it and look for spikes or dips , and perhaps keep a log.

Time to go feed the chickens.

First Fire this Year.

It's not really cold tonight, but it's cool . Mid fifties outside and very dry air. I built a small fire in the fireplace. Just for the pleasant sound and smell more than anything else.  I don't think I have ever built a fire in September before. Certainly not in mid September. Usually I am still running the air conditioner until mid October. Of course that could still happen. One cold front does not an early winter make.
I'm about ready for winter. The most urgent outside work is done. Wood and propane layed in.  Supplies up to appropriate levels, though some more chicken feed would not be amiss. I gave ten sacks of feed to an old acquaintance who had a little bad luck and that has to be replaced. He can't lift feed sacks right now. That might be me down the road and if I need the help he'll return the favor. Soon it will be the dead of winter and that means reloading time. I need to look at the spreadsheets and see what needs to be ordered. Still some things to do but I'm about there with all the critical issues.

Once Upon A Time - The Old American Survival Guide.

   Today there are so many Survival / Prepper magazines available in the United States that I honestly can't keep track of all of them, though I make herculean efforts to do so.

     In addition to general topic magazines on the subject, there are plenty of specialist magazines that focus on some particular aspect of survivalism, like primitive living or pioneer farming.

   It wasn't always so.  During the 1980's and right up til the end of the 1990's, being a survivalist wasn't  "cool."  There weren't any television shows about the subject, where today we're overrun with survival reality shows, survival "how to shows" and survival experts with their own programs.

Survivalists weren't mainstream, and the vast seething masses of Sheeple regarded them with a mixture of fear and amusement.  The internet in the 1980's wasn't what it is now. Instead of blogs and personal web pages, the main medium of communication was the "bulletin board" which was basically a chat room that wasn't real time.

Even so, there was one popular magazine that dealt with the subject.  A man named Jim Benson edited American Survival Guide.  It was a good magazine, maybe a little gun heavy but the targeted demographic was outdoors oriented white males, so that didn't hurt them.  I read the magazine assiduously, and kept my copies.  Then in early 2000 I lent most of them to a like minded fellow I knew here who got sick and was bed ridden. He was an Army veteran who had been seriously injured in Vietnam and never really recovered.  He enjoyed the magazine even if his relatives weren't all that keen on it or me.  When he passed away, instead of returning them they threw the magazines out. Stacks of them.

Since then I've been trying to help construct a complete set of the old magazines in PDF format. It's not easy.  When the magazine owner died, his daughter took over the publication. She was a "Brady Bunch" Sheeple, and she told Benson no more guns. In fact, she wanted the whole magazine turned into a family camping magazine.  Jim Benson quit, and the magazine went out of publication which was exactly what she wanted.  More, she has refused to sell the rights to publish the magazine on CD for commercial distribution, thereby depriving people of an easy way to obtain the magazine.


Some people who had copies began to lend them to people who had scanning equipment, and there are people out there who have some of the issues on PDF .  Due to privacy concerns on their behalf  there's not a lot I can say about that. It's perfectly legal to convert a magazine you own to pdf as long as you don't sell it.  Most of the people who have pdf files of the magazine have to mail them to you on a disk, and you can see how that could get out of hand in a big hurry. The idea is more a trickle down type of deal, where people help their friends and they help their friends, and so on.

If anybody else knows where any of these old magazines can be found in pdf format, I'd appreciate a heads up. I've got a good many of them, but I'm a long way from having a complete set.  It's not just a selfish "for me" issue.  The people who are collecting them know that they will never be available for purchase, and none of us want to see a good resource disappear because of one person's actions.


I have a different email for correspondence about this project. It's montanus2@hotmail.com.  If anyone knows of a source ,  I'd appreciate a heads up by email at that address.

Addendum

I made myself a big supper tonight.  Opened a pack of dehydrated Bear Creek beef stew.  Put it in the cast iron pot with a package of dehydrated beef,  and big dollop of dehydrated onions.  Cooked it up and added some hot sauce.  My ill temper with Windstream is appeased after a decent meal,  and I am feeling more myself.  Of course, my meals don't compare with those some of the women post on their blogs, but I lack their culinary skills. I'm content with one dish that tastes good, even if the presentation is lacking.  Like John Wayne said in one of his westerns,  "there's nothing like a good woman cooked meal."  We usually only have big meals on weekends when my wife isn't so tired from work, though. Even then she usually makes something good in the crock so we can just eat when we want to.

Two new catalogs in the mail today. I go down to the mailbox so rarely now I have to carry a cloth grocery sack for the mail, as well as my "walk down the mountain bag."

This catalog from Sportsman's Guide always has good things in it related to fire arms. There are parts, parts kits, ammo, and every kind of desirable item if you work on your own guns.

Here's the same outfit's catalog for surplus gear that just came out.  If you have the money to plunk down $200 for a pack, and want to spend it that way, more power to you.  If not, you can get excellent gear for good prices here.  They have this deal where you pay $35.00 a year for "membership" and you can split your payments on your credit card over four months on big orders.

Here's their link.   I don't have any financial connections with them, I just like their company.

Sportsman's Guide Home Page

I should also mention they have lots of other catalogs, all of which are free and you can ask for them on line.

Prepper and Shooter #3 is coming out.  Supposed to be out by the third week of October. You can get the print version at Barnes and Noble or you can wait a couple of weeks and get the digital edition.

I buy them one at a time, digital editions. I liked the first two issues.

Prepper and Shooter Magazine

What other things can I pass on to people that might be useful?  I guess that about covers the spectrum.

Would you like to know one of the big disadvantages to living way out in the sticks?

There are a lot of services people in urban and suburban environments get, that you can't. At least not without going to a lot of expense, and putting up with a lot of aggravation.

There may not be any county water,  trash pickup, paved roads, over the air television, cable, land line or internet service.  Cell service is probably  spotty or nonexistent.  Local law enforcement, fire protection,  and ambulance service may take more than an hour to get to you, if they get there at all.   If there's a hospital in your town, you're lucky.  Most rural hospitals are closing because they are not income producers and have moved from county control to privatization.  When they don't make money, the company shuts them down.

You won't have nifty little kiosks where you can get a latte.  Shopping is  going to be limited to one or two stores,  one of them a Big Box if you are really fortunate. No book stores, music stores, specialty shops of any kind unless they relate to important local activities.  There may or may not be a couple of fast food joints in town.  Perhaps a theater and a bowling alley.

You can find all the things that are missing, but it usually means driving an hour or more to another town.

The closer you live to a big town, the less impact these issues have with you . But the closer you live to a big town, the less of a "retreat" your homestead becomes, and the more suburbanite the environment.

I know, people will say that being without all that is a small price to pay for living in a secluded area. Initially, and on a philosophical level, it is.  But I promise you, over the years ,  as you get older these things become more important. They are harder to deal with. More of them matter than they did when you were 32.  I don't regret coming here, I am just more aware of the flies in the ointment.

I'm in a foul mood about this at the moment because we have only one internet provider in this county. Windstream is very unreliable.  They never deliver the service promised,  they tell outright lies in their advertising,  their service is frequently down (we are experiencing a local outage in your area. We are effecting repairs as soon as  possible. Goodbye!") and you just can't trust them.  Today I called and asked them if my "package plan" was still the cheapest they had.  The answer was no, that they had the same services available for less money but my plan was an "old" one.  I asked them if they let anybody know when they made this new one available, and was told yes, they sent out notices.  I don't get paper bills from them, so I would have noticed anything in the mail with their logo.  I never got any such notice.  So now I've been paying more than I had too for months, and would have continued to do so if I hadn't called. They know I can't go anywhere else for telephone and internet service, so what do they care.

I have a little bit of their stock, which gives me access to their investor relations department as opposed to their "gaff off the suckers" or customer service department. In the past I've been able to get at least partial satisfaction when they played these kind of shenanigans, so I will just have to give them a call and see what I can do.  Even if the answer is nothing, at least I tried.

Feminism has Slain Our Protectors. A WND article.

I would dearly love to have done a cut and paste on this article from WND, because I think it makes a lot of sense. But it's copyrighted, so I am posting a link. I think it's got a great deal of truth in it, although it's too late now to do anything about the situation.

Feminism has Slain Our Protectors.

Quest for Tires.

  Sometimes you have to leave the cave and go out to find what you need.  It's not fun but it has to be done.

I needed new front tires for the Cherokee, and I heard via the local radio gossip link that the Fall Sale was underway at Walmart.

When I got there, they had exactly what I wanted. Off road tread, 50,000 mile warranty, wide tires exactly like the ones on the back of the Jeep. $74.50 each.  That's 20 dollars a tire off the regular price.

So while my wife shopped, I sat out on a bench by the auto department and looked at the mountains. There was one of those cigarette disposal tube looking ashtrays with a cigarette burning down inside it. The smoke curled out by the bench, and it sure smelled good.  One day something like that will happen and I'll start smoking again.

When they finished, I went in.  They had added $10.00 per tire for a "life  time rotation" policy, and $10.00 a tire for "Road Hazard Insurance."  I told them I wasn't paying for that. They told me I had to have it, which is utter nonsense. The tires have a warranty against any damage, so why do I need their road hazard scam?  I can get my tires rotated for free at the garage I go to.  The manager came along, tried to haggle with me over it, then to get rid of me he had them refund the $40.00.   When I got home and checked the receipt again, I saw they charged me for two windshield wiper replacement kits instead of one. So when I go back I'll have to get that money back.   It's coming up on the end of the quarter, and if the auto department doesn't make their assigned quota, they won't get their quarterly bonus. These aren't "mistakes."

I did get two cans of Tula boxer primed brass cased 9 mm, 100 rounds per can, for $22.00 each plus tax. I could have had all I wanted, they had plenty of every conceivable chambering you might want except .22 LR.  Our Walmart no longer has the 3 boxes per customer rule and you can buy all the ammo you have money to pay for.

We also stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables, as my wife did the food shopping while I was going through all this smoke and mirrors with the auto department.  I got some new half boots, which I'd been needing, they were a good brand and on sale.

Now I'm back and I'm glad to be back.  Going to town always seems to mean some kind of bother these days.

Yes, there is such a thing as shotgun shells with plastic slugs or buck shot loads.

Pursuant to a couple of comments in a past post,  there are shotgun shells with non-lethal loads. Personally, I don't see a lot of use for them, because if I'm shooting a shotgun at someone I don't want to bruise them, I want to disable or kill them.

However, there was a time when I thought these were a good answer to the bear problem here.  I don't want to hurt the bears, but I want them to go on back into the woods.  My current thinking, however, is that I might just make them angry, and a bear can run a whole lot faster than I can at my age.  So I have eschewed firing rubber at bears. I do shoot over their heads with a 12 gauge, from a safe distance.  But if that doesn't help, I am now forced to just wait for them to amble off.  The DNR doesn't come trap them anymore, no money in the budget.
(They used to trap them in a big drum thing on a trailer, that didn't injure the bears at all. Then they hauled them off to Tennessee and let them go.)

Personally,  I think it would be unintelligent to shoot an intruder with rubber shot or slugs. Yes, it probably hurts. But what holds true for the bear, holds true for the miscreant.

Suppose somebody was trying to break in here, and I shot him with rubber slugs. If he was capable of getting up thereafter, he might shoot me with something less "humane."

Since I regard any intruder on my property as armed and dangerous, I am not overly concerned about their well being. They put themselves in that position by making a conscious decision to act in an unlawful and threatening manner.

I think the little blurb on the bottom of this shell package is asinine.  However, they are just pimping their product. I suppose it might work with people who don't have the intestinal fortitude to defend themselves and are looking for a way to stave off danger and beat the flower drums at the same time.

Good luck to them if they have to use these things for real. I'll put my faith in double ought buckshot.

When the Goblins come, I want lead down range! There's a place for number 8!