Just what it looks like: a private company, in this case Skyhorse Publishing, printing in dead tree form what your tax dollars paid for.
You can get it in pdf form here, for the price of electrons and data stream, or from the Government Printing Office for Uncle's cost, or you can get the Skyhorse version at brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble stores, or from Amazon here.
This is, AFAIK, the current version, which, as state-of-the-art hands-on initial trauma treatment, you should get, learn, and master.
N.b.: Not all of Skyhorse's bootlegs of US military manuals are so current. Caveat emptor.
You would be well-advised to search and seek out the YouTube videos that illustrate and explain the various techniques, as well as getting yourself one apiece of certain key items (tourniquet, wound dressings, etc.), making them sacrificial training aids, and cracking them open for repetitive hands-on learning. Just like Big Green does for everyone from E-1 and up.
Because the worst time to learn how to treat a fresh bullet hole or a sucking chest wound, is when the blood is spurting out bright red and fresh in front of you. Doubly so if it's also your arterial lifeblood doing the leaking.
Get it, learn it, live it. If things get sporty, you will see this material again.
History: Since first taking a class by the name, I've been fascinated with the subject. First, because it is who we, broadly and individually, are. And because it provides the only way to know us truly, which is by observation during operation. Philosophy is theoretical, and chemistry, physics, and the rest of science just a laboratory/petri-dish experiment. History is humanity, in the wild, in its natural habitat.
Most of you probably learned it originally, as I did, as a linear series of dates, places, names. A did this, went to B, did C, and so on.
Burke's view of history, in this groundbreaking book (and companion TV series) isn't like that.
His far more coherent view of history (and the correct one, IMHO) is to see all of us as wheels that move because of all the other wheels. A did B because of C, D, E, J, Q, and Y, who were also doing G, M, and T, which led to Z.
He starts out with the premise that 18th century sugar plantations led to the space shuttle, or that pre-industrial loom-weaving led to the modern computer. And then, in an A to B to C to D all the way through to Z series of moments, lays it out step by step, and proves his original point, right in front of you. QED. Imagine Penn and Teller teaching college classes, and Penn laying out the trick backwards and forwards, and still dazzling you. Burke is that good.
What makes TDTUC special is that the book will take you from ancient man at the dawn of writing to about 1980, when the book was first penned. The first in his delightful series, it hands you all of history in a way you can access, while enjoying the entire ride. Western Civ without the boring part.
My introduction was, while sitting on a movie set surrounded by prop books (crates and bins of books used to fill out a wall of shelves), having run out of my own entertainment while rigging crew spent days coiling up the detritus of a modern feature film, finding the original hardcover book amongst the piles.
I read toothpaste tubes on long boring days in the military. When you're bored, anything is interesting. This was far more than that. Starting out, it grabbed me from the outset. So much so that larceny momentarily took hold: I pinched the book (the statute of limitations has expired), and took it home. I read that thing for two days, no-stop. Then started over again. (And not being an actual criminal, replaced the volume the next day with something else of similar size and heft from a thrift store, so the prop house was not shorted. Relax.) And then found a new copy as well, so Burke hasn't been shorted either. Money well spent.
Part of what set this book apart, besides being the first in his series of offerings, is the multitudinous illustrations of primary source drawings, paintings, etc., that make Burke's points, and even better, the copious bibliography of more books he drew on for further research, elucidation, and inspiration.
It's twenty years since I serendipitously stumbled onto the original book, and I'm still only partway through Burke's bibliographical lists. And I've read the follow ups, and re-read this one half a dozen times.
If I founded a model university, Burke would be the chair of the History Department. The beauty of the Internet is that now, you can hire him to tutor you, for the price of the book. Screw $200K in tuition, exhaustive knowledge of this volume would put you ahead of most history graduates in doctoral programs.
And for the TL;DR set, you can find some of the original BBC episodes online, bootlegged onto YouTube. Tease.
So there you go: a review, really, of seven books and three TV series, for the price of one essay. Start with this one. This is pure genius, and lightning in a bottle.
I post, sometimes multiple times daily, and sometimes only once a day, or once every several days. Mainly because some days, I'm busy, or don't have anything worth saying. (Some days, per some responses, even true when I am writing something. YMMV)
The only exception to that was when I culled the 8'x8' Wall O' DVDs/BDs for a year's worth of Best Movies. (Starting here, if you're interested.)
They keep making more of them, and I'll review the good, the bad, and the ugly of modern cinematic efforts as I see fit.
But I only have eight feet square of movies.
I have two hundred feet of bookshelves. (Not counting a baker's dozen floor stacks here and there all over. I'm pretty sure, with books and DVDs, when you leave two together alone at night, they make offspring. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)
I never liked book reports, but I love the reading thing. The two hundred feet of shelves full was probably a tell in that regard.
Viola! Books. A new daily post topic for me, for some good time to come, if I can stick with it.
Not all of the books I own, assuredly, just the ones worth the time. At a book a day, I'd die first. Some classics, some new finds. For preparedness, other sundries, and pure arcana. There's more to life than the apocalypse. I may even go back and forth, one for one, or something like it. Moderation in all things.
First one up tomorrow.
If I hit the Powerball, I'm building this at my home. "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." - Marcus Tullius Cicero
There were only 6 1/4 million made, and the survivors should all be given a good home, back here in the US.
As a bonus, they’re hell for tough, great for DRT terminal ballistics, as thousands of Zombie Good Krauts, Japs, Norks, Chicoms, and VC could attest, and they don’t look like eeeeevil Black Assault Rifles, while still providing a steady rate of semi-auto fire on anything that’s pissing you off.
Something to consider for any future sportiness on your horizon.
{FWIW, its invention by John Garand was prescient. They sold to Uncle for $85, in the day. In the wild now, a decent one goes for about a Ga-rand. CMP price ought to be decently less than that.}
Got home tonight, and this took about a minute and two mouseclicks to call up:
Note that this was posted online four days ago, which is three and a half days before all the catatonic armchair commandos (example) were self-assured that the US airstrike was a flop.
Reality is a bitch, ladies.
Link Nota bene the additional before/after pics at the site.
h/t to Navy matters blog, where this was in comments
ISI FIRST TO ANALYZE SHAYRAT AIRFIELD MISSILE ATTACK
April 7, 2017
Based on very high resolution imagery captured less than 10 hours after the attack, ISI presents in-depth battle damage assessment.
The Shayrat Airfield base was attacked by the US military using Tomahawk cruise missiles. According to the Pentagon, 59 missiles fired at the base, 58 of them hit targets. According to the Washington post, the Tomahawk cruise missile was last used by the Pentagon in October, when the military launched Tomahawks from ships in the Red Sea at three coastal radar sites in Yemen.
“President Donald J. Trump ordered the attack on Al-Shayrat Air Base, the base from which the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province launched. The missiles launched from U.S. Navy ships in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea”, says the Pentagon announcement.
“Shortly after the president’s address, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis issued a statement providing details of the strike. It took place at about 8:40 p.m. EDT — 4:40 a.m. April 7 in Syria, he said.
“The strike was conducted using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, or TLAMs, launched from the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Davis said in his statement. A total of 59 TLAMs targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.”
Syria 1
The results of the attack
ISI very high resolution satellite imagery was able to reveal the results of the Tomahawk cruise missiles attack on the Al-Shayrat Air Base. According to ISI experts, the total of 44 targets hit. Several targets may have hit twice. Photo and analysis of the attack were carried out within 10 hours of the attack.
Shalters1
An in-depth examination of the damage to the objectives shows that 13 double hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) got 23 hits. 5 workshops got hit. The workshops are not necessarily related to WMD, but to aircraft and their ability to do maintenance and fly.
Hangars 1
Ten ammunition storages got hit. Seven fuel reservoirs of the AFB got hit at two sites with eight hits total. Two locations remain untouched. One SA6 Battery utterly destroyed along with its radars and control systems. In total, five SA6 Battery elements hit.
Bunker
The results show that the target hits were accurate and that the Tomahawks have been used effectively against quality targets. Although 58 missiles hit the base, it seems that the overall damage to the base is limited because the warhead of the Tomahawk is not considered large and weighs about 450 kg.
That's 58 hits out of 59 launches, while one failed and hit the ocean before arrival on target. Not 23 hits, as the Russian propaganda media claimed. It's been elsewhere reported that 20 Syrian aircraft were turned into scrap as well.
So for the strategically and tactically challenged, here's the result, again:
The premise that the attack failed is nonsense.
1) Assad’s forces were punished for the use of WMDs. He cannot afford the loss of further forces, and cannot replace those losses without serious cost and difficulty, plus time. He has none of those in abundance.
2) His Russian ally was shown to be completely impotent to stop, deter, or mitigate the attacks.
3) As a consequence of 1 and 2, both Assad and the Russians will eventually be gone from the region. Regardless of what follows, that is a net plus for the region.
4) Displacing Russia to the other side of the Black Sea deconflicts the area for further unilateral US action, should we choose to take it.
5) It will leave the area ripe for a USAF/SOF-driven solution to the ISIS problem, exactly as A-stan was originally handled in 2002, without putting 100,000 troops on the ground or trying asinine experiments in nation-building (which is about as likely as having an Arab swallow a crate of Lego blocks and expecting him to poop out a completely constructed city of skyscrapers.)
6) This also snuggles ISIS right up to the border of Turkey, and leaves Erdogan with the choice of returning to a more secular and Western-friendly government, as they formerly did, or else joining the caliphate and rejecting NATO. The latter opens them up to Russian adventurism. It would also possibly finally wake up Eurostan to the fact that they are now back at the status quo ante Lepanto 1571, minus the will for self-preservation.
7) As its mere existence simultaneously pisses off Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, which is a 5-star win, we should expedite full diplomatic recognition of a de facto independent Kurdish republic, weakening multiple enemies, and giving us two stable allies in the region, instead of one.
Nota bene none of this requires landing so much as one brigade of US infantry anywhere in the region, and a Syria in chaos is hobbled, hamstrung, and pre-occupied for some number of years, which takes them off the table, gives Lebanon a fair shot at sorting themselves out internally, and pushes Putin back inside the Bosporus, probably for the rest of his lifetime.
If you’re going to play chess at that level, that’s how it’s done.
Like I told you yesterday.
And for the would-be military and strategic geniuses out there, life moves pretty fast. A goodly number of you should probably just stay on the porch. I won't name names; you know who you are.
If you'd been following this last Saturday, you wouldn't be wearing your trousers as socks now.
For those convinced the chemical usage didn't exist, and that the attack never happened, I'll just leave this here:
The United States has made a preliminary conclusion that Russia knew in advance of Syria's chemical weapons attack last week, but has no proof of Moscow's involvement, a senior U.S. official said Monday.The official said that a drone operated by Russians was flying over a hospital as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment. Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons.
The U.S. official said the presence of the surveillance drone over the hospital couldn't have been a coincidence, and that Russia must have known the chemical weapons attack was coming and that victims were seeking treatment.
Still not my guy. Still smarter than you, Putin, and the MSM combined.
FFS, Reagan had to wait two years for the Libyans to bomb a disco to get this opportunity. If he lands the 1st Armored Division in Syria, and tries to build a better nation, give a holler. I'll join your march, and subscribe to your newsletter.
In the meantime, he's punished a tyrant, given his regime a nudge towards the abyss, made Putin look like a pussy, and put three other threat nations on notice, for the cost of no American lives at risk, and less than 5 dozen aging cruise missiles, for some good Navy surface action live-fire training.
#qwitcherbitchin
#thisiswhatwinninglookslikeforthosewhoveforgotten
Apparently, this week is National Take A Retard To An Internet Café Week.
I didn't know. Sadly.
But the clear and overwhelming proof sits there, as obvious as the nose on my face. The first response is free.
After that, you're either fighting a holding action, or just jiggling the handle and lighting a candle. I've just finished 9 months at a perfectly fantastic trauma center, and today I'm taking some time away from kicking crippled kids online,
and going to Disneyland. No, really.
Hopefully today they're all still online, and not waiting to get into the park.
Today, dozens of surviving network censors, and political correctness gurus on hundreds of college campuses heave a tremendous sigh of relief at the news that Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles, impresario of machinegun put downs, has finally shuffled off his mortal coil, as a result of kidney failure. Which means that he died just as full of piss and vinegar as he lived.
Unfortunately for them, he'd already burned PC crapola to the ground, right up to the very end, and remained razor sharp probably up to and including his final words. He regularly guested on late night talk shows with the likes of Carson, Leno, Letterman, Conan, Kimmel, Fallon, and Ferguson, well into his late 80s, and generally took them out at the knees at the slightest provocation, without any appreciable loss of skill from the height of his prime.
The pride of Queens, NYFC, after 2 years in the Navy during WWII, he studied acting and earned his living doing stand-up. His film debut was a part as a crewmember in a small picture about submarines with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, Run Silent, Run Deep. Bouncing between movie gigs and stand-up, he caught the eye of Frank Sinatra, ("Mister Sinatra, I love you, and you're a legendary musical talent...as you've told me many times. But I just want you to know, from the bottom of my heart,...I never cared for your songs.") and thus began a lifelong friendship, leading to Rickles' eventual status as unofficial Court Jester to the Rat Pack.
As a condition of appearing at President Reagan's Second Inaugural Ball, Sinatra required that Rickles appear as well. The President acquiesced, Washington DC winced, and Rickles killed it that night.
He stole most of the scenes he appeared in for Kelly's Heroes with Clint Eastwood, voiced Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story movie franchise including the upcoming 4th installment, and in between that and still doing comedy tours until very recently, managed to make several dozen TV pilots and one notable hit series, hundreds of TV appearances, 28 film roles, recorded two comedy albums, wrote two biographies, won a primetime Emmy Award, and offended pretty close to every human being on the planet at one time or another - right up until it was clear that he was just kidding, and had a heart just slightly smaller than the ocean. Preceded in death by both his wife of 52 years' marriage, and his son, who produced the Emmy-winning biography of his father, Rickles is survived by a daughter, two grandchildren, dozens of comedic imitators and lesser lights, and about a billion fans worldwide. And courtesy of YouTube and the like, fans yet unborn can find and appreciate his talent in years to come. His passing isn't a loss. It's a celebration of one helluva ride.
Start the party, boys. Mr. Warmth just walked into the joint.
Courtesy of FerFal, the link to the all-new (as of LAST WEEK) USAF Survival Handbook, March 27 2017 edition, all 652 glorious pages of it, available for FREE DOWNLOAD courtesy of your friends at the United States Air Force.
This is free gold nuggets laying right on the ground at your feet, boys and girls.
Get some.
Then print one, and put by a few copies on flash drives here and there, or to give away. You already paid for it with last year's income tax.
Check out this soon-to-be-viral video from Sverigistan:
Apparently three former backup dancers for ABBA made the career switch to being coplettes. Unfortunately, in the course of their duties, they seem to have tried to apprehend a swarthy "refugee" in between acts of arson, and it turns out Dirka Dirka Imawannajihad wasn't having any of that.
Even with help from a couple of male bystanders, the utter ineffectiveness of the cop-chicks is beyond redemption or any attempt at gainsaying. When you aren't packing the biological gear to do the beat cop job, go back to being a dispatcher, or perhaps baking cookies. For the good of humanity.
This wasn't a job for the Three Diversity Stooges, it was a job for Captain Taser, and his trusty sidekicks, Sergeant Pepper Spray, and Corporal PR-24 Shampoo.
No doubt the once and future miscreants in Sverigistan, over on Bakalakadaka Street, will be quaking over this display of diverse community policing. But the quaking will be in mirth.
Look, any man can get beaten too, but it takes a proper flying squad of Constable Barbies to get their asses kicked at 3:1 odds. If the perpetrator in question hadn't already trashed their po-po ride (while they stood helplessly watching), I'd suggest one of them get in, and run him over.
Maybe the police over there should stop recruiting from amongst the airport welcoming committees.
Maybe it's time for WOW to open a chapter in the rape diversity capitol of the world, Stockholm. (Which also explains a lot about why Stockholm Syndrome cropped up...there.) Or perhaps try finding some corn-fed old school opera singers.
Having shared this info/idea in a post comment I dropped over on the DTG blog, realized I hadn't shared this one here. Doh. And free Saturday post for me.
Some/many/most of you may have, do have, or will have, various and sundry kits. Loaded, of course, with various sundries.
A couple of common themes with those are How do I consolidate all the fussy bits of Kit X? and How do I keep said fussy bits from falling out and leaving a breadcrumb trail of gear? The answer, gentle readers, is found at The Container Store (80 brick and mortar US locations, and online for everyone).
Their tubs, tubes, tins, and other bits and bobs are some of the most fantastic collection and selection of problem-solvers available, some of them for problems you didn't know you needed to solve.
It can be used (Duh!) as a double-sided pill box. For personal meds, or your IFAK pill kit. But it also works slicker than snot for making an O Sh*t! Kit, keeping the most frequently broken/lost pins, springs and little parts for the AR-15 series of rifle ready to hand. Or as a mini FAK in itself. Or for a survival fishing kit. Or a mini survival kit. Or a sewing kit. Or a fire-starting kit. And on and on.
If it rattles, pack the extra space with cleaning patches, Q-tips, toilet paper (for the obvious, or as tinder), thread/fishing line/dental floss wound onto index cards in plastic bags*, etc. If it ain't so full it's silent, you aren't trying hard enough.
This one is 2 3/8" x 4" x 1 1/8", so whatever you put into it, it fits in just about any pocket.
That'd be the little empty one at the bottom of the pic. Why? Because medical tape rolls get grungy, dried out, and die left exposed to air. But a standard 1" wide roll of tape fits inside this mini-Tupperware style tub, which keeps it factory fresh, clean, and not sticking to everything else in the kit. Brilliant. (Bonus: you can find a smaller sealing tub to fit inside the tape roll central spindle, and fill it with sunscreen, Neosporin, etc.) You can also dip 100% cotton balls into melted petroleum jelly, let cool, wrap in two flat pieces of aluminum foil, and then squash each one flat, and stack a bunch in this tub, and have a ready stack of combination firestarters/kindling/candles stored so it stays ready to light, unmolested, and without oozing Vaseline onto the rest of your kit.
I've used various containers they sell, to resurrect and restock gutted mil-surplus aircraft first aid pouches, with water-/crush-proof item boxes. I've found tubes suitable to keep IV catheter needles from stabbing me in the back while packed into field kits. And still other items just to hold my salt, pepper, and steak rub, as designed.
If one of their retail establishments isn't someplace you've visited, but you could, go. Take money. Lots of money. They only have another 50,000 or so items to pack, store, carry, or consolidate all the crap you own, and some of them are genius.
If not, go online and browse, but remember to come up for air. If you can't find something there you need, you're hopeless. If you have an idea for something you need, and you can't find something close there, you haven't looked hard enough.
*(You should already have known about the little 1"x2", 2"x3", 3"x5", and 4"x6" wide Ziploc-style baggies for holding/consolidating/waterproofing all sorts of things, found at WallyWorld/Michael's Crafts/etc., right? Right??)
Today's April Fools' Day Post is cancelled, because reality is so f**ked up that no fake post could possibly compete with what is actually happening on a daily basis.
I'm just gonna drop this here, do with it what you will, I'll make popcorn.
Set beverages down. Fasten seat belts. Embiggen this. Nota bene the orange muzzle plug in evidence. Bloghost is not responsible for your choking, spewing drinks onto your hardware, or laughing so hard you fall out of your chairs onto your asses if you fail to follow these instructions.
I still don't believe this is a real and legit post. Judge for yourself.
Much more likely someone trolling at the Sacha Baron Cohen level of game.
But if it is legit, we can probably write off any hope of holding control of the gun section at Toys-R-Us, unless we send a rabid six-year-old girl to kick this fat f***er's ass.
The only thing this sorry shitstain could drop from 500 yards would be a jelly donut, if he leapt on it out of a plane at 1500' AGL.
And I think beyond a reasonable doubt we now have a picture of the actual C.O. of the Phoenix John Brown Redneck Posse.
Apparently, the Revolution will be arriving on a short bus, and this guy could tell you what the windows taste like.
Now pardon me while I go change my shorts from laughing so hard I had an accident.
Consider the shark. See that mouth? Not your friend.
But the solution isn't to knock the teeth out. If you've ever seen or handled even a small shark, or set of jaws from same, you know why. It simply cannot be done. There are dozens to hundreds of them, in serried rows of razor-sharp badness, with three or four or more rows ready to spring forward if/when one or more become dislodged or break off under use. This is the sort of thing to make the poet who conjured up the Medusa have nightmares.
If you break one, or even all of them off, tomorrow there'll be new ones right in the same place, and the shark will do what it does best. Just like yesterday.
The solution is to blow its effing head off.
"Smile, you sonofabitch!"
I bring this up, because Antifa, and the other components of the notional Leftist Tard Army engaging in street theatre are nothing but a few random shark's teeth. Annoying, hazardous, but not the central problem.
And frequently, they beclown themselves in ways we couldn't even begin to imitate:
(Seriously, this is PRICELESS. I can't even begin to describe it.
Most guys would have to pay big money to get some paid BDSM queen to emasculate them so effortlessly (I've heard), and the pussymen of Antifa are evidently getting this stuff for FREE. Professional dominatrixes {dominatrixi?} are going to start getting testy about Antifa cutting into their profits. But it's comforting to see the "men" of Antifa have ready access to lipstick, skirts and lingerie in their own sizes. Pretty much like we've figured since long before now.
This is either a Jedi Master troll, or they've gone full goose bozo, and they just don't realize how absolutely batshit crazy they are and appear. Pretty much like every actual batshit crazy person off their meds for too long. I can't believe this is legit, but either way, it's hilarious!)
If these jacktards persist and expand their daily operations, particularly by adding weaponry beyond the usual cudgels and brickbats, they will undoubtedly do little but push more people from the middle, or even the slightly Left, over to the Right, and provide certain numbers of the more freedom-loving variety of folks hereabouts with a burgeoning number of confidence-building soft targets. {Cf: Viet Cong} What they aren't going to do is usher in a Glorious People's Republic of Leftism. To even attempt it would be to green-light their rapid extermination, in a matter of days to weeks, at the outside.
But. Doing that is liable to be or become the trigger for a clampdown of a most unhealthy and unwelcome variety.
The problem is Leviathan. As ever was, since Hobbes first titled his signature work. If liberty and freedom is what you care about, the street troupe of @$$clowns du juor is not the worst case scenario, nor has ever been.
Leviathan has to be gutted, and whatever remains afterwards has to be leash-broken with a vengeance. This is non-optional.
Otherwise the varsity games are going to be biblical bloodbaths. Got tribe? Got intel? Got training? Got logistics? Which, shockingly, is called S-1, S-2, S-3, and S-4. Think of them as the alphanumerics of victory.
"The left doesn’t believe in secession. It’s an authoritarian political movement that has lost democratic authority. There is now a political power struggle underway between the democratically elected officials and the undemocratic machinery of government aided by a handful of judges and local elected officials. What this really means is that there are two competing governments; the legal government and a treasonous anti-government of the left. If this political conflict progresses, agencies and individuals at every level of government will be asked to demonstrate their allegiance to these two competing governments. And that can swiftly and explosively transform into an actual civil war.
There is no sign that the left understands or is troubled by the implications of the conflict it has initiated. And there are few signs that Democrats properly understand the dangerous road that the radical left is drawing them toward. The left assumes that the winners of a democratic election will back down rather than stand on their authority. It is unprepared for the possibility that democracy won’t die in darkness.
Civil wars end when one side is forced to accept the authority of the other. The left expects everyone to accept its ideological authority. Conservatives expect the left to accept Constitutional authority. The conflict is still political and cultural. It’s being fought in the media and within the government. But if neither side backs down, then it will go beyond words as both sides give contradictory orders.
The left is a treasonous movement. The Democrats became a treasonous organization when they fell under the sway of a movement that rejects our system of government, its laws and its elections. Now their treason is coming to a head. They are engaged in a struggle for power against the government. That’s not protest. It’s not activism. The old treason of the sixties has come of age. A civil war has begun."
Oh, forgot to mention it's also scary as hell. Pretty difficult to argue with the premise, when the author nails it down so airtight. And the Leftist @$$clowns in the headlines day to day, out in the streets? They're the sideshow, not the circus. (Regardless of what they think. cf.: Viet Cong)
And a lot of people may soon get to see the elephant. Up close.
So, how's the stockroom look for riding out a potential CW v2.0? Tempus fugit.
So maybe Antifa is exactly the untutored baboons I've been telling you for some weeks, not an irresistable tsunami of 10-foot tall giants come to rape your womenfolk and eat your babies led by Lord Humongous and the Wasteland Hussars with chess masters planning and billionaires funding their overwhelming march to conquest. And once they venture into Real America from their bare few actual SJW safe spaces, mere average citizens and any moderately competent policing agency will shut them down in about a minute. Like they did.
Based Stickman? Ha! Meet the Stickman Brigade. (Rules of a Stick Fight: 1. Bring A Stick. 2. Bring As Many Of Your Friends With Sticks As You Can.)
Dear Antifa pussies: Huntington Beach isn't Berkeley, solid citizens outnumber SJW douchecanoes, and the cops there are still pissed off about your pre-election shenanigans from last year. Also note, the police thereabouts only feed their K-9s after they bite you, and specifically as a reward for doing so. True story.
Note to reflexively anti-California idjits in the other Forty Nine: Huntington Beach is as much CA as Berkeley is. Recalibrate your pieholes before you write off the entire state.
Comedy: 10 Targeting: 10 Final score 100%.
This almost makes up for the rally organizing clowns getting the Costa Mesa Gun Show at the OC Fairgrounds cancelled this weekend because of scheduling this rally at the same time. Not quite, but it comes damned close.
This embigens. Note the Antifa punk using pepper spray (it's in his right hand) on the marchers, which is what triggered his beatdown.
Pic of the Year Pulitzer Nominee:
Hear the footsteps, punk?
Best Chant du jour : "Nowhere to run; Nowhere to hide; You're gonna take a helicopter ride!"
"This is winning! Bigly!"
And boys and girls, don't forget to point at the Tard Army, ridicule their ridiculousness, and laugh uproariously at their predicaments. It's good for your soul. And your digestion.
Update: Of course, there are always the ones pushing the envelope on peaceful assembly, until they get what's coming to them. In case you've always wondered what happened to the kids in kindergarten who ate the craft paste. The minute those involved perform even one criminal act, they graduate instantly from political speech, to insurrection, and they're going to get mowed down with extreme prejudice. That won't be just a laugh, it'll be hilarious. They've lost at peaceful change. They're losing at violent protest. And now, disregarding experience in favor of their eternal optimism, they want to escalate to test-driving armed violent protest. Okay, snowflakes. Good luck with that strategy. Update your life insurance, and pick out your headstones. Gravity. Cliff. Rocks at the bottom. Some assembly required. Step One:
Step Two:
Yes, these are indeed the very same tards from the upper pic, a coupla months later.
And their buddies from Airsoft Summer Camp. Step Three:
Thanks for playing, and here's your parting gift. QED Oh, and hey, your Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters say "Hi!"
If you want to make sense of 2016, and understand 2017, right up through the schism that launches God-Knows-What upon us, you should read the brilliant, insightful, and precise essay of this title by Robert Gore at his blog, Straight Line Logic.
Key graf:
Take away the undeserved from the undeserving and you get a tantrum. Steal the earned from those who earned it and you get righteous rage. One’s a firecracker, the other a volcano. The game has been to impress upon the useful a moral obligation to support the useless, but the volcano’s about to blow, burying that obscene morality in lava and ash. Given the staggering levels of accumulated debt and promises, the useful know their talents, skills, hard work, productivity and futures have been mortgaged for the useless. This is the salient and intractable social division. No reconciliation is possible between the useful and those who believe themselves entitled to their enslavement.
Deceased: Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry, aged a mere 90 years, of natural causes, at home in his bed. Survived by his wife of 68 years, Themetta.
Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news.
He could play the guitar just like a'ringin' the bell:
In reference to this thread over at WRSA, and with respect to the apparent butthurt I caused in response, the following.
The original question was
“Does a properly-accoutred 21st-century Freikorps volunteer wear a K-pot? Asking for a friend…”
First, I was responding solely to the post on WRSA, which included the rationale illustration, and not DTG's extended answer. Hence the fact that the only point I was opining on was in respect to the exact one thing I stated. My comments were directed to those who would throw out baby and bathwater together based on faulty and/or no rationale (which we'll re-visit in due course), not as a brickbat against DTG's linked post, which other than the WRSA-posted excerpt, I hadn't read until after the fact. So FWIW DTG, nothing I said was a slam on your rationales other than that one bare item, so if the ire in response is because you thought otherwise, I'm sorry for having created that misimpression.
Second, comments there were closed before I could reply to the challenge offered, else I'd have gladly done so there and then.
Third, DTG's new, improved query is now
"Should people equip themselves with a K-pot? Why or why not?"
which is a completely different tack from the original query.
I'll tackle them both, and in detail, and we'll see where that gets us.
1) I took the original Freikorps question to refer to those engaged in our current and any future form of street theatre, as that's precisely what the original Freikorps was: a precursor to the SA Brownshirts, when multiple political parties were "campaigning" in the streets of Germany during the Weimar Republic era from 1919-1933, usually with pipes and bottles in use all around.
So with respect to whether anyone venturing forth to mix it up with the Leftist tards ought wear a helmet, my suggestion is that we look at the tapes from recent festivities:
So, let's take a vote. Everyone who seriously thinks facing Molotov cocktails, frozen soda cans and water bottles, slingshot projectiles, thrown rocks, metal pipes, high-velocity pellets, machetes, and wooden batons with nothing but a soft cap or boonie hat is a good idea, please stand on your head.
QED.
Freikorps, as such, either wears a helmet, or budgets a large fund for the care of neurologically crippled vegetables formerly known as Freikorps soldiers when their heads get upgefuchten.
(Like "FUBAR" was in Saving Private Ryan, that's a German word.)
2) Now, in answer to DTG's query, about "people", my first response is a counter-query.
Which "people" ? And doing what?
A) People sitting inside their own home-castle?
B) Those same people undertaking combat patrols in their neighborhood/AO after TSHTF?
C) People part of a larger, semi-organized neighborhood defense group, in either role?
In short, the answers are A-Yes, B-No, and C-It depends.
People who are minimally trained or completely untrained, won't be doing anything but defense, in most cases. And the only part of them liable to be exposed will be their heads and shoulders, in firing weapons over or through defensive works. So a brain bucket would quite obviously be a life support device devoutly to be wished.
Those same folks out and about would probably (hopefully) be depending on a large quantity of stealth in their movements, so helmets at that point would be counter-productive.
Which is why for people with a bit more training, (as assumed a priori would be the case in the DTG site's post) after TSHTF, the same answers generally apply.
In a defensive position, you wear a helmet, because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
When on recon/combat patrol, you switch to soft, silhouette-breaking headgear, which gives more vision and better hearing, for less fatigue, noise, and weight -- exactly as laid out in the DTG answer.
Cleverly, the US military has that exact doctrine, going back only to every manual on scouting and patrolling back to WW2 circa 1944, if not earlier. As Casey Stengel used to tell folks, "You could look it up." I know it probably isn't news to anyone with military service in the combat arms.
But they don't tell soldiers not to have helmets, given their obvious utility, back to time before writing in nearly every army ever observed and worthy of the name.
They simply tell them not to wear them everywhere, and at all times.
Almost like there had been some thought on this line of questioning, and some level of intelligence was assumed to reside with individual troops and even the most junior leaders.
So the final answer is that "Hell YES!" you should have something to protect your head, and quite frequently, though not perpetually, it should actually be on your head.
Lastly, a note on the following illustration, cited by DTG, and the sum of the WRSA post:
We should note, there's a companion illustration for those with the chinstrap unfastened:
The teaching point for those two techniques has Jack and Squat to do with helmets (or not), or chinstrap fastened (or unfastened).
It is, rather, that if you're such a soup sandwich fuckhead as to let someone cleverly tiptoe right behind you whilst on interior guard duty, that they can lay hands on your helmet, you have been selected via Darwinian processes for removal from the gene pool, because, as HK says, we hate you, and you suck.
And you're doing it wrong. Jackass.
Can that technique work on soldiers?
Yes, on the ones for whom the value of the word soldier is "Dumbfuck."
But if you're a dumbfuck, a helmet or not isn't your biggest problem.
And if someone can get that close, they can just as easily whap the living fuck out of you with a ball peen hammer, helmet or not, or quite simply put a silenced pistol round right behind your ear, or a dagger into your jugular, with even less art and craft, but the exact same result for Pvt. Dumbfuck: a posthumous Purple Heart.
File this under "Duh."
And strike it from the rationales, pro or con, for wearing helmets, ever.
Does that mean that the Kevlar PASGT "K-pot" is therefore the pinnacle of the helmet designer's art forever and all time?
Uh, no.
For a myriad of other purposes, there may be one or a baker's dozen other choices, more or less suitable than the PASGT helmet of the 1980s.
But exactly as the first rule of gunfighting is "Bring a gun", the first rule of head protection is "Have a helmet". A cheap motorcycle helmet on your head when a bottle or bullet comes flying in may do worlds more good than the 21st century wunderbucket sitting in your locker a grid square away.
The ultimate takeaway is that anything that's harder than your skin and skull, and ideally harder than whatever's inbound for same, is a damned good idea, whenever practical.
Just ask Abraham Lincoln, JFK, or any of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in innumerable wars who died because their heads were split open and their lives leaked out.
Anyone who feels themselves smarter than the Persians, Egyptians, Trojans, Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Samurai, and damned near every army right up until now, feel free to bring their bulletproof head to comments.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
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