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Sturgeon's House

Donward

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Everything posted by Donward

  1. Life Finds A Way. *mumble, mumble* *handwave* https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SkWeMvrNiOM
  2. They just ended the Original series poorly with alien/human hybrid star child saving the day with magic. The Leader chick in the remake was kinda hot but other than that there was nothing going with that series. And I watched the first eight or so episodes wanting something to happen. I seriously tried to give it a chance. Whereas the original was jam-packed with action between every commercial break. Holy cow, Colombians are chasing the good guy with machine guns and... there's an awesome UFO above ever city! Who are these Visitors? Are they friendly? Are they bad? What's the secret? Oh crap, the hot Visitor Leader chick ate a freaking rodent!!! Yeah!!! It was awesome being an elementary school kid watching V for the first time. It's funny how Putin is always portrayed as a hardcore badass despite being the "bad guy" whereas "good guy" Barack Obama is an ineffectual punchline.
  3. I'm not sure if we've fully examined the potential military benefits of cloning dinosaurs. Whereas there is a moral dilemma bringing back to life sentient Woolly Mammoths who must live with the knowledge that everyone whom they knew and loved have died 10,000 years ago. While being stuck in the 1990s...
  4. It has been brought to my attention that this thread doesn't have enough music from The Captain and Tennille. Henry Kissinger was a big fan apparently... Watching a masterful musician like The Captain work is always inspiring to this Seattleite who also enjoys coffee in the morning. As we can see, it is clear why The Captain got first billing in the duo. And yes, it's the hat. In conclusion, The Captain is someone every member of the male species should look up to, emulate and admire.
  5. YouTube probably feels you can't be trusted because of all that maple syrup you guys chug.
  6. The fact that there are barbells in the bedroom makes me judge whoever all of this belongs to more negatively.
  7. The sucking chest wound is bailouts and entitlement spending along with the normal graft and growth of federal spending. Even during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and even with the ridiculous waste involved therein, the amount of Defense appropriations are fractions of the total Federal budget. Usually something around 14-20 percent depending on how you slice the pie. It's one of those lies that get bandied around without people even thinking about it.
  8. There is something primeval and RIGHT about seeing Wooly Mammoth herds again. I hope to see the day. Also, one of the things bush pilots in Alaska do is fly low and "slow" along the beaches looking for mammoth and walrus tusks that have eroded or washed up on the shore.
  9. I guess that's one of the benefits of having a gaggle of incompetent amateurs in the White House who have the foreign policy savvy of a gold fish. It sort of reminds folks across the world how thin the walls are that keep out the wolves. Any news when John Kerry and James Taylor will be on the scene to broker negotions? ... ... End political rant. ... For now.
  10. This is probably the best topic to discuss this. I'm honestly surprised this is proceeding and wasn't quietly swept under the rug. I'm happy that there will now be a legal adjudication of the matter instead of years of speculation on social media and TV. Bowe Bergdahl, once missing U.S. soldier, charged with desertion
  11. What about small arms used by tankers in WW2/Korea? What kinds? How many per tank/platoon/company/regiment, etc. How were they intended to be used by the tankers in a self defense scenario? Are there field manuals that show the "correct" tactics to get squishies off your tank with small arm fire? Pistol ports? And those unpronounceable German barrel attachments that let the Krauts fire out of their open hatch? I'm sure some or all of this info would be handy and easy enough to find.
  12. I'd think so. I'm unfamiliar with Chinese crossbows to be honest, short of all the stylized movies that came out after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which show crossbow men lying on their backs to fire.
  13. When you consider that Hitler was simply a motivational speaker, one of those envision-what-you-dream-and-make-it-true types, it all begins to make a little more sense. That and Adolf was damn lucky at avoiding death throughout most of his life. But then motivational speakers have always creeped me out. And this goes back to my school days when they'd march the entire student body into the gym or auditorium to listen to some stranger talk to us about whatever idiotic fad that was the hot button social topic at the time.
  14. The last one of these genre of games that I played was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. And only then because that game was an over-the-top parody of 1980s action movies which had a bitchin' 1980s sound track. I have little desire to play games that involve crashing cop cars into helicopters or getting in a gun fight in a car that is flipping through the air.
  15. I've never heard of Imagine Dragons or their song "I'm So Sorry". So I looked on the YouTube device after I watched the trailer above. And was forced to sit through a 30 second ad of the same trailer with the "I'm So Sorry" song in order to listen to "I'm So Sorry". Just one of those funny moments... Also, that chandelier being shot down by a handgun. I mean, that is a workplace hazard just waiting to happen!
  16. Archaeologists have found Luigi's house in Argentina... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/11488776/Argentine-archaeologists-find-secret-Nazi-lair-in-jungle.html
  17. The names xX_Deseret_Fox_Rommel_Xx and HitlersMustacheRide69 must have already been taken.
  18. I see the PLA uses the vaunted "COBRA!!!!" attack formation.
  19. OK. Now this is the meat of where I really want to be. The Revolution of the Black Rifle has been with us now for a decade with all of the aforementioned advances in technology, modular ease and marketing. Furthermore we have fought two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with hundreds of thousands of veterans who used AR-15 rifles successfully in combat. Like all good soldiers, the weapon that they trained with is the best because it is the only weapon most of them ever knew combined with the fact that many of these guys have gotten hours upon hours and thousands of rounds of trigger time on the AR and the revelation that the AR family of rifles are pretty damn good for what they are. The Jam-o-matic of the Vietnam War is a thing of the past. (Coincidentally this time span has also seen the 30-year long mystique of the "AK-47" come to an end but that's a separate story). At the same time you have had the "militarization" of the police who - after a series of once in a lifetime events like the North Hollywood Shootout - have universally at their disposal a broad array of impressive hardware from New York City all the way down to the smallest hick town with one blinking stop light along with state and federal agencies. This has all come to pass mainly because of spending on Homeland Security which (again) is another issue. As a caveat, I don't have an issue - per say - with the "militarization" of police given the proper oversight. But it is safe to say that the days of Officer Friendly wearing a cap and blue uniform and carrying a revolver with a scatter gun in the patrol car are long over. So to recap. We have cops and soldiers with fancier, advanced weaponry. Who do gun owners look up to the most? Cops and soldiers. Who do they want to emulate in their firearms purchases? Cops and soldiers. Which is why firearm companies have gone out of their way to market to those two entities knowing they'll make a windfall of profits on civilians. (See Glock and the debate over the Army's next handgun). Manufacturers like selling products that they can then sell accessories to and lots of ammunition for. It does them no good for someone to buy a hunting rifle and maybe a scope or sling and only have them fire a box of ammo out of it a year. This is capitalism. Capitalism is good. Couple this with politics and the buying frenzies over potential bans. Add to the mixture that high capacity pistols like Glocks and ARs are damn good firearms which are great for the purpose that they were designed for. Compound this with gun magazines, websites and YouTube celebrities who are provided fancy tactical hardware to market to the masses. Exacerbate this with video games and the phenomenon of first person shooters. Teenagers aren't stalking the marshlands hunting ducks anymore. They're spending hours behind a screen shooting noobs. And when they are finally of age to buy a gun, they want one of the ones on Call of Duty or whatever and not a .20 gauge dove and quail gun. Which brings us to the crux of the problem. It seems that the majority of firearms these days are being marketed to do one of two things. Close Quarters Combat. Or fantastic long range sniping. (Or both...). A stack of eight SWAT team guys clearing a room with AR pistols or submachine guns looks cool. Snipers are freaking cool, let's make a movie about some. Seal Team 6 is awesome. Let's make some movies about them. Let's buy the guns that SWAT team members, snipers and Seal Team 6 use because they're the best and if you want to fight like a warrior you must emulate a warrior. Never mind that the average civilian will never need to clear a room like a SWAT team guy. The fantastical long range shots by snipers in Afghanistan are just that and really don't pertain to anything in the United States. (Go through your average day, how many 1000 yard shots would ever even present themselves?). And Seal Team 6 is that good because they spend all their time doing nothing but training. You see much of the same thing in Four Wheeling. You can't just hop in your pickup truck or jeep, stick in four wheel drive and bomb around the logging roads or throw up mud on the back 40. You are expected to throw tens of thousands of dollars into rock climbing or mud bogging behemoths. And they're fun. Don't get me wrong. But there is a certain level of practicality that they lack and most of us can't afford them. Back to guns. ARs are great. High capacity full size handguns are awesome. There is so much more to firearms than that. And that is what is being forgotten and ignored. There are so many niches to be filled which black rifles and high capacity pistols can't fill. To be continued...
  20. The issue is one of votes and money or rather money and votes in that order of priority. Old people vote. Old people have money. Old people have money to get people interested in voting. from 1994 to 2004 the gun guys who had the money to fight the battle were the old scutters who donated heavily to your favorite 2nd Amendment racketeering groups and who worked to elect pro-Second Amendment candidates. These old scutters were your traditional hunters and sportsmen. Now 20 years have passed. Most of those old scutters are dead or wasting away in retirement homes, never to return. All I'm saying is give a tip of the hat to the guys who did most of the heavy lifting in getting us to where we are today. To be continued again...
  21. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" is one of the biggest repeated myths in politics and is generally used to further the whole "Republicans are racist cause they're trying to attract Southern voters" trope. If you look at the election results and exit polling from the South in Presidential and off year elections from 1968 on, one would find that if there was a GOP "Southern Strategy" then it was an abysmal failure. The issue is that George Wallace split the Southern vote in 1968 and won 5 Southern states outright and basically screwed the pooch for Hubert Humphrey. In 1972 Nixon won the South but, then again, he won everything because George McGovern was a terrible candidate and no one wanted to vote for an anti-War hippy. Contrary to popular opinion, now days, the anti-War movement was reviled by the majority of Americans throughout the Vietnam War. In short, the racist Dixiecrats of the 1960s and 1970s kept right on voting Democrat or - in the case of Wallace - the "purer" of the two choices. Taking things further, Carter swept the South in 1976. No surprise. Obviously Reagan and Bush Numeral Uno won the South in 1980, 1984 and 1988 but if you care to look, you'd find Democrat politicians winning Gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional seats in the South throughout this period. Bill Clinton won 4 southern states in 1992 and 1996, including Florida when running against Dole. That was more than I cared to write since I'd rather talk shooting stuff. Damn...
  22. I've had to do real life stuff but getting back on the prior conversation. I came of shooting age in the 1990s. It's funny Sturgeon is characterizing this as a "We had to kick the Fudds to the curb" since it was "The Fudds" who opted for the "Not One Step Back" Order 227-style defense in the 1990s and early 2000s in combating the assault weapon bans. It was recognized quite clearly that if scary black rifles and "high capacity" handguns were taken today, traditional handguns, shotguns and rifles would be next. Ungrateful ingrates! Kids these days. Don't know nuthin about their own history. *Rocking chair creaks* Now you might still have those of us who smile inwardly, watching their friends go hunting with a 10 or 12 or 14 pound FAL or AR that has been fully kitted out with every doo-dad and gadget (except a sling) and listen to him as he lugs the thing around like it was a cranky toddler on three-mile march up and down a logging road because the warm winter has kept all the deer high up in the mountains. But that doesn't mean that we think that those people shouldn't be allowed to own such a contraption or that we wouldn't want one ourselves just for the LOLs. The Zumbo types are and were a very rare breed. To be continued... Edit: One of the main turning points that one can point to is the 2000 U.S. Presidential race where Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George W. Bush in his own home state of Tennessee because of Vice President Gore's commitment to gun control legislation. The Brady Bill and the ban on assault weapons in the 1990s flipped the South from staunchly Democratic strongholds to swing states and - eventually - bastions of the GOP.
  23. Time to start filling out my red shirt biographies.
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