Donward

I believe that was the case more with cannon, and early firearms that really got used had a nice bit of development time after the "vase loaded with spears" look. And yes, there was a long period where armor could be bulletproof (and indeed had a bullet mark as a proof that it was, thus the word), although I think that was high end, nicely heat treated product for the elites and not arsenal plate made for more regular troops. However if I remember right fancy harnesses started compromising on full coverage to get that bulletproof thickness on the vitals. Guns came of age in the era of pike after all, so good terminal effects against foot could make up some serious flaws.

The mustache is the most frightening aspect of that uniform. It is the stuff of Stranger Danger nightmares.
 

The problem would be trying to quantify where the tipping point is outside of the obvious when it comes to obnoxious behavior in the military.
When we'd entertain some of guys from my brother's unit at our farm with some light-hearted barbecues/stump pile burning, I noticed one of the guys had a Confederate battle flag in the back window of his lifted pickup.
This isn't an abnormal occurrence in country. The fact that it was owned by a six-foot-five black dude was however. And on that day I was introduced to my first genuine black southern redneck with unique views on race and inhabitants of the inner city.

I miss the good old days when libertarians were about a smaller government, the Constitution and states rights. And Weed.
Now they're about Weed. Sovereign Citizenship. Weed. Anti-vaccine. Weed. Weed. And Weed.

Super Comrade's thread on telling Japs apart from Chinese got me thinking about a dramatic, obscure bit of US history; the story of the Japanese and the state of Hawaii.
 
The Hawaiian Islands are a volcanic chain that's about dead in the middle of the Pacific.  The islands have undergone significant weathering over millions of years, which means that the island of Oahu has a natural deep water port at Pearl Harbor.  The volcanic soils are also rich in minerals, and this combined with the heavy rainfall makes the islands exceptionally fertile.
 
Hawaii was first colonized by Polynesians sometime in the early to mid ADs.  The islands were unified by King Kamehameha the Great at roughly the same time they were discovered by British explorer James Cook.  Descendants of Kamehameha ruled the islands as an independent kingdom, and attempted to maintain their sovereignty over them.  For various reasons, this was not possible in the long run and the United States annexed the islands in 1898.
 
American agricultural interests then set about stealing all the land from the native Hawaiians.  This was not a difficult task; Hawaiian concepts of land ownership were quite different than American ones, and most of the Hawaiians were illiterate in any case.  The native Hawaiian population began a long decline, caused by a trifecta of imported diseases, firewater, and having everything stolen from them.  Don't trust Johnathon.
 
(as an aside, there is still a vestigial Land Court in the modern State of Hawaii.  This was originally formed in 1903 as a way to solidify title to land as it was being stolen from the Hawaiians)
 
The agricultural interests began importing labor from overseas.  The majority of the population of Hawaii today are descended from these plantation laborers; primarily Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Portugese.  Sugar cane and pineapple were the main products, but taro (a traditional Polynesian root vegetable) and cattle ranching were also significant.
 
Statehood was not a popular prospect at this time because the majority of the population was not White.  Despite this, Whites kept a near monopoly on higher education (Punahou, the island's most prestigious private primary school and also where President Obama went to school, had racial quotas until the 1950s) and white-collar professions.  It should be noted that despite this, some Asian households managed to become respectably middle class, generally through the practice of several families pooling money together for investments.
 
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would, indirectly, change everything.  The Japanese population of Hawaii was interned; rounded up and shipped to prison camps in Wyoming.  This is a undoubtedly a violation of human rights, and to add insult to injury they were also in prison camps.
 
For young Japanese men there was a chance to get out of the camps; the 442nd Infantry Regiment.  This formation of Japanese, most of them from Hawaii, was to create a solid reputation for itself and suffer hideous casualties in the European Theater of Operations, including the brutal meatgrinders at Anzio and Monte Cassino.  For the men of the 442nd, service was a chance to prove their loyalty.  "Go for broke" became the unit's well-known motto; less known was another; "no bring shame."  They weren't just fighting to see the war over; they were fighting for their families who were behind barbed wire back in the US.
 
I want to emphasize this part; the 442nd was absolutely heroic in war, because what happened next was... less inspiring.  The men of the 442nd were proud of what they'd done, but they knew better than to expect the praise and recognition to flow freely.  They knew that while their families would be free to go (for the time being), they would still be second-class citizens.  Their position in society would not be secure until they dismantled the power system in Hawaii.
 
So that's what they did.  The men of the 442nd put themselves through college on the GI bill and became doctors, lawyers and most importantly, politicians.  Daniel Inouye is the best known of the bunch, but there were others, as well as a number of Japanese who had been in the Army but not in the 442nd like George Ariyoshi.  The wiki entry on George Ariyoshi is particularly interesting, as it alludes to the methods and associations that the Japanese politicians would use to take power in Hawaii.  Larry Mehau is an interesting guy, worthy of his own discussion, but that is not a discussion I am willing to have in a place where persistent, publicly-searchable records are maintained.
 
In short, a generation of Japanese politicians, many of them veterans, aligned themselves with the Democratic party and sought allies in labor unions, civil rights organizations, and well, people like Larry Mehau.  After a few strikes, a few well-placed publicity campaigns, and some under-the-table strings pulling, the Democrats were firmly in power in Hawaii, Hawaii was a state, and the old system of racial quotas in Hawaiian education was deader than disco (only it was still the early '60s, so the atrocity of disco was yet to come).  The state transitioned from a primarily agricultural exporter to a tourist destination.  
 
The Democrats' conduct in Hawaii since their takeover has been... good by the standards of Democratic management, I suppose.  Unlike, say, Detroit, Honolulu is not a smoldering crater, which given the relative volcanic characteristics of Hawaii and Michigan I suppose must lend the Hawaiian Democrats some credit.  I think it fair to characterize Hawaiian politics since the Democratic revolution as venal, corrupt and incompetent, but not disastrously so.
 
And so it goes.
 

Since I was fanboying Buffalo bore earlier in the thread, may aswell post this video, I used to own a S&W 327 loaded with these, got around 1,800 fps under ideal conditions, he claims 1,724 which is still more then what buffalo bore themselves claim they'll get out of a 6.5" barrel when the tester is using a 4".
 
And.... That's why I trust Buffalo bore alot, really honest, really hot loaded, and use well known, reputable bullet designs. (Speer Gold Dots for lead loads and Barnes Solid Copper for their lead free lines usually in pistol calibers.)
 
.....It also likely helps show why the .357 got a very good reputation as a defensive and police round from I imagine.
 

We just need to add green and we can make it an effort to remind us all of the Seahawks instead!

I have three dogs, one of which is a beagle/bull dog mix.  He is a ridiculous creature.  He was at the shelter for several months, no one was interested in him.  My wife felt bad for him so we took him in.  He is actually a very good dog, but he is pretty much useless for any practical purpose.  As he has gotten older, I fear he will fall down the stairs and hurt himself.  Those little bull dog legs are not very practical.  Why someone would breed a beagle with a bull dog, I have no idea. 
 

Today I learned how to calculate the ratio of neutron production to absorbtion for various simple reactor geometries, such as rectangular prisms, cylinders, and spheres.
 
Fun fact: assuming a perfectly spherical geometry, roughly 18kg of U235 is needed to achieve criticality. This mass has roughly the same volume as a typical grapefruit. Coincidence?

Look. I've done more than my part in deconstructing your argument. And I'm tired of wasting time on it. I'm not here to convince you to change your mind. I'm here for the glory of winning the hearts and minds of the guys reading this.
 
And as a final word, I am not saying every soldier is a spotless hero. Hell, just drive around any military base and you see high crime, strip clubs, prostitution, drug activity, pawn shops and sleazy used car lots.
 
But I do object to lumping most - MOST - service members together as "Dregs". And I think that I've adequately demonstrated this to be the case. 

Pro tip. Most soldiers go to college after serving. It's difficult to get a four year degree while in. You really are being obtuse here.

I see this is a Starship appreciation thread.
 
Good. Good! GOOD!!!
 

Again. I'm not going to defend or attack Chris Kyle. The umbrage I take is this comment. "When you go "volunteer" military, you actually get the dregs for the most part" which is rather demonstrably untrue considering that most recruits are high school graduates who come from suburban and rural locales who then use their GI Bill to go on and get a college education, learn a trade or settle down to raise a family after their enlistment is up.
 
Nor do I disagree that there are individuals in the military who are "neo-Nazis". In a governmental bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of individuals, there are bound to be some bad apples that slip through. Hell, they let a damn radical Muslim shoot up Fort Hood, for Christ's sake. So how many neo-Nazis are in the military? One? Four? A dozen? A hundred? Statistically that number falls rather well below the "Dregs for the most part" number. 
 
I also keep track of hate groups on the Southern Poverty Center website and "for the most part", these are organizations that are marginalized and irrelevant and who are lucky if they are able to scrape together a dozen guys to hold a "parade" or hand out flyers. That these groups somehow then have the wherewithal to infiltrate the U.S. military in a Hydra-like plot where "most" of those who serve are secretly neo-Nazis who are one order away from staging a military revolt stretches the imagination.
 
But who knows? Maybe this is actually the case. But given the absurdity of the claim, it behooves the person making that assertion to back it up. And I'm talking more than just a a book whose sole source seems to be a dude who has some pictures of a bunch of guys in their early 20s acting stupid.
 
I hate using the term Occam's Razor but in this case it seems rather more likely that there are a group of folks with a political leaning opposite that of the majority of troops who enlist and who have little actual real contact with military culture. And given that the majority of those who enlist come from congressional districts that are conservative or at least lean Republican, it's no wonder that a large number of (rich) liberals in New York or San Francisco have a loathing of the military and its culture. At any rate, is far easier to throw around terms like "racist" when confronted with someone who has a different opinion.
 
I suppose the real question is why more liberals don't enlist in the military? 

I've actually heard it before then but that is not a parallel I thought of.
 
 
 
This is pretty fair. I'd bring up that whole "totally stands for scout snipers guys" flag scandal regarding seriously sketchy behavior regarding Nazism, but there's a real difference between recruiting for a peacetime military and recruiting for a wartime military. Warning, a decent fraction of this post is going to be drawing on the experiences from Vietnam through the eighties or so, because I'm pulling in large part from the excellent book Prodigal Soldiers (and I was having problems paying attention during the Iraq and A'stan bit of class so I don't remember them as well. Sorry). The wartime stuff isn't going to map cleanly at all and I'm not even going to try other than to make a point or two about volunteer vs. conscript and a little remark about what having to scrounge up manpower can do. On the other hand, I'd say there's a pretty significant difference in recruiting outlook for a peacetime military for genital waving versus regional contenders for hegemony and the military during a war lasting over a decade that has no meaningful impact on the population of the nation unless they know somebody who's in and is getting to the point where stop-loss orders are becoming problematic, with serious increases before Gates ordered a reduction.
 
First, a conscription system isn't going to get recruits evenly from across the nation's demographics. You start giving draft deferments for things like education and so on and the richer parts of society start becoming progressively (or should I say regressively) less involved in the war. There's also the fact that it's a goal to keep the population insulated from feeling the effects and costs of the war. In Vietnam they tried to shift this to people who wouldn't get as much media attention or make as many problems when drafted. Calling up the reserve would cause serious problems, and there was a serious battle to avoid calling them up but still come up with the manpower to expand involvement. The draft was very unpopular but they needed soldiers. This culminated in the utterly reprehensible and totally indefensible Project 100,000, which brought us such lovely things as soldiers who ranged between uneducated and straight up mentally ill and thus took much greater casualties (I want to say twice the rate but it's been a while) and folks like a certain Lieutenant William Calley Jr. of My Lai fame (and incidentally is the answer to my childhood question of why the local homeless all had Vietnam Vet caps). This is the extreme worst case of what happens when the war puts people are under pressure to get more soldiers. The US military during the end of and after Vietnam until roughly 1980 was a disgraceful trainwreck. For example they damned near lost the Kitty Hawk to a fire caused by some seriously problematic training and maintenance issues (the same ship had earlier seen a race riot because 1970s America was a mess). The postwar reaction to the problems and deep unpopularity of conscription led to some fun times as the politicians started trying to deal with the problem of fighting a war the population didn't want to fight, and the military tried to deal with the problem of potentially getting sent to fight without the nation behind it. The latter led to things like Total force trying to ensure that the reserves would be called up in case of war by putting all kinds of key support elements into the reserves. The former and the needs for the higher tech, more capable force of the 1980s led to the modern peacetime American volunteer army.
 
There's a different cast to the real peacetime military once the problems really got dealt with to some degree and the military started repairing itself from the damage suffered during Vietnam. People like General Creech did a great job of making the military competent, proud and appealing again, and the recruiting focus shifted from poor people in inner cities who desperately needed money to educated people with the technical skills to be part of the very impressive 80s military set up against the USSR that eventually made Desert Storm look easy. The peacetime military built to be able to take on a technological foe is the "Be All You Can Be" military of opportunity for people trying to make something of themselves and find real opportunity. The difference between a military truly focused on being able to fight a near-peer competitor with bleeding edge technology and one that's desperately trying to come up with enough infantry to secure everything is massive. I would frankly be surprised if a military trying to make ends meet and come up with bodies to go be infantry didn't go looking for people who desperately needed money and start loosening standards. The overriding motivations for people in the peacetime military are likely not close to the people who joined in late 2001 are likely not close to those joining in the middle of an interminable war, and the people being targeted for recruitment are likely not the same.
 
For the most part American soldiers are trying to make something of themselves, but most isn't all, and wearing the uniform doesn't render you immune to criticism. When discussing lovely sorts like Chris Kyle, it's important to remember that most doesn't mean all.
 
And as far as liberals not enlisting in the military (warning: personal subjective opinion), I think there's a pretty significant disconnect on the axiom that being a soldier is de facto defending the country and fighting in any war anywhere is protecting America, its freedoms and its values. I don't fancy the idea of being on the hook the next time we decide to spend huge amounts of other peoples' blood and everybody's money on destroying things and acting surprised when building turns out to be harder than destroying.
 
Food for thought: If we thank soldiers for risking their lives for us, why don't we thank firefighters as such a major cultural thing as thanking soldiers is?

Again. I'm not going to defend or attack Chris Kyle. The umbrage I take is this comment. "When you go "volunteer" military, you actually get the dregs for the most part" which is rather demonstrably untrue considering that most recruits are high school graduates who come from suburban and rural locales who then use their GI Bill to go on and get a college education, learn a trade or settle down to raise a family after their enlistment is up.
 
Nor do I disagree that there are individuals in the military who are "neo-Nazis". In a governmental bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of individuals, there are bound to be some bad apples that slip through. Hell, they let a damn radical Muslim shoot up Fort Hood, for Christ's sake. So how many neo-Nazis are in the military? One? Four? A dozen? A hundred? Statistically that number falls rather well below the "Dregs for the most part" number. 
 
I also keep track of hate groups on the Southern Poverty Center website and "for the most part", these are organizations that are marginalized and irrelevant and who are lucky if they are able to scrape together a dozen guys to hold a "parade" or hand out flyers. That these groups somehow then have the wherewithal to infiltrate the U.S. military in a Hydra-like plot where "most" of those who serve are secretly neo-Nazis who are one order away from staging a military revolt stretches the imagination.
 
But who knows? Maybe this is actually the case. But given the absurdity of the claim, it behooves the person making that assertion to back it up. And I'm talking more than just a a book whose sole source seems to be a dude who has some pictures of a bunch of guys in their early 20s acting stupid.
 
I hate using the term Occam's Razor but in this case it seems rather more likely that there are a group of folks with a political leaning opposite that of the majority of troops who enlist and who have little actual real contact with military culture. And given that the majority of those who enlist come from congressional districts that are conservative or at least lean Republican, it's no wonder that a large number of (rich) liberals in New York or San Francisco have a loathing of the military and its culture. At any rate, is far easier to throw around terms like "racist" when confronted with someone who has a different opinion.
 
I suppose the real question is why more liberals don't enlist in the military? 

I learned today not to try even the simplest of car repair projects after being woken up out of a dead sleep when you're dreaming that you're a star of a 1980s John Hughes movie which then morphed into a "Creature Feature" with some anomaly that warped individuals into terrifying killers that resembled the ensemble in Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" video.
 

 
Looking back, I think this can be chalked up to my wife making me watch the first Doctor Who reboot episode with Christopher Eccleston and eating copious amounts of homemade cinnamon rolls that she had just baked for that purpose.
 
Yes, I'm a lucky man.
 
I do distinctly remember in the dream saying "Oh, boy, I'm in a John Hughes film. I know all the tricks on how to be popular. I sure hope this doesn't turn into a Creature Feature later on."
 
If you have ever been around me in person, I have a tendency of saying stuff like that in real life...
 
So with that as a back story, you can imagine the state I was in as I stagger down to look at her Ford Escape that had a dead battery. No problem, I'll just push it out of the garage and give it a jump start with my Toyota truck. Out come the jumper cables. Red and black on the red and black terminals on the Escape. Red and black on the black and red terminals on the Toyota.
 
"Don. The cables are beginning to smoke."
 
Boom. I'm instantly awake, quickly switch the now rather hot cables and I begin to survey the damage, all while kicking myself for screwing up on a simple jump start that I have performed dozens and dozens of times.
 
Fortunately, I think the only thing wrong is the 120 amp mega fuse on the Escape which did its job of protecting all the electronic innards from people who do something idiotic like I just did. Although I'll be spending this evening going over the car's electrical system when it gets home.
 
So that concludes my episode of "I Learned Something Today".

Ah. That's where I heard Ginsberg's name. Yeah, I've heard the story about Michael Savage in his formative years with his political opponents making hay about him being a closeted homosexual or whatever. *Shrug*
 
I don't know. A different take could be that Wiener/Savage was a young writer trying to make his way in a new town and was taken advantage of by an older, more powerful individual. This sort of thing happens all of the time - see the Cosby rape allegations - and the victim is frequently shamed into silence. At any rate, if it did happen, it would explain Savage's hatred for homosexuals. 
 
Once upon a time when I was a cub reporter filling in briefly at the Seattle P-I during a labor dispute, one of my fellow scabs from a Hearst publication did all that he could to get me to have drinks in his hotel room. It's an odd experience being a straight man who is being hit on by a homosexual. I did learn that when another man compliments you on your combat boots and asks if you like Dan Savage's writing and then compliments your pickup truck as "butch" that they are tells. 

Again. I'm not going to defend or attack Chris Kyle. The umbrage I take is this comment. "When you go "volunteer" military, you actually get the dregs for the most part" which is rather demonstrably untrue considering that most recruits are high school graduates who come from suburban and rural locales who then use their GI Bill to go on and get a college education, learn a trade or settle down to raise a family after their enlistment is up.
 
Nor do I disagree that there are individuals in the military who are "neo-Nazis". In a governmental bureaucracy that employs hundreds of thousands of individuals, there are bound to be some bad apples that slip through. Hell, they let a damn radical Muslim shoot up Fort Hood, for Christ's sake. So how many neo-Nazis are in the military? One? Four? A dozen? A hundred? Statistically that number falls rather well below the "Dregs for the most part" number. 
 
I also keep track of hate groups on the Southern Poverty Center website and "for the most part", these are organizations that are marginalized and irrelevant and who are lucky if they are able to scrape together a dozen guys to hold a "parade" or hand out flyers. That these groups somehow then have the wherewithal to infiltrate the U.S. military in a Hydra-like plot where "most" of those who serve are secretly neo-Nazis who are one order away from staging a military revolt stretches the imagination.
 
But who knows? Maybe this is actually the case. But given the absurdity of the claim, it behooves the person making that assertion to back it up. And I'm talking more than just a a book whose sole source seems to be a dude who has some pictures of a bunch of guys in their early 20s acting stupid.
 
I hate using the term Occam's Razor but in this case it seems rather more likely that there are a group of folks with a political leaning opposite that of the majority of troops who enlist and who have little actual real contact with military culture. And given that the majority of those who enlist come from congressional districts that are conservative or at least lean Republican, it's no wonder that a large number of (rich) liberals in New York or San Francisco have a loathing of the military and its culture. At any rate, is far easier to throw around terms like "racist" when confronted with someone who has a different opinion.
 
I suppose the real question is why more liberals don't enlist in the military? 

My wife has mentioned that one of the more unpleasant aspects of horse ownership is sheath cleaning. That, along with detailed descriptions of the use of phantom mare and an explanation for why mares in season need to have their tails tied back, makes me think that it's probably a good thing that parents generally don't know much about horses when they send their little diddums to riding school.
 
As for the invention, maybe it's to prevent unwanted mounting when teasing a mare? It's still fucking stupid, but at least that's a use.

A while back I was browsing through google patents for information on weird old patents of tanks and weapons.  Somehow I ended up looking at a patent from 1890 for a "horse shield."  Basically, it's a device to keep a Stallion from masturbating.  I had no idea people were concerned with horse masturbation back then, but I guess they were.  In fact, there were several patents for similar devices.  Its funny how human beings take their own weird ideas on what is acceptable behavior and then try to force them upon the animals they live with.  
 

 
 

Chester isn't taken to "Cowboy Action Shooting" competitions where fat idjits in cowboy hats treat grandpa's lever gun like a squad automatic weapon. Nor do I try to hand-load rounds that are on the cusp of its tolerance. Nor do I live in a swamp with Yoda.
 
Quarter of a century and everything seems good.

This is Chester. He is my first rifle which I got on my fourteenth birthday. He is a Winchester Ranger Model 94 chambered in 30-30. For years I dreamed about having a Winchester rifle, looking longingly at the printed advertisements in the Big-5 flyer that came in the mailbox once a week, tracing my finger of the pixilated photo that advertised Chester for just $199.99.
 

 
He has been with me on multiple adventures including each of my trips up to Bristol Bay, every hunting trip, my honeymoon and multiple instances when something went bump or howl in the night.
 
After nearly a quarter of a century that he's been with me, I can think of few circumstances where Chester wouldn't be more than a match for what I'd need to ask of him.
 
Also Bonus Book-aki 

So I'm the kid who was in high school in and around the Seattle area who didn't really care about grunge. I mean yeah, some of the songs are OK and Nirvana came from Aberdeen and whatnot. But what was annoying was all of the out-of-state grunge fans who moved to Seattle and started messing with the way things were. Worse they stayed. Worse yet, they made Seattle "cool" which attracted the rich Californians looking for cheap real estate after they had swindled their investors in some dot.com. Worse they stayed. Worse yet they started hiring hipsters and white collar douches to work at these companies, driving up real estate even more, clogging the highways, paving over and destroying all the good old places and making Seattle totally lame.
If I could go back in time, I would show Kurt Cobain the destruction that he helped bring upon Seattle. Or perhaps, someone already did travel back in time but got there five years too late.
*A shotgun blast is heard*
*Roll credits*

So I'm the kid who was in high school in and around the Seattle area who didn't really care about grunge. I mean yeah, some of the songs are OK and Nirvana came from Aberdeen and whatnot. But what was annoying was all of the out-of-state grunge fans who moved to Seattle and started messing with the way things were. Worse they stayed. Worse yet, they made Seattle "cool" which attracted the rich Californians looking for cheap real estate after they had swindled their investors in some dot.com. Worse they stayed. Worse yet they started hiring hipsters and white collar douches to work at these companies, driving up real estate even more, clogging the highways, paving over and destroying all the good old places and making Seattle totally lame.
If I could go back in time, I would show Kurt Cobain the destruction that he helped bring upon Seattle. Or perhaps, someone already did travel back in time but got there five years too late.
*A shotgun blast is heard*
*Roll credits*