Space gats

It's not often that I am green with envy for a gun that's chambered in .22 Long Rifle, but this one fits the bill nicely.  It's a gun that is constantly brought up in gun culture in general, purely on the fact that it has the most bespoke look to it: the Whitney Wolverine. 

There's a great write up on The Firearm Blog recently about the piece, as well as Ian from Forgotten Weapons has a great video on it from a while back. It's such a gorgeous gun that I would love to have one. It's just a shame that every time it has been on the market, it just doesn't seem to sell enough to stay on the market, so now they are multi-thousand dollar collector items. With that kind of value, I couldn't bring myself to shoot one, and if I can't shoot it, I won't own it.

Although, due in large part to the popularity of Cowboy Bebop and a resurgence of that popularity due to an upcoming remake by Netflix, my own Jericho 941R has gone from a garbage $350 CZ75 knock-off to a nearly $750-1000 dollar gun in some cases. But, since parts are a plenty, I don't feel bad about using that one up at the range. 

That, and I think it's a really darn pretty gun on it's own, too. Need to get this thing refinished, though. 

Bullet strikes the helmet's head

 What was actually going on in Jim Morrison's head during his musical career is likely to remain a mystery wrapped in an enigma (the heavy drug use helping with that). Jim also really loved to mislead, obfuscate, and outright lie about his childhood and upbringing to all who inquired. Obviously, this was the result of a strained relationship with his family. So because of that, I never really knew much about his family and upbringing until Ward Carroll put up a video about it just the other day. 

Jim and his dad on the bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard. Pic taken from the wiki article.

I'm sure I've heard who his family is some time ago in passing, but never really read into it. The video is really interesting stuff, and I had no idea how critical Jim's Dad was to the intervention in Vietnam.  It is also funny to hear his Dad's opinion on Jim's choice of going into music. I have to say, Jim would likely have lived a much more decent and longer life had he done so, but then we wouldn't get such good music. 

Blossom Rock from The History Guy

 This is a video I shared with my Mom some time ago about an underwater demolition that helped transform San Francisco into a major port. I lived there (or near there) for a good portion of my life and never heard of this story. I think it may be due to how weird everyone is there, since EVERYONE loves talking about Emperor Norton, but nobody mentions this? Really? Even the official Golden Gate bridge history tour includes him, but do you hear about this event that had a much larger affect on the course of San Fran? Nope, it's all about emperor brain damaged hobo over there. 

More relaxing tunes for Sunday

Ice T singing metal, and doing a great job of it. What a time to be alive. 

Ice T/Body Count - Raining Blood

In where I oust myself as a religious kook

Okay, so I've been going on a number of rants recently, but I am a white, nerdy Mexican with glasses, so, isn't it expected?  Anyways, this one gets theological, so if you don't wanna deal with it, feel free to move along. For the rest of you staying, well once again:

To not be a 'useful idiot'

Soviet defection stories have always intrigued me to a large degree. I've bought and read both books by Victor Belenko and Alexander Zuyev detailing their defections in MiG fighters, which are incredible stories. As someone once said, "you will never find a more ardent anti-communist than a former one."

I can only imagine what it would have been like to see Belenko's Foxbat in japan on the news. 

However, of all the defectors I have educated my self on so far, the most interesting by far is the story of Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, also known as Tomas Schuman. Although the pilots certainly had multiple motivations, be they political, safety, moral, and monetary needs before defecting, Bezmenov is a man who was motivated purely by a moral disgust with his government and job working for said government. 

Total Chad right there

He not only has a fascinating story to tell about his defection, but also of his life, why he came to the west, as well as his passionate desire to see it's culture and values defended from any kind of attack. Especially from the specific and devious tactics of his former employer, the infamous KGB. 

It's more than a shame the man died so young (aged 53 due to heart attack), as I'm sure he would have had more than a few hot takes and thoughts on modern events and trends. Although, I'm sure he would have also approved of the tone and message of his use in the new Call of Duty Cold War teaser trailer (despite it being a fairly mundane game). Don't pass up watching that one!

Below I'll embed the video for his most famous interview on his life, defection, and job. Enjoy!

The AR-15 IS a military firearm and civilians should own them - change my mind

In all honesty, I don't like being divisive. However, I am very willing to be so if the cost is to be honest.  

I'll admit I'm of a certain political persuasion and because of that, I do enjoy watching Steven Crowder fairly often. Okay, okay, I know I'm sounding like a broken millennial record here, constantly spouting about freaking youtubers, but hear me out. Steven has made a pretty big splash on the interwebs and in national news for a variety of reasons, but I think his most enduring claim to fame is his "Change my mind" segments (I mean, it's still a popular meme). 

My only major disagreement I have with the good Mr. Crowder is his argument for defending the AR-15 and it's derivatives in his anti-gun control segments (including the Change My Mind specials). He states multiple times on his show that the AR-15 is not a military firearm and that they just look like military firearms. I doubt he is intentionally trying to be disingenuous in his stance, but it is a very dubious argument at best for defending the 2A, refuting gun control, or preserving the civilian right to own AR-15s, and it's blatantly inaccurate or dishonest at worst. 

Now, it's not a complete falsehood, there are some important differences between a military issue M4/M16 type weapon and what's commonly available to to civilians without extensive bureaucracy and licensing, but most of those will never make much of a difference at all in handling, performance, or looks of the gun. My argument being that they are basically the exact same firearm and design minus just one minor feature. They are so similar as to make almost no difference to the average person and they would likely never know the difference, even if they handled and shot both. This same reason is also exactly why the average citizen should never be restricted from owning it.  

One is civilian, one is military. Can you tell the difference? Does it even matter? Some will tell you the difference is just cosmetic, or that they are different guns and just look similar. This is all bullcrap.

For clarity's sake, the civilian AR market has such an insanely wide range of differing features and components to be ridiculous, but we'll operate on the principle that we are trying to compare to the average rifle that is advertised as an M4 style (or M-forgery) mil-spec AR which is still one of the most common to the average gun buyer.

So obviously, this whole post is to help those with little or no familiarity with specifically the AR design. For the uninitiated, here's a little primer on the parts of an AR-15 and another short video on how the AR-15 actually works. 

So, where's my proof for this, you ask? Let's make a small list of the similarities and differences in parts/components between the average civilian AR15 (in an Mforgery/M4 style) and a military M4 type rifle below: 

Similarities	Differences
Sights	Lower receiver
Pistol grips	FCG/selector
Handguards	Auto sear
Rail systems	Bolt carrier
Stocks	Barrel length
Upper receiver
Gas system/ Gas tube
Bolt head
Buffer and Return spring
Magazines
Muzzle Devices
Slings
Optics
Triggers
Selectors
Pins
Charging handle
Dust cover
Ammunition

Buckle up, this'll be a long one after the jump:

In reference to one of last week's posts

Now, I don't remember who sent me this, or where I might have found it, but I thought it was pretty interesting nonetheless. It's a video produced by the Canadian Military Police about how to go about traveling from West Germany to West Berlin.  I may have been alive during the 80's, but I certainly wasn't of a cognitive age to remember any of the Cold War at all.  So for me, this was an interesting glimpse into the tensions of the time. Enjoy!

In other news, if you haven't stopped by the Unwanted Blog in a while, this made me laugh real hard. Just a shame that guy doesn't live in my state anymore, he's totally someone on the blogroll I wouldn't mind having a sit down conversation with about a number of topics. 

Aviation conspiracy theories for $100, Alex.

So, I was watching some YouTube videos, and one of the channels I subscribe to (Found and Explained) had a video on the Ho 229 and its derivatives that never left the drawing board.

I really like his channel, it focuses on all sorts of prototype and unbuilt designs; it's a lot of fun, and usually well researched. But, he's admitted he's new to the world of aviation and was never really an enthusiast before making videos on the subject. So naturally, he sometimes makes mistakes. But in the videos I pointed out above, he continually refers to the Horton aircraft as being 'stealth' or 'stealthy'.

That's a very popular theory among amateur aviation enthusiasts; that the Ho 229 (or any other advanced design) was the wonder weapon that would have turned the tables for the Nazis in WW2 if produced in proper numbers. They say this and boast that the Horton design specifically was the first "stealth" fighter.  Of course, the Horton is not the sole focus of this delusion; for some reason loads of people love to fantasize that some wonder weapon would have changed history if it just was produced in numbers.

Well, I'm just here as a friend, to tell you to stop it. Stop the delusions. No, it freaking was NOT the first stealth fighter. No, it wouldn't have been enough to change the course of the war, even if produced in numbers. This stupid tripe was started by a special the Discovery Channel aired years ago, and people have latched on to it as if it was proven, but it really only has the same validity and proof as Ancient Aliens.

Now, yes it was among the first successful flying wing designs as we know it today. Being a flying wing, it's the same BASIC design used by the current-day B-2 stealth bomber. Yes, the reason the stealth bomber uses the design is that it makes it naturally harder to track on radar while lending itself to a naturally lower radar cross section (RCS) from certain angles. 

However, even the Discovery Channel's special on the Horton aircraft dispels this very myth while trying to prove it. For example:

In the special, they take a replica of the Ho 229 to a radar range run by Northrop Grumman to test the radar returns of the aircraft. In this test, they even stated they did NOT include ANY metal components needed in the workable version of the aircraft, including the engines. This is critical, as any respectable aeronautical engineer will tell you that engine faces and intakes are a huge contributor of RCS. Any metal components are also a large factor in creating radar returns (obviously), which is why all stealth aircraft use radar absorbent and deflecting coatings on top of their unique shape. The coatings being a primary component of stealth technology.

The RCS of a variety of common aircraft compared to stealth aircraft

That being said, the results of the test in the special still showed only a 20% reduction in the Ho 229's RCS compared to a common Bf 109 fighter. Compare that to the B-2, who's RCS is near 0.6% of that of a non-stealthy aircraft of similar size. Being 80% of what is already there is NOT an impressive number.  That, and when you integrate the engines and metal components back into the Horton, I really don't see how the RCS would stay that low, if not increase beyond the Bf 109's. 

The Horton Ho 229 is an amazing, beautiful aircraft that was far ahead of it's time, with impressive performance projections (that certainly influenced modern designs); but so was the Me 262, and that didn't help the Nazis either. Between incompetent upper leadership, misuse and lack of resources, a significant depletion of experienced pilots due to combat losses, and a lack of training for replacements, the Ho 229 had no chance of changing any aspect of the war, even if produced in numbers.

The allies would still have made tactics to counter the new threat as well, just as they did for the Me 262. In the immortal words of the late, great Chuck Yeager, "The first time I saw a jet, I shot it down." 

I still like to think of historical "what-ifs", but I don't get the desire of some to fantasize that the Nazis were just one weapon away from ruling the Western front.  But hey, since I'm on a roll with my Columbus post and dispelling common myths, here are some other bombshells:

Michael Jackson was innocent

The last election was fraudulent

Nazis never had UFOs

and Epstein didn't kill himself

The brightest of lights

This is an emergency post. Dugan Ashley, the creator of the CarnikCon You Tube channel, is one of the greatest You Tubers of all time IMHO.  He has certainly made me laugh harder and more often than anyone else there, and has endlessly pissed off the 'ol fudds that have no sense of humor. Just a shame he was unable to carry on with his channel longer, as he had what I thought was just financial and time constraints.

Because of him, I know that I need to store skittles in my AR pistol grip, which rifle is best for combat in space, have the biggest scope possible on an SBR, MP5SD means MP5 Super Duper quiet, that woman no drive, to always wear 'meriflauge camo, watch out for the pack of crazed rapists following me everywhere, to like Freedom America Ale, a Daewoo is basically an F-15, and to shut the f up because he knows I like the HK G36.

So, color me shocked and saddened to hear that he has been dealing with the hardships of multiple sclerosis for a few years now, which has become a debilitating condition for him. There is a fundraiser to help him with the expenses for his medical treatment and the page says that his prognosis is not good, and that he might not survive for very long(careful, this link is a tearjerker). 

There are not many causes on the internet that I go all in for, especially to the point of promoting it to my non-existent readers, but this is certainly one.  If you have the ability, I would highly encourage to donate just a few dollars to his cause. I'm nearly broke, and I'm still sending a few dollars his way. I can't imagine how rough it is for his family, and I would like to help him just be with them for a bit longer. #PrayForDugan

Help out Dugan and you can be awesome too!