Next Step.

Well the interviews are done, I did well, as usual.
I would feel good about my chances even if I hadn't already been
told to get ready to move (figuratively) and that I should be
contacted next week. Pays the same, I get to keep all my accrued
benefits and time to retirement....but the Job will be as big a change in
paradigm as I have ever made in my working career.

Big Changes

Major Career happenings in the works for me. Things will be slow here (for a bit longer), but not dead or forgotten. Don't ya just hate that feeling before plunging head first into something risky and utterly new?

Because It has to be heard

This is a link to a post about the current presidential election contest.
The link is because I believe everyone everywhere should be hearing these things
because I believe them as well.

This first couple of paragraphs I think are telling:

My work has value. My mind has value. I won't do it for free. those that do that, are amateurs (coming from the Latin amator - meaning lover), not professionals. As a professional I expect to be paid. Nor will I do it to pay the rent and gas and food of those who aren't willing to put forth their own effort to the best of their own ability. A hard working person, down on their luck, I will help in many ways. I've added to the tip jar of many a hard working blogger, caught up in exploding cars, dysfunctional pets, and bad experiences with Comcast. I've helped people in my community, neighbors, suddenly and through no fault of their own, out of a job, with food and/or child care while they went to an interview; with assistance with crafting a new resume and getting them some job contacts. Helping those that actively worked to help themselves.

But do not ask me to support, through work or taxes or even my time, which has value of it's own, a class of people who only wish to take, because they feel they are owed it for breathing, for crossing the border illegally, or for being a specific race, creed or religion.

I love Global Warming

August has been wonderful here in the People's Republic. at least a weeks worth of temps down in the low 70's and high 60's. This morning at 11am Bailey Pig and I took a walk around the neighborhood in 69 degree partly cloudy conditions. Very few days this year have been in the 90's, contrasted to when I first moved here and we had many days in the high 90's. Bailey still has a fairly heavy coat so she appreciated the cool temps and nice breezes.

Range Time

Wow, I really sucked today. Went through about a hundred rounds each of .22 and 9mm ammo this morning. You know, I used to be pretty good, I qualified expert pistol in the Navy 5 years straight. I grew up shooting and have gone through lord knows how much ammo. So when I got to the range today I expected much better. I suppose I did ok with my trusty Colt Huntsman .22, it wasn't great or even good, but compared to how I did with my Sig P226 it was acceptable. I can't figure out what my problem is with the sig, but at 25' I am doing well to get a 6" grouping and I cannot seem to get my sighting down. I suppose lack of practice can account for most of the crappy shooting but jeeez. So I've decided that along with more range time (I quit shooting for a long time too wrapped up in my work and school) and some professional instruction. I want to be more than merely acceptable, I want to be "pretty good" :)

Anyway I sucked so bad, I didn't bother taking any pics of my targets...and I forgot the camera anyway.

An Armed Citizenry

The Police of the state should never be stronger or armed better than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.....Robert A. Heinlein; Beyond This Horizon

I am writing today about the wrongheaded and foolish notion that the Police are there to protect you. In fact the Police are not there to protect YOU, they are there to clean up the aftermath and protect OTHERS from those who attacked you. The simple laws of physics and economics means that the "police" are not going to be present to stop the violence being perpetrated against YOU at any particular time. No, they will show up after the fact and attempt to keep the perp. from accosting others. Police were created to protect society, not individuals. It is nice if it works out that they can prevent a crime, but the truth of the matter is, most often they are not there.

The simple plain truth that our politicians and civic leaders wish to ignore, is that only one person can protect YOU. That person is YOU. YOU are the only person you can count on to be there the instant some aggression is taking place upon or against you. Each CITIZEN should be not only encouraged, but required to know how to defend themselves, with arms and without. No strike that, the State has no business requiring you to know how to defend yourself....I think a simple Darwinian fix should be allowed to prevail, those who refuse to learn, or refuse to arm themselves, should be permitted to perish if that is their desire. One cannot force someone to work for their own survival.

Sure we can form police departments to attempt to enforce our social laws but no one should never confuse the police for personal protection squads. Only our politicians get that fringe benefit from the tax payer funded police departments.

I am not attempting to denigrate the honorable people who choose to "Protect and Serve" I am merely asking that people not kid themselves about the reality of the world.

By the way someone on some blog was wondering if Heinlein was a Gun man or a Blade man. I have to point out that in several of his books, his characters seem to favor the .45 Automatic Pistol so I do believe the man was M1911 enthusiast. (during his stint in the Navy the 1911 was the sidearm issued)

Site Update

Data Transfer from the NAS device to the FreeAgent Pro 1TB drive is under way, should complete in another few hours.

Cooookie!

Technical Hiccup

Tank Thing, Irish Red and A new fighter plane will be delayed / postponed while I change hardware configurations. I've decided to move the files off the NAS and onto a local Firewire 400 attached drive. The response from the NAS is just slow enough to annoy me, while not poor enough to give up the 2TB of RAID protected space. So while I am transferring the raw files off the NAS and onto the new drive things will be on hold.

The upside to this is that with speedier access to the files I will be able to catalog them a lot quicker and get them all renamed to a set standard.

So from here forward the RAD NAS disks will be for System archiving and the local disks will be for day to day work.

Wolf in sheep's clothing

I think all voters in the upcoming election should read this piece. I thought Hillary was scary but this guy really really really reminds me of Damien Thorn (ever see the Omen Movies?)

No I am not saying he IS the anti-christ, just his rise to fame is somewhat similar in the "out of nowhere" sort of way. Im not that religious ;)

The title is the link. This is also a link

Time for a change

Over the last little while I have been noticing that I fell into a trap where I let work become all and life almost nothing. I noticed that while I was working I was fighting the system and ramming my head into brick walls (metaphorically) over and over again trying to halt what I see is a downward spiral in my department and when I was not working, I was thinking about work. This situation leads to a build up of stress that can make one angry and irritable and one has to step back and ask. "For what?" With these thoughts in my mind, I decided that I needed a change. Many times I thought I would do some job hunting to find a different place to work and time after time I found that all I would be doing is trading in one headache for another. From what I can see, it appears that the American Technology Industry is looking like a pack of lemmings. I see Managers and Senior managers who have no experience with technology trying to lead, but their vision of leadership is to ignore the very experts they hire to advise them. It is as if they want to do the exact opposite of what their hired professionals tell them needs done. It also seems as if an expert from outside the company is automatically more knowledgeable than anyone who was silly enough to become an actual employee of said company.

I decided a week ago after talking to a friend in a different department that maybe if I cannot seem to find a good fit at another company, perhaps I can make a direction shift within my own.
To that end, yesterday I officially applied for a different position in my company, which still IT related would take me out of the hardcore technical side of things and put me more into the leadership and management side of things. Inside sources lead me to believe I would be a perfect win win for that group, however there are political issues centered on geographical location that may throw a wrench into my plans. I look at it as a "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" type of thing. I have always enjoyed being a "Technical Expert" and advising management, but now that "Management" does not appear to trust nor want advice from those they hired to do the advising...it may well be time for me to move on to a new phase. One thing I AM sure of, is that under no circumstances will I relocate to California.

Now, all I need to do is manage to make my brain shut off when I'm not working so I can focus on having a life again. I know it is possible, but like all worth wile things, it takes some work.

Oh and anyone who knows of anyone who is in need of a very experienced UNIX System Admin who has years of leadership experience feel free drop a line to immagikman@gmail.com.
Salary and Location negotiable as long as it is not in NY, IL, CA or MA ;)

Tank Thing: German StuG III

Sturmgeschutz III
Armament: 1x 75mm (based on the Pak 40 ATG) 2x 7.92mm machine guns
Armor: Max of 50mm
Crew: 4
Range: 96 miles
Speed: 25 mph

A self propelled gun based on the Panzer III chasis, this unit originally started out with a shorter barreled StuK 40 L/24 but was later up-gunned to the Ausf G model with a longer barrel 75mm StuK 40 L/48 (based on the Pak 40 ATG).
Intended to be used for direct fire close infantry support and as an assault gun, when the longer barreled 75mm was added the StuG III was often used in Panzer formations to provide a boost to the numbers. Not an Ideal platform for anti-tank work, it nevertheless served well in the German order of battle.

Irish Red #3: Boldly Going...

Born: Cheryl Gates McFadden, 2 March 1949, Cuyahoga Falls, OH.

I know every guy who watched STTNG lusted after her, and while Marina Sirtis was supposed to be the Enterprises resident hottie, the costuming worked out that Gates looked way hotter in her uniform than did Marina.
Gates is undoubtedly most famous for her role as Beverly Crusher, and that seems to make up the bulk of her television career but her role prior to ST was as a muppeteer with Jim Henson and was involved in the production of "The Dark Crystal". Gates also had roles on Mad About you and All My Children.

Gates also has a body of work on the Stage and is currently working with "Doctors Without Borders". She may be getting older now, I definitely would not say no to her.....well if I wasn't already attached to M that is.

Olympic Mania

I remember as a kid really getting into the Wide World of Sports and the "Agony of defeat" and that the Olympics were special. I guess they were special to me back then because I was too naive to understand the big business nature of what it has become. You cannot call any of the competitors "Amature" and be honest with your self. In the case of non-western countries you can barely call their Olympic hopefuls humans. These results of dictatorial cruelty over the course of their early lives has them becoming little more than machines with little humanity left in them.

They end up having children 2 or 3 or more years too young to qualify being bogusly listed as "16" when other documentation shows them being just 12, 13 or 14. I just can't watch these games any more. The IOC has become just another example of What happens when you let the worng sorts of people be involved. Basically I see them about the same as the blood suckers at the UN, sucking up billions in cash and resources and returning nothing but hot air. To quote Popeye. "I yam disgustipated".

State of the Union assessment

Ok it is the state of my Union, aka my assessment of my blog.
First and foremost trying to do this thing has given me a whole other
level of appreciation for those who do it day in and day out with such
quality. I see my own limitations in the writing, and my lack of real
creativity in the writing. I remember when I used to write a lot more
than I do now, when I seemed to have time to allow my imagination to run
free. However in the last few years I find that the struggle to make up at
work for lack of proper staffing levels and suffocating inexperienced leadership from those in that type of role, that I am being sucked dry and that I am being consumed in an impossible race to beat the odds. In the past I did enjoy my job and the challenges it brought and even the long hours, but now the bean counters are in charge and seem to be free to willy-nilly ignore the long term consequences for short term gains. One used to be able to take heart knowing that other places, other companies were smarter and better and you could just hop on over. Now though
it seems to me that the entire national corporate structure has jumped on the band wagon of expedience. To hell with quality, to hell with customer satisfaction (there are always going to be new customers) and to hell with "quality is job 1" now the era of 60-40 engineering is in play get it 60% right and we'll let the understaffed IT department fix the other 40% on the fly.

It is easy to fall into the trap of despair. Guess I need to take some vacation time.
I don't intend to stop posting, and it doesn't matter if I get any more readers than I have now I think it only matters that I have fun trying to learn something new. The readers I do have are awesome beyond compare anyway :) Even if one of them shows me constantly just how poor my composition skills are.

You know, I think I need to rediscover my sense of humor. I know it is in there, I make people laugh all the time...Sense of humor, sense of interest, a sense of proportionality, get my life back on track to something a bit more meaningful than the rut I have slipped into.

.308 or .223 for a fun and functional Semi-auto.

I find myself in a quandary, I have always prefered the .308 to the .223 and I am contemplating getting a semi-auto AR style in the .308 caliber. I suppose that the .223 is cheaper to shoot, but it just doesn't match the .308 in other respects. Range and power is where it's at, but how to really decide. I am going to have to seek out people with more knowledge.

On a Silly ass unconstitional GFW note. I just looked into Marylands actual rules and laws. No open carry allowed, no CCW for anyone that is not LEO, Phamaceutical or Cash carrier. Transporting your weapons out and about involves the weapon being in a seperate locked compartment of the vehicle than the ammo. Effectively the only place you are permitted to have a loaded handgun is in your home or at the range, nowhere in between.

Did I mention, I really need to move?

Range Rove: A hunt for a shooters paradise.

Yesterday (Sunday) I decided that instead of going shooting at the same old range I had been going to since my arrival in Maryland, that I would spend the day scoping out the area to see what was available for the would be shooter. My friend Brigid had blogged about various kinds of shoots which got me interested. Up till now all my shooting was me alone or with a friend or three in the woods, or canoeing down rivers either hunting or plinking. I also spent a large amount of time in the fields picking off groundhogs and other varmints. In the Military I did a lot of volunteer shooting as my rating was not an arms intensive one, however our small facilities and commands never had enough Marine guards so us Spooks would be organized into volunteer defense (NEGDEF) Teams which would hold off would be attackers until the Gunships arrived.

Anyhooo I started my trek at 9am. I used the Internet to locate as many places in my area that looked promising and used my GPS system to plot my course for the day. I purposely avoided anyplace that was inside the DC Beltway due to extreme aversion to the traffic. Not surprisingly most of the hits I got lay in the DC/Baltimore Corridor (I also didn't bother with places inside the lesser known Baltimore Beltway either).

My first stop was Atlantic Guns, in Rockville. I believe this is strictly a gun and ammo sales shop as it is tucked away in a tiny storefront with no room for any kind of indoor range. Unfortunately I would not be able to look around as it was closed on Sundays. It's hours were M-W 9-6, Thu-Sat 9-8.

Next Up was the Gilbert Indoor Range. Situated on a cul de sac on Rothgeb Dr in Rockville. A nicely located convenient place for me, I had my hopes high going in. The place was fairly new construction and looked great from the outside. Hours are M-F 12-9, Saturday 10-7, and Sunday 12-6. I got there a bit before they opened so I sat in the car making notes to post in this blog about my journey. The place opened a bit early which is surprising for this area, most of the time you are waiting for places to open a little late.

The facility was pretty nice and I was surprised that they had both pistol and rifle lanes. Though to me it seemed kind of silly to have a 75 foot rifle range. I mean 25 yards with a long gun...there is not much challenge there. The place used to sell guns but new Montgomery County rules had changed and they were debating on what to do about it. Still they had some interesting weapons on display to drool over. I got a nasty surprise here though. Montgomery County is one of the more GFW filled counties in Maryland and that is saying something (Gun Fearing Wussies) The county had enacted what is in effect a gun ban without actually banning guns...you aren't allowed to transport ammo. You can carry the gun apparently but you are not permitted to have it loaded or to transport ammo, thus to use this range, you are required to buy all ammo on site. My next shock was sticker shock. To use the facility you had to be a member, no big surprise there, but the annual membership was freaking $300 per individual or $60 a month or $1000 for 5 years. I know I have not been involved in Maryland's shooting arena but yeesh, this seems a bit excessive. Between the high cost of membership and Montgomery County's little rule about Ammo and having to purchase it all on site, I don't think this will be my choice of places to shoot.

Third up on my list was a place called Beam Hit LLC located in Columbia Maryland. This was a bust as they no longer were in existence.

4th on the travel Itinerary was the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore Inc. Located near Patapsco Vally park in Marriottsville. This was a beautiful outdoor range where I met several friendly and helpful people. The only downside was that there was no one present on Sunday who could tell me the details about membership/usage fees but It was NOT in Montgomery County and was free of that stupid Ammo restriction. There are a couple of caveats to using the range, one is that I would probably have to join a "sanctioned" local gun club but they had the information available for several such clubs, the second little gotcha is that It may be required that you belong to the NRA. I used to support the NRA but over the years it seemed to me that they had been caving in on too many issues and were allowing too many firearms restrictions go by without putting up a fight, as if they had become part of the political process....even so, if it is required I may actually join up to use this range. This range has trap shooting (which I used to love), rifle, pistol and black powder ranges. The one real drawback is that it is a bit of a drive, 30 to 40 miles I would say.

My next stop was BassPro which is a nice place to get some discount merchandise WalMart style shopping, though they had pretty much none of the staples I wanted to pick up. I wanted some really good 9mm self defense rounds (I have great .357 rounds but wanted something for in the P226) which BP did not have in stock. I also wanted a good holster/mag holder combo for the Sig but again BP didn't have any. (Would LOVE to know what the rig Bruce Willis wore in his last Die Hard Movie was, it is exactly what I was looking for) If anyone should read this who has any suggestions for carry rigs for the Sig P226 I would like to hear them. I hate buying holsters off the net, I like to be able to see them and try them before committing. I did pick up A new cleaning kit and mat, and a new Gerber knife.

My last stop was to my reliable and economically friendly "On Target". Located just outside the back gate of Ft. Meade on rt 175. It is a no frills indoor pistol range but hey, it is affordable and I can bring my own ammo. They also sell some weapons though the selection is not large, ammo and accessories.

All in all it was about an 8 hour day of driving and looking and I covered roughly 140 miles.
Maryland is not as bad as CA or NY or Illinois but it is not all that much better either. I seriously hate hate hate living in a GFW county but this is where M had her house (and a really nice one it is too) and this is where she wants to live for now, so I persevere.

Another Bonus is I found out about an upcoming Arms and Militaria show In Fredrick Maryland September 13-14 at 289 Willowdale Drive, Fredrick Maryland 21702. The hours of the show are 9-5 on Sat and 9-3 on Sunday. There used to be several gunshows in Montgomery County but they have all been banned by the county now. So it is a nice surprise to find out about a reletivly close out of county show without having to go to Virgina. Marylanders can't buy handguns in Virginia.

Tank Thing: German Panzer III

Panzerkampfwagen III Medium Tank.
This tank designed in the 1930's along with the Panzer IV was to be the backbone of the German armored forces. The Panzer III was to be the lighter speedier heavy punch against mobile forces while the Panzer IV would offer up the heavy artillery of it's 75mm short barrel cannon. The design was forward thinking, though successes in the Spanish Civil war made war planners believe that 37mm cannons were sufficient for the time. The Panzer III was designed with space enough in the turret to up gun this tank to a 50mm gun with ease. (one way to tell the III from the IV models is to count the road wheeels, the Pz III had 6 vs the PZIV's 8)

Mods A, B and C were only built in limited numbers and were only different from each other in minor ways. Models D, F, G, and H were all up gunned, up engined and up armored versions of the same tank. Running into the T-34 which could shrug off their 50mm L/42 shells required the development of the J which was up gunned with the 50mm L/60 gun which was much more effective. The M and N variants carried the short barrel 75mm cannon that the Panzer IV started with.

• Pz. III Ausf F
• Armament: 1x 37mm cannon (1.46in) 2x 7.92mm MG (.312in)
• Armour: Max 30mm (1.18in)
• Crew: 5
• Weight: 19.2 tons
• SPeed: 24.8mph
• Range: 102.5 miles

I think the L model was probably the best of the lot, with 50mm of main armor upgraded with 20mm plates at strategic points, and it mounted the 50mm L/60 gun which was adaquate for it's tasks.

Irish Red #2: Maureen O'Hara (This time it's for real)

Born Maureen Fitzsimons in Ranelagh County Dublin Ireland.
Date of Birth: August 17 1920 (now 88)
A true Irish Red!

This lady is and was magnificent, of course she had the good taste to work with John Ford and John Wayne frequently so that cemented my attraction. She was very talented, her acting career started when she was 14. Her film list is very long and with many impressive titles, I will list a few of my favorites but her career is well documented elsewhere.

My Favorites of her films in no particular order are:

• Miracle on 34th Street
• Sinbad the Sailor
• Big Jake
• McClintoc
• Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
• Sons of the Musketeers
• The Parent Trap
  

Maureen was sultry and beautiful and almost always played the part of a fierce and passionate and even strong willed woman, which really mirrored her own real life personality. Maureen is well known for her long list of films but her writing and singing were worthy career potentials in their own right. Among her surprising or is it not so surprising works was an Irish cookbook. What is it with Irish Reds that move them to write about delicious foods? Maureen was an iconic symbol in Hollywood's "Golden Age" and was considered by many to be one of the most beautiful women in the world, and who can argue?


Always classy and full of energy, Maureen could serve as a role model for many of today's young aspiring actresses. I wonder when leading ladies slipped away from the role of "Lady" and into the role of public displays of bad behavior? I will have to give some thought as to when the last time I saw a new Hollywood starlet that had this kind of class.

Maureen stayed active into 2004 with her writing and public causes, and I hope that she enjoys a long and comfortable retirement.

Dark Knight Movie Review

Saw this the other night with M. After all the hype, I suppose it would be hard for any movie to live up to the expectation. I honestly did not have a serious "Gotta See this" thing going for the movie, and was not a Batman Comic groupie as a kid.

Growing up I knew Cesar Romero was the Joker. Period. Then Came Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson to the movies and Jack just did the Joker perfect as far as I am concerned. I still think after watching Dark Knight that Jack was a more true version of Romero's Joker. Along the way over the years I did learn that the Comic version of the Joker was a darker scarier character. So I guess Ledger did his homage along those lines.

I found the film to be edited in a kind of haphazard sort of way (sort of like my writing style), one shot would emphasize something then you would never see it again, leaving me feeling like someone got a bit carried away in the editing room. However at 2 hours this is not a short movie so I can not guess why the film seemed so choppy to me. The Joker was fairly well fleshed out, but Batman, and all the other characters seemed to be kind of hollow. I realize that as I grow older I will lose touch with what the target audience is into (the 18 to 35 set) and have to conclude that the target audience has no patience for plot development or for in depth character studies, which is why this film probably appeals to them.

All in all I give it 6 out of 10 stars. Maybe a 7 if I didn't have to spend $10 a pop for tickets.

Contacting Fellow Bloggers.

How do you do it? You can always post in response to one of their blog entries but what if the topic doesn't fit? Does one create a google or hotmail account for such things? enquiring minds want to know.

Blogs seem to be about particular issues, and it just seems improper to sidetrack the main discussion to ask about things like blue barrels in the corner sealed with nitrogen.

Getting old can suck.

Well as a kid and adult I used to be pretty active and pushed the old body pretty hard. From being in the outdoors, hiking, lifting weights, racket ball and a host of pickup football and baseball games. I kept this up till I was about 33 or so then had to back off gradually as things started breaking, ankles, wrists, thumbs. I bounced back fairly quickly from each injury and moved on without a second thought, now however those old injuries seem to want to come out of retirement. Weather changes are a real bitch these days, I feel like a walking barometer. Shoulder, ankle, knee and thumb all indicate bad weather approaching.

When I was in my early 40's I had my last (I hope it is the last) major injury and it came out of nowhere, a tendon in my shoulder just decided it wanted to go walkabout to see the rest of the neighborhood, so it detached from the bone and flapped around a bit visiting all the other bits and pieces in the general vicinity.

I did not know anything was wrong when I went to bed, the shoulder had an odd feeling to it, but not really painful. I woke up and was completely unable to move my shoulder. It was the strangest injury I had ever had. All that I had done the day before was spent 12 hours in the car, driving up to see my kids and taking them to see some relatives from my side of the family, then dropped them off with the ex and drove home.

The wonders of modern medicine meant that I would just need to have two small incisions made, one in the front of my shoulder and one on the back side. The surgeon would use ortho or lapro scopic techniques to work through one (Ortho and lapro...need to look up the proper term) and observe via fiberoptic camera with the other one. They used some titanium screws and some other materials to tie everything back together again. It worked pretty well and my down time was only about a week. One thing though was for several months after the surgery, my shoulder squeeked, it was really weird, I felt the urge to walk around with an oil can and wear a funnel on my head.

Now, that wich brings around this bloggy whine the problem seems to be back. It is hard to type and the shoulder area has that same numb, odd feeling when the injury first happened. so now I have to set up a round of appointments to see a guy about a new shoulder...or at least doing some warrenty work on their first job.

Growing old, it's a hoot!

Irritating Nanny State

Here is a snippet of an article that really poked a sore spot with me.

House Committee decides to HANG UP on in-flight cell calls

By David Chartier | Published: August 01, 2008 - 01:30PM CT

It's the classic battle fought against a modern backdrop: just as technology is finally saying that we could have wireless communication on airplanes, humanity is questioning whether we should have it; or at least certain kinds of it. The hemorrhaging airline industry is eager to allow (and charge for) passengers to use mobile phones on planes, but a bill that would ban such use is making progress through the US House.

Dubbed the "Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace" (HANGUP... get it?) Act of 2008, the bill was approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by a voice vote yesterday. The bill's next stop is likely to be the House floor.

In a nutshell, the bill states that "An individual may not engage in voice communications using a mobile communications device in an aircraft during a flight in scheduled passenger interstate air transportation or scheduled passenger intrastate air transportation." Exempt from this rule are flight crew, flight attendants, and federal law enforcement officers acting in an official capacity. Note that the bill's language doesn't touch other mobile-phone-based communication like text messaging, e-mail, and Internet access, and it also excludes voice communicating using a phone installed on an aircraft.

I do not particularly want to have to listen to other people yak on the phone while stuck on a long flight. That being said, who the heck decided that there should be a LAW about this? Will they next make it a law that everyone boarding a plane must first use mouthwash to prevent offending others with one's halitosis? I am heartily sick of these stupid know nothing politicians getting involved with day to day life. The people in Washington have a clear undeniable mandate that is laid out for them in the Constitution of the United States. No where does the Constitution make these bozo's our parents, or our nannies and nowhere does it indicate that they should be telling us how to live for "our own good".

I seriously think we could solve most of our internal issues if we just got back to being a fully armed Open and Concealed carry society, manners and good conduct would just naturally follow without the need for idiot politicians trying to act as our babysitters.

Yes if we were all armed the big gun wussies of the nation would live in fear that we would devolve into the "Wild West". The inaccurate Hollywood portrayal of the "Wild West" aside these people would do well to actually acquaint themselves with the real world figures on violent crime in regions that promote Open and Concealed carry of weapons.

Tank Thing: The British Comet

The British Comet: Also known as The Cruiser Tank A34
Armament: 1x 17pdr. (aka 77mm HV), 2x 7.92mm machien guns.
Armor: 102mm (4.02in)
Weight: 32.7 tons
Speed: 32mph
Range: 125 miles.

This tank was the first British tank that came near to matching the mobility and firepower of the German Panther tank. It's arrival so late in 1945 resulted in the Comet playing little or no significant role in the war. At first the idea was that the Brits would up gun the Cromwell but those plans never actually happened as they wished to address several known flaws with the Cromwell.
This basically an reworked Cruiser A30 tank. So I will include the stats of the A30 Cruiser Tank (Challenger) here as well.


Looking at the Challenger we see the same 17pdr gun but it is housed in a tall vertical walled turret which was easily destroyed by German gunnery. Also noted is the lack of an off center mounted chasis machine gun on the front vertical plate, this MG was removed to facilitate storage of the longer ammo for the 17pdr.

Challenger (A30)
Armamament: 1x 17pdr (76mm), 1x 7.92 Machine gun.
Weight: 36 tons
speed: 32mph
Range: 119.86 miles

The A30 was a real loser in many respects, it's lack of speed in turret traverse, inability to ford rivers, and it's top heavy design. Only about 200 or so were produced as the M4 Sherman based Firefly equipped with the same 17pdr gun, was a better buy.
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The idea for the British tank forces were that there would be two types, fast moving lightly armored Cruiser tanks (and usually lightly gunned too) to act as modern Cavalry while the second type was the Heavily armored slow moving infantry support tanks, essentially moving pill boxes.

It wasn't until the round of tanks after the A34 that the British started to see well balanced Main Battle Tanks.

Tribute to Rush Limbaugh

Well a small tribute, perhaps a tributary or a tributette.

Love him or hate him, if you cannot admit to his skills, then I think you are not being intellectually honest with yourself. The man has been on the air for 20 years speaking to the values of a great many Americans. He exemplifies many of the qualities that I aspire to. Among the values he represents are hope and optimism in this republic that was formed by the founding fathers. I applaud his championing of self reliance, hard work and capitalism.

I find that many of the people I run into around here (The DC Beltway) that hate or dislike Rush and what he stands for, have never seriously listened to him for any length of time, at best they might have caught 5 minutes of one show. I know these people and I know their values and I suspect if they could get past their bias and actually listened to him for a few shows to get the gist of his sense of humor and see what he is really about, I think that they would find that they have much in common with him and with me.

I am not a "Rush Dittohead" I tend to form my own opinions, and in many aspects they do mesh with his views, but not always. I am very much a life style liberal/libertarian but a fiscal and governmental conservative.

So here is to Rush Limbaugh, 20 years of Commercial Capitalistic success!

Irish Red #1, Im faking it to start with/

Tamara Gorski:
Born: 21 November 1968 in Winnipeg Canada
Height: 5' 4"

She caught our eye first, playing Morrigan on the Kevin Sorbo Television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. While not born in Ireland or probably really a Redhead she sure did play a fine Irish lass in this series.

She also appears in many other decent series, such as Angel, Witchblade and Earth: The Final Conflict.

Ok, Ok so neither Irish nor Redhead by nature she sure makes a nifty fake :) a more complete bio can be found here: http://www.littlereview.com/getcritical/interviews/gorski.htm