Kyrie Eleison,
LSP
What's it like in Texas, apart from being like a preheating oven. Answer? It's good. Big sky, trucks, guns and all of that. Also, you get to free-range and shoot with friends on their land. It's just better than the other thing, especially when it's as well set up as JF's range.
That in mind, I drove down the road to the 200 yard line, a bit late to the party, and found young T shooting .17 HMR at a swinging gong in moderately gusting wind. The kid did well, typically scoring at 3 o'clock right at the edge of the bull. "Hold a bit further to your left at 9 '0 clock, young 'un." And he did. Boom. Dead on.
So that was fun. I mostly spent the time spotting or going for head shots on "Jihad," a large steel silhouette, and blasting away at 25 yards with a Ruger .22 match pistol, complete with red dot. I tell you, watch that dot weave, duck and dive like a drunken man. Hmmmm. Maybe some remedial pistol practice is in order.
In other news, you'll note that America has two main enemies. Viz. The Weather, obviously, and White Supremacy. Such heinous threats, and you know what it's like. There you are, walking down the aisle of your local Walmart when Klansmen surround you. That's right, the Klan itself, and you gasp in dismay at the news of your beachfront home in Martha's Vineyard sinking beneath the waves of glacial meltdown.
Such a threat. That's why the Klan set US cities alight last summer. Remember Lafayette Square, Baltimore, Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Chicago, New York and on. All that looting, burning and mayhem? Sure you do, and all of it caused by The Weather and extremely dangerous white supremacists.
Said no one ever, apart from our Millionaire Socialist overlords and their willing dupe-shill, NYT reading, Berkley educated, snerk, puppets. What will these clowns do when the revolution turns around and there they are, living on tofu, old New Yorker covers, wearing a mask and not allowed to leave the country?
Oh, we're already there.
Your Pal,
LSP
Blue needed a flea pill and I needed to go to the range for remedial off-hand rifle practice. But how could two such very different goals meet as one? Easy, the vet's on the way to the range. So, yummy pill administered, off we went to the shooting gallery. Straight shot, as it were.
To be honest, I hadn't been there in some time, mostly because of the ammo shortage and because I've been able to shoot at JF's setup, which is far more awesome. Still, I like this little 100 yard shoot 'em up. Just you, the guns and the big Texan sky.
Blue liked it too, big time, and grinned away as I let a couple of steel turkeys know who was boss with a gas gun, aka deadly assault rifle. Take that, steel enemy. Then, after searching the shooting house for precious brass, we headed back to the Compound via a dolla cheeseburger at McDonalds. Yum, if nothing like a hamburger.
That last bit's tradition. Love it, like it, scorn it, whatever, it's just the way it is. And I tell you this, readers, it felt good to get out in the clean country air of Texas and shoot. Blue agreed, as you can see.
Gun rights,
LSP
The infamous, yacht sailing, run from the Feds, multimillionaire tech libertarian is dead, suicided today in a Spanish prison cell following a court approving his extradition to the US for tax fraud.
So what's the deal. Did McAfee owe too much cash to the wrong people or did he have damning evidence that'd come out in a US trial, "discovery," or both? For that matter, who else is involved, the Epstein Island flight list, the Clintons themselves? Surely not our intel agencies, that'd be unthinkable.
Hey, I don't know, being a humble serf of the New World Order, but isn't this the second suicide in so many months? Maybe you remember the guy who reported on Loretta Lynch's meeting with Kill Clinton on the tarmac. Oops. Time to die. Go against our beneficent Millionaire Socialist rulers at your peril.
As we ponder this timely message, spare a thought and a prayer for John McAfee. OK, he helped author an annoying software program but made up for it by sailing around the world, and defying it and its masters.
I like that. He boosted the Peoples Currency too, and I like that as well.
God bless,
LSP
It was just like the old days. Get up around first light, say Morning Prayer, drink coffee, then load up the rig with guns and head for the range. But this was different, this is JF's range with steel targets and shooting stations at 200, 600 and 1000 yards, all on his family ranch. What a great setup.
The crew were sighting in new Windham Armory AR pistols at 25 yards when I pulled in, and what solid little beasts they were! Good shooters, too. Then an AR rifle topped off with Aimpoint (nice) and a magnifier.
After a few test shots to see if the weapon was on, it pretty much was, R went out to 200 yards, the furthest he'd shot, and was amazed to get his final round right in the center of the bull of a steel silhouette. I spotted, "Well done!"
Behold big rejoicing in R's world. And fair play, not only does the rifle I built work but I can actually shoot it, sort of thing. Next up, I got on JF's M1A, built from original parts except for the receiver, which is comparatively new and forged by wizards in some mountain fastness. Hey, it shot like a champ with .308 handloads striking gongs with regular authority. Iron sights to boot. I tell you, I want one.
Then, for kicks, a rimfire assault on our steel adversaries. I started off with a Marlin .22 WMR, compensating for an appx 100 yard zero and a moderate right to left wind. You see, at 200 yards the wind's going to blow that pokey if little bullet about, so try and shoot accordingly.
I did, and the gun did well, with convincing shots in or around the bull. But if the power .22 performed, what about its little brother, a .22LR? With a 100 yard zeroed scope, compensate for bullet drop of around 2', wind, and squeeze the trigger. Then be amazed as the tiny round reaches its intended destination. Thanks, Ruger American.
JF's 1940s match Winchester 52 B(?) with a Unertl scope didn't disappoint either. There it was, Browning match .22 LR filling the orange bull on a 36" plate. What a lot of fun. Would my Ruger American .17 HMR work at the 200 yard range, given the tiny, tiny bullet is liable to be taken up and gusted off target by even moderately big Texan wind? Wow. It worked and I was taken aback. Far less compensation needed than the .22 WMR. Fast and flat. Awesome little zipper of a round.
Of course it helped to have a good spotter, thanks JF, at every level. And the moral? Get out and shoot under the big sky of Texas, preferably on a friend's land and, note, rimfire at 200 yards is good training for reading the wind at an affordable price. And it's fun, which is what it's all about.
Shoot straight,
LSP
Here we are, back at Juke Box Mondays with the good ole Grateful Dead. "I love the Dead!" exclaimed no girlfriend ever. And by popular demand, and it's just that, popular demand, here's Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
But Jim wants Wanda, so here she is.
And RHT is urgent. Let's hear it for Foreigner.
But what's this?!? Hocus Pocus by Focus?!? Travel back in time and behold the fretboard glory of it all.
Then there's Heart of Glass, which we love. A Lot. Ignore the band.
Cheers, requests open,
LSP
You never quite know what you'll find at the local country Made-in-China-Mart in these uncertain times, apart from everyone having a tattoo regardless of age. It's like some kind of convention of extras from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Buccaneers aside, I checked out the ammo aisle by force of habit. Lo and behold, there were Valu-Paks of .22LR, 20 gauge 8 shot, and a few lonesome boxes of .22 WMR; and all at normal prices. Result. I bought a box of each, per store limit, and drove back to the Compound in high spirits.
Inspired by this not inconsiderable victory, it seemed right to clean some guns, one gun in particular, a Ruger American .17 HMR. Clean that bolt, LSP, lest the dirty little beast seizes up and fails to fire. Which is a bit of an issue with Ruger's American rimfire line because the manufacturer in its wisdom packed the bolts in grease, which solidifies over time and stops the rifle from working as it should. So sort it out; here's a helpful video, if you're interested.
That said, let's see how the little beast performs at JF's range tomorrow. We'll be shooting from the 200 yard line, and there's nothing wrong with that. At all.
In the meanwhile, ribs are on the grill and life is good.
Your Friend,
LSP
Behold the awesome PMK, on her way to meet the simpering, D List, wokevry no-talent Megyxn Markle. Let's zoom in.
Is that a Blackamoor? Well done, old girl!
Your Old Friend,
LSP
This one's via Dostoevsky to Maikov in 1870:
Exactly the same thing happened in our country: the devils went out of the Russian man and entered into a herd of swine, into the Nechaevs (nihilists)… These are drowned or will be drowned, and the healed man, from whom the devils have departed, sits at the feet of Jesus… And bear this in mind, my dear friend, that a man who loses his people and his national roots also loses faith in his fathers and his God. Well, if you really want to know – this is in essence the theme of my novel [Demons].
Note the seer-like precision of will be drowned. Take heart from that, but know, great will be the fall of it.
Cheers,
LSP
I don't know how you celebrated Juneteenth or even Kwanza, but here at the Compound it just seemed right to clean a couple of shotguns which had cleverly swum back from their watery grave in the mighty Brazos.
And what filthy beasts they were! You see, it's all very well to have guns but if you don't clean them they don't work, they jam, seize up and fail. Just the other day I watched a friend unleash his Remington 870 on a clay. Boom, smoked it, and then what?
Nothing, the gun failed to extract, and all because the chamber hadn't been cleaned in a years worth of Sundays. Net result? Shell stuck in chamber, gun useless except as Zulu style club. And we all know spear chuckers can be deadly but properly functioning firearms deadlier still, so set about those guns with Juneteenth fervor. Let's see 'em shine, inside and out.
And shine they did. Excited, I texted a friend in England who had been in the Army (TA) and he asked if it brought back memories. It did, of course. Weapons cleaning, running, endless shaving and ironing, a Sergeant directing our parade attention to a "Colour" ambling largely along the edge of the Square, "Look at that, boys. Too fat to F***ing fight. Get OFF MY SQUARE. YOU'RE F***ING TILTING IT."
"That story," remarked my pal, "has stuck with me, indelibly." And same here, but of course I was there, back in the mists of time. Text convo over, Eduardo tipped up on the porch, he runs a chicken operation behind the Compound and has bad English, "Mi Padre, favor?" he asked, eyeing gleaming shotguns. "Car no good, drive to liquor store?"
Off we went, and he bought a case of beer for Fathers Day. Well done that man. And with that, all three of you gentle readers, all was well with the world on this great, awesome, holy and wonderful holiday that is... Juneteenth. Gun rights.
Your Pal,
LSP
Here in Lspland we take UFOs seriously and so does the Pentagon itself, which is why the Department of Defense is briefing Congress later this month on some 120 UAP (Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon) incidents going back several decades. Why the sudden interest?
Because of a series of Pentagon verified videos from Navy pilots, showing unidentified craft maneuver with capability that's seemingly far beyond our own. Such as the famous Tic-Tac, Sphere and Acorn, as well as the Metallic Blimp and a random flying pyramid.
Some politicians, like Senator "Rat Claw" Rubio, believe the UAPs are a threat, "The facts are that there are things flying over our military installations. They don’t belong to us. They seem to evidence some technological advancement that we don’t have and have never seen. That would be one heck of a technological leap and a huge strategic surprise, so we have to know what this stuff is."
You might be forgiven for thinking that Rat Claw's beating up some kind of war drum hysteria with his vicious little hands. That uncomfortable image aside, what is this "stuff"? Secret US, ChiCom or Russian tech, visitors from another time or dimension? Literal space aliens? Who knows, maybe it's Space Nazis operating Tesla drive craft, Aryan Vimanas?, out of the center of our hollow earth. Or demons, some people think they're behind the mysterious UAPs.
For what it's worth, I'm inclined towards the US tech point of view, who knows what we've got going on out there on the far reaches of dark money and arcane science. And for goodness sake, the scamdemic's nearly over, so it's high time for another crisis to keep the serfs in order and the profits flowing.
But the problem with this is that the Pentagon's UAP record goes back a long time, to well before our current microchip utopia, much less hypersonic, gravity defying flyers. Sure, capitalize on the phenomenon and lock the people down forever, but the things which were flying in the '70s and before can't have been ours, surely. Or the ChiCom's or the Russians'. The tech just wasn't there.
So maybe it's demons except that why would evil spirits who can move at the speed of thought bother to use a Metallic Blimp for transport, or a Tic-Tac? No, not demons. Then there's Space Nazis, from Hollow Earth. Tempting. Still, we know the Fourth Reich is all about blitzkreig and conquest, and the UAPs haven't done this, fortunately.
The holy fathers instruct us that God is not to be found in the storm or the noise of this life, but in stillness by awareness of our thoughts and the unceasing remembrance of Christ in our minds. When we fill that sacred space, where God should abide, with material things, worldly cares, anxieties, and distractions including television, music, or idle conversation, God’s gentle presence is masked so that we are no longer able to perceive Him working within us. If we desire to quell bad thoughts, habitual sin, we must strive after this peace and be still.The world offers us distractions that temporarily anesthetize the mind and deaden the nous all the while keeping God’s presence distant from us. As Saint Seraphim of Sarov told his spiritual children, “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved. Where there is God, there is no evil. Everything coming from God is peaceful, healthy and leads a person to the judgment of his own imperfections and humility.”