Mauser K98 “Banner” (8x57mm)

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
2:45 PM CDT

Ooooh, here’s a pretty one. Made in 1934, this is one of the “Banner” Mausers which has the Mauser logo, rather than just the 3-digit wartime code carried by later models. This one was made pre-WWII—in 1934, to be precise.

Here’s the “banner” (top of the pic, partial view):

Here’s the scoop on these gorgeous old rifles. Most are collector’s pieces, with prices to match: this one, at Collectors, carries a price tag of $1,450.

Because of the Banner Mausers’ relative scarcity, all the Mauser cognoscenti will tell you to oil it, and put it away in your safe.

Myself, I’m torn. I agree with the sentiment—but at the same time, if I were to come into possession of one of these exquisite rifles, I don’t know if I’d be able to resist shooting it. (I would, however, shoot only commercial non-corrosive ammo through it—but I do that anyway, with all my rifles.)

I’m not big on “safe queen” guns—guns are tools, and should be used—but I can see the benefit of not shooting a $1,500 gun when you can get one with equal utility and identical operation for a grand less, and shoot that one instead.

But that raises the question: why then, would you consider getting one like this beauty at all, considering the price?

I dunno. When I get one like this (if ever), I’ll let you know what I decided to do. But if you’re a betting man, take 2-1 odds on “shoot it”. Look at this action, and tell me you wouldn’t be tempted:

Worth Remembering

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
12:48 PM CDT

From our friends in Oz comes this fine article:

THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.

Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining superpower. When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you’d figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do.
...
The resentment that comes from needing the military and economic might of the US translated into the most absurd criticism. Jan Egeland, the former UN boss of humanitarian affairs, cavilled about the stinginess of certain Western nations. His eye was on the US. Former British minister Claire Short was equally miffed, describing the initiative by the US and other countries as “yet another attempt to undermine the UN”, which was, according to her, the “only body that has the moral authority” to help.

I love moral authority as much as the next guy, but the UN’s moral authority is a mighty hard sell given that the UN club includes the most odious regimes in the world, such as Burma. And notice how the UN’s moral authority did not quickly translate into helicopters laden with food and water?

When the UN finally does anything of use, it’s propelled in large part by US dollars, with the US contributing more than any other country. Those other giants, China and Russia, are not filling the coffers of the UN’s moral authority.

All good stuff, and I urge you all to read it.

But here’s the parts which stick with me:

And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you’d figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven’t. At least not yet.
...
The really unfortunate part about this adolescent love-hate relationship with the US is that, unlike most teenagers, many never seem to grow out of it. Within each new generation is a vicious strain of irrational anti-Americanism. But unlike a parent, the US could just get sick of it all and walk away.

The US has had isolationist periods in the past and it must be enormously tempted sometimes to have another one soon. The consequences of that possibility deserve some serious thought. If the neighbours worry about Russian bullying over oil and gas, just imagine a Russia unfettered by a US military presence in Europe. How long would South Korea, Israel or Taiwan last if the US decided it wanted to spend on itself the money it presently devotes to military spending in the Middle East and Asia?

Frankly, I like the idea that some of my tax dollars are helping the truly needy in far-off places.

What sticks in my craw, however, is that we continue to support those who do not need or deserve our aid or assistance: like the United Nations.

Here’s what we should do. Buy back Turtle Bay in Manhattan, and offer to move, at our expense, the U.N. to another location—to Geneva, perhaps, or Berlin (how’s that for symbolism?) or else to a representative city from the majority of the U.N.’s membership, such as Khartoum or even Singapore.

Then cut back our contribution to the United Nations to, say, 10% of the body’s current funding amount.

The amount freed up could be spent far more effectively in future disaster recovery efforts. And at the same time, we would [ahem] encourage other nations like China, Russia and Germany to make up the funding difference.

Sounds fair to me.

Fitting Punishment

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
11:47 AM CDT

Texas justice:

An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

I think I’ll treat myself to another cup of coffee.

You Want Reasons?

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
11:00 AM CDT

Apparently, the Stupid Party has woken up and smelled the coffee—or, to be more precise, woken up to the smell of the house burning down while they were sleeping:

For the past 18 months, ever since the 2006 elections, congressional Republicans have been like a hospital patient trying to convince visitors that he is not really all that sick: a bit under the weather; actually feel better than I sound; should be up and about any day; thanks for asking.

Suddenly — belatedly — all pretense is gone.

The Republican defeat in Tuesday’s special election in Mississippi, in a deeply conservative district where, in an average year, Democrats cannot even compete, was a clear sign that the GOP has the political equivalent of cancer that has spread throughout the body. Many House GOP operatives are privately predicting that the party could easily lose up to 20 seats this fall.

Combined with the 30 seats that the GOP lost in 2006, that would leave the party facing a 70-vote deficit against Democrats in the House — a state of powerlessness reminiscent of Republicans’ long wilderness years in the 1960s and ’70s.

Things are not particularly more hopeful on the Senate side, where most analysts say Democrats have a strong chance of adding five or more seats to their current majority.

Panic and blame-casting for the dire condition were flowing in equal measures Wednesday inside the House Republican Conference and among party elders and operatives outside.

Yeah, panic, you little shits. You support RINOs like Arlen Specter and John McCain, and you wonder why you lose conservative seats like the one in Mississippi?

Your party’s standard-bearer going into November is the senator who has stabbed the party faithful in the back more times than we care to remember, and you wonder why he has no coat-tails for the Congressional elections?

You introduce legislation which is a “compromise” between a Republican and a liberal Democrat like Ted Kennedy, and you wonder why we don’t support you?

You talk about “immigration reform”—which we all know is really a disguise for an amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants—and when over 70% of the country’s voters tells you that such legislation is repulsive, you wait awhile, and reintroduce almost the same legislation?

You made no serious attempt to reform the iniquitous tax code, and replace it with a fair and simpler one.

You allowed your original mandate of smaller, frugal government to be corrupted into a free-spending, licentious and lawless atmosphere, where anything was acceptable as long as it wasn’t as bad as what the Democrats were promising.

The current President (a man who promised to be conservative, and then turned out to be anything but) did not groom a successor while in office, and replace the current Vice-President with a younger version of Dick Cheney (an outstanding man and conservative), thus leaving the Election 2008 field open to a bunch of RINOs like McCain and Romney.

Did you think we were asleep while you were doing all this stuff?

Conservatives are not the Republican Party’s “base”, no matter what the smart boys and consultants tell you. We are not the same as the Democrat Party’s Black voters or union leaders, who will vote for the party without regard to what they do, or how many times they compromise their principles.

We are conservatives. We don’t like change, especially the kinds of change which can undermine the principles and Constitution of this country. We don’t like “compromise” when the people on the other side of the negotiation get almost everything they want, and we get almost nothing.

We do not march in the streets with placards and puppets. We do not write hysterical screeds to the newspapers. We do not say ugly things about our country to foreigners and strangers.

We vote. We vote either with our ballots, or, if the choices are that unpalatable, we vote with our feet and stay away.

You think we have nowhere else to go? I have news for you. We have plenty of places to go, on Election Day. We can go to the library, we can go to the bar, and we can go to the shooting range, to name just a few.

You have precisely three months to come up with a plan, a roadmap to the future, which will not compromise our country’s future, and which will not undermine the Constitution any more than you have done already.

Conservatives are not your base; they are your foundation. And unless you start reaffirming your commitment to those principles which have made this country great, you will find out, like you just have in Mississippi, that you have no foundation left.

Here’s your blueprint. Get back to these bedrock principles, and you’ll win everything.

• The Constitution, strictly interpreted
• Smaller government
• Lower taxes
• Armed citizens
• Frugal spending
• Robust foreign policy
• Law and order
• Conservative judges.

I Want One

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
9:17 AM CDT

So… who needs flying cars? Not this guy:

Some people go fishing on their day off. Yves Rossy likes to jump out of a small plane with a pair of jet-powered wings on his back and loop the loop above the Swiss Alps.

The self-built contraption took the former fighter pilot five years to build and perfect - and yesterday he gave it its maiden flight.

Stepping out of an aircraft at 7,500ft, Rossy unfolded the 10ft rigid wings strapped to his back as he plummeted earthwards. Passing from freefall into a gentle glide, he triggered the four jet turbines and accelerated to 190mph above the mountaintops.

Steering with his body, Rossy dived, turned and soared again, flying what appeared to be effortless loops from one side of the Rhone valley to the other.

At times he climbed 2,600ft before diving again, leaving a trail of special-effects smoke in his wake. After one last wave to the watching crowd, Rossy dipped his wings as he prepared for the piece de resistance, a manoeuvre he hadn’t tried before...He flipped onto his back and levelled out again, executing a perfect 360-degree roll that even a bird would find impossible.

I WANT ONE.

Oh, all right… I know I’d probably need twelve jet engines to propel my fat ass around the sky. But still.

Feast your eyes on those pictures.

Packing Heat, Georgia Style

Kim du Toit
May 15, 2008
6:28 AM CDT

Yeah, baby:

Georgians with carry licenses will be able to tote their concealed guns on public transportation, in restaurants that serve alcohol and in state parks under legislation signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday.

Perdue inked the controversial gun bill on the final day for him to sign or veto legislation. He is also expected to sign a $21 billion state budget that will give 200,000 teachers and state employees 2.5 percent pay raises and is expected to sign a bill allowing auto insurers to raise rates on some coverage without first getting state approval.

The gun bill debate was among the hottest and most strongly lobbied measures of the 2008 session. Perdue said last week he expected the issue to wind up in court, no matter what he decided.

For two years, it prompted a collision of Republican constituencies, as lawmakers debated the rights of gun-owners and the ability of landowners to control their property. A veto by Perdue would have guaranteed a third year of fighting in the Legislature.

House Bill 89 was passed by the General Assembly in the final hours of the 2008 session. As in the year before, most of the debate on the measure had concerned a provision to permit employees to keep guns in vehicles parked on corporate parking lots.

Business interests, who had opposed the bill, say the legislation’s language has been watered down to the point that the parking lots issue is no longer a concern.

But when HB 89 made its final appearance before both the House and Senate, language was added that expanded the list of public places where holders of concealed weapons permits could take their guns.

With Perdue’s signature, restaurant patrons will be permitted to carry a firearm, but would be barred from drinking while doing so. Violations would be a misdemeanor. Concealed weapons will now be allowed in state — and by extension — local parks. Firearms in purses or under jackets will also be permitted on public transportation.

Opponents of the bill included the Georgia Restaurant Association, which argues that waiters and waitresses shouldn’t be asked to demand a patron’s gun permit before serving a drink. Union drivers had said they would demand bulletproof shields on MARTA buses if the governor signed the bill.

Supporters of the bill included the National Rifle Association and GeorgiaCarry.org, which argued that holders of concealed weapons permits — who submit to fingerprinting and a criminal background check — are no danger to the public and might even protect the public.

While most of the bill applies only those with concealed weapons permits, H.B. 89 also relaxes restrictions on where weapons can be stored in vehicles. That portion of the bill applies to all gunowners.

Sheesh… Georgia’s law is now less strict than ours in Texas (TX CHL holders can’t carry their guns into places which derive more than 50% of their revenue from liquor sales).

Aaaargh.

As for “allowing” employees to store their guns in their cars during work hours: this has been painted as a “private property” issue (for the companies), but in fact it is indeed a private property issue—for employees. Frankly, it’s none of the company’s damn business what their employees are carrying in their cars. Yeah, the parking lot is company property: but the car is the employee’s property.

And that, as they say, is that; at least in Georgia.

Also cleared up was the nonsense about carrying guns in cars, whereby GA CCW holders were pretty much breaking the law almost no matter how they were carrying their guns. Stupid restrictions, now no more.

Excellent news.