Score one for The Associated Press

A friend and I were debating the flap over the AP photo showing the girl seeming to ogle Romney's butt. That led to a little research on AP caption corrections in general. I stumbled across this one. It is a dated (2010) but neat story of a cut line change on a captured enemy photo once thought to be of the Bataan Death March.

It shows GIs carrying bodies of their comrades, and for years everyone just accepted it was the march.  Decades later, a Bataan survivor said the Japs allowed nothing to slow the gory parade. The bodies were left where they lay. He believed the image was of a burial detail at POW Camp O'Donnell where the brutalized victims were taken.

AP did some checking, decided the veteran had a point, and,  some 65 years after the fact, rewrote the caption.

Hey, let's fleece Tourist!

News flash: Iowa bureaucrat says tourists spent more than $7 billion in Iowa last year.

About  two-thirds of it was the cost of driving around, trying to find a way out. Wait. I made that up, although it is not a totally implausible thought.

But I find the news item important as an illustration of the genius displayed by our official shreikspersons. For instance:

Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham says travelers are perfect taxpayers because "they come to our communities for a short time and leave billions of dollars behind."

Well said, Debi. Now if we only had a law preventing our own wild and crazy guys from traveling around and spending money in other hip scenes...  (I'm thinking of places like Nebraska.)

Something else I didn't build

The Wood Faerie not only brought it one day, that night he cut it, split it, and stacked it.  For that I certainly want to thank the Wood Faerie and his advisor, His Ineptness, the president.

The president deserves yet another paean in this regard. By reminding me I don't actually own this little project he saves me from the notion that I have some right to resist any looter who swings buy with a pickup to transfer any or all of the sustainable, renewable biomass from my residence to his.

(Unfortunately, "paean" is always a noun, never a verb, which prevents a  fellow from writing that we should have a great national meeting and paean the president. Proper grammar imposes regrettable limits on expression.)

For energy geeks, you're looking at a little more tha two cords, mostly oak, containing roughly 40 million btus of energy, comparable to the heat available from more than six  barrels of crude from the Arabs who, oddly, seem to own their oil. At least His Ineptness, has never lectured them on the universal nature of collectivism.

Reloading dope

Namely me.

My buddy P is getting more interested in shooting. His son bought a .30-06 bolt gun a while back, and P decided he'd like one himself. Prosperous enough, he still gags the idea of spending a buck every time the hammer falls. (Me too.)  So he decided to sit at the feet of a guy who started assembling cartridges back in the Nixon years. An expert.

Namely me.

Yeah. Right.

Now, I can generally get through a reloading session without too much fuss. The components are on hand and decently organized. The gear is robust and  trustworthy. My usual loads -- especially for the only really noble calibers, .30-06, .45ACP, and .45 Colt -- are well-tested, as are the procedures which begin with an attitude: At the bench, the only proper mindset is that of a paranoid old-maid aunt. The fact of the matter is that a high-pressure accident does hide under your bed, just waiting to snatch out your eyeballs. Fear is good.

I go into my didactic mode and lecture my friend about all of this, including that line I stole from P.O. Ackley, "You see a man with a rabbit's foot hanging over his loading bench, run like Hell."

---

We got started on two boxes of bright, once-fired Remington brass.

The competent old pro cleverly noticed that the primers weren't coming out. Dang, I thought I replaced the broken decap pin. Double-dang, I was sure there were still some spares is the drawer. Time out while I found the proper sized panel nail to sub for the real thing. We proceeded through the lubing and sizing steps for a few rounds, me doing and explaining before turning it over to P. HIs first couple of strokes went well. About the third there was a snap. You don't want to hear a snap in my press.  Rub noises are okay. Not snaps. Stop everything. Take a look. Curse.

My first -ever stuck case. I thought it was something you smugly read about,a mishap afflicting only lesser mortals.  Another timeout. P is getting dubious about this whole thing. It takes a few minutes to cut a dowel and hammer out the case. And that process drives the expanding ball into it. Hacksaw the brass apart and pry out the ball while discussing causes.

Fortunately,  P is an engineer and has no trouble understanding the possibility of a shell holder at the loose end of manufacturing tolerance and a rim at the tight end. But still...

I fool around a little longer, finding another holder  which, though  identically numbered by the RCBS folks, seems tighter than original. And just to be safe we swab out the die body, roll the cases across the pad again,  and swipe a smidgen more goop inside the mouths.

The rest of the operation goes better, and we end with 39 cases prepped and primed, ready for Lesson Two, scheduled for this evening, wherein your expert will explain and demonstrate the fine art of not blowing up a rifle. Load selection, powder measuring, checking with a flashlight, bullet seating. Etc. What could possibly go wrong?

Probably nothing because, on reflection, I concluded all the gods were bored last week, held a meeting, and, just for shits and grins, decided it would be amusing to humiliate that guy who keeps boasting about his really cool reloading shack and the nice rounds he produces.

Unless, of course, they're really feeling vindictive and decide that if one torture  session is good, two would be even more fun.

We'll see. And I think I do have a rabbit's foot around here somewhere.

EDIT to update: Taku-Wakan give good medicine tonight. Smooth like papoose behind.