Mar 12, 2014

What's the frequency, Kenneth? (More bizarre than...)

This does not bode well. A trigger-lock company trying to buy Remington?

Aside from writing like a bunch of long-winded nerds...

("This model, which takes advantage of market trends, technological advances (Most of you will want to stop reading the red print here; I just wanted to give serious language students enough jargon and cant to convey the full buzz-word flavor) and industry consolidations to fuel profitable growth, presents a value proposition that is perfectly suited to the military armament industry, an industry that is heavily fragmented and evolving rapidly toward a RFID/WiFi-enabled technology platform. In this dynamic environment, we see enormous opportunity to consolidate this market with a program of targeted acquisitions, including the proposed Freedom transaction. Technological convergence is the future in the cyber/smart arms arena and we're eager to leverage our proven history of success by helping Freedom and others navigate the transition from analog to digital.")

.. .the predator company says things which make a guy scratch his head. Among its other bragadocci we find:

Global Digital Solutions is positioning itself as a leader in providing cyber arms manufacturing, complementary security and technology solutions and knowledge-based, cyber-related, culturally attuned social consulting in unsettled areas.

 "culturally attuned social consulting in unsettled areas?"  If there is any actual meaning  there, it escapes me. So I'll make something up.

GDS buys Remington. After a short R and D period, it sells you a  a G5 or 6 or 7 cell phone with an accessory clip for a Model 700. When in an unsettled area you can either shoot at stuff if you can remember the code to tell your phone to unlock the trigger. or you can just settle yourself on a lonely stump and text.

UPDATE: I think we can rest easy.  GDS doesn't have enough money to buy the rusted Remington 742 I picked up for parts last week. The release wasn't satire, but it was the CEO's way of crying out for help. "Oh look at me. Please. I am so pretty."  'course, if you want to take a chance, you can buy a share of the company stock for 86 cents.

Mar 11, 2014

Beer for the warriors; no REMFs need apply

By late October, 1944, all was foretold on the great battlefields of Europe. The death of the Nazi was a matter of when, not if.

But Winston Churchill was still a busy man, overseeing Montgomery on the left  and Alexander down in the Mediterranean. Not to mention fighting the opening skirmishes of World War III,  telling Stalin, "No. You may not have Greece and Poland and Istria, (etc.)."

So an old grunt develops a certain affection for the guy facing all that who still finds time for:

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War         23 Oct. 44 

A serious appeal was made to me by General Alexander for more beer for the troops in Italy. The Americans are said to get four bottles a week, and the British rarely get one. You should make an immediate effort and come to me for support in case other departments are involved. Let me have a plan, with time schedule, for this beer. ...  The priority issue is to go to the fighting troops at the front..."


Properly exercised power can be a wonderful thing.


 Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War    20 Nov. 44

Good. Press on. Make sure that the beer -- four pints a week --  goes to the troops under fire of the enemy before any of the parties to the rear get a drop.




Nine months later the voters sent him packing.  No wonder we call it the place where Great Britain used to be.

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Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, H/M BCE, 1953, pp. 705, 709.

Mar 10, 2014

The Belgian Countess

She could have worn white to the ceremony, and the snickering old gossips in the back pews would have been wrong.





















Fulfillment ensued.









Replacing the lanky older model .













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The original 6-incher had been abused by excessive dry-firing and possibly too many shorts without careful chamber cleaning. Some finicky work put her back in shooting shape, but she never had my full trust. I ran the internet for replacement barrels and found none.

But Saturday, at the Wells (Minnesota) school-house loophole, there she reposed at a price about one-third what I would have expected. I haven't stopped grinning since.





Mar 8, 2014

The demigods among us

On May 27, 1944, just ten days before Overlord, he found time for:

Prime Minister to Minister of Fuel and Power

"I hope you will put a stop to nonsense like this. (Reports in the Yorkshire Post that that a householder was fined one pound, with two guineas cost, for having borrowed coal from a neighbor.) Nothing makes departments so unpopular as these acts of petty bureaucratic folly which come to light from time to time and are, I fear, only typical of of a vast amount of silly wrongdoing by small officials or   committees. You should make an example of  of the people concerned with this."

Winston Churchill in Closing the Ring, H/M 1951 BCE, p. 714

On second thought, this is of merely historical interest here in 21st Century America where we have entirely disposed of petty satrapy.

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I'm somewhat embarassed about linking Overlord to Wiki, but who knows when a dedicated member of the National Education Association might stumble across the post?