Bullet Points:
** The old man is tired. Give him a break (right)
** Looking for holes in Louisiana. Supporting the Clinton Global Initiative. Everybody needs to do their part.
** Who’s your daddy? Alexa knows.
** Amid the ruckus of his departure from the White House, it seems Creepy Joe forgot to set the autopen to pardon his wife, who now faces charges for “losing” $3 million. Former First Lady Jill Biden says she has no idea what happened to her office’s entire discretionary budget for the four years she was in the East Wing. There are no receipts, no notes, no IOUs…nothing. The scandal was uncovered after DOGE’s final point highlighted the need for accountability in Dr. Biden’s office.
** In the Midwest.
** Did you ever wake up on a cold morning wondering whether you had arthritis or rigor mortis?
** Beijing has burned through its credibility—on trade, data, treaties, and promises. Once trust is gone, words are just noise. The world should stop taking China at its word and start evaluating everything it does through the lens of permanent bad faith.
** CDRSAL discusses the value of auxiliary cruisers as additions to the fleet. I agree with him that they would be a good place to billet reserve officers and crews, in the event of a national time of need.
** A study has shown that women carrying a few extra pounds live longer than men who mention it.
** When space aliens arrive, there will be something for you to look forward to.
** Ilhan Omar’s net worth has grown $30 million since 2019, according to a report from Polymarket on X that Elon Musk has retweeted.
The Value of Repeating Rifles with Fixed Ammunition
A detail from “DeGress’ Battery ” During the Battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864, a four-gun Battery of four 20lb Parrot Rifles belonging to the 1st Illinois Light Artillery was overrun by General Cheatham’s Confederate Corps. One of 3 Union regiments to retake the battery was the 66th Illinois, armed with Henry 16-shot repeating Rifles.
From Ammo.com
Have you ever wondered how many gun owners there are in America? We sure have! While the answer to that question isn’t easy (thanks to the Bill of Rights), we collected the most reputable information and compiled it in one easy-to-read report.
If you’re in a hurry, but want the highlights, here they are:
- In 2025, approximately 36% of American households have at least one firearm.
- Household firearm ownership decreased in the U.S. by 26.5% between 1959 and 2025.
- Between 28-45% of men report owning a gun, compared to 17-25% of women.
Our report also analyzes gun ownership among urban and rural populations, political parties, and first-time buyers. Feel free to read the entire report and share it with others! You’ll find it here.
EdB – Explaining his Seemingly Inexplicable Engineering Superiority
Now you know.
Red Mist
Legends endure for a reason. Sometimes they survive to impel our cultural hubris. Occasionally, they endure because they instill a sense of focus on what was, and perhaps. A vision of what will be. They are always a reminder. When they come back to haunt us, things start to get interesting.
A couple in Iceland, very much in love, visit a historic site when he suddenly throws himself into a volcano, burning to a crisp before her eyes. Afterward, it’s always raining.
The dwindling North Sea Oil supply is suddenly rejuvenated with a discovery, a vast oil field of light, sweet crude worth billions. Exploration, drilling, and pumping begin to breathe life into a faltering industry, and just as things seem to be going well, the oil is polluted with radioactive thorium.
US Army Special Forces operators in Iceland on an exercise are drawn into a crisis, and as NASA withdraws, they boldly face the challenge. All but one are rendered insane and the memory of Red Mist turns into a quest for answers–that the CIA already has.
In Texas, a political fixer is called on to deal with a situation and finds himself completely out of his depth.
In England, a psychologist’s life is turned upside down as a skald makes a disturbing prophecy.
In China, aggressive experiments into neutrino research create a completely unforeseen disaster and portend a global cataclysm of Biblical proportions.
Just when you’re sure that you have all the answers and are confident that the science is settled, it isn’t.
In California
It sure feels like the Democrats defraud taxpayers to buy votes, and siphon that money not for infrastructure or real social welfare, but to enrich their NGOs. I seriously doubt Newsom and Walz are alone in this.
In California alone, the State Auditor (D) found:
$32 Billion in COVID relief fraud
$24 Billion in homeless relief fraud
$18 Billion in High Speed Rail fraud
$2.5 Billion in Food Stamp Fraud
$950 Million in non-working 911 upgrades
That’s over $75 BILLION that didn’t evaporate. That money went somewhere. It would be a good project for the IRS and FINCEN to look into. It’s not as if they’d need to start from scratch. The State Auditor’s findings are there to review. Eventually, if you lump enough billions together, you’re talking about real money…
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
20 built
3
200 built
Parting Shot
End
1 is Flettner FL 282. German WW2.
2?
3 is Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Bachstelze (English: Wagtail) is a type of rotary-wing kite, known as a rotor kite. They were towed behind German Type IXD2 U-boats
RCC yes – they towed the Bachstelzes behind the U-Boats, which is not a bad idea. However, if you were there at X altitude over the cold North Sea, being towed, and the decision was made to dive the boat — you could autorotate down, but how long would you last in the water?
1 – German Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri Hummingbird
2 – Captured German Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 Dragon – carries USAAF marking
3 – German Focke-Achgelis Fa 330 Wagtail Towed autogyro
Exactly
RE: value of repeating rifles, see Battle of Plevna: https://web.archive.org/web/20130715003013/http://www.militaryrifles.com/turkey/Plevna/ThePlevnaDelay.html
$75B missing huh…betting it’s way more than that, and likely the same for most, if not all, Dem run cities and states…and a few R’s as well, otherwise politicians would serve a term then leave…but they can’t, the money is too good.
–
Same with Omar…how does that happen? Gotta stop. I say before it’s eliminated (please PDJT)…that they spend 2026 doing a forensic DRE-level audit on every Congresscritter, state and federal, to find out where OUR taxpayer monies went. No more of this ‘we’re special’ baloney. For too many decades these politicians have seen (abused) WTP as ‘gerbils on the wheel’…if we stop running the whole things folds…and they know that….so time TPTB were held accountable…and rules were changed to protect OUR money. Maybe then young folks could begin to afford a starter house, and retired folks don’t need five mil to maintain some semblance of a decent life after working like gerbils on the wheel all their lives.
***
“Arthritis or rigor mortis?: Heh…weird how that happens…all of a sudden. But hey, “die young and leave a good looking corpse” is no fun, a life lived includes working the body even if that means a few bumps and bruises that come back to haunt, or as dad would tell me, “Keep that up and you’ll one day be walking around like an old football player.” Getting old is not for the feint of heart, heck, I’m just hoping for getting dressed in the AM without injury.
***
Older Brother sent his NYE sentiment, “Learn from yesterday, Live for today, Hope for tomorrow.” (Albert Einstein). Texted back: “It’s all relative.”
*the aforementioned ‘they’…missed a bit, ‘IRS’.
BTW, the opening pic is scary good….”Is it real, or is it Memorex” (for those who know about ‘cassette tapes’) is revamped as AI. Can’t hardly tell nowadays.
Now the Pseudo-Republican from the district is calling for them to be deported. Wonder how much he made bringing them all into his district, and when he stuck a finger in the air and detected a wind change…
Exactly.
Identify the Aircraft;
1. Flettner FL 282
2. Focke-Achgelis Fa 223
3. Focke-Achgelis Fa 330
Very good!
Waking up in the morning. I think George Burns was on to something. “If I don’t see candles and smell flowers, I get out of bed”.
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Henry Rifle. I enjoy (and learn from) Mark Novak’s channel.
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-6vX__jPA
I have a Winchester Model 1873 in 44-40 that I acquired circa 1967. A guy brought it to my grandfather to repair, but it wasn’t in firing condition, so he bought it for $10 and gave it to me. I love the old lever actions, and the Henry was a significant machine in its day.
Do tell. My late aunt inherited the same from her late uncle who owned it when he served as sheriff of San Jose county, CA. Along about 1979, I bought my Navy Arms repro 1875 Remington Revolver, also in 44-40, and began to cast and load for it. Bought it at the San Francisco Gun Exchange, if you can believe that. A few years later, I loaded up some powder-puff smokeless handloads for my aunt’s rifle, and gave them to her on a visit to their ranch in Tulelake, CA.
—
That 44 caliber hole in the muzzle had her convinced that the rifle must kick like a mule. She trusted my explanation of why it would not, and it was a simple matter to step out their back door into the pasture and let fly. She was delighted to find out how pleasant it was to shoot, although I seriously doubt she ever shot it again. She and my uncle have passed on. They had three kids and multiple grand children. I have on idea if that rifle is still in the family.
gun ownership- that’s only the ones which answer the survey and admit to owning guns. i never do, i’m not alone either…..happy new year all.
X2
And then there’s the boating accident.
Sometimes several boating accidents as time passes and purchases are made.
Things happen, WSF
There’s so much iron and steel at the bottom of Horsetooth Reservoir that it threatens the stability of the Earth’s rotation!
Magnetometers peg when they pass over
Back in the late seventies, I worked offshore with some old men that had worked in the oil patch for decades. One described an oil well that was drilled, the well was barely controlled when the bit reached a deposit, and cemented to prevent it from blowing out. The pressure was too high to be controlled with the current technology of the time. I asked what happened after that. He replied it was still untapped as far as he knew, and would probably be utilized some day in the future. It made me wonder how much oil there is still underground, untouched, and to be produced at the leisure of those that have the money when necessary. I’m thinking there is more than people can imagine, and it’s more important to some to keep the theory of peak oil alive. There is more money to be made when the market thinks the product is limited.
When I was in Iraq a couple of months ago, speaking to the Director General of SOMO, that topic came up. In some places, the volume produced is more a function of technology for extracting, transporting, and storing than it is of ultimate production capacity. The same is true of natural gas (methane).
Just like diamonds.
Peak oil has always been a bunch of hooey, pursued for political and
commercial purposes. For example, nobody ever talks about “peak coal”,
and we’ve know how to make gasoline from coal for a century or more.
– Kle.
Landman touches in these (well said) subjects, boom/bust, wildcatting, high risk, failure…and guessing, altho technology has done a lot for reducing certain unknowns. But the ‘bust’ Tommy spoke of was likely more to do with world market politics, both here and abroad, than actual on the ground business operations. Like anything, when DC and their international pals gain (by their own edicts) the regulatory power, the industry suffers…not them mind you, but the principles and employees. Same happened when Biden’s Handlers shut down Keystone, wrecked a lot of lives while “Mr. I Own A lot of Trains” got all the transport. Same thing with AOC sticking her Socialist nose into a private local Amazon deal, shutting it down. Who the hell are these people to do such things? Audit all of them I say, full on proctological exam of their finances…someone is paying them to subvert progress.
A lot of the ’empty’ oil fields aren’t, empty that is, at all. For several reasons.
–
One is that the fields refill. Seriously. Some refill completely within 4 years of being drained. Oil is the 2nd most common fluid on/in the crust of this Earth.
–
Another is that the oil rigs of the 1960s weren’t that far off of the oil rigs of the 1890’s. Better material, better ‘science’ behind them, but still the same damned rigs. Only able to suck/access certain types of oil fields. Modern rigs are much better at going sideways, deep, through hard layers, and exploiting more difficult pockets.
–
And… there are tons more fields easily accessible that aren’t. Like the huge, gigantic, massive, ginormous oil fields in relatively shallow water off Florida’s east coast, that for years everyone thought all the tar balls and leaks were from sunken ships but weren’t. As massive as what Alaska has, potentially more. But acts of Congress have shut down any exploration/exploitation. Florida could reduce state sales tax to zero from oil dividends. And there are many fields off the west coast, too, again, inaccessible due to Congress.
• ★ Happy ★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★ New Year ★。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚｜ 田田 ｜門｜ ˚
* Joy to all! ♫•*¨* Peace on Earth ♪♫•*¨*
x2 ‘n’ back @ U
Not that this is scientific, but I don’t know anybody in Idaho that doesn’t own a gun.
nor NYC, for that matter
uh! that’s people I know and people I don’t
I suspect that there are people in Arizona who don’t own a firearm. That is amply compensated by those who own three dozen.
Fraud
Just one year under PDJT and the rocks are getting turned over. Three more years ahead to put people in jail. The thieves are betting on the mid-terms to get “their” people in to hinder investigations and protect the guilty. Those elections may be the cleanest in decades with 22 blue states being sued for voting records. The left has successfully browbeat the “white” population into submission with “racism” and “white privilege” while convincing the “colored” population they are victims. What pisses off all groups, and may unite them, is stealing their money.
X2 WSF in finding some common ground to stand on, “stop squandering our tax dollars!”
–
Granted overall I haven’t paid a whole lot of income tax overall. BUT, adding up all the other taxes, it adds up!
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It sure would be nice to see our country united over some things like DOGE issues. Is standing strong together across the isle on important subjects like the 3 R’s, national security or what have you possible?
👍
X3 or 4. Spot on WSF. Yet we must have patience…took a long time – decades – for OUR government to morph into The Swamp, will take a bit to excise the cancer.
Have i ever woke up on a cold morning without feeling some kind of pain, or aching? Usually getting dressed and going down a flight of stairs to our daylight basement, lighting a fire, and brewing a cupa java helped when we lived in the N.W. Then the 2 mile drive out to the hobby farm, to feed our horses would bring more relief. If not, within the first hour or two of work, most of whatever old injury, or new body part wearing out subsidies to a manageable degree or completely dissipates.
–
My mother, a nurse, would feel my forehead in my gradeschool days, “no fever, you’re going to school.”
–
Yesterday a.m. after stretching out, a short 1 mile run felt appropriate and lifted the mental fog and physical grogginess.
Leaving the humid coastal air yesterday for the dry mountain air today made me feel different. I don’t know that I’d call it relief. But it was a change.
Glad for you sir. December and Jan are the driest months here in the Big Country = Abilene. Meanwhile back in Western Oregon, kids and grandkids endure rain up to 40 days and nights in a row.
Autopen oversight; Whoever configured the list of pardons knew there needed to be a fall guy for the Biden crime family. PHD Jill can now market her amazing accounting principles and practices, with acclimations to which ever Universities she holds degrees and tenure. Speeche$ and $eminars to follow. Fine print… for politicians only. Also, fine print disclaimer… not not try this “experimental” .gov method without expecting IRS home visits.
–
Joe, “Come on man, give ‘er a break, she was busy!” … changing bibs and diapers!”
Happy New Year all!
💯
Loved Red Mist and Loki’s Fire both! Re the old lever guns, I have Great Grand’s 1873 Winchester in 44-40, and his Colt Frontier Six in 44-40. I have shot both of them. And I still have my 1962 Winchester 94 in 30-30. Yes, I like lever guns!
Looks like the Finns got tired of Russian anchor dragging, and just did something about it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62040np372o
.
It’s a good first step. Nation-states have to be more aggressive in curtailing this sort of espionage.
Now comes the hyperventilating and table pounding.
Waking up in pain is God’s way of telling you that you’re alive. There’s no sleep downstairs, no pain upstairs, so halfway in-between is this midgardian earthly plane.
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God’s aesir and vanir, and all the holy valkyrie, will eventually fight Satan’s giants and surtirs.
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Funny how you can easily Christianize Scandinavian mythology.