Bullet Points:
** The current series follows the 2005 revaluation, where six zeros were cut from the old hyperinflationary lira (removing the temporary “New Turkish Lira” designation in 2009). What would Mustafa Kemal Atatürk think about that? US$1 = 47.5 Turkish Lira. Over the past month, the Lira weakened 2% against the dollar – and the decline has been steady for some time.
** Volley gun – did all barrels discharge? Hang-fires are possible, and it’s a very long reload if you’re being pressed by the enemy. Cool? Yeah, it’s that.
** Spanish Communist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez went to Ceuta and told the people that “diversity is their greatest strength”- as Spaniards took to the streets chanting “Pedro Sánchez hijo de puta” – which means they’re calling Sanchez a ‘son of a bitch’. He replied, “The most urgent task right now is …..not to put coexistence at risk.” By the end of Friday, Spanish officials claimed that the large majority (tens of thousands) had already returned to Morocco, many voluntarily; however, local residents dispute that, saying the illegals are still there and still crossing. Musk nails it.
** Let’s talk about Starship. Before they send people to Mars, they need to work out the bugs by building a base on the Moon. Mars is roughly twice as wide and about six times as massive as Earth’s moon.
** Having fun, while engaging in emergency survival.
** Scenario: The French are advancing in ranks of three. You fire your Brown Bess Musket into the mass of men; how many men will that .69 caliber patched round ball travel through? All of them?
** Are you prejudiced against a group of people solely based on their employment? That’s the Question of the Day. Let me start with myself. I’ve been in the Navy. When I told a prominent MD in my community that I planned to join the Navy, he told me, “Son, that’s like telling me that you want to be a garbage man.” I was never a garbage man, but are you prejudiced against people who work for waste management or sewer treatment companies? What about Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement (ICE) – they’re a hot topic these days? A friend of mine who is a lawyer (despised profession) said that there are four people you call on when you’re in trouble – a lawyer, a priest (pick your brand holy man), a doctor/dentist, or a police officer (another despised profession). I’m not asking about bloodline/caste/class/faith or lack of, relative wealth (billionaires), etc. I’m asking about prejudice based on choice of employment alone.
** Many people think that they’re thinking when they’re only rearranging their prejudices.
** The Paks Nuclear Power Plant in Hungary runs four VVER-440/V213 Soviet-designed reactors, which are a specific type of Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). They use ordinary light water (H₂O) as both the coolant and the neutron moderator. The water in the primary circuit stays under high pressure to prevent it from boiling, exactly like Western PWRs (see Westinghouse). They require low-enriched uranium fuel because light water absorbs neutrons. Historical water levels show that the Danube reaches its annual low point in August or September, according to Laszlo Nagy, the deputy director of the Paks plant, who added that it takes about a further week to bring the reactors online once water levels become adequate again. That means Hungary may have to do without its single-biggest energy asset for several months. I am not a big fan of light water reactors. Yes, Westinghouse makes them too, and they have a big lobby in DC, but they are water hogs. There are better ways to do it. The old Soviet style reactors are (IMHO) obsolete. Nobody asked me, but…
Writing Notes
I finished the novel, “Vengeance and Retribution,” and will begin the process of editing it. I have a travel schedule for August, and that notwithstanding, I think that I’m on target for a publication date this month. It is the fourth book in the Duelist Series, and while there is clearly room to continue with a fifth book of historical fiction with the same characters, much depends on its reception. Because stories of this sort thread through recorded history, and because the historical events that I’m writing about are very well researched, if I get something wrong, such as writing that the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, used his right hand to do something (he was very left-hand dominant), I will get torched by some readers. Timing is critical. If a character is to travel from Detroit, Michigan to Baltimore, Maryland, in the winter of 1864/65, how long will it take? In 2026, you hop a jet, and you’re there in the same afternoon. Taking a character or characters from here to there was a far more challenging exercise in that timeframe. The same is true of communication. If I say that there was a telegram sent on a day during the War, were telegraph lines up then between those two points?
There were places I could have gone but didn’t for one reason or another. I can’t explain it in most cases except to say that authorship of these sorts of novels requires a feel for things. The general outline that I started out with held up better than I thought it would.
I believe that I treated major historical figures like President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, John Wilkes Booth, and others fairly based on a careful reading and study of history. Booth shot Lincoln on Good Friday in 1885 and Lincoln died the next morning, never having regained consciousness. Keeping those dates in mind, what were the characters who wound through those events thinking on Easter Sunday? It’s difficult to say for sure, but they were human beings with feelings that could not help but have been moved by those events that underlay the larger canvas. When you read the book, I hope that you will be swept along through those currents of history as they were.
If the cover art reminds you a little of the Wild Wild West, that is intentional. Let me have a little fun with that. A portent of future writing in this series? Maybe if there’s another volume. Lincoln signed the Secret Service into being on the day he was murdered, but it was designed to address huge problems that the Union had with widespread fake money and currency counterfeiting, which made up about one-third of all U.S. cash at the time. It was not meant to guard the president. The agency did not take on full-time protection duties for the commander-in-chief until 1901, after President William McKinley was assassinated.
At the end of this story, Lieutenant Colonel Henry (Hud) Hudson, US Army (Engineers), is assigned to the Inspector General’s Office. That corps, using the term loosely as it was in 1865, undertook some of those “Wild Wild West” projects in the expanding West. (sauce for the goose?)
Identify the National Flagship
1
So designated on May 26, 2018
2
What can you do with a hull number, a name in Arabic, and a flag?
3
End
Identify the National Flagship
1 – Royal Canadian Navy HMCS Haida
2 – Royal Moroccan Navy Mohammed VI
3 – Egyptian Navy ENS Gamal Abdel Nasser
ML Thomas, you and Surly had almost a photo finish on that one. Well done indeed.
Identify the National Flagship:
1. HMCS Haida
2. Moroccan frigate Mohammed VI
3. Egyptian helicopter carrier Gamal Abdel Nasser
Excellent
S&W .500ES – I saw a Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan .480 Ruger in a store marked down because no one wanted it, So I bought it. It is a handful. Recoil similar to that video. I have shot it one handed – about 3 shots and the pain in your hand says no more! 2 handed is better. Practical? Maybe not. Fun? Hell Yeah!
******
Question of the Day – I was never in the Navy, but I was a garbage man for a summer in HS, I look down at no one. I admire those that do the jobs others deem below them. Most of the last 38 years I have been a contractor, mostly underground. Irrigation plumbing & utilities and now work in same industry for one of my sons. Find a career doing what others can’t/won’t do and be better than everyone else, you can charge a premium price. I enjoy cashing doctors and lawyers checks.
*******
I admire LEO’s but would dissuade anyone contemplating a career in law enforcement, especially in any metro area. The left has made them targets.
My daily carry these days is a Ruger Super Alaskan Redhawk in 454. Yes, recoil but I don’t find it excessive. Maybe it’s what you become accustomed to. You need suspenders to keep your trousers up. They’re heavy.
ML Thomas-totally agree. Got out 2 yrs ago after 40+ years, wouldn’t want to be starting out as a rookie cop these days. Only options I see are down south and maybe some western states, northeast is a no-go.
Dirty jobs? Everyone should have a job early in life where you have to scrub someone else’s toilet (or the equivalent). Provides much needed perspective later in life.
CJS
Used to see a number of the .480 Rugers in the gun stores in Alaska… after a while, I got a sneaking suspicion that they might be the same guns, fired once and resold, over and over… like the paisley couch that popped up all around the city in a yard sale at one PCS intervals. (The couch was as hideously comfortable as it was hideous, heavy as depleted uranium, and apparently proof against junior officers, senior enlisted, and children under 3.)
***
American society has neither classes nor castes, but that doesn’t prevent insecure people from desperately wishing to assert status by stepping on others. I’ve had people look at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of their shoe when they walked out of the bathroom for my accent, and I’ve had people attempt to treat me like I was a defective part of the furniture and ostentatiously ignored when it was clear I was maintenance or operations, not executive. Amusingly enough, the folks those idiots desperately wish they were… are the kind of people who look me in the eye, and are polite and respectful no matter what my job title is.
.
After a few decades in aviation, I’ve met a lot of millionaires. Most of them earned their money, and very few are tech bros or venture capitalists. You’re far more likely to meet tow truck drivers, plumbers, electricians, auctioneers, construction, sign installation guys… most of whom now own their company.
.
The worst prejudice usually came from the left. I remember meeting up with an old friend at a mutual friend’s wedding. We were both there trying to focus on happiness of the day and recalling fun times when we were all still in college. She hadn’t brought her husband, but someone mentioned that, like my husband, hers was moving her out of state… some place no one had ever heard of deep in hick land called Glynco, Georgia.
.
I thought about the room full of theater majors around us, and perked up at her, but chose the most coded way to ask. “Oh! FLETC?”
.
She brightened up, and moved close enough that we were practically snuggled, and whispered in my ear, “Is your boy CBP, too?”
.
I jerked my head at the door to the back porch for privacy, and we snuck off. Because being conservative in a liberal environment is like being queer in amuslim nation.
The secrect code amongst the locals in Glynn County, Georgia is “You boys from Flea Tech?”
It has to be in reference to the sand fleas that eat people alive there!
I was recently gifted a Ruger Bisley revolver chambered in the 475 Linebaugh cartridge by the late John Linebaugh.
I already have a Casull Field Grade revolver in 454 with extra cylinders in 45 Colt and 45 ACP.
Buffalo Bore ammo is the way to go for the 454, 480 and 475.
Do you favor the Bisley grips?
.
I have a friend who went on safari to Africa and killed an elephant and a hippo. The tusks are coming back to the US lawfully. I am jonesing for enough ivory to make pistol grips (even if only thin ones for my .45 Kimber). If Patton could have ivory pistol grips, I can.
Yes, on single action revolvers with heavy recoiling rounds. The grip “rolls” better in my hand.
Ivory is a beautiful choice for a set of grips! Mother of Pearl is for pimps according to George C. Scott in the movie Patton.
I am not the man to gainsay Patton.
I shot a .50 Smith once. That will last me for a lifetime.
A few .44 magnums and I’ve had enough.
Nowadays the snubby .357 is not the fun it was.
The Ruger Super Alaska Redhawk in 454 is an awesome firearm. But from shooting it I’d be hard pressed to get accuracy if a bear was boring down on me unexpectedly. He’d reach me before I’d get a stopping shot on target. Yes, he’d still be a dead bear as the point blank shot drops him but I fear his final breaths woukd also be my final breaths. So, I’ll carry a 10 mm where I know I can place the first five of six shots dead on target and hope the number of well placed shots drops him before he reaches me. Of course on two legged the 454 will certainly end the encounter in one shot.
*
But as to grizzly I am reminded of the movie “The Night of the Grizzly” with Clint Walker. Multiple rifle shots to finally kill him. Good family film when I was a kid.
*
Of all things I knew the Nasser, the Egyptian helicopter carrier. They also have the Sadat which is its twin. They have a very large Navy with about 300 ships. Of course many are small but they do have submarines, frigates so forth. I suspect if asked most people would not realize they have a large capable Navy.
We don’t have Griz where I live. Black bears are smaller and tend to be less aggressive. We have mtn lions. I think of the 454 in terms of kinetic energy against a potential human target as more likely. I have other options besides the revolver, but really like it.
Sheridan voices the sentiment of many, beautiful state ruined by emoting goofballs who believe one can continually work from a forced declining deficit after wrecking the 4th largest economy in the world…now 5th having slipped behind Japan, and maybe even Germany, which is really bad form. (PS. Sheridan’s 3rd season of Lioness just dropped…interested in seeing where the storyline goes with gals in typically tough male roles…got a little painful to watch at the end of S2.)
***
QotD: No, never. Every job is important, no matter how menial or seemingly lowly. Mike Rowe has single-handedly re-elevated the trades that were put down for decades by those in white collar jobs, jobs they considered inferior….until the sewer backed up on a Sunday before church, or the roof started leaking, or the garbage wasn’t picked up by 10am. Although dad did get peeved at the garbageman for denting his new metal trash can while banging it on the truck to empty it…at 6am (nowadays the driver does most of the work from the cab).
I saw S3-E1 last night. They’re going with Russians. The kinetic stuff was in Ukraine – Where WW1 meets Star Wars. I sense that he’s going to distance the plotline from the lesbo stuff, but we’ll see.
So the Mexican drugs/trafficking stuff is done? Interesting. Best comment under the YT S3 Trailer: “Looks like our girls finally get to do some “not talking”” heh
I don’t know how he’ll end the season. They could land in Venezuela for all I know. Or somebody with a monocle stroking a white cat could put our heroines on a drug boat headed north with robotic controls for the US Navy to blow up on the high seas?
Despied job? Car salesman – three decades. Unemployment is to be despised. Any job that puts food on the table and keeps a roof over your head is admirable. I’ve worked three jobs at the same time. The most important opinion is from the person looking at you from a mirror.
LEO? As a high school senior, a county sheriff married to a relative advised me that anyone “disqualified” from every football game he played in didn’t have the temperment to be in law enforcement. Seemed harsh at the time.
I don’t disagree with the Sheriff.
His view has often been echoed by other relatives, and in the past, a couple of First Sergeants.
The owner of Sound Ford once had $500 deducted from my pay to pay for an Anger Management class. The next month he waylaid me on the showroom floor and ask, “Tank, when are you going to Anger Management?”
My response, “Shit, Lou, I had to pay for it. I didn’t know I had to attend”. He departed while waving his arms and asling the Lord for patience.
hahahahaha
I remember back in the early 70s, a used car salesman was generally considered by most to be scum of the Earth. They have more company in the scum bucket these days….
My brother-in-law was GM of a very large Toyota Dealership. He started out in finance and rose rapidly. I have a son-in-law in the car business and never thought ill of them for their occupation. Familiarity changes things.
WSF may wish to comment, but I’ve never had problems with car salesmen. Almost all of the cars I’ve purchased were bought new, mostly through credit union buying programs at a fixed price (Navy Federal, etc). I just go in, they have the car I want, I sign a contract, deliver a check from the Credit Union and Bob’s your uncle. I have never in my life had bad credit. When I was young I did buy a couple of used cars through the Auto Trader but those didn’t involve salesmen.
Like many I took a job selling cars because construction was in the dumps. Many times I thought we hired peole no one else would hire to do a job no one else would do. I never lied to anyone to sell them a car. Did I lie by omission? Damn right; I’m not your guardian. Liars are weak and no one weak was ever allowed on any crew I ran. We expected the customers to lie and most did. Some of my biggest grosses were made off people who thought they were slick. They were up to bat every few months or years and I batted daily.
Customers like you are a joy. In and out quick, little drama and another check on the monthly chart. Much like fishing, not every one is a monster but catch enough smaller ones and you get to eat.
I just saw an article showing 45,000 muzlords parading down the streets in Dearborn, Mich. We are in deep doo doo.
I don’t have that much ammo.
Fortunately, I do, 1chota. And I won’t have to send a grappling hook to the bottom of a lake to retrieve it.
“…I will get torched by some readers.”
No fear! I’ll be right there to strike the flint.
Seriously, you have ignited (sorry ’bout that) my interest in that period of American/global history.
Douse me in kerosene first and make a proper job of it, Boron.
.
To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, etc.
.
There’s Shakespeare in Vengeance and Retribution (spoiler)
There are 5 people you call on when despair calls. You forgot the barkeep. Keep it country, LL!
What I noticed in America is that I was always introduced as Jules Smith, writer from England. Followed by my achievements and so forth. I found it embarrassing and had to ask that it stop. Say hello to Jules is sufficient. I would say that people are prejudiced, or think that others do judge them on what they do for a living because that’s how people think you should measure success. That should be the question, how is success measured? I’m guessing there will be different (age dependent) answers.
Well done, LL! I am in awe of your discipline and capacity for ideas.
I will always introduce you as Jules Smith, eminent art philosopher, author, poet laureate, mother of wolves, drinker of milky tea & margaritas – not in the same glass- and designer of Boot JuJu. Get used to it
Jules, in spite of LL’s unstated/understated credentials, he seems very proud of what you are doing. Accept the accolades as given and say “Thank you for the honors, please just call me Jules”.
Just my $0.05 (no more $0.02, no more pennies).
Ooh! I like your version! You can write my resumé!
WN-yes, you’re quite right.
Should the characters need to travel:
The biggest snowstorm ever to strike Michigan occurred on Tuesday, April 6, 1886. The
days preceding the storm, however, were more in keeping with spring weather rather than
winter. Spring activities were already underway with many believing that winter was a
distant memory.
A Womyn’s Studies Professor, even a TA.
What about men who minored in studying women? (asking for a friend)
Athelstan Spilhaus said he’d majored in meteorology so he could look into a woman’s eyes and tell whether….
Post-WWII, Spilhaus worked on Project Mogul, a highly classified program using high-altitude balloons to listen for Soviet atomic tests. A crashed balloon from this project in New Mexico triggered the infamous 1947 Roswell UFO incident…or was Spilhaus covering up for a genuine UFO (now called UAP) crash – could he look into a woman’s eyes and tell if she was a space alien?
Louis L’AMour said if he wrote about a spring behind a boulder somewhere, it was there… or words to that affect. I liked that.
I live where Zane Grey did. More correctly framed, I live on the top of the mountain overlooking where he did. I inherited a set of his books from my grandparents. There are landmarks that he used that endure. Louis L’Amour didn’t copy him, but he did write in Grey’s style.
Forget all the heavy hardware. I mentioned on VM a couple days ago that everyone around me in Idaho I assume is strapped. The new In & Out Burger joint is about 12 miles away. Little pertinent info is out at this time, but a local resident and an off duty LEO engaged the coward shooter and he allegedly offed himself after killing 3 and wounding some others. I had shoulder surgery two weeks ago and I’m not out and about, but I’ll stick with my 9 or my 380 pocket rocket.
He saved the county a trial, but it would have been good if he’d been killed earlier in the incident based on the above.
>I’m asking about prejudice based on choice of employment alone.
Of course. Just like everything else. Any normal human being reduces the world to abstractions [1], stereotypes if you like — until he has to deal with specific individuals. Once the individual is in front of you, then you should tailor your behavior, responses, etc, to that individual. The problem with bigots is that they never see the individual behind/beyond the stereotype. The problem with progressives is twofold: 1) they claim to reject stereotypes as harmful/hateful; 2) they simultaneously uphold (and apparently actually believe) stereotypes that generally reverse objective reality. TL;DR: bigots are assholes, but they tend to be more consistent assholes than progressives, who are hypocritical assholes.
—
[1] You MUST think in terms of abstractions for the most part. If you do not, then you are the eternal newly-hatched baby chick where everything is totally novel and must be figured out for the first time.
I actually know people who are like the metaphorical baby chick you write of. There was a time when I thought that it was an act, but no. Not an act. In one case it’s the wife of a retired police lieutenant (younger trophy wife type) who he married for her apparent ‘skills’ and looks, not for her wits. I think it’s his third wife.
I guess the .500 revolver would be neat for my collection, although I am not sure about EDC. You better get me with the first shot otherwise I’ll have 2-3 45s into you
before you come out of recoil. having said that I do have a 50 Beowolf. Great rifle and a 30 rd AR mag holds exactly 10 50’s. Vt and their 10 rd mag limit can’t say squat.
It’s important to match the tool with the problem. It’s why I have a chest full of screwdrivers and wrenches.
LL,
Please don’t rush “Vengeance and Retribution.” Those of us who appreciate your scribblings have waited; we can wait a bit longer.
A side note:
There are textbook writers – dull, dry, and boring attempting to get everything “just right” – and rarely do so.
There are writers of “historical tales” who are women or those of indeterminate gender who take “love stories” and place them in a historical period which they rarely bother to research well.
And then there are writers who have the ability to produce narratives, well-researched, of a historical period as seen through the eyes of a fictional character actually living through that period.
Like very few of their ilk, they will first be lauded fifty to a hundred years down the line, their stories given to college students to pore over over as “additonal reading” and required to produce an essay “of not more than 500 words about how the upper class lived in the United States post – Civil War.”
Please don’t rush “Vengeance and Retribution.”
I’m not rushing it. I think you’ll like it. It’s different, but a continuation of the first three. Different main character, but same basic characters and the same vibe. I have taken my time and have allowed the story to go in directions within the outline. I do make changes when I edit, but I don’t anticipate big structural changes. It does set up for Volume 5, but I am not committed to a follow-on. If that happens, it will be in 2027. Much depends on the reception of Book 4. Book 5 would have Hud and Sleeping Wolf moving west – maybe. I’ve also considered taking Hud and Sleeping Wolf to Europe post-American Civil War. The vehicle for all of that yet to be determined. I’ll want to think about it before I dive in. Before I do that, I have a Sci-Fi book that I want to complete.
“Are you prejudiced against a group of people solely based on their employment?”
NO!! Absolutely not:
I have several other bases for my few and varied prejudices, but employment is definitely not one of them.
Dentistry, remember, is the other end of the anus and may well be filthier, more bacterially infested.
All said and done, I rather be bitten by an anus than a mouth full of teeth.
How many anus have teeth? (joke question)
.50 handgun with a 2 1/2 barrel is usable for a few who have the need and the skill. For others, a novelty. Since I’ve always regarded a firearm as a tool I only keep tools I can use. As I’ve aged I’ve passed on the tools I can no longer use effectively to those who can. What I need at my age is self defense, likely at bad breath range, and I have what I need.
At this point I’m taking a serious look at compressed air/CO2 tools because of lack of regulations (for now). Two conditions prompt this. First, living in Colorado with all the new “gotcha” laws, even with a CCW permit the storage, transport in a vehicle, and even simple concealed carry is complicated. Second, I live in an apartment and penetrating neighbors walls is a given.
You can get .22 short velocities with some of those. They’ll do more than put an eye out.
I’m leaning towards a bullpup design for more shots in the apartment and a flare gun for the car. There are ammo choices with a flare gun and the break action makes for faster reloads.
The Spanish are now hoist on their own petard… And have no real idea what to do. At last report, 70+ dead that they know of…
I did a career in the Navy, so yes, treated like dog s**t, even now as a veteran by ‘certain’ groups. I could care less, as they can’t do anything to me. And the funny part is, without those ‘peons’ they like to look down on, this country would not function!
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
And the insincere, “Thank you for your service”. Bless your heart and have a nice day rolled into one.
Some of us really mean it when we say “Thank you for your service!”