Guard Dog

He's getting grouchy in his old age! I can relate.

Snow in west TN isn't uncommon. But it seldom lasts much past sunrise and is rarely more than a light cover. I haven't seen a blade of grass in weeks!

That's the US for you. Ready and armed to fight yesterday's war. Not tomorrows. That's why I REALLY hope China does not invade Taiwan. That goes one of two ways: They invade and the rest of the world does nothing. They invade and the US and other powers intervene which will all but guarantee escalation and the probable use of nuclear weapons. The former guarantees war right now. The latter guarantees war in the near future because unchallenged aggression begets more aggression. The only way there is no war in the Pacific is if the status quo is maintained.

This winter has been the longest I've ever seen snow on the ground without melting.

While it's not true of all states it's mostly true. All states are red outside of the big cities and all states are blue inside of them. Take GA as an example. IIRC correctly Biden won just 6 or 7 of 159 counties. But they were Cobb, Gwinett, Doherty, Chatham, DeKab, Clayton and I think one more. Basically the overwhelming majority of Atlanta, Savannah, and Albany, three of the four big cities in the state. That was where the people are. The red vs blue maps of the USA look overwhelming for the GOP but the Dems win where lots of people live. The more concentrated a states population is in one or two metro areas the more likely that state is to be blue and vice versa. Florida is a good example of a red state with a lot of blue voters but stays red because the population is spread out over the entire state. The cities don't overwhelm the suburbs or rural areas with numbers. I don't really think "red" states are better then "blue" for any objective reason. Every state has good things and bad going for them and against them. Except maybe New Jersey. It does pretty much suck. Although I prefer to live in states were the tax burden is minimized and the state government mostly leaves you alone. That tends to be red states not entirely coincidently. I wouldn't want to live in CA but that's mostly because it's really crowded and really expensive more than anything going on in Sacramento. Anyway the donut, gun, and redneck hat store pic is in NC I believe. A purple state for the very reasons you named. But I just thought the dichotomy of guns and donuts sold in the same store was funny.

LOL I knew a LOT about firearms before going in the service. But it turned out most of it was wrong! Mainly just an interest in physics, engineering and firearms combined.

C'mon man you gotta give us more than that? What's the new career?

LOL it's just simple economics Bruce. Ammunition is expensive and you want to hit your target right? So lets work this out. Assume an average person is firing a full auto AR class rifle, right handed, in the offhand position. In full auto a 5.56mm chambered rifle fires one round every 0.5 seconds. It's actually a little less than than but we'll say a half second for the sake of simplicity. The #1 rule in rifle marksmanship is proper stock weld, sight picture, sight alignment. Doing this allows you to fire from the same firing point repeatedly. That is the whole point. In semi-auto fire the shooter reacquires those three things before firing again. If they are doing that they are hitting their targets. An AR class rifle has an ejection port on the shooters right side. Now, the AR class captures most of the kinetic action of the recoil but not all so the shooters sight picture and sight alignment are disrupted after every shot. Add to that the gas and kinetic action of ejecting the spent cartridge to the right causes the rifle to move to the left and slightly upward after every round is fired. The shooter MUST correct for this after every shot to fire accurately. With me so far? OK, the average human reaction time according to human benchmark is 250 milliseconds. That is the time it takes the average brain to see, process, and decide on a corrective action. According to the marksmanship training in the USMC a well disciplined shooter can acquire stock weld, sight picture, sight alignment and fire a round in 416 milliseconds. So after firing a well aimed first round it takes 250 milliseconds to perceive the rifle is off target and 400 milliseconds to correct (rounding down since in full auto it's not necessary for the shooter to pull the trigger again) for a total of 650 milliseconds. Do you see the problem? Before the shooter can correct for the kinetic energy movement of the rifle the rifle has already fired another round. Now the rifle is even more off target and will require MORE than 650 ms to correct but before THAT can be corrected the rifle has fired again.... and again.... it gets worse and more off target with every cycle. Ever heard of spray and pray? THAT is what full auto is. .223 / 5.56mm will set you back about $1.50 a round right now. They are expensive! Every round you miss was wasted! Kidding aside full auto from a hand held rifle is only good for two things: killing people indiscriminately at point blank range or laying down suppressing fire to cover infantry movement. In either case accuracy is irrelevant. That's why they are practically illegal. In an actual firefight from 75 meters away if you are facing an opponent with a full auto rifle and a full magazine and you have a semi-auto with one round your are much better off than he is. If he didn't get you with the first shot AND you can keep your cool he is deader than fried chicken.

Meh. Full auto rifles are a waste of money. Inaccurate, hard to buy, and prohibitively expensive. I'd rather have a glazed donut.

LOL I love the Burger King logo on the USA!

This is why red states are awesome

WoT Ep 8: Whelp... I has pretty happy with Ep 1-7. Yes they are majorly condensing the story and took a few liberties but that's adaption for you. They were still doing a pretty good job hitting all the beats. Then Ep 8 happened and they really went their own way. And it wasn't good. In fact it was s--t. Hey I get that there will be changes in a TV adaptation. And I also get there will be changes in the story and characters to suit modern tastes and expectations. But if you abandon the plot beats altogether this turns into a dumpster fire. It's not totally broken yet but it's getting really close to it. That is happened in the first bloody season does NOT bode well.

Awwwwwww!

It is good made with a press but you can't screw around. It cools off way to quickly.

@BruceVCThat is pretty wild. I did not know some of that.

So they are turning Mat into a bad guy? That would be a pretty bad move. Mat's book story was one of the best ones.

Meh, the "war on Christmas" is a real thing. But it's a little blown out of proportion by the folks aggrieved by it. There is a definite anti-religious bent in the political left in the US. That leads them to be mildly antagonistic to anything folks attach a religious significance to. That drives some folks crazy and makes them to shout "Merry Christmas" whenever someone says "Happy Holidays". Next thing you know you have a full on tempest in a teapot. Like all such it amounts to nothing but social media rants and website clicks it gives Carlson and Maddow something to vent their spleen at.

I caught up on WoT last night. I still like it. The story is, obviously, becoming fairly different in the details from the books. But most of the beats are still there. The character interactions (which were not in the books like that) are pretty interesting. I see a lot of folks online raging about the liberties taken with characters and story but I don't see the big deal. The showrunners have not s--t all over the source material and then ran it off a cliff the way GoT did so I'm still happy with it.

I am Christian and I also am 100% sure that Jesus was NOT born in December. So that makes the whole "war on Christmas" kinda stupid IMO. The target must be Santa Claus I guess. Anyway, I hope all you fine folks and all your families have a merry and bright and wonderful Christmas, New Year, and I surely hope 2022 treats you better than 2021.

Yep, you're right