Tuesday Night Round-up

I was going to post earlier, but instead I locked myself in the basement and spent too much time on the stationary bike, followed readmill. I want to do a short triathlon in October, and I've got about 20 pounds I need to Fed-Ex somewhere. I also need to remember how to swim...after all, I did do the Alcatraz Triathlon three times...I'm hoping it's like riding a bicycle...

Then, since I was already in the basement anyway, I rooted around in old boxes of gun stuff until I found my reloading dies for .38-40 and an old set of .45 ACP dies I could use in the Lee press to prototype some .45 Auto Rim loads. I also made a half-ass effort to set up the dies for .455 Webley.

The .38-40 dies are in joyful childish expectation of Hamilton Bowen being able to whip, flail, torture and otherwise beat my most recent collection of old, abused S&W N-Frame parts into Model of 1950 in .38-40. I do agree with Mr. Bowen that the .38-40 may well be the most worthless of cartridges...sort of a .44-40 Lite...not as accurate as a .44 Special...not as available as a .45 Colt...not as cheap as a .38...etc. Still, the first big bore revolver I ever bought was in .38-40 (I got the dies at the same time), so I've got a soft spot for it. I never had any trouble reloading it, although many people claim the necks are weak, a la the .44-40. In my impetuous youth, I recall stoking up some .38-40s that were skating along .41 Magnum specs; what's even stupider was that I actually shot the things out of a Colt New Service revolver. They were, as gun writers are wont to say, "brisk." Since the New Service didn't blow up in my face, I've sworn to the Gods of Reloading that I will ONLY shoot cowboy puff-ball loads out of any other .38-40 I happen to own.

So you're probably wondering why I'm blathering on about .30-40s instead of regaling you with New Orleans memories, which is what every other writer on earth seems to be doing. I actually started writing such things — I love the city, and I've been lucky enough to experience New Orleans on a number of fairly weird and life-affirming levels. Still, it's not about me.

I'm still processing how I feel about what happened down there. The closest I've come is my utter revulsion for liberals and their creation, the welfare state. We take people and we put them in compounds, tell them they're victims victims victims and that Mommy Goverment will make everything right; tell them they're too stupid, too old, too smart, too young, too whatever to take care of themselves, and that we will feed them clothe them treat their most minor complaint, albeit poorly. We will tell them that in return for this benign torture we will require their children, and their children's children, for our hellish on-going experiment in social control. Then, after we breed a few generations of these sad, sad sheep, one afternoon we say, "Just joking! You're on your own. Good luck! Bye-bye!!"

How do liberals sleep at night?