Month: April 2025

RFI: Replacement Barrels

The Gun Thing

I’m thinking of replacing the barrel on my Springfield 1911 — or at least getting a backup — because it has occurred to me that after 30,000 or so rounds fired through it, it may be a prudent move.

My problem is that I don’t have the foggiest clue which barrel would be the best.  (And yes, I know that I might need a gunsmith’s services to “tweak” it into a proper fit, that’s no big deal.)

What I do know is that the more expensive barrels are often not worth the extra money, in that they’re not necessarily that much better than a plain-Jane model.  And for obvious reasons, cost is important because I’m not going to be participating in IPSC or IDPA competitions anyway.  I do insist on reliability, however, for obvious reasons.

Or should I just contact Springfield for a replacement?

All experiences in this endeavor will be welcome.

Update:  just about everyone has recommended an OEM barrel (i.e. Springfield, in this case), so it’s thither I shall be going.
Thankee, everyone.

Please Sir, May I Have Another?

Elections, Mocking Furriners

Well, it seems as though our cousins in the Great White Place have decided that a dozen-odd (very odd) years of Justin Castreaux’s “leadership” were not enough, and have elected his replacement Mark Carney as their next Chief Wokist.

Carney, it should be recalled, was the former head of the Bank of England who be forever remembered as the man who nearly destroyed Britain’s economy during that messy Brexit business.  Prior to that, he was governor of the Bank of Canuckistan, and is widely seen as the reason housing prices rocketed and ordinary Canuckis ended up with higher debt — the highest ever, as it turned out.  (In fairness, his policies enabled Canuckistan to weather the 2008 global recession in terms of its GDP, but at the expense of said Canuckis, who are still trying to deal with high housing costs.  I report, you decide.)

I have told the tale of back when I was still consulting, we independent consultants has a rule never to work with a startup whose principal officers (CEO, CFO or COO) had a Harvard MBA.  Carney doesn’t have one of those, but his degree in Economics comes from the same institution.  Draw your own conclusions.

There’s more, much more, including his assistance in getting South Africa (!) to participate in international bond markets while he was employed by the infamous Goldman Sachs, of the 2008 global crisis fame, although it should be noted that he left GS five years before that.

By the way, his family is a poster-child for ultra-wokery — not that this should be a disqualifier, of course, but it does point to what he comes home to every night.

Anyway, this economics whiz* is the man Canuckis have elected to be their Prime Minister for the foreseeable future, and his first public statement as PM was a strong anti-Trump message, which means that it’s unlikely that Canuckistan will ever become our 51st state.

So in that, at any rate, we Murkins can breathe a sigh of relief.

*Just FYI, the word whiz  is also a euphemism for a stream of piss.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

…which explains all the Democrat screaming about deportations:

REMINDER: The reason Democrat judges are fighting so hard to keep illegals – even the criminal aliens – is all about control of the House. If illegals were removed or not counted for apportionment Democrats would lose 10 seats in the house giving the GOP a 27 seat advantage.

I forget who said it (Bierce and Mencken are the two major candidates), but it’s only half-true:

“When politicians talk, no matter the topic, it’s always about money.”

I’d modify that only slightly, to make it true:

“When Democrat politicians talk, no matter the topic, it’s always about power.”

If I Were A Paranoid Man

Marketing / Advertising

We’re all familiar with the situation:  you post something about a government conspiracy and the very next day you get a pop-up ad when you open a web page somewhere:

As I said in the title, if I were a paranoid man…

Not long ago I was running an errand which took me down the horrible I-35 south of Dallas.  It’s horrible not because of the road per se, but because to get to the I-35 south of Dallas from where I am, I have to somehow get around the Dallas downtown area, which as any local yokel will tell you, can be a terrifying experience.  (What tourists or newcomers feel when facing this situation I cannot even begin to fathom.)

Anyway, as any local yokel will tell you, South Dallas is a place to be avoided at all costs (think:  East L.A., South Side Chicago, Boston’s Combat Zone etc.).  Yet there I was, trundling along…

…and got a puncture which tore my right-hand rear tire to shreds.

Fortunately, it happened about 50 yards before an off-ramp, so I managed to get off the interstate and pull into a service station parking lot, there to await the arrival of roadside service.

Tangent:  I know how to change a tire, I’ve done it dozens of times before, but I’m decades older than I was the last time I did it, and as my insurance company provides the service for free… why the hell not?

However, I soon noticed that my environs were not the most salubrious, in that when I went into the little convenience store to get a Coke, the cashier was encased behind what looked like 12″-thick armored glass and stout steel bars.  The message was obvious, so I decided to forego the Coke and get back to my car ASAP.

I didn’t get back inside the car because that way I wouldn’t be able to get a 360° view of my surroundings, and more importantly, by standing next to the car I would have easy access to both my trusty 1911 and its backup, should that be necessary.

I waited for about an hour for the roadside service guy, and was only accosted by one scrote who needed a $5 gift “for gas to get to work”, a likely story as he looked like the last time he worked was during the elder Bush presidency.  Besides, I wasn’t going to get my wallet out only to be confronted by a knife.

Because if that happened, I’d have to shoot the asshole and then would come the cops, the call to my SCCA attorney, endless paperwork, confiscation of my 1911, forget about keeping my appointment… you get the picture:  all that hassle just because I might ventilate someone totally deserving of ventilation.

So I just pointed at my tire-less rim, and snarled that I had my own fucking problems and to leave me the fuck alone.

Which he did, fairly quickly and without any fuss.  Clearly, I didn’t look like a potential victim, for some reason.

Anyway, roadside service arrived and put on my “spare” (just a donut, 2,000-word rant omitted ).  Except that the donut was flat, despite the assurance from my last oil-change provider whom I’d asked to check on the thing (another 2,000-word rant omitted, but he just lost my business).  Fortunately, road service guy had one of those little quick-pump thingies which took care of the problem right there, so off I went, late for my appointment, but buoyed by the certain knowledge that afterwards, I’d have to stop by Discount Tires to get a replacement, oh joy, because there was no way the donut would get me the fifty-odd miles home, on said Dallas-area freeways where you get run off the road for daring to drive at only 70mph.

Anyway, I told you all that so I could tell you this.

Two days ago, I got an email which featured one of these:

It was the first such ad I’ve ever got in this manner, and if I were a paranoid man…

So the question is — because the coincidence seems a little too strong, even for me — how did these hucksters get my email addy?  From the insurance company, or the tire outlet?

Your guesses in Comments.

Afterword #1:  I actually already have one of the above in the trunk of the car, but I couldn’t remember when last I charged it up, which is why I relied on the roadside service guy to handle the problem.  I did recharge it when I got home.

Afterword #2:   I ended up getting four new tires, because apparently the 50,000-mile warranty didn’t cover tires that had passed the 100,000-mile mark some time back.  As the tire guy put it:  “You’re damn lucky you haven’t had at least two blowouts by now.” 
And the only way I was able to afford those four new tires was because of my Readers’ generosity during this, my Last Appeal (which still has a day or so to run, hint, hint ).

About Those Tariffs On China

Economics

When POTUS Trump announced high tariffs on Chinese goods, the Commies came back with retaliatory tariffs and all the New Economists (fresh from their discussions on vaccines) announced that oh noes we’re going to suffer because rare earth minerals  etc.

Um, maybe not (some excerpts):

China Just ‘Folded’ in the Trade War

Beijing has ordered its airlines not to take delivery of Boeing aircraft, and the plane maker has now flown back, from China to the U.S., three 737 Max aircraft that were about to be delivered. Due to the long order backlogs at both Boeing and Airbus, this punishment imposes, as a practical matter, almost no cost on Boeing. Yet if Trump were to order Boeing not to deliver parts or provide services to Chinese airlines, China would soon have to ground a large number of its airliners. 

However:

Companies in sectors including aviation and industrial chemicals said that some of their products had already been granted a reprieve, while local media reported that some semiconductors had been spared tariffs.

And the U.S. has the advantage because:

Unfortunately for Xi, he must make concessions. His economy is far smaller than America’s, and he is the one running large trade surpluses — China’s merchandise surplus last year against the U.S. was $295.4 billion, up 5.8% over 2023.

Worse, China’s economy is probably contracting, something evident from price indicators. The country is in a deflationary spiral: In March, the Consumer Price Index was down for the second-straight month and the Producer Price Index was down for the 30th consecutive month.

Meanwhile, China is in the middle of a slow-moving debt crisis, and Xi, having rejected consumption as the fundamental basis of the Chinese economy, must as a result export more to rescue the increasingly grim situation at home.

Trump has the right of it:  the U.S. is the big dog in international trade, and all the cheap shit that China exports to the U.S. pales into insignificance compared to the vital stuff we export to them — aircraft parts, technology and chemicals which they can’t reproduce by stealing the technology or reverse engineering, because their manufacturing equipment and systems are incapable of doing so.

I don’t comment on the tariff thing much because  a) the topic of macro-economics is, to put it mildly, not my strong suit and b) I suspect that Trump’s whole tariff initiative is part of a long game which I can’t figure out at the moment.

Especially when I read stuff like this:

President Donald Trump said Sunday that his tariff policy will substantially reduce, even completely eliminate, income taxes for some American workers.

Trump’s gang is full of big brains and even more experience, and given the 4D strategies constantly being used by the Trump Administration across so many spheres — economics, politics and even social — I’m left wondering whether the tariff thing should not be studied as a stand-alone initiative but as just part of a greater whole.