MaDuce

I was unaware of BAD A.S.S. before now. I might have to get me one at some point.

I am in cahoots with the Ukrainian community. There are 3 bad things most Americans I know seam to think the Ukrainian community is full of that I have never once encountered in that community. Whores, car thieves and illegal immigrants. Another one I often hear accusations of that I have never once encountered in the Ukrainian community (though I've encountered a few in strictly teen age Russians) is communists. 100% of all Ukrainians I've ever met were either conservatives or non-political. In one funny case, I told a friend of mine that I'm a libertarian. His exact response was, "aaahh..liberal........communist" When they first arrive in the country, SOME of them get on welfare but quickly get to work and on their own feet. So, basically, they only use it as a jump start, not a prolonged thing. The ones who are driving nice cars are doing so because they earned them. On top of that, they seam to have a graduation system goign. One guy buys a decent Japanese car, later sells it to another Ukrainian at a good price and buys a BMW or Murcades. Later he sells it to another Ukrainian at a good price and gets the latest model etc. To me, these guys seam like the ideal immigrants. They love freedom and immediately start busting their butts as soon as they hit US shores. And again, all the Ukrainians I've ever known have all come here legally. Part of the reason you see so many of them is because their culture highly values large and tight knit families. If one comes here for work and decides to stay,his entire family joins him. It's pretty standard for Ukrainian families to consist of a husband, wife, their parents and/or grandparents and half a dozen kids. All that said, they have their faults. My single biggest problem with them is that they are very slow to integrate and learn the local language. This is a good thing to some degrees. A culture who values family, sexual modesty and good health should be very careful about what modern American customs they pick up, but it'd at least be nice if they picked up the local language. I am somewhat understanding of it since they really work themselves to the bone and give themselves little time for that. Their idea of priorities is also a little wacky. Their priorities follow a very good order but in an extreme way and it's the extremes that present problems. For instance, it's not unheard of for even tiny family problems (stuff so small that most of us wouldn't regard as worth even mentioning) to take priority over even life threatening issues with their friends. Family over friends can be a very good thing, but when you take it to that extreme.... Even so, while their priorities may be a little wacky, their loyalty as friends makes up for it. We've all heard about how bad enemies they make. Well, they make even better friends. Provided there are no priority issues, they'll stick their neck out for you like few Americans I've ever known. Be good to them and they'll be good to you.

You just gave me a REAL idea. A gun designed just for shooting your neighbors cat when they get in your yard. Non lethal of course, but something that keeps them out.

Obama been bobben again.

LOL. A little paranoid if you ask me. I don't think Obama has much chance of loosing this election and frankly, I couldn't care less which of the two candidates does.

get a yumi.

What, are they on drugs?

I've run in to some imminent financial needs so I am going to rebuild and sell the rest of my M14 stocks. I'll probably start listing them late this week some time. Two of them will be around $150. One of them (which needs it's metal) will be $70-$100 depending on time and features. One of them may be a California stock. The others will be either pistol grip or thumb-hole stocks. Whether pistol grip or thumb-hole will probably be a spare of the moment decision.

Bear with me on this. I am known to be hard of hearing. Enough that I have to point my ear at people when I am listening (which gives the impression that I am not paying attention, another matter) but I have always known that the real problem is that I am processing EVERYTHING I hear and; if what I am listening to doesn't stand out, then all I hear is a blur because it's basically being blended with everything else. Up until 2 days ago I figured that this was some rare human feature yet to be noticed by the psychological community but then I saw a documentary about people with ADD (which I have) and learned that it's actually a well known trait in people with ADD/Dyslexia. Anyway, the up side to this is that; when listening to distinguished sounds, I can usually pick out very tiny differences. Tonight was a reminder of one sound distinguishing ability that I have often wondered about in others. About an hour ago, someone fired off a gun. At the end of it was a bog boom. I wasn't sure what that boom came from because it was a little unexpected but it didn't sound like a gun. I went out searching for a gun shot victim and came across police who said eye witnesses said it was a firework. I would guess that the boom at the end was, but the previous booms were DEFINITELY a gun. As I explained tonight, the boom of a gunshot has a distinct sound at the end as result of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. Anyway, I ran in to this situation twice before when I swore up and down it was a gun shot, was told it was a firework and lone behold, it was later discovered to be a gunshot. In one case I actually ended up on a suspect list because I accurately distinguished what caliber (as if .22LR is that hard to distinguish. Anyway, every time I ran in to this debate with others, it was always with people with limited, if any experience with guns. For this reason, I have always wondered if I am alone here or if this is a common trait among gun enthusiasts. So, I must ask you guys. If you are sitting on your porch and you hear a boom a couple hundred yards to a half a mile away, can you tell if it's a gun shot or not?

LOL. Funny you said that. I was joking with family and friends about 2 hours ago that it looks like Batman in his motorcycle outfit.

I have to agree with Mr. Robobot. The new suit looks like a cheap Halloween costume of the old one.

It's nice to see allot of influential gun makers and retailers are taking the protection of gun rights seriously.

LOL. HAY!! A kung fu movie is not a real kung fu movie without that voice overriding. It's a hallmark of a good martial arts flick. Allot less fitting for a realistic war movie though.

You have my sympathy.

Probably put together by some stump humper who wouldn't know a Russian warship if it crashed through his yacht.

We all love a good American and/or allied war movie and there's plenty to choose from. But now and then it's a little refreshing to get a look at things on the other side. Most developed countries we've been to war with in the past are our allies now, so there's no real propaganda struggle and some of them have chosen to do what we did with Saving Private Ryan and make realistic war movies, honoring their fallen. And it's perhaps no surprise that they have a tendency to do so without disrespecting the USA. I generally prefer to see stuff made by the country it's about as this gives some inside perspective that you're not going to get otherwise. I've only seen a couple but the ones I have seen were well done and address allot of the things we; on the other side often wonder, including but not limited to that big question, "what were they thinking?" Overall, they give the impression that the average soldier is still the average Joe no matter what side he's on and shares the same likes, dislikes and basic moral values and; even on the other side, the average soldier seamed to have handled their situation just like any of us would. Anyway, I'll recommend the two I've seen and request recommendations of any good ones any of you might have seen. ..... OTOKOTACHI NO YAMATO (Men of Yamato) Movie trailer: Made by the Japanese from their perspective of the war. Directed by Junya Sato, a culture enthusiast and peace lover who is best known for making "The Silk Road" documentaries. The movie is about a 15 year old kid who goes in to the Japanese navy late in the war and stationed on the battleship IJN Yamato - the largest and most heavily armed battleship ever built. He ends up making a bunch of good friends on the ship who fight for different reasons. One cook for example is caught up in the fear that the US Marines were planning to rape and pillage, and; in his mind was fighting to protect his loved ones. Another guy is just a career soldier obsessed with the battleship's might and doesn't seem concerned with the politics of the war, though it is mentioned that he adopted and raised many of the children of fallen soldiers after the war. I will not be the first to compare the movie to a cross between Titanic and Blackhawk down. Like in Titanic, they built a life-size replica of the battleship to make the movie on. STALINGRAD Movie trailer: Made by the Germans from their perspective of the war. It's about a small group of German soldiers caught up in the Stalingrad disaster. The movie reminds me of Enemy at the Gates, not because it's about the same battle, but because it gives off the impression that the sort of treatment German troops got from their superiors was fairly similar to they way the Russian COs were portrayed in Enemy at the Gates. For instance, there is a part where German troops are trying to get med-evaced and troops with minor injuries were being accused of self-inflicting to get out of Stalingrad, tossed in to a body pile and shot. Another part where a German troop is ordered to execute a Russian kid he's grown fond of. When he refused, his CO told him that if he didn't, next time it's going be him, and his fellow troops try to comfort him by reminding him how miserable the situation is and that he's just putting the poor kid out of his misery. At the same time, there's the overall atmosphere that the German troops overall seamed to be disgusted with the Nazi's. At one point, the group the movie is about actually execute a Nazi when they catch him alone. It DOES show the dark side of the German army, both among the high-ups and among the ground troops. Sort of like that movie, "Windtalkers", where some of the marines were hostile bigots who treated the natives like garbage. You see similar in Stalingrad, with the moral values and intellect of the German troops varying greatly from person to person. Anywhere from a strong sense of justice to what we might think of as your "white trash" types. The one thing I didn't like about it (apart from the sad ending) is the English voice override reminds me of an old Kung Fu movie. Great film no less.

At least back then some of the Hollywood dummy rounds had bullets in them but no powder. They are made to look like a live round for cinematic effect. Not to be confused with blanks, these are typically shown in magazines, belts or being loaded in to a gun. They don't go bang. I am not up to date on Hollywood movie effects but they may have stopped doing that and started using some solid replica after what happened. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

* John Delorean went to prison........ He was tried for involvement in drug trafficking and acquitted. * Brandon Lee was killed by a blank....... There may be partial truth to this but he WAS killed by a real bullet. The "partial truth" is that it is suspected (but may never be confirmed) that the bullet from a dummy round separated from the case in the chamber and was later propelled by a blank. * Columbus' argument over the shape of the earth....... The Catholic church was well aware of the shape (and size) of the earth in the time of Columbus. Not only that but the argument he DID have with Church authorities (size of the earth) he was wrong about and they were right about. The Spanish government sent him on his voyage, hoping he might run in to some unknown land (which he obviously did) because he was the only person they could find who was dumb and crazy enough to venture that far west with 15th century marine technology. * The Automobile was invented by Henry Ford, Karl Benz, etc. ....... The invention of Automobiles (defined as self-propelled land vehicles) is commonly credited to a few people dating from the late 1800s to the 1600s. But these all miss the mark by a long shot. The earliest known automobile was an experimental vehicle by Heron of Alexandria, who shared his lifetime with Jesus and is perhaps best known today for building automatic temple doors. GTG. More later.

How about sharing some false rumors you are aware of that most people seam to believe. Gun related rumors are fine, but let's skip political dynamics (IE, "gun control works", etc.

While we're on the subject of fiction modeled/inspired by reality: * Battle of Middle Earth in Lord of the rings..... Closely resembles and may have been modeled after the 1456 battle of Nandorfehervar, AKA the great siege of Belgrade. Even the personalities of the key players were remarkably similar. * Dragons..... closely resemble the pterodactyl and may have been inspired by their remains. It may even be possible that man coexisted with one of it's latest ancestors and that stories of them may have rippled down through the ages. * Cyclops......more then likely the result of a misunderstanding of mammoth fossils. * Transylvania..... comes from the Latin words: "trans sylva" Trans means basically the same thing as in English (like in trans-continental railroad) and silva means forest. * Dracula...... a mixture of Latin and old Romanian. Latin word for dragon is "draco" To give the word symbolic meaning (like the name of a sports team) you say "dracul". Putting an "a" at the end of someone's name in old (and I believe present) Romanian is "Jr." in their language. So Dracula basically means (symbolically) Dragon Jr. * Harry Potter castle.......modeled after Fort Hunedoara (incidentally, the home of one of the key players in the battle of Nandorfehervar, and located in Transylvania. LOL. * 2 or 3 headed beasts.....ever heard of conjoined twins or triplets? * Saving Private Ryan...... Modeled after the Niland Brothers dilemma. * Frankinstein..... The book was written as a warning against a variety of experiments going on in Germany at the time. Many of them mimicked different parts of the story. * Santa Clause...... Inspired by Father Christmas, who himself was inspired by St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a reverse burglar. He would break in to poor people's houses at night and leave them money. The reason was typically NOT to go buy toys, but to combat the very serious problem of young girls being forced in to prostitution in the late Roman Empire. Part of his reason for secrecy was the biblical one, but another was the threat posed by the prostitution industry. Business ethics in Rome were often remarkably similar to those of present day mafia and drug cartels.

I am unbiased about bigfoot. I'll believe it when I see it but I am just as hard to convince against it. The whole fact that we've never found hard proof of their existence despite our technology is a big cause for disbelief as it seams so unlikely. But such thing is not only possible but there's at least one north American land species we know exist but rarely ever find evidence of (wolverine. The idea that an Alpine species can keep it's existence in question even today actually doesn't seam far fetched when you really think about it. But I suspect most bigfoot sightings are a simple case of mistaken identity. It's not unusual to hear people joking that alleged video of bigfoot is just some hiker going to take a dump. In many of these cases, that's probably what it is.

A little known fact about myself is I'm an author. I write both historical and fiction. I can tell you from a great deal of experience that it's extremely hard to just make something up entirely out of imagination. In my case, I am writing a fiction saga that is very realistic and those who have previewed it have all been very impressed. I made it so lifelike because I used real personal experiences and real events to model the story's details after. Even simple tales take creativity to completely make up and are more then likely going to have some sort of real life connection. You can count on the vast majority of myths, fairytales and hoaxes to have some element of truth behind them. Sometimes a hoax is inspired by the real thing. Sometimes we misinterpret what we see or experience, sometimes the records of what happened get distorted over time, sometimes we jump to conclusions or find wild explanations for things we don't understand etc.

You can definitely do it. Making a barrel would be much trickier and require some new kind of composite, but definitely possible. I really hope this comes about because; as stated above, if it does, gun control laws loose their effect and the gun control lobby is defeated by technology. Of course, 3D printers have the potential to effect the entire consumer industry the way music downloads effected the music industry. The ability to produce this stuff on your own will both make products cheaper and easier to come by but also force the industry to rethink how they will make their profits. This effects more then the gun world. I've been thinking about getting a 3D printer myself for firearm accessory experiments.

I feel for your friend. It takes allot to drive a man to take his own life. There is nothing supernatural or mystic about what I am doing. Also, I checked out what my friend mentioned. It's not what I have in mind.

A friend of mine tells me this technology might already exist and be in use.