riggerrob

"Ammo sexual!" "Ammo sexual!" Last weekend, an American liberal called me an "ammo sexual" to my face! Hah! Hah! We agreed on most issues even if she had an unrealistic impression of the size of wound an AR-15 could inflict. So I tried to explain to her why Canadian gun laws are better - not perfect, just better - but when I tried to explain to her the difference between an AR-15 and an AR-10 "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!" Which goes to show you that there are close-minded people on both sides of the debate.

Yes. Tactically it was the same as a Tavor. How Norinco managed to import them to Canada un der last-week's laws is a mystery to me. Mind you, I sold it before it was mentioned in the next proposed set of Canadian gun laws. Canadian gun laws are far from perfect, but they are still better than American gun laws. As long as I stay out of the recreational pharmaceuticals business, I have a miniscule chance of being shot in Canada. Just the other day, I drove my nephew through "Hastings and Main" just to show him the hazards of recreational pharmaceuticals.

May I "sarcastically" repeat a suggestion by a black American stand-up comedian? He suggested making ammunition ridiculously expensive. That might encourage gang-bangers to use their pistol sights. They also might limit the number of bullets fired during any "disagreement." Finally, they might walk up to a shooting victim and demand "You got something of mine" and extract the bullet. Perhaps if gov'ts imposed a "sin tax" on bullets the same way that they impose "sin taxes" on cigarettes and alcohol ... bullets would be prohibitively expensive for mere citizens. But it would still take a few decades of rifle range practice before existing stocks of ammo would fall to the "scarce" level. All good gun owners practice every week at the rifle range .. don't they? On a serious, personal note, I used to own rifles, even a Chinese-made assault rifle (5.56mm) but sold my guns when I could no longer afford to practice at the rifle range on a regular basis.

Bungled defense procurement is the norm in Canada. Back during WW2, there was a scandal about Canadian-made Ross rifles not being able to chamber sloppily-made British ammunition. Cardboard boots, Glass water bottles that shattered the first time infantry rolled on the ground. Shovels that were supposed to double as sniper plates. No gov't issue puttees for the first draft of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The list goes on and those examples are only from the First World War. I could go on. I could write a book about Canadian defense procurement blunders, but it would be too depressing. The procurement process rarely makes sense from the perspective of tank drivers or helicopter mechanics. I worked in both trades during my Canadian military service.

How about taking a page from skydiving competitions. Canadian skydivers frequently compete at the USPA National Championships, and are treated as "guest competitors" who are respected, but they will never win a medal at the USA Nationals. I have seen similar treatment when Americans competed at the CSPA Nationals and all they got was an honorable mention. It did not matter how many discs they stomped, they only got an honorable mention. The first three medals only went to Canadian citizens ... or landed immigrants.

What about people like me who only "shifted" their religious affiliation. As a child, I attended Anglican services every Sunday morning, then Sunday school at the United Church of Canada. At arm's length, I cannot see a difference between Anglican/Church of England/Episcopalian and the Holy Mother church of Rome (aka. Catholic). UCC has become marginally more liberal, but back during my childhood, the Anglican and United Churches sang from the same hymn book. Anglicans and United were main-stream Protestant or marginally conservative in my home town. Nowadays, UCC has become more liberal in an effort to attract a wider variety of parishioners, with lesbian ministers, same sex marriages, etc. I did attend church during my twenties and thirties because I was too hung-over on Sunday mornings or too busy skydiving. As I approached age 50, I paid off my debts and decided that I no longer needed to work 8 days per week. The dear departed Larry Yon suggested that I attend the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Riverside, California. That suggestion stuck. Later I researched my family background to discover that some of my ancestors built the first Universalist Church in Canada (Huntingville, Quebec) back in 1845. So I have come full circle in my religious practices.

Good point Bill. A mandatory minimum jail sentence would also encourage gun-owners to invest in serious trigger locks and steel gun safes. A trigger lock being waaaaaay cheaper than bail.

Dear Bill, Would you cut gun owners any slack if they promptly reported a gun stolen from them?

On some DZs that is still the present tense. Some skydivers never mature and never grow beyond the recreational drugs that they consumed as teenagers or in their twenties. Back in my twenties, I developed an addiction to caffeine and have never been able to shake that addiction. The only difference now is that I drink my last cup of coffee before 13:00 in order to allow it filter out of my system and get a decent night's sleep. Back during my twenties I also smoked a little marijuana, tried hashish, tried speed, etc. but my only lasting drug problem was alcohol. Eventually I automatically picked up a beer every day at sunset. I knew that alcohol was aggravating my insomnia, but it had become a bad habit that was difficult to control. Eventually I was forced to decide between drinking with the boys on Friday evening versus getting up early enough to catch the first load Saturday morning. The first decision was admitting that I could only have one of those pleasures. I decided that the first load was more important and that decision helped me maintain a full-time skydiving career for 18 years. I have been sober for 26 years now. Every time I consider drinking again, I remember the three day long hangovers the last year that I drank. Sorry boys, but Ihave more important things to do than drink beers with you.

Some of those "orphans" were surrendered by their un-wed, teenaged mothers. In later years, some of those mothers were in better economic/marriage situations and tried to re-claim their children. They could not find their children due to poor record-keeping in communist-era Romanian orphanages.

My family believe in saying goodbye to loved ones before the funeral. I lost both parents to cancer. My Mon went first. I was scheduled to visit her in August, but got an urgent phone call in July, so travelled early and stood at the foot of her bed when she took her last breath. Her bed was surrounded by all 4 of her children, her brother and a sister-in-law. A dozen years late our Father was diagnosed with Altsheimers' leukemia, etc. I fle wto visit him in July. It was scary how much of his mid was missing. He died in August and I flew back for the funerla in October. Side note: during a visit with the Seagull Skydivers - in the Margaree River Valley - we spent a cloudy day touring part of the Cabot Trail.

Back when I started jumping (1970s) skydivers and "dirty bikers" often dressed and acted the same. They also "moved" similar recreational drugs.

Amusing how left-wingers and right-wingers can get so far away from the (political) center that they eventually meet on the far side of the circle! Why does some of this remind me of some of the things that George Orwell warned us about in his novel "1984?" I read the book back during the 1970s are was pleasantly surprized when it did not come true on schedule. Parts of the process came true in later years ... like post-communist Russia making friends with the west for a few years, but eventually reverting to adversaries. Lots of luck finding traditional American right wing "rights" - in Russia - like freedom of speech or freedom of religion or 2nd Amendment (gun ownership) or 5th Amendment (not being forced to testify against yourself out of fear that you might provide enough evidence to convict yourself), Miranda rights, freedom from arrest without evidence, freedom to a prompt trial, free medical and dental care in prison, freedom for lethal injection if convicted, freedom to move to another state, freedom to consume recreational drugs (in some states), freedom to same-sex-marry, etc. Hah! Hah!

There was also a recent news story about Romanian police arresting Chinese agents who were moving Ukrainian babies out of their homeland without the appropriate paperwork. Funny! 30 years ago I can remember Romanian orphanages selling babies to the west. Part of the problem -as explained by my Romanian-born colleague was poor record-keeping in Romanian orphanages meant that officials could not return orphans to their parents after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Waste of a perfectly good antique airplane. He deserves "lots of loving" in prison.

Looks good with a much higher compression ratio and fewer (consumable) seals. Three power pulses per rotation. Liquid Piston also claims better thermal efficiency than Wankels.

May I suggest that after USPA saw the third forged document, they told the non-conforming skydiver to "quit wasting our time." After the third forged document, no one will take you seriously.

This discussion about corruption reminds of Westerners questioning why Russian soldiers were looting washing machines during the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some attributed the thefts to conscript soldiers - from poor villages inside Russia - taking luxury goods home. I doubted if their superiors would allow them to transport those looted luxury goods all the way home. Later we learned that computer chips were being salvaged from those washing machines ... and being installed in newly-manufactured military missiles.

Smart immigrants know that the best way to avoid deportation is to stay out of the county jail. Hence the majority of immigrants quietly go to work, don't beat their wives, drive within the speed limit and avoid petty crime.

"Paddle out" sounds like a productive way to start a funeral/memorial service/celebration of life/ etc.

I just watched a www.youtube.com video about smuggling in Iran. "Shootis" drive their souped up Peugots at 200 km to move banned goods (e.g. alcohol) from one Iranian city to the next while "tbars" risk their lives smuggling diesel oil to Pakistan and foot porters (aka. sherpas) carry consumer goods (e.g. washing machines) through the Kurdish-controlled mountains of Northern Iran. Iran is just one step along the traditional Silk Roads (see books by Frankopan). Ukraine is just the Northern detour to deliver Afghan opium, etc. to markets in Western Europe. We already know that Prigozin (sp?) has been financing the African adventures of his Wagner Group of mercenaries by securing promises of mineral rights, etc. from aspiring African dictators. This causes us to wonder which coal-mining or natural gas drilling rights Prighozin has been promised in Eastern Ukraine. Or is Prighozin hoping to cash in on bribes paid by smugglers? Or is Mr. Poutine just being a bully by decimating the Ukrainian steel industry (see Mariupol) in hopes of limiting the worldwide supply of steel and thereby improve Russian steel mills competitive edge? This current war in Ukraine raises too many embarassing questions???????????

Excessive paranoia is a mental health problem.

The airshow announcer is speaking in Spanish, which suggests that the crash occurred in South America. The desert landscape suggests that it crashed in Chile or Peru.

As I suspected the current war in Ukraine is partially funded by drug smugglers. The latest issue of "THE ECONOMIST" outlines how the current war in Ukraine is interrupting traditional smuggling routes while opening up new opportunities. Traditionally, Afghan-grown opium moved towards Western European markets via the old Silk Roads (see books by Frankopan). Most of the Post-Cold War fighting has been along the traditional Silk Roads through China, Turkmenistan, Persia/Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, etc. There is also an alternate Northern Silk Road through Ukraine and Poland. Back during the 1990s, I could not understand who was financing the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Even with wealthy diasporas in Western Europe and North America funding private armies, it was difficult to understand who was financing the fighting in the former Yugoslavia. It only started to make sense when I read "Whistleblower" (book and feature film) written by an American femal police officer who went to the former Yugoslavia to train Yugo police on modern policing methods. She blew the whistle on how U.N. troops were knowingly and unknowingly abetting Serbians who were smuggling drugs and human sex slaves from Eastern Europe to Western Europe. In one case, a U.N. ambulance was used to move sex slaves across Serbian/Croatian lines. Most of those sex slaves were pretty young women born in Ukraine or Russia who were offered low-skilled jobs in Western Europe or North America, but they ended up as strippers (exotic dancers) or prostitutes. These are the "Ukrainian widows" that Slim sees advertised on the internet. Nowadays, fighting in the Eastern provinces/oblasts of Ukraine interupts traditional smuggling routes. It is difficult to move illicit goods Westwards past mine fields, trenches and trigger-happy artillerymen. Organized criminals are forced to develop new routes farther north or farther south. Some patriotic Ukrainian gangsters refuse to do business with Russian invaders, while others just see new opportunities for profits. Speaking of profits ... after the war .. when it comes time to rebuild Ukraine, organized criminals will see plenty of opportunities for graft, corruption, bribes, shoddy work, etc. We hope that Western donors will also send plenty of auditors and inspectors to keep Ukrainian construction companies honest.