Government Issue Zip Gun

  It was 1942, a low point in WWII  for us.  Following pleas for arms from European resistance movements, the Americans designed and manufactured a million zip guns.  They were incredibly crude, single shot, made of sheet stampings by the GM Guidelamp division.  The barrel was a piece of steel tubing, unrifled.  It was built to fire 45 caliber pistol rounds, which gave it some punch.  The pistol only cost $2.10 in WWII money.
    Contract for 1 million pistols was let in May, Guidelamp tooled up and started production in June and delivered the 1 millionth pistol in late August.  That's lightning quick.
    Reception of the "Liberator" pistol by Army field commanders (Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Stilwell) was chilly.  They were opposed to airdropping the weapons to the resistance.  Reasons were not given, but can be imagined.  No Army general is going to like the idea of  firearms in the hands of civilians, for fear of friendly fire accidents during invasion, and fear of Nazi reprisals against resistance fighters.  Only a few reached European hands.  The guns sat piled up in warehouses until the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of CIA, got a hold of them.  The weapons were shipped to the Pacific theater passed out to Chinese and Filipino resistance groups fighting the Japanese.
    Although the Liberator was nothing much, when viewed as a firearm, it did work, and it was a better arm than a switchblade knife or a walking stick.  The design was ingenious to get the price down so low and manufacture so simple as to permit  stamping out a million of 'em in merely ten weeks. 
 

Luxury Pizzeria?

Real Estate ad in the Economist.  "A Tuscan Dream, 800 Years in the making.. Beautiful apartments, traditional farmhouses, new build villas... 27 hole golf course...boutique hotel... restaurants... pizzeria...
Pizzeria? 
They may be high class in Italy, but Jeez, we got pizza just about everywhere here in the US.  They even deliver. 

Dark Knight Rises

Went to see it last night.  It opened at the Jax Jr last midnight, so Friday night was the first showing for ordinary people, as opposed to true fans who stayed up to see it at midnight.  Place was full.  There was a line at the ticket window an hour before showtime. 
   It's long (2.5 hours).  It's loud, Dolby 7.1.  The villain's voice was amped up and reached every corner of the theater.  Lots of explosions, car chases, fist fights and fireworks.  Poor Batman, a lot of very bad things happen to him during the movie.  Lot of bad things happen to Gotham too.  The movie is a duel to the death between Batman and Bane, a big beefy weight lifter type villain who carries automatic weapons and does little other than straight forward violence against every body and every thing.   No subtle plots or clever humor in Bane, he is into bashing, pure and simple.  He is so dangerous that it looks like he is winning, right up to the very end, despite the strong comic book tradition of  "the good guys win in the end"
   The movie picks up where the last one (the one with Heath Ledger as the Joker)  left off.  Harvey Dent has been made into a hero, Batman is blamed for Harvey's crimes.  We have a very nice Catwoman, an attractive New York cop named Blake, some adorable orphans.  Michael Caine is back as Alfred. 
  It was OK, but unless you are a true fan, like my children, you could wait for it to come out on DVD.  The awful things that happen to Batman and Gotham are depressing downers.

Obama writes Wall St Journal Op-Ed

And, having found this extra bully pulpit, what does Obama have to say?  Does he reveal the secret to end Great  Depression 2.0?  Pay the nation's bills? Heal the sick?  Reboot the housing market?  Prevent California from sliding into the sea? Save the Euro? Fend off the Rapture?  Prevent cellulite?
   No.  He goes on and on about Cybersecurity and the need to pass another Cybersecurity act.  That's worthy, I suppose, but pretty far down on my list of priorities.  Where is it on yours?

Adult Fiction Ebooks outsell hardcovers

Reuters had this piece.  But what does Reuters (the Brits) mean by "adult fiction"  Over here adult fiction means porn.  But it outsells hardcovers?  Do they have hardcover porn in the UK?  Or does Reuters mean fiction aimed at grownups as opposed to children and "young adults"?   And what about paperbacks?  Seldom do I pay hardback prices when I can wait a while and get it for paperback prices.  And even paperback prices are outrageous. 

Microsoft Office 2013, fatter than ever

According to Slashdot, the new release of Microsoft Office won't run on Windows XP, and will require 1 Gbyte of RAM and 3 Gbytes of hard drive space.  Oink Oink. 

Knives

The knives were getting dull, so I pulled out the oilstone (a two sided, two grit silicon carbide stone, none of this Arkansas or waterstone stuff for me) and a bottle of 3 in 1 oil and set to it.  Started with an 8 inch stainless chef's knife from J.A. Henkel which I got maybe ten years ago.  It was so dull it wouldn't cut a tomato. Set to work with the coarse side of the stone until I could see bright metal going right out to the edge on both sides.  Then followed up with the fine side of the stone to flatten the scratches left by the coarse grit.  When done, it would slice a piece of newspaper, a mark of decently sharp, but not as sharp as a razor.  I don't do the "shave the hair off your arm test"
   Moved on to old reliable, an 8 inch carbon steel chef's knife I bought new at a restaurant supply house in Duluth Minnesota nearly 50 years ago for $3.25.  Over the years the dishwasher destroyed the wooden handle and I bought the special brass rivets and made a new handle from poplar.  The carbon steel will take an edge and hold it better than stainless and old reliable was still sharp enough to slice paper.  I touched him up with the fine side of t he stone on general principles. 
   Then we get to my pair of Gerber knives that I picked up at a yard sale a few years ago.  They look like Gerber knives, they are marked as Gerber knives,  but some times I wonder if they are not counterfeit.  Both steel blades are flawed.  On the ground edge you can see little pits and  fissures in the steel.  They don't hold an edge long, and the edge rusts.  Stainless ain't supposed to do that.
   Then I tried to put an edge on a little Japanese stainless paring knife that must have come from my mother.  It had never been more than butter knife sharp.  Look at the edge and I could see a long flat strip of metal rather than a knife edge.  So much work on the coarse side and it's a little better, but it is never gonna be  my favorite knife. 
  Finished up doing my Swiss Army pocket knife and a little folding knife, both of which are mostly used to open junk mail.  When sharp, they slice the envelope open in one smooth swish. 
  So there we are, seven sharp knives laid out on the kitchen table.  Time for Happy Hour.