Archive for June 1st, 2024

Plug plug pluggity plug.

Saturday, June 1st, 2024

I am ashamed to admit it, but I get jealous of other bloggers sometimes. They got promo stuff from companies, or they get people reaching out to them directly making them offers, or just get more attention. What do I get?

But I mostly do this because I want to, not for glory or recognition or free stuff.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the bloggers I read regularly was contacted by a certain company looking for a plug for their review. I admit, I did feel a certain twinge of jealousy, but not too much: this is a blogger I owe a favor to, so I wasn’t too upset.

Then I got an email from the same people, asking for a plug for the same review. And they were nice about it, so why not?

Widener’s has posted a review of the IWI Camel. I feel like there’s at least one person in my audience who will be interested in this, as the Camel is an ambidextrous battle rifle in the same vein as the SCAR, brought to you from the people responsible for the Uzi and Galil.

There are so few rifles on the market today that are fully ambidextrous. In the last decade, I’ve met more left-handed shooters than I can count. I feel for so many of them who have to manipulate the gun uncomfortably. The IWI Carmel rifle has an ambidextrous safety, magazine release, bolt catch, and non-reciprocating charging handle.

It uses AR mags, and the author says it shoots sub-MOA groups even with a suppressor.

The Carmel comes at a higher price point with all these amazing features. The Carmel’s MSRP is $1,799, which might seem high, but it’s on par with a customized AR-15 (minus the AR having ambi controls). To put the price in perspective, a quality AR-15 will cost anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500. It likely won’t have an ambidextrous safety, magazine release, or bolt catch. You can purchase an aftermarket ambidextrous safety and install it, but that can run another $50 and more if you need a gunsmith to install it.
An adjustable stock such as the LUTH-AR MBA-3 Carbine Buttstock costs north of $200 but allows you to set an AR-15 up to you. You can also change your AR-15’s gas by installing an adjustable gas block. However, this adds to the cost and potentially requires a gunsmith to install it.

As someone who has heard a lot about adjustable gas blocks recently (NOT that I’m BITTER or ANYTHING: no, seriously, I love my friends), this is good to know. And $1,800 compares favorably with the SCAR.

My only complaint with this review is that I can’t find a total round count in it. I’d like to know how many rounds they fired in testing.

If the Camel sounds like your cup of tea, check out the review at Widener’s. And thanks for thinking of me, guys.

Posted in Admin, Guns | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 1, 2024 (part 2 of 2).

Saturday, June 1st, 2024

Doug Ingle, lead singer and organ player for Iron Butterfly.

Mr. Ingle was the last surviving member of the classic lineup of Iron Butterfly, the pioneering hard rock act he helped found in 1966. The band released its first three albums within a year, starting with “Heavy” in early 1968, and, after a lineup shuffle, cemented its place in rock lore with its second album, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” released that July.
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” spent 140 weeks on the Billboard album chart, peaking at No. 4, and was said to have sold some 30 million copies worldwide. A radio version of the title song, whittled to under three minutes, made it to No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100.
But it was the full-length album version — taking up the entire second side of the LP in all of its messy glory — that became a signature song of the tie-dye era. With its truncheonlike guitar riff and haunting aura that called to mind a rock ’n’ roll “Dies Irae,” the song is considered a progenitor of heavy metal and encapsulated Mr. Ingle’s ambition at the time:
“I want us to become known as leaders of hard rock music,” Mr. Ingle, then 22, said in a 1968 interview with The Globe and Mail newspaper of Canada. “Trend setters and creators, rather than imitators.”

Obiligatory:

Adding to the legend of the song was that it was essentially an in-studio soundcheck that became the final version.
Don Casale, an engineer at the session, had asked the band to run through the song so he could set the recording levels, but he hit “record” as the band meandered through a sprawling free jam featuring solos by the guitarist Erik Braunn, fills by the bassist Lee Dorman and a two-and-a-half-minute drum solo by Mr. Bushy.
“After 17 minutes and five seconds I ended the tape,” Mr. Casale recalled in a 2020 interview with The Rochester Voice, a New Hampshire newspaper. “I then called down to the band and said, ‘Guys, come on up and listen to this.’ They loved it.”

Obligatory 2:

Darryl Hickman, actor. Other credits include “Network”, “Looker”, and “Sharky’s Machine”.

Burning in Hell watch: Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton. I won’t go into detail about his crimes, out of respect for the sensibilities of my readers: you can click through to the linked article for that if you wish.

He died of natural causes at the age of 74. Two weeks ago, somebody rammed a broken broomstick through his head in prison, so naturally he died.

Posted in Law, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 1, 2024. (part 1 of 2)

Saturday, June 1st, 2024

Specialist Fifth Class Clarence Sasser (United States Army – ret.) passed away on May 13th at the age of 76.

Sp5c. Sasser received the Medal of Honor for actions as a medic on January 10, 1968. From his citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp5c. Sasser distinguished himself while assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion. He was serving as a medical aidman with Company A, 3d Battalion, on a reconnaissance-in-force operation. His company was making an air assault when suddenly it was taken under heavy small-arms, recoilless-rifle, machine-gun, and rocket fire from well-fortified enemy positions on three sides of the landing zone. During the first few minutes, over 30 casualties were sustained. Without hesitation, Sp5c. Sasser ran across an open rice paddy through a hail of fire to assist the wounded. After helping one man to safety, he was painfully wounded in the left shoulder by fragments of an exploding rocket. Refusing medical attention, he ran through a barrage of rocket and automatic-weapons fire to aid casualties of the initial attack and, after giving them urgently needed treatment, continued to search for other wounded. Despite two additional wounds immobilizing his legs, he dragged himself through the mud toward another soldier 100 meters away. Although in agonizing pain and faint from loss of blood, Sp5c. Sasser reached the man, treated him, and proceeded on to encourage another group of soldiers to crawl 200 meters to relative safety. There he attended their wounds for five hours until they were evacuated. Sp5c. Sasser’s extraordinary heroism is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

From the NYT:

As they arrived at a rice paddy, one helicopter was shot down. Mr. Sasser was “dumped,” he said, into the mud. Instantly he felt a bullet rip through his leg. Dozens of American soldiers were killed in minutes. As the injuries piled up, the company was left with only one of its four medics — Mr. Sasser.
A cry went out among his brothers in arms: “Doc! Doc!”
He heeded their calls.
He dashed through gunfire to one group of soldiers, and as he moved one to safety, a rocket explosion tore through his shoulder and back. But he kept running, through a barrage of rocket and automatic weapon fire, to help two more men. Injuries multiplied across his body: excruciating hot shell fragments embedding in his flesh, a ricocheting bullet slamming against his skull.
Mr. Sasser saw a safer way to move around the rice paddy. Rather than standing up and leaving himself open to attack, he lay down in the mud — which was two-and-a-half-feet deep, he estimated — and moved by grabbing one rice sprout after the next to pull himself along, almost like swimming.
He encouraged another group of soldiers to crawl to relative safety and spent hours continuing to attend to his comrades’ wounds until he ran out of medical supplies.
“The only thing I could offer was, shall we say, mental support, emotional support,” he recalled in the oral history. “Which I thought was part of medic’s job, too.”
About 4 or 5 a.m. the next day — nearly 20 hours after Mr. Sasser landed in the rice paddy — he and other survivors of the ambush were rescued.

He was also a Texas native. He studied chemistry at the University of Houston before he was drafted. After leaving the service, he attended Texas A&M: that university awarded him a honorary doctorate in 2014.

He often spoke about the privilege of being a medic. He got first choice of rations. Everyone called him Doc. He was an object of reverence. All of that, he said, explained, his battlefield bravery.
“There’s no way that I could have, in my mind, not went to see about someone when they hollered medic,” Mr. Sasser said in the 1987 oral history. “Repayment of the adulation these guys heaped on you demanded that you go.”

Congressional Medal of Honor Society webpage.

Fort Hood renamed one of their buildings (a medical training facility) after him in 2022.

According to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, there are 61 living recipients.

Posted in Heroism, History, Obits | 2 Comments »