While I’m on a roll talking about watches, I thought I’d continue it. Just like with firearms, many of us have purchases a watch (or firearm) that we thought we’d love but ending up hating.
It is a stainless watch, charges the battery through sunlight, has big numerals at the 12 and 6 o’clock positions, tracks the date, is water resistant to 200 feet, and has a slide rule. What is not to like?
Well….
I should say I’m right-handed and wear my watch on my left wrist. Look at where the crown or knob to operate the slide rule is located. It is on the lower left side. If you use the fingers of your right hand to operate the slide rule, you cover some, if not all, of the watch face including the slide rule. The only way to effectively use it is to either wear the watch on your right wrist or take it off your wrist altogether. That is problem number one.
The second issue for me is that the slide rule numerals are so small and I suffer from presbyopia (I need reading glasses!) that I virtually need a magnifying glass to read them.
When I get around to it, I need to sell this watch to someone who can appreciate it. I will note that Citizen has revamped this watch so that the control knob for the slide rule is now on the right side of the watch. Smart move.
So let me know in the comments what watch you bought that you grew to hate or dislike. Let me know the reason why if you don’t mind.
I saw this meme on Reddit and found it amusing. It compares watch guys to gun guys and finds they are similar.
Even funnier to me is that I own or have owned watches from all three companies and two of the three handgun makers. I am going to presume that Ruger owners have the Citizen Eco-Drives and that guys with old Hamilton Automatic watches use 1911s. Not sure where I’d put the guys wearing a Casio G-Shock.
Of course, right now I’m wearing a Bulova WW2 commemorative military style watch that I picked up off of EBay for about $50 years ago. I’ve had to replace the original olive canvas band with a nylon Nato band because it wore out.
Now she has announced she plans to go on a cruise. Will it be to an area where guns are banned like much of the Caribbean? Nope, it will be to Alaska where not only are guns prevalent but they have constitutional carry.
Thanks to “Bad Gun Control Takes” for pointing this out in a tweet.
I come bearing good news on this Friday afternoon. That is if you hold the North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit. Both the states of Nevada and Minnesota now allow holders of the NC CHP legally to carry concealed in their states. Of course, if Nevadans and Minnesotans wish to carry in North Carolina, we will recognize that permit as well as the permit of any other state as we offer universal reciprocity.
At one time, Nevada had stopped offering reciprocity to North Carolinians. However, Grass Roots North Carolina worked with state level groups there providing information on the NC CHP and its standards which led to a re-evaluation by that state.
We have some good news to announce, in that Minnesota and Nevada added North Carolina permit reciprocity. GRNC worked regularly for a multi-year period with the state gun rights organization in NV to help inform NV’s state attorney’s office on the rigor and standards involved in North Carolina’s permit process.
After thorough analysis, NV finally restored reciprocity for North Carolina’s Concealed Carry Handgun permit.
The relevant information on North Carolina permit reciprocity in these states is available here:
PERMIT TO CARRY RECIPROCITY
Minnesota
Under MN law, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) is required to publish a list of states which have handgun carry permit laws that are not similar to Minnesota’s permit-to-carry law.
You are permitted to “open-carry” firearms, with certain limitations, whether you are an in-state or out-of-state resident.
If you are a non-Nevada resident, you can carry a concealed weapon only if you have a CCW from a reciprocal state.
Currently, Nevada’s reciprocal states for concealed carry of handguns.
Reciprocity with North Carolina
This brings to an exceptional 40 states in which lawful North Carolinians may exercise the fundamental right to carry concealed firearms. For a map of reciprocal states, go to: GRNC Reciprocity Map
After the murders at The Covenant School in Nashville, some politicians as well as the gun control industry have been calling for the state of Tennessee to enact a “red flag law”. Indeed, Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) is threatening a special session of the Tennessee legislature to enact a “red flag law” that he insists is not that.
“To be clear, the Governor does not support red flag laws. His proposal is different from any law across the country – it would strengthen Tennessee’s existing law around the order of protection process for cases of domestic violence and enhance support for law enforcement, ensure due process, require the highest burden of proof, and boost mental health support,” said Press Secretary Jade Byers.
But what do the majority of Tennesseans want?
According to a recent poll by co/efficient done in conjunction with the Daily Wire, 84% of respondents said it was more important to remove the dangerous person than to remove the guns. In my opinion, this is a recognition that those individuals who are a danger to themselves or others will use other means – knives, cars, gasoline, etc. – if firearms are not available and they are allowed to remain at large.
In the poll, Tennessee voters dramatically retreat from their soft support of proposed Red Flag Laws and do not see this as the solution to their safety concerns when informed that Red Flag Laws merely take guns away from dangerous individuals but do nothing to prevent them from causing harm by some other means. Red Flag Law support erodes even further when informed that there are existing laws to take threatening individuals out of the community right now. Tennesseans largely support recently passed legislation that puts police officers in schools and believe enforcing the current laws on the books is an effective solution to keeping their families, communities, and state safe.
People are not stupid. They recognize when their emotions are being played by politicians, the media, and the gun control industry. Once they have a good grasp of the situation, they usually come to a reasonable conclusion.
Today, June 8th, is Thomas Paine Day by one calendar. It is also known as Freethinkers Day.Another puts both at January 29th. I’m not sure which is correct so I’m going with today as this is the first I’ve heard of it.
Paine didn’t come to America until late 1774 at the urging of Benjamin Franklin. He had recently been fired from his position as an excise officer in Sussex after writing a pamphlet that demanded higher pay for excise officers. Paine is most known in the United States for his pamphlet Common Sense as well as a series called The American Crisis (Kindle version is free on Amazon) It is said that Common Sense sold between 150,000 and 500,000 copies. Given the population of the 13 colonies is estimated to 2.5 million in 1776, that is astounding.
The latter was read to Washington’s dispirited troops at Valley Forge. I still find the first paragraph stirring.
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: — ’Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to* BIND us in all cases whatsoever,” and if being bound in that manner*, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to GOD.
Paine went back to England in 1787 and then to France somewhere around 1791-1792. He was an early supporter of the French Revolution and almost ended up becoming a victim of it like many of its supporters. He wrote another of his major works The Rights of Man in 1791. After being released from prison in France, he made his way back to the US and eventually died in New York City in 1809.
The first units ashore or on land have gotten most of the attention in the Battle of Normandy. They rightly deserve this attention as landing on a hostile beach or behind the beaches in the dark of night is a terrifying task. That said, this post will given attention to the follow-on units that arrived in June and July of 1944. Part of my reasoning is that they don’t get this attention and the other part is that my sister-in-law’s father who passed away in April at age 102 was a member of one of these units.
Early July saw both the 8th and 35th Infantry Divisions arrive in France. The 8th was soon in action helping to capture the cities of Brest and Rennes. As July progressed, three armored divisions, the 4th, 5th, and 6th, landed in France and were instrumental in closing the Falaise Gap. The final infantry division to participate in the Battle of Normandy was the 28th Infantry Division which arrived on July 22nd to join Operation Cobra.
Of particular interest to me is the 8th Infantry Division. Walter Driscoll, my sister-in-law’s father, was assigned to 3rd Platoon Mortar Squad, Co. A, 1st Battalion, 121st Regiment, 8th Infantry Division as a PFC. He passed away at the age of 102 on April 1st just short of his 103rd birthday. A native of Massachusetts, he was married for 58 years, raised three daughters (two of whom served as officers in the USAF Nurse Corps), had eight grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Walter was wounded in action in Normandy and carried the shrapnel in his hand throughout the rest of his life. That shrapnel was recovered after his cremation by the funeral director and presented to the family. He tells the story of how he was wounded in the oral history video below. The French subtitles are due to this being a project of the World War II Veterans Memories located in Normandy.
There are not many of these veterans still alive and that Walter made it to 102 was remarkable in and of itself. We should be grateful that a number of their stories have been captured either in video or audio format. Without that, the human element would be lost and our knowledge of these events would be confined to the history books.
It is hard for me to believe it has been almost 80 years since Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin their march towards Germany. As I was born a little less than 13 years after the landing, it was still fresh in the minds of many. Today, not so much. Most of the veterans of that day have now passed away.
Some of the most enduring scenes from that day were pictures taken by famous photographer Robert Capa on Omaha Beach. Most of his photos were lost due to errors in processing.
From PetaPixel
Actually, it turns out that much of that story was a myth. It laid the blame on a novice film processor who overheated the negatives in a drying box to the point that the emulsion melted. All that was left were the 11 frames above.
In retrospect, I cannot understand how so many people in the field, working photographers among them, accepted uncritically the unlikely, unprecedented story, concocted by Morris, of Capa’s 35mm Kodak Super-XX film emulsion melting in a film-drying cabinet on the night of June 7, 1944.
Anyone familiar with analog photographic materials and normal darkroom practice worldwide must consider this fabulation incredible on its face. Coil heaters in wooden film-drying cabinets circa 1944 did not ever produce high levels of heat; black & white film emulsions of that time did not melt even after brief exposure to high heat; and the doors of film-drying cabinets are normally kept closed, not open, since the primary function of such cabinets is to prevent dust from adhering to the sticky emulsion of wet film.
No one with darkroom experience could have come up with this notion; only someone entirely ignorant of photographic materials and processes — like Morris — could have imagined it. Embarrassingly, none of that set my own alarm bells ringing until I started to fact-check the article by Baughman that initiated this project, close to fifty years after I first read that fable in Capa’s memoir.
The PetaPixel article by A. D. Coleman is rather long but well worth the read. It is meticulously researched and documented. Myth has its place but documenting the reality of what really happened is more important.
I learned a new term this week. It is “corner-crossing hunters”. It does not involve hunters waiting for the light to change so they can cross the street when the light changes. Rather, it seems to be a distinctly Western US issue whereby hunters cross from one piece of public land to another piece of public land at the adjoining corners.
Look at the checkerboard pictured below. Now imagine all the red spaces are public land and all the black spaces are private land. As a historical result of how the United States granted lands out West to the railroads to encourage their development of the trans-continental railroads, much of the land ownership looks exactly like this. It is not a trivial amount of land as the government granted property in a 40 mile wide swath along the railroad. The result is that if you wish to avoid trespassing on private land you must do so at the corners. While this seems simple to me as a born and bred Easterner, things are never as they seem.
The issue of corner-crossing was brought to a head as a result of a lawsuit seeking $7 million in damages brought by Iron Bar Holdings LLC (aka Elk Mountain Ranch) against four hunters from Missouri. The hunters had hunted public land in 2020 and 2021 adjoining the Carbon County, Wyoming ranch. They had crossed at the corners. The owner of the ranch had argued the hunters trespassed by invading the airspace above his property. He filed complaints for criminal trespass against the hunters with the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish as well as the local sheriff. After their 2021 hunt, the local prosecutor did bring charges but all four hunters were acquitted in a jury trial of criminal trespass.
In 2022, the rancher filed a civil complaint in Wyoming state court that was moved to Federal court. The rancher was seeking as noted above $7 million in damages. Thanks to a fundraising campaign by Wyoming Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the four hunters – Zach Smith, Bradley Cape, Phillip Yeomans, and John Slowensky – were represented in court. The group also filed an amicus brief with the court.
On May 26th, Chief US District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl granted the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants for most of the claims against them. All that remained was whether or not a marked waypoint on the OnX hunting app indicated one of the hunters had trespassed. That was later dismissed as the plaintiff withdrew its last remaining claim.
Skavdahl observed that with respect to the corner crossing issue “[t]here is no evidence the hunters made physical contact with [Eshelman’s] private land or caused any damage to plaintiff’s private property,” either in 2020 or 2021. The judge also agreed with Eshelman that he generally owns the airspace above his property and is entitled to use it.
But even property rights come with limitations and restrictions, Skavdahl wrote.
“History, federal case law, federal statutory law, and recent Wyoming legislation demonstrate corner crossing in the manner done by Defendants in this case is just such a restriction on Plaintiff’s property rights,” he wrote. “[D]efendants, ‘in common with other persons [have] the right to the benefit of the public domain,’ which necessarily requires some limitation on the adjoining private landowner’s right of exclusion within the checkerboard pattern of land ownership.”
One of the prevailing cases that assisted Judge Skavdahl in his ruling dated back to 1914 and involved a sheepherder moving his sheep from one piece of public land to another. Obviously, a flock of sheep take up more of the “airspace” above private property than does a hunter jumping or swing across at the corner. That ruling recognized the “exceptional conditions” created by the checkerboard of land ownership and that provision must be made to allow one to cross from one piece of public land to another. The judge went back even further to the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 and found the rancher blocking one corner using steel posts and locked chains violated that act (see photo below).
It should be noted that the hunters went over and beyond in 2021 to avoid trespass. In the photo below taken from a court exhibit, the hunters used a self-made steel ladder to enable them to step across at the corners. This was especially true of the one corner that the rancher had created an impediment.
I strongly believe in private property rights. However, in this case I do think that Judge Skavdahl got it right considering the checkerboard nature of many of these public landholdings.
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