The Ka-Bar USMC knife of World War II is possibly the most famous fighting knife of all times. The knife was made in Olean, NY, and had a 7” black powder-coated blade of high quality steel, and a handle made of compacted leather discs.
The Ka-Bar became standard issue to the Marine Corps back in 1942, and soon became the prized possession of every fighting marine. Later the knife was issued to the other branches of the service. The Ka-Bar went out of production at the end of World War II, but during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, many Ka-Bars were reactivated into military service as World War II veterans passed their personnel Ka-Bars along to their sons.
The old knives continued to be used by survivalists, campers and hunters, but eventually all available Ka-Bar knives ended up in collections. Thousands of knife enthusiasts were writing to the Olean factory every year, asking them to produce more Ka-Bar knives because they were unable to find used ones. Finally, after 32 years the factory, and some of the craftsmen who worked on the original Ka-Bar knife, decided to produce it again for the 200 anniversary of the United States Marine Corps.
The new Ka-Bar USMC knives are identical to the original, but they cost a whole lot more. I once owned one of the originals, and it was the sharpest knife I have ever owned. That knife cost something like $12 at the local War Surplus Store. Now I own one of the second production Ka-Bars, It cost me $70, and it is my favorite outdoor knife. It is identical to the original in every respect, but I swear that it does not take an edge as sharp as the original World War II Ka-Bar USMC knife.
Gråulf.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Forgiveness, by Gråulf
A while ago I got into a ferocious argument with a professor at the University of Colorado, who stated that all white Americans carry a burden of guilt for our past history of slavery. I hear the same argument about our treatment of Indians, and usually I just let it pass, but this professor caught me in a bad mood. I sneered that while there were slaves in America my ancestors were serfs in Denmark, and were often treated worse than any American slaves by the landowners they belonged to, so don’t tell me what to feel guilty about! Who is supposed to feel guilty about the inquisition, and the thousands of accused heretics burned to death by the Catholic Church? Who is supposed to feel guilty about the one million Europeans that were captured by Barbary Pirates, and sold into slavery in North Africa? Who should feel guilty about all the genocide happening around the world right now?
A group of American Jews told me that I should feel guilty about hating Germans. They passionately explained that the present generation of Germans had nothing to do with Hitler’s Third Reich, and that it is wrong to blame them for something that happened before they were born. I could only shake my head at their muddled compassion, because I know most of their European relatives had been exterminated in German concentration camps, and that some of those around the table had parents and grandparents who still wore concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms. Their compassion is ridiculous considering Jews are still pissed about being slaves in Egypt 3000 year ago, although there is not one historical record to confirm the Exodus ever took place. I also know from previous conversations they all believed we owe Blacks and Indians compensation for the injustice done to them more than 150 years ago. In fact, something that happened while their ancestors were being persecuted in Eastern Europe for being Jewish.
I have traveled in Germany, although it gives me the willies to be anywhere near that country. I have even met individual Germans, whom I like, and I am very fond of my ancient BMW motorcycle, but I will hate Germans to the day I die. I was born during the German occupation of Denmark, and grew up in a Country Impoverished because the Germans dismantled and stole its infrastructure, so I believe I have earned that right. My Gods are not forgiving, and do not consider forgiveness or compassion to be virtues, unlike the one who got himself nailed to a cross.
Gråulf.
A group of American Jews told me that I should feel guilty about hating Germans. They passionately explained that the present generation of Germans had nothing to do with Hitler’s Third Reich, and that it is wrong to blame them for something that happened before they were born. I could only shake my head at their muddled compassion, because I know most of their European relatives had been exterminated in German concentration camps, and that some of those around the table had parents and grandparents who still wore concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms. Their compassion is ridiculous considering Jews are still pissed about being slaves in Egypt 3000 year ago, although there is not one historical record to confirm the Exodus ever took place. I also know from previous conversations they all believed we owe Blacks and Indians compensation for the injustice done to them more than 150 years ago. In fact, something that happened while their ancestors were being persecuted in Eastern Europe for being Jewish.
I have traveled in Germany, although it gives me the willies to be anywhere near that country. I have even met individual Germans, whom I like, and I am very fond of my ancient BMW motorcycle, but I will hate Germans to the day I die. I was born during the German occupation of Denmark, and grew up in a Country Impoverished because the Germans dismantled and stole its infrastructure, so I believe I have earned that right. My Gods are not forgiving, and do not consider forgiveness or compassion to be virtues, unlike the one who got himself nailed to a cross.
Gråulf.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Nature of Courage by Gråulf
I always figured the liberal nose pickers want to ban violence so they can bad-mouth conservatives without getting knocked on their asses. They are everywhere, especially in the schools, where they have been brainwashing our children to turn the other cheek for a generation. They have been very successful, and have finally created a culture that can propagate nonsense such as “I support our soldiers, but I hope they loose”. What dribble! Democrats pretend to honor our soldiers while they condemn them for killing enemies, and now they want to prosecute soldiers for torture because they poured water on some terrorists. At the same time they are trying to make friends with fanatics who cut peoples heads off on live television.
This is Memorial Day weekend, and I was reading the stories of some of the Medal of Honor recipients when I got curious about the nature of courage. What are the qualities that turn some people to acts of heroism, and others to acts of depravity and cowardice. There are lots of theories, but it seems the difference is mostly a matter of circumstance.
Thirty years ago a man by the name of Philip Zimbardo launched what is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. He selected twenty-four young men to participate in his experiment, and randomly assigned them roles as “prisoners” or “guards” in a simulated jail in the Stanford University psychology department. Everything from the deliberately humiliating prison uniforms to the cell numbers on the laboratory doors to the mandatory strip searches and delousing were designed to replicate the depersonalizing experience of being in a real prison. The men who were assigned to be guards were given khaki uniforms, mirrored glasses, and billy clubs.
The idea was to study the psychology of imprisonment -- to see what happens when you put good people in a dehumanizing place. But within a matter of hours, what had been intended as a controlled experiment in human behavior took on a disturbing life of its own. After a prisoner rebellion on the second day of the experiment, the guards began using increasingly degrading forms of punishment, and the prisoners became more and more passive. Each group rapidly took on the behaviors associated with their role, not because of any particular internal predisposition or instructions from the experimenters, but rather because the situation itself so powerfully called for the two groups to assume their identities. Even the experimenters were so caught up in the drama that they lost all objectivity. The experiment was scheduled to last two weeks, but was terminated after six days when an impartial outsider stepped in and stopped the experiment.
It is disturbing to realize that the hero in a firefight could as well have been one of the guards at Abu-Greeb if the circumstances had been different. It is disturbing that weekend soldiers are sent to Iraq and made prison guards, without supervisors who are aware of the Stanford Prison Experiment. And, it is disgusting that liberals, who have never been near a firefight, are passing judgment on soldiers for sometimes killing civilians in combat situations.
Gråulf.
This is Memorial Day weekend, and I was reading the stories of some of the Medal of Honor recipients when I got curious about the nature of courage. What are the qualities that turn some people to acts of heroism, and others to acts of depravity and cowardice. There are lots of theories, but it seems the difference is mostly a matter of circumstance.
Thirty years ago a man by the name of Philip Zimbardo launched what is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. He selected twenty-four young men to participate in his experiment, and randomly assigned them roles as “prisoners” or “guards” in a simulated jail in the Stanford University psychology department. Everything from the deliberately humiliating prison uniforms to the cell numbers on the laboratory doors to the mandatory strip searches and delousing were designed to replicate the depersonalizing experience of being in a real prison. The men who were assigned to be guards were given khaki uniforms, mirrored glasses, and billy clubs.
The idea was to study the psychology of imprisonment -- to see what happens when you put good people in a dehumanizing place. But within a matter of hours, what had been intended as a controlled experiment in human behavior took on a disturbing life of its own. After a prisoner rebellion on the second day of the experiment, the guards began using increasingly degrading forms of punishment, and the prisoners became more and more passive. Each group rapidly took on the behaviors associated with their role, not because of any particular internal predisposition or instructions from the experimenters, but rather because the situation itself so powerfully called for the two groups to assume their identities. Even the experimenters were so caught up in the drama that they lost all objectivity. The experiment was scheduled to last two weeks, but was terminated after six days when an impartial outsider stepped in and stopped the experiment.
It is disturbing to realize that the hero in a firefight could as well have been one of the guards at Abu-Greeb if the circumstances had been different. It is disturbing that weekend soldiers are sent to Iraq and made prison guards, without supervisors who are aware of the Stanford Prison Experiment. And, it is disgusting that liberals, who have never been near a firefight, are passing judgment on soldiers for sometimes killing civilians in combat situations.
Gråulf.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Finding North by Gråulf
Several years ago I told my daughter that I wanted a good compass for Christmas. I had lost my compass, and it was a present she could afford because a good compass costs about $15. Instead, she gave me a handheld GPS that cost about $250. I was appalled that she had spent that much money on my present, especially since all I really wanted was a compass. A GPS is better than a compass for finding your way back to your car, but it stops working when the batteries run down. Then you are really lost, because people tend to rely on technology when they have it, and therefore don’t pay proper attention to all the natural direction indicators.
This months American Hunter had an article on how to determine North without a compass, and I noted that it was missing the method I was taught as a scout in Denmark, and that I have relied on ever since. The article said to plant a stick in the ground so it points directly at the sun. Then you wait half an hour until the stick throws a shadow about 4 inches long. The shadow will point due East. That works when there is enough sun to throw a shadow, but it is time consuming.
I was taught to point the hour hand on my watch away form the sun. North will be half way between the hour hand and 12 o’clock. Granted, that method is not as convenient if you use a digital watch. However, if you turn your back to the sun, and it is 4 pm, it is easy to extrapolate where halfway between 4 pm and 12 pm would be. I sometimes draw a circle in the dirt or in the snow, and quarter it to get a precise bearing.
Back when I guided hunters on the western slope I spent many nights looking for lost hunters. Some of them got lost because they believed the old fallacy about moss always growing on the north side of trees, or that the wind always blows from the West in this part of the country, but most went astray because they held their compass to close to their gun. The metal in the gun attracts the compass needle enough that it may be 15 to 20 degrees out of line, and that soon adds up to a lot of territory. I always told my hunters that if they didn’t return by a certain time I would fire one shot to give them a direction. Then they were to fire 3 shots to let me know where they were. Most of the time that didn’t work well, because several lost hunters would respond to my signal, and it would take most of the night to sort out which signal came from the hunters I was looking for.
Gråulf.
This months American Hunter had an article on how to determine North without a compass, and I noted that it was missing the method I was taught as a scout in Denmark, and that I have relied on ever since. The article said to plant a stick in the ground so it points directly at the sun. Then you wait half an hour until the stick throws a shadow about 4 inches long. The shadow will point due East. That works when there is enough sun to throw a shadow, but it is time consuming.
I was taught to point the hour hand on my watch away form the sun. North will be half way between the hour hand and 12 o’clock. Granted, that method is not as convenient if you use a digital watch. However, if you turn your back to the sun, and it is 4 pm, it is easy to extrapolate where halfway between 4 pm and 12 pm would be. I sometimes draw a circle in the dirt or in the snow, and quarter it to get a precise bearing.
Back when I guided hunters on the western slope I spent many nights looking for lost hunters. Some of them got lost because they believed the old fallacy about moss always growing on the north side of trees, or that the wind always blows from the West in this part of the country, but most went astray because they held their compass to close to their gun. The metal in the gun attracts the compass needle enough that it may be 15 to 20 degrees out of line, and that soon adds up to a lot of territory. I always told my hunters that if they didn’t return by a certain time I would fire one shot to give them a direction. Then they were to fire 3 shots to let me know where they were. Most of the time that didn’t work well, because several lost hunters would respond to my signal, and it would take most of the night to sort out which signal came from the hunters I was looking for.
Gråulf.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Smart Grid by Gråulf
The power to my neighborhood was shut off for four hours yesterday, so the city could install equipment for the smart grid in local transformers. The smart grid is a computerized system that allows households to check their minute-to-minute power usage on the web, and will theoretically enable us to voluntarily reduce our energy usage. This so-called smart grid will cost about 25 million dollars, and is a one-dollar computer chip short of enabling the city to selectively turn off appliances in individual homes. Actually, the chip may already be installed in the system, because it is obvious where the greenies are going with this.
This part of Colorado sits atop giant coal deposits, and we have a perfectly adequate little coal-fired power plant just outside of town, that can supply all the power we need for decades. The plant is a bit out of date, and while it filters out any visible pollutants and sulfur, it needs to be updated to burn cleaner than it does. However, the local environmentalists have refused public service the permits to update the plant, because their goal is to shut it down completely. The city voted five years ago to mandate that twenty percent of our energy has to come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. The mandate resulted in a sizable increase in our electric bills, but public service is still well short of achieving the mandated goal of twenty percent. There are days when it comes close, but then there are other days when less than one percent of the cities power comes from alternative sources.
No one asked me if I wanted the smart grid that was installed in my neighborhood yesterday, or if I want the city to be able to reach into my home to turn off my refrigerator when it suits them. That decision was made by the ideologs on the city’s environmental committee, who happened to be appointed rather than elected.
And that brings me to three words I hear more and more often, and that gives me the willies whenever they come up:
One is Collectivism, which means the subjugation of the individual to a group – whether to race, class, or state does not matter. Collectivists believe that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for what is called “the common good”. Never mind the individual rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Amendments to the Constitution of the U.S.
Another is Multiculturism. The modern version of multiculturism originated in Canada, to appease the French Canadians, and became the official national policy of Canada in 1971, followed by Australia in 1973. It was quickly adopted as official policy by most of the member states of the European Union. This theory of benignly co-existing cultures does not work when it includes Muslims who are hostile to their adopted society, and support terrorists. It does not work in the U.S. either, where we are being overwhelmed by millions of illegal aliens from Mexico, who refuse to assimilate into American culture.
The third term is Progressive, which is often used in place of liberal by people who don’t understand the difference. Cultural Liberalism was founded on the concept of natural rights and civil liberties, and the belief that the major purpose of government is to protect those rights. Progressives, on the other hand, tend to support interventionist economics, such as the government taking control of banks and auto companies; they advocate income redistribution, like tax refunds to people who don't pay taxes; they support organized labor and trade unions; and they tend to be more concerned with environmental issues than mainstream liberals. Does that sound familiar?
Gråulf.
This part of Colorado sits atop giant coal deposits, and we have a perfectly adequate little coal-fired power plant just outside of town, that can supply all the power we need for decades. The plant is a bit out of date, and while it filters out any visible pollutants and sulfur, it needs to be updated to burn cleaner than it does. However, the local environmentalists have refused public service the permits to update the plant, because their goal is to shut it down completely. The city voted five years ago to mandate that twenty percent of our energy has to come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar. The mandate resulted in a sizable increase in our electric bills, but public service is still well short of achieving the mandated goal of twenty percent. There are days when it comes close, but then there are other days when less than one percent of the cities power comes from alternative sources.
No one asked me if I wanted the smart grid that was installed in my neighborhood yesterday, or if I want the city to be able to reach into my home to turn off my refrigerator when it suits them. That decision was made by the ideologs on the city’s environmental committee, who happened to be appointed rather than elected.
And that brings me to three words I hear more and more often, and that gives me the willies whenever they come up:
One is Collectivism, which means the subjugation of the individual to a group – whether to race, class, or state does not matter. Collectivists believe that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for what is called “the common good”. Never mind the individual rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and the Amendments to the Constitution of the U.S.
Another is Multiculturism. The modern version of multiculturism originated in Canada, to appease the French Canadians, and became the official national policy of Canada in 1971, followed by Australia in 1973. It was quickly adopted as official policy by most of the member states of the European Union. This theory of benignly co-existing cultures does not work when it includes Muslims who are hostile to their adopted society, and support terrorists. It does not work in the U.S. either, where we are being overwhelmed by millions of illegal aliens from Mexico, who refuse to assimilate into American culture.
The third term is Progressive, which is often used in place of liberal by people who don’t understand the difference. Cultural Liberalism was founded on the concept of natural rights and civil liberties, and the belief that the major purpose of government is to protect those rights. Progressives, on the other hand, tend to support interventionist economics, such as the government taking control of banks and auto companies; they advocate income redistribution, like tax refunds to people who don't pay taxes; they support organized labor and trade unions; and they tend to be more concerned with environmental issues than mainstream liberals. Does that sound familiar?
Gråulf.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Different Climate Computer Models by Gråulf
The only climate computer models we hear about are the ones used to predict global warming in the IPCC reports. The models are structured to prove a preconceived conviction, that the earth’s temperature is increasing and so is atmospheric CO2, so the increase in CO2 must be causing the increased temperature. Reasonable people might wonder why the interrelationship is not assumed to be the other way around, since ice cores all show that historically temperatures rose well ahead of CO2 levels, but then the phenomenon would not be our fault. None of the IPCC computer models can tell what the weather will be next week, but yet we are supposed to believe they can predict the weather a hundred years from now.
In fact, there are two fundamentally different ways in which computers can be used to project climate. The first is used by the modeling groups that provide the climate projections used by the IPCC. These groups deploy general circulation models, which use complex partial differential equations to describe the ocean-atmosphere climate system mathematically. The models used by the IPCC assume that CO2 is responsible for global warming, and that increased temperature will cause mostly positive feedback in the climate system. Never mind that if feedback loops were mostly positive the earth would have destroyed itself long ago. That suggest “garbage in, God’s truth out”.
Alternative computer projections of climate are constructed using data on past climate change, by identifying mathematical (often rhythmic) patterns within them and projecting these patterns into the future. Such models are statistical and empirical, and make no presumptions about complete understanding; instead, they seek to recognize and project into the future the climate patterns that exist in real world data.
In 2001, Russian geologist Sergey Kotov used the mathematics of chaos to analyze the atmospheric temperature record of the past 4000 years from a Greenland ice core. Based on the pattern he recognized in the data, Kotov extrapolated cooling from 2000 to about 2030, followed by warming to the end of the century and 300 years of cooling thereafter.
In 2003, Russian scientists Klyashtorin and Lyubushin analysed the global surface thermometer temperature record from 1860 to 2000, and identified a recurring 60-year cycle. This probably relates to the Pacific decadal oscillation, which can be caricatured as a large scale El Nino/La Nina climatic oscillation. The late 20th century warming represents the most recent warm half-cycle of the PDO, and it projects forwards as cooling of one-tenth of a degree or more to 2030.
In 2004, US scientist Craig Loehle used simple periodic models to analyze climate records over the past 1000 years of sea-surface temperature from a Caribbean marine core and cave air temperature from a South African stalactite. Without using data for the 20th century, six of his seven models showed a warming trend similar to that in the instrumental record over the past 150 years; and projecting forward the best fit model foreshadows cooling of between 0.7 and 1 degree Celsius during the next 20-40 years.
Most recently, Italian scientist Adriano Mazzarella demonstrated statistical links between solar magnetic activity, the length of the Earth day (LOD), and northern hemisphere wind and ocean temperature patterns. He too confirmed the existence of a 60-year climate cycle, and described various correlations (some negative). Based on these correlations, Mazzarella concludes that provided "the observed past correlation between LOD and sea-surface temperature continues in the future, the identified 60-year cycle provides a possible decline in sea-surface temperature starting from 2005, and recent climate data seem to support such a result".
As we see, there are other computer models. Scientists, using different mathematical techniques and many different data sets, arrive at conclusions very different from the IPCC models. Their conclusions are that CO2 does not drive global temperatures, and climate cooling will occur during the first decades of the twentieth century.
Gråulf.
In fact, there are two fundamentally different ways in which computers can be used to project climate. The first is used by the modeling groups that provide the climate projections used by the IPCC. These groups deploy general circulation models, which use complex partial differential equations to describe the ocean-atmosphere climate system mathematically. The models used by the IPCC assume that CO2 is responsible for global warming, and that increased temperature will cause mostly positive feedback in the climate system. Never mind that if feedback loops were mostly positive the earth would have destroyed itself long ago. That suggest “garbage in, God’s truth out”.
Alternative computer projections of climate are constructed using data on past climate change, by identifying mathematical (often rhythmic) patterns within them and projecting these patterns into the future. Such models are statistical and empirical, and make no presumptions about complete understanding; instead, they seek to recognize and project into the future the climate patterns that exist in real world data.
In 2001, Russian geologist Sergey Kotov used the mathematics of chaos to analyze the atmospheric temperature record of the past 4000 years from a Greenland ice core. Based on the pattern he recognized in the data, Kotov extrapolated cooling from 2000 to about 2030, followed by warming to the end of the century and 300 years of cooling thereafter.
In 2003, Russian scientists Klyashtorin and Lyubushin analysed the global surface thermometer temperature record from 1860 to 2000, and identified a recurring 60-year cycle. This probably relates to the Pacific decadal oscillation, which can be caricatured as a large scale El Nino/La Nina climatic oscillation. The late 20th century warming represents the most recent warm half-cycle of the PDO, and it projects forwards as cooling of one-tenth of a degree or more to 2030.
In 2004, US scientist Craig Loehle used simple periodic models to analyze climate records over the past 1000 years of sea-surface temperature from a Caribbean marine core and cave air temperature from a South African stalactite. Without using data for the 20th century, six of his seven models showed a warming trend similar to that in the instrumental record over the past 150 years; and projecting forward the best fit model foreshadows cooling of between 0.7 and 1 degree Celsius during the next 20-40 years.
Most recently, Italian scientist Adriano Mazzarella demonstrated statistical links between solar magnetic activity, the length of the Earth day (LOD), and northern hemisphere wind and ocean temperature patterns. He too confirmed the existence of a 60-year climate cycle, and described various correlations (some negative). Based on these correlations, Mazzarella concludes that provided "the observed past correlation between LOD and sea-surface temperature continues in the future, the identified 60-year cycle provides a possible decline in sea-surface temperature starting from 2005, and recent climate data seem to support such a result".
As we see, there are other computer models. Scientists, using different mathematical techniques and many different data sets, arrive at conclusions very different from the IPCC models. Their conclusions are that CO2 does not drive global temperatures, and climate cooling will occur during the first decades of the twentieth century.
Gråulf.
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