Demooning

One of the less-fun things of a .45 ACP revolver is dealing with moon clips. They are necessary because automatic cartridges don't have rims and the ejection stars on a revolver won't lift out the cartridges. They were developed when the Army needed more guns in the Great War than Colt could make 1911s. But both Smith & Wesson and Colt had large-framed revolvers that chambered .45 Long Colt cartridges and, well, needs must.

Supposedly the cartridges headspace on a step in the cylinder, which they definately do in a single-action revolver chambered in .45 ACP or 9mm. The moon clips function for loading and unloading double action revolvers.

The Army used half-moon clips.

They, like Garand clips, came loaded and were considered to be single-use items on the battlefield.

For civilian use, full-moon clips are more popular, as there is less handling in reloading,

Removing cartridges from one of these clips is hard on fingers. You can grab them with a pair of needle-nose pliers, but if you want to reload the cartridges, that risks damaging them. It's also easy to twist the moon clips. Bent moon clips with cartridges can jam the fuck out of a revolver.

The remedy is a simple demooning tool.

You insert a cartridge on a clip into the open end, slide it in until the clip touches the lower shoulder, and then twist it right off. The cartridge falls down the hole of the tool and out the bottom.

Bye, Bye, Bonanza

Textron Aviation, which owns Beechcraft, is killing off the Bonanza and the Baron.

The Bonanza's been around since the end of WW2. My late uncle once owned a Debonair, which was sort of a baby Bonanza, back in the sixties, when he had a consulting business that spanned much of the Eastern Seaboard. It was a neat airplane. The Air Force flew them as nighttime low-altitude surveillane drone.

I expect that, with eighty years of production, Bonanzas will be a common sight on airport ramps for decades to come.

A Break

The Smithsonian Cheeta Cub Cam.

The mom is Ambala, she has four cubs.

West Point and King Piggy

This plaque is at West Point:

But President Orange Piggy says that his word is law:

The last time that we had a leader who decreed that his word was law was 1775.

But the constitutional traitors known as MAGA are with him, just as the tories were behind KG-3.

The Surrender Piggy at Work

He sent Special Lackey and his corrupt-as-fuck SIL down to Miami to get his marching orders from his Russian masters:

U.S. officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned about a meeting last month in which representatives of the Trump administration met with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions, to draft a plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who leads the Russian Direct Investment Fund, one of Russia's largest sovereign wealth funds.
...
The meeting resulted in a 28-point plan for ending the war, two people familiar with the situation said. The plan, which was made public this week by Axios, came as a surprise to U.S. officials in various corners of the administration and has stirred confusion at embassies throughout Washington and in European capitals.

Trump's surrender plan was drafted by the Russians, given to Witkoff and then Trump blessed it as his own. If Witkoff and Trump were avowed Russian agents, their actions would be no different from what they are. Krasnov is furious because the Ukrainians won't obey his orders to surrender. It'd be like Chamberlain cmplaining that the Czechs showed no gratitude to him for plunging a knife into their backs.

And, of course, MAGA is blindly following Trump down the road of selling out Ukraine to Russia because they are in thrall to their Orange God and have largely lost the capability to disgaree with anything that he does.

Except, of course, when it comes to Epstein and pedophilia. They still have a few standards, even if the Trump Propaganda Team is trying to push down the definition of pedophilia so Trump gets a pass.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

A C-54:

The C-54 was the airplane that made the Berlin Airlift possible.

Backwatering on Ukraine

The Orange Useful Idiot is apparently trying to walk back his Ukraine Surrender Plan.

U.S. senators critical of President Donald Trump’s approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine war said Saturday they spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who told them that the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians and not the actual U.S. plan.

How is that any better that Cadet Bone Spurs and Chief Lacky Witkoff were pushing Ukraine to agree to surrender on Russia's terms?

I have a two point plan:

1.  All Russian forces withdraw to the 1991 border, and
2.  The International Criminal Court to investigate alleged war crimes.

I also think it's a good idea for all Russian military forces to withdraw to a 50km distance from the border, both in Russia and Belarus.

But once again, we have seen Trump's willingness to do Putin's bidding if he thought that he could get away with it. The man is a venal traitor to his core and has to be watched like the sleazy snake that he is.

True, Dat

If there were a show called the Annual Geopolitical Awards they would give The Neville Chamberlain Award for Craven Surrender Monkey to Donald John Trump with a shout-out to Viktor Orban and Steve Witkoff.

Caturday

Priss loves her fleece.

Because It's Friday

I think the engine was in the roundhouse the wrong way.