Category: Guest Contributors

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 19JUL2023 – Joe Was Wrong

photog Current Events, Guest Contributors, War Pig , , ,

Joe was wrong, as usual. It will not take F-15s to fight against the government. History shows that it takes from 3 to 5 percent of the people willing to take up arms to overthrow even a tyrannical government. There are far more armed conservatives than that. Also, Joe, again mistakenly, believes the US military would strafe and bomb US neighborhoods or drive Abrams tanks through homes and businesses. In fact, many individuals and even entire units may defect to the rebels’ side.

Americans can be tough to handle in the best of times. Get them fighting mad and we are not like the sheeples of Asia and half of Europe. Add in the fact that there are 20-24 million trained veterans to add to the mix and no sane army wants to get tangled up in that.

That the rebels would have support from about 50% of the population would also work in the rebels favor.

PS: Did you see where our fearless leader terrorized another young child by pretending to cannibalize her? Why isn’t he locked away in his Depends eating gruel in an asylum. If I did that to children unknown to me in public, I’d be in the hoosegow trying to keep the father rapers off me.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 18JUL2023 – Photo

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

I find myself gravitating to nature photography. My “long” lens used to be a Sony G 70-300, A mount that worked (via adapter) with all my previous E mount Sony cameras.A supurb lens. Until I got to the A7IV series, that is, same camera as yours.

I tried to replace it with a Tamron 70-300 but the image is missing something. The Tamron does workman like images, see image below, but it is missing the “pop”, I don’t know how to describe it, the something special that I got with the Sony. I go back through my photos and am really surprised at how many of my very best came from that lens.

I’m now lusting for the very new, now really released yet but heavily reviewed Sony 70-200 F4 GII lens. Apparently it also takes incredible images through a 2x converter or I could also shoot it through my ASP-C sensor A6400, which would change it to a 105-350 mm in case I need something taller. It seems to have the same, how do you say, ‘glow” as my 10-year-old lens does/did.

In the meantime, my Tamron is sitting dejected over in the corner saying, “What am I, chopped liver?” No, actually pretty damned good for the price but when you’re reaching for the stars—–

Tamron Shots below

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Pretty good lenses don’t have to cost a lot. Here’s a 30mm f2.8 Sigma on my Sony A6400.

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Another Tamron

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Guest Contributor – Chemist – 17JUL2023 – Vetting a Cabinet

photog Chemist, Current Events, Guest Contributors , , , ,

This illustrates my biggest issue with President Trump: He is very bad at picking people for the job. This is important because it is likely the most important thing a president does – Pick his cabinet and other heads of departments.
Trump gave us Jeff Sessions – who allowed the democrats to persecute Trump for the first 2 years of office.
He gave us Rex Tillerson who called Trump a fucking Moron.
He gave us Mad Dog Mattis who didn’t have a clue and publicly resigned.
I could go on with a dozen more, but why?
And Trumps biggest mistake: His son in law Jared Kushner who brought Kim Kardashian to the White House. If you like the criminals roaming around your state, thank Jared.
Trump is dazzled by athletes, Hollywood stars and medal wearing generals. There are dozens of generals who were working against him but Trump didn’t fire them.

To those of you who say that Trump has learned his lesson, I give you Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker. Those senate races should have gone GOP, but Trump anointed candidates who didn’t want to win.

You are very correct that the next GOP candidate needs to have a plan in place for stopping the steal. I don’t want to see another blue city in a red state truck in ballots and count until their candidate wins with zero repercussions.
We need a plan. We need lawyers on the ground with documents in hand and we need facts ready to go.

Make no mistake, if Trump is the candidate I will vote for him but I would really like to see some better decisions from him on who he surrounds himself with.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 16JUL2023 – Grandchildren

photog Guest Contributors, War Pig , , ,

Great plan and very worth while. Since my grandson’s father died young, I became the masculine figure in his life growing up. I took him to many firsts. His first fish caught, teaching him to shoot, the first squirrel shot, then cooked, kindergarten “graduation”, elementary graduation, high school then college graduation. The first time his team won a football game in juniot high then high school. His first big job out of college. Great memories to take with me when the black camel kneels at my door.

It is said you die twice. The first time is when your heart beats its last, and the second is the last time someone thinks of you. I have tried to place myself in as many good memories as I could.

 

 

Homelessness Addressed

photog ArthurinCali, Current Events, Guest Contributors , , ,

Arthur has a short post on a solution to homeless encampments that are metastasizing across our cities.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 03JUL2023 – Sony Lens Options

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

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We’ve both use the same camera body but your lens collection tends to the telephoto side compared to mine. I was left totally without anything longer that 105 mm when I moved to the A7IV and found that my old A mount 70-300 would become pure manual focus, even with the latest Sony adapter.

I grew up with manual focus but, back them, cameras had a split image focusing system to tell you when you were in focus. That consisted of twisting the focus ring while looking through the viewfinder until the upper and lower parts of the image perfectly aligned. Looking thorough the old Sony lens in the new body gave me no focusing information at all. So, bleah to that.

I thought about getting a new e mount version of the same lens but I thought $1300 a bit much for as little as I use long telephoto. But, I concluded, paying 40% of that figure for the Tamron version, which had good ratings, to be an acceptable bet.

Below is a shot of a female Cardinal that I photoed in my yard this AM at a range of around 70 feet. Even at 300 mm, this is a big crop.

Quick aside: The split image focus system is a spinoff originally derived from the Dreadnought era Naval gunnery optical rangefinders that prevailed in all the worlds navys in the until the advent of radar ranging during WWII.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 26JUN2023 – Not Forever

photog ArthurinCali, Current Events, Guest Contributors , ,

 

As we cannot see what the future holds for America, the historical record is the best we must go by. Numerous empires in the world have risen and fallen to ruin due to internal hubris, and my thought is that ours will be no different. All the signs point to decline, from moral decay in society and financial overstretch, to military misadventures overseas. Looting the treasury phase as Zman points out, is an apt description of what we are currently seeing. TPTB are more concerned with what happens thousands of miles away vs. what can be seen only a few states from our nation’s capital. How long can it continue? Another decade? A few weeks? It is hard to describe just how out of touch the ruling class is with the people they lord over. This alone might be a godsend as when the collapse finally happens (without a nuclear fireball, hopefully) there will still be pockets of sanity and quasi-civilization around the country. My current reading list includes a lot more historical instances of these periods; Weimar Germany, England, and France after ruling class collapse, and of course, the time of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. It will NOT be pleasant, nor easy during these times. Many first-hand accounts attest to this. But, I stay hopeful that a sort of rebirth can occur. We cannot be ruled by idiots forever.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 26JUN2023 – Watchlists

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In reply to Ed Brault.

Whoo, yeah. Several years after I retired we had a nutcase wannabe who was called the Freeway Sniper. He shot at cars and even a schoolbus on the beltway of Columbus, Ohio. He eventually managed to kill a woman after several failed shots at random vehicles. I got a call from Fred’s Boyish Incels. “Hi, we’re just checking in to see how you’re doing”. I knew why they had called. I told them no, it wasn’t me, guys, and it was not a trained sniper. The guy was missing baby crap shots from under 400 meters. He was caught about a week or so later. They keep you on their lists, alright.

Did you know they also monitor seismographs? Me again. The blaster for a local quarry had to have a gall bladder removed on an emergency basis. This put them behind as their backup was a rookie. So the boss asked me to help the rookie and offered a gee-whiz daily rate. Heck, yes! We were making excellent progress as I prefer larger charges spread out a little more. Soon enough, Al’s Tree Family showed up. The seismograph at Ohio State University noticed an increase in vibrations and triangulated the source. All was kosher. The rookie was licensed, just green, and I was not doing any actual blasting, I was just advising. Spooky that surveillance now extends to stone quarries by remote triangulation.