Gratuitous Gun Pic: Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk I

As much as I always loved my old Smelly:

…I have to admit that the sights are not the best.  That teeny little V at the rear makes quick acquisition of the target a little problematic.

Such is not the case with the SMLE’s successor, the Rifle No.4 Mk I:

With the exception of the semi-automatic Garand, the No.4 was probably the best battle rifle of its era, because with its aperture sight and 10-round magazine, it combined firepower with combat-level accuracy, and its silky-smooth bolt action made for a fearsome weapon.

I’ve fired many a No.4, and never had a bad time with any of them.  My only regret is that I’ve never actually owned one.

Which makes this article all the more painful.

Early on a Sunday morning in June, a tractor-trailer backed into the rear parking lot of the Navy Arms warehouse north of Martinsburg, W.V. Inside the truck’s shipping container were four huge wooden crates containing a long-forgotten batch of British No. 4 Lee-Enfield rifles with a unique history. Two green, military-style chests, each brimming with plastic-wrapped bolts, accompanied the wooden containers. Inside the warehouse sat cardboard boxes filled with newly made No. 4 rifle magazines, waiting for their recipients to be offloaded. Valmore Forgett, III, president and CEO of Navy Arms, had shepherded these guns from their storage spot in France to this final point on a long journey that first started on C-47s, B-24s and B-17s flying over war-torn France.

As the crates were forklifted out of the shipping container, eager hands pried nails and loosened screws securing the plywood lids in place. Finally, the crate cover slid off, revealing a sea of bubble-wrapped rifles filling each box to the brim. It took the team at Navy Arms about a week just to unpack the carefully cocooned guns, while Val’s sons unwrapped each individual bolt from its plastic packaging, recorded its serial number and matched it to its rifle, wherever possible. After a brief wipe-down, quick swab of the bore and import-marking, the rifles were moved to a rack, where they awaited their moment under the camera lights.

Aahhhh… have mercy.

I don’t wanna talk about it no more because it just hurts too much;  you’ll have to follow the link for details, and more pics to drool over.

I’ll just go over to the corner and pout.

Confusion

I have mentioned before about the confusion I have with actors’ or starlets’ or celebrities; names which are either the same, or close enough for my senior-level brain to grind to a halt.

Did I ever mention the Foxes:  Julia, Megan, Emilia and Samantha?

Truth be told, I’m a little more familiar with the last-named, but only because she’s been around forever, as a Page Three Girl, a singer and (more recently) a prominent lesbianist.

  

I’ve also seen Emilia (daughter of James and sister of Laurence) in a couple of good movies.

 

But the first two?  No chance.

 

Couldn’t tell them apart with a crib note.

So whenever I see mention of “______ Fox”, my brain tries to identify which one’s the topic under discussion, and then says, “Fuck it, I’ll go and watch Othias and Mae instead.”

Actually, not a bad outcome, all things considered.

News Roundup

Today’s Roundup is sponsored (courtesy of a Reader) by the folks at:

So in that excellent school spirit, we see the following:


next up:  dildos for gradeschoolers.  You heard it here first.


...amazingly, not in Scarsdale NY, but Pakistan.

In other news:


eh, tell the old bitch to fuck off and MYOB.  She’ll be gone by December, anyway.

 
and in a related item:


so now most of the country is bizarro, according to President Braindead.


gettin’ scary out there, folks.  Time To Carry (as if we need reminding).

From the International News Desk:



for Princess Sourpuss, that’s hardly a new look.


key words:  “alcohol”, “of no fixed abode”, and “Liverpool”.  I’m amazed that she was even arrested, given the circumstances.

And speaking of Matters Sexual:


meh;  his dick, his choice of recipients.  As it should be.


don’t all rush there at the same time, or you’ll crash the page.

And from the INSIGNIFICA Files:

   


…aaahhhh, I still can’t get used to RollerGirl being over 50:

 

At any age, Bubba.

And on that deep throat thought, we end the news.

Random Totty

Longtime Readers will no doubt be aware of my fondness of statuesque / zaftig / full-figured women, so this discovery should come as no surprise to anybody.

Anyone heard of Rachel Bloom before?  Neither had I.

  

Yummy.  Also fairly intelligent, apparently.

Next: The Supremes

Oh, I like this kind of thing:

A federal appeals court upheld a Texas law that bans Big Tech from censoring speech based on political viewpoint on Friday.

House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users banning users simply based on their political viewpoints. The law also requires several consumer protection disclosures and processes related to content management on the social media sites to which the bill applies. These sites must disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, providing a reason for the removal and a review of their decision. They also must review and remove illegal content within 48 hours. House Bill 20 also prohibits email service providers from impeding the transmission of email messages based on content.

Needless to say, the Left went into full hair-on-fire mode:

The law was promptly challenged by NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association. They argued that tech companies have a First Amendment right to select and curate the content people post on their platforms. They were able to get the new law blocked, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed that decision — and won.

Fortunately, common sense and Constitutionalism prevailed.  In the judgment of the 5th Circuit:

The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering. In the platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks* could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or business. What’s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire a dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone — as Twitter did in championing itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.”…Then, having cemented itself as the monopolist of “the modern public square,”…Twitter unapologetically argues that it could turn around and ban all pro-LGBT speech for no other reason than its employees want to pick on members of that community…

The 11th Court found differently, hence it’s off to the Supremes we go.  And they can’t punt it back, because two federal appeals courts have conflicting rulings.

Let’s see what happens.


*Note how banks were specifically mentioned, which should make this little episode interesting.