Thaddeus Kosciuszko

I only became aware of Kosciuszko via kmk, but this "advice to youth" is insightful as to the means for right living:

To do honor to your family and yourself and at my recommendation, you must reread what follows every day so that it will be engraved on your memory on which your well being will depend.

Rise at four in the summer and six in the winter. Your first thoughts must be directed towards the Supreme Being; worship Him for a few minutes. Set yourself to work with reflection and intelligence, either at your prescribed duty carried out in the most scrupulous manner, or perfect yourself in some science in which you should have true mastery. Avoid lying under any circumstances in your life, but always be frank and loyal and always tell the truth. Never be idle but be sober and frugal even hard on yourself while indulgent to others. Do not be vain nor an egotist. Before speaking or answering on something, reflect and consider well in order not to lose your point and say something stupid. Never fail to give due recognition under any circumstances to the person who is in charge of your well being. Anticipate his desires and his wishes. Pay close attention with proper humility. Look for an opportunity to be useful. As you are a foreigner in the country, redouble your concern and efforts to gain trust and preference over the natives legitimately by your merit and superior knowledge. If a secret is entrusted in you, keep it religiously; in all your actions you must be upright, sincere and open; no dissimulation in your speech, do not argue but seek the truth calmly and with modesty, be polite and considerate to everyone, agreeable and obliging in society, humane and helpful to the unfortunate according to your means. Read instructive books to embellish your mind and improve your spirit. Do not degrade yourself by making bad acquaintances, but rather those with high principles and reputation thus your conduct should be such that the whole world approves it and that wherever you may be it will be considered irreproachable.

I don't know if I can get up that early, though....

Cut Shells

Found this one on Sipsey St. and bookmarked it on YT, but forgot to add it here: "The lost art of 'cut shells'"...wisdom indeed!

CZ 52

Some links on accessories for the CZ 52 that I found on a forum post:
Harrington Products - replacement firing pins, rollers, and extractors
Buymilsurp - has a section for CZ 52 parts, including all small hardware and armorer's kits
Gun Parts Warehouse - has a section for CZ 52 parts, including a slide catch with external release

Also, I found a couple unflattering forum posts that discuss the relative strength of the CZ 52 versus the TT-33, on Gunboards and THR.

Another Reason to Avoid Leather Holsters

...They can deform and catch on the trigger of a DAO pistol, as evidenced by one man's experience. Of course, as we all know, an "accidental discharge" is properly termed a negligent discharge.

Injustice Everywhere

In the vein of Codrea's "Only Ones" category except more broad, there's the site Injustice Everywhere.  There's a lot of police misconduct nationwide....

Configurable Apartment

I may need to take inspiration out of this guy's design.

USB Stick PC

The Raspberry Pi USB Stick PC beats the hell out of a OLPC!  Sign me up.

Bad Shit

This is some bad shit.  Apparently a guy needs body armor when going after thugs breaking into his house. From the commentary:

Line up those psychopath SWAT bastards and give them "something".

If someone's at my door and claims to be the cops, they'd best give me time to call 911 to confirm. Otherwise they're going to get shot when they break down my door, because I don't know if they're the police or just some ballsy scumbags yelling "police!" And of course, the no-knock variety of warrant is just an excuse for the police to murder someone: if the house belongs to a gun owner, damn right he's going to shoot at whoever kicked down his door.

The homeowner who was murdered probably realized when they kicked in the door that they were SWAT and didn't shoot, but he was pointing a gun at him so they lit him up.

Why don't cops with a search warrant just knock on the door like a civilized person would? I mean, seriously, WTF! Jackbooted thugs, indeed!

Damn, I'd better go buy me some body armor.

Update 1: Tamara K.'s take on this:

The only people skulking in my bushes and forcing my locks in the middle of the night should be soon-to-be-shot bad guys, not cops with Clouseau-like map-reading skills; I shouldn't need a scorecard to tell the masked players apart.

Then there's one anonymous comment from VftP:

It's after 5pm, you're face is blacked out, you're armed, you're kicking in my door; you're dead. If you have a badge and you enter that way...you're still dead. We'll sort all that badge shit out at the morgue.

Did Col. Cooper say this?—'cause it's awesome: "It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view."

Update 2: There's helmet-cam video from the outside, with interesting analysis from an ex-military, ex-police blogger.

BDU Sizes

Today's Sipsey St. praxis has a chart indicating equivalents for BDU sizes.