Category: Books

Backyard Ballistics: Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars, and More Dynamite Devices.

This bestselling DIY handbook now features new and expanded projects, enabling ordinary folks to construct 16 awesome ballistic devices in their garage or basement workshops using inexpensive household or hardware store materials and this step-by-step guide.

Clear instructions, diagrams, and photographs show how to build projects ranging from the simple match-powered rocket to the more complex tabletop catapult and the offbeat Cincinnati fire kite. The classic potato cannon has a new evil twin-the piezo-electric spud gun-and the electromagnetic pipe gun has joined the company of such favorites as the tennis ball mortar.

With a strong emphasis on safety, the book also gives tips on troubleshooting, explains the physics behind the projects, and profiles scientists and extraordinary experimenters such as Alfred Nobel, Robert Goddard, and Isaac Newton. This book will be indispensable for the legions of backyard toy-rocket launchers and fireworks fanatics who wish every day was the fourth of July.

 

OLD SCHOOL GUNOLOGY: Tales of Trigger Work From Past Days

These are a compilation of hunting and shooting stories that I wrote over the last 30 years or so. These are actual experiences that I or my friends had in various locations over the years. There is no fiction herein, though details may be a bit skewed due to lapses in memory. Some of the data is long out-dated and should not be relied upon, as this is only a re-telling of adventures long ago. All loading data should be gotten from modern reliable sources.

AN ICONOCLAST’S READER

We all read the Scriptures with our own particular doctrinal glasses on. We interpret what we read, consciously or sub-consciously, through those ideas we believe. Challenges to our beliefs are sometimes frightening, but are not bad, especially if they drive us to the Lord and help us see more clearly.

By the numbers: How coronavirus compares with the flu, opioid overdoses

Coronavirus comparison to the flu

Amid ever-changing models, it’s hard to put a finger on just how dangerous the coronavirus is.

We know at this point that COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — has led to more than 85,356 illnesses and more than 1,246 deaths in U.S.

For comparison, the flu has caused an estimated 38 million illnesses, 30,000 hospitalizations and 23,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…………

Coronavirus is still a moving target for researchers because it is new.  In comparison, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades and opioid overdoses for years.

The CDC says certain people have a higher risk for severe illness from coronavirus. These people include those 65 and older, those who live in a care facility, patients with chronic lung disease, people with moderate to severe asthma, those with heart diseases or complications, immunocompromised people, and those with severe obesity (body mass index equal to or greater than 40).

Also at higher risk are patients with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes, renal failure, or liver disease, according to the CDC.

More comparisons will be available after the coronavirus pandemic ends, and can more accurately be analyzed.

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting: Complete Instructional Guide

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones……..’
And ‘Cane-Fu’ is pretty good too:

“Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.” ― Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do

The best of both Eastern and Western stick fighting techniques

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting is a unique, non-style specific, approach to fighting with the short stick. Its curriculum is streamlined and divided into nine logical stages of training that allow the reader to quickly and methodically learn and develop the skills needed for fighting with the stick. Whether you are just starting out, or have been practicing stick fighting for years, there is something for everyone in this book. Also included are systematic workouts and descriptions of how to make and use specific training equipment as you learn and master The Art and Science of Stick Fighting.

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting features
Nine levels of instruction, progressing from easy to expert
Over 700 photos with motion arrows
A “nondenominational” approach to the stick, utilizing the best of Eastern and Western arts
A comprehensive, methodical approach to building stick fighting skills
This book stands apart from other stick fighting training manuals because it emphasizes the dynamics of combat. Many other books focus on forms and twirling. The author draws on thirty years of martial experience, presenting the best of both Eastern and Western traditions.

The Art and Science of Stick Fighting begins with the basics, upon which everything else relies.

A stable stance
Basic footwork
An effective guard
From there you learn different types of strikes and how to practice them in helpful, easy-to-learn patterns. The aim is to grow so comfortable wielding a stick that it is as though the stick has become an extension of your body.
Once the basics are in place, you learn the strategies and tactics of fighting with the stick at long, middle, and close range. By controlling the distance, you control the fight!

Learn important guidelines for sparring, from light contact up to full-contact training.
Learn how to construct your own padded weapons.
Learn effective fighting tips that will rev up your game.
Also included are chapters on advanced techniques; combating short ranged weapons such as a knife to long range weapons like the staff. Even detailed techniques to use when your opponent is armed but you are not!

Whether you already study the stick or are just starting out, if you want to learn how to get an edge , The Art and Science of Stick Fighting is for you!

Both new from Jim.

The Joy Of Helplessness

Difficult situations come to everyone. We each handle them in different ways. In THE JOY OF HELPLESSNESS the author points out that many times these difficulties are a door to something better. Not everything that we experience has to end with us frustrated, angry or puzzled. Perhaps there is some joy hidden in what you are going through? It would not be a bad thing to discover it.

HOW DO I HANDLE THIS?

We all have difficulties that we deal with in life, some harder than others. Often we do not know what to do in the midst of these dark times. While this little book is not The Answer, hopefully it will point the way to help us come through those difficult places.

Give Me Liberty: A History of America’s Exceptional Idea

Nationalism is inevitable: It supplies feelings of belonging, identity, and recognition. It binds us to our neighbors and tells us who we are. But increasingly — from the United States to India, from Russia to Burma — nationalism is being invoked for unworthy ends: to disdain minorities or to support despots. As a result, nationalism has become to many a dirty word.
In Give Me Liberty, award-winning historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser offers up a truer and more inspiring story of American nationalism as it has evolved over four hundred years. He examines America’s history through thirteen documents that made the United States a new country in a new world: a free country. We are what we are because of them; we stay true to what we are by staying true to them.
Americans have always sought liberty, asked for it, fought for it; every victory has been the fulfillment of old hopes and promises. This is our nationalism, and we should be proud of it.

 

The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free

It is one of our most honored clichés that America is an idea and not a nation. This is false. America is indisputably a nation, and one that desperately needs to protect its interests, its borders, and its identity.

The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump swept nationalism to the forefront of the political debate. This is a good thing. Nationalism is usually assumed to be a dirty word, but it is a foundation of democratic self-government and of international peace.

National Review editor Rich Lowry refutes critics on left and the right, reclaiming the term “nationalism” from those who equate it with racism, militarism and fascism. He explains how nationalism is an American tradition, a thread that runs through such diverse leaders as Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ronald Reagan.

In The Case for Nationalism, Lowry explains how nationalism was central to the American Project. It fueled the American Revolution and the ratification of the Constitution. It preserved the country during the Civil War. It led to the expansion of the American nation’s territory and power, and eventually to our invaluable contribution to creating an international system of self-governing nations.

It’s time to recover a healthy American nationalism, and especially a cultural nationalism that insists on the assimilation of immigrants and that protects our history, civic rituals and traditions, which are under constant threat. At a time in which our nation is plagued by self-doubt and self-criticism, The Case for Nationalism offers a path for America to regain its national self-confidence and achieve continued greatness.

Joy in the Wilderness

Of course, we know what transpired 4 years ago.

Twyla;
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Requiescat in pace.
Amen.

In 2010 Jim and Twyla Taylor sold their small farm in Missouri, resigned the pastorate of the church where they had been for twenty years, sold most of their possessions, said goodbye to their family and friends, and moved halfway around the world to the nation of Mozambique, Africa.

There, in one of the poorer nations of the world, they began a new life.What would cause someone to leave everything they are familiar with and move from a comfortable life to the challenges of living in the Developing World?

As you follow their journey you will get a glimpse into the experience of making such a decision. You will also see what it is like to build a life in the Third World. And you will share in some of the many adventures they had. From visiting villages that white people had never visited to traveling bush trails and meeting some of the most beautiful people in the world, you will get a behind-the-scenes look at missionary life as it is lived day to day.

It is Jim’s prayer that some of you who have been feeling the urge to “go” will see that stepping out and actually doing it can be the adventure of a lifetime!

Gun Mania: A New Perspective – What We Must Do to Reduce Shootings, Homicides and Suicides in America

My strategy is that what gun a person owns is immaterial. People should be able to possess whatever gun they can afford. It’s what they do with the gun that they should be held accountable for. I think I’m going to buy this one and do a review of it.

Gun Mania: A New Perspective – What We Must Do to Reduce Shootings, Homicides and Suicides in America is now available in print and e-book formats. In it, Bruce D. Thatcher examines the historical reasons why guns are a core element of America’s culture, why guns are not significant in the cultures of other developed nations, and policy implications for reduction of gun-related and other homicides and suicides in America.

When confronted with gun-related deaths, many want guns to be the problem. They’re easy to see.  Dealing with them should be simple and fast; just pass new laws to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them … or from everyone. However, this approach hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t work in America.

Thatcher says, “How can we reduce death and injury caused by guns?” is the wrong question. A much better question is “how can we reduce the overall rates of suicide and violent crime?”
Gun Mania brings that question to the forefront by looking at the history of America and four other nations to identify why guns are a core element of only the American culture, and implications for reducing our rate of violent deaths.
The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were all settled and developed, initially, by migrants from the United Kingdom.
But key differences in the development circumstances led to guns becoming a core cultural element only in America.
Because guns are not significant in the cultures of these other countries, they have been able to implement substantial gun control. Because guns are a core element of the American culture, the sorts of gun measures that have been accepted in the other four countries generally will not work in America.
When confronted with the problem of gun deaths, many want guns to be the problem.
They’re easy to see. Dealing with them should be simple and fast; just pass new laws to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them, or from everyone.
However, this approach hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t work in America. A different strategy has far more potential for saving lives.

Good Guys with Guns

Good Guys with Guns highlights self-defense stories where people used a firearm to defend themselves and others from violent criminals and the impact it had on their lives. The book also discusses the debate over the right to keep and bear arm

excerpt:
Here’s a challenge. Using your favorite Internet search engine, type in the words “No charges were filed” and see what happens. When the authors did this as part of our research, using Google we were advised that there were 925 million results.

Or try “No charges were filed in shooting” and one will find a more modest 30 million references. Even considering that there will be a multitude of repeat reports dealing with the same incidents, you are still talking about millions of self-defense uses of firearms. Some of these cases are intriguing and involve armed private citizens, while many involve police officers shooting suspects.

THE ARDENNES:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.

During most of the eleven months between D-day and V-E day in Europe, the U S Army was carrying on highly successful offensive operations As a consequence, the American soldier was buoyed with success, imbued with the idea that his enemy could not strike him a really heavy counterblow, and sustained by the conviction that the war was nearly won. Then, unbelievably, and under the goad of Hitler’s fanaticism, the German Army launched its powerful counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944 with the design of knifing through the Allied armies and forcing a negotiated peace.

The mettle of the American soldier was tested in the fires of adversity and the quality of his response earned for him the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with his forebears of Valley Forge, Fredericksburg, and the Marne.

This is the story of how the Germans planned and executed their offensive.
It is the story of how the high command, American and British, reacted to defeat the German plan once the reality of a German offensive was accepted.
But most of all it is the story of the American fighting man and the manner in which he fought a myriad of small defensive battles until the torrent of the German attack was slowed and diverted, its force dissipated and finally spent.
It is the story of squads, platoons, companies, and even conglomerate scratch groups that fought with courage, with fortitude, with sheer obstinacy, often without information or communications or the knowledge of the whereabouts of friends. In less than a fortnight the enemy was stopped and the Americans were preparing to resume the offensive.
While Bastogne has become the symbol of this obstinate, gallant, and successful defense, this work appropriately emphasizes the crucial significance of early American success in containing the attack by holding firmly on its northern and southern shoulders and by upsetting the enemy timetable at St. Vith and a dozen lesser known but important and decisive battlefields

All Secure: A Special Operations Soldier’s Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront

One of the most highly regarded Tier One Delta Force operators in American military history shares his war stories and personal battle with PTSD.
As a senior non-commissioned officer of Delta Force, the most elite and secretive special operations unit in the U.S. military, Command Sergeant Major Tom Satterly fought some of this country’s most fearsome enemies. Over the course of twenty years and thousands of missions, he’s fought desperately for his life, rescued hostages, killed and captured terrorist leaders, and seen his friends maimed and killed around him.

All Secure is in part Tom’s journey into a world so dark and dangerous that most Americans can’t contemplate its existence. It recounts what it is like to be on the front lines with one of America’s most highly trained warriors. As action-packed as any fiction thriller, All Secure is an insider’s view of “The Unit.”
Tom is a legend even among other Tier One special operators. Yet the enemy that cost him three marriages, and ruined his health physically and psychologically, existed in his brain. It nearly led him to kill himself in 2014; but for the lifeline thrown to him by an extraordinary woman it might have ended there. Instead, they took on Satterly’s most important mission-saving the lives of his brothers and sisters in arms who are killing themselves at a rate of more than twenty a day.
Told through Satterly’s firsthand experiences, it also weaves in the reasons-the bloodshed, the deaths, the intense moments of sheer terror, the survivor’s guilt, depression, and substance abuse-for his career-long battle against the most insidious enemy of all: Post Traumatic Stress. With the help of his wife, he learned that by admitting his weaknesses and faults he sets an example for other combat veterans struggling to come home.

“The Greatest Failure is the Failure to Try.” Tom Satterly CSM(Ret)

September 2004 Yusufiyah, Iraq

The Blackhawk helicopter hovered in the dark above the house on the outskirts of Baghdad while eighteen Unit operators slid down ropes forty feet to the roof. The small arms fire my troop and helos had been taking since our arrival a few minutes earlier intensified as the last man landed and joined the others.

Directing the assault from a field thirty meters north of the target house, I watched through my night vision goggles as the aircraft began to pull up and away. At that moment, above the fierce barking of assault rifles and machine guns, I heard the all-too-familiar whoosh and saw the red trail of an RPG as it was launched skyward.

The grenade struck the Blackhawk on its rotor blades and exploded. The elite Night Stalker pilots had been through it before and knew they wouldn’t make it to back to base. They aimed for a field five hundred meters from the house to put the injured bird down.

The Blackhawk hit hard but remained upright, intact, and didn’t burst into flames. But the pilot and crew immediately came under heavy fire from the enemy who were running in all directions from the house.

I thought, “here we go again.” Just thinking of the words, I was about to radio over the command station sent a chill through me. “We have a Blackhawk down!”