Sailing speed record

Sixty-five knots! In a sailboat!

That is just incredible.

Looks Like Even New Yorkers are Willing to Fight Back.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for those who didn't prepare (They had how many days notice?) but it is good to see that there is some spirt of resistance still left even in NYC.

Queens residents arm themselves in the post-storm blackout from looters

When night falls in the Rockaways, the hoods come out.

Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend against looters.

Read the rest here

Obama's Ring

I have no love for El Presidente but this flap about his wedding ring appears to be crap. I am not an expert but a blowup from a high resolution photo (available from gettyimages) doesn't look at all like Arabic script.

There are plenty of reason to throw the bum out but this just tars his opponents with the stupid brush. Jeez, did the TSA infiltrate the WingNut Daily?

The Chemists War

For those who can pass off the deaths of thousands of Mexicans as collateral damage in the War on Guns/War on Drugs, here is a little walk down memory lane. Fast and Furious -- also know as "Gunwalker" -- wasn't the first time the US Government has engineered the death of thousands in the pursuit of a social goal.

The Chemists War.

Although mostly forgotten today, the "chemist's war of Prohibition" remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was "our national experiment in extermination."

Read the rest here

H/T to Sipsey Street Irregulars

This is Just too Cute for Words.

And it really beats the heck out of Honey Boo Boo.

(Picture links to a site that may not be safe for work)

Voula Papachristou

I normally pay about as much attention the Olympics these days as I do the Acadmey Awards -- that is not at all. I came out of that shell for a few minutes today and discovered that Voula Papachristou has been dropped from her country's team because of a allegedly "racist" joke she made on Twitter. Translated it was:

"With so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food!!!"

WTF? That isn't even in particularly poor taste so I dug a bit more (meaning I plugged her name into some search engines and followed the bunny trails). It seems that Ms. Papachristou has shown some sympathy for the Golden Dawn Party in Greece. Perceived as being "far-right" and "nationalist" the party is very much in disfavor with the ruling classes. Perhaps wishing to divert negative press for their part in the meltdown of the EU, the Greek state decided to take advantage of Ms. Papachristou's very minor gaffe and throw her under the bus.

I do think she was badly mistreated by her government. What she did hardly deserves removal from a place she worked very hard to get to. Still, her removal from the team does demonstrate that the Olympic Games are not about the athletes. No more now than they were in 1936 when the Nazis tried to use them to demonstrate the superiority of the "Aryan Race" (whatever in the hell that is). They were and still are about the glory of the state.

Thougts on the Shooting in Aurora, CO.

First, it is not a "tragedy". Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. What happened in Aurora was an atrocity.

Second, I am hearing anti-gunners yet again floating one of their eternal question, "Why does anyone need <fill in you favorite evil gun or feature>?

OK, I used to be try and be reasonable with them. I tried to explain why a certain "evil" gun can be a rational choice. Then I figured out they don't want an answer. It was like debunking the Creationists on the old Talk.Origins. No matter how often someone explained it to one, he just backed off for while and came back later with the same line of bullshit

Life to short to waste it on idiots so now, in my dotage, I'm going to just give the short answer: It has nothing to do with "need". It's about what I want and it is none of your fucking business why I want it.

In a sane world, there is no reason why I have to justify my choices to you. I don't have to give you a reason why I use Linux instead of Windows or a Mac. I don't have to explain why I drink Southern Comfort or Jack Daniels nor explain why I don't drink Rum or Tequila. I don't have to justify to you the sex or number of people I sleep with. It is none of your business what kind of guns I own or how many rounds each will fire before reloading.

I hope that is clear enough.

Revolver Malfunctions

Four part series of posts from Grant Cunningham -- the man who wrote the book on revolvers

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four.

Target Shooters Causing Fires?

Some of the recent wildfires are being blamed on target shooting. I'm sure the antis will try to use those fires as an excuse to further restrict gun rights. That is what they do and, in that, are as predictable as a dog going after a hamburger. Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of irresponsible gun owners out there helping the antis advance their cause.

I don't know why it so hard for some people to understand that steel jacketed bullets can cause fires. Iron is pyrophoric and the small particles generated by an impact with a hard surface will ignite spontaneously in air. The phenomena is well known to chemists, firemen, and anyone who has used a flint and steel.

Copper and lead are safer but caution is still necessary. Both metals are also pyrophoric but are more difficult to ignite because the oxide scale is not as brittle as that for iron. Impacts on steel plates will generate sparks if the copper jacket fragments are small enough.

It occured to me as I was typing the above that Utah was called a "red" state even before the infamous map from the 2000 election. This is because of color of the hematite rich rock and concretions in its deserts. Hematite is iron oxide and the small particles generated by an impact will ignite spontaneously in air. So Utah deserts may be at a higher risk of bullet induced fires under drought conditions.

Jeez, people. Let's be careful out there.

Progress Report for America

On this Independence Day you might want to read How are we doin'? by Vin Suprynowicz. I think he aptly summarizes the feelings of a large number of people

How are we doing, safeguarding those “unalienable Rights” with which we are “endowed by our Creator” — in support of which 56 patriots solemnly pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred Honor, 236 years ago?

We remain free by many measures. Americans can still pretty much live where we want, work where we want, drive where we want. In fact, for women and racial minorities, many of those liberties have expanded, compared to 70 years ago. We can all be proud of that.

But the average urban American can be excused for sensing the police state now constricts like a boa around many of our remaining freedoms.

Read the rest here.

More Commentary on the Zimmerman Case by Marty Hayes.

From the July 2012 Newsletter of the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network.

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13

Hayes summarizes the statements made by Zimmerman after the shooting and covers how the media may be distorting the story. He also points out out how the the prosecution behavior in the case indicates the state may be out to get Zimmerman in any way possible.

The penultimate paragraph is instructive,

Lastly, as I write this, there has been another bond hearing to see if the judge would again grant bail for Zimmerman. The prosecution argued strenuously that they believed Zimmerman was the initial aggressor in the incident, and that at trial, Zimmerman would not have the right to claim self defense as a defense to the crime of second degree murder. In making this statement, the prosecution pretty much agreed that Zimmerman had the right to use deadly force because he was being assaulted, but they claim that because he started the altercation, he doesn’t have the right to claim self defense

Looks like the prosecution's strategy is to admit that Martin was beating on Zimmerman but try to get the judge to disallow a claim of self defense under the so-called Stand Your Ground law because Zimmerman started it. I don't know if Zimmerman, in his zeal to be a good citizen and help out law enforcement, told the cops enough to make the above strategy viable. That remains to be seen but, if he did, it is just one more example of why an honest citizen should tell the cops no more than absolutely necessary.

Always remember that anything you say can and will be taken out of context, reworded, remixed, and then used against you.

A Flaming Shotgun

Wielded, it appears by a flaming idiot.

Giant Wildfire Started During Bachelor Party

JULY 2---The largest wildfire burning in Arizona was started during a bachelor party when one shotgun-toting celebrant fired a shell that promises to shoot “100 feet of fire, setting everything in its path ablaze,” The Smoking Gun has learned.

The Sunflower Fire--which has burned nearly 18,000 acres of the Tonto National Forest and is not fully contained--began in mid-May after five Arizona men gathered to celebrate the upcoming May 19 nuptials of Bryan Reeder. The group--all in their mid-20s--traveled from Mesa to the Sycamore Creek area for a weekend “campout and bachelor party,” according to court records.

Note to future idiots with a shotgun. If you're the type of fool that is tempted to shoot an incendiary round into dry brush, do the rest of the world a favor and shoot yourself in the head instead. That way the rest of the world can get a good laugh at your expense and you are less likely to pass your pathetic, defective genes on to future generations.

Miami Face Eater not a "Bath Salt" Zombie.

The toxicology results for the Miami Face Eater were released today. The only drug found in his system was marijuana.

Face-Eating Attacker Had Only Taken Marijuana

The Miami police and their fellow travelers in the media were quick to link this attack with a designer drugs known as "Bath Salts". Now the truth is known maybe the media will find another cause du jour.

I'm a wimp when if comes to intoxicants. The most powerful recreational drugs I use are Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels. I have a prescription for Vicodin ES but that is for gout not for fun. So I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to the illegal drug scene.

It seems to me the the guy making these designer drugs are damned good chemists. In a civilized world they would be working in a laboratory somewhere doing something useful like discovering the next generation of antibiotics or inventing a cure for politics. Instead the huge profits from the black market in drugs allows thugs to hire these guys to design new ways to get high.

Where is the sense in that?

People want their intoxicants. Just as I like a to have a drink in the evenings, some people want to smoke a joint or snort cocaine. I think the only reason synthetic marijuana and bath salts exist is because the damnfools in government keep actual marijuana and pharmaceutical grade narcotics tightly controlled. Decades of watching the government fight the drugged war have inevitably led this reasonably sane author to this realization:

If people cannot get unadulterated and known dosages they will buy something cooked up by smart, educated semi-underground chemists. Take you pick.

Or, I guess, we could turn the whole business over to the Mexican cartels.

Welcome to the Party, Pal!

I'm a little late to this party but, apparently, the blogosphere was briefly abuzz with opinions on this article by Gabe Suarez. A choice quote:

When I was on SWAT our view is that "We will always win....even if we have to burn down your entire house by bombing it....we will win". Losing is not an option. That again is reality....to expect less once the event kicks off is simply stupid. Period.

Read the whole thing for yourself then ask, does it really have any new information in it? Be honest now.

Sure he admits we live under a condition any rational, sane person would call a police state but that is not much of a revelation.

Sure it certainly looks like Mr Suarez likes living in such a state but I think anyone who has read his writing on social issues will not find that particularly surprising.

Even his solution is nothing new. With the deleted parts put back in, it goes something like this:

1. Get a job
2. Make money
3. Pay taxes. A police state is expensive to maintain
4. Get a nice home where police activity is not needed
5. Make more money because the police state is even more expensive than you thought and we need the taxes
6. Find a nice girl
7. Marry her
8. Make babies and raise them up to be the next generation of taxpayers because the cost of a police state only goes up

In return the state will let you live in relative peace. If you live long enough it may let you retire for a short while before you die. If you are really good, it will even let you keep few guns so you can pretend you are free.

As long as you continue paying those taxes.

If you can't pay your "fair" share, well, then of what use are you to the state? A drain on resources better used to pay for booze, drugs, hookers and little boy whores. Sure a few of you "useless eaters" will be hurt or killed without any moral justification but at least the enforcers will get the opportunity to sharpen their killing skills. You can die, comforted by the knowledge that your death will serve as a warning to the taxpayers of what their future will be like if they stop paying.

Nothing new here.

Edit:

I found the following in a post on Suarez's Christian Warrior Ministries blog entitled Spiritual Warfare. Not directly related but does make me want to say, "Hmmmmm".

Being a bold Christian means, as much as you are able, defending the faith, standing up for Christ, challenging false teachers, using the tools of this earth to defend the faith and promote the spread of the Gospel.

Brave

La Esposa and I just saw it this weekend. We both enjoyed it.

It is basic Disney fare with the princess coming-of-age but there were a few twists that make a different story from previous tales: Merida (the heroine) is not Cinderella. All the basic elements are there except it was the Princess who saves the day and she does it by growing up some not by falling into the overused stereotype of most Disney princess movies. I liked that.

The action sequences were well directed and the script had everything it needed and nothing it didn't. One thing I appreciated was that the king, Fergus, was a both loving father and a uxorious husband without coming across as a wimp or a buffoon.

Now if only Pixar would take on an animated version of The Stealer of Souls.

Immumerancy on the Internet

In a blog post by Andrew Tuohy entitled Revolvers Are Not Perfect, Or, The Problem With Revolver Fanatics I learned that thinking the revolver is still a relevant fighting tool and in private sector self defense is sometimes superior to the autoloader makes me insane.

I would urge anyone who still believes, in the 21st century, that revolvers are superior to automatics as defensive or fighting handguns to strongly consider the facts about revolvers and the state of automatic pistols today. Also, you're insane.

That is a serious accusation. Insane people are generally considered not mentally fit to own much less carry a firearms. It is possible that the last sentence is just empty rhetoric by Mr Tuohy intended to drive traffic to his blog. On the other hand he may actually mean what he wrote. I'll leave it the reader to decide if was hyperbole or honesty.

Normally, I ignore jokers like that. IF Mr.Tuohy want to think I am insane well I am equally free to think him incredibly stupid and ignorant. However, just as a broken tooth draws the tongue, I found myself reading the damn comments. A few posters tried to defend the revolver's relevance but, face it, that is an exercise in futility. Someone who considers you insane has already created the perfect excuse to ignore any evidence you might present.

Nevertheless I continued to yield to my inner masochist and read on until I came across a comment that really is -- well -- the word "stupider" comes to mind. The part that really bothered me is this:

I tried to attach a bunch of statistics online (mostly are police related shootings), and you are correct in that most engagements are around 3 rounds. But also over 3/4 of those are against people that were not shooting. Once officers were on the 2-way range, and being shot at their hit percentage goes down to 13% (NY Times), basic math will tell you that statistically that is zero hits from a 5-6 shot revolver, let alone a killing shot

OK, people like to toss out statistics. Most people who use statistics to "prove" things usually just display their ignorance. This guy is using them so badly, however, he is flaunting it.

Perhaps I am insane but I also remember my sophomore statistics and the binominial distribution. It is not really hard to use and every spreadsheet for the past decade or so can do it for you so you don't even need to remember the formula. Perhaps since it was first described in the 17th Century it is also too old and outdated to be relevant in the modern world.

Anyways, for a constant hit probability of 13%, the odds of making least X hits in N shots can be calculated by a simple binomial distribution and the cumulative probability.

In percent:

	Minumum number of hits
Number of shots	1	2	3
1	13	0	0
2	24	2	0
3	34	5	0
4	43	8	1
5	50	13	2
6	57	18	3
7	62	23	5
8	67	28	7
9	71	33	10
10	75	38	13
11	78	43	16
12	81	47	20
13	84	52	23
14	86	56	27
15	88	60	31
16	89	63	35
17	91	67	38
18	92	70	42
19	93	73	46
20	94	75	49

So the real statistic for at least one hit is not zero percent as alleged but 50% for five shots and 57% for six.

Man Shoots Self Through Head with Spear Gun.

Really

I once was given some good advice about always keeping a gun pointed in a generally safe direction. "Generally safe" meaning that, should the gun unintentionally discharge, it will not harm me or another person. It is not clear from the article just who shot whom but I'm pretty sure it happened because someone did something stupid.

As proof that the gods really do favor fools,

And miraculously, the three-foot shaft somehow missed every major blood vessel in the brain and pierced the right, not left side of his brain, sparing his speech.

"His words are actually, amazingly easy to understand," Bullock said. "He can, for example, he says he's not having pain. He's worried about the fact he can't use his left-side properly."

Fortunately a neurosurgeon was able to remove the shaft from the brain. Too bad common sense cannot be injected as easily as a spearhead.

Two from Greg Ellifritz

A couple of good articles by Greg Ellifritz over at Active Response Training

The first covers ways to conceal a weapon using a shopping bag and how to spot it.

The Bag Trick…how to easily conceal a weapon in public

The second briefly covers the use of a cane as a weapon. As an older specimen of humanity I can appreciate this article.

Can a walking cane be an effective weapon?

Depraved sex acts by penguins.

Rape! Homosexuality! Necrophilia!

I just knew there as something wrong with those cute little birds.

Accounts of unusual sexual activities among penguins, observed a century ago by a member of Captain Scott's polar team, are finally being made public.

Details, including "sexual coercion", recorded by George Murray Levick were considered so shocking that they were removed from official accounts.

However, scientists now understand the biological reasons behind the acts that Dr Levick considered "depraved".

The Natural History Museum has published his unedited papers.

Read the rest here

The Treeby "Chain Gun"

This is really just too cool to pass up. A muzzle loading, percussion cap fired, belt fed rifle. Built in 1854.

H/T to Grant Cunningham at The Revolver Liberation Alliance

Dumb Down Under

The Australian Olympic swimmers, Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk, stopped at a gun shop reportedly in Santa Clara, California. There the evil gun virus infected their brains and prompted them to be photographed inexpertly holding firearms.

Monk posted the image to his Facebook page.

Predictably, Swimming Australia and Gun Control Australia immediately started pissing in the pool. Swimming Australia demanded the picture be removed from Facebook. GCA spokeshole John Crook called it a new low commenting, "If ever there was a photo of two kids playing macho boys this is it."

Australian Olympic swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk pose with guns in Facebook photo

Wow! A couple of healthy males posing with guns. Are Australians now afraid of photographs? I suppose the pair will be sent to a re-education camp to have their attitude adjusted to be more in line with what the ruling class in Australia wants it to be.

H/T to David Codrea over at The War on Guns

See also: Australian Olympic swimmers in hot water after gun photo

Well, Crap!

I just saw over on Drudge that Ray Bradbury is dead at only 91 years old.

Along with Heinlein and Asimov, Bradbury was one of the most important influences on my misspent youth. I still think his tale of the automated house in "There Will Come Soft Rains" (PDF) is the most powerful contrast between hope and despair in the nuclear age ever written.

Ave Atque Vale.

A Lesson From The Zimmerman Case.

In an article posted over at the Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network, the author, Marty Hayes, discusses the recent evidence dump from the Zimmerman Case in Florida.

• Pg 5-Zimmerman Case
• Pg 6-Zimmerman Case
• Pg 7-Zimmerman Case

In addition to the strengths and weaknesses of the case he mentions that the autopsy on Trayvon Martin found "soot and stippling" near the entry wound and what the implications of that might be.

There is more evidence adding to the validity of Zimmerman’s story. There was soot and stippling on Martin’s body at the wound’s entry point. This indicates a close gunshot. Some reports say 2 to 4 inches; some estimates extend the distance out to 16 inches.

At 2 to 4 inches it would be pretty clear that Zimmerman fired from nearly contact distance which is consistent with his story that Martim was beating on him when the fatal shot was fired.  A 16 inch distance might be a little harder to defend because a prosecutor could argue that Martin was trying to disengage when he was shot.

How to settle it?

To firmly establish the likely distance the gun was from Martin’s chest, the defense needs to conduct ballistic tests with the gun, firing the same type of ammunition through a sweatshirt against a test surface to record the stippling pattern.

The lab will try to get samples of the ammunition from the same lot or, failing that, from a lot the manufacturer can certify as being identical.  The ammunition will then be tested under conditions that simulate the alleged conditions and possible distances.  From that, the actual distance the shot was fired at can be more accurately estimated.

What makes this testing possible is the existence of the careful records and the "exemplars" from each lot that some ammunition manufacturers keep. More importantly, these records are presumed to be unbiased. While the same kind of testing can be down on reloaded ammunition, it would be difficult to get it admitted into evidence precisely because the record are not unbiased. Even if it was admitted, the prosecution could argue to the jury that the handloads tested cannot be assured the same what was used in the actual shooting thereby casting doubt on any defense claims that rely on forensic data related to the ammunition used.

I know that the choice of what ammunition to carry is a contentious issue. The fervor in caliber wars approaches the religious and which brand and bullet type within a caliber are like unto interdenominational squabbles. The argument over carrying factory ammunition versus handloads is no less acrimonious.

If you choose to carry a gun for self defense I won't tell you what to carry or what kind of ammunition to use in it -- we each are entitled to our own mistakes. I do encourage you to remember that the thug you may have to shoot is a less dangerous and less implacable foe than a legal system that may want to make an example of you for political purposes.

H/T to Grant Cunningham at The Revolver Liberation Alliance

This is Just Plain Weird.

Just last night I was explaining to my wife that I don't really believe in zombies. They are just a metaphor (or sometimes a joke) for those bad people who, given the chance, will do bad things to decent people.

Then something like this happens:

Naked man killed by Police near MacArthur Causeway was 'eating:' face off victim

According to police sources, a road ranger saw a naked man chewing on another man’s face and shouted on his loud speaker for him to back away.Meanwhile, a woman also saw the incident and flagged down a police officer who was in the area.

The officer, who has not been identified, approached and, seeing what was happening, also ordered the naked man to back away. When he continued the assault, the officer shot him, police sources said. The attacker failed to stop after being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots.

Video of News Reports are upon You Tube:

The Night the Lights Went Out in Detroit.

A lot of "preppers" seem to think that TEOTWAWKI will happen fast. They will go to sleep one day in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood and wake up the next morning in a third world cesspool. Aside from a natural disaster that is not how it happens and those are temporary disruptions anyways -- not the end of Life As We Know It. Civilizations fall apart slowly and it takes generations for it to happen. Most people don't even know what the early stages look like (read Heinlein for some insights into that) but when the lights start going out it's a good bet that the shivas are in the home stretch and sprinting toward the finish line.

Half of Detroit’s Streetlights May Go Out as City Shrinks

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

Other U.S. cities have gone partially dark to save money, among them Colorado Springs; Santa Rosa, California; and Rockford, Illinois. Detroit’s plan goes further: It would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco combined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles (96 square kilometers), according to city planners.

A good sign the so-called "leaders" in the affected areas are unable or unwilling to stop the collapse is when they decide to use shortages of services and goods to control the population.

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

The final collapse is still not going to happen over night but in some places the nights between now and then are going to be darker and more dangerous.

Fucking Governments.

Granny Got Her Gun, Then Went to Jail

Report from myfoxdetroit

I am pretty sure there is more to this story than meets the eye. My first impression is that this woman is seriously disturbed but the police did not hold her and did not confiscate her P22. That leads me to suspect that there may be something to her story about harassment and police indifference.

In any case the news report was surprisingly neutral.

REVOLVERS: Boring, Antiquated, & Stupid

Courtesy of the TheYankeeMarshal.

I especially like the advice about not going out with the prettiest girl in school. It may be just the aftereffects of the anesthesia (I had a wisdom tooth removed today) but I imagined Sean Connery's voice telling me, "Losers always whine about doing their best. The man with a revolver finishes the job, calmly reloads, then goes home and fucks the prom queen."

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day -- Again

I didn't have time to create anything new for this year so I'm just going to post my favorite past offering again:

Prediction my Ass!

Barhardt is making a big deal* -- again -- of "Communist-Homosexualist Infiltration" (My, doesn't that sound evil?) of the Catholic Church. It is mostly just a collection of the half-baked raving I've come to expect from her but as one of her "proofs" she cites the Second Secret of Fatima making a big deal of the "prohecies" therein. She asks:

How did three children know the name of the next pope, who wouldn’t even be elected and thus given the name "Pius XI" five years before the fact? How did three children foresee and date World War II?

The so-called miracle at Fatima happened in 1917 while WWI was already raging so predicting its end is not too remarkable. Wars come and then they go. Similarly, predicting the beginning of another war (assumed to be WWII) is not exactly evidence of precognition.

How about that part about predicitng the name of of a future Pope. OK, that could be a real prophecy. Pope Pius XI (born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti) did not ascend to the Papacy until 1922 -- almost five year after the alledged miracle.

Wow!

Of course, if you are one of the half dozen people in the world who read this blog you know there is catch here. This one is simple: The Second Secret wasn't written until 1941. Every "prediction" it contains happened before the the "secret" was revealed.

Just how gullible does she think we are? In reality, any prophecy in the letters were postdiction made after the fact.

*Sorry, no link but it was posted on April 28, 2012 at 10:05 PM MST. Just in case you want to search it out.

Overreaction.

Toy grenade prompts NYC office building evacuation

The police bomb squad was called to 2 World Financial Center in lower Manhattan at midday when a security guard reported a package that seemed suspicious. Brookfield Properties, which runs the property, ordered an evacuation as a precaution.

I'm sure you've seen one. In fact, you can buy them on Amazon

Even if the grenade had been real what could it have realistically destroyed? It makes no sense to evacuate an entire building for a threat that encompasses the mail room at most. Everyone in a forty-four floor building was evacuated for 90 minutes in response to a room sized threat.

Follow Up Report on Alliant 300MP

Back in October, I did a post on Alliant's new 300MP powder in a carbine. Those values were for the low end of the recommended load range. Last month I was able to get to a range where I could set up a chronograph so I tested loads at the high end of the range.

• Gun = Marlin 1894C 18.5" barrel
• Bullet = Hornady 158 gr XTP/FP
• Case = Starline 357 magnum
• Primer = Winchester Small Pistol
• Powder = Alliant 300 MP
• Ambient temperature = 88F (prox)

Charge Weight	Average	Standard Deviation	Minimum	Maximum	Spread
18.0	1,839	4	1,846	1,836	10
18.2	1,853	7	1,844	1,859	15
18.4	1,854	10	1,870	1,841	29

At 18.2 gr -- still 0.4 gr below the maximum recommend charge for 158 gr jacketed bullets -- the XTP slugs were clocking as fast or faster than any commercial ammunition I've tested so far except for the Buffalo Bore 19C. Since Tim Sundles must be in league with the devil I don't really feel too bad about that.

I think I have found my new go to powder for 357 magnum in the 1894C.

Gay Student Suspended for Having a Taser

Gay Ind. teen had stun gun to ward off school bullies, now he's suspended

(CBS) INDIANAPOLIS - A gay Indiana teen whose mother gave him a stun gun to defend himself against bullies is facing expulsion for bringing the weapon to school and reportedly firing it into the air.

Firing a single shot weapon into the air is probably not the best tactic. However, it did work and success counts for a lot in a self-defense encounter. Nevertheless a mild rebuke is in order for lapse of good judgement.

Of course, the Principal of the school, instead of good advice and some common sense, comes up with this particular bit of stupidity:

Arsenal Tech principal Larry Yarrell says that Young is a flamboyant dresser and that school staff had been trying to get him to "tone down" his accessories.

OK, Principal Yarrel, What's next? You going to tell the next girl that get's raped it's her fault because she wore "provocative" clothing?

The inmates really are in charge of the asylum -- or at least in charge of schools in Indiana.

Rob Pincus on the Compact 1911

H/T to The Truth about Guns.

Grant Cunnningham also has some commentary on the subject.

My comments

A full-sized 1911 was one of my first handguns. I bought it largely on the recommendation of the experts writing for the the gun magazines. I finally got to where I could shoot it reasonably well but I never did -- and still do not -- care much for them.

I finally sold that first 1911 and bought a Glock. Once again because I listened to the experts who touted its high capacity and light weight. I sold that gun a year or so later. The Glock was far more reliable than the 1911 but about the same time I was starting to shoot DA revolvers -- a Ruger Security Six and a S&W Model 14 were my first two. Frankly, by comparison, the Glock was coitus interruptus but the 1911 was erectile dysfunction.

I still have a full-size Kimber I picked up cheap and a Spanish made 1911 clone I picked up even cheaper. I put maybe 100 rounds a year through each just to give me an excuse to clean and inspect them. I keep them to trade off when the SHTF.

Convert an IP Address Range into CIDR Notation

While looking for a way to convert a range of IP addresses to CIDR notation, I came across a really neat Perl module on CPAN. It is called Net::CIDR.

Among other thigs, the module converts IP addressed given as a range such as 216.117.192.0 - 216.117.223.255 into CIDR notation:

216.117.192.0/19

It even works if the address range is not a single block (quite common with the whois servers run by spam friendly ISP's). For example 216.117.192.0 - 216.117.254.255 converts to:

216.117.192.0/19
216.117.224.0/20
216.117.240.0/21
216.117.248.0/22
216.117.252.0/23
216.117.254.0/24

---

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use Net::CIDR;

# snarf lines from STDIN
my @rlist = ();
foreach my $line (<STDIN>) {
  chomp $line;
  next unless $line;
  
  push @rlist,$line;
}

# convert to CIDR notation
foreach my $line (Net::CIDR::range2cidr(@rlist)) {
  print $line . "\n";
}

---

If you want the output sorted by IP address pipe the output from the above program through the sort command:

sort -n -t '.' -k 1,1 -k 2,2 -k 3,3 -k 4,4

Eye for an Eye?

By now anyone not living under a bridge has heard of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. Now the "New Black Panthers" are offering $10,000 for the "capture" of George Zimmerman.

New Black Panther leader Mikhail Muhammad announced the reward during a protest in Sanford Saturday. And when asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad replied defiantly: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

It seems to me that an eye-for-eye eventualy leads to lots of blind people. Similarly, a tooth-for-a-tooth mentality leaves a lot of people gumming their morning mush. I wonder if the fool quoted above remembers just who will be King in his country of the toothless blind.

Just When You Thought it was Safe to Fly Again.

An engineer shows how easy it is to defeat the new whole body scanners.

$1B of TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog — How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners

H/T to Wendy McElroy

In Time of War

Jonathon Turley writing for Foreign Policy reports on a presentation by Eric Holder defending the claim the President has the authority to kill any US citizen he considers a threat.

On Monday, March 5, Northwestern University School of Law was the location of an extraordinary scene for a free nation. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder presented President Barack Obama's claim that he has the authority to kill any U.S. citizen he considers a threat. It served as a retroactive justification for the slaying of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki last September by a drone strike in northeastern Yemen, as well as the targeted killings of at least two other Americans during Obama's term.

Read the rest here

If you are one of those smart enough to find your way to this blog you are probably smart enough to know this is a bad idea on several levels. Holder is invoking the ancient principle of "Inter arma enim silent lex" or "In time of War the Law is silent." This was a bad idea when Cicero stole it from Thucydides and it is still a bad idea now.

My response to any President claiming this power is, "Ave Imperator. Potes meos suaviari culus!" For you that don't understand Latin that means, "Hail the Emperor. You can kiss my ass!"

H/T to The Blog formerly known as Arctic Patriot.

Federal Monitoring Word List

The "official" list of words DHS uses to monitor social network sites was obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) using a Freedom 0f Information lawsuit. This article lists them for your convenience.

H/T to Wendy McElroy

#EFAD at Number 2.

What is at number 1?

Really? I mean really? A wanna be Harlequin romance is beating out a free copy of Enemies Foreign and Domestic?

Operation #EFAD II

Here is the link. Go download a copy for your Kindle now.

Son of a Liberty's Bitch!

About a year ago I had one of those strange, vivid dreams that sticks in my memory and won't go away. In it I traveled through time to speak to Mike Vanderboegh about a matter of great importance. I established my bona fides with him by predicting the precise prices of some volatile stocks over a period of two or three weeks (it's a dream, OK? details from the subconscious can be a bit sketchy). Mr. Vanderboegh then asked me about the future. I told him, "The good news is, your side wins."

"What's the bad news?", he asked me with a grin.

"Your side wins."

Yeah, it's an old joke -- I know that. Still, the recent brouhaha between Vanderboegh and Kerodin reminds me of it. I am honestly beginning to wonder if it really matters any more whether we win this thing or not. Maybe I'll follow the lead of my buddy over on Living in Babylon and stock up on Ganja (do you guys still call it that?) then crawl inside a drug induced haze while the the assholes of the world fart in the general direction of each other.

Maybe tomorrow after the Southern Comfort wears off I'll feel differently.

Another Blood Dancer Speaks

Some one with the mouth filling moniker of Jenna Myers Karvunidis is not keeping up with current events. In a column for Chicago Now entitled Ohio school shooting: Time to ban handguns, guys she comments on the recent GFSZ shooting in Ohio writing,

Think about it. What is the purpose of a gun? Gun proponents will say the bad guys already have them anyway, so we all need to have access to protect ourselves and prevent more crime. Really? Tell me how many of the other students in that classroom today had a gun to protect themselves.

Apparently Ms. Karvunidis is unaware that schools from Kindergarten through the Twelfth grade are legally designated as gun free zones. The students and teachers are disarmed by laws ironically enforced by men with guns. They were not allowed the means to shoot back. This appears to be a good thing from her point of view.

At first I was tempted to be generous and assume this is just ignorance of science and history on her part. It may turn out she really is that uneducated but the tone of her article and her responses to some of the criticisms of her column prompt me to believe she just enjoys the opportunity to get on a soapbox and demand her fellow citizens be more tightly controlled -- doubtlessly by the aforementioned men with guns. This makes it logical that she support the existence and expansion of of Gun Free Zones. Such places are easy pickings for the violent and each new outrage perpetrated against disarmed victims provides more blood for her and her equally sick friends to dance in.

She should stick to spiked heels and white lipstick. They go well with an empty head.

H/T to Mike Vanderboegh over at Sipsey Street Irregulars who has his own take on the subject.

OPERATION #EFAD

I just heard about this:

So here's the plan: on Thursday, March 1, we will engineer a stratospheric spike in the number of free Kindle downloads of Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and continue this operation for up to five days, the max allowable under the terms of the free download program. Then we will sit back and watch the bewildered and alarmed MSM explore this sudden and frightening phenomenon erupting among the unwashed gun nuts and wild-eyed Constitution fanatics. You know, us. Real Americans, out here in fly-over countery[sic].

Sounds like a good idea. The book is already discounted to $0.00 for members of Amazon Prime so it has probably pretty much run its course in sales. Now the author is offering a chance for all Kindle owners to get the book for the same low price and to tweak the beard of the Res Nostrae and its sycophants -- a endeavor ever near and dear to my anarchist heart.

See you all at Amazon on March 1.

Expanded Castle Doctrine in Michigan

William Grigg, in his typically witty fashion, takes the Michigan police to task for opposing a proposed expansion of the castle doctrine in that state. The proposed legislation would expand the "castle" to include the surrounding yard and outbuildings and legally recognize that an innocent person has no "duty to retreat" in the face of criminal aggression. It also adds a "reasonable person" provision similar to the "reasonable officer" test currently used in police shootings. I think the hyperbolic reaction of the police leadership to this perfectly reasonable proposition reveals their true feeling towards the mundanes they allegedly serve.

An expanded castle doctrine and a no duty to retreat law is not a threat to the police unless they act in a way that make them look like criminals. The answer to the riddle of Officer Safety is quite simple: If a police officer does not want to be mistaken for a common criminal then he must not act like one.

Good Cause for a CCW.

A Pennsylvania judge recently ruled it is apparently OK for a Muslim to attack an atheist. Considering the number of Muslims in the United States this callous attitude should be good cause for an atheist to get a concealed weapons permit.

Yeah, I know it probably won't work.

In a civilized world, no one should need a to get permission from any official parasite to carry a weapon -- openly or concealed. OTOH, a civilized people would not tolerate someone being attacked for peaceably making fun of others' beliefs -- no matter how tasteless. The aforementioned decision reveals that at least one judge officially does not want this to be a civilized world. As I've contended for years now, freedom in the statist world is often found at the intersection of dumb and dumber. This decision certainly looks like that address.

H/T toThe Unwanted Blog

Solid Ghouled?

Anyone want to know how much I care about Whitney Houston dying? Not much anymore. At first I considered it a tragic event and a reason to reflect on why so many creative people seem to destroy themselves with booze and drugs. Then Hollywood decided to to turn it into a goddamn sideshow. Now every time I hear the name "Whitney Houston" I cringe.

The title of this brief rant was blatantly ripped off borrowed from this post by the ever snarky Tam.

Things That Make You Say, HMMMM...

A group of animal rights activists calling themselves SHARK, intended to launch a drone to monitor a pigeon shoot at Broxton Bridge Plantation. When the sponsors of the shoot failed to stop the activists the shoot was cancelled. The Sharks launched the drone anyways and it was shot down.

Article here

H/T to Global Guerillas

The Road to Hell.

A recent posting at We The Armed explains some of the benefits of domestic drones from a law enforcement point of view.

There have been times when having an airborne FLIR system would have been very helpful. We can call the highway patrol, but sometimes their aircraft are down. We've chased burglars when it would have been very useful and we've had elderly walk away from their residence, especially in winter time, when that would have helped also.

Nothing but the purest of intentions. Right?

A few people still remember what good intentions are the paving stones for.

I'm sure the US Government had good intentions when it demanded Google build a backdoor to its Gmail accounts. The real world result was Chinese hackers breaking in and using Gmail to gather intelligence. I'm sure the restrictions on Sudafed are done with the purest of intentions, too. The real world results are an estimated $1.5 billion in higher costs to health insurance companies and more demands on the time of primary care physicians who are already in short supply.

So, next time you have to wait an extra hour to to see a doctor or your medical insurance premiums go up again, you can thank the pure as driven snow intentions of the bureaucracy. Don't expect the bureaucrats to care -- in the strange fantasy land that statists inhabit only the good intentions matter. Any bad result is just used as an excuse to lay down even more paving stones.

How will the domestic use of unmanned drones play out? I don't know -- I am an observer, not a prophet. My observation of history and the natural tendency of government power to increase prompts me to believe it will not work out in a manner that increases individual liberty.

Catholic Church and Obama Care

A young girl taking a walk in the winter cold spies a freezing rattlesnake at the side of the road. She takes pity on the poor reptile and takes it home with her so it can warm up. After it recovers, it bites her.

As she is dying she ask the snake, "Why?"

The snake replies, "You knew what I was when you took me in."

In the recent brouhaha over the battle between the Catholic Church and Obamacare remember that Catholic Charities, the Society of St. Vincent DePaul, and the Catholic Health Association all supported the legislation. This letter (PDF) to members of Congress on the letterhead of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urges passage of the bill and calls health care "a basic human right".

Now that the new law is being implemented, the Catholic Church is upset to discover government money has strings attached. Nevertheless, behind the curtain it is still perfectly happy to have that same government take money from me and transfer it to them. Well, I have news for Papa Ratzi: Being a socialist buttwipe doesn't get you the the moral high ground. If the Catholic Church wants to play whore to the state then it has no complaint when John Bureaucrat wants to stick his dick in.

The current objections sounds more like sour grapes than any principled opposition. They are perfectly happy to have the government force me to support their hospitals but get all self-righteous when that government tells them how they have to spend some of the swag. Here's a thought: Instead of getting all pissy about birth-control and abortion, how about they start by respecting, "Thou shalt not steal."

If the Catholic Church really wants to do something useful then let them oppose the whole concept of tax supported health care. Until then they are just another mouth hanging around the cannibal pot.

Committees of Vigilance in Detroit?

The Daily reports on 911 IS A JOKE.

The people of Detroit are taking no prisoners.

Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies.

Read the rest here.

Like it or not, violence is a normal human function intimately linked to survival. Like any such natural behavior, the expression of it can be trained but it cannot eliminated without a substantial cost. Whenever a basic human function is repressed, behavioral distortions result.

Every human being has a natural desire to defend itself. By denying the victims of crime a legitmate outlet to that desire, the state creates behavioral distortions. One of these is to form groups (mobs) and track down a malefactor after the fact. In a civilized society where self defense is recognized and robustly supported we get a few dead offenders. Take away that and the results will be vigilantism. We may be seeing the beginning of that in Detroit.

Thoughts on the Republican Primary

So far it looks like Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for President. He doesn't seem like a good choice for a party that wants to present a conservative face but that doesn't seem to matter as long as he is "electable." Who is deciding this a priori electablilty is somewhat vague.

OK, it is true that compared to Obama, Romney is a "conservative" but the same can be said of a lot of politicians not normally considered as such. A good example is: Compared to Obama, Hillary Clinton is a "conservative". That would be a good argument to vote for Hillary? Gods! I hope not.

The lesser of the evils argument has never been compelling to me.

One observer said it didn't matter who the Republicans run since Obama was elected because of the anti-Bush vote and the Republican candidate will elected because of the anti-Obama vote. I have to admit that I find it amusing that the best the Republicans can come up with is Not Obama. Ao, after all the apologetics (pun intended) are through, the campaign boils down to this.

My opponent:

1. Has even fewer principles and less integrity than me.
2. Is even more two-faced than me.
3. Is more delusional and narcissistic than me.
4. Will tell even bigger lies than me.
5. Will eat you first.

Drone Repression.

If we didn't have enough to worry about, John Robb over at Global Guerrillas has an article on the future of drones as a replacement for "gunboat diplomacy" in international affairs. Additionally, he did not miss the very real possibility that a coercive state will use them to suppress dissent.

All the money is on cyber intel (to generate targets based on "signatures") and drones to kill them. When domestic unrest occurs in the US due to economic decline, these systems will be ready for domestic application.

Oh joy

Oh joy, indeed. All states are coercive

Full article: Drone Diplomacy: Comply or Die

This is Just Plain Weird

Back on July 26, 2010 I posted a short entry about a site called "Instant Hitman". The site is obviously a joke but, yesterday, I saw a search for "instant hitman comments" in my Site Meter statistics. When I checked my comments awaiting moderation, lo and behold, I saw the following:

Would you help me? Jacqueline Marando life is ruin'B/C Walmart Home Office in Benton is messing up w/ Jacqueline's b/c Walmart Home Office in Benton are cold, greedy, &snobby. Would you help me?

Maybe someone is just screwing around or maybe he really is that dumb. In either case, for those who donlt get it Instant Hitman is a JOKE. Got it, dipstick?

Rand Paul Detained by TSA

I'm not sure yet exactly why this happened and it might be interesting to see how Blogger Bob and the TSA spin it. Frankly, I suspect it will just be another entry in the Big Book of Stupid Things the TSA got Away With.

Rand Paul Has Been Detained By The TSA At Nashville Airport

H/T to Claire Wolfe

Laura Decker Completes Her Round-the-World Sailing Trip.

Via Breitbart

Dutch teen Laura Dekker on Saturday became the youngest sailor to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world, a year after going to court for the right to make the attempt.

The 16-year-old completed her solo round-the-world journey when she sailed into harbour on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT).
Dekker, who left the island nearly a year ago to the day -- January 20, 2011 -- beat the previous record by some eight months.

Read the rest here

It is good to see a youngster tackling challenges like this. It is sad that Western Civilization has eroded so much she had to fight child welfare services in the courts for the "right" to do it.

Good job, young lady

Anonymous Strikes Back.

Apparently in response to the Feds taking down Megauploads, the groups known as 'anonymous" has struck at the federal government and several commercial sites.

Anonymous has sure been quiet lately, but today's federal bust of Megaupload riled 'em up good: a retaliatory strike against DoJ.gov (and plenty of other foes) leaving them completely dead.

Read the rest here

It didn't take any great genius to see this coming. Did the admins of the dot-gov sites being really think there would be no retaliation? Even a minimally competent admin could prepare for this if he knew it might be coming. It is possible the Justice Department didn't just didn't bother to tell the admins to be ready. Maybe the memo got lost along with the tracking data on the Fast and Furious guns.

Watch a Whale -- Go to Jail.

The Economist reports on the case of Nancy Black who is accused of violating the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Her crime was video recording a pod of orcas feeding on a grey whale calf they had just killed. Also because she gave the investigators a copy of the commercial video of the event, she is accused of tampering with the evidence.

You can read the artice at Another one in the net.

The saddest part of this and similar escapades is that there is no conspiracy. If there were one, then there would be an articulable evil to be angry at. However, these cases are just the consilience of a poorly written law (passed by lawmakers who probably never bothered to read it) giving broad powers to ambitious bureaucrats anxious to impress their higher ups. Lazy lawmakers and ambitious agents of the state combine to create even more misery than nature intended.

Republican Politics in a Nutshell

Atlantea the Beautiful

Diplomatic Carry

On page nine, Alan Korwin has an unusual take on the right to self defense in the alternate universe inhabited by government officials. He calls it Diplomatic Carry

Officials travel armed. When a contingent of our officials visits any other country, they bring armed personnel in classic right-to-bear-arms manner. Life is dangerous and the ability to protect yourself is a reasonable and prudent thing, a fundamental human right of existence, a moral imperative. So they go armed. It's only rational. Hillary and similar bring along enough firepower that if some of their group go one way while some head off in another, they're both covered.

The same is true in reverse. When an ambassador from Trashcanistan comes to the United States, discreetly armed bodyguards accompany the party at all times, "laws to the contrary notwithstanding." That's lawyer-speak for "their right to carry supersedes any other rules," or in plainer English, "We're above those laws." The ambassador might decide to personally carry too. I'm guessing Hillary does not.

There's this whole "second system" of gun possession and carry here domestically, another layer of rules on top of the common ones you must follow, operating quietly with people in the know cooperating.

Read the rest here.

H/T to The War on Guns.

Photo ID needed to Buy Drano in Illinois.

Just when I think that the politicians have plumbed the depth of their collective stupidity, they bounce back and prove me too optimistic again.

New Law Requires Photo ID To Buy Drain Cleaner

CHICAGO (CBS) – A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log.

Read the rest here.

I'll bet the State of Illinois won't require an ID to vote in the next election. If it did, half the voters in Chicago would be disqualified.

Debating a Determinist

Or more accurately, the futility of debating a determinist.

Jerry A. Coyne has an article in USA Today entitled "Why you don't really have free will"

The above article is not an exhaustive defense of hard determinism but it covers some of the high points. In essence, the determinist denies that you can actually make a choice between alternatives. The basic argument usually goes something like this:

1. For any event there are antecedent causes that ensure the occurrence of the event in accordance with impersonal, mechanical causal laws.
2. If an event must occur then it is not free.
3. Therefore, no action is free.

If no action is free then every thought I have and every conclusion I reach was determined when the first hydrogen atom bumped into the second. There is no reasoning required. In fact no reasoning or thought is even involved. It is simply computation. One plus one equals two. Determinism means that the ability to reason is nothing more than an illusion. This leaves me with the curious problem of how to reason with someone who effectively denies the possibility of reason.

Imagine I conduct an experiment demonstrating that determinism is probably false. Because determinism requires that both the determinist and the non-determinist have no choice in what they do, the determinist can simply claim that my evidence is the result of a long chain of causal events and was itself determined. Within the constraints imposed by determinism, no rational argument can be made that determinism is false because reason cannot happen in a determined universe. Only computation is possible. In short, determinism cannot be falsified making it more akin to a religious belief -- or a conspiracy -- than anything else.