Free State of Jones

Free State of Jones is a movie that came out last Friday (June 24th). Based on the box office so far, I expect it'll disappear from the theaters in short order.

It has some fairly horrific battle scenes in it, including a man who appeared to have taken a small cannon ball to the face. The hospital scenes are not for the squeamish.

There is one shot of the interior of a mansion in which one can see a round thermostat. But I digress.

I wouldn't expect it to receive wide play in the South, for the tale that the move tells is far different from the "Noble Cause" bullshit that is the duty legend in Dixie.

The story of Newton Knight is very much in opposition to the encrusted mythology of the South, especially the fact that Knight had far more support from the local community than modern folk in the area would care to admit.

Secure Your Wireless Networks, People

A convicted British paedophile has been sentenced to 85 years in an American prison for running an online exchange of child abuse images while he was on probation.

Domminich Shaw used the unprotected wireless internet connections of his neighbours in west London to traffic in dozens of videos and pictures of babies and toddlers being sexually abused.

Comcast, in particular, will give out wireless modems that have two networks: One private one for your use and one general one for "xfinity". If your modem has two such networks, you can shut off the public one.

And you should. Make it harder for assholes like that to do their evil work.

Brexit, or "What Happens When the Dog Catches the Car?"

With their giddy celebrations of “independence day” having given way to political and economic turmoil, one thing has become especially clear about the former London mayor Boris Johnson and other leaders of the successful campaign to vote Britain out of the European Union: They had no plan for what comes next.

In the days since Britain voted to leave the bloc, the movement’s leaders have often appeared as if they had not expected to win and were not prepared to cope with the consequences. Faced with the scope of the decision, they have been busy walking back promises they made during the campaign and scaling back expectations. They have failed to show a united front or to answer basic questions.

I don't suspect that there is any "appeared as if they had not expected to win"-- they didn't expect to. They expected to lose, but not by a lot, and then use it as a cudgel to gain seats in Parliament where the local reps were pro-EU and the vote was pro-Brexit.

Now they have to face up to their lies and hype. The EU is signaling to the Brits that they should go sooner rather than later, and if they expect to be allowed to continue to be part of the EU single market, they're smoking crack.

The pro-Brexit folks are saying that Britain should have the same sort of access that Norway has. Which probably won't happen. Norway never fully joined the EU, they are sort of "friends with benefits", if you will. Britain has told the EU that they want a divorce; the formal triggering of Article 50 will be like filing for divorce.

In this case, it'll be more like a contested divorce, in which the EU and the Brits will fight over the terms, especially since the EU will want to signal to other countries contemplating leaving that future divorcées of the EU will pay a heavy price. Contested divorces are often nasty as all fuck, as "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned." There will be large amounts of butthurt on both sides that will take decades for both sides to get over.

In advance of Article 50 being triggered, look for the EU to freeze the Brits out of almost all participation in whatever passes for bureaucratic and political processes in Brussels.

John Oliver on this.

Booze Review

Skyy Raspberry-Infused Vodka.

"Vile" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's probably too weak to use for stripping paint or cleaning parts.

Stories that Sank like Stones, and More

November, 2015:

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Federal court documents provide some disturbing details about an apparent plot by white supremacists in Chesterfield to incite a race war. They include plans to bomb and shoot up black churches and Jewish synagogues, as well as a plot to kill a local jewelry dealer, and rob an armored car, among other crimes. The crimes were to provide the proceeds to purchase land, weapons and training for the so-called coming race war. But they were apparently foiled by the FBI.

They all pleaded guilty.

June, 2016:

SALT LAKE CITY — A Stockton man described by prosecutors as the "commander of a citizen militia group" was indicted Thursday after allegedly trying to blow up a Bureau of Land Management cabin in Arizona.

William Keebler, 57, was indicted in U.S. District Court on one count of attempted damage to federal property by means of fire or explosive. He was arrested Wednesday in Nephi by combined forces from the FBI and BLM.

Neither one of these stories will rate more than a brief mention. But you can bet the ranch that if either one of the stories was about perps with brown skins, there would be wall-to-wall news coverage.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, some clown is running for Congress with a campaign slogan of "make America white again". The crazies are coming out of the woodwork, thanks to Trump. Trump isn't dog-whistling to the white supremacists, not like Nixon, Reagan or Bush the First. Trump is blowing a steam-whistle.

Idjits With Guns

Three backwoods gun nuts were busted on their way to play vigilante in New York City — while riding in a pickup truck loaded with weapons and plastered with their love of the Second Amendment, law-enforcement sources said.

John Cramsey, 50, of rural Zionsville, Pa. — a militant anti-heroin crusader who is said to have used aggressive tactics to save at least a dozen people from drug dens — claims he was racing to Brooklyn with two pals to rescue a female drug user they believed had been kidnapped.

The gun-range owner never completed his mission. Cramsey — along with his buddy Dean Smith and the supposedly kidnapped woman’s friend Kimberly Arendt, 29 — were stopped by cops on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel for a cracked windshield at around 7:40 a.m. Tuesday.

This is the truck that they were driving:

Those three chuckleheads got into a truck that had pro-gun right stuff all over it and drove the truck into two of the most gun-hostile states in the Union. The only way that it could have been worse is if they detoured through Maryland and ended up in Boston.

They might have well loaded up a car with heroin and wrapped it with a signs that read "Just Say 'Yes' to Drugs". UPDATE 2021: Cramsey went to prison after pleading it out. The other two went into a pre-trial diversionary program.

Brexit, Schmexit

Seems that the referendum is advisory only.

That might sound suicidal, but if the opinion polls flip, their government might risk it. There's even a term for it: Regrexit.

Tab Clearing- Brexit and More

You can read about the mechanism for exiting the EU here.

My gut feeling is that either the EU will try to fast-track it and be has iron-fisted as possible (the "fuck you, you limey bastards, get the fuck out" track), or both sides will slow-walk it and maybe they'll negotiate changes to the terms of the British EU membership and the Brits will reverse their decision (the "kiss and make up" track).

Ultimately, I suspect that Brexit won't happen. But I'm not putting any money on that.

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Remington is just about ready to re-release the R51. If there was ever a gun that demonstrated how much the gun press is more of a PR tool than critical reportage, it was the coverage of the R51 a few years back.

After handling a Sauer 38H, it seems to me that a concealed-hammer DA/SA mechanism along those lines would have been better than the concealed-hammer SA mechanism that Remington designed in. But what the hell do I know.

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If there is one thing that has come to light about Donald the Grifter, it's that he's vindictive and never forgets a slight. If he wins in November, I would expect that Trump will do whatever he can to fuck over the NeverTrump Republicans: FBI investigations, IRS audits, the works. But these folks may be reasonably safe.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The S-3A Viking, known as "the Hoover":

(H/T)

Petty Pissant Politicos in Texas; Caturday Edition

WHITE SETTLEMENT, TX:

Over children’s petitions and voters’ protests, the City Council has voted to fire Browser the library cat.

But the book-loving feline may yet have another life. His friends and fans vow to take his future to voters in November, forcing an election if necessary on whether the library can keep its six-year reading mascot.

Declaring that “City Hall and city businesses are no place for animals,” Councilman Elzie Clements led what Browser’s fans call a sneak attack on June 14, ending in a 2-1 vote giving the former shelter cat 30 days to find a new home.
...
Mayor Ron White, a nonvoting council moderator under the city charter, supports Browser. He blamed pettiness at City Hall because a city employee wasn’t allowed to keep a pet at work.

“We’ve had that cat five years, and there’s never been a question,” he said.

“That cat doesn’t have anything to do with whether somebody can have their puppy at City Hall. That cat doesn’t hurt anybody. … The council just went out and did this on their own because they don’t like cats.”

So, because some asswipe suffered a case of butthurt because he couldn't take his puppy to work, the City Council decided to get on their high horse and kick out the library cat.

This is one case where the Scorn of the Internet may save Browser his home and job.

Caturday

Bella

Brexit

Holy shit! Now what?

Because People are Idiots

People really have to be told not to hang their clothes on a fire-sprinkler nozzle?

I've been dealing with family issues this week. That's why posts have been either terse or non-existent.

Feel free to surf the ol' blogrolls.

Riddle Me This, Religion Edition

Why do Bibles have copyrights?  Did G-d file for them?

The View From 2100

I believe that when historians look back on this time from the distance of a century, they will be amazed that Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were walking around as free men, rather than having been either imprisoned or shot for war crimes (warmongering) and crimes against humanity (torture).

For You Haters of Classical Music

Anna Russell demonstrates how to write your own Gilbert & Sullivan opera.

GMA, What's With the Backbeat Under the Newscast?

I haven't had that show on in a long time, but they're running some sort of annoying backbeat under the sports segment.

Newspapers seem better and better.

Lot of Rotten Apples in the Oakland PD

The Oakland Police Department lost its third police chief in eight days as it struggles with allegations that a number of officers had sex with a teenage prostitute and exchanged racist text messages.

Mayor Libby Schaaf said acting Police Chief Paul Figueroa was on the job for two days before stepping down on Friday but said his decision was not connected to the two scandals.

Has to be something else there for him to resign only two days on the job.

At this rate, the governor's going to have to send in the staties and the National Guard to patrol the streets.

Budding Necrophiliacs at Work

Prosecutors say a former Vanderbilt football player encouraged his team-mates to rape an unconscious woman whom he had been dating.

During opening statements Monday [June 13th] in the retrial of Brandon Vandenburg, a prosecutor said the former player even passed out condoms to three team-mates before the woman was raped. Two other Vanderbilt football players were found guilty of rape and sexual battery.

And he's guilty! Seems he videoed the rape (never a good idea) and sent it to his friends (ditto).

I'll wager that o'l Brandon does more time than Brockster.

Your Sunday Morning Big Prop Noise

They don't get much bigger these days than a Martin Mars!

(Followup to this post about getting time in one.)

Caturday

"We're safe, now.

The three kittens in that cage will go into the kitten room of the shelter's cattery when they are a little older. When they're old enough, they'll be "fixed" and then available for adoption.

One Person Who is Probably Very Happy About the Orlando Shootings

Brock "the Rapist" Turner.

Hardly anybody is talking about him, now. You don't see any writings that, since he was so happy to fuck an unconscious woman, that maybe he's a closeted necrophiliac? Maybe they can look into that when he gets around to doing his 90 days in County.

What the Fuck is Trump Doing?

That's a serious question. He doesn't seem to be building a campaign staff. He's not calling up the rich donors. He's backstabbing his own staffers. He's bashing his own party.

At this point, he might as well don a kamikazi hachimaki before each of his campaign appearances.

Is Trump so ignorant as to believe that he can essentially single-handedly run a national campaign by keeping his name in the news cycle by saying more and more outrageous and hateful things?

Or is he setting things up so that, in Cleveland, he will step aside

• "For the good of the party";
• "Because my family doesn't want me to be President" ("my wife, she";)
• Unspecified health reasons;
• "Too many people in the Trump organization depend on me making it rain;"

Or something else.

Don't be utterly surprised if, come the end of the GOP convention, the Republican candidate for the presidency is somebody else.

(And you can bet the farm that Clinton is prepared for that eventuality.)

Orlando and Columbine... Are the Cops Learning?

I looked at this timeline of the Orlando massacre and I have to admit to being puzzled. From the time that Asswipe began shooting to the time that the police revoked his O2 permit was three hours.

That sounds a little like Columbine. The lesson that the police experts learned from Columbine was that sitting around outside and containing the situation was not a good option. The killers got to shoot more people and people who could have lived bled out and died. The thinking seems to be that the first cops on the scene grab their go-bars (or "war-bags") and attack.

In Orlando, Asswipe had the time to go online and see what was being said on Facebook. He washed his hands and used the hand-dryer.

If the idea in response to an active shooter scenario is to go in fast and kill the shooter before more people are either shot or die from their wounds, then why was this not done in Orlando?

Because It's Friday

N&W 611 wakes up and stretches her legs for 2016:

She is pretty.

Offline

Cable's out. Real PITA to do this by a "smartphone".

Dear Free Press: You're Proving Too Much

Guns Shoot 200 Times Faster Than At The Time Of The 2nd Amendment

Did the Founding Fathers have these kind of civilian killing machines in mind back in 1791?

As after any major shooting incident, the Second Amendment to America’s constitution is once again the subject of a major national debate. The amendment, which famously guarantees your right to “keep and bear arms,” was penned in 1791 by our Founding Fathers, who—after being routinely disarmed by the English in the 18th century—wanted to prevent more federal government encroachment. At the time, it was immensely sensible.

Now, more than 200 years later, the world certainly has changed. But questioning the wisdom of that amendment is political sacrilege, no matter which side of the spectrum you’re on.

The rifle of choice back in the late 18th century was the Brown Bess, a flintlock musket that was widely used by both sides during the American Revolutionary War. It wasn’t the most efficient weapon; a trained marksman could fire about four bullets a minute and had to manually reload after each shot. Essentially, if someone missed on their first shot, you had an opportunity to escape—or even run up to your attacker and punch him in the face.

The argument proves too much. If the argument is that the Constitution applies to technologies that existed when the Constitution (or its relevant amendment) was adopted, then guess what does not qualify for constitutional protection under the free press provision of the First Amendment?

The answer is: Everything.

Unless you are reading the news on a newspaper that was printed with hand-set type on hand-made paper by the use of a Franklin-style printing press (or you heard about it from the Town Crier), you are getting your news and such by methods that didn't exist in 1791. By the argument of Mr. Ryan Beckler, only those two methods of news delivery qualify for constitutional protection.

So if Congress wanted to forbid the use of glossy paper or rotary presses or ban radio/television/cable/Internet, they're free to do that.

Which is an argument that should give Trump a hard-on, because that's pretty much what he'd like to do.

At the CIA, the Doctors Take the Hypocritical Oath

From the Hippocratic Oath: "I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing."

But at the CIA, the doctors, in the finest traditions of the KGB and the Gestapo, gave advice on how best to torture people.

Sensitive agency documents, declassified on Tuesday, provide a new level of detail on the intimate involvement of its medical staff during its post-9/11 torture program. Officials assigned to the Office of Medical Staff (OMS) provided precise specifications for enforcing sleep deprivation, limiting the caloric intake of detainees’ food, and the proper positions for waterboarding, as outlined in a 2004 document providing “guidelines on medical and psychological support” for torture.

We have much to answer for. The relevant officials, including the members of the National Security Council, for the time that this was going on would be well-advised to not travel outside the country. It is possible that they are liable to be prosecuted under the Yamashita Doctrine.

For it's dead-nuts certain that we won't get around to cleaning up our own mess until long after everyone who was involved in torturing people has died. Just as we didn't face up to detaining over a hundred thousand of our own citizens during World War II until everyone who had more than a bit part in it was dead.*
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* The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was opposed by a majority of the Republicans in the House and a minority of Republicans in the Senate. Pres. Reagan signed the bill into law, even though he had opposed it.

"No One Should Be Able to Kill 50 Americans, Period"

That's what some of the supporters of banning "assault rifles" are saying.

OK, by that logic, there are a few other things that should be banned.

Portable gasoline containers are loved by arsonists. The Happy Land arson fire killed 87 people. The UpStairs Lounge arson fire in New Orleans in 1973 was the worst mass-murder of gay people prior to Orlando. (The New Orleans police showed zero interest in solving the crime.)

Ryder trucks were the vehicle of choice for truck-bombers in the 1990s. The worst attack by a domestic terrorist in this country was carried out with the use of a Ryder truck.

While not Americans..

There have been more than one "suicide by pilot", in which a pilot intentionally caused a crash that resulted in a large loss of life. The intentional crash of EgyptAir 990 killed 219 and that of Germanwings 9525 killed 150. While unproven, Malaysia Air 370 may have been such a crime, killing 239.

There have also been cases where disgruntled airline workers have caused airliners to crash, killing all aboard. Two in the US killed more than forty people per incident.

Gun Control Negotiations

This is how the conversation has been going recently:

Them: We want to take away assault rifles.

Us: What are you going to give us in return?

Them: Nothing.

Us: Go fuck yourselves.

Because as long as the gun control people say "we're going to take", my side says "hell no". And we have enough in Congress to make "hell, no" stand. A toddler or two gets eaten by some alligators and the media isn't paying attention anymore to you guys.

It doesn't have to be that way. But the gun control side has to commit to negotiating, and not on the Soviet model of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is up for grabs".

It's happened before. Thirty years ago, when my side wanted to fix issues that arose from the Gun Control act of 1968, the pro-gun control side agreed, if my side would agree to a ban on registering new machine guns. At the time, new machine guns could be registered to civilians. That bothered the gun-control crowd, because reasons.*

A deal was reached. Both sides got something out of the deal. Both sides could claim victory. Because that's how negotiation works.

Currently, I have the legal right to go to the local gun store and buy any semi-automatic that I want and enough magazines to go with it in an amount that would give Ted Nugent a stiffy. If you want me to agree to give up that right, what are you prepared to offer in return?

If the answer is still "nothing", then "go fuck yourself" is still my reply.
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* The use of registered machine guns in crimes was and is exceedingly rare.

In Case You've Got a Spare 25 Gs* and Nothing to Do With It; Aviation Edition

You can take a two-day familiarization course in a Martin Mars.

I imagine it'd be a bit more informative if you already have a ASES or, better yet, a AMES rating.** But having Mars time would make for huge bragging rights around the post-flying bar and grille.
_______________________________________
* Prices much higher in Canada.
** Aircraft, Single-Engine Sea or Aircraft, Multi-Engine Sea.

112 Years Ago- Tragedy Struck

The PS General Slocum burned in the East River. Over a thousand people died in the single greatest loss of life in New York City in the last century. As I mentioned before, the loss of the General Slocum has largely been forgotten, probably more for reasons of class and ethnicity than anything else. There wasn't a John Jacob Astor IV on the Slocum.

Still, like the Titanic, people died, in part, because of unenforced and outdated safety regulations. In the case of the Slocum, corruption and venality played a part in the size of the death toll.

The Stupidity of Trump and His Fellow-Travelers

Donald the Grifter is doubling down on his call to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., and he is also adding his patented conspiracy-theory bullshit. Which you can go read about.

The error of the Grifter and his ilk is over-defining the enemy. Which is not an error confined to the Right, for when it comes to the issues involving Israel, the Left makes the same error.

When you define the enemy too broadly, what you do is give people who were not involved a reason to join the other side. The people bruiting about the "This is a War With Islam" are telling over a billion people that they might as well ally with ISIS and al Qaeda, because the Americans will kill them anyway. The "War With Islam" folks are tacitly suggesting that a billion people send donations to our enemies and send their young to fight us.

That is nothing short of criminal-grade stupidity and, on the part of Trump, is sheer demagoguery.

When one catalogues the various faults of the GOP candidate, such as demagoguery, disdain for the rule of law, hatred of free press, swindling his investors, self-dealing, lying to a level not seen since Joseph Goebbels, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, and a willingness to use the power of the state to deprive other people of their property in order to enrich himself, one has to wonder why anyone would cast a vote for him.

"NRA = Domestic Terrorists"?

Yeah, I've seen a lot of that shit today.

So ask yourself this question: If the NRA is really a domestic terrorist organization, then doesn't it have to be the most inept one in all of recorded history?

For if there are several million people who can be construed as "domestic terrorists" because they are card-carrying members of the NRA, then wouldn't the death toll be rather eye-watering if they were even sucky at the job?

Nah. The "NRA is a terrorist organization" line is, of course, bullshit from people who, without drawing a breath, will then condemn the likes of Donald the Grifter for insinuating that all Muslims are Terrorists (and all Mexicans are rapists).

Never Let the Facts get in the Way of an Appeal to Raw Emotion; Hoplophobe Edition

Take a look at the statistics that the Feebies have for instruments used in murders in 2014.

Note how many were killed by rifles. All rifles. ARs, AKs, Garands, Mausers, Winchester lever guns... all rifles.

248, for 2% of all murders. Less, mind you, than those beaten to death with blunt objects, stabbed or killed by punching or kicking.

But hey, Bloomie and Hillary gotta push to ban them AR-15s. Because reasons.

A side note to all of you folks who are calling the NRA a "terrorist organization": There are five million or more of us who are paid-up NRA members.

For You Haters of Classical Music

A piece from an opera by Joe Green:

Used Computers

I opted to stay with Win 7 on the used T42 that I picked up.

There was an Excel file that held account numbers, user names and passwords for bank accounts, credit cards, online ordering, email, and so on. That's deleted.

I lost track of the number of Windows updates that had to be installed. Installing the first round led to others. I had a list of the Win 10 ones and avoided those. GWX Control Panel and Never 10 are up and running.

The first order of business, though, was installing antivirus and malware scanners and running them. The machine came up clean.

My guess is that it had been sitting, unused, for close to three years. Somebody probably got it cheap from their job and then didn't use it.

Anyway, it's now ready to begin installing what I need on it to function. Which will include passwords for booting and windows.

That Also Didn't Take Long

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is citing the mass shooting to advance his argument that legal and illegal immigration are endangering U.S. security.

“We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States," Trump said in a statement.

The Asswipe of Orlando, age 29, was born in this country. If you do the math (never Trump's forte), you'll easily see that Asswipe was about fifteen in 2001.

But hey, to Donald the Grifter, "immigrants" include the offspring and descendants of immigrants, a point he's made clear in his racist attacks on a judge who has dared to displease The Donald.

Unless your immigrant forebears came from Germany. Which would presumably be permissible to Herr Drumpf.

On Writing

Dorothy Parker:

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of ‘The Elements of Style.’ The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

That Took All of a Few Hours

So much fail in just a few words.

The attack on Orlando LGBT club Pulse on Saturday night was carried out – like so many mass shootings before it – with an assault rifle, of the “AR-15 type”. These weapons have the ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, spraying waves of hot lead and fire, giving the shooter the power to mete out death on an industrial scale.

The NRA and its supporters have fanatically lobbied to keep these weapons cheap, legal and easy to obtain, in spite of the fact that there is no sporting use for them. You can’t hunt deer with an assault rifle. Animal targets would vaporize if struck by a single round. ... Here in the south, pro-gun hysteria is the norm.

Right. "Hundreds of rounds per minute" out of a semiautomatic. And then there is the "killer AR-15", firing a round that is underpowered enough that in many states, it's not legal for deer hunting.

I understand that there are people who don't like guns. Fine, they have a right to their own opinions. But they don't have a right to their own facts. When they blather on, as did Mr. Ferguson, with ludicrous assertions and outright lies about the weapons that they condemn, they come across as imbeciles.

(Oh, and this isn't the deadliest mass-murder at a nightclub in the U.S.)

Night Sights and Other Musings

There was nobody else on the indoor range after work. I ran a target down to 21', turned off the range lights (both at the shooter's area and downrange) and ran through a few magazines from a Smith 6946 with night sights.

There was some illumination from the windows to the store area, but not much, really.

I'd not tried that before. Not terribly shabby. I couldn't see the sights, other than the three glowing dots. But when I fired, the sight alignment showed up in the muzzle flash.

It gave me some confidence in the night sights.

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I am reasonably confident that there's going to be another "zOMG, Buy Everything!!!11!!1!" ammunition panic this Fall, as people begin to wrap their heads around the possibility that Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

Right now, ammunition, other than .22, is plentiful enough that the online folks are running sales. What I did was buy a box of Perfecta rounds in each caliber from the local Walmart. Perfecta seems to be their lowest-cost brand and it runs all right. That gives me a price per box, with tax. And I can compare that to the online prices, with shipping.

Upside of online buying is it's often cheaper. The downside is that you have to buy in bulk for the shipping costs to drive the price per box down to a reasonable amount. At the local discount store (most often, Walmart), you can buy a box or two as your cash flow allows.

I've a mind for a minimum stockpile amount of range fodder that I'll maintain for the time being. I'm pretty much there. Taking stock of what I have was a good exercise. The older ammo will go downrange, first. (After the baggies of mixed rounds.)

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I picked up a working IBM T42 at a thrift store. That particular store does sell things "as is", but they check out their electrical and electronic goods before putting them on the shelf. 80 Gb drive, 1.5 Gb RAM, 1.7GHz M chipset and it has Win 7 Ultimate loaded.

Cautionary tale, people: If you're going to donate computers, at least wipe your browser history and saved passwords. There were four different email accounts that I could have accessed, along with three FB pages, at least one Amazon account and two easily identifiable business wireless networks.

Another tip: If your business is "XYZ Machine Tools", it'd be a good idea to not label your wireless network "XYZ Machine Tools".

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One of the things I've seen on the fora for serious gun people is a disdain directed at anyone who carries more than one type of gun on a regular basis. The thinking is that if you want to be really good with a gun, you should carry one type, such as a Glock 17/19/26, a S&W M&P, a 1911 or a Sig 224/226/229. And even that is sort of frowned upon, lest you bring a Glock 19 magazine along with your 17.

There's probably something to be said for that. But it depends what you want to do, I suppose. If the whole idea is to be ready in case bad shit comes your way, it might make more sense to get serious first-aid training and even entry-level paramedic certification, because the odds are you're far more likely to be in a situation where someone else needs help than in a situation where bullets are buzzing about.

Funny thing, though: If you read enough of the "thou shalt only carry one platform[1]" stuff, you almost always will find that the writers carry one gun type, until they can't. And then they opt for a J-frame Smith or a .32 KelTec.

As for me, I shoot for fun. I shoot in different matches; a Bullseye gun doesn't work so well in a PPC match. A red dot on a Ruger 22/45 is as close to having a race gun as I get.

And yes, I'll carry different guns, depending on the circumstances. All, though, are some flavor of "grip and rip" that'll fire double-action, at least on the first shot. As much as I like my JMB-designed guns, they're now range-only.

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My club recently had a combat pistol match. I enjoy them, for I use them as a testing session. One guy there had a series of moves that I found baffling. On the draw, he'd level the gun downrange and then bring his hand and arm across his body to his off-hand. So he would be holding the pistol with both forearms pressed against his chest (down around the bottom of the sternum. Then he would press the pistol straight out into an isosceles stance. When he finished the string, he'd bring the gun back in reverse order.

He shot pretty well, so I guess it worked for him. But it still looked kind of ninja-ey to me.[2]

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There's this funny little lever on most autos called a "slide stop." When reloading, what's so wrong about just pressing that down? It would seem to take more time to use one's off-hand to pull the slide back, out of the stop notch and then release it so the slide will chamber a fresh round. If you thumb off the slide stop, then all you have to do is slide your offhand up from slamming the magazine home and into your grip.

But what the fuck do I know.
_________________________
[1] Another term that I despise.
[2] One of the shooters mentioned that he'd been caught short at the first panic and had to lay off practicing for many months because, like everyone else, he wasn't paying those prices.

Blast Injuries and PTSD

Research is showing that brain injuries caused by exposure to blast effects are nothing like concussions.

In early 2012, a neuropathologist named Daniel Perl was examining a slide of human brain tissue when he saw something odd and unfamiliar in the wormlike squiggles and folds. It looked like brown dust; a distinctive pattern of tiny scars. ... Perl and his lab colleagues recognized that the injury that they were looking at was nothing like concussion. The hallmark of C.T.E. is an abnormal protein called tau, which builds up, usually over years, throughout the cerebral cortex but especially in the temporal lobes, visible across the stained tissue like brown mold. What they found in these traumatic-brain-injury cases was totally different: a dustlike scarring, often at the border between gray matter (where synapses reside) and the white matter that interconnects it. Over the following months, Perl and his team examined several more brains of service members who died well after their blast exposure, including a highly decorated Special Operations Forces soldier who committed suicide. All of them had the same pattern of scarring in the same places, which appeared to correspond to the brain’s centers for sleep, cognition and other classic brain-injury trouble spots.

Then came an even more surprising discovery. They examined the brains of two veterans who died just days after their blast exposure and found embryonic versions of the same injury, in the same areas, and the development of the injuries seemed to match the time elapsed since the blast event. Perl and his team then compared the damaged brains with those of people who suffered ordinary concussions and others who had drug addictions (which can also cause visible brain changes) and a final group with no injuries at all. No one in these post-mortem control groups had the brown-dust pattern.

Wearing protective gear doesn't help, as the blast wave is transmitted through the entire body. Being inside a vehicle or a building can be worse, as the blast wave is then reflected back through the body.

I can see a lot of real good coming from this research. Especially if they can find a way to diagnose it in living people. For one thing, the people who suffer from it will know that it's not due to weakness or, as the British Army put it a century ago (just before they shot people for it), "lack of moral fibre". It's a real injury.

The Internet of Shit; Automotive Edition

Which is the name of a Twitter account. And where I found this: Symantec security software is projected to be installed in ten million cars each year.

Betcha that if you buy a vehicle with their software installed, that you're then going to be on the hook for pricey updates. It's sort of like installed GPS systems and ink-jet printers: They get you for the stuff you need to keep it running, like the $20 or $30 per month that OnStar will cost you (if you have it).

At this point in the game, if you have any concerns about the hackability of vehicles, then you may be a fool if you buy any vehicle for which anyone can wirelessly reach out and fuck with it.

I'd also suggest that having a system in your car that the Federales can easily use to track you is sort of dumb, except that almost everyone these days willingly carries a tracking device on them, anyway.

In the American Criminal Justice System, There are Two Classes of Defendants: Rich Fucking Kids, and Everyone Else

Some things don't change very quickly, as this Onion article from eight years ago demonstrates:

In what local authorities are calling a "near tragedy," Charles Wentworth, a 17-year-old Rutgers Preparatory senior and member of the affluent Wentworth family, came perilously close to suffering a consequence resulting from his own wrongdoing Saturday.

zOMG!!! There's a Tranny in the Baffroom!!!1!!1!

The Majority Feels So Persecuted!

According to Pastor Richie Clendenen: "There's nobody hated more in this nation than Christians," he said, amid nods and cries of encouragement. "Welcome to America's most wanted: You."

Right. In Kentucky, a state where Christians are a majority of the population, ol' Richie feel so put upon and persecuted.

Let's review, shall we, what "persecution" means to people like him: It means that they are not free to force others to adhere to their beliefs. I cry for his ass, I really do. Mostly, I cry for him because he is one ignorant piece of work who has no idea what real persecution is.

How about this for persecution: Denial of housing, denial of employment-- Things that people like Richie feel persecuted because they can no longer do that to other people.

Tell you what, Bucko: Give me a call when liquored-up goons bash your head in for being a Christian. Let me know when the the state forces you to register, wear distinctive marks, makes you live in walled-off ghettos, confiscates your possessions, forces you to emigrate or just fucking kills you.

Then you'll have a case to claim persecution.

Not before, you asshole.

If You Have any Gift Cards or Prepaid Debit Cards, Stay the Fuck Out of Oklahoma

For if the cops pull you over, they will rob you blind.

Because the way the "system" works, they take your money and then you have to prove that it was legally yours.

It's nothing more than highway robbery with a badge, folks.

Screenshot, the Old-Fashioned Way

Leslie Rassmussen has Brock the Rapist's Back

From her letter to the judge:

I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him. I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isn’t right. But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists. ... This is completely different from a woman getting kidnapped and raped as she is walking to her car in a parking lot. That is a rapist. These are not rapists. These are idiot boys and girls having too much to drink and not being aware of their surroundings and having clouded judgement.

So if Brockster had gone up to a passed-out drunk, kicked him in the head and stolen his wallet, that'd be "clouded judgment" to Leslie? And then Brock should have gotten a pass for a vicious assault and robbery?

Brock was caught raping an unconscious woman who was lying next to a dumpster. It wasn't her testimony about Brock raping her, but that of the two men who caught him doing it and who held him for the cops.

Oh, of course, there's more. Jeff Coudron, a friend, is so upset because Brock's name and photo are all over the Internet:

The media never mentioned the girl’s name to protect her, but they plastered Brock’s everywhere, even before he was tried.

So, Jeff, let's assume that ol' Tyrone shoots you and jacks your ride. You'll be fine with keeping Tyrone's name from the press and his photo out of the paper until he's convicted?

I'm betting that the answer is somewhere between "hell, no" and "fuck, no". Except that maybe there's a pretty-white-boy exception to that.

Other friends of Brock the Rapist think it's unfair that he has had to toss away his "swimming career" because Brock only was convicted of three violent felonies.

Make no mistake, this is yet another case of affluenza. Didn't even matter that Brock lied in his pre-sentencing letter to the court, something that one might think that a judge might be displeased about.

Yepper. If Tyrone from the `hood had raped that woman, the odds are pretty good that a judge would have maxed out the sentences and made them consecutive.

UPDATE: Leslie's trying to walk back some of her victim-blaming support for Rapist Brock. Apparently, she didn't realize that documents submitted in a court case pretty much are public records.

Jesus, Bernie, Wake Up!

It's fucking over. You made a valiant try and went far further than anyone thought you would.

You've lost. Fold your tent and go the fuck home, already.

Penguin Booze

Opus loves "herring wallbangers" Which leads to a question: What would be in such a drink?

This is the recipe for a harvey wallbanger:

1.25 oz Vodka
3 oz Orange juice
.5 oz Galliano L'Autentico
Garnish: 1 Orange slice

Add the vodka and the orange juice to a tall glass filled with ice. Stir, and float the Galliano on top. Garnish with an orange slice.

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to use a piece of herring for the garnish. I suppose that one could drop some herring into a juicer and use that in place of the orange juice, but that sounds really dreadful.

Klanmaster Donald

[Donald] Trump refused to condemn his fans in an interview with CNN. “You hated this article in ‘GQ’ about your wife, Melania. Julia Ioffe wrote it. Since then, some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman, Julia Ioffe, with anti-Semitic attacks, death threats. What’s your message to these people when something like that happens?” Wolf Blitzer asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee during an interview earlier this month. “I’ll tell you, I haven’t read the article, but I hear it was a very inaccurate article and I heard it was a nasty article… They shouldn’t be doing that with wives. I mean they shouldn’t be doing that,” he responded.

“These death threats that have followed these anti-Semitic,” Blitzer pressed Trump. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know anything about that,” said Trump. “You’ll have to talk to them about it. I don’t have a message to the fans.”

Trump's refusal to denounce the anti-Semitism of his supporters is getting noticed, and the GOP is worried.

From the Anti-Defamation League to the conservative Emergency Committee for Israel, Jewish community leaders say Trump’s divisive language, inconsistencies on Israel policy and sluggish response to anti-Semitism from within his base of supporters is reversing any progress the GOP had made in attracting Jewish voters. Even inside the Republican Jewish Coalition, some of the GOP’s most generous donors are backing away from their party’s presumptive nominee.

Another note, same tune: The RNC is bleeding Hispanic staff members. African-American staff members have been leaving, as well. Paul Ryan tacitly acknowledged that he's supporting a racist. Meanwhile, Trump's opinion is that anyone who points out Trump's racism is being racist. There should be little doubt that the Donald is on the same page as the "20 Minutes of Action" Dad.

There's only one person who might save the GOP from an epic beatdown on Election Day: Hillary Clinton.

Honesty in Comedy

From Angie Tribeca:

Jane Dough: "Should I be talking to a lawyer?"

Det. Tribeca: "No, ma'am. That would make our job a lot harder."

Rape is "20 Minutes of Action"?

At least, that's how the father of the rapist described it.

The father of a Stanford University student convicted of sexual assault has sparked outrage on social media by saying his son should not have been jailed for "20 minutes of action".

Brock Turner, 20, was sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman last year.

I will bet heavily that if it had been Dan Turner's daughter who had been raped while lying there unconscious instead of his son doing the raping, that Mr. Turner would want the rapist to get a quick drop at the end of a short rope.

But no. He's upset that his rapist of a son is going to have to do six months in county. Brock isn't doing the ten or fifteen years in prison that would have been the sentence if Brock had been poor or a minority. (Yep, affluenza strikes again.)

Because going to prison for a violent crime is too hard a punishment, at least, when the defendant is some good-looking white dude. It'd be a whole different story if his first name was Tyrone and there would be nobody feeling sorry for Tyrone not getting out of prison until 2030.

Rape is a violent crime. But to the rapist's dad, because Brockster didn't use a deadly weapon, that doesn't count as violence. His son committed a rape and all he can do is whine about how his son's life is now fucked up because of that?

Jeebus.

To Whom It May Concern in Connecticut: May You Burn in Hell, Forever, Asshole.

NORTH HAVEN >> A tiny kitten only weeks old was thrown from a car into oncoming traffic on I-91 Friday afternoon, prompting several motorists to pull over on the busy highway to try to save his life.

The kitten, named Lieutenant Dan by his rescuers after the character in the movie “Forrest Gump,” was able to make it to the barriers on the left side of the highway without being hit, but was ultimately euthanized because of the extent of his injuries from hitting the pavement.

The incident happened at about 3:45 p.m. Friday between exits 8 and 9 northbound on the New Haven/North Haven line. The car, thought to be a black sedan-type car, slowed down and tossed the kitten into the road, and then took off, according to witnesses.

Anyone who would throw a small animal onto a busy highway is deserving of having their Oxygen Permit revoked. One would hope that they find the perp and at least convict him of animal cruelty, but unless he brags about it to someone who then does the right thing and calls the cops, it isn't bloody likely.

People can be such asswipes. And this clown in a black sedan is one.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The Blues, back when they flew the Rhino:

As far as a crowd-please, the F-4 was probably the best airplane they've flown.

Nice Turn of Phrase

Setup: A private detective has gone into a titty bar to follow up on a lead:

I'm no prude and no one's ever mistaken me for a saint, but I've never been much of a fan of places like Glitters, even the ones that don't smell like the insides of my sneakers. Maybe it's the pretense of it all. I mean, a lot of the performers were gay and were as enthusiastic about being pawed by the patrons as burn victims were eager to receive skin grafts from a leper colony.

From The James Deans by Reed Farrel Coleman.

Nice.

Shorter Trump: "Only White Men Can Judge Me!"

Donald Trump's attacks against the judge in one of his 3,500 cases because of the judge's ethnicity is nothing sort of disgraceful.

Trump is a bully and a racist. He is evil on two legs.

Imagine giving him the power to order Federal LEOs and the armed forces to do his bidding. Restraint is not something that Trump is known for. He will have no problem with using them as his personal brown shirts.

A Kind Note to Political Protestors

Look, if you want to peacefully protest, fine. You have a right to do that.

Violent protests, from tossing eggs to physical assaults, persuades nobody of anything other than you're a pack of assholes.

Some guy comes along and start doing the same to you, I can understand where you'd feel the need to respond in kind. But the optics look better if you don't.

If you act like an asshole, people will think you're an asshole. And nobody feels sympathy towards assholes. The anarchists who shut down Seattle in 1999, protesting against the World Trade Organization accomplished nothing.

As will you.

The Great One Goes West

Muhammad Ali, the three-time heavyweight champion who proclaimed himself “the Greatest”, defied the US government over the Vietnam war, and later became one of the most well-known – and loved – sportsmen in history has died. He was 74.

Ali died late on Friday at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, the family’s spokesperson Bob Gunnell said. His funeral will take place in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.

His boxing career need not be discussed.

What you will read are comments that Ali was a "draft-dodger", like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and the rest of the Iraq War Chickenhawks. That is most assuredly a lie. Those men were all cowards, hiding behind multiple draft deferments or familial connections.

Ali was a draft resister. He took a stand. It cost him his title (which he later won back) and it damn near got him sent to prison for five years. Ali had courage in buckets. Those other gents, their only "courage" is in sending other people to fight.

Of course, this:

Caturday

At the shelter, the frame of an old footstool was donated. Take that, put a cushion on top, put a cushion underneath and voila: Instant two-level cat furniture:

Which took all of three seconds for two of the shelter cats to get comfy in and on it.

Custody Disputes in Space

Though, unless you are on another planet where there is no effective rule of law, this will be somewhat frowned upon.

A Smith & Wesson gold-plated Model 15 would seem to be the sort of weapon that one might find in a frontier whorehouse.

From Firefly's "Heart of Gold". The dead guy had been trying to kidnap the child from the mother, because he had fathered it and he probably needed an heir.

Murder by PowerPoint

A story.

I am eternally grateful that I got out of the service before PowerPoint fixed its death grip on the armed forces. Oh, there were overhead projectors and such, but it took more effort to make the transparencies and most people didn't bother because transparency sheets cost money and somebody had to pay for all that.

Because It's Friday

Scenes from the UP Steam Shop:

I had heard of 838 being used as a parts hulk for 844. I'd never heard of 5511.

The discussions I've read seem to agree that UP's current priority is to finish the overhaul of 844 (set to return to steam service next month), then maybe 3985 before concentrating on 4014.

"Warfighter"--- Bleech!

"Warfighter" is one of the terms that the think-tankers and the boobs at Ft. Fumble have come up with in this current cycle of wars.

Personally, I believe that anyone who uses that term is either doing so under duress or they are at least a borderline mental defective.[1] The term, more and more, seems to apply to everyone in uniform, ie, "servicemen". There doesn't seem to be much of a distinction in how this douchey new term used. Between trigger-pullers, fobbits and REMFs, all seem to fall under the term "warfighter" from time to time.

Bill Mauldin came up with the term "garritroopers" for what would now be "fobbits": Soldiers too far forward to wear ties and too far back to get shot. But I digress.

"Warfighter" is a kludgy term. There is a far better term available: Warrior.

By calling them "warriors", we could also stop using the imbecilic word "operators," a term that better describes people who run switchboards[2] and machine tools.[3] Which would be an additional benefit.

______________________________
[1] The term I would have used before seems to upset people, nowadays.
[2] Go look it up.
[3] Back when we made a lot of stuff in this country.

That Toddlin' Town

CHICAGO — Murders in the nation's third-largest city are up about 72%, while shootings have surged more than 88% in the first three months of 2016 compared with the same period last year, according to data released Friday by the Chicago Police Department.

The po-po say that most of it is gang-related and if you stay out of the bad neighborhoods, you might not get shot very much.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the rise is due to an unofficial slowdown by the cops, who are getting tired of being called on the carpet for such minor constitutional trifles such as beatings, shootings, torture and off-the-books detentions.

"Islamic Terrorism" is the Wrong Term for It

It is better called "Saudi Terrorism".

While the Saudis never officially supported Islamic terrorism they were, at the same time, very much responsible for the increase in Islamic terrorist activity since the 1970s. That’s because in Arabia (where Islam first appeared in the 7th century) the locals believe they are more Islamic than other Moslems. After all, the Koran was written in Arabic and all the founders of Islam were Arabs. Yet for over a thousand years there has been a tradition of different factions in Arabia trying outdo each other to prove who is “more Islamic” than the other. This led to constant fighting and suppression of new ideas. One of those fanatic factions is the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis, who first appeared in the 18th century, are very conservative and very hostile to non-Moslems and Moslems who are not Sunni. This meant little to the non-Moslem world until lots of oil wealth appeared in Arabia after World War II. Suddenly it became possible for Saudis to show how pious they were by funding Wahhabi missionaries who went to other Moslem (and many non-Moslem) nations to preach, establish Wahhabi religious schools and mosques (all paid for and sustained by Saudi Arabia) and create the current Islamic terrorism problem. Billions were (and still are) spent on this and the policy of getting the young boys into these free religious schools and turning many of them into hateful (towards anyone not like them) Islamic religious fanatics. This led to a major outbreak of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th century. At first this was not seen as a problem in Moslem countries. It was seen as a lot of pious and generous Saudis sharing the wealth. Soon (by the 1980s) a growing number of Moslem nations noted what was actually going on and resisted this destructive Saudi charity. Initially Moslem nations like Turkey, Iraq, Libya and Syria resisted the Wahhabi missionaries and money for political reasons as these nations did not accept the Wahhabi concept Islam dominating politics.

The Wahhabi problem is most obvious in Saudi Arabia, which practiced what it preached. Thus no other religions can be openly practiced and other forms of Islam are barely tolerated, sort of, and often persecuted. All Saudis are educated in schools that insist the Wahhabi way is the only way. As a result Saudis have always provided the largest number of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and al Qaeda recruits.

We have been in bed with those fuckers for a very long time, most prominently during the administrations of Bush I and II.

Maybe it's time that we start rethinking whom we consider to be our friends.

Starting a Dead-Tree Newsletter? The Post Office Hates You and is Betting You'll Fail

Let's say that you get the bright idea to begin publishing some sort of newsletter or other periodical. If you plan to mail them out, bring plenty of money to your startup.

Oh, sure, the Postal Service has a thing called a periodical rate. They offer it because, ages ago, Congress thought it was a good idea to encourage the cheap dissemination of news and information (and advertising). Doesn't mean the USPS likes it and they'll make it hard for you to do.

First, you have to start publishing and yes, that means you're mailing out your first few issues at first-class mail rates. Then you can take your circulation figures and proof to the Bulk Mail Unit servicing your area and apply for a periodical permit. Where you pretty much will have to engage in a sit-in if you want the application processed.

But first, the USPS will issue you a bulk-mail permit, not a periodical permit. Which costs more to mail. And which you have to establish an account and pay into, in advance, to mail your stuff. This is all while the USPS processes your periodical permit. Which takes six months, at a minimum. Usually longer.

The silver lining is that if you hang on long enough to get the periodical permit issued, then the USPS applies that retroactively, back to when you first started mailing out at the bulk rate.

But if your publication fails before then, you've paid to mail them at the bulk rate and it sucks to be you.

The six+ month delay to get a periodical permit, as you might have surmised, has nothing to do with bureaucracy. The Post Office has figured out that most new periodicals don't succeed and that they fail within (no prizes for guessing) six months.

The USPS hates the periodical rates. They make money on bulk mail, but little, if any, on periodicals. So they game the system to take the maximum profit from struggling startups and, I'll wager, they've sunk more than their share in doing that.

One might presume that the Post Office is run by people who once worked for Goldman Sachs. Or Donald Trump.

Ah, the Sweet Taste of Schadenfreude in the Afternoon

Or irony, with a garnish of hypocrisy. Your choice of flavors.

Ken Starr will resign as the chancellor at Baylor in the wake of a report last week that accused several university leaders of not properly handling allegations of sexual assault. ... Starr already had been stripped of his role as Baylor president by the Board of Regents on May 27 following the release of the university-commissioned report that came down hard on the school for doing little in response to accusations of sexual assault involving members of the football team.

The moralistic prig who spent more than $50 million trying to hang Bill Clinton for sexual peccadillos (coming up with nothing for it) apparently wasn't savvy enough to figure out that if his underlings were doing bad things of a sexual nature, that maybe he ought to do something about it.

Grifter Donald

Seems that he lied about the money that he purportedly raised and then didn't donate to veterans' groups.

Then he got found out. So he sent the money out. And got mad at the press for catching him lying.

One might conclude that he had no intention of paying out the money, at least not for a very long while. Maybe he figured he wouldn't have to. I don't know. No point in asking Trump, for every word out of his mouth is a self-serving lie.*

Donald the Liar.

Donald the Bully.

Donald the Grifter.

Choose any one (or all).
_____________________________________
* Or proof of his ignorance.