A Dark Blog

I was going through my blogroll and looking at blogs that hadn't posted in over a year. One of them is Pen & Sword, by Jeff Huber. His last post was on January 8, 2012.

I searched for his name and the blog title. CDR Jeffrey L. Huber, USN-Ret., died on January 24, 2012 at the age of 57.

Fair winds and following seas, Commander.

Long Range Snubbie Shooting

I like to think that I'm a pretty fair revolver shooter. But nothing like this.

Of course, I don't know how much he practiced for that shot (probably a lot). But even if he burned through a case of ammo to practice for that video, it's still amazing.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

An Airbus shells its right-hand engine on takeoff:

Riders of the Short Bus; Bankster Edition

Did you know that JP Morgan Chase and the Bank of America have "compliance divisions" made up of people who are supposed to ensure that the banksters obey the law?

I'm guessing that they probably work 12 hours a day and that the daily routine for those folks is something like this:

8:00-8:10- Morning meeting

8:15-9:00- Ride executive coach to the golf course

9:15-10:45- Play the front nine

Crime Stats Look Better if It is an "Accident" Rather Than an "Open and Unsolved Homicide"

That's the best explanation that I can think of for the "spy accidentally killed himself by locking himself inside a garment bag" theory of Scotland Yard.

In Joseph Wambaugh's novels in the `70s, he mentioned that the detectives would sometimes contrive elaborate explanations of how somebody could have committed suicide, especially when the dead guy was a drug dealer. The alternative was to have a killing on their books that could never be solved.

That's kind of what this smells like.

Caturday

Bored cat is truly bored.

DiFi Hates Freedom

Sen. Feinstein's committee of NSA lackeys has voted out a bill that would make it legal for the NSA and other law enforcement agencies to search through your emails without so much as a by-your-leave from any type of judge.

Feinstein calls her bill "The FISA Improvement Act", which might as well be called the "Gutting the Bill of Rights Act".

I'd like to know who were the 10 other senators who voted with DiFi to make legal what the NSA has been doing illegally. But try and find that anywhere. Because compared to a buggy site to sign up for health insurance, further enabling the National Surveillance State is small beer to our vaunted press corps.

See, paying attention to all of this NSA stuff is hard work compared to bleating about the problems using the Obamacare website.

At this point, if you are not using encryption for your emails, then you've probably pretty much consented to DasGov, at all levels, being able to read them.

#AskJPM

JP MorganChase thought it would be a good idea to go onto Twitter and take questions.

It was a bad idea, as tens of thousands of Twitter users took their shots at JPM.

But don't worry. If nobody at JPM got fired for looting billions and billions of dollars from the global economy, they're not going to fire anybody over this.

Al-Qaeda: "Ooopsie. Our Bad!"

In a case of mistaken identity, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group cut off the head of the commander of one of its allied groups.

Maybe they need to start wearing name tags.

Q: What is the difference between the State of Texas and al Qaeda?

A: Texas doesn't apologize when it executes the wrong person.

Because It's Friday

Duke of Gloucester, 71000:

The sound is different. It has 75" drivers and three cylinders.