Just a combination of things

For the enviroweenie on your eat it, you jerk!gift list, Kim has linked to a truly incredible(well, disgusting too) piece at Civilization Watch on- among other things- just how that bullcrap 'hockey stick' graph the True Believers In Globular Warmering use(still, despite it being shown up as crap) to try to beat people into submission. For a moment, I thought about sending this link to the friend I had the big go-round with, but decided not to; after I said I wasn't going to play that game anymore it settled back into friendly terms, and, her being one of the True Believers, I'd just get to hear the "All the TRUE scientists believe!" stuff again.

As to the Beauchamp the Slimy mess, Confederate Yankee has a whole lot of stuff; just start working your way down, it's worth it. Same at Ace of Spades. Chris noted in a comment that the guy could be facing serious charges; at one of the many posts somebody(I've lost track of which one) checked with a Army official and was told he couldn't comment because of the 'ongoing investigation'. Like nobody saw that coming. Write about atrocities and general dirtbag behaviour on the part of your whole damn unit, and you'd be surprised that someone from CID shows up and says "We need to talk"?

A columnist in Canada says 'stop blaming guns and poverty and all the usual feel-good crap, and start looking at what's truly behind these problems'. Look for the 'human rights' people to try to crucify him at their earliest opportunity.

The Relapsed Catholic was wondering why military decorations could be bought online. She gets the answer. I could buy a hat and unit insignia for my son's unit to put up on the wall or something, but it would be flat wrong for me to wear it as if I'd served in that unit. Or to buy a medal and act as if I'd earned it; such things have been known to cause a severe ass-kickingproblems for idiots and/or posers who've done it.

And a piece from the UK Times on how activist lawyers are causing problems in fighting terrorists. He also notes that a lot of European countries who bitch and whine about Guantanamo aren't exactly squeaky-clean in their treatment of terror suspects.

If this turns out to be true,

this is something else that's downright big.

By the way, did Murtha actually wave a Purple Heart around to show what a hotshot he is? If he did, that's proof that the bastard should be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. And that goes for any politician who does such a thing.

So the lying little boob is unmasked

Hot Air has it, with lots of links to more. Blackfive has several pieces on this, latest here; more worth reading on this and other things, so scroll down.

This guy sounds like someone in my son's unit: pain-in-the-ass little jerk who's made himself, er, 'unpopular' with everyone and who seems to think he's undervalued. Only Beauchamp decided to piss all over everyone in uniform with his BS, and is now whining and (you know it was coming) calling "Chickenhawk!" at everyone who criticized him. Despite so many of them being, you know, veterans and stuff. I'll repeat what I once said, I'd rather be called a chickenhawk than actually be a chickenshit; which he most assuredly is.


Note: before I expressed reservations about this jerk actually being a troop. It turns out he does wear the uniform(for now, at least), but I admit to trouble referring to this little shit as a 'soldier'.

Remarkable things happen with you give simple orders:

Go in numbers, kill or capture the bad guys and keep them from returning.

Survival

Somebody linked to this post on the subject, specifically the way people just don't think about the fact that nature doesn't give a damn and will kill you without a care. Just because you didn't check on something/learn the area/keep your eyes open/think.

There was a book written a couple of years ago called Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why. Very good book with many examples. The people who walk into a national forest in Hawaii and disappear. The searchers who go looking for them and disappear. The swimmers who vanish, the mountain climbers who die in avalanches, slides and falls. Boaters who drown or are eaten or taken by storms. People who get lost in a relatively small area and die of exposure. The post noted above mentions a place in that book:
I read in a survival book, of a rock that's over here, a popular photo site, where the waves crash against it majestically, Tourists stop here as it's a remarkable photo opportunity, the breakers breaking up past them and showering them with drops of the sea. A man will pause to adjust a setting on his digital camera, and look up to find his lover gone, never to be seen again.

Gone. Because you were standing on a rock at just the wrong time. He wrote of a similar story to hers of going out to the beach and, just in passing, asking a lifeguard about the water today. The guy looked out and just stood there for a couple of minutes, and as the writer had about decided this guy was stoned or something the guy came out of the trance and gave him a complete rundown of where was safe, where wasn't and what would happen if you went into the wrong area. Today. Might be different tomorrow. Which probably kept the writer from being one of the disappeared.

I occurs to me that taking note of the hazards of nature before going out into it is very similar thing to the people who decide to carry for self-defense. They're not looking for a fight, they don't want a fight, they just want to go through their daily hike through life. But they've taken note that there are predators out there, some of whom will hurt or kill anyone who strikes their fancy; that "it CAN happen to me". So they decide to be more careful of where they go, of how they keep an eye out, and decide to carry the means of defense in case it's needed. Which means practicing, and running things through your mind: "What would I have to do if that guy pulled a knife? What would happen if a robbery started while I'm having dinner?" and so on.

Mind you, society can make it difficult for people in both cases. The most obvious is the carrying of arms: some places it's flat not legal, most you have to jump through some legal hoops to get a permit to carry. And even when you have the permit there are usually a bunch of places you're not allowed to carry. Including a lot of national forests and other such places. Different kind of predator(usually) to worry about than in the city, but just as dangerous. And a lot of people just as certain that you, the common peasantcivilian, cannot be trusted to carry there(and, like that idiot Biden, don't think you should be allowed to own guns or sharp objects at all).

Survival very often boils down to, on the most basic level, recognizing that there are risks, and that things can happen to you, so you at the least should be watchful. In the woods or in town.

And yet more on the 'Shock Troops' bullshit

Through Insty ran across two things. One is a different way of analyzing it, found here. Interesting read, although this pisses me off:
With 160,000 people, mostly young men, many armed, many beyond the eyes of authority, there will be some thuggery and sadism and it is doubtful that superior officers will be devoting any large amount of time and effort to finding or suppressing it.
Apparently an awful lot of people think that once troops get into combat areas, their NCOs and officers don't really care much what they do.

Other thing is here. Lots of links, and a very interesting quote from the asshat editor of NR:
The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.
Got that? "Near certainty". And noted in the comments is that this has been changed: it now says "He said that he had met the writer and that he knows that he is, in fact, a soldier."

Yeah, that's real damn believable.

On a further note, Chris said in the comments to an early bit I posted on the Bradley:
The main structure and armor are relatively light aluminum; they CAN'T run though a wall as described. They'd accordion.
And what do you think would happen to the driver who did something like this in anything other than a 'no other choice' scenario?

On dealing with the possessed

Back when I was a dispatcher there was a guy working in another headquarters who was an EMT, and he'd occasionally tell a story about some run he'd made. This one made him a bit more concerned with the idea of The Devil.

They'd received a call from the local police for a mental case they needed transport for to the hospital that handled such cases. They arrived just as four slightly worse-for-wear cops had gotten the subject in question somewhat subdued, and they got him on the gurney and cuffed on both sides with no problem and headed for the hospital.

He was sitting in the back watching the guy when he turned his head, looked at the EMT and said, in a flat voice, "I am Satan".

"Ok dude, that's fine, whoever you want to be." He'd dealt with a lot of somewhat to really messed-up people by now, so no big deal.

Guy(hasn't blinked since he said that) repeated, with slight pauses to emphasize, "I.. am.. Satan." Flat voice, absolutely no emotion and still not blinking.

"That's fine, it's ok, we're almost there." Getting just a touch nervous now as the guy tried to sit up. he seemed to notice the cuffs for the first time and laid there staring at the one on his wrist closest to the EMT. Then he started flexing his arm. Not jerking, just a steady rise until he reached the end of the chain and then kept going, very slowly.

EMT was getting very nervous now because this guy was freaking him out, and, hmmm, it almost looked like the frame of the gurney where the cuff was looped was deforming just a touch, and the guy was still lifting. At this point he was sliding to the back of the ambulance where the extinguisher was and called to the driver to get ready to stop. "Why?" was answered with "Just get ready!"

Ting.

That was the sound of the cuff chain breaking. As the guy sat up and started lifting his other arm the EMT yelled "STOP!" and braced himself, driver hit the brakes, inertia surprised the subject and threw him flat, and just as they came to a stop the EMT sprayed the guy in the face, threw open the door and jumped out. Landing on the hood of the following police car that'd almost rear-ended the ambulance. He looked at two shocked faces and yelled "He broke the cuffs!" Both officers jumped out and into the back of the ambulance, he and the driver joined in and in a couple of minutes they had him secured again, this time with two cuffs on each arm. And this time one of the officers rode in back the rest of the trip, which was made with remarkable speed.

They got to the ER, took the guy inside to a room and began to relax. Until the doctor walked in, took one look and said "Take those handcuffs off him."

Chorus of "No!"

"I said take them off! I will not have a patient chained in my ER."

Lead officer took out his keys, took off the handcuff key, tossed it to the doctor and said "You do it." And both officers left. The EMTs looked at each other, and followed.

I asked him if he knew what happened after that, he said no, didn't go back to that hospital before he changed jobs a short time later. I tend to think the doctor may have had a rush of intelligence to the head and decided to sedate the guy before unlocking him; otherwise, it'd probably have been on the news when a patient remodeled the room and some of the staff.

Things do move along

I just bought a 32mb jump drive for the grand total of $5. At the checkout counter. At Target.

And Wally World has a 2 gig drive for $20.

I think it was ten years ago(maybe less) I was listening to a programmer having fits of ecstasy because he'd just found out you could now buy a 1 gigabyte hard drive for a pc for only $100.

More on the 'Shock Troops' story

Emphasis on 'story'.

Over at Q&O, found several pieces, from earliest to latest here, here, and here, and links to a Howard Kurtz article here. The response to the questions from New Republic:
"The Standard raises some important questions about the piece, and we're investigating them," New Republic Editor Franklin Foer said yesterday. "I've been in touch with several members of the author's unit who corroborate the details under question. And the author has provided compelling responses himself."

Which boils down to "We say it's true, so there. We'll have some proof at some point. When we feel like it." Which, considering the attention this is getting, would seem to mean "Crap, we need something to prove at least some of this! What'll we do? We can't get away with 'the story is true even if the facts are not' anymore!"

One thing , aside from the other BS in this, is the stuff about a Bradley driver ramming through walls, etc. I'm not an armor guy, so I'm going by what I've read. And one thing you don't do with a bloody TANK if you can avoid it is ram through concrete walls; hard on the vehicle and the people inside. Well, the Bradley is NOT a tank, it's much lighter and more lightly armored, and the consequences to the vehicle of doing such a thing would be, shall we say, 'bad'. Like damaging the gun, and the missile launcher, and the people inside... I kind of think the vehicle commander and unit commander would have some words to say to the driver who did something like this without very damn good reason. Said words probably being accompanied with the driver's ass being relocated to somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder blades.

But, why let nasty facts get in the way of a 'true' story? Didn't stop Dan Rather.

H&H Range had Dealer's Days

on Thursday, Friday & Saturday. They've been doing this for several years now, and it's pretty nice. This year they had people from Springfield, S&W, Para-Ordnance, Kimber, Sig, Taurus, Savage, Wilson Combat, Leupold and Surefire. Way it works is if you find something you'd like to try out you buy a ticket($3, money goes to the state shooting sports assoc.) and give it to the dealer. You get the gun and(for most*) five rounds of ammo and a target to take to the range and shoot. Plus they have discounts on most things, and a lot of the dealers throw in extra mags or a holster or hat or shirt or a combination of the above if you buy.

Found a couple of things I wanted/needed, but the only thing I tried out this time was a Kimber Aegis II















Take their micro-compact .45acp, give it an alloy frame and chamber it in 9mm as a thin, light carry piece. It's a single-action with the entire hammer spur cut off(that part I'm not too sure about why), which is why you don't see it.

Very small, very light, and the one I tried had night sights, a full stainless finish and as fine a trigger as I've ever felt: short takeup and breaking light and clean. It put my five shots into a group about 2" across at 15 feet exactly at point of aim. Not a bad little pistol at all. If only it didn't cost so damn much.

Speaking of cost, the Wilson table had a couple of their full-size 1911's, a AR15 with everything and a shotgun with most things. I know you pay for handwork and don't gripe about that, and from a quality maker you get what you pay for, but damn! The less-expensive 1911 was $3200. Which puts it WAY out of what I'm willing to pay for a pistol unless I come into a big damn pile of money.

I just wish I'd had more time, there were a couple of other pistols I'd have tried out.


*For the .500 and .460 S&W Magnums, you got one round; any more than that, you had to buy.

'New Republic publishes 'Murdering Soldiers' story

Smell of bovine fertilizer in the air

I'm quite a bit behind on this. Some clown going by Scott Thomas had a piece in NR called 'Shock Troops' on the horrible, nasty people in/created by the Army. Among other things which caused a lot of people to call "Bullshit!" was this:
Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

The technical BS in this will be obvious to most people who swing by here. If you're not familiar with firearms stuff, there is no gun made that uses a 'square back' cartridge case. Period. The second thing is that Glocks are kind of like mosquitos, they're all over the damn place. Including in Iraq.

I could go on, but there's no reason to; a lot of people with better backgrounds have taken this crap apart on various levels. So what I'm going to do is put together some links on this.

Blackfive, here and here.

Confederate Yankee here, here, here.

Michelle Malkin here, here(bottom of the post, multiple links), Hot Air here.

Ace here, here, here.

That's not nearly all that's coming out on this crap.

And just to cover the 'we support the troops' line, Ace has this and this from the Kossites.

Some Marines who could use a hand

Information here at Blackfive