Saturday, August 13, 2011

I can't think of any fancy way to introduce this

Just go read.

Kind of felt that way a few times myself

So the Washington Post may well have had knowledge

of Gunwalker,
Can an American news agency that knew that Operation Fast and Furious was "walking" thousands of firearms to Mexican drug cartels face criminal and civil charges for their role in covering up the program?

That is a question the Washington Post, its editors, reporters, and lawyers should be sweating, as evidence emerges that the newspaper may have been aware of the multi-agency "Gunwalker" program that led to the deaths of an estimated 150 Mexican police and soldiers or more, the shooting of three American federal agents, and countless casualties on both sides of the border
.
And, on the subject of Gunwalker Houston,
Congressional investigators are researching an initiative that sounds very, very familiar.
...congressional leaders want to know if similar problems happened in Houston during an investigation done under the auspices of an ATF initiative called "Gunrunner." The operation targeted "straw buyers" in border states recruited to legally purchase handguns and high-powered rifles only to hand the weapons over to members of the drug cartels.

"The ATF agents encouraged them to go through with the sales," said Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin, who represents Carter's Country, the largest independent gun retailer in our region.

DeGuerin said starting in 2006, Houston ATF agents asked Carter's Country for help by alerting agents when a suspicious gun buyer tried to purchase multiple weapons. DeGuerin referred to this effort as a "stall and call."

"Stall the purchaser, call the ATF, let an ATF agent come out and watch the sale so they could follow it," DeGuerin said.

"Did the ATF always show up?" asked Local 2 Investigator Robert Arnold.

"No, they didn't," DeGuerin said.

If that sounds familiar, it should... Carter's Country is the exact same gun shop savaged by the Post reporting team in the article that drew McCabe’s attention at Human Events.

Carter's Country is now in a legal battle with the ATF, with the ATF attacking the gun store for supplying weapons to straw purchasers which found their way south to the cartels, and the gun store claiming that it was doing exactly what the ATF asked it to do.

DeGurein claims to have documentation that correlates their version of events, and ATF Houston has declined to talk.(bold mine)
If they have proof of ATF telling them to make the sales, then ATF blaming THEM for the operation not only falls apart but shows ATF as trying to throw Carter's Country under the bus as part of a coverup.

Steyn thoughts on the British riots

and the PC/socialist idiocy that led to them. Including
As part of my promotional efforts, I chanced to find myself on a TV show the other day with an affable liberal who argued that what Obama needed to do was pass another trillion-dollar – or, better yet, multi-trillion – stimulus. I think not. The London rioters are the children of dependency, the progeny of Big Government: they have been marinated in "stimulus" their entire lives. There is literally nothing you can't get Her Majesty's Government to pay for. From page 205 of my book:

"A man of 21 with learning disabilities has been granted taxpayers' money to fly to Amsterdam and have sex with a prostitute."

Hey, why not? "He's planning to do more than just have his end away," explained his social worker. "Refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights."
The human rights of the actual working people being looted to pay for this crap don't count, of course.
Yet a police force all but entirely useless when it comes to preventing crime or maintaining public order has time to police everything else. When Sam Brown observed en passant to a mounted policeman on Cornmarket Street in Oxford, "Do you know your horse is gay?", he was surrounded within minutes by six officers and a fleet of patrol cars, handcuffed, tossed in the slammer overnight, and fined 80 pounds. Mr. Brown's "homophobic comments," explained a spokesmoron for Thames Valley Police, were "not only offensive to the policeman and his horse, but any members of the general public in the area." The zealous crackdown on Sam Brown's hippohomophobia has not been replicated in the present disturbances. Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the past two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid.


Theodore Dalrymple chimes in, too.
The ferocious criminality exhibited by an uncomfortably large section of the English population during the current riots has not surprised me in the least. I have been writing about it, in its slightly less acute manifestations, for the past 20 years. To have spotted it required no great perspicacity on my part; rather, it took a peculiar cowardly blindness, one regularly displayed by the British intelligentsia and political class, not to see it and not to realize its significance. There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy.
If you have a chance, and you're not familiar with his books, I'd suggest looking them up; Life At The Bottom, for instance.

Friday, August 12, 2011

On what seems to be one of the big 'responses' in Britain

to the rioting:
Looking at limits on Twitter and Facebook? That's your answer? Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but they almost burned Los Angeles down back in the '90s, when cell phones were the size of bricks and didn't even have custom ring-tones, let alone 3G internet connections. Hell, the Watts Riots of the '60s happened half a decade before you could play Space War over ARPANET, let alone Farmville on Facebook.

If this simpering twit had been running things during the Blitz, he would have formed a committee to study the feasibility of outlawing Nazi bombers. (The Department of Transport would have grounded the Spitfires and Hurricanes as being too dangerous and insufficiently bulletproof.)
Not to mention that someone loudly proclaiming that allowing the subjects to own arms and USE them in self-defense will probably have him in the lead of condemning such as horrible and nasty and unthinkable(and effective, but he won't mention that); it appears that most Brit politicians will forever think that burning in your home or business, or being assaulted in the streets because the cops can't or won't get there is far preferable than the subjects getting uppity and thinking self-defense, including with arms, is an idea whose time has come again.

Oh, if I had a big-enough yard...

These guys in positions on one side, and these in suitable shambling advance... the possibilities are great, especially closer to Halloween

Ok, back to Gunwalker

I'm going to use links here to original stories, for those who have reason not to go to Sipsey Street or Examiner; but it should be remembered that these people have dug/are digging out a LOT of stuff that's led to these stories; if you can, check them regularly for updates and new stuff.

It appears Hoover is talking. A lot. Like Melson, there's an emphasis on "I tried to save things!" and/or "I didn't realize how bad it was!", which- considering other things that've come out- has to be taken as ass-covering; it's still information coming out to add to the pot. For instance,
Worse, the weapons had turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the ATF official was worried that someone in the United States could be hurt next.
Which sounds to me like "People getting whacked in Mexico is ok, but we'll be in real trouble if these guns are linked to people getting hurt or killed here." Combine this with that one supervisor being delighted that Gunwalker guns were being found at crime scenes in Mexico...
Then there's this:
The memo did not suggest agents purposely allow illegal purchasers to walk away with guns, and Justice Department officials insist they never approved the "operational" concept for Fast and Furious. Nevertheless, the ATF viewed the memo as marching orders.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF acting director, told investigators that his subordinates took the memo and came up with "tactical strategies" that created Fast and Furious. "We have to go after the cartels to stop the flow of guns," he said.

William D. Newell, then the special agent in charge of the ATF field office for Arizona and New Mexico, said "the memo fitted into how we were going to address this" problem. Fast and Furious was launched the following month, November 2009, and was run out of Newell's field office.
Consider: A: this is despite the fact that they KNEW there was no 'iron river' flowing to Mexico, they KNEW there were no bigtime gun smugglers. B: Melson, YOU WERE THE DIRECTOR OF ATF, yet you still claim you didn't know about a lot of this? And for some reason, when you found out, didn't actually do anything about it? Really? C: The DoJ is claiming "We didn't know about THIS part!", but we're expected to believe that this agency AND THE OTHERS INVOLVED started doing this without having something concrete from above on it? Bullcrap.


Connected: on BP Agent Terrys' death, and his family being further crapped on:
The family asked to intervene as victims in the case against Jamie Avila, the 23-year-old Phoenix man who purchased the guns allegedly used to kill Terry. Such motions are routinely approved by prosecutors, but may be opposed by defense attorneys.

Agent Brian A. Terry, 40, was killed on Dec. 14 near Rio Rico, Ariz., according to a statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. (FNC)

However in this case, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not "directly or proximately harmed" by the illegal purchase of the murder weapon, it does not meet the definition of "crime victim" in the Avila case. Burke claims the victim of the Avila's gun purchases, "is not any particular person, but society in general."
Sipsey's referring to Burke as "Mr. Banality of Evil himself", which seems, from this, to be a pretty good description. A member of your family is murdered in this mess, but you can't be considered a 'crime victim'; however, society in general' can... Can you say 'corrupt lawyer trying to help give cover for things'?
I knew you could.


And Sen. Cornyn is demanding answers about gunwalking actions in Texas.
Cornyn today sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requesting information about any gun walking operations in Texas.

“Unfortunately, the Department of Justice has been less than forthcoming during congressional investigations into the failed ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’” Cornyn wrote. “I believe it is important that you promptly disclose the details of any past or present Texas-based ATF ‘gun-walking’ program similar to ‘Operation Fast and Furious.’ My constituents deserve a full accounting of any such activities in Texas.”

Makes you wonder which Obama will consider more important: keeping Holder as AG so as to help try to cover things up and protect Obama, or throwing him out to take the blame for everything.



Now, as to the Feds playing "Let's have everybody watch for PC terrorists instead of actual ones:
“An FBI Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force handout being distributed to Colorado military surplus store owners lists the purchase of popular preparedness items and firearms accessories as ‘suspicious’ and ‘potential indicators of terrorist activities,’” an exclusive report by Oath Keepers reveals.

Essentially, the government is conflating Americans who believe in being prepared for disruptions in normal circumstances with potential domestic enemies who bear scrutiny, and are recruiting those they patronize to spy and snitch on their customers. As potential terrorists. For such suspicious activities as buying storable food. And paying in legal tender.
Buy a case of MREs for emergency food? You'd be on the list. Find magazines on sale and buy a few? You're on it. Pay cash? Ooooh, why would anybody non-suspicious do that? Etc.

The FBI handout, entitled “Communities Against Terrorism: Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities Related to Military Surplus Stores” also instructs surplus store owners to:

“Require valid ID from all new customers.

Keep records of purchases.

Talk to customers, ask questions, and

listen to and observe their responses.

Watch for people and actions that are out of place.

Make note of suspicious statements, people, and /or vehicles.

If something seems wrong, notify law enforcement authorities.”
First question: where the hell does the EffingBI get the authority to 'instruct' people to do this? Second, notice the 'new customers'; is this a "Don't worry about old customers", or is this a "See, we didn't ask you to fink on EVERYBODY who does something we think suspicious!" escape clause?
The handout also instructs surplus store owners to consider as “suspicious” anyone who “demands identity ‘privacy’” or anyone who expresses “extreme religious statements” and those who “make suspicious comments regarding anti-US, [or] radical theology.”
...
Some of the activities, taken individually, could be innocent and must be examined by law enforcement professionals in a larger context to determine whether there is a basis to investigate. The activities outlined on this handout are by no means all-inclusive but have been compiled from a review of terrorist events over several years.
"Don't try to think for yourself, you need to give everything to The Professionals to determine if your customer is a Bad Guy." Yeah, we're really going to trust that.

As Bob G pointed out, if they try this in Utah they're liable to have a bunch of stores tell them to go to hell; lots of Mormons in Utah and they're very big on disaster preparation(any other place with a bunch of Mormons either). And with the economy being as bad as it is, lots of people who really didn't worry about things before are buying some 'just in case' supplies; think most of them will like the idea of being put on a list to hand over to the Feds? Add to the general 'just in case' you have people looking at the riots in Greece and Britain, and the gang attacks on people here in the US and deciding "Maybe I'll get that CCW permit after all, and a few extra magazines" and you've got a lot more people who aren't going to be real happy about being considered terrorism suspects, or being on a list to be 'examined by law enforcement professionals'.
Be it noted, lots of semi-auto pistol magazines, the standard size- sometimes from a long time back- are now considered 'high-capacity' by the clowns, which means buying a regular mag- or a few, you found a sale- for your Glock or Springfield or Hi-Power would put you on the list.

I do have to wonder, will they decide that people buying a few gallon jugs of water(let alone the bigger jugs) are 'buying in bulk' and suspicious? How about a couple of jars of peanut butter, or cans of stew or meat, when you don't have a large family?

I didn't know vampires had their own strain of rabies;

might explain some of the Twilight crap.
A teenager from Mexico became the first person in thUnited States to die after being bitten by a vampire bat and infected with rabies, US health authorities said on Thursday.


Well, Obama DID say that under his plans energy costs would 'necessarily skyrocket'; so he's keeping his word there. Hope! and CHANGE!!!


I've got a friend who insists ACORN 'was cleared' of vote-fraud; not exactly.


More on the "Polar bears are drowning due to AGW!" scientist, who's in real trouble from the sound of it.


Yeah, we did fight a war with this being one of the reasons



Thursday, August 11, 2011

I just went over for the first time in a few days

and Sipsey and Codrea both have a lot of new stuff on Gunwalker. Right now it's late, I'm tired and you'll have to browse over there yourself; I'll post something on all this in the morning.

U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke:

You suck. Bigtime.


Also, the EffingBI says if you buy any of a bunch of survival-type stuff in bulk, you're suspicious and should be on a list. And for some reason they're starting this crap in Colorado. Maybe they think people there will be more willing to be government spies?
Link

Hey, Canada: that's not a bug,

it's a basic and very important feature, you jackass.
“But that has to be balanced. You don’t have a right to just attack someone because they broke into your house. This is not the U.S.A. where your home is your castle and you have carte blanche once an intruder is inside your house.”

Speaking of which, Alphecca responds to the minions of the PROM:

Unlike in the United States, the UK has strict gun licensing laws that rank among the toughest gun control laws in the world. Further, most British policemen do not carry firearms in the course of their duties and need special permission to do so. The result is that while many people have been beaten and demand for baseball bats for personal protection has gone through the roof in England, there’s only been minimal gun violence.

Not to mention that half the cities are on fire, buildings destroyed, cars destroyed . . .

Other than that, gun control there has been a wonderful success.

Armor: different strokes, as it were...



Years back, looking at some sci-fi and fantasy cover art, I suggested we take the artist, dress him or her in like manner, and run them through the Oklahoma woods for a few hours; it might give them the idea that a breech clout or fur/skin bikini, while attractive for some, doesn't give a hell of a lot of protection from the thorns and vines and bark and bugs and....

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Starting off this side of the Atlantic with a fine Union example

of fatherhood.


In Britain,
According to witnesses, the car, containing up to three passengers, hit the three men at around 50mph but did not stop.

Locals said the victims, who were aged between 20 and 31, were part of a group who had gathered to protect local shops used by all sections of the community.

Resident Mohammed Shakiel, a 34-year-old carpenter, said: “We got a call that there had been a car that had been set alight and a group of youths had moved further up the road.

“They put the fire out but there were still yobs on the street - they had no agenda other than simple stealing.”

Mr Shakiel said of the victims, “They lost their lives for other people, doing the job of the police.
That last rang a bell, so I checked: from Robert Peel,
7) Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Mr. Shakiel, they died doing their duty; part of the problem is that your government has forgotten that, among other important things.


So it 'brings her joy'; my first thought I won't post, as I try to keep my use of that language to a minimum.


Back across the ocean and over the mountains,
Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden (not to deny the effectiveness of waterboarding, but it’s just not applicable in this case.) Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect the approximately $25 million reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program.


Holy crap!
Britain’s gun laws are among the most draconian in the world, yet the nation has some of the highest levels of violent crime and burglary in the West, and there is no shortage of gun crime in major cities such as London and Manchester. While criminal gangs are often able to acquire firearms on the black market, ordinary law-abiding British citizens are barred from owning guns for self-defence.

The riots in London, the West Midlands and the North West should prompt a renewed debate in Britain over the right to bear arms by private citizens. The shocking scenes of looting across the country are a reminder that the police cannot always be relied upon to protect homes and businesses during a period of widespread social disorder. The defence of life and property can never be entrusted solely to the state, not least when there is a complete breakdown in law and order. As we have seen this week in Britain, when individuals are barred from defending their own property from mobs of vicious thugs, sheer anarchy and terror reins.
In The Telegraph, no less.
To the comment from youtubejohn:
First, our Constitution does not 'grant' rights; the founders were very specific about that.
Second, yeah, we did get it from you; you might remember that one of the things the founders were fighting for, before it actually came to revolution, was to be recognized as having the same rights of free Englishmen that those in the British Isles were recognized as having.
Last, And if you really believe you inherited the right to defend yourselves from Great Britain, then I wonder how you square that thought against the history of having to defend yourselves AGAINST us in the Revolutionary War?
You might check the history, guy; one of the things that the British government was trying to do was restrict the ownership of arms, in some cases seizing them. That was one of the final straws that led to the Big Dustup. I'd suggest looking up references to Concord and Lexington.


In a phone interview, the national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, which organized some of the largest antiwar protests during the Bush administration, Michael McPhearson, said part of the explanation is political partisanship. A lot of the antiwar protesters, he said, were Democrats. “Once Obama got into office, they kind of demobilized themselves,” he said.

“Because he’s a Democrat, they don’t want to oppose him in the same way as they opposed Bush,” said Mr. McPhearson, who is also a former executive director of Veterans for Peace, and who said he voted for President Obama in 2008. “The politics of it allows him more breathing room when it comes to the wars.”

So if it's a Democrat in charge of the nasty colonialist warmongering, it's ok...


Ah, Algore, maybe if you get mad enough and curse enough, you can change some minds...
Naw. You just show how unhinged you're becoming. 'Unacceptable to use the word 'climate' '? Really?


There's lots more out there, but I've got stuff to put away.




And DHS wants to double-down on stupid

"Homeland Security plans to operate a massive new database of names, photos, birthdays and biometrics called Watchlist Service, duplicated from the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database, which has proven not to be accurate many times in the past. DHS wants to exempt the Watchlist Service from Privacy Act provisions, meaning you will never know if you are wrongfully listed. Privacy groups worried about inaccurate info and mission creep have filed a protest, arguing the Privacy Act says DHS must notify subject of government surveillance. DHS has admitted that it 'does not control the accuracy of the information in system of records' and that 'individuals do not have an opportunity to decline to provide information.' Additionally, the DHS Watchlist Service attempts to circumvent privacy protections established by the Privacy Act. Who's watching the watchers?"

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

"You don't need a gun, the police will protect you"

Bleeding a little, I thought I might as well call 999. It was a recorded message. After four and a half minutes, a tired man answered. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “You know what’s going on. We have to give priority to saving people’s lives. I suggest you just go home.”

He was right, of course. I was in Hackney - which, that evening at least, was a law-free zone. That’s the worst thing about riots. Across much of London on Monday night, if someone had decided to break down your door and rape your daughter, there would have been nothing to stop them. There would have been no one to call.

When I was mugged, I was on my way home from a day in Tottenham, listening to the stories of the people who had lost far more and been at far greater risk than me, burned out of their homes at 30 seconds’ notice.

They called 999 too, frantically, desperately, as the riot moved closer. There were 100 police just up the road. The emergency operator could do nothing but listen to their terror
.
This is Sarah Brady Paradise; this is the disarmed 'don't you dare try to protect yourself' nation she and her little friends want here.

Screw you, Sarah; we refuse.

What I just read, so you don't have to...

Uncle found this clown; the quote he borrowed was
Many times I’ve riffed on a dark, delicious fantasy about rounding up Tea Bagger types and sentencing them to green re-education camps for minimum one-year terms.
Somehow, progressives and socialists always finally slip to Stalinist and Mao mode; we're used to seeing it by now.

I decided to take the risk of losing brain cells and went to the post Uncle links(I'm not going to) and found, along with all the other 'everyone but us is stupid and trying to ruin the country' lefty crap a truly stupid statement:
LinkA second Civil War would be an incredibly destructive thing, but it would feel so good.
Think about the level of idiocy required to say this. We've been speaking of the four boxes(soap, ballot, court and then cartridge) for years, and being only in the soap and ballot stages, and clowns like Wells call us terrorists and so forth; and then out comes what he really thinks: "Put the wrong-thinkers in camps. And if that doesn't work, kill them." But WE'RE the terrorists...

Added: from comments on Tam's thoughts, as to 'the rich' being blamed for all:
Truly "The Rich" is an evil on par with "Sumdood."
And if you're not familiar with the bastard Sumdood, check this.

Phillips, you're a moron; you're also much closer to our President

than anyone else. Moron rioter said
Phillips claimed rioters were motivated by distrust of the police, and drew a link between the rage on London’s street and insurgent right-wing politics in the United States. “In America you have the tea party, in England you’ve got this,” he said.
Take a look around here, moron; no buildings burning, and the only mass attacks have been from thugs and clowns like you attacking people.

Oh, his likeness to the President?
“This is the uprising of the working class. We’re redistributing the wealth,” said Bryn Phillips, a 28-year-old self-described anarchist, as young people emerged from the store with chocolate bars and ice cream cones.
Fargin' idiot. Every time you destroy a business that means there's LESS wealth, you're destroying the jobs and livelihood of working people; but you don't care about that, do you?

Monday, August 08, 2011

And London continues to burn

and be looted. And get this:
04.12 An account here from the Hackney Citizen blog of how members of the Turkish community, which owns dozens of shops and restaurants in Stoke Newington and Dalston Junction defended their area from masked gangs without police help.
I can't get this blog to come up, I think their lines are kind of busy right now. Two things:
From what I've heard, getting into a fight with a bunch of Turks protecting their property generally isn't the brightest thing to do;
Second, I wonder if the police and Crown Prosecutors will screw with them the way they do with most other subjects of the Crown who take action like this?

We'll see. As Insty says, a bunch of shopkeepers with rifles, shotguns and pistols would probably have done wonders to stop some of this, but the Brits have decided the peasants not only can't be trusted with arms, but can't be trusted to defend themselves, at least not effectively; over the last few years there've been a lot of stories of citizens on the street and in their homes using 'too much force' to defend themselves and family, and the Crown putting them in jail for it.

When journalists let the mask slip

COKIE ROBERTS: This group of people in New York [Standard and Poor’s] is actually talking about more government rather than less government, Congressman. In fact, the reason they like France and Great Britain is because they’re parliamentary systems where the majority gets what it wants no matter what.

And the problem that we have here is the Constitution of the United States of America which actually does require people to come together from different perspectives whether it's divided government or not. We have divided branches of government under any circumstance.
Got news for you, bitch; if the founders had had that particular line of thought they'd have referred to this as a feature, as it's damn well NOT a bug.

Except to statist dirtbags like you, that is.

Changes and disagreements

I mentioned once before that I have a habit, when shooting revolvers, that does not meet current standards: I generally, when it's pointing downrange, have my finger inside the trigger guard. Off the trigger, but in the guard. It's the way I was taught, and I generally still do it that way. Various people have informed me I'm a bad boy for this, but I'm not the only one.

From what I understand the 'finger straight along the frame' started because that way it's real easy for a rangemaster to see that the trigger isn't being molested before time. Well and good, and generally a good idea.

Semi-autos? I didn't fire a semi-auto handgun till sometime in my 20's, and I always tended to keep my finger out of the guard; safety or not, knowing that trigger didn't have the same 'pull a ways against firm pressure' I got from a revolver made my shy of getting near it until ready to pull it. So I was doing the 'finger mostly straight' position before I ever heard someone speak of it that I recall. But on revolvers(double-action, larger trigger guard) I still tend to have my finger inside the guard.

Also: I was once chewed on by someone for 'not having my finger straight'; it was outside the guard, nowhere near the bangswitch, but it not being absolutely straight or- preferably-up high on the frame wasn't good enough for him. Screw that, I'm not worried about fitting the 'perfect picture of safety' mold. And yes, I did tell him that was just too bad.


Something else that comes around occasionally is point-shooting. Most come down on the 'Use the sights unless you're in contact range', with some saying it's great. Again, when I was taught to use handguns it was pretty much as Bill Jordan showed it in his book(earlier post here): point-shooting up close(I was taught get that off-hand on the pistol as soon as possible, one-handed was for if you could not use that other hand or you were in contact range), using the sights if time/distance to do so. I think much argument involves people trying to hold the piece a hip-level even for targets ten to twenty feet away, which I think is a big mistake. I prefer to have it far enough forward that even if it's not in line between my eyes and the target, the pistol is in my field of vision, and with some practice you can keep shots well within minute-of-goblin, even when moving around. I consider it one more tool in the box; being able to shoot this way in bad light/up close situations is a good thing, in no way a substitute for using sights, just a useful skill 'just in case'. Not every gun has a laser or night sights, and knowing that feel of 'you're on target' even when you can't see the sights, or can't see them well, seems a very handy thing.


Ah, to have had time to fix bayonet

Noted at several places:

Somehow, gangs of thugs don't like it when the intended victim doesn't play along

Ever heard the name Nancy Wake?

I don't think I had, which is a shame; she's someone who should be remembered.
Working as a newspaper reporter, Wake found herself in Vienna where she saw Jews being whipped in public by Nazi SS troops. In 2003, she described to News Limited's then-London correspondent, Bruce Wilson, one of the horrors she witnessed in 1938.

"The Germans and Austrians had set up a kind of Catherine wheel and tied these Jews to it, and as it went around they were beating them and throwing things at them," she said.

"I thought . . . what had they done, poor bastards? Nothing. So I said, 'God almighty, it's a bit much and I've got to do something about it'."
...
...During a 1990s television interview, when asked what had happened to the sentry who spotted her, Wake simply drew her finger across her throat. On another occasion, to replace codes her wireless operator had been forced to destroy in a German raid, Wake rode a bicycle for more than 500 miles (800 km) through several German checkpoints.

PJM had to sue the Department of Justice

for a list of hires since Holder became AG; for some reason they didn't want people to know just how politicized this crap is.Link

So Epstein at Politico is both ignorant

and too stupid to even try to be sure his information is accurate? Or did he not care?

This idea had not occurred to me, and is a damned scary thought

Was the chopper set up? In more ways than one?

Updates from her original stuff here.

Added: just to add to the fun, serious questions about that story in the New Yorker about the bin Laden raid

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Meanwhile, across the pond, rioting

and freelance socialism broke out after/during a protest about a shooting by police.

Did I mention the arson?

Either the didn't have enough cops or just weren't willing to do the necessary things to deal with this, so
But its tactics meant gangs of youths were free to break into stores at nearby Tottenham Hale retail park and in Wood Green, with looters forming an orderly queue in broad daylight to steal from a sports shop.

Riot police did not intervene to stop the looting in some areas until 7.30am the following morning, almost 12 hours after the riots began, and last night there were fresh disturbances in Enfield
.
And, of course, some of the disaffected youths and others attacked the firefighters trying to keep the place from turning into a replay of the Blitz:
Brian Coleman, the Leader of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, said: “It is simply unacceptable that fire crews were threatened when they were trying to help protect local people. This mindless violence against firefighters has to stop.”
Got news for you, guy: it wasn't mindless. I'll bet you a months pay that some people planned on or set up the attacks.

I did a little digging and found out part of what's behind all the noise:
Meanwhile, the police version of events at the shooting of Duggan was challenged. They said he was shot after firing at a cop, who was saved by the bullet hitting his radio.

But tests on a bullet lodged in the radio are said to show it was police issue, not from the handgun Duggan was carrying
.
Which latter part would seem unpossible, as handguns are banned from the peasants over there. Anyway, from the sound of this, whatever caused the first shot, the officer was a bit careless where he was aiming from the sound of it.

And that's the other day in Brady Paradise

The lady has some things to say to the politicians,

the one in the Oval Office in particular:



Democrats seem to make a habit lately of threatening reporters who report facts the Democrats don't like:
In the process of that article, WisconsinReporter.com noted two things:
  1. Wisconsin reportedly added 9,500 jobs in June. This is technically the same number as half the net jobs created nationwide in the US (direct comparisons are really sort of… imprecise).
  2. And that Zielinski was – in the process of using language that, while not actually profane, was not exactly professional – touting Illinois’s job-creation credentials, despite the fact that Illinois reportedly lost a net 18,900 jobs in June.
So far, so… not really that much of a thing, is it? Certainly not something that would spark a threat of going after press credentials. At least, not something that would spark a threat that would be made by normal people.

Alas, it would seem that the Democratic party is undergoing a good deal of stress lately (Glenn Reynolds [H/T] calls it ‘cracking up’, which sounds about right); because Zielinski went, to be charitable about it, a little crazy at this point. After castigating the author of the piece and complaining that the original article made him and his party “look even smaller” in the process, Graeme Zielinski went on to demonstrate that he was capable of making him and his party look smaller all on his own, via a direct threat:
Full threat at the link.


On the theme that "Women do not lie about sexual assault!", one more piece of evidence that that's a crock:
"The alleged victim stated to the deputies that her 26-year-old male friend had sexually assaulted her," the report says.

Fair enough, and with that friend standing in the same apartment, no big manhunt needed.

Not so fast: "Upon further investigation the deputies watched a video recording the male had made that showed the female telling him that she was calling the police because he was making her leave the apartment and she would tell the police he assaulted her."


In case you're not aware, a second video of the Pride of Canton PD, Officer Harless, acting in unprofessional ways has surfaced; some professional thoughts on the videos and what's probably going through the CoP's mind over at Confederate Yankee.


It's noted that the crash of the chopper full of SEALs could possibly be one of the consequences of VP Biden being a loudmouthed fool.


That's about all the news I can deal with this morning. See you later.

Alphecca has more on the UN gun treaty, which includes

another means of registration by the back door AND trying to make things too expensive for people to deal with:
An especially costly potential regulation discussed at the conference last month would require gun makers to engrave sequential tracings on every one of some 3 billion bullets produced in the U.S. each year.Link

And that, [a gun manufacturer representative] said, would make guns more expensive for everyone.

“Manufacturers would have to pass on the cost to civilian customers.” Another controversial part of the treaty draft establishes a compensation fund for victims of gun violence, which would transfer money from countries that export weapons to countries that had suffered gun violence
.
Not just manufacturers; every store that sells ammo would have to maintain logs of every box and who it was sold to; paperwork and time costs. As to that money transfer... Ah, 'social justice' by a different name. Chances they'd actually enforce this against, say, North Korea? 0. Chances of trying to force us? 100%. Because there's not a chance they'd actually try to get money from, say Belgium for Germany because some clown in G used a gun made in F to commit a crime; this is one more bit of 'you have succeeded so you owe the world' crap from the socialists at the UN and all their little friends.

I can't decide if people like Calvin O.L. Henry are simpley race-baiting

assholes, or if he might actually be bigoted and stupid enough to believe this:
Are the members of Congress who signed no-new taxes pledges engaging in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States because President Obama is black? That’s the theory put forward by Calvin O. L. Henry, president of the Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs, in a July 5 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
...
“The undue influence of the Americans for Tax Reform and Grover Norquist and the signed pledges by 274 of the 289 members of the United States Congress reveal a sinister and open conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution of the United States by trying to cause President Obama to fail,” wrote Henry, who describes himself as a black American who served as an elections official in the Oregon secretary of state’s office.
Really, Henry? So what does that make all the Democrats who banded together to try to make us lose the war? Who tried to make President Bush fail?

Ah, but those were Democrats and Socialists! so that's different, right?