"Why, officer, whatever were you doing before

that you're not doing now?
Last year, Mr. Farrar used the new wearable video cameras to conduct a continuing experiment in his department, in collaboration with Barak Ariel, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and an assistant professor at Hebrew University.

Half of Rialto's uniformed patrol officers on each week's schedule have been randomly assigned the cameras, also made by Taser International. Whenever officers wear the cameras, they are expected to activate them when they leave the patrol car to speak with a civilian.
...
THE Rialto study began in February 2012 and will run until this July. The results from the first 12 months are striking. Even with only half of the 54 uniformed patrol officers wearing cameras at any given time, the department over all had an 88 percent decline in the number of complaints filed against officers, compared with the 12 months before the study, to 3 from 24.

Rialto's police officers also used force nearly 60 percent less often -- in 25 instances, compared with 61. When force was used, it was twice as likely to have been applied by the officers who weren't wearing cameras during that shift, the study found. And, lest skeptics think that the officers with cameras are selective about which encounters they record, Mr. Farrar noted that those officers who apply force while wearing a camera have always captured the incident on video.
So put the cameras on ALL of them, and find some way to turn them on whenever they step out of the car.  Or are on foot patrol.  And watch the problem numbers drop.

Tells you a lot about how they viewed 'use of force' before, doesn't it?

I have a dream:

that bigoted dirtbags who try to claim "RACISM!!!" as their excuse for every failure finally annoy so many people that, upon screaming it, they're immediately labeled terminally stupid and disregarded forevermore.

They ran the damn city for decade after decade, but 'It MUST be someone elses' fault; someone I disagree with the politics of!'

Friggin' dirtbag lying excuse-makers.

I'm going to steal a part of Correia's post on profiling

There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator.
Don’t flatter yourself. Nobody has ever been physically intimidated by somebody wearing mom jeans. Now Vlad Putin on the other hand, he shows up, hide your wife, hide your kids. 

 There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.
And this happens to black men, white men, Asians, Latinos, you name it, and I think that’s awesome. That means that woman is paying attention to her surroundings and knows that simple physics gives a huge advantage to the male in case he decides to do something. Aren’t you from the same side that is constantly complaining that America has a “rape culture”?
I happen to look like a scary 6’5” Tony Soprano. I’m actually physically intimidating, and that is at 37 years old and years of desk job. When I was in my 20s I could bench press 365 pounds and was 270 pounds, 16% body fat, of Big Ugly. I usually had a shaved head and a goatee and I looked like my favorite hobby was punching things, which it was. I was a hundred times more physically intimidating that President Lady Parts on his best day. So I’ve been profiled tons, and I’ve had lots of women obviously assess me like I was a threat.
And I don’t think it is a bad thing at all.
#
First off, way to bring America together there, champ, sending the DoJ after a guy who got acquitted with your civil rights violations witch hunt. People get shot every single day, and some of them in cases way more complicated and questionable than this one, but none of those happened in the lead up to a national election where you needed to try and scare the electorate that America is still Mississippi circa 1957.

Second off, that is an incredibly vapid and naïve sentiment, not to mention hypocritical coming from a dude whose family will have armed security profiling potential threats for the rest of their lives.

I know I linked to this before; I just think it's worth pointing to again.

Obama pays off other politicians by taking them off Obamacare;

isn't it wonderful they don't have to live with the same crap they force on everyone else?


One more reason not to talk to the cops without a lawyer: the cops may be honest, but the prosecutor may be a corrupt dirtbag who knows he won't pay any price for his corruption.


The VPC cannot stand ANYTHING to do with the peasants having arms, can they?


A CO politician who's bitched about 'outside money being used in our elections' yet not only took directions and money from Bloomberg to screw the voters, but is taking Bloomberg money to try to stay in office...

"I prefer to dine in privacy."

And he did it again.
Thanks to daughter for the link

Did you know that proof doesn't count in science?

I didn't either, but Michael Mann says
“Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages. It’s not for science,” Mann says. “Science works in evidence through best explanations, most credible theories, and so in a sense we’re at a disadvantage because we have to play by the rules, the other side doesn’t…
A: That has to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard from someone professing to be a scientist.
B: we have to play by the rules, the other side doesn’t coming from Mann of the Hockey Stick and the CRU e-mails... well, that's kind of amazing, isn't it?

I read the post that WAWT links to; such a conglomeration of 'real scientists' and so forth AGW lines in one place...
They're very happy that the motion to dismiss Mann's suit against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg was tossed; once discovery starts, I think they're going to be come very unhappy people.

Sen. Schumer: using other people's money

to pay off New York businesses.
The answer is because a Democratic senator (Schumer) working with a successful and politically-correct business (Chobani) exerted as much pressure as they could on a willing USDA. Chobani spent at least $80,000 on lobbyists and that was after Schumer had started his Greek-yogurt campaign with the USDA.


The newest way to trash part of the Constitution they swore to uphold: create a problem and then declare "That means I know something is wrong!"
"I feel bad for her," U.S. Marshal Matt Wiggins told Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist Tom Lyons. "But at the same time, I had to reasonably believe the bad guy was in her house based on what they were doing."
This asshole pointed at gun into a woman's face through her kitchen window and when that scared hell out of her, why, 'That means the bad guy is in there!'

Miserable disgrace to the badge he wears.  And that he still wears it means the Marshall's Service is just one more batch of assholes with badges.
Why no, I'm NOT willing to tolerate this crap anymore; they don't want to be called assholes with badges, they can stop ACTING like that.


Speaking of assholes with badges who- obviously!- are the only ones who can be trusted with guns...


Why Unions Suck, Part 937:

Some incidents cited in the complaint include:

• During the service of a young child who had passed away from cancer, picketers laughed, smiled and joked as they created a disturbance within the immediate vicinity of the only public entrance to the funeral home.  They were asked to move by a police officer who had been called – then moved back immediately in front of the building and its entrance after the officer left.
• While escorting a woman and her father who were attempting to plan her recently deceased mother's funeral, an employee escorting them was taunted and called names, the three of them were taunted with a bullhorn and siren sound, and intimidated by an unleashed German Shepherd.
• Picketers used a bullhorn to shout profane and sexually explicit taunts while a woman and her four- and five-year-old sons attempted to make arrangements for her grandmother's funeral causing the family to become visibly upset.
• A group of picketers temporarily blocked a grieving widow's vehicle as she tried to exit the parking lot.

From another article:
A Teamsters release said the picket lines succeeded at driving business away from SCI homes. The release cites several instances in which families sought to bury their loved ones at different funeral homes upon seeing the labor unrest outside. The union took such requests as a sign of support. 
“The Teamsters cannot thank those families enough who’ve stood alongside workers,” Coli said in the release, which goes on to note that “the Teamsters have assisted all families to quickly secure new services.”
Yeah.  Scare people into going somewhere else, and then declare that 'people supporting us!'.
Fucking dirtbags.



The other day got an e-mail from my Rep. about the NSA mess that includes
The NSA does not listen to or record any phone calls unless a specific court order is issued to tap a specific phone for a criminal case, nor does the NSA maintain a database of email content or email traffic.
Which would be more reassuring if the NSA hadn't been lying all along about things.

That same day I found a link to this Guardian article which includes
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
...
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
Yes, it's Greenwald; problem is, after all the lies the NSA and various politicians have fed us so far, which do YOU believe?

You've got till Midnight tonight

if you want to enter the Lyme raffle at Jennifer's.  Because so many people hit it they whacked the server, so it's extended till tonight.

Well done, people.

Plated bullets

While back I mentioned trying out some X-Treme plated bullets for .30 Carbine.  Today it occurred that some might not be familiar with plated bullets, so thought I'd use up some digital space on the subject.

Standard jacketed bullets are usually made by forming a jacket and filling it in with lead.  Lots of military ball also uses a steel core(steel being cheaper than lead), but you're still looking at a copper/copper alloy jacket filled in.  Some of the premium bullets- including a lot of hollowpoints- started using a different technique: form a swaged core, then electroplate the copper jacket material onto it.  Gives a very uniform jacket, and since it's actually bonded to the core there's much less chance of them separating after impact. 

Well, somebody got the idea  of doing the same for practice bullets, but using a much thinner coating.  Thus we have the plated bullet:

Here we have a .45 200-grain hollowpoint(X-Treme), a 9mm 124-grain flatpoint(X-Treme), 9mm 115-grain hollowpoint(Ranier), a .38 Caliber 158-grain semi-wadcutter(X-Treme), .38 Caliber 158-grain flatpoint(X-Treme), .38 caliber 158-grain wadcutter(X-Treme),  a .30 caliber 110-grain roundnose(X-Treme).

I've used all of these with zero shooting problems*: no nasty fouling or any other problems of the sort.  Good accuracy, just as good or better than cast bullets.  And since you don't have lubricant being converted to fouling and smoke, they're cleaner than cast to shoot.

Couple of things you should know about them:
If you want to push a bullet really fast, they're not the choice.  The plating on these is MUCH thinner than a conventional jacket or the plating on, say, a Gold Dot hollowpoint, and the makers note that you should not try to push them as fast.  From the Berry's site FAQ:
Velocities depend on the caliber, but as a rule of thumb, we recommend you don't shoot our plated bullets over 1250 feet-per-second. Our 44's actually shoot best around 1150 fps. 45's are generally good at 850-900 fps. Our bullets are not recommended for magnum velocities over 1250fps unless the bullet description denotes a thick plated bullet with a higher listed maximum for velocity.
From X-Treme:
Load Info:
- Our Copper Plated Bullets can be run at mid-range jacketed velocities or higher end lead velocities. We do not recommend velocities over 1500 FPS (Feet Per Second) and only a light taper crimp.
Any velocities over 1200 FPS we recommend either our Heavy Plate Concave Base or Hollow Point products for superior accuracy.  We do not recommend velocities over 1500 FPS (Feet Per Second) and only a light taper crimp.
And from Ranier:
We, at Rainier Ballistics, recommend using lead bullet load data when loading our bullets. There is no need for adjustment when using lead bullet load data. Our bullets are jacketed using an electroplating process and are softer than traditionally jacketed bullets; hence the recommendation to use lead bullet load data.

If you only have access to traditionally jacketed load data, we recommend a starting powder charge directly between the listed minimum and maximum load, and you may use published load data found in reputable reloading manuals.

A slight roll or taper crimp may be used with our bullets;

Overcrimping plated bullets may result in decreased accuracy, and fragmentation of copper plating.


You HAVE to make sure the case mouth is belled(expanded) enough that the bullets can start in easily, like a cast bullet.  The only problem I've ever had with any of these was when I didn't bell enough, and it shaved a bit of the plating up; that makes a nasty spot that will not allow the cartridge to chamber.

They mention crimp.  Since some of the .38 stuff I use in a tube-magazine rifle, it has to have some crimp; light roll crimp seems to do the job(X-Treme does put a light cannelure on most of their revolver bullets, which helps).  On semi-auto stuff I use a light-medium(that's how I describe it; I have no idea how to quantify it) taper, also no problems.  I pulled the bullet on a 9mm after loading, using a inertia puller; the crimp left a definite groove in the bullet, but did not appear to have gone through the plating(that was a 'medium' feel).  As they say, you would not want a heavy crimp. 

The .30 Carbine bullets I tried out(X-Treme)  with the same charges I used with ball as well as some lighter; the best accuracy came with a load I use with cast bullets(12.0 grains of 2400).  I found no signs of copper fouling, and the bullet holes in the target were clean, but the full-power loads did suffer accuracy-wise for me.

Yes, you can get hollowpoints; they cannot be trusted to expand.  At all.  Back in my last water-jug tests I fired a X-Treme .45 200-grain hollowpoint loaded to the same velocity as a 200-grain Gold Dot; it penetrated five jugs, left a nasty dent in the 2x4 at the back of the frame, and if it werent' for the rifling marks

it would've looked unfired.

I have read some reviews of the Ranier 9mm hp above that said it expanded nicely in small game; not having tried it, I'm not stating an opinion until I can get to the range with a load of water jugs again and try it.  Berry's had something up a while back that they're working on hollowpoints that will expand; that's not showing right now.  I'd imagine they're so concentrated on catching up on orders that that's been pushed back.

So, the tradeoffs are that you can't push these as fast as a standard bullet, but they cost about half as much; for general practice they work beautifully, and they're cleaner than cast.  Keep their limitations in mind and you'll be happy with them.

I do have to say that I've tried using the X-Treme 158-grain flatpoints in .357 Magnum in a rifle with the same loads I'd used with standard jacketed bullets with quite good results.  According to the numbers in the load manuals, that's at the upper end(maybe over) of velocity that they say these should be used with.  I need to try these at longer range(only have 30 yards at H&H), but the outdoor range I usually shoot at has been down due to storm damage, so that's still to come.


*I've used Berry's, but don't have any for the picture. 

Let's not forget, the politicians are upset

that the law they passed applies to them.
Doesn't your heart just hurt for the poor bastards?


Let's not forget: while all these media weenies are still screaming and whining about Martin being shot in Florida, when these two people were kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered, the same media weenies were pretty well silent.  Not interested.  Apparently two white people being murdered by black thugs just didn't fit the template of news they wanted to report.


“Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs, please?” McCarthy said at Harvard Law School Tuesday while defending her agency’s air regulations...
You stop killing jobs, we won't HAVE to talk about it, will we?


Bad enough having a firearms registry; having it on an unsecured server with NO RECORD of who gets into it?  No protection against copying?  That's flat negligence.

Awww, will the poor little feds have to live by the same rules as the commoners?

Deal with it.
California citizens are just as frustrated as federal law enforcement officers with the situation. When the roster of available pistols they can purchase dwindles down to a limited few – because manufacturers are refusing to implement “microstamping” – federal law enforcement’s objections will grow louder. And if pending legislation (SB 293) concerning “smart guns” passes and is signed by the Governor, federal law enforcement will also be forced to choose from an even more limited number of models … just like civilians.

Forgive us mere civilians if we aren’t completely sympathetic to the plight of the feds.

About that '97% of all scientists agree on AGW!' crap,

it really is crap:

We were always careful to say that while the survey involved 12,000 abstracts, the 97 percent consensus was among the ~4,000 abstracts that took a position on the cause of global warming (plus the roughly 1,400 of 2,100 self-rated papers taking a position). And we were careful to point out that the consensus was that ‘humans are causing global warming.

Translation: "We lied, but we were careful how we did it."

How 'bout, Mr. Thaler, becuase if your nose comes into my tent

I'll kick it back out, you miserable little control-freak?
"I don't know who those people are who would not want such a program, but they must either be misinformed or misguided," he said.
How about 'informed', you little asshole?  Informed about Chu wanting to 'nudge' people into doing what He And His Master have decided is best? 

Informed about assholes like you who think you know best how we should be allowed to live.

Informed about other control freaks like Bloomberg who think they're entitled to run our lives?

Informed about idiots like you who think some Supreme Council in Sodom on the Potomac should be empowered to tell us how to live?

Screw you.  And your toadying little friends. 

This is what passes for ethical thought in medicine now

Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.
That solves EVERYTHING!  Someone is inconvenient, troublesome, too expensive, just declare them 'not a real person' and kill them!
They also argued that parents should be able to have the baby killed if it turned out to be disabled without their knowing before birth, for example citing that “only the 64 per cent of Down’s syndrome cases” in Europe are diagnosed by prenatal testing.
... “To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

Seems like I've heard of something like that before... Oh yeah:

"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."

So, when do these ethicists start wearing skull or lightning bolt pins to show they're the enlightened ones?


The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.
Really. 

They preferred to use the phrase “after-birth abortion” rather than “infanticide” to “emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus”. 
Yeah, I'd imagine they do.

Let me tell you all a story

Well, that worked well.

Getting away from the news tonight involved taking the dogs to the lake, a trip they hadn't had in a while.

To give you an idea how much rain we've had, several months ago these trees

were a good 100 yards from the water; Lake Hefner is full.

Here is the Security Staff checking things out

Here is SecStaf(Sr.) deciding she wants to ride home in the back of the truck.

She got in to her belly twice, and enjoyed it mightily.  So far, so good.

Then, about twenty minutes later, she found something terribly interesting in some tall grass.  Which turned out to be the remains of a gutted/filleted catfish.  Oh yeah, she made that scent her own.

Guess who got that "OHGODNODON'TDOIT!" bath when we got home?  Especially since she brought tactile as well as olfactory memories back with her.

Which was followed by washingscrubbing my hands, and then using a bleach solution on them, especially around the nails of the right.

I'm wondering if I should've just given them a munchie and stayed home...

Yes, all kinds of crap out there to write about;

and I'm just not doing it.  I'm tired and achy and fairly sick of reading about what a bunch of corrupt bastards in office- elected and appointed- are doing.  Short of a 'We're having a necktie party' invite(screw you, NSA and anybody else offended), I'm going to find something else to do for the night.  And maybe tomorrow.

If I'd had a 'friend' like this,

well, how pissed would YOU be?
A soldier who returned from Afghanistan last week only wanted to see his 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, Oakley. 

Instead, Brandon Harker discovered the so-called “friend” he’d asked to watch his dog while he was deployed for nine months had decided to either give him away or sell him.


Hadn't really thought of it that way, but it really IS a domestic-violence industry, isn't it?
More here. 
Which reminded me of this, and this.


In a major city.  Critically injured by a pack of feral dogs.

In Australia as well, traitors ARE favored by some

of the left.  A disturbing number, at times.
At least as long as they were betraying, say, the US or Britain or Australia to communists.


Michael Shulan, I'll be American as 'vigilantly and vehemently' as I wish; and you can kiss my ass.


'Poor lighting'... that's a new excuse.  I wonder if they'll get to "They followed procedures" at some point?

When seconds count, the police are hiding

in another car.
The city, meanwhile, claimed that the NYPD had no "special duty" to intervene at the time, and that they were in the motorman's car because they believed Gelman had a gun. And Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Margaret Chan has sided with the city, noting that there was no evidence the cops were aware Lozito was in danger at the time.
Absolute bleeping bullshit.  From another article:
It later turned out that Howell and fellow officer Tamara Taylor, who were part of the manhunt looking for Gelman(gee, what if they thought he had a gun what happened to 'no evidence they were aware Lozito was in danger'?), had locked themselves in the front room with the conductor because they thought Gelman had a gun. Lozito told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "When the news was brought to my attention that police had an opportunity to intervene and maybe prevent the whole incident, and it was explained to me they chose to stay in the motorman's compartment instead of coming out, I was very upset."
I would bloody think so.
Lozito sued for negligence, but city lawyers say his demand for unspecified money damages should be tossed because the police had no “special duty” to protect him or any individual on the train that day—there's a long-standing legal precedent requiring cops to put the public safety of all ahead of any one individual’s rights.
And there you have it.  "Screw you, we have no duty to protect YOU!  So just bleed and die, and we'll clean up the mess after."

"You don't need a gun, and you don't need to protect yourself, the police will do it!" my ass.