THIS place would be worth seeing

Remember that ending scene out of Indiana Jones where the Ark of the Covenant is boxed up and wheeled through an endless government warehouse?

Did you know that that place actually exists?
How many hours could you spend looking through this place?

I guess finally getting some of this crap directed at himself

got the point across:
I thought liberals were supposed to be ‘open-minded.’  I thought they were supposed to accept divergent viewpoints to at least say, ‘hey, everyone in America has a right to an opinion.’  But it’s really about– ‘I love free speech as long as it’s the free speech that I want’ … Liberals have this sense of themselves, but 90% are as nasty, as vitriolic, as vicious as the conservatives they say are…


VDH on the The Obama Breaking Point



A guy rode a balloon 24 miles up, then jumped out.  And broke the sound barrier on the way down. 
And people got to watch it live.  Things do move on, don't they?


Used to be people got around charging usury by getting loans from Jewish bankers and traders; now it's "No, we don't charge evil interest, we charge FEES, so you can use our card!"


PESHAWAR: Enraged by widespread media coverage of Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and critically injured by the militants in Swat, the Pakistani Taliban led by Hakimullah Mehsud reportedly planned to target media organisations, particularly television channels and some journalists in the country, well-placed sources told this correspondent on Sunday.
According to sources, the Taliban felt that the media has become biased against them and was giving ‘undue’ coverage to the attack on Malala and portraying them as the ‘worst people on earth’.
Well, if you weren't murdering and maiming girls for going to school, people wouldn't think you're the worst people on earth; or is that too complicated a thought to fit in your focused-on-beardless-boys brain?

Over the next couple of weeks Life will intrude,

so may or may not be much/any blogging. Do have a couple of things:
I've mentioned Catmatyx before: if you'd tried putting this stuff on him, you'd be lucky not to bleed out from the attempt.


This is just freakin' cool: a camp stove that produces the power needed to run the fan. And can charge things that have a USB plug.


I'm at the point of 'Screw the Afghans; let them stew in the pot they choose.' I'm sick of them demanding we serve them, pay them, grovel to them, and murdering our troops. Fuck the place
They've got him: Afghan officer.



Unlike Tam, my thought was "We have lots of clean electric delivery trucks(but let's not talk about making the batteries or the power plants to charge the things)!"
Of course, the truth may be why they have no problem whacking the singing frogs and the pixies.

Bye

Oh man, if this pans out...

A big step toward Mobile Infantry

Considering joint damage is a big problem for infantry, this could be a big help. It'll need longer/better battery life, but damn!

This is just freakin' awesome

Starting with iron ore, down to the completed blades.

thanks to Uncle for the pointer

We keep getting closer and closer

to Hammer's Slammers

Want to see some incredible pictures of a supercell?

More here

How cool is this? Closeups of a friggin' comet!

Story at WUWT

I have to start this with a very fine "Because we can!"

The team crafted the aeroplane from sheets and straws of paper, fitted it with a camera and attached it to a helium weather balloon to lift it into the atmosphere.

After drifting 17 miles into space, the balloon exploded, allowing the 3ft wingspan aircraft to soar back to earth while taking pictures of its descent.
That's just bloody wonderful.


It should be remembered that not only did the palisimians stage the death of Mohammed Al Dura, but an awful lot of the major media not only went along with it but was actively hostile to the truth being found out.


Proof that being in college doesn't mean you understand a damn thing:
‘The majority is a completely non-violent protest. I’m not really worried about violence against property or objects, smashing buildings is completely fine, it’s a great image of our anger. I’ve got no problem with that at all as long as nobody gets hurt.’
Well, Miss King's College student, you're a fucking moron. I realize I'm not considered in your intellectual league(thank God), but consider this:
Every window you break, every bit of damage to those buildings, somebody has to pay for. That's money out of their pockets- if it's a government building it's money out of every taxpayer's pocket- to repair it. You don't consider that hurting somebody? Then you're far too stupid to be out in public without a keeper to prevent you running into traffic.

And I've got news for you rioting idiots: there is No Such Thing As A Free Education; it has to be paid for by SOMEBODY, and you've just decided that somebody else should be taxed further to death to pay your way. Screw you.

And that ends my views on the world for this morning

Due to circumstances that came together just right,

I'm back among the ranks of the (part-time)employed. Which is why bloggage has been light, and will remain somewhat sporadic; that post on the pocket holster took a week to get done, instead of the day or two it would have before.. Good pay, and while I wouldn't do it full-time unless it was that or starve, part-time will do. And- especially this time of year- the money will be very nice.

I will mention that I am once again the owner of a two-wheel powered conveyance, which is very nice. And a new helmet. One was by choice(knocked a hell of a hole in the checking account, one reason for the job), the other necessity; the helmet was actually overdue to be replaced, then about two weeks ago it slipped out of my hand leaving a store and merrily bounced across the pavement. Add age to impact and the hinge not working right anymore, and it's new helmet time. If you're curious, it's a HJC IS-MAX; the modular style with the pivoting chin bar is the only full-face helmet I've found that fits comfortably over my glasses, and this new model has a slide-down sunshield that means I don't have to worry about sunglasses while riding.

On to the news-type stuff, I agree with Uncle on this: did they or did they not break the law? If they did, what's this civil-penalty crap instead of criminal charges? If they didn't, then they've basically been blackmailed into giving a bunch of money to the government so they won't keep saying bad things about them. And I won't get into the "Satisfy the gummint that you're not a criminal before you're allowed to buy something for your sinus or cold problem" bullshit.


Good piece on liberal elitism, ending with this:
One last note about my own brushes with liberal elitism. In the summer of 1973, as an 18-year-old anticipating college that September, I worked in a biology lab at Princeton University. My duties including mopping the floor, feeding the rats, emptying the trays of fecal matter and, once the students were finished with their animal experiments, disposing of the critters. One afternoon, I had to dispatch a bunch of monkeys and cats—using chloroform—outside the building near the garbage containers. It caused a stir among students milling about, and a number of them harassed me, yelling, “Animal killer!” It was a very weird moment: young men and women, just a few years older than myself, attacking a minimum-wage worker for doing his job, rendered further ironic by the fact that some of the protesters were, in fact, the very same people who were conducting the experiments on the animals. That’s elitism.


Hehehe...


Oh, for bleep's sake,
Dexter Meyer says he recently returned to Denver International Airport after a trip and went to retrieve his car from the airport’s parking lot. After nine days, Meyer said he found that his car would barely start. A trip to the dealership revealed the problem: rodents had eaten through the car’s wiring.

According to Meyer, the dealership explained that small critters like rabbits and mice like to much on the car’s new wiring made up of a soy-based compound.
Who the hell had the bright idea of making wiring insulation of organic compounds that pests will eat? And I wonder how much he's getting paid?


A 'bacon attack' on a mosque. Discussion of 'we should be more sensitive' vs. 'I'm sick of a lot of muslims whining and threatening death whenever they're feeling unloved'.


TOTALLY unrelated to any of the above,

Thanks Weer'd!


On the subject of video, ran across this a while back; found it again today here, and it should be seen:




Kevin has a fine example of the kind of idiot who votes for Barney Frank and Friend of Angelo Dodd and Ma'am Boxer:
In today's USA Today was a letter from G. Bruce Hedlund of San Andreas, California. Mr. Hedlund said this:

Think of our country as a society made up of children and a government made up of adults. It is up to the adults to weigh all the options and provide services in the best interests of the children.

There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start, but I will say that this attitude is responsible for the US receiving the government we've voted for.


I'm going to close this with something from Uncle:
The other difference I find in dealing with folks with whom I mostly disagree politically is the concept of need. Why do you need a 50 caliber? Why do you need a car that gets to 60 in under 5 seconds and gets shitty gas mileage? Why do you need this or that? And my response is always the same: What’s need got to do with it?

And this throws them for a loop. Literally. They feel the need to justify their desires, wants, views and goals so that they’re palatable to other people. They expect you to do the same. I have no such predilection toward that. I do things because I want to. And when I explain to them that my supposed need has fuck all to do with anything, I can literally watch their eyes glaze over in what I presume is disbelief. I think it’s hard on them to be told that they don’t have a say. And I’m not justifying any thing to them.
Amen. It's one thing to think to yourself "Ok, do I NEED this, or want this?" and decide what to do; it's a whole 'nother thing to have some jerk tell you you have to justify your decision- to HIM or the gummint- or it's not a valid or 'good' decision.

And now I shall attempt to get some stuff done here at the house. I'd rather go shooting, but...

Damn. Wonder how much it would cost to get one

for the back yard?
U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has adopted an old U.S. Army concept to create mobile workshops (MTCs or Mobile Technology Complex) that can fix exotic gear (which SOCOM has a lot of), modify their special gear, or even create something new. The MTC is a modified (with new some gear) version of the decade old U.S. Army MPH (Mobile Parts Hospital).

The MPH was developed when the army realized that the easiest way to get the many rarely requested, but vital, replacement parts to the troops, was to manufacture the parts in the combat zone. In short order, this led to the construction of a portable parts fabrication system, called MPH, that fit into a standard 8x8x20 foot shipping container. The original version used two containers, but smaller equipment and more powerful computers eventually made it possible to use one container.
...
...The computer controlled machine tools have been around for decades, but the big breakthrough was the development of CAD (Computer Assisted Design) software for PCs in the 1980s, which made the process of designing, and then fabricating, a part much faster. The MPH has a high speed satellite data link, which enables it to obtain the CAD file for a part. Many CAD files are already stored in the MPH. Often, the MPH staff figure out a way to improve a part, based on the broken parts they see, and what the troops tell them.(and ain't THAT just wonderful?)

There are four MPH systems in service, two of them in Afghanistan. A fourth is being built, at a cost of $1.5 million. In the last six years, MPHs have manufactured over 100,000 parts, on the spot. This saves days, or weeks, that it would take to order the part from the manufacturer, and the MPH part is usually a lot cheaper (because the air freight and manufacturer mark ups to pay for maintaining the part in inventory). The next version of the MPH has a 3-D part builder, which uses metal dust and a laser to build a part.
Oh Gawd, Og, can you imagine?

I started this blog to talk about forging and metalworking,

and I have. A lot at first, less as time went by and I could do less of it. And I've also talked a lot about gun and ammo and such shooty goodness. And it's also morphed into my electronic soapbox to stand on and yell about things. Between time and the hand(better, thankyouverymuch) I've done a lot less the last few days and will be doing less over the next week or two, and it's frustrating as hell, because I want to go on at length about some of the crap I see when I check news. Like this bullshit from another "People need to pay more taxesexcept for the people who vote for me" Democrat:
One irony of the tax increase that arrives on January 1 is that the it will hit residents of high-income, Democratic-leaning states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York the hardest. This is a problem for pro-tax Democrats.

Enter New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, who wants to exempt his own six-figure constituents from the tax hike he supports. Mr. Nadler's bill would "require the IRS to adjust tax brackets proportionally in regions where the average cost of living is higher than the national average."

In other words, the various tax brackets would apply to residents in certain regions at higher income levels versus other parts of the country. A family with an income of $50,000 or even $1 million in Manhattan would pay less federal income tax than a family with the same earnings in Omaha. The bill is called the Tax Equity Act, but a more accurate title would be the Blue State Tax Preference Act.
Just for proposing this the bastard should be tarred and feathered.


And I'd like to add a bunch to this(although it's pretty much already said):
Let's start with the left, which certainly has different motives than Klinghoffer's. The urge to lament how far today's conservatives have fallen from the "golden age" of Buckley & Co. is a now-familiar gambit. You see, this is what critics on the left always say: "If only today's conservatives were as decent or intellectual or patriotic as those of yesteryear."

The best conservatives are always dead; the worst are always alive and influential. When Buckley and Kristol, not to mention Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, were alive, they were hated and vilified by the same sorts of people who now claim to miss the old gang. The gold standard of the dead is always a cudgel, used to beat back the living.


And you run into things like this, the guy who invented Cheese Doodles:
Yohai was born in Harlem in 1920. After he graduated from the Wharton School of business, he took a job at the Grumman aircraft factory on Long Island. During World War II, Yohai left work to enlist in the Navy and become a pilot.

His son, Robbie Yohai, of Berkeley, Calif., told Newsday, "He decided since he was making planes, he figured he could fly a plane." He said his father had never taken an airplane ride. "The first time he was ever in an airplane, he was the co-pilot."

Morrie Yohai transferred to the Marine Corps and served as a pilot in the South Pacific, transferring injured troops and cargo back and forth.
...
After Borden relocated to Columbus, Ohio, Yohai left the firm. He started teaching at the New York Institute of Technology, becoming the associate dean for the school of management.
...
In later years, Yohai studied Torah and Jewish mysticism. He took up writing, and penned more than 500 poems and published two books of poetry.

He was a member of Temple Beth El in Great Neck. His philanthropic work included founding the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.
Damn.

Enough. In a variety of ways. See you later.

I think I'll do a bit of a Friday afternoon roundup

The good:
Two years ago, DARPA set a goal of creating a self-contained, synthetic platform that can cultivate red blood cells that can stand up to the violent demands of the battlefield. Through the process of "pharming," or genetically engineering an organism to generate large quantities of a useful substance, the DoD's R&D arm was hoping to end blood shortages on the battlefield for good.

A company awarded nearly $2 million to develop this genetically engineered blood product has shipped off the first shipment to the FDA, hoping the regulators will approve it for use in trauma wards everywhere. The biotech company, Arteriocyte, can turn an umbilical cord into 20 units of blood in about three days at a cost of about $5,000 per unit. That's a bit steep, but if the FDA approves the blood product and the company is able to scale the production method, fake blood could be the real deal.


The bad:
Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as "my" -- "my secretary of homeland security," "my national security team," "my ambassador." The more normal -- and respectful -- usage is to say "the," as in "the secretary of state." These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution -- not just the man who appointed them.

It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies -- both about himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's.

And the really ugly:
In 2006, we at Hot Air covered Shabazz’s jihad-pandering protest and call to arms at the Danish embassy in Washington, D.C. over the Mohammed Cartoons.

In 2007, Shabazz called me a “whore” on Fox News because I called out his racial hucksterism in the Duke lacrosse fake rape case.

In 2008, I reported on Shabazz’s election day threats to voters and have covered the corruptocrat Obama DOJ’s role in dropping default judgments against the Philly NBPP thugs ever since. In 2009, I reported on the “Colored Only: No Whites Allowed” sign at NBPP defendant Jerry Jackson’s house and the murderous rap propaganda posted by the NBPP Trenton chapter.
followed by some of Malkin's hate mail:
I saw you on Fox News tonight. Take my advice: GO SIT YOUR BLACK ASS DOWN!!!!!!!!!! As Black as you are, you would be one of the first person’s racially profiled if you went to Arizona.

Willma Harvey

***
from George Dunn
to writemalkin@gmail.com
date Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 7:06 PM
subject How Does a Dishonest CUNT Like You Exist?
hide details 7:06 PM (3 hours ago)

You are a true pathetic human being. Sad actually.

George Dunn, P.E.
Please note this:
Update: George Dunn has asked me to take his company name down (which I did), requested that I take down his e-mail (which I will not), and then sent me an “apology” with this laughable comment: “Still, I stand by my statement that the rhetoric being used on both sides of the aisle has ruined the chance to have an honest political debate in this country.”

Yep, the nutball who called me a “c**t” from his work e-mail is moaning about the lost opportunity to “have an honest political debate in this country.”

Ouch. Ow. Stomach hurting from laughing so hard. Ow.
Ah, liberals; not only are they tending to violence, they're racist shits, aren't they?

One helluva picture and video of a solar flare

Thanks, Insty!

I'm taking a detour from politics so I don't destroy my digestion

to look at something really interesting:
Researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which is the research and development arm of the Ministry of Defence, claim it is possible to incorporate material known as supercapacitors into armour of a vehicle to turn it into a kind of giant battery.

When a threat from incoming fire is detected by the vehicle, the energy stored in the supercapacitor can be rapidly dumped onto the metal plating on the outside of the vehicle, producing a strong electromagnetic field.

Scientists behind the project claim this would produce a momentary "force field" capable of repelling the incoming rounds and projectiles.
So in best case(I'm thinking) the field could deflect, say, an RPG round so it misses, or- actually also a best case- fry the fuse so it won't fire, which means dud bouncing off the armor. Very nice idea.

Breda pointed to this, and it is just so

freakin' cool:
Good: double amputee gets prosthetic legs so she can walk. Better: double amputee gets realistic-looking mermaid tail so she can swim. Awesome: it's developed and built by Weta, the special-effects company that did work for the "Lord of the Rings" movies, as well as "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" series.


Yeah, yeah, I said I was done for the night; deal with it.

This is just downright cool!

A laser IED and dud ordnance killer:
Late last month, Boeing conducted a series of tests at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama with a 1-kw laser mounted on the back of a converted anti-aircraft Humvee. Shooting an invisible beam just a few centimeters in diameter and 20 times hotter than an electric stovetop, the laser burned a hole through the casing of artillery and mortar rounds, detonating them more or less instantly. (As for bystanders, all bets are off.)

Damn, I hope this pans out as working equipment.

This is starting to look more like equipment from David Drake's Hammer's Slammers stories. Powerguns, anyone?