'Tis a cool, damp night out there,

perfect weather to be inside doing research.

And why is the president so outraged about a couple of beheadings?

When a Muslim terrorist yelling “Allahu akbar!” murdered 13 servicemen at Fort Hood, Obama shrugged it off as “workplace violence.”

Now Obama’s suddenly “all wee-wee’ed up” about non-Muslim Muslims murdering Americans.
Maybe because he cares more about a couple of journalists than those dead troops?  Maybe because this is making him look like the incompetent fool he is?

If this works,

BACON!
If it doesn't, I'll be quite unhappy.

Did some digging last week and came on a very simple 'make your own' recipe.  And there's a oriental market nearby with a full butcher shop, with pork bellies.  So.

Picked up a 2.5 pound piece, cured, and just took it off the rigged-for-smoking grill

I now have a couple of slices in the pan(hell NO, I'm not waiting till later).  I shall report.


I should note: EVERYPLACE was out of hickory chips.  However, I still had a broken axe handle, so part of it was converted to chips.
Why yes, I am a scrounge.

How dare that volcano, doesn't it know greenhouse gases are not allowed?

Very high concentrations of sulfur dioxide were measured at the eruption site today. Peak values were up to almost 2600 micrograms per cubic meter at Reyðarfjörður, which is by far the highest value ever recorded in Iceland. Consequently, a warning was issued for the town of Reyðarfjörður downwind, advising people to stay indoors as much as possible, especially children and the elderly. Healthy adults should not perform strenuous physical activities outdoors. The clouds of SO₂ emitted by the Holohraun eruption may have been perceived by smell in Norway yesterday and have reached as far away as Northern Siberia at longitude 120 degrees East according to NASA surveillance. At times, local concentrations of SO₂ are so high that they force an involuntary, temporary evacuation of the scientists from the base camp at Vadalda.

The answer is: Illegal aliens and MS-13 members

Question: "Why do you feel this need to carry a gun?
At that point, one of the members of the group asked the two to flash their gang signs, but they refused, telling the group of thugs that they weren’t in a gang. Police said that 18-year-old Mario Elvira then pulled out a machete and struck the older male in the head with it, continuing to violently take swings at him until a train approached and ran the group off.
...WGN reports that the Border Patrol had been called in to investigate the immigration status of the assailants – finding that nearly all of them were here illegally — and probably all “Dreamers” eligible for amnesty under Barack Obama’s DACA executive order.
One of the fun things about this?  Most of the gun bigots just loooove the idea of amnesty for every illegal alien who's snuck across our border.


Speaking of gun bigot dirtbags,
...Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated $500,000 to the Initiative 594 campaign on Aug. 11, is now in a legal battle over possession of a – are you sitting down? – WWII German Panzer tank.

According to the story, which also appears in the Seattle P-I.com, Allen paid $2.5 million for the tank two months ago, to a California group called the Collings Foundation, which allegedly has declined to turn it over.
...
The story says Allen is “an avid collector of historical military planes and other equipment.” Included in that “other” category is a Soviet SCUD missile that Allen reportedly bought for $349,000 and an allegedly “rusty and inoperable Cold War-era M55 self-propelled Howitzer.”

And this guy donated a half-mil to an initiative campaign that would criminalize the weekend loan of a shotgun to a neighbor for a Columbia Basin goose hunt without a background check? This is the man whose money is helping pander an 18-page gun control measure that is apparently so egregiously confusing and intrusive that two of the state’s largest, oldest and most respected rank-and-file law enforcement organizations, along with nine individual county sheriffs, are publicly opposed to its passage?
"Oh, but I can be trusted!  It's people like you who can't."


And on the side of sense(common and otherwise),

In 2013, the Institute of Medicine, at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control, produced a report on firearms violence that has been ignored by the mainstream media. The upshot: defensive use of firearms occurs much more frequently than is recognized, “can be an important crime deterrent,” and unauthorized  possession (read: by someone other than the lawful owner) of a firearm is a crucial driver of firearms violence.

That report went away for political reasons. Translation. Nobody wanted to talk about it because it raised more questions than it answered.

But we're supposed to trust the DoJ in all things.  Right.


Meanwhile, in the Brady Paradise of Chicago, while the followers of Snuffy Pfleger(a priest whose allegiance to the truth isn't exactly outstanding) and he are blaming a gun shop, this is going on.  Again.  Yeah, it's the fault of the shop.  Right.

A bit of history as to why the 'man of god'(in this case no capital is correct) is called that, and why him whining about 'hate mail' is so rich:
Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s Church, went way over the top this week. During a protest against Chuck’s Gun Shop, Father Pfleger twice threatened to “snuff out” the shop’s owner and threatened the same fate for legislators who oppose his position on gun control.

“We’re gonna find you and snuff you out,” Fleger said about the gun shop owner, likening the man to a “rat.” He later repeated his threat to “snuff out” the owner.

Fleger also had this to say to state legislators who vote against gun control measures.

“We’re gonna snuff out legislators who are voting [garbled] against our gun laws and we’re coming for you because we are not going to sit idly.”

Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain needs his full measure of fame

for being the sorry little bastard he is.  Woman-beating professional athlete, you get a break; mother who accidentally breaks a D&FSoNJ gun law, why, YOU are a threat who deserves to be in prison for years!

McClain, were you paid off somehow or are you just that big a jerk("Hey, it's Ray Rice, I don't want to put him in jail!")?

To everyone on the left who whined and screamed about 'Bush shredding the Constitution!',

if you don't scream at least as loud at Obama, then shut the hell up you hypocritical bastards.
...Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.

Mr. Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president’s assertion of unilateral war-making authority. This is because no serious opinion can be written.
And no pass for the bastards who voted for the Use of Force Resolution, and then later whined that 'That evil puppet Bush fooled us into voting for it!', either.

Well, of course, ALL school cops

need grenade launchers!


How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted.
“How can we destroy monogamy?”
Their answer left me dumbstruck, breathless, disbelieving my ears.  Was I on planet earth?  Who were these people?
“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution and homosexuality!” they resounded.


When you can see the shock wave of the eruption approaching...

Speaking of volcanoes


Police in Australia have apologised after leaving 230 grams of plastic explosives in a suitcase at Sydney airport as part of a training exercise.

The explosives, left at the airport for almost a month, were found by a woman who was given the suitcase as a replacement after her own was damaged during a flight.


My last thing for this night.  For anybody who might stumble across this blog and wonder why my response to 'forgive' in relation to 9/11 is "In a pigs ass."

Never forgive them, and never forget.

Ah, the professionals of the EPA:

spreading excrement and menstrual blood to mark their territory.  Or because they're friggin' nuts.


Speaking of excremental jerks, we have the EffingBI and those wonderful people at the DoJ:
The head investigator charged with overseeing the Department of Justice testified Tuesday that various government agencies have repeatedly stymied his investigation efforts, and have done so in direct violation of federal law.
...
These officers “faced restrictions on their access to certain records available to their agencies that were needed to perform their oversight work in critical areas,” the letter explained. “Limiting access in this manner is inconsistent with the IG Act [the 1978 law that created the inspector general offices], at odds with the independence of Inspectors General, and risks leaving the agencies insulated from scrutiny and unacceptably vulnerable to mismanagement and misconduct – the very problems that our offices were established to review and that the American people expect us to be able to address.”
The very problems that Holder and Obama & Co. don't want addressed.


Oh, of COURSE the school cops need a MRAP!
“Our idea is, ‘How can we get in and pull out a classroom at a time of kids if there’s an active shooter?’” he said. “‘If there’s a fire [or] if there’s an earthquake, can we rip down a wall?’ Stuff like that.”
Yeah, because it takes a MRAP to go chasing down the halls.  And nothing else can pull down a wall.  Sure.


Speaking of bullshit, we have Baldr Odinson, famous for being an asshole on lots of 2A blogs, showing his true feelings.  As if there were any doubt.

President Lightbringer made his "I NOW have a strategy!" speech last night

Having a low threshold of tolerance for bullshit, and not wanting to break things, I didn't watch it.  Reports seem to be summed up by this:
"ISIL is a terrorist organization… with no vision." Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck he still doesn't get it.
Which pretty much translates as "I will order more air strikes, and demand our allies(who I've screwed over in every way possible but they not supposed to care since I did it) do everything else.  This will give the impression I actually want to do this and hopefully shut up my critics."

Oh, and he wants to arm the 'moderate' Syrian rebels.  Despite arms given to them previously turning up in ISIS hands.  Yeah, that'll work well.

He said this crap on Sept. 10.  Which just makes it seem worse.  Plus he still wants our southern border to let anybody through, which seems to include mid-east terrorists but he doesn't care about that so long as he gets lots of illegal aliens in to illegally vote Democrat.  I swear, I think he believes that when the terrorists do something and it's demonstrated they came through from Mexico, he'll claim that proves how much we just need amnesty for the 'honest' illegals.  And then use it to attack the 2nd Amendment.  Because us owning arms is the real problem.

I shall now end this, because I'm getting to that 'breaking things' stage.

I'm sure someone will be along to explain what a demonstration of expertise

in foreign affairs this actually is.
It's not my job to rate the Obama Administration's actions in Iraq. But i will tell you that after 2011 the administration basically ignored the country. they did not want to see what was really happening because it conflicted with the narrative that they left Iraq in reasonably good shape. In 2012 as violence was escalating I wrote a story, citing UN statistics, that showed how civilian deaths from attacks were rising.

Tony Blinken, who was then Biden's national security guy and a top Iraq official, pushed back, and even wrote a letter to the editor, saying that violence was near record lows. But that was not true. even after Fallujah fell to ISIS at the end of last year, the administration would push back on stories about Maliki's sectarian tendencies, saying they didn't see it that way.

So there was a concerted effort by the Administration to not acknowledge the obvious until it became so apparent -- with the fall of Mosul -- that Iraq was collapsing.
"It is NOT collapsing; we say so! Are you going to listen to us or look at all those dead bodies, you traitor!"


Which leads me to this from the 'most transparent and ethical admin EVER!'
“Whenever we can, we follow the law,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health on Wednesday.
Just how many lawyerly holes can you see in that?  Including "Whenever it's convenient for us-"?

It makes it hard to believe the Dept. of Justice actually cares about justice

when they do crap like this.
The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes the call was intended to be made to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cumming's staff, the ranking member on the oversight panel, the letter said.
Yeah, we can trust the DoJ to investigate this.  Long as we're trusting them to be corrupt dirtbags.

I have a somewhat messed-up elbow Updated: that was fast

which is preventing me from doing some things I really need to, so I decided to do a little more checking on the .30-30 project idea.  Specifically, the bolt, which I thought of as the big problem.

Son called last night, and after other things spoke a bit on this(he's building a .308 AR), and during discussion he suggested check some numbers, which cleared things a bit.  Specifically, the first 7.62x39 AR-15 setups used a .223 bolt with the face opened up to hold the wider casehead.  A bit of checking gives
.223 rim diameter .378"
7.62x39                .447
So it had to be opened up .069"

 Now
.30-30   .506"
.308      .4728"
So a .308 boltface would only have to be opened up .0332", less than half as much.  My, my, that should be doable!  Especially since the .308 bolt is set up to handle ~60kpsi, whereas .30-30 has a max ~42kpsi.

So, having heard DPMS has the AR-10 down pretty well, I decided to ask them if they saw any problem with a .308 bolt being opened up that much.  That went well:
it will not work as there are no mags or receivers that will let that happen
Why would the receiver not work with it?
the case is too small
I assured them I was not thinking of trying to fire the one cartridge in the other chamber, I'd be using a barrel properly chambered for .30-30.
it will not work
I am a stubborn bastard at times, so I've sent one last question(I promised): since the .30-30 case is the same length as .308, why not?  We'll see what they say.  I'll have to ask some other manufacturers as well; any suggestions?

Update: that was fast, and disappointing:
  the two cases and rounds are completely different
Well DUH!, as daughter used to say, I'd never have noticed that!  And that's a singularly uninformative answer, considering the number of different cartridges the AR-10 platform is chambered in.

Other thoughts: I'd probably have to get a barrel bored for .308 and threaded for the barrel extension(I'm learning all kinds of things here) or with it installed, and have the chamber cut so it headspaces properly with the bolt.  And a adjustable gas block, because I'm sure that will need fiddling with.  Everything except barrel, bolt and magazine would be off-the-shelf parts, and the magazine, I think, would primarily be a matter of adjusting feed lips to work with the cartridge.

I think this is workable(aside from scraping up the money to buy the stuff, of course).

The things that make it through quality control...

Tam's doing some posting, with comments firmly locked out, and notes a couple of problems due to out-of-spec ammo.  Which reminded me to finally take a picture of something that showed up:

From a bulk box of Winchester Super-X hollowpoints; dumped out a handful to load a magazine and found it.

The box was bought just before the .22 supply went completely to hell, so can't blame it on that.  Everything else in the box was in normal configuration and worked fine.

Yeah, about those 'moderate' Syrian rebels...

A spokesman for the family of murdered journalist Steven Sotloff claimed Monday night that Sotloff was sold to the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by Syria’s “so-called moderate rebels.”

Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi, a foreign policy research fellow at the New American Foundation, made the startling claim in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
And the family is not exactly happy with President Lightbringer, either:
Barfi then turned his ire toward the Obama administration for making “a number of inaccurate statements.”

“They’ve said that the families have been consistently and regularly informed. That is not true,” he claimed. “I speak now only from the Sotloff family. I can’t speak for the other families. They said that these hostages were moved frequently. We know that for most of the beginning of part of this year they were stationary. We know that the intelligence community and the White House are enmeshed in a larger game of bureaucratic infighting and [murdered journalist] Jim [Foley] and Steve are pawns in that game and that’s not fair.”

Barfi even threatened to reveal more damning information about the Obama administration’s handling of the situation if the administration didn’t stop leaking details of Sotloff’s captivity to the press.

“If there continues to be leaks, the Sotloff family will have to speak out to set the record straight,” he said.
From the sound of that, they need to speak out in any case, as this record is anything but straight.

Why various mosque leaders whining "We were being watched!"

doesn't get much sympathy from me:
So, one crackpot in a congregation. Who can blame the mosque?
But what about eight — including a prominent member of ISIS?
As it turns out, worshippers at the Islamic Society have included:
Follows a list of half-a-dozen including

•  Abdurahman Alamoudi, the mosque’s founder and first president, who in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years in prison for plotting terrorism. In 2005, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying Alamoudi raised money for al Qaeda in the US.
•  Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT scientist-turned-al Qaeda agent, who in 2010 was sentenced to 86 years in prison for planning a New York chemical attack. Known as “Lady al Qaeda,” she is related to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. ISIS has tried to trade her release for journalist hostages.

Just wonderful people.
Anyone who wants to claim the EffingBI wouldn't have been watching a church connected to National Socialists who wanted to blow things up, or a synagogue with some people of similar 'blow up the whoevers' temperament, is invited to kiss my ass.


Meanwhile, down under,
On August 20, we learned Islamic State killers had beheaded James Foley, with his killer warning the West not to attack Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
On that very same day, more than 60 of Australia’s Muslim leaders and groups issued a statement condemning ... Tony Abbott.

These organisations — ranging from the “moderate” Muslim Women Association to the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir — damned the Abbott Government for proposing anti-terrorism laws they falsely claimed “clearly target Muslims”.
...
Same killer and same message. In fact, if the West kept attacking the Islamic State, a British aid worker would be next to have his head sawn off.
And that very day Muslim leaders again put out a statement condemning ... Tony Abbott.
This time, it was from the Australian National Imams Council, our highest Muslim body, and quoted the Grand Mufti, Professor Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, our most senior Muslim cleric.

Again, it made not one criticism of the Islamic State. Again, it blamed the West for jihadism: “One of the main causative factor (sic) for local radicalisation in the West has been the western governments’ military involvement in the Middle East.”

I think I froze some brains at Brownell's

I was browsing through their site and noticed one of the 'Ask one of our techs!' things, and "Shazam!" thought I, "I shall ask these experts about my idea for a AR-10 in .30-30!"  So I did: "What AR-10 bolt could be modified to work with the .30-30 casehead?"

Three days later: "You need to talk to a qualified gunsmith, nothing we can recommend."

Well, crap.  So I guess I start going down a list of "What can you get a AR-10 bolt in, and what's the largest/closest size head?"

Remember that guy killed in a Wal-Mart because of the reports

"He's pointing an assault rifle at people!" ?  The 'scared citizen' is changing his story:
But in an interview with the Guardian, the 24-year-old Ritchie changed that crucial component of his story.

“At no point did he shoulder the rifle and point it at somebody,” said Ritchie, who now claims that Crawford was “waving it around.”
And this clown saying 'I'm a Marine, I know guns!'?  Bullshit.
Ritchie told several reporters after the 5 August shooting that he was an “ex-marine”. When confronted with his seven-week service record, however, he confirmed that he had been quickly thrown out of the US marine corps in 2008 after being declared a “fraudulent enlistment”, over what he maintains was simply a mixup over his paperwork.

This is looking worse and worse.  For the cops, too; with the authorities refusing to release the video, and the reported location of the wounds.  We'll see.

So the Brit cops not only turned a blind eye to repeated rapes,

they let these people get away with some other interesting things:
The perpetrators were not merely pimps: They also dealt drugs and sold guns. Yet during the 17-year period she studied, Jay found, “councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue.”
You'll notice there's not mention of  "The police did not come down on them the way they would have a pensioner with a war bring-back and no ammo", either.
So a bunch of primarily Pakistani muslims were running rape rings and dealing in illegal guns, and very few had the balls to say anything.  Those who did were punished.  And the chances of those covering all this up actually being punished: I'd say damn near zero.

And they're still working hard to keep from using the word 'muslim' in this.
“Our untouchables turn out to be little girls raped by powerful men,” she claims. Dan Hodges of the Telegraph replies, “But they weren’t. Our little girls were raped by Kashmiri cab drivers. Yes, powerful men were involved in the Rotherham abuses. But they weren’t the ones doing the raping. They were the ones turning a blind eye to the rape. And why were they turning a blind eye? Because of the ethnicity of the rapists.”
And the religion.  But even people pointing out the PC-at-any-cost bullshit mostly don't want to mention that part; because even with the information out, they'll be labeled a 'racist' and called other names.

But the authorities weren't doing nothing!  Oh no, they were having meetings and developing strategies!
The Inspectorate of Constabulary praised the collaborative disposition and, of course, the commitment of the South Yorkshire Police’s CSE work. Not only was everyone “conscientious, enthusiastic, and focused,” but “the force had improved its engagement with other agencies working in this field and had co-operated with them in developing strategies.” The strategies thus developed did not require constables to arrest specific sex traffickers who had been pointed out to them by material witnesses: According to the Jay report, they systematically refused to do so, using a variety of excuses that may have been developed on an interagency basis.
"We have strategies and plans!  They just don't involve arresting rapists(especially those of protected species)."

Add to that something that's been mentioned before:
The police may have been reluctant to arrest Muslim suspects accused by white Christians, but the police in Britain are comparatively reluctant to arrest anyone at all. The incarceration rate in England and Wales is about a fifth of ours, and accordingly, the citizens of the law-abiding country John O’Sullivan describes are 228 percent more likely than we are to be a victim of a violent crime. The actual crime rate is likely to be even higher, since the police are believed by HMIC itself systematically to underreport crime.
Lie about the numbers and don't even look at someone who might call you names.  Wonderful LE work there, guys.

Barring a miracle, Britain is screwed.

There's this from one of the idiots, too:
“The fact that these particular gangs are made up of Pakistani men is significant but not in the way racists would have us believe,” says one child protection expert who asked not to be named. “While the BNP would have us believe that abusing white girls is an endemic part of these men’s culture​—​which it absolutely is not​—​the truth is that these men are aware that the police do not want to be accused of racism in today’s climate.”
Abusing infidels- non-muslims- IS a part of their culture.  Could have been most any religion, but it was a definite factor: 'These are not of the umma, therefore they are to be used as we choose.'  But mention that and "RACIST!!"  from idiots like this.

General rule has been 'Buy an optic from anyone except a known good brand

and it's a game of craps.'  I've seen off-brand scopes and red dots that held up quite well, and others that crapped out in short order.  On the other hand, few years back I wrote about my experience with a Pentax red dot("They just started making these, and it's PENTAX, they'll be great!" they said).  That piece of crap started wandering zero after less than a hundred rounds, and their customer service just about didn't exist, so name-brand isn't a guarantee, either.

So when ran across this the other day on Barska bringing out a 1-6x scope for AR-type rifles, my first thought was 'You first.'  Having slept on it, I still say so.  The quality of a lot of these 'Made in China' scopes has indeed improved, but I'm not going to be the one to beta test them.  Unless someone sends me one to evaluate, which I doubt my fame is sufficient to bring on.

And the EPA is trying to cause the same crap here

Emergency measures will be introduced to prevent the lights going out this winter.
Not to mention the heat; frozen Brits, anyone?

Offices and factories will be offered compensation to undergo 1970s-style energy rationing and shut down for up to four hours a day to prevent households being plunged into darkness.

In addition, owners of old power stations will be asked to switch them back on to meet the country’s demands.
Which will involve compensation; guess who pays for it?

Under the powers, businesses that sign up will be ‘bribed’ to shut down between 4pm and 8pm on any day between November and February.

They will be paid a retainer during the four months, even if they are never called on to close early. If they do shut down, they will be paid above the market rate for electricity they do not use.
And who'll pay the bill?
But don't worry, they say it'll only add £1 per household.  And if you believe that...

The second measure, which has never before been used in Britain, would see the resurrection of power stations that have been closed but not yet dismantled. National Grid yesterday contacted the owners of recently closed plants to see if they could be running in time for winter.

Plant owners would be paid the costs of resurrecting their stations – which could run into tens of millions of pounds. Once running, they would be required to be available between 6am and 8pm between November and February. They will also be paid more than the market rate for their electricity by National Grid, which said yesterday that both measures would be used only as a ‘last resort’.

Our grid got right to the edge in some areas last winter, and the EPA is pushing to shut down a bunch of coal plants for which there is no replacement.  And some idiots are trying to shut down working nuke plants because 'NUCLEAR!'  There's no replacement for them, either.  The enviroweenies are trying to kill us all.

More on the theft under color of law known as asset seizure Link fixed

The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back.
And pay attention to this:
Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.
To quote Jamie, "Well, THERE'S your problem!"  A big part of it.

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
Really?  Cops posting that information on a PRIVATE network to be spread around?  How the hell is this legal?

'...half the warriors were female' claim is BS

What you find when you read the linked article is an obvious, though as it turns out a superficial problem. The linked research doesn’t say what the article claims. What it establishes is that a hair less than half of Viking migrants were female, which is no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. The leap from that to “half the warriors were female” is unjustified and quite large.

There’s a deeper problem the article is trying to ignore or gaslight out of existence: reality is, at least where pre-gunpowder weapons are involved, viciously sexist.


Speaking of reality, remember when that newly-elected Congressman wanted to be sworn in on Jeffersons' copy of the Koran?  All the "Oh, isn't it wonderful how Jefferson recognized-" bullshit?  Fact is, he read it because it was behind our first foreign war, and it was popular reading at the time for the same reason.
But I heard from a lurker this week who called my attention to another historic naval engagement that gets equally weak coverage:

Americans need to learn fast the lessons of the hottest American geopolitical issue of the late 18th century: the brutal, bloody, deadly and cynical North African Barbary hostage and extortion crisis that threatened to cripple US maritime trade, undermine American liberty and threatened the personal security of Americans and American interests abroad.

Few people know today that this was a huge national issue back in the day. This is detailed in Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public, 1785-1816 by Lawrence Peskin:

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Barbary States captured and held for ransom nearly five hundred American sailors. The attacks on Americans abroad - and the government’s apparent inability to control the situation - deeply scarred the public.

And here we are.  With a President who's a chihuahua next to a wolf in comparison to Jefferson.


Which brings us to the UN 'peacekeepers' ordered to surrender to the bad guys:
The 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji who were abducted by Al Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front rebel forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights last Wednesday are to "stand trial" under sharia (Islamic law), according to a Britain-based monitoring group.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the commander of Al-Nusra Front has declared that the 45 peacekeepers will be tried under "divine law," according to Asharq Al-Aswat as cited by Yedioth Aharonoth.
They've issued demands, confident that the UN will talk tough right up until they start killing hostages.

Bet the Filipinos the idiot commander also told to surrender are ready to hunt him down and kick his ass for trying to put them in the same position.

I think a second batch tonight

Research just goes on and on

I had a request from Anony,

so there's something for the ladies after the break

Ok, guess who said this:

"The Jews in America should know that they are tolerated here, but not more than that. American issues come first." 

I need this shirt

Aha!  One even BETTER!

 Oh, the heads I could cause to explode...

Benghazi and the IRS: chances of getting the whole story from official sources,

about zero.
Five security operators responsible for guarding the CIA station in Benghazi, Libya insist they were told to “stand down” the night of the deadly 2012 attacks, arguing the order prevented them from likely saving the life of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and others.

The claim is made in a new book titled “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.” Scheduled for release next week, it is the first public account of the deadly attacks from security personnel who were on the ground that night.

The IRS is once again pissing in our boots

and telling us it's raining.
The IRS says it has lost emails from five more workers who are part of congressional investigations into the treatment of conservative groups that applied for tax exempt status.
"Oh no, this is all very innocent!  Just pure coincidence!"
Insty suggests we just start taking heads.  At this point it sounds like a good idea.


Threat to Fort Bliss?  Not enough to actually do anything yet.  Officially, anyway.
But senior military officials contacted by JW this week reveal that military installations in the U.S. only make changes to security measures when there are clear and present threats. “It’s a significant issue when this is done,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, former commander of the Army’s elite Delta Force who also served four years as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. “That means they’re getting a threat stream. Ft. Bliss had to have a clear and present threat.”
If the commander isn't at least quietly doing 'just in case' stuff, he should be relieved of command.


More wonders from the Brit NHS that we're supposed to copy:
Death rates in NHS hospitals are among the highest in the western world, shock figures revealed yesterday.

British patients were found to be almost 50 per cent more likely to die from poor care than those in America.

They have five times the chance of dying from pneumonia and twice the chance of being killed by blood poisoning.


Based on past history, the Cubans have lots of academics to draw from:
Cuba’s communist-led intelligence services are aggressively recruiting leftist American academics and university professors as spies and influence agents, according to an internal FBI report published this week.
Cuban intelligence services “have perfected the work of placing agents, that includes aggressively targeting U.S. universities under the assumption that a percentage of students will eventually move on to positions within the U.S. government that can provide access to information of use to the [Cuban intelligence service],” the five-page unclassified FBI report says. It notes that the Cubans “devote a significant amount of resources to targeting and exploiting U.S. academia.”
“Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the [Cuban intelligence service],” the report concludes.
Academia just flat loves terrorists like Bill Ayers, so this isn't exactly a surprise, is it?


And last for this morning,
Why Sally can’t get a good job with her college degree.  Which all boils down to 'She just needs a DIFFERENT degree.'  But it includes this:
On the one hand, a college degree provides a needed credential to get a job, even if that job doesn’t require a college degree.
Bullshit.  Lots of jobs going begging out there that don't require a degree.  They DO require getting dirty and sweaty, though, conditions which are considered beneath the dignity of Womyn or something.*  And not one mention of any of those.  At least does note
But, on the other hand, if a woman wishes to move up on the pay scale, she may have to consider dropping her liberal arts degree in favor of a more technically-oriented degree, like engineering or physics. Barring these changes, women may find that they are very well-educated, but not necessarily very well compensated.
Yeah, not much demand for "I have degrees in Womyns' Studies!" people

who blame Wall Street for their own dumbassery.  Not to mention not being as 'well-educated' as they think.



*Yeah, I know, but women are supposed to be smarter than men, right?  So they ought to be moving into those jobs Mike Rowe keeps pushing for people to go into ahead of the dumb men.

I have actually accomplished some things today,

part of which was no damn fun.  So it's time to resume the relaxing pursuit of science

as long as you agree with what they want to report.  They ran a 'do we need more gun control?' poll; problems are
The first problem, is that the poll is placed on CNN’s International Edition. It’s nowhere to be found on the CNN U.S. Edition! The U.S. Edition has the below section in the place where the poll is located on their International Edition!
...
The second major issue, is that many “No” votes are not being tallied. This was originally brought to attention by “The Truth About Guns” Facebook page. I initially had my doubts, so I began voting “No” from several different computers and mobile devices. Sure enough, the fans from “The Truth About Guns” are right on the money! Many of the “No” votes are not being counted!
Yeah, we can trust CNN.

I would like to know the name of the worthless, soulless, chickenshit piece of crap (updated)

who decided it was a good idea to treat our wardogs this way.
That is, right up until the moment these dogs are "retired." Once they are too old, too shell-shocked or simply not needed, the dogs are automatically declared equipment that can be left behind like a latrine tent. The military sometimes says they are "retired" and become "civilians," but the result is the same because these civilians don't have a right to military transport home.
...
It is one thing to ask these warriors to say goodbye to their dog when it is still on active duty and is assigned a new handler, which often happens. It is quite another to ask them to leave these dogs behind when the dogs are effectively abandoned overseas, left to languish in shelters — or worse. That's why handlers are sometimes forced to make incredible sacrifices to get their four-legged comrades home on their own.
The piece(s) of shit responsible for this should have their names known far & wide, so they have the fame they truly deserve.


Update: Seems I fell for some bad information.  Over on Bookface, the Veterinary Tactical Group has this, from which I'll borrow:
Please be assured, those stories are false. The DoD has 100% accountability over every MWD in the program. Please also know that it is false that contractors who are on a DoD Contract Working Dog (CWD) contract are leaving dogs behind. The contracts require those dogs to be returned to the contractor upon completion of the contract.

There is Congressional oversight of the MWD program already and every dog which is removed from service must be reported to Congress in an annual report. The report includes not only how many dogs were taken out of service but also how they were removed from service, including all euthanasias.

What is occurring with dogs in the combat theater is that members of the military are taking stray, feral dogs as pets in violation of DoD policy. There have been several members who have become sick because of violating the policy and one even died from rabies. Those dogs are being left behind because they belong there.

"If you people weren't so insistent on that 2nd Amendment thing

and didn't own guns, maybe the cops wouldn't want all that military stuff and act like occupying troops!  This militarization of law enforcement is your fault!"
MacGillis' explanation as to why libertarians should support the violation of the right to the means of defending one's liberty is a bit convoluted. Basically, the fact that most Americans can own firearms--including guns well suited for rather "unsportsmanlike" activities like self-defense and resisting tyranny--makes cops "on edge" (MacGillis' term) . . . and thus apparently justifies teargassing and arresting journalists, aiming sniper rifles at citizens with their hands up, and screaming obscenities at them:
...
Note, by the way, that even MacGillis acknowledges that fulfillment of the forcible citizen disarmament advocates' gun ban wishlist--banning private sales, so-called "assault weapons," and standard capacity magazines--would make police work only "slightly less threatening." Does he believe that the decades-long trend of the transformation of "peace officers" to "warrior cops" will be reversed by a slight reduction in cops' perception of the threats they think they face?

Remember President Lightbringer said the Mount Sinjar problem had been solved

by his actions?  He lied again
...But hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqis – mostly sick and old – remain atop the mountain, with no relief on its way.

Satellite images taken on 21 August by the firm ImageSat International and interviews with members of the Yazidi religious minority still on the mountain indicate a humanitarian emergency continuing to unfold. While thousands have fled down the mountain’s north face, making a dangerous trek into Iraqi Kurdistan through Syria, those on the southern side remain in crisis.
But he SAID it's solved, so it is.  In his mind, anyway.

I don't think there's been a time in this country that 'State Police' has been more accurate

Palumbo claimed he was told by an undercover officer that police first considered raiding his business with an armed SWAT Team to retrieve the records. The lead investigator, however, opted to take a more peaceful approach, he said.
That they even CONSIDERED a effing SWAT team 'to retrieve the records' tells me they need all their noisy toys taken away from them.

And that needs to be followed with a refresher course on what being a 'peace officer' is supposed to mean.  Because this crap translates as "Let's use the SWAT team and show these commoners that we mean business!"  which was followed by someone with half a brain saying "You realize how THAT would piss people off?"


Be it noted that in New York that messy 'free speech' thing, when connected to politics, annoys the dirtbags as well.

Take a look at this tooth

Megaladon, about 6" long.  Think about the shark it came from.  Then consider what fishing/exploration/trading would've been like if these and some of the other early ocean predators had still been around in numbers...


Have a friend in the hospital right now.  Had a checkup in the morning a couple of days ago, that afternoon after the blood results came back got a "Please go to the ER now instead of going in an ambulance later" call.  VERY low hemoglobin.    Doing a bit better after two units of blood and some meds.  Severe gastritis that was causing bleeding; not bad enough for him to notice, but enough to be slowly draining him faster than his marrow could replace.

Answers why the 'no energy/no strength' has been whacking him lately.

Why you're not Officer Friendly anymore, Reason #483:

Lying, perjuring bastards.
"They went on to say that there was weak and inappropriate supervision on that [midnight] shift and that in their opinions the supervisors were as guilty of using excessive force as anyone else," Loring wrote in a memo to the attorney general's office. "I asked if they think [Lashmet] is being ordered as to what to put in her reports, and they both said they were certain that was happening. They also stated that because nothing happens to the violating officers, the general mood of the midnight shift is that everyone might as well go along with the inappropriate behavior as it has become the norm."

Officer Teresa Lashmet lied under oath and on  sworn documents.  You or I would be in a cell; she gets a sentence of unsupervised probation for three years, deferred, and a $300 fine after she entered a plea of no contest to a charge of "outraging public decency."
Ottawa County Judge Bill Culver apparently thought this was sufficient for a sworn officer of the law who lied her ass off about a man getting dumped face-first on the pavement and then kicked in the face.  Culver, you suck, and you're part of the reason this is ongoing.

What happens when there's a REAL rape culture?

The left turns all 'three monkeys' about it. 
What’s going on here?  Why isn’t there a feminist feeding frenzy over a topic with so many lurid details, so many juicy examples of society’s violence and indifference to women?

There are two facts that explains their silence.  The perpetrators were Pakistani Muslims. And the victims were white.
Which makes you wonder how many other girls are being raped and used as prostitutes that the Brit authorities are trying to hide before someone finds out.  It would cause so much difficulty for the multicultural ideal, you know.

Remember these words:
Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham from 1994 to 2012, actually admitted to the BBC’s World At One that “there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that. Perhaps, yes, as a true Guardian reader and liberal Leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard.”
And what Tim Blair ran into:
My response, back in the day: “You’d think if there was one issue on which a Western feminist might be moved to loud denunciation, it’d be the genital mutilation of little girls. But no; this instead turns out to be an issue (one of the few) about which the likes of Kim are inclined to shut the hell up. In the rock-scissors-paper hierarchy of the modern left, sensitivity to Islam trumps clitoral scissors every time.”
That is the modern left in action.


Speaking of which, that 'One in five women will be sexually assaulted in college' line:
“The estimated 19% sexual assault rate among college women is based on a survey at two large four-year universities, which might not accurately reflect our nation’s colleges overall. In addition, the survey had a large non-response rate, with the clear possibility that those who had been victimized were more apt to have completed the questionnaire, resulting in an inflated prevalence figure.”

Fox and Moran also point out that the study used an overly broad definition of sexual assault. Respondents were counted as sexual assault victims if they had been subject to “attempted forced kissing” or engaged in intimate encounters while intoxicated.
Defenders of the one-in-five figure will reply that the finding has been replicated by other studies. But these studies suffer from some or all of the same flaws. Campus sexual assault is a serious problem and will not be solved by statistical hijinks.

And if you point this stuff out and question their numbers, they accuse you of hating women, 'apologizing for rape culture' and other such idiocies.  Because it's what they do.

Well, isn't THIS wonderful news?

Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.
And large areas of Europe.  That's just awesome, isn't it?  Add that to this:

The Department of Homeland Security has lost track of more than 6,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States on student visas, overstayed their welcome, and essentially vanished -- exploiting a security gap that was supposed to be fixed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

"My greatest concern is that they could be doing anything," said Peter Edge, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who oversees investigations into visa violators. "Some of them could be here to do us harm."

No SHIT?  This is while DHS is helping raid people for copyright violations, and other such bullshit;  makes you wonder if they're doing that because it's easier and safer than tracking these people down.

Or maybe DHS is just being a political tool(a list of possible terrorists that doesn't mention muslims comes to mind).

A: What brainless, ball-less idiot in the UN

thinks surrendering to ISIS is a good idea?
B: Good on the Filipinos for saying "Screw that", and their commander for backing them up.
So the UN commander thought he could play "Let's trade these hostages for those hostages!"?  Absolute effing idiot.
“Fighting had already taken place. Without their guns to defend themselves, the next rebels’ move would be to capture our troops and take them hostage. If that happened, the problem of the UNDOF commander would be much bigger,” Catapang said.
Not to mention the problem of the troops wanting to keep their heads.
He added that while Syrian rebels claimed that the surrender of firearms was symbolic – as per assurance by the UNDOF commander – such gesture would be unthinkable for Filipino soldiers.
'Symbolic'.  Right.
“For us soldiers, it is not symbolic. It is our honor that is at stake,” Catapang stressed.
And your lives.  You chose well.


Speaking of idiots in positions of power, Obama stuck another idiot  in one at the Dept. of Agriculture.  Because you're not smart enough to decide what to eat.

Well, crap

Apparently some douchebags have been giving Tam some serious annoyance, and she's said 'To hell with it.'

Dammit.  I'm going to miss her stuff.

Having done my labor for the day

pruning trees(among other things), I'm now sitting on my ass browsing around.

Looks like the current strain of ebola mutated off another strain pretty recently.  This one
has had a higher transmission rate and lower death rate than others, and researchers are curious if any of these mutations are related to that. (Right now, social factors are thought to be the main causes of these two changes.)
And the longer it goes on, the more chances to mutate.  Say, becoming air-transmittable.  Which would be a nightmare.


This kind of crap is exactly why people don't trust or like the cops anymore: it's apparently too difficult to actually look at the damned video and compare faces, much better to keep a guy in jail for hours instead of, y'know, actually looking for the robber.


Tim Blair, a Aussie writer I need to read more often
A few years ago I became involved in a little online dispute with left-wing Brisbane feminist Kim Jameson. It all began when Kim criticised visiting Somalian author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation who subsequently abandoned her Muslim faith.

“Her view on Islam,” wrote Kim, “is too much coloured by her own experience.”

Well, yes. Having your genitals destroyed by some maniac with a knife might tend to have that effect. Jameson then considered the overall subject of Islamic girl cutting: “I believe that the best step that can be taken to work against it is to give support to those who are best placed to do so where it occurs, not to politicise the issue.”
...
My response, back in the day: “You’d think if there was one issue on which a Western feminist might be moved to loud denunciation, it’d be the genital mutilation of little girls. But no; this instead turns out to be an issue (one of the few) about which the likes of Kim are inclined to shut the hell up. In the rock-scissors-paper hierarchy of the modern left, sensitivity to Islam trumps clitoral scissors every time.”

Horrific events in the UK now demonstrate the consequences of Western “sensitivity” towards Islam.


Got into a bit of a go-round on Bookface the other day on the subject of the idiot 'consent' law about to be passed in Californicated.  Opinion of two other people: 'Sexual assault is such  plague and out of control that it's worth it to ditch that 'beyond reasonable doubt' and 'presumption of innocence' crap to fight it.'

Ignoring the bullshit in a lot of the numbers on the 'plague', the idea of dumping those things because "This is IMPORTANT!" scares hell out of me.  The were put in our system for very damned good reason.  I've always liked this scene from 'A Man for All Seasons' to illustrate:
Drives me up the wall, the people I've known who think it's just fine to dump these protections- at least in a matter they are all wound up about- because "It's worth it."  They never seem to understand, or care, about about the dangers.  Or what happens down the road to THEM when it's used against them.


Remember when FEMA and DHS announced that people should have at least three days supplies in case of natural disaster or terrorist attack?  Then a few months later DHS was telling LE that anyone 'stockpiling' food, water and medical gear should be considered suspicious?  How long do you think the delay will be this time?


And last, before I fall over, is the current reaction by the Brit authorities to a bunch of muslim males raping girls over years time:
A British social worker who noted the Pakistani heritage of sexual predators said she was told to never mention race in her reports on the abuses and was forced to take a two-day diversity training class.
Either the Brits will actually get serious about this and fire a bunch of people, or they'll play games and hope the noise goes away.  I'm betting on the latter.

Back when the left was pushing Cindy Sheehan

(not off a cliff, unfortunately), someone- I think Maureen Dowd- announced that as the parent of a soldier killed in battle she had 'absolute moral authority'; wonder if she'll hold to that with the Vaughns?
Billy and Karen Vaughn also lost their only-son Aaron Carson Vaughn in 2011, when the SEAL Team Six soldier's Chinook helicopter was shown down over Afghanistan.

Now the couple are calling on President Barack Obama to step down, citing his reaction to the Foley video and 'lack of leadership' in confronting ISIS.
Yeah, I know, not a chance.  The threw Sheehan under the bus when she became an annoyance to President Lightbringer, they won't even wave to the Vaughns as they go by.

Because it's a holiday

and I want a bit more research for the weekend

Well, hell, can we trust EffingBI numbers about ANYTHING?

What's not realized is that the FBI count is artificially defined in a way that far undercounts defensive uses. The usual definition of self-defense with a deadly weapon is use of force immediately necessary in light of a reasonable belief that the perp is likely to inflict death or serious bodily injury.

But the FBI UCR Reporting Handbook at pp. 17-18 uses a completely different definition. Reporting officials are instructed, in the case of use of force by a non-LEO, to include under justifiable homicide only killings "The killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen."

Added by Joe Huffman:
The FBI explicitly states in the UCR Handbook:

Reporting agencies should take care to ensure that they do not classify a killing as justifiable or excusable solely on the claims of self-defense or on the action of a coroner, prosecutor, grand jury, or court.

The coroner, prosecutor, grand jury, and court could unanimously agree it was a justified homicide and the FBI would still insist it not be included in the justified homicide stats.

So where are the Gods-damned frowny faces?

Behind signs with some catchy hashtag?  Where's the First Lady?  Or is there some problem with these girls getting the same 'support' from these idiots?   (autoplay warning)

Hundreds of Yazidi women abducted by ISIS have either been sold or handed out to members of the Sunni extremist group, according to an organization that monitors the crisis.

In the past few weeks, ISIS has "distributed" to its rank and file about 300 female members of the persecuted religious minority, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group aligned with the opposition in Syria.

Those women were initially kidnapped in Iraq before being taken to Syria.

In ISIS' eyes, the girls and women are "captives of the spoils of war with the infidels," the Syria monitors said, claiming that some had converted to Islam so ISIS fighters can marry them.

SOHR says it could confirm at least 27 cases in which women were "sold and married" for about $1,000 each to ISIS militants in Aleppo and Raqqa suburbs and Al-Hassakah.

Slavery.  Sex slavery at that.  So where's all the actors and progressives yelling about it?

Oh, that's right; there they were trying to 'shame' Boko Haram, and here they know it would require Obama actually doing something.  And the great deity Marx knows they don't want to put pressure on the Lightbringer, especially just before an election.