Just a combination of things

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

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

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

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

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

If this turns out to be true,

this is something else that's downright big.

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

So the lying little boob is unmasked

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

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


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

Remarkable things happen with you give simple orders:

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

Survival

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet more on the 'Shock Troops' bullshit

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

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

Yeah, that's real damn believable.

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

On dealing with the possessed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ting.

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

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

Chorus of "No!"

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

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

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

Things do move along

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

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

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

More on the 'Shock Troops' story

Emphasis on 'story'.

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

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

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

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

H&H Range had Dealer's Days

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

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















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

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

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

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


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

'New Republic publishes 'Murdering Soldiers' story

Smell of bovine fertilizer in the air

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

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

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

Blackfive, here and here.

Confederate Yankee here, here, here.

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

Ace here, here, here.

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

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

Some Marines who could use a hand

Information here at Blackfive

Dammit, another couple of places to keep track of

A comment on the butthead reporter led to Plains Feeder, which led to People You'll See In Hell.

Warning: looking at the latter may cause side effects on the order of breaking things, boosted blood pressure and acknowledging what that comedian said some years back: "Some people just look better dead."

'Reporter and accomplice hoisted on own petard:

complains of great discomfort. Updated!

Thanks to Unix-Jedi who pointed Kevin to the previous article, we find this:
Reporter goes to another state with accomplice and intent to violate federal firearms law.
Reporter and accomplice violate law.
Reporter brags about it in column, brags about offending 'loony gun lobby'.
Reporter and accomplice get visit from ATF.
Reporter now whining This is how it works. Intimidation is the stock in trade of the National Rifle Association and all the NRA knock-offs out there. Dare to say we need fewer, not more guns in this country, dare to say we need a uniform system for monitoring gun sales in this country and you become a target to be hunted down. Democrats and Republicans have allowed themselves to be cowed by this one-issue bloc for too long.

Boo-freakin'-hoo, jackass. You deliberately broke the law, bragged about it, and now you're getting the treatment that's been given to lots of gun owners who made an honest mistake. Except, you being in the media, are being treated a lot nicer by ATF.

Update
Uncle has more, and it appears reporter is either lying now, or was lying then, and may be going through a bit of major pucker-factor ass-covering.

And our friend who escaped from MA has a look at the skewed method of looking at numbers this clown uses

"...as illegal as firing a sub-machine gun"

No, not shooting somebody. Bloody pepper spray. In Formerly-Great Britain.

Under the Firearms Act, it is ranked alongside rocket launchers in that using it carries a 10-year prison sentence.

This is what happens when God-cursed socialist nanny-state politicians and their little 'progressive' buttmonkeys get do decide your life. And the Brady/Violence Policy Center/Gun-Ban At Any Cost clowns here want things to be just the same.

At times I think I may have to stop reading Kevin; he's bad for my blood pressure.

Well, they're back to their bases

Put son & new daughter-in-law on their respective planes yesterday. Son had the much longer flight, getting there this morning; DIL was back just a few hours after leaving.

Kind of odd being a father-in-law. And I like her, so can't be too obnoxious about things(she married him, that ought to be punishment enough for a few decades).

In any case, back to long-distance contact as son will be going to a hot & sandy place in a month.

Yeah, government-run health care will work

just as well as the tax system.
A missing property tax bill for $1.63 has given Kermit and Dolores Atwood "seven years of emotional hell" in a fight to keep their home.

The bill was sent to a defunct address in 1996 and returned undelivered to the St. Tammany Parish sheriff's office. The Atwoods weren't looking for it since they had owned the four-bedroom house mortgage-free since 1968 and had been exempt from the state tax.

Which does bring up the question of, since their home was exempt, why was any bill sent? And why no further attempt? Of course, that would be calling into question the efficiency of the agency involved...

Instead, the Atwoods' home was sold at a sheriff's auction in 1997 to American Land Investments because of the delinquent bill. The couple have won several court challenges since then and hope to withstand one more appeal over the property.

The State Tax Commission eventually nullified the 1997 sale, but when the Atwoods tried to sell the house in 2002, they discovered that American Land Investments had sold the property rights to Jamie Land Co., which then sued the Atwoods.

James A. Lindsay II, the company's president, said his rights were violated when the tax commission didn't inform him of its decision.

And so on.

This kind of crap happens fairly regularly. And how many cases have been noted where the IRS made an error and screwed someone's life over? How many people have been advised to 'pay whatever they demand, because you'll go broke fighting it'?

Yeah, government-run health care will be just wonderful!

Ammo testing

James had a post a few days back on one of his 'working guns', a Star Super B. Specific note is made that this pistol "...won't feed any hollowpoint ammo at all, or at least any that I have bothered to try."

This is something I(and just about every other gunblogger) has stressed before: NEVER trust ammo for self-defense that you have not fired through your sidearm! Revolvers are much simpler here, as they'll generally digest damn near anything without problem, but a lot of semi-auto pistols can be downright finicky about what they'll digest.

I wrote a while back about trying out a Star BM (if that link doesn't work, try here and here)9mm. That little pistol was fired with CCI Blazer ball, some other brand of ball, two different bullet weights in Gold Dot hollowpoints, Remington hollowpoints and some Winchester hollowpoints as I recall and it ate all of them without a bobble; excellent performance from that beast. I've also fired some high-grade semi-autos that flat would NOT reliably cycle some particular brand of ammo. No reason we could figure, it just wouldn't.

My carry piece is a Kimber Compact, their version of the Officer's Model 1911. The only thing I've fired that it wouldn't feed well was some semi-wadcutter target ammo(a common problem for almost all 1911 pistols that don't have a barrel throated for this bullet). But I've read of other people whose Kimber was very damn picky about what it would work with.

What makes really testing ammo properly a problem is the price that premium self-defense ammo sells for (especially now); for instance, last time I looked Federal Hydra-Shok in .45acp was selling for $15-16. For a box of twenty. That kind of cost really hurts a lot of people. But the plain fact is you cannot short on this: you HAVE to shoot enough of the stuff you choose to make sure it will function reliably in your gun. No ifs, ands or buts.

And here's another kick in the ass for Murtha

Only metaphorically, unfortunately.
Yet another Marine has won a court victory in the investigation of the battle at Haditha – adding more doubts to the claims of a massacre. In this case, the officer conducting an Article 32 hearing (equivalent to a grand jury hearing in civilian courts) has ruled that charges should be dropped. In essence, the claims of a massacre at Haditha are now looking false.

There has GOT to be some kind of payback to both the bastards like Murtha in Congress and the equally disgusting bastards in the media who went way, WAY out of their way to railroad these Marines.

"Don't give them what they want"

Damn good information from Anarchangel

One of my favorite fictional characters(mentioned previously) is Matt Helm. A time or two he explained his actions- on and off-duty- very simply: "If someone opens the door to violence, they've got no room to complain if more than they were expecting walks through". Which pretty much matches with what Chris puts forth: if you have to act, do not stop until the fight is over. No matter what it takes.

Remember the recent Righteous Shooting report from Kim about the old man in the fast-food place? The article(link not good anymore) noted that the reformed criminal deceased dirtbag was upset the man wouldn't comply with an order to pick up his wallet and was trying to force him into the ladies room; the man knew what that meant and acted.