Be it noted: Paul Ehrlich is a slimy little bastard

Ace notes But then come back here and recall with me that Paul Ehrlich is one of the most discredited pseudo-scientific alarmists of all time. In 1968 he predicted that population growth would exceed the resources available on the planet, resulting in decades of famine and disease. He conned universities and governments into thinking that hundreds of millions of people would die by the 1980s.
I also have to point out that in the early 70's he was one of the Global Cooling Will Kill Us All(unless we act NOW!!!) people; and now he's a Globular Warmering Will Kill Us ALL!!!(unless, etc.) bigshot.

AND a slimy bastard.

What level of dumbass is required...

Michael Eckert, 37, was charged in Comanche County on Thursday with a felony count of cultivation of marijuana and a misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia.

Two rattlesnakes and "a menagerie of exotic vipers” were removed from Eckert’s home, said Rose Wilson, Lawton animal welfare superintendent.

All but two of the nine or 10 snakes are venomous, she said.

Some interesting hearings in Britain on their military

General Lord Gurthrie of Craigiebank, who was chief of the defence staff from 1997 to 2001, also said soldiers died in Afghanistan because Gordon Brown starved the Army of funding when he was Chancellor.

“Not fully funding the Army in the way they had asked ... undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers. He should be asked why he was so unsympathetic towards defence and so sympathetic to other departments,” he told The Times.
But it's all better now, of course:
Senior defence sources sought to limit the damage caused by the attacks.

They claimed that Sir Graeme’s views were “outdated” and did not reflect the “dramatic” changes that had taken place since General Sir David Richards took over as Chief of the General Staff in August.
Which, if the changes are indeed happening, doesn't change that troops died at least in part because Brown screwed them.

About damned time, thought the DOT shouldn't have been involved

in the first place:
The U.S. Transportation Department’s office of civil rights ruled this week that the state of Oklahoma did not discriminate against an Iranian couple who wanted to take a driver’s license test in Farsi. The state’s decision did not amount to discrimination based on national origin, according to the ruling.
This crap started when the Governor pushed through allowing the driving test to be taken in Spanish(got to accommodate the illegals and clowns who don't want to be bothered with English, y'know); then this happened.

Happily, enough people had enough working brain cells to say "NO", and there's a bill on the election in November that says 'English only' for this.

Video of pistols being fired underwater

over at Ace.

Please note two things: first, the Southern Poverty LiesLaw Center lies

got across the Atlantic, and second, It's off the main page now...

Gee, I wonder if somebody bothered to actually check the information AFTER they put this crap on their front page?

Also, I wonder if the start of the tea party movement in Britain has the socialists a bit worried?

Malkin, the answer to your question is 'No', an awful lot of the Stupid Party

does NOT have the balls. Which is why so many of the Stupid Party need to join so many of the Evil Party in an unemployed politician line.

James has more "Look what these people made while

in prison."

They can make working firearms while in a prison, but passing another law or two will keep people from making or smuggling them into the country; uh huh.

There's a clown named Chris Barrett at Salon

who apparently has control problems. Among other spewings,
...such vicious malcontents as James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both from regressive and retrograde Oklahoma, need direct confrontation for the continued harm they do to America.
Hey, asshat, Oklahoma and Inhofe and Coburn aren't the ones with admiration for a type of politics that has led to more murder and misery over the last century than any other: you and your fellow 'progressive' fools are.

And, since you seem to have forgotten, the fascists were part of the socialist circle; YOUR circle, idiot.

Damn, looking at the news is interesting lately

Military(Disgusting Class):
Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn't one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for "cruelty and maltreatment" of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general's report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.

A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf "repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault" and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens "for personal gain." But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges, substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous atmosphere she created aboard her ship.
Bleep. Reading the article, one of the big problems in this mess is "How the hell did she get to this rank in the first place?" Yeah, I know, likely people without the balls to say "I don't care if she's going to bitch, she is not equal to this rank and job!". One of the things that stands out to me is this: She also allegedly put a "well-respected master chief" in "time out" — standing in the ship's key control room doing nothing — "in front of other watch standers of all ranks." One thing I DO know about the Navy is that getting to Master Chief generally means you're pretty damn good at your jobs; doing this to one, well, you'd better have damn good reason for it; and from the sound of this, she didn't. Very, very bad.

Add to all this where she was going next: Prior to the IG probe's release, the Navy had tapped Graf for a top job at the Pentagon following her Cowpens command. The Navy better stop this shit; not only is it very bad for the Navy in general, it'll get people killed.


Moving on, we have more rioting bratsstudents in California and other places; in Californicated at least it includes bullshit race-baiting and lies along with the "YOU OWE ME!!! PAY MY TUITION AND COSTS!!!" whining. Screw 'em; they've been getting lots of other peoples' money for years, they need to find out there's an end to that. Especially those who're making a bloody career of going to college.


President Obama & Co. have decided that the trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed should be in a military tribunal; interesting change, isn't it? Chickenshits.



"That nut who shot those guards must've been one of those filthy teabagge- what? He's a truther? Then dont talk about him if you can avoid it."


Oh, those DOJ lawyers with a past record of terrorist assistance? Nice people, aren't they?


Last for now, because there's a couple of things that, again Deserve Their Own Post,

Borger: No. It's not a done deal, but you know what the president's going to come out and say is, this is the way it has to happen. We've got to have an up-or-down vote.

I was talking with a senior White House adviser today, Wolf, who put it to me this way. He said, "This is the last helicopter out of Saigon," meaning they have made a political decision that they're going to use their Democrats to get this through, because what they need, this aide says, is they need an accomplishment. And they believe that once this passes, people will begin to see the benefits of it, and it will not ricochet against them, but will work for them.

Mark Mardell, North American editor of the BBC, was watching and he blogged in response: "Fleeing a lost war is not the most optimistic metaphor for an adviser to adopt. And it still may go down in flames."

But could Mardell have misunderstood the analogy? Maybe the point of comparison is that the fall of Saigon was a communist takeover.

This from the McDonald case deserves its own post

Quote of the Year:
-------------------
Sotomayor:

"What -- in which ways has ordered liberty been badly affected?"

Gura:

"Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional."

Ain't that the damned truth? Now we have to make them understand that; some of the justices and the states both.

In the Continuing Saga of the 15-22,

that was fast. Notice from the shipper that it's here, picked it up this morning.

This time the 'Repaired' lists three things:
Updated to latest spec.(whatever the hell that means)
Replace mag
Replace/repair springs

Why 'replace mag' I don't know, I guess that's their current way of saying "Sorry 'bout that, here's a new magazine".

So next time I get to the range it's test time: every kind of .22 ammo I've got and see if it works the way it should.

As I say, this was a fast turnaround, which is good; I haven't heard a word from S&W in this whole mess, which is not. I sent an e-mail to customer service with details(the latest e-mail that they either ignored or didn't bother to answer), and while waiting for the shipping label I wrote an actual letter, hoping that might get more attention; no idea if it did, no response at all. Be kind of nice if S&W could bother to spend a moment answering the e-mail at least; why bother having a 'customer service' address if you're not going to bloody ANSWER anything?

Oh, and the shipping label they said they'd e-mail? That never arrived. Wonderful, that is.

And, since Russia has tested their 5th-generation fighter

while we're cutting off numbers of the F22, this is just icing on the cake:
Following the successful development and tests of the fifth-generation aircraft, Sukhoi’s PAK FA, Russia plans to start working on the Perspective Aviation Complex of Distant Aviation – PAK DA, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the meeting devoted to the development of the nation’s defense complex, Itar-Tass reports.

“We do not limit ourselves to the development of only one model. The fifth-generation fighter jet triggers the development of the perspective aviation complex of distant aviation – our new strategic bomber,” Putin said.
Yes, there are all kinds of "Can it really?" caveats to this; but considering they've already said they're going to sell the fighters when production starts, and the Russians have surprised us with developments before, do we really want to bet against this working?

Well, what do you think about this?

Russia’s Defense Ministry has shown interest in the new electomechanical rifle the performance of which exceeds that of sniper weapons. The rifle was invented by a schoolboy in the city of Ufa.

Maxim Kotelnikov, an eighth-grader, designed his weapon after he had seen a TV program about the use of similar rifles in the USA and Korea. It took the boy a year to design the new weapon. He used his friend’s broken game rifle as the basis.

The rifle weighs nearly six kilos; it fires special cartridges that need to be magnetized in advance.
...
“This weapon is unique for it fires noiselessly. There is no shock of discharge and a shot does not produce a flare. No other sniper rifle can do it. I designed my own system, which I called the “Nucleus System,” the boy said.

The rifle is based on the principle of accelerating coil. The rifle is powered with electricity only. A bullet gathers speed immediately, PolitOnline reports with referecne to Life.ru.
Sounds like the railgun principle: using cycling magnetic fields to accelerate the projectile, in this case the magnets being built in coils along the barrel. We know that works; the questions are
How much power needed?
What velocity does the projectile get to?
Can it be powered by a man-portable(without getting a rupture) powerpack?
I do have a question: since you'd be using mag fields to accelerate it, would there be much in the way of recoil?

Thanks to Theo for finding this

Occasionally, progress does occur

In this case, something I've never done before: fitting a beavertail grip safety and commander-style hammer to the project pistolIf you've missed previous mention of this, it's a 1927 Sistema from Argentina: manufactured there to standard GI specs. This one had no finish, a really ratty bore and mismatched numbers on the frame & slide*, so modifying it wasn't changing a collectors item. In the past I put in a new GI-spec barrel (which really did drop right in), did a lot of work cleaning up the surface**, put in a new trigger and generally cleaned & adjusted. And sights; a fiber-optic front sight and a tall MacMillan rear to put it on point of aim; the original sights were a bitch to see in all but perfect light, the new front was taller so the piece shot low, the new rear is both easier to see and just the right height.

The grip safety is a Chip McCormick. I'd never done one of these before, so there was a lot of mark, file and try, mark and file and try until I had a very tight fit on the frame, then used 220-grit abrasive cloth to make it slick. Then, as it stood above the frame in areas, used the dremel(calm down, VERY carefully) to take the bulk down and then file & paper to blend it in. There were only a couple of places where it dragged when moving so that was easy to polish down.

The hammer is one a friend had left over from a repair job***; it fit right in.

When everything is done as far as parts and fitting and whatever, I'll give the surface a final clean & polish and either blue or parkerize it. About the only thing left is either an extended magazine release- this one is really short- or see if I can drill & tap a hole and put a extender on the original.

It's been interesting to work on, I've learned a lot, and I can now detail-strip a 1911A1 faster than I'd have thought possible a few months back.


*The dealer I got it from had received a bunch of the last shipment of these; he had a few with a cracked frame and a few with a cracked slide, so they were mated to good ones.
**Done with abrasive paper wrapped around a file. Started with 120 grit, then went to 220 wet/dry; it cleaned up very nicely.
***Some guy had tried to do his own trigger job by messing with the sear; gunsmith got him a matched hammer/sear set to fix the gun. Yes, it would be better for me to do the same; right now I can't, and the hammer appeared untouched AND was free.

So the SPLC is even MORE full of crap

than previously thought(which is really pushing it):
The Klan group listed by SPLC, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has an alleged P.O. Box in North Providence, RI. The box number, which is six digits, looks suspicious, but I'm not in RI right now so I can't check out whether it is real. (I tried calling the Postal Service center in the zip code, but they do not pick up the phone.) No contact name is given for the Klan member or members in RI, and there is no other record of the group actually doing anything.

I could not even find a P.O. Box, much less an actual person, for any other Klan group in RI, although SPLC elsewhere lists a second Klan group as being in RI.

Rhode Island may not be representative of the nation, but it is a good example of how SPLC exaggerates the number and scope of hate groups. If the Klan is active in Rhode Island, no one seems to know about it.

Maybe there is someone sitting in a house or apartment somewhere with a white robe in the closet, but I assure you such person wouldn't last two minutes in RI if he tried to wear it on the street.

Who loses from SPLC's political tactics? Most obviously SPLC, whose credibility is undermined. More important, is that the public loses because SPLC's tactics mask the truth.

Speaking of a need for tar & feathers,

read this. And think of just how much of our resources these treacherous little bastards want to lock up, and how much land they want to steal.

Tar, feathers, rope, lampposts...

I say again: any politician, either party, who votes to pass

this abortion should be dragged out of that taxpayer-supplied office and tarred & feathered.

And some of them hanged.

I'm going to start with that possible poisoning case

at Fort Jackson: this just incites all kinds of confidence, doesn't it?


Oh, crap, that last one... and I just ate!


Well, on this I have to wonder: will the Labour Party hacks who swooned over Obama be even more shocked at him crapping on Britain? Or will this fit into their 'Britain must become no more than an EU cog' plans?
What, they expected better out of him?


The Brits have had a bunch of troops injured and killed because of equipment problems(not enough, issued crap); to me one of the key parts of this story isn't the vehicle, it's this:
SAS soldiers were given no instruction on using metal detectors during pre-deployment training and went without them for four months in Helmand because of an equipment shortage, the inquest in Trowbridge, Wilts was told.

Asked what they used instead Soldier O replied: “We visually scanned the ground.” He also added that they picked up training “on the job”.
That is just friggin' disgusting.

I have to add my applause for Major Morley; I fully understand the reluctance of a good officer to resign, but if you can't do anything else to get attention to the problem, it's an option.


The Southern Poverty BullshitLaw Center keeps it up; and Mr. Vanderboegh tells Mother Jones they're full of crap. Or deluded. Maybe both.


"Get accused, be stuck on the list forever 'cause we're too effing stupid to figure out how to take you off. Even after the court orders us to." The people in Californicated really are- well, fornicated.


Ok, that's enough for one morning. Got a project to work on.

So, besides general "We've got to take care of a member of the club" bullcrap,

Rangel was also buying goodwill from other politicians. And it seems it worked, up till now. Really still is; he got his hand slapped, and that's it; we'll see if these clowns decide they should start acting like they actually care about ethics and all that crap.

Or, in the case of Pelosi for instance, pretending she cares about ethics; she's helped- insisted on- keeping his corrupt ass in that position for a long time, but he's just getting too much press now(wonder if Gore foresaw things like this when he invented the innertubes?) for her to keep insisting, no matter how much help he is.