There’s a Burnside carbine for sale nearby. It dates from the Civil War and appears to be in largely good condition, but there’s some pitting. Does anybody know what this sort of rifle in this sort of condition should go for? More to the point, anybody really, really want this?
Seventy years ago, a Spitfire crashed into an Irish bog. It was recently dug up and found to be ina remarkable state of preservation; one of the main wheels was still inflated. Impressively, one of the Browning machine guns was cleaned up… and proved perfectly capable of firing.
Neat!
Spitfire redux: The WWII guns firing after 70 years buried in peat
Another op-ed from yet another left-wing unthinker on the concept of national reciprocity produces this nugget of fashionable fascism:
Guns: This isn’t Salt Lake City
That would mean that a permit from Utah, a state with notably lax standards for concealed-carry permits, as well as permits from every other gun-toting state, would be valid in Massachusetts. … It just means more guns on the street. If this bill is brought up in the Senate, John Kerry and Scott Brown — and every other right-thinking senator — should vote against it.
Once more, let’s go to the FBI for numbers.
Utah: population 2.76M, 52 homicides (18.8 per million), 22 gun homicides (8 per million)
Massachussetts: population6.55 million, 209 homicides, (31.9 per million), 118 gun homicides (18 per million)
So what we have here is some drooling moron who is afraid that someone from a state where the *total* homicide rate is approximately the same as just the *firearm* homicide rate will come and pay a visit and bring their lower crime rate with them.
An op-ed by a former New York Times restaurant critic discusses the concept of national reciprocity for concealed carry license holders. This being the New York Times, it is both predictably slanted and inaccurate.
The subject of the op-ed is the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. If passed, any American who has a CCW permit will be allowed to carry his or her weapon in any state that issues such permit, regardless of differences in issuance requirements.
The op-ed writer uses sarcasm to cast aspersions upon the proposed bill and the NRA, which supports it. His primary complaint seems to be that the NRA and their political allies usually despise the federal government intruding into the area of states rights… such as “health care, tort reform, education.” Where the writer misses the point (whether because he’s a political hack and intentionally avoided it, or he’s just an unthinking moron I can’t answer) is that the right to bear arms is the right of *all* Americans by dint of the Constitution. Human rights are the sort of things that the federal government was set up specifically to protect, are are the sort of things that states *cannot* infringe upon. States cannot restrict the press, cannot establish religions, quarter troops in homes, or carry out cruel and unusual punishments… or infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. States *do* have the rights to do their own thing on things that the Constitution does not touch on.
Additionally… all states have to accept all other states drivers licences, regardless of issuance requirements.
One of the restaurant critics last lines:
…off to New York the South Dakotan tourist could go, 9-millimeter Glock in tow.
Huh.
According to the FBI, in 2010 there were 14 murders on South Dakota (0.8 million population = 17 murders per million) and 860 in New York (19.4 million population = 44.5 murders per million). So… what this wilting violet seems to be afraid of is that if this law passes, his state will suddenly be flooded with people less murderous than his own. Go ahead and figure that out.
Further: the firearm homicides in South Dakota for 2010 were 8, and 517 for New York. That means that 57% of homicides in gun-happy SD were by gun; 60% of homicides in gun restricting NY were by firearm. Worst of all, there is one state that just plain bans concealed carry for politically unconnected citizens… Illinois. In 2010, there were 453 homicides (out of 12.8 million… 35.4 murders per million), of which 80% – 364 – were by firearm. Letting outsiders pack heat into the state would only *benefit* Illinois.
The old 1/32 scale Renwall Blueprint model of the M65 “Atomic Annie” cannon with prime movers has been re-released by Revell. I’ve spoken to a local hobbyshop owner who believed that there won’t be many of these made.
I *still* think these would be neato next to a 1/32 scale SICBM Hard Mobile Launcher…
From Fantastic Plastic, the 1/72 Pluto/SLAM model I mastered a while back:
It is available HERE.
NOTE: The kit has been retired.
http://fantastic-plastic.com/ProjectPlutoCatalogPage.htm
And to help with the detailing, don’t forget to pick up your Project Pluto CAD drawings, available to download for $3.
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And For Grud’s sake, if you are going to build a Pluto model, you have to download a copy of Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N1 with the ginormous Pluto article…
Available to download for a miniscule $8.00!
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Neat!
Flight test of Norway’s Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM), an antiship cruise missile being developed for the F-35.
[youtube AMowaZ3I90o]
A few photos of a McDonnell-Douglas display model of a DC-10 modified to launch a pair of MX (or MX-like) ICBMs. The missiles are held in pneumatic tubes, with a high pressure gas system near the nose of each missile; clearly, the missiles would not be simply slid out the back, but rather *shot* out the back with some authority. While the photos do not show the underside of the aft fuselage, clearly there has been some major modification to the design there. Less obvious is a change to the outer moldline of the upper fuselage… “bumps” are added to provide sufficient clearance for the angled missile tubes.
A Boeing painting depicting a 747 in the process of launching an MX-style ICBM. The total load was at least four such missiles. No further data than the artwork. A “bridge”-like cradle would go fore and aft carrying missiles and dropping them out a large hatch in the underside of the rear fuselage. Speculation: controlling the aircraft during the rather sudden shift in CG would have been interesting.
One Lt. Col. Dan Ward, USAF, proves that there are lessons to be learned from the Star Wars universe.
http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Sep-Oct11/Ward.pdf
The Death Star’s lackluster contribution to the fight is reason enough not to build one, but serious problems emerged long before it was declared operational. In Return of the Jedi, viewers gain a fascinating insight into the programmatics of Empire acquisitions. In the single most realistic scene in the whole double-trilogy, Darth Vader complains that the second Death Star construction project is … behind schedule. In fact, much of the drama in Episode VI revolves around this delay.
Consider the implications of pop culture’s most notorious schedule overrun. In the Star Wars universe, robots are self-aware, every ship has its own gravity, Jedi Knights use the Force, tiny green Muppets are formidable warriors and a piece of junk like the Millennium Falcon can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. But even the florid imagination of George Lucas could not envision a project like the Death Star coming in on time, on budget. He knew it would take a Jedi mind trick beyond the skill of Master Yoda to make an audience suspend that much disbelief.
This, I think, is one of the best discussions of the real-world implications of Death Star thinking since “Clerks.” Read the whole article… it’s good, funny, and full of valid points.