Feb 132023
 

You can listen to the audio of the Lake Huron shootdown in the video below, via The Drive:

 

 

It’s small (the size of a “four wheeler,” probably meaning an ATV), it’s dark metallic and gives a good sun glint, has strings dangling from it, looks like a “container.”

Hmmm.

 

 

 

The government might not be protecting us for Chinese spying, and certainly isn’t protecting us from what might be an industrial/environmental disaster on the scale of Chernobyl, but hey, they’re lashing out at party balloons like there’s no tomorrow.

 

Pay no attention to the massive chemical release behind the curtain:

 

 Posted by at 11:51 pm
Feb 122023
 

US Shuts Airspace Over Lake Michigan, Cites “National Defense”

 

Seems the balloons are coming pretty fast.

 

 

 

Clearly if the Commies are swarming our skies with balloons, they need to be shot down. But while balloons are cheap, AIM-9X missiles are expensive as are F-15 and especially F-22 sorties. Reserving air supremacy fighters for swatting balloons over Canada or Montana means they can’t be deployed elsewhere for roles more requiring their capabilities. The ability to take out balloons *cheaply* is needed. A suggestion: instead of expendable missiles launched from advanced fighters, how about reusable missiles launched from cargo jets, or modified corporate jets? Missiles such as AQM-37C. This missile was a target, and some variants were fitted with a parachute recovery system. The AQM-37C was capable of Mach 4 flight up to 100,000 feet. The AQM-37 series is now long out of production and no longer in service, but the design has worked for fifty years and could be certainly updated. It could be rebuilt for precision command guidance or some onboard guidance; it could be meant to simply dart through the balloons envelope, or blast over it real close while spewing out small submunitions. Build them in vast numbers for economies of scale; build variants for other roles such as surface attack, recon, whatever, to spread the cost and utility around. If you’re *real* good, build them for in-flight snatching; if you are *extremely* good, build them to be snatched by the launch aircraft.

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 6:17 pm
Feb 102023
 

Fetterman hears voices like the teachers in ‘Peanuts’ after stroke, struggles to adjust to Senate life: report

I’m shocked.

 

Also, he went into the hospital Wednesday sue to light-headedness. There was some early speculation that it was another stroke, but apparently it wasn’t. It’s being downplayed… but as I understand it he’s *still* hospitalized. For light-headedness. Everything is fine. Nothing to worry about.

 

I can’t imagine why America’s opponents are seeing us as weak and ineffectual these days. Regarding which:

US military shoots down ‘object’ flying in territorial waters over Alaska

Another balloon. It’s reportedly smaller than the Chinese spy balloon (with a “car-sized” payload), was flying at about 40,000 feet, and it took an F-22 and an AIM-9X to bring it down. Wreckage crashed onto ice and has been recovered.

 Posted by at 8:13 pm
Feb 042023
 

Now that the Chinese “spy balloon” has crossed the entire United States, the Air Force *finally* got the order from Biden to shoot the thing down. Looks like a fighter launched a missile… a missile that doubtless cost way more than the balloon. Happened over Myrtle Beach, South Carolina… you know, the far side of the country from where it entered.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:53 pm
Feb 022023
 

Makes one think that the state government might not be filled with right-thinking honest folks who have the upholding of the Constitution as their primary goal.

Illinois assault weapons ban: Court upholds temporary restraining order

The primary cause of the restraining order against this law is the equal protection clause, because while it bans the average citizen from buying a common firearm, it allows untrained security guards to have them, along with retired cops and a few other classes of people that you ain’t. The restraining order when originally issued only protected the eight-hundred-some plaintiffs in the case; it has now been made state-wide.

 Posted by at 11:53 pm
Jan 312023
 

The Dem-dominated government of the state of Illinois passed an “assault weapon ban” that bans not only commonly owned firearms but also standard capacity magazines as part of their policy of decriminalizing violent crime while criminalizing the law abiding. But the law was so badly written – and badly conceived – that I wonder if the inevitable boomerang effect might end up with Illinois finally entering the twenty first century and ditching *all* of the unconstitutional tyrannical nonsense that has been on the books. Consider:

Appellate Court Affirms DeVore’s Equal Protection Argument, Assault Weapons Ban Temporary Restraining Order, Binds Courts Statewide

The ban on common rifles is clearly unconstitutional on second amendment right… but it’s *also* unconstitutional – state and federal – on “equal protection” issues. Because while it bans *some* people from owning, say, an AR-15, it exempts current and retired police, current military and security guards. The point is often raised that the same politicians who rail against average schmoes being able to defend their homes, persons and property with a semi-auto rifle often have armed guards packing semi and even full auto weapons.

One can hope that the court smackdown of the “assault weapon ban” will hit so hard that other existing gun laws in Illinois will be brought down. By over-reaching, the gun-grabbers might well have assured that all gun control laws across the US end up before the US Supreme Court. It would be spectacular if the NFA winds up going the way of the dodo, as it should. There are few enough arguments that support banning fully automatic weapons; there are none for bans on suppressors and short barreled rifles and shotguns.

 Posted by at 11:33 pm
Jan 302023
 

Interesting if true. A 5.9 magnitude earthquake as a direct result of an explosion would indicate a yield on the order of one megaton. more likely would be a sizable *bang* near a fault line, which would be stupid in its own right. The epicenter was apparently a number of kilometers below the ground, so it was almost certainly a perfectly natural quake… but hardly impossible that it was triggered by a sizable explosion.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:00 pm
Jan 242023
 

Up first:

U.S. Poised to Provide Abrams Tanks to Ukraine

Of note here is that this will, theoretically, spur the Germans to send their Leopard 2 tanks. The Leopard 2’s would likely be more advanced than the M-1s; and while there are more M-1’s in the world, the Leopards are closer to Ukraine and there are a number of countries willing to send Leopards. This is of course not pure altruism; they’ll likely be sending the older tanks that were about to be mothballed or scrapped; and if not, these donations will leave tank-shaped holes that will need to be filled with the latest and greatest. “You don;t need new tanks, we’ve got enough at home” no longer works as an excuse if you don’t actually have enough at home.

Additionally: the Russians might finally, rather overdue, be getting their crap in gear. So if they are faced with modern western MBTs, they’ll almost certainly launch their best anti-tank weapons at them. And sad though it may be for Ukrainians to hear, I’d rather modern NATO tanks get battlefield tested now, with Ukrainian crews, than later with NATO crews, on NATO territory. Losing these tanks to Russian weapons now will allow western designers to produce counter systems for when we need to fight Russian forces in Poland or Finland or Estonia or Wales.

 

Also:

McCarthy formally blocks Schiff, Swalwell from Intel panel

Never forget: Swalwell was the one who banged a Chinese spy and threatened to nuke American cities. He should *really* be the center of FBI attention, not sitting on the House Intelligence Committee.  As for Schiff, he tried and failed to tie Trump to Russian collusion. Lots of people tried that, including some who should have known better at the FBI. Speaking of which…

 

Retired FBI counterintel agent reportedly involved in Trump-Russia probe arrested for ties to Russian oligarch

 

Also also: In recent years the NRA has become pretty much worthless in the fight to maintain Constitutional rights, even as they remain one of the Democrats primary boogeymen in *their* never-ending quest to render the citizens of the US into helpless subjects. But they’re finally stepping up a bit:

NRA sues over Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons

 Posted by at 11:52 pm