Aug 062022
 

… or not.

In this case, an ATF agent goes to someone’s door and demands to see such-and-such firearm; the homeowner does the smart thing  and calls the cops and tells them some sketchy weirdo is going for her guns. Police show up, tell the ATF agent to comply… and he doesn’t, getting tased for his troubles. This happened a few years ago, and *of* *course* he’s suing the police for excessive force. It’s interesting to see how this Federal agent believes that his status sets him above the law. And politicians want to empower these types even *more.* It’s worth noting that this “lawman” was arrested for shoplifting back in 2015. He seems well acquainted with the practice of taking stuff that’s not his.

Police officer starts giving you lawful orders… you say “yes sir” and *obey.* Even if you think you’re in the right, you’re not going to win by resisting a guy with a taser, a sidearm and backup.

Full bodycam vids:

 Posted by at 11:57 pm
Aug 052022
 

A brief documentary about some of the very best of America: immigrants and the children of immigrants using their wits and their rights to defend themselves and their livelihoods from some of the worst of America. They were the very definition of a “well regulated militia.”

There are important lessons here that should have been learned better. Had the riots and looters of 2020 been met with more gunfire, 2020 would have been less bloody, and much more of the blood that had been shed would have been that of people who, well, we don’t need.

 Posted by at 8:55 am
Aug 012022
 

The most “BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” thing you’ll see today:

Elderly store owner opens fire on would-be robber armed with rifle in Norco

Justin Johnson, 22, of Inglewood, Jamar Williams, 27, of Los Angeles, and Davon Broadus, 24, of Las Vegas, were each taken into custody in the hospital parking lot and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center for robbery and conspiracy. They are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

The primary suspect, a 23-year-old male, remains hospitalized in critical, but stable condition, and his identity has not been released at this time. He will be booked into a Riverside County jail upon his release from the hospital, authorities said.

Heh. Weird that the guy who served as a buckshot sponge wasn’t named.

Seriously: screw those guys. Best possible outcome would be if that “critical but stable condition” upgrades to “room temperature.” Then not only is that oxygen thief deleted from the timeline, but his three buddies now get sent up on felony murder, hopefully staying in prison long enough to no longer be a threat to the gene pool.

UPDATE: the store owner is an 80-year old guy. A guy who had a heart attack not long after this, so the criminals should be charged with *that,* too. On the raw security footage you can hear the criminal screaming something; I couldn’t originally make out what it was, but now that I know it’s “He shot my arm off,” I can hear it clear as day. You can see on the video that his arm is still there, so the criminal might be exaggerating. Or, with luck, he’s not, and now he’s down one limb.

 

 Posted by at 6:18 pm
Aug 012022
 

I don’t care who you are, this right here is *funny.*

If you think it’d be just neato-keen to get a tattoo in some foreign language, go right ahead. But is it really so much of a bother to put some actual thought into it first? I checked out a number of these, both Chinese and Japanese, on Google Translate, and the video seems to be generally correct in the wacky translations of the ones that are shown. Which means that if you want, say, “courage” tatted on your arm in Chinese, you could get 勇氣  (Yǒngqì) and feel *reasonably* confident that you won’t come off as too much of a fool. Heck, at least you could do your translation, print it out and show it to a Chinese speaker and see if they say it means what you think it does. Is it really *that* friggen’ hard?

I bet a lot of Chinese-speaking tattoo artists are tempted to slap “愚蠢的白人自由主義者” on their customers.

 

 Posted by at 9:01 am
Aug 012022
 

You’re at 30,000 feet in your C-17 when you have a sudden hankering to be at 5,000 feet. What you *could* do is nose over and power dive. That’s a great way to reach the ground lickety-split; but in all probability you’ll reach it in several parts as you will have ripped the wings off.

Or you could do this: nose over, and throw on your thrust reversers. You’ll still drop like a stone, but a stone with something of a parachute and a fair amount of controlability.

 Posted by at 8:58 am
Jul 312022
 

I’m sure we *all* can think of a lot of incidents that sure seem like they’d get more media traction. But here’s one that seems like it aught to be like catnip for the press… on July 29th, more than fifty shots were fired at a party in Albuquerque, New Mexico. With today’s media freakouts over Evil Guns, this should be a no-brainer. So… why the radio silence?

Possibilities:

1) It sounds like there are multiple guns going off. Possibly a substantial number of people blazing away. This of course means it’s far more likely “gang related” than “lone mass shooter.”

2) Reportedly, with all those bullets flying, only one person killed and two injured (if THIS is the same incident… one dead, four injured). That’s *terrible* marksmanship. Again indicating more like gangs than a lone shooter.

3) Fully automatic weapons are fired. Legally owned Class Three automatic weapons are vanishingly rarely used in crimes. Far more likely, this was an illegally modified Glock. Hard to argue that you need more gun laws to ban something that’s already banned (but they’ll try, of course).

Can’t see diddly on the videos below, other than people panicking in the dark. Can’t see any of the shooters. So it might well be that the shooters are, somehow, in some way, inconvenient to report on.

If this is gang related, then the viewer at home will wonder something like “gosh, why don’t they do something about the gangs.” And we can’t have that.

 

 

 Posted by at 9:18 pm
Jul 302022
 

So some friends and I are watching through “Star Trek Discovery.” We’re Trek fans from *decades* back, so it might surprise some that it’s taken us this long to get around to wading through all of STD. We’re well into season three… and we’ve made an important decision.

Star Trek, whether the episode was good or bad, was always pretty much *fun.* But STD is *not* fun. A lot of it is downright painful. So while we’re generally interested to see where the plot goes, the characters themselves are often just nightmarish. So the decision was made to stand by on the Fast Forward button. Someone starts crying? Fast forward. Someone starts a monologue about how awesome someone else is, or any form of emotional validation? Fast forward. That cringy Trill/human “couple?” They show up… fast forward.

We’re getting through episodes *really* fast now. More than anything, this cringe-edited version of STD reminds me of those Super 8 versions of sci-fi movies that were available in the late 1970s.

I remember seeing, circa 1979-1981 or so, a desktop “unit” that had a film cartridge that showed Star Wars boiled down to maybe five minute on a display just a few inches across. Until VHS, that sort of thing was the only way to watch Star Wars on demand. And fast forwarding is the only way to watch STD *at* *all.*

 Posted by at 8:16 pm