This ain’t a law, it’s a shopping list

 Crazy, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, weapons  5 Responses »
Jan 252013
 

Banned Weapons List 2013 – Over 150 Guns Outlawed if Dianne Feinstein’s Legislation Passes

Rifles:

AK, AK-47, AK47S, AK-74, AKM, AKS, ARM, MAK90, MISR, NHM90, NHM91, Rock River Arms LAR-47, SA85, SA93, Vector Arms AK-47, VEPR, WASR-10, and WUM, IZHMASH Saiga AK, MAADI AK47, and ARM, Norinco 56S, 56S2, 84S, and 86S, Poly Technologies AK47 and AKS, All AR types, including the following: AR-10, AR-15, Armalite M15 22LR Carbine, ARmalite M15-T, Barett REC7, Beretta AR-70, Colt Match Target Rifles, DoubleStar AR rifles, DPMS Tactical rifles, Heckler and Koch MR556, Olympic rms, Remington R-15 rifles, Rock River Arms LAR-15, Sig Sauer SIG516 rifles, Smith & Wesson M&P15 Rifles, Stag Arms AR rifles, Sturm, Ruger & Co. SR 556 rifles; Barrett M107A1; Barrett M82A1, Beretta CX4 STorm; Calico Liberty Series; CETME Sporter; Daewoo K-1, K-2, Max 1, Max 2, AR 100 and AR 110C; Fabrique Nationale/FN Herstal FAL, LAR, 22 FNC, 308 Match, L1A1 Sporter, PS90, SCAR, and FS2000, Feather Industries AT-9, Galil Model AR and Model ARM; High Point Carbine; Hk-91, HK-93, Hk-94, HK-PSG-1 and HK USC; Kel-Tec Sub-200, SU-16, and RFB; SIG AMT, SIG PE-57, Sig Sauer SG 550 and Sig Sauer SG551; Springfield Armory SAR-48; Steyr AUG; Sturm, Ruger Mini-14 Tactical Rife M-14/20CF; All thompson rifles including the following: Thompson M1SB, Thompson T1100D, Thompson T150D, Thompson T1BSB, Thompson TM1, Tompson TM1C, UMAREX UZI Rifle; UZI Mini Carbine, UZI Model A Carbine, ad UZI Model B Carbine, Valmet M62S, M71S, and M78; Vector Arms UZI Type; Weaver Arms Nighthawk; Wilkinson Arms Linda Carbine.

Pistols:

All AK-47 Types including the following: Centurion 39AK pistol, Draco AK-47 pistol, HCR AK-47 pistol, IO Inc. Hellpup AK-47 pistol, Krinkov pistol, Mini Draco AK-47 pistol, Yugo Krebs Krink postol; All AR-15 types including the following: American Spirit AR-15 pistol, Bushmaster Carbon 15 pistol, Rock River Arms LAR 15 pistol; Calico Liberty pistols; DSA SA58 PKP FAL pistol; Encom MP5 and MP-45; Heckler and Koch model SP-89 pistol; The following MAC types: MAC-10, MAC-11; Masterpiece Arms MPA A930 mini pistol, MPA460 pistol, MPA Tactical Pistol, and Mini Tactical Pistol; Military Armament Corp. Ingram M-11, Velocity Arms VMAC; Sig Sauer p556 pistol; Sites Spectre; All thomspon types including the following: Thompson TA510D, Thompson TA5; All UZI types including Micro-UZI

Shotguns:

Franchi LAW-12 and SPAS 12; All IZHMASH Saiga 12 types, including the following: IZHMASH saiga 12, IZHMASH saiga 12S, IZHMASH saiga 12S EXP-01, IZHMASH saiga12K, IZHMASH saiga12K-030, IZHMASH saiga 12K-040 Taktika; Streetsweeper; Striker 12

 Posted by at 10:08 am

Arrrgh…

 AARRRGH, blather, Gah., news, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 252013
 

Things damn near went completely to Hel on the blog & website last night. A combo of an ill-fated attempt to update WordPress with a simultaneous denial of service attack led to *everything* getting suspended. At least for the moment it’s all up and running again, though adding or editing blog posts is *exceedingly* slow (which was the problem that started all this off).

 Posted by at 9:40 am

Blog issues

 blather, ಠ_ಠ  2 Responses »
Jan 242013
 

The process of adding posts has been slowing way down the last few days, and today it’s started simply crapping out (“Internal server error” and such when I try to save a post or upload an image). I am going to update WordPress… hopefully y’all won’t notice anything different. But with my luck, part of the update process will be “complete database removal.” So, we’ll see…

 Posted by at 11:26 pm

Rocket Powered Cats

 art, books, cats, critters, history, rockets  5 Responses »
Jan 242013
 

Here’s an idea I doubt would have worked: a rocket powered war cat from the 1585 German manuscript “Feuer Buech,” kept in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Pennsylvania.

No, I don’t think that would’ve worked at all. I don’t even know what the goal was here (it’s a book on blowin’ stuff up, so I guess these were to be rocket-powered Kamikazicritters), but there’s no chance that a rocket powered cat or bird would’ve gone in anything like a straight line. If, instead, these are just *bombs* drawn kinda strangely… nope. I’m not sure what the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is, but I do know that no little cheep-cheep bird is going to be able to carry a gunpowder bomb worth the effort of cobbling together.

Rocket powered cats will just have to wait.

 Posted by at 11:22 pm

DNA Data Storage

 Hmm..., news, science  No Responses »
Jan 242013
 

DNA may soon be used for storage

  • Theoretically four grams of DNA could contain 1.8 zettabytes (1.8 trillion gigabytes), or roughly the world’s total stored data
  • 5.5 petabits have been stored per cubic millimeter
  • It’s slow, only good for archiving

The claim is made that DNA would be good for long term data storage since mammoth DNA dozens of millenia old has been recovered. How exactly that would translate to DNA that’d be stored at room temperature and above is not explained.

 Posted by at 4:07 pm

Bad PR for GEICO and Reed Exhibitions

 blather, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., history, news, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Jan 242013
 

Gun Manufacturer Auto Policy Cancelled Because He Is In Firearm Business

“The reason for cancellation is your vehicle […] does not meet our underwriting guidelines because it is used in conjunction with a company that deals in the weapons industry“

Note that there is a dearth of hard data as yet, so there may be more to the story. It’s a little unclear what the “weapons industry” has to do with auto insurance. Apparently the former policy holder made gun parts, a perfectly legal profession. But GEICO seems to have a problem with that. Presumably they’d also have a problem if you worked at a gun shop, or repaired guns, or worked at a sporting goods store.

——————

And Reed Exhibitions, the British company that caved to craven political cowardice in banning AR-15’s and similar standard firearms from from the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show scheduled for February 2-10 in Harrisburg, PA, has decided to postpone the whole show. This was no doubt brought on by the fact that a lot of the vendors decided to boycott the ESOS… as of today, 307 vendors, including (IIUIC) all of the big ones, have decided to bail. This is all-round bad news… lots of people have spent lots of money preparing for the show, including, no doubt, very many small family businesses and individuals. This may well cause some serious hardships. But the blame for that all falls squarely on Reed, who decided that Scary Black Guns “would distract from the theme of hunting and fishing, disrupting the broader experience of our guests,” something that apparently hasn’t been a problem in previous years.

Further: the National Shooting Sports Foundation owns the SHOT show in  Vegas, which is a ginormous gun industry trade show… managed by Reed. The NSSF is not happy with Reed’s actions with the ESOS, and it looks like they may be ending their relationship with Reed.

Because of Reed’s recent actions, NSSF is considering all options regarding the management of future SHOT Shows.

This sort of thing is not new, of course. Back in 2000 Smith & Wesson sold out to the Clinton administration, with the result that the firearms industry as a whole and firearms owners were incensed and slowed down business with S&W. At the time S&W was owned by a British company (what the hell *is* it with Brits messing with American firearms???), Tomkins PLC; the result of a 40% drop in sales led Tomkins to sell S&W in 2001 to an American company, Saf-T-Hammer. But while this was an improvement, S&W was a damaged company that had had to shut down several facilities.

The lesson: think before you decide to screw with gun owners.

 Posted by at 12:28 pm

China Backfires

 aircraft, Hmm..., news  3 Responses »
Jan 242013
 

China buys Russian bombers

China has made a deal with the Russians to buy 36 Tupolev Tu-22M3 supersonic bombers. These Soviet-era designs were intended to be carrier-killers, so it’s a reasonable bet that the Chinese – who have been getting twitchy lately over naval issues – are planning to use them to persuade the US Navy to maintain a distance from Chinese territory like the Senkaku Islands, Taiwan, Honshu…

 Posted by at 5:50 am

Happycat

 cats, photography  No Responses »
Jan 242013
 

Fingers leaning up against Raedthinn. She’s as happy as a clam on Ecstasy; he, as can be guessed by his ears, is not overly thrilled with the situation. But so long as Fingers doesn’t get too pushy, he’ll tolerate this sort of thing.

 Posted by at 1:50 am

Atomic Cannon

 awesomeness, blather, drawings, history, nukes, weapons, youtube  12 Responses »
Jan 242013
 

Let’s face it… a gun that shoots a nuclear shell = AWESOME.

[youtube 5N0Balj2tLw]

The M65 280mm “atomic cannon” was an early 1950’s weapon designed for a single purpose: to lob 15 kiloton nuclear shells at invading Soviet forces in Germany. It was kind of a doomed concept… it was a massive piece of equipment that, while technically mobile, would in practice have been a largely fixed emplacement. Range was good by cannon standards, but terrible by “bomb carried by an airplane” standards, which is why it went away in only a few years.

It fired a live nuclear shell a grand total of once, the Upshot-Knothole-Grable test of May 25, 1953, producing some of the most impressive and iconic images from the nuclear weapons race. The shell was a gun-type bomb, similar in concept to the Little Boy bomb. This was used because the bomb was narrower in diameter than an equivalent implosion device (importance since it had to fit in an 11-inch diameter cannon shell), but it resulted in a lower performing explosive than if it were an implosion device.

Drawing of a smaller gun-type nuclear artillery shell via, of all things, Greenpeace. Apparently they got their mitts on a British nuclear weapon manual some time back, and decided that the thing to do to help prevent nuclear proliferation was to post bits of it online. Thanks!

[youtube IXCWgqBSH8Q]

This image from the Los Alamos National Lab webpage may technically not be all that impressive, but the appearance of apparently normal “stuff,” namely the power pole, lines and transformers, gives the image a creepy vibe often missing from shots of nuclear explosions.

This page HERE has a number of good photos of the cannon and its tractors, as well as selling a good PDF of AutoCAD layout drawings of the beast.

 Posted by at 1:35 am
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