Snerk.
Aug 142014
Aug 142014
I’ve always wondered if putting the M-61 Vulcan Gatling gun right directly in front of the pilot might be a little distracting at night. Turns out…
A Royal Mace FA-18E pilot activates the hyperspace drive…not really, night strafe practice– “trigger down!”
Aug 142014
Since I’m not there, and since the internet is afire with posts and tweets and photos and vids and such, I have little to add on the topic that is of any value. Really only two points I’d like to raise:
1) On the subject of militarized police vs. rioters/looters:
“Can’t they both lose?”
2) It’s from a few years ago, but the basic lesson stays the same:
It’s interesting that the people screaming the loudest about police brutality/overreaction/etc. in Ferguson seem to be the same who scream the loudest that Tea Partiers (or anyone else who wants smaller government) are racist.
Well, if you want big government, you’ll get big policing to go with it.
Aug 142014
An often-made comment is that the military is always preparing to fight the *last* war. The point is that wars of the future tend to be unlike those of the past, and unless you keep up with what’s going on, you’ll be surprised by and unprepared for future events. Well, the Pentagon has revealed that, once again, they are not preparing for the future.
No Plans for Canada Invasion, Pentagon Leader Says
The US Army will once again be caught flat-footed, this time by the hordes of Snow Jihadis sweeping across the border shouting “Allahu ackbar, eh!”
Aug 132014
If you were looking for an uplifting story about a US Naval vessel with commanders who upheld the finest martial traditions with honor and dignity…. This Ain’t it.
Navy: Deployed CO Retreated to Cabin for Weeks
In short: Gregory W. Gombert, Captain of the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, has been relieved of command. Why? Because from January to March, he “retreated to his cabin” for an unspecified medical reason… a medical condition described as not needing any such retreat from duties.
Oh, but it gets better. The Cowpens’ Master Chief Petty Officer Gabriel J. Keeton has also been canned, apparently due to “poor ship conditions.”
Oh, but it gets better. Captain Gombert is also in trouble because during his time hiding from his duties he was also having an “unduly familiar” relationship with the ships acting executive officer, the entertainingly named Lt. Cmdr. Destiny Savage.
When I read this, the name “Cowpens” struck a familiar note. It’s not, after all, a terribly common name. So I looked it up on Wikipedia. Where I remembered it from: in December 2013, the Cowpens was shadowing Chinese naval exercises when a Chinese ship parked itself in front of the Cowpens, almost causing an incident worthy of the idjits in Sea Shepherd. But the history of the Cowpens turns out to have further interestingness:
In January 2010, the then-Captain Holly Graf was removed from command. Why? “Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.”
Oh, but it gets better. Captain Graf was replaced with Captain Robert Marin. But in February 2012, Captian Marin was booted. Why? Because he was having an affair. Entertainingly, he was boinking the wife of *another* US Navy ships Captain.
Seems the Cowpens has had one hell of a run of bad luck in the leadership department.
Aug 132014
Found on ebay, a bit of NASA promo art depicting a 1966 Apollo Applications Program concept for a LEM Shelter. This would have been a more or less stock descent module with an ascent module without the ability to ascend. It would thus have been capable of transporting more cargo to the surface, including a habitat better capable of supporting a crew for a week or more. Transport back up to lunar orbit would have been accomplished via another LEM.
Aug 132014
Speaking of fires…
Report: Smoke pouring from National Gallery [photo]
There are in fact several photos showing a substantial quantity of smoke shooting out of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. But a search of Google News bring up nothing.
Aug 122014
An entertaining storm system blew through this evening… scads of wind, a whole lot of lightning but only a little rain. I stood on the front deck and watched the lightning to the north when *blammo,* a bolt hit a distant hill and started a fire. It’s hard to be sure, but the hillside is on the order of five miles off. I called 911, but was apparently not the first… they already knew. A few minutes later a whole bunch of fire fighting vehicles went tear-assing past the house, eventually visible *way* off in the distance approachign the scene of the fire. However, before they got there the fire seemed to put itself out. The smoke seems to indicate that the wind kept changing direction, which means it would be blown back over where it has already burned. Coupled with the rain, limited though it was, the firefighters didn’t have much of a job. But every year the Utah news is full of thousand-acre fires started by lightning…
Even though the straight line distance was almost certainly less than 10 miles, it took more than half an hour from the time I saw the fire start to the time I stopped watching, and in that time the flashing emergency lights were still working their way towards the site of the fire. I’ve often wondered why the Utah DNR or some such doesn’t put one or more local cropdusters on retainer. The weather today was not a surprise; the radio has been yapping about it since at least yesterday. So on days like this – hot, after a long dry spell, with a high probability of lightning – have one or more cropdusters stationed at various out of the way airports, their chemical tanks full of fire fighting water or foam or some such. A plane could have reached the site of the fire in just a few minutes. Circumstances need not have been wildly different for that fire, which seemed to naturally snuff itself out in half an hour or so, to have sprung up into a full-fledged wild fire. But if a cropduster had popped up right about then and laid down some aerial anti-combustion whoopass on it, that might have shut it down, or at least slowed it until the ground forces could get there.
Aug 122014
Flash photography and cats.
One-Eye:
Fingers, Raedthinn and Speedbump:
Aug 122014
So, Buttons seems to be feeling much better. After much stressing out and meds and x-rays and blood tests and such, he’s out of the woods. But then Speedbump decided to get in on the action. Yesterday while visiting the vet to settle up Buttons’ bill i described some recent behavioral oddities with Speedbump; they counseled to get him in *fast.* So today he was taken to the vet and diagnosed with a really bad urinary tract infection.
FYI: If you have a cat, more specifically a male cat, and it starts complaining… that’s a sign. And if that cat spends a *lot* of time at the litter box digging and digging and digging and digging and digging and digging and digging and digging but producing little to nothing… that’s a *big* sign.
Fortunately, this seems an easy fix. Antibiotics and other meds, and he should be good to go. Still, it was a bad day for Speedbump. Not only was he undoubtedly in pain, but he also got taken someplace with a bunch of strangers, not his favorite thing. Worse, while there a litter of puppies (“golden doodles,” which I’m informed are A Thing) was getting a round of vaccination shots, something they did not like and were terribly vocal about. As a consequence, Speedbump was *really* not happy to be there.
I think I’ve found my newest “Sad Cat wonders why you don’t subscribe to APR’s Patreon” photo…
The last two days at the vet have cost more than I’ve gotten from Patreon in the last two *months.* Where’s my ObamaCatCare???