The Firearms Blog offers an example of a Spanish soldier I feel very sorry for. He notes, “Given Spain’s current economic situation, I don’t think we will be seeing this system deployed anytime soon.” This is a good thing. Especially for Spanish soldiers.
Month: August 2011
PSH
Quote of the Day
From Scott Adams, of the Dilbert Blog:
Some of you will argue that education in general is the biggest predictor of success. But I think you’d agree that if everyone started majoring in English, we’d all starve to death with impeccable grammar.
How Not to Do It
When you find yourself writing this:
No, it not so dangerous. But I tried to cook Americium, Radium and Beryllium in 96% sulphuric-acid, to easier get them blended. But the whole thing exploded upp in the air…
Do yourself a favor and stop. No, it is very dangerous, and you pretty clearly don’t know what you’re doing. I guess what we need is careful tracking, registration, and regulation of nuclear materials. It’s common sense. Well, except we already do? There’s no system that’s so idiot proof that nature will not provide a better idiot, who will find his way into the papers. I think it’s fair to say that our opponents in this issue will never recognize this.
Seven Deadly Sins of Obama
A very good read, courtesy of Instapundit. Likewise, I don’t blame Obama for the current economic situation; he didn’t create it, and I don’t expect him to get us out of it. But I do expect him to stay out of the way, and he has not done that.
ATF Reassigned Mexican Attache
Dave Hardy notes, “Concern had surfaced recently within ATF that the Mexican government might arrest Newell if he came down there as the attaché.” That’s always a good thing to put on your resume.
The Wonderful World of Defense Procurement
If the Democrats have their way, our health care is going to work like this too. Basically, a company developed a lightning machine (i.e. a fancy tesla coil) and claimed would deactivate IEDs. Turns out it didn’t work so well.
Eventually, the Pentagon soured on the JINs. Ionatron lost most of its cash, changed its name, and got wrapped up in a series of shareholder lawsuits and insider trading scandals. A couple of years ago, the broken firm reached out to Tuscon’s Southwest Liquidators, who helped clear the Ionatron warehouse of its useless inventory of electronics. “We took it all,†says Southwest’s Keith Tearne. Then they put it on eBay.
So basically the defense department was bilked out of a wad of cash, which in the big picture of the whole defense budget isn’t much. Hell, maybe some of the Pentagon brass and political appointees figured even if it didn’t work, it would scare the hell out of the insurgents. I have to admit that if my existence was mostly of dirt floors and poppy growing, seeing this head down the street would probably scare the shit out of me too. But the point is, when you don’t have a free market, or at least a somewhat free market making your decisions, bureaucrats aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are. Smarter people, with fewer scruples, are going to bilk them out of large sums of taxpayer money.
Philadelphia’s Best Faces Put Forward
Only a city like Philadelphia would decide that it’s a good thing to put their Parking Authority on television. Of course, it has only backfired on the tourism staff, so I guess the Parking Authority doesn’t give a damn.
Today, I was witness to another example of the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s great-for-television personalities. A driver in one of their trucks started honking and swearing at a cab driver who wasn’t making a right on red. The PPA driver could clearly see the line of pedestrians crossing legally in front of the cab, but that didn’t stop his outrage.
The cab driver, to his credit, put his hand out the window and made a “hold on” type gesture. The guy had riders in the back, so no doubt he wanted to go. But that didn’t stop the PPA staffer from honking & swearing to “just fucking go already!” even as pedestrians still blocked the street. Even worse, the PPA truck wasn’t actually beside me. It was slightly behind me in the next lane, and I had my windows up and music on. Yet, I could still hear every foul word out of the PPA’s truck.
And somewhere, some bureaucrat was probably given a raise for putting the wonderful personalities like this on tv. It just reminds you that even if you’re not actually parking a car in Philly, the PPA still wants to make your life miserable – and possibly run over you if you’re a pedestrian.
Freaking Out Over Air Guns
Some local municipalities in Virginia are up in arms about being forced to allow, by state law, discharging of air guns provided reasonable care is taking for projectiles not to cross property boundaries. It’s amazing to me the kinds of things people will get hysterical about. To me this stipulation means you need an appropriate backstop, and if you have one, what’s the big deal?
Distorted View of a Politician
I read this quote from Rep. David Wu who resigned last night amid allegations of sexual assault, and I just can’t wrap my head around this kind of thinking.
“Serving as a U.S. Congressman has been the greatest honor of my life. There is no other job where you get up each day and ask, ‘How can I try to make the world a better place today?’” Wu said in the statement.
Really? There’s not a single other job on the planet where you can feel like you’re contributing toward making the world a better place? That seems a tad extreme, even from someone on the left.
Even if you take out anyone working in the for-profit sector, which I wouldn’t in my world view, but I can understand if a progressive would cross them off the list, I can think of plenty of roles and organizations where people get up every day and try to make the world a better place – even doing so without the power of government. I don’t know what drives that kind of statement – an overly inflated ego for a resigning Congressman or someone who can see no improvements to the human condition other than that which comes through government. Either way, it’s rather disturbing.