An earworm…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Long long ago, as a young sailor, I worked in little theater with a young lady who later went on to Broadway.  I, needless to say, went in a different direction. We used to listen to this in 1972 when I was giving her rides to and from the theater…



Kinda funny to run across this all these years later…

Catch and Release…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
From the NRA, the latest installment of Life of Duty…  20 minutes worth your time (in my opinion).

NRA Life of Duty Features Spokane County Sheriff’s Office in “Catch and Release” Documentary
FAIRFAX, VA – The National Rifle Association (NRA) is pleased to release the latest documentary for the NRA Life of Duty online network, presented by Brownells.
This Patriot Profile, brought to you by Smith & Wesson, shares the frightening story of Michael Northway and Matt Spink, two Spokane (Wash.) County deputies who were shot in the line of duty by a felon who was, once again, back on the street.
With more than 18 felony convictions ranging from drugs to robbery, assault to weapons charges, Charles Wallace was released into an outpatient drug-treatment facility over the objection of law enforcement and the U.S. District Attorney.
On June 19, 2012, Wallace stepped out of a vehicle and began shooting at deputies, during rush hour, on a neighborhood street directly across from a shopping center. Hit by bullets, Northway and Spink were caught completely off guard, and Wallace fled on foot to the home of a woman in her 80s and assaulted her before stealing her car. With a manhunt under way, Wallace later shot at another officer who was only a few feet away but, miraculously, missed.
Overwhelmed and underfunded law enforcement officers continue to face the same criminals over and over again, let down by a system some refer to as “Catch and Release.” Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich allowed NRA Life of Duty TV almost unfettered access so it could reveal how the Charles Wallace incident highlights the dangers of the practice, which increases criminal behavior and endangers everyone. See “Catch and Release,” the story as told by those who lived it, and many others, at: http://www.nralifeofduty.tv.


This is a continuing problem, and seems to be getting worse.  I don’t remember this happening when I was growing up. You got caught, you went to jail until trial and went to jail.  Period, end of subject.  Now it seems as if Judges do what they want to ‘relieve’ overcrowding, rather than get more jails in place… Sigh…

Just ‘horsing’ around…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
This one just kicked over the giggle box… A couple of times…

From Australia, just hours after the horsemeat ‘scare’ in Europe… Gotta love how quick thinking somebody was…

Just substitute the name of your neighborhood supermarket for Tesco.


·       So do you want a burger from Tesco? Yay or neigh?


·       Not entirely sure how Tesco are going to get over this hurdle.


·       The day they went on sale customers were galloping thru stores jockeying for positions at the meat counter


·       Waitress in Tesco asked if I wanted anything on my Burger.  So I had £5 each way!


·       I wonder who’ll be ‘saddled’ with the ones they can’t sell… and who’s going to ‘cart’ them away?


·       Had some burgers from Tesco for my tea last night… I still have a bit between my teeth.


·       A woman has been taken into hospital after eating horse meat burgers from Tesco. Her condition is said to be stable.


·       Tesco are now testing all their vegetarian burgers for traces of uni-corn


·       “I’ve just checked the Tesco burgers in my freezer … AND THEY’RE OFF”


·       Tesco now forced to deny presence of zebra in burgers, as shoppers confuse barcodes for serving suggestions.


·       Said to the missus, “I think these Tesco burgers have given me the trots….


·       “To beef or not to beef, that is equestrian”…..


·       This burger story is one HELL of a tail…


·       A cow walks into a bar. Barman says, “Why the long face?”

·       Cow says “Illegal ingredients, coming over here stealing our jobs!”


·       I hear the smaller version of those Tesco burgers make great horse d’oeuvres.


·       Ever since the missus ate one all I’ve heard is “Nag, Nag, Nag…”


·       These Tesco burger jokes are going on a bit….Talk about flogging a dead horse!

And then there was this…

They should stop horsing around, this is a serious issue!  The independent Tesco franchise owners are claiming they were roped into a raw deal – they’ve been saddled with tons of meat, and are afraid to trot it out between the buns, because of the false advertising.  Bridling at the insult, one Tesco owner quipped, “I should’ve known something was up, when the meat prices were so low – they’re a bunch of horse thieves, as far as I care!  We’ll be pommeled by the media!”  The CEO of the partent company, says to “…never look a gift horse in the mouth…”
He believes it tastes just like beef.  He is willing to stand up in the stirrups, take the mane by the long hairs, and ride this one out.
If you tenderize it, add breading and fry it, I hear that it tastes like chicken.  The sliders are made from Shetland ponies, I heard.  The
bronco burger is the crowd pleaser, though.  It only costs a few bucks! 

h/t JP and Ron

Teh Funny, kinda sorta…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Uncle Jay sent me the link to this YouTube for comment…



Thankfully nobody died in this one, but it does happen.  Trained pilots flying with G-suits (AKA Speed Pants) can routinely do up to 10G for short periods of time. The Red Bull Air Races are a good example of that…

I personally ‘have’ knocked myself out before during an orientation flight in a TF-18.  Even wearing speed pants and ‘preparing’ myself, I was a ‘bit’ over-enthusiastic on the roll/pull and hit about 7.5G and was out like a light… The pilot recovered and laughed his ass off at me for that one.  It probably took less than 5 sec to put me out, no ‘greyout’ warning, just wham, bam, goodnight.  It was probably 30 seconds before I was fully recovered…

He took over and ‘demonstrated’ greyout and redout to me with positive and negative g’s. It’ truly strange to ‘watch’ your vision go down to a tunnel like looking through a soda straw…

There are numerous reports in the military on this, and one of the more egregious ones were two CF-18 pilots a number of years back that came off Christmas stand-down and immediately went out and did a 1V1 high-G interaction.  At one point apparently BOTH pilots G-locked out and the aircraft passed canopy to canopy with appx 18 inches clearance between the rudders and canopies. They only discovered the NMAC on review of the HUD films.  Sadly another ‘probable’ case of G-lock was the loss of the P-51 at the Reno Air Races last year.   

This is a pretty good link/explanation of G-lock and it’s impact, by Dr. Dougal Watson.  

G- TOLERANCE

Centrifuge and Flying studies have identified man’s tolerance to +Gz with reasonable accuracy. Figure 1 is a +Gz v. Time graph demonstrating the tolerance to +Gz of relaxed subjects not using any G-protection device or manoeuvre.

The area above and to the right of the solid black curve represents the +Gz and Time at which unconsciousness (on average) occurs. The area between this curve and the grey curve is the region of visual disturbances (greyout and blackout) without loss of consciousness. Below and to the left of the grey curve is the +Gz/Time zone where no visual symptoms or G-LOC occur in the average, unprotected person.

The line ‘C’ on figure 1 represents a gradual onset of +Gz at a rate of around 0.5G per second and shows that visual symptoms are likely after about 5 seconds and Loss of Consciousness about 1 second later at +4Gz. Line D shows a slower rate of +Gz onset, in this case visual symptoms will occur after 16 seconds (+4Gz) and G-LOC will intervene after 22 seconds when the acceleration will be +5Gz. Rapid onset of sustained +Gz, as shown in line B will result in G-LOC after about 4 seconds without any warning visual symptoms. However, very rapid onset +Gz that is not sustained at a high level, line A, may well result in no visual disturbances or G-LOC. This last feature is what saves many of our unlimited aerobatic pilots from suffering G-LOC more often, although they pull substantial G they do so for only very short periods

Full article HERE. 

Of note, you can also get ‘redout’ with negative G’s…

h/t Uncle Jay

Random Travel Thoughts…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Pro travel tip-  Those yoga pants and yoga tops are probably NOT appropriate for airline travel, especially if you don’t wear anything under them, and then sprawl out on the airplane sleeping…  Unless you’re advertising for your night time job.  Just sayin…

The flight attendants kept trying to cover her up the whole time…

And I’m truly thankful for my Nook, so far this trip I’ve read six books, one of them almost 1000 pages long.  And all of them fit in one nice little package!!!

A generation of freeloaders (and picky ones at that)-  At the hotel in San Diego I was sitting on the balcony overlooking the parking lot (such a view) and ‘enjoying’ an early morning cup of sludge.  I watched a set of seagulls ‘patrol’ over the trash cans in the parking lot, then watched one dive onto one particular trash can, dip in and pull out a McDonald’s bag…

It took the bag over to an open spot on the parking lot and drop it, when it didn’t come open, it landed (along with the other three birds) and it grabbed the BOTTOM of the bag and shook it till the contents spread out.  

When I went down and told the manager, she sighed and said they watched them do that every day but ONLY for McDonald’s bags, nothing else!!!

We had a discussion at lunch today about the ‘immigration’ bill(s) floating around including the latest from the administration gives illegals an immediate visa and they can become ‘legal’ in 8 years… However, there is no plan to actually enforce the fiscal self–sufficiency clause so that the illegals don’t immediately and permanently go on welfare (of course THAT is apparently not being enforced anyway)…  Cause if you actually make them ‘work’ for their money they’re not going to vote democrat.  

And I wonder if they really understand what will happen with minimum wage going to $9/hr…  What’s that going to do to prices for consumer goods?  How about the Big Mac?  $8-9 for a Big Mac??? $4/gal milk?  

Gas prices are still rising and no end in sight; because the companies can’t build/upgrade new refineries; while in other countries they can do all the environmental paperwork and build a new refinery in 2 years…

And why can’t we get some of those VW’s and Mercedes cars over here that get 70+ mpg on diesel?  TDI/clean diesel/Blue-e-motion is alive and well and being sold every day in Europe.  Hell in 2010 I had a little Mercedes A140 that got 70mpg (imperial), which equated to about 52mpg US…  And I heard Toyota and others in Japan are dropping the electric cars as a loss leader, and won’t be exporting/selling them in the US.  

And an odd little sunset picture… Dark and gloomy except for one high sirrus that was lit by the setting sun!


And this morning, it was HAILING in San Diego… sigh…

It’s coming…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
According to emails received this afternoon, it appears DOD has bit the bullet and sent out official notice today to DOD employees to expect possible furloughs to commence in 30 days.  

In other notes, under sequestration it gets even worse for the Navy-  4 Carrier Strike Groups (and associated Air Wings) deployments cancelled, 20+ small boy deployments cancelled, 20ish ships scheduled for upgrade/major maintenance cancelled.  Multiple aviation squadrons ‘cold iron’ for 30-60 days at a time, etc…

And of course it’s ALL the Pubs fault… BS…  I think the fiscal impact is going to be HUGE, and sure as hell our ability to defend the country is going in the toilet…  

And you know what is ‘really’ ironic?  Guess who does NOT get furloughed??? 

Congresscritters!!!  GAH!!!

Appleseed…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
One of my loyal readers is an Appleseed Red Hat and asked me to pass this along…

From 45ACP+P

As many of you know, I teach shooting on weekends.  Much of my effort is with a nationwide program, “The Appleseed Project”, an all volunteer 501c3 organization.   Tonight, the Colorado chapter and one of their shooting clinics is featured on the Outdoor Channel program “Shooting Gallery” from 10:30-11:30PM.  If you have had any curiosity about the program here is a way to sample it without committing a weekend. 

(that’s EST)

Folks, it’s a great program, and I highly recommend Appleseed, and this is a good opportunity to get some quality time and good instruction on rifle shooting!  You will NOT regret it, and it’s also great for younger children to take the course too!!!

Beer Machine…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
In response to an emailed question, yes the beer machine is alive and well in the Red Carpet Club at Narita… 🙂



It’s Asahi, but beggers can’t be choosers… Sigh…

More on 3D printing…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Now the Army is getting into the act…

But thanks to a joint Picatinny Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground Army Research Laboratory project, the Army can now provide manufacturers with part specifications in an interactive 3D format that can be easily read by modern machines.
The goal was to replace 2D PDFs with new versions that include a 3D visualization and the product manufacturing data.
In fact, they Army went beyond 3D: While the new TDPs include every detail about the part, the document didn’t have any information on how to make it.
The team has created not just a 3D TDP, but also incorporated a step-by-step guide to how specific tools can be used to make the necessary parts.


Full article HERE. 

And then there is the ‘Cuomo Clip’ from Defense Distributed…

But the laws are at least one step behind technology. Using 3D printers and schematics available on the Internet, gun owners can manufacture a fully functional, plastic magazine clip. Plans are free, although getting access to a 3D printer may prove expensive, at least for now.

“If you can download it, you can have it.”

– Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed/Wiki Weapons Project
“If you can download it, you can have it,” said University of Texas law student Cody Wilson, who is part of Defense Distributed, a group that has created the design for what they refer to as a “Cuomo Clip” along with other gun parts. It is all under an initiative they refer to as the Wiki Weapon Project.

/snip/

Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., has called for amending the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988, which initially sought to ban guns that could be sneaked through metal detectors, to include a ban on “homemade, 3-D printed, plastic high-capacity magazines.”
“Congress passed a law banning plastic guns for two decades when they were just a movie fantasy,” Israel told FoxNews.com. “With the advent of 3-D printers, these guns are suddenly a real possibility, and the law Congress passed is set to expire this year.

“We should act now to give law enforcement authorities the power to stop the development of these weapons before terrorists and criminals can easily bring them on planes. We need to be proactive and keep ahead of the technology. When the legislation was originally passed in 1988, no one would have imagined that parts of a gun and a magazine could be made with a printer — imagine what the technology will be even five years down the road.”


Full article HERE.


So is the ‘next’ ban on 3D printers??? Or certain types of plastic for 3D printers???  Or will you have to sign your life away to get that plastic (like we do today for Sudafed)???


   

"Public Safety" drones…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
As the FAA dickers with trying to find six ‘safe’ testing areas for drones, DHS continues down the path of new ‘public safety’ drones…

The Department of Homeland Security is advancing its plan to use surveillance drones for “public safety” applications, announcing last week that it had received a deluge of “excellent” responses from potential vendors and was set to carry out more tests of the technology.

From Infowars, HERE.

Now the FAA says there will not be any ‘armed’ drones allowed over the US…

“We currently have rules in the books that deal with releasing anything from an aircraft, period. Those rules are in place and that would prohibit weapons from being installed on a civil aircraft,” said Mr. Williams, who heads the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office, formed last year to shepherd drones into already-crowded American skies and integrate drone use with the manned-aircraft system

(bold/italics mine) Note the rules ONLY apply to civilian drones, which the DHS ones would NOT be…

Full article HERE.  

Now when you add in the CIA director Brennen, and the Prez death lists, anybody want to bet there won’t be armed drones flying in the US in the next couple of years???  

I sure as hell don’t…