Bug out bag? Two or three routes out of where you are? Know where you’re going? Ammo, essentials (medications, etc.)?
The professionals will be talking about it Friday, 11:00 pm CST on Texas Fellowship Blog Talk Radio.Y’all give it a listen, and offer your comments. Mark does a good job with his shows too!
Severe thunderbumper watch till 0200… I’m shutting down so I don’t blow ANOTHER computer up… night all.
Edit- Interesting how the deep red washed out in the jpeg, compared to the actual Doppler radar shot. Hmmm…
Geithner has postponed the announcement of the use of appx $350B left of TARP money (link here), so they can concentrate on spending the $850+B of the “new” stimulus (pork) package. Is it just me, or are now looking at OVER $1.4 Trillion dollars going out the door in basically 6 months? And for what, really?
Listening to the news this morning, it appears that John Q. Public is roughly 7:1 against this spending bill; but is anybody listening??? I think not…
On a different note- From a discussion I’ve been in, a different take on the Airbus forced landing in the Hudson. This is STRICTLY a discussion of the airframe, NOT a slam at the pilots or the crew!
Don’t be surprised if the Airbus fly by wire computers didn’t put a perfectly good airplane in the water. In a older generation airplane like the 727 or 737 300/400 the throttles are hooked to the fuel controllers on the engine by a steel throttle cable just like a TBM or a Comanche.
On the Airbus nothing in the cockpit is real. Everything is electronic. The throttles, rudder and brake pedals and the sidestick are hooked to rheostats who talk to a computer who talks to an electric hydraulic servo valve which in turn hopefully moves something.
In a older generation airplane when you hit birds the engines keep screaming or they blow up but they don’t both roll back to idle simultaneously like happened to Flt. 1549. All it would take is for bird guts to plug a pressure sensor or knock the pitot probe off or plug it and the computers would roll the engines back to idle thinking they were over boosting because the computers were getting bad data.
The Airbus is a real pile of crap. I didn’t like flying them. Google Airbus A320 Crash at the Paris Airshow in 1998. Watch the video of an airbus A320 crash into a forest because the computers wouldn’t allow a power increase following a low pass. The computers wouldn’t allow a power increase because they determined that the airspeed was too low for the increase requested so the computers didn’t give them any until it was way too late.
Pushing the throttles forward in a Airbus does nothing more than request a power increase from the computer. If the computer doesn’t like all the airplane and engine parameters you don’t get a power increase. Airbus blamed the dead French crew since they couldn’t defend themselves. A Boeing probably would have still been flying…
On a personal note- I was on an A-320 going into LAX last year in moderate turbulence on final where the auto throttles went to max power at about 10 feet off the deck. The pilot did manage to land that sucker, but talking to him after the flight he told me the airplane tried to wave off, he thought, due to the turbulence and fluctuating airspeed…
AD put up this post a few days ago which prompted me to put these words down on paper (so to speak)…
In the last six months, I have had a friend and two acquaintances die from alcohol and drugs. These were not young kids, these were mature successful adults who had retired and basically decided they had no reason to continue living…
“Ron” was a long time government engineer, divorced, kids grown and gone, who drank himself to death in 60 days. He had NO hobbies, no really close friends, no outside interests- basically his work was his life. When he retired, he basically went home and drank all day every day. Another acquaintance saw him about a week before he was found dead, and said he had put on about 60 lbs, reeked of booze and was staggering around the grocery store at 8am. A week later, they busted down the door to his apartment and he was found dead in a litter of empty fifths of booze…
My friend “John” who lived in Florida, was a bit “different” due to his time in Nam- I think based on what he told me, he had seen and done some things that he never wanted to face. He also was medically retired for many years from the Army and had been treated for years for PTSS. He was one of those folks who didn’t really like people, hated being indoors, and never really held a full time job, but worked 60-70 hours a week.
But he was always ready to help friends with any tasks (and a damn good handyman). Ironically, he was excellent with kids! We finally convinced him to take up golf, and always made sure he was included in our foursomes when we played. He seemed to enjoy it, but I don’t think he had another outlet or hobby.
I’m sure he was taking a variety of drugs, because he would often disappear for days at a time, but he always showed back up if he’d made a commitment to help somebody or we’d told him we were playing golf.
I saw him about a year ago, we talked about golf, work and my kids, whom he remembered when they were little. He seemed tired, and wasn’t taking as good care of himself as he had been. I talked to another friend, who was also concerned; but told me “John” was just giving up on life, and openly doing drugs and booze in combination. He just didn’t care. Two weeks ago I got the call that “John” had been found dead in his apartment.
Last was “Billy” a retired 30 year CWO4 from the Navy. “Billy” was a maintenance wizard, the original go to guy when weird problems cropped up. He was known for working 16-18 hours a day, was almost always in on weekends, and had to be forced to take leave. When “Billy” retired, he was fine for a couple of months, but then we started seeing him at the golf course at lunch, except his lunch was 12 oz at a time, and many of them. It wasn’t long before he was passing out at the bar, and the cops were called a couple of times. When they tried to get him into treatment, he refused and basically told the Docs, “I’m done, nobody wants me and I have no where to go.”
Again, no hobbies, no friends outside work, no social life after his wife died about 5 years ago. A month ago he was found dead, in his car in the golf course parking lot with two fifths…
The moral of this- Work is NOT a substitute for a life! Now some will say I’m the pot calling the kettle black; but please people, find SOMETHING outside work to put your energy into- Travel, golf, shooting, petite point, whatever… But don’t let everything revolve around work to the exclusion of everything else. Stop and smell the roses, or the gunpowder, your choice…
That is all.
THIS is now the guy that is Chief of Staff for the President. After you listen to this tell me the 2nd Amendment is not going to be under fire in the near future.
The senior military judge overseeing terror trials at Guantanamo Bay has dropped charges against a suspect in the 2000 USS Cole bombing.
The legal move by the Hon. Susan J. Crawford upholds President Obama’s Guantanamo order to halt court proceedings at the Navy detention center in Cuba.
You can go to this link from the NYT and read the entire 38 page docket.
There is a lot more to this than meets the eye. First and foremost, this puts everything back to square one. If this gets brought to the US Justice system rather than a Military Tribunal, all the previous evidence (above) will be null and void. Basically this means Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri could walk!
The Lightbringer has graciously invited not only the families of the USS Cole victims, but also the 9-11 families to the White House tomorrow. I’m wondering if they are going to pull ALL the charges against everybody to prevent the judges like Col. James Pohl from doing their jobs.
If I were Skipper Lippold, I’m afraid I’d be beating on his desk…
Here is the memorial to those who men and women who died on the USS Cole. It is titled We Will Never Forget, but it’s obvious some people have.
Just as a reminder- Here is a picture of the damage that killed 17 of our sailors.
I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m going to be on the phone as soon as I get to work, calling my Senator and raising hell about this. I consider this a grevious insult not only to the families of the men and women who were killed Oct 12, 2000, but to those who wear the uniform today, and all of us who wore it in the past.
After 8 years, just about to finally put the culprit on trial and now this…
You can go here and get their phone numbers.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m just absolutely pissed!!!
A Must read…
Via Fuzzy, from JPFO
JPFO, not all that long after its founding, presented an essay by Gus Cotey in a popular magazine of the time. I read this article and shook my head in disbelief. Cotey had NAILED it! I did something I’d never done: I tracked down the author’s phone number and called him and congratulated him on what was a terrific breakthrough in understanding. It was a breakthrough that all gun owners could use as “high impact” intellectual ammunition.
What Cotey had done, with marvelous perception, was identify the seven personality types that make up the victim disarmament crowd. Cotey saw through the emotionalized preaching and posturing and pandering and put the true motivations of these dangerous buffoons under a microscope.
Go read the entire article here JPFO .
h/t Fuzzy
I’m wondering if this might not be a test case for restrictions here in the US later this year…
From the Canadian Shooting Sports Association January 2009 Newsletter
AMMO, BUY AMMO!
We have it on good authority that the U.S. State Dept is cutting off all Export Permits for certain calibers of ammunition, namely .50BMG, 7.62x39mm Soviet, 7.62x51mm NATO, .308 Winchester , 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington. They may also expand the list to include 6.8mm SPC, 69mm Parabellum, .40 S&W and .45 Automatic, amongst others. As well, there may be blanket export bans on certain types of firearms and DSP-83 End Use Certificates (with a $250 Export Fee) attached to all other types. Already, many firearms-related companies are refusing to ship product to Canada because the U.S. required paperwork is simply too excessive to make it profitable and a number of Canadian distributors have had U.S. Export Permits refused for simple sporting arms in “prohibited” calibers.. Don’t be terribly surprised to see reloading components added to the list too!
It appears the anti-gun bureaucrats in the State Department have found a kindred spirit in President-Elect Barack Obama and are revving up the jets on us already. We have to emphasize that this information comes from a very reliable source and has been independently confirmed but at present, it is still being fought and the battle isn’t over yet. Lots of us are working on this and remember, this is U.S export only and does not affect EU imports. Firearms and ammunition exported from Europe will be unaffected (at least so far.) We’ll keep you informed as this unfolds. In the meantime, we suggest you consider stocking up.
When you get this, along with the comments from Gordon Hutchinson (the author of The Great New Orleans Gun Grab, who was on Gun Nuts blog talk last night) confirming the New Orleans PD along with other LE agencies in Louisiana have routinely confiscated weapons from people INCLUDING licensed CCW holders, then telling them they could have the weapons back when they produced a receipt of ownership. Most of the time when the individual showed up with a receipt, no gun was found… The officers had stolen the weapon… AND this has been going on for years!
With all due respect to my LEO friends who read this, NOPD is probably the most corrupt law enforcement agency in the United States, if not the world…
I am NOT surprised by this, nor was I surprised by the fact the Eddie Compass, et al, were augmenting their salaries with phantom cops (which came out during Katrina) when “hundreds” of cops didn’t report to work, etc. How could they? They didn’t exist…
When you add in HR 45 SUMMARY AS OF:1/6/2009–Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 –
Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked etc…
They road to hell is being paved with legislation and ignorance and we are in front of the steam roller…
I’ m tired and grumpy, so no sweetness and light tonight…
CBO states approximately 25% of $900 BILLION stimulus is actually going into economy-
But yet, the Las Vegas paper’s editorial says only 90M$ or 10% is stimulus, the rest is pork barrel.
The WSJ is down on it too all kinds of pork barrel…
And then there is Daschle- Oops my bad… I REALLY got $5.2 million from the Health and Human Services community (for lobbying Congress, shhhh!) in the last two years, not the $2 million I originally claimed. Oops, I paid my back taxes of over $100,000. Now today, he has a closed door meeting with former colleagues…
The White House both underscored the magnitude of the problem and tried to downplay it in the space of seven words. “Nobody’s perfect,” said press secretary Robert Gibbs. “It was a serious mistake. …”
WELL NO @#$&* KIDDING!!! Lemme see I seem to remember something like this being said in the NATION magazine in 2001…
The most dangerous lesson that can be taken from the Chavez fiasco (see David Moberg, page 12) is the theory that Bush’s Cabinet picks can be blocked only if they have failed to keep their personal affairs in order.
And yet this whole crowd is getting a free ride… Holder, Clinton, Geithner, Daschle
All I’ve got to say is it does NOT bode well for the 2nd Amendment or the economy (unless you’re a union employee).
In other news, 55 are now dead and still 470,000 without power in the ice storm in the Midwest, and still no FEMA help, “Because the situation is unsafe.”
Where is the main stream media on this, were are the calls for the Lightbringer to do something??? Where are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Oh wait a minute, these are predominantly WHITE people… never mind…
Conservative Scalawag has a link here to one of the reports.
Oh yeah, and while all this is going on, the Lightbringer is serving $100 a pound Wagyu (read Kobe beef) steaks in a black tie affair at the White House (being kept at 72 degrees so the Lightbringer doesn’t get cold…
Sigh… Oh well, I’ve probably pissed off a few people with this post, so lemme do one more thing to piss people off!
Got this “safety poster” today. It DOES make a good point, ya know… 🙂
Finally got home and got to the right cable, so here are a few pics from yesterday’s blog meet at Phlegmmy’s place…
Yes, there was food 🙂 Actually there were three tables covered with food…
Goody counter early in the day… And yes, that IS the Para Ord Gun Blog .45 center left in the picture!
Goody counter later in the day, that bottle of tequila gives a WHOLE new meaning to the word shooter…
Comparison of Matt and Farmgirl’s hands. As they say in Texas, Matt is a big ol boy…
And one last picture of the goody table after EVERYBODY had gotten there… At that point, we were having to climb up on a chair to get everything in the picture 🙂
Oh yeah, all but two of these were carried concealed to the party…
And last but not least, Pig candy! Thanks to Breda for the recipe! Now as a few others have said, AEpilot Jim kinda went overboard for bacon, both at dinner and at the party…
Well, the ‘short’ blog get together at Phlegmmy’s is now history, but trust me, it was an INTERESTING day… There were goodies galore, and oh yeah, there was food too 🙂
We had Phlegmmy (the hostess with the mostest), JPG and Holly, Matt from Better and Better, Blackfork and friend, Lawdog, Farmgirl (who won for the longest drive), The Keyboard part of the .45, 2Amusing, aepilot-Jim, Peter from Bayou Renaissance Man, Alan from Snarkybites, Rabbit (a frequent commenter), and Ambulance Driver.
And yes, we had Breda’s pig candy…
And it disappeared faster than I could believe.
Oh yeah, the goodies… well, ya know how you ALWAYS forget something… sigh… Well I got the camera, I just forgot the @#$^ cable to connect it to the computer!!!!
ARRGGHHHHH!!!! No ^&*(( way to post them… I’m sure SOMEBODY will post one or two of the goodies shots…
Anyhoo– the goodies consisted of every bodies carry pieces and knives ending up on the kitchen counter, with numerous photos as others arrived, pistols got cussed and discussed, Farmgirl’s valentines present (Walther PPK) was shown around, trigger jobs compared, sight types, and stopping power discussed. If I remember correctly, we had wheel guns from .22 to .44, semi-autos from .380 to .45 and everything in between. I don’t remember seeing two identical pistols 🙂 We also had a couple of rifles around just in case…
We discussed shooting competitions, with Blackfork giving an impromptu lecture on competition rifle shooting, JPG talking about shooting IPSC back in the 80’s at the national level, Peter talking about being in South Africa during the end of Apartheid and MANY various conversations (at one time I think we had at least three simultaneous ones going).
Alan Skiped Breda and Mike at one point, so we got a chance to see/try to talk to them. It was a little noisy, so I don’t know how much they actually were able to hear.
One of the more interesting conversations that took place was why we write blogs… I really wish I had a tape recorder, as the reasons were many and varied. That discussion degenerated into HOW people write, from multiple rewrites to stream of (un)consciousness (me).
Another interesting conversation was over what people thought was a good post and the reaction, and what they did as a throw away post, that people went nuts over. The consensus was that NONE of us are sure why or what really trips people to read/comment on certain posts.
I was also interested to find how many of us have been on TFL and THR through those iterations. We all pretty much agreed Tam is the queen of bloggers, and has really been a leader in the blogging sphere and had been responsible for a number of blogs starting
(blogmama :-)).
To sum it up, I was impressed with everyone I met, both individually and collectively. People ranged from thoughtful to sarcastic to humorous in a heartbeat, very down to earth, knowledgeable in many areas, damn smart about guns, and confident in themselves, what they do for a living and at ease with the world.
Thank you for the invite Phlegmmy and the privilege of attending. I hope that we can do this again in the future!