On the Iraq War
Well the Obamessiah gave his speech that the United States has officially ended combat operations in Iraq. Now everybody is stating that the war in Iraq is over, but with all this talk about combat troops leaving one thing has seemingly been overlooked. We have quite a few of those mercenaries [sorry that's the politically incorrect word now] private contractors over in Iraq at the moment:
Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of “private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings,” according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Even though we only have 50,000 “non-combat soldiers” in Iraq there are over three times that many mercenaries employed by the United States still sitting there. That seems like a lot of personnel to have in a country where we are no longer performing “combat operations.”
Personally I don’t call that a mission accomplished (again?) but a sly way of claiming the war is over while still keeping the country occupied.
Assange Shouldn’t Fly
A short while back I mentioned there was in interesting situation involving Julian Assange the founder of WikiLeaks. Rape charges were brought against him and then dropped almost as suddenly. It appears that the rape charges have been reinstated as well as the charges of molestation. Mr. Assange has stated the previous time these charges came up that he believed this to be a smear campaign and I actually find myself believing him.
It seems awfully convenient that these charges materialized so shortly after WikiLeaks posted confidential documents related to the war in Afghanistan. Fuel has just been added to the fire with the whole dropping of the charges due to lack of evidence only to have the charges brought back on the table. In my last post on this subject I mentioned the book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. One thing that book brings up is that a favorite way for the CIA to assassinate somebody is by sabotaging small personal aircraft. I’m just going to state that Mr. Assange would be wise not to get onto any small personal aircraft in the near future.
Rail Mounted Power
This is a neat idea that doesn’t seem to actually solve the problem it’s designed to. The Firearm Blog brought to our attention the Rifle Integrated Power Rail (RIPR). It’s pretty simple, a battery that provides power to rail mounted accessories through the rails. It seems like a novel idea since you’d no longer be required to carry additional batteries for every accessory on your rifle.
Of course there’s also the major downside; if the RIPR fails all of your accessories go down. This seems to eliminate and advantage considering the following:
We’re not that worried about a RIPR battery going tits up. You would of course carry spares with you. We’re more worried about the plug-in unit/rail (into which the RIPR battery is inserted) failing. If that goes down, you’re done–unless you have spare batteries for the individual accessories, of course.
So now you carry additional RIPR batteries as well as batteries for your individual accessories. That seems to add weight to both the rifle and your load out. Convergence is good in some situations and not so hot in others. Having a small portable computer in your pocket that can make phone calls, listen to music, browse the Internet, and act as a GPS navigator. The reason such devices work well is because losing all of those functions is a nuisance.
Convergence doesn’t work so well when redundancy is critical. For instance a RAID 5 array on a server prevents a system from dying if any single hard drive fails. RAID 0 on the other hand means your entire server will die if any single drive dies. The reason servers generally use RAID 5 is because having the entire system go down if a single drive fails is not acceptable. Once the system is down anything that relies on that server is now useless. The same would go for the RIPR, if it fails every power-using accessory on your gun dies. If these accessories include a flashlight or some kind of night optic requiring power your rifle is now pretty useless in the dark. Personally given the size of the RIPR and the fact that you would still need to carry batteries for individual accessories I feel it’s a solution in search of a problem.
Some Temporary Good News for California
Via to the NRA-ILA I learned that the California Senate voted down the open carry ban. Of course the vote missed the majority needed by one and this is only a temporary victory:
Monday’s 20-16 vote fell one short of the majority needed, but the Senate will reconsider the measure Tuesday.
As if Standard Raptors Weren’t Dangerous Enough
I’m sure everybody who’s reading right now has seen Jurassic Park. If you haven’t go watch it right now because it is this best damned move ever made. The main protagonists were the velociraptors whom many complain were completely misrepresented. In truth the velociraptor was roughly 3 feet tall and covered in feathers. Of course when the book Jurassic Park was written the portrayed dinosaurs were actually deinonychus but at the time some paleontologists were trying to reclassify the deinonychus as velociraptor. This is actually mentioned by the character Alan Grant in the novel but alas the reclassification was dropped but the movie never correct for this.
So why the long side track? Because I wanted to show off my stupid amount of knowledge involving Jurassic Park. It’s for geek creds, any nerd will understand.
Well it seems Romanian scientists have discovered something more terrifying than Jurassic Parks [movie] portrayal of velociraptors. I present for your pants shitting fear the balaur bondoc. This bastard was a larger version of the velociraptor. Well it’s not that much larger really but it has an interesting feature. Remember those large killing claws the velociraptors had on their feet? This bad boy has two on each feet. That’s like taking it to 11 in the dinosaur world.
Why Liberals Should Love the Second Amendment
I very liberal friend sent me this article. It’s titled Why Liberals Should Love the Second Amendment and goes through five basic reasons why self-proscribed liberals should fight for the second amendment.
Basically it boils down to the fact that liberals like to think of themselves as the ones who fight for civil rights and the right to keep and bear arms should be treated equally to every other right. It also presents to good counter arguments to the standard anti-gun rhetoric often spewed. I think it’s a really good read for liberals for obvious reasons and a good read for conservatives because it gives good argument points. It also shows that gun rights is not a single partisan issue.
Minnesota Legislation Question
I mentioned that the Minnesota Legislators had a rather misleading gun related question on their questionnaire at the State Fair this year. I went to the State Fair yesterday and just thought I’d have you some time. The questionnaire is located in the back of the Education Building (if you take a right when entering the fair through the Snelling Avenue entrance it’s something like the second or third building). It’s pretty easy to spot since it’s on the center of the back wall with a big sign that says Minnesota Representatives or something along those lines.
Anyways have fun at the fair and remember to take a few minutes to find that questionnaire and fill it out.
EPA Denies Lead Ammunition Ban Petition
It seems the Center for Biological Diversity didn’t get what they wanted. The EPA denied their petition based on legal issues that were brought up by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF):
Steve Owens, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said, “EPA today denied a petition submitted by several outside groups for the agency to implement a ban on the production and distribution of lead hunting ammunition. EPA reached this decision because the agency does not have the legal authority to regulate this type of product under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – nor is the agency seeking such authority.”
Good work everybody who wrote the EPA.
We Got You Your Favorite Thing, Disappointment
The new Kindle started shipping yesterday and I got my shipping notification! Woohoo! Oh wait:
The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
——————————————————————–
Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal———————————————————————
Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):
1 Kindle Leather Cover, Blac… $34.99 1 $34.99
Shipped via UPS
Tracking number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
———————————————————————
Item Subtotal: $34.99
Shipping and handling: $7.48Total: $42.47
Paid by XXXXXXXXXXXX: $42.47
——————————————————————–
You have only been charged for the items sent in this shipment.
(Per our policy, you only pay for items when we ship them to you.)
The following items will ship separately, as soon as they’re available:
———————————————————————-
Qty Item Price Not Yet Shipped
———————————————————————-1 Kindle Wireless Reading Devic $189.00 1
God damn it.
