Eve'nin'. I'm going to pull a Joba Chamberlain for badanov, and if you saw the Royals @ Orioles, not necessarily a good replacement.
More than anything I just wanted to hold the place for This Week in Guns, as I think it is important to know why. Why this is a topic, why it is important. No matter what you may think of firearms - love 'em, hate 'em, curious, or water your socks at the mention - it must be agreed that as part of the Constitution and character of the United States of America the removal of legally possessed firearms is a fundamental change, by definition.
Before I can say why that is a bad idea, I have to share a bit about myself.
"Don't climb into the tree if you are not willing to climb out of it."
To kid Two, to kid One
"Swinging the bug catcher next to the rose bush got you tangled in the rose bush, but it isn't the rose bush's fault. You are in control of the bug catcher, not the plant."
I had the opportunity to get a bloc of range time in, in between herding geese.
"It like riding a bicycle. And as with a bicycle you don't forget, and as with a bicycle there are muscles you must maintain to be good at riding."
I know us volunteers and professionals give each other grief, and heck, and a couple bushels of bull, but I know a PASS, I know the Air Out, I know I wept last Friday. Added a link to a War is Boring story.
There is some bs commercials, the first 'Q' I used quite a bit to haul tools up and down from the roof. 2x the length of the tool, and then 2x the height of the pullup/letdown. Don't tie a hammer or other weight and throw unless the receiver is ready, only when absolutely necessary.
#4
Good knots Skidmark. Single hitch is a great way to lift/descend items especially with work gloves on.
I wish I had more time to expand on what I said to my rather novice approach to firearms (grew up in anti-gun city). It wasn't until my wife was with first child that there were a series of bold daylight robberies occurring in town, then I went from sport to self defense, and sport usually being very naughty target practice. I had to cut short to attend to a pop up storm with lightning so thick at one point for about five minutes we were lit up like being at the ball park with the lights on. With no forecast mentioning a chance for storms, being second tornado season we out here can expect at least wind and large hail; it in a way touches on being aware of your surroundings.
Also, with the approaching change in seasons I thought about mentioning emergency car kits.
Perhaps another time, and badanov thank you for the opportunity to fill in.
[The Mail] The former head of M16 has warned that it is just a matter of time before terrorists hit the West and claimed Britain would no longer be able to safeguard another massive event like the Olympics.
Sir John Sawers stepped down last year after five years as chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, a post known as 'C' in the service.
He was the first MI6 chief to be chosen from outside the service for 41 years and oversaw the security arrangements for the Olympic Games in 2012. Sir John, 60, is a career diplomat who has also worked as the UK's ambassador to the United Nations, political director of the Foreign Office, special representative in Iraq and a policy adviser to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister.
But he was no stranger to the world of espionage, having trained with MI6 at the start of his career before joining the FCO.
Today, in an interview on CNN's Global Public Square, he said the risk of a terrorist attack hitting the West has grown substantially since he stepped down from the role.
He said: 'We were pretty confident that the London Olympics would be terrorism-free. And thanks to a lot of hard work, it was.
'I don't think you could be quite so confident now if the London Olympics were in 2016, for example.' Sir John said the way terrorists carry out their heinous attacks has changed drastically since the emergence of ISIS.
'They're not trying to fly airliners into buildings. They're doing simpler things,' he said.
Concerning this opinion piece. The link for the story is to the Facebook post
Dear David:
Don't fret, the Russia you miss is very much with us today. It continues to stand for something that America has never been known for. But not depth of soul as you suggest, rather its darkness. Its soul is as dark and tortured today as that of Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov albeit even less remorseful. Vladimir Putin is a fitting successor to Russia's most evil czars, Ivan, Peter, Catherine or commissars Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev.
In view of the nostalgia which so moves and influences you, may I suggest that you study Russian history from the XII through the XX centuries, replete with the oppression of its own people and the persecution of those peoples whose lands Russia invaded. This is the basis for that Russian soul Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment:
“Yes...I'm covered with blood”, Raskolnokov said with a peculiar air; then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs. He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and strength that surged up suddenly within him.”
This captures the essence of the Russian soul – covered with blood, feverish with killing to the point of not being conscious and acquiring a new found strength from that killing.
Russia started as a simple walled city on the Moscow river in the XII century, rose to a duchy and then mushroomed to a vast czarist and then soviet wasteland comprising ten time zones, peppered with several centers like watchtowers in a concentration camp and monuments to its overbearing and suffocating might. Even its cultural capital, St. Petersburg, apparently the center of both your and Putin's longing, itself was built by a tyrant to satisfy and honor himself employing captured slaves for labor many of whom perished in the process. Czar Peter paid no regard to human loss of life. St. Petersburg's centerpieces, the Hermitage over the years became enriched with a collection of stolen booty while Petrodvoretz became an ostentatious faux Versailles.
That Russia was characterized by its oppressed captives as a prison of nations and American president Ronald Reagan called it the evil empire.
Mykola Hohol better known to you as Nikolai Gogol, a well known Russian writer who was really Ukrainian, but was compelled to write in Russian for the Czar, exposed this Russian soul in his satirical masterpiece Dead Souls. It was a satire of that Russia you miss where life was tragically absurd and meaningless and the dead counted for as much as the living. Russia did not honor its dead, it merely recounted them as a statistic. Gogol finally went mad perhaps as a result and ended his life.
As for Russia today being a more normal country than it used to be, try telling that to the 150 ethnic groups other than Russian living in Russia, bereft of any cultural or political rights and very much abridged in their expression of human rights. Try explaining that to the Litvinenko, Berezovsky, Politkovskaya or Nemtsov families. Try telling that to the multitude of current political prisoners held in isolated cells, violently interrogated and tortured, standing trial in camera and receiving substantial prison terms from a quasi judicial system for such “crimes” as writing poetry. Josef Zissels, a Ukrainian Jewish leader and former Soviet prisoner of conscience, has stated on many occasions that Putin did not make Russia what it is today, Russia made Putin.
Your lament is misplaced. It seems contrived and disingenuous as you continue to enjoy the good fortune of living in a country where life is precious and every individual has certain inalienable rights, endowed by his Creator and guaranteed by the rule of law. Yet you belittle America as not having depth of soul. Had you grown up in the Russia of your dreams you would have had precious little of anything.
Perhaps your American largesse has contorted your perception.
However, this isn't about you. You perform a disservice to the millions, yes, millions of victims of the Russia you contend missing. No country in history has been responsible for more suffering or more killings, in terms of sheer numbers, more than the Nazis, more than Mao's cultural revolutionaries, more than the regime of Pol Pot, more than the perpetrators of genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and more than the Islamic radicals today. To those victims, you owe an apology.
Respectfully,
Askold S, Lozynskyj
The writer is a former president of the Ukrainian World Congress.
#3
I think this guy is painting with a pretty broad brush. I have studied Russian history. Sure, it's tough to justify Stalin but some of those old czars had to deal some pretty serious problems, as did Stalin. Let's see...there were Mongols, Cossacks, Turks, Swedes (believe it or not), French and Germans to name a few. You can't get rid of guys like Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler by being nice. And it's no surprise if they did things on a bigger scale than Pol Pot because they had a lot more people and territory under their control. But to characterize all Russians as evil is a bit much. Can we be realistic? Do you really lie awake at night worrying that Putin is going to invade Western Europe? Historically speaking, the only two times Russians have invaded Western Europe were first in response to Napoleon and second to Hitler, invasions from Western Europe into Russia if you will. That kind of thing might make a guy paranoid. These days, if I was European, I'd be far more concerned about the Syrian invasion.
But it seems as though we're really talking about Ukraine here and after all these centuries these two closely related neighbors still have some unfinished business. So I look at it like this: If we decided to secure our border with Mexico, and I mean really secure it the way it needs to be secured, how would you feel about Putin interfering?
#4
Ebbang: Assuming a rational US president rather than the sort we have these days, would Putin stand down if we were to retake, for instance, Cuba from his Empire? I mean, you say all that as if he hasn't spent the last twenty years building a fucking empire in Latin America. Furthermore, in direct contradiction to all the "we're simple nationalists fighting the Tranzi menace" propaganda one sees on Rantburg, of all places, it's a communist empire. And a grossly unequal one, where the heirs of the Great Dictators get to jet off to Paris and enjoy the fruits of "capitalism" while the poor don't have milk or toilet paper.
Furthermore, the whole way the "sphere of influence" argument is framed is fallacious: it marks certain areas and peoples as property, regardless of their desires, or rights.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Headlines in recent days illustrate just how rapidly The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has become convulsed by renewed conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The killing by the latter of several soldiers of the former's army has led to increased air strikes against PKK positions in the Kandil mountain range in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared Ankara would not stop bombarding PKK forces there until they are "cleaned" and "wiped out" from that area. Unfortunate formulations on his part considering the many connotations those terms have in relation to conflict and war.
More tit-for-tat attacks will likely ensue in the coming days and weeks and with it, the situation will continue to spiral out of control, along with riots in southeastern Turkey and, naturally, more heavy-handed responses from the military and security forces. This all escalated very quickly and goes to show how tenuously difficult and intricate the forging of peace is and how easily hostilities can be reignited.
One laments this latest war not only for the casualties it will cause. Not only for the innocent Kurds and Turks which have and will die as a result of it. But for the much more general regression it constitutes. If this persists, the many very real cultural, economic, political and societal advances Turkey has made in the past 13 years will be setback.
I'm sure you've heard the term "separatist organization" used to describe the PKK. I find this description problematic. Yes, when the PKK took up arms against Ankara in 1984, it claimed to be fighting on behalf of Turkey's Kurds for cultural and political autonomy and/or, yes, separation in the form of an independent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey. But the Turkey of then and modern-day Turkey are two very different places. Indeed Turkey's Kurds have attained the rights the PKK claimed to be fighting for. They have language rights and they can, for the most part, practice their cultural traditions without fear of discrimination, marginalization or persecution. Which is why the PKK and many of its supports advocated a federalist republic.
One was initially hopefully about the peace talks between Ankara and the PKK which led to the, now broken truce, in early 2013. Even though it has broken down, that ceasefire and truce showed what was possible.
The Kurds were emancipated in Turkey in ways they were never before. Having Kurdish parties represent them in parliament would further go to demonstrate the equal status of Kurds. And not only that, give them a vested interest in keeping the peace, furthering Turkey's progress as a nation unified out of a common self-interest in its success. Alas, events of recent weeks have drastically setback such hopes.
President Erdogan's seething denunciation of the leftist-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) winning of some seats in parliament last June was a bad sign. His critics believe that he is consciously trying to weaken the PKK so it can negotiate with them from a position of strength and drive the HDP from parliament in the upcoming snap elections in November. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... what they have done through the nature of this crackdown is embolden those in the PKK who seek separation. The longer this persists, the stronger these sentiments may become. And that will have the regressive effect in undoing those many positive aforementioned changes brought about by reforms over the years which made the potential of a binding peace accord possible to begin with.
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But there was a catch. By the Air Force's own reckoning, the F-35A with Block 3i software wouldn't be able to fight in the most dangerous environments without unacceptable risk to its pilots. Where before the Air Force required that its Initial Operational Capability F-35s be capable of offensive air-to-air missions and the suppression of enemy air defenses in a heavily opposed "anti-access" environment, under the new planning the initial F-35s would be suitable only for "basic" close air support and other ground-attack missions and "limited" defense-suppression -- and none of it in anti-access airspace.
To meet a deadline that Congress found acceptable, the Air Force decided to debut F-35s that it knew full well wouldn't actually be combat-ready in any meaningful sense of the term. In May 2013, the flying branch submitted its F-35 IOC date to Congress and then, according to the history, "began the tense wait to see if the JSF program could fulfill its promises over the next three years."
#1
suitable only for "basic" close air support and other ground-attack missions and "limited" defense-suppression -- and none of it in anti-access airspace.
#5
Oh, and look! They have a nice new David Axe article to repeat the lies of to me.
As far as I know he never responded to the criticisms re: that engine power was hobbled in software during the tests he cited as 'proof' that it couldn't dogfight.
#6
To make a long story short, this guy told lies and half-truths the last time around, why are y'all so eager to believe and repeat it this time around?
#7
This is the same crap criticism that occurred in the 1980's regarding the f-15, f-16, f-18, m-1 tank, and m-2/3 bradley. After a sort through process with the first units, they all achieved their goals. The war is boring guy is following in the the footsteps of that 1980's thru 2000 magpie Pierre _ who bad mouthed every defense product that the US came up with.
#8
Anon1, Is there a case of third world pilots outfighting a first world pilot, even using a superior plan? Typically the third world training is lacking. Of course they might find Russians flying the planes, that seems to happen from time to time.
#10
Axe is an knowledgeable "journalist" who wouldn't know which end of an aircraft sucks or blows. But he did find a niche in the WWW catering to wasted minds like him. This is hipster douchebag clickbait. Don't become a hipster douchebag and don't support one by clicking though.
At intervals in history the map redraws itself. This may be one of those times. The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that Iraq and Syria are breaking up and the process is irreversible. The Associated Press [1] reports:
Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder by war and sectarian tensions, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday in a frank assessment that is at odds with Obama administration policy.
"I'm having a tough time seeing it come back together," Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart told an industry conference, speaking of Iraq and Syria, both of which have seen large chunks territory seized by the Islamic State. ...
Iraqis and Syrians now more often identify themselves by tribe or religious sect, rather than by their nationality, he said.
"I think the Middle East is going to be seeing change over the coming decade or two that is going to make it look unlike it did," [CIA's] Brennan said. And a good thing to
Brennan and Stewart forgot to add Libya [2] and Yemen [3] to his list. They have already disintegrated. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard [4] needlessly observes that countries invented by European diplomats Sykes and Picot [5] have largely ceased to exist. Now Evans-Pritchard wonders whether that other boundary drawn up by European diplomatic treaties -- the European Union -- is now entering a similar period of revision.
...The Left, like radical Islam, must either rule or live apart. The failure of Islam to conquer and the abortive end of socialism's one world under political correctness policy means leaders like Corbyn and Sanders now represent the forces of fragmentation rather than unity. If they cannot rule in heaven they will rule where they can.
Europe was challenged by Islam and Russia with a problem it could not solve on its own terms. The world, after a long period of coming together under a single hegemon, the United States, is diverging again. The fences are going up all over Europe, we shall not see them torn down again in our life-time. No truce with kings
Last week, Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, suggested that even innocent students should be booted from campus if they were accused of sexual assault. According to Polis: "If there are 10 people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people." But, but, what if one of them is a son of a Democratic senator? That's completely different...
So one of the longstanding traditions of American law -- that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent -- has now been turned on its head. Under the Polis standard, it's basically the other way around. And here I thought that things like this went down with the late, unlamented SovU.
#1
The left continues to try to divide everyone by accusing everyone of having a war on each other.
What's that old saying?: The Devil's greatest trick was convincing the world he didn't exist. Let me tell you, he is alive and well and resides within the Left.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
But there was a catch. By the Air Force's own reckoning, the F-35A with Block 3i software wouldn't be able to fight in the most dangerous environments without unacceptable risk to its pilots. Where before the Air Force required that its Initial Operational Capability F-35s be capable of offensive air-to-air missions and the suppression of enemy air defenses in a heavily opposed "anti-access" environment, under the new planning the initial F-35s would be suitable only for "basic" close air support and other ground-attack missions and "limited" defense-suppression -- and none of it in anti-access airspace.
