Thursday, July 20, 2006

July Blogmeat

I love the Internet. You find such interesting ... stuff there.

Like these two RKBA-related stories (included mostly in an attempt to remain "on theme"):

N.Y. Panel says Judges can Pack Heat
Yes, it's true. YOU can't carry a gun in a courtroom .. but the judge can!

The New York state Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has ruled that it is permissible for judges to pack a pistol beneath their robes while on the bench.

''From an ethical standpoint, there is no prohibition . . . barring you from carrying a firearm while performing your duties on the bench,'' the committee said in a decision published in the New York Law Journal.

Judges would have to comply with existing laws to bring a gun into court.

The committee was asked by one of the state's 3,400 judges whether it was ''ethically permissible'' to carry a pistol into the courtroom. Although it ruled in favor of pistol-packing jurists, the committee warned that judges must ''be patient, dignified and courteous'' to those appearing before the bench and behave in ''a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.''

As Heinlien suggested, "Armed Society is a Polite Society".


Next, just a LITTLE bit over-the top, here's a story about the possibility of Isreal using Laser Rays to intercept missile, artillary and mortars. It's a expensive, though.:

Moving past armaments, let's talk about Blogging.

Why Do We Blog? Because we can.

But sometimes, we really shouldn't.

Let's talk about The War Against Terrorism.

Bush says, "Just Stop This Sh*t!"


Daniel Pipes, in the usually egregious LA Times, suggests ways that Isreal can do just that.

Saree Makdisi (whatever) in the same LA Times, has no plan but deplores Isreal's Outrageous Attacks!

Also in the times, Jonathan Chait says "You Can't Run A War On Horse Sense!"
The real title of the article asks: "Is Bush Still Too Dumb To Be President?" Apparently Jonnie is outraged that Bush prefers verbal briefings over reading summaries.
But the more we learn about how Bush operates, the more we can see we were right from the beginning. It matters that the president values his gut reaction and disdains book learnin'. It's not just a question of cultural style. The president's narrow intellectual horizons have real consequences, sometimes cataclysmic ones.

It's true that presidents can succeed without being intellectuals themselves. The trouble is that Bush isn't just a nonintellectual, he viscerally disdains intellectuals. "What angered me was the way such people at Yale felt so intellectually superior and so righteous," he told a Texas Monthly reporter in 1994.

Apparently, Jonnie considers himself an 'intellektule", and is miffed at being dissed by Da Prez.

In the meantime, The Chairman Of The Board (no, not Frank Sinatra; a relative lightweight named Kofi Annan who is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations) "Calls For An Immediate End In Fighting."
Kofi think it's all "Just Wrong", and wonders "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?"

Perhaps he could answer his own question.

In 2000, Isreal moved all the IDf out of the Golan Heights area and away from the Lebenon Border. The UN-sponsored agreement was that Isreal would "demilitarize" their Northern Border, and Hezbollah (this part isn't crystal clear) would either disarm, or leave their entrenched positions, or both. The UN posted 2000 (two THOUSAND!) "observers" along the border to insure that this agreement would be carried out.

Well, Isreal DID move its troops ... they did their job. But six years later, Hezbollah not only did NOT disarm, did NOT leave, but they did a lot of Bad Things in the UN-mandated "down time":
  • Entrench in 40-meter deep bunkers
  • Re-arm
  • Scatter their forces among the Civilian Lebonese population
Does this sound like a military opponent who was trying to minimize the treat of war? Or is it the actions of a military opponent who is using a 'temporary truce" (duration to be defined by .. themselves, alone) to re-arm and re-position their troops?

Considering that recently they have been attacking (killing and kidnapping) IDF forces, and when the IDF objected with force they began indiscriminate rocket attacks on the civilian Israeli populations, I'll take Door Number Two.

We don't know why Kofi thinks the Israeli's ought to listen to his advice, but you can bet the farm that Hezbollay really, really likes it.

What's with the Israeli bombing of Lebonese infrastructure?

If the Lebonese were in control of their own country, they wouldn't have allowed Hezbollah to entrench, rearm, and re-attack. They would have moved Hezbollah out of the country, as they agreed to do in 2000.

Why should they have done that?

Well, they agreed to do it in the 2000 UN accords. And they knew that it was Hezbollah who engineered the attack on the Beirut Marine Barracks which killed over 200 US Marines. Simply put, these are Bad Men, and anyone who holds such a serpent to their breast is inviting trouble.

It's here.

We deeply regret the Lebonese Civilian casualties in The Current Unpleasantness, but we can't help but wonder if Lebenon hasn't brought them on themselves, through their weakness.

I'm afraid I've delved too deeply into The Dark Side.

I have other things to talk about, but to tell the truth I'm too heartsick to continue.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll find something to lighten the mood. At the moment, it seems ... disrespectful.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Get 'er Done (2) - videos redux

Earlier I discussed the TCGC Classifier match, and linked to the videos I took on the two non-classifier stages (here).

(BTW, match results are available here.)

The second non-classifier stage, "Get 'er Done 2", is a 'mirror image' of the first stage, in that it is set up right-handed rather than left-handed: the first targets you would naturally engage are on the right side of the bay.

Just to make it fun, the steel targets are not Pepper Poppers; they are 10" steel plates.

Since we are encouraged to engage Pepper Poppers in the center of the big circle, it shouldn't be any more difficult to hit plates. That is obviously not the case in real life. Oh sure, some people actually aim and do well, but the rest of us have a lot more problems hitting a ten inch round plate than we encounter when trying to hit the 12" circle on a 42" high Pepper Popper.

In evidence, I offer my clumsy "dog's breakfast" attempt to knock down the plates.




Jerry the Revolver Guy did well, except that he missed the first plate and used one of the irreplacable (in a reasonable amount of time) six rounds in his revolver to pick it up. This video starts AFTER he has engaged the three IPSC targets at the start.




Roger, to keep the comparison with the dextro version of this stage, did a fine job of picking up the plates.




And SWMBO ... rocks!




If I haven't made it clear, the original non-YOU TUBE version of these videos are available on Jerry the Geek's Video Shooting Gallery under the 2006 TCGC matches for July. Click on the article title or click here, to go there.

The videos are 2mb or 3mb. I may have missed a couple of squad members because I can't spend ALL of my time filming (and other squad-members may have missed their opportunity to pick up the camera, too.) If I did miss somebody, I apologise. I am confident that I have at least ONE video of everybody in my squad on one or the other of the stages, though.

If you WERE on the same squad, and your videos aren't pictured here (Fred, Dan, Paul, Don), you should go to the Shooting Gallery and look at your videos. If you want an easy to download YOU TUBE version of the video, I will be happy to generate one so you can show your friends.

You looked good, guys.

Get 'er Done (1)

Tri-County Gun Club's monthly IPSC match today (Sunday, July 16, 2006) was officially a Classifier Match. That is, of the six stages presented, four of them were classifiers.

Ho. Hum.

Lots of people didn't show up, because (a) we had a Charity match in the Section yesterday, and (b) what fun is a classifier match?

Well, if you do it right, it can be a lot of fun.

We usually like to take a lot of pictures, but again .... B-O-R-I-N-G! Not worth the effort, unless you're the kind a guy who would shoot an unarmed man in the back (as Christopher Walken likes to say a lot in "Last Man Standing".)

Here are pictures of a few people, shot from the side, while they're shooting at Steel.

Go look at 'em (they're only 2mb files, very fast stages) while I jazz up this article with some Art.

Done? Good.

Here's scene 1 of four: Roger



Roger, you are now immortal!


Scene 2 of four: Jerry the Revolver Guy




(Great example of a fast revolver reload)

Scene 3 of four: SWMBO




Scene 4 of four: Geek