There is a post concerning gay adoption on one of the shooting blogs I keep up with. I am very happy to see the bulk of those commenting realize that a child is better off in a loving home with parents who made the decision to adopt a child and committed the resources and effort to making it happen than being forced to languish in the foster care system.
Good on you, fellers*
*lady shooters are included
What is this mystery weapon? Well, its common family name is “bunker buster.” We have bunker busters in the Air Force inventory now, but they are wee in comparison to this new monster. The current model, the GBU-28, tips the scale a tad under 5,000lbs and is made out of old howitzer barrels. They did a fair job of busting buried bunkers in the most recent misadventure in Iraq. They are a popular export item, too. Israel has stocked up on our standard deep penetration gravity bomb to tackle hardened underground armories or command and control targets in the event that hostilities with their neighbors flare up. If a target is hidden under less than 100 feet of dirt or 20 feet of concrete, it is history.
This new Massive Ordinance Penetrator weighs a staggering 30,000lbs, is not made out of scrap metal and has added accuracy thanks to GPS guidance. Telling the world the exact technical specs of this beast is unwise, but the money and minds behind MOP know that leaking some capabilities could serve an important diplomatic function.
“I saw on your FaceBook that you have built your uranium enrichment facility under 100 feet of earth and 50 feet of reinforced concrete. That’s cool. Hey, did I mention we had a bomb that can penetrate 300 feet of earth and 60 feet of reinforced concrete? Oh, it can be dropped from our B2 stealth bomber, too. That’s the plane that can defeat any integrated air defense network in the world. The bomb’s guidance works in any weather. You know, just FYI. L8r!”
I am never leaving my house with just a 5-shot .38 or a .32acp AGAIN! I’m now second guessing my choice of a 7-shot .45 ACP.
Officer Down: The Peter Soulis Incident
…Remarkably, [the bad guy] had taken 22 hits from Soulis’ .40-caliber Glock, 17 of which had hit center mass. Despite the fact that the weapon had been loaded with Ranger SXTs -considered by many to be one of the best man-stoppers available- [the bad guy] lived for more than four minutes after the last shot was fired. His autopsy revealed nothing more than a small amount of alcohol in his bloodstream. Although Soulis could not have known it, [the bad guy] was wanted for murder in a neighboring state…
There are any number of lessons to be learned from this encounter, but for me I’m reminded to work on failure-to-stop drills, one-handed weapon manipulation and carrying enough fucking ammo. Plan for the worst; hope for the best.
This makes me want to get busy on my shotgun lock for my car, and getting my head around something similar for our Toyota.
(many thanks to SayUncle for the story)
While doing some research for an upcoming speaking engagement for which I have been asked to contribute I re-discovered how quotable a speaker was Sir Winston Churchill.
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Wow.
Yep, today is my birthday, but it is a sad anniversary of another 10/03 event. In 1993 the Battle of Mogadishu took place in Somalia. So today I salute with great respect the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen & Marines who served that day, those that have done so in the past & those that continue to serve today. Also, those who have fallen in service are not forgotten either.
Let’s all be happy & have a good day.
There is an amazing amount of buzz concerning Lyme disease these days, not just wacky internet chatter either. This is a good thing because Lyme is a problem that is grossly underestimated. Read up on it and stay informed lest it crush you or someone dear to you. Lyme is no joke.
North Carolina finally acknowledges the seriousness of Lyme infections. LINK
After years of cautioning that people were unlikely to get Lyme disease in North Carolina, state health leaders are now advising that the tick-borne illness can, in fact, be acquired here.
In at least four cases this year, Lyme was confirmed among patients who never left their home counties, ruling out the prospect that they picked up the bacterial infection while traveling.
Based on the new evidence, Dr. Megan Davies, state epidemiologist, said the state is now working to get the word to doctors, who for years were reluctant to even test patients for Lyme because it wasn’t considered much of a possibility.
The citizens of Wisconsin are trying hard to get their point across to legislators. LINK
“What we are trying to convey today is the seriousness of Lyme disease; what an issue it is in Wisconsin and how many people are suffering,” Andrews said.
According to Andrews, the health care costs associated with Lyme disease are a financial burden for many Wisconsin families, and some residents have to go out of state to receive treatment because there are only two specialists in Wisconsin.
Last, there is now more research being conducted than ever before. Some of the results are both promising and disturbing. Doctors in every state are beginning to see the potential for disaster and are becoming educated. Articles like the following are finally and thankfully becoming more common. LINK
…The spirochete, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium, is unique in the known bacterial realm because of the quantity of DNA it carries that enables it to evade detection and attack the human immune system. It can change its outer protein coat, cloaking itself from immune detection. It also can completely change form, becoming a treatment-resistant cyst, or shed its outer coat to enter our own cells to set up shop.
The success of antibiotic therapy generally depends on the activity level of a bacterium; how fast it grows and how often it reproduces. Most common bacterial diseases we encounter in medicine are from bugs that reproduce in less than 24 hours. When antibiotics “hit” the reproductive or active metabolic machinery of these germs, they die. This is why when we treat common illnesses such as pneumonia or urinary infections, people usually get better in a few days.
The Lyme bacterium, however, has a reproduction cycle as short as a day but as long as about nine months. During a phase of prolonged inactivity, it is very hard to kill. This is one of the reasons an established Lyme infection can be hard to eliminate. It also is thought and there is real data to support this that the Lyme bacterium eventually takes up residence with other co-infecting bacteria, in what is called a biofilm community…
It is no coincidence that the news I picked to blog about stretches literally from coast-to-coast, California to North Carolina. Although the material can be dry and the anecdotes can be upsetting, I implore you to stay informed on the topic of Lyme. It is a bastard whose day is coming.