About El Paso

It turns out that the 10 day (rescinded after a few hours) airspace shut-down over El Paso was a party balloon, not any real sort of security threat.

Don't worry though, they shot it down with a laser. 

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.

Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”

But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said. 

I'm going to give these incompetent idiots the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that it was one of the shiny silver Mylar balloons, which, because of their aluminum coating, are readily picked up on radar.

The level of incompetence here is stunning. 

 

Minnesota Massacre and Something About Me That You May Not Know

I like firearms a lot.

You may also notice that I frequently advocate for very restrictive gun laws.

These things are not opposed to each other.

While I have not shot a firearm since I was around 9 years old, (.22 short single shot rifles) at summer camp, and I have little desire to own a firearm. (Except possibly to build one from a chunk of metal)

I find them technically fascinating, much in the same way that I find historical tools fascinating.

So I spend a lot of time on GunTube, where things like Forgotten Weapons go through the technical and historical developments leading to a firearm.  (Highly recommended, very little, if any, discussion of gun control laws except as they directly pertain to the development of a specific weapon ⃰)

At the other end of the spectrum is GunLawTube, where ammosexual dweebs rant about how everyone is trying to take their guns away, even though they have won this battle for at least a generation.

And somewhere in the middle are the entertaining assholes, who throw in a sh%$ load of right wing politics, but cover the operation and ergonomics of weapons. 

Toward the extreme end of this is right wing asshole Brandon Harerra (aka "The AK Guy"), who I find amusing enough and interesting enough that I deal with the asshole baggage that he brings. 

Basically, I find about ⅔ of his stuff both entertaining and instructive, and the remaining ⅓ I can identify in about 15 seconds, so I watch. (Actually mostly listen.  I tend to listen to YouTube in my car using the audio controls to skip sh%$ that I put on watch later that I don't want to hear)

Such is the way of Gonzo social media channels.

This is a long way to get to the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, where Robin Westman, a former student at the school, allegedly opened fire during a children's mass.

Normally, this is where I would rant about how nothing is going to happen, and nothing ever happens to atrocities like this.

What I am going to write about instead is the fact that the shooter left a manifesto endorsing Brandon Harerra for President.

Considering the fact that Harerra is on his 2nd run for Congress, he definitely has political aspirations, or at least he did before this.

Needless to say, Mr. Harerra is unamused by this development. 

He released a YouTube (below) where he (IMHO honestly) says that he is completely freaked out by this, spews some anti-trans bigotry, and literally ends the video with thoughts and prayers. 

Needless to say, I am amused by this development.

In a perfect world, Brandon would learn something about empathy and civic responsibility, but this ain't a perfect world. 

^*The one case of where he discussed this was a large capacity pistol that used a stripper clip and fixed internal magazine to get around removable magazine limits.

Must Watch

This video is a bit long, almost an hour, but it is a remarkable look into the mind of a military drone designer. 

The drone make in question is Russian, and much of his observations come from experience in the Ukraine war, though the interview is largely free of  geopolitical content.

It's just a weapons maker talking about his craft and the realities of its deployment. 

This Sherman Kills Fascists

Say what you will about the M-4, but it did kill a lot of fascists, and it's still doing so:

I think that this is a 76mm armed Sherman, and not a Firefly with the 17 pounder, but I'm not an expert on such things.

Another Day,

Another school shooting. 

This one is in Madison, Wisconsin.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, that's the 487th mass shooting of the year.

I'm not even sure why this is news anymore:

Three people are dead, including the shooter, and six were injured in a shooting Monday morning at Abundant Life Christian School on Madison's Far East Side.

The shooting at the private school at 4901 E. Buckeye Road, happened shortly before 11 a.m., police Chief Shon Barnes said.

Here's what we know so far:

2nd grader called police

A second grade student at Abundant Life Christian School was the first call to police about a shooter in the building, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.

"Let that sink in for a minute," he said. 

As an aside here, at an increasing number of schools, that 2nd grader would not have had a cell phone, because they are banned.

I'm not sure how to square the circle of students being able to call the cops with the effects of distractions from their phones.

Shooter identified

The shooter was identified as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who goes by the name Samantha. She died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

She was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.

F%$# thoughts and prayers.  Repeal the 2nd Amendment.

Headline of the Day

GOP Michigan Rep and Gun-Rights Supporter Neil Friske Accused of Chasing a Stripper While Firing a Gun

—New York Post

Normally, I am loath to quote the New York Post, but credit where is credit is due, they do GREAT headlines.

You probably want to go with this report of the incident, because it's is both more informative, better written, and it shows a real life example of the, "He got drunk and fell out of a guard tower," joke.

Nothing good happens in Lansing Michigan at 2:45 AM. Probably three extra words in that sentence.

I’m friends with one of the police officers who was on the scene. ALLEGEDLY, Friske solicited a local stripper and brought her home. They had a fight in his room, and he fired a gun toward her. She called the cops and ran. Cops intercepted them both separately on the street.

A friend who works for the Michigan legislature fills in a few details:

– he succeeded former Speaker Lee Chatfield in the 107th. Lee was often seen at a different Lansing strip club and had issues with handguns too. Friske decided to combine the two

– Friske has a serious primary challenger who has legit endorsements and funding

– Friske’s immigrant father was a former state rep (for one term in 1971-72, he lost in the 72 primary). His father was a Bircher and later in life donated to David Duke. His father noted on his campaign literature that he was a World War II veteran. Without mentioning that he was in the Luftwaffe. Dad also said former Governor Bill Milliken was part of an international satanic conspiracy.

– recently the younger Friske was one of the few to vote against legislation banning deep fake celeb porn

For those of you who don't know the original joke, here it is:

Person 1: My grandfather died at Auschwitz.

Person 2: I'm so sorry for you.

Person 1: Yeah, he got drunk and fell out of the guard tower.

I never thought that I would see a real life example of this, but it appears that the Fiske family has gone above and beyond to do this.

 

Today in Defense Procurement F%$#-Ups

The M109 Paladin self-propelled 155mm howitzer was introduced in 1963, and while it is a perfectly serviceable platform, shortcomings in range and mobility have led the US Army to look for a replacement.

In the late 1980s, it was the now Advanced Field Artillery System, which after a decade morphed into the large, heavy, complex, and ruinously expensive XM2001 Crusader, which was canceled for the aforementioned features, and then they tried to replace the Paladin with the lighter, but even more complex and expensive XM1203 Non-Line of Sight Cannon (NLOS-C), and now they have US Army has canceled the M1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, because of excessive barrel wear.

High barrel wear was kind of a given, seeing as how the tube was 58 calibers long, by comparison, the 16 inch guns on the Iowa class battleships were only 50 calibers long, had a barrel life of about 290 rounds.

Given the high propellant loads, the barrel life of the M1299 was significantly less than that of the M109, which has a barrel life of about 2000 full charge rounds, which under Ukraine war type conditions is a few weeks at best.

Given the advances in manufacturing and metallurgy, my guess would be that the M1299 has a longer life than the Iowas, though in tests there are indications that it was throwing rounds down range at speeds significantly higher than that of the Iowas.

This problem was foreseeable, but not accounted for, and led to the cancellation of the program.

This focus on difficult to achieve performance has resulted in program cancellation has happened at least 3 times over the past 6 decades.

Perhaps, the Pentagon should just buy an off-the shelf system from the Germans, or the Koreans, or the French, or the Swedes.

Learning from Your Mistake

After years of opposing any common sense gun regulations, Representative Jared Golden (D-ME) has admitted that he was wrong and has changed his position:

Let us tell the tale of two congresscritters, one from the extreme northwest [sic] corner of the Continental 48 and the other just from the extreme in all things.

The extremist is speaker Johnson.

Rep. Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, has long been considered one of those "independent" bipartisan nuisances here in this shebeen. For example, he stood almost alone among Democratic members of the House opposing the most recent attempts to break this country's lunatic attraction to its firearms. Golden voted against expanded background checks, against raising the age requirement for the purchase of assault-type weapons from 18 to 21, and, ultimately, on July 29, 2022, Golden voted against an assault-weapons ban in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and in Uvalde, Texas in which those weapons were used to deadly effect. Then, this week, the Reaper dropped by Golden's congressional district in Lewiston, Maine. Golden appeared at a press conference with other Maine politicians. After Senator Susan Collins contributed her customary dollop of mushy doubletalk, this is what Jared Golden said.

“The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles, like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston, Maine. To the victims and their families, I ask for your forgiveness and support as I seek to put an end to these terrible shootings.”

This admission of responsibility and this acceptance of the necessity of change has "stunned" the national punditry, unaccustomed as it is to confronting these relics from the dusty attic of American politics. Spasms of actual governing catch everyone by surprise, particularly coming from the House of Representatives, which is newly presided over by this guy.

 "This guy," is the Speaker, who blames the shooting on no-fault divorce.

I only give limited props to Rep. Golden.  He should have come to this conclusion BEFORE it was his constituents had died.

BTW, the shooter is dead.

I Support the Right to Keep and Arm Bears

Winnie the Pooh, This Time, He Is Loaded ……… for Bear

Instagram of the Day!

Michael Che is a deliciously evil genius.

I Cannot Tell if this is Serious or Not

Shotguns Direct PAC is a dedicated organization working towards empowering the low-income and homeless communities by encouraging and enabling shotgun ownership.

We follow all waiting period requirements as mandated by law.

— Shotguns Direct™ (@ShotgunsDirect) March 25, 2023

Really, I have no clue as to whether this is satire or not.  I'd call it 60%—40% on the satire side,

I checked out their website and I am still not sure. 

I hate this, so you have to read this too.

Say What?

The New York judicial conduct commission has ruled to remove a judge from the bench for pulling a gun on a black defendant.

Normally, I would say, "Maybe the system is working,"  but the incident in question happened in 2015 or 2016, and it was only investigated after he bragged about it during a judges' convention.

How the hell does this not get investigated from the get-go?

A New York judge is in hot water this week after bragging about pulling a gun on a Black man who appeared in front of him in court.

On Thursday, the state’s judicial conduct commission ruled that judge Robert J. Putorti be removed from his position after pulling out a semi-automatic handgun on a Black defendant in the Whitehall Town Court in Washington County. After the incident, he bragged about it to his colleagues and friends for years.

According to Syracuse.com, the incident happened in late 2015 or early 2016 but wasn’t investigated until Putori boasted about his actions during a judge’s conference and then later to his supervising judge.

Putorti, who was the presiding judge over the case, agreed to a plea deal after the defendant admitted to attacking his wife and another man with a knife. Putorti also agreed to reduce the defendant’s fine to meet an amount the defendant could pay.

At a later court appearance, Putorti pulled out his legal handgun and pointed it at the defendant after he allegedly crossed a stop line in front of the judge’s bench.

The incident was largely forgotten about, but Putorti couldn’t leave it be. He later told his cousin, who was a college journalism student and bragged to his colleagues at a judge’s conference in 2018.

It appears that the inmates are running the asylum here.

This is Prize

A group of Texas knuckle draggers decided that it would good fun to intimidate a drag party.

They were greeted by heavily armed counter-protesters.

I can just imagine the expression on their faces when they realized that the queer folk that they were looking to beat down were armed: 

Fueled by months of lies teed up by far-right conspiracy mongers like Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichiklike and Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, what happened on Sunday in Roanoke, Texas, has by now become something of a familiar scene. 

Crowds were gathered outside a family friendly drag show at Anderson Distillery and Grill, close to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, some with signs accusing the establishment and its patrons of sexually abusing children, or of “grooming” them for abuse. 

This time, however, counter-protestors showed up, too. Armed with AR-15 style rifles, they outnumbered the anti-LGBTQ+ activists, according to Steven Monacelli, a journalist with Rolling Stone and Texas Observer, who was there to witness the heated exchanges and document some of the conflict on Twitter.

NOW: anti-trans activists are protesting a drag brunch in Roanoke, Texas, but are outnumbered by supporters of the event. I've only been here for about five minutes and I've already seen quite a few heated exchanges. pic.twitter.com/l4RcwWFlSZ

— steven monacelli (@stevanzetti) August 28, 2022

Shades of the "Battle of Maxton Field."

More of this.

And the Award for the Best Mistranslation Goes To

pic.twitter.com/XGGJJ1cot1

— The Devil is a Part-Timer (@AllegedKurd) July 28, 2022

For those of you who don't read ancient Greek, "ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ," translates to come and take them, currently finding favor as a taunt issued by ammosexuals who value their guns more than their children.

Tweet of the Day

Today was the first time that I have ever had an event regarding gun safety in Texas and I wasn’t protested by 40+ Men wielding A.R. 15‘s

There was not a single counter protester for the first time in my life protesting in Texas.
This time is different.

— David Hogg 🌻 (@davidhogg111) June 3, 2022

For those of you who have been living in a cave, David Hogg is a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings in Parkland, FL, and a prominent gun control advocate.

When 40+ men show up carrying AR pattern rifles, this is an attempt to intimidate people with an implicit threat of violence, and is a fairly common Texas "Thing".

The fact that the ammosexual community did not protest David Hogg is very unusual for Texas, and one would hope that this is a harbinger of things to come, but my guess is that in a few days, they will be back to the old (and insane) normal.

Normally, I Do Not Approve of Pranks Involving Firearms

But I am impressed at both the sense of humor and the mad shooting skilz of whoever did this in Kingsland, Arkansas:

The Kingsland, Arkansas water tower got shot and I can’t stop giggling… pic.twitter.com/wtX7gGmUMe

— Patrick Netherton (@PTNetherton) May 15, 2022

The alleged shooter looks exactly as I imagined, and the local constabulary has arrested Timothy Sled and charged with multiple crimes, which is fight and proper.

What he did was vandalism of public property, and the repairs will cost a rather significant amount of money for a town of only 514 residents.

Still, it is funny as hell:

Deputies have released the identity of the man who they said shot the Kingsland, Arkansas, water tower, springing a leak and bringing a national spotlight onto the birthplace of Johnny Cash.

According to the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, Timothy Sled of Kingsland is facing two felony charges tied to the vandalism, which caused a leak in the tower in a spot where a silhouette of the music legend was, making it look as though the Man in Black was relieving himself.

Deputies said Sled, 38, could face up to $20,000 in fines and 16 years in prison for the incident.

Repair work to patch the leak started Wednesday, Mayor Luke Neal said. The spray had been costing Kingsland $200 a day in losses, and repairs were expected to cost more than $5,000, great expenses for a small town of only 514 residents.

16 years and $20,000.00, huh?  That's a lot to do for the lulz, "I shot a man in Kingsland, just to watch him pee."

I Want This So Much

I came across this on Facebook, and I willing to kill a small woodland creature to get it.

This is epic.

A Return to Normal

There has been a mass shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan.

At least 3 dead.

The fact that this represents a return to normalcy is depressing as F%$#.

This is Literally a Saturday Night Live Sketch

It's the Redneck Tanning Parlor

The modern pickup truck has become little more than a way for modern men don "big boy pants."

It's a rather sad display of faux manhood:

“What are you doing?” Mr. Hall shouted from his tractor. He owns the farm next to my friend Dan’s. Dan was hoping Mr. Hall wouldn’t come by that part of the field today.

Oh well. There was Dan, shoveling manure out of the back of his Ford Explorer. “I’m shoveling manure,” he replied.

The old man thought it over for a minute. Then he asked, “Why don’t you use your truck?”

“Don’t have a truck,” Dan explained with great dignity.

Mr. Hall eyed him. “You’re ill equipped for farming,” he said. Then he put the tractor into gear and rolled off.

………

Sure, Dan would love a truck. But like most smallholders, money is tight. Every truck he looks at falls into one of two categories: (A) It’s the right size, but so old it’s not worth the money. (B) It’s the right age, but so big that he can’t afford to fill the tank.

That’s the irony of the modern pick-up. It used to be that, if you drove a truck, you were either a farmer, a rancher, or some kind of handyman. It wasn’t a status thing. It didn’t make you tough or macho. It just meant that…well, you needed a truck.

……….

These pickups aren’t designed for work. Just the opposite, in fact. The truck market is compensating for the decline of its traditional constituents: the independent, blue-collar worker.

………

Earlier this month, a 16-year-old in a shiny new F-250 was rolling coal at some bicyclists when he plowed into six of them. When I was his age, I was driving a Ford, too: a prehistoric two-door the size of a new Camry. It didn’t have seatbelts, let alone power windows. It didn’t sound like it ate a band of demons, either. More like a big bowl of franks and beans. But it hauled as many bushels of strawberries as I could pick in a day. Which, you know, is what trucks are for.

At least they used to be. Pickups are quickly becoming part of the whole “blue collar chic” thing. It’s like how actresses and politicians are really into wearing Carhartt jackets.

Just like the, "Redneck Tanning Parlor," sketch on Saturday Night Live in the the 1980s.  (See the video)

………

It’s the same with guns. As farmers make up a dwindling share of the pickup market, hunters now make up a smaller portion of the gun market. They’ve been overtaken by “shooters,” which is a polite term for collectors. That means fewer gun owners today have a real, visceral association between pointing a weapon at something, pulling the trigger, and taking its life. Which probably doesn’t make for a kinder, safer America.

Don’t get me wrong. I love guns even more than I love trucks. But the culture is changing. More and more, trucks and guns are what my priest calls “big boy toys.” They’re not tools. They’re not for anything. They’re just another consumer good, a fashion statement, an accessory. And they look great with a Carhartt jacket.

The market is flooded with big boy toys. Men aren’t focused on starting families and buying property the way they used to be. That makes owning a truck (and a gun) harder for folks who need them. They’re more expensive and more heavily regulated. They also carry more of a “stigma” as the kids would say.

Too often, this Americana becomes a substitute for the American values they’re supposed to represent. It’s “performative,” as the libs would say. We want the strength, stability, and independence that the yeoman farmer represents—but that’s too hard, so we’ll just roll some coal on a Prius instead.

This is not an essay I would expect to see on a website for a publication called The American Conservative.

5 Dead, 2 Wounded in Mass Shooting in Norway

This is odd for two reasons, mass shootings are rare in Norway, and the shooter was armed with a bow and arrow.

This is some profoundly weird sh%$: 

A man armed with a bow and arrow killed five people and wounded two others in a series of attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg on Wednesday, local police said.

The suspect was in custody, police added.

"The man used a bow and arrow ... for some of the attacks," police chief Oeyvind Aas told reporters. The police were investigating whether other weapons had also been used, he said.

"The man has been apprehended ... from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone," Aas added.

Given that the last mass shooting in Norway was Anders Breivik who killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, this is not so bad.

Unlike Breivik, I don't think that whoever this is will have close ties to the American far right.

Bow and arrow is just not their style.