On the road again

 

My wife and I are on the way to LibertyCon in Chattanooga.  It's our "home" convention, bringing together authors, publishers and fans for a fun weekend every year.  After that, we'll be spending a few days in Georgia, researching a new book.

Blogging will be light and intermittent for the next week and a half.  Sadly, that includes my regular meme posts, as I won't have time to browse the Web to find new material.  As and when I can, I'll put up a post or two.  Regular blogging will recommence on July 1st.

Meanwhile, please check in now and again to find anything I've been able to post;  and spend a bit of time with the bloggers listed in my sidebar.  They write good, too!

Prayers for a safe journey and a peaceful return will, as always, be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, friends.

Peter

Are some "researchers" just perverts with official titles?

 

I was horrified to read comments by Defense Secretary Hegseth last week about some of the "research" being funded by his department in recent years.

President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, testified before the Senate that the Department of Defense was spending tens of millions of dollars on tests that involved sticking “marbles in the rear ends of cats.”

Hegseth brought up the cruel and wasteful animal research during his testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Wednesday.

The exchange began as Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin grilled Hegseth about his administration ending many wasteful research grants.

“Give me an example of a ‘boondoggle’ in medical research and defense health,” Sen. Durbin said, likely unprepared for the response.

“I mean, we’re talking about some stuff I shouldn’t say in public, you know, marbles in the rear ends of cats, tens of millions of dollars,” Hegseth said while pantomiming inserting a marble in a cat’s rectum. “Things that don’t have a connection to what you’re talking about ... the Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked to whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield.”

. . .

Through Freedom of Information Act requests, WCW uncovered a $10 million DoD contract funded through the Navy’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for grotesque experiments on cats at the University of Pittsburgh. These sick tests involved inserting marbles and balloons into the rectums of cats and subjecting them to electroshock treatments to study constipation and erectile dysfunction.

WCW provided The Gateway Pundit with photos from the experiments.

There's more at the link, including the photographs mentioned above (which I'm not going to reproduce here, because I find them disgusting and cruel).

I can't even begin to understand how inserting marbles into cats' rectums (recta???) can possibly assist studies into "constipation and erectile dysfunction".  I can't even figure out how cats' erections have anything to do with human erections, apart from the usual inflationary causes, so to speak.  As far as their human owners are concerned, cats might even be described as anti-erectionary . . . there's a reason why one of our feline companions pets masters is known as "cattus interruptus"!

All jokes aside, though, how was such "research" ever even envisaged, let alone authorized and funded?  Was/is there any genuine benefit to be derived from it?  It looks to me as if some perverted, animal-hating, cruel SOB devised this "research" purely for the kicks he/she could get out of it, and then persuaded some equally perverted SOB to shell out taxpayer dollars to pay for it.  I can see no other reason for this at all.

I'm delighted that Secretary Hegseth has put a stop to this.  Now, how about referring all concerned for criminal investigation on the grounds of cruelty to animals?  I submit that an appropriate punishment might be to use them as research subjects in the same way as the cats - perhaps using bowling balls instead of marbles, to ensure a more appropriate fit.  While we're at it, how about freezing the bowling balls before use, so we can claim to be studying frigidity?

Peter

"What Do I Do When Someone is Shooting At Me?"

 

That's the title of a lengthy article by Marc MacYoung, a well-known self-defense and street-smarts instructor.  He offers ways to analyze a situation and assess the real risks it entails, rather than merely react in a knee-jerk fashion to events you don't understand.  Here's an excerpt.

I came up with a list of the six most common results when someone IS trying to kill you. They are:

1) You die

2) You spend a long time in the hospital

3) Someone runs away (usually you)

4) You shoot back (often prompting the other person to retreat)

5) You retaliate with such ferocity the other person is injured, killed or runs away

6) Someone else intervenes resulting in some combination of 1-5. 

If those weren't the results, then the person WASN'T trying to kill you -- no matter WHAT you want to believe or tell others.

In a similar vein, just because someone is waving a gun, that isn't the same as them shooting. And– in a bit you'll see why this is important– just because you're in an area where someone is shooting doesn't necessarily mean they're shooting at you specifically.

If there's a gun spitting lead, it's safe to assume the person is trying to kill. The question is "Who?" If not you then someone else. People intending to kill you usually don't stop until 

a) they've succeeded, 

b) they believe they have succeeded or 

c) the danger to them becomes too great to continue. 

The importance of that is simple: People who are trying to kill someone else don't really care about you unless you get in their way. Someone who is trying to kill you specifically will be more dedicated to that task than someone intent on killing someone else or anybody in the area. This strongly effects what your options are.

That is why you must look at what happens before it becomes physical -- even with weapons. Because what is going on before the weapon is drawn and what occurs while the weapon is displayed is critical for assessing what is the best course of action for you.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

Mr. MacYoung is well qualified to talk about the overall environment of crime and violence "on the street", as opposed to in textbooks.  He goes well beyond the "how to use a gun to defend yourself" perspective, and discusses whether or not you should use a gun at all, and how using one may get you into more trouble than refraining.  He also points out that if you don't understand the situation, you're much more likely to make a mistake that lands you in trouble with the law rather than your adversaries.  Best of all, of course, is not to be in an area where you're exposed to trouble of that sort.

As another well-known instructor, John Farnam, has said (and we've repeatedly quoted in these pages):

The best way to handle any potentially injurious encounter is: Don’t be there. Arrange to be somewhere else. Don’t go to stupid places. Don’t associate with stupid people. Don’t do stupid things. This is the advice I give to all students of defensive firearms. Winning a gunfight, or any other potentially injurious encounter, is financially and emotionally burdensome. The aftermath will become your full-time job for weeks or months afterward, and you will quickly grow weary of writing checks to lawyer(s). It is, of course, better than being dead or suffering a permanently disfiguring or disabling injury, but the “penalty” for successfully fighting for your life is still formidable.

Crowds of any kind, particularly those with an agenda, such as political rallies, demonstrations, picket lines, etc are good examples of “stupid places.” Any crowd with a high collective energy level harbors potential catastrophe. To a lesser degree, bank buildings, hospital emergency rooms, airports, government buildings, and bars (particularly crowded ones) fall into the same category. All should be avoided. When they can’t be avoided, we should make it a practice to spend only the minimum time necessary there and then quickly get out.

“A superior gunman is best defined as one who uses his superior judgment in order to keep himself out of situations that would require the use of his superior skills.”

Wise words, particularly in our cities where demonstrations and riots are becoming a daily event.  An unarmed, apparently non-violent protester has already been shot dead through being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Let's not follow his tragic example.

Peter

Two great images

 

I found both these images while scrolling through photographs on social media.  One was just amazing:  the other made me laugh out loud.

The first is a fantastic ultra-close-up shot of a dragonfly covered in water droplets.  The sheer artistry of nature can be breathtaking.

The second is just too funny.  Babies' expressions are often that way!

Captures the moment perfectly, doesn't it?

When I have a couple of minutes to spare, I enjoy browsing through photographs like these.  They can really brighten my day.  I hope these two brightened yours.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 266

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Dances composed for full orchestra have long been a staple of Central and Eastern Europe.  Well-known examples include Brahms' Hungarian Dances and Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, which still form part of the modern classical music repertoire.  There are also less well-known collections, including the Moravian Dances collection by Czech composer Leoš Janáček, dating from 1888.  I thought you might enjoy hearing them.

If you enjoyed that, try his Lachian Dances, based on themes from the Moravian Wallachian region.

There are lots of orchestrated folk songs and dances in the classical world.  They repay exploration.

Peter

Israel strikes Iran, and the "little people" pay the price

 

I'm not going to get into finger-pointing over who did what, with which, to whom, and who did it first.  The facts appear to be that Iran had refused to give up its uranium enrichment program.  According to Israel, Iran had, in fact, gathered enough enriched nuclear material to make up to 15 nuclear weapons, and was in the process of trying to assemble them over the past week or so.  Israel felt it had no choice but to interrupt the process.  As a result, the bombs and missiles (so far, thank God, non-nuclear) are flying again.

The problem with a nuclear weapon is that it changes the dynamic permanently if, and only if, it's used.  Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960's, if rumor is correct, and (based on the Vela incident in 1979, of which I had more than passing knowledge) probably upgraded much of its nuclear arsenal to thermonuclear weapons in the 1980's and beyond.  However, because it's never admitted to having them, and has never been proved to have detonated one, it's been able to stop further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  Let that "plausible deniability" curtain be torn down, even by a nuclear test, and every nation in that part of the world will have nukes before you can say boo to a camel.  Let a nuclear weapon be used against an enemy, and that'll happen even faster.  (For example, I understand Saudi Arabia has bankrolled part of the Pakistani nuclear program, and Saudi has Chinese ballistic missiles that can carry such weapons.  I think it'd take only as long as transport aircraft would need to fly from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia for the latter country to have its own nuclear arsenal.)

So far, Israel's strikes against Iran have used only conventional weapons.  One hopes that'll continue . . . because if one of those strikes should (God forbid) actually set off one of Iran's nukes, or blow up a reactor causing massive radiation pollution of the area and everything (and every country) downwind, then hell's come to breakfast.  If Israel uses a nuclear weapon against Iran, hell will be there for lunch and supper too.

The real tragedy of these strikes, and any Iranian retaliation, is that the "little people" nearby - the ordinary citizens who live close to the targets - are going to suffer very severely.  Bombs don't care if you're innocent or guilty;  they'll kill you anyway.  There may be thousands killed and wounded in these strikes, on both sides.  Nobody is thinking about them, and they'll get precious little help from the authorities, who are preoccupied with preserving their weapons and related programs, and with hitting back.

I have all too intimate personal knowledge of the victims of violence, those caught in the crossfire between two enemies.  I've tried to stop the bleeding from their shattered limbs, and held them in my arms as their lives fled their tortured, tormented bodies.  I've picked up the pieces of their corpses (and yes, I mean that literally).  They are not responsible for the evils being done around them, but they pay the greatest price for them.  Nobody cares about them.  Those giving the orders and wreaking the havoc are focused on "bigger" problems.  The innocent who are caught up in the violence are just "collateral damage".

That may sound OK to those killing them, but it's very cold comfort indeed to those doing the dying.  Try telling a shrieking, wailing two-year-old whose mother has just been decapitated by a burst of fire from a machine-gun that "everything's going to be OK".  It's not.  She may not be able to reason at all, at her age, but she knows that the face that's looked down with love at her all her little life is now unrecognizable raw red blood and brains and fragments of bone splattered against a wall.  She knows - but cannot understand why - the arms that have always cradled her when she needed comfort are now limp and lifeless.  A strange man she's never seen before is trying to take her away from her mother to whom she's desperately clinging, whose love and reassurance she desperately needs but will never know again.  How do you tell that child that she's just "collateral damage", and that she should suck it up and get on with life?

Those are the people I'm thinking about this morning.  Once you've seen their suffering, you can't forget it.

May Almighty God have mercy on them all . . . because nobody else is going to.

Peter

I like this sheriff

 

As most readers know by now, Saturday, June 14th is being called "No Kings" day, with pro-illegal-immigrant, pro-socialist, pro-progressive left-wing demonstrations being organized across the country.

Around here, our cops aren't worrying too much about it.  Their biggest problem, if such demonstrations arise (I doubt they will), is going to be to stop enthusiastic locals dealing with the problem before the police can arrive to protect the demonstrators.  This part of Texas ain't friendly to rioters.

I think the best law enforcement approach was exemplified by Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, Florida, yesterday.  Here's the centerpiece of his address, set up to start and end at the right points.

Nicely put, Sheriff!

Peter