If West Point is this bad, no wonder it graduated a Communist

I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with the nastiness surrounding 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone, who posed in uniform for pro-Communist photographs and disrespected the Secretary of Defense and others on his social media accounts.

An open letter by retired LtCol Robert M. Heffington, a former lecturer at the US Military Academy at West Point, paints a grim picture of the institution.

... during my time on the West Point faculty (2006–2009 and again from 2013–2017), I personally witnessed a series of fundamental changes at West Point that have eroded it to the point where I question whether the institution should even remain open.

. . .

First and foremost, standards at West Point are nonexistent. They exist on paper, but nowhere else. The senior administration at West Point inexplicably refuses to enforce West Point’s publicly touted high standards on cadets, and, having picked up on this, cadets refuse to enforce standards on each other. The Superintendent refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses to enforce standards of conduct and discipline. The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire institution. Nothing matters anymore. Cadets know this, and it has given rise to a level of cadet arrogance and entitlement the likes of which West Point has never seen in its history.

Every fall, the Superintendent addresses the staff and faculty and lies. He repeatedly states that “We are going to have winning sports teams without compromising our standards,” and everyone in Robinson Auditorium knows he is lying because we routinely admit athletes with ACT scores in the mid-teens across the board. I have personally taught cadets who are borderline illiterate and cannot read simple passages from the assigned textbooks. It is disheartening when the institution’s most senior leader openly lies to his own faculty — and they all know it. The cadet honor code has become a laughingstock. Cadets know they will not be separated for violating it, and thus they do so on a daily basis. Moreover, since they refuse to enforce standards on each other and police their own ranks, cadets will rarely find a cadet at an honor hearing despite overwhelming evidence that a violation has occurred.

. . .

Academic standards are also nonexistent. I believe this trend started approximately ten years ago, and it has continued to get worse. West Point has stated standards for academic expectations and performance, but they are ignored. Cadets routinely fail multiple classes and they are not separated at the end-of-semester Academic Boards. Their professors recommend “Definitely Separate,” but those recommendations are totally disregarded.

. . .

Even the curriculum itself has suffered. The plebe American History course has been revamped to focus completely on race and on the narrative that America is founded solely on a history of racial oppression. Cadets derisively call it the “I Hate America Course.” Simultaneously, the plebe International History course now focuses on gender to the exclusion of many other important themes.

. . .

Conduct and disciplinary standards are in perhaps the worst shape of all. Cadets are jaded, cynical, arrogant, and entitled. They routinely talk back to and snap at their instructors (military and civilian alike), challenge authority, and openly refuse to follow regulations.

There's much more at the link.

If LtCol. Heffington's allegations are true, then they serve as a public indictment and condemnation of every Superintendent and senior administrator at West Point for at least the last generation or so.  Such problems don't arise overnight - they develop slowly, one mistake or lapse building on another until the whole edifice is rotten to the core.

I presume that by now, Secretary of Defense Mattis and Secretary of the Army McCarthy are aware of LtCol. Heffington's open letter.  I further presume that they're investigating the entire Rapone affair, and trying to figure out how to solve the problems it's exposed.  I wish them the best of luck in that endeavor . . . and I hope and trust their efforts will result in speedy reforms, including the removal of any and every officer, administrator and lecturer who contributed to the current, seemingly poisonous atmosphere at West Point.  If LtCol. Heffington is correct, it can only be described as inimical to good order and discipline, and a potentially fatal weakness for any fighting service.  How can it fight and win if its leaders are educated and formed in such an environment?

Finally, one hopes that the other US service academies will also be checked out, to make sure that none of the problems identified at West Point exist there, too.  If they do, they'll have to be dealt with just as speedily and just as severely.

Peter

USS McCain heads for repair - riding on another ship

USS John S. McCain, the destroyer damaged in a collision off Japan earlier this year, is on her way to the shipyard for repairs.  GCaptain posted the news, along with this time-lapse video of the destroyer being positioned aboard the transport ship MV Treasure, which had been ballasted down to allow the warship to float over her mid-section.  After McCain was in position, the ballast was pumped out, raising the ship's deck (and her cargo) out of the water.

That was some intricate maneuvering, and some good work by the tugs.

Peter

A "war on the GOP establishment"? It's about time!

Let me begin by reiterating what I've said many times before:  I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat.  I distrust both major political parties in the USA.  I regard them as motivated far more by what's good for them, than by what's good for the country as a whole.

That said, when I read this headline yesterday:

Bannon Declares War On GOP Establishment: "We're Coming After All Of Them And We're Going To Win"

I couldn't help laughing out loud.  It's long overdue - and if it leads to civil war within the GOP, and the possible loss of that party's slim Senate majority, who cares?  They're as bad as the Democrats.  I don't see how that'll make them any less or any more effective . . . unless we get rid of the self-seekers and the time-servers among them, and replace them with people who'll put the country first.

The fight appears to have been launched with Breitbart's exposé of Tennessee senator Bob Corker's underhanded deal to get millions of dollars from an Alabama retail development, paid for by the taxpayers of that state.  Immediately after the deal was uncovered, Corker announced that he would not be running for re-election next year.  If that's not a tacit admission of guilt, I don't know what is!  It was clearly a "sweetheart deal" between political cronies, and not in the public interest at all.

Steve Bannon, former White House chief of staff and boss of Breitbart, has now thrown down the gauntlet.

Bannon said he is declaring "war" on the Republican establishment and those that don't back what President Trump ran on. He said there is a "new game in town" and promised to "cut off the oxygen" to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and stop his fundraising for establishment candidates. Bannon said any person running for the Senate in 2018 that wants his support must oppose McConnell as the Republican Leader.

The Breitbart chief gave a warning to all incumbents: "Just voting is not good enough. You have to have a sense of urgency. Nobody is safe. We are coming after all of them and we're going to win."

Bannon also called on Sen. Bob Corker to resign immediately. He said McConnell, Corker and the entire "establishment global clique" on Capitol Hill have to go.

"If Bob Corker has any honor, any decency, he should resign immediately," Bannon said. "He should get back in because he's going to get crushed in a primary. He doesn't have the guts to get in -- he doesn't have the guts to get back in the race. He should resign immediately."

There's more at the link, and in this TV interview (which is pretty explosive stuff, and worth watching).

The "swamp" in Washington is ruled by self-serving, self-aggrandizing denizens from both sides of the political divide.  I think the Democratic Party needs its own Steve Bannon, to drive out its own incumbent problem children and bring new blood into Washington.  Let's get politicians in there who are genuinely seeking the good of the country, not their parties - and then let them have an honest debate, and some honest deal-making.

• "You want billions of dollars for environmental causes?  Well, OK - if you give us an honest immigration policy, with a wall and the teeth to get rid of illegal aliens."
• "You want more defense spending?  Well, OK - but only if you cut spending elsewhere to compensate."

That's the sort of horse-trading this country needs;  finding solutions that are bipartisan and that work, not deals that feather the nests of those making them!

Peter

OK, that's some clever carving!

I woke up this morning to find that three readers had independently sent me this picture.  I don't know its source.

A clever design and great execution.  It's a pity it was left attached to the stump . . . that would look great in a museum or exhibition, or even in someone's home as a central talking point.

Peter

I've been there. This is the reality of much of inner-city America.

As a pastor, I spent several weeks in Philadelphia some years ago.  I drove through the neighborhood described in this article, and tried to minister to some of its residents.  I saw then what the author describes today.  It hasn't changed.

The poverty rate and true unemployment rate in these West Philly neighborhoods exceed 50%. Over 80% of the children are born out of wedlock. The crime rate is off the charts. The residents are functionally illiterate and completely dependent on the state for their sustenance. Drug dealing is the main form of commerce. There are as many vacant boarded up, dilapidated, crumbling fleapits as there are occupied eyesores. I’ve witnessed some of these pigsties fall down after a heavy rain. The steady deterioration of West Philly continues unabated as Democrat welfare policies encourage dependency, ignorance, sloth, and depravity.

Sink holes appear and are ignored for months by the less than pro-active government drones. They dig holes to fix whatever sewer or water line has broken underground, but feel no obligation to refill the holes. Gaping chasms in the middle of streets remain for months, as incompetent, uncaring, union government workers and their bureaucrat paper pushing apparatchik bosses care more about their gold plated pension plans and retaining their bennies than serving the public. Exploding water mains flood entire neighborhoods on a regular basis as city taxes are funneled to corrupt politicians and their cronies, rather than basic infrastructure needs.

. . .

Democrat politicians in West Philly and hundreds of other urban shitholes throughout the country ... [have] no intention of helping blacks succeed. Keeping them chained on a welfare plantation ensures their votes to keep their free shit coming. So they are left living in neighborhoods like this ... This is what 50 years of Great Society welfare programs and rule by Democrat politicians has wrought. Bombed out German cities after World War II looked better.

There's much more at the link, including more photographs.

I've had the opportunity to minister to inner-city communities in several US urban areas, in states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, South Carolina, California, and others.  In all of them, I saw approximately what the author describes in West Philadelphia.  It's mind-boggling to see such squalor and hopelessness in the middle of the richest country in the world . . . but it's a reality.

People in these neighborhoods have no conception of working for what they get.  They either take what they want (by stealing it, or committing crimes to pay for it), or they demand that the government (local, state or federal) give it to them.  If the "gravy train" of government handouts dries up for any reason, they feel absolutely justified in taking what they want from anyone and everyone within reach - including wholesale looting, if necessary.

I've personally witnessed a West Philly neighborhood store get emptied of food within half an hour by shouting, screaming "welfare ninjas" who couldn't wait for their next infusion of government (read:  taxpayer) cash.  One woman just stormed in and started helping herself, screaming at the storekeeper that he was "a racist piece of ****" who exploited them for their welfare benefits, so now he was going to help her, whether he liked it or not.  As he called the police (from behind the bulletproof glass partition that surrounded the till area), others standing around outside suddenly decided to join in, and started stripping the shelves of anything they wanted.  More arrived as word spread.  By the time the cops arrived, the store was denuded of its stock.  I saw grown men running down the streets, cramming entire bags of candy into their mouths, throwing the empty packets away, shouting unintelligibly at each other with their mouths full, laughing and posturing at their "success".  Others offered "high-fives" in congratulation, running alongside the thieves and holding out their hands for their share of the loot.

Those of us who believe in the rule of law, who work for a living, and who take pride in providing for our families, are living in a different world to these people.  If push comes to shove, they'll be along to take whatever they want from us - and they'll scream at us for being racist, and selfish, and anything else they can think of, if we resist or dare to "push back".

Welcome to the low-hanging fruit of the "welfare state" - the "entitlement society".

Peter

Weinstein and Hollywood: same old, same old

The current scandal swirling around Harvey Weinstein and his sexual antics is nothing new in the history of show business.  It's always been regarded (and frequently has been in reality) a hotbed (you should pardon the expression) of sexual immorality, whatever the "morality" of the time may have been.  Alan Royle has noted:

... right from the beginning, morality was an issue in the fledgling [movie] industry. Regardless of their sexual persuasion, the coming together of a lot of physically attractive, young people, created a target rich environment for carnal predators, and in Hollywood there has never been a shortage of those. Add into the mix a virtual limitless supply of money, booze and drugs, and no discipline to speak of, coupled with a liberal sprinkling of European men and women who brought their own brand of ‘sexual freedom’ with them, and any semblance of maintaining even a modicum of morality tended to fly straight out of the window.

. . .

MGM had an account at The House of Francis [a Hollywood brothel] under an assumed name, so that Mayer could treat out of town guests (usually major distributors of his films) to ‘freebies’. Once he opened Mae’s, however, he closed his account and bribed the police to close the House of Francis forever. LB did not like competition.

Mayer never went to any of these establishments himself. There was no need to. Every girl he signed at MGM was first ‘sampled’ by him in his adjoining private room next to his office. He would give them his ‘fatherly’ speech, accompanied by a piece of fatherly advice. ‘I will look after you, but first you must look after me’. Most of them did, right there in his private room. Not that Mayer was alone in this regard, not by a long shot. The universally detested Harry Cohn, head of Universal Studios, verbally and/or physically ravaged every girl he signed. He would use a pencil to open a girl’s mouth so he could check her teeth. Then he would use it to lift her dress and inspect her thighs and what lay between them. If he liked what he saw, he took the lucky applicant into his private dressing-room and mounted her.

There's more at the link.

Today a commenter noted that the Weinstein scandal was "just the beginning" of what may come out about the current situation in Hollywood.  What I find most sickening about it is the degree to which the Hollywood "powers that be" stick together and cover up for each other's abuse of young, vulnerable would-be performers.  It's a very widespread problem, not confined to the movie industry alone.  It's in any and every form of entertainment.  To take just one example, the number of scandals surrounding so-called "boy bands" is legion.

Lord Acton famously said:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.

And, on another occasion:

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

As far as Hollywood is concerned, it's a case of "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."




Peter

The tired old argument about magazine capacity surfaces again

The Los Angeles Times is resurrecting the tired old debate about whether "high-capacity" magazines should be banned or more strictly controlled.

Perhaps the single most important dereliction of duty by Congress in recent years is the expiration of the ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, which was enacted in 1994 and lasted only for 10 years.

There were signs during the ban that it was beginning to take these especially lethal weapons out of criminal inventories. Gun violence experts believe that trend would have continued, had the ban remained in effect. Instead, Congress allowed it to lapse in 2004. The consequence has been increased use of these weapons in crimes of all sorts ever since.

. . .

Mass shootings such as the Las Vegas event account for a very small proportion of total U.S. gunfire violence, but tend to seize the public’s attention because of the sheer number of victims and the sense that they’re random victims, injured just from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than inviting violence through an association, say, with drug dealers or organized crime. Assault weapons magnify the toll because of their murderous efficiency — they allow many more shots to be fired than conventional weapons, which translates into more people getting hit and more of them suffering multiple injuries.

. . .

The recovery of assault weapons with large-capacity magazines — the feature that best defines those weapons — has risen by almost 50% in Baltimore, where their prevalence was estimated at 11.1% of gunfire crimes in the first years after the ban expired and 16.5% by mid-2014. In Richmond, Va., their prevalence among seized firearms has more than doubled.

Weapons with large-capacity magazines, which are defined as those that can hold more than 10 rounds at a time, appear to be especially prevalent among guns used in murders of police — assault weapons accounted for up to about 16% of the weapons in those crimes, but large-capacity magazines were seen in more than 40% of those incidents.

There's more at the link - not that it's worth reading.  It makes the usual mistake of conflating feelings and opinions with facts.  Oh, it calls upon pseudo-scientific "facts" . . . but when you analyze them, and test them in the real world, they fall apart.

Former Sheriff Ken Campbell of Boone County, Indiana (now running Gunsite Academy in Arizona) conducted a pretty definitive test comparing higher-capacity magazines to lower-capacity ones.  He demonstrated that the time taken to use multiple smaller magazines, including swapping them out, was not appreciably greater than using fewer, larger-capacity magazines.  Here's the video.  After a few introductory text screens, the action begins at 1m. 45sec.

The Las Vegas shooter would have been able to kill just as many people using smaller magazines as he did using the very-high-capacity units he'd purchased for the purpose.  It would have taken him perhaps two or three minutes longer to do so, at the very most.

So much for high-capacity magazine bans.  They're nothing more than a feel-good panacea for those who won't face facts.

Peter

Blogorado, Day 5 - homeward bound

They do say that all good things must come to an end.  Sadly, Blogorado 2017 drew to a close this morning, with a final gathering for breakfast at the venue that's become known to most of us as the Obligatory Cow Reference (due to its name).  Our numbers weren't as great as the day before, because several people left yesterday in order to get back to work on Monday;  but there were enough of us to keep the waitress running hard.  I indulged my inner glutton with huevos rancheros, with a side of breakfast steak.  Delicious!

Miss D. and I were among the first to depart, shivering in a chilly 38° (F) morning with a stiff breeze blowing from the north and west.  It warmed up rapidly as we headed south, so that by the time we hit Amarillo, it was in the mid-50's.  (I was wondering why our fuel economy was hovering at almost 38 miles per gallon, far better than expected, until I got out of the car at a gas station in Amarillo.  That's when I found out that a very strong tail wind had been blowing us merrily along.  I daresay, if I'd been able to erect a sail on the car's roof, we'd have made about the same time without the aid of the engine!)  Turning east-south-east to head for home, the tail wind became a cross-wind that made driving tricky for a while.  It was still very strong, so much so that most of the wind turbines near Amarillo had been shut down;  but it eased off as we drew nearer to our destination.  By the time we got home, the wind was mild, and temperatures were in the mid-70's.  I fear our recent hosts are still shivering at around freezing point tonight.

All the fun and games (plus driving there and back, and to and fro during our stay) caught up with me this afternoon.  I had to take one of my stronger pain-killers when we got home, to get my injured back under control, and flopped into bed immediately after supper to rest for a while and let it take effect.  I'm feeling more human now, although still a little dehydrated after several days of sun and fun.  I have a liter of water at my side as I type these words, and I think I'll drink most of it before I go back to bed.

Normal blogging will resume tomorrow morning, God willing.  Thanks for your patience while I've been out and about.

Peter

Blogorado, Day 4

Another fine, warm day with lots of noise.  We met at Ye Olde Local Hostelry for breakfast as usual, then headed out to the farm, and from there to the shooting range.  The muzzle-loading cannon had departed, along with its owner, but there were still more than enough firearms for everyone to enjoy.

We scrounged around among ourselves and came up with several hundred more rounds of .22LR ammunition for our young Australian visitor to turn into smoke and noise.  I suspect her fellow teenagers back home are going to be green with envy when she tells them how many thousand rounds she shot over the weekend - and she'll have the photographs and videos to prove it!

I was surprised to see the difference in shooting residue between .22LR CCI Mini-Mags and Federal bulk-pack ammunition (which Miss D. and I had brought with us), and Remington Golden Bullet bulk-pack ammunition (provided today by another shooter).  The Remington left a lot more detritus in the gun - a gray, sticky residue that gunked it up after a couple of hundred rounds, causing misfeeds and failure of the bolt to close properly.  A quick cleaning (I always take a cleaning kit to the range) removed the residue and restored the gun to normal operation . . . but it irritated me to have to do so.  I'm used to much cleaner-burning ammunition.  I suspect Remington has tried to manufacture its Golden Bullets to a price point rather than a quality point, and it shows.  I won't be buying their bulk packs any more.  I'd rather pay a little more for higher-quality cartridges.

There were a lot more people at the pistol range today, who'd spent the previous day at the rifle or shotgun ranges.  All sorts of handguns were in evidence, from several rimfire pistols and revolvers all the way up to the bigger magnum rounds.  There was much gigglage as people tried guns and cartridges they'd never fired before, or new versions of older favorites.  I've no idea how many thousands of rounds went downrange, but it was a lot!  A suppressed .22LR AR-15 clone, equipped with a red dot sight, was the envy of many shooters.  It made hits on steel targets so ridiculously easy that even a rank amateur would look like a sharpshooter, and the suppressor meant that ear protection wasn't needed.  It was a hoot.

I spent part of the morning testing two Mossberg 930 semi-automatic shotguns and my 90-year-old Montgomery Ward-branded Stevens 520 pump-action shotgun.  The latter worked just fine, after I'd figured out that it didn't have latches to keep the shells in the tubular magazine.  They protruded past the end of the tube, to be held in place by the shell lifter.  It looked strange to eyes accustomed to more modern designs, but it's how the shotgun was designed, and it worked just fine once we'd figured it out.  The 520 kicked hard - harder than I expected, even with its Limbsaver recoil pad - but gave no problems.  I think it'll make a very good travel shotgun, particularly given its take-down feature to make it a smaller, more concealable package.

One of the Mossbergs, a used Jerry Miculek-branded competition model that I recently traded into, gave no trouble at all.  One of our Australian visitors took great delight in punching eight or nine rounds of buckshot out of it into the berm in rapid fire, and confided it would have been a useful gun to have in some of the tight spots he'd been in during his military service.  It didn't like low-brass birdshot rounds, which are lower-powered and didn't provide enough recoil impetus to cycle the action;  but with high-brass (i.e. more powerfully loaded) birdshot rounds, and with buckshot, it was fine.

The other Mossberg 930, though . . . that was very disappointing.  It's a brand-new, previously unfired tactical model, and it misfed rounds, failed to eject fired cases, and sometimes failed to fire at all.  I  reckon there was a malfunction of some sort every second round!  I suspect the action spring(s) are defective in some way.  It's going straight back to Mossberg next week, with a strongly worded letter of complaint.  It should never have left the factory in this condition.  I suspect their quality control people are falling down on the job.  Once again, it demonstrated the necessity of never taking a new-to-you gun's functioning for granted (as I mentioned yesterday).  Any gun, and the ammunition you select for it, should be thoroughly tested before you entrust your life to its/their reliability.

Lunch (prepared at the farm and grilled at the range) was hamburgers with all the trimmings (except ketchup, which was forgotten in the rush;  I found a combination of mayonnaise and Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce worked just fine as a replacement).  The old portable gas grill had been giving trouble the day before, and continued to do so today, so FarmMom issued an executive decree;  after lunch, it was to be turned into a target.  It was duly positioned well down-range, to avoid bullet ricochets and/or back-splatter, and everyone loaded up their rifles.  On the command, a "mad minute" ensued, everyone emptying their magazines at the hapless grill and riddling it with more holes than the average Swiss cheese.  (There'll be a replacement on hand in time for Blogorado next year.)

We gathered at the farm once more for supper (a beef stew with garlic bread) and more conversation.  It was a quieter evening than earlier ones, because some of our number had to leave during the day on Sunday, to get home in time to go to work on Monday.  The rest of us will be having breakfast together on Monday morning, then heading out in all directions.  It'll be sad to say goodbye, but we know that Blogorado 2018 is already in the planning stages!  (Note to self:  must bring lots more rimfire ammunition next year!)

Miss D. and I will be heading homewards as well.  We'd planned to spend a couple of days in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, doing research for a forthcoming book, but we're told it's already snowed there, and another cold front is scheduled to arrive on Monday, bringing more snow and ice.  I don't do well in that sort of cold (hey, I'm an African boy, and snow and ice aren't in our vocabulary much!), so we'll postpone the research trip until a warmer time of year.  Please say a prayer for us, if you're so inclined, for traveling mercies.  I expect to resume normal blogging by Tuesday.

Peter

Blogorado, Day 3

Today was our first day at the range.  Much fun and games for all concerned.

I brought along several firearms I needed to function-test.  Saturday was revolver day;  three .357 Magnum and .38 Special revolvers.  I tested them with Sellier & Bellot 158gr. LRN (lead round nose) ammunition as a first step, and found to my surprise that two out of the three revolvers (both snubnosed, short-barrel firearms) "hung up" after four rounds.  They were recoiling hard enough to "pull" the bullets a little out of the cartridge cases, meaning that they protruded out of the front of the cylinder, preventing it from turning.  This surprised me, as I hadn't had that problem before.  I suspect my latest batch of S&B ammunition might have been less tightly crimped than what I'm used to.  However, both firearms functioned just fine with other rounds - some Winchester ball and a box of Sig Sauer 125gr. JHP +P.  I therefore don't hold the malfunctions against the guns.  Tomorrow (Sunday) will be shotgun testing day.  I have three tactical/defensive short-barrel shotguns to function-test, and I brought with me 250 rounds of 00 buckshot for the purpose.  Since I don't want to bruise my shoulder by firing all of them, I'll be offering the shotguns to all and sundry to put rounds downrange.

(The ammo issue with my revolvers highlights a very important point.  Far too many people buy a handgun in a moment of fear or tension, plus a box of generic ammunition, but never test-fire it, or at best only fire a few rounds.  Thereafter, they put it away and don't shoot it again for years, if ever.  That can be dangerous if the ammunition they've bought isn't a good match for the gun.  If I'd relied on that S&B ammunition, in those revolvers, I might have been "caught short" by a malfunction when I needed to defend myself.  Far better to put at least a box or two of your chosen defensive ammunition through your defensive firearm, to make sure it functions properly.  No firearm is malfunction-proof, so it's best to test your chosen gun-ammo combination before entrusting your life to it.  If problems arise, change the ammo, or the gun, or both, before it's too late.)

Miss D. brought one of her Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Lite handguns and about 900 rounds of ammunition - far more than she needed for herself, but we brought extra for others who might want to play.  It turned out that our Australian visitors, whom I mentioned yesterday, wanted to play very much!  Julie's daughter is now of an age to be allowed to use rimfire ammunition, according to Australia's rather odd-seeming firearms laws, so she had a heap of fun burning through almost all our .22LR ammunition.  She's already nagging her mom to buy a similar gun in Australia, promising to buy it off her when she turns 21.

While her daughter was playing with Miss D.'s pistol, Julie and the rest of her party were having a great time shooting everything available.  (That's one of the fun things about our Blogorado gathering;  everyone lets everyone else shoot their guns and use their ammunition, so one can get a great deal of hands-on experience in a very short, compressed timescale.)  They fired everything from .50 BMG to .22LR, including cartridges that are hard to find in Australia such as .45 GAP and 357 SIG.  They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

(I was surprised to learn that they would have to search their clothing and luggage very carefully before returning to Australia, to make sure no spent cartridge cases had fallen into pockets or folds in the material.  Even one fired cartridge case, in a caliber for which they don't have a firearms license, is apparently enough to make them criminals under Australian law.  That sounds insane to me!  Julie is taking some linked .50 BMG cases back with her, but to do so legally, she first has to have them bored through with a drill from side to side, and have the primer pocket drilled out, to render them incapable of being reloaded.  Talk about legal convolutions . . . )

One of Old NFO's friends brought along something new to all of us - a half-scale replica of a M1841 Mountain Howitzer.  The M1841 was a muzzle-loading black-powder cannon that could be disassembled into its component parts and transported on the backs of three or four mules.  Its short range meant that it wasn't much used for set-piece battles, but it could be carried where conventional artillery could not travel, making it useful during the Indian Wars.  (At Custer's disastrous last stand in 1876, he left two carriage-mounted Gatling guns and two later-model mountain howitzers behind, apparently because he felt they would slow his progress.  I suspect he might have had time to regret that, before he died.)

The replica cannon at the range yesterday was half-scale, with a 3" bore instead of the 4.62" of the full-size gun.  Technically, that would make the replica a 3-pounder cannon, instead of the full-size 12-pounder.  It fired hard-frozen bottles of water as improvised ammunition (although one can cast lead balls to fit the bore, if one is so inclined).  Old NFO had parked his car just in front of the muzzle when we arrived, so there were all sorts of "helpful" suggestions about washing the dust off it by firing the cannon loaded with non-frozen water bottles.  He declined our proffered help and moved his car, rapidly, in case we suited the action to the word!  The morning was punctuated by deep booms from the cannon and clouds of drifting blackpowder smoke.  Lots of fun.

There are thousands of Monarch butterflies moving through the area at present, on their annual southward migration.  It's a bit disconcerting to have them perch on one's barrel, or hand, or arm, as one tries to aim a firearm!  The area is also rife with prairie rattlesnakes.  FarmDad ran over one on the road to the range yesterday, and brought it to show us what one looks like (after having cut off the head - he says fervently that he never wants a dead rattlesnake with a head in his truck, in case it isn't as dead as he'd prefer).  We noted how well its skin blends in with the vegetation on the ground, making it very hard to see.  I think all of us were more careful than usual after that, looking at the ground as we walked to make sure there wasn't anything that would be dangerous to step upon.

Supper was mammoth steaks carved from the late Sir Loin, the steer we clubbed together to buy for our annual gathering.  They were immense - a good inch or more thick, and so large that many of us cut them in half, and shared one steak between two people.  The bones were discarded in the general direction of the 20-30 semi-feral cats that hang around the barn.  Hilarity ensued as the cats tried to stand on the bones while yanking at the meat on them with tooth and claw, and growling at the others to make them go and find their own supper.  One kitten had me doubled over with laughter as it growled and postured at a bone from a couple of feet away, then dashed in to rip off a piece of meat, then backed off to eat it before attacking the bone again.  It was having a great time.

On Sunday we'll gather for our usual breakfast, then adjourn to the range for another day's shooting.  I'll put up another report Sunday night or Monday morning.  Meanwhile, if you're starved for reading matter, please enjoy the blogs listed in my sidebar.

I haven't had time to prepare my usual Sunday Morning Music post, so to honor our gunblogger gathering, here's Johnny Cash with The Last Gunfighter Ballad, the title track from the album of the same name.

Peter

Blogorado, Day 2

Friday was a day for reunions with old friends, eating far too much, and preparing the Secret Shooting Range for the weekend's festivities.  Our hosts and several of our fitter, more mechanically minded members prepared steel targets by knocking off the rust gathered since last year and repainting them, then ferried everything out to the range area and set it up.  We'll have our usual four-range setup;  a short-range one for handguns, a shorter-range rifle area (primarily for rimfire), a shotgun area, and a long-range rifle table where targets will be engaged out to 750 yards.  As usual, people have brought a large variety of firearms with them, and they'll be passed around so that everyone has the opportunity to experience everything.  That's part of the fun of Blogorado.

We have an overseas visitor this year.  Julie from Jigsaw's Thoughts, who lives in Australia, came over to join us, bringing several members of her family.  They seem to be enjoying themselves, alternately boggling as our emergency response members (police, fire, EMS, etc.) exchange stories about the alarums and excursions that have entertained them, to handling all sorts of different weapons they can't have (or even see) in Australia due to different gun laws and restrictions there.  I think they're going to particularly enjoy shooting the .50 BMG rifle that aepilotjim has brought along.  (This year I've brought mostly boring stuff like shotguns and revolvers.  I figured it would be better to spend time with the weapons I'd shot least in recent years, to keep up my familiarity with them.  My 1927 modernized shotgun has attracted a lot of interest.  I brought 250 rounds of buckshot with me, so we should be able to give it, and my other shotguns, a thorough function test.)

As always, the food at Blogorado is an event in itself.  We have some very talented cooks among us, and they keep us well nourished.  We started the day by meeting at a local hostelry for breakfast.  Over the years (this is our ninth annual gathering) they've grown used to us.  Now they open up a side room for us, complete with our own urn of coffee and a stack of mugs, and give us our own waitress (who's usually run off her feet).  Lunch was leftover chicken-fried steaks from last night, with a tray of pulled pork on the side, accompanied by rolls and potato salad.  Supper was pot roast with potatoes and carrots, while Jennifer cooked her signature lumpia in the barn for those who like it - namely, everybody!  We all stuffed ourselves.  I reckon most of us leave Blogorado every year five to ten pounds heavier than when we arrived.

(Jennifer's lumpia attracted some predatory attention from one of the younger feral barn cats.  It spent quite a long time trying to figure out how to thread its way between the groups of chattering people, up to the table where the lumpia was laid out on a foil-lined tray, and then sneak up to the table-top to help itself.  It kept getting thwarted by people moving around, and having to duck under cover to avoid them - tame, it ain't.  I pointed it out to Jennifer, and we watched in amusement as it finally made it to within a couple of feet of its objective . . . only to have to run for it as Jennifer walked up to rescue the food.  That was one frustrated kitty!)

We also have our usual drink table going.  Some of us bring favorite (often quite expensive) bottles for people to try.  Others bring their home-brewed beer and cider, while Julie brought some Australian wines that she'd been able to find in US stores, to introduce us to them.  There are the usual soft drinks, bottled water, and so on.  If you go thirsty at Blogorado, it's your own fault!  Miss D. was rather taken with a keg of home-made cherry cider, and cheerfully informed me that I was driving back to our hotel, so that she could indulge properly.  I was glad to oblige.

We're staying at a rather interesting hotel this year.  It was built as a stagecoach stop in the heyday of the Wild West during the second half of the nineteenth century.  The original building burned down about seventy years ago, but was rebuilt in very similar fashion.  The rooms are small, and the floors creak so loudly that it's impossible to move quietly.  There are steam radiators in the rooms for heat, but no air-conditioning (they install window units during summer, but take them out in the fall, when temperatures drop).  Until we figured out how to turn off the steam radiator, our room was entirely too warm for comfort!  As for wireless internet, they have it, but the signal's so weak in our room that it might as well not be there at all.  (I'm posting this from the lobby, where I can at least connect to the Internet!)  I enjoy the historical atmosphere in this hotel, but I don't find it very comfortable.  I think we'll be moving to another hotel next year.

This morning (Saturday) will start with breakfast at our gathering place.  We'll raid a couple of local stores for last-minute supplies (don't want to run out of ammunition, you know!), then it's off to our shooting range for a day of fun and games.  High temperature should be in the mid-70's, while the evening will cool down to the mid-40's.  Tomorrow should be similar, with a cold front moving in on Monday, possibly bringing some snow with it.  However, that's the day our gathering ends, so we'll hopefully beat the storm out of town.

I'll post again tonight or tomorrow.  Please visit the bloggers mentioned in my sidebar if you're short of reading matter.

Peter

Blogorado, day (or, rather, evening) 1

We arrived safely in Colorado after an uneventful, but rather wet, journey.  It rained pretty solidly for about four hours, which made driving much less enjoyable, particularly when passing through the spray kicked up by long lines of semi-trailers, which reduces visibility to potentially dangerous levels.  We broke the journey in Amarillo for a quick visit with Alma Boykin, which was (as always) most enjoyable.  She's good people.

After unloading most of our baggage into our hotel room, we headed for the Highly Secret Blogorado Location, on a farm some miles out of town.  It was great to meet members of our tribe again, many of whom we haven't seen since last year.  People kept on arriving through the evening, making for many late suppers as they tucked into lobster and chicken-fried steak.  (Did I mention that the food at Blogorado makes the journey worthwhile all by itself, never mind the company or the shooting?)

There was some somber discussion of the Las Vegas shooting earlier this week.  All of us are shooting enthusiasts, but we all recognize the impact that this tragedy is likely to have on our hobby (for some of us, an avocation).  Most of us expect that so-called "bump stocks" are likely to be, if not banned altogether, at least brought under the aegis of the National Firearms Act of 1934, and treated as if they were "real" machine-guns, requiring registration and the payment of a tax.  Until now, bump stocks had been regarded by serious firearms owners as a toy, something owned only by "wannabes" who couldn't afford the price of a real full-auto weapon (or the tax stamp for it).  Las Vegas has irrevocably changed that.  Personally, I don't mind them being banned.  I've always viewed them as the sign of an amateur and a showoff.  Tragically, we now know that under the right conditions, and given an area target rather than one requiring marksmanship and precision shooting, amateur show-offs can use them to deadly effect.  (Of course, one doesn't require a bump stock to "bump fire" a rifle;  it can be done without any modification at all.  The bump stock merely makes it easier.)

I've learned, to my mortification, that as I get older, prolonged pain makes me snappish and unpleasant to be around.  It's the sort of thing one doesn't notice until a loving wife points out, as gently as possible, that one behaved very rudely to the hotel clerk when the credit card machine malfunctioned and other problems arose.  I hate that.  I'm going to apologize nicely to the clerk this morning, and I'll have to learn to watch my behavior more carefully.  Strong painkillers make the pain more bearable, but after reading up about them a few minutes ago, I now know they can also "mask" or lower one's conscious inhibitions and social controls, almost like over-indulging in alcohol.  I daren't let them turn me into a permanent grouch!  That's an important lesson learned.  Those of you who are in pretty much permanent pain, as I am, might want to think about it too.

Anyhoo, we'll be joining the rest of the clan for breakfast shortly, then it's off to the range for a day's shooting and socializing (and more great food, of course).  I'll try to post again tonight or tomorrow morning.

Peter

On the road to Blogorado 2017

Along with our friends and fellow bloggers from all over the country, Miss D. and I are on the road today, heading for our annual Blogorado rendezvous.  For the Columbus Day weekend, we'll be consuming mammoth quantities of food and firing off enough ammunition to cater for at least one hunting season (or stock the arsenals of a decent-sized police force).  It's our yearly opportunity to reunite as a tribe, and we're all looking forward to it very much.

Blogging will be sparse as a result.  We'll be spending most of our days far out in the country, where the Internet isn't available.  I'll put up posts as and when I can, but they'll probably be fewer than normal.  If you run short of reading matter, please amuse yourselves with the blogs listed in my sidebar.  They're good folks.

Following our gathering, Miss D. and I will return via a circuitous route.  We're going to take a few days to check some locations where my third Western novel, to be published next year, will be set.  We'll be heading into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, then into historic Navajo territory, before turning back towards our home in Texas.

Have a great Columbus Day weekend - and given the current uninformed, politically motivated opposition to any positive mention of him, use it to do something politically incorrect!  I'm going to fire off a couple of hundred rounds of buckshot in his honor (and test a new shotgun while I'm at it).

Peter

How would you rewrite the Second Amendment?

The Los Angeles Times has invited its readers to suggest new and "better" wording for the Second Amendment to the US constitution.

It's about the length of a tweet and has been interpreted to give us the right to bear arms. To own and carry a gun. To defend ourselves.

But it was written more than 200 years ago. Are the words still relevant in 2017? How would you change the language in your revision? What details would you add to your interpretation?

There's more at the link.  You'll find readers' suggestions below the article.

What do you think?  How - if at all - would you reword the Second Amendment?  Given its history of widely differing interpretations, I'd simplify it, to remove any possibility of confusion.  I'd word it like this:

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

What say you, readers?  Let us know your suggestions in Comments.

Peter

An interesting discussion of hypersonic weapons

Hypersonic weapons have been under development for a couple of decades, and are still up to a decade away from deployment;  but they may complicate the defensive equation to a very great extent.  Here's a discussion about them from the RAND Corporation that shows how they may change things.  It's worth watching.

The USA, Russia and China are the furthest advanced in developing hypersonic weapons.  Several other first-world nations (Britain, France, Australia, and a few others) are several years behind, but working hard to catch up (because they don't want to be left out of the new technology).  Some third-tier powers, such as South Africa, have preliminary programs looking at the field, trying to work out what they need to do to participate.  (The likely answer will be to try to steal and/or build on the research already done by major powers - that's been the case for many years, and it works, so it'll likely continue.  That's how China developed much of its present military technology.)

Peter

Sixty years ago today, Sputnik amazed the world

On 4th October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, dubbed Sputnik 1, into orbit, thus beginning the Satellite Age.  (The Space Age proper had begun some decades before, with the experiments of Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun.)

It caused an enormous stir throughout the world - even panic, in some quarters.  Here's a CBS News analysis, broadcast two days after it was launched.

It sounds rather over-the-top to us today, when we're accustomed to satellites being an indispensable part of our everyday life.

Sputnik 1 only remained in orbit for three months, but it was a harbinger of greater things to come.  The world economy today would grind to a halt without satellite services . . . but it all started with the "beep-beep-beep" of that tiny orbiting sphere.

Peter

Living with cats

It's just as infuriating - and just as much fun - as Simon's Cat demonstrates.

Peter

The Las Vegas shooter: many questions, few answers

There are so many weird things about the shooter in the Las Vegas massacre that they can make your head spin.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination - I'm the opposite, if there is such a critter! - but I have more than a passing knowledge of what's generally called "tradecraft", based on military training and experience, working with "interesting people" from the foreign equivalent of three-letter agencies, and some exposure to law enforcement.  All that background is causing my eyebrows to rise into my hairline when I read what's coming out about the Las Vegas tragedy.

Aesop, over at Raconteur Report, has done an excellent job of putting together the questions that worry him.  (They worry me, too, as they do many colleagues and friends who are as well or better trained and experienced, including some very highly qualified people with very "interesting" backgrounds.)  In chronological order, see these posts.  It's worth reading all of them, but if you're pushed for time, the third, fifth and sixth are particularly interesting.

Things That Make You Go "Hmmmmm..."

More Poking Around Vegas

Who, How, Why, and WTF?

Vegas: A Small Addendum - Reality vs. Narrative

Bombshell - Incoming

I'm Still Not Done...

I'm not suggesting that a US government agency or agencies was/were behind the Las Vegas incident.  However, I am suggesting that there are so many unexplained actions, events, "coincidences" and the like, that I don't see how this could possibly be a typical "lone wolf" terrorist action.  There was too much planning, organization, etc.  They must have taken months.  This was no sudden, impulsive act.  Either this guy was a sort of "super-lone-wolf" with (for a civilian) a truly amazing knowledge of tradecraft (not just the theory, but actually putting it into practice, and doing it so well - at the level of a highly experienced agent, in some cases - that he could be used as a case study at Quantico or Langley) . . . or he had help from a person or persons with that level of knowledge.  If neither is true, then how the hell did he get all his ducks so neatly and professionally in a row?

There's also the fact that the shooter's equipment, tactics, etc. seem to dot all the i's and cross all the t's of hot-button gun control talking points.  I could understand it if there was a measure of correlation, but there are so many "coincidences" that it's almost suspicious.  I could be wrong, of course . . . but one does wonder.  Could this man have been set up as an agent provocateur, to kick-start a previously failing agenda?  I hear from some of my former colleagues in law enforcement that the same question is being asked in certain official circles.  We shall see, I suppose.

(By the way, Donald Sensing does his usual superb job of analyzing the Las Vegas tragedy in the light of the gun control debate, and bringing reason and logic to bear on it.  Go read the whole thing.  It's worth your time.)

I have many questions.  There are - at least at present - very few answers.  I suspect the coming weeks and months will be more than interesting, as the investigation progresses.

Peter

Looks like I was right about the terrorist drone threat

In August I warned that at least some of the "close encounters of the drone kind" experienced at and near US airports recently were probably caused by terrorists.  I went on to point out that they had successfully used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) in attacks overseas, and that I expected the same to happen here.

Now comes this testimony to Congress from the FBI.

Wray issued a stark warning about the growing danger of drone and cyber terror. Terrorists want to use drones to drop grenade-sized explosives, toxins, or other harmful substances on Americans, just as they have done abroad. “We’ve seen that overseas already with growing frequency,” he said. “I think the expectation is that it’s coming here imminently.” Drones, he added, were “relatively easy to acquire, relatively easy to operate, and quite difficult to disrupt and monitor.”

Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, agreed. “Two years ago this was not a problem,” he told the committee. “A year ago it was an emerging problem. Now it’s a real problem. So we’re quickly trying to up our game.” He also said that it was unclear which agency was in charge of countering this threat, a confusion that concerned several senators.

There's more at the link.

Think of this in the light of the Las Vegas shootings earlier this week.  What if, instead of rifles fired a long way from the scene, basically spreading unaimed bullets all over the landscape, terrorists used drones to drop grenades or other munitions across the area?  It wouldn't be hard to do, and the attack could be launched from a greater distance, making it much harder to find - let alone stop - the attackers.

Terrorists may be evil, but they're not stupid, and they can use tools as well as any of us.

Peter

A unique vantage point for a spectacular air display

At the Breitling Sion Air Show in Switzerland last month, a Dassault Rafale fighter gave a spectacular aerobatic display.  This video was filmed from high on the mountains surrounding the airport, giving a unique perspective on the flight.  It's one of the best of its kind I've ever watched.

Spectacular indeed!

Peter

After Las Vegas, Individual First Aid Kits (IFAK's) are more important than ever

The massacre in Las Vegas yesterday, where hundreds were killed and injured, has highlighted the need to immediately aid a wounded person.  I think those of us who care about preparedness for emergencies need to consider carrying, or having immediate access to, an Individual First Aid Kit, or IFAK, to enable us to do so.  The acronym was originally derived from the US Army's Improved First Aid Kit (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format), but has since expanded to cover a range of options.

There are many IFAK's available, from many manufacturers.  You'll have to look through the assortment and make your own selection, based on your skill level and budget.  If you have no training in first aid or emergency response, I strongly recommend that you get some before buying an IFAK.  It's always better to know more about what you're buying.  The Red Cross and St. John Ambulance offer probably the best-known general first aid courses (I trained with St. John Ambulance in South Africa).  They don't focus on mass casualty events or weapons-related injuries, but the principles remain the same.  You can add to that foundation by taking more advanced emergency-response-related courses, such as this one (which is highly regarded) - but be careful in choosing them.  There are many private sector companies and organizations offering such training, but some appear to be out to make as much money as possible from their students, rather than give them the best possible training.  I can't possibly cover all of them in a short article like this.  You'll have to do your homework, and make the best choice you can.

Some very knowledgeable bloggers have offered articles describing some first aid needs.  (To cite just one example, Aesop offers what he calls his 'College of Medical Knowledge', a collection of posts on the subject.  Highly recommended reading.)  However, I'm afraid reading about the subject just isn't good enough to give you more than an overview.  Hands-on training, particularly in cleaning and bandaging wounds and performing CPR, is essential.

Once you know what you're doing and what you need, you can make an informed decision about which IFAK to buy, and figure out for yourself whether it's worth its price.  Many people prefer to build up their own first aid kit over time, rather than pay for a ready-packaged one.  I think that's fine for general first aid use, but when it comes to IFAK's, which are critical first responder tools, I prefer to look at the top-of-the-line kits from truly knowledgeable vendors, and save up for one of them.  They usually cost much more than those from more "commercial" competitors, but there's a reason for that - they use the best materials, and are usually put together by those who've "been there and done that".  To me, that's worth the money;  and, judging by the number of first-response personnel and agencies that I personally trust who carry them, it is to them, too.  YMMV.

There are certain IFAK vendors whose products are preferred in the EMS and first responder communities (fire, police, etc.).  You'll find them discussed in online forums, on mailing lists, etc.  I find that guidance very helpful.  If you can access it, all well and good.  If not, I suggest you find out what your local first responders are using, and consider carrying the same or a similar kit.  The reason is simple;  you may not be able to deal with injuries yourself, but they can.  Their own kits will run out in short order if faced with multiple casualties.  If you're on the scene and can hand them an IFAK, they'll be able to do much more with it than most of us would.  If it's an IFAK with which they're already familiar, so much the better.  After all, the life they save with that kit might be your own!

To learn more about IFAK's, try these two articles:

IFAK - What do you really need?

IFAK - Can You Save Your Own Life?

There are other such articles out there, but, as always, beware any article that's filled with specific product recommendations and links to buy them.  They may be very good . . . or they may be trying to make money off you.  Let the buyer beware!

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Aesop read this article, and in response has kindly put up a post of his own on how to use the contents of your IFAK.  Go read it.  The man knows whereof he speaks.

Trump Derangement Syndrome on display after the Las Vegas shootings

I was expecting the usual suspects to make hay out of the tragedy in Las Vegas, and I was right.

Earlier today, this was reproduced on Gab.  It's since been deleted from its original (Twitter) account, which I've checked, and confirmed that the poster is an inveterate anti-Trumper.

Then, a CBS vice-president put her foot right in it.

CBS has parted ways with one of the company’s top lawyers after she said she is “not even sympathetic” to victims of the Las Vegas shooting because “country music fans often are Republican,” when discussing the tragic mass shooting that occurred in Las Vegas late Sunday night.

. . .

Hayley Geftman-Gold, the network's now-former vice president and senior counsel, took to Facebook after a gunman opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, killing at least 58 people and sending more than 520 others to hospitals.

“If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that Repugs [sic] will ever do the right thing,” Geftman-Gold wrote in a now-deleted message that was first reported and captured by The Daily Caller.

Geftman-Gold continued: “I’m actually not even sympathetic bc [sic] country music fans often are Republican gun toters [sic].”

There's more at the link.

A tip o' the hat to CBS for immediately firing the lawyer . . . but her reactions are shared by far too many who should know better.  I'm sure my readers have found other examples.  If you do, please share them with us in Comments, on the principle that we should be able to identify the enemies of democracy and freedom.




Peter

30 days at sea, in 10 minutes

YouTube user JeffHK is a navigation officer aboard a container vessel.  He's posted a very-high-resolution 4K video of a 30-day voyage from the Red Sea to Hong Kong, via Sri Lanka and Singapore.  He used time-lapse photography to condense everything into a mere 10 minutes.

That's a pretty amazing record of a voyage like that.  More, please!

Peter

The Las Vegas shooting

Like all my readers, I'm sickened and horrified by the carnage in Las Vegas in the early hours of this morning.  As I write these words, there are said to be 50+ dead and 200+ injured in the worst mass shooting incident in US history.  The shooter (killed by police) is said to have been a "lone wolf".  No information concerning his possible motive(s) has been released at the time of writing.  Some are already saying that this wasn't a "terrorist" attack . . . but it was, of course.  For whatever reason and in whatever cause, it was designed to cause terror.  It did.

One can predict with weary certainty what our politicians will do and say about this.  There'll be the usual pontificating from one side about how guns are evil, and if we'd only ban assault weapons, and/or privately-owned machine-guns, and/or whatever, this would never have happened.  The other side will point out that the gun(s) didn't fire themselves;  that a human agent was needed to actually pull the trigger and cause the massacre;  and that if the gun(s) hadn't been available, he could very easily have found different methods and locations to cause a mass casualty event.  Both factions will have an element of right on their sides, but neither will be completely accurate.

The reality is that machine-guns (i.e. fully automatic weapons), in the wrong hands, do have the potential to cause such a massacre.  That's precisely what machine-guns were designed to do in the first place.  Arguing that the vast, overwhelming majority of private machine-gun owners would never dream of such an act is neither here nor there.  The fact remains, the instrument was designed to cause mass casualties . . . and that's enough to give anti-gunners screaming hissy-fits.  I expect a renewed effort to ban the private ownership of machine-guns.  Frankly, I don't know that there are enough good, worthwhile arguments on the other side to stop such an effort from succeeding.  The anti-gunners can, and will, argue that if machine-guns are available, even if only by theft, then criminals and fanatics can and will steal them for their own purposes.  In their eyes, that risk is too great to be borne.

A countervailing reality, one that the anti-gunners will do their best to ignore, is that we've known all along that such mass casualty incidents are, and will continue to be, inevitable.  There's no avoiding that in a world where terrorism is a daily reality.  There will be more Las Vegas-style shootings, just as there will be more terrorists ramming pedestrians with vehicles, or planting bombs in places where people assemble.  I remain astonished that so many terrorists have been so inept in the planning and execution of their attacks.  That's been an almost incredible stroke of luck for many countries.  For example, if the Barcelona terrorists had managed to construct a working truck bomb out of the gas cylinders they'd stockpiled in a nearby town, the carnage might have been indescribable.  It's only thanks to the grace of God and their own mistakes that casualties weren't ten or twenty times greater.  Someone's going to try again . . . and one day, they'll probably succeed.  The instrument they use is not important to them.  Its results are what matters.

The only precautions we can take against such attacks is to stay away from places where they are more likely to happen.  I know, many people say that's "giving in to terrorists".  Yes, in one sense, it is, but that's inevitable - because the brutal reality of our present situation is that terrorists can't be stopped.  The authorities can (and do) stop many of them, but they can't stop all of them.  Therefore, there is no way to ensure your safety other than to be somewhere else when terrorists attack.  That may be unpalatable to the macho brigade, but it remains an undeniable fact.

What's more, carrying weapons on your person isn't necessarily a solution, either.  A pistol may help you stop an attacker wielding a knife or a gun, or disable a vehicle (or its driver) that's trying to run you down, but it'll do nothing to protect you from a bomb, or an arsonist-set fire.  (An act of arson at a New York nightclub in 1990 caused many more fatalities than Las Vegas.  I daresay would-be terrorists have taken note of that.  No bomb or gun required - just a couple of gallons of gasoline, available everywhere for a few dollars.  What if the Las Vegas shooter had been unable to get his hands on full-auto firearms, and decided to use gasoline instead, inside the hotel from which he fired?)

Las Vegas is yet another reminder that there are people out there who don't care about the sanctity of human life, and, for whatever reason, are determined to kill as many of us as possible.  That's an inescapable reality of life in this day and age.  We'd better get used to it . . . because it's not going to change.

May those who died last night rest in peace.  May those who were injured, recover swiftly and as fully as possible.  May those who lost loved ones receive what comfort they may . . . and may the rest of us learn from this tragedy, and conduct ourselves accordingly.

Peter

The US economy: the math just doesn't add up

Karl Denninger points out that the numbers being bandied about by the government and big business, particularly with regard to health care, simply don't make mathematical sense.

Debt doesn't matter -- right up until it does.

So goes the chestnut.

In actual practice, however, it's much worse: Increasing debt tends to make equity valuations go up right until it matters, then it makes them crash.

There is exactly zero attention being paid to this.  But the truth of it is found in every recent, and in fact all the nasty historical drawdowns in the market.

. . .

If you look at the actual GDP of the country -- that is, what it really produces, you would not count net new borrowing that is unsecured by an asset (that is, for which an asset's title was not exchanged.)  All government borrowing is unsecured.  It was obvious in the mid to late 1990s that the health care monster would devour sufficient funds that net income could not support the expansion in cost; even then I was seeing >10% annual increases in health insurance expense for our employees, and on a compound basis what was due to happen was obvious.  Ten years later it happened, and from that point forward we have never actually had any economic expansion at all in real terms because government emitted credit, all of it borrowed, has canceled all of said "growth."

The Federal Government has emitted approximately 7% of economic output per year in new debt since the 2008 crash which is far greater than any economic expansion recorded.  In other words the net-net economic output of the nation has been negative each and every year since that time.

In point of fact this means we are today in a nearly 10 year old economic depression that we are papering over -- and have been continually since the 2008 crash.  We are doing it via the same mechanism we did it the last time -- through emitting unbacked credit just as was done with liar loans in the housing market and bogus sales of worthless stock certificates in the 1990s.  It's just much larger and done by the government, aimed at a different sector.

The problem isn't the cost of insurance.  It's the cost of health care, which continues to go up at double-digit annual rates and that must not just stop it must be collapsed by a factor of 80% or it will destroy the economy, our markets and our way of life.

Again this has already forced the federal government into borrowing enough to literally cancel all economic growth since 2008; we have not printed an actual positive figure adjusted for said borrowing since the crash!

WE HAVE BEEN LIVING A BALD-FACED AND INTENTIONAL LIE, CONTINUING TO COMPOUND THE ECONOMIC DAMAGE, FOR NEARLY TEN YEARS AT THIS POINT IN TIME.

There's more at the link.

Mr. Denninger writes in the context of health care, and foresees a future in which it will simply be unavailable at any price to many Americans.  I can't fault his logic or his mathematics.  He's right, too, in that politicians are "papering over the cracks" rather than tackle the real, meaningful, systemic reform that will be necessary to fix the problem.  They daren't, because if they did so, it would mean an immediate and very serious economic recession while the problem sorted itself out.  They know they'd be held accountable for that by the voters - so they keep on kicking the can down the road, trying to ensure their own re-election for now, and hoping that it won't explode like a depth-charge under the economy until they're safely retired.

Of course, the economic problems go much deeper than health care alone.  David Stockman, whom we've met in these pages many times before, has just forecast a 40% to 70% decline in stock prices, although he blames that on the Federal Reserve's monetary policies rather than debt.  In reality, of course, they're the same thing.  The Fed's monetary policy is what's allowed the government to carry on issuing debt, in particular because the Fed bought billions of dollars in Treasury securities (thereby financing the debt) when no-one else would.

My urgent recommendations to prepare for emergencies aren't just for natural disasters.  If the economy goes to hell in a handbasket, such preparations can help all of us cope with the fallout.  If you find yourself suddenly unemployed or under-employed, or your wages or salary reduced, you can always live off your stored supplies for a while, if necessary;  and if you can't afford gas for your car this week, it's awful useful to have a couple of cans of gasoline stashed away, just in case.

Peter

Sunday morning music

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at songs about whisk(e)y.  How about rum this time?

Let's start with a couple of oldies.  Here's The Andrews Sisters with their famous hit song "Rum and Coca-Cola", from the album "20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of The Andrews Sisters".  I can remember my father singing this song as he shaved - it was one of his favorites during his wartime service, if I recall correctly.

Next, here's Hubert Porter and The Jamaican Calypsonians with "Rum and Coconut Water", from the album "Calypsos from Jamaica".

Let's dip into our maritime heritage with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate shanty, "Fifteen Men On A Dead Man's Chest".  It's from his famous novel "Treasure Island".  This version is considered to be as close as possible to how it was originally set to music.

To add a folksy Irish note, here's "Rum Runners" from Gaelic Storm's album "Cabbage".

American comedian Rich Hall has made a name for himself as the fictional country musician "Otis Lee Crenshaw".  Here he is poking fun at one of Australia's iconic drinks with his "Bundaberg Rum Song".

Speaking of Bundaberg Rum, the company has made some marvelously entertaining advertisements, some of which we've enjoyed in these pages.  Let's close this rum rendition with their 2014 singing commercial.

(Lawdog and I are rather fond of their ginger beer, too!)

Peter