07:58 – We still don’t know exactly what the problem is with Barbara’s dad. At one point yesterday they were talking about moving him to the ICU, but they decided not to, so he’s on a regular floor. They started antibiotics immediately, in case his lung infection is bacterial, but we won’t know for sure until the results of the culture come back. At this point, it appears that Dutch isn’t in any immediate danger.
We’d planned to do a Costco run and have dinner with our friends Paul and Mary yesterday. Barbara was adamant that we proceed with our plans, even if I had to go without her. But she called from the hospital around 2:30 and said she was on her way home. So we went to Costco and then out to dinner normally, and then came back home so Barbara could watch the end of the Masters golf tournament. Barbara’s going to work late this morning. She has to stop over at her parents’ apartment to pick up the checkbook and her mom, drop her mom at the hospital, and drop a couple of checks at her parents’ accountant’s office to send in with her parents’ tax returns.
All of the neighborhood dogs know that I carry dog treats when I’m walking Colin. Sophie, Kim’s 5-month-old Yorkie, learned that the first time I gave her one, and now every time we visit Kim and Sophie Sophie begs shamelessly for treats, standing with her front paws on my leg and bouncing up and down. I always give Colin his treat first, because to give Sophie hers first would offend Colin’s sense of order. He is, after all, both the senior dog and my dog.
So, yesterday, I was handing a treat to Colin, but we dropped it. Colin bent his head down to pick it up off the sidewalk, but Sophie got to the treat at the same time Colin did. She lost the struggle for the treat, of course. Colin is 15 or 20 times her weight, and her whole body is about the size of his head. But I was amazed that he didn’t even growl or show his fangs at her, even though she was literally trying to pull the treat out of Colin’s mouth. Kim was watching fearfully and probably assumed her puppy was about to be eaten. After seeing what didn’t happen, I told Kim that if she needed any evidence that Colin wouldn’t hurt Sophie she’d just gotten it in spades.
11:08 – Barbara just called to let me know she’d gotten to work. Her dad is doing better. He has pneumonia, again, but it appears to be responding to antibiotics. He’s still very confused. He told Barbara he’d been in the hospital for two days and they’d given him nothing to eat. She tried to convince him that he’d just gone in yesterday afternoon and that they were in fact feeding him, but he’s as contrary as usual. Some of his confusion may be due to the illness and some to the antibiotics they have him on. They’re moving him from intermediate care to a regular room today.
The cell phone port experiment failed miserably. I am now back on Verizon. Sometimes the cheapest is not not the best. Data on Verizon 4G is incredibly fast. I am on a postpaid plan so no contract.
The issue with Straight Talk (ST) is not related to voice or text, but with data. My son is on ST and likes them and has 3G. The difference is the sim. He transferred 6 months ago and was issued an AT&T sim so he is on the AT&T network. What ST is providing now is only T-Mobile sims and there is something wrong with their system or (and this is what I suspect) they are limiting non true T-Mobile customers to their edge network saving the 3G for their own customers.
My wife will stay on ST for now as all she uses is voice and text. Those seem to work just fine. She likes a clamshell phone which has no data and those are becoming scarce. If they are offered there is usually only a couple of models. LG seems to be better than Samsung for phones and the menu structure.
Verizon has a physical store I can visit if I have issues and the Apple store is also available. I don’t have the time, nor do I want (anymore), to be hassling with issues on a cell phone.
Thanks for the information Ray. I have been wondering about Straight Talk. I was curious about how it would work. Also, as I recall, T-Mobile has awful coverage out here in Smallville. I am to the point where it’s getting close to time to replace my Motorola Droid. I guess I’ll stick with Verizon.
A present to you from us in Nevada:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html
Oh, I suspect we’ll see more of this, and not just with mental patients, either. It’s a pretty obvious thing to do. If you don’t want them around, export them.
More information on the phone port problem.
T-Mobile requires 1700 Mhz and 2100 Mhz to get 3G data. If the device does not support those frequencies then you are relegated to 2G speeds, slow. The iPhone does not support 1700 Mhz but Androids do.
To get 3G on Straight Talk you need a phone that supports both of the frequencies or in the case of an iPhone you need to get an AT&T sim card. ST does not sell AT&T sim cards so you need to use Amazon to locate such a sim card.
If you are currently on Verizon Dave, I would just stay. Get a new phone and update your service. You can get a contract or not. I got a postpaid plan with no contracts since I brought my own phone. Verizon coverage is much better than AT&T, T-Mobile, AT&T, Cingular, Sprint and Bubba’s Wireless. Verizon frequencies will better penetrate building walls as I found out. In the basement of a friends home I had no service from ST (T-Mobile) where he was on Verizon and had good signal.
Verizon may be more expensive but there is a reason. Same as Apple being more expensive. Better support, better coverage. Whether the additional cost is value-wise worth the better support and coverage, that is open to a debate that would never end.
As for me I will stick with Verizon even though it will cost me more. The aggravation is not worth it to mess with other providers and the cost is not going to stop me from buying food for the month.
A present to you from us in Nevada:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html
That sort of thing goes a long way. I expect that the Great State of Texas is not too high and mighty to reply in kind. Would you like a 100X return on your investment?
Seriously, I agree with Bob. This is just the beginning of Heinlein’s “Crazy Years”. You haven’t seen anything yet.
Next, we’re sending our crimmigants to you.
Why not bus them all to Mordor On The Potomac?? See, OFD has a solution for every societal ill! I’m sure the hordes of bleeding-haht libruls would love to take them in and sponsor them in their plush homes.
What were/are Heinlein’s “Crazy Years?” From the context I infer that we are heading for some kind of shit-rain in this country? Coulda fooled me. We need Hunter Thompson, Gore Vidal and Mencken back from the dead. Also Ambrose Bierce and Twain.
What were/are Heinlein’s “Crazy Years?”
Dude, really? An English major and you did not read Robert Heinlein’s great works of Science Fiction written from the 1940s to 1980s? Almost 100 books, short stories and novellas of awesome escapefulness.
http://burningtaper.blogspot.com/2006/12/crazy-years.html
http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/01/the-crazy-years-and-their-empty-moral-vocabulary/
Basically, Robert Heinlein said that there will be a time of moral and ethical craziness in the USA starting in the 1950s culminating with a religious dictator in the USA after 75 years or so. Robert Heinlein prenamed this man to be Nehemiah Scudder of a Mormon like faith. He will change the USA from having a elected President to having a religious dictatorship with a Prophet. There will be another revolution within a 100 years.
Next, we’re sending our crimmigants to you.
We’ll just send them on in to Houston. Seriously, any vagrants found in the Land of Sugar are thrown into the back of police suv and dropped off in downtown Houston. Been doing it for decades and Houston never notices.
I was in San Antonio last week and was amazed at the number of street people. Got asked for money about five separate times.
This just in: multiple explosions at finish line of Boston Marathon; people walking around bleeding and missing limbs. Real bad scene, and they’re still finding packages in the area.
Bastards.
Cue the FBI, DHS, or Juggalo Carney saying “There are no indications that this was an act of terrorism” in 3… 2…
That was one of my suggestions for dealing with illegal immigrants, if I were governor of, say, Arizona. Either send them all to Washington DC or send a few to the home town of each Congressman who voted in favor of amnesty, against border enforcement, and so on. (My preferred method is issuing a pardon to anyone convicted of killing an illegal alien.)
Boston Herald site is swamped:
This server is experiencing technical problems. Please try again in a few moments. Thanks for your continued patience, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Error 503 Service Unavailable
Service Unavailable
XID: 501346822
Salon has pics and vids:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/explosion_reported_near_finish_line_of_boston_marathon/
The vid of the explosion near the finish line appears to OFD’s eyes as roughly the size and spread of a grenade or light mortar shell. They’re reporting two dead and a couple of dozen injured so far, some grievously.
At this point it is international headline news, so you can follow the story almost anywhere now.
I know; I was merely describing how at that moment the Boston media were inundated; the Monitor has barely nothing, and Left Coast Salon had the vids and pics.
Of course we get our stuff filtered real good here, too; as SteveF pointed out immediately, there was a backing-off of any loose scuttlebutt about bombs and suchlike.
One look at the explosion by the finish line and you know it ain’t a gas main.
Patriot’s Day is a holiday at the Monitor, so they likely have very few around. Since they do not publish a physical paper anymore, there is no Sunday work for a paper on Monday, or holiday work for the weekday after.
I really miss that Patriot’s Day holiday. Since we in the US have no Good Friday or Easter Monday, Patriot’s Day was a welcome day off in the middle of a long stretch to Memorial Day.
This just goes to show that the Internet has made society more fragile. Now, instead of radio signals sending a wave that anybody can pick up wirelessly, everyone has to have a 1-to-1 connection, and the sender has to have enough spigots to accommodate thousands that may want to connect.
Here is something interesting. The Avid company made the first and most popular non-linear totally computer-based video editing systems starting back in the late ‘80’s. (Funny that all the editing houses I worked at back then, had an Avid system sitting unused in a corner suite. I had to practically hold a gun to their heads to let us use it, instead of the old Ampex and CMX systems that got 99% of the workload. Now, I doubt there is anyplace that even has a videotape machine hooked up to a computer these days. Avid’s first main use was by Hollywood, to do rough cuts of movies, which editing was later conformed to the negatives.) Avid made a lot of their own hardware, including sound cards, sold under the name M-Audio.
While I was not looking, Avid sold M-Audio last summer. A lot of people outside the video editing world used M-Audio products, including a ton of radio stations, who have all gone computer for playout (it is hard to find a station that even has a CD player in the studio anymore). The new owners of M-Audio, quit manufacturing the M-Audio Delta soundcards. Those cards had high-end specs and balanced audio, used in pro situations, for a mid-range price. With the exit of those cards, the only thing left is super-cheap crap from folks like Creative, or super high-end cards from ASI or Digigram–which cost near to $1,000 each. ESI in Germany has some mid-range stuff that has balanced in/out, but they limit their cards to 2 stereo channels, whereas most computer playout systems for radio have the potential of at least 3, if not 4, stereo channels. That makes them able to function like 4 cart machines in the studio, which is what most DJ’s and board operators have been used to for decades. If you buy 2 ESI cards, you will have spent as much money as 1 Digigram or ASI card, both of which have at least 4 channel capability.
So life is beginning to emulate the world of money: lots of super-cheap crap with poor tech specs; or a few of the rich, expensive but very capable and technically superb cards. Tech guys in charge of stations are scrambling to buy up all the Delta cards still available from eBay sources. So far, Europe still has Delta cards in places like music stores (Sam Ash, Guitar Center equivalents), but hardly any US retailers still have any M-Audio Deltas in stock anymore.
With the exit of those cards, the only thing left is super-cheap crap from folks like Creative, or super high-end cards from ASI or Digigram–which cost near to $1,000 each.
We are re-entering the era of specialized computer equipment. With the severe decline of the pc desktop and all traditional pc services moving to the cloud, the device no longer matters. For content consumers.
However, for you (us actually) content creators, the specialized desktop pc equipment is getting ready to skyrocket in price. 2X, 3X and 4X the old prices for desktop add-on equipment will be the norm over the next couple of years. I also expect desktops to reverse their price trends and start zooming their pricing again Soon. It is the 1980s all over again.
I do not expect desktops to go away though. Somebody has to create content and software for the masses. But the Microsoft and Intel are in for a long decline. I just do not know where the desktop market will bottom at, 50% or 10% of the peak. I am leaning towards 10% of the peak.
BTW, the server market is healthy and zooming. Intel just released their 64 bit atom cpu and ARM released their 64 bit cpu. Competition!
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/12/11/intels-atom-server-chip-has-64-bit-lead-says-bernstein-issue-is-price-margin/
http://blogs.computerworld.com/processors/21490/intel-atom-64-bit-server-soc-centerton-breaks-cover-itbwcw
Oh, I suspect we’ll see more of this, and not just with mental patients, either.
Texas used to do this with the Mafia. Really. One of the ways the East Coast Mafia was kept out of Texas in the 40s to 70s was deportation. A mafia guy would head to Texas, the Feds would warn us, and he’d get off the plane in Texas and be met there or at the hotel by a couple of Texas Rangers (not the baseball kind, either). The Rangers would be there in their best “uniform” of a Western cut suit, boots, Stetson, and a big-ass pistol and declare the Mafioso an “undesirable citizen of the state of Texas” and tell them to get on the next plane back to where they came from.
It has worked, because the organized crime here in Texas is mostly home-grown. Or came over the border from the South.
The “law enforcement” authorities now in Boston have a “Saudi national” under guard at “an undisclosed Boston hospital,” supposedly with “severe burns.”
This means, of course, that we will have to launch another war in Iraq, Iran or Syria. Can’t touch the Saudi princes or their little schools where they raise more hadji bastards by the thousands each year. Must kiss their asses, walk with them and hold their hands, and send them more of our money and advanced weapons systems. Since, what the hell, we’ve already sent F-16s and associated technologies to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Why not? Let’s have the weapons we build and the money we send used to kill and maim our own people around the world, including our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.
Tell me again how much I should love this regime and vote in all its elections.
OFD, you forgot about the need to crack down on legal gun ownership. In fact, we’d better eliminate the teaching of science because science can show people — angry white men, mostly — how to make bombs. And we need to make it harder to buy over-the-counter allergy medication because nitrogen compounds can be used in making explosives but restricting fertilizer sale would be too disruptive so we’ll just go after meth labs instead.
Earth Day is coming up. OFD, do you still have those discarded car tires? Are you planning to fill them with gasoline and light them on fire? As for me, I’m trying to think of where I can lay my hands on some PCBs so I can spray them on a crowd of humans. Humans are a blight on Mother Earth, or so I’m assured, so I figure to swap in PCBs for cooking oil in homeless shelters and food kitchens so some humans will get cancer and die and make Mother Earth all better n stuff. And even if the people don’t die from eating the PCBs, they’ll at least get a stomach ache. That’ll teach them!
I saw a news article that a Saudi national had two back packs and one of them blew up. But that article seems to have disappeared. If it is in any way true, we may have just learned a very expensive lesson that Saudi Arabia is a huge bomb getting ready to blow. So that means that TSA will ignore all Saudi nationals and frisk 80 year old grandmothers are USA citizens. After all, no other Saudi nationals have blown up anything in the USA?
Cowards and animals!
do you still have those discarded car tires? Are you planning to fill them with gasoline and light them on fire?
Saw that in Germany back in 1995 or so where someone had given a red light camera a blazing cummerbund. It was both unsettling and kinda cool.
Hey OFD, you might want to follow (or look at):
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelZWilliamson
He is a scifi writer of some note and has a very thick skin from the Army: “So, does TShirt Hell have a “I survived the Boston Marathon and all I got is this lousy t-shirt” souvenir shirts yet?”.
Thanks for the reminder about Michael Williamson. I should give him another chance – read one of his early book and found it too “preachy”, i.e., he wasn’t at all subtle about his personal politics. Not that I disagreed with them… Anyway, likely his later books are better, as that’s a common mistake for early novels by new writers…
Still nothing much definite on the news about the Boston Marathon (07:30 here, so 01:30 in Boston). The best coverage, for what little info there is, seems to be from the UK. The US sites are running the emotionalism for all it’s worth, interviewing bystanders to get personal takes on how awful it was. The Guardian, and other UK sites are more factual, for example, that’s where I read that they have found two further unexploded bombs and are searching for a rental car seen leaving the area.
The odd thing is: if this was political terrorism, usually the responsible parties aren’t shy about claiming responsibility.
However, for you (us actually) content creators, the specialized desktop pc equipment is getting ready to skyrocket in price.
I’m afraid you are right on. But more than that, the stuff we creators need is disappearing altogether. One of the broadcast forums was recently bemoaning how Intel has recently withdrawn motherboards that were perfect for computer automation systems. With several techs discussing the issue, none of them could find an equivalent for what Intel has discontinued.
Was just in Walmart today. A couple others besides me indicate their Walmarts no longer stock needed stuff. I was trying to find one of those clothes rack bars that one puts across the back seat of the car to hang stuff for moving. Surprise! They do not carry that anymore. The world is turning upside-down. Less than a decade ago, Pournelle frequently commented that the US had set itself up to have anything and everything one might want for the cheapest price in the world. Nowadays, I have a tough time finding products I need at all—anywhere. What a change! What a country!
Thanks for the reminder about Michael Williamson. I should give him another chance – read one of his early book and found it too “preachy”, i.e., he wasn’t at all subtle about his personal politics. Not that I disagreed with them… Anyway, likely his later books are better, as that’s a common mistake for early novels by new writers…
That would probably be “Freehold” and one of my top ten favorite books. I have reread it 4 or 5 times now:
http://www.amazon.com/Freehold-Michael-Z-Williamson/dp/0743471792/
“Freehold” is a scifi story of libertarian planet. Anything goes until you hurt someone else. Wanna collect and shoot bazookas? Sure. Wanna collect and shoot 20mm automatic rifles? Sure. No income taxes but there are excise taxes. Wanna prostitute your body for money? Go for it. Wanna live off the government for your housing and meal? Not gonna happen.
Everything is peachy until the UN from Earth invades the planet, planning on bringing hope and change for the masses. And the masses do not want any hope and change from the UN so a war ensues and then an occupation.
I’m afraid you are right on. But more than that, the stuff we creators need is disappearing altogether. One of the broadcast forums was recently bemoaning how Intel has recently withdrawn motherboards that were perfect for computer automation systems. With several techs discussing the issue, none of them could find an equivalent for what Intel has discontinued.
What motherboard is that? Is it an Atom cpu? Intel is transitioning their Atom cpus to 64 bits and has probably let the pipeline go dry in order to keep from getting caught with a lot of product in hand.
Are they running a Windows O/S or a Linux variant?
Lynn, any rumblings around Texas on this case. Only one side so far, but cops are notorious for taking shit without warrant or arrest.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345714/free-cj-grisham
I sorta hate to say it, being ex-cop myself, but it is coming to a time soon in this country when we will have to defend ourselves accordingly against these sorts of felonious assaults and thefts against us by armed minions of the State. This is sheer piracy, brigandage, and outright criminality.
If these uniformed bozos can’t or won’t be re-educated as to what the law and what the Constitution and Bill of Rights mean, they need to find another job. If they won’t do that and they continue assaulting us for no reason, we not only have no choice, but we have a duty to resist.
Lynn, any rumblings around Texas on this case. Only one side so far, but cops are notorious for taking s*** without warrant or arrest.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345714/free-cj-grisham
Nope. Yeah, I saw that on http://drudgereport.com/ also. He is lucky the cop did not shoot him. Or his son. Thirty years ago they would have.
Texas is an open carry state for long guns. That said, he will never see his guns or CCW again. I just hope that he stays out of jail for resisting arrest and “threatening” that large officer.
If he had that long gun in his vehicle back window, nobody would have cared. If he had been walking into a gun show, nobody would have cared. But he was walking along a county road carrying a scary looking gun and somebody called the cops. The cop should have just left him alone and congratulated him for going walking with his son.
Hopefully Texas will be an Open Carry state soon for CCW holders as the state Lege is working on it. BTW, if you have a CCW and anyone sees your “concealed” gun, you can be arrested and your gun and permit seized. Concealed means concealed.
http://www.texasgunlaws.org/
Interesting. North Carolina requires no permit to carry a pistol openly.
As y’all know already; Vermont has zero restrictions. Open carry or concealed, whatever ya want. Naturally this is based on people being reasonable; don’t stroll into church on Sunday morning with a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun; don’t jog through the airport terminal double-heeled with .45 ACPs strapped to your lycra running togs; etc. You can if you want but someone is liable to get upset and then problems will arise.
Just be frigging reasonable and all will be well. No one bothers anybody.
Okay, XDM 40 or 1911 ACP .45? Is it a contest? Just personal preference? Not that I’m likely to ever be able to buy one down here. Just curious.
To the Antipodean known as Miles_Teg:
Deciding on the “best” handgun (or other firearm) for an individual is a complex issue. Do your own research at US gun forums, like The High Road or The Firing Line, and other places. Of course, the best way to learn is at a firing range with an experienced instructor, trying out different handguns. It should be a personally-tailored choice.
That happened in Texas? There are more guns in Texas than there are people. Granted, Dallas has been flooded with Yankees, and Austin with wannabe Californians, but out in the small towns? I suppose Temple is too close to Austin, and guns offend the progressive mind.
Had this happened a bit farther out, say, in West Texas, the cop might well be a missing person with his corpse fertilizing the local prairie. What an idiot!
Here is the video I mentioned in my previous post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Just be frigging reasonable and all will be well. No one bothers anybody.
I figured out what he did. He was carrying his rifle in the front at the ready like army guys normally do. If he had been carrying his rifle on his back then I’ll bet that they would have left him alone.
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/money/jobs-and-careers/decorated-vet-cj-grisham-arrested-rudely-displaying-ar-15
“The charges against him were downgraded to resisting arrest and interfering with a peace officer while performing a duty.” He is going to be convicted and lose his military career and pension over this.
Okay, XDM 40 or 1911 ACP .45? Is it a contest? Just personal preference? Not that I’m likely to ever be able to buy one down here. Just curious.
Both of these are fine weapons. The 1911 has an older safety system with an external hammer while the XDM has an integral hammer and two safeties. But, you can still shoot yourself easily with either one. After all, they are both accomplished lead delivery systems.
How old and strong are you? I am 52, 6’1″ and used to be able to bench press 330 lbs. Nowadays, I would probably have trouble with 150 lbs. My point is, I get tired shooting the XDM after 100 rounds at two rounds per shot sequence. Then I start to get misfeeds and double feeds since I have trouble holding the gun properly. I am thinking about moving back to a revolver because of this.
I am looking for a S&W bodyguard to carry in my truck. It is a 5 shot .38+p snubby with an optional laser that I am not interested in at all. I saw one for sale last December but did not buy it since I was buying a new home. That was a mistake as inventory is zero nowadays.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/08/ralph/gun-review-smith-wesson-bodyguard-38-and-bodyguard-380/
“He is going to be convicted and lose his military career and pension over this.”
This is utter bullshit. The local DA should be dismissing all this crap forthwith. They all look like total asswipes for hassling this guy and his kid.
“I am looking for a S&W bodyguard to carry in my truck. It is a 5 shot .38+p snubby…”
I am very happy with the reliability, solidity and cost of my Taurus .357 snubby in which I normally carry .38 + P JHP rounds. Or at least I did before it got lost overboard from the kayak on Lake Champlain.
I’m practically 55 and a bit of a weakling. I haven’t been in a gym since, probably, the mid Eighties. Not that it matters much. I’m a peaceful guy living in a peaceful country.
I do think the xdm looks really cool though.
“…before it got lost overboard from the kayak on Lake Champlain.”
Damn, but you guys are careless! I reckon, with the current shortage of guns in shops, I could make a good living dredging the Brazos and Lake Champlain… 🙂
Probably could; hey, I was drunk on my ass and almost fell outta the kayak a few times. Can’t speak for Lynn down there in the great Lone Star State, though; and kinda surprised any bodies of wottuh down there are deep enuff to submerge anything at all.
I like(ed) the .357 snubbies for the great versatility and availability of ammo for them and the fact that such handguns are mainly for the vast majority of tactical handgun encounters at about seven feet or less anyway. Or is it yahds? I forget. Just need it long enuff to get to the shotgun, which I only need long enuff to get to the rifle, etc, etc. until I get to Skid Mark’s briefcase and launch codes.
Re the MSgt: he and his son were on-the-ball enough to get the incident on video, get it on the Internet, and he won the Streisand-effect lottery. As a result, I expect he will be let off with a stern “talking to” due to public pressure. Of course, the other 8342 people who didn’t think to video their encounters or who didn’t win the Streisand lottery will have charges piled on until they take plea deals.
What kind of cop acts like this? It’s illegal. It’s unprofessional. It’s dangerous. Lots of the comments I’ve read put part of the blame on the MSgt for being rude, but I don’t see how that is even relevant.
“I am looking for a S&W bodyguard to carry in my truck. It is a 5 shot .38+p snubby…”
I am very happy with the reliability, solidity and cost of my Taurus .357 snubby in which I normally carry .38 + P JHP rounds. Or at least I did before it got lost overboard from the kayak on Lake Champlain.
Can you conceal carry that taurus 357 snubby in your jeans without it showing? Does it have a hammer? Hammers are fricking dangerous while putting your snubby in your pocket. Might blow your you know what off. Got URL?
“He is going to be convicted and lose his military career and pension over this.”
This is utter bullshit. The local DA should be dismissing all this crap forthwith. They all look like total asswipes for hassling this guy and his kid.
Temple is full of farmers and retirees from Fort Hood. They will have trouble finding 12 to convict him.
At least they dropped the resisting charge from Class A to Class B misdemeanor. Class A is almost a mandatory six month jail sentence in Texas.
I was really concerned that the disarming / arresting officer never said that they were arresting him. So, if I get assaulted by a uniformed police officer then I am suppose to assume that he is arresting me?
Too many cops nowadays have an attitude and immediately overreact to any possible smidgeon of dissing from anybody they encounter, and they often choose to interpret any speech, facial expression or bodily movement as being dissed. This guy was evidently looking for trouble/hassle with somebody and the NCO fit the bill nicely that day in that locale. I doubt that, contrary to what Lynn surmises above, the sarge woulda been left alone if he’d only been toting the rifle on his back.
What I found surprising, though, was that the cop saw fit to get into a hassle with the guy in the first place when he had the rifle in that carry position. If it’s such a big freaking deal, why not bail outta the cruiser and force the guy to the ground at gunpoint immediately and/or wait for backup? Why walk up to him and get in his face with his kid right there and get his panties in a twist? Asshole
And the higher-ups are assholes for allowing this to go as far as it has. Now they reap the internet and media whirlwind.
“Can you conceal carry that taurus 357 snubby in your jeans without it showing? Does it have a hammer? Hammers are fricking dangerous while putting your snubby in your pocket. Might blow your you know what off. Got URL?”
Yes.
No. Shrouded hammer.
Won’t ever risk blowing off my you-know-what.
http://www.taurususa.com/product-details.cfm?id=267&category=Revolver&toggle=tr&breadcrumbseries=CC2
I need this new home defense weapon, the AA-12 shotgun with 21 round drum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOoUVeyaY_8
No. Shrouded hammer.
Won’t ever risk blowing off my you-know-what.
http://www.taurususa.com/product-details.cfm?id=267&category=Revolver&toggle=tr&breadcrumbseries=CC2
Nice! Ruger also make a hammerless snubby too, the LCR. And it comes in 357 also now, double nice! I need one each of all of these.
http://www.ruger.com/products/lcr/index.html?r=y
I also want the stainless 6″ colt python that the sheriff’s deputy is carrying on “The Walking Dead”. My Dan Wesson .357 is a lead spitter and really irritates people standing to the side of me.
Lynn, don’t discount the laser for a self-defense pistol. It won’t help for in actually hitting anything, but the little red dot on the chest is very intimidating.
Oh, and I like revolvers. They don’t fling
evidencelitter all over the place if you have to use the piece.I am also a die-hahd revolver guy for many, many years now.
Had a Dan Wesson Pistol Pac many years ago, too; a .357 with both six-inch and snubby barrels, and a cinch to change them. Wish I still had it, along with an assortment of other barrels, but the company had changed hands or something back when and then the prices went up and up.
I have also been a die-hahd Ruger fanboy for a very long time. Once had a Ruger Security-Six with a six-inch barrel, stainless, .357. As one might surmise, I like the .357’s if I can’t have a ready supply of .41 ammo. Given a choice, and if I was still walking tall as the lone officer/deputy someplace other than a city, I’d carry the .41 as my sidearm with a .357 snubby backup. I’d have the Remington 870 in the vehicle, suitably modded, along with either a Colt, S&W or RRA .308 carbine, also modded.
I’d also be sorely tempted to carry in the vehicle whatever the current version is of my old M-79 grenade launcher, which I gather the Seals carry now and call it their “pirate gun.”
Lynn, don’t discount the laser for a self-defense pistol. It won’t help for in actually hitting anything, but the little red dot on the chest is very intimidating.
If I pull a gun on you then I am going to shoot you. Two in the thoracic cavity followed by one in the head if you do not go down.
In Clancy’s Without Remorse John Clark used a sewn on bag to catch the ejected shells. That would work, wouldn’t it?
Outside of military service, I’ve never shot at anyone. I’ve drawn on people a handful of times as a deterrent: “Hey, Dumbass! Stop beating on that kid and take a hike.” works better if you have a pistol in hand. I’m confident that I can beat the hell out of practically anyone, but they don’t know that, and it’s happened a couple times that I ended up beating the hell out of some dumbass because I wasn’t carrying at the time. And as I said, the laser dot greatly increases the deterrence effect.
Miles_Teg, Tom Clancy is a jerkoff and you shouldn’t pay much mind to anything he writes. (Even more than you shouldn’t pay much mind to “cool stuff” in most fiction.) Off the top of my head I can think of three things that can go wrong with a one-off brass-catching bag for a pistol. That said, I stopped reading Clancy about 20 years ago and haven’t read that particular story, so maybe that bag is something that actually exists and actually works reliably.
In Clancy’s Without Remorse John Clark used a sewn on bag to catch the ejected shells. That would work, wouldn’t it?
Don’t know. Ejected brass is very hot and might catch that bag on fire. My son has two scars on his back from 5.56 brass going down between his body armor and skin on the firing line in the USMC. He called it the hokey pokey dance and said the DIs told them to take it like a man and keep firing.
That’s right; cowboy up and take it like a man! How about rounds “cooking off” in the ammo belts being fed into the M60 back in the day; wonder if that goes on now with its descendants. The gun got real hot; assistant gunner would have to swap barrels out with an asbestos glove. Then rounds would start going off in the belt as it fed into the tray; kinda disconcerting and can throw off your aim somewhat unless you cowboy up and become RUTHLESS.
Miles_Teg, Tom Clancy is a jerkoff and you shouldn’t pay much mind to anything he writes. (Even more than you shouldn’t pay much mind to “cool stuff” in most fiction.) Off the top of my head I can think of three things that can go wrong with a one-off brass-catching bag for a pistol. That said, I stopped reading Clancy about 20 years ago and haven’t read that particular story, so maybe that bag is something that actually exists and actually works reliably.
Just finished listening to Clancy’s “Rainbow Six” on CD in my truck. Good read and continuous action! Only 6 CDs so it must have been abridged (wife got it from the library and they stickered the case up big time so I could not tell).
Well, I love Iain M. Banks’ The Player of Games, but Steve doesn’t and I like many of Clancy’s novels, especially Cardinal of the Kremlin and Without Remorse. I guess a critic could explain what’s wrong with them, but I just like them.
Re books: I haven’t read The Player of Games. I read the first published of the Culture books and disliked it enough that I didn’t get any of the others. ISTR Miles_Teg said that was not one of Banks’s better works.
Clancy’s jerkoffitude doesn’t relate to whether his books are entertaining, merely that a) in real life he thinks he’s Da Shit and b) he keeps putting in cool-sounding-but-stupid items or explanations of How Things Work. Go ahead and read the books if you enjoy them, but never mistake anything in them for anything real. (I don’t know whether this applies to the Rainbow Six books. They’re “created by” Clancy, not written by him, I think.)
I think Consider Phlebas was his first Culture novel, and I never cared for it. I didn’t like Excession at first but eventually came to like it. He’s only got a few months to live now, and he’s only 58 or 59.