08:34 – The forecasts claim we’ll have freezing rain on and off all day, with temperatures hovering right around freezing. We were planning to do a Costco run this afternoon, but there’s nothing we need urgently. We’ll just stay in today and work on kit stuff.
10:49 – Somewhere around here, I have a storage bin that contains (according to my inventory records) 40 polarizing filters, enough for 20 pairs. I need those for the forensic science kits, but I can’t find them. So I just ordered a hundred more. I’m sure the others will turn up at some point.
Our coldest night of the season; 40°F as dawn is breaking, 30.11 in Hg.
1.35 AM Monday, 26.0C, 34% humidity.
Those filters will be on the top of the most obvious stack of boxes, and you’ll find them about 30 minutes before the new order is delivered.
Nah. RBT will notice all of the mutt’s doggie friends wearing polarized sunglasses. Colin had to find something to keep himself occupied and he turned to crafts rather than watching TV.
Since Obummer is busy decimating the military officer corps, can I nominate one more? This Lt. Col. Robert Bateman XXXX moron needs to be in the unemployment line:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bateman-on-guns-120313
“1. The only guns permitted will be the following:
a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.
b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.
c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place.”
“2. We will pry your gun from your cold, dead, fingers. That is because I am willing to wait until you die, hopefully of natural causes. Guns, except for the three approved categories, cannot be inherited. When you die your weapons must be turned into the local police department, which will then destroy them. (Weapons of historical significance will be de-milled, but may be preserved.)”
“3. Police departments are no longer allowed to sell or auction weapons used in crimes after the cases have been closed. (That will piss off some cops, since they really need this money. But you know what they need more? Less violence and death. By continuing the process of weapon recirculation, they are only making their jobs — or the jobs of some other cops — harder.)”
“4. We will submit a new tax on ammunition. In the first two years it will be 400 percent of the current retail cost of that type of ammunition. (Exemptions for the ammo used by the approved weapons.) Thereafter it will increase by 20 percent per year.”
“5. We will initiate a nationwide “buy-back” program, effective immediately, with the payouts coming from the DoD budget. This buy-back program will start purchasing weapons at 200 percent of their face value the first year, 150 percent the second year, 100 percent the third year. Thereafter there will be a 10 year pause, at which point the guns can be sold to the government at 10 percent of their value for the next 50 years.”
“6. The major gun manufactures of the United States, less those who create weapons for the federal government and the armed forces, will be bought out by the United States of America, for our own damned good.”
Instead, Obummer has probably moved him to the top of the promotion list.
“End of an Era: Last U.S. Lead Smelter to Close in December”
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2013/10/end-of-an-era-last-us-lead-smelter-to-close-in-december.aspx
and
http://cms.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2013/12/us-ammunition-industry-to-survive-closure-of-lead-smelter.aspx
We are slowly turning into a services only nation. We cannot recycle ourselves forever and importing raw materials from other nations opens us up to embargoes. Maybe we will need a national lead reserve?
Chemistree
http://imgur.com/VbtR79w
Lynn, I’ve known Bateman for ages (15 years+) online and this was so out of character for him I told a mutual friend he must be losing it. Flabbergasted is an understatement.
I’m sorry, but the well regulated militia still exists, and its most significant accomplishment was stopping one of the four planes which was hijacked on September 11, 2001. Although my favorite action of the militia in the modern era is this one in Monroe, NC.
Bateman’s rant has been going viral on the net over the last few days; he will probably be promoted to Chief of the JCS any minute now and told to implement his plan. Or else it’s some kind of intel operation for some weird reason we’ll never know. The day they start attempting to round up half a billion to a billion firearms here is gonna be very interesting.
Oh, I must have misread the article. I thought he was suggesting that the *military* have only black-powder muzzle loaders. I figured they might sell off all the current military weapons cheaply to us collectors.
Question for those here who know more about US History than I do. Didn’t many of the soldiers under General Washington supply their own arms? Which were not that far different from the arms provided to British troops by the British Government?
As is often true, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Army
By rights, as I understand them, we, as Murkan citizens, should have the same or better small arms that/than the police and military have, to wit, selective-fire AR’s, and semi-auto pistols in either 9mm or .45ACP. And by small arms, I reckon we could include grenade launchers and machine guns, but am willing to draw the line somewhere there. Maybe a local organized and trained militia group could keep the latter small arms under lock and key in an armory as in Ye Days of Olden Times until they’re needed.
The “colonel,” and I am given to understand there is or has been some question about his actual military status, is being a typical libtard smartass by suggesting/requiring that us Mundane imbeciles and peasants go back to the same small arms as carried by our colonial forebears. While he and his minions keep the AR’s and grenade launchers.
Fuck that.
I’d draw the line a bit higher. I have nothing against individuals owning, say an Abrams tank or a B-2 bomber or a helicopter gunship or a battery of howitzers. I also think it’s important that civilians have access to capable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. And by that I don’t mean just company-level stuff like Stingers and RPGs. I believe that organized military forces–our own or anyone else’s–should be terrified at the thought of taking on US civilians.
I’m of two minds about heavier stuff. I admit that I’m not happy with the idea of any random civilian owning a nuke or nerve gas or bioweapons or a space-based beam weapon, but on the other hand I’m very uncomfortable with the government/military having a monopoly on them.
Just owning infrared night vision is a major no-no in a war-zone. All USMC equipment and soldiers have infrared blinkers on them to identify friend or foe. While my USMC son was in Iraq, they seized all infrared equipment and arrested the possessor for interrogation. It was a nasty rumor that the possessor did not always survive the interrogation.
BTW, the USMC does not use water for interrogation. They use hand grenades.
Not many ordinary citizens are gonna be able to own mil-spec armor and aircraft but I agree with us being able to have solid anti-armor and anti-aircraft stuff; even that is prohibitively expensive for most of us. Agreed also on any militaries being fearful of taking on Murkan civvies. Which they may be already anyway. Yes, they can crush small rebellions and individuals; but it’s individuals who make up their forces and they can be identified, found and dealt with. Them and *their* families and property.
In Revolutionary and War of 1812 times, privately owned artillery was only for the rich, but not unheard of. Privately owned warships were a major part of the “American” naval presence for a good number of years. Privately-raised military units were not uncommon except during official wartime, and to a certain extent even then.
Of course, now the federal government has a large, permanent standing military, so all of those amateurs are unneeded, right?
I grew up in the immediate vicinity of Revolutionary War battlefields but there is only one such up here in Vermont, in Hubbardton, wherein General Arnold was featured and it was a precursor to Saratoga, turning point of the war.
The War of 1812, however, took place all through the north country up here, and there were actual “sea” battles on Lake Champlain, one of them being the Battle of Plattsburgh, just a couple of miles south of us here and across the lake. British soldiers are buried on a small island just off the town and they just had some re-enactment stuff going on, too.
Before all that we had the French and Indian War all through here, too, a.k.a. Queen Anne’s War. Wherein Rogers’ Rangers massacred some Saint Francis Abenaki, many of whose descendants still live in the area here and look less Indian than I do. (I have southeastern MA and Islands Wampanoag DNA, thanks to forefathers intermarrying with them in the late 17th- and 18th-Centuries.)
That large, permanent standing military of the Feds works so long as there is the money to pay for it all. Which won’t be the case in a few more years.
That large, permanent standing military of the Feds works so long as there is the money to pay for it all. Which won’t be the case in a few more years.
Nah, we can always print some blue dollars. Bluebacks. Then we will move to red dollars.
You mean like my ZSU-23-4? Even Warthogs fear it, and it’s even useful against main battle tanks. Not that a 23mm round can penetrate the main armor, but at 60 to 70 rounds per second, it can shred anything outside the main armor, including sights, lights, sensors, antennas, etc.
Sweet. I wish I had your connections; but listen; when the you-know-what hits the fan and we have militia recruitment in full swing, I am gonna recommend we bring you in and make you a colonel or something, so long as you come along with that thing and any relevant chemical background to help us out.
“….it can shred anything outside the main armor, including sights, lights, sensors, antennas, etc.”
Or the tank commander poking his head up outta the turret.