Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Can anyone honestly say?
Can anyone honestly say that they're in the slightest bit surprised by the ending of the Maersk Alabama pirate attack? I mean, seriously, once the USS Bainbridge was there on the scene, the Somali pirates should have just given up. Kudos to the Navy for doing their job extremely well, and for getting Phillips out alive - that was not a foregone conclusion - but did anyone think that the pirates were just going to get away with this?
Sheesh. Some sites on the left are making it sound like Obama personally pulled a Chuck Norris and got Phillips out himself. Some sites on the right make it sound like Obama just gibbered about the use of force and the military had to act to salvage the situation. No - this was competent professionals, doing what they do, and doing it well. Obama did what any US president would have done, nothing more, nothing less.
Jim Downey
(An aside - I probably won't be around much this week. We're going to be starting the next round of ballistics testing on Thursday, and I have a lot of work to get done before that.)
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Ballistics
Wow, I didn't know you were involved with that ballistics website. I'm interested in your results, specifically on the performance of certain bullet calibers on long and short barrels. I have a 2" snubnosed revolver in .357 mag/.38 spl, and was surprised at your tests that showed the difference in performance between both calibers in a short barrel. I had thought that 2" is too short for the .357 to appreciably burn its powder to be significantly different than its lesser sibling.
I'm also glad that you're considering the .327 mag. Ever since I heard the announcement of the new round, I had been researching its performance in several websites.
Weird, eh?
It plays with a lot of people's biases that someone who is left of center politically, and an atheist, is also something of a gun nut. ;) But anyway . . .
I think that the .357 mag gets *more* benefit from a longer barrel, but it is also starting from a more powerful position. And remember, as it says on the site, barrel length is calculated from the forcing cone forward in a revolver, whereas in our T/C (and semi-automatics) it is calculated from the breech face forward.
We're all curious to see how the .327 performs. That said, I prefer a heavier bullet for defense - simple energy calculations aren't everything.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I'm just glad the whole thing is over
It kept interrupting the 24/7 coverage of the Octamom.
Yeah, but just think what President McCain might have done.
I'm trying to come up with a real sense of how he might react. How he might 'kick over the chessboard'.
I don't know -- he could suspend his presidency and the recession to personally fly out and visit the situation. Or he could accuse Russia of something.
The McCain reaction concept makes me queasy but I'm having trouble getting a concrete image.
Heh.
ANY American president? Oh, I'm sure George W. Bush would have found some way to fuck it up.
Plus afterwards there would have been legions of posturing dolts on TV bragging in the most offensive way possible -- and in identical memo-perfect words -- about how good Republicans and conservatives were at protecting America, as compared to the America-hating evil liberals.
We'd have heard the words "terrorists" and "terror" another thousand or so times, there would have been some sort of big nasty god-praising event, and the Republican-dominated Congress would have followed up with new legal restrictions on sport boaters in American waters, plus an entirely new secret quasi-government office manned by Blackwater operatives and devoted to monitoring and recording marine radio traffic. Just to, you know, keep us safe.
We'd have come out of the whole thing feeling ... sticky.
....
Actually, during the event, I thought briefly about the USSR's solution to airplane hijacking. They'd just go in and start shooting until the hijackers were all dead, and if the hostages got in the way, too bad. Bang, no hijacking problem.
Of course WE can't do that. But it does have that momentary testosterone-soaked gleam of desirability.
I know it's not really his doing, but in 12 weeks of Obama as President, we already have two new unvarnished, no-puffery-required, American civilian heroes to look up to, sea Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk-Alabama, who traded his own safety for that of his crew, and air Captain Chesley Sullenburger of Flight 1549, who saved the lives of more than 150 people when he set down a passenger jet on the Hudson River.
Signs of Hope: Genuine pride begins to creep back into the American heart.
Fair point.
OK, fair point, and you are sadly probably correct in your assessment of what would have happened. I should have made a more qualified statement along the lines of "Any *halfway competent* American president would have done the same. That would have ruled out W and probably one or two others.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
It is nice
to have a halfway-competent president again. I'm still hoping for greatness, but it's early yet.
I thought it was a funny coincidence that we were (after a fashion) at war with pirates again, even as Obama reminded us once more of the contents of the Treaty of Tripoli.
A shot named for Sullenburger
Have you heard of the shot some bartender named after Cpt. Sullenburger? It's called the Sully, and it's two shots of Grey Goose with a splash of water.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.