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November 6, 2015

It's Time Again.

The idiots are getting bolder and bolder. I had an incident last week with three black shitheads youths as I was leaving the courthouse. I was really tempted to smack one of them who jumped in front of my face waving his arms and shouting. The kid apparently was high as a kite and was screaming gibberish to the delight of his fellow idiots. They ran down the street pummeling parked police cars. I was standing next to two female prosecutors and didn't want to get involved in a ruckus and have them hurt so I ignored them. Then this afternoon as I was leaving a detective told me about an incident he had in the exact same spot this week with another group of young blacks. He threatened to beat the crap out of them and they took off. He told me I was nuts not to be carrying in the courthouse these days.

I am going to approach my boss about wearing a gun to work. As a contractor doing investigations I had special permission from the courts to do this but I let it lapse. It's been 17 years: it's time again.

Because cops are pulling back in their aggressive enforcement effort, the idiots are running amok. The shootings in our city are going through the roof. The FBI director commented on this recently and was rebuked by the White House. Now the DEA chief stepped up to the plate and took a swing at Obama and his circus clowns.
WASHINGTON — The nation's top drug enforcement official said Wednesday that FBI Director James Comey was "spot on'' when he recently offered the controversial assessment that violent crime surges in some cities may be linked to police officers' reluctance to engage suspects.

"I think there is something to it,'' Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg told reporters, referring to the so-called "Ferguson-effect'' in which police have been reportedly hesitant to act for fear of prompting the kind of civil unrest that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., last year. "I think (Comey) was spot on.''

Comey's remarks during appearances last month in Chicago put the FBI director at odds with some in law enforcement and the White House, which indicated that existing evidence did not support such a claim.

"I will say that the available evidence at this point does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities,'' White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week. "On the contrary, I think you’ve seen a lot of local law enforcement leaders indicate that police officers and sheriffs and other local law enforcement officials are actually dedicated public servants who on a daily basis are putting their lives on the line to serve and protect the communities that they’re assigned to.''
More here.

I already qualified with my Glock .45 (mod.. 30) and my S&W .380 in August.  I'm good to go.

Secret Agent Man


ISIS Strikes Back

British intelligence claims that the Russian jet liner that exploded over Egypt was destroyed by a terrorist device. Putin is upset at this disclosure as it may indicate that his intervention in Syria is responsible for the deaths of 224 civilians.
British spies intercepted intelligence suggesting the Sinai air disaster was caused by an Islamic State bomb, it emerged last night.

It prompted the Government to immediately ground flights to the resort, and they could be suspended for weeks – leaving 130,000 Britons who have booked winter sun trips in limbo.

[...]Such a development would be a political disaster for Moscow, which would face allegations it failed to protect its own citizens.
Story here.

November 5, 2015

It Just Ain't Me

A corrupt NYS politician defends himself in court by maintaining that since everybody else is corrupt, it just isn't a crime anymore. Call it the "Me Too Defense."
It’s not just Sheldon Silver on trial in Manhattan federal court: It’s the whole system.

Silver’s defense is that corruption is the bread and butter of New York politics — so how can it be a crime?

The prosecution says Silver, for decades the state’s second-most-powerful official, “picked the people’s pocket to line his own.”

To which Silver’s team answers, So what?

“It’s impossible, absolutely impossible,” argued defense lawyer Steven Molo, “for a member of the Assembly to . . . do the job that a person in the Assembly does and not have some sort of conflict of interest.

“That may make you uncomfortable,” he added, “but that is the system New York has chosen, and it is not a crime.”
Story here.

Wipe Out


November 4, 2015

Oh ... Isaac?

This is strange, exciting stuff.
Engineer Roger Shawyer’s controversial EmDrive thruster jets back into relevancy this week, as a team of researchers at NASA’s Eagleworks Laboratories recently completed yet another round of testing on the seemingly impossible tech. Though no official peer-reviewed lab paper has been published yet, and NASA institutes strict press release restrictions on the Eagleworks lab these days, engineer Paul March took to the NASA Spaceflight forum to explain the group’s findings. In essence, by utilizing an improved experimental procedure, the team managed to mitigate some of the errors from prior tests — yet still found signals of unexplained thrust.

Isaac Newton should be sweating.

Flying in the face of traditional laws of physics, the EmDrive makes use of a magnetron and microwaves to create a propellant-less propulsion system. By pushing microwaves into a closed, truncated cone and back towards the small end of said cone, the drive creates the momentum and force necessary to propel a craft forward. Because the system is a reaction-less drive, it goes against humankind’s fundamental comprehension of physics, hence its controversial nature.
Story here, more here.

A Taste Of Honey


November 3, 2015

US Deploys F-15s To Turkey

Obama has put on his big boy pants and is upping the ante in Syria. We'll see if Putin calls him.
The Pentagon is sending F-15Cs—supposedly to fight the ISIS war. But the jets only have air-to-air weapons, and ISIS has no planes. Which means the real adversary is Russia.

The U.S. Air Force is deploying to Turkey up to a dozen jet fighters specializing in air-to-air combat—apparently to help protect other U.S. and allied jets from Russia’s own warplanes flying over Syria.

Officially, the deployment of F-15C Eagle twin-engine fighters to Incirlik, Turkey—which the Pentagon announced late last week—is meant to “ensure the safety” of America’s NATO allies, Laura Seal, a Defense Department spokesperson, told The Daily Beast.

That could mean that the single-seat F-15s and the eight air-to-air missiles they routinely carry will help the Turkish air force patrol Turkey’s border with Syria, intercepting Syrian planes and helicopters that periodically stray into Turkish territory.

But more likely, the F-15s will be escorting attack planes and bombers as they strike ISIS militants in close proximity to Syrian regime forces and the Russian warplanes that, since early October, have bombed ISIS and U.S.-backed rebels fighting the Syrian troops.
Story here.

Su-27

Russia has deployed Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" jets to Syria. Both the F-15 and the Su-27 are highly maneuverable, air superiority aircraft with similar capabilities and armament. The F-15 has had a much greater exposure to aerial combat than the SU-27 which has seen very limited engagement in Angola, Eritrea and Chechnya. The F-15 shot down over 30 Russian aircraft (mostly Migs) during the Gulf War. Of course American pilots did not face Russian pilots in those encounters.

F-15

This could get real interesting. The first F-15s were first deployed in 1972; there have been four upgrades. The F-15E is the latest variant (1988); F-15C's are being sent to Turkey. The Su-27 is a mid-80's Russian product.

I Saw Her Again Last Night