Weapons Man

What a way to go. An avid hiker’s demise forced a temporary shutdown of a section of the Appalachian Trail, a very popular hiker’s journey along over 1,000 miles of scenic mountains in the Eastern USA.

… indeed, when a nation’s politicians (and both parties share this blame) move to disestablish a border, without disestablishing the Border Patrol, the predictable result is that its members just throw their weight around.

A German gun magazine publisher conducted an investigation of the G36 last year, with the assistance (of course) of H&K. Running online under a title that translates to the rather optimistic “Overheating Problem Cleared Up,” the short version of the article combines reporting on the alleged accuracy problem with a range report on the rifle. (Vielen Dank to the anonymous tipster who sent it to us).

150 years ago this evening, actor John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head with this beautifully-crafted pistol.

Caution, politics follows. Politics, n. From poly, Greek “many,” and ticks, “small bloodsucking arthropods.”

Zoos?

These paragraphs sum it up:

The states that tend not to trust their subjects with guns tend to nanny in other places too. For example, in Maryland, letting your kids go to the neighborhood park is enough for State busybodies to try to seize the kids for their own use abuse amusement.

The neat thing about this homemade loader, similar to the earliest bench Magloaders, is, well, that it’s homemade. Looks like it could be routed out relatively easily. The loader video has been ripped off by various non-linking aggregators (who do you assclowns think you are? Vox.com or BuzzFeed?) so we note that you should have the option to “Open on YouTube” in our post of it.

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, someone proves you wrong.

Ovenight, last week, Ukrainian freedom fighters toppled the statues of three Soviet oppressors: Sergo Ordzhonikidzhe, Nikolai Rudnev, and Yakov Sverdlov. The Ukrainian government has ordered the removal of symbols of former occupiers, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, but it seems that some of the locals couldn’t wait for officialdom to move. “Raz, dva!” Crash!

The German media continue to run article after article criticizing the Bundeswehr’s G36 service rifle, and the procurement process that put the H&K product into the German Landser’s hands. The rifle has been extremely controversial from its introduction, but particularly since 2011.

And that’s probably what ol’ Nez de Porco will be doing as this post autoposts.

We finally installed the “Yosemite” version of MacOS. Mistake. it’s a murderer of productivity, at least for a blogger. It’s full of all the usual Apple chachkas and geegaws — the equivalent of the crapware that ships on a $400 Lenovo disposable PC — and seems to be made for ADHD sufferers with no jobs or need to get work done.

For example, it tries to force you to share your data with Apple’s iCloud, and not incidentally, NSA.

For another, there’s some force-fed Calendar Agent crapware that pops up dialog boxes every few minutes — in front of all applications — three and four at a time.

Anyway, it looks like we may be off Macs for the first time since 1986. Not looking forward to configuring BSD or Linux again. But we need a working computer to blog, and OSX 10.10 is not it.

This press release was so tempting that we had to double check — was it really dated April 10, not April 1? Turns out, it is (well, some versions are dated April 9).

The Army and Marines took different approaches to the orders to integrate women into ground combat units. The Marines resolved to test it, and see if it was feasible.

We have mentioned again, and again, and here we go again that special operations in the real world are highly influenced by logistics. Things like UW, GW, and long-range strategic reconnaissance require a well-developed ability to put people on the ground in the denied1 rear area of the enemy, to communicate with them securely and secretly while they are there, and to extract them when needed.

Back in January, 2013, we were pretty excited when SIG announced the MPX submachine gun, along with civilian-legal pistol, carbine and SBR variants. The piece we wrote then put this part-polymer MP5 analogue with AR-like ergonomics in its tactical, technical and historical context, but rereading it now, we were excited about this thing. We really wanted an SBR-SD version (and still do, and when we’re back in New Hampster we’ll enquire at the Pro Shop).

On this day, April 9th in 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his sword and his army to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant at the McLean house, near Appomattox Court House, Virginia. While some Confederate formations in the West would hang on for a few weeks, it was, for all intents and purposes, the end of the American Civil War.

Bleach? Yes, Bleach. Stand by and we will explain. First, the consequences (“Verdict first, then trial!” said the Red Queen):