Crazy Chick report, Alaska edition.

In Alaska, nothing says "true love" like kicking on your ex-lover's door and firing a pistol...except possibly doing so while drunk and bringing your eight year old child and his rifle for back-up.

FAIRBANKS — A North Pole area woman is accused of trying to kick down the door and firing a pistol into the air outside her former boyfriend’s house Wednesday night.

Diana M. Andre, 25, faces misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and weapons misconduct.

About 7:27 p.m., her ex-boyfriend called troopers to report Andre was outside his house on the 1900 block of Wallace Court. Her 8-year-old son also was there with what looked like a rifle, he said. Her ex-boyfriend called troopers from a neighbor’s house because he said Andre sent him a threatening message after he turned down a lunch invitation, according to the criminal complaint against Andre.

Troopers later found Andre at another North Pole area home because one of the phone calls to her ex matched a land line.

She told troopers she fired the shots because her ex-boyfriend had threatened her. She gave troopers a Glock .27-caliber semi-automatic pistol she said she had used.

She appeared intoxicated and later registered a breath-alcohol content of 0.275 using a preliminary breath-alcohol test, troopers said.

And here she is, in all of her Myspace glory:
Wow--a gal with a house messier than mine who can function with a BrAC of almost 0.30, and she appreciates Glocks. Where do I find a woman like that?
No, seriously--someone tell me, because I want to stay along way away from that place.

Saturday Man Movie

In the fairly forgettable but still fun 1979 movie Search and Destroy, an old enemy from his days in Vietnam kills a Special Ops vet's friends and kidnaps his girlfriend. Naturally, this makes that vet, played by Perry King, very angry.
This leads to a war in downtown Niagara Falls, a war that police detective George Kennedy trys--and fails--to head off.


And the fight continues at first light:

Ow, ow, ow....

When there's a miscommunication between man and dog over who is going to grab which part of a toy, the man usually wins on principle just due to species superiority. The dog however, usually wins on points, specifically the points on his sharp canine teeth.

Murphy and I had such a miscommunication a few hours ago, with both of us grabbing the same part of one of his flat basketballs. I know that he meant no harm, but I'd be willing to bet that his teeth don't hurt anything like my thumb does right about now.

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch my thumb nail turn blacker.

Ow.

Portrait of an "Occupy" member

Here is a OWS Dude. He's the guy on the street with the nose rings, the dreadlocks and the lice.

He's the guy in Starbucks making coffee because it's the only job he can get with his degree in Art History.He doesn't always have money for rent or food but he always has money for weed. He rents a dingy studio apartment with a window on the sidewalk level. Bums sleep on his steps and pee on his sidewalk window. He doesn't seem to care. He doesn't even notice the smell.

He's the guy that rides a bicycle everywhere he goes because he can't afford a car. He has to keep replacing the bicycle because people like him keep stealing it.

He has no mechanical skills. He has no administrative skills. He has no trade. He is a vegan, too weak from malnutrition to work at any kind of physical labor job; not that he would take one anyway as that kind of work is beneath him. He despises the military and law enforcement. He has an upside down American flag taped to his sidewalk window... right next to his marijuana flag.

He hangs out with other leftwing losers who blame their innumerable failures in life on people they've never met and know nothing about.He's always borrowing money from someone but never pays them back. He gives them some weed instead.

He's never contributed time or money to any civic project yet he constantly criticizes his community.He fully immerses himself in anything leftwing. The more these leftwing organizations bash America, the more rabid he becomes. Despite his leftist fervor, he is always on the outside looking in. He's a loser and even the leftwing losers that tolerate him think he's a loser. He's never been able to become part of their leftist clique, no matter how much he bashes America.When he gets old and is unable to support himself he will turn to welfare. He is a parasite. When his life is over he will have contributed nothing but hatred and bigotry to the world. He will be buried in a state owned lot at the taxpayers expense. Maybe one or two of his dealers or customers will stop by for the funeral service. So long OWS bum.

Text courtesy of Matthew Clark, in a comment that he posted to Politico. Too good not to steal and share. The pics I just nabbed off the net.

Afghan tractor = Marine officer's career?

Only in the Bizarro-land created by the Obama Administration.

Marine's career threatened by controversial rules of engagement.

Joshua Waddell, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marines, appeared on his way to a stellar career as an American military officer. The son of a retired Navy SEAL commander, Waddell had won a Bronze Star during his first tour of duty in Afghanistan and had returned for a second.

Then he made a decision in combat that military experts say has severely jeopardized his future in the corps.

But some military experts say the black mark on Waddell's record was undeserved, that he and other young American officers are being put in a difficult, if not impossible, situation by unreasonable rules of engagement foisted upon the military by politically sensitive commanders in the Pentagon.

The facts in Waddell's case are spelled out in Marine Corps documents. But how those facts should be interpreted is a matter of heated dispute.

On Nov. 1, Waddell, a 25-year-old executive officer with 3rd Battallion, 7th Marine Corps Regiment, was monitoring a surveillance camera in Sangin, Afghanistan, when he spotted a man who had been identified as a bomb maker working with area insurgents. Two days earlier, a sergeant from India Company had lost both legs and a hand when a bomb detonated in their area of operation. The man spotted on the camera was believed to be responsible.

After receiving permission from his battalion commanders, Waddell ordered Marine snipers to open fire on the man, and he was hit. A group of Afghans rushed to the man, put him on a tractor and attempted to flee. Waddell ordered the snipers to hit the engine block of the tractor, disabling it so the man believed to be a bomb maker would not escape. The tractor was hit but no civilians were injured.

Then, about three weeks later, the civilians who helped remove the wounded man from the area were found to be teenagers.

As a result, Waddell was demoted from executive officer, and the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Seth Folsom, determined he had violated rules of engagement that governed when Marines could fire, and at whom. Folsom said Wadell "is not recommended for promotion" and "in violation of [combat rules] during an engagement." The report stated that "noncombatant local nationals" were in the area of direct fire and that "the engagement resulted in a damaged local national vehicle."

A Marine brigadier general who reviewed the case was sympathetic to Waddell, whom he described as a "superb and heroic combat leader. But the general said the decision on whether Waddell should be promoted was "the commander's prerogative," noting that the battalion commander on the scene had lost "confidence in [Waddell's] abilities."

Read the rest at the link above. Long story short, if you get passed over for promotion, you're pretty much on the way to being booted from the service these days. It's virtually a career death sentence to get skipped.

I guess this is how we reward our warfighters who dare go into harm's way now. Guess they should have just stood back and asked for some drone "pilot" to obliterate the entire group. They'd have probably got medals for that.

Yet another reason why I don't have kids

In New York State, a 4 year old rats out her dad and gets momma a court case to boot.

MASSENA - State police here found a wanted man with a little help from his 4-year-old daughter.

Police arrested John A. Colby, 30, of Massena, at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday and charged him with third-degree bail jumping, second-degree obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest, according to a press release.

Troopers arrived at Colby's 12 Stearns St. home with bench warrants from Stockholm and Norfolk town courts. Initially, Colby's girlfriend - 27-year-old Jessica L. Smith of Massena - denied knowing his whereabouts. That's when Colby's daughter reportedly told police, "Daddy is scared and hiding in the attic."

Smith refused to comply with troopers, police said, and "actively resisted" when they tried to go into the attic and take Colby into custody. She was subsequently charged with second-degree obstructing governmental administration.

Colby was arraigned in Norfolk town court and remanded to St. Lawrence County Jail in lieu of $1,655 cash bail. He's due to reappear Wednesday morning. Smith was issued an appearance ticket returnable to Massena village court Jan. 31.

Sure, Murphy can be a pain at times, but I'm pretty confident that if and when Obama gets a second term and initiates a nationwide gun round-up, should they come knocking on my door and I deny having any guns, Murphy probably won't reveal where they're actually hidden.

Range Day

Old NFO stopped by today. And after he played with Murphy and got him all wound up, we headed out to the range. Initially we were going to go to one about 50 miles away, but on the way there, we passed another one--probably the only range in the area that I didn't belong to--and I joined it for a year so that we could shoot there because it was much better than where we were headed. This one has got a pistol range with steel targets, a 50 and 100 yard line, and a 400 yard line (with more steel). Even better, they let you practice realistic drills, including rapid fire and drawing from the holster, unlike the range I usually shoot at.

Once I was signed up and we shot qualifying targets, allowing us use of the 100 and 400 yard ranges, we put the "new" M60 through it's paces, and other than a minor sight-alignment issue, it ran flawlessly.
I don't have any video footage of it, but hopefully Old NFO does. I did, however, get a nice picture of our rifles on the bench. Here's my Rock River AR-15 with the Aimpoint in front, and behind it is his very nice FN SCAR in .308. The ACOG optic he's got mounted on it just makes the weapon, and he was ringing the gong at 400 yards with it repeatedly. Now that I'm a member there, I'll be out there with my Savage Tactical regularly. Gotta be prepared, because, as they say, the 21st century is when everything changes, and you've gotta be ready.

We also shot much pistol in .45, .38 and .22. and then, moderately chilled, we adjourned to Marios in Berryville for some quality Italian cooking. (Italians...lousy ship captains but great cooks.)

Then it was back to the Lair to discover that Murphy had figured out that I'd thrown away a couple of his favorite old bones and a ratty tennis ball and vetoed that by dragging the whole garbage bag into the living room, tearing it open on the rug, and digging through all of the coffee grounds and other trash until he was able to locate and remove his possessions.

Damn dog.

But garbage on the floor notwithstanding, it was still a great day out and I'm looking forward to the next one.

A Saturday Man Movie post

How NOT to take on a Tiger tank:



Actually, reasoning with them seems to work much better.


This compilation comes from a movie that I watched last night because Brigid told me that she was watching it (and because I'd just found my copy in between the couch cushions.)

Kelly's Heroes. Back when movies were fun.

West Virginia's Gun-Hating Delegate John Doyle is at it again.

Sure as Spring follows Winter, you can expect Delegate John Doyle (D-57) to try to do something else to disarm both his constituents and the rest of us. This time, he's introduced HB 2229, a bill intended to create a new aw barring any of us in the state from purchasing more than two handguns in a thirty-day period.

Last time it was his effort to keep any of us from buying more than one gun in any 24-hour period. That failed, too.

Sadly, he keeps surviving elections. This tells me that too many West Virginians care more about knee-jerking in support of the Democrats than they care about preserving their freedoms. Pity that we cannot mandate that any gun-control legislation passed by would-be tyrants like Doyle only apply to the people who actually vote for them (or fail to vote at all). Maybe THAT would wake up some of those Stepford voters that keep casting ballots for his freedom-hating ass.

Thanks to the NRA for the tip.

A Day in the Life...

If you're going to have one leg, you've gotta be tough. But sometimes, even that has it's limits.

Currently, I'm back on just one leg for a few days as I wait for a blister that is interfering with my store-bought leg to go away. This means that I use crutches (slow, awkward) or I hop around on one foot. The latter is actually my preferred method for around the house and I'm quite good at it. It's faster and leaves my arms free to carry things that I cannot carry while using crutches. (It's amazing how adaptable you can get when circumstances force your hand.) Usually this works just fine, but on occasion, things happen to throw you a curve. Take yesterday.

There I am, hopping down to the basement to get a bag of wood pellets for the stove. I hop over to the pallet of pellets, toss a 40lb. bag of them on my shoulder, and start hopping back, only to feel something hard and sharp underfoot.

Did I mention that this only works if I'm barefoot? I can't do the hop thing with a shoe on.

So I feel the hard, sharp thing underfoot, and I'm hoping that is dislodges with the next hop or two, but it does not. In fact, it jabs harder with each bounce, and I realize that whatever it is, it's digging itself into the bottom of my foot more with each bounce. Joy. It took two bounces to figure this out, then two more to get to the steps where I could set the bag down and set ME down to re-assess. My luck, it's a piece of glass from a broken bottle out of the recycling tub. (Stupid green environmental crap..) And it's now embedded deep in the ball of my foot. Joyx2!

So I scuttle up the stairs, grab my handy-dandy folding knife off the back of the couch, and spend the next ten minutes trying to dig/pry/hack that chunk of glass out of the bottom of my own foot without anesthetic. (That came right after in the form of a large Bushmills, neat with an Abita Amber chaser.) Then I washed the foot, put a dressing on it, and hopped back down to get my wood pellets, lest Murphy and I get cold. But now I have a fair-sized hole in the bottom of my remaining foot. Good thing I just bought a fresh bottle of Bushmills last week. If you need me, I'll be on the couch, watching Dr. Who."Suck it up, Buttercup. My comfort was worth it."

It's times like this that I realize that I really could use a wood-fetcher/basement-cleaner/dog-smacker around the house. So if you're a smoking hot female interested in applying for the job, drop me a line. Applicants with their own French Maid attire and gun-cleaning experience will receive priority consideration.

Destroyer U.S.S. Edson finally gets a lasting home

Happy news for an old veteran ship.
BAY CITY, MI (WNEM) -

After years of trying to get a decommissioned U.S. warship to Mid-Michigan, the plan is about to come to fruition.

Members of the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum say they should receive the OK this week to move the U.S.S. Edson from Philadelphia to Bay County's Bangor Township, to be docked on the Saginaw River.

Michael Kegley and Dick Janke have worked for 15 years on trying to bring the ship to Mid-Michigan. The men say the U.S. Navy should give them the okay this week to move the decommissioned destroyer.

"When we started this project we were young men," Kegley said.

The warship saw action in the Vietnam war.

"As a matter of fact it fired more five-inch rounds in Vietnam than any other ship" Janke said.

The pier where the U.S.S. Edson will be docked is located very close to the Independence Bridge in Bangor Township. An estimated 80,000 people will visit the ship every year. Museum organizers expect most of the ship's visitors to come from out of state.

"You remember now that this ship had a compliment of 276 officers and men and there were 18 ships in the four Sherman class destroyers, you multiply that over a 35-year period and there's a lot of men who sailed this ship and that's not even counting those who sailed other destroyers," Kegley said.

After the Edson arrives, organizers plan to raise more than $2.5 million to build a visitors center and gift shop next to the ship.

It's going to cost at least $200,000 to move the ship this spring. The plan is to it get here through the St. Lawrence seaway after the ice thaws.

If you'd like to make a donation to get the ship here or for the visitor's center, you can go to the following website for more information:

http://www.ussedson.org/

It's back! All-new and better than ever!

The Big Brown Truck just left. Murphy is still grumbling, having refused the latest "let's be friends" entreaty of Mike, the UPS driver. (Murphy does take his offered cookies, however. He just devours them quickly than resumes barking and snapping at Mike as soon as his mouth is empty.)

Last month I sent my M60 out to Desert Ordnance, the civilian sales side of US Ordnance, the company that rebuilds M60 machine guns into new Mk43 guns for the US Navy. They rebuilt mine so thoroughly that the only original part left on it is the trunion and the rear sight assembly. The gun needed a rebuild because it was tired and unreliable, so I sent it off to these folks for a refurbishment, and now it's back, lighter and more reliable with a new-gun warranty--a zero-time gun with all new parts made using the latest processes and incorporating all of the upgrades; a totally mil-spec machine gun that should fire for decades and outlast me if properly cared for.

And for the pics:

BEFORE:




AFTER:
It's shorter, it's lighter, and it's infinitely more reliable.
Most of the "old" M60's faults have been corrected in this new version, which also boasts 30% stronger belt-pulling power and a spiffy rail for the mounting of optics.Much of the size/weight savings comes from the replacement of the old heavy barrel with it's attached bipod (meaning that each spare barrel that the operator carries has to have these too) with a lightweight barrel and a redesigned mounting system that puts the bipod on the gun itself. The new barrels are superior to the old ones in terms of their ability to absorb heat, and the front sights are now adjustable, meaning that each spare barrel can be zeroed to the weapon in advance. .Also, it has a new gas piston designed to work no matter which way you put it in so that you cannot foul the gun up by putting it in backwards like operators of the old ones sometimes did. That clunky heat shield is gone, too. Best not to touch that barrel. But the new barrels now have permanent carrying handles attached, meaning no more asbestos glove needed to swap out hot barrels!


This machine gun is currently in use by US Navy SEAL teams due to it's size and weight advantage over the M240 weapons system. US Ordnance has the contract to rebuild the Navy's M60 systems into these new Mk43 weapons and I couldn't pass up the chance to have mine totally rebuilt by them for less than the cost of what a couple of big-name commercial machine gun gunsmiths wanted to just fix what was wrong it.

Here's the article about the Mk43 written last year by Defense Review. It even comes with videos, which should work to hold those interested over until I can shoot some of my own.

Defense Review MK 43.

"Yeah, ok...it's neat, but I'm still not schlepping your extra ammo belts around. I'm a dog, not a pack mule!"