Navy does right by fallen SEAL

It's not often that the government stands by one of it's own, especially one killed while doing something in their off-duty hours, but in this case, I think that the Navy did right in declaring the BASE jumping death of US Navy SEAL Tyler Stimson to be duty-related.

The death of a Navy SEAL in an off-hours parachute accident last year occurred in the line of duty and was not due to misconduct, a Navy investigation found.

Petty Officer 1st Class Tyler Stimson died July 16, 2010, while parachuting off a cellphone tower in Suffolk. He was BASE jumping - a high-risk, often illegal sport that involves parachuting from fixed objects.

Stimson, 30, was a member of Virginia Beach-based Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known informally as DEVGRU or SEAL Team 6. The unit attracted worldwide attention in May when it killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Stimson's conduct did not rise to the level of recklessness or willful neglect, the commander of the unit wrote in his report, noting that he was engaging in an activity "closely resembling those which our operators engage in every day."

"To succeed, we must train hard and accept risks most others would refuse," he wrote. "Risk is inherent in our daily lives."

The investigation report was provided to The Virginian-Pilot last month in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Names of the commanding officer and other principal players in the investigation were deleted.

The "line of duty" determination means that Stimson's dependents are eligible for military survivor's benefits, said Lt. Arlo Abrahamson, a Navy special warfare spokesman.

Stimson was married with no children.

Abrahamson said the determination was made in accordance with Navy legal standards. Under those standards, simple negligence, or carelessness, does not constitute misconduct, he said.

Stimson took numerous steps to mitigate the risk, the commander wrote. He was an experienced sky diver who donned the proper gear, attended training classes, consulted experts in the field and planned his jumps thoroughly.

Stimson was a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and a recipient of the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

As many as 10 members of SEAL Team 6 have been known to engage in BASE jumping in their off-duty hours, the investigation found.

The acronym "BASE" stands for building, antenna, span and earth.

A fellow SEAL, Jason James Tompsett, 31, was with Stimson in the predawn incident and jumped off the tower successfully. He was charged with trespassing by Suffolk police. The charge was dismissed in Suffolk General District Court.

"While I do not condone trespassing," Stimson's commanding officer wrote, "the trespassing did not proximately cause" Stimson's death.

In response to the accident, the commander wrote, the Navy initiated "a thorough review of high-risk activities specifically concentrating on off duty recreational activities."

It remains unclear whether BASE jumping is an approved recreational activity for SEALs.

"We don't publicly discuss specific approved and disapproved training and recreational activities within our command," Abrahamson said by email, "but we can tell you any approved activity is carried out in a manner consistent with Navy safety instructions and in good judgment with regards to operational risk management."

Stimson's jumping partner found him lying face-down on top of his canopy with its suspension lines wrapped around his feet. He died of multiple impact injuries to the head, neck and torso.

None of his equipment was found to be defective.

A Navy parachute specialist who examined Stimson's gear told investigators it appeared that Stimson rolled into a head-down position in which the lines became entangled in his legs, causing the canopy to engulf him. In such a short jump, he didn't have time to disentangle himself.

While I'm sorry to hear of Petty Officer Stimson's death last year, I'm glad to see the Navy is standing by him and ensuring that he's remembered as the hero that he was and not just casting him aside, as our government is typically so wont to do, especially in these times.

An outbreak of illegal immigrants will strain our recovery like a virus--this is not a drill

Also: 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan'.

What the hell am I talking about, you ask?

Well it appears that Obama's Department of Homeland Security is now setting up fake Facebook accounts so that it's minions and henchmen can scan the internet looking for blogs and other discussion content using those words.

Tweeting the word "drill" could mean that your twitter account is read by U.S. spies.

So aside from the fact that we're now going to pay government employees to surf the internet all day (as if most of them don't do this illicitly already), we've now got our public servants rulers peering into our on-line activities and trying to discern our true identities if we type something that's politically not-so-correct.

Yeah, nothing bad can ever come of that, right?

So if they want to pay that sort of game, I want to be on the other side--the freedom-loving, Constitution-respecting side. And if they want a fight with us real Americans, let it begin here at the Lair.

How about you? If we ALL use these words...

Murphy's Christmas Pie

T'was the day before Christmas, and all through my car, my cell phone was ringing, I hadn't gone far.

I got the angry phone call from my dear mother just five minutes after leaving Murphy at my mother's house while I was out shopping.

Five minutes. I wasn't even two miles away yet.

Apparently, despite repeated warnings about Murphy's fondness for counter surfing, my mother left two freshly-baked pies on the kitchen counter and went into the other room, leaving dog and pastries unattended. The pies had been meant for a pre-Christmas dinner with our family and that of Aaron of The Shekel.

(Dinner memorialized on his blog here.)

But once the coast was clear, Murphy chose to sample the lemon meringue pie, no doubt planning to have the chocolate pie for dessert. The first indication my mother had that she'd screwed up was the sound of the pie plate hitting the kitchen floor upside down, spattering what pie that Murphy had not already consummed all over the kitchen. The angry phone call came moments later.

I made it a point to try to stay away until I was sure that the chef had cooled off. However, due to the fact that she had to clean the entire kitchen floor again and then head out to the jam-packed grocery store to get new pie ingredients before setting out to mmake a brand new pie pretty much ensured that she stayed miffed at her "Grand-dog" for quite some time. It also didn't help that everyone that she relayed this story to thought that it was funny.

Of course my mother is not totally without blame here. Murphy is my fourth dog, current standard-bearer of an unbroken line of dogs going well back into the 1980s, and each one of the other dogs has at one time or another grabbed something delicious that was cooling on a counter at her house. In short, this has happened before and she kinda should have been expecting that, especially after I'd specifically warned her several times that he does this. I also just found out this morning that she'd teased him a bit and put some pie filling on his nose while making the pie, so it's not as if he just decided out of the blue to taste-test the pie--she'd already shown him just how good it tasted before leaving him alone in the room with it. But my mom is as trusting as my dogs are untrustworthy with food on counters, so while I did my best to sympathize with her over the loss of the pie, I can't help but snicker when I'm out of sight and reach of her broom.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Silent Night

On this night...

Just because it's Friday

Does your office have a clothing drive for the holidays?

Happy Anniversary...to us

Six years ago today, Lagniappe's Lair was launched with this post.

It seems like a long time ago. I had another dog then, and another leg. Much has changed. But if anything's constant in life, it's change. Here's to the next six years and the change that it brings. Thanks to Aaron over at The Shekel for getting me started on this blog, and thanks to each of you for coming back every time.

And Lagniappe, I still miss ya, bud. I never would have figured that this blog that bears your name would outlast you.

Well that's one way to go.

Darwin must still be laughing.

Wayne Joshua Mitchell, 20, collapsed and died in the back seat of a North Charleston, South Carolina police car after his older brother, Deangelo Rashard Mitchell, talked Wayne into retrieving a baggie containing an ounce of cocaine from Deangelo's butt crack and eating it to keep Deangelo from catching yet another drug charge.

Ironically, Deangelo talked his little brother into eating a lethal dose of cocaine in an attempt to avoid another drug conviction that would have sent him to prison for up to life. Now he's in even more trouble as he's being charged with the death of his rather stupid brother since the police got it all on videotape.

You can't make this stuff up, folks! And remember that they call it "dope" for a reason.

The only pathetic part: Deangelo was already a convicted felon who was actually out on bond from a prior case, and the court still let him out on bond again in this case before anyone knew how his brother had died. Not surprisingly, Deangelo has disappeared.

Edited to add: Whoops! They just found him. Guy knows that he's wanted and he still can't stay off the police radar for even a month.

Worst. Criminal. Ever.

The Brigid Question

Brigid posed a great question yesterday. It was a question that I answered in her comment section, but on further reflection, I thought that it deserved more. So here's her question again:

"If you could only take what you could load in your arms, in your car, in the event of a disaster what would it be?"

What would you take with you if you only had a minute or two to gather up as much as you could carry in one trip, knowing that once you passed out your door, there was no going back for anything else, what would you take?

For me it was surprisingly simple. Going up to my gun safe, I would remove a small fireproof box that has all of my crucial documents: birth certificate, professional license documentation, and bank account info; stuff that I'll need to prove that I am who I am and allow me to access off-site funds. There's also enough cash in that box to keep me going for a while in an emergency. That's what that cash is for.

Next, from that gunsafe, I'd grab my favorite rifle and pistol and the loaded magazines for each which are in the gun safe, ready and waiting. nearby is a belt and Load Bearing vest with a holster for that pistol and mag pouches for both weapons. Those pouches contain loaded magazines already, just waiting for such a grab-and-go situation.
There are also three small pistols in that safe. These are my back-up or "hide-out" pistols. They fit in my pockets so I'd take those, too. Who knows, but I may get to a point where I need something good to barter for something else.
Finally, I'd probably scoop up my Uzi, the loaded magazine for it that's in the safe, and it's shoulder pouch containing six additional loaded 32rd. magazines. By now I'm moving out the door with about 40lbs. of weaponry, a quantity of cash and all of my essential documents. I'm good to go now, because with one more exception, everything else I'll need is already in my vehicle.

Come on, Murphy. Let's go for a ride. Load up.
Murphy loves to ride, and he'll be in the vehicle in a flash.

I could close the door on everything else, knowing that I was never going to see it again. It's all just stuff, and stuff can be replaced. That's why we have insurance.

Now in my vehicle, I still have my emergency "bug out" bag. With this and the above items, I'm good to go. My vehicle never--ever--has less than half a tank of gas in it due to my work's on-call requirement, and even if I can't buy any more gas, I can get a couple hundred miles out of that half a tank. I now have mobility and range and enough firepower to get me out of any trouble that I can't otherwise avoid. I may lose my house and everything left behind in it but Murph and I will be safe and well-fed for a few days and we can always start again someplace else, come what may.

So how about you? What would you take if you could only make one trip out your door, and would it be enough? Could you leave everything else that you've ever acquired?

Traitor has the support of a lesser traitor

As accused US Army soldier Bradley Manning gets closer to a Court Martial for leaking thousands of classified documents and damaging both our war effort and our nation's credibility, it's not surprising to see him held out as an icon by other losers and malcontents who hate this country. But it was reported yesterday that he now has the support of Scott Olsen, the failed Marine who got himself injured during an Occupy Oakland attack on police earlier this year after being thrown out of the Marine Corps then setting up a website devoted to bashing the Corps and the war.

"Bradley Manning is my hero," said Scott Olsen, the Marine Corps veteran who was badly injured during a clash between police and Occupy Oakland protests in October.

Frankly, that's kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer declaring Ted Bundy to be his hero if you ask me.

And of course even though Mannings has admitted what he did, his lawyer is still working overtime to spin it in such a way that Manning is presented as a victim instead of the heinous turncoat and treasonous bastard that he really is.

Elect me President in 2012 and my first official act will be to deport Manning, Olsen and Manning's lawyer straightaway to Iraq in exchange for three carefully vetted Iraqis who want to come here and become loyal US citizens.

Nice evening out

Tonight I met Andy for dinner after he finished shooting out this way. And as luck would have it, we bumped into Proud Hillbilly in the bar that we chose for dinner.


So we talked guns, ate food, and drank good Oatmeal Stouts except for Andy--he drinks soda.

Murphy was even there too, out in the parking lot. (It's been a while since he got a ride so I brought him along.)

Few things can beat a relaxing evening with good folks. Hope your Sunday evening is going as well as this one.

Jedi Mind Trick, K9 Edition

Oh, he's good.


"That is not the Kong ball that you're looking for. You want to give me that Kong ball."

Saturday Man Movie

I know. I fell away from doing these when I went traveling a few months back. Truth be told, it was getting tougher to find video clips that I hadn't already shown.

But I found this one, from the 1955 movie Strategic Air Command, with Jimmy Stewart, himself a real Army Air Force bomber pilot in World War Two and an Air Force Reserve General by the time he retired. Granted, you can only see him for a few seconds in the first cockpit shot, but he's there, as is recently deceased actor Harry Morgan, who sits with his back to the camera but speaks at 02:45 and 03:04.

And then there's the Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber that was the real star of this movie. Yes, they were real. They really flew. The one in this movie is really flying.

There were 384 of these bombers built, and they were operated by the US Air Force for ten years, from 1949-1959. They required a crew of 15, and they had a range of 10,000 miles. The original idea when they were designed was to be used to bomb Europe from American airfields if England fell, but during the Cold War, they were tasked with dropping the nuclear hammer on Soviet Russia if the need arose.

The B-36 bombers never dropped nukes on Russia, but they did accidentally drop two of them due to emergencies in training operations, losing one atomic bomb into the Pacific off the coast of British Columbia in 1950, and one hydrogen bomb into the desert outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1957. Whoopsie.

There are five of these aircraft left today. Just five out of three hundred eighty four. Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum has one in Dayton, Ohio. I've seen it. There's another at the Strategic Air Command Museum in Offutt, Nebraska. I've seen that one, too. Both are stored indoors and you can really get up close and personal with them.
A third is at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona, and a fourth one resides at Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California.
A fifth one was bought by military collector Walter Soplata and is still in pieces in his yard in Newbury, Ohio.

Here's another clip on the B-36 and the then-new Strategic Air Command.


And here's James Stewart talking about his real-life military exploits. A modest man, he didn't speak of these days very often, but he flew 20 combat missions as pilot in command of a B-24 Liberator bomber.

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled them away

I'd recommend them for the Rachel Corrie Award if only they'd been protesting something, but since they were just trespassing slackers who died stupidly, all they get is the standard Darwin.

Christopher Artes used drugs and drank. He hopped trains all over the country while his mother looked on with pride and admiration. He basically wasted oxygen that productive people might otherwise have breathed. And now he's past tense, along with Medeana Hendershot, another loser who would rather hop trains than get a job and start building a future. Apparently they were riding in a coal car that dumped it's load--including the two of them--at a power plant along it's route.

Artes, 25, and Hendershot, 22, were found Sunday in coal by power plant workers. It's not clear exactly when or how they died.

Sometime over the weekend, the train pulled into the city of Lakeland's power plant in Central Florida. As the railcars arrive, the bottom opens and cars drop coal several stories below onto a waiting truck.

Officials were not sure if the couple was sitting on top of the coal or were riding in an empty car and dropped onto a mound of coal, then hit or buried by another load.

Artes died from asphyxiation, meaning he was likely buried alive. Hendershot died from blunt force trauma to the mid-section, so she could have been hurt falling or by coal falling on her.

"Surprise!" I guess these two forgot that trains actually do stuff besides give dirtbag trespassers free rides. Sometimes they actually discharge their cargo.

When asked for comment, his mom had plenty to say:
"If he had to die so young, at least he died at a moment where he was on top of the world," said Susan Artes, Christopher's mother.

I'm sure that she's shopping for lawyers right now, hoping to cash in off the railroad. But if she sues anyone, it really should be herself as she was apparently an active co-conspirator in his illegal activities.

Artes called his mom three times a week.

He would sometimes ask her to look up directions on the Internet for truck stops, grocery stores and other places while he was on the road.

Artes' mother said her son had a train-hopping manual, but it was stolen at some point. She described her son as naïve and trusting. When he and Hendershot were in Miami several weeks ago, a trucker with whom they had caught a ride with stole Artes' backpack.

"We were always worried about him. He always made so many bad decisions," she said. "If he got an idea and something looked good to him, he would do it. He was always jumping into situations. This particular train was one of them.
Obviously a manual put out by the railroads, right? And if not for that darn backpack-stealing trucker, her son would probably be alive today. I'll be she sues him too.

Of course I note that she doesn't fault his riding trains in general, but merely that particular train. (insert facepalm here.)

Life's tough when you're stupid,but it's exponentially tougher when the ones who are supposed to guide you and keep you on the right track encourage and enable you no matter how dumb your decisions are.

Oh well...More food for the rest of us.

My post office lady hates me.

Just my luck. I live outside of a small town, and there are only two postal workers in the post office that I deal with. One is a great guy: retired Navy, now goes to my church, an avid bicyclist who sold me my bike and he's a novice gun guy. (I'm helping him find a good first pistol currently).

The other one in there is a recent transfer in from some other postal facility. I've yet to find a way onto her good side, and after yesterday I'm beginning to suspect that she doesn't have one.

It all began when I walked in with a nondescript large rectangular box to send out. My mail buddy, I guy I'll call "Newman" (because it irks him when I do it in person, which is funny to me) is out to lunch. She takes my box, weighs it, and asks me the standard question: "Anything liquid, fragile, perishable or hazardous?"

I truthfully say no and she quotes the overnight mail price, which I pay after gasping audibly. After she takes the box and gives me my receipt and tracking paper, Newman walks in. I call out to him in my best Seinfeld voice: "Hello, Newman!" He glowers but comes over to shoot the breeze.

"You got here just a second too late," I tell him. "If you'd come before I sealed that box up, I'd have shown you my M60."

"Your machine gun?" he asks "Damn, I would have liked to have seen that."

"Is THAT what was in that box?" yells the Mean Old Mail Lady as she's coming back around to the front after putting my box on the outgoing mail rack. "You can't ship machine guns through the mail!"

"Can and did," I replied. "It's perfectly legal to mail machine guns. What I can't mail is handguns, and that wasn't a handgun. And it's not like this is the first time I've shipped or received one here"

"I specifically asked you if there was anything hazardous in that box!"

"And I said that these wasn't," I replied. "It's not hazardous in the least unless you drop it on your foot."

"But it's a MACHINE GUN!" she exclaimed, as if that all by itself made it hazardous.

"And that's not an issue," I said. "There's no ammunition in the box. Your only concern is to get it where it's going. The federal government knows that I have that and they don't have a problem with it."

"But how about the person that it's going to? Do they have ammunition for it?"

"Well I should hope so. It's going to a legitimate repair facility for such things, and the government knows all about them, too. All you need to do is make sure that it gets there."

She offered up a few more objections, and she flipped through a big book of postal regulations, probably trying to find some way to refuse to accept the package, but in the end she finally let it go and I got the call this morning confirming it's arrival in Nevada. But I have a hunch that I'm not going to be any too popular in that post office for a while, and I should probably refrain from mailing anything that's even slightly breakable.

Oh well.

Got nothing

I got nothing for today, so here, watch the into to a great old TV show with Robert Conrad and lots of Corsairs.


TV was so cool once.

Bad idea

I recently found a Kong squeaky football that Lagniappe disliked and never played with, and yesterday I gave it to Murphy.

Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.

I'd take a picture of him with it but I can't get him to sit still with it long enough to snap a shot.

I also can't get him to stop squeaking it and thrusting it into my face (while squeaking it, of course).

Why is it the things that seem to give dogs so much pleasure and enjoyment are the things that bother us humans so?

Squeak! Squeak! Squeeeeeeel!

Somebody just shoot me.

My visit to Occupy DC

I had today off, and as luck would have it, personal business took me downtown Washington DC close to Freedom Plaza where one of the two Occupy Wall Street / Occupy DC groups is infesting a park. So I wandered around a bit and took a few pictures, just so that everyone could see how these animals really live.Notice how empty it is? Very few occupods around. Interestingly enough, the ones that were there told me that most of the rest of them move into hotel rooms when the weather gets cold like it did last night. There aren't any cheap hotels near here. Wonder who pays for these, eh?
And they obviously aren't over-spending on trash removal. Just look what they've done to this formerly beautiful park.
All the bare ground you see used to be nice, neat grass. It's ruined.I did see one young girl walking around here and she was pretty cute, but every time I got within ten feet of her, the smell of her B.O. was a real turn-off.Oh, and rats. I saw three of them scurrying around just during my brief visit. They're apparently thriving in this unsanitary mess.

What a disgusting mess.


As I was coming back, I saw the most amazing thing. A truck pulled up and guys in matching jackets opened up the trailer and began handing food and cases of water to the Occupods. I wandered close and saw that it was a trailer from the United Mine Workers. Obviously this labor union is subsidizing these bums big time. One of the occupods standing with me told me that they come by "every day or two" to hand out supplies. What's that all about, and why?I heard one of the guys in the UMW jackets yell out "Merry Christmas from Cecil Roberts!" as he was taking CAKES from the pick-up truck and handing those to the occupods, including stinky girl. If I was a miner, I'd be pissed as hell to see my dues going to support a bunch of non-working maggots, especially ones working to carry the water for Barack Obama, a President who said that bankrupting the coal industry was one of his priorities.

Here's the truck that was pulling the trailer. And it's license plate.

Residents of Washington, DC should be pissed at the United Mine Workers, too. This used to be such a nice park. Look at it now.That grass and those shrubs won't just grow back when these cockroaches roll out.

Maybe the unions will pay for the damage?

Oh--and the worst part is that the other bunch in McPherson Square is much, much messier and more disgusting. I'll try to get those pictures in the near future.

Sunday evening at the Lair

It's a brisk Sunday evening. Dusk outside. Temperatures are dropping like Obama's poll numbers, but me and Murphy are doing just fine. The stove's lit for the first time this year and I'm on the couch, reading my newest H. Rider Haggard acquisition with a mug of steaming hot tea. And Murphy? He's simply enjoying the stove, just like Lagniappe used to.

Funny how new things can stir old memories and automatically bring a smile.

All y'all have a nice night.

Sub-gun pron and buying NFA.

My first ever NFA (National Firearms Act) weapon was this nifty little MK-760 sub-machine gun that I bought almost immediately after moving to the Commonwealth of Virginia, one of many states where the citizens are still free enough to be able to own such things. (Nobody tell the Democrats or Rosie O'Donnell, but private citizens can and do own such things legally in most states.)
It was a handy little 9mm subgun, with a folding stock and a 36-round magazine. Essentially a reverse-engineered copy of the Smith and Wesson Model 76, which was itself a copy of the wonderful Swedish K submachinegun that our special forces troops in Vietnam preferred (until the Swedes barred further sale of those guns to the US due to their support for the Communists), it was a light, compact and simple gun with a high rate of fire, around 700 rounds per minute or so. It fired from an open bolt and it's light weight and high ROF gave it a tendency to climb, which, until I learned to control it, was pretty much hell on the target track system and ceiling baffles of the indoor range where I used to take it. (Sorry, Phil.)

It wasn't terribly reliable, however, even after sending it to Tim LaFrance twice for work. It only ran well on 147gr. military ball ammo, not the lighter civilian ammo commonly available at gunshops, so eventually I flipped it for a bit more than twice what I'd paid for it and bought this nifty M2 Carbine.
The M2, a conversion of the M1 carbine to select-fire, was a good idea on it's face, as I already had numerous M1 carbines and a boatload of ammo and spares for them. Also there's a lot to be said about a compact automatic weapon that fires a cartridge that at 100 yards still has the muzzle velocity of a .357 magnum.Alas, this weapon too was less-than-reliable unless it was being operated with actual USGI 30-round magazines, and this, combined with it's even higher rate of fire (750-850rpm) and it's relatively light, thin barrel gave me sufficient reason to look around for something else. I flipped it as well and made an almost even-up trade for an Uzi.

I seldom look back, as the Uzi is a quality weapon that digests literally any 9mm ammo that one cars to feed it, and parts and accessories are plentiful and cheap for it.

The moral of this story is for those who think that they cannot afford to but the machine gun of their dreams today. Notice that I didn't rush right out and buy an Uzi as my first subgun even though it's what I really wanted. I could not have afforded one even at the prices that they were selling for back when I was looking for my first NFA acquisition. Instead, I shopped around until I saw one that I could afford(The MK 760) and one that I knew was being offered at a low price because I'd been studying NFA prices for a while. I then contacted the seller and got it down even lower by negotiating. Conversely, when I sold it, I listed it for what I thought was a fairly high price and surprisingly enough, I got it quickly. This allowed me to walk right into the M2, which was also being offered at a below-market price when I saw it advertised. Selling that one gave me the cash I needed for the Uzi, even though all I had into the game was the money I'd paid for the first gun and a couple of transfer fees. Prices on these weapons are fluid to an extent, and sometimes sellers just want to move them quickly or buyers absolutely must have a particular model, so if you pay attention and are patient, you can often do well in the NFA market and if you start out with a firearm that you can afford, you can often flip it up to one that you want without too much trouble over the course of a little time.

One year ago today...

Someone found his forever home.

Flashback--Audie Murphy arrives, December 8th, 2011.

Over the course of this year, he's calmed down, learned to obey me (for the most part), and become much more sociable with strangers, especially the small ones that used to frighten him so. He's considerably different from the skittish, aggressive dog that he used to be. He's maturing into a fine dog, and while he's still got a few rough edges to polish off, I'm quite pleased with him. Here's hoping for many more anniversaries to come.
I'se a happy dog!

Justice denied in Philly. Celebrity Cop-Killer escapes death sentence

IN other news today, saying he wanted to avoid another three decades of appeals - and a new public forum for Mumia Abu-Jamal - Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said today he will not seek another death sentence for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. (The murderous thug formerly known as Wesley Cook.)

For those who are unfamiliar, Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25 and newly married, was on patrol in Center City the night of Dec. 9, 1981 when, according to trial testimony, the officer pulled over a car driven by Abu-Jamal's brother, William Cook, at 13th and Locust Streets. Abu-Jamal, moonlighting as a cabdriver, recognized his brother's car, ran toward them and shot Faulkner, witnesses testified. A gunfight followed and Abu-Jamal was hit by a bullet from Faulkner's gun. He was found slumped on a curb.

What the news story cited doesn’t report is that the bullets taken from the body of Officer Faulkner were ballistically matched to the handgun found on the scene, a revolver that was registered to Wesley Cook/Abu-Jamal. There were also several eye-witnesses to the shooting, including people who knew Cook/Abu-Jamal on sight. In short, this case was as cut-and-dried as any case ever was. There really was no reasonable doubt, which was why the trial jury found him guilty.

But this being Philadelphia, the race-baiters and liberals quickly got involved. Abu-Jamal’s Black Panther associates began intimidating people and drumming up a publicity storm of lies and false accusations of a frame-up, and soon enough, numerous groups and self-important individuals like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Mike Farrell jumped into the mix to proclaim this scumbag’s “innocence” and claim that the police, for no rational reason, fabricated the case against Abu-Jamal, despite the fact that he was found lying next to the police officer that had died from wounds caused by a bullet from his own gun, and that his own injury was caused by bullets from the officer’s gun, and that the entire gunfight had been witnessed by numerous people in broad daylight.

Since that conviction, every appellate court that reviewed the trial and the jury verdict has affirmed it No court has ever found fault with the trial, and the only issue has been whether the jury was given proper sentencing instructions, a minor technical point that had no bearing on Abu-Jamal’s actual guilt. Still, that was enough to cause his original sentence to be overturned, requiring a new sentencing and opening the door for an entirely new appeals process. So to that extent, I can at least see the reasoning behind this decision, but anyone who continues to proclaim this dirtbag’s innocence either has an ulterior motive or seriously needs a check-up from the neck up.

But now, thirty years after Abu-Jamal should have been dragged out back of the courthouse and summarily shot (in a Just world…), he’s now being re-sentenced to life without parole, his death sentence gone for good. He’ll doubtless continue to hold celebrity status in the eyes of those on the left, from Hollywood liberals to Obama pal Cornell West. But one can always hope that he’s quickly placed back into general population and with any luck, someone will shank him.

It's been 70 years...Pearl Harbor.

It was 70 years ago today that the Japanese snuck up and attacked our military forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii without a declaration of war or any provocation on our part. 1,177 US servicemen were killed on that Sunday morning, a date which will continue to live in infamy.

Lest you forget, here are the stories of four of the survivors.

The survivors of those doomed ships -- many from the Bay Area -- are mostly hard of hearing now, but the buzz and the boom of the bombs from that day still ring in the ears of John Tait of Concord, Ed Silveira of Hayward and Dempson Arellano of Antioch. Gordon Van Hauser, who lived in San Carlos until his death in 2008, often spoke of his service not in terms of fighting for his own life, but for the life of his country.

Aboard the USS Arizona
Today the ghost ship USS Arizona sits at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, the 1,102 sailors who perished seven decades ago entombed there for all time. On the evening of Dec. 6, 1941, a young Marine, Gordon Van Hauser took a liberty boat from his barracks to the Arizona, to have dinner with two friends from boot camp.

After chow Van Hauser and his buddies joined other sailors on the ship's fantail to watch a movie, which Van Hauser disliked so much he took a boat back to the base that night.

A lazy Sunday morning
Van Hauser was about to go on duty the next day, Dec. 7, when low-flying Japanese torpedo bombers -- headed for Battleship Row and the Arizona -- appeared out of a clear Hawaiian sky, rattling the Marines' rooftops and strafing the parade ground. "I took my rifle, which was a 1903 model Springfield, and we were firing .30-caliber ammunition...as the Japanese torpedo bombers came in," Van Hauser said in a video his son recorded before his death. Firing single-shot, bolt-action rifles scarcely better than muskets, he and about 800 other Marines brought down two or three Japanese zeroes, Van Hauser recalled, and watched them burst into flames.

Aboard the USS West Virginia
Dempson Arellano had just suggested to his friend Gleason that they visit their girlfriends in Honolulu, when somebody burst through the door and shouted, "The Japanese hit!" Arellano had the jumper he wore on liberty pulled halfway over his head when he felt the battleship shake violently. "I finally got my head out of the blouse and said, 'What the hell was that?'"

Just then, a second torpedo struck the ship, peeling open a hole in the hull. As brown water came rushing down the passageway, Arellano said, "Gleason, let's get the hell out of here." When they reached the deck, a Japanese plane was spraying the deck with machine gun fire. "We had just brought potatoes aboard and there was a stack about 8 or 10 feet tall," says Arellano, who now lives at the Antioch Care Home, "so we ducked behind that and the Japanese plane strafed all those potatoes."

Aboard the USS San Francisco
For three months, Ed Silveira did nothing but peel potatoes. "On Dec. 7, I was mess cooking on the second deck. On Saturdays and Sundays, you rack out, you don't do nothing. At about five minutes to 8, I'm looking up and seeing all these airplanes. I thought they were our people practicing. They were just peppering the bay. And I was thinking, 'Gee, what a good mock battle this is!' About that time, I saw a plane hit the West Virginia with a torpedo bomb, and I realize this ain't no drill."

Aboard the USS Arizona
At 8:06 a.m. -- 12 hours after Van Hauser made the fateful choice not to stay with his friends on the ship -- they were dead. A 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb flew into the Arizona's ammunition magazine, igniting a fire so hellish it would burn for two days.

Aboard the USS West Virginia
Arellano had just started to heave himself up onto his assigned gun turret when another seaman stepped on top of his head. "It seemed like he was in a hurry to get out of there," Arellano recalls. The sailor had just seen a bomb whistle past him, drop through the turret, and descend into the depths of the ship. Arellano found out a year later that the bomb had landed in the powder handling room, but failed to explode.

The Japanese had built a limited number of armor-piercing bombs, and the West Virginia took two of them. One disemboweled Captain Mervyn S. Bennion. "He didn't die right away," Arellano says, his eyes glistening. "He managed to man the loudspeaker and he said, 'All hands, abandon ship. God bless you.'"

The West Virginia was sinking. But to prevent it from rolling over on its side as the Oklahoma had done just a few berths away, a damage control team dived into the oily water -- which was on fire -- and blew the ballast tanks, causing the ship to right itself before settling to the bottom. "The ship was sinking right under me," says Arellano, who scrambled off the ship just as the second wave of Japanese bombers arrived with their deadly cargo.

Aboard the USS Tennessee
Almost as soon as he stepped onto the Tennessee, Arellano was handed a fire hose and ordered to fight a major fire on the fantail. He attacked the the fire until his breathing apparatus ran out of oxygen and he passed out. "The next thing I knew, I was looking up at the sky up on deck," he says.

The Arizona lay in front of him. "Even on the Tennessee, there were guys with flash burns from when the Arizona blew up," he says. "It actually cooked their eyeballs. Some of them were running blind on the deck of the Tennessee. Their flesh was hanging down off their face, and their eyeballs were burned out. A lot of them just ran a few feet and collapsed. That's what I remember more clearly than anything."

Aboard the USS St. Louis
By 9:30 a.m., Tait heard the command to cast off lines. The St. Louis was going to make a desperate escape through the south channel, where the sinking USS Nevada might block other ships from getting out.

The speed limit through the channel was 5 knots. "By the time we got to the mouth of the channel, we were doing 28 knots," Tait says. The ship's anti-aircraft guns would bring down three planes, but the light cruiser's troubles weren't over as it neared open waters.

"There was a two-man submarine waiting for us," Tait says. "They fired two torpedoes at us, but the torpedoes hit a reef and exploded." which led to the ship being dubbed the "Lucky Lou."

Never forget also that some men were not even fortunate enough to die quickly on that morning. In addition to those who were drowned, burned, crushed to death or killed by explosions on that Sunday morning, several others were trapped within the hulls of the sunken ships beyond hope of rescue, including three sailors who survived inside West Virginia for sixteen days before finally expiring on Christmas Eve when the oxygen in their compartment was finally depleted.

Another military poser emerges as police finally take action against Washington DC Occupods

Well the police finally did something about the dirtbags infesting Washington DC as part of the so-called Occupy DC movement when these so-called "protesters" suddenly slapped together a building on the public park grass and refused to take it down despite numerous police orders to do just that. 31 of these scumbags were arrested and hauled off, although most of them apparently returned to the park as soon as they were released from processing.

But the notable part of the story is that they really did construct and build this in just a few hours because they didn't want to be out in the cold of the coming winter. It's amazing how industrious these spoiled white kids can be when they want comfort, isn't it? Just imagine if they'd put that same energy into getting a job or doing some work for any one of a number of charitable organizations.

But another aspect of this story is worthy of note, too. They keep referring to the one "protester", Michael Patterson, age 21, as a veteran and holding him up as their icon and the face of their group. Now we all know that the goal there is to use his alleged status as a veteran to give the group as a whole some credibility, ("Hey look! We got VETERANS here! Everybody loves veterans and puppies, right?") but the truth is that Patterson is not an honorably discharged vet. A bit of research shows that he was a failure who could not hack the military even in a real echelon slot, and he was booted from the Army for smoking pot after unsuccessfully attempting to get an early discharge. So he didn't honorably do his duty and earn our respect like his unwashed peers would claim. And his Other Than Honorable Discharge is probably why he's claiming to be homeless (while jetting to Washington DC from his home in Alaska) instead of using the GI benefits that every honorably discharged vet is entitled to and finding a job or going to school.

Like Scott Olson, the Occupod injured in Oakland by something hurled by one of his fellow protesters as they threw rocks and bottles at police, this guy was nothing but a loser who could not hack it in the service and probably couldn't even have done so in the peacetime military. But now he and his group want him to have the honors due those who did serve and who continue to serve, and they want to apply those honors to the "Occupy" movement by extension. This cannot be allowed so the truth has to be told about them when they try this.

Blog Shoot After-Action Report

Just back from the first-ever Eastern Panhandle Blog Shoot and all I can report is goodness.

For starters, the weather was absolutely perfect when we all met up at the new Peacemaker National Training Center just west of Inwood, WV. This is a new facility with a ton of promise for local shooters and shooting organizations and Cole the owner was gracious enough to open it's Independence Range special to us on this day, giving us all exclusive use of a pistol range and a rifle range as well as access to their new 5-stand shotgun clays set-up.

First though, we all had to get past their security guard.Actually, that's none other than blogger Proud Hillbilly with her Japanese Type 99 Arisaka rifle that was just put into operational status this morning for the first time since it came back as a war trophy in 1946. And since she brought hers out, I brought mine as well, along with two batches of test ammo for it. Here are the two rifles together. Hers is the one on the top with the dust cover and anti-aircraft sight. Mine is the lower one with the monopod. (so many clever innovations...I can't imagine why they didn't win that war.) It's not everyday that you see one of these on a firing line much less two firing side by side. But that's what we did. And here's Proud Hillbilly firing hers.
And here's Andy shooting a German K-98k Mauser. (Hey Andy, I've got your bolt here.)

But it wasn't just old guns there. There was this Beretta Storm carbine that we see here in Les' hands. I think that it belonged to Marty, aka: The Miller, and he actually shot it well enough to run the 12"x18" gong at 250M not once but FOUR TIMES in a row. That was impressive.

On the pistol line, everything from .22lr to .357 Magnum was firing. Here are three vintage .22 pistols that blog lurker Stretch brought out.
And here we have three noted gun bloggers doing their thing. From left to right, Old NFO, Marty (bending over) and Keads.

I only wish that I'd taken more pictures. Darn it, I don't even have one of New Jovian Thunderbolt and his M-1A but he was there with it. Honest!

And apparently even West Virginia isn't safe from the "Occupy" movement. Have you ever seen such a motley crew?No protesting, just shooting. And unlike most occupiers, this bunch works and bathes.

Oh wait--There's NJT in the pic wearing the Jayne Cobb hat. Pretty cunning, eh?

After the shooting, most of us adjourned to a local lounge that, fittingly, had the Outdoors Channel on cable so we dined and chatted in a good pro-gun environment, one that allows citizens to carry concealed in restaurants.

I'm also proud to report that after the range cost was covered, we collected $251.00 for Wounded Warriors, this group also has the distinction of doing more good than every single "occupier" group in the country combined. A big thanks is due to all of these generous folks and I'm proud to know each of them.

And we will do this again, so to those of you who were not here today, (Jenn, Laura, Brigid, Six, Sean...) you'll get another chance in the future to shoot and rub shoulders with all of that gun-blogger greatness above.

Music to reload by

Busy loading ammo for tomorrow. But here's some of what I'm listening to as I'm doing it.







Clearly it's going to be very cool ammunition.

Don't try to take sweet corn from a porcupine

They object vociferously.

Sorry, but sometimes even I'm a sucker for cute critters.

You comin'?

Murphy wants to know...You gonna be at the blogshoot in Inwood, WV on Saturday?

You don't even have to have a blog...just a gun or a desire to see and shoot guns.

E-mail martinihenrywv@gmail.com for directions.

She had 15 kids and demands that you and me compensate her.

Seriously. Check this second-hander out. She has 15 kids by three different guys, none of whom are paying her a dime. She won't work or pay her bills despite social services giving her thousands of dollars, but she gets on the news and says that "somebody" (you and me) has to pay for all her kids AND pay her for her suffering.
You can't make this stuff up!

And of course no matter what the benevolent government does or how much more tax money that we waste on her for foster care, lawyers, social workers, new clothes for court, etc., she still refuses to comply with even the most basic requirements AND has the nerve to threaten the people that are being paid to run her sorry excuse of a life for her.

This is what Obama's socialist policies have wrought: Open class warfare and an entitlement mentality that demands instead of asks. Maybe the dirty potheads in the Obamavilles across our country can take up a collection for her. Oh that's right...they don't work, either! They just join her in demanding that those of us who do go to a job every day give up more of our cash because it's not fair that we have more than they do.

This is yet another indication that Obama buddy Cornell West isn't wrong when he says that the battle for entitlements will eventually take place in the streets.

The second-handers are agitating, and with Obama and his cronies supporting them from the rear, it's not inconceivable to picture the mobs rioting and looting and coming to your neighborhood and mine in pursuit of our stuff, motivated by a belief that they deserve it just because they want it and emboldened by the knowledge that the Obama government isn't going to stop them.

More ammo, folks. Buy more ammo and learn how to defend yourselves with it if you haven't done so already.