Never Listen to the High School Dropout

This made me all sorts of angry:

Savannah Barry is mad and on a mission. She wants travelers to be warned
before they walk through TSA security. “They need to get with the
program and have some education across the board for TSA.” After
participating in a DECA conference in Salt Lake City with several
classmates last week, Savannah, who is a type one diabetic and wears an
insulin pump 24 hours a day, says she ran into TSA agents who were not
prepared to deal with her medical situation. “I went up to the lady and I
said, I am a type one diabetic. I wear an insulin pump. I showed her
the pump. I said, what do you want me to do? I usually do a pat down –
what would you recommend?”

Savannah then showed agents a doctor’s
note explaining that the sensitive insulin pump should not go through
the body scanner. She says she was told to go through it anyway. “When
someone in a position of authority tells you it is – you think that its
right. So, I said, Are you sure I can go through with the pump? It’s not
going to hurt the pump? And she said no, no you’re fine.”

I won’t fault the girl here.  She has probably been told over and over to trust the government and do what you’re told.  She has been drilled to the point where she ignored what her doctor said and did what a high school drop out that was too stupid to get a job anyplace else said.

Unsurprisingly it destroyed her insulin pump.  Walking into one of those things with electronic equipment is down right dangerous.  Ionizing radiation can cause single event upsets in the control systems of the medical equipment.  Non-ionizing radiation can have the effect of an EMP causing excessive voltages in circuits.  If the device is improperly shielded it will destroy components.  Memory devices can also suffer a single event upset.

I don’t know which of these incidents occurred, my suspicion is the second.  I will say this girl is very lucky she is not dead or hospitalized as a SEU could have resulted in an excess or incorrect dosage being administered.  Usually devices can survive one safely, however multiple failures were probably induced simultaneously

This is an expensive lesson and one that everyone needs to heed.  Those who work for the TSA are the lowest common denominator of our society.  That’s why it’s full of child molesters, sexual deviants, and thieves.  One should not do what they say blindly or without forethought.  Remember these people do not care about you or what happens to you.  If they could they’d just treat you like cattle more than they already do.

As I’ve said before, make their lives hell.  Sure some will be too stupid to understand but eventually you’ll wear them down.  On that same note, as you see those responsible for bringing this plague upon us, make their lives hell as well.  They are elected representatives and obviously they failed at their job. 

Burning effigies should work nicely.

Mirror Mirror On the Wall

Which way should this decision fall?

Yesterday at the match there was also an interesting event that of course as Murphy would have it, I would be the CRO on the stage at that time.

I have attached the stage description at the bottom, but here’s a quick rundown of the stage.

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So, as you can see there were two activated disappearing targets, T1 and T9.  When the steel was dropped they would appear and disappear.  A particular shooter in his effort to strike the target nailed it just after it disappeared.

IMAG0192

When I first saw it I thought miss.  He began to argue that it was a hit.  However when I started to inspect it I maintained my ruling.

IMAG0195

The bullet actually struck the back of the target and traveled to the front.  If you inspect the front of the target you will see that there is no grease mark from the bullet however one is clearly visible on the back side. 

The USPSA rule book states the following:

9.5.8:   Hits visible on a scoring paper target or no-shoot, which are the result of shots fired through the rear of the target or no-shoot, will not count for score or penalty, as the case may be.

It begs the question of what happens with a perfect edge hit.  The following might apply.

9.5.9:   Hits upon scoring or no-shoot paper targets, must completely pass through the target to be considered a valid hit and count for score or penalty.

It could be argued that the bullet did not completely pass through the target.  For the edge hit to count it must completely bifurcate the target.  I don’t know.  In this case it was more back to front so it was easy to call, what if it had been the other way though?  Front to back or I hadn’t had that nice piece of wood to help indicate the direction of travel.

Is it impressive, yeah, the question remains though, how the hell do you score it?

Circle Jerk?

Kind of but not really.  Discovered this after seeing a post from Erin and Weer’d.

Lesson, the only unfair fight is the one you loose.

This video was also hilarious.

Quote of the Day–LawDog (05/07/2012)

Personally, I think Loyalty Day should follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and involve fire. A Big Fire. A Big Fire in front of various State and Federal Capitals, and involving the ceremonial burning of effigies. Dancing and flowers mandatory; drinking and partying encouraged; and fertility rites optional.

To my mind I’m thinking that watching papier maiche versions of themselves burned at the stake every year would go a nice way towards reminding various political critters of where their loyalties better damn-well stay.

Law DogBeltane

May 2, 2012


[I like it, when do we get started? –B]

SSCC #322-#324 – Colwyn PA

The current trouble revolves around allegations that three
Colwyn police officers tased 17-year-old Da’Qwan Jackson while he
was handcuffed and locked in a holding cell. A witness to a fight,
Jackson was being held on the usual standard-issue disorderly
conduct charge after refusing to cooperate with investigating
police and crumpling up a citation.

Now you might think, “Maybe they had a good reason.” Sorry to disappoint you.

A YouTube video shows Colwyn Deputy Chief Wendell Reed Tasering
a parking enforcement officer for laughs inside of the borough’s
tiny police department.

Reed was ousted from the department yesterday for the possible
cover up of an incident involving a juvenile who was allegedly
Tasered by Cpl. Trevor Parham while handcuffed in a holding cell
April 24. Parham was previously suspended by Lt. Wesley Seitz for
the incident.

That is the behavior of the chief.  He attempted to fire the whistle blower who brought attention to the abuse.  It appears that the chief has been reinstated and the whistle blower re-suspended.  All at the will of your elected officials.  Think about that for a second, the elected officals are aiding and abetting the behavior of these officers.

State Sponsored Criminal Count 322: Trevor Parham

323: Michael Drucktor

324: Wendell Reed

Because a taser is really just a issued less lethal entertainment device.  You are free to use it however you please, the pain and possible death arising from it is inconsequential.  It’s not as if you intended to kill, harm or maim them.

Another Day Another Classifier

So I got up and ran the match this morning.  Again I was first out of the gate out of my squad.

I have discovered that I need a warm up period when shooting.  For you see, this shirt from Rob Allen was quite applicable.

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There was one minor difference though for me.  I drilled that no shoot right through the upper A zone.  Seriously, when I did it this is what I heard in my head:

 

But it wasn’t the classifier so who cares.   Here’s the video though of that stage, (and a side match at the end). 

A couple things worth noting… I hate snow fence and ports in snow fence.  You actually see me step right and I start to go through an old port and realize I’m not in the right spot.  Thankfully I caught that I hadn’t shot two targets and salvaged that.  I also had a mag failure just before engaging those two targets.  That move up in my mag change adjusted my mental plan.  I have tossed that mag to the side, it has some issues to be worked out.

We actually had a discussion regarding ports in my stage design class yesterday.  I have to say after today’s match, unless it be in a wooden board, I don’t want them in a stage.  Put an entire vertical hole, who cares at what level you shoot.  If you really want to induce kneeling or something use a shooting barrel.

I move on to the next stage and rock it like a boss.   What does my videographer do?  She decides to sit this one out.  No mikes, no no-shoots, rocked the Texas Star.  Overall I was quite happy and pleased with that stage.  At this point my wife actually started keeping score so no more video.  I really need a go pro.

There was a speed shoot, rocked that as well.  Not quite as fast as I would have liked but again, didn’t clip any no shoots.  Moved on to the qualifier.  We were all joking that someone was going to end up tapping two rounds into the target in succession.  This would be a problem as it is a Virginia count.  Extra shots, and extra hits are bad.

Guess what I did.  Right out of the gate my brain reverted to react.  It saw, paper target, two shots.  I cleared the rest of the classifier fine except, I never threw a shot so now comes the next penalty.  I had an extra hit since I drilled them all in the A.  Oops.  Well I wasn’t the only that biffed the classifier, and by no means the worst, but I did reshoot it.  I don’t want to be a total flunky here. 

Went and shot the other two stages.  Both of which were uneventful.  Again didn’t tag any no shoots.  Evidently I just needed to exercise those demons* from my system.

Overall other than the first stage, this was a pretty good shoot for me.  I do need to slow down a bit more, but there are times I swear I’m standing still and I watch on video and it’s, holy crap I just flew through that.

*You know you’re a computer geek if when you first wrote that you typed daemon.  If you get that joke, you’re in the same boat too.

SSCC Honorable Mention–Bogota New Jersey

There is a serious reason I have this count.  The biggest of which is when officers attempt to restrain and police their own this is often the result.

Her first supposed offense – which wasn’t mentioned until after the second – was a failure to assist another officer who was “attacked” by a drunken woman who was roughly half his weight and barely five feet tall. Her second was was to intervene when a police officer from another jurisdiction viciously assaulted an emotionally troubled young man who was not suspected of a crime.

“I consider myself a peace officer,” Tasca told Pro Libertate. “My thing is to help make sure that people are safe, and that they don’t have a reason to fear the police – that we treat them like human beings. The incident that started all of this was one in which I intervened to prevent excessive force against a kid who was the subject of a medical call, not a criminal suspect.”

Think about that for a second.  She did the right thing and what was best for all parties involved and she is being punished for it.  Including in an instance where officers shouldn’t have been involved.  I applaud this woman and wish her the best.  It is a shame that the attitude of her superiors is to use force, even if excessive, whenever possible no matter the reason.

It’s obvious they view themselves as our “betters” and not public servants.

State Sponsored Criminal Count Honorable Mention: Sgt. Chris Thibault and Sgt. Joe Rella

Because they feel they have the right and ability to use force with impunity and no one, not even a fellow officer has the right to stop them.  If they feel someone needs a beat down, by god they will ensure it happens.

h/t Dave Hardy

Goodbye MCA

So I saw yesterday that MCA of the Beastie Boy’s has passed away.  I will say there are a number of songs that can’t help but bring back memories from my high school years.

Good bye MCA. Go find some girls in heaven and if you have to fight for your right to party.