The Old Dog Barks

In a reversal of prior policy, the Army has banned the use of any magazine for the M4 but the standard-issue aluminum magazine. This is definitely a shot straight at MagPul Industries, as their ‘PMAG” polymer magazine had gained a wide acceptance in the military. Troops found it more reliable, and more durable than the issue aluminum ‘spam can’ magazines. TACOM issued a “safety of use” bulletin against all polymer mags, citing “Numerous reports that Army Units are using unauthorized magazines.” Which is bunk, as the PMAG has been standard issue with the Army’s 75th Ranger Recon Unit. One wonders just where those “reports” came from. Personally, I smell a rat.

Thnx, and a H/T to Castle Argghhh! for the head’s up, and link.

How bizarre can it get? No telling when the government is involved. From the Hill:

Commerce considers labeling Arab Americans a disadvantaged minority

“The Commerce Department is considering naming Arab Americans a socially and economically disadvantaged minority group that is eligible for special business assistance.”

“The ADC petition cited “discrimination and prejudice in American society[,] resulting in conditions under which Arab-American individuals have been unable to compete in a business world.” The group claimed discrimination against Arab Americans increased after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

“The ADC wants any “American who traces his or her ethnic roots to one of the countries in the Arab World, including Algeria, Bahrain, Djoubti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen” to be eligible for MBDA services. Palestinians would also be included.”

Sure, why not? Give me some more of that vibrant diverse society and watch the country thrive as America regains its economic might.

The Week in Saratov brings these reports:

Yunus-Bek Yevkurov arrived in Saratov

Head of the Republic of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov today is paying a visit to the Saratov region within the context of this day republic of Ingushetia. He visited Victory Park on the mountain and the National Sokolova village, where he laid flowers at the monument to the victims of the Great Patriotic War and in local wars.

In Saratov, presented a fantastic investment project

In Saratov, on Tuesday, the Ministry of investment development of the area with the potential investor submitted a project for the construction of cultural and entertainment mega-center “Green Island”. On an island in the Volga River near Saratov planned to build a hotel and tourist complex with ice-water area, ski trails, helipads and suspended the mountain road from Sokolova.

In the morning Mass attended by charging 1,500

Recall, today at 8:30 in the Theatre Square in Saratov held a mass morning exercise on the International Children’s Day. It was attended by over 1,500 people – students of municipal secondary schools, technical colleges, representatives of youth organizations, as well as anyone.

To search for hijacker crane military used helicopter

A woman reported that, in the village of unknown attackers hijacked Repevka specials. To search for hooked from helicopters located in the district center of a military unit.

Alcohol loss

In the Russian Empire, Saratov Province was one of the centers of distillation.

Astrologers have predicted Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidential election

Astrologers around the world are predicting Barack Obama to victory over Republican Mitt Romney in the presidential elections in the United States. We are confident in the success of Barack Obama and American astrologers, who said this at an international conference in New Orleans.

In Warsaw, Obama outraged by the proviso “Polish death camps”

The White House apologized for the reservation of U.S. President Barack Obama about “Polish death camps”, made during the ceremony Medal of Freedom – the highest award the United States, awarded to civilians.

Russia is not impressed by the mass expulsion of Syrian Ambassadors

France became the first country not by expelling the Syrian ambassador after the events in the Hula. Morning of May 28 a similar decision taken by the Government of Australia, sending home Charge d’Affaires of Syria Jawdat Ali.

French President does not rule out military operation in Syria

French President Francois Hollande does not exclude the possibility of conducting military operations in Syria, with the consent of the UN Security Council, he said Tuesday in a television channel France 2.

Shoigu translated the government in Moscow

The new governor of Moscow region Shoigu going to radically change life in the suburbs. At today’s meeting of the general government area, it became clear that life in the suburbs will be like a fairy tale: with good roads, cheap apartments, kindergartens, hospitals and the market value of land.

Fish brought to the radiation from Japan to the shores of the U.S.

Scientists have discovered a bluefin tuna caught off the coast of California, traces of radioactive contamination from last year’s accident at a Japanese nuclear power plant “Fukushima”. Tuna brought the radiation from the Japanese coast, crossed the entire ocean.

NASA has invented an elixir of youth

As it turned out a special fruit drink, developed by NASA to protect astronauts from radiation, was truly the “elixir of youth.” The fruit drink, called AS10 was created as a dietary supplement for astronauts to protect them from the harmful effects of radiation outside the Earth’s atmosphere which is capable not only to protect against radiation, but also to update the skin.

In the depths of Lake Baikal sets a trap for the giant neutrino

The Baikal neutrino telescope began creating 10 years ago for the study of elementary particles with a minimum weight – the neutrino. In order for them to build a “trap” is required “target”, on the contrary, in billions of tons.

And that was the Week in Saratov.

Some links to take your mind of off your personal Paycheck Continuation Program:

– Today’s Grade-Inflated, Lake Wobegon World
– Wings on Canvas
– Senate Democrats pay female staffers less than male staffers
– Devil Is in the Details for BD II Stop Work
– Picasa Web Albums – Dan Thompson
– The Vegas sting: The only problem? He was innocent

This should see you to the first coffee break; after that you’re on your own.

Flanders Field

In Flanders Fields

- John McCrae

I’ve had an old Browning Wasp recurve laying out in the barn for about fifteen years.

So the other day, the bow-bug bites, and I decide to clean it up, and shoot it again.
A couple decades ago, camo-tape had been applied to it all over, and dried on, then
dried out, and fell off. Leaving the hardened adhesive behind. A clean-up challenge,
if ever there was one.

Fist, Goo-Gone was tried, to no effect whatever. Then warm water brushed on over the
course of several days, and the grey gunk began to soften a little. It proved amenable
to scraping with a pocket knife, and clean-up commenced. One. Square. Centimeter at a
time. All was well, until while cleaning the edge of the upper limb, a crack came into
view. Yup, there it was, big as life; a three-inch long delamination between the two
wood cores of the limb.

Well, shiiiiiiiiii-it! So much for wanting to shoot it again. it’s a wall-hanger now.
Oh, well. Life’s full of these little disappointments.

Photo credit:The Archery Guy

Finally, the old Tinman gets his wish. He got himself a real heart.
Details are below the fold.

Read More >>

A Blonde was shopping for alligator shoes.
She didn’t like the styles available, and didn’t like the prices.
So she tells the salesman, “I’m going to go kill an alligator, and get my own shoes.”
The salesman smirks and nods, saying, “You do that little lady.”

Later that day the salesman is driving home from work, and sees none other than the
same Blonde, standing waist deep in a canal. A nine-foot alligator was headed her
way. He watched with amazement as she shouldered a shotgun, and put a slug through
the alligator’s head with lightning speed.

In disbelief he watched her wrestle the carcass onto the bank, where there were no
less than five more, laying belly-up. She rolled the newest catch over, and looking
at it’s feet, screams, “DAMMIT, this one’s barefoot too!”

This shows what private industry, and a little genius, can do. At a fraction of the cost of a NASA project Elon Musk and SpaceX have developed a system capable of delivering cargo to the ISS.

The Dragon is captured

After approaching the station the astronauts on board used the robot arm to grab the capsule and bring it to the docking collar.

The Dragon Capsule Docked

It’s just a start but — D. D. Harriman — is smiling.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will!
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

 
I have been in many places, but I’ve never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can’t go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I’ve also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.

I have, however, been in Sane. They don’t have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I’m not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often.

I’ve been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

Sometimes I’m in Capable, and I go there more often as I’m getting older.

One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get!

I may have been in Continent, and I don’t remember what country I was in. It’s an age thing.

The Charleston Gazette had this little story showing perfectly the mind set of our bureaucratic overlords: State paid $22K each for Internet routers

“CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Nobody told Hurricane librarian Rebecca Elliot that the $22,600 Internet router in the branch library’s storage closet was powerful enough to serve an entire college campus… The high-end router serves four public computer terminals at the small library in Putnam County.”

They could have bought the $400 dollar router but that would have been unfair.

“The Cisco 3945 series routers, which cost $22,600 each, are built to serve “tens of thousands” of users or device connections, according to a Cisco sales agent… Yet state broadband project officials directed the installation of the stimulus-funded Cisco routers in West Virginia schools with fewer than a dozen computers and libraries that have only a single terminal for patrons.”

The official from West Virginia Homeland Security, Jimmy Gianato, who is leading the project, defended the $24 million router purchase.

Gianato said putting the same size router in every school was about “equal opportunity.”

“We wanted to make sure a student in McDowell County had the same opportunities as a student in Kanawha County or anywhere else,” he said. “A student in a school of 200 students should have the same opportunity as a student in a school with 2,000 students.”

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that Homeland Security is taking care of buying routers for schools and libraries. And by doing so nipping any terrorist threat in the bud. How could we live without them?

Yet again it is Wednesday and time for the Week in Saratov.

In I quarter Russneft produced 4.5 million tons of oil

In the first quarter, NK “RussNeft” produced 4, 558 million tons of oil, which is 6,4% more than in 2011. The level of gas production of the holding during the same period reached ¬ ¬ 548, 665 million 3 gas (+ 10.9% in 2011.).

Insurgent caches found in the Elbrus area of ??the CBD

Yesterday, May 21, in the woods near a section of neutrinos from the federal highway “Baksan-Azau” Kabardino-Balkaria, police found a well-disguised gunmen caches. According to operational data, a cache was laid neutralized during clashes in the Elbrus region in August 2011 a member of the IAF, a resident of the city of Engels, Saratov region.

Canadian Bombardier made a trial visit to Saratov Airport

Low fuel consumption and Canadian sides of the frost immediately liked “Saravia”, so much so that it was decided to hold a presentation of Q-400 in Saratov airport. After landing on Monday in Saratov, Bombardier immediately aroused great interest of local pilots, as well as officials, who also came to look at the aircraft.

M.Romni the lead in the primaries in the states of Arkansas and Kentucky

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won on the last Tuesday primary elections / primaries / candidate for U.S. president from the Republican Party in Kentucky and Arkansas

Secretary General of the NOC of Ukraine is suspected of trying to selling tickets to the Olympics

The Secretary-General of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine Volodymyr Gerashchenko dismissed after an investigation BBC BBC revealed that he offered to sell tickets to the summer Olympics in London, worth several thousand pounds.

German police arrested a teenager who opened fire at school

Police managed to detain the teenager who opened fire at school because of a quarrel with his friends in the city of Memmingen yuzhnobavarskom. Weapons picked up an eighth-grader with his father, one of the pistols he tried to use to shoot the cops, and the second wanted to shoot himself – sends Hamburger Abendblatt.

The new government is formed in Guinea-Bissau

The military authorities of Guinea-Bissau, where in April a military coup, on Tuesday formed a new cabinet, and intend to return to the barracks, reports Agence France Presse. “Now that the government was formed, the military command and the army are going to go back to the barracks,” – said Lieutenant Dub On Valna (Daba Na Walna), a representative of the junta.

He died for the TV remote inventor Eugene Polley

American engineer Eugene Polley, famous for the invention of the remote control for TV, died in Chicago at 97 years old. According to doctors, the inventor’s death occurred due to natural causes.

Forbes has appeared in the edition of the robot

Recently, the U.S. began to appear online Forbes article, the author of which is specified Narrative Science (literally “telling Science”). This technology, which allows you to create a coherent text without human intervention, and if the robots had only worked with journalists dead statistics and wrote about the results of sports matches or financial forecasts, but now they can make and parapolitical texts.

Scientists have discovered the remains of the South American counterpart Tyrannosaurus rex

Argentine and German paleontologists found on the border of Chile and Argentina remains of the South American counterpart Tyrannosaurus rex – abelizavra. According to RIA Novosti, a great success, as the remains of large carnivorous dinosaurs found in South America is quite rare that practically negates the chance to explore the passage of the Cretaceous in this part of the world.

The earliest Mayan calendar does not end in 2012

American archaeologists have discovered in Guatemala, the Mayan calendar, which is the oldest of all known before. Murals depicting the astronomical tables describe the solar and lunar years, as well as long-term cycles of the motion of Venus and Mars.

Corn will save the Japanese from radiation

Japanese scientists have invented a way to disinfect radioactive soil in the area of ??nuclear emergency, “Fukushima”. In Iwate University found a way to rid the soil of radioactive substances with activated charcoal made from corncobs, according to Japanese media.

And that was the Week in Saratov.

You may have slept through the launch as I did so here is the video of the night launch of the Falcon Dragon carrying supplies to the ISS.

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