Jay Leno looks over what I think is the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen — much prettier than any Dino 246 — and talks to the guy who created it.
And the drive… that engine sound made all sorts of my body parts start to swell and stuff. Basically, the guy made an E-type that is what Jag should have made but didn’t, either because the cost would have been prohibitive or else the technology was unknown at the time. What he has now? Phwooaaaaarrrr.
Exquisite.
Ran into this little A.I. video SOTI, and while none of it concerns me — yet — I think there are a couple of things worth noting.
The “12 Guns Being Banned in 2026” are interesting, although none of them fall within my “I Want This Thing In My Gun Safe” parameters, mostly because they are chambered in calibers that don’t interest me (although that new Zastava M70…hmmm), too expensive (e.g. Daniel Defense) or else I’m just not interested in that type of gun (e.g. Tavor 12ga multi-tube shotgun).
However, what does interest me is that the GFW state legislators — all the usual suspects, plus Vermont (!!! WTF?) — have decided that if they can’t ban a gun just because it’s a gun, they’re going to ban it because it’s “military-specific” (like that matters), “common sporting purposes” (ditto), “concealable” (ditto) or, more worryingly, because of various features that they don’t like. In other words, the guns are becoming too efficient and reliable, and only the military should have access to these features (again, bullshit, but it’s what they’re running with).
It’s a long video and both boring and/or irritating (#A.I.narration), but like I said, what it reveals is the ways with which the GFWs are targeting guns. And my Virginia Readers should pay special attention because that’s the direction your state is heading if it’s not there already (ditto Colorado, a.k.a. Eastern California).
Of course, the Second Amendment Foundation will get involved at some point, and maybe a few of these abuses will reach the Supreme Court to have their pee-pees whacked; but that’s leaving our fate in the hands of lawyers, which is always a risky proposition.
However, there may come a time when some guy (or guys) will get sick of all this bullshit and say “Come and get them” to which the state will reply “Challenge accepted” and the whole thing will end in tears. I should point out that this is precisely the outcome these totalitarian bastards are hoping for.
Be careful out there, buy more ammo, and practice a lot. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.
Afterthought: I think it’s time I should look at one of those FRT (forced recoil trigger) thingies, just because I suspect that they will soon be a definite target for the GFWs. Which is why I should get one, most probably for the FrankenPoodleShooter.
Likewise, as soon as I can buy a moderator (“silencer”) over the counter without paperwork, that too will be added to the above. Not because I especially want one, but because they don’t want me to have one.
Thanks (once again) to The Divine Sarah at Insty’s, we have this brilliant analysis of how government can totally fuck up the market — any market — by ignoring the effects of pricing, deficits and surpluses.
Now, I know it’s about Britishland, and I know that just this is going to cause some of my Murkin Readers to roll their eyes, mutter something about “foreign entanglements”, and go off to wank over Megyn Kelly’s latest nutjob rant or whatever..
Don’t.
As I have said countless times before, I always look over The Pond to see what the Euros and Brits are doing, because they provide at worst an object lesson on what not to do, and at best a warning that we should never allow our own Gummint to repeat their mistakes Over Here.
And I also don’t want to hear bullshit like “Oh, this could never happen here” because not only can it happen, it’s already happening at the state level (cf. California, New York, Illinois and most recently, Virginia). All it takes is one general election which sweeps the Socialists into power, controlling House, Senate and the White House, and everything bad that is happening in Yurp and Britishland will absolutely happen here, just on a national scale.
So follow the above link, read it, learn from it, and let’s make damn sure that such fecklessness and idiocy can never happen here.
Heidelberg, Germany 2009
Mammal ancestors laid eggs, and this 250-million-year-old fossil finally proves it
Apparently, they’re still laying eggs:
Fewer Than 40,000 People Watched Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
Both snippets courtesy of Insty.
I have to say that I’ve always thought that WWII’s Operation Market Garden was actually a very successful military campaign, and not the horrible failure as it’s been painted. And this guy agrees with me:
In fact, the operation succeeded at six of its seven principal objectives, a rate of achievement that would be considered remarkable in almost any other military context. The American 82nd Airborne Division, under Brigadier General James Gavin, faced the daunting task of seizing the great road bridge at Nijmegen across the Waal River, one of the widest river crossings in Western Europe. They did so after brutal urban combat and a daylight assault river crossing in canvas boats under direct enemy fire, one of the most audacious tactical actions of the entire war.7 The bridge was taken intact even after the Germans tried to blow it up. The 101st Airborne Division, led by Major General Maxwell Taylor, seized the majority of its assigned bridges and canal crossings in the southern portion of the corridor and held the vital road that the operation depended on, quickly dubbed “Hell’s Highway” by the soldiers who fought along it, against repeated and determined German counterattacks. British armored units of XXX Corps advanced deeper into occupied territory in a shorter period than in any previous operation in the Western campaign. The scale of what was accomplished tends to disappear in the shadow of Arnhem, but it was genuinely extraordinary, representing the successful coordination of tens of thousands of men, hundreds of aircraft, and an armored column driving north along a single road through hostile country.
I have read a ton of history on the topic — WWII is very much a period of history near to my heart — and I think that too often Market Garden is used a lot by American historians to have a go at Brit Field Marshal Montgomery. (He’s too often caricatured instead of appreciated. Not that I have a problem with that, in general terms, because he set himself up for it pretty much all the way through the war. But we tend to forget that the reason Monty was so cautious a military commander was that he was faced with the stark fact that British and Commonwealth manpower’s losses were, to use the modern term, quite unsustainable.)
Going back to Market Garden: it may well have been a bridge too far (Arnhem), but its only real failure was that even if it had been a total success, it’s doubtful that it would have been the war-ender that Montgomery believed it would be.
I await Reader Sage Grouch’s informed opinion on this.