Yet another debunking

Yep, I think i'm on a roll today with debunking the crap from people. First i slammed on the dishonesty of Senator Biden and now I'm gonna shoot down another by MSNBC. Listed below (aka the bottom of this article) is a piece on the .50 cal rifle. "When U.S. soldiers need to penetrate a tank's armor from a mile away, they count on a weapon that evolved from the garage tinkering of a former wedding photographer." Now if you know anything about the .50 cal, or rifles in general, you know that this is total, unadulterated crap. A .50 cal to take out a tank?!?!?! Holy crap i don't wanna be the one to have to do that. It would in theory be possible to do that, to the weakened sections of an old T-72 but you can't do it with one round as it would take a huge number of round to work in a fatigue method to make even a tiny hole. In fact, this this the method that the US Army uses with the mounted .50 cal machine guns on the HMMWVs but to do this it takes lots of rounds, something not possible, or even close, with the civilan version. So from the first sentence we should all know that this is a hit piece. (Get it...hit piece...talking about killing with a gun...hehehehe). Now we get down past the first ad, btw keep commenting so i can get some ads on here, we can see the terrorist claim. Now i know that some news slips past me but I don't recall ever seeing any terrorist attacks being perpetrated by guys with .50 rifles. I mean but of course we need to be concerned. After all, those big band guns were responsible for 9/11 right? Oh they weren't? Damn, oh well, moving on. Bringing down an airplane. I guarentee you that with nothing bigger than a 30.06, i would have just as good a shot at bringing down a plane. Perhaps even a .223. I might have some more range with a .50 but the skin of a commercial plane is so thin that i could puncture right through it no matter what I shot. And the range is kinda in consequential given how close we can get to planes landing and taking off (BWI or Reagan is a good example). Then of course we have expert testimonials. The independent expert we have is from the Violence Policy Center. First what the hell do we have a policy center for violence for. I bet ya they don't make policy on violence, but just say its bad. But is there any real chance that this guy is gonna be for this rifle, or how about we find out his views on other rifles or handguns. Is MSNBC so lazy that they cannot find a firearm or criminal expert to talk to that they can only interview someone from an anti-firearm organization? Then we have the 2nd policy expert that, although he does have some real credentials i assume with a relevent organization, contradicts the facts. He says that you can't hunt with it but we were just told that that is one of the 2 primary civilian activites. So apperently it can be, and is, used for hunting. In fact it is probably one of the only thinks that can reliably take out a large animal such as an elephant, rhino, etc. Btw it is legal to go on a safari to do this activity. Though i agree, it will destroy most of the meat of a squirral. Barrett makes a very obvious but intelligent that the gun is too large and expensive to be used in crime. How you would utilize something that big in an urban environment i don't understand and you can't really run or move around with it. That is pretty much all the facts presented in the article but of course they have their fun little quotes that are just silly. My favorite of these is the ability to shoulder fire the weapon, while it rests on a bipod. I mean really, WTF! If it needs to rest on a bipod, it really its shoulder fired but supported fired. It might seem like a minor point but it really isn't. The front needs to be seated to rest and the back end needs to be supported by the shoulder but this could just as easily be taken care of by placing resting it on a simple back stand. Shoulder fired refers to the position of having the entire weight supported by the shooter and it braced in the shoulder. MSNBC, either through ignorance or more likely malice, creates the impression of the 2nd postion and not the 1st which it actually refers to.

The .50 cal rifle

Laying out the facts:

My ability to write is obviously inferior to many other people in the world. I know i don't write that well but what i do well is research and process lots of information and then, i post it here ;) One of my friends referred me to this piece today and i thought it was pretty interesting. Enjoy. Agree or Yell and scream that it's horse sh*t as you wish.

Toronto Sun

Senator Joseph Biden's Op-Ed

To any of ya'll that read print news, or at least print news online, you may have stubbled upon the Washington Post's editorial by Senator Biden. Biden is a leading democrat that has presidential asperations in 2008 and of course wants to get his name out to become commonplace. Now if you don't know where to find the article, i will post it here:

Biden's Op-Ed

Now when I read this I saw it as a dishonest attempt to put the war in Iraq in the worst possible light. I got this impression from the first sentence in the article. "The question most Americans want answered about Iraq is this: When will our troops come home?" This is already the wrong question and is not the question that most Americans want answered at all. It MAY be the question that most politicians and democrats want answered but the real question being asked by those of us that are a) have been or will be going to Iraq b) general supporters of the war is what else do we need to do to win the war. If you have to ask "As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?" you are already wrong. The answer is that question does not matter because WE WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL OUR SECURITY INTERESTS REAMIN INTACT. Duh. When you are fighting a war the most important thing is victory, also known as accomplishing the mission. We aren't going to set a time table, find out that timetable was not sufficient and just pack it up like that timetable meant somthing. All a timetable does is projects, its stupid to a specific time set up when you don't know how long it will take to do a job. I don't decide that i will work on a project for 45 minutes and then just get up and leave after 45 minutes if its not done. That is exactly why all the democrats that support a binding direct timetable should not be trusted with our national security. They don't get the long term but only understand short sighted goal. Now lets look at the 3 points or goals that Biden talks about. First, we already have a constitution, or more appropriately state, the Iraqi people have a constitution that they wrote and decidly voted for. So, Sir, you are an idiot or are entirely dishonest to ignore that huge success in Iraq. As for leveraging the neighbors, the two most influential are Saudi Arabia and Iran. Given how they run their countries, not exactly who i would look to for help and advice in the long term don't ya think? The second point actually makes some sense i will allow. Only problem is that Senator Biden talks past himself in consecutive points. He proposes country sponsered ministries but then in the next sentence notes that the countries that promised aide are giving far less than they promised. How can you trust countries that have yet to come through with aide to take on an even bigger job? The third point here is completely nonsense. He is right on the facts but misconstrues the meaning. He emphasises that only one battalion operates completely independent of the US forces, but then adds only as an aside that 40 more operate with our support. Now this is true but you have to look at GEN Casey's testamony to get his meaning. The 40 battalions that he mentioned operate with only American logistical support, not combat. Almost every country in the world uses American logistics because we are so damn good at it. We have by far the most developed military infastructure such as signal and intelligence not to mention transport and supply. We have been doing that for practically every ally for the past 60 years. Only the UK has anything close and its on a much smaller scale. So basicaly, the 40 battalions he mentioned get help on movement and intel from us but do the job entirely by themselves. Also there are well over 100,000 recruits in the past year in the training time so in the next year we have a much larger force as well. Senator Biden talks of gambling on the Iraqis but then a few paragraphs up he states they need to be taking a larger role. Its this kind of taking exact facts then putting spin on them that makes people the Senator Biden unfit to be trusted with our security

Also check out this blog that has similar writing (oddly):
Captain's Quarters

My definition of evil

Here we go, this might be the most heinous thing i have ever heard. I mean really. This for me is probably the definition of the evil people. It does make me happy that I am going over to help kill these people.

Dolls

(Edit: Link Fixed)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I started listing all the stuff i am thankful for but decided that was a boring and useless post. Instead I wanna post about something near and dear to my heart. The battleship. Yes i know that the US Army doesn't have battleships, but its still an issue i feel strongly about. The US currently has ZERO battleships in service and it amazes me. I realize that they are not the capital ships that they used to be but still they have enourmous potential. Go here to see an article about it:

Why Battleships Rule

In addition to the information that is persented in the article, here is another tidbit of information. The disaster that struck the Cole several years ago, would have been shrugged off by an Iowa class battleship. The belt armor on the side would easily have withstood the damage of the blast and no one would have died. As a support vessel it is invaluable. It can also be easily fitted with sets of tomahawk cruise missle or other weapon systems. They have a massive amount of armor as to shurg off many attacks that would be fatal to other modern ships. Their standard weapons systems can fire out over 100 miles currently and can be upgraded to hundreds. They can fire faster and drop far more ordinance than any other ship in the navy's arsenal. To not have these ships would put a severe constraint on the Navy in any large scale conflict. In the history of the world, the easiest way to lose a war, is to believe it will never be fought.

Tapped Beer!

Thought that i should share that the kegerator has made its trip home and has come intact. We (my dad and me) filled the 5lb air cylinder today and we charged the system then we headed to corridor to get a keg. We picked out a nice half keg (15.5 gallons) of yuengling lager and brought it back. Its so nice to have a good beer always ready again. Also its going to stay in MD. Yeungling rules, best in price to taste ratio!

Update 2 on John Daly (not the golfer)

Well, it seems that WCCC has sided with our dear friend Kent on this one. They have held up Daly's argument that nothing was wrong with his email. I sti'sll think its retarded and they got it wrong. Responding to your comments in the previous post: 1) I thought that everyone would be intelligent enough to go to the link i put in the post and see the posters. Obviously i overestimated a particular person. I will post the pic in the bottom of this post. 2) The two are not on equal footing on a college campus. One is in a position of authority and the other is not. If you hold a position of power or authority your words carry more weight therefore the standard is different. Another student can call you a jackass in class but the professor cannot. 3) The letter was a letter sent to the student but she of course has no reason that she cannot publish it. All of her words have been shown as well as all of his. Why should she keep his personal attack on her private? He was however going to air his personal views on the war and her club in particular in an english class, i doubt that is in the curriculum don't ya think? 4) No she can't get a refund for her semester now and she shouldn't have to in the first place. She can leave at the end of a semester but, if you have ever tried to transfer credits, its very hard and almost no college will take all of another college ones. Its a community college by the way so perhaps she can't just go to another. If she is being attacked by a professor, its not her responsibility to move on to another college. I don't have a clue where your pot comment comes from by the way. 5) I misrepresented what i wrote. His comments, by themselves, are not sedition because no revolt, violence, oristurbance has occured. If a soldier did take his words seriously and attempted to do what he advocates, it would be sedition. So no he is not guilty of sedition, only advocating it. I thought that was obvious but i realize now my post was unclear.

Paying for Masterbation is not enough...

This struck me as going beyond crazy. Perhaps i am just a heartless conservative who is just out to screw over the handicapped though

Brussels Journal

What exactly does the 1st Amendment DO?

Thoughts on the mind today having me wondering what exactly is the point of the first amendment. Referencing this in my mind is the freedom to speech. Is it simply a right to say anything you want at any time to any person. What exactly is protected. It has me thinking because of reading that Prof Daly is being investigated. Does the freedom of speech have any conditions on it. My first thought is "No." Freedom of speech is exactly that, the freedom to say whatever you want with no conditions on it. Then i thought about it more completely and i realized that all the time we are kept from saying anything we want. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater for no reason. You can't lie under oath. You can't use hate speech because thats a crime. You can't use certain profane words on television. Everyday we are "protected" from hearing things that are deemed harmful for one reason or another. So we really don't have a complete freedom of speech. Does this mean that the government should have the right to regulate what is said about other things as well? Where does its influence on speech end. There was lawsuits against the Swift Boat Veterans because people accused their accusations of being lies. Does it matter who's speech is protected? Is CBS protected by the 1st amendment if they want to air documents that have been proved to be almost certainly false? Can a member of Congress say things that are completely untrue or harmful if it helps their position? All of this is on my mind today and I don't really know what to think. Is speaking that there are massive atrocities being committed by troops when its untrue treason? I would say that intent has alot to do but it seems like a double standard, occasionally political but oftentimes not, is going on with the government and it seems quite unfair to me.

Now on MilBlogs!

In case you didn't notice, on my sidebar is now a link to the Milblogs webring. I highly encourage any of my readers to check out some of the other sites (there are tons) on the webring and to see what else is being written by military members and family and friends. Also to anybody stumbling on my site from the webring, hope you enjoy what you read or at least find it interesting even if you highly disagree. Hope you stay in any case!

Back to Hammer Time?

If you are like me, and many people arn't, you are highly disappointed in the Republican controlled Congress. In the last few months, republicans have been having a hard time using their majority to ram through legislation that is conservative. This is partly due to the continual bitching by the minority democrats but also has to do with liberal republicans not voting with the party bloc. Now, as many of you know, i am for the abolition of the 2 party system. However, since we have that system, we elect members who will vote as we want. And the majority right now is conservative so why is more conservative legislation making it through. Well hopefully, the days of Republican solidarity are about to return. The ridiculous, politcally motivated, charges againts Tom Delay (aka: The Hammer) will be thrown out. Even if what he did was objectionable, he is being accused of breaking a law that was established in 2003 during the year of 2002. Ummm....what? To quote old skool robots..."Does Not Compute" Look up the charges that have been dragged on to Delay if you don't believe me. The only reason this case was even considereed is the judge who held it up is a democrat who routinely gives to the DNC and individual democrat candidates. Conflict of interest much? With a new judge (though still another senior democrat) hopefully these bullshit chrages will be thrown out and the Hammer will be cracking down on these republican lites again. Oh and i think we can all guess on whether or not he will be pleased with the democratic establishment on this one and his likelyhood of moving on with no hard feeling.

Update on Prof. John Daly

John Daly will now be investigated by the WCCC. According to several sources, the professor who sent that hostile email to a student regarding a visit from iraq campaign veteran, COL ritter, will be investigated by the college. Note: I do think that everyone has a right to express their own views given by the 1st amendment. There are however 2 problems with what Daly wrote in his email in my eyes. The first is that this is a professor of english at this school. He is not being paid to encourage or denigrate (that means insult kent, i'll try to keep from using too big words for ya) any view point. He is simply being paid to teach. The message that the student wanted passed was not to encourage people but simply to state that he was coming. Daly went well past the position that he holds and he needs to be held accountable for oversteping his bounds. Second problem with the email is that the professor could be tried for sedition. From webster's dictionary: the crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction. CRIME folks. Advocating that troops (aka: me) shoot their officers is a crime. Now i know that this man will not be arrested for it but damnit, it is a crime so to excuse him is to further break the law and the democratic laws of this country. That is why i am very happy to see the university probing this professor.