Twice a week an employee of the Dushanbe Zoo (Tajikstan) walks with a lion cub, Vadik, while holding a piece of meat to attract his attention so that he heels.

Via Fred Lapides.

Just tape bread and other left-overs acquired in dumpsters to the outside of your clothing and lie down in the evening in the suburbs. Ignore the fleas.

Hat tip to Vice via Vanderleun.

Untitled (gas loop) No 1 by Ariel Schlesinger.

Hat tip to TodayandTomorrow.

Including the South African Red Hartebeest. A number of NFL teams have their eye on this hartebeest with view to filling a key linebacking position.

This video shows a nearly fatal accident which occurred in the course of the ceremonies celebrating the 700th anniversary of the founding of the city of Wałcz in western Pomerania in 2003. One sees a sign reading “Wałcz 700 years 1303-2003” atop a kiosk at the end of the video.

The salutes were being fired by the honor guard (“kompania honorowa”) of the city of Wałcz. The city’s coat of arms can be seen on the lower corner of the flag.

Some commentators blame the thick gloves worn by the city guardsmen for the rifle firing prematurely. Others blame lack of proper training.

Thanks to Leon Stevens.

Hat tip to Roger de Hautville.

28 photos

11 more photos

The tidal bore on the Qiantang River in Eastern China is the largest in world, commonly reaching heights of 9 m. (30’) and traveling at speeds up to 40 kph (25 mph).

Tourists travel annually to stand on the dike at Haining and admire this striking demonstration of Nature’s power, but this year an off-shore storm (Typhoon Nanmadol) added a little extra oomph to the incoming tide and last Wednesday more than 20 people were injured.

Looking at the photos, I was surprised that the news reports don’t mention dozens of deaths.

Daily Mail story.

HuffPo report & slideshow

Girl reporter gets wet

The pink polymer framed Taurus 738 TCP is chambered in .380 ACP has a six-round magazine and weighs only 10.2-ounces (.289 km.)

Guns and Ammo forwarded a cringe-inducing report. Earlier this month, on August 9th in Chandler, Arizona, 27-year-old Joshua Seto was attempting to secure his fiancee Cara Christopher’s pink Taurus .380 in the waistband of his trousers, before stopping in a Fry’s Food Store to make a purchase.

The unfortunate Mr. Seto, at the time under the influence of prescription drugs, accidentally discharged a round which struck him in the penis before proceeding through his left thigh.

The Arizona Republic reported:

The bleeding started immediately and was heavy, according to police dispatch recordings released Sunday.

“He is still conscious, there is just a lot of blood,” Christopher, 26, told 9-1-1 operators and dispatchers.

One operator told Christopher to apply direct pressure to the wound with a dry towel or T-shirt, but to avoid looking at the wound.

“I did look at it,” Christopher said. “It’s pretty bad.”

There was talk in the Arizona papers that Mr. Seto might even be prosecuted as the result of his accident.

The local police also proceeded to advise gun-owners to use holsters for carrying sidearms.

Ouch!
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My own opinion is that semiautomatic pistols offer a real advantage over revolvers for concealed carry in being flat sided and basically rectangular. They tend to have fewer protrusions and tuck up against the body more comfortably.

I myself look with disfavor on the trend in recent decades toward double-action semiautos, lacking a safety because they are philosophically intended to be treated as if they were revolvers. I own one such semiauto, a .357 SIG, and if I were carrying it, I’d carry it with an empty chamber, and simply assume that I would inevitably have adequate time to rack the slide if I ever needed to shoot anybody.

This accident was obviously a fluke. The victim was evidently impaired by drugs. But we are all impaired some of the time. Advancing age and illnesses impair everybody sooner or later a bit. We all occasionally take prescription drugs and some of us drink.

It is probably a little safer to use a holster, as the cops suggested, but I read regular reports of users of DA autos shooting themselves in the leg while putting their gun in the holster. Tex Grebner managed to do the same thing with a regular Model 1911 variant as a consequence of confusion induced by a push-button-release holsters. Grebner pushed the safety accidentally.

If you aren’t Jeff Cooper, it may be a better idea to carry that semiauto in Condition 3, magazine full, chamber empty.

Dmitri offers a characteristically insouciant (some would say, “accident-waiting-to-happen”) Russian approach to playing with seriously dangerous toys.

Gasoline-flavored pork! Yum.

Dmitri has his own blog: FPS Russia, devoted entirely to videos of the man himself playing mostly with the kind of stuff the BATF doesn’t want you to have. Are flamethrowers legal in Russia, do you suppose? Does anybody know what the “FPS” in FPS Russia stands for?

You can’t see the gun well enough to identify it, but I would bet that this one had the Glock-style trigger safety. (language alert!)

Via HuffPo.

Magna Carta, 4th Amendment both dismissed by Indiana Supreme Court.

Orrin Kerr discusses this atrocious ruling at Volokh Cospiracy.
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Orrin Hatch on democrats: “They play politics very, very tough, they play it well, and they don’t give a damn about what’s right and what’s wrong.” That is the essential truth about liberal pols in a nutshell.
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Little girl likes to play with dead squirrel. (The sighthound killed it.)

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Garden gnome drowns 58-year-old woman.

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New Russian all-female sect, centered near Nizhny Novgorod, venerates Vladimir Putin as reincanation of St. Paul.

Hat tip to John Brewer.

A bunch of pathetic sissies spout really amazing PC drivel in what seems to be a desperate and ill-advised effort to get laid via sucking up to women. People, especially non-moron females, are laughing at them everywhere.

Comedic novelists satirizing show business couldn’t write some things which actually happen. The Daily Mail reports that Israeli actress Orit Fox, who even after breast reduction surgery in 2007 could still boast of having the largest chest in the country, was modeling in a Tel Aviv photo shoot with a boa constrictor, when suddenly things went wrong.

The B-list model and actress initially looked comfortable during the shoot in Tel Aviv, wrapping the huge snake around her legs, waist and neck while doing her best to look sexy.

In a figure hugging red and white striped dress, which revealed maximum cleavage, she gamely tried to take their bonding to the next level by licking the snake’s face.

As she maneurvered the animal into position for the ‘kiss’ Ms Fox loosened her grip on its neck, and after being licked the reptile reacted angrily.

It aimed straight for Fox’s prized assets and sunk its teeth deep into her left breast. ...

An assistant rushed in to help her pull the snake off and after a few seconds of struggle the creature released its grip.

The peroxide-blonde model was rushed to a nearby hospital and given a tetanus shot.

However, the snake wasn’t so lucky and died from silicone poisoning.

Doppel-Glock-Pistole

From the Firearms Blog.

Things are certainly different in Switzerland. Can you imagine trying to get these federally-licensed in the USA?

The photo shows a pair of Glock pistols attached at their receivers, and set up to be fired full-auto… sideways.

Not one, but two, full-auto Glocks! (No safety, remember? Just that trigger lever.) And sideways, to boot. This has got to be the greatest firearms idea since the duck foot pistol.

Just the thing if the crew of your ship happens to take a sudden notion to mutiny, but otherwise completely useless and more than a little dangerous.

The Doppel-Glock-Pistole was produced by the Swiss arms manufacturer H.P. Sigg and featured in an article in Schweizer Waffen Magazin, in the issue of December 1997..

Someone recently sold a previous prototype using two CZ-52 chambered in 7.62 Tokarev on Egun . The bidding ended at 136,00 EUR ($18984.24)

The Glock set is comprised of more contemporary pieces, so it would probably bring more at auction, but the CZ-52s actually have safeties. They are kind of neat guns, but were crudely finished during the the Communist era.

Never Yet Melted remarked about Glocks:

My experience is that the Glock pistol is surprisingly easy to shoot, but it also has—in my opinion—some very objectionable features and can be dangerous to an unskilled user. A lot of police are accidentally shooting themselves in the leg with Glocks these days.

Crack DEA agent Lee Paige tried suing the government over that video. The Smoking Gun:

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent who stars in a popular online video that shows him shooting himself in the foot during a weapons demonstration for Florida children is suing over the tape’s release, claiming that his career has been crippled and he’s become a laughingstock due to the embarrassing clip’s distribution. ...

According to the lawsuit, Paige was making a “drug education presentation” in April 2004 to a Florida youth group when his firearm (a Glock .40) accidentally discharged. The shooting occurred moments after Paige told the children that he was the only person in the room professional enough to carry the weapon.

The accident was filmed by an audience member, and the tape, Paige claims, was turned over to the DEA. The drug agency, he charges, subsequently “improperly, illegally, willfully and/or intentionally” allowed the tape to be disseminated.

As a result, Paige—pictured at left in a still from the video—has been the “target of jokes, derision, ridicule, and disparaging comments” directed at him in restaurants, grocery stores, and airports. Paige, who writes that he was “once regarded as one of the best undercover agents, if not the best, in the DEA,” points to the clip’s recent airing on popular television shows and via the Internet as the reason he can no longer work undercover. He also notes that he is no longer “permitted or able to give educational motivational speeches and presentations.”

Alas! Mr. Paige shot himself in the foot again, Lowering the Bar reports the case was dismissed. Getting back into the news means, of course, that more people will see the video.

[T]he judge granted summary judgment on the grounds that (even after many depositions) Paige could not prove how the video clip had gotten out, and even if he could have, the leaked information was not “private” because the incident took place in front of 50 parents and children (who at least did learn an excellent lesson in gun safety). Case dismissed.

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There is no “Glock 40,” by the way. Mr. Paige shot himself with a Glock Model 22 or 23 chambered in the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge.

Hat tip to Walter Olson.