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.

Hat tip to TodayandTomorrow.

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.

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

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!
—————————————-

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.

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?

Via HuffPo.

Orrin Kerr discusses this atrocious ruling at Volokh Cospiracy.
—————————————————————
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.
—————————————————————
Little girl likes to play with dead squirrel. (The sighthound killed it.)

—————————————————————

Garden gnome drowns 58-year-old woman.

—————————————————————

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

Hat tip to John Brewer.

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.

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.

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.

———————————————————-

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.

Palm Beach Post

From The Deacon’s Bench via The Anchoress.

This bad idea seems to be an 8-cylinder, 48-shot percussion revolver with what looks like a pepperbox-style of hammer. Exactly how the multiple cylinders would be indexed into place in sequence is unclear.

The basic shape of the original weapon reminds me somewhat of the lines of the Savage-North .36 Navy Revolver, but the dropping hammer is characteristic of the older pepperbox revolver era.

As Mark Twain testified in his account of his own adventures in the American West, Roughing It (1872), even ordinary 5 or 5-shot pepperbox revolvers had atrociously long and stiff trigger-pulls inevitably resulting in great inaccuracy, and they were highly liable to multiple ignition.

He wore in his belt an old original “Allen” revolver, such as irreverent people called a “pepper-box.” Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and presently down would drop the hammer, and away would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an “Allen” in the world. But George’s was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because, as one of the stage-drivers afterward said, “If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon—the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.

Take the inaccuracy and ignition hazards of Mark Twain’s Allen pepperbox, throw in lots of weight and really terrible balance, then multiply the opportunity for multiple ignition by eight, and you have this contraption.

Hat tip to Theo.

Dennis Prager speaks for the astonished rest of America.

OK, riddle fans, here’s a toughie: What’s the difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic?

The passengers on the Titanic didn’t vote to hit the iceberg.

Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is almost incredible is that it has voted to sink.

On Election Day, 2010 Californians voted Democrats into every statewide position (one is still undecided). This is the party that singlehandedly has brought one of the world’s greatest economies to near ruin. There may well be historical parallels to what Californians did—but I cannot think of any.

A listener called my radio show two days after the elections to tell me that his business is booming—thanks to Californians. His occupation? He’s a real estate agent in Phoenix, Ariz.

From Bird Dog via Karen L. Myers.

MSNBC reports that there was only one survivor.

A crocodile stashed in a duffel bag got loose on an airplane, frightened passengers and led to a crash that killed 20 people on board, according to an inquiry into the accident.

The lone survivor of the crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo told the story to investigators, the U.K.’s Telegraph reported on Thursday. A British pilot was among the dead.

The plane was on a routine domestic flight from the capital of Kinshasa to a regional airport in Bandundu when the bizarre tale unfolded on Aug. 25.

An unnamed passenger had hidden the crocodile in a large duffel bag with the intent of selling the reptile, according to the Telegraph. The animal escaped as the plane approached its destination.

Pandemonium ensued.

“The terrified air hostess hurried towards the cockpit, followed by the passengers,” a report obtained by the Telegraph said. The plane then became unstable, “despite the desperate efforts of the pilot.”

The plane crashed into a home a few hundred feet from the airport, though the people who lived in the residence were not in the house.

The crocodile reportedly survived the crash but was killed by a blow from a machete.

Apparently, the rush of 17 passengers and the air hostess to the cockpit unbalanced the plane.

Hat tip to Gizmodo via Karen L. Myers.

John Hinderaker from Power-Line, respects Obama’s behavior.

——————————————————————-

Conservative cultural commentary venues The Notes and Culture11 went under. (link 1 & link 2).

Some people think they were not populist enough, but I am inclined to believe that the fact I never previously heard of either one of them could be part of the problem.
——————————————————————-

Cigarettes $10 a pack in NYC.

New Yorkers ought to take up chewing tobacco.
——————————————————————-

Write fiction based on your own life experience and they’ll sue you.

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

Authorities in Oklahoma said a man who crashed into a parking lot walked into a jail and offered a stick he called the “last tree in the universe” as payment.

Oklahoma County sheriff’s deputies said Rondell Bailey walked into the downtown Oklahoma City jail with a stick and told deputies he wanted to offer the object, which he called the “last tree in the universe,” in exchange for dropping any possible charges against him, KOCO-TV, Oklahoma City, reported Wednesday.

The deputies said Bailey left after being told the stick was not an acceptable form of payment and threw a brick through a jail window.

Investigators said they discovered a white powder suspected to be methamphetamine during a search of the suspect’s truck.

——————————————————————

Steve Hoefer made a glove which will play Rock, Paper, Scissors against its wearer. The glove was winning in this 1:36 video

Hat tip to Rosa Golian and Karen L. Myers.
——————————————————————
Satire of typical news report (Warning: lots of off-color language). 2:02 video.

From Vanderleun via Karen L. Myers.
——————————————————————
“Just buy me a sun dress and put me in a Prius!” Hitler declares angrily on learning that Jerry Brown is again running for governor of California in the latest “Der Untergang” take-off.

3:49 video.

Hat tip to Kenneth Grubbs.

Rich Lowry looks on with astonishment as the democrats march on determinedly toward assured destruction.

This will long be a case study in the annals of abnormal political psychology. Tax hikes undid George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton (Bush lost his presidency, Clinton his congressional majority), and Medicare cuts undid Newt Gingrich (taking the air out of his “Republican revolution”). Obama’s Democrats are prescribing themselves a strong dose of both, in an exercise in self-destructive quackery.

They believe that Obama can’t afford failure, that’s it’s the defeat of ClintonCare that killed the Democrats in 1994. But such are the grave political and substantive flaws of ObamaCare that Democrats can’t afford success or failure.

If they pass it, they have tax hikes and Medicare cuts around their necks, as well as the increased insurance premiums the bill is sure to cause. If they fail, they’ve demonstrated their own ineffectual ideological fervor, while still putting themselves on record in favor of tax increases and Medicare cuts.

The Democrats got themselves into this hellish dilemma by not taking the obvious step of scaling back the bill once it became clear it engendered fierce public resistance. Take half a loaf, disarm your critics, call it victory, hail yourselves at the signing ceremony—and come back for more later. It’s not complicated.

Instead, they’ve stayed on a maximalist course. They’ve pushed to the point where the effort could collapse—and, even if they succeed, they’ll have done themselves and the nation’s fiscal future grave harm.

This is the other element of the drama that inheres in the health-care debate: If it passes, people years and even decades from now will look back and ask, “What were they thinking?” It’s a rare opportunity to see a train wreck at its inception, as the conductors make the decisions with malice afterthought that will ramify disastrously.

Everyone agrees that the nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path. So Democrats will add a $2.5 trillion entitlement to hurry us further along the path. Tax hikes that could go to reducing the deficit they’ll plow into the new entitlement. Medicare cuts that could shore up Medicare’s own shaky finances, they’ll plow into the entitlement too (if the cuts happen at all). The new entitlement will grow at a projected 8 percent a year, and it’s only through gimmickry it’s made to look deficit neutral in the first decade. The cost curve of health care will be bent up, and insurance premiums, too, will rise. For all of this, ObamaCare will still leave 24 million people without health insurance.

If nothing else, watching the Democrats sacrifice so much on behalf of this monstrosity is fascinating, appalling—and dramatic. Common sense suggests that they shouldn’t do it. The basic laws of political physics say they can’t do it. And yet on they march.

What do Americans think? They’re against the Health Care Bill: 56% to 38%. Rasmussen.

Some people have no compassion.

I mean, here was 31-year-old homeless victim of Capitalist Imperialism Daniel Wood, minding his own business, merely hassling a few customers for spare change outside a shop in Lancaster, Ohio, when along come the local gendarmes to interfere with Mr. Wood’s preferred means of acquiring income. When the structurally disenfranchised Wood, understandably enough, protested his oppression, the police zapped him with a taser. Unfortunately, Mr. Wood had been not long previously been seeking spiritual illumination, huffing keyboard cleaner. Chances are, Mr. Wood had inadvertently spilled a certain amount of toluene on his clothing, because the spark from the police officer’s taser unhappily caused Mr. Wood to burst into flame.

Can you imagine? Fox News and Crunch Gear were actually heartless enough to find an incident like this funny.

Sensitive Foster Kamer, at Gawker, on the other hand, shed one exquisite tear, and complained that he found contemplating the mugshot of Daniel Wood (who was promptly extinguished, and then booked, by police) “sad and spiritually emptying.”

I found this on Pat Burns’s blog today. The original source seems to be Comedy.com back in February.

When a BMW Z4 hits a deer at 140 mph (225.3 kph), this is what happens.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

South Africa’s Kevin Richardson is following in the footsteps of such other renowned animal behaviorists as Timothy Treadwell.

2:41 video

Hat tip to Gwynnie.

Randall Hoven, stirred by liberal rhetoric about “reality-based” policies, cites a long and amusing list of counter-examples.

Giuseppina Pasqualino

Hat tip to the News Junkie.

A (typically unidentified) video of the 2005 disaster in which 63 people were injured is circulating currently as an Internet curiosity.

2:15 video

Hat tip to JonHenke.

6:31 video

One wonders if the videographer came back the same way.