BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.

calendar   Thursday - May 13, 2010

Did You Forget B.A.G.D. Last Month?

Gun Sales Down 148,000 So Far This Year



image



I know Kim DuToit isn’t running his blog anymore to remind you of BAG Day - Buy A Gun Day - April 15th each year. Or of National Ammo Day, November 19th. But that’s no excuse. But without setting monthly records each month the story of America Buying Guns Like Mad!!!! falls off the front pages. Even if 2010 is still on track for 13.5 million units sold. barely a tick or two behind 2009’s most phenomenal sales record ever. And while it doesn’t sound as good as “a million guns a month”, each month for the past 21 months has topped 950,000; one NICS check can be used for multiple purchases at the same time, so if just 7% of the people were doing that in those two off months that then we ARE talking about a million sales a month for going on 2 solid years. Kewl!

And more than 21.5 million firearms purchased since Obama was elected. One new firearm for every fourteen people in the country. Plus the hundreds of millions already here.

OCM, the 300 million number you mentioned may be a bit on the low side. By about 200 million. I can extrapolate 200 million sales in the past 23 years from this data, and a halfway decent gun will last 4 times longer than that. Heck, I have a rifle built in 1893 that still shoots just fine.

So please do your part when you can, and purchase more firearms and more ammunition. Lots more ammuntion. And get some practice in too.

image


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/13/2010 at 02:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

The BurgerCandle

image



White Castle candles that smell like burgers

[It] comes in a rectangular ceramic holder that resembles the cardboard box of the White Castle Slider sandwiches. They sell for $10 each, with net proceeds going to Autism Speaks.

A New York candle power-house helped create the flame-broiled scent. Laura Slatkin and her company, Nest Fragrances, typically design luxury bath products for the likes of Christian Dior and Vera Wang.

But this time, the Chelsea-based firm is helping out a like-minded fast-food company - both she and the heads of White Castle have kids with autism.

“The candle has a top note of diced sweet onions and crisp pickle, the middle notes are beef patty, cheese and ketchup, and bottom note is a warm burger bun. It all comes together to create this amazing aroma of a White Castle Slider.”

The candles have been selling like, well, hotcakes, said a spokesman for the Columbus, Ohio-based company, immortalized in the hit movie “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.”

“We thought we had a two- month supply for online sales, but they were gone in 48 hours,” said Jamie Richardson, a vice president of corporate and government relations. He projects the company will raise more than $50,000 for the nonprofit.

Ok, it’s more of a “steam table” scent than a flame broiled one if memory serves me correctly, but a burger scented candle? This is a total reversal. I’m sure it’s just what you need when you’ve been cooking up too much bayberry, vanilla, or patchoulli. Or when you leave the Gladed Scented thingy on too long and you want to balance things out. And it would be a really mean trick to play on a vegetarian or someone on a diet.

You know what I want to see next? A pastrami sandwich candle. With a strong top note of freshy doughy rye bread. A hint of a New York deli Kosher garlic dill on the side, and a mild middle note of some fresh sharp horseradish. Maybe with just a smidge of a Dr. Brown’s celery tonic on the side.

But I’m just using the story as an excuse to post pictures of pretty girls who look a bit hungry in their own special way. Girls with clothes on! sorta.

image
I love it when you light your beefcandle just for me!


image
Can I get fries with that? Later on?


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/13/2010 at 12:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
Comments (0) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Wednesday - May 12, 2010

No it didn’t

Loaded Gun Discharges in 3rd Grader’s Desk

Charlotte NC: A gun went off inside a student’s desk, the bullet, missing the 20 or so students in the classroom and hitting a wall.

Parents rushed to pick up their kids, worried about what could have happened.

But CMS didn’t inform parents that the incident involved a loaded gun until almost two hours after school let out.

Many parents we talked to were concerned because they didn’t know exactly what was going on.

One parent told us she got the initial message from CMS, which stated, “A serious incident occurred in a University Meadows classroom this afternoon.”

The gun was a .22-caliber handgun “small enough to fit in the palm of your hand,” said CMPD Sgt. David Schwob, who said he wasn’t certain if the discharge was accidental.

Police are investigating the boy’s father who came to the school in the afternoon [after the shooting]. Schwob said investigators were interviewing the boy, his parents and other students in the class.

The boy was locked up in a detention facility and investigators were trying to figure out how he got the gun.

Police say the gun was fired around 1 p.m. while it was inside a desk. The bullet hit a wall, according to WCNC-TV, the Observer’s news partner.

No one was injured. Police didn’t release the name of the third-grader they say brought the gun because he is a minor. He was charged with possession of a gun on school grounds and was being held late Tuesday at a juvenile detention facility in Gaston County.

Sure, the weapon may have discharged, but only because there was a 3rd grader’s finger on the trigger. Pulling it. Period. Even if the kid was Jayson Williams’ son, the gun did not go off by itself.

Now, why did a 3rd grader have a loaded gun in his desk? How did he get the gun in the first place? No public answers to those questions at this time.

A statistical analysis of the students at University Meadows Elementary can be found here. It’s a pretty good sized school, with more than 850 kids in grades K-5.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/12/2010 at 04:52 PM   
Filed Under: • EducationGuns and Gun Control •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Work Beats Blog

Sorry for teh light posting the past couple of weeks. I’ve been as busy as a one armed window washer up on a ladder in high winds. Oh wait ...

No, I have two arms. Had to stop and count, just to make sure.

So let’s see, what’s been happening out in the wide world?

Ok, that’s it for me. Back to making cash scrubbing glass.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/12/2010 at 08:27 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (5) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Monday - May 10, 2010

Christmas In Joisey

Who says I can’t plug a Christmas album in May? Why not?

This is pretty funny if you’re from New Jersey. Well, certain parts anyway. Chatham and Bernardsville excluded. It might be even funnier if you’re not from New Jersey.

I found it really adorable, because I only know the singer via her alternate reality ... in other words, what she does for a living when the band isn’t playing. And yeah, that’s her real hair. Every day.

Lucy’s webpage is here. Visit, have fun, and don’t forget to vote - Gravy or Sauce. [ real NJ people don’t need to ask “gravy or sauce for what?” and have already had this fight many times before, usually at holiday get-togethers. ]


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/10/2010 at 10:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Fun-StuffMusic •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Auto Musing, again

Want to feel young again? Take a gander at this options list for the new 2011 Ford Mustang:

image

How long has it been since you’ve seen something like that? I’m amazed. You haven’t been able to pick rear axle gears in ... 30 years? 35 years? Maybe, just maybe, if you were truck shopping, you had a choice of either the plain vanilla boring standard “mpg” gears or the barely warmed up “towing” gears. For cars? Forget about it. And now Ford, the non-government owned car company, is actually offering you choices, at least on their new and improved pony car. The 3.73 set (sigh, 3.73s!!!) is a limited slip hoozimabob. Damn, it’s been so long I can’t even remember what Ford’s version of Posi-traction rear axles were called. Traction-Lok?

I was intrigued by their new TV add promising 305/31 - the base Mustang comes with a 305 horsepower V6, a 6 speed manual transmission (sigh) and pulls 31mpg on the highway. Which is pretty much what I was talking about on my last auto musing post. The bad news is, and you knew there would be some, that you’ve got to wind the engine up a bit to get that power. You don’t have to wind it up as much as you need to spin an Acura to get to the good part, but still you’ve got to go past 4000rpm.

Of course, for the purists, the more hard core drivers, Ford finally got around to putting the (minimum) proper sized V8 back under the hood in the GT version. Gone is the egg sucking 4.6L, and a decent 302 is back in place. Granted, they call it a “Coyote” 5.0L, but we know better. It’s a 302. One with 11:1 pistons that wants to be fed 91 octane gas or better. And Ford built it better than ever: FINALLY, and only about 25 years too late, they managed to build a 4 valve head on the thing. Independent valve timing is said to create 412hp and 390 lb/ft of torque. Is it an aluminum block?  Why yes it is. As are the heads and the pistons. Alas, it needs to be spun up to rice-rocket revs to make those big ponies, and I haven’t been able to locate a dyno chart yet. But maybe it’s got some low end power too, where most of us drive most of the time. The 6 speed manual is a 5+1 single overdrive transmission, and 3.31 rear gears are standard.

So, V8, manual, optional hot gears, and supposedly a lighter, stiffer chassis with much better brakes and handling, plus an interior said to rival an Audi? [ yeah, right ] Lighter? This Mustang tips the scales at 3600lbs, a full half ton heavier than the stripped down 1983 GT I once owned.

Gee, what’s it like to drive the new GT?

Watch the speedo if you can, because the needle sweeps by 60 in less than 5 seconds. After my first initial acceleration run, I found myself jabbing the throttle at any possible moment, giggling like a lunatic each time.
...
The optional Brembo breaks on the V8 provide retina dethatching levels of halting power, keeping the go in check with woa. The whole experience was so unlike any muscle car I’ve driven that I was doing double takes at the pony on the steering wheel with each curve.

Yeah, that sounds about how it ought to be. Get out on the road and offend and terrorize a leftist greenie Pius driver. Then righteously annoy the one M3 driver you can find who actually drives his bit of German engineering, instead of putt-putting around in his bone jarring status symbol.

I hope this works out for Ford. Heck, I know it will. I test drove the 4.6L GT a couple years back. The one with “300 horsepower!!!!!!!!!” It. Was. Lame. Fat, flat, and flatulent. I am utterly certain that the ‘83 and ‘84 GTs I owned once upon a time performed much better. And that was before the old 5.0 engine got all the neato internals.

image

Set to officially debut at the Detroit Auto Show in just over a weeks time, the 2011 Mustang GT brings back the 5.0-liter V8 with 412-hp at 6500 rpm and 390 ft-lbs of torque at 4250 rpm, a far cry from the 175-hp 302 cubic inch motor found in the 1983 model.

Ok, I’ll give you that. But driving is more than just a numbers game. The ‘83-84 engine was tuned like a diesel semi. All the torque was just over idle, and the power was all gone by 4000rpm. It was a tank motor, but a tank motor made regular driving a real grin inducing experience. All torque, no waiting.

1983-84 5.0GT
2700lb
100” wheelbase
175 hp @ 4200 RPM
245 lb/ft @ 2400 RPM
3.08 gears standard

2011 5.0GT
3600 lbs
107” wheelbase
419hp @ 6500rpm
390 lb/ft @ 4250rpm
3.31 gears standard

1971 Boss 351 (5.7) - the biggest fattest Mustang ever. But not the fastest. Until now.
3300lbs
109” wheelbase
330hp@5400fpm
370 lb/ft @ 4000rpm
3.91 gears standard

The 1983-84 GT carried 11 lbs of body weight for each ft/lb of torque, which peaked just off idle at 2400rpm. To match that low end grunt, the new ‘stang V8 needs to churn 327 lb/ft at the same engine speed. Does it? I hope so. The 4.6 didn’t, or it sure didn’t feel that way. The 2011 still looks mighty pudgy to me, but at least it’s got a good engine in it for a change.

UPDATE: No, it does not. I found a dyno test online. Several actually. And while at least one of those tests shows that Ford is being conservative with their numbers, the testing reported at Inside Line was really well presented. So I borrowed their graph and modified it a little.

image

Well, what does all this mean? It means that when just putting around town, the 2011 GT will not feel as potent as the 1983 GT. Simply because the new car weighs so much. It won’t feel wimpy, but it won’t have that same level of “holy cow” sensation. HOWEVER, if you stick your foot in it just a bit then the entire game changes. Whereas the old school ‘83 gave you a pitiful 2000rpm powerband, and a not really amazing one by today’s standards but a true joy back in 1983, the new one will take off like a shot and just keep getting stronger. Which is awesome. So it’s got a strong stealth sleeper aspect to it. Getting the shortest optional rear axle gears will make it go much faster at the cost of gas mileage and top end. Who cares? But I would consider the optional high performance brakes as an absolute necessity. With the 3.73 gears and some really sticky tires we’re looking at a 13.00 - 13.25 second car here on the drag strip. Open up the intake airflow just a bit and you might get shave a quarter second off of that. Find some 93 octane premium and shave another tenth. And that puts the new GT within touching distance of the biggest baddest rarest rides from the late 60s. All for about $30,000. And it gets you a car that can stop and go around corners too, two nice features that most of the old machines didn’t do very well. Nice job Ford!

Compared to the 1984 GT, the 2011 has a 7” longer wheelbase, is 8” longer overall, weighs 1000 pounds more, has double the horsepower and has a much higher crash worthiness rating. Interior room and volume are quite similar. Yet the 2011 gets the same 17/26 mileage as the 1984, and I’m certain that it does that with much lower tailpipe emissions too. And it has to ride better; the early 80s ‘stangs only had suspensions in theory. They rode like rocks.

And it almost goes without saying that today’s GT a) makes more power and torque than the biggest Cobra Jet engines Ford offered back in the day, and b) will out drive pretty much any stock Mustang ever made, whether the road is straight or twisty.

Technology sure sucks, don’t it? LOL

But I still wish Ford could trim some weight on this thing. 500 pounds would make all the performance difference in the world.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/10/2010 at 08:19 PM   
Filed Under: • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
Comments (7) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

SCOTUS nom

Obama Nominates Kurgan For Supreme Court!

image image

Oh, HELLA YEAH BABY!





Huh? What??? Kagan, not Kurgan? A one issue military hating ivy league ivory tower lesbian with no experience behind the bench ever, intimately connected to the Chicago Machine and a HUGE Obama donator who is also a recycle from the Clinton era? The one who spent almost all of her whopping great 2.5 years lawyering experience doing it for Goldman Sachs? The one who has been Obama’s solicitor general for one year now, and argued 5 cases in front of the Supremes and lost how many of them? Her who is all in favor of vastly expanded presidential power? All that, instead of a violence prone maniac with a big chopper? Aw crap. Never mind.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/10/2010 at 11:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
Comments (7) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Sunday - May 09, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day

Yeah, I stole this from The Jawa Report. Sue me.

Somebody had to do it…

Meanwhile. somebody’s mother is doing this…

Go Mom!!!


avatar

Posted by Christopher   United States  on 05/09/2010 at 07:23 PM   
Filed Under: • FamilyHolidays •  
Comments (11) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Bad Idea, Wrong Taxpayers

One Illegal Gets The Boot

And $145,000 parting gift





Oh this is just so wrong in so many ways.

An illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet got a $145,000 parting gift from New York City taxpayers before he was deported, after a federal judge ruled his civil rights had been violated when he was held too long on Rikers Island.

Federal rules allow local law enforcement to detain suspected illegal immigrants for 48 hours after their criminal cases are resolved, to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement a chance to pick them up and move them to federal facilities.

Former Brooklyn resident Cecil Harvey, 55—backed by an immigration-rights advocacy group—argued that his rights were violated when he spent more than a month in a Rikers holding pen before being transferred to ICE.

Harvey was shipped to his native Barbados in October 2007; the city settled his civil suit late last year.

The landmark settlement has prompted the Correction Department to dump scores of illegal immigrants on the streets, since federal officials often fail to pick them up within the required two-day window.

Federal immigration agents have office space on Rikers Island, and the city allows them to interview roughly 4,000 inmates each year. They put a hold, or “detainer,” on 3,200 of those inmates who they discover are illegals.

But ICE often fails to transfer those detainees within the required 48 hours of their criminal cases being resolved, multiple jail sources said.

“We just release them now,” one high-ranking jail supervisor said. “It’s ICE’s problem to go find these guys.”

[ read the article: the guy was held in jail because he was FTA on his court hearing. In other words, he skipped. So when they busted him for that, they kept him in jail. Crazy, right? ]


So now we know: the civil rights of an illegal alien felon are worth roughly $5,000 a day. Hell, I’m a citizen, so my civil rights ought to worth more than that, right? Where do I sign up? I’ll do a month at Rikers for that kind of money. Solitary please though.

But seriously ... the feds are right next door to the prison there. They can’t walk across the friggin’ street? The prison can’t make a phone call and say “got another one, come get him”? They can’t follow up on the cases and call the prison and say “this guy might be ours now”? I’d call this the federal’s fault, for not doing their job in a timely manner. Make Obama pay, not New York “Sanctuary” City.

And I wouldn’t pay the guy any damned $200 an hour for being in jail for this “civil rights” infringement. Minimum wage, at most. Got an existing record, like this guy? Half minimum wage at most then. Which means he would have got $3000 instead.

Yeah, I’d like to say that he shouldn’t have any civil rights at all, but that’s not how America works. But we don’t have to laud this guy with the equivalent of the 10-15 years income he’d make back on his home island. If he had a legal job.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/09/2010 at 11:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
Comments (2) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

As Usual

Today is the 9th of May. Your kids off at college are hitting the books big time. Final exams start tomorrow at many schools, next week at the rest of them. In another 2 weeks it will be time to make that big long drive to go pick them up, attend graduation, and watch them say goodbye to the old alma mater and the friends they have made there. Ah, the milestone moments of growing up. Sniff, sniff.

At my old school, it is snowing today. Middle of May. Less than a week before the parents show up.

image

image

Toldja so. Winter will simply not let go up there. Gray and brown, the unofficial school colors. The sky above, the mud below.

But to be fair, it’s only in the mid 50s down here this morning. Winds have been blowing like mad for a full day now. Trees down in places, branches all over. Helluva blow. Still, it could be so much worse. Look at Nashville, the poor sods. Coping the best they can, but finding out that FEMA is broke for the year, and it’s only May. Peiper must be heartbroken over the damage there, his old stomping ground nearly drowned.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/09/2010 at 06:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Friday - May 07, 2010

Black Gold, Falklands Tea

Oil Strike! New deposits found in Falkland Islands

“Las Malvinas” my bollocks, says Gordon Brown

Rockhopper, the British oil and gas explorer, said it had discovered oil off the Falkland Islands.

Rockhopper Exploration, the North Falkland Basin oil and gas exploration company, is pleased to announce that well 14/10-2 on the Sea Lion prospect has reached a depth of 2,744 metres. Initial data collected indicate that this well is an oil discovery, which would be the first in the North Falkland Basin.

The Company has run a suite of wireline logs and logging data collected thus far indicate that the well has encountered a 150 metre gross interval of sand and shales.  The data show that the well has 53 metres of net pay distributed in multiple pay zones, the thickest of which has a net pay of 25 metres.  These pay zones have an average porosity of 19%.

Rockhopper Exploration shares jumped 120pc to 81p.  The company, which is working in the North Falkland Basin, made the find at a depth of 2,744m in its Sea Lion prospect. It is considering whether to drill an appraisal well.

Sea Lion is one of two blocs where Rockhopper has permission to explore and early reports estimate it contains 170m barrels of oil – with the maximum forecast more like 470m barrels. Later this year, the company will drill its Ernest prospect, which is about the same size.

“We are extremely excited by the results of this well,” said Samuel Moody, Rockhopper’s managing director. “While we are presently acquiring additional data, current indications are that we have made the first oil discovery in the North Falkland Basin.”

Ok, so it isn’t a big find. The whole thing is only a 8 to 23 day supply for the US at most. But it’s only the first find in the area. But look at the bigger picture; Brazil made some large finds out in their ocean last year, and production off the coast of western Africa has been chugging right along. It may be that the South Atlantic continental shelf is the next bonanza.

Meanwhile, Argentina is behaving typically, crying to the UN to “make a decision” and slapping “permit” tariffs on ships going to and from the Falklands. Gordon Brown is having none of it, thank you very much.

HMS York, a type 42-destroyer, was on a “tight leash” patrolling the seas around the islands in response to rising tensions over British firms oil explorations activities near the Falklands. Argentina has demanded a halt to “illegal” oil drilling around the Falkands and on Wednesday imposed a permit system on ships passed from its ports to the island.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, issued an explicit warning to the Argentinian government that the South Atlantic show of force – which also included a survey vessel backed up by a 1,000-strong military detachment on land – would respond to any disruption of the Falklands links to the outside world.

...

Argentinian officials have revived the country’s claims to sovereignty over Falklands as it contests British claims on the potentially lucrative deep sea oilfields within the islands 200-mile economic zone.

Jorge Taiana, Argentina’s foreign minister, scheduled a meeting with Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, next week to discuss British failure to comply with resolutions calling for a “discussion” of sovereignty.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/07/2010 at 02:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
Comments (10) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Protectionism? P&G Stocks “Too Big To Fall”?

Wild Ride On Wall Street

Dow Plunges Nearly 1000 points, Then Recovers



image



In one of the most gut-wrenching hours in Wall Street history, the Dow plunged almost 1,000 points Thursday before recovering to close down 348, as erroneous trading in Procter & Gamble and several other stocks sparked a massive selloff.

Fears about the spread of the European debt crisis dragged on stocks through the early afternoon. But the selling picked up in intensity and the Dow reached its nadir at around 2:40 p.m. ET.

The selling was a result of technical glitches that caused some stocks, including Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500), to plunge 37% to $39.37 per share from the close of $62.12 Wednesday. The consumer products maker recovered most of that loss by the close, ending just 2% lower.

But the faulty P&G trading was responsible for 172 of the 998.50 points that the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost at its worst, the biggest one-day point decline on an intraday basis in Dow Jones history.

The huge drop in P&G’s stock - reportedly from more than $60 to less than $40 - is widely believed to have been a trading glitch.

At around 2:45 p.m. ET, P&G’s (PG, Fortune 500) stock had fallen 10% to $56 on the New York Stock Exchange, triggering a “circuit breaker.” At that point, the NYSE slowed the trading of the stock for less than a minute. During that short time, other stock exchanges were allowed to trade P&G’s stock price on their own, instead of getting the price from NYSE.

According to Procter & Gamble and the NYSE, the Nasdaq stock exchange may have misprinted a quote of $39.37 a share. It is also possible that the electronic trades actually occurred, but they were made in error.

...

Late on Thursday Nasdaq said it had no technology or system issues associated with the trading that occurred between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. ET.

But the exchange said that because it coordinates with other US Exchanges, “all trades executed between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. ET greater than or less than 60%” of the stock price as of 2:40 p.m. ET or immediately prior to that time will be cancelled.

Silly me, I seem to recall from a few stock market crashes ago that these automated sell-off programs had been outlawed, to prevent exactly this. And we have some voice at NASDAQ saying there was no problem with the system. So what gives? The market is a fickle place, and if a panic sell-off of P&G occurs, that’s what happens. The herd stampedes out, the herd stampedes back in. It seems rather falsely protectionist to pull the stock from trading, and then declare that the low ball trades were not actually real. Somebody offered shares at that price, and somebody else agreed to buy them at that price, even if those decisions were made by a computer. So how can that be in error?


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/07/2010 at 01:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Big Business •  
Comments (4) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

calendar   Thursday - May 06, 2010

No Defense Against Jack-In-The-Box Missiles

All that was old is new again, so let’s drag up those Cold War fears and apply them to today’s rogue nation terrorist states. Throw in a little bit of modern technology, and voila! Large scale terrorist attack system, literally in a box. For sale to the highest bidder now, but soon to be on the shelves at your local War-Mart. Unless you build your own out in the back yard. Because, duh, it really is that easy.


Shipping Container Missile Systems For Sale

The Russian company Concern Morinformsystem-Agat is marketing a deadly new weapon [ called the Club-K system ], one that can allow a rogue state to overcome the technological superiority of Western militaries. The system can even be used to carry out devastating attacks on the U.S. homeland with little means of defense.

The system, as seen in its promotional video, allows a weak nation to strike the land and sea targets of a superior force by placing cruise missiles into any type of 40 foot container. The video uses a ship, truck and train as examples of potential launching platforms. This means that once this weapon is sold, any of these transportation vehicles have to be seen as missile pads.

The West normally relies upon advanced surveillance to detect and monitor such pads so that prior notice of a launch can be achieved, allowing for the site to be destroyed before the missile takes off or the missile to be intercepted. This warning allows for preparations for impact to be undertaken and retaliatory measures to be evaluated. By concealing and launching the missiles from cargo containers, there is absolutely minimal time to react, as effective surveillance would require following every truck, train or ship.

In addition, these vehicles can cross borders, making it more difficult to identify the perpetrator of an attack and impossible to predict where an attack might come from. The missiles might from a shipping vessel off the coast or a truck that crossed via the Mexican border. With a range of 220 kilometers, or about 136 miles, they can either be fired from a safe distance from the border or the distance can be minimized by getting close to the target by being hidden.

It is feared that the covert Club-K missile attack system could prove “game-changing" in fighting wars with small countries, which would gain a remote capacity to mount multiple missiles on boats, trucks or railways.

Iran and Venezuela have already shown an interest in the Club-K Container Missile System which could allow them to carry out pre-emptive strikes from behind an enemy’s missile defences.

Defence experts say the system is designed to be concealed as a standard 40ft shipping container that cannot be identified until it is activated.

Priced at an estimated £10 million, each container is fitted with four cruise anti-ship or land attack missiles. The system represents an affordable “strategic level weapon”.

The general idea is nothing new. The US and the USSR both had ICBMs mounted in railway cars back in the late 50s and 60s. Ours - the Mobile Minuteman and the Peacekeeper Garrison, and theirs - photos here.

But back in the day, these missiles were mounted in special freight cars, and driven around by special trains. Now the entire world runs on shipping containers. They are everywhere. Go for a short drive on the highway - it’s almost a guarantee you’ll see a dozen. Hundreds of thousands of them go in and out of our ports and cross our borders every single day. They can’t all be inspected.

The Club-K design concept can be carried out in a larger and less expensive manner with ease. A standard shipping container can hold 2 old school Chinese and their launchers inside with room to spare. They can carry a half ton warhead and shoot it 300 miles in a 30 minute flight 50 feet off the ground. To low and too quick to react to for all but the best hardened and defended targets. All you’d need to do is to build a clamshell pop top lid on the shipping container.

How about taking it down several steps into the realm of uncaring terrorists? If they can’t get real ones, then build a Qassam style missile with folding fins that uses a standard 120mm or 155mm artillery shells for a warhead. Fits inside an 6” or 8” steel pipe with ease. Mount a whole bunch of them inside the container at a 45° angle and you can make the launch tubes almost 11 feet long. A little math ... stagger them in rows of 11, 10, 11, 10, etc; you can fit nearly 500 inside a single shipping container, ready to fire, mounted on an 18 wheeler. Ok, you have to consider the overall weight, so it would probably be more like 250 instead. That’s still a massive barrage. And for protection against counterbattery, it’s probably possible to light them off while the truck is moving down the highway. Hamas doesn’t care about precision accuracy. Towns are hard to miss. Just drive the truck on a road that’s pointing in the right direction. And this is a bigger Qassam than the ones they use now, so it would have a longer range.

What if each missile tube was sealed with a bit of plastic or something, so that the bomb sniffers at the ports couldn’t smell the missiles inside? The whole thing could be built to go off by remote control. A simple pressure sensor in the bottom of the container, along with a counter would know that the container went on the truck, on the ship, off the ship, on the truck, and off the truck at it’s destination. Set the timer for 12 hours and then start shooting. It would not matter where the missiles went, or even if they hit anything. The mere fact that such a container got into the country and went off would cause mass panic and bring the entire shipping infrastructure to an instant halt.

Yes, mobile missile barrage systems are a scary idea. But to design and build one to modern hi-tech spec, and then put it on the global market, is even scarier.

“What alerted me to this was that the Russians were advertising it at specific international defence event and they have marketed it very squarely at anyone under threat of action from the US.”

Reuben Johnson, a Pentagon defence consultant, said the system would be a “real maritime fear for anyone with a waterfront”.

“This is ballistic missile proliferation on a scale we have not seen before because now you cannot readily identify what’s being used as a launcher because it’s very carefully disguised.

Gee, great.


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/06/2010 at 11:22 AM   
Filed Under: • MiscellaneousTerrorists •  
Comments (0) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Schooled

Spetnaz forces rescue hijacked Russian tanker ship

1 pirate dead, 10 captured and “injured”



Dear Somalia: Pay attention, class is in session. Today’s lesson: the bear has teeth and will bite you if you mess with him.



Russian forces freed a hijacked Russian oil tanker and rescued its crew in a helicopter-backed operation on Thursday that killed a Somali pirate, authorities said.

Russian investigators said 10 captured pirates, who seized the China-bound MV Moscow University in the Gulf of Aden, will be brought to Moscow for prosecution.

They hijacked the tanker on Wednesday with its 23-member crew and a cargo of crude oil worth $52 million. Its rescue will please the Kremlin, which has been seeking to revive Russia’s naval muscle far from its shores despite limited resources.

“Measures are being undertaken to bring the detained pirates to Moscow,” the Investigative Committee of the Prosector General’s office said on official site sledcomproc.ru.

The European Union’s naval force said the Russian warship Marshal Shaposhnikov had sent in a helicopter that returned fire after being shot at by pirates.

Eventually the pirates surrendered and a boarding team from the Marshal Shaposhnikov arrived on board the tanker, an EU naval statement said.

A spokeswoman for the tanker’s owner, Novorossiysk Shipping Company, said the crew survived the 20-hour siege by hiding in a safe room that was inaccessible to the hijackers.

The Russian Investigative Committee statement said that one pirate was in fact killed and that some of the 10 who were captured were injured.



The fortunes of a band of Somali pirates quickly changed Thursday when a Russian warship opened fire on a hijacked oil tanker, freeing the crew and arresting the bandits, who a day earlier had raced across the Indian Ocean to seize a cargo valued at more than $50 million.

The high-seas battle unfolded after 23 crewmen on the tanker Moscow University sent a distress call and hid from the pirates in a sealed rudder compartment. A Russian destroyer closed in and special forces stormed the vessel at dawn, after marauders shot at a surveillance helicopter, according to the anti-piracy European Union Naval Force.

“The Russian warship, knowing the crew was locked down and safe, returned fire on the pirates,” said a statement released by the EU force. “Eventually the pirates surrendered and a boarding team from the Marshal Shaposhnikov [warship] arrived onboard the tanker, captured all the pirates and freed the crew. All the crew are safe and well.”

Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news services reported that one pirate was killed and 10 were arrested.

The rescue operation was stunning, ending an ordeal less than 24 hours after pirates seized the 106,474-ton tanker about 350 miles off the Yemeni Island of Socotra.



The Russians are willing to bring major weapons to bear on their own oil tanker. Damn the possible environmental consequences. Stopping the hijackers is more important. Even better is how their leader handled the situation. The instant the tanker was rescued, President Medvedev was calling for stronger punishment for piracy and promising some old school smackdown.

Until a legal system allowing hijackers to be punished is created, “we will have to act as our forefathers did when they met pirates”, the Russian president said. “Of course, we will fight pirates with the full force of the naval law.”

The president did not specify how exactly the pirates should be punished.

And instead of ordering a courts martial for any of the sailors who may have accidentally busted a pirate nose or two, Medvedev is handing out medals. Immediately.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday praised the Defense Ministry for freeing the Russian tanker Moscow University from pirates and requested that all servicemen who took part in the operation be put forward for awards.

“Fine fellows, well done. I ask you to prepare awards for all our servicemen who played a hand in accurately, professionally and quickly freeing the tanker,” Medvedev told the Russian defense minister.

And I agree. They deserve it. Especially when you learn just how fast they took down the bad guys. 22 minutes, start to finish. Outstanding.

Assuming the captured pirates even make it to Russia alive, they will be tried, found guilty, and executed immediately. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts, no “civil rights”, and no sympathy. Bang. Dead. Maybe even on Russian TV? One can only hope.

And word will get back to Somalia real fast that you just don’t mess with ships flying that particular flag. This lesson might take a few iterations to sink in, but watch pirate attacks on Russian ships drop to almost nothing real soon.

The rescue was carried out by the Russian anti-submarine Udaloy class destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov.
image


avatar

Posted by Drew458   United States  on 05/06/2010 at 10:33 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
Comments (3) Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  
Page 4 of 5 pages « First  <  2 3 4 5 >

Five Most Recent Trackbacks:

Once Again, The One And Only Post
(4 total trackbacks)
Tracked at iHaan.org
The advantage to having a guide with you is thɑt an expert will haѵe very first hand experience dealing and navigating the river with гegional wildlife. Tһomas, there are great…
On: 07/28/23 10:37

The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We've Been Waiting For
(3 total trackbacks)
Tracked at head to the Momarms site
The Brownshirts: Partie Deux; These aare the Muscle We’ve Been Waiting For
On: 03/14/23 11:20

Vietnam Homecoming
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at 广告专题配音 专业从事中文配音跟外文配音制造,北京名传天下配音公司
  专业从事中文配音和外文配音制作,北京名传天下配音公司   北京名传天下专业配音公司成破于2006年12月,是专业从事中 中文配音 文配音跟外文配音的音频制造公司,幻想飞腾配音网领 配音制作 有海内外优良专业配音职员已达500多位,可供给一流的外语配音,长年服务于国内中心级各大媒体、各省市电台电视台,能满意不同客户的各种需要。电话:010-83265555   北京名传天下专业配音公司…
On: 03/20/21 07:00

meaningless marching orders for a thousand travellers ... strife ahead ..
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at Casual Blog
[...] RTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPL [...]
On: 07/17/17 04:28

a small explanation
(1 total trackbacks)
Tracked at yerba mate gourd
Find here top quality how to prepare yerba mate without a gourd that's available in addition at the best price. Get it now!
On: 07/09/17 03:07



DISCLAIMER
Allanspacer

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
  1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
  2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
  3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
  4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.


Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner



GNU Terry Pratchett


Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
free counters