Every time I hear it out loud, or read printed words, calling a law enforcement officer (LEO) one of THE ONLY ONES if he or she has an accidental discharge, whether or not due to negligence, I get a little fired up. You see, to compare every LEO to the DEA agent who shot himself after saying in essence 'I am the only one, I know of, qualified in this room to handle a firearm' is ludicrous. As a matter of fact, they way the whole ONLY ONES thing is often stated, it makes it appear as if that DEA agent, and every other law enforcement officer in the United States of America, made the statement that only LEOs are qualified to carry firearms. That was not the meaning of the DEA agent's statement at all, listen to the video, you have to be a raving anti-law enforcement person to arrive at such a conclusion. The DEA agent was in effect just telling the children in the class that they should not handle firearms if not in some way qualified or instructed in how to do so, his meaning was pretty obvious or should have been even to a moron. All that aside, yeah, he did something very stupid in how he shot himself, I would bet he never does it again because pain can make you smarter.
All that I just said though does not explain why it gets me miffed when I hear references to THE ONLY ONES in that sarcastic or outright friggin nasty manner in which term is usually conveyed. Nope, it is not even that anyone says it with sarcasm or with anger or nastiness that gets me fired up. What gets me fired up is that the same disrespectful shitheads who group all LEOs together as some anti-gun rights group of ONLY ONES, never for a moment even consider that those same officers are truly, just about (and I said just about because there are some rare folks who are not LEOS that would do this) face the danger every day of being run over, attacked by animals (both two legged and 4 legged), beaten, tabbed, gunned down just because they are law enforcement officers in protecting you and yours. No this is not a debate so please do not start one and don't tell me how you should be free to own guns to protect yourself. If you know me at all, you know I think we should be free to own Abrams tanks to overthrow a tyrannical government if need be; I truly believe that was the intent of the inclusion of the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights - to assure the people kept the power over the government and not the other way around as it almost seems now.
No, this is about something else. It is about a class of people, not the bad apples, but the 90% or more who are truly good guys in law enforcement. A class of people who rush to shooting, stabbings, muggings, 9/11 catastrophes, to help those in need and possibly to face life threatening situations. And it is about they to whom it seemingly does not matter that they indiscriminately use the term the ONLY ONES to insult and demean LEOs who quite frankly may not, for even a second, deserve that term applied to them, in a negative manner, no matter what the incident in which they are involved. To those name callers, it does not matter if the LEOs are liberals, conservatives, libertarians, gun haters, gun lovers, lifetime NRA members, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters - they just know that if a cop, or other LEO, fucks up with a gun - he must be an ONLY ONE. How immature and how sad that such a view point exists in light of incidents like this:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/16/13315235-two-louisiana-deputies-killed-in-ambush-shootings?lite
You know, when I think of these apparent ambush style cop shootings, and when I think of officers who died in events like the destruction at the World Trade center on 9/11/2001, and when I think of cops delivering babies, or pulling people out of car wrecks, or federal agents risking their lives to try to stem the flow of illegal aliens and narcotics at our borders, or an undercover federal agent setting up terrorists for the fall, or a cop climbing a tree to rescue a darned cat, or any other number of things that most other folks would not do in a million years, because they think it is an LEOs job to put themselves in Harm's Way, well then that is when I think that yes indeed - law enforcement officers do deserve the title of THE ONLY ONES. Yeah sure, cops enforce the law but nowhere in any job description I have ever seen for an LEO does it say they have to put themselves in danger to save any one's sorry butt. Yet they do it all the time, and while some gun bloggers acknowledge this, I never have heard certain so called hard core pro-gun bloggers give these cops a nod of approval. They sure do slam them if ever they have a chance and an accidental discharge of a firearms seems all they need whether they know the facts surrounding it or not. All without knowing the officers stance on gun control at that.
As a matter of fact, the person from whose mouth I most recently heard the words THE ONLY ONES used in a somewhat negative manner against LEOs also had recently mentioned that he, in essence, quite possibly would not act like a cop in a situation where others (besides himself or his family) were being harmed by an evil doer. He would protect his family and himself and leave the rest to the cops. I am not saying I blame him, it takes a certain type of individual to guard the flock beyond your own immediate family. (By the way, no names, this is no attack on the person who said that, it is just a reiteration of something to give an example of what I am saying from real life. Please, no one take any offense to me using that example.) Nope, most people, even those who are 100% pro right to keep and bear arms, those who carry every day, those who consider themselves ready for action against bad guys, quite possibly would not help other citizens in dire need in such cases. Yet, LEOs are expected to go out of their way to do so each and every day. In fact, LEOs do that each and every day. Still, they are only considered THE ONLY ONES if they screw up. What a joke but not a funny one.
Yep, they truly are THE ONLY ONES but in a very different context than what most folks mean by it when they say it. When I say it I mean it in a very positive light.
Sure, there are LEOs whose heads are so far up their asses they are truly beyond hope - probably should not be cops just because of bad attitude but my bet is that copy is not going to ask you if you are pro-gun or anti-gun if he is saving your life from drowning, pulling you out of wreck, giving you a ride to the hospital, getting an attacker off of you, helping your wife have a baby, or whatever.Try to remember, please, they are citizens too and they do have the right to their political opinions and their own convictions, and they certainly do not have to be the same as yours or mine. There are also bad LEOs. Let's face it, some could probably have done quite well as members of any hate group of which you can think and some are outright criminals.
The truth is though that the great majority of LEOs are good guys and gals and they do not deserve being slammed in a discriminatory manner without knowing anything about them other than maybe one had an accidental and maybe even a negligent firearms discharge. Why not also give them their due and honor those who serve so well, to protect us, to help us, to uphold the law (remember we vote in the jerks that legislate those laws, the LEOs just enforce them) and who face serious an sometimes even life threatening danger on an all too frequent basis. Why not stop using such a derogatory term as THE ONLY ONES in reference to any LEO whom you pretty much know nothing about. If he is a rabid anti-gun person and truly believes that only cops are qualified to own guns, fine - fire away. But again, why is it I so rarely hear praise for the good things LEOs do from the same folks the likes of whom so frequently slam the police at every chance they get.
All the best,
Glenn B
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The New Dogs In The The House...
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| Abby and Chloe |
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| Chloe goes exploring. |
They are sisters and are both long haired Chihuahuas (we think they are long hairs, I suppose time will tell). Abby was a gift to my wife from our daughter's fiance. He knows whom to smooze or so it seems but he is taking chances on whom to oppose - as in me - who absolutely did not want a fifth
As things would have it, we get to watch Chloe and Gizmo, the really hairy one in the pics, which is daughter's and future son-in-law's first dog. Man it was crazy enough around here with 4 dogs, now we have 5 and when the other two visit we have
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| Abby greets Roxie. |
In the meantime, regardless of vet bills, paying no or little attention to madness and mayhem doggy style and probably some pee and poop on the floors, there will be a lot of puppy love going on around here in the immediate future.
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| Lucy the fearful, barks at everything. |
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| Pepe sleeps through it all. |
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| Gizmo, looks more Spitz than Chihuahua. |
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| Roxie the gorilla. |
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| Mimi, leader of the pack. |
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| Time for a nap. |
All the best,
Glenn B
Making Up For Spent Ammo
Wow, I am gunna guess and say that Brendan and I shot up about 1,500 rounds of ammo at the Fifth Annual Northeast Bloggershoot this past weekend. That may not seem like an awful lot of ammo to some people but I think it was more than a mere shot in the dark. When you consider that Brendan probably shot at least 75% of it, probably 90% of the pistol ammo we shot, well you can figure that he got some shooting done!
My son and I attended the Fifth Annual Northeast Bloggershoot (our first) and all I can say is I wish I had attended the first four of them also. It was a great day of shooting. I figure we went through about 300 rounds of 5.56x45mm, 350-400 rounds of 7.62x39mm, 450 rounds of 9mm, 200-300 rounds of .45 ACP, 100 rounds of .22 WMR, 150 rounds of .22 LR and lastly - about 10 rounds of .35 Remington. My son truly enjoyed shooting 4 of my pistols, the: Beretta 70S (.22 LR), Beretta 92SB, Beretta 92SF, and Remington R1-1911. He liked the 9mms and the .45 so much, that after shooting the Beretta 70S, (.22LR), he declined shooting my Ruger MKII and went back to the 9mms and .45 for the rest of the afternoon. All that does not include the canon shot, since he also got to fire off a canon for which someone else was nice enough to supply powder. The figures above are my best guesstimation at this point, we may have shot as few as about 1,300 rounds or as many as about 1,700. To get an accurate count, I will have to tally what ammo I have left in the ammo cans that we took to the bloggershoot.
Shooting that ammo up does not badly deplete what I have stored away but it does lessen the amount by about 1,500 rounds and at least some of it should be replaced. I am in no great hurry to replace it, except maybe for the .45 ammo and the 9mm ammo. I already placed an order for 500 rounds of 9mm. I placed an order for 10 boxes (500 rounds) of Aguila 9mm, 124 gr., FMJ, ammo from Sportsmansguide. Even when sold by the box, they beat everyone else on price when I used a $10 off coupon code along with my club membership discount. It was a bargain $113.19 shipped.
Now that I think of it, I should have ordered .45 ACP before ordering 9mm as the need is more critical for that caliber. I'll probably order some .45 ACP next month. I think I will let my son save up some of his money for some 7.62x39mm and some 5.56x45mm. Then again, I recently bought some of both, anticipating the bloggershoot, and did not shoot as much as I bought so, we actually now have a little more than I had before I ordered those. No need for me to get any more right now.
Being that I just wrote a blog-post about keeping guns happy (aka: keeping them clean), I am going to have to get down to some serious gun scrubbing this evening or tomorrow. These are not my carry guns, the carry gun - my Glock 26 was cleaned as soon as I could get it done within reason (which wound up being the morning after we got home from the bloggershoot - no facilities to get it done safely at the shoot and time had run out for our stay). That late cleaning, along with the television show I mentioned here, were what got me to thinking I need to clean my guns, at least my carry gun, right after I shoot it and while still at the range whenever possible.
All the best,
Glenn B
My son and I attended the Fifth Annual Northeast Bloggershoot (our first) and all I can say is I wish I had attended the first four of them also. It was a great day of shooting. I figure we went through about 300 rounds of 5.56x45mm, 350-400 rounds of 7.62x39mm, 450 rounds of 9mm, 200-300 rounds of .45 ACP, 100 rounds of .22 WMR, 150 rounds of .22 LR and lastly - about 10 rounds of .35 Remington. My son truly enjoyed shooting 4 of my pistols, the: Beretta 70S (.22 LR), Beretta 92SB, Beretta 92SF, and Remington R1-1911. He liked the 9mms and the .45 so much, that after shooting the Beretta 70S, (.22LR), he declined shooting my Ruger MKII and went back to the 9mms and .45 for the rest of the afternoon. All that does not include the canon shot, since he also got to fire off a canon for which someone else was nice enough to supply powder. The figures above are my best guesstimation at this point, we may have shot as few as about 1,300 rounds or as many as about 1,700. To get an accurate count, I will have to tally what ammo I have left in the ammo cans that we took to the bloggershoot.
Shooting that ammo up does not badly deplete what I have stored away but it does lessen the amount by about 1,500 rounds and at least some of it should be replaced. I am in no great hurry to replace it, except maybe for the .45 ammo and the 9mm ammo. I already placed an order for 500 rounds of 9mm. I placed an order for 10 boxes (500 rounds) of Aguila 9mm, 124 gr., FMJ, ammo from Sportsmansguide. Even when sold by the box, they beat everyone else on price when I used a $10 off coupon code along with my club membership discount. It was a bargain $113.19 shipped.
Now that I think of it, I should have ordered .45 ACP before ordering 9mm as the need is more critical for that caliber. I'll probably order some .45 ACP next month. I think I will let my son save up some of his money for some 7.62x39mm and some 5.56x45mm. Then again, I recently bought some of both, anticipating the bloggershoot, and did not shoot as much as I bought so, we actually now have a little more than I had before I ordered those. No need for me to get any more right now.
Being that I just wrote a blog-post about keeping guns happy (aka: keeping them clean), I am going to have to get down to some serious gun scrubbing this evening or tomorrow. These are not my carry guns, the carry gun - my Glock 26 was cleaned as soon as I could get it done within reason (which wound up being the morning after we got home from the bloggershoot - no facilities to get it done safely at the shoot and time had run out for our stay). That late cleaning, along with the television show I mentioned here, were what got me to thinking I need to clean my guns, at least my carry gun, right after I shoot it and while still at the range whenever possible.
All the best,
Glenn B
Another Reason To Keep Your Guns Happy
Quarterly firearms qualifications were over for the day for my agency. It was a hot one, most of the shooters were miserable, covered with sweat and probably with their fair share of lead dust and powder residue and they just wanted to go home but they still had some work to do policing up the spent brass shell casings. As they were doing so, one of the other firearms instructors, Pete G, got on the loud speaker and reminded them, in a loud, booming but very gleeful voice that: "A clean gun is a happy gun" (one of his favorite sayings) and then reminded all of them that cleaning equipment was available for them to clean their guns before leaving the range. Less than half of them did so. Heck, I was one of the instructors and I have to admit, I did not always clean my guns before leaving the range. I often did it at home the following day - shame on me because I knew better than to go back out on the street with a dirty gun.
There are varying reasons that you should keep your gun happy, or in other words keep it clean. The first and foremost is so that it operates properly. When we shot for pistol qualifications, we also always shot a good amount of rounds for tactical training. I am going to guess that each of us fired at least 300 to 500 rounds on any given qualification day, that all through one pistol. If someone had a secondary handgun, then they may have fired from 50 to 100 rounds though it too. One of the best ways to assure that Murphy will butt in when you need your gun to be in 100 percent working capability is when you have not taken the time to properly maintain your firearm with a good cleaning including any called for lubrication. Carbon deposits, brass shavings, copper fouling, unburnt gunpowder particles, lead buildup, oil residue can all go a long way to prevent a firearm from functioning properly. All it takes is one malfunction, at a critical time, and you could wind up the loser in a gunfight.
While maintaining proper functioning of a defensive firearms is the primary reason to clean your guns, you also want to clean them even if you only use them while target shooting or hunting and you want them to stay clean even if you never shoot them such as could be the case with a firearms collector. Cleaning and properly lubricating them keeps them not only in good working order but in good cosmetic order too and thus keeps their value up.
I was recently watching a new crime drama called Longmire. It reminded me of a reason, not often thought about, to keep your guns clean. Sheriff Longmire and one of his deputies were working on a murder investigation and he picks up a gun, then rubs his finger over the bore with a twisting motion, then looks at and I think sniffed his fingertip. The deputy is looking at him quizzically. He explains to the deputy, if it comes off smelling like oil, it has not been fired recently but if it comes off covered in powder residue and smelling like burnt gunpowder then it has been fired (at least since the last time it was cleaned). Now, while the sheriff's methods are mostly balderdash, stuff for television audiences put into the show by moronic imbeciles who make movies, there is some truth in what was depicted and having cleaned your guns, right after shooting them at the range, could potentially save you some trouble with the law.
Let me give a brief example, nothing as heinous as a murder. Say that have a nasty verbal altercation with someone. It could be a neighbor, relative or even a spouse with whom you do not get along, or maybe just a stranger in a public place. Let's use the stranger for our purposes. For some reason, you get in an argument with a peckerwood in the parking lot of your local Wally World. Maybe you inadvertently cut him off or he you, or whatever. It gets heated, a lot of yelling and screaming is done but you both finally get in your cars and drive away out of the parking lot - coincidentally or not - going in the same direction. Then you turn different ways and you cool; down and forget about it. All the while, during the confrontation, you were armed, carrying a pistol; in a strong side hip holster under your jacket. You never even thought of using it, the guy was just a blowhard. You drive home and have a beer.
Sometime, later that same day, after the altercation, when you are at home, the front doorbell rings, then there is a loud banging on the front door as if someone is knocking with all his might. Then your skin crawls as you hear someone yell loudly "POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR". You walk to the door and open it and there are 4 or 5 officers outside. They are not very friendly looking either, they mean business. They ask if they can come in. Maybe you let them in and maybe not. You ask what is going on and they explain that a citizen has made a complaint against you, saying the two of you had an altercation in the parking lot, then he said that after you both drove away, you pulled out your pistol and fired a couple of rounds in his direction on the road. You are in shock. You deny it. You tell the officers yeah you had a verbal altercation with a peckerwoodLongmire did for his television audience. His finger comes away with carbon on it, the gun has not been cleaned since you fired it at the range last week. It appears to have been fired recently.
If they were not going to arrest you before, they are probably at least strongly considering it now. You will be, at the very least, going to the station for questioning. My guess though it that you are about to be shackled. Why? Little did you realize it, but as you were motioning with your arms while discussing matters with Mr. Peckerwood, you gun was exposed for a split second and he saw it. As he drove out of the parking lot, he saw something else too, your license plate number and he wrote it down. Being the antagonistic type that he is, he decided to call the police and make a false claim against you. Maybe he was drunk, maybe he was a psycho, maybe just an asshole but the truth is that people, for whatever reasons, make false allegations against others pretty frequently.
You may be able to explain it all away and good investigative work should show your gun had not been fired that day - but do you want to depend on someone else to be doing good investigative work to get you off the hook. Then again, maybe it will not all be so easy to explain away. Maybe you went shooting out in the sticks, not at a commercial range, maybe you have no witnesses, maybe it was just the day before and the fouling and powder residue are all pretty fresh. You are going to have a serious problem. While you are facing a problem caused by a false allegation, it would be much less serious a problem if you had cleaned your gun right after shooting it. I would also point out it would be less of a problem if you had kept your mouth shut, did not hand them the pistol and called a lawyer but as I said, they may have come with a warrant and found the gun anyway. A clean gun would only have meant one of two things, you cleaned it once you got home after taking a shot at the guy or it was already clean and had not been fired since last cleaned.
Now while I set this up so it could go either way, and so you could mull this and that and maybe even try to debate the issue with me by saying the guy should have just not let the police inside or not given them the gun and not said anything - how about something a little more exigent. How about a situation in which the guy calls the police, 2 minutes after have the altercation, from his cell phone while in his car. They pull you over, a few minutes later, while you are still driving home. They approach guns drawn, this is a felony car stop. They ask if you are armed and you say yes and that you have a pistol permit but they pull you out of the car and pat you down. They take the pistol, they do the Longmire School of Investigations 'has the gun been fired recently test' and you wind up getting arrested on the spot. Had it been a clean gun, the outcome may have been very different, such as them asking if you would not mind coming down to the station instead of you getting a new set of bracelets or even letting you go. If you have to go in, going in voluntarily is much less stressful than going in shackled. Thus you would have some time to think straight about what to do (such as CALLING A LAWYER) before you get to the police station.
You decide which evidence you would want to present then decide on whether or not you want to keep your gun happy!
All the best,
Glenn B
There are varying reasons that you should keep your gun happy, or in other words keep it clean. The first and foremost is so that it operates properly. When we shot for pistol qualifications, we also always shot a good amount of rounds for tactical training. I am going to guess that each of us fired at least 300 to 500 rounds on any given qualification day, that all through one pistol. If someone had a secondary handgun, then they may have fired from 50 to 100 rounds though it too. One of the best ways to assure that Murphy will butt in when you need your gun to be in 100 percent working capability is when you have not taken the time to properly maintain your firearm with a good cleaning including any called for lubrication. Carbon deposits, brass shavings, copper fouling, unburnt gunpowder particles, lead buildup, oil residue can all go a long way to prevent a firearm from functioning properly. All it takes is one malfunction, at a critical time, and you could wind up the loser in a gunfight.
While maintaining proper functioning of a defensive firearms is the primary reason to clean your guns, you also want to clean them even if you only use them while target shooting or hunting and you want them to stay clean even if you never shoot them such as could be the case with a firearms collector. Cleaning and properly lubricating them keeps them not only in good working order but in good cosmetic order too and thus keeps their value up.
I was recently watching a new crime drama called Longmire. It reminded me of a reason, not often thought about, to keep your guns clean. Sheriff Longmire and one of his deputies were working on a murder investigation and he picks up a gun, then rubs his finger over the bore with a twisting motion, then looks at and I think sniffed his fingertip. The deputy is looking at him quizzically. He explains to the deputy, if it comes off smelling like oil, it has not been fired recently but if it comes off covered in powder residue and smelling like burnt gunpowder then it has been fired (at least since the last time it was cleaned). Now, while the sheriff's methods are mostly balderdash, stuff for television audiences put into the show by moronic imbeciles who make movies, there is some truth in what was depicted and having cleaned your guns, right after shooting them at the range, could potentially save you some trouble with the law.
Let me give a brief example, nothing as heinous as a murder. Say that have a nasty verbal altercation with someone. It could be a neighbor, relative or even a spouse with whom you do not get along, or maybe just a stranger in a public place. Let's use the stranger for our purposes. For some reason, you get in an argument with a peckerwood in the parking lot of your local Wally World. Maybe you inadvertently cut him off or he you, or whatever. It gets heated, a lot of yelling and screaming is done but you both finally get in your cars and drive away out of the parking lot - coincidentally or not - going in the same direction. Then you turn different ways and you cool; down and forget about it. All the while, during the confrontation, you were armed, carrying a pistol; in a strong side hip holster under your jacket. You never even thought of using it, the guy was just a blowhard. You drive home and have a beer.
Sometime, later that same day, after the altercation, when you are at home, the front doorbell rings, then there is a loud banging on the front door as if someone is knocking with all his might. Then your skin crawls as you hear someone yell loudly "POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR". You walk to the door and open it and there are 4 or 5 officers outside. They are not very friendly looking either, they mean business. They ask if they can come in. Maybe you let them in and maybe not. You ask what is going on and they explain that a citizen has made a complaint against you, saying the two of you had an altercation in the parking lot, then he said that after you both drove away, you pulled out your pistol and fired a couple of rounds in his direction on the road. You are in shock. You deny it. You tell the officers yeah you had a verbal altercation with a peckerwoodLongmire did for his television audience. His finger comes away with carbon on it, the gun has not been cleaned since you fired it at the range last week. It appears to have been fired recently.
If they were not going to arrest you before, they are probably at least strongly considering it now. You will be, at the very least, going to the station for questioning. My guess though it that you are about to be shackled. Why? Little did you realize it, but as you were motioning with your arms while discussing matters with Mr. Peckerwood, you gun was exposed for a split second and he saw it. As he drove out of the parking lot, he saw something else too, your license plate number and he wrote it down. Being the antagonistic type that he is, he decided to call the police and make a false claim against you. Maybe he was drunk, maybe he was a psycho, maybe just an asshole but the truth is that people, for whatever reasons, make false allegations against others pretty frequently.
You may be able to explain it all away and good investigative work should show your gun had not been fired that day - but do you want to depend on someone else to be doing good investigative work to get you off the hook. Then again, maybe it will not all be so easy to explain away. Maybe you went shooting out in the sticks, not at a commercial range, maybe you have no witnesses, maybe it was just the day before and the fouling and powder residue are all pretty fresh. You are going to have a serious problem. While you are facing a problem caused by a false allegation, it would be much less serious a problem if you had cleaned your gun right after shooting it. I would also point out it would be less of a problem if you had kept your mouth shut, did not hand them the pistol and called a lawyer but as I said, they may have come with a warrant and found the gun anyway. A clean gun would only have meant one of two things, you cleaned it once you got home after taking a shot at the guy or it was already clean and had not been fired since last cleaned.
Now while I set this up so it could go either way, and so you could mull this and that and maybe even try to debate the issue with me by saying the guy should have just not let the police inside or not given them the gun and not said anything - how about something a little more exigent. How about a situation in which the guy calls the police, 2 minutes after have the altercation, from his cell phone while in his car. They pull you over, a few minutes later, while you are still driving home. They approach guns drawn, this is a felony car stop. They ask if you are armed and you say yes and that you have a pistol permit but they pull you out of the car and pat you down. They take the pistol, they do the Longmire School of Investigations 'has the gun been fired recently test' and you wind up getting arrested on the spot. Had it been a clean gun, the outcome may have been very different, such as them asking if you would not mind coming down to the station instead of you getting a new set of bracelets or even letting you go. If you have to go in, going in voluntarily is much less stressful than going in shackled. Thus you would have some time to think straight about what to do (such as CALLING A LAWYER) before you get to the police station.
You decide which evidence you would want to present then decide on whether or not you want to keep your gun happy!
All the best,
Glenn B
Blow Hard To Fill Those Blimps...
...instead of blowing hard to make it sound as if the government is doing something new to combat illegal immigration and other smuggling across our borders and you just might accomplish something worthwhile using a government employee's hot air. It seems that Customs and Border protection and the Department of Defense are blowing their horns talking about the great new tool for law enforcement that the military is giving or lending to CBP and that they are about to deploy along our southern border. The thing is, while the particular Aerostats may be newer than what CBP already had in use, the use of blimps and aerostats to surveil our borders is nothing new. The aerostat has been in use for at least 15-20 years along the soutern border, the now defunct U.S. Customs Service had at least a few of them.
So why would the military giving them to CBP just happen to be big news now. Think about it, it is an election year. I would bet my bottom dollar that politics and nothing else drove the Defense Department to make this seem like something new so the Obama Administration can claim some sort of credit for thinking up the idea. Pay attention to see if Obama, or blabbermouth Biden, bring it up in any speeches or news conferences before the election.
All the best,
Glenn B
So why would the military giving them to CBP just happen to be big news now. Think about it, it is an election year. I would bet my bottom dollar that politics and nothing else drove the Defense Department to make this seem like something new so the Obama Administration can claim some sort of credit for thinking up the idea. Pay attention to see if Obama, or blabbermouth Biden, bring it up in any speeches or news conferences before the election.
All the best,
Glenn B
Finally Ordered A New Computer
Now that my pension checks are coming in the full(?) amount, I went ahead an shopped around for a new computer. I had been debating a laptop or a desktop and decided on the laptop because I like the portability of them and that far outweighed the power capabilities of a larger desktop for what I will mostly be doing with the laptop. Still, I did not by a wimp laptop but got one of mid range power for a laptop. It is an HP dv7t Quad Ed. It is equipped with:
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory [HDMI, VGA]
• 12GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• Microsoft Office Home Student 2010 + Adobe Acrobat X Standard
• 6 cell + 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN
• Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad
Since HP offered a one year interest free payment plan, I opted for that way to pay. That will make it somewhat easier on the retirement finances.
I figure this laptop will have enough power to do some gaming, I hope so anyway. I have not played games on a PC for a long time but would like to get some sci-fi action/shooter type games for it. Something along the lines of Doom (a dead giveaway clue that I have not played PC games in a long while). Maybe Crysis, if the system can handle it. If not, then just blogging, doing photo editing for the blog, web surfing, and maybe some milder games.
All the best,
Glenn B
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory [HDMI, VGA]
• 12GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• Microsoft Office Home Student 2010 + Adobe Acrobat X Standard
• 6 cell + 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN
• Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad
Since HP offered a one year interest free payment plan, I opted for that way to pay. That will make it somewhat easier on the retirement finances.
I figure this laptop will have enough power to do some gaming, I hope so anyway. I have not played games on a PC for a long time but would like to get some sci-fi action/shooter type games for it. Something along the lines of Doom (a dead giveaway clue that I have not played PC games in a long while). Maybe Crysis, if the system can handle it. If not, then just blogging, doing photo editing for the blog, web surfing, and maybe some milder games.
All the best,
Glenn B
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