Labor Day Weekend Friday

Took off work early as Lagniappe's Keeper came into town from far off West Virginia.

This meant it would be a weekend of shooting, diving, drinking and general catching up.

Lagniappe's Keeper brought his toys with him:

Yes we got to shoot the 1919, and there was much rejoicing, as well as bullets whizzing downrange and copious gunsmoke. His malfunctioning dehumidifier suffered the wrath of 30-06. At the range someone had thoughtfully left some kevlar armor panels, and they impressively actually did hold up against machinegun fire quite nicely from about a hundred yards away --- for awhile -- which was quite impressive. Eventually however it succumbed and will plague him no more, indeed the dehumidifier ended up well air conditioned.

I had my Uzi and took my new CMMG AR15 with my new Meprolight reflex sight out for the first time. The Meprolight reflex is simply amazing. It is Israeli designed, and it shows. All you do is put the dot on the target and it is hit. Quick target acquisition, excellent accuracy and my first serious optic -- Highly recommended.

Lagniappe's keeper also brough this new #5 MK1 Jungle Carbine, which was lots of fun to shoot and proved to be a nice handy accurate rifle firing the powerful 303 British cartridge.

Of course all that shooting meant a lot of cleaning so once home we cleaned the rifles well, while sipping upon adult beverages and watching Season 1 of Burn Notice - a real good show.

Lots of fun and then we prepped for the wreck dives set for Saturday.

The Unthinkable - A vital book worth thinking about

Amanda Ripley's book The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why is a very readable, and very important book indeed.

The book discusses human reactions to disaster scenarios, and the effect these reactions have to survival in a disaster situation.

The book goes through multiple historical disasters - fires. floods, plane crashes, terorrist attacks and analyze ordinary people's response to the events.

An interesting analysis is her writing on why it takes so long for people to evacuate from dangerous ocations such as a fire or plane crash. Human activity, combined with a lack of training and education of the general public for what to do in such an event explains it.

General human response when untrained to a sudden disaster is to mill around and get confirmation from others that it is happening and generally slowly react to the situation. Of course this is the wrong thing to do, but that's how it works.

I can confirm that reaction is darn slow, and I reacted exactly as she describes in her book - the wrong way.

At work earlier this year the fire alarm went off.

Did all of us immediately move towards the exits and get out of the building? (the right thing to do if there is a fire).

Nope, we milled around, exactly as Ms. Ripley describes others reacting in her book, conferring with each other to see if it was real or not.

Then most of us went to our offices and gathered some belongings - again exactly as she describes how most people would react.

Given that I actually smelled smoke I got out of there faster than most (but still relatively glacially slow), meeting the firemen going in as I was going out.

Many others came out long after the very small fire in a downstairs office was put out. Thankfully it was not a real disaster and was very contained, but it certainly could have been lots worse.

The firm had not conducted a full-scale fire drill before and we still do not practice one.

After reading the book I'm now a bit better educated and prepared and the next time the fire alarm rings -- I'm outta here quick and will tell co-workers its time to go as well.

Ms. Ripley properly castigates the lack of real education the public is given regarding disaster preparedness. Apparently the government and others (for example the airlines in regards to airplane evacuations) do not want us really informed as they think we'll panic. The problem is that panic occurs when you do not know what to do. Informing the public about disaster preparedness and effective reactions to disasters will most likely save a lot of lives. In dealing with a fire for example you don't want to waste time searching for the stairs if you're on an upper floor - you should know where they are and where the alternate exits are.

As an aside, there's an interesting disaster quiz that can be taken at the NY Times, and much of the info it contains seems drawn from Ripley's book.

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Whyis well written and very well worth reading, after all the life saved as a result may be your own or your loved ones.

Portage Quarry Dive Report and Video

Last Sunday, Jerry and I went to Portage Quarry in Ohio where we met up with his friends Gary and his daughter Erika, two new scuba divers, we did a total of four practice dives, just working on skills and trying to get the kinks out.

In short I generally looked pretty terrible the whole time but got some on video and at least know what is wrong, how to fix it is a whole other question but I will keep working on it.

Thankfully Jerry got a little bit of video of me looking at least slightly acceptable:



Jerry of course has a much better control in the water than I:


All in all, not a bad bit of practice, and a fun way to spend a Sunday.

Mexican Troops cross into US and temporarily hold Border Patrol Agent

Apparently they failed to stop and ask for directions.

Mexican Soldiers Enter Arizona, Briefly Detain Border Agent

TUCSON, Ariz. — Four Mexican soldiers crossed into Arizona and held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, federal authorities said Wednesday.

The confrontation occurred early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Tucson, in an area fenced only with barbed wire, said Dove Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Border Patrol.

The soldiers, outfitted in desert camouflage, pointed their rifles at the agent and shouted at him not to move, Crawford said. They lowered their weapons after about four minutes when the agent convinced them of who he was and where they were, she said. The soldiers then retreated into Mexico.
. . .
State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos in Washington said the encounter "stemmed from a momentary misunderstanding as to the exact location of the U.S.-Mexican border."

You would think Mexican troops would be a little bit more careful about their location, not to mention pointing weapons at US Agents. On the other hand, given our lack of a no-nonsense response to these continuing indignities they must fiugure they can get away with it.

Islamists trying to prod a sleeping Dragon

Never a smart idea, that.

Chinese Islamic Group Threatens Attack at Beijing Olympics
That would be rather a short-sighted and likely life-shortening move. Given that China and its rulers would suffer a severe loss of face if such an attack took place, and given that China is not so constrained by human rights concerns as in the west, such an attack could lead to the Dragon awakening and putting a severe smack-down on Muslims in its territory.

Indeed such an attack may even cause China to reconsider its close relationships with Sudan, Iran and other Muslim countries that it is currently using to develop a counter-balance to the USA as China starts playing the great power game.

Detroit Mayor off to the slammer for violating his bond

Kwame Kilpatrick gets to spend some time with some of his constituents - up close and personal.

FoxNews:Detroit mayor ordered jailed after bond violation

This was his second bond violation and it led to the Judge, quite properly, ordering some jail time.

The problem with people in powerful positions is that they think they do not have to abide by the rules laid out for everyone. That belief leads them to do rather stupid things - in Kwame's case violating the terms of his bond order.

Now hizzoner the Mayor will get some privileges due to his exalted public status - a separate cell and not being introduced into the general population of the jail. Given the charges pending against him, he may want to get used to it.

Now that's arrogance

Apparently it really runs in the Kilpatrick family.

In the primaries, it seems that Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick won her primary race, not by the majority of votes, but by having the good fortune (or good planning) to have two opponents splitting the vote against her.

The Detroit News: Kilpatrick declares victory in 13th District race; rival Waters doesn't concede

With 39% of the Democrat vote in the Primary in her favor statement is rather breathtaking:

"I will be your congresswoman ... until I decide to retire," Kilpatrick told supporters just before 1 a.m.

Not "For as long as you want me", Not "as long as i can serve you" but She said "until I decide to retire". Given that its a lock-box Democrat district, she's probably right that she is a "Congresswoman-for life". But the arrogance is quite revealing.

Now we know where Kwame gets it from....

Voted in the Primary Today

Yes, today was Michigan's State Primary.

So I went off to vote.

As a Democrat.

What happened I hear you asking? The reason being in the Township where I live is currently run by Democrats, and two of them are pushing an unconstitutional ordinance that would severely curtail riparian rights and access to the lakes by non-shoreline owners that have easement access or jointly owned boat launches.

This is of course a retroactive taking that is quite unconstitutional, and they are doing it at the behest of a developer that happens to have some nice waterfront property and doesn't want others to access the lakes, especially not the people who have an easement that is beside his property.

Of course the ordinance as proposed doesn't just affect the few people who have an access easement beside his property - it would affect the entire township, including my subdivisions jointly-owned boat basin and launch and basically legislate it out of existence.

Thus are the politics of pull played with the little tinpot Democrat officials working at the behest of the few wealthy squeaky wheels (or in this case the one) and by result trampling over everyone's property rights. So much for being the party of the common man against the rich (Did anyone really believe that?)

As such I needed to vote against these two proponents and the best way was to vote for their competitors in the primary. With luck they've annoyed enough other people that this might work, and we'll end up with better (or at least more careful) township government.

After voting I left the booth and was feeling a little strange.

I immediately felt an urge to vote to raise taxes on everyone else.....

I got better though.

UPDATE: Apparently they both annoyed a lot of people. Both were handily beaten by their opponents -- One by 63% and the other by 64%. Hopefully their successors got the message.

Firefly for $17.99

If you haven't heard, or checked the left side of the screen on this blog, Amazon.com is having a nice sale for the Firefly complete 4 disc series. That's a good 64% off the regular price.

Since everyone should own a copy of this fine show, if only to enjoy it in all its greatness while lamenting how Fox messed up and mis-showed it and then canceled it before its time, go ahead and buy it if you don't have it already.

You won't be disappointed, except for the knowledge that there is no Second Season.....

Now Obama wants Michigan to be counted

When it doesn't mean anything of course....

Detroit News: Obama: Give Michigan delegates full vote

arack Obama followed through Sunday on a pledge to give Michigan a full voice at the Democratic National Convention, asking the party to restore full voting rights to delegations from Michigan and Florida.

"I ask that the Credentials Committee ... pass a resolution that would entitle each delegate from Florida and Michigan to cast a full vote," Obama wrote in a letter released Sunday.

Obama wrote that he was making the request, to the three co-chairs of the convention's Credentials Committee, in the interest of unifying Democrats for the fall election.

When Michigan and Florida were going for Hilary in the primary he fought to shut the states out at all costs. Now when he needs them in the general election he's hoping he can bring the states back in and act ll magnanimous and the Democrat voters will forget how he shunned them when their votes mattered.

Let's see if he fools the rubes with this maneuver or not.

In the UK - Diving for Tanks

An impressive find of D-Day tanks in the waters off of England:
Divers look to solve sunken tanks mystery

A diving club is set to find out whether Second World War tanks found on
the seabed are two of only four left in the world.

On Saturday Southsea Sub-Aqua Club will send divers down to take
pictures and video footage of what they think are Centaur CS IV tanks.

And during the dive they will also try to work out the mystery of how
they were lost, given there is no shipwreck nearby.

The tanks, assigned to the Royal Marines Armoured Support Group, lie
eight miles off East Wittering, West Sussex.

They were part of an 80-strong contingent bound for France on D-Day but
sank in mysterious circumstances.

. .. .
Alison Mayor, who is leading the diving team, said: 'It's a real puzzle
how the tanks and bulldozers came to rest so far off shore when there is
no shipwreck nearby.

'These war machines are of significant interest, and we hope to find
clues to solve the mystery of how and when they sank.'

. . .

The rusting tanks lie with two bulldozers and a field gun, but no ship.

The bulldozers are believed to be armoured Caterpillar bulldozers, used
by the 79th Armoured Division of the British Army - there are no known
surviving bulldozers of this type.

A very neat find indeed, and it goes to show how much of historical value yet lies beneath the waves waiting for a diver to find it.

The Centaur Tank was designed by the Royal Marines for close marine infantry support and mounted a 95mm howitzer.

Here's a pic of a Centaur:


An interesting and very rare find.

Hat Tip: The Drawn Cutlass.

As the US comes to the table the Iranians stall

And the US State Department looks like a bunch of pikers yet again.

Iran nuclear talks stall -- even with U.S. at table

GENEVA -- A U.S. decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled Saturday, with Iran stonewalling Washington and five other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.

In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of U.N. sanctions.

Iran's refusal to consider suspending enrichment was an indirect slap at the United States, which had sent Undersecretary of State William Burns to the talks in hopes the first-time American presence would encourage Tehran into making concessions.

Officials and diplomats refused to characterize the timeframe as an ultimatum, but it appeared clear that Iran now has a de-facto deadline to show flexibility.

After backing away from a pledge not to negotiate directly with Iran, the Department of Islam Appeasement (oops sorry I meant the State Department), they get shown that Iran wasn't really serious about negotiating and now the US is shown to have given in to a demand and received nothing in retunrn.

No wonder US diplomacy is the laughingstock of the world.

Terrorist scum released by Israel get heroes welcome from Lebanese

Israel certainly does not live in a nice neighborhood.

Just look at the heroes welcome cop-killer and child murderer Samir Kuntar received in Lebanon today. Greeted by a crowd of thousands cheering this scum on.

Thousands cheer 5 released Lebanese militants

Not only by Hezballah, but also by the "moderate" Lebanese Government.

"Your return is a new victory," President Michel Suleiman told the freed men as he stood in combat fatigues supplied by Hezbollah in what was meant to display its unending fight against Israel. Suleiman, who was supported by all factions for election to his post, congratulated Hezbollah "for this new achievement."

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, a leader of pro-American factions that had to accept Hezbollah and its allies in a new unity government after the street fighting, did not attend the rally. But he was seen kissing the five freed men in greeting at Beirut airport.

This is who and what they are cheering for:(From Wikipedia by way of the Volokh Conspiracy)

After drowning Danny [the father] in the sea in front of Einat (as Ahmed Al-Brass, Mhanna Salim Al-Muayed, and Abdel Majeed Asslan served as look outs and backup cover for Kuntar), Kuntar turned his attention towards the 4 year-old. He took his rifle and then swung it across the toddler's head, knocking her to the ground. Kuntar then dragged the toddler a couple of feet to the closest rock he could find and laid her head down on a rock, with the intention of crushing it with the butt of his rifle. Einat, instinctively covered her head with her arms, Kuntar struggled with the toddler until he finally managed to clear her arms out of the way. Once her arms were out of the way, Kuntar repeatedly beat her on the head with the butt of his rifle and stomping on her body, until blood rushed out of her ears and mouth. Then, to ensure she was dead, Kuntar continued beating her over the head until her skull was crushed and she was dead.

Animals. My sympathy for the non-Hezballah people of Lebanon just dropped a lot. For all their talk of being pro-western, when it comes to killing Jews thye have no problem uniting with Hezballah. The next time Hezballah kidnaps Israelis and sparks off another way, these people will have to live with the consequences.

Israel makes huge mistake and further weakens its deterrence

Israel in a decision that creates incentives for terrorists to take more hostages, not less made a lousy move in the war on terrorism -- trading live terrorist scum for the bodies of dead soldiers.

Israel originally negotiated with Hizballah to return 5 live terrorists and 199 dead terrorists for what it believed was its two live soldiers kidnapped in 2006 - Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Instead it received the dead bodies of both. Israel then stupidly after finding out the soldiers were dead, continued the trade on the original terms.

This creates lousy incentives for Hizballah to continue to kidnap Israelis and kill them -- after all it has no need to keep them alive in order to get back its people alive.

Israel should have returned the five live terrorists in the same condition as they received Regev and Goldwasser - dead -- If only to preserve the lives of Israelis to be held in the future. Right now, Hezballah, and Hamas, the current kidnapper of Cpl Gilad Shalit have no incentive to keep captured Israelis alive - after all, they get back live terrorists regardless of whether they keep up their bargain and keep Israelis alive or if they kill their hostages and send them back dead.

This is a bad deal, and creates all the wrong incentives for terrorists.

New Survey Puts Detroit First

A survey by a leading bath soap manufacturer has found that Detroit has the highest number of people who have sex in the shower.

86% of Detroiters, the highest response in the nation indicated they had done so.

The other 14% responded they hadn't been to prison yet.

North Carolina Vacation 3 - The Battleship North Carolina

On July 5th we visited the BB-55 Battleship North Carolina Memorial.


The 16 inch 3 gun turrets never fail to impress.

The Battleship with a commissioned time in service of only 6 years served with great honor during World War 2, playing a role in almost every one of the Pacific campaigns and earning 15 battle stars.

The ship sank one Japanese troopship and downed at least 24 Japanese planes, as well as participated in 9 pre-invasion bombardments and even bombarded the Japanese mainland, as proudly displayed on her kill board:


10 crewmen were lost in action during the war and 67 wounded. The ship survived a torpedo hit by the Japanese submarine I-19, after which the inadequate antiaircraft armanment was upgraded with more 20mm Oerlikon guns and 40 mm Bofors cannon.

Here's one of the Oerlikons:


And a Bofors quadruple mount:


The memorial also has one Vought Kingfisher aircraft on the stern, one of only 7 of these aircraft in existence worldwide.

The Kingfisher detachment on North Carolina performed quite heroically, picking up downed pilots, including picking up downed airmen under fire in Tokyo Bay.


The after decommissioning, the citizens of North Carolina preserved her, payign the navy $300,000 to keep her as a memorial and she has been proudly at rest, located across the bay from Wilmington ever since, serving not only as a memorial but an educational site for all her visitors to learn about her role in the war and the lives of the crew who sailed her and made her so effective. With so many of the ships from World War Two sent to the scrapyard, her existence is a great display of America's proud history of seapower, well worthy of preservation.

North Carolina vacation 2 - Onward to Wilmington

So after the joys of Raleigh we drove to Wilmington on the North Carolina Coast.

Very nice place, historic and charming, with very nice people (there is something to the ideal of the Southern Gentleman - and many in Raleigh and Wilmington more than lived up to the ideal.

Of course this being the 4th of July weekend as soon as we arrived and checked into the hotel (a nice one, with the very last non-smoking room available), we first hit the beach.

The Leah had never seen the Ocean, and Abby didn't really remember the time she saw it as a 2 year old, and they were intimidated by the crashing of the waves.

We came back on the morning of the 4th and the beach was packed.


After the beach we went into town and toured around, seein the many original historic homes there, as Wilmington was lucky in that it was unscathered during the Civil War and the local residents have preserved the exterior looks of the hisotric houses:

We took a horse-drawn carriage tour of Wilmington's historic downtown, and having a horse drawn tour was a real treat for the kids. The horses are rescue horses and treated very well and they seem to enjoy their current occupation.


We walked around the historic downtown, including walking buy the home of James Whistler of Whistler's Mother fame, and then took a boat ride around the harbor.


The great ship on the other side of the harbor caught my eye:

But its the subject of the next day and our next post.

Thanks Microsoft for knocking me off the Internet

For two days until I figured out why.

The latest Microsoft Update KB951748 conflicts with ZoneAlarm Firewall and prevents access to the internet. -- ping worked, showing there was connectivity, but no email or web browser could establish a connection.

Of course without a connection to the Internet I couldn't figure this out and Comcast didn't realize this until this afternoon as well, when a message on its helpline clued me in.

The update also seems to mess with registry settings, such as turning back on the autorun setting on your CD/DVD drive, reopening up a nice security hole that I had closed.

Thanks so much Microsoft.

For those still suffering from thsi but accessing from another computer to find a solution, the fix is to reduce Zonealarm security to medium, go to zonealarm.com and download the latest update and then after installation put your security setting back up.

I should add that Check Point, maker of ZoneAlarm moved real quickly with a fix to this problem and certainly has endeared me to their great customer support. Nicely done Check Point.

Nothin' could be finer than North Carolina in the Summer

So for our 4th of July trek we decided to go and explore North Carolina for a week. Time for an all-American road trip, and the first time going as a family to somewhere other than Toronto, and North Carolina was it.

We had never been there and had heard lots of good things about the state, and it lived up to its reputation.

So we piled the kids in the van and headed south eastwards,as we pulled out of the driveway, Abby asked "are we there yet?", but at least she wasn't bored -- yet.

Through, Ohio, and through Ohio and through Ohio - that's a long state when you're driving through it -- Abby became super double bored. This was bad.

Then into West Virginia.


West Virginia is miles more scenic than Ohio, but we got hit that night around Parkersburg with a rainstorm that would not quit, and we pulled off the highway into a hotel that gave meaning to the term any port in a storm. (Its a bad thing when the hotel rating is in roaches not stars but beggars cannot be choosers).

On the road again that morning we crossed into Virginia and then North Carolina. The kids were pretty good with the ride, but even without the rain we would have had to stop for the night as you can't keep them in a car for 12 hours.

North Carolina was nice and warm and everyone was quite friendly. We began by looking around the Raleigh/Durham area and enjoying exquisitely excellent barbecue at a restaurant called Danny's - truly a fantastic place to dine.

The hotel at our first stop in NC, the Comfort Suites Inn in Cary was tons better than our Parkersburg stop, having hot breakfast every day as part of the stay and a pool. Leah at 22 months can now pronounce pool with excitement, emphasis and lots of insistence.

We also went to Pullen Park in South Raleigh where we took the kids on the carousel, mini-boat ride, a train ride and pedal boat rides.

Here's the train:

I then got a chance to go Scuba diving with some excellent DIR divers from North Carolina, who graciously showed me around the Fantasy Lake Quarry which was delighfully warm -- 77 degrees under the thermocline and in the 80s above.

After a few glorious days looking around the RDU/Chapel Hill/Cary area we went on to Wilmington for the 4th.

Marathon's Detroit refinery gets go-ahead to expand

And about time too.

From the Detroit Free Press: Marathon refinery gets OK to expand, but concerns expressed

Part of the concerns were of course making sure there were jobs for Detroiters - which was given:

Marathon made concessions to improve pollution controls and help the nearby community, including promises of preferential treatment for Detroit residents.

There are some concerns about increased emissions, but its in an industrial area, the refinery capacity in the US is badly in need of expansion and Michigan and Detroit in particular is in drastic need of more jobs, which this expansion will provide.

Certainly well past time this was approved, and good luck to Marathon on the expansion.