“…only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.”

KevinLeave a comment

I’m sure everyone remembers this:

News out of LA yesterday:

Shooting during Dorner stakeout violated policy, panel rules

Eight Los Angeles police officers who opened fire on two women delivering newspapers in a pickup truck during the hunt for Christopher Dorner violated the LAPD’s policy on using deadly force, the department’s oversight body found Tuesday.

In making its ruling, the Police Commission followed the recommendation of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who faulted the officers for jumping to the conclusion that Dorner was in the truck. Beck said the officers compounded their mistake by shooting in one another’s direction with an unrestrained barrage of gunfire.

Reports made public Tuesday offered new details of the hours that led up to the shooting and how it erupted into a wild, one-sided firefight in which the officers fired shotguns and handguns more than 100 times. One woman was shot twice in the back; her daughter received superficial wounds.

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A panel of high-ranking police officials that reviewed the shooting urged Beck to clear the officers of wrongdoing, according to several sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Violated policy. POLICY. How about LAW? Common sense? Decency?

So, thirty days without donuts, or do they get a six-week paid vacation (suspension with pay)?

Not Feelin’ It

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Another free ice cream machine update.

I’ve been spending a lot of hours on jobsites recently, with corresponding 12+ hour days and/or being out of town.  The last hotel I stayed at, I asked the desk clerk what I needed to get logged onto their WiFi network.  “Luck,” she said.

She wasn’t kidding.  Two days with only my iPhone for internet access.  (I could make a Phillip Seymour Hoffman joke here, but I’m not that tasteless.  Really.  No, really.)

As a consequence, I’ve been reading more – not up to the levels I have maintained in the past, but more than I’ve managed over the previous few months.  Over just the last week I finished Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day:  How the Feds Target the Innocent, Stephen Hunter’s The Third Bullet, and I blasted through Marko Kloos’ Lines of Departure Sunday and Monday.  I read his short-story Lucky Thirteen at lunch today.

Now, at my wife’s insistence, I am starting Divergent, by Veronica Roth.

The stack on my headboard keeps getting taller.

And the tumbleweeds blow through this blog.

Ammo Recall Notice: Winchester M22

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Recall page is here.  If you were somehow lucky enough to find .22 ammo, I hope it wasn’t this stuff:

Olin Corporation, through its Winchester Division, is recalling two (2) lots of M*22™ 22 Long Rifle 40 Grain Black Copper Plated Round Nose rimfire ammunition.

Symbol Number: S22LRT
Lot Numbers: GD42L and GD52L

Winchester has determined the above lots of 22 Long Rifle rimfire ammunition may contain double powder charges. Ammunition with double powder charges may subject the shooter or bystanders to a risk of serious personal injury and/or death, or cause firearm damage, rendering the firearm inoperable.

That would leave a mark that would not buff out.

The Motivating Force of Negative Coverage

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That was the subtitle of Brian Anse Patrick’s book The National Rifle Association and the Media.  It’s still paying off.

Gallup’s most recent poll on gun control informs us that “Americans’ Dissatisfaction With Gun Laws Highest Since 2001”. I’m sure that’ll be the Media Narrative™ in all of the subsequent news reports – if any. But here’s the kicker:

Americans may be dissatisfied with gun laws because they believe they should be stricter, or because they believe the laws are too strict as they are. Therefore, Gallup asks those who are dissatisfied with gun laws to choose among explanations for their dissatisfaction. Those who are dissatisfied have historically leaned heavily in the direction of wanting stricter rather than less strict laws.

But this year, the gap between those wanting stricter gun laws and those wanting less strict laws narrowed as a result of a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who want less strict laws, now at 16% up from 5% a year ago. Support for making gun laws stricter fell to 31% from 38% last January. The January 2013 poll was conducted shortly after the December 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy, which sparked some state governments to consider new gun laws and a robust national discussion about the issue.

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In addition to overall dissatisfaction with gun laws rising, more Americans this year are “very dissatisfied” (35%) versus “somewhat dissatisfied” (20%).

(Bold emphasis mine.) Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to make it into The Narrative™ without enough spin to put a tornado to shame.

GOF Update

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As I posted at the beginning of the month, commenter Grumpy Old Fart lost his mother and his home early in December.  He left this comment this morning:

Okay, I have a paypal account. Sorry I took so long to reply, but internet access has been… problematic. However, with that said, I know basically nothing at all about paypal, so I don’t know what good it does or how to tell you to link to it.

With luck, I’ll still have consistent internet access for another day or two, so feel free to let me know what I should be doing with all this. Life has been… interesting lately, in an ancient Chinese curse kind of way.

I think he may be badly needing some other stuff, too.

The stuff I need most is stuff nobody can help me with. The Red Cross has been very good with the basics, clothes, toiletries and such, to the point where for a while I had more stuff than I had places to put it. The glaring issue right now is that I no longer have a picture ID, a SS card, or even a birth certificate. At this point my biggest problem is convincing anyone that I exist at all.

Kevin, you should have my email address in your contacts, so feel free to get in touch with me. You can understand why I’m unwilling to post it on a public forum. I tend to trust the people who post here, but that’s probably not the entire list of people who could conceivably see this either.

Ship-to address is something I’m a lot more comfortable with however:

1350 Rikisha Ln.
Beaumont, TX 77706

Thanks, folks. Just knowing you care makes more difference than you probably realize. Since that’s something you don’t really get a feel for until you’re in a position like this, I hope none of you ever do realize it either.

For your PayPal account, all we need is the email address you use for it, I believe.

UPDATE:  First things first, I just traded emails with GOF.  He needs a computer:

I have some contract work writing for a publishing company in the UK, but since my computer burned I’m having to start all that from scratch as well. More to the point, until I get another computer, I can’t even make a start at redoing all the work I lost.

So… what do I need that you can provide? The only thing I can think of is funds toward another computer. That should probably go into paypal, since the donation account is pretty much meant for bill money.

Anybody got something they can spare?  Can we get together and buy him something?