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I can't remember where I was reading it, but there's a distinct possibility that it's not CO2 causing what warming we're experiencing (if any).
We have been very successful in reducing particulate pollution over the last 80 years.
Without this pollution in the atmosphere, the sunlight is now free to make it all the way down to the ground instead of providing some artificial shade.
For fuck's sake, don't let them run around loose.
Because they're stupid and not able to look both ways before crossing the street.
Someone in my neighborhood is down a handsome gray cat because it ran under my wheels.
I feel really bad, but no collar, no apparent owner.
Too well fed to be a feral. This was someone's indoor-outdoor cat.
The Galco Miami Classic rig I bought for the M&P 9 fits the M&P 45C just fine.
The whole thing tips the scales at 3 lb. 14 oz. with 25 rounds total. 4 lb. 3.2 oz with 29 rounds total.
The mass compares favorably to other gun-bra configurations.
300 or 348 points, on average, slung downrange with hollowpoints. Less than half what the M&P 9 can do, on average, but 5.4 or 0.2 ounces lighter.Assuming every bullet hits center mass.
My old Glock 21 is considerably larger than the 45C.
I, too, was shocked that a full size pistol would be bigger than a compact pistol.
The 45C comes in at very nearly the same dimensions as a Glock 19, including girth.
S&W achieves this girth by using a traditional metal body magazine instead of the thicker walled plastic Glock chose.
Thanks to Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the Wu Ping Cough for making the price of the spare Beretta 1951 more than the purchase price of this gun.
Trigger pull is typical M&P, long take up, 7ish pounds of crispish break.
It came from the factory with night-sights, but they've faded as they all do in the past five years.
My Kustom Vette holster works with it!
Both Marv and my guns carry an LEO only sku, 309308 for him and 307508 for me. Near as we can tell, the LEO sku gets you an extra magazine and no little envelope with spent casings.
Neither had a magazine safety. Mine came with a thumb safety, his did not. Mine came with night sights, his did not. Mine was made on Veteran's Day 2015, his was made just this year on June 30th.
Getting the last round into an M&P 45C magazine is a challenge.
I used an UpLULA.
Getting that fully loaded magazine into the gun with a closed slide is a chore.
There's a lot of pressure on the bottom of the slide, I can't but think that will affect first round reliability if you carry it cocked and locked with 8+1.
I'm reminded of the Wilson Combat 8-round magazines for the 1911. They were intended for normal 7+1 carry in a 1911, but with the +1 carried in the magazine until it was time to load the gun.
I'm OK with that, but I don't have a GURPS notation for such things beyond a lengthy note.
Update: Yes I do. Make the shots 8(3) instead of 7+1(3).
It's disappointing, because this is the first modern gun I've owned that balked so hard on carrying the full capacity.
Marv confirms that his is much the same.
I am not sure how this confirmed and committed Colt and Glock fan came to own so many plastic Smith and Wessons.
Perhaps its because S&W knows it's in second or third place with sales and is trying to innovate to improve their standings, thus making guns I want to own.
Perhaps it's happenstance and more complicated. I'm reasonably certain the M&P 9 Shield got bought instead of a P365 because Palmetto State Armory was selling them for $250. Half the price of the 365, and it had the thumb safety I demand for my pocket carry.
The M&P 9 full size is because Marv and Harvey out voted me on our standard pistol. I'd have gone Glock 17.
The M&P 45C... I got it because Marv got one. He got his because the shop we were at didn't have the Glock 21SF he was interested in.
Isn't the world funny sometimes?
David Prowse, the body of Darth Vader, has stepped past the veil.
He's one of a very small troupe of dancing monkeys worthy of mention.
Almost half a billion guns in circulation in the US.
And several metric fuck-tonnes of ammo.
Luckily, Tampa is (nearly literally) awash in small, micro and pico breweries.
Got to hit a couple today to show our appreciation and shore up their bottom lines after a spring of being closed by gubmint fiat.
USPS has sometimes confounding tracking system.
Many times you can track your package in real time.
Sometimes you get a "shipped" notification when it's really the seller printing their label.
They've got several euphemisms for that.
But the surest way to tell that your package will arrive late is, "In transit, arriving on time."
Especially when the previous entry in the tracking system says it arrived someplace without a corresponding departure.
I'd despair, but it's something to post about. I've been short on material since I stopped going to places that actively piss me off.
In an effort to stave off the icy hands of Death...
I'm taking an whole pile of vitamins and dietary supplements.
D3 in particular because my body appears to have lost the trick of making the stuff.
There's two that the doc recommended for my joint pains that appear to have helped some.
I've been joking that it's a good thing I don't have to take them with food, because I'm full afterwards.
Lemme get this straight.
The mail-in voting law in PA is unconstitutional, the PA Supreme Court even admits it in its ruling, but they will let the law stand because the plaintiff filed too late?
They are letting an unconstitutional law stand after finding that it is, indeed, unconstitutional.
Rope.
Tree.
Justice.
Some assembly required.
I would be more incredulous about this, but I've watched how standing works for a long time with firearms cases.
You can't file a complaint until you've been injured by the unconstitutional law.
That means you have to wait until the law actually affects you.
What they're saying is the plaintiff didn't notice in time that they were affected.
OK.
So I'm just going to head on over to Africa and buy me some slaves.
Owning slaves is unconstitutional?
I just kept them from finding out until it was too late to file, so I get to keep them.
Yes, the PA Supreme Court's ruling IS that absurd.
Magpul's Flat Dark Earth (tan) is not quite the same color as their Medium Coyote Tan.
If the difference matters to you, then the MCT will not do.
If having an M3 mag matters, then FDE will not do.
There doesn't appear to be a middle ground if either feature matters.
Some (many?) just shrug their shoulders and get what's cheaper (MCT at present).
I've settled on the MCT because I've gotten accustomed to AR magazines not being black thanks to my foliage green period.
The Lovely Harvey has insisted on some kind of tan since she put FDE furniture on Kevina. She's not picky about the shade, so FDE MOE, MCT M3 or USGI EPM will do for her.
She doesn't know it yet, but she's standardized on the MCT M3 with windows as well!
When you leave the gun logistics to someone else, they do this to you.
I've been using this screwdriver as anything but a screwdriver for decades.
It finally gave up the ghost knocking the fuel pump flange back onto the father in law's truck.
My dad gave me this tool when he gave me my first set of basic hand tools.
They've slowly been replaced with newer/better as I've broken or lost the originals.
The little flat-blade from this set lives on my desk, making it the sole survivor.
Since they've almost aligned in the night sky, I took a pic!
Saturn in the upper left, Jupiter and the Galilean moons in the lower right.
In the rules as written, ball 9mm does 2d+2 pi, .40 S&W does 2d+2 pi+ and .45 ACP does 2d pi+.
That gives average damages, to an unarmored torso, of 9, 13, and 10.
Hollow points average 12, 16 and 12.
The thing is, .40 S&W is not 25% better than 9mm or .45 ACP. If it were, we wouldn't be seeing a shift in law enforcement away from .40 back to 9mm.
My house rule was to change the damage of .40 S&W from 2d+2 pi+ to 2d pi+.
I'm not the first person who noticed the disparity in damage with the rules as written. Some people took the tack I've taken and changed the damage. Others left it alone and justified the additional damage on the basis that .40 S&W is a TL8 round and 9mm and .45 are TL6.
To me the higher TL gives the smaller and lighter ammo rather than more damage. More shots, same damage as .45, lighter magazines.
I came to this conclusion because, despite being TL8, .45 GAP has the exact same stats as TL6 .45 ACP. It's lighter per shot and smaller; just like .40 S&W.
The good news is it has yet to come up in any game I've run. There are only two fully statted .40 pistols in the entire rule set, the rest of them are mentioned in the weapon descriptions of 9mm guns.
The players tend to not buy guns from the descriptions and stick to the weapons tables.
South Tampa contains MacDill Air Force Base and an aerial refueling wing of KC-135s.
Yesterday while driving near the base I looked and saw the entire belly of a Stratotanker banked 90° right and pulling hard. Chuffing vapor on the wings and everything.
Below and ahead of it was a Cessna.
The runway at Peter O. Knight airport is almost in line with the main runway at MacDill.
I speculate that air traffic control missed the Cessna heading to Peter O. Knight running VFR when they cleared the KC-135 for take-off and they spotted it on climb out from MacDill.
Just exactly the worst time to be doing hard maneuvering.
No crashes or collisions, so all's well that ends well.
The list of things I am thankful for is too long to even start breaking it down, but most important is friends.
I have been blessed with some of the best friends a person could hope for.
"Trophy Wive's Driving School"
My idea! Mine! If you steal it, you will be hearing from my lawyer.
Here in Tampa there's a lot of pretty young women driving expensive cars which are higher than average performance.
Driving like they're in a Kia Soul.
I am proposing a driving school for the trophy wife so she can better utilize the performance of the car her husband has purchased so as to avoid: a) her being mutilated by an angry driver from road rage when she keeps letting gaps in traffic sufficient for a Rascal scooter go past and b) insurance rates climbing as she floors it and can't deal with the power he paid for.
This is a money maker and I am publishing it as a way to claim the idea.
So, we've decided to ignore how 9mm is the same as .45 ACP per round and that 9mm gets more shots down range with a smaller recoil number.
Is the plastic fantastic better than a real MAN'S gun like an M1911A1 made from steel?
First off, the M&P 45C is lighter. 2 lb. vs 2.8 lb.
Second it gets you an extra shot. 8+1 vs 7+1.
Third, each magazine is the same weight, so you get more shots for the same weight of spares.
The only downside to packing an M&P 45C v 1911 is the drop in damage.
The 1911 gets 2d pi+, the 45C gets 2d-1 pi+.
I compared those damages yesterday.
But...
The 1911 will average 12 points delivered per shot and 8 shots downrange for 96.
The 45C will average 10 points delivered per shot and 9 shots downrange for 90.
Where the 45C will pull ahead is the extra magazine you can tote for the same mass.
It's become a matter of canon that there's little to no difference between 9mm, .40 and .45 thanks to advances in bullet technology.
9mm does 2d+2 pi in a full size gun, 2d+1 pi in a compact.
.40 S&W does the same except pi+ in the rules as written, but I've changed it to 2d pi+ in full sized guns and 2d-1 pi+ for compacts. The rules as written failed the reality check.
.45 ACP does 2d pi+ in full size and 2d-1 pi+ compact barrel lengths.
I know I've done this math before...
Everything will be bump up to hollow point.
2d+2(0.5) pi+ does 4-14 raw points which become 4-19 points in an unarmored torso. The average damage will be 12
2d+1(0.5) pi+ does 3-13 raw points which become 3-18 points. Average will be 10.
2d(0.5) pi++ does 2-12 raw points which becomes 2-22 points. Average 12.
2d-1(0.5) pi++ does 1-11 raw points which becomes 1-20 points. Average 10.
Except. The M&P 45C carries 8 shots. Assuming you land all 8 in the torso, you average 80 points of damage. With the 3 Recoil, you're probably not.The M&P 9C carries 12 shots. With 2 recoil, you're more likely to land more shots, and if you land all of them you average 120 points of damage. It's also lighter and slightly smaller.
Ever get someone bidding against you who makes minimum increment bids until they outbid you?
Know what drives them nuts?
Double the increment plus 3¢.
That this does to them is force them to make more than two increments to get past you again.
They're going to win, I'm not going to the MSRP on the item, and I think they are.
Too much cloud between here and there to see the Starlink launch, but straight up is clear.
I was looking at the cutting block when it happened.
The bakelite-like plastic on my beloved JA Henkels 8" chef's knife spontaneously popped at the front rivet.
This vaulted it off the counter and onto the terrazzo floor of the kitchen, landing right on the point.
Dammit!
That knife had a lifetime's worth of life still in it.
Now...
Amazon will have a replacement here tomorrow.
Having good cutlery in the kitchen is not an option, it's a necessity.
Arecibo Radio Observatory will soon be demolished rather than repaired.
Why, you might ask?
Because the existing cables are showing signs of failure at far below their rated strengths.
They have not said why yet, but one suspects shoddy workmanship from back when it was first made.
If that's so, then it's only the insanely conservative specifications and planned in expansion that allowed to to stay standing for so long.
I am sad to see such an important instrument go.
I would gladly support rebuilding it.
We can stop blaming the Minneapolis Police for the death of George Floyd.
Dead Link -->Unbeknownst to us, he was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. <-- Dead Link
Dunno why ClickOrlando 404'd their story.
Unbeknownst to us, he was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
What the actual fuck?
Yes, let's dilute the message about the Holocaust with this puerile pandering to the moment.
I'm slowly coming to the idea that Jews are actively courting the evil that sees them murdered periodically. That they WANT to be wiped off the face of the Earth for some unfathomable reason.
It would certainly explain their love of gigantic, powerful governments and strict gun control.
"Why no, we didn't learn fuck-all last time."
"Hmmmm, the pro-gun, pro-liberty side of the political divide tends to be sympathetic to us because of the Holocaust, what can we do to alienate them? OH! I know! We'll memorialize a career criminal and junkie who came to the expected end of such folks, especially once you look at the blood toxicology."
Again, what the actual fuck?
If the museum is attempting to equate the Minneapolis police with the SA or SS and warning that cops shooting criminals who happen to be black is akin to Nazis murdering 13 million people...
They'd better stop supporting Socialists and big-powerful government.
Because Socialists with big powerful governments is how you get millions of people killed by their own government.
Technomad mentions that JFK would like as not have kept going in Vietnam rather than pulling out, as has been suggested by some historians.
I agree. JFK, despite his numerous flaws, was actually pretty dedicated to opposing Communism.
He'd have stayed in Vietnam, and remember that it was still a popular war at this point.
Being a likeable president and fighting the good fight means he would have likely gotten more leeway than LBJ got.
I think, being the hot head he could be, he'd have also been a lot more aggressive about prosecuting the war once he got started.
It might not have ended any differently, but it might have lacked the micromanaging aspects that LBJ brought to the table.
You want to send me to a reeducation camp because of how I voted?
How do you know who I voted for?
What happened to secret ballots?
How do you know that all the stuff I post here and on Facebook isn't just a way to hide what a strident Biden supporter I am?
You don't and you can't.
But you talk about sending me away because of what I've said here and on Facebook.
I'm a student of history, I know what reeducation means.
The Katyn massacre was reeducation.
The Gulag Archipelago is about reeducation.
You wanna take me away to be reeducated, better bring your A-game, because I don't intend to go quiet-like.
The odds are in my favor for my side to win if you really make a go of it.
Today, 57 years ago, Lindon Baines Johnson was sworn into office as President.
The reason the office was open remains completely unexamined. A mystery that not a single person in history has bothered to look into.
Someone on the internet probably knows why Mr Kennedy was no longer bothering to punch in.
But who else would bother with such an obscure political fact?
Asbestos was used in brake pads because of its ability to resist heat.
But it's horrid for your health.
Copper replaced it because of its ability to resist heat...
I become less and less convinced that there's any real harm being done because of the relentless and non-stop campaign to make owning a car economically unviable.
For decades I've watched the environmentalists war on anything which burns anything.
They're very creative about taking out small parts that are essential for the whole.
Save the planet, eat an environmentalist.
I think the strongest indication that some sort of election fraud is happening is how freaked out Democrats are getting about every attempt to double check the ballots to make sure that they're valid.
Nearby to Casa de McThag is the City of New Port Richey.
They love them some fines.
Red-light cameras.
Speeding tickets, before a change to the state laws, used to make up a significant percentage of their revenue.
And, noise violations...
The downtown area the city is desperately trying to make a thing often got very loud with live music in the bars.
So they passed a series of noise ordinances with ever decreasing wiggle room and smaller loopholes. All the while expanding where the citations could be issued.
Which brings us to this.
Ms Boneta has been making noise while protesting to her city government about the behavior of a city government and police department more than 2,000 miles removed.
Once again, "wasn't me, didn't do it!" is not a positive defense against the charge of racism.
So they've been demanding Justice™ from people who haven't done any of the things they are protesting about.
Do you think this will make the cops charged with enforcing the ordinances lenient or for them to be more hard-ass about shit?
If you chose the latter, you are correct, and they've been issuing fines.
I love the quote, "The protesters say the citations, and other actions by the New Port Richey Police Department, are meant to send a message: Go home."
Yes. Exactly that.
But since they're lumping NPRPD in with other police departments who're being accused of racially motivated shootings; let's check and see how many minorities NPRPD has "murdered"...
On 06Nov20 (well after the protests started) they shot and killed an armed man making threats in a bar. No mention of race, no protest about his death. The lack of mention, protests and photo of the deceased is what we call an "indicator". Also note that the deceased was not exactly a pillar of the community.
And... and... uh... I'm not finding any others.
NPRPD sure seems to keep the guns holstered and not shoot anyone.
Got the fuel pump changed out on Bubba's Colorado.
It went perfectly!
I am certain that was because Marv and JT were on hand.
The elbow where the fuel exits the pump was severely corroded. A common issue with Damnyankee trucks.
I have to say that the engineers put a lot more thought into "someone is going to have to work on this someday" than they did on The Precious.
We did have a nervous moment when we first fired her up and the 5 gallons we'd put in didn't move the needle a bit. Since a fuel level sender was part of the R&R, and 5 gallons is more than 1/4 tank...
So I drove it to the gas station and added five more gallons. That moved the needle to 1/2 tank.
We found out the total tank capacity is 18 gallons.
I'll add some pics later.
301 Hikotai has turned in their F-4EJ Kai.
They're going to be transitioning to F-35A.
It's weird to think that I was born when every Western air force flew some version of the F-4 and I'm going to see one where nobody does.
Just Greece, Iran, South Korea and Turkey are left. And those days are very numbered in Greece and South Korea with the F-35 moving in.
The GURPS dollar, or G$ is actually a purchase price parity value to allow the expression of values across multiple tech levels and starting wealths.
A G$ isn't always a dollar.
In 1899 there are G$22 to a single gold-backed US dollar. $4.86 gets you £1.00.
A double eagle coin is 0.9675 troy oz of gold with a face value of $20 where gold is $18.94 per troy oz.
Watching a British cooking show and I have to keep translating things.
The temperatures are all in Celsius.
The amounts are all in metric.
Cilantro is coriander.
Golden raisins are sultanas.
If you have the means and the world hasn't fully embraced rapid fire from a magazine...
GURPS: Magic has a spell called Cornucopia which supplies unlimited quantities of ammo... the catch is you have to pull each round out one at a time and they disappear after a minute or if handled by someone else before being fired.
Energy cost to enchant is 50 times the cost of the round in G$.
So a little pouch that makes .30-40 ammo is 40 energy to make which means G$400.
Pistol ammo is cheaper, .38 ammo for your M1894 is just 10 energy and just G$100! .45 Colt is G$250.
Cornucopia's for handguns are going to be common. The G$300 cornucopia for .44-40 is going to be highly prized by the Winchester armed Sioux brave.
The Indians use magic and know how to do enchanting, why don't the Sioux make their own?
A quirk of the spell is it being based on the value of the item. .44-40 ammo is TL5 stuff and it costs G$0.60 per round in a TL5+ setting. Indians are TL0 stone age savages. The price of a round of .44-40 is doubled for each TL difference. 32 times in this case or G$19.20 per round. That's 960 energy for an Indian to make a .44-40 cornucopia. The good news is it's just G$8.25 per energy for TL0 societies who start with G$250. The bad news is that's still G$7,920 or 31.68 times the starting wealth.
They do make cornucopias, an arrow is $G2 and that's 100 energy, G$825. Steep, but bearable for a wealthy warrior.
I just realized what a forensics nightmare such rounds would be. No bullet or cartridge case remains. Maybe not even powder residue.
For the full explanation as to why 60 energy or less is G$10 per point and 61 or more energy is G$330 each, refer to GURPS: Magic p. 21.
Your phone goes straight to voicemail.
Your gated community gate doesn't reach anyone who answers security.
Your email is bouncing.
Texts to your daughter get no reply.
The next step is a welfare check...
Father-In-Law's Colorado is dripping fuel.
The top of the tank is soaked, so it's either the pump assembly or the outlet pipe where it connects to the pump assembly.
RockAuto lists three different pipes.
One is for the extended cab and crew cab. One is for standard cabs. One is unspecified.
I ordered the crew cab part and, of course, I needed the unspecified.
Perhaps if they gave them better names, it'd be clearer.
Even worse, the wrong part was damaged during packing at the factory.
Exchange in progress.
Correct part acquired.
Unlike most people, I sat down and recorded the daily numbers the FL Dept. of Health released.
Right now the media is talking about how the hospitals are going to be choked with new patients.
They're saying the number of patients is trending up.
No.
No, they really aren't.
The number of patients peaked in mid-August. The hospitals reported plenty of capacity remained during that peak. The number of people in the hospital with WPC now is about 1/3 of that peak.
We're definitely seeing more cases, but the severity isn't being reported, and I suspect that the testing is catching a lot of people who're not infectious because of the number of testing iterations.
The thing is, we're not seeing a strong change in the percentage of new cases vs tests. 8.5% or so of people tested are coming up positive. So when they smash the panic button and claim 10k new cases, remember that there's over 100k new tests to go with that. Fewer tests, fewer cases.
Hospitalizations have been running fairly steady, decoupled completely from the number of new cases.
Deaths have been running fairly steady, decoupled completely from the number of new cases and mostly decoupled from hospitalizations.
That positive tests are climbing but people getting sick enough to call 911 isn't at the same rate says to me that the disease is mutating to less severe.
That the hospitalization and death rate don't appear to be linked any more makes me think that we're getting better at treating it. When was the last time the media complained about extant therapies for WPC? Gee, wasn't it right about when Orange Man got all better using one of the therapies they said didn't work because he advocated for it?
The Flying Carpet spell costs 1 energy per square foot of the item being transformed into a flying vehicle.
Each square foot allows 25 lb. of lifting capacity.
How big is a saddle? Do you include the coverage of the blanket?
Without the blanket, it's about 7 square feet. The extra coverage of the blanket adds about 3 square feet.
Include the area of the accessories too and you get a total of about 12 square feet.
That will lift 300 lbs.
And you will look like someone riding an invisible flying horse.
For ten minutes.
12 energy to get in the air for the first ten minutes, 6 every ten minutes after that to stay there.
2,400 to make it permanent. G$792,000, or $36,000 in 1896 dollars. Not cheap at all.
Mages were strange.
Sargent Harrington packed a stick-horse with him.
The expedition had real horses!
But he packed a child's toy anyway.
It confused Lieutenant Fowler for weeks of travel.
Then one day Major Beasley ordered an aerial scout ahead of the column.
Sgt. Harrington dismounted, took his saddle off his horse, placed it carefully on the ground then mounted the stick-horse where a real horse's head would go.
Then he plopped down on the saddle as if he was going to ride it just like that.
Lieutenant Fowler almost laughed, but then Sargent Harrington, saddle and stick-horse rose into the air and then flew off ahead of the column to scout ahead.
Mages were strange.
GURPS: Magic allows for items to be enchanted with Flight and Hawk Flight.
Flight: Item
Staff, wand, or jewelry. Usable only by mages; only affects the wearer. Energy cost to create: 2,500.
Hawk Flight:Item
Staff, wand, or jewelry. Usable only by mages; only affects the wearer. Energy cost to create: 3,000.
A broom falls within the definition of what can be used as a staff, but it's interesting that it's not mentioned specifically.
UPDATE:
As with so many things, GURPS is counterintuitive.
The spell you use to make a witch's broom is Flying Carpet.
"Transforms a carpet (or any other object one could reasonably stand on or in – cauldron, chair, towel, broom, etc.) into a flying vehicle."
An epidemic is 15 new or more cases per 100,000 population per day for two weeks or longer.
For Florida that means 3,090 new cases.
The first time we broke that rate was June 18th, 2020. Three months after the lockdown started.
We didn't actually hold the 15/100k/day for 14 days until July 6th.
During this time 20% of new tests were positive. Crude CFR was 3.56%
August 23, 2020 is the first day that the rate dropped below the 3,090 threshold.
From then until October 10, 2020 we didn't get more than a couple days above that, so no epidemic for almost a month and a half.
October 10th is noteworthy in there were no cases recorded while the government tried to sort out duplicate tests.
November 14, 2020 gets us back to two weeks at 15/100k/day and back to epidemic levels.
With percentages of new tests being positive down to around 11%. The number of people tested daily has almost tripled from the first time Florida met the epidemic levels. Crude CFR is down to 1.97%.
First pass at this data, it doesn't appear to be getting deadlier or more virulent.
EXCLUSIVE: How a Philly mob boss stole the election — and why he may flip on Joe Biden
The innermost circles of the American mafia are abuzz. The Boss of the Philly mob — ‘Skinny Joey’ Merlino — is taking a victory strut, hobnobbing around the highest echelons of old-time mafia folk, mostly in Florida, describing what may have been the heist of the century: the 2020 presidential election.
The feat is drawing praise from far-flung corners of the Italian American business community, which sees the thanks of a grateful administration as key to the revival of the community’s political influence.
But an associate says that Merlino might just be willing to flip on Joe Biden and the Pennsylvania political operatives who ordered up some 300,000 election ballots marked for Biden. The source alleges that Merlino and a lean team of associates manufactured those ballots at a rate of $10 per ballot — a whopping $3 million for three days of work. They were then packaged into non-descript cardboard boxes and dropped off outside the Philadelphia Convention Center.
Sources who spoke to The Chronicle on the condition of anonymity say that Merlino picked up those ballots from two private households where a trusted handful of associates were busily marking ballots with Sharpie markers. They were paid more than $1,000 per hour, often producing thousands of ballots every hour for more than 60 nearly-consecutive hours.
The ballots were purchased in cash.
It’s thought that Democratic Party operatives working inside Philadelphia’s election office provided Merlino with crates of raw ballots just hours before polls closed on election night, which he transported to two private households in South Philadelphia. By 10 p.m. that night Merlino’s operation was already generating more than 3,000 ballots per hour, which quickly scaled to more than 6,000 ballots per hour before midnight.
But now, Merlino might just be willing to flip on Biden — in primetime Congressional testimony — if President Donald J. Trump is willing to issue the longtime mobster a full expungement of his decades-long criminal record. And, of course, Merlino wants to be pardoned for the election fraud itself and any crimes to which he may incriminate himself during his testimony.
“He wants a clean record. He wants to fish and hunt on federal lands. He’d really like a job with the National Parks Service. You need a clean record to get those things,” explains one confidant. “But most of all he wants the thanks of a grateful nation for coming forward.”
more text follow the link: https://buffalochronicle.com/2020/11/14/exclusive-how-a-philly-mob-boss-stole-the-election-and-why-he-may-flip-on-joe-biden/
Nothing quite like slamming through the gears and chirping 3-4 with a Challenger's Hemi™ not quite keeping up.
Also fun when that 3-4 chirp causes them to lose all heart and give up.
Because of the stupid rules about getting into the VA clinic...
No flu shot this year.
Guess what I've promptly contracted!
The flu!
The Boy preceded me into this foray by a couple three days and he appears to have caught it from his daytime excursion person. She got sick about a week ahead of The Boy and I followed him.
C'est la vie.
It's affected my posting because all I've wanted to do is sleep, as I always do when I've got the flu.
Is it Wu Ping Cough?
The excursion person got tested and she's negative.
Even if this is the Rice Rabies, it wasn't as bad as many other instances of the flu.
I got a fever, got body aches, got my sinuses all full, got the sinuses to drain all at once.
Also normal for when my sinuses clog and drain like this; no sense of smell.
Still have my sense of taste, but blunted from the lack of olfactory cooperation.
Tonight I was able to smell the smoke from the firepit.
No fever any more.
Nose is done running, but my nasal passages are dry as a bone. Ugh!
I am reminded of something Willard once said.
The quote doesn't matter much.
But there those of us who know what color human fat is.
And there's those of us who've never seen it.
Those of us who have, we'd like to remind you that you REALLY don't wanna poke that memory with a stick.
We've had decades to learn to live with the idea.
It's an old idea. An ancient memory.
He lowered the rifle.
The shots still echoed.
The rioters, those who still lived, dispersed and ran.
His wife looked at her husband in shocked silence as realization dawned.
This was not the first time he'd stood between the horrors and home.
This was not something new.
This was something he'd done before.
Only never so close.
But easier this time because of the proximity.
There would be no nightmares from this.
Because of the proximity.
We've endured another tropical storm here and there's no damage.
I didn't expect there to be any, but you never know...
What was surprising was how many places were closed last night whom were open when Erma was bearing down on us.
In 1880 it was uncontroversial to present, as a positive defense, that the deceased was killed for stealing from their killer.
Not only was it uncontroversial, that defense could be used at the scene to the police and they'd shrug and tell the killer, "have a good night."
The debate over shooting looters is going to include the idea that property isn't worth a human life.
At present you are not allowed to defend your property by shooting thieves unless you can draw a strong tangent that the thief was going to hurt you.
I agree, property isn't worth a human life. So don't risk yours by stealing.
I'm not sure when the idea took hold that shooting thieves was wrong. Technomad this is up your alley with your extensive true-crime readings.
I am growing certain that it was a bad idea for society to have made that decision.
Governor DeSantis has tapped the pulse of the electorate here.
Lots of people in crime ridden places are forced to be stolen from because the thieves will not be effectively punished by the court system. By the same DAs who will viciously persecute prosecute a clear case of self-defense.
It's a certainty that a corpse has a zero recidivism rate.
Governor DeSantis' proposal to let us shoot the bastards with near impunity brings up an important item.
YouTuber Tim Pool has mentioned several times that there's a core group of these "people" who fly from riot zone to riot zone on their own dime.
He mentioned it to show that there's no overarching organization paying the bills, and that was the thrust of his point.
But...
If it's the same small group of "people" going from place to place agitating and getting things started, then shooting them would prevent them from leaving for the next place; wouldn't it?
The threat of death at the hands of their victims might even be enough to keep them from arriving here in the first place.
Worth it!
You can get more than twice as many shots in the magazine if you buy bullets instead of cartridges.
After all, it's bullets that kill people, not cartridges.
Governor DeSantis proposes expanding "stand your ground" to allow shooting looters and rioters.
I'm in favor of this.
Shoot them dead and the they stop rioting right quick.
Have to reel in the anti-self-defense District Attorneys to stop the lawfare against people who defend themselves though.
The process is the punishment bullshit needs to stop as it has a chilling effect on the exercise of a protected right. A chill which could lead to someone being murdered as they delay.
Feral Excess is the shipping label S&W provided. Because of FedEx's internal policies, that means schelping the package 25 miles away to the nearest "full service" center. Because can't have an icky gun dropped at any of a dozen other places.
The troublesome Sigma is now in the tender care of Feral Excess and winding its way back to its spawning grounds.
Hopefully they take pity and call it warranty work and do it for free.
If not, hopefully it's not so damn expensive to repair that I will have wished I dropped the extra hun on an SD9VE instead.
I half suspect that they're going to say, "we don't have the parts to fix it, send us money to get your paperweight back."
Joke's on them, they can keep the paperweight.
But...
The striker, when it was available, was a $25 part. Labor can't be more than an hour.
This could be affordable.
Here, in the USA, it's Veteran's Day.
It's not Memorial Day.
It's not Armed Forces Day.
It's for we who went in and came out alive.
Buy us dinner.
Take us to the range.
Get us laid.
If you're on the other side of the pond, today is Remembrance Day. Wear a poppy for the fallen.
Willard, you need to get hold of John Wynne Hopkins.
He's posted that Tony Husher is not in a good way and would like to hear from you.
Your subdivision's new security gate prevents me from delivering this message in person.
It's the ninth already?
It was the 3rd just yesterday, I swears!
I'm lucky I actually came up for air and noticed that it was Lex's birthday today. I'd have hated to miss my toast.
I've been thinking about him a lot lately as I've been watching videos on the F/A-18C for DCS and wishing I could ask him questions.
The Boy has been sick with the normal, mundane flu and that's taken a lot of time.
Gotta get back on track!
Zucky Baby just slapped my pee pee.
I tried to post this link.
The post wouldn't exit the editor.
I took a screen shot of the text I'd entered and posted that.
That photo got me a warning from Facebook that if I tried to post sexually exploitative pictures again I'd be restricted.
The Lovely Harvey says, "Well Biden does like to exploit..."
The SW9V is a paper weight.
The striker I bought from GunBroker is for a VE series gun, not a V.
Oh well.
From Jeffery Clark's Facebook page. I did some editing for formatting, but not content.
There's some good news out there.
It appears that the Senate will remain in Republican hands and The House's Democrat majority will be even narrower than present.
Gridlock, Baby, gridlock.
In a lot of ways, it's ideal. Nobody can make anything worse, because they rarely make it better.
I'd feel better about a Democrat president if the NRA wasn't in tatters. I was hoping we'd get the remains of Trumps second term to unfuck Wayne's damage.
The most positive news, though, is redistricting. That's solidly in Republican hands.
I think that is going to mean good things in two years.
Legs crossed.
I've mentioned to a couple people that Benford's Law has been used to put people in jail for theft and fraud.
It's been used to prove fraud.
We'll see if anyone cares to pursue a case, which I doubt.
A core tenet of capitalism being evil is that someone loses in every transaction.
Not that one side can make a bad exchange, but that all of them must be.
Well, here I am.
Disputing this.
I have an item which, while it's still being made, is no longer made in the color I have.
I have a friend who desires that color.
This item, in this color is becoming something of a collector's item. I could sell it for far more than replacing it would cost.
But a swap with my friend works just as well.
They're buying a new one in the color that's still being made and I'm giving them mine.
I guess the socialists would claim that I'm getting screwed here because I could have sold it for more and had money left over once I'd replaced it.
But I don't see it that way at all.
Both me and my friend have entered into the transaction willingly (and technically I am trading for the slightly upgraded newer model) and we're both happy with the outcome. Well, USPS still has a vote in our satisfaction...
 |
| Canon M50, EF-S 55-250; f/5.6; 1/400", 250mm, ISO 200 |
Hand held, manual focus, stab on extensively cropped.
I have won the auction for the only Sigma striker, of any kind, anywhere.
Hopefully this means the Sigma SW9V can be put into service.
Eyes crossed.
I'm watching the election results rolling in and I'm thinking back to my first vote.
In 1988 my choices were between "The Shrimp" or "The Wimp".
I voted for "The Wimp" via absentee ballot.
Being a tanker, I could not vote for a "leader" who rode in the loader's hatch.
Loader is hind-fucking-tit.
I also notice, now, that the TC is hiding behind the fifty. Prolly to avoid the eternal embarrassment.
So far each candidate hasn't won anything their party didn't win last time.
If this holds and PA goes blue, Trump still wins.
I think Florida going to be close enough to trigger a recount.
We were in at 0930 and out by 0945, but the line was starting to stack up as we were backing out of our parking space.
A homeowner across from the church where my polling place is had professional DJ stuff set up in their driveway and a YYYYUUUUUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEEE Trump sign.
I saw one Biden vote. The person in front of me was doing a piss poor job of hiding their ballot from view waiting for the scanner.
I brought three Trump votes.
If I were CBS, I'd be calling it for Trump in a landslide. LOL!
These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.-Lyndon Baines Johnson to Senator Richard Russell (D-GA)
